The bathroom door was closed over, a shaft of light emerging from the crack, and Campbell heard miserable coughs and moans from the other side. Now, at the top of the stairs, he was at the mercy of hundred-year-old floorboards. He had to move quickly and decisively. He waited for another spasm of retching and spitting.
When it came he hit the door hard, his knife ready to open the first vein it found. Instead, it found air as it swung in a useless arc over an empty toilet bowl.
A cold hardness pressed against the skin beneath Campbell’s ear.
“Don’t move,” Gerry Fegan said.
28
Fegan listened to Campbell’s deep, steady breathing. The Scot stood primed, ready to move, the knife held before him.
“Don’t do it,” Fegan said. “I know you want to, but don’t. You’ll be dead before you move a finger.”
Campbell’s body rippled with coiled energy. Slowly, his shoulders slumped and the energy evaporated.
Fegan reached out and took the knife with his free hand. He folded the blade back into its grip with his thumb. It fitted neatly into his jacket pocket. He patted Campbell’s sides and back until he found a Glock 23 tucked into his waistband, underneath his denim jacket. Fegan heard the other man exhale as he removed it.
“Turn around slowly and sit on your hands,” Fegan said.
“Can I put the lid down?” Campbell asked.
Fegan increased the Walther’s pressure against Campbell’s ear. “Just do it,” he said.
Campbell reached forward and lowered the toilet lid. He turned and sat down, slipping his hands beneath his thighs.
“Under your arse,” Fegan said. “Palms down, thumbs to the back.” He watched Campbell shift from side to side until his hands were in position.
Campbell looked up at him. “What now?” he asked.
“We have a talk,” Fegan said, dropping the Glock into his pocket to clank against the knife. He kept his Walther trained on Campbell. As chilled as it was, his heart hit his sternum like a battering ram, and his temples pulsed. He blotted out everything else, every shadow at the corner of his vision, and focused on Campbell.
He’d known that someone would follow him from the police station, and he’d had a good idea it would be Campbell. During the taxi ride he saw the same Ford Focus too many times. When he got home, he went straight to his bedroom and retrieved the pistol before going to the bathroom. Fegan hadn’t faked the first retches. The water in the bowl was stained deep red, and strange aches turned in his belly. He hadn’t really expected Campbell to come into the house after him, but then he’d heard the little dog’s panicked barking from the back.
“What do you want to talk about?” Campbell’s reddish-brown mop spilled into his eyes and he flicked his head to clear it away.
“McGinty sent you,” Fegan said.
“Of course.”
“So, he’s going to do me.”
“That was the idea,” Campbell said.
“Why?”
Campbell laughed and shook his head. “Jesus, why do you think?”
“He knows what I did. He didn’t come right out and say it at Michael’s funeral, but he knows.”
Campbell nodded. “That’s right. And the priest confirmed it this morning.”
The chill at Fegan’s center intensified. “What?”
“Father Coulter. That old bastard couldn’t hold his own piss. That was a stupid move, telling him.”
The shadows pressed against Fegan’s consciousness. “I never thought he’d . . .” He pushed them back and swallowed. “I never thought he’d do that.”
“Now you know different.”
“Yeah, I do.” Fegan nodded, letting the betrayal sink to the bottom of his stomach. It settled there, joining the rest of the slithering aches in his gut. “What about Marie?” he asked.
“McGinty said she’d been taken care of,” Campbell said.
Fegan stepped closer and lowered the gun to rest on the Scot’s forehead. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” Campbell said.
Fegan snapped the Walther against Campbell’s cheek. “What does it mean?”
Campbell slumped sideways to rest against the wall. “Fuck,” he said.
“Sit up straight,” Fegan said. “Get your hands back under you. What does it mean?”
Campbell did as he was told. “That’s all he said. She’d been taken care of, that’s all. I don’t know what it means.”
Fegan raised the pistol again and Campbell screwed his eyes shut. He lowered the muzzle and pressed it against Campbell’s temple. He wanted to pull the trigger. He wanted to hear the roar in this small tiled room, then the whistling in his ears, feel the warm, gritty spots on his face, taste the copper on his lips. He wanted all that and for the two UFF boys to be gone. Christ, they wanted it too. He could feel them, watching, waiting, longing for it. Fegan so wanted to do it, to pull the trigger, but there were things he needed to know. He thought of Marie and the fine lines around her eyes, and of Ellen. The image of them in fear and pain tightened his finger on the trigger. He inhaled, the air cold at the back of his nose, clearing his head.
“Did he hurt her?” he asked, taking the Walther away from Campbell’s temple.
A little of the calm returned to Campbell’s face, along with a shadow of anger. “I told you I don’t know. Now, either take my word for it or shoot me, for fuck’s sake.”
Fegan swung the Walther at Campbell’s cheek again and the impact sent a jolt up to his shoulder. The Scot slumped against the wall, his eyes glassy, blood seeping from the growing welt below his left eye. Fegan took a glass tumbler from above the washbasin, filled it with water, and threw its contents at Campbell’s face. Two more glassfuls and Campbell was upright again, sitting on his hands.
“Who’s the cop?” Fegan asked.
Campbell’s mouth curled in a smile. “The one who did you over? I don’t know him.” He hunched down, his head between his shoulders, when Fegan raised the gun again. “I don’t know, for Christ’s sake! He’s Patsy Toner’s contact. He knows him. I only heard of him today.”
“I need to know who he is,” Fegan said. “I need to know why the RUC man wants him.”
“What?” Campbell raised his head from between his shoulders, a knot in his brow.
“If I’m going to finish this, I need to know why him. What did he do to deserve it?”
Campbell shook his head. “What are you talking about, Gerry?”
Fegan sighed and shrugged. “Christ knows.” He put the Walther back to Campbell’s forehead. “Well, that’s that, then.”
“Wait!” Campbell said. “For fuck’s sake, wait.”
“What for?” Fegan said.
“There’s a way out of this. A way to stick it to McGinty.”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
“No, no, listen to me. There’s a way, I swear.”
Fegan sighed and lifted the pistol slightly. “Go on.”
Campbell’s quick eyes revealed the working of his mind as the words spilled out of him. “McGinty’s milking Caffola’s killing for everything he can get, saying the cops did it. And Eddie Coyle, too. He’s saying the cops beat the shit out of him. If you give yourself up, go to the law, tell them the truth, everyone will know McGinty’s a liar. He’ll be disgraced. Tell the press, tell the TV people. They’re McGinty’s lifeblood.”
Campbell was smarter than Fegan had thought. “No, that won’t be good enough,” he said.
“Come on, Gerry, you know you can’t get to him.” Campbell’s voice belied his wide, easy smile. “He’ll get you first. This way, at least you’ll live. You’ll see him destroyed and you’ll live.”
“No.” Fegan shook his head. “I’m not going back inside. I’ll die first. Besides, McGinty can get me just as easy in prison as he can outside. Easier.”
Campbell leaned forward, his face upturned and pleading. “Just think about it, Gerry, eh? Just take a minute and—”
“Shush.” Fegan pressed the Walther’s muzzle against Campbell’s lips to silence him. “You know I’m crazy, don’t you?”
Campbell gave a nervous laugh as Fegan raised the gun slightly, but he didn’t answer.
“I’m away in the head; you know that, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Campbell said, his voice cracking.
Fegan sat on the edge of the bathtub, giving in to the insistent pains in his midsection. He kept the Walther trained on Campbell’s forehead. “Then why try reasoning with me?”
Campbell blinked sweat away from his eyes.
“I wanted to know who the cop was,” Fegan said. “I wanted to know why he deserved it. But I know why
you
deserve it.”
“Deserve what?” Campbell asked.
“To die,” Fegan said.
The shadows tightened around them.
Campbell shook his head. “Gerry, I—”
“Those two UFF boys,” Fegan said. Campbell’s head became still. “They were nothing more than cheap hoods, a pair of smart-arses selling dope for beer money. They couldn’t have got McGinty in a million years. They couldn’t even have dreamt of it. They were too busy getting stoned off their own merchandise.”
Campbell’s shoulders rose and fell. Blood and spittle hung from his lip.
Fegan said, “You know what that lot were like, the fucking UFF, and the rest of the Loyalists. All of them. Nothing more than jumped-up thugs with a bit of organisation. They were great at killing their own. They were even better at taking out civilians who had nothing to do with us or them. The easy target, that’s what they were best at. Even the top boys couldn’t have gone after McGinty, let alone those two bottom feeders.
“But somehow it turns out Francie Delaney struck a deal with them. Francie Delaney, an even bigger prick than Eddie Coyle, clubs together with two apes from the UFF and hatches a plan to get to McGinty. Funnily enough, the only person Delaney spills his guts to is you. And you beat him to death in the process of finding that out.”
“He sold McGinty to the Loyalists,” Campbell said. “Everyone knows that.”
“Because you said so, and they believed you. You fingered those two boys to complete the picture, didn’t you? You set it up for me to do them to cover your own tracks. What were you up to? Why did you need to get rid of Delaney?”
“They were going to get McGinty,” Campbell said. “You and me, we saved him.”
“Bullshit,” Fegan said. “You remember. They weren’t killers. Not like you and me. They died like women, crying and begging.”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” Campbell said.
“What, you hear them too?”
“Shut up.”
“When you close your eyes at night, do they scream?”
Fegan felt something vibrate against his chest and heard a high chiming sound. The phone in his pocket. Only one person knew the number. His eyes flicked downward.
Mistake.
Campbell had his wrist, pushing it away and upward. Reflexively, Fegan squeezed the trigger and plaster dust sprinkled down from the ceiling and into his eyes. He was pushed backwards and his head cracked on the tiles over the bath. As spots and dust danced in his eyes he felt himself slide into the tub. He concentrated all his strength on his right hand, the hand Campbell was grappling with, trying to claim the gun. Fegan’s feet hung over the edge of the bath and he kicked out, feeling his foot connect with Campbell’s groin. He heard the other man grunt, his grip weakening for just a moment and Fegan forced his hand down, pushing against Campbell until the Walther was between them.
The pistol’s angry shout boomed against the tiles, and Campbell fell backwards, his face twisted in pain, a scorched strip torn from the side of his shirt. The mirror dropped in pieces from the wall behind him. Fegan strained to drag himself from the bathtub while a hundred knives in his stomach fought to keep him there. He fired at the blurred shape of Campbell making a crouching sprint for the door. The bullet split the wooden frame.
Fegan spilled over the lip of the bath and onto the floor, crying out as pain roiled in his abdomen. He heard Campbell’s quick, light footsteps on the stairs. Fegan used the washbasin to pull himself up as he heard his front door wrenched open. Feet pounded along the street outside as he lurched down the stairs.
Sunlight burned Fegan’s already stinging eyes when he got outside. Through the glare he saw Campbell running to the row of parked cars. He aimed and fired, putting a spidery hole in a windscreen. He squeezed the trigger again and a wing mirror splintered, leaving plastic shards and wires dangling. Campbell reached his car, his hand clasped to his ribs. Fegan fired once more and Campbell fell against the hood. A dark circle spread on the back of his thigh. He pulled the door open and was inside the old Ford Focus before Fegan could aim again.
Fegan began to run, but the churning inside weighed him down. The car’s engine came alive and Campbell pulled away from the curb in reverse, clipping another parked car. The Focus rocked on its suspension as it swung in a tight circle to face the other way, and its engine squealed along with its tires. Fegan fired one last time, putting a hole in the car’s rear just as it reached the corner.
