“It would’ve been safer,” he said.
“Maybe,” she said, grinding gears in anger. “But I’d have to live with the knowledge that I let some fucking jumped-up gangster with political pretensions dictate where I could bring up my daughter. No, thank you. I’d sooner live in fear in my own home than live in shame in someone else’s.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Fegan said, glancing back at Ellen.
“Balls,” Marie said, with a finality that told Fegan to leave it. “Jesus, the rigmarole in that airport. I could see Patsy Toner following me all the way there in that Jag of his, then walking behind me into the terminal. Jesus, I hope McGinty never relies on him to be discreet. Anyway, I checked in, got my boarding pass, went through security, then just when they called us for boarding I said I wasn’t going. God, you should’ve seen them. Such a fuss! There was this girl, a stewardess, looked like she’d been licking piss off a nettle.”
Marie glowed with anger. Fegan stayed quiet.
“Christ, she was spitting bullets ’cause they had to unload my suitcase from the hold. That took nearly forty minutes, and then they had to wait for some security men to come and escort me out. I was only just back out of Departures a few minutes before you called.”
She was high on adrenalin and indignation. Fegan asked, “No sign of Patsy?”
“No,” she said. “He was gone. I imagine he slinked off as soon as he saw me check in.”
“So, where are we going?”
“Portcarrick,” she said. “Up on the coast, past Ballymena. My parents took us there a few times when we were little. We always stayed on the caravan park, but there’s a hotel on the bay. It’s a quiet place, hardly anyone ever stays there. Hopkirk’s, it’s called. I hope it’s still open.”
“Me too,” Fegan said.
Dreams came and went, some ugly, some beautiful. Fegan had kept his eyes open as far as the outskirts of Antrim, but the endless dual carriageways stretching into the distance lulled him into a fitful sleep, punctuated by jolts and swerves. As he drifted between waking and sleeping, he was aware of the rise and fall of the road, and the darkness they travelled deeper into.
After a time, Fegan woke to see nothing but black around them. The pressure in his ears told him they were up high somewhere.
“We’re nearly there,” Marie said. “We’re in the Glens now. You missed the delights of Ballymena.”
She took a left turn, and Fegan felt the car begin a shallow descent. Beyond the window he could pick out coarse grass that rolled away beyond his vision. It felt like a wilderness, miles of nothing.
“It’s beautiful country when you see it in the daylight,” Marie said. “Peaceful, like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. I used to love coming here. I always wanted to buy a home on the bay. I guess that’ll never happen now.”
Fegan’s breath caught in his throat when, for just a few seconds, the moon slid out from behind the clouds. It illuminated the landscape and he could see for miles in every direction, grassy hills climbing up to touch the sky. And up ahead, in the near distance, he saw the silver shimmer in the bay below, the North Atlantic meeting the Irish Sea to make a looking-glass for the moon. Then it was gone, the brilliant disc hiding, and the road cut downward between the slopes.
“I never . . .”
“Never what?” Marie asked.
“I never thought things could look like that,” he said. “Not really.”
She reached across and squeezed his arm. Fegan didn’t know whether to pull away or meet her hand with his own. He did neither.
A strange anticipation bubbled in him when he thought of the six followers. As much as he longed for a peaceful night, part of him wanted them to see this place too. He thought of the woman and her baby, always pretty, always showing him her soft, sad smile. She deserved to see somewhere other than the inside of McKenna’s bar or Fegan’s sparsely furnished house.
After a last steep drop, the road settled back into a soft undulation and a series of sweeping bends. They arrived at a gathering of low whitewashed houses, and followed the narrow road as it curved around them. And there it was, just as Marie had described it. To the left, a bridge over a small estuary, an ancient church on the other side of it, and a long beach curving north into the darkness beyond. On this side, its dim basalt reflecting little of the car’s lights, stood a memorial to a lost fishing crew.
The memorial passed on their left, between them and the river mouth, and a pretty two-storey cottage was just on the far side of the hotel on their right. Fegan could barely make out the mass of cliffs reaching out to sea, but he could feel them looming over the dwelling. Marie pulled the car into the space between the two old buildings. Lights peered through the slats in the cottage’s shuttered windows. Shadows moved against the walls, but Fegan couldn’t be sure if they were six echoes of the dead, or just the sweep of the car’s headlights. He shivered when he realised he didn’t know which he most desired.
“Here we are,” Marie said. “Hopkirk’s.”
“Oh, no,” Hopkirk said. “No, no, no.”
He was a tall, thin man of senior years, a plume of white hair swept back from his forehead. He wore a pointed goatee and thick glasses, and raised his nose and closed his eyes as he spoke, as if his words had a pleasing odor.
“Quite out of the question,” he said from behind the bar. One customer sat on a stool, watching the goings-on, a whiskey and a jug of water to hand. Fegan eyed the glass and swallowed.
“Please, we’ve nowhere else to go,” Marie said as she rocked Ellen in her arms. The little girl rubbed her eyes and mewled.
“The rooms aren’t aired out and the beds aren’t made up,” Hopkirk said. “I haven’t let rooms in years.”
“If you have sheets I’ll make the bed up myself,” she said. “If not, the mattress will do. It’s very late and my wee girl needs somewhere to stay for the night.”
It was indeed late, almost two in the morning. The bar’s opening hours seemed to be a loose arrangement between landlord and drinker. The customer was a stout man, around sixty, well dressed, with a deep, refined voice. “Come on, Hopkirk,” he said, with a crooked smile. “Have you no mercy?”
Hopkirk scolded the customer with a look. “I’ve no food in for breakfasts,” he said. “Really, there’s nothing I can do for you.”
Fegan put his bag on the floor, unzipped it, and fished inside until he found what he wanted. The bar was coated in generations-thick paint. Fegan placed a roll of notes on the muddy green gloss. Hopkirk and the drinker looked from it to each other and back again.
Hopkirk separated the notes with a fingertip.
“How long can we stay for that?” Fegan asked.
“A while,” Hopkirk said without taking his eyes from the money. “I’ll make no promises about the service. You’ll have to sort your own meals out and you won’t have any hot water.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Marie said.
“Wait here.” Hopkirk came out from behind the bar and disappeared into a dark doorway.
The bar, with its painted panelling and floral wallpaper, looked as if it hadn’t been refurbished in decades. The floor was covered in a loose-laid carpet, trodden thin, that didn’t quite reach the walls. A vast fireplace dominated one end of the room, the embers crackling and sighing as they settled down for the night. Fegan’s eyes scanned the bottles behind the bar and he swallowed. Some of them looked as old as him.
The sole customer watched Fegan and Marie from his stool. “So, Portcarrick seemed like the place to be at two in the morning?” he asked. His half-smile was kind, in spite of the jibe.
“We just took a notion,” Marie said. Ellen was awake now, blinking and rubbing her nose. Marie walked to the bar and set her on the painted surface.
“Where are we?” the little girl asked.
“We’re on our holidays,” Marie said, “At the seaside.”
Ellen accepted the answer without question. “I’m hungry,” she said.
“We’ll get you some crisps,” Marie said.
“I live in the cottage next door,” the customer said. “If Hopkirk can’t manage anything decent in the morning, give us a shout. I’m sure me and the missus can rustle up a fry.”
Marie smiled. “That’s very kind.”
“Not at all,” the man said. He looked at Fegan. “You look like you could do with a good feed.”
Fegan nodded and felt the odd sensation of his mouth curling in a smile. He was not used to kindness.
“Albert Taylor,” the drinker said as he extended his hand. “Good to meet you. Been in the wars?”
Fegan shook his hand. “George Ferris,” he said. His left hand went to the abrasion on his temple and smoothed his hair over it. “I had a fall.”
Marie stared at Fegan for a beat, then said, “Mary Ferris.” She indicated her daughter. “Ellen,” she said. That lie would be too hard to maintain.
Taylor shook Marie’s hand. “Just knock the window in the morning,” he said. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you fed even if Hopkirk’s not up to it.” He leaned forward on his stool, winked, and whispered, “Besides, I’m a better cook.”
Beyond the shuttered window the sea whispered and moaned. In the near-blackness, Fegan could hardly see the six shadows. But he could hear them. When his eyes fell shut, his head nodding forward, the screaming began. And the baby crying. Somewhere across the room, Marie and Ellen lay together, clinging to each other in this new place. Now and then, Fegan heard the little girl whimper. Sleep seemed to come no easier to her than to him. The chair he rested on was well upholstered, and with his feet propped on Marie’s suitcase he was comfortable enough, even with the rippling pains in his gut.
Sweat chilled his forehead and his hand trembled as he wiped it away. The dry want at the back of his throat deepened as he thought of the bar downstairs, the bottles lined up like whores in a brothel. He imagined the warmth of whiskey on his tongue and the coolness of stout on his lips.
Marie’s steady breathing formed a counterpoint to the waves rolling on the beach outside. Fegan’s own breath fell into step with hers as his mind wandered. His thoughts drifted from memory to memory - places and people, some bright and summery, others grey and haggard. He thought of the days before the bad times, before he knew not all fathers acted like that. About his mother and the warmth of her arms. About a goal drawn in chalk on a gable wall, and five boys kicking a ball at it, laughing, running, pushing, bare-backed on an August evening. About a girl called Julie who lived not far away but might as well have been from a different country. She shared a bag of toffees with Fegan, and her father beat her senseless for running with the likes of him. As his head rolled forward, he remembered her words and the purple swelling on her lip.
You’re the other sort
, she said.
Daddy says I can’t be friends with you.
He was falling head first into the dark when the cop started screaming, pulling him back. The others emerged from the black and joined in, dragging Fegan into wakefulness. Ellen stirred on the old bed, tiny cries escaping her. Fegan’s head felt so heavy, like sodden clay. He’d given them the priest. Couldn’t they leave him be?
No. The RUC man wanted his price paid. Fegan saw him, closest of the six, walking the floor.
“All right,” Fegan whispered to the dark. “Tomorrow night. Please, I’ll do it tomorrow night. Just give me a little quiet. Just a couple of hours.”
The RUC man hovered for a moment, then lost himself in the shadows. Ellen gave a cry so small Fegan might only have imagined it.
“But I don’t want to dream,” he said. “Don’t let me dream.”
He searched the blackness for them, for some assurance they would protect him from the horrors that waited in his mind. The woman stepped out of the dark and brought her forefinger to her lips.
“Thank you,” Fegan whispered.
He closed his eyes.
32
Edward Hargreaves was breathless when he answered his phone. The treadmill whirred under his feet. Two miles in less than twenty minutes - not bad. His good mood evaporated when the woman’s voice told him it was the Chief Constable on the line.
“Go ahead,” she chirped.
“Good morning, Minister,” Pilkington said.
“Christ, what now?” Hargreaves asked. He felt no inclination to feign conviviality. It was too perfect a morning to be spoiled by this oik. His top-floor Belgravia apartment afforded him a delightful view of the small private park surrounded by Cadogan Place. The single perk of this job was a top-notch London pad. So far he’d been able to prevent his wife seeing the inside of it. The desiccated old shrew would never cross its threshold if he had anything to say about it. Steam drifted in from the en-suite bathroom, where his new acquaintance was washing the sweat from her sculpted back. No, his wife would never visit this apartment and ruin the only good thing about his rotten job.
