The estate lay derelict now, just rows of concrete and steel skeletons on waste ground, waiting to be demolished and replaced by a housing development. They looked like giant mourners at a graveside.
“Give me the keys,” Fegan said.
Toner passed them back, his eyes flitting towards Fegan and away again. “What do you want, Gerry? You’re scaring the shite out of me.”
Fegan slipped the keys into his pocket. “Who’s the cop?”
Toner blinked. “What cop?”
“The one you have inside. You told me about him the day I got lifted. The one who beat the shit out of me.”
Toner held his hands up. “I don’t know, Gerry. Just some peeler. I’ve never met him.”
“You’re lying. Davy Campbell told me he was your contact.”
“No, that’s not true. I swear to God, Gerry, I don’t know who he is.”
“Give me your hand.”
Toner slowly shook his head. “No.”
Fegan raised the pistol with his right hand, steady now, and extended his left.
“No,” Toner said.
Fegan pressed the Walther against Toner’s temple. The solicitor screwed his eyes shut and held out his left hand.
“I’ll ask you one more time,” Fegan said as he gripped Toner’s little finger. “Who’s the cop?”
“Aw, Christ, Gerry. Please, I don’t know anything. I just run errands for McGinty when he needs me. I take his cases for him, that’s all. I don’t go near any of that other stuff.”
Fegan placed the Walther on the seat beside him, well out of Toner’s reach, and took the lawyer’s wrist in his right hand. With his left, he twisted the finger back and up, first feeling the stiff elasticity of the joint, next the jolt of it giving way, then the looseness of the broken bone.
Toner screamed.
“You could’ve just told me, Patsy. That didn’t have to happen.”
“Ah, fuck!” Toner tried to pull his hand back, but Fegan squeezed and the solicitor screamed again.
Heat gathered around the break, the puffy swelling already filling Fegan’s hand. He felt it pulse through the thin membrane of the surgical gloves. “Who’s the cop?” he asked.
“Please, Gerry, oh God, please.” Tears rolled down Toner’s flushed cheeks. “I can’t tell you. McGinty. Oh Christ, he’ll kill me. Please, Gerry, don’t.”
Fegan gripped Toner’s ring finger. “Who’s the cop?”
“Gerry, please, I can’t.”
Toner screamed again, drowning out the sound of cracking bone.
Fegan sighed. He was surprised at Toner. He’d always taken him for weak; the solicitor was anything but. He ground the bones together.
“Who’s the cop?” he asked. Toner’s screams drowned out the question, so he asked again, louder. “Who’s the cop?”
“Stop! Jesus, stop!”
Fegan released the fingers and moved his grip to Toner’s wrist. The heat from the solicitor’s hand seemed to fill the car, along with the thick smell of sweat and fresh urine. Nausea came rolling in, but Fegan pushed it back.
“Who’s the cop?” he asked.
“Oh, Jesus . . . Jesus . . . Brian Anderson. He’s a sergeant. We’ve had him for years. Since the Eighties.”
“What does he do for you?”
Toner breathed deep through his nose, his face twisted in pain. “Not much these days. Tips us off sometimes, if there’s a raid coming. McGinty pays him a few quid every week just to have him on side.”
Fegan let his hand drift down so Toner’s palm rested against his. “Not much these days, you said. Before that, what’d he do?”
“Information,” Toner hissed. “Other cops. Their cars, where they lived, where they drank, where their kids went to school. He used to sell information to McGinty.”
Fegan remembered. He remembered the RUC man’s face when he saw the gun in Fegan’s hand.
“He got hurt when he was a month on the job,” Toner continued, panting between words. “A coffee-jar bomb when he was on patrol. Fucked up his hip. Crippled when he was twenty-three. He’s been riding a desk ever since. Admin, records, answering phones, that sort of stuff. He’s a bitter fucker. Started selling out his mates. I always handled the money. I paid him. Aw, Christ, Gerry. McGinty’s going to kill me.”
Toner’s whimpering and pleading went on, but Fegan couldn’t hear him. He had stopped listening and started remembering.
It was Fegan’s first kill. Less than a week after his twentieth birthday he stood in the snow watching children emerge from a primary school. There was no sign of the RUC man’s Ford Granada. McGinty said he always arrived five minutes early when he picked his son up on a Friday.
Fegan looked across the road. A boy stood apart from the others, looking up and down the street. Nine years old, McGinty said. He wouldn’t see it. He wouldn’t be out of school yet when his father arrived. That’s what McGinty had said. McGinty was wrong. The RUC man was late, and the boy would see everything.
A bitter wind tore along the street, pulling snow with it. Fegan’s nose tingled with the cocaine the lads had given him for courage. The buzzing in his head couldn’t keep the cold or the urge to run out of his feet. Some of the parents looked at him, their faces lined with concern. They didn’t recognise him. That’s what they’d tell the police later. He was just some man, another parent they hadn’t seen before. A little odd-looking, maybe, something about the way he wore his hat, or the strange lankness of his hair. Fegan had seen himself in the car’s rear-view mirror and the wig looked convincing enough. They had dropped him at the corner and were parked up a street away, waiting for the sound of gunfire.
Fegan stopped breathing as the kid’s eyes met his. The boy’s brow creased as he stared back. Fegan couldn’t look away. The kid’s jaw slackened, parting his lips to let misted breath escape on the breeze.
He knew.
The sound of a car dragged the boy’s gaze away. A Ford Granada slowing to a halt. The boy ran onto the road, screaming at his father, waving his arms at Fegan. The RUC man stood hard on his brake pedal, skidding on the snow. He stared at his son, confused. As Fegan approached, the gun already in his hand, the boy pointed at him.
The RUC man turned his head, slack-jawed, his face showing no understanding of his own death. That changed as Fegan raised the gun. He understood. His eyes saw his end and Fegan squeezed the trigger twice. The car lurched forward and stalled as the RUC man’s feet left the pedals.
Quiet. A few seconds before, there had been the noise of children streaming from the school, the honking of car horns, the calls of parents. Now there was only the rushing in Fegan’s ears.
The boy stood still, snowflakes glistening on his hair. He watched Fegan. His eyes were small dead things, black holes in a white face.
Then the screaming started and Fegan ran. The lads skidded to a stop at the end of the street and he dived into the back of the car. They cheered and whooped and slapped his back as the engine roared.
Fegan drank until he threw up all over the floor of the pub, then wept, then drank some more. Michael McKenna hugged him and Paul McGinty shook his hand. His back was sore from slapping, his throat and nose stinging from the vomit and cocaine. A black taxi carried him home to his mother’s house and he struggled to let himself in.
One small suitcase and a bin liner lay in the darkened hallway. He looked inside the bag. It was stuffed full of his clothes. His mother stepped out of the shadows. He could see her eyes glint, fierce and bright.
“I saw the news,” she said.
Fegan wiped his mouth.
Her voice cracked. “I saw what you did.”
Fegan took a step towards her, but she held her hand up.
“Get out and never come back,” she said, her voice soft and sad. She started climbing the stairs. She was almost gone from view when she turned and said, “I’m ashamed I carried the likes of you inside me. I’m ashamed I brought up a man who could kill someone in front of his child. May God forgive me for giving birth to you.”
A gust of wind rocked the Jaguar on its suspension and dragged Fegan back to the present. The sky outside greyed and fat drops of rain splashed on the windscreen. The followers watched and waited.
“Phone him,” Fegan said.
Toner stopped whimpering. “Phone who?”
“The cop. Tell him to come here.”
“Why?”
Fegan squeezed Toner’s hand and waited for the screams to die away. “Just do it. Tell him he has to come now. Tell him you have something for him.”
Toner reached into his jacket pocket with his right hand and retrieved his mobile. He kept his watery eyes on Fegan as he dialled.
“Hello, Brian? . . . It’s Patsy . . . Yeah, I know . . . I know . . . It’s important. I wouldn’t have called you otherwise, now would I? . . . Listen, I’ve got something for you . . . A bonus . . . But you have to come now . . . Now, Brian . . . In an hour . . . All right . . .”
Fegan listened to Toner give the cop directions as the rain pattered on the Jaguar’s roof. The RUC man stared at him through the spattered window, a soft smile curving his mouth.
39
“Her car’s not here,” Coyle said.
“Well observed, Sherlock.” Campbell opened the van door and stepped down, mindful of his injured thigh. A woman peered out at him from a cottage next to the hotel. He gave her a smile and a nod. She didn’t return the gesture.
Coyle came around from the other side of the van. He pointed to the hotel. “This is the place, isn’t it?”
“Looks like it.”
“So, how do we do this?” Coyle looked nervous.
“Quietly, if we can. We’ll find out if they’re here first.” Campbell limped out onto the road that ran across the front of the hotel. On the other side of the river mouth, past the old church, a long beach stretched into the distance where it met hills running down to the sea. On this side, the sun dipped towards the hilltop behind the hotel. It would be swallowed by the gathering clouds long before it reached the grass and rocks. Further along from the hotel and cottage, an ugly block of apartments scarred the cliff face. He couldn’t be sure if they or the crude basalt block at the edge of the water, some sort of memorial, looked more out of place.
“Wait here,” Campbell said. “I’ll go in and have a sniff around. The state of your face, you’ll scare the shit out of the customers.”
“You don’t look much better yourself.” Coyle dabbed at his chin with his handkerchief.
“Fair point,” Campbell said. “But still, wait here - all right?”
“What if Fegan’s in there?”
Campbell shrugged. “If you hear shooting, come running. Otherwise, just fucking stay here. Clear enough?”
Coyle sighed and leaned against the van. He folded his arms and gave Campbell the hard eye.
Campbell entered the hotel to find a large room that might once have been a dining area. It was filled with tables and chairs that looked like they hadn’t been used in years. A door led to another room from which Campbell could hear the crackling of a fire and the low throb of friendly conversation. He headed towards the sound, grimacing at the flames in his thigh and the sparks in his side.
It was a bar, with a grand fireplace at one end and a few drinkers perched on stools at the other. They all turned to look at him. Campbell walked towards them, and a bearded, white-haired man set aside his newspaper and stood up. Campbell beckoned him towards the far end of the bar, away from the handful of drinkers.
“Are you the owner?” he asked.
“Yes. Seamus Hopkirk. What can I do for you?”
Campbell lowered his voice and leaned in close. “You called us this morning.” He glanced over the owner’s shoulder. “About some guests of yours.”
Hopkirk’s eyes narrowed. “Are you the police?”
