“That’s right.”
Hopkirk looked him up and down. “Can I see some identification?”
“Not just at the moment, sir. You see, this is a very delicate matter and we’d like to resolve it as quietly as possible. Now, if you could just tell me where I can find Miss McKenna and her friend, I’ll be out of your way.”
Hopkirk exhaled through his nose. “Listen, young man, don’t mistake me for some yokel. I’ve sat on Larne Council for more than twenty years, and the District Policing Partnership for the last three. You’re no more a policeman than I am. What I will tell you is they’re not here. If you want to know any more than that you’ll have to come back with some identification and a contact for the Duty Officer at your station. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have customers to attend to.”
Campbell took hold of Hopkirk’s wrist. “There’s no need to get in a strop, sir. Just tell me what I need to know and I’ll be no more trouble to you.”
Hopkirk cleared his throat and looked down at Campbell’s hand. “Young man,” he said loud enough to draw the attention of the drinkers, ‘please let go of my arm. They’re not here, and that’s all I can tell you.”
Campbell held Hopkirk’s gaze for a moment, then looked to the customers. The nearest of them, a large man, got to his feet.
“Everything all right, Hopkirk?”
“It’s fine, Albert. This young man was just leaving.”
Campbell weighed it up. He could either let him go and walk out, or . . . what? Tie them all up and beat it out of the old curmudgeon? He sighed and released Hopkirk’s wrist.
“Thanks for your help.” He smiled. Then he turned and limped out of the bar, through the old dining room, and into the thickening rain.
“Well?” Coyle asked. He had taken refuge in the van and wound the passenger window down when he saw Campbell emerge.
“He says they’re not here.”
A dog appeared at the window of the cottage next door and barked furiously at the strangers. Campbell climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Do you believe him?”
“I don’t know,” Campbell said as he started the engine. “But we can’t hang around. I think I put his back up.”
Worry darkened Coyle’s battered face. “McGinty’s going to shit a brick if we don’t get Fegan.”
“Probably, but he’s going to shit a fucking
house
if we get lifted by the peelers.”
Something beyond the river caught Coyle’s eye. “Here, who’s that?”
Campbell followed the direction of his pointing finger to the far side of the bridge. “Jesus, it’s her and the kid. No Fegan, though.”
“He must be away in the car.”
“Your powers of deduction are impressing the shite out of me today, Eddie.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Hang on,” Campbell said. He put the van into reverse and backed out onto the road, twisting the wheel so they faced the bridge. He could hear the dog barking over the engine’s clatter. The van roared as he swung it round the tight bend and onto the bridge where Marie McKenna walked with her daughter, oblivious to their approach.
Campbell veered to the other side of the road, ignoring the blaring of an oncoming car’s horn. The woman’s startled eyes found him as he stamped on the brake pedal. She looked in all directions for a place to run, but he was on the footpath before she could move. The little girl gaped up at him.
“Let’s not have a fuss, Marie,” Campbell said, clutching his side.
“What do you want?” Her eyes were everywhere.
“Don’t run. It’ll go bad if you run.”
Tears sprang from Marie’s eyes and her daughter hugged her thigh.
“It’ll be all right,” Campbell said. “Just get in the van. No fuss, no bother. Okay?”
“Please, let Ellen go. There’s people in the cottage there. They’ll look after her.”
“Sorry, Marie.” He stepped closer. “Both of you in the van. Now.”
The shrouded sun had sunk well beneath the treetops of Glenariff Forest, a few miles south of Portcarrick, and a chill clung to the air. The only sounds were the gathering wind in the leaves above, the pattering of heavy raindrops and Marie McKenna’s frightened sobbing. She sat in the middle of the van’s cabin, holding her daughter close. Eddie Coyle leaned against a tree watching Campbell’s lopsided pacing.
“Call me back, for Christ’s sake,” Campbell said to the mobile phone in his hand. The signal was poor and the thick spruce canopy didn’t help, but they’d had to get off the road and decide what to do. It had been almost thirty minutes since McGinty had promised to call him back with a plan.
“I won’t do the kid,” Coyle said for the fifth time since they’d pulled into the gap in the tree line.
Campbell spun to face him. “Will you shut the fuck up about that?”
“I’m just saying, that’s all.”
Campbell crossed the clearing and stood toe to toe with Coyle. “Yeah, well you saying it isn’t fucking helping. You’re going to make her panic and then Christ knows what’ll happen. So do me a favor and shut the fuck up, all right?”
“Shove it up your arse,” Coyle said.
Campbell could smell his sour breath. “Just fucking try me, pal.”
Coyle’s bloodshot eyes flickered with anger and fear. Campbell was ready for him to move when the phone rang.
“Yeah?”
“All right,” McGinty said, ‘here’s what we’ll do. The Bull has an old farm just past Middletown, not far from the border. He was using it for fuel laundering until it got shut down, but it’s kennels now. You know, for the dogs. He has a big pit with seating and everything in an old barn.”
“Christ,” Campbell said.
“You know what these old country bastards are like. Bloodthirsty fuckers. He wants them brought there. I’m heading down now. I’ll try and make sure it doesn’t go to shite, but his blood’s up. He’s seriously pissed off about Father Coulter. He’s going to see to Fegan himself.”
Campbell looked at Marie clutching her daughter to her breast. “What about the woman and the kid? After, when it’s done?”
He could swear he felt McGinty’s breath on his ear. “I don’t know. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“All right, it’ll be a couple of hours till we get to Middletown. I’ll call you for directions from there.”
Campbell hung up.
“Well?” Coyle asked.
Campbell returned the phone to his pocket. “We’ve got a long drive ahead. I’m going for a piss and to get my head clear. Watch them.”
Campbell turned and limped into the trees, into the shadows of the forest, pushing deeper among the branches. When he was sure Coyle couldn’t hear him, he took the phone back out of his pocket. He hesitated for a moment before dialling the handler’s number.
“Hello?”
“It’s me,” Campbell said.
“What are you doing calling from that phone?”
Campbell turned in circles, peering through the trees, making sure Coyle hadn’t followed him. “I’ve no choice. I need to talk to you now.”
“What’s happening?”
“We’ve got the woman and her kid. She says Fegan’s in Belfast somewhere. She doesn’t know where.”
“So, what, you’re holding her hostage?”
“McGinty’s idea.”
Campbell told his handler the politician’s plan.
“Christ,” the handler said. “All you can do is play along. So long as Fegan’s taken care of, so long as they clear up their mess. Just don’t let it get any worse.”
“But the woman and the kid. McGinty isn’t going to let them go when it’s over. I know it. He has something against her, something other than her fucking a cop.”
“They aren’t our concern. Like I said, so long as McGinty clears up his own mess.”
Campbell closed his eyes and breathed the damp air. “There’s another option,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Think about it. We’ll have Paul McGinty and Bull O’Kane in one place, together, holding hostages. You time it right, raid the place just after Fegan’s taken care of, you’ll have them at the scene of a murder. Even if McGinty gets off the charge, he’ll be destroyed. Think of all the people who’ve wanted to see him fucked, but he’s always been too slippery, too sly. We can do it. We can have him.”
The handler sighed. “Jesus, you really don’t understand what’s going on, do you?”
“What?”
“All right, say we give McGinty enough rope to hang himself and that old bastard O’Kane. What then? No matter how hard the leadership try to distance themselves from it, the Unionists will walk. Jesus, even the moderates will run a mile. Stormont will grind to a halt. We can’t afford another two years of negotiations just to get back to where we are now. All the politics, all the money, all the work - all wasted. No. That’s the word from on high, son. Stormont keeps running, whatever the cost. Yes, I and many others in my profession would dearly love to see McGinty swing, but it isn’t going to happen. Now, do what you need to do, there’s a good lad.”
Campbell leaned his forehead against a tree trunk, feeling the bark scratch his skin.
“All right,” he said and hung up.
He started limping back towards the clearing, his mind churning. He’d done worse things in his life. He could do this. The red paintwork of the van was just visible through the branches when he heard Eddie Coyle’s thin cry.
“Davy! Davy!”
Campbell started a limping run, ignoring the fire in his side. He broke through to the clearing to find Coyle on the ground, clutching at his bruised face, and the van’s passenger door open.
“The bitch clouted me,” Coyle said as he scrambled to his feet.
Campbell scanned the trees, looking for a glimpse of ash-blonde hair. There, up ahead. She hadn’t got far carrying the child. He pulled the pistol McGinty had given him from his waistband and dived into the trees after her. Coyle came panting and groaning behind.
Even with the stiff pain in his leg and the agony of breathing, Campbell was gaining on Marie. He could hear the panicked rasp of her breath. He aimed the pistol five feet above her head and pulled the trigger. She threw herself to the ground as the shot echoed through the forest.
Campbell slowed as he neared the woman. He cried out, his side screaming at the effort. He leaned against a tree, one hand clasped to his ribs, the other aiming the pistol at the woman’s head. She lay on the ground, curled around her child. Her desperate eyes stared up at him.
“Please let Ellen go,” Marie said. “Take me if you want, just let her go.”
Campbell pushed himself off the tree and grimaced as he hunkered down beside them. Through the pain, he felt a cold leaden weight in his stomach. “Try that again and I’ll kill her in front of you.”
“Please—”
“Do you understand?” He placed the gun’s muzzle against the girl’s yellow hair. “I’ll make you watch her die.”
The child seemed to climb inside her mother, away from the pistol, into her arms.
Marie’s voice was barely audible above the whispering of the trees, but her eyes screamed with hate. “Don’t you touch her.”
“Just get back in the van.” Campbell looked up at Coyle’s wide eyes. “Come on,” he said.
All four walked back to the van in silence. When the woman and her child were safely in the vehicle’s cabin, Coyle closed the passenger door and turned to Campbell.
“Would you have done it?” he asked.
Campbell started limping towards the driver’s side.
Coyle came after him and tugged his sleeve. “Would you have done it?”
Campbell returned his stare. “We need to get moving,” he said.
40
A sweep of headlights illuminated the inside of the Jaguar. Toner lifted his head from the misted glass, cradling his swollen hand. “That’s him,” he said.
Fegan could just make out a Volkswagen Passat through the condensation. A tall, broad man emerged from it and limped towards the Jaguar. Anderson. Fegan lowered himself in the seat behind Toner and listened to the solicitor’s shallow breathing. The passenger door opened and a wash of cool air swept though the car, chilling Fegan’s damp brow. The Jaguar rocked lazily on its suspension as the cop’s weight settled in.
“Jesus, what’s wrong with you?” Anderson asked.
Toner didn’t answer, instead whining with terror.
“You look like shit. What happened to your hand? Have you pissed yourself ?”
“I . . . I . . . I ...”
“Listen, Patsy, what the fuck’s going on? I left the wife at the restaurant. She’s going to go through me for a short cut, so whatever’s going on, you better—”
