He saw Downey reach inside his jacket. He heard Campbell’s pistol fire once more as Coyle’s body rolled away from him. O’Kane took a step back before letting the shotgun’s second barrel go with another booming discharge. Fegan flinched as a red sun burst from Campbell’s stomach. He dropped to the plastic-covered earth as Campbell writhed, pulling the trigger over and over.
Fegan covered his head with his hands and listened as the pistol’s angry barks turned to dry clicks. He felt two bodies hit the ground, one heavier than the other.
Breathing and crying. Then a tattered howl that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside the earth. That howl was answered by the dogs across the yard. He heard their panicked yelps cut through the dawn, their frantic scratching at the stable doors. Fegan let his eyes rise up from the plastic, over its sleek surface, until they found Downey’s twitching body, a revolver by his quivering hand. A pool of deep red spread from beneath him.
Fegan turned his head to the right. O’Kane lay on his side, alive, breathing hard. His face was burning pink and shining with sweat. A bloody hole had been torn just above his kneecap, and another in his belly, above his groin. His eyes found Fegan.
“Jesus, Gerry, he got me.”
Fegan pushed up with his hands and got his shaking legs under him. He coughed as acrid smoke scratched at his throat, and went to Downey’s body. He took the revolver from his side.
O’Kane’s laugh had a shrill edge. “The fucker got me.”
Fegan looked to Campbell. The Scot’s chest hitched with tiny gasps. His belly had been torn open and Fegan tried not to see the mash of blood and flesh. The UFF boys lingered over him, savage grins on their faces.
“You got him too,” Fegan said.
He walked over to O’Kane. The old man craned his neck to meet Fegan’s eyes. His breath came in hissing stabs through gritted teeth. He looked at the gun in Fegan’s hand.
“I’ll give you anything you want,” O’Kane said. “Anything. Any price. Just tell me.”
“No,” Fegan said.
“Get me out of here. Get me to a hospital. A million. I’ll give you a million.” He reached out and gripped Fegan’s ankle. “You can take the woman and the child and go anywhere. Two million. I’ll give you two million. Think of it, Gerry. Two million pounds.”
“I don’t want your money,” Fegan said, pulling his leg away from O’Kane’s grasp. He aimed the revolver at O’Kane’s forehead.
Tears sprang from O’Kane’s eyes and dropped to the plastic. “Then what? Just tell me what you want. I’ll give it to you.”
Fegan hunkered down. He could smell O’Kane’s sweat. “I won’t kill you. If you can get out of here, I won’t come after you. But you have to promise me something.”
“Oh, Jesus, anything.”
“When it’s over, you won’t come after me. Or Marie. You leave us alone. I’m going to kill Campbell now, and when I’ve done that, I’m going to the house to kill McGinty. Then I’m gone and you won’t ever hear of me again. You won’t look for me; you won’t put a price on me. Promise me that, and you’ll live.”
“Pádraig ...”
“It’s too late for him. Swear you’ll leave me and Marie alone.”
O’Kane nodded. “I promise. I swear to God.”
“Swear on your children’s souls.”
“I swear.”
“All right,” Fegan said.
He stood upright and crossed the pit to where Campbell sprawled on its edge, clinging to the last threads of life. His eyes were focused on something above and his lips moved silently. The UFF boys stood back, their faces glowing with animal pleasure.
54
“Davy.”
Campbell searched for his name among the bloodied faces. All these people reaching for him, clutching at him, pulling him down with them.
Who had spoken his name? Those men with the shaven heads and tattoos? No, they were dead years ago, broken into pieces in a cold concrete room. What did they want with him now? Their faces blazed in ecstasy.
What do you want? His lips moved, he felt them, but no sound came.
Something nudged his foot.
“Here, Davy.”
Campbell tried to raise himself, but his body split in two. His core spilled out from him as he moved. Oh yes, the shotgun. It had torn him open. Cool air seeped into the place where his stomach had been.
He forced everything into his neck, lifting his head to see the voice. Hurricanes roared in his ears and his skin burned. A shape emerged from the fire, tall and thin.
Gerry Fegan.
He had something shiny and beautiful in his hand.
“They want you, Davy,” he said.
“Who?” Campbell asked, his voice a thin hiss.
Fegan pointed to the tattooed men. They grinned at Campbell and he wanted to scream, but there was no air.
“The UFF boys you set up,” Fegan said. “The ones you had me kill to cover your own tracks. It’s time to pay, Davy.”
Fire turned to ice and tremors spread out from Campbell’s center. He recognised the shining thing in Fegan’s hand and heard its hammer click into place.
“Fuck you,” he said.
“Everybody pays,” Fegan said as the revolver’s muzzle stared Campbell in the eye. “Sooner or later, everybody pays.”
Fury tore at Campbell’s heart. He wanted to taste Fegan’s blood, feel his flesh burst and split beneath his fingers, but the blackness flooded in.
The UFF boys leaned close, grinning and hateful. The other faces, the bodies, the limbs, all dead and rotting, swarmed on him. One form moved closest, a tattered hole in his forehead, the sergeant’s insignia still on his epaulettes.
Sergeant Hendry?
The long-dead soldier sank his teeth into Campbell’s skin, tearing at the remains of his body.
Fegan towered above them all.
“Fuck you!” Campbell screamed. “Fucking do it! Do it now. Pull the fucking trigger. Come on, pull it. Shoot me. Pull the—”
THREE
55
The revolver’s crack silenced the dogs for just a second. Fegan turned to the butcher, the black-haired woman and her baby. The woman gave him her small, sad smile.
Fegan nodded and walked past Bull O’Kane, who kept his gaze on the ground. He walked towards the yard, where the farmhouse waited. He stopped just inside the barn, leaning out to see it. The world had taken on the strange blue light of early morning as the rain thinned to leave a dull sheen on the farmyard. Low growls and whines came from the stables.
He breathed the tainted air for a moment, savoring the vivid clarity in his mind and the steadiness in his hands. His senses rang with life amid the smell of death. The chill at his center had become a bright flame, incandescent in his chest. Fegan studied the windows, looking for any sign of activity.
McGinty and the others would have expected shots, but not a fire-fight. They would be watching.
The Clio remained where he’d parked it, in the middle of the yard, between Fegan and the house. He had to get to it and the plastic bag taped under the passenger seat. He gave the windows and door another scan and set off at a crouching run.
The kitchen door opened inward and Fegan dropped to his knees, just feet from the car. A shot came from the doorway and something cut the air above his head. The dogs started howling and barking and scratching again.
It was Malloy. Fegan had just caught his stocky frame through the Clio’s windows. He listened for footsteps on the concrete. The noise of the dogs made it hard to be sure. He crawled towards the car, the wet concrete cold on his hands and knees.
Another shot rang out. Fegan heard the bullet pierce the barn’s corrugated metal shell. It sounded like it came from the doorway. Malloy was still inside. Fegan reached the Clio’s rear driver’s-side door and edged up to the glass. The kitchen door was cracked open and he could see a disruption in the shadow beyond.
He ducked down, his mind running in all directions. He didn’t want to kill Malloy, but he had to get past him.
Fegan inched back up to the glass and peered through. He saw a hand appear from the shadows. It held a pistol. A shot blew glass around him as he covered his head.
“I don’t want to kill you,” he called.
He waited. No reply.
“I only want McGinty. You can go if you want. I won’t hurt you.”
“You’re a dead man, Fegan.” Malloy’s voice had the glassy edge of fear as it echoed round the yard.
Fegan chanced another quick glance through the Clio’s windows, and ducked down again when he saw Malloy peering back through the narrow opening of the doorway. “You don’t have to die with McGinty. Not if you go now.”
A bullet struck the Clio’s bodywork, somewhere on the other side of the car.
“Please,” Fegan called. “I don’t want to kill you.”
“Go fuck yourself!”
Fegan sighed and closed his eyes. “I have to,” he whispered.
He crawled along the Clio’s flank, from the rear to the front, keeping his head low as he approached its nose. He edged around the front, still hidden from the doorway. Looking up, he realised he would be visible from the upper floor on that side of the house. He watched the damp-stained net curtains for any sign of movement.
Just a few more inches and the doorway would come into view. If Malloy still had the door only slightly open, Fegan would be obscured by the wood. He crept forward until he could see its flaking green paint. Malloy’s pistol appeared and a bullet struck the Clio’s rear quarter.
He thinks I’m still there
, Fegan thought.
He came up over the Clio’s hood, steadying his arms on it, and put four shots through the wooden door. He listened, keeping the revolver’s smoking muzzle trained on the doorway.
After a second or two he heard a weak cry and the sound of a body sliding down a damp wall and hitting the floor.
Fegan cursed, bitter anger at the waste rising in him.
He moved back behind the shelter of the car and edged his way round to the driver’s door. He hadn’t locked it. It creaked open and shattered glass spilled out. Fegan lay flat across the driver’s seat, dropped the revolver into the footwell, and reached down under the passenger seat. His eyes stayed on the house, at least what he could see of it through the cracked window. He found the plastic bag with its cold, hard contents, and pulled the tape away. It tore and he felt nine-millimeter rounds spill through his fingers onto the floor. There was a heavy clunk as the weapons fell away.
Somewhere beneath the frantic barking and scratching of the dogs, Fegan caught the hint of voices from inside the house. He studied the windows as he drew his Walther from under the seat, followed by Campbell’s Glock. A net curtain in a window above the doorway swayed, disturbed by some passing shape. He threw himself backwards, a gun in each hand, just as a hole was blown through the car’s roof and a bullet gouged the upholstery where his head had been.
The dogs’ whining and howling rose to a new pitch and blood thundered in his ears. But through that clamor came a sharper, more frightening sound. A high, terrified crying.
“Ellen,” he said.
“Stay away, Fegan!”
McGinty’s voice, shrill and jagged.
“Stay away or I’ll kill them!”
Fegan clung to the side of the car, listening to the girl’s cries. His heart threw itself against the walls of his chest; his stomach sank low inside him.
“Ellen.”
56
Fegan looked to the followers standing over him, watching. The woman held her baby in one arm and raised the other towards the house. Her eyes told him, ordered him, to do it. Run, they said.
Run, now.
“Christ.”
He tucked Campbell’s Glock into his waistband and scrambled along the side of the car towards its front. The stable doors rattled in their frames as the dogs flailed against them. He gave the upper windows one more glance before hurling himself at the house. A shot rang out and something tugged at his left shoulder.
Fegan hit the door hard and stumbled over Malloy’s outstretched legs. He slammed against the far wall, dislodging loose tiles where the grout had rotted away. They shattered on the floor and he saw red spots appear among the fragments. His left arm felt heavy, like a stone had been tied to his wrist. He craned his neck round to see his shoulder. Nothing, just a nick.
He looked back at Malloy’s prone form. The stocky man’s chest rose and fell in a skewed rhythm. His glassy eyes stared at something far away. The followers entered and lingered over him, tilting their heads as they studied him.
