All she could do was nod gently. She felt cold.
‘What time did we get back from the church tonight?’ she asked him, as if her own memory were suddenly untrustworthy.
‘About eleven-thirty,’ he told her.
Outside the wind whipped through the village square, catching one comer of an unsecured market stall awning. It began flapping in the breeze like the wings of a massive bat.
‘What else did you dream?’ Channing wanted to know.
‘We were in the church, it was after we uncovered the window. It started to get colder in there. It was as if I could feel it.’ She rubbed one arm where the flesh had risen in goose-pimples. ‘There were noises. I saw some thing on the window. The hand you mentioned, holding a child.’ The realization seemed to strike her like a slap across the cheek. ‘You saw the hand, too?’
He nodded.
‘On the window?’ she asked.
‘I think so.’ He massaged the back of his neck with one hand.
‘The noises carried on so you went out into the nave, left me with the window. I saw the child’s face in the glass, it seemed to get clearer. I heard you calling me but I couldn’t look away from the glass.’
‘You felt the cold, heard the church door open.’
These weren’t questions, they were statements.
‘You heard me scream, you called to me, you were about to come through into the nave when you looked back at the painting and saw that the face of the child was really my face.’
She could only look at him blankly.
‘We shared the same nightmare, Cath,’ he told her. ‘I saw what you saw.’
‘That’s not possible,’ she said, but there was no conviction in her voice.
‘Then you give me another explanation.’
She couldn’t.
Outside the wind continued to whip the awning loudly. It sounded like some huge carrion bird coming closer.
Twenty-Eight
ENNISKILLEN, COUNTY FERMANAGH, NORTHERN IRELAND:
He moved the rifle slightly to the right until the cross-threads of the telescopic sight rested squarely on the woman’s head.
She bent down and he followed her with the rifle, never losing his aim, his finger resting gently on the trigger of the HK91 rifle.
Maureen Pithers knelt down beside the flower-bed and pulled some weeds from the dark earth, dropping them into the bucket beside her. She carefully worked her way round, removing any offending piece of foliage which spoiled the look of her garden. She enjoyed the task. Her weekly war on weeds, she called it. Now she continued with her own war, unaware of the rifle pointed at her head.
Billy Dolan lowered the rifle for a moment and lit up a cigarette. From where he lay he was well hidden from the house and garden by almost one hundred and fifty yards of gently sloping hillside, tall grass and trees. He’d found the best spot about an hour ago, ensuring that he had the front door of the house in clear view. The house was at the bottom of the slope, a white-painted, red-tiled building that seemed to shine in the sunlight. Nice place, Billy thought as he lit his cigarette, puffing contentedly on it for a moment before rolling over back onto his stomach, resting the stock of the rifle against his shoulder and drawing a bead on the woman once again.
She was in her mid-forties, a little plump, dressed in a green plastic apron to stop the earth from the garden getting on her clothes. He watched her pull vigorously at the weeds, tossing each one into the bucket.
Yes, it was certainly a nice place. Beat the fuck out of his home in the Turf Lodge area of Belfast. Fast approaching his twenty-second birthday, Billy had foreseen for himself the same life as his father. Jobs here and there if he was lucky, sucking up to some fucking Proddy foreman, then on the dole, drawing thirty quid a week if he was lucky.
Billy didn’t want that. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his days signing on and then drinking the money away in the pub on a Saturday night with the rest of his mates, who were also out of work. Fuck that.
He shifted position on the hillside and drew deeper on his cigarette.
Most members of the IRA had brothers, fathers, grandfathers or kin of some description in the ranks. Or they had followed family members into the arms of the cause. Not Billy. He had made the decision on his own because that was the way he chose to spend his life. Not bowing and scraping to anyone. Fuck the lot of them. He only took orders from one man now.
That man was lying next to him on the hill, gazing at the white house through a pair of binoculars.
James Maguire was about eight years older than Billy, a dark-haired, hard-faced man who was short yet so powerfully built his appearance could almost be described as brutish. He scanned the house and garden with the binoculars, aware that Billy had the woman pinned in the sight of the HK91.
When the time came, he would not miss.
‘The car’s waiting,’ said Maguire. ‘There’s no hurry. Bring the gun with you when you’ve finished.’
Billy nodded.
‘Company,’ said the younger man, spotting a new arrival through the telescopic sight.
Maureen Pithers had stopped her war on the weeds to speak to another woman who had approached the hedge which separated the immaculately kept garden from the narrow country lane in which it stood. The house was about two hundred yards from its nearest neighbour.
Billy began moving the rifle back and forth, fixing first one woman then the other in the sights of the weapon.
‘Billy.’
The sound of his own name broke his concentration.
‘Front door,’ said Maguire, still peering through the binoculars.
Billy looked across and saw a man emerging from the house. He was in his late forties, tall, balding. What hair he had was grey. His face was full, jovial.
Reverend Brian Pithers stood on the front doorstep for a moment, briefcase in hand, smiling across at his wife and her friend, then he crossed the lawn to the women and began speaking animatedly to them.
‘I can imagine what he’s saying,’ said Maguire, a slight smile on his lips. ‘We should never have trusted the IRA. I warned everyone about them. Now there’ll be a price to pay.’
Billy chuckled.
‘Have you been reading his speeches, Jim?’ he said, squinting down the sight.
‘It’s all he’s been saying since the business at Stormont,’ Maguire said quietly.
‘It’s all he was saying before it,’ Billy added. This time both men laughed.
Billy was still chuckling when he drew a bead on Reverend Pithers and fired.
The bullet, moving at a speed in excess of two thousand feet per second, struck Pithers just above the left eye, blasting a path effortlessly through his frontal bone before ploughing on through his brain, finally exploding from the rear of his skull, carrying a massive portion of the parietal and occipital bones with it. A thick flux of, brain spewed from the wound, propelled by the force of the bullet which lifted the clergyman off his feet and catapulted him several yards backwards. He hit the ground, spraying blood all over his wife’s carefully tended lawn.
Both women screamed, Mrs Pithers running to her husband’s side, the other woman bursting through the gate and hurtling towards the house. Presumably to call an ambulance.
Save your strength, thought Billy, studying his handiwork through the sight.
Pither’s eyes were still open, although blood from the entry wound had run into the left one. It was spreading rapidly around what remained of his head while his wife could only kneel beside him shouting something neither Billy nor Maguire could hear. There were slicks of crimson on her apron, no doubt splashed there when the bullet had first blasted away part of her husband’s cranium.
The two IRA men got to their feet and sauntered away, spotting the car which waited for them at the other side of the hill, its engine idling. They’d gone less than ten feet when Maguire took the rifle from Billy and wandered back to the crest.
‘Jim, what’s wrong?’ Billy asked, lookin
g at his companion.
Maguire raised the rifle to his shoulder.
‘He’s dead,’ the younger man protested.
‘I know he’s dead.’ Maguire took aim. ‘But I’ll tell you something, Billy,’ he said quietly. ‘My mother always used to say it to me. There’s nothing in this world so sad as a widow.’
And he shot Mrs Pithers once in the head.
Twenty-Nine
COUNTY-CORK, THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND:
Night had brought with it the first spots of min.
David Callahan stood before the huge picture window that ran virtually the length of the sitting-room and glanced out, watching the droplets spattering the glass.
After a moment or two he pulled the cord and drew the thick velvet curtains across, shutting out the darkness and elements. He crossed to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a large brandy, warming it in the large crystal tumbler.
‘Do you want anything?’ he asked, glancing across at Laura, who was stretched out on one of the sofas in the lounge reading. She shook her head but he poured her a vodka anyway and placed it on the table beside her.
Callahan crossed to the leather chair facing the TV and sat down, glass in hand. He reached for the remote control, pondering whether or not to switch on the set. He decided to finish his drink first.
Laura looked up from her book and caught his pensive expression.
‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked, reaching for the vodka and taking a sip.
‘This and that,’ he said enigmatically.
She folded over one corner of the page and tossed the book onto the coffee table.
‘You miss London, don’t you?’ she said.
Callahan smiled.
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘What’s there to miss, David? We’ve got everything here. Money, freedom to do just what we want. To experiment.’ She smiled at him over the rim of the glass. ‘Besides, it was too dangerous there, you know that.’
He nodded, staring down into the brandy glass. He knew she was right. They’d had no choice but to get out of London. The police had been after him; two other gangs had threatened to kill him. One had even tried. His customers had complained about the quality of the merchandise he’d been supplying. With good reason, he thought, smiling thinly. The last batch of heroin he’d sold had been only thirty per cent pure.
The rest had been made up of vim and talcum powder.
Callahan had no way of knowing how many had died as a result of taking the inferior stuff. He didn’t really care, either. He’d made in excess of three million on the load. However, even that was chicken-feed compared to the other rackets.
The gun-running had been so far the most lucrative, with over sixteen million netted in just over a year. When he offset the police pay-offs it still left him with close to fourteen million. The odd two or three million here and there was a small price to pay for being able to run such a lucrative business.
However, with the money came danger. Selling guns to terrorists brought its own risks. A group of French radicals had threatened to kill him over a shipment of inferior Sterling rifles he’d sold them. He’d had trouble collecting money from an over-ambitious group of Chinese youths who’d fancied their chances against one of the Triads in London.
Three of them had finished up decapitated, their bodies found in Soho Square, their heads jammed onto the railings in Leicester Square.
No one ever discovered what became of their genitals.
Callahan smiled at the recollection.
He had seen the signs early enough. He and Laura had slipped out of the country and travelled the world for eight months: the States, the Far East and the Caribbean. Finally they bought the estate in Ireland, where they now lived like throw-backs to a feudal age.
Callahan employed six house staff and four others to work the estate. At first he and Laura had both thought that Ireland, with its relaxed way of life, might be too slow for them. But they had found diversions.
And there were always the drugs.
One thing remained elusive, though. Not so much because of its unavailability but because it was intangible.
The ultimate thrill.
The supreme experience.
Callahan had searched for it all his life, experimenting with every substance and experience he could imagine. There were things he hadn’t tried, of course, but that time would come.
He and Laura had made it their quest.
It was their Holy Grail.
He chuckled at the analogy. There had been nothing holy about most of their indulgences.
In Laura he had the perfect companion, as devoted, as obsessive in her search for that ultimate thrill as he was. Together they had run the gamut of perversion, exhausting their minds as well as their bodies in their singular quest, never really knowing how close they were to achieving the elusive dream. Neither of them knew which form it would take. They lived in a state of almost constant expectation, existing in a world of heightened arousal.
Callahan knew that the ultimate thrill was not in taking a life.
He’d done that twice before, one by shooting, the other by strangulation. Watching, feeling a man’s life ebb away was a powerful sensation indeed but he knew that there must be something beyond it.
Beyond death itself, perhaps.
Callahan smiled to himself and flicked on the TV.
There was a photo of a clergyman behind the news-reader. Something looked vaguely familiar about the man’s face. Callahan got to his feet to re-fill his glass, turning the volume up as he did.
‘... earlier today. The shooting happened outside Mr Pither’s home in County Fermanagh and was seen by a neighbour ...’
‘David, do we have to watch this?’ Laura said wearily.
Callahan raised a hand to silence her, his attention focused on the screen. He made his way back to the chair and gazed rapt at the television.
‘... Reverend Pithers was dead upon reaching hospital. His wife was also killed in the attack ...’
Callahan sipped his drink slowly.
... ‘The attack has been condemned by all sides including the Provisional IRA, who were anxious to stress that none of their men were involved in the killing ...’
Laura rolled onto her stomach, her chin resting on her arms as she looked disinterestedly at the television.
‘... Coming so close to the massacre at Stormont it would appear that any permanent solution to the military and political problems in Northern Ireland is now fading fast. Police suspect that the same men responsible for the shootings at Stormont were responsible for the killing of Reverend Pithers and his wife ...’
Callahan took along swallow from the brandy glass, feeling the amber fluid bum its way to his stomach.
‘... the hunt for the killers continues ...’
Callahan was on his feet, making for the drinks cabinet again when the maid appeared in the doorway of the sitting-room to announce that dinner was ready. Laura thanked her and got to her feet, preparing to switch off the TV as she passed.
‘Leave it,’ said Callahan, his eyes still fixed on the screen.
Laura shrugged and wandered out of the room.
The phone rang and Callahan picked it up.
‘Hello,’ he said, eyes still on the television, flicking it off when he realized the item had finished. ‘Hello.’
No answer.
‘Who’s there?’ he said irritably.
There was a click as the phone was put down.
He held the receiver for a second then dropped it back on the cradle and followed Laura through to the dining-room, where they both sat down.
The first course had barely been laid in front of them when the phone rang again.
‘Let Julie get it,’ said Laura but Callahan was already on his feet and heading for the phone in the hall.
He returned a few moments later, his face a little pale. Laura frowned as she saw his expression.
‘Are you ok, David?’ she
asked.
He nodded briskly but didn’t look at her.
‘Who was that on the phone?’ she wanted to know.
‘Wrong number,’ he said dismissively.
Laura shrugged and continued eating. As Callahan raised his fork to his mouth he noticed that his hand was shaking slightly.
Wrong number.
He wished it had been.
Thirty
He paused by the entrance to the cellar.
Callahan knew that no one else would be awake in the house at such an hour; he also knew that no one else was allowed access to the cellar. Even so, he stood for what seemed an eternity with his hand on the door knob, looking around him.
The door of the cellar was in the kitchen, and it was through this first barrier that he now passed, locking it carefully behind him. He flicked on the light switch and a narrow stairway was illuminated below him. It smelled of damp down there despite the fact that the walls were relatively free of mould, the paint still uncracked.
He descended the first flight of steps and came to another door.
Selecting a second key, Callahan let himself through and emerged into the room beyond.
More stairs stretched away before him and he snapped on more lights. A bank of fluorescents burst into life illuminating the sub-cellar. It was large, over twenty feet square. On all four sides wooden boxes were piled as high as the ceiling. As he descended he saw the words on the sides of the boxes, sprayed there with the help of a stencil.
Some of the words were foreign.
The writing was Russian. French. German.
As Callahan reached the centre of the sub-cellar he could smell the familiar odour of oil. As he crossed to the box nearest him the smell became stronger. The lid had been partially removed using a crow-bar, which lay nearby. Callahan completed the task, pulling the lid free, removing the straw which covered the contents of the box.
Four Heckler and Koch Model 33 assault rifles lay on top of the straw. Beneath them, four more.
Piled beside the crates were smaller wooden boxes full of ammunition.
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