“Fuck off!” Johnny’s hands were already being tied behind his back but he kicked out with his feet. “We’re here to enlist!”
“You want to join the IRA?” a voice said into his ear. Johnny could smell the talker. Old sweat. A jumper that smelled fusty, like it had been locked up in an old damp cupboard. He tensed, listening.
“You want to join the IRA?” the voice said again. The voice was so close to his ear, the soft, whispering tickle of it on his skin made him shiver.
“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?” Johnny said belligerently.
“I think maybe that’s a story,” the voice continued. “I think you want to infiltrate our unit so that you can tell tales to the British army. I’ve heard stuff about you, Johnny. I know all about you.”
Johnny’s legs were cold against the stone and a piece of grit was digging painfully into his thigh. They had tugged the jeans off over his shoes and he felt ridiculous lying here in trainers and socks still, vulnerable as well as scared. Who had been telling lies about him?
“How old are you, Johnny?” The metal at the side of his head dug further into his skull. He realised he recognised the voice whispering in his ear. He and Pearson had been going to a Republican bar for the last year. They wanted to volunteer but it was a slow process even getting to talk to someone who was really involved and not just full of bullshit. There had been a conversation … Pearson introduced them … Gerry … a senior figure in the local unit. The pain behind Johnny’s eyes was intense. Strange patterns of coloured light formed blue lagoons and shimmering green rivers behind the blindfold. He felt faint.
“Nineteen. Now fucking get that thing away from me!”
“Nineteen? A baby. Shame we’re going to have to snuff you out already.”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, assist me in my last agony …” The words were long buried but surfaced in his head, gasping.
A door banged loudly. Pearson. What was happening to Pearson? Shit. They were separating them.
“We’ve fucking done nothing!” Johnny roared and suddenly wriggled violently against his ties, thrashing like a landed fish in a net. Gerry had asked him to come here, him and Pearson, to discuss volunteering. They’d been given an address where they were to meet, this old disused warehouse. Now they were going to blast their brains out because of some crazy misunderstanding.
Johnny heard a bang, like a gunshot, and his struggle froze.
“Pearson!” he shouted. Then suddenly the room became full of movement, a door banging, figures bending over him, voices shouting, and he struggled to make sense of the noise and movement and direction.
“On your feet! Fucking on your feet!” he heard someone shout, and a pair of hands hauled him up from the floor. Johnny stood swaying, disorientated, uncertain which way to face.
A strange sound, filtered through to him, like a strangled laugh. Someone untied his blindfold and the pressure eased but he was still left stranded in a blackness that only gradually lightened. He rubbed his eyes and heard the laughter swell.
“Jesus, did you see his face when that door banged!”
Initiation rite, Johnny thought bitterly. Blinking, he peered ahead and saw the three men’s balaclavas being discarded. But there were four men laughing at him. One of them was Pearson.
The rain begins to fall heavily again and Johnny quickens his pace through the streets. Old, half forgotten, unwelcome memories. She is, he thinks, turning his life upside down already.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Back in her room, Danni does not switch on the harsh overhead light but flicks the switch on both the bedside lamp and the television. She wants only the light from the television and reaches for the remote control to turn down the sound. “John James Callaghan, Northern Ireland’s Director of Public Prosecutions,” the newsreader is saying, “has given a lecture to a legal conference urging zero tolerance of prostitution in an effort to clamp down on Belfast’s rapidly expanding red light district …”
As she starts to turn the sound down, a picture flashes on the screen that is vaguely familiar. She searches the face knowing that somewhere in the unfamiliar is a face she knows, though she cannot immediately place it. Of course! Myra. The prostitute at Pearson’s office. She is younger in the picture, unmarked yet by life. Danni turns up the volume, stands transfixed by the report.
“His remarks come following the brutal murder last night of a Belfast prostitute. The victim has now been named by police as Myra MacIntosh. Originally from Glasgow, Ms MacIntosh was hit on the head with a blunt instrument and stabbed repeatedly before being dumped in a rubbish bin in the city’s red light district. Police have appealed for witnesses. They are particularly anxious to talk to a petite, dark haired woman, thought to be in her thirties, who was seen talking to the victim in the city’s Ormond Street around 9.30 p.m.”
The shock that Myra is dead, the woman she so recently walked with and talked to, prevents her realising the obvious. A single tear for a woman she barely knows gathers in her eyes and then suddenly the other lines from the report finally seep through her consciousness and she realises that she, Danni, is that other woman the police would like to talk to. She was the last person to see Myra alive.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The electronic card to Danni’s room flashes red when she tries to return to it the next morning after an early morning walk. She slept a deep, exhausted sleep until 4 a.m., then lay gazing into the darkness until her eyes stung, thinking about Myra and whether or not she should go to the police. If she doesn’t go, it’s like saying Myra didn’t matter, that her life was worth nothing. But she doesn’t want to get involved and anyway what’s the point? She would be going only to tell them she knows nothing. And how can she explain what she was doing there? Yes officer, I was trying to track down the man who killed my husband and son fifteen years ago so that I can blast a hole through him with a shotgun …
After a few hours she gave up trying to sleep, leaving the hotel to walk for an early breakfast at a local deli. Right now she wants to lie down on the bed, seek refuge in a couple of gins from the minibar, drift into unconsciousness. There is a certain liberation in loneliness. Who is there to see her having gin for breakfast? The card flashes red yet again and she tuts. What’s wrong with the bloody thing? Perhaps the cleaner has been in. She turns it again, twisting, turning, until finally the light flashes green.
She opens the door with a sense of surprise that the room seems to be in darkness. She drew the curtains first thing this morning, sat with strong black coffee and watched a mottled red dawn creep slowly over Belfast like a rash. In a second the door has swung out of her hand and closed sharply behind her, pushed by someone behind the door.
“Oh my God,” she says, and the light flicks on.
“Morning Danni.”
“What the fuck are you doing here?” she asks, her heart hammering in her chest. Pearson smiles coldly.
“That’s no language for a lady, Danni.”
On the long desk that runs along the wall, a movement catches her eye. Coyle is sitting on top of it, legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles. What the hell does he have in his hand, she thinks, and then realises it’s a chocolate breakfast muffin. He pulls the paper case from the sponge intently, showering fine crumbs over himself and barely glancing up at her.
Danni looks from one to the other, calculating her next move, wondering whether to risk shouting out.
“How did you get in? How did you know where I was? Did Johnny tell you?”
Of course, it must be Johnny. She fell for it, all that stuff about not seeing Pearson for years. The two of them are tied up. Must be.
“So you’ve seen Johnny?” says Pearson curiously. “How is he?”
She is out of her depth. Pearson’s eyes are like a mirror, bouncing images back rather than absorbing them. In the glassy superficiality of them she sees a sudden reflection. Her father in his uniform, square jawed, eyes that have seen too much, her link to this country befor
e she even realised she had one. She feels the same impotence now she always felt looking at him then.
“You can’t just go breaking into people’s rooms.”
She stays still but her eyes follow Pearson as he walks to the window and pulls the curtains again. He says nothing.
“What do you want?”
She throws her bag on the bed, trying to fake nonchalance.
“Just a chat, don’t we Coyle?”
“Hmm-mm,” says Coyle mid-bite, and another flurry of muffin crumbs snows to the floor.
He brushes some off his tightly fitted lavender blue shirt and leans across to flick the switch on the kettle.
“Make yourself at home,” she says sarcastically, a sudden flash of temper emboldening her.
“You heard about Myra?” says Pearson.
“Yes.”
“Unfortunate. But we need to make sure it doesn’t get even more unfortunate.”
Up close, the ridges down the back of Pearson’s head seem to have taken on a life of their own, as if something lives under the skin, a small animal that moves like a foetus in a belly. He turns to Coyle, who’s pouring coffee into a cup.
“Here. Did you order the wreath?”
“Eh?”
“The wreath, I told you to order a wreath.”
“Not yet.”
“Do it. Won’t be many other flowers for the poor bitch.”
“What kind?”
“Lilies for funerals, isn’t it?” He turns back to Danni. “Should be lilies, Danni, shouldn’t it?”
She doesn’t reply.
“You were seen last night,” says Pearson. The police want to talk to you.”
“I know.”
“It wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“I’m not sure … I think I ought to but …”
“No Danni, you don’t understand,” he says quietly, and he reaches out and takes hold of her chin in his hand. His fingers against her skin are warm, strong. He holds the outline of her bones in his hand so firmly that she has the sudden sensation that he could crush her entire skull if he squeezed his fingers together, that the bones would simply crumble to dust. She holds very still.
“When I say it wouldn’t be a good idea,” he continues, “it’s not an opinion. It’s an instruction. I mean, don’t do it. It’s unfortunate for all of us that you were seen last night. Bad luck. But they won’t trace you if you don’t come forward. As far as the police are concerned, Myra was working alone and it’s simpler for all of us if it stays that way. I don’t want any connection with her. You see my point Danni?”
“Yes, I … I …”
“Good. It’s a waste of time anyway, isn’t it? I mean you can’t help them or anything so there’s no point.”
“No.”
He sounds almost reasonable but his closeness overwhelms her with raw fear. Pearson drops her face abruptly.
“Give us all a cuppa then pretty boy,” he tells Coyle, “Danni could do with one.”
His voice is mocking, like he doesn’t understand Coyle’s campness and is amused by it, but she isn’t convinced. She can’t help noticing the appraising way his eyes slide down Coyle’s slim hipped, jean clad outline.
Pearson shakes his head.
“He doesn’t half wear poncey colours, doesn’t he, Danni?”
Her hands shake as she tries to turn the lock on the door. Not that there seems any point now they have gone. How did they get in in the first place? Sleep is the last thing on her mind now. She sits on the edge of the bed, breathing deeply. Her sense of panic is aimless, stirring up the agitation inside her with nowhere to take it.
Traynor. Perhaps she should phone Traynor for some advice. She reaches tentatively for her mobile then sits with it cupped in her hand, hesitating. She can’t phone Traynor. She just can’t. Because what she said to him was true: this is her journey. Traynor would tell her to come home, and if she didn’t he would be out on the next flight, and then where would she be? She’d be following his agenda and not her own.
She needs out of here but where is there to go? There’s no one to run to. Unless …
She grabs a sweater, stuffs it into the top of her bag. A new packet of complimentary biscuits … so the cleaner HAD been in the room. Maybe Pearson simply told her they had left their key inside the room by accident, got her to open the door … maybe they can’t get back inside whenever they want, she thinks hopefully. She throws the biscuits in her bag … an umbrella … looks round wildly for anything else she will need. A knock at the door makes her gasp.
“Who is it?” she demands, rooted to the spot.
“Room service.”
“I haven’t ordered anything,” she calls, then peers through the spyhole on the door into the corridor. A young man with a tray stands outside. Cautiously, she open the door. He smiles.
“It was ordered for you ma’am. There’s a card with it.”
She looks at the small gift-wrapped bowl of grapes. Invalid fruit. The card is printed, “With Compliments”. Underneath a handwritten scrawl says simply, ‘Keep Well. Mr Wasp.’
She bangs the door behind her, half runs down the corridor, eager to be out of here. Outside, she hails a taxi and sinks down into the seat, burying her mouth in the woollen folds of her scarf.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
He climbs the stair knowing she’s there. Every day since he rounded the corner and saw her sitting on his doormat, he has half expected her to be there again, like Polly Flinders, her legs outstretched in front of her. Each time, he has been uncertain whether the feeling he experiences when there is no one there is disappointment or relief. But today he feels the surge of adrenalin when he sees her, his heart thumping deeply, blackly, against his rib cage.
She is leaning against the wall. Her back is flat against it, her arms folded, dark eyes feverish. He says nothing. He fishes the key from his pocket, opens the door and walks in silently, turns to look at her with the door open. He waits. She waits. Then she moves from the wall and walks into his hall, turns into the living room and hovers in the middle of the floor. Johnny flicks the light switch, glances at her as he puts a notebook and a pile of books on the table, then takes his jacket off and throws it onto a chair.
“They broke into my room.”
“Who?” he says, though he knows. He feels, with a sense of despair, the click of the trap behind him, the metal cage closing round him. It was a mistake to come back here to Ireland. He thought with the peace process it could be different now, a new beginning. It pulls him always this country, yet sometimes he thinks he hates it too. Already he is sinking back into a world that he thought he had left behind, a world that when he was away from here he thought could surely no longer exist. But he looks at her standing in the centre of his room, this stranger whom he feels he has known all his life, and he knows there is no turning back.
“Pearson,” she says. “Coyle.”
He nods.
“Sit down.”
But she walks to the window, unable to settle, and looks out, arms folded.
He watches her intently.
“They roughed the place up?”
She shakes her head.
“They were waiting in the dark for me.”
He starts suddenly, his body tense and alert.
“They … did something to you?”
“No … no … they … no.”
She watches as he turns to sit in the armchair. He grimaces slightly as his leg twists under him.
“What happened?” she asks suddenly. “To your leg.”
“It fell out with Pearson,” he says acerbically, and lifts his leg straight out in front of him to rest on the coffee table.
She looks questioningly at him.
“Another time,” he says. “Tell me what happened.”
She tells him about meeting Myra outside Pearson’s and he listens without interrupting, his elbow resting on the arm of his chair, cheek resting lightly on the tips of his finger. But he looks startled,
sits up suddenly when she describes hearing the news broadcast. The police are looking to speak to her? She’s sure? He lowers his leg from the table and bows his head slightly, his hand reaching up to run slowly through his hair.
There is no danger for Danni in talking to the police but there is danger for Pearson. And when Pearson thinks he is in even the slightest danger, he tends to simply remove the threat. Danni needs to remove herself first. He glances up at her and he knows she is frightened. He also knows that she does not yet realise how much need there is for her to be frightened.
“Danni,” he says quietly, and she feels a sharp tug inside her every time he uses her name, the unwelcome intimacy of it. Just a couple of days ago they were strangers, anonymous, and now they are not. It unnerves her. “Whatever brought you here, it’s time for you to go home.”
She looks out of the window and he watches her chew the inside of her cheek. Her eyes flick over to him. He wonders about the battle inside her. Some kind of understanding is growing inside him, but it has not yet sharpened into clarity. She knows what loss is, of that he is sure. Is that what brings her to this country? Is that what fuels whatever she is writing?
“I am not ready to go home.”
“I know.”
She shoots him a look he does not understand, a mixture of hostility and desolation and sadness.
“Danni …”
“No,” she says. She looks tired today, her eyes dark smudges in the paleness of her face. “I am not finished.”
He has a sense, as he did the first time she came here, that this room is no longer his, that it has become invaded by a force bigger than it is used to. It makes him uncomfortable and yet excites him too. In a way he has tried to walk away from life but it has followed him, forcing itself into his meagre existence, widening the parameters of what he can say and think and feel.
“You can’t stay there,” he says.
She turns from the window now. The irony of him trying to protect her is farcical, makes her feel stupid, like a child playing at something beyond her understanding and experience and capabilities. What made her come here to his flat when she was in danger? What was she thinking of? And yet, there was something that was formed last night, something that rose out of his desolation and his grief, and met with her understanding of despair, and fused into an unwelcome bond between them. A bond she does not want, she thinks.
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