‘Did you believe them, David?’
‘Yes.’ She sees a pathetic, wounded animal, desperate to be put out of his misery. Her sorrow, she realizes at this closing moment, is not about his deceit, but his love.
‘Who are they, David?’ asks the squat man.
‘I don’t know them,’ comes the hushed reply. ‘Just told where to go.’
‘Who are you working for, David?’ asks the tall man.
‘Never gave me his name,’ murmurs David. Maire sees he’s fading again. She hopes unconsciousness might rescue him. And perhaps her, too, though she suspects their threats are bluff.
‘I reckon that’s it,’ says the tall man. ‘We’ll get no more. And we hardly need confirmation of Sean and Brendan.’
It comes to her from nowhere – a last throw of the dice. However much he’s deceived her, she has to give it a chance. Knowing they’re calling the shots, she addresses the two unknown men.
‘Have you tried Martin’s phone?’ she asks.
‘Can’t do that,’ says the squat man. ‘The Brits can intercept the signal, trace where it’s coming from.’
‘Try it,’ she pleads. ‘Just once, won’t take a second. Say he’s still alive. Still being interrogated.’ She points to David. ‘Like him. It’d change everything. You could trade David for him.’
The two men walk a few yards away and have a whispered discussion.
Feeling a numb powerlessness, she approaches David. The tall man notices but lets it go. She takes a tissue from her pocket, soaks it with her saliva and pats his forehead gently with it. Traces of blood seep into it and she raises the tissue to her own forehead and dabs it on her skin. She lowers it again to clean the blood around his mouth but it’s too wet. She crumples it, stuffs it in her pocket and takes out a last tissue. She wishes she’d thought to bring a towel.
She kneels beside him and strokes the curl of brown hair falling over his ear. It is dank with sweat.
She nuzzles his ear, then whispers in it.
‘What happened, David?’
He tries to shift his strapped back and hands but all he achieves is a faint wobble of the chair. He looks down at his knees.
‘My legs won’t move.’ She inspects his mud-splattered jeans and gently strokes from the top of his thigh down to his ankle. The legs are motionless and he lets out a whimper of pain as her hand moves over his knees. ‘They hit me in them.’ He breathes heavily, even the attempt at speech exhausting him. ‘It’s why I couldn’t run away.’
‘What were you running away from, David?’ she asks with a gentle insistence.
‘It doesn’t matter. Too late now.’ Quiet sobs shake his shoulders. ‘They said they wouldn’t kill him.’
‘I know, David, you told us that.’ She pauses, trying to work something out. ‘Did you ask them not to kill him, David?’
‘Yes.’ Tears flow down his cheek, mingling with the red traces of blood to form a pale, weak stream dropping onto his collar.
‘Did you believe them?’
‘Yes.’ He raises his eyes to her, pleading for her absolution. A memory of when she herself was once told there would be no killing and believed it flashes before her.
‘What went wrong, David? Why did they get you?’
He groans. ‘All happened too fast. Don’t know. They were shooting.’
‘How many of them?’
‘Don’t know.’ She feels him sinking, then trying to turn his head towards the two men.
The squat man walks towards them and she raises herself from her knees.
‘OK, Maire,’ he says, ‘a decision’s been made to try what you say. He looks down at David. ‘His phone’s smashed so we’ll use one of ours. It’s risky but we’ll do it for you – and for Martin. Just in case.’
Maire retreats to join Joseph. ‘Who are they?’ she asks, nodding towards the two men.
‘They’re from the leadership, Maire. Best you don’t know more.’
‘Not your friends, then, Joseph?’
‘No. But getting him was too big. The leadership had to be involved.’
‘They won’t mind losing Martin, will they? One way of dealing with the split.’ She’s having the germ of an idea.
‘Christ, Maire, blood runs thicker than that.’
‘You think so, Joseph?’ she continues. ‘What was it they said, Sean and Brendan gone too?’
‘Aye, they just disappeared, we dunno how.’
‘So then it’d be just you left, Joseph, wouldn’t it?’ she says. ‘Just the one to go.’
‘I dunno what you’re suggesting, Maire.’
‘I think you do. You move now and spring David, he can help you. Maybe you’ll get away with your own life too.’
‘Jesus, Maire, you’re fucking crazy.’ He’s almost spitting in her ear.
‘Have a think about it, Joseph. Have a think about who’s crazy.’
The tall man has produced a mobile phone and punches in a number from a scruffed-up notebook. ‘OK, it’s ringing,’ he announces. Maire imagines the ringtone and counts the number of double bleeps. Five, eight, twelve. No answer, no voice message. Silence. He cancels the call and casts ‘I told you so’ glances. ‘Well, we gave it a try, didn’t we? No one could say we didn’t make the effort.’
‘But the number rang,’ says Maire.
‘Yes, the number rang.’
‘You need to give them more time.’
‘I gave them time. I saw you counting.’
‘Give it another try. They might have been thinking. Put yourself in their shoes. It’s a big decision to answer that call or not.’
Joseph interjects. ‘It won’t get anywhere, Maire. Sean and Brendan never came back. Be the same with Martin. The leopard doesn’t change his spots.’ Maire senses Joseph trying to ingratiate himself with the two men. Has her message got through? Is he working out the odds? Any time she can buy might help.
‘Try it once more,’ she says. ‘It’s my brother’s life we’re talking about.’
The three men shrug shoulders and exchange resigned glances. As they reach silent agreement, the phone bursts into life. They stare at it in disbelief.
‘For Christ’s sake, answer it,’ Maire shouts. ‘We gotta save Martin.’
The tall man hands it to the squat man. He presses answer and waits. More silence, then he speaks fast, muffling his voice. ‘Yes?’ The others watch as the squat man listens. He cups the mouthpiece with his hand and looks up. ‘He’s asking, “Who is this?”’
‘Just say, “We got David,”’ says the tall man. ‘Tell him we might be willing to trade.’
The squat man does as instructed. ‘He says he wants to hear from David.’
‘What’s his accent?’ asks the bearded man.
‘Dunno. Sort of sounds mid-Ulster but could be faking.’
‘A Brit, then?’
‘Possibly.’ The squat man hesitates. ‘Line’s not great.’
‘Let me have a listen,’ says the tall man. He takes the phone. ‘We want to hear from Martin.’ He passes on the reply. ‘He says they need to hear from David first.’
‘Let them,’ says Maire. ‘What’s to lose?’
‘Them tracing this fucking call, that’s what’s to lose,’ says the squat man. ‘Thirty more seconds, max.’ He takes the phone over to David and holds it to his ear. ‘Speak, David.’
Maire nods at David, encouraging, urging. ‘You can save your life, David,’ she pleads.
She sees him grasping his waning energy, gathering himself, eyes boring beyond her into an eternity of space. ‘They’re going to kill me,’ he yells into the mouthpiece. It is a dying wolf’s howl, rending the night.
The tall man snatches the phone and listens. ‘Line’s gone dead.’ It’s said with stark, lethal simplicity.
‘Why, David?’ she asks. ‘Why?’
‘He’s dead. And I am too.’
‘You said they promised.’
‘Yes, he promised.’
It is the ending of a
tragedy. There’s no audience to applaud, no lights to come on, no bows to take.
David tries to raise a finger at Joseph. ‘You,’ he rasps, ‘the one who gets away.’ His voice tails off, leaving a ghostly stillness. It’s interrupted by the squeaking of the barn door. The driver enters and quietly announces, ‘The man’s arrived.’
‘OK, we’ll leave it with you, the man and Joseph,’ says the tall man. ‘It’s time we headed off. Long past it. OK, Joseph?’
‘Sure.’
‘And remember, no speaking of this. We’ll be making no claims. Might get in the way of the negotiations. Tonight never happened. Got it?’
‘I got it,’ says Joseph.
‘Interesting what your man says, Joseph,’ says the tall man. ‘It’s just you left now, isn’t it? Four of you, now just the one. The survivor.’
‘I dunno what you’re meaning,’ replies Joseph. Beads of sweat cluster on the top of his nose and forehead, and a faint colouring in his cheeks betrays a quiet fury.
‘We’ve lost three good men – Martin, Sean, Brendan,’ continues the tall man. ‘I’m sorry we didn’t see eye to eye in recent times. But they were good men. It’s time for the movement to be united. Time to move on.’
‘Are you threatening me?’ Joseph asks roughly.
‘For fuck’s sake, Joseph,’ says the tall man, pointing at David. ‘There’s your threat. Your Brits.’
‘It’s good to hear you still think it.’
The tall man narrows his eyes – for the first time, Maire smells his menace. ‘You be careful, Joseph.’
There’s murder in Joseph’s eyes, but he stays silent.
The tall man addresses Maire with what seems more like embarrassment than anything else. ‘Sorry, Maire.’
‘Yes, sorry, Maire,’ agrees the squat man. With undisguised, almost childlike eagerness to avoid her reply, they’re out of the barn without a backward glance. A few seconds later, a car engine fires up and a screech of acceleration conveys them into the night.
It spits with rain, drops beating rhythmically like a ticking clock on the aluminium roof, interrupted by sporadic groans of pain wheezing from David. Maire and Joseph watch him in silence, alone with their desolate thoughts. The driver hovers by the door.
‘Bastards,’ murmurs Joseph.
His remark startles Maire. ‘Whaddya mean, Joseph?’ she asks, her voice low, both of them in unspoken agreement to stop the driver listening in.
‘Maybe you’re right.’
Her brow furrows. ‘Go on.’
‘Maybe I’m a dead man now, too.’
‘I wasn’t making it up, was I?’
‘Martin and me, Sean and Brendan, too, we made our decision. Took our fork in the road. But we lost, didn’t we? And I’m the outcast. And I still don’t fucking understand how.’
Maire is overwhelmed by a sense of loss, caught between two defeated, broken men. And Martin, too, gone. The three most significant men, the only significant men in her life.
A rush of guilt – that somehow she’s been responsible, that it’s her fault, that there’s some lethal magnetism set deep in her subconscious, that she’s some sort of involuntary femme fatale – overwhelms her. Her rational mind tries to fight back, telling her that the cataclysm of this dreadful night is not the result of anything she has done to them, but of what they have done to her.
‘What actually happened tonight?’ she asks.
Before Joseph can reply, the driver interrupts. ‘We should leave.’
‘A minute,’ replies Joseph, his eyes on the slumped David. ‘He’s hardly going anywhere, is he?’ He resumes the murmured conversation with Maire. ‘It happened fast.’
‘That’s all David could say too,’ she says. ‘There must be more than that.’
‘We were in the Black Brimmer. Martin, me, a few others. It was one of the boys’ birthday. After Sean and Brendan disappeared, I told Martin we were joined at the hip from now on. We had to protect each other, couldn’t afford to let each other out of sight. And we’d always have escorts. With guns. He wasn’t keen, said he could look after himself, but I insisted.’
‘Martin always hated to depend on anyone.’
‘Well, he’s been proved wrong, hasn’t he? We were leaving, no big drinking or anything.’
‘He didn’t drink.’
‘No, Maire, Martin didn’t drink. And don’t say not like me. OK?’
‘Go on.’
‘We were leaving, Martin and me, the other two following. He says he needs to piss. He crosses the road to the hedges, a minute or two passes, he comes out, he’s crossing back. A car screeches past, seems to knock him. Two of them leap out. Pile him in. A third man’s running towards the car. One of ours fires at him, slows him. Now we’re firing at the car but it’s bolting. Then it’s away, out of sight, gone. What’s left is your man screaming in the road. Screaming after them, screaming for his legs. He puts his hand inside his jacket but we’re on top of him by then. We get his gun.’
‘David had a gun?’
‘Yes, he had a gun.’
‘OK.’ She bows her head in resignation.
‘That’s it. End of story. End of cause. End of fucking everything.’ Joseph points to David. ‘End of him.’
‘Did you smash his knees too?’ Maire asks.
‘One of the boys wanted to make sure. Got a bit carried away.’
‘You didn’t need to do that.’
‘He had to be immobilized, Maire.’
Maire glances at David. He’s cast in stone, a reclining statue marred by chips and fissures. She is too numbed to know how to feel. Betrayal? Surprise? Confirmation? None of them make sense. As he nears the end of his life, she feels at one remove from this ghastly place in a weightless corner of a universe where the deepest of sorrows collide with the deepest of loves. And then feeling dies and souls disintegrate into dust.
The driver and the newly arrived ‘man’, a dark scarf covering his nose and mouth, a woolly hat over his eyes and forehead, walk over to David. The man produces a knife and expertly slices through the straps holding David to the chair. As they work loose, his body lists to one side, a sinking vessel in a fathomless ocean. They catch him, push him upright, then half-carry him to the door, his lower legs and feet bouncing like a rag doll’s across the floor. She tries not to hear his yelps and trails the dismal procession into the dark. There are two pairs of headlights, the first from the car she arrived in, the second presumably belonging to the man.
Her driver points to the man’s car. ‘We’ll get us all in there. Then we’ll come back and I’ll take her home.’
‘No!’ It comes out more stridently than she means. She turns to Joseph. ‘I’m coming with you. With him.’
‘You can’t do that, Maire. It’s not . . . it’s not appropriate.’
‘Fuck’s sake, Joseph, what planet are you living on?’ Again she’s surprised at her vehemence.
The man stays silent – she suspects he never speaks. Understandable if he’s the executioner she assumes him to be. It shows what cowards they are not to do it themselves. The driver looks at him – she detects the hint of a nod in response. He turns to Joseph, who sourly shrugs his shoulders.
‘If it’s OK with you, I suppose it’s OK with me,’ he says. ‘Doesn’t make it right, though.’
‘I wanna be with him in the car.’
‘Can’t get five in,’ says the driver.
‘Then one of you follow in the second car,’ she says. They shrug shoulders again; she hides her surprise that they appear to be accepting her authority. All sons of Catholic mothers, brought up to kowtow to the Virgin Mary.
The driver addresses Joseph. ‘You follow, she can come with us.’ Maire has a moment of sympathy for him in his new isolation.
The man’s car is some kind of jeep, tailor-made for impoverished stony farm tracks. They drag David towards the left-side rear door, open it and bundle him onto the back seat. She heads to the right rear door to jump in beside him bu
t, as she grasps the handle, the driver crunches his hand around hers. ‘No. You go in the front, the man will take care of him.’ She doesn’t argue, her brief period of authority is over.
She takes her place in the front passenger seat and lowers the sun blind, hoping it will contain a mirror. It doesn’t. She cranes her neck to look around. The ‘man’ is placing the black mask over David’s eyes.
‘You don’t need to do that,’ she says.
The man stays silent. ‘Best to take precautions,’ the driver replies on his behalf.
They accelerate off, guided only by sidelights, Joseph following close behind.
‘I can’t see. Let me see.’ It is the whimper of an old man, once blinded in battle and seeking revelation before his final breath.
‘Shut it,’ orders the driver. She hears a thud from the back and David’s groan of pain. She guesses the man must have slapped him – and he stays quiet for fear of provoking more. She tries to imagine herself as David, flashes of moonlight shooting through tiny gaps at the side of the mask the only markers of his final destination.
What is he thinking? Or does the pain preclude thought? Is he already beyond life, or thoughts of life? She looks round at the ‘man’. ‘Let me touch him,’ she says. After a second or two, he nods. She lays her hand on his. It is damp, cold, like steel, bereft of emotion or acknowledgement. Fighting off the feelings of betrayal and anger, she strokes the fingers and, as lightly as she can, the tiny hairs on the back of his hand, then moves up the wrist and under his jacket sleeve to the beginning of his forearm. He slowly, hesitatingly revolves his hand so that he can place his middle and forefingers on her wrist. With the smallest of movements he traces a circle the size of a sapphire on her skin. She smiles and does the same back to him. His movement ceases but their skins remain linked and she feels him warming under her.
The jeep lurches right through what she can see is an open field and stops. Joseph behind drives past the turning, then reverses back into it blocking the exit. He stays sitting in his car. The driver opens the back door and, helped by the man, drags David out. She feels his hand tightening around her arm as they pull but it is too weak to gain any traction. She gets out of the car and slams her door.
Woman of State Page 26
