They were singing the national anthem now on TV, “The Soldiers’ Song,” and the men in the pub were joining in, stamping their feet, and having quickly wiped my eyes and downed my whiskey, I was wondering whether I shouldn’t join in too, and sing to the glory of war, and to Independence Bridge, which when it came down to it was almost certainly a wonderful thing and fuck the begrudgers, when I felt another tug on my sleeve. This time it was Aoife, Anne Fogarty’s elder daughter.
“Hey, it’s getting a bit too noisy in here. Would you like to go for a pizza with us or what?”
Would I like to go for a pizza? Of course I didn’t want to go for a pizza. What I wanted was to stay in this pub until I was so drunk I couldn’t speak, or meet Leo and Tommy and get speechless with them. I wanted to celebrate my Irishness by singing songs about killing people, and laughing as if I had no fear, and drinking until I felt closer to the dead than I did to the living, until I could hear all the dead voices speak to me, and I could speak right back to them.
I looked around at Ciara’s tearstained, frightened face, at Aoife’s impatient, anxious face, and at Anne Fogarty’s beautiful, kind, smiling face. What did they want from me? Didn’t they know Donna Nugent was right, that I was a failed person with a failed life? Didn’t Anne Fogarty understand that having me fall in love with her was the last thing she needed? What the fuck was the matter with them? Would I like to go for a pizza?
“Yes,” I heard myself say. “Yes, I’d like that very much.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The following books proved especially helpful during the writing of this novel: A Secret History of the IRA by Ed Moloney (Penguin, 2007); Killing Rage by Eamon Collins (with Mick McGovern) (Granta Books, 1997); Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA by Richard English (Macmillan, 2003); “Bandit Country”—The IRA & South Armagh by Toby Harnden (Hodder and Stoughton, 2000); Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died Through the Northern Ireland Troubles by David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton (Mainstream, 1999).
Thanks to Roland Philipps and everyone at John Murray, David Highfill and everyone at William Morrow, and to John Saddler and George Lucas. Above all, thanks to Kathy Strachan.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DECLAN HUGHES is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter, and the co-founder and former artistic director of Rough Magic Theatre Company. He has been writer in association with the Abbey Theatre. The first Ed Loy novel, The Wrong Kind of Blood, was nominated for the CWA New Blood Dagger and won the Shamus Award for Best First PI novel. His second novel, The Color of Blood, was also nominated for a Shamus, and his third novel, The Price of Blood, was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel. Hughes lives in Dublin with his wife and two daughters.
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ALSO BY DECLAN HUGHES
The Price of Blood
The Color of Blood
The Wrong Kind of Blood
COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ALL THE DEAD VOICES. Copyright © 2009 by Declan Hughes. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition June 2009 ISBN 9780061887314
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