Collusion jli-2

by Stuart Neville

  ‘Just wait,’ Lennon said. He pencilled in the ovals for the eyes, the soft undulation of the mouth, the nose so like her mother’s. He defined her cheekbones with short strokes, then longer wavy lines for the hair. ‘See?’

  Ellen gave a small laugh, then covered her mouth as if she had let a secret slip.

  Lennon took the yellow pencil from the floor. It was blunt, but it would do. He wound it through the darker lines to make the gold strands of her hair. When had he last drawn anything? Not since he’d been at school. He held the pad at arm’s length and examined his work. It wasn’t bad, considering. He showed it to Ellen.

  ‘There, see?’ he said. ‘It’s you.’

  Ellen smiled and took the pad from his fingers. She dropped to the floor, lay on her belly, and selected the orange pencil. She sketched orange daggers radiating from her face until her portrait looked like a sun in a dull white sky.

  ‘What’s that?’ Lennon asked.

  ‘Fire,’ Ellen said. ‘It burns.’

  ‘What fire? Did you see a fire?’

  Ellen chose the red pencil next. She filled in the spaces between the orange daggers. ‘When I have bad dreams. It burns. Then I wake up and it doesn’t burn any more.’

  ‘Do the dreams scare you?’

  Ellen put her pencil down and hid her eyes with her hands. She dropped her head so that her breathing sounded strange against the floor.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Lennon said. ‘It’s all right. You don’t have to tell me. They’re only dreams. They can’t hurt anybody.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve told her,’ Marie said.

  Lennon’s heart skipped. ‘You’re awake.’

  Marie stretched, her long arms reaching to forever. ‘I don’t think she believes me.’ She extended her hands towards Ellen. ‘C’mere, darling.’

  Ellen sniffed and abandoned her pencils and paper on the floor. Marie held the blanket up. A puff of warm air and faded perfume brushed Lennon’s senses. Ellen climbed onto the couch and burrowed in next to her mother. Marie engulfed her in the blanket, wrapped it tight around her, pulled her in. The warmth turned to chill, the perfume dissipated, and Lennon wondered if he’d only imagined them.

  ‘What time is it?’ Marie asked.

  Lennon looked at his watch. ‘Just gone five.’

  ‘You don’t have to stay with us,’ Marie said. ‘Nobody knows we’re here, do they? Nobody but that man. The door looks like it’s good and strong. We’ll be fine.’

  ‘I should stay,’ Lennon said.

  ‘What if I don’t want you to?’

  ‘I’ll stay anyway.’

  ‘Christ.’ Marie closed her eyes. ‘Is that all I am to anybody these days? A fucking damsel in distress?’

  Ellen’s head popped out of the blanket. ‘That’s a bad word, Mummy.’

  ‘I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry.’

  Satisfied, Ellen burrowed back down again.

  Was she worth it?’ Marie asked. ‘That woman. Was she worth what it cost you?’

  ‘No,’ Lennon said without hesitation.

  ‘Then why?’

  Tendrils of fear and need spread out from Lennon’s heart. He had played out this conversation a thousand times in his mind. He considered his words. ‘Because I was a coward,’ he said.

  Marie lifted her head. ‘Good answer,’ she said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I was a child. I wasn’t ready for … that. Being grown up, sharing things, not putting myself first all the time. I was scared. Wendy gave me an escape route, and I took it. When I look back, I realise that’s all she ever was tome: an easy way out. A coward’s way out. I don’t know, maybe we weren’t meant to be together. Maybe it was never going to work out. Maybe I just wasn’t ready. Whatever it was, I could’ve done the right thing, but I didn’t. You didn’t deserve what I did to you, and neither did Ellen. If it means anything, I am sorry.’

  Marie stared at some point miles above Lennon’s shoulder. She stayed that way for minutes, her breath soft in the surrounding quiet, Ellen’s softer still as it deepened towards sleep.

  ‘It isn’t looking good for my father,’ Marie said. ‘They said it’s just a matter of time before another stroke comes, and that’ll be that. He hadn’t spoken to me since I took up with you. Most of my family haven’t. We both paid a price for you being a cop.

  ‘I was feeding my father ice cream in the hospital, and he was watching me. I don’t know if he really saw me, but I wondered what he thought. I realised I don’t really know him. My own father, I’m sitting by that bed grieving for him, and I don’t really know who he is any more.’

  A tear escaped Marie’s eye, crept silently across her cheek to drop onto Ellen’s hair.

  ‘You can see her if you want,’ Marie said. ‘When this is over, when we get settled. If you wanted to see Ellen, I wouldn’t mind. If you want.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ Lennon said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘S’okay,’ Marie said. ‘Just don’t let her down. Ever.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Lennon said. ‘I swear.’

  Marie closed her eyes and nestled deeper into the couch, gathering Ellen closer. When their breathing fell into step, and Marie’s eyelids fluttered with dreaming, Lennon stood and went out to the hall. He entered the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He locked it and turned on the tap.

  For the first time in sixteen years, hiding behind the sound of running water, Jack Lennon wept.

  66

  No one noticed Fegan as he entered McKenna’s bar on the Springfield Road. It was early yet and only a few drinkers sat staring at pints of Guinness or glasses of whiskey. Tom the barman filled chill cabinets with bottled beer and cider, the clink of glass on glass piercing the gloom. His head was just visible as he crouched behind the bar.

  This was where it had all begun, just a few months ago. Michael McKenna had placed a hand on Fegan’s shoulder and set his own death in motion. Had that not happened, if McKenna hadn’t sought him out that night, Fegan wondered if he might never have started this terrible journey. Perhaps the twelve would still have been following him, hiding in the shadows, emerging to torment him when sleep was all he wanted.

  Fegan walked further into the pub, seeking the dark places. No one sat at the bar. He watched Tom work for a while before slowly, quietly approaching. Tom stood upright, an empty crate hanging loose at his side. He turned, saw Fegan, froze.

  ‘Hello, Tom,’ Fegan said.

  Tom stared, his mouth hanging open.

  ‘I want a word,’ Fegan said.

  Tom’s eyes darted around the bar before coming back to Fegan.

  Fegan nodded to the door behind the bar. ‘In the back,’ he said.

  Tom didn’t move.

  Fegan walked to the side of the bar, lifted the hinged top and walked through.

  ‘What do you want, Gerry?’ Tom asked, his voice like sand on paper.

  ‘Just a talk,’ Fegan said. He indicated the door. ‘It won’t take long. Then I’ll leave you alone.’

  Tom backed up until he reached the door, the crate still in his hand. Fegan scanned the dark corners of the pub. No one watched. They both entered the back room, a small space with a sink and a microwave oven, boxes of crisps and peanuts stacked in the corners. Fegan took a stool and placed it at the centre of the linoleum-covered floor.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said.

  Tom dropped the crate and did as he was told. ‘I need a smoke,’ he said.

  Fegan nodded.

  Tom took a packet of Silk Cut and a lighter from his shirt’s breast pocket. He put a cigarette between his lips. His hands shook too hard to get the lighter to catch. Fegan took it from him and thumbed the wheel. The flame sparked into life. He held it to the end of the cigarette. It danced in the flame. Tom sucked hard, coughed when the tobacco caught, blew the flame out.

  Fegan set the lighter on the worktop. ‘You know why I came back?’

  Tom shook his head, took a drag on the cigarette.

  ‘Somebody tried
to take Marie McKenna’s daughter yesterday,’ Fegan said. ‘I need to know who it is.’

  Tom coughed again. ‘I don’t know anything about it. She’s been gone for months, her and the wee girl. She cleared out after … you know.’

  ‘She came back yesterday,’ Fegan said. ‘Someone tried to snatch Ellen at the hospital. It said on the news someone was arrested. It didn’t say who. You know everything that goes on. People talk to you. Now you talk to me.’

  ‘I don’t know anything, Gerry, I swear to God.’

  Fegan bent down so he was at eye level with Tom. ‘You know better than to lie to me.’

  ‘I didn’t know she was coming back,’ Tom said. ‘I saw that thing on the news last night, but I never knew it was her and the wee girl.’

  ‘Where’d she been?’

  ‘Away somewhere, nobody knows where. After that business with her uncle and all, she took off.’

  ‘What about that cop?’

  Tom flinched. ‘What cop?’

  ‘The one she used to live with,’ Fegan said. ‘He’s the wee girl’s father.’

  ‘Yeah, I know who you mean,’ Tom said. ‘What about him?’

  Fegan straightened and looked down at Tom. The barman could barely hold onto the cigarette. He had started sweating when Fegan mentioned the cop.

  ‘He’s been around here, hasn’t he?’

  Tom opened his mouth ready to say something, but changed his mind. His shoulders slumped and he nodded.

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He was asking the same as you, about Marie McKenna and the kid, where they were. I told him the same as I told you: I know nothing about it.’

  ‘What does he look like?’

  ‘Big fella, broad-shouldered. Dirty blond hair. Dresses well.’

  Fegan studied Tom as he sucked hard on the cigarette. ‘There’s more,’ he said. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘He asked about what happened with Michael McKenna and that business in Middletown. About the feud. Then he asked about Patsy Toner.’

  ‘And you told him nothing.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Fegan’s gut told him to keep pressing. ‘There’s more,’ he said.

  ‘No, that’s all,’ Tom said. He brought the cigarette to his lips.

  Fegan reached out and took the cigarette from Tom’s mouth. He dropped it to the floor and crushed it beneath his heel. ‘There’s more,’ he said.

  ‘No, Gerry, that’s—’

  ‘Don’t,’ Fegan said. He stepped closer to Tom, forcing the barman to crane his neck to look up at him. ‘Don’t lie to me.’

  Tom sighed. It turned to a whine in his throat, then a cough in his chest. ‘There was another fella came round. I didn’t like the look of him. He had a bad eye, infected or something. He was asking about Patsy Toner. Couple of days later, Patsy Toner drowns in a hotel bathtub.’

  ‘You think he was the one tried to take Ellen yesterday?’

  ‘Wouldn’t surprise me,’ Tom said.

  ‘What was he like?’

  ‘Dark hair, cut short. Medium height, sort of thin, but built tough. All knuckles and muscles and veins, you know? Southern accent, maybe like a gyppo.’

  ‘A traveller?’

  ‘Maybe. Thing is, there was something about him, the way he carried himself, the look in his eye. He was like …’

  ‘Like what?’ Fegan asked.

  ‘You,’ Tom said. ‘He was like you.’

  67

  ‘Where’s the other fella?’ the Traveller asked, his eyes still raw.

  ‘I have asked my colleague to sit this one out,’ Gordon said.

  ‘Why’s that, then?’

  Gordon arranged his pen and notepad on the table between them. ‘Because his presence was required elsewhere,’ he said. ‘Let’s proceed, shall we?’

  The Traveller smiled. ‘Ready when you are.’

  Gordon did not return the smile. ‘I’m curious as to what contacts you might have in Belfast.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘We’ve recovered only one weapon, and two clips of ammunition, during your arrest and subsequent searches. We suspect another party may be hiding items for you somewhere in the city.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘We’ll shortly have permission to search your hotel room. Are we likely to find anything incriminating there?’

  No comment.’

  ‘If you cooperate with us now, tell us what we might find there, and where we might find it, that will be taken into consideration in our recommendations to the Public Prosecution Service.’

  ‘No comment.’

  Gordon hit the stop button on the twin-deck tape recorder. He stood and came around the table. He perched on the edge, folded his arms across his chest, and looked down at the Traveller. ‘I miss the old days,’ he said.

  ‘That right?’ the Traveller said.

  ‘That’s right,’ Gordon said. ‘The days before the Police Ombudsman and the Human Rights Commission. Back then we could be a little more … well … vigorous in our interrogations. We used to do all sorts, and nobody minded. I put away a lot of scumbags in my time, most of them based on confessions. You should’ve been around then, seen where that “no comment” nonsense got you. I’m a Christian, you know.’

  ‘Good for you,’ the Traveller said.

  ‘Yes, it is good for me. The missus converted me. I used to be a drinker. She soon sorted that out, got me going to church, got me right with the man upstairs. That was back in, oh, ’79 or ’80. And I’ll tell you the funny thing: beating the likes of you senseless, knocking your teeth down your throat, that never bothered me. It never conflicted with my Christian beliefs.’

  ‘That was handy,’ the Traveller said.

  ‘It was indeed, son. You see, I hold my beliefs very dear. I live and breathe by them. But when it comes to someone like you, or any of those toe-rags I put away back then, my beliefs cease to apply. Because you’re an animal. The good Lord above has no more regard for you than for a pig in a slaughterhouse, and neither do I.’

  The Traveller feigned offence. ‘Here, now, there’s no—’

  ‘Shut your mouth.’ Gordon leaned close. ‘We don’t do things the way we used to. I never saw it as torture, just rigorous interrogation. But the bleeding hearts and the politicians took a different view, so that’s that. But it’s not too late to turn the clock back. You’re already looking pretty rough, so I wouldn’t have to worry about leaving too many marks. Now you start talking to me, son, or you’ll be getting a lesson in the police procedures of yesteryear. Understood?’

  The Traveller said nothing.

  Gordon gripped the Traveller’s face in one meaty hand. ‘Understood?’

  The Traveller shrugged.

  Gordon took his hand away, wiped it on his trouser leg. ‘Right, then,’ he said. ‘Let’s get back to it.’

  He returned to his seat and started the tape recorder.

  ‘Now,’ he said, taking his pen in hand. ‘Who is your contact in Belfast?’

  The Traveller grinned. ‘No comment,’ he said.

  Before Gordon could react, the door opened and the pale cop stepped in. The Traveller kept his stinging eyes fixed straight ahead. The pale cop approached Gordon, bent down, whispered in his ear.

  Gordon stopped the tape recorder, coughed, and followed the pale cop out of the room.

  The Traveller ran his tongue across his upper lip and smiled.

  68

  ‘Shit,’ Lennon said.

  ‘I’m sorry, there’s no one else,’ Gordon said.

  ‘I’d rather stay here.’

  ‘Nobody knows where “here” is,’ Gordon said. ‘You won’t even tell me, so how could anybody else know? Look, I need an officer of your experience on scene for the search. The hotel management are waiting. The only other officer I could send in is Dan Hewitt.’

  ‘No,’ Lennon said. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll be there in half an hour.’

  ‘Good lad,’ Gordon said.

/>   Lennon went into the living room and sat down on the couch beside Marie. Ellen dozed in her lap as late-night music videos played silently on Roscoe’s huge television. ‘I’ve been called away,’ he said. ‘But I’ll stay if you want me to.’

  ‘Go,’ Marie said. ‘I don’t need a guard dog.’

  ‘You’ll be safe,’ Lennon said. ‘Roscoe has this place done up like Fort Knox. The door’s got two locks and a chain. It’s rock solid. Besides, no one knows you’re here.’

  ‘That Roscoe knows,’ she said.

  ‘I trust him.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Marie said.

  Lennon took the Glock from its holster. He held it out to her. ‘Here.’

  Marie stared at the gun. No,’ she said.

  ‘Take it,’ he said. ‘It’ll make you feel better.’

  ‘I very much doubt that,’ she said.

  ‘It’ll make me feel better.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know what to do with it.’

  ‘It’s easy,’ Lennon said. ‘You just pull this back to chamber a round. Then you point it and pull the trigger.’

  ‘I don’t want it,’ Marie said.

  ‘Take it.’ He held it in front of her. When she didn’t take it, he stood and crossed the room. He reached up and placed it on a shelf, too high for Ellen to reach. ‘It’s there if you need it,’ he said. ‘But you won’t.’

  Marie didn’t answer, just watched him from the couch as she rocked their sleeping daughter.

  ‘I’ll be an hour, two at most,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back. I promise.’

  69

  The sound of heavy boots slapping the tiled floor jerked the Traveller from his doze. His body ached from lying on the thin mattress. He sat upright in the dark, sniffed, and wiped his one uncovered eye. He listened.

  Running men and hard voices. Not panic, but some sort of emergency. One voice called for a doctor. Another called for a knife. The Traveller stood and walked to the metal door. He pressed his ear against it.

  He heard, ‘Stupid fucker.’

  He heard, ‘His trousers.’

  He heard, ‘Hanged himself.’

  The Traveller smiled. He walked to the toilet, unzipped, and emptied his bladder. He tucked himself away and zipped up. He breathed deep, steadied himself, faced the door, and waited.