Collusion

by Stuart Neville

  Oh no God the fire she’s burning she’s crying the child is burning—

  Fegan gasped and fell against the damp wall. The pain burst behind his eyes and swept to the back of his skull before streaming down his spine. His legs quivered with the effort of keeping him upright. He sucked air in, forced himself to breathe, let his heart find its rhythm again.

  Footsteps from deeper in the alley, slow, careful, afraid. Fegan flattened himself against the wall and stared hard into the darkness. Someone waited for him. Had they seen him? They’d heard him, all right, and now they approached. Somewhere beyond his vision, they drew closer. Fegan squinted, trying to—

  No Jesus no don’t let her burn it’s eating her the fire it’s eating her up don’t let it get—

  Fegan screamed. He crumpled among the drifts of old newspapers and burger wrappers that lay piled against an upended dumpster. Rats scrambled from beneath him. He pressed his palms to his temples, tried to stop the image escaping from his mind into the real world. The fire abated, leaving only the sound of his lungs tearing at the chilled air. He took one last gulp and held it.

  Whispers, now. Two voices in a low staccato. Maybe ten feet away. Fegan curled up tight to the side of the dumpster. He could see nothing more than a few inches away. They would be just as blind. If he could—

  The fire the fire oh God the fire no no—

  ‘No!’ Fegan hissed through gritted teeth. He pushed the vision away, swallowed bile, breathed deep, listened.

  The alley was silent now, but he could sense them just feet away. Fegan shrunk into the corner between the dumpster and the wall. He watched the dark in front of him, waiting for some disruption in the black.

  A can rolled in front of him, rattling along the pavement. A hushed voice cursed. Another shushed it. Fegan got his feet under him, crouched against the dumpster. He pushed one foot back against the wall.

  Only darkness before his eyes, no matter how hard he stared into the black. He heard the snick-snick of a round being chambered. Stale sweat wove its way through the alley’s scents and odours. Fegan held his breath until it burned for release.

  A pinpoint of green light blinked at him from the murk.

  It took less than a second to understand what it was: a mobile phone on someone’s belt. Another second decided Fegan’s next action.

  He pushed with the foot against the wall, shoulder first, launching himself at the green light. He roared. He slammed into someone’s hip, heard them cry out, felt them buckle. His momentum carried him and his target into another body, and another voice echoed in the alley until all three slammed into the far wall.

  A gun boomed, and Fegan’s ear numbed for a moment before a high whine followed him to the ground. Feet tangled in his arms, and he reached up and grabbed fabric and skin. A man’s weight fell on top of him, and Fegan’s hands spidered along a soft torso until they found a tender throat. He slammed the edge of his hand into it and the body on top of his writhed.

  A muzzle flashed in the alley, its hard report breaking through the whine in Fegan’s ears, and something punched the ground by his head. He hauled the body across his own. The muzzle flashed twice more, and the body convulsed. Fegan ran his hand down the arm until he found the gun clasped in its fingers. He raised it towards where the muzzle flash had been and squeezed the trigger three times. In a fiery strobe, he saw a man raise his arms then fall backwards.

  Fegan scrambled from beneath the body, crawled to the far wall, turned and stared back. Nothing moved in the black, but he heard a stuttering gurgle. He aimed the pistol at the sound, ready to fire again.

  Had the Doyles’ men on Hester Street heard the shots? The enclosed alley might have damped the sound, sent it skyward between the rising storeys, but he couldn’t risk it. There was no point trying to mount the fire escape now; stealth was no more use to him. He got to his feet and edged along the wall towards the back door.

  Fegan felt in the darkness for the metal among the brick. His hand found it, cold and damp. The broken bulb was just visible above it. Noise was the least of his worries, so he hammered the door with his fist. Mr Lo’s shitty little room was just on the other side.

  Fegan listened. Nothing. He hammered the door again.

  ‘Fuck off!’ a muffled voice came from the other side. ‘I call the cops already.’

  ‘Mr Lo?’ Fegan called.

  A pause, then, ‘Who that?’

  ‘It’s Gerry … Paddy. Paddy Feeney.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Paddy Freeney from the eighth floor,’ Fegan said. ‘Let me in.’

  ‘What you do out back? Where your key?’

  ‘I’m in trouble,’ Fegan said. ‘Let me in, give me five minutes to get my stuff, and I’ll be gone.’

  ‘Trouble? I hear gun. No way I let you in. I gonna call the cops. They lock you up.’

  ‘You said you called them already.’

  ‘I lie,’ Mr Lo said. ‘Now go ’way.’

  ‘Please.’ Fegan pressed his ear against the metal door. ‘I’m in trouble. I need your help. I gave you six months’ rent in advance, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Mr Lo said. ‘So?’

  ‘I’ll go tonight,’ Fegan said. ‘You can keep the rent.’

  Yeah, I keep it,’ Mr Lo shouted. ‘Lease say you give three month notice.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Fegan whispered. Men were coming to kill him, and he was standing in an alley, quibbling over the terms of his lease. ‘Fuck the lease,’ he said. ‘Keep the rest and I’ll give you two hundred in your hand.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Mr Lo said. ‘I no get shot for two hundred.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘Five hundred,’ Mr Lo said, his voice like a petulant child’s.

  Fegan thought about the bundle of notes in a plastic bag, taped beneath the dressing table in his room. Mr Lo was gouging him, but he had no choice. ‘All right, five hundred,’ Fegan said. ‘But you open this fucking door right now.’

  Locks snapped, bars rolled back. Mr Lo’s eye appeared in the crack of the door.

  ‘Come in,’ he said.

  23

  Lennon sat with his head in his hands, afraid to look at Gordon or Uprichard when he spoke. They thought they had the case wrapped up. Lennon doubted they’d take it well to hear he thought different. He told them anyway.

  ‘I don’t think it was the kid.’

  ‘It’s too early to think anything,’ Gordon said. He’d had an Ulster fry sent up to his office from the canteen. He swished a piece of sausage around in a pool of yellow egg yolk.

  From his spot against the radiator, CI Uprichard watched Gordon eat. He’d had a minor heart attack last year, and talk was his wife made him eat muesli for breakfast. ‘Wait for the post-mortem,’ he said, ‘even if you can’t wait for forensics to come up with something.’

  ‘We know he wasn’t there alone,’ Lennon said.

  ‘So there was another kid,’ Gordon said through a mouthful of egged sausage. ‘Doesn’t mean the one we found didn’t do it. Doesn’t mean he did, either. You jump to conclusions far too quickly, DI Lennon. You should learn to stand back and take in the facts as a whole. Thirty years I’ve been at this, and one thing I can tell you for certain.’ He jabbed his fork in Lennon’s direction for emphasis. ‘Investigating with an agenda will lead you in circles.’

  ‘Agenda?’ Lennon asked.

  ‘That’s right,’ Gordon said. ‘First thing you said to me when you found out it was Quigley: “Couldn’t be coincidence,” you said. That’ll taint everything you do from here on if you’re not careful.’

  Lennon had to concede the point. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘What now?’

  ‘I suggest you go home and get some rest,’ CI Uprichard said. ‘You look exhausted. We can’t do much until the post-mortem and forensic reports come back.’

  Gordon chewed toast, spitting crumbs as he spoke. ‘We’ve got three teams doorstepping the area to see who the kid was friends with. If anything comes up, we’ll call you ba
ck in.’

  ‘All right,’ Lennon said. He got up and headed for the door.

  ‘Don’t go chasing things that aren’t there,’ Gordon called after him. ‘You’ll end up missing the truth for want of a lie, young Lennon.’

  Lennon lay on his back for an hour, wishing for sleep. A dull hint of a headache loomed behind his eyes. Making up for the lost hours of the night before would ease it, but he knew the more he wished for the warm darkness the less likely it would come.

  The quiet again. Too much silence, and too many thoughts to break it. Most were of Marie and Ellen. He had found out everything he could when they first disappeared, begged favours, pressed anyone he knew for more information. The same story everywhere he turned: Marie felt unsafe after her uncle got his brains blown out, so she made herself scarce. After a while, Lennon eased up. He told himself to let it go. His daughter was lost to him. It didn’t matter if she lived in Belfast or somewhere across the sea; he’d never know her anyway.

  But then Dandy Andy Rankin talked, and once more every thought formed around Marie and Ellen. Lennon couldn’t force his mind to look away. There was only one thing to do. The landlord lived on Wellesley Avenue, two streets north of Eglantine Avenue. He could be there in ten minutes.

  Jonathan Nesbitt, sixty-seven and retired, blinked at Lennon’s ID. ‘What can I do for you?’ he asked.

  ‘Can I come in?’ Lennon asked, putting one foot inside the door.

  ‘I suppose, if you—’

  Lennon stepped past him and said, ‘Thanks.’

  Nesbitt’s hall was a little dowdy, but well kept. He had two properties he rented out, houses his wife had inherited from her father before her own death a few years ago. The hall led to a high-ceilinged living room. Cheap prints hung on the walls, cherubic children, dogs playing cards. An old television sat in the corner, Philip Schofield and Fern Britton exchanging banalities in oversaturated colour.

  ‘What’s this about?’ Nesbitt asked as he followed Lennon in.

  ‘Sit down,’ Lennon said.

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ Nesbitt said with no attempt to veil his sarcasm. He lowered himself into the armchair facing the television.

  Lennon sat across from him. ‘It’s about the house you own on Eglantine Avenue. The ground floor flat, in particular.’

  Nesbitt’s eyes rolled. ‘Miss McKenna,’ he said.

  ‘That’s right,’ Lennon said.

  ‘For the last time, Miss McKenna moved out in a hurry, I was given a year’s rent in advance, my son boarded it up for me, and that’s that.’ Nesbitt tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. ‘Hang on, you were here asking about it before. Two or three months ago, wasn’t it?’

  Lennon nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘What do you think I’m going to tell you now that I didn’t tell you before? Look, I was asked to hold the flat for Miss McKenna, I was given the rent in advance, she moved out, and that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘Who asked you to keep the flat?’

  Nesbitt shifted in his seat. ‘I’m not at liberty to say.’

  ‘I’m a police officer,’ Lennon said.

  ‘And I’m a retired civil servant and a landlord,’ Nesbitt said.

  ‘You don’t follow me.’

  ‘Oh, I follow you all right. But I don’t have to tell you anything I don’t want to.’

  ‘I can compel you to talk to me,’ Lennon said. ‘I can formally interview you at a station, on record. And if you still don’t want to answer the questions, I can bring you in front of a magistrate, and you’ll—’

  ‘Don’t waste your breath,’ Nesbitt said. ‘They told me you’d try that. They said they’d quash any legal action, it’d never see a court.’

  ‘Who said that?’ Lennon asked.

  Nesbitt coughed. He waved his hand in the air as he searched for the right words. ‘They did,’ he said, eventually.

  Lennon sat forward. ‘Who’s “they”?’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to say,’ Nesbitt said. His eyes glittered as he smirked. He clearly enjoyed his power over Lennon.

  ‘Someone picked up Marie’s post last week,’ Lennon said. ‘They must have a key.’

  ‘Nothing to do with me,’ Nesbitt said. ‘I haven’t set foot in that flat since it was boarded up.’

  ‘Who has the key?’

  ‘They do,’ Nesbitt said. He bit his knuckle to suppress a giggle.

  ‘And who is “they”?’

  ‘I’m not at—’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ Lennon stood up. There was no use in pressing the landlord. He took a card from his jacket pocket. ‘Do me one favour, though. If anyone comes around asking more questions, anyone who isn’t, you know … they … give me a shout, okay?’

  Nesbitt took the card with a contemptuous sniff, and studied it at arm’s length. ‘We’ll see,’ he said.

  ‘Please,’ Lennon said. ‘Anyone you’re not sure of comes around, let me know.’

  ‘Anyone?’ Nesbitt set the card on the arm of the chair and stared up at Lennon. ‘Anyone like you?’

  Lennon said, ‘I’ll let myself out.’

  His mobile rang as he got into his car. ‘Yeah?’ he answered.

  It was Gordon. ‘Blood type on the knitting needle matches the kid’s, and he has a small puncture wound on his thigh. His prints are on the knife, of course. It’ll take a few days for proper DNA matches from Birmingham, but it looks pretty solid. Mrs Quigley stabbed him with the needle, he fled to the yard, lost his footing in the wet, and that’s that.’

  ‘What about the other kid?’ Lennon asked.

  ‘Haven’t turned him up yet,’ Gordon said. ‘The locals are cooperating for the most part – the paramilitaries told them to – but no sign. We’ll find him before too long, don’t worry.’

  Lennon settled into the driver’s seat. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t know what?’

  ‘Doesn’t it seem a little … well … easy?’

  ‘You’re a more experienced investigator than that, DI Lennon,’ Gordon said. ‘This was a clumsy, stupid, hasty killing. Clumsy, stupid, hasty killers don’t cover their tracks. They’re almost always caught within twenty-four hours. Granted, the fact that the killer managed to break his own neck while escaping is a stroke of luck. But nevertheless, pending all reports from our more scientific colleagues, I consider this one wrapped up.’

  ‘You told me it was too early,’ Lennon said.

  ‘That was this morning,’ Gordon said. ‘This is now. Like I told you, don’t go chasing things that aren’t there. Take the rest of the day off. You did good work at the scene. I won’t forget it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Lennon said.

  He hung up and put the phone back in his pocket. Nesbitt watched him from his living room window. The old man had a phone to his own ear. Lennon wondered who he was talking to.

  24

  Orla O’Kane stood alone in her room in the old house’s servants’ quarters. The small window overlooked the long, sweeping driveway. She flicked the tip of her cigarette against the rim of the ashtray. With her free hand she dialled the mobile she’d given the Traveller.

  ‘What about ya, love?’ he answered.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep drag on the cigarette.

  ‘Fegan’s in New York,’ she said. ‘We got word from a friend in the NYPD. Some arsehole called Murphy turned up in a hospital, said some Irish fella and a darkie gave him a going over. Said the Irish fella stopped the darkie from killing him. Said the Irish fella’s name was Gerry Fegan.’

  ‘You want me to fly to New York?’ the Traveller asked.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Stick to the plan. Use the woman and the girl. We’re told they’ll be out in the open soon. Make him come to you.’

  ‘All right,’ the Traveller said.

  ‘Besides, you’ve got Patsy Toner to take care of yet.’

  ‘True,’ the Traveller said.

  Orla hung up and dropped the phone on her single bed. She stubbe
d the cigarette out and checked her watch. Her father’s colostomy pouch needed changing, and he didn’t like either of the nurses to do it. Instead, Orla had to undo the pouch of faecal matter from the stoma, the surgical opening in her father’s belly. Then she would dispose of it and attach a fresh pouch. She’d wept the first few times she’d had to do it. Now she simply ignored the smell and got on with it.

  Two flights of narrow stairs took her down to the first floor. She crossed the gallery overlooking the entrance hall and knocked on her father’s door.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me,’ she answered.

  ‘Come in.’

  His voice carried an urgency she didn’t like. She opened the door and entered, then stopped between the door and the bed.

  ‘Don’t just fucking stand there staring,’ Bull O’Kane said. ‘Come and help me.’

  He sat on the edge of the bed, sheets and blankets tangled around his legs. They were stained orange and red. An upturned plastic bowl lay on the floor, a tumbler beside it. The tray rested against the bedside locker.

  Orla approached him. ‘Jesus, Da, why didn’t you call one of the nurses?’

  ‘Because I don’t want them fussing round me. Just help me, all right?’

  She knelt down, retrieved the tray, and placed the bowl and tumbler upon it. The smell was bad down here, so close to him. She plucked a handful of tissues from the box on the bedside locker and dabbed at the puddles of soup and orange juice on the floor.

  ‘You have to let the nurses help you sometimes,’ she said. ‘That’s what we pay them for. I can’t always be here to pick up after you.’

  ‘I don’t want them near me,’ the Bull said. ‘If I can’t depend on my own daughter, then Jesus, who can I depend on?’

  Anger broke free of her, hot and pure, before she could catch it. ‘Then be more fucking careful, you—’

  The slap knocked her sideways, and she landed on her shoulder. Her ear burned, a high whine sounding somewhere deep inside it. She lay there until her breathing came under control.