The Last Crossing

by Brian McGilloway

  ‘Jesus,’ Tony said softly. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  She nestled against his chest again, her gaze still directed towards the foot of the bed. ‘The police never got who did it. I tried to describe the man I saw, but it made no difference. They didn’t really care; Daddy had represented so many people they’d been trying to put away. One of my uncles said afterwards that he thought the cops had probably helped his killers, but what can you do with that? Who do you go to when the people breaking the law are the law?’

  She lay a moment, her fingers still playing with his chest hair, then finally lifted her head and looked up at him.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Jesus, don’t be. I’m glad you told me,’ he said, and realised he meant it. He tightened his hold on her, felt her press against him.

  ‘That’s how I met Hugh Duggan,’ Karen said. ‘He came to the funeral with a guy called Sean Mullan. Daddy had represented him at one stage. He called a few times afterwards and I told him I was moving and coming over here. Then, when he moved across here, he contacted me and asked me to help him with something. Some details about a patient of the practice. An address was all he needed. And then another week he needed me to find out what time someone collected their morning paper from the shop opposite the health centre.’

  ‘Mullan came to Danny’s funeral, too,’ Tony said. ‘Then I met Duggan for the first time that night. We were both lifted for a cop who was shot in retaliation for Danny’s death.’ He thought no more about the similarities in their stories, the manner in which Mullan and Duggan had recruited both of them, raw in their grief.

  She peeled off her bra now and pressed herself against him, the softness of her breasts against his side. But the gesture was not sexual and he made no effort to make it so. She held onto him and, after a few minutes, her breathing became low and even.

  ‘Are you sleeping?’ he asked, himself drifting a little, his mind wandering back to Danny, to his father, to the sight of his brother in the coffin. For the first time since the funeral, he felt tears slide down his cheeks, felt a sudden pang of grief gripping him as he grasped, fleetingly, the permanence of his brother’s absence, the immensity of the breach his death had caused. He tried to stifle the sob building in his chest.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Karen murmured.

  ‘Yeah,’ he managed. ‘I’m sorry for what happened to you. To your dad.’

  She looked up at him sleepily, her eyes red rimmed. ‘I’ve never told anyone, but I always thought that what he said – the man who killed Daddy, I mean – I think what he said was “I’m sorry.” And I never told anyone because, if I believed that, that that’s what he thought the minute he took my daddy from me, then I’d not be able to be as angry any more. And that’s all I’ve got to keep me going. My anger.’

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘Are you still angry? About your dad?’ Tony asked. The breeze buffeted them as they stood, Karen’s jacket flapping against her legs, cracking with wind whipping. Beyond her, the Scottish coast was clearly visible now, the houses spotted along the crags.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Not even a little?’

  She shrugged. ‘I’m just sad now, when I think of Daddy. I wish he’d met my husband, my children – his grandchildren. That’s what killing him deprived me of – those moments that I wanted to share with him. So I ache at his absence. But I’m not angry anymore. The guy who… shot him… he was a kid himself. I could see in his eyes, he was young. Whatever drove him to our house, whatever hatred, or bitterness, or maybe his own family tragedy, it had nothing to do with my daddy. He was a victim of something too.’

  ‘That’s very understanding of you,’ Tony shivered.

  Karen smiled. ‘It’s practical. My anger wouldn’t change anything. Nor my hatred. The only person it would damage is me.’

  ‘I got angry for a bit after my son died,’ Tony said. ‘I got angry at God, at Ann, at the doctors for not being able to do more. But it didn’t help. Instead, sometimes, I’d imagine him alive. I’d try to imagine what he’d look like, what team he’d support, what sport he’d play, what music he’d like.’

  ‘It’s easier for me,’ Karen said. ‘I know those things about Daddy. When I hear a certain song, like when Frank Sinatra comes on the radio, I think of him, humming along to it in the car. Maybe in some parallel universe he’s still alive, still singing along to ‘These Foolish Things’. Maybe you have a son.’

  ‘I think I wasn’t meant to have a child,’ Tony said. ‘I don’t think I’d have been a very good father.’

  ‘You’d have been a great father.’

  Tony smiled mildly at the compliment, even as he dismissed it with a shake of his head. ‘No.’

  ‘You were great with kids when we were… back when. You’d a real soft spot for them; you talked about them all the time, sure.’

  ‘Other people’s. I don’t think I’d have been a good role model for my own, somehow.’

  ‘You only think that. Before my first was born, I remember panicking one night, lying shaking in bed, thinking about how I was going to be responsible for this person and I could barely look after myself. I was shaking so hard it woke Seamy.’

  Seamus Maguire, Tony thought. Karen’s husband became a fraction more real with his name.

  ‘What did you tell him about this trip?’ Tony asked, suddenly.

  Karen smiled bemusedly at the question, the change in topic.

  ‘I said I was going to a meeting about buying into a franchise for the business,’ Karen said. She staggered slightly as the boat slowed, having entered the lough that would lead them, eventually to their harbour.

  Tony instinctively reached out to steady her and, for a second, she took his hand in hers. Her skin was slightly slick with lotion.

  ‘He doesn’t know about what happened,’ she explained. ‘It just wasn’t something you could bring up, you know. No one asks you over dinner if you’ve ever killed anyone.’

  Tony laughed wryly.

  ‘It was another world,’ Karen said. ‘And I was a different person, then.’

  ‘Not so different,’ Tony said. ‘You’ve changed less than I expected.’

  A faint flush rose at Karen’s throat and Tony realised he had inadvertently revealed that he’d been thinking of her. She didn’t reciprocate, but asked instead, ‘Did your wife know? About Martin?’

  Tony shook his head. ‘No. Sean Mullan called at our door one time electioneering and she commented on him scaring her because he was wearing loafers.’

  Karen laughed exaggeratedly.

  ‘She meant that his ordinariness scared her; the fact he was a murderer who looked just like everyone else. It was hard to tell her after that, so I didn’t.’

  ‘Did you feel guilty about not telling her?’ Karen asked, holding his gaze.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Tony admitted. ‘You?’

  She nodded. ‘I guess. It makes me wonder what he’s hidden from me, too. And he’s not like that, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think he’s hidden anything,’ she added quickly, as if her comment had been an act of disloyalty. ‘But a bit like your wife said; that someone can look ordinary and have done something terrible.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ‘Something terrible is happening to me,’ Alice Hamilton said.

  Tony had just come out of the staff room, having been checking for post in the staff pigeonholes when he met Alice running down the corridor. She stopped at the girl’s toilet but it was locked. She gripped her skirt in her fist in front of her groin and, for a moment, Tony assumed she needed to use the toilet. But when he looked again, he realised that tears were streaming down her face.

  ‘What’s wrong, Alice?’ he asked.

  ‘Go away, sir,’ she said, almost doubling up where she stood.

  ‘Alice!’ he said, a little harsher than he intended. ‘What’s wrong?’

  She looked at him mournfully and straightened. At first he couldn’t tell what concerned her until she l
owered her head and, following her gaze, he saw the blood badging the insides of her legs.

  ‘Something terrible is happening to me,’ she said.

  ‘It’s OK, Alice,’ he said, blushing heavily. ‘It’s natural.’

  ‘I think I must have cut myself, but I don’t know how.’

  ‘It’s not…’ Tony began, but wasn’t sure how to continue. ‘It’s a thing that happens to girls when they reach a certain age,’ he said. ‘It’s completely normal. Have you a … have you anything with you?’

  ‘Like what?’ she asked. ‘I wanted some tissue paper to try to stop it but the toilet’s locked.’ She doubled over again.

  ‘I’m going to get someone,’ he said. ‘Go into the staff toilets and I’ll get someone to come in and help you.’

  He led Alice across to where the two staff toilets, male and female, sat side by side and, knocking first to see if any female staff were already there, he directed Alice inside. Then he went down the corridor, glancing into each room until he found a female member of staff. The first teacher he found was Mary, in the end science lab, from whose room he had taken several of the mercury thermometers.

  ‘Miss, can I have a moment?’

  She looked up at him, safety goggles on, a strip of magnesium in a set of tongs held in front of the Bunsen flame.

  ‘Can it wait?’

  He shook his head.

  Mary tutted, just loudly enough for him to hear, then shutting off the Bunsen, took of her goggles.

  ‘Copy down the method,’ she said to her class. ‘We’ll get back to the experiment in a moment.’

  ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Tony explained when she came out of the room. ‘Wee Alice Hamilton is in a bit of a state. She’s in the staff toilet; she’s taken her time of the month and it must be her first, because she has no idea what’s happening. If I watch your class, would you get her sorted, with a sanitary towel or whatever it is she needs? I figured better coming from a female teacher than a male one.’

  ‘Give me a second,’ Mary said, then headed back into her room and opening one of the lower drawers in her desk, pulled out a small packet, which she put in the pocket of her lab coat. ‘Mr Canning will be taking you for a few minutes, so get on with your work,’ she called to the students, then came out and passed Tony.

  About ten minutes later she reappeared at the door. ‘Poor wee mite,’ she said, her mood changed considerably. ‘She was bawling and wailing in there.’

  ‘Is she OK?’

  ‘She’s embarrassed,’ Mary said. ‘A wee girl at that age not knowing about her period is madness.’

  ‘I think it’s just her dad at home,’ Tony said and, for a second, he thought of Karen, of how she’d told him she’d had to ask a friend’s mother about her period. ‘She’s OK, though?’

  ‘She’s not going to die,’ Mary laughed.

  ‘I didn’t want to see her upset,’ Tony explained, to ameliorate his building feeling of foolishness.

  ‘You’re very sweet,’ Mary said. ‘She’s OK and away back to class. I’ve told her if she’s stuck again, she’s to see the nurse or me. But we’ll need to say to her year head, get her a little help.’

  Tony told Karen that evening about Alice, and how he’d thought of her when he saw what had happened the girl.

  ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that,’ Karen said. ‘It’s not my happiest memory.’

  ‘I’m glad you did,’ he said. ‘I think I dealt with it better because of that.’

  ‘Poor girl,’ Karen said. ‘And her father.’

  They were sitting in Liverpool Betty’s again. Karen told him that Duggan had contacted her to ask for her help on something, and told her to bring Tony too. When they arrived, Duggan was standing at one of the snugs, chatting with the group sitting there. They’d got in their own drinks and sat at a table away from the bar a distance, in case he wanted to talk to them about something away from listening ears.

  Duggan wandered across to them after a few minutes, his head turning as he acknowledged various different patrons of the bar as he passed, some with a nod, some with a smile, some with a shouted obscenity delivered with a laugh.

  ‘How’s the love birds?’ he asked, dropping down onto the stool at their table. He held a pint of stout in his hand, his other resting on the table, already tapping out a tattoo with restless fingers.

  He glanced over his shoulder as the door opened, and raised his drink in greeting to Martin Kelly who had just come into the bar. Kelly waved at him with an upraised hand, then shuffled across, pulling the sleeves of his jumper down over his hands and balling it into his fists. His bag was strung diagonally across his chest and, just before sitting, he shifted the bag from his hip to his groin.

  ‘All right,’ he said by way of greeting.

  ‘Martin, you know Karen. This is Tony. He’s a good man. Home-grown.’

  ‘What’s the craic?’ Kelly said.

  ‘How are you?’ Tony managed. Karen smiled and nodded, but offered no comment.

  ‘Listen, folks, I need a bit of a hand with something,’ Duggan said, his tapping finished, now that the real business of the evening had started. ‘We’re looking at a man; Martin here recognised him. He’s an ex-cop from the North. He’d been stationed in Derry.’

  Tony felt his stomach stir, excitement and fear butterflying in his belly.

  ‘He’s a prick,’ Kelly offered. ‘He lifted me a few times back home. Real arsehole.’

  ‘For what?’ Karen asked, speaking for the first time since Kelly had sat down.

  ‘You know, this and that,’ Kelly said, breaking into a crooked smile. ‘He wasn’t slow to confiscate anything he found, and then the other side would be selling it a few days later.’

  Tony shrugged, unclear as to why this would be of interest to them.

  ‘The fucker blinded a twelve-year-old in Derry a few years back. There was a riot, the usual, and some of the school kids were out watching it. The cops were firing all over the place. This wee lassie, Paula, comes running out of the house to get her brother in for his tea and this fucker turns and shoots her in the face with it. He was about ten feet away from her.’

  ‘I vaguely remember that,’ Tony said, though he couldn’t be sure if he actually did, or if it was simply because Duggan had described it in some detail.

  ‘The family got nothing for it, the wee lassie needing to be looked after all her days and the cops did fuck all. Northern Ireland Office told them there’s a backlog of claims.’

  ‘That’s desperate,’ Karen offered.

  ‘Well, at the same time, this fucker got a package; went out with stress, after shooting a child. He vanished off the radar altogether.’

  Duggan glanced at Tony as he spoke and the younger man nodded. The similarity with the man who’d killed Danny and then been put out to pasture was not lost on him.

  ‘Until now?’

  Kelly nodded vigorously. ‘I spotted him in the supermarket. The bloody supermarket,’ he repeated.

  ‘Wow,’ Tony said, for something to fill the silence Kelly had left, waiting for them to share his incredulity at the chance encounter.

  ‘Right?’ Kelly agreed, nodding.

  ‘I’ve spoken with Sean and he’d be happy for us to do whatever we can with this bastard. That’s where I want you two to help me.’

  Karen stiffened in her seat, shifting herself, her back erect, her expression brittle.

  ‘Karen,’ he said. ‘I want you to look for him on the health centre’s files to see if you can get an address for him.’

  She angled her head, slowly, as if considering the implications of the actions and whether she could justify them to herself. Evidently she could, for she nodded. ‘What’s the name?’

  Duggan handed her a sheet of Rizla paper on which something was written. She glanced at it, nodded and handed it back to him. He took out a cigarette lighter and set the paper alight. It burst into flame, then guttered out just as quickly, the fragments of ash crumbling into th
e ashtray on the table.

  ‘Once we have details, I’ll need you to take a drive by the house a few times, check out his routines,’ he said. ‘Basic things. Is he working? Where? Times he leaves the house, all that kind of thing. Does he check under his car every time he goes out in it?’

  ‘I’m working,’ Tony said. ‘I can’t be at someone’s house in the morning; I have to be in school.’

  ‘One of us will cover the mornings,’ Duggan said. ‘You’ll be given your own times to do. The pair of you can go together if you like.’

  ‘Why us?’

  ‘He might remember me if he sees me,’ Duggan said. ‘And there’s a chance he might remember Martin from back home. You two he’ll not know from Adam. A changing procession of faces will make it less likely he’ll start noticing any one of us.’

  ‘But he uses our health centre,’ Karen said.

  ‘I wouldn’t recognise someone works at the back desk in my health centre,’ Duggan said. ‘I think we’ll be all right.’

  Tony glanced at Karen, laid his hand on her knee in an attempt to show her solidarity, but she shifted her knee away, quickly, from under his touch. He looked at her, but she would not return his gaze as a blush bloomed on her cheeks.

  ‘I’ll also need another few thermometers if you can get them,’ Duggan said.