‘Hello, love,’ Duggan said. ‘You’re a wee dote, aren’t you?’
The child laughed her approval, holding out her doll for Duggan to take. For a moment, Tony remembered again Ann comments on Sean Mullan’s loafers, on the seeming normalcy of those among us who had murdered others. Tony saw it now more clearly than ever as Duggan waggled his fingers at the child through the gaps in the fence.
‘A wee doll,’ Duggan’s voice carried to where they sat. ‘That’s what you are; a wee doll.’
Chapter Thirty-One
Later, he would tell himself it was the doll that made him first doubt what they were doing, but, in reality, the conversation in Betty’s with Duggan and Kelly was the first time he’d really thought about what they were planning.
He was on surveillance on his own, Friday evening. Karen had mentioned a party they’d all been invited to and he’d arranged to meet her there later.
He watched up at the house. The car had been gone when Tony arrived and he’d assumed that the cop had gone to do a grocery shop in Paisley, just as Duggan had said was his habit on a Friday evening. Tony glanced at his watch, noted the time. He’d said he would stay until eight and it was already getting dark. He was bored, being here without Karen to talk to. He put on the radio, flicked through channels, trying to find something he could listen to, his attention focused on the dial.
As a result, the tap at his car window shocked him. He jumped, his stomach twisting. Turning in panic, he saw two teenaged boys standing outside the car, one with an unlit cigarette in his hand.
Tony wound down the window.
‘A’right, mister. Have ye a light?’ The youth held a cigarette aloft.
‘I don’t smoke.’
‘Yer car has a ciggie lighter, don’t it?’ the other one asked.
Tony nodded, his thoughts tumbling. ‘Of course. I forgot. I don’t smoke,’ he repeated. He pressed in the lighter, willing it to heat up quickly.
‘You said already,’ the first one commented. ‘Are you from Belfast?’
‘No.’
‘Where then?’
‘Derry,’ Tony said, then cursed himself for having done so.
‘Never heard of it. You’d know your accent a mile off. My da’s from Belfast.’
Tony nodded.
‘He plays the fife in the bands. Do you play?’
Tony shook his head. The lighter popped out and he drew it out, his face briefly illuminated by the orange glow from the element.
‘I don’t.’
The young fell lit his cigarette. By the flaring of his smoke, Tony could see pockmarks from acne scarring his cheeks and a line shaved through one eyebrow. He glanced up quickly, to recover the lighter, then looked away again, trying to remain in profile so the youth wouldn’t have clear sight of his face.
‘Are you Rangers or Celtic?’ the second youth asked, taking the lighter and trying to light his smoke from it, but the lighter had already cooled too much to be of use.
‘Gone do that again,’ he said, handing it back to Tony who pressed it into its slot a second time, his heart thudding so strongly now, he could feel the seat vibrating beneath him with each pulse.
‘Blues or Hoops?’ he asked again.
Tony cared nothing for football, but knew the significance of the question. He took a guess, based on the comment about the father of one of the boys playing the fife.
‘Rangers.’
‘Billy Boys all the way!’ the second lad laughed.
‘What are ye doing sitting here?’ the first one asked now, puffing at his smoke, the cigarette held between thumb and first two fingers so that his hand cupped it as he took a drag.
‘I’m waiting for someone.’
‘Yer girl?’
‘Aye.’
‘Is she the one normally sits wi’ ye?’
Tony looked up at the speaker more closely now. Had they been watching him and Karen all this time? Would they know their car? Remember the registration number?
‘We seen ye, sitting here one night. Ye were sitting an hour. We saw her giving you a wank.’
‘Is that what you’re waiting for? A wank?’ the second boy said, laughing.
The lighter popped and Tony handed it to the youth. ‘I need to go,’ he said, hurrying the boy along.
‘Are you not waiting for her?’
‘She must be held up.’
‘He’s getting hee haw the night,’ the first boy sniggered.
The second boy handed him back the lighter, his cigarette lit now. ‘Do you see Rosie over there?’ he said, pointing down towards the chippie. Tony glanced in the rearview and saw a group of youths standing watching over.
‘Rosie’s the one in the white,’ the youth explained. ‘She’ll suck you off, if you buy us two bottles of Mad Dog from the offie down the road.’
‘I have to go, lads. Take her handy,’ Tony said, starting the engine and winding up the window.
‘One bottle then,’ the youth called in negotiation.
They stepped back as Tony made to drive off. ‘Wanker,’ he heard them shout in his wake.
He rounded the corner of the estate, cursing as he saw that the cop’s car was sitting in the driveway; he’d been so preoccupied with the two boys, he’d missed his return. As he drew near the house, he fleetingly saw a figure go the front door, the floral-patterned wallpaper visible as a light switched on. The man must already have gone inside, leaving the door open, perhaps so as to come back out for the rest of the groceries, Tony reasoned.
He was surprised then when he saw the driver’s side of the car open and the sparrow-like man step out and open the rear passenger side. Someone else must have been in the car with him, he thought. Someone had opened the front door.
As he drew level, he saw the man straighten as he lifted bags of shopping from the rear seats along with something else. An old rag doll.
He was passed before it really registered, but had the presence of mind to glance into the open doorway where he saw the retreating figure of a child, small and thin, turn and enter one of the rooms off the hall.
He made it as far as the lay-by on the main road before he had to stop. His heart was thudding in his chest, his breaths short and quick, his head dizzy.
A doll. A child. There was a child in the house. And if Duggan followed through with his plan, planted a bomb in the man’s car, there was no guarantee that the child would not be as likely a victim as the man.
Added to that, he’d been seen by the two boys: they’d recognised him as a Northerner; he’d told them he lived in Derry; they’d seen his face; they’d seen his car, albeit with the plates changed, as Duggan had insisted.
‘I don’t think I can do this,’ he admitted to himself.
Chapter Thirty-Two
‘I don’t think I can do this,’ Tony said.
‘We’re nearly there,’ Karen said.
‘We’ve not even reached the woods yet,’ Tony protested. ‘And he’s working to God knows what agenda of his own,’ he added, pointing over to the retreating figure of Duggan. Barr had returned to the car, humiliated at having been forced into calling his uncle.
‘We know why he’s doing it; he’s been very clear about it.’ She waited a beat, then added, ‘Regardless, it’s the right thing to do. We’ll find whereabouts it was, tell Mullan, and go home. You’ll never see any of us again.’
Tony looked up at her, a little mournfully, and she must have recognised his sadness, for she laid her hand on his arm. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘I often wondered where you’d ended up,’ Tony said, prompted by the tenderness of her touch.
She smiled lightly, briefly. ‘I’m sure you’d plenty of other things to keep you busy.’
‘I still thought of you. After all that had happened. I hoped you were happy.’
‘I was,’ she said, gently. ‘I am.’
‘I should have just walked away, thirty years ago,’ Tony said. ‘When I saw him with the doll, I wanted to. I went to
Duggan, but it was too far gone.’
‘I wish you had. That night after you and Kelly fought.’
‘We didn’t fight. I hit him,’ Tony said, with mock offence.
‘I recall it a little differently,’ Karen laughed. ‘You weren’t a scrapper, even then. But when Duggan called the meeting for you two to make up and he gave you a choice, I wanted you to walk away.’
‘You should have said.’
‘I did.’
‘You didn’t. You were playing with a beer mat. I looked to you, hoping you’d tell me to leave it, but you didn’t.’
‘I asked you to walk away. You said no.’
I don’t…’ Tony started, then stopped. In his head, the scene played out again, differently now. Duggan had put the question to him. He’d straightened up, glanced at Karen. She was looking at him, nodding lightly. ‘Please,’ formed on her lips.
‘I’m not out,’ he said, finally.
Karen sat up, tearing the final strips of card from the beer mat and dropping them to the table in frustration.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, now. ‘I thought you hadn’t.’ He was still confused, unsure which version of the past was the right one. If either of them were.
‘We saw it through then,’ Karen said. ‘For good or bad. We have to do so now.’
‘I don’t want to see Mullan again,’ Tony said.
‘He’s hardly going to do anything,’ Karen said, misunderstanding his comment.
‘He sickens me,’ Tony said, realising in that moment that he had become his own father. He understood now the man’s revulsion when Mullan had laid his hand on his by Danny’s grave. Understood too why his father had sent him away, to this place, thirty years ago. And yet, through Tony’s own fault, he had blindly walked into an event that had blighted his life since. And knowing that brought him no comfort, no profit gained from his wisdom. Shauna Laird came to his mind, sitting in class, hand held high. And again, in Betty’s, getting off her knees while Martin Kelly exposed her shame. And again, the last time he saw her, on the morning of her funeral, before the lid was screwed down on the coffin.
For a moment, he felt that the past had overlaid on the present, as if the girl’s death had only just happened. Perhaps it was being back here again, perhaps it was being with Karen again, the touch of her hand, the calmness in her voice, the light in her eyes as she smiled at him.
‘Are you OK?’
‘She was just a child,’ he said.
Chapter Thirty-Three
‘He has a child,’ Tony said.
He was standing in Duggan’s flat, his first visit. He’d called the man from a phone box once he’d made it back. Duggan had not wanted to talk on the phone, had cut him short and told him to come directly to him instead.
‘A child,’ Tony repeated, a little incredulous that Duggan showed so little reaction to the news. Then it dawned on him.
‘Did you already know?’
Duggan nodded. ‘Of course. We’ve been keeping an eye on him, sure. He goes out with her every morning.’
‘And you’re still going ahead with it?’
Duggan nodded again. He’d not invited Tony to sit, had met him at the door and allowed him no further than the entrance to his living room. Behind Duggan’s head, Tony could see a single shelf, mounted on the wall, with a scattering of political books. On the wall above, a family coat of arms, a blue shield embossed with nine golden stars, and at the centre of which curved what looked like a crescent moon, sickle-shaped. A TV set jabbered somewhere out of sight.
‘We can’t.’
‘You need to hold it together,’ Duggan said, his jaw clenched. ‘This pussying about, one minute you’re in the next you’re not; you need to suck it up and settle your head.’
‘I can’t agree with killing a child.’
‘Who said we were going to kill her?’
Her again. Tony winced each time he said it, as if assigning the child a gender made her more real, their plan more violent.
‘Bombs aren’t an exact fucking science, Hugh!’
‘Keep your voice down and pull yourself together. It’ll happen when the kid’s not there, if we can manage it.’
‘I think we should stop.’
‘Do you? You think we should all be held hostage to the whims of your conscience.’
‘This is wrong.’
‘So was blinding a kid. Shot her in the face with a plastic bullet. Why is his child more important than that one?’
‘That’s not what I’m saying?’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I can’t… It’s not right. She’s just a kid.’
Tony realised how weak his argument sounded, but could not articulate his thoughts and feelings. He realised that it was his fault that only now was the extent of what they were planning really registering with him. But he could not admit that he’d been involved so far without giving any thought to what the final consequences might be.
Duggan seemed to sense he was struggling to explain himself. ‘Look,’ he said, his tone reasoned. ‘I understand your concerns. I do. And we’ll try to make sure she’s not anywhere near it.’
It. Tony felt his breath catch, his chest tighten, the room seemingly growing smaller around he where he stood. He felt trapped.
‘We’ll try,’ Duggan repeated. ‘But if she gets caught up in it by accident, that’s just collateral damage. It’s an unfortunate side effect of war. Just like your Danny didn’t ask to be run over like a dog on his way home from the game.’
Tony slumped against the wall. ‘You need to count me out.’
‘You’re out, everyone’s out,’ Duggan said. ‘You know that. And you’ll have to answer for it.’
‘I don’t want to be involved any more, Hugh.’
‘You’re already involved. You gave me the mercury for that attack a while back. That was you as much as me.’
‘But that was different.’
‘How?’
‘He deserved it, did he not?’
‘Why? You don’t know whether he deserved it. You’d not seen him, didn’t know him. Maybe he had kids.’
‘Did he?’
‘Would it matter?’
‘Did he?’ Tony repeated.
‘You’re already involved,’ Duggan said. ‘You need to hold your nerve and see this through. It’ll be over by the weekend. Then, you can go on your merry way. But we’ve trusted you up until now. That’s how this works. You walk, we all have to walk. And a lot of people are going to be very unhappy about that.’
Tony felt he was going to be sick. He stood, shaking the jittering from his legs.
‘Promise you’ll not hurt the kid.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ Duggan agreed. ‘That’s all I can promise.’
Tony nodded, his mouth dry, his guts writhing.
As Duggan motioned to open the door he added, ‘Of course, don’t be having any stupid ideas. Your folks have lost one son already; they’ll not want to lose a second.’
Tony looked at him, shocked by the baldness of the threat.
‘You know what happens to people who talk. That’s not a threat; just a reminder.’
‘I won’t talk,’ Tony said, sullenly.
‘I know you won’t. Good man. I thought you were meant to meet your lassie somewhere.’
Tony tried to order his thoughts a little. He looked at his watch and realised he was already over two hours late.
‘I, ah… yeah, I have to meet her.’
‘She doesn’t strike me as the type will take kindly to being stood up. You don’t want to keep that one waiting too long.’
The party was being held in a student house in Thornwood, near the primary school where Tony had subbed for a few weeks when he’d first come across. It was already 11.15pm by the time he arrived, and he wondered whether Karen would indeed have waited for him or not. He’d no intention of staying, but desperately needed to talk to her. He felt sure she would understand how he felt, would agree with hi
m in his suggestion that they call the whole thing off. If both of them pulled out, Duggan would have to respect their wishes, he reasoned. He couldn’t punish them both.
The place was thrumming, alive with music and movement and heat. The living room was filled with sound, people crammed together, moving as one to the beat from the small sound system set up in one corner. He knew instinctively that Karen wouldn’t be there and moved on down the hallway. A smaller room, to the rear of the house, was in semi-darkness, a lava lamp providing the only illumination, the colours on the faces of those assembled in the room, gathered around a small coffee table on which lay a collection of torn-up cigarettes and Rizla papers changing through the haze of hash smoke as the waxy blob in the lamp lazily rose and fell and rose once more. He scanned the faces, though again was fairly sure that Karen wouldn’t be sitting with the druggies.
Finally, he moved through to the kitchen. Someone was playing a guitar on the back step and a handful of older guests had gathered here, where the beer was kept in cooler boxes, resting on a half inch of watery ice. Just as he turned to leave, assuming Karen had done so herself, Martin Kelly wandered into the kitchen, clearly having come from the small rear room.
‘All right?’ he asked, flashing Tony a smile. ‘You made it.’
The Last Crossing Page 15
