‘I heard it, and I can see smoke, I’ll find it. I have wheels,’ he said, thankfully without bombarding her with more questions. She shouted to him go. Another pause, sounds of Sheen running, his voice strained.
‘Sure it was Fryer?’ he asked. She thought about what Marie had said; the black taxi the man was driving, the fact there had been an explosion, a police officer gunned down, but most of all she saw Ava’s photo on Jim Dempsey’s fridge, and remembered her foreboding and inexplicable rage.
‘Yes, it was him, I don’t know why,’ she said
He said he was her Granda
‘Get that bastard and save my little girl,’ she said. The sharp crack of a gunshot broke her sentence off. She could see a commotion, close to the Orange protest camp. Aoife started to run, phone held in her fist as her arms pumped at her sides. She should be running to save Ava, but she was not, she was running into certain trouble, yet again too late, too slow. She could see Cecil and his men running too, ahead of her. She pulled her gun out, increased her speed. She was scared; more frightened than she had ever been, but it was not the gunfire that terrified her. She wanted to reach it, to find the danger, claim it. Dear God, please take me, if someone has to die, please take me, not her, please not Ava.
Chapter 8.
A shear saw blade of pain sliced its way into Christopher’s mind, extracted him to an awful wakefulness. He swallowed, the saw sliced again, he did not want to open his eyes. He could taste blood. He heard a sound, a wave breaking on the Bangor shore. Followed it as it faded, let himself go under cold water. Then the hiss of the wave changed, he jolted.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTOPHER
Bad Daddy’s voice, this time Christopher opened his eyes and cried out in agony. Oh God, his face, a billion pins of white hot acid traced every contour from left eye to the point of his chin.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTOPHER
Another hiss of approaching sound, but not a wave, it was the sound of a car, moving fast over a dry road. He was in the wheelchair, facing the fence at the entrance of the industrial estate.
‘Daddy?’ said Christopher, his voice a throaty croak.
YOU ALLOWED FRYER TO BESSSSSST YOU BOY.
Christopher’s eyelids fluttered, he frowned, tried to recall, but the pain in his face was cutting and cutting, wanting his entire mind. He closed his eyes to concentrate. John had been behind, pushing and talking to him but he had been talking, too. He strained to remember their final words.
He had asked John who else would know, about the final spectacular. John Fryer had asked him where he had planted the bomb, and he had told him, just before the laughing took him, and just before the world went black. His face continued to broadcast unheard of agony. John had hit him, and left him. He should have listened to Daddy, he told him it was on a need to know basis.
FOOL… YOU FOOOOL.
‘Oh no,’ slurred Christopher. He fumbled past the bulk of the bomb bag on his chest, reached under the flag. The gun was still wedged between the chair and his leg; his mission was still on, but first, he needed to get the bag off his chest. He moved his other hand to reach into his front pocket for the padlock key but his wrist was yanked painfully against the arm of the wheelchair. He looked down; hand cuffs, one loop closed round the frame of the chair, the other tightly latched to his wrist, biting into his flesh, swollen and purple round its steel seam.
The pain in his face was God Almighty; his swollen wrist had not even registered. He recognised the cuffs, they had been Daddy’s, and they had been on the floor of the armoury. His eyes widened, Daddy had come here and cuffed him, as a punishment. In response, Daddy’s voice, hoarse and reproachful spoke.
IT WASSSS FRYER. FRYER GOT THE BESSSSSST OF YOU. YOU FUCKING FOOOL…
Christopher tugged on the cuff again, strained with all he had. The metal bit into him, but did not slip or give; it was tight as a rivet. Christopher kept tugging, twenty times, sharp, merciless movements, but it did not budge. He stopped, panting. His wrist was slick with blood, a ring of fire marked the manacle’s hold but it had not moved, and it would not. He tried to slow his breathing, tears streamed from his eyes, and he was now aware of how disjointed and slack his jaw was, unhinged from his face. This was bad, but he was not laughing, at least, not yet. He breathed, marshalled his dancing thoughts. The bag was core, it needed to come off, then he could leave it near the protest camp, just as he had planned, and if they tried to stop him, he would shoot until he was empty.
He raised himself up and off the seat as far as the hand cuffs would stretch, and reached into his front pocket. Christopher stretched two fingers down into the cavity. He could feel the serrated edge of the key but managed only to push it deeper, out of reach. His legs gave way under the added weight of the bomb bag, and he sat down heavily, his mouth snapped shut. He heard a rasp of bone on bone, followed by a fresh supernova of pain from his jaw. Christopher screamed, his vision greyed, but as his chin touched the bag he jolted his head upright again. He raised himself on rubber legs and drove his fingers back inside his pocket. Bloody saliva dripped from the corner of his lolling mouth unchecked. He pinched the key between two fingers, and fished it out, his breath coming in dry pants, like a sick dog. Now he needed to reach the padlock and open it.
He carefully placed the key between his lips on the right side, emitted a high moan as he closed his mouth. He worked his right arm out of the jacket sleeve, until his elbow jammed against the upper arm, no place left to go. Christopher closed his eyes and rolled his right shoulder in a violent shrug, screaming through his pursed lips as the movement rocked his head and shook his crushed jawbone. His elbow stayed stuck. He rolled again, shifted in the seat and his right shoulder popped free. He gave a yelp of triumph, pulled his right arm completely out, threw the jacket off the left side of the wheel chair, giving him access to his back.
Christopher took the key from between his lips, and stretched his arm back, like a man searching for an itch. He had planned to do this standing up, but the extra slack he’d built in gave him enough to play with. The tip of the key scratched the base of the padlock, still too high. He shuffled down in his seat as far as the cuff would permit and then leaned back until he felt the thick padlock press between his upper shoulders, pinned against the back of the seat. He pushed up slowly, pressing the lock in place and then it slid down, an inch at most, but all he needed.
He reached round, felt the nose of the key circle the base of the lock, ignored the pain, did not breathe. The key snagged and he pushed his right hand up, felt it slot home, righteous and true. Christopher turned it and the straps loosened as the bag fell from his chest. He sang out in triumph, pulled the sleeve of his jacket off his left arm and then took the strap off his right shoulder, the weight fell away. He moved the strap down his left arm, and then he stopped, staring at his wrist. The jacket, and the strap of the bag were bunched and waiting to move off his arm, but there was still the cuff, locked securely to the steel arm of the chair. He took the nylon strap in his free hand and ran his fingers along its length. It was triple stitched to the body of the bag; no amount of tugging would stretch or tear it easily. He lowered his mouth, ready to chew through it but froze as a bolt of pain squealed from his jaw. He should have brought a blade, but he had not, so now he needed to find one, or a shard of broken glass. It was Belfast on the 12th of July, there would soon be broken bottles on the street.
Now the laughter came, furious and unbridled and Christopher sobbed in agony through the giggles as his jaw grated and rasped in his head.
CHRISSSSTOPHER… CHRISSSTOPHER, I KNEW THIS WASSSSH TOO MUCH FOR YOU. YOU WASTER, HE GOT THE BESSST OF YOU, YOU LOSE, WE LOOOOSEE.
Bad Daddy’s voice plugged his laughter.
‘No, no, don’t say that, we have time, we have time,’ he replied. Christopher checked his watch. It was almost twelve. The fire bomb at the Culturlann was set to go off any minute; John Fryer was probably too late, the timers, they were so old. Christopher’s nascent smile droppe
d. He stared down at the bag on his lap. Same bomb, same timers. He needed to move quickly.
He stood up, let the Union flag fall, lifted the gun from the seat, and started to walk up the entrance ramp backwards, still attached to the chair. Despite the blooming pain the giggles returned but so did Bad Daddy’s voice. He cursed him, damned the day he was born, told him Hell was waiting. Christopher emerged on the Crumlin Road, heard the beat of drums and the tweet of flutes from the protest camp. Thoughts of cutting off the bag had gone, likewise his giggles. His plan to steal the stash of treasure from the Black Mountain was now just a dream within a dream. There was only Bad Daddy’s voice, repeating a new mantra.
KILL THEM ALL, KILL THEM ALL KILL THEM ALL…
Christopher sat down and started to wheel himself along. The bomb bag rested on his left knee, partly shrouded by his jacket, and he turned the wheels with his one free hand.
Soon he saw the flag draped entrance of the protest camp on the other side of a roundabout. The music came from speakers. A small crowd stood there, Orange sashes, Rangers football tops. Two women, one wearing a red white and blue plastic bowler hat, left the group and walked across the road towards an ice cream van, parked on the kerb. Christopher headed for the van, a horn blasted, and a second later a car screeched to a stop, its hot grill inches from his broken face. The driver shouted something, but Christopher did not hear it. All he heard was Bad Daddy in his head, repeating his final order, and his final furious insult.
KILL THEM ALL CHRISSSSTOPHER, YOU USELESSS BASSSSTARD, KILL THEM ALL, YOU USELESSS BASSSTARD, KILL THEM ALL…
Christopher kept on trucking, reached the business end of the ice cream van, where the two women now stood with their backs to him. Men moved in his direction, coming from the protest camp, their eyes on him. Christopher reached under his leg, got the gun. He was now within spitting distance of the two women. The one wearing the plastic bowler hat turned and looked at him. Her mouth dropped open, eyes on the gun. She started to shake her head, back away. She glanced at Christopher’s face and her expression moved from shock to horror.
‘No, no,’ she said, colliding with the other woman holding their treats. Both went sprawling, ice cream in the air, and at that second, the group of men rounded the corner of the van, and stopped as one, looked first at the women on the ground, then at Christopher.
KILL THEM ALL CHRISSSSTOPHER, YOU USELESSS BASSSSTARD, KILL THEM ALL
‘Shut up Daddy!’ he shouted, raised the gun at the woman with the hat, now sat upright on the pavement, her face smeared with ice cream. Christopher pulled the trigger, and before he had time to register the recoil, he saw the back of her head explode and hit the side of the ice cream van, a grey and red splash. She unfolded from the waist and hit the ground. There was a moment of silence, all eyes on the woman. This time Bad Daddy did not break it. Christopher raised the gun once more, took aim, and stated to laugh.
Chapter 9.
‘Aoife, Aoife!’ Sheen shouted her name against the buffering wind coming at him across the open expanse of Milltown Cemetery. Sounds of commotion, the scratch and rustle of a phone being roughly handled, then the line went dead. He had heard something else before she had broken off; a gunshot. He marched in long strides through the marshy ground to where Gerard was still parked, his head half submerged in the bonnet of his taxi as though having engine trouble. Sheen whistled sharply, Gerard slammed closed the car’s bonnet and got in. By the time Sheen opened the passenger door, his shoes and socks damp with water, the engine was running. No time for explanations, Sheen pointed once to the billowing tower of dark smoke which was churning up from the near horizon.
‘Culturlann, Falls Road, drive,’ he said. It was all that was needed, Gerard hit the accelerator, and Sheen was pushed back into his seat as the powerful car tore away, raising long bleats from other drivers. In less than five seconds they were doing over ninety, the cemetery disappeared on Sheen’s left as Gerard weaved the car in precise embroidery through traffic. He slowed only to take the roundabout at the bottom of the Donegal Road, and then only a little; he took it at over seventy. He guided the car through a slip road at the same speed, took an impossibly sharp left, the tyres yelping in protest. The car held its course, as though on tracks. They were on Broadway, a road feeding into the Falls, and Sheen, who had temporarily lost sight of the tower of smoke now saw it again, looming to his left.
The facts came into his mind in staccato instruction form, like telegraph messages in a war room. The smoke was coming from the Culturlann, the place where Aoife said John Fryer had been. He had taken her little girl Ava, and Sheen had to find her, find them both. Gerard slowed as they approached the junction with the Falls Road, broke a red light and turned the corner.
Sheen was out and running, made it fifteen metres, then halted. A building that looked like a sandstone church was engulfed in flames, the fire howling out of its gothic shaped side windows. The open front entrance was the gateway to Hell itself. He could feel the heat from this distance, hot enough to bake the skin on his face. The way the flames were burning was super intense, as though being fed by a flame thrower within the walls of the building. He moved his eyes to the far side of the Falls Road where a crowd of bystanders was watching the fire burn, more children than adults. Some of the youngsters were crying and being comforted, most were staring blankly at the raging inferno, shock etched on their faces.
Sheen switched his attention to a small huddle of people crouching at the kerbside on the far side of the burning building, a uniformed police officer with them. Sheen moved forward, feeling the heat start to singe his eye lashes, scorch the fabric of his clothes. He raised his arm to shield his face and sprinted the twenty or so metres up the white line, feeling his exposed hand roast as though he had plunged it into an oven. From within the furnace he heard a dull explosion, followed by a scream from the children to his right. He reached the other side, felt the welcome cool of the wind rushing the heat away from his head and shoulders. He nudged his way through the huddle of people, and saw a second uniformed PSNI officer was slouched against the kerb, blood his only pillow.
The man was dead. His blank eyes stared into infinity from a soft ghost face; a red bib covered his upper body from a wound in the middle of his throat. In the distance, Sheen could hear sirens approach. The man’s colleague stood up and brushed past Sheen without looking at him. A second later, Sheen heard him shout into his radio, reiterating the need for assistance. Sheen’s ears sharpened.
‘Suspect escaped in a black taxi. I exchanged fire, he was hit,’ he said. Fryer had been shot. Sheen needed to find him, before it was too late. A young man, ginger hair, shaved close to his head, knelt down and put his face close to the police officer’s half open mouth.
‘This guy’s dead. He fucking killed him,’ he said, his freckled face pale and drawn.
‘Were did he go?’ asked Sheen.
‘He just drove off up the road,’ he said. A woman spoke, to Sheen’s right.
‘Someone said he took a wee girl with him,’ she said. The sirens were closer now. No time to stand and stare. Sheen crouched down, unclipped the dead officer’s service revolver from the extendable coil which secured it to the holster. The gun was heavy and snug, but alien in his grip. As he did so, the people shrunk away from him as one, minnows in a fish tank. The other officer had his back to the group. Sheen turned, waved to Gerard and the car pounced forwards, seconds later stopped beside him. Now the uniformed officer turned, alarm on his face, he spotted the gun. No time, Sheen got in.
‘Drive, we’re following a black taxi,’ said Sheen, and Gerard nodded, already propelling them away. Sheen’s hands were slick with sweat, his mouth paper dry. He moved the gun from one hand to the other gingerly, wiping them on his trouser legs, eyes frantically scanning the road ahead. From the back of his mind, a voice told him that this was lunacy, that he had just fled a murder scene, stolen a gun. He was putting the child at risk, because this was not really about saving Ava,
this was about catching John Fryer. He slammed door after door in his brain, until the voice was gone. He held the gun, concentrated on the dimpled grip in his paw, still searching, looking for anything that would show him the way, and then he saw it.
‘There!’ he said, pointing with his free hand. There was blue, oily smoke, filling the road, from something further up. Their progress had slowed to just over the legal thirty mph limit; traffic was stacked up ahead. Gerard moved to pass a people carrier with black tinted windows that was next in line, but quickly swerved back into his own lane, almost colliding with a bus in the opposite lane.
‘Sorry,’ he said softly. He tried again, managed it this time, passed the people carrier, a white van and small red Hyundai car in a single smooth acceleration. He tucked the big saloon back into the line of traffic, a cacophony of horns in their wake. Sheen opened his window, tasted the filthy smoke. He leaned out, straining to see, but it was no good, there was a fully stacked skip lorry, two spaces ahead. A sudden burning of red tail lights and the skip lorry ground to a stop, its load rocking, chains clanking heavily. Then he saw it, the source of the smoke. A black taxi, old style, swerved into the lane of oncoming traffic, which screeched to a stop, or swerved off the road to avoid being hit.
‘Go!’ shouted Sheen. Gerard followed the taxi, first on the wrong side of the road, then across the small hillock of a mini-roundabout before turning a hard right, up the steep hill which it was now climbing.
‘Where are we?’ said Sheen.
‘Whiterock Road,’ said Gerard. The taxi, for all its smoking signs of ill health, was tearing up the hill ahead of them, making good progress, getting away. Gerard rammed the saloon into a lower gear and the engine growled, and kicked into life, pushing Sheen back in his seat.
Blood Will Be Born Page 30
