The Traveller and Other Stories

by Stuart Neville

  “Then tell me what you do know,” Lennon said.

  “Fair enough,” Montgomery said. He pointed to the kettle on the countertop. “Mind if I make a cup of tea?”

  Lennon waved at him to help himself. Montgomery got to his feet and set about filling the kettle. As he worked, Lennon felt a pang of shame at the state of the place, at the dishes in the sink, at the mess on the worktops. If Montgomery noticed, or cared, he didn’t let on.

  “What I do know, for a start, is he isn’t an Irish traveller, never was. It’s just a persona he adopted years ago. I’d heard of him before your little run in with him, but I’d never seen his handiwork before that. At the time, I was more interested in your friend Gerry Fegan. Where are the mugs?”

  Lennon pointed. “Top cupboard, above the microwave. Fegan wasn’t my friend. I needed his help, that was all.”

  Montgomery took down two mugs, placed a teabag in each from the caddy by the kettle.

  “Gerry was a piece of work. You remember that mess down at the border about ten, twelve years ago? Bunch of republicans wiped each other out on an old farm there.”

  “My daughter got caught up in it along with her mother.”

  “I lost a good operative. Davy Campbell was his name, former Black Watch, I was his handler. I had him planted at a high level, such a valuable asset, then along comes Gerry Fegan and blows it all apart. When Fegan started picking off top republicans, there was a real risk of him destroying all the progress that had been made in Belfast. We couldn’t have that, so I sent Davy Campbell to try and put a stop to it. I didn’t know it would cost Campbell his life. For whatever insane reason, Fegan let Bull O’Kane live. If he hadn’t, it would’ve saved us all a lot of trouble. Then, of course, Bull O’Kane sent our friend the Traveller to clean up the mess. That’s where you entered the picture.”

  He poured steaming water into each of the mugs, then found a teaspoon in a drawer.

  “You take sugar?”

  “No,” Lennon said. “I thought the Traveller had died in the fire along with Fegan. Then I got a Christmas card.”

  “You still have it?” Montgomery asked, putting the milk back in the fridge.

  “In there,” Lennon said, pointing to the bin by the back door.

  Montgomery placed the two mugs on the table then went to the bin. He lifted off the swing lid and fished out a card and an envelope. He studied both for a moment before dropping them back in.

  “Hmm. Eloquent as ever, I see.”

  He came back to the table and sat down.

  “I’ve had one every year since then,” Lennon said, “just to remind me he’s out there.”

  “Sadistic fucker,” Montgomery said.

  “Where’s he been, then?” Lennon asked.

  “All over the place, as far as I can tell. After he escaped from the fire, he next turned up in Brazil. He stayed there for more than a year, getting treatment for the burns, then plastic surgery. I’d just tracked him down to a clinic outside São Paulo when he disappeared again. About six months later, I start to hear whispers, the Traveller, the Traveller, like children in a playground talking about the bogeyman. He’s working again, people are saying, he’s here, he’s there, he’s bloody everywhere. Sure enough, a prosecutor in Istanbul drowns in his own toilet, a journalist in Juárez falls from her apartment balcony, a businessman in Athens gets knifed in a mugging gone wrong.”

  Montgomery waved his open hand in front of his face, miming a mask.

  “Sometimes a man is seen, his face like it was cut from wax, one ear mostly gone. I’ve been chasing him around the planet like a dog chasing its tail. But at last, I might just be a step ahead of him.”

  Lennon slumped in his chair, weary. “Because he’s coming for me.”

  “You remember the Strazdas brothers,” Montgomery said.

  “Of course,” Lennon said.

  “I have a contact in Brussels who happens to know their mother, Laima Strazdienė. He doesn’t quite work for anyone officially, more of a freelancer, but she feeds him information on who comes and goes through her brothels. Lots of EU types, dipping their wicks while they’re in the city on business, that sort of thing. Anyway, turns out she’s got cancer, terminal, and she wants to settle a few scores before she goes.”

  “Like Hewitt,” Lennon said. “Like me.”

  “And a young woman, a Ukrainian.”

  “Galya Petrova,” Lennon said, feeling a chill. “Has he got to her yet?”

  “Not as far as I know, but she’s not my concern. Anyway, Strazdienė’s heard of the Traveller, knows he’s familiar with her targets here, so she puts out feelers. And it looks like she made contact. Consider yourself lucky he went for Hewitt first. I caught the first flight over this morning when I heard.”

  “What, you’re going to save me from him?”

  “If I do, it’ll be incidental,” Montgomery said. “My one and only reason for being here is to get this bastard. You might just happen to be useful to me in doing that.”

  Lennon felt a smile crawl across his lips despite there being nothing to smile about.

  “I’m taking a wild guess here, but you’re planning to use me for bait.”

  “Of course,” Montgomery said, returning the smile, his eyes cold and glassy.

  “One problem with that,” Lennon said. “I have a daughter.”

  “Send her to relatives for a few days,” Montgomery said, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. “The McKenna clan in Belfast. They’ll be glad to have her, I’m sure.”

  “No,” Lennon said. “She stays with me, no matter what. If the Traveller knows she’s somewhere else, that’s where he’ll go. He’ll use her to draw me out. I won’t put her at that risk.”

  “She’s at risk one way or the other.”

  “She stays with me,” Lennon said.

  Before Montgomery could argue, Lennon’s phone chimed and hummed in his pocket. Lennon lifted the pistol from the table and held it in his right hand while he reached for the phone with his left.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Lennon? This is Joyce Boland, vice principal at Ballycastle Grammar. We need you to come in right away. Ellen had a bit of a turn this morning. She seems to have fainted on her way to a class and she was brought to the nurse’s office. The nurse left her for just a few minutes, and when she came back, she was gone. She’s not on the school grounds and we’re very concerned. We’re going to contact the police, but wanted to—”

  “No,” Lennon said. “No police.”

  Montgomery sat up, watching Lennon.

  “Do you think you might know where she’s gone?” the vice principal asked.

  “I might,” Lennon lied. “I’m coming over now.”

  He hung up, stashed the phone away, and said to Montgomery, “I need to go. So do you.”

  Montgomery pointed to the pistol. “I assume you’re all legal with that.”

  “I told you to go,” Lennon said.

  10

  Ellen cursed herself as she sat on the wall at the Marine Corner bus stop, feeling the drizzle soak through her blazer, making her shirt cling to the skin of her back. The last bus to Cushendun had been the 10:55 and there wouldn’t be another for nearly an hour. There was a coffee shop across the road, in the hotel, but she didn’t have enough money for a coffee and a bus ticket. She could trudge back to school, take whatever punishment was waiting for her, but her pride said no. Perhaps she could have called her father, but then she’d have to explain why she walked out in the first place. Thinking about it now, she wasn’t sure what reason she would give.

  She had come to on the corridor floor, a circle of wide-eyed faces around her, Miss Tunnock, the French teacher, kneeling beside her, asking what happened, was she okay? She felt the coarseness of her throat and knew she must have screamed. They all stared, boys and girls both, a
ll ages, all gawping at her lying in a heap on the floor. She wanted to dig down below the vinyl tiles, bury herself there, hide from them.

  Freak, Freak, Freak, she heard, Freak.

  Miss Tunnock hissed at them to shut up. Another teacher appeared and helped her to her feet. Together they brought her downstairs and across to the office block to deposit her in the nurse’s room. The nurse gave her water and insisted that she lie down.

  Ellen listened as they fussed outside the door, whispering loud as thunder about what had happened, how Miss Tunnock had heard the screaming and come running. How all the kids had gathered around. How the girl writhed, wild-eyed, on the floor. Eventually, the nurse came back in, asked how she was feeling.

  “I’m okay,” Ellen said. “Can I go home?”

  “Is there anyone there?”

  “My dad,” Ellen said. “He works nights.”

  “We’ll have to call him and see. I’d like you to go to A&E, though.”

  “I don’t need to.”

  The nurse put her hand on Ellen’s, leaned in close.

  “You had a nasty turn. I really think you should go to hospital, just to be safe.”

  “I just want to go home.”

  “Let me talk to your dad about that.”

  The nurse came closer still, so close Ellen could smell faded perfume and antiseptic hand wash. The odour sickened her.

  “Is everything okay at home?” the nurse asked. “Is there anything you want to tell me about?”

  “I just want to go,” Ellen said.

  The nurse straightened and said, “All right. I’ll talk to the principal. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Alone again, Ellen stared at the ceiling tiles, the fluorescent lights, the green lingering they left behind her eyelids. She thought of the thin man, Gerry, the blood and the fire. She thought of the warning, and she knew she needed to be home. A few seconds of hesitation, and she swung her legs off the bed, grabbed her bag, and went to the door.

  No one saw her leave, no one stopped her at the exit, or at the gate. No one paid her any attention as she walked through the drizzle, nearly fifteen minutes to the bus stop by the marina. It should have been a pleasant place to pass the time, overlooking the sea, watching the boats rise and fall at their moorings. Instead, the drizzle mixed with the wind and the sea spray to make cold needles. She turned up her collar, hunched over, folding in on herself.

  “Rotten, isn’t it?”

  The voice stabbed at her, sent her nerves jangling. She turned her head to see the man sitting on the wall, five feet away. How long had he been there? She didn’t answer him, returned her attention to the ground.

  “Do you know when the next bus is?” the man asked.

  His accent was not local. Southern, maybe Cork. Not Dublin, anyway. And it was familiar, stirring something deep in her memory. She thought of that voice in a quiet room, far away from here. Him surrounded by others he could not see. She tried to banish the memory, fearful of where that trail would lead, but she could not. It lingered in her mind like a bitterness on her tongue.

  Ellen nodded to the rectangular notice affixed to the lamp post nearby.

  “The times are on there,” she said.

  She reached into her blazer pocket for her earbuds. Pressed them in. Played whatever she’d listened to last, though she barely registered what it was. So long as it blocked his voice.

  The man got up from the wall, passed her on his way to the lamp post. He peered at the timetable, almost pressing his nose against it. After a while, he turned back to her, said something. She looked away again, pretended not to notice. He came closer, waved a gloved hand where she couldn’t avoid seeing it. She removed one earbud and looked up at him.

  Her gaze lingered for longer than it should have. On his skin, the way it appeared too glossy, like a mask. Like it wasn’t his skin at all, but someone else’s. Impossible to tell his age. He wore a canvas jacket over a hoodie, the hood pulled up. But she could see the patches of glossy pink scalp cutting through his hairline.

  “I’m a bit embarrassed, like,” he said, the vowels long, the consonants blunt, “but I can’t read. Any chance you could look at the times for me?”

  Ellen felt her heart quicken, her breathing deepen. Her limbs crackled with energy seeking an outlet.

  Just a man, she told herself.

  She stood and went to the lamp post, eye level with the timetable. “Where did you want to go?” she asked, failing to keep the tremble from her voice.

  “Derry,” he said, close behind her.

  She didn’t turn her head to look at him. “There’s no bus to Derry from here,” she said. “You’d have to go to Coleraine, I think, and—”

  “Where are you going?” he asked, closer still.

  “Home,” she said.

  “And where’s that?”

  “Not far,” she said, navigating her words with care. “My dad’s there. He’s a policeman.”

  “Is that right?” he said. “He knows you’re out of school, does he?”

  “He’s coming to pick me up,” Ellen said, turning enough to note the man’s proximity, too close. She caught the scent of him, a stale and dark odour, then it was carried away by the wind and drizzle. “He’ll be here any minute.”

  “That’s handy. If he doesn’t turn up, sure, I could give you a lift. My car’s just up there a bit.”

  Ellen looked back to the timetable on the lamp post, dotted with rain drops. “Then why do you need—”

  “Tell you what,” he said, his voice lowering, “no sense messing about. Why don’t you just come on with me now? Save everyone the trouble.”

  “No, I’ll wait for my—”

  His hand gripped her upper arm, hard, fingers digging into her flesh.

  “Sure, just come on to the car. It’s only up here a bit. No sense making a fuss about it.”

  She tried to pull her arm away, but his grip tightened.

  “Come on, now. No call for this to go bad. It’s your auld fella I want, not you.”

  Ellen became still, staring straight ahead.

  “Good girl, nice and easy, now just—”

  In one movement, she drove her heel into his knee, dragged it down his shin, and forced as much of her weight as she could into the top of his foot. He grunted, hissed through his teeth, and his grip loosened enough for her pull her arm away. Ellen felt her sleeve tighten around her arm as he kept hold of the blazer, but she slipped free of it, left him the blazer hanging between them like the rope in a tug of war. She twisted her body away, pulling the sleeve from his grasp, and stepped into the road, not pausing to look for traffic. The coffee shop was only feet away, full of people and safety.

  A car’s tyres sputtered on the tarmac somewhere behind her, and she heard a dull thud followed by a wheezing grunt. She ran, her eyes fixed on the door to the coffee shop. An electronic chime sounded as she entered. Customers and staff went to the window to see the hooded man sprawling on the road, the driver running from the car, kneeling beside him.

  Ellen went to the back of the shop, as far into the corner as she could press herself. Between the other onlookers, she saw the man get to his feet, shoving the driver away. He went to the wall where she had sat only a few minutes before and lifted her schoolbag, turned to look in her direction, then ran.

  She reached into her pocket for her phone, pulled the earbud plug out, and went to dial the most recent number. Before she could, the phone vibrated in her hand. She thumbed the green icon.

  “Dad, please, come and get me, please be quick.”

  11

  Lennon slammed his foot onto the brake pedal, and the car shuddered to a halt. He pulled the key from the ignition, climbed out, and ran to the coffee shop, leaving his car in the road. Inside the shop, he found Ellen at a table, a waitress and a suited man attending to
her.

  “Dad,” she said.

  He went to her and gathered her in his arms. The first time in years they had embraced.

  “I wanted to call the police,” the suited man said, “but she refused.”

  “I am the police,” Lennon said, and he knew they didn’t believe him.

  He brought Ellen outside, guided her to the car, helped her into the passenger seat. As he climbed into the driver’s side, he saw the tremors that had seized her.

  “I should’ve run,” she said. “I knew who he was straight away, but I just sat there.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Lennon said, turning the key in the ignition. “It’s nearly ten years since you last saw him.”

  “But I remember him,” Ellen said, her voice quivering. “I remember him at the hospital. In the prayer room. I can see him there. I can hear his voice. And the Others all around him. All the people he’d . . .”

  Lennon knew what she wanted to say. The people he’d killed. Shadows that haunted the Traveller and men like him, whether they knew it or not. She didn’t want to believe it. Neither did he.

  “He’s gone now,” he said. “You’re safe.”

  As he pulled away, in his peripheral vision, he saw her shaking hands come to her face. A desperate whine sounded from her as she suppressed tears. He felt something split at his centre, something broken that would never be whole again. The knowledge that he could give her no comfort gnawed at him.

  “Let’s go home,” he said.

  “Who’s that?” Ellen asked as Lennon pulled into the driveway.

  Montgomery sat on the doorstep, waiting.

  “No one,” Lennon said, shutting off the engine.

  They each climbed out of the car. Ellen held back as Lennon approached Montgomery.

  “What now?” Lennon asked.

  Montgomery got to his feet. “I wanted to continue our conversation.”

  “I don’t,” Lennon said.

  “You look rattled,” Montgomery said. “What happened?”