The woman stared at McGinty, as did the butcher who died with her. Slowly they raised their hands, forming them into pistols. The woman turned to look at Fegan, her soft smiling lips like a knife wound.
She nodded.
Fegan shook his head, his mouth open.
She nodded again. Fegan wanted to turn and run. He closed his eyes and tried to force the followers back to the edge of his consciousness. Lightning arcs flashed between his temples. He gritted his teeth and pushed, but the shadows resisted. Air escaped his lungs in a slow hiss of defeat. He opened his eyes, resigned to the followers’ presence.
But they had more to tell him.
Father Coulter approached.
The three Brits watched him move among the crowd, shaking hands with the mourners. The priest was a squat barrel of a man, with thick grey-black hair. From Sligo originally, Fegan thought. The Brits’ arms stretched and aimed at Father Coulter. But why would they possibly want him?
Then, one memory finding another, Fegan knew. As the sun seared the back of his neck, he closed his eyes and remembered.
The family, three girls and their parents, squealed in unison when the blast rattled their windows. They were safely tied to one another upstairs, well away from any glass that might shatter. Fegan and Coyle had made sure of that. As the rumble faded, rolling off across the rooftops, a silence fell. Then moaning came from the street outside. Moaning grew to crying, and crying grew to screaming.
Fegan peered out through the crack in the door. He looked at Coyle. “You didn’t get them all.”
“Fuck,” Coyle said. “What do we do?”
“You tell me. You planted it, you triggered it.”
“Do we go and finish them?” Coyle’s voice edged on panic.
Fegan took the pistol from his pocket and held it out butt first.
“Fuck, no!” Coyle said. “I can’t do that. You do it.”
“Christ,” Fegan said. “You’re grand when you’re fifty feet away, but you don’t like getting close.”
“I did my bit.”
“Not too well.” Fegan nodded to the door. “Listen to them.”
“They must’ve split up. How am I supposed to know they’d split up?”
“They do three-and-threes all the time. You should’ve waited till the first three was past and the other was coming up. You would’ve got all of them.”
“Christ, what do we do?” Coyle pleaded again.
Fegan sighed and pulled the balaclava down over his face, leaving just his eyes and mouth exposed. Coyle did the same and followed Fegan to the street. They walked quickly towards the drifting smoke at the corner. There the remains of a litter bin were scattered across the road and the window of the shop it belonged to was blown inward. Street lights reflected off the glittering fragments of glass and sweet wrappers.
Fegan didn’t pay any attention to them. Instead he looked at the six bodies on the ground. Three of the British soldiers were dead, but three still jerked and shivered. Two of them had even escaped with their limbs intact. They might have been called lucky, had it not been for Fegan. The other survivor had lost most of his right arm - he was the screamer - and shock had now reduced him to quivering silence. It was a small bomb, designed for maximum casualties within a localised area, with minimal wider damage to the surrounding property.
A woman scampered out of the house next to the shop, pointing to her living-room window. “Look what you did! I’ll be hoovering up glass for a month.” She noticed the men on the ground and crossed herself. “Oh, Jesus, them poor boys. God love them.”
Fegan aimed the pistol at her forehead. “Go back inside,” he said. The woman did as she was told without another word. Fegan readied himself to finish the job, but he and Coyle both spun on their heels when they heard the rapid slap-slap of shoe leather from behind them.
“Oh, no,” Father Coulter said as he slowed to a stop, breathless. “Oh, no, no, no. Oh, God.”
“We’re not finished here, Father,” Fegan said. He moved from body to body, kicking the soldiers’ weapons away.
“Let me give them their Last Rites, for God’s sake,” the priest said.
“When we’re finished.”
Father Coulter stepped closer to the nearest three, his eyes widening as he looked from soldier to soldier. “These men are alive,” he said.
“You’d better go, now, Father,” Fegan said. “Come back in a few minutes.”
“No,” Father Coulter said. “These men can be saved. I can’t let them die, no matter who they are.”
“Come on, Father,” Coyle said, ‘you hate the Brits as much as anyone. All those times you took the boys in, hid them, gave them alibis.”
Father Coulter’s mouth opened and closed for a few seconds. “No,” he said, ‘that’s not true.”
Fegan shot Coyle a warning look. He turned back to the priest. “All right, Father, they haven’t seen our faces. We’ll let them live if that’s what you want. But you’ll have to explain why you stopped it when you’re asked.”
Fegan stepped in close to Father Coulter and whispered, “You’ll have to tell McGinty when he comes calling, and believe me, he
