The Ghosts of Belfast (The Twelve)

He craned his neck, trying to see Fegan. Fegan jabbed the gun’s muzzle against the back of his head until he looked straight ahead. Ahead to where the followers waited. Except the boy. He still stared through the driver’s window.

McKenna laughed. “Not you, though. You were never scared. Not of anybody. You stood your ground. You waited till you saw the whites of their eyes before you chucked yours. Remember, you hit one of them in the face. Their heads were poking out the top of the Land Rover and the brick hit him right in the nose. Blood pissing everywhere.”

“Enough,” Fegan said. Memory cursed him.

“And then they chased us up the Falls. Jesus, do you remember? You and me laughing, and wee Patsy screaming for his ma.”

Fegan pressed the gun harder against McKenna’s skull. “I said enough.”

“And they got us in Brighton Street. Christ, they kicked the fuck out of us, didn’t they? Oh, that was a beating. And do you remember . . .” McKenna’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Do you remember they got hold of wee Patsy, and he pissed himself all over one of them?”

A smile found Fegan’s lips and he wiped it off with his free hand. “They broke his arm for that.”

“That’s right,” McKenna said, the laughter dying in his throat. “And we joined up the next day. Broke your ma’s heart, that, didn’t it?”

“That’s enough.” Fegan’s eyes burned.

McKenna’s voice turned to a snarl. “It was me got you in, Gerry. Me. I got you in with McGinty and the rest. They’d have never taken you without me. Don’t you forget that. You’d have been nothing without me, just another Catholic boy on the dole.”

“That’s right,” Fegan said. “I’d have been nothing. I’d have done nothing. And those people would be alive. That boy would be alive. He’d have a wife, children, a home, all of that. We took that away from him. You and me.”

McKenna’s voice boomed inside the car. “He was a fucking tout. He squealed to the cops. He was dead the second he opened his mouth.”

A stillness settled in Fegan. “That’s enough,” he said.

“Gerry, think about what you’re doing. The boys won’t let it go, ceasefire or not. Stormont or not. They’ll come after you.”

A tear traced a warm line down Fegan’s cheek and he tasted salt. “Jesus, I promised myself I’d never do this again.”

“Then don’t, Gerry. Listen, it’s not too late. You’re drunk and you’re depressed, I know. You’re not at yourself. There won’t be any trouble if you stop now.”

Fegan shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Thirty years, Gerry. We’ve known each other thirty—”

The Walther barked once, throwing red and grey against the windscreen. McKenna slumped forward onto the steering wheel, and the Merc’s horn screamed at the night. Fegan reached forward, pulled him back against the seat, and silence swallowed them.

He climbed out of the car and used his handkerchief to open the driver’s door. In the scant light from across the water he saw McKenna’s dull eyes staring up at him, his designer glasses cracked and hanging off one ear. Fegan put another bullet in his heart, just to be sure. The pistol’s hoarse shout rippled across the Lagan towards the glittering buildings.

Fegan wiped the wet heat from his eyes and looked around him. The followers emerged from the dark places and jostled for position around the open door, glancing from Fegan to the body, from the body to Fegan. He studied each of them in turn, his eyes moving from one to the next. He counted them as they retreated to the shadows.

The boy wasn’t among them.

One down.

Eleven to go.

ELEVEN

3

“That’s him,” McSorley said, pointing to a blurred image on a stained sheet of paper. It showed an elderly man unlocking the door of a post office.

Davy Campbell turned the page on the tabletop to get a better look.

Soft target, he thought. Typical.

McSorley slurped at his beer and wiped his mouth clean. His denims were at least fifteen years too young for him. Hughes and Comiskey lounged on the other side of the booth. The drink had already reddened their eyes, and it was only lunchtime.

McSorley addressed them. “You two hold on to his wife, and me and Davy will take care of him.”

Campbell looked out the window to the sun-baked car park, the two rusted vehicles sitting there, and the mountains beyond. No traffic moved along the road on the outskirts of Dundalk. The diversions for the new motorway’s construction had whittled down business at the Player’s Inn to the extent that Eugene McSorley could talk aloud about his plans without fear of eavesdroppers. In a few months four lanes would carry traffic from the heart of Dublin all the way to Newry, just across the border in the North, and then on to Belfast. The port town of Dundalk would be bypassed altogether, along with the Player’s Inn.

The Gaelic football memorabilia on the walls used to impress the tourists who landed by the busload on their way through to Dublin. They didn’t know how bad the food was until it arrived on chipped plates, wallowing in