make the last airport shuttle.
Fegan kept his head down as he walked. Six shadows followed closely.
SIX
31
Marie McKenna lay naked beside him. It was his bed, but it wasn’t. It was his house, but it wasn’t. Fegan was naked, too, and it shamed him. He went to cover himself.
“Don’t,” she said, moving his hand away.
“I’m not clean,” he said.
She hushed him, and moved in close. Her body was warm against his. She kissed him. Her mouth was soft, like summer air.
When he was free of her lips, he said, “It’s been so long. I don’t know what it feels like.”
“It feels like this,” she said, taking his hand and placing it on her breast.
Her skin was soft, her breast round and supple, with a hardness against his palm.
He looked down. His hand had smeared red on her body. She looked down, too, and he saw her mouth twist in disgust. He tried to wipe it away, but only made it worse, great crimson hand-prints across her breasts and stomach. She pulled away, kicking.
“No,” he said, grabbing her forearms. The blood made them slippery, and he couldn’t hold her. “Please, let me clean it.”
He tried again to wipe it away, leaving red tracks along her hips and thighs. “I’ll make it better,” he said. “Please let me make it better.”
She screamed then, writhing, scratching, kicking to get away. “Leave me alone. Get away from me. Help! Help! HELP!”
He didn’t know who she was screaming for, who could help her, or who she needed saving from. Surely not him? No, not him. Couldn’t be. It was only a little blood. If she would only stay still he could wipe it away. But she wouldn’t stay still. She kept kicking, screaming, crying, and he only wanted to make it better, but the hand on his shoulder wouldn’t let him. It kept shaking him, holding him back from her, that hand squeezing and shaking him, and now its owner was saying something, talking, but he needed to make Marie clean, make it better, but that hand wouldn’t stop, it wouldn’t leave him—
“You can sleep on the plane, mate.”
Fegan slapped the hand away, his eyes snapping open, and he reached for his pocket where the knife nestled, cold and still.
The bus driver stood back, blinking down at him. “Jesus, take it easy, mate. I’m just telling you we’re here.”
Fegan looked around, confused. The bus was dimly lit, and outside a few late-night travellers walked to and from the terminal. His heart rattled like an overworked engine and his forehead was cold with sweat. “Sorry,” he said. “Thanks.”
He gathered up the sports bag and walked along the aisle, the driver’s suspicious stare fixed on his back. He stepped down to the pavement, and the door hissed closed. The bus pulled away, leaving Fegan watching the terminal from the other side of a pedestrian crossing. Two Airport Police officers stood chatting between the entrance and exit, their MP5 sub-machine guns slung across bullet-proof vests.
Fegan knew he would be searched if he went near the terminal. Security was tighter now than it ever had been at the height of the Troubles. A war in a desert thousands of miles away frightened them more than a war on their doorstep. Fegan took the phone from his pocket and dialled Marie’s mobile number. He pressed the phone to his ear and closed his eyes. When she answered, he felt some small warm thing burst and spill inside.
“I’m here,” he said.
“You should’ve gone,” Fegan said.
“No chance,” Marie said. Her Renault Clio roared hoarsely as she sped through the roundabouts that led away from the airport, heading north. Ellen dozed in her child seat in the back, having barely woken as her mother carried her and a suitcase out to where Fegan waited.
“It would’ve been safer,” he said.
“Maybe,” she said, grinding gears in anger. “But I’d have to live with the knowledge that I let some fucking jumped-up gangster with political pretensions dictate where I could bring up my daughter. No, thank you. I’d sooner live in fear in my own home than live in shame in someone else’s.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Fegan said, glancing back at Ellen.
“Balls,” Marie said, with a finality that told Fegan to leave it. “Jesus, the rigmarole in that airport. I could see Patsy Toner following me all the way there in that Jag of his, then walking behind me into the terminal. Jesus, I hope McGinty never relies on him to be discreet. Anyway, I checked in, got my boarding pass, went through security, then just when they called us for boarding I said I wasn’t going. God, you should’ve seen them. Such a fuss! There was this girl, a stewardess, looked like she’d been licking piss off a nettle.”
Marie glowed with anger. Fegan stayed quiet.
“Christ, she was spitting bullets ’cause they had to unload my suitcase from the hold. That took nearly forty minutes, and then they had to wait for some security men to come and escort me out. I was only just back out of Departures a few minutes before you called.”
She was high on adrenalin and indignation. Fegan asked, “No sign of Patsy?”
“No,” she said. “He was gone. I imagine he slinked off as soon as he saw me check in.”
