Campbell looked to Marie. Her shaking hands covered her mouth. She was fighting hard to hold on to herself, hiding her fear from the child. Something that might have been respect rose in Campbell, and he had an inexplicable and desperate urge to touch her. He shook it away.
The other six men - Coyle, McGinty, the driver, O’Kane’s son, the two Campbell didn’t know - all watched the stable door.
McGinty took a step towards the old man. “Bull,” he said.
O’Kane turned to face them. “It’s all right. Sure, these boys are gentle as lambs with people. I train them right.”
A murky scent drifted out of the stable. Heavy paws appeared above the lower door, followed by a square block of a head, dirt-caked and scarred. The dog’s tongue lolled from its jaw, a viscous line of drool disappearing into the dark. O’Kane reached out with his free hand and scratched the back of the pit bull’s thick neck. It squinted at the sensation of his callused fingers.
“There, see? He’s a nice doggie. Do you want to pet him?”
Ellen shook her head and wiped her damp cheeks.
“Aw, go on. He’s a nice doggie.”
She looked down at the animal, rubbing her nose on her sleeve. She sniffed.
“He’s a good doggie,” O’Kane said. “He won’t bite.”
He lowered Ellen so she could reach its head with her small outstretched hand. Her fingers created ripples on its brow. Marie squeezed her eyes shut when its tongue lapped at the girl’s fingertips. Coyle placed a steadying hand on her shoulder.
“There, now. I told you he was a nice doggie, didn’t I?” O’Kane hoisted the child up in his arms as she continued to reach out to scratch the dog’s head. He looked at Marie, a fatherly smile on his lips. “You’ll behave yourself, won’t you, love?”
Marie stared back.
“Of course you will.” O’Kane pushed the dog’s head back down with his free hand and swung the upper stable door closed. He bounced Ellen in his arms as he walked back towards Marie. “You and your mummy will be good, won’t you?”
, Campbell thought. The sudden trill of a mobile phone made his heart knock against the inside of his chest.
McGinty reached into his jacket pocket. “Hello?”
Campbell watched his face go slack. The politician walked away from the group, the phone against one ear, a finger in the other.
“Patsy, slow down. What happened?”
From a rickety chair in the corner Campbell watched McGinty and O’Kane pace the room. He chewed his lip as the balance shifted back and forth between them, O’Kane the old warhorse, McGinty the slick politico. Little more than a decade separated them, but they were generations apart.
“This changes everything,” McGinty said.
“It changes nothing,” O’Kane said.
A bare bulb driven by the generator outside picked out the patches where damp had peeled the wallpaper back. Downey leaned against the far wall of the living room, his thin arms folded across his chest. Quigley the driver sat cross-legged on the opposite end of a tattered couch from O’Kane’s son while Coyle slouched against the wall, sparing Campbell the occasional dirty look. Malloy guarded Marie and Ellen in a room upstairs. Lazy waves of rain washed across the old sash windows and the sound of dripping water was everywhere. The smell of mold and mice lingered in Campbell’s nose.
“Do you not understand, Bull?” McGinty stopped pacing and opened his arms. “Once this gets out, I’m fucked. A cop’s dead body in my lawyer’s car. I’ll be forced out of the party. I won’t have a political friend left. Even then, the Unionists will probably walk. They’ll bring Stormont down and look like they’re only doing what’s right. Jesus, think of the party. Think of the pressure they’ll be under. From London, from Dublin, from Washington.”
, Campbell thought. The world - especially America - didn’t view terrorists with the same romantic tint these days, even if they called themselves freedom fighters.
O’Kane snorted. “We did all right for years without their help. They can fuck off.”
“Christ, Bull, it’s the twenty-first century. It’s not the Seventies any more. It’s not the Eighties. We need Stormont now.
need it.
need it. Think of the concessions the party will have to give the Unionists and the Brits just to keep Stormont together. You’re a millstone around their necks as it stands. They’ll cut you off as quick as me.”
“Bollocks,” O’Kane said, swiping the air with his shovel hand. “Nobody pushes us around. The Brits couldn’t break us after thirty years of trying. I’m not rolling over just ’cause you and your mates in the suits are scared of losing those salaries and allowances.”
“It’s not like that.” McGinty put his hands on his hips. Campbell watched the politician’s leg twitch.
“Aye, it is. You’ve gone soft, Paul. It’s easy for you boys in Belfast, all those European funds you can dip your fingers into, all those community grants. Just stick your hand out, and the money lands in it. You’re forgetting us boys out in the sticks. We still have to graft for it.”
