“Christ,” Campbell said.
“Now, listen to me, Davy. You can go easy or you can go hard.” O’Kane leaned down, watchful of Campbell’s teeth. “And I mean harder than anything you ever heard of, anything you were ever trained for, anything you ever had nightmares about.”
“No,” Campbell said.
“I’m going to hurt you. I’m going to hurt you worse than you ever thought you could live through.”
Campbell closed his eyes. He wasn’t stupid. He’d heard of the things O’Kane had done to men like him.
“And if you don’t talk to me, I’m going to take you out to the stables. Those dogs don’t normally go for people, but if they get the smell of blood . . .”
O’Kane patted Campbell’s back and laughed. “Jesus, Davy, you’ll be watching them eat your guts. But you never know; one of them might go for your throat first. If you’re lucky, that is.”
“Please,” Campbell said.
O’Kane stood upright. “So, let’s get started.”
He reached down, gripped Campbell’s left wrist, and lifted his hand. He placed his foot on the tout’s injured side and put his weight on it while he pulled upwards.
Campbell screamed, then gasped, then screamed, then gasped. O’Kane took his foot away and lowered the arm slightly. He kicked Campbell’s ribcage once then waited for the writhing and ragged sobs to die away.
“Tell me the truth. Tell me who else is touting for your handlers.”
A line of bloody drool connected Campbell’s mouth to the floor. “I swear to God, I don’t know what—”
“Fuck’s sake.” O’Kane put his weight on Campbell’s side again and heaved on his arm. The ribcage flexed beneath his foot. Campbell’s scream became a high whine. O’Kane released the pressure before swinging his boot hard into Campbell’s flank once more. This time he felt a shift, a grinding, something giving way.
Campbell seemed to have lost the power to scream. He just opened his mouth wide, screwed his eyes shut, and leaked air. His cheeks glistened with tears.
“Christ, just tell me, Davy.”
“I don’t . . . I don’t . . .”
O’Kane brought his heel down on Campbell’s side, felt the spongy grinding, saw the coughed-up blood spill from his mouth.
“Tell me.”
“Toner . . . Patsy . . . Toner . . .”
“Jesus,” McGinty said.
O’Kane raised a hand to silence him. “What about Patsy Toner?”
Campbell hung from O’Kane’s grip like a bag of sticks. “He’s . . . their contact . . . he’s . . . he’s the . . . one who . . . who got me in.”
O’Kane lowered Campbell’s arm to the floor and squatted next to him. “Breathe easy, son. Small breaths. What else?”
“He tells them . . . everything . . . all the press . . . he tells them . . . before McGinty even gets it out. They know . . . every move . . . McGinty makes . . . before he makes it.”
O’Kane brushed Campbell’s cheek. “Good boy. Who else?”
Campbell shook his head.
“Now, son, don’t be stupid.”
“Toner . . . just Toner.”
Padraig waddled into the room, a large brown bottle in one hand, a bag of cotton wool in the other. “I’ve got the chloroform, Da.”
“Good lad,” O’Kane said.
He stood and took the bag of cotton wool from his son. His thick fingers grabbed a ball of the white material and tore it from the bag. “Open that.”
Padraig twisted the cap off the brown bottle and handed the chloroform to his father. O’Kane tipped the bottle up, soaking the cotton wool while he held it out at arm’s length. The cloying smell made his head tingle. He turned to McGinty. “We use this to put the dogs down when they’re hurt too bad to fix. We’ll knock him out till we see what Fegan has to say. We might have some more questions after that.”
O’Kane crouched down and pressed the soaked wad against Campbell’s mouth and nose. “That’s it, son, just breathe nice and easy.”
Campbell pulled away, batting weakly at the cotton wool. “McGinty,” he said.
“What’s that?”
His eyes held O’Kane’s, a sickly smile on his lips. “McGinty . . . he did it . . . he set them up . . . Fegan isn’t . . . working alone . . . it’s McGinty.”
McGinty stepped away from the wall. “He’s lying.”
O’Kane gripped Campbell’s hair and forced his face into the cotton wool.
