The old woman followed behind. He turned to her and asked, ‘Any danger of a cup of tea?’
‘Surely, Bobby, love.’
‘Ta very much,’ the Traveller said. He watched her shuffle to the kitchen before he turned back to Quigley. ‘Who’s Bobby?’
Quigley sagged back into the chair. ‘My brother,’ he said, his voice shaking. A half-empty bottle of vodka and a glass sat on a side table next to him. ‘The Brits shot him twenty years ago. She thinks every man she meets is Bobby. Except me. Who are you?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ the Traveller said, taking a step towards him.
‘Jesus, I knew it wasn’t over,’ Quigley said. ‘When them three blew themselves up, then Kevin Malloy the other night. The news said it was a robbery, but I knew it was lies.’
The Traveller reached into his pocket.
Wait!’ Quigley held his hands up. ‘Wait a minute. I haven’t said a word to anyone. I know what happened, I saw the whole thing, I know all that stuff about a feud was bullshit. I could’ve gone to the papers and told them the truth. I could’ve made a fortune. I could’ve made enough to look after my mother. But I didn’t. I kept my mouth shut. There’s no call for this.’
The Traveller thought about arguing, explaining the nature of things to this man, but what was the point? He sighed and took the knife from his pocket. The blade opened with barely a sound. Best to do it quiet.
Quigley took a swig of neat vodka from the bottle and coughed. ‘There’s no call for it,’ he said, putting the bottle back on the table. ‘It’s not fair.’
The old woman’s voice shrilled from the kitchen. ‘Do you want a biscuit, Bobby, love?’
‘You have any Jaffa Cakes?’ the Traveller called back.
‘No, love. But I’ve got Penguins.’
‘Aye, that’ll do.’
Quigley seemed to shrink in the chair. ‘Christ, I’m tired,’ he said. ‘So tired. Maybe I should’ve run, but who’d look after my mother? So I’ve been sitting here waiting. I haven’t slept in months. I can’t eat. I’ve lost a stone and a half. I should’ve killed Gerry Fegan, you know. Or tried, anyway.’
The Traveller stopped. ‘Why didn’t you?’
‘I couldn’t,’ Quigley said. He started to cry. ‘I was too scared. He was too … big.’
‘Big?’
Quigley looked down at his shaking hands. ‘Like nothing could hurt him. Like nothing could stop him. Like if he set his mind to killing someone, then they were already dead. I’d never seen anything like it in my life.’ He looked up at the Traveller. ‘Until now. Promise me you won’t touch her.’
‘I won’t,’ the Traveller said.
Quigley stared hard at him. ‘Promise me.’
‘I won’t touch her,’ the Traveller said. ‘I swear to God.’
Quigley unbuttoned his shirt collar, pulled the fabric away from his throat, and laid his head back. ‘Make it quick,’ he said.
‘No, not the throat,’ the Traveller said. ‘You’ll piss blood everywhere. All over your ma’s carpet, up the walls, fucking everywhere. Just close your eyes. I’ll make it easy.’
Quigley’s head dropped, and he wept. Tears blotched his shirt. ‘What a fucking waste,’ he said.
‘Quiet, now,’ the Traveller said. ‘It’ll be quick, I promise. Close your eyes.’
Quigley squeezed the armrests and closed his eyes. His breath quickened. He whined. The Traveller switched his grip on the knife to underhand and leaned on the chair. Quigley inhaled, held his breath. The Traveller made one, two, three thrusts, burying the blade to the hilt each time before drawing it out again.
Quigley breathed out, his exhalation bubbling as it thinned. He coughed. A small red bloom, about the size of a rose, spread on his chest.
The old woman screamed ‘Bobby!’ and drove a knitting needle into the Traveller’s upper arm.
18
Lennon showered, the water hot as he could stand. He scrubbed himself pink and buried that hard little ball of filth so deep down inside himself he could barely feel it. It was always the same. He’d do it knowing he’d hate himself for it, and afterwards swear he’d never do it again. The burning guilt would last a day or so before he could wash it away and forgive himself.
He turned his mind from the Scottish law student, her sighs and moans and affection as transparent as her underwear. Instead, he thought about Roscoe Patterson’s words. Lennon knew Patsy Toner all too well. He’d interviewed many a thug with Patsy Toner in attendance. The slimy little shit called himself a human rights lawyer. The only human right Patsy Toner cared about was the right to get paid.
Lennon hadn’t seen Toner around the interview rooms and court hearings for quite some time. Logically, he could put it down to the killing of Brian Anderson. When the bent cop was found dead in Toner’s borrowed car, followed by the bloodbath near Middletown, the party moved swiftly to distance itself from the lawyer and the rest of Paul McGinty’s lackeys. Toner’s human rights work would naturally have dried up, but there were still plenty of petty hoods and lowlifes who needed representation. Party backing or not, Patsy Toner was a seasoned defence solicitor, well used to dealing with the PPS and the courts.
But no, Lennon couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the little lawyer and that stupid moustache of his. He’d make a point of looking him up.
Lennon shut the shower off and stepped out into the steamy bathroom. He towelled himself down and wrapped himself in a dressing gown. The en suite bathroom was small but beautifully appointed. It was one of the main features that sold him on the flat. That and the river view. He stepped into the bedroom, his head shrouded in the towel. The memory came to him as it always did: crying as a child when his mother dried his hair too roughly after bath time.
His mother.
It had been almost a month since he’d last gone to see her in the nursing home. Not that it made much difference to her. Maybe he’d go down to Newry tomorrow evening. Short notice, but the routine would work regardless. He would send a text message to his younger sister Bronagh stating the time he meant to call with their mother. He would receive no reply. If his time clashed with any other family member, they would quietly reschedule. It suited everybody to do it that way.
When Lennon’s mother had first heard a whisper that his brother Liam had joined the local boys, had volunteered for the cause, she had begged him to reconsider. She told him he’d wind up in prison, or worse, shot dead by the cops or the Brits.
Liam had smiled as she ranted, then he wrapped his arms around her, told her not to listen to rumours. He had no interest in fighting anyone. Sure, he had a job with a local mechanic, fixing farm machinery. He had a future. Why would he piss it away on such nonsense?
Lennon remembered Liam making eye contact with him over their mother’s quivering shoulder, and Lennon knew he was lying.
He also knew Liam was lying when he turned up with that black eye.
Lennon had been home from university a month, earning pennies in a local petrol station. The diesel the station sold was hooky stuff, stripped agricultural fuel from one of the plants that were hidden all over the countryside. Everyone knew Bull O’Kane ran them, but everyone knew to keep their mouths shut, even if their cars wound up with ruined fuel pumps from the bootleg diesel. It might cost a grand or more to fix a knackered engine, but opening your mouth to complain would cost you a lot more. It would signal you as a tout, and touts never came out of it well, if at all.
Liam had been breathless and cheery, but unscathed, when Lennon met him for a pint after the hurling match. But he didn’t argue when Liam arrived home in the early hours of the following morning with blood seeping from the welt under his eye and told their mother he’d caught a swipe from a hurling stick at the game.
Later, as birdsong began to drift into the bedroom the two brothers shared, Liamlay staring at the ceiling, his muscled forearms behind his head, his big chest rising and falling. Lennon watched him in the half-light, fear and love and resentment fighting for dominance of his heart. He jerked, startled, when Liam spoke.
‘I’m not a tout.’
