‘Oh,’ she said, her smile falling away. ‘Well, it was nice meeting you.’
Fegan nodded. He stood, looked down at the boy. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and headed for the door.
‘You’re welcome,’ the boy called after him.
‘Hey!’ The waitress stopped Fegan at the door. ‘You going to pay for that sandwich?’
Fegan took a bill from his pocket and pressed it into her hand. He squeezed past her and out onto the parking lot. Another jet screamed overhead.
‘Hey!’ the waitress shouted over the plane’s roar. ‘This is a hundred!’
Fegan ignored her and climbed the flight of steps to the top floor. He ran to his room, unlocked the door, locked it behind him again. He called the number to retrieve the message.
A metallic voice said, ‘We’re sorry. The service you are trying to access is unavailable when overseas. If you would like to enable outgoing international calls, please talk to one of our operators by dialling—’
Fegan hung up. ‘Jesus,’ he said.
Marie had called. No one else knew the number. There could only be one reason.
He put the phone in his pocket and took the roll of money from the dresser along with the Irish passport. What if it didn’t get him past security? He’d have to take that risk. He lifted his bag, hoisted it across his shoulder.
The outside air cooled the sweat that had broken on his brow and sent cold fingers down his spine. He could wait for a cab, but twenty minutes on foot would take him to the airport. He knew there was an evening flight to Belfast, just a few hours from now, then six and a half more on the plane. He’d be home by the morning.
Fegan hoped it wouldn’t be too late.
58
The Traveller’s vision turned crimson for a moment before the nurse pressed a damp cotton pad against his eye. A searing hot ball of pain burned for a few seconds and eased to a small point of fire beneath the pad.
‘Looks like a little bit of wood,’ the nurse said. He heard a metallic clank as she placed the tweezers in a tray. ‘It might have scratched the cornea too, and the eyelid’s quite badly infected. When the bleeding stops we’ll flush it out and get a little bit of antibiotic ointment on it.’
He couldn’t see them, but he could feel the presence of the two uniformed cops guarding him. Big fuckers, faces like stone. The kind of arseholes who wanted to be cops just so they could push people around.
Handcuffs bound his right wrist to the trolley. A narrow bed with a thin mattress. The noise of the A&E ward’s busywork whisked and rattled outside the bay. His left hand lay on a pillow. The wrist throbbed, but not with the deep, hard pain you get with a break. Sprained, more likely, and that cop Lennon hadn’t helped it any. It pulsed in time with the sickly ache that sat lodged behind his eyes. They’d X-rayed his head and his wrist, and then put four stitches in his temple. That bastard cop had hit him just below the spot they’d pulled the chunk of Kevlar from all those years ago, opening the scar, and it had bled like hell. Now they waited for a doctor to have a look at the images.
The nurse had changed the dressing on his shoulder. When she asked how it happened, he said he’d fallen on a knitting needle. The nurse had blinked and looked away. She was a pretty thing, all right. Easier on the eye than the two cops, anyway.
She took the cotton away from his eye and dabbed around it with a clean piece. His vision cleared. The plastic curtain swished back and the doctor entered carrying a red folder.
Lennon stood beyond the bay, staring. The Traveller raised his head and grinned at him. Lennon shifted his weight, bristled.
‘Lie back,’ the doctor said.
‘Fuck off,’ the Traveller said. He pushed up on his left elbow, ignoring the screaming in his wrist. ‘You and me. We’ll settle it between the two of us.’
Lennon walked away.
‘That Marie one’s not bad looking,’ the Traveller called. ‘I’ll let you watch me fuck her before we finish things.’
The nurse scowled.
The cop’s footsteps receded, and the Traveller shouted after them, ‘How’s that, eh? You hear me?’
‘Lie back,’ the doctor said. ‘Please.’
‘Go fuck yourself,’ the Traveller said.
One of the cops pushed past the doctor and put a hand on the Traveller’s chest. He shoved hard and the Traveller’s back slammed against the thin mattress, knocking the wind out of him. The Traveller breathed deep then spat in the cop’s face.
The cop made a fist, raised it.
‘Come on,’ the Traveller said. ‘I dare you, you cunt.’
The cop shook his head and slowly lowered his fist. ‘Either you stay down, or I’ll make you stay down,’ he said. ‘And I won’t be gentle about it.’
The Traveller laughed. He smiled and relaxed as the doctor took his hand, tuned out what he was saying. He ignored the pain as the quack manoeuvred the joint, pushing it this way and that. The Traveller didn’t make a sound, just stared at the ceiling.
59
Roscoe Patterson waited at the door to the apartment, arms folded across his chest. Tattoos of Ulster flags and fiery skulls decorated the skin. He nodded as they approached. Lennon carried Marie’s suitcase, and she carried a sleeping Ellen.
Roscoe handed Lennon the key. ‘I tidied the place,’ he said with a wink.
‘Thank you,’ Lennon said. ‘No one knows she’s here, right?’
‘Not a soul,’ Roscoe said. He slapped Lennon’s shoulder. ‘Look after yourself, big lad.’
‘Who is he?’ Marie asked once the lift doors closed on Roscoe.
‘A friend,’ Lennon said as he unlocked the apartment.
‘He doesn’t look like a nice man,’ she said.
‘He’s not,’ Lennon said. He carried the suitcase inside. ‘He’s a scumbag. But he’s an honest scumbag, and that’s good enough for me.’
Marie followed. ‘Do you trust him?’
‘I don’t trust anybody,’ Lennon said. He flicked lights on as he made his way towards the bedroom. True to his word, Roscoe had hidden the handcuffs and vibrators, the bowlful of condoms, the pornographic pictures on the walls. Lennon put the suitcase on the bed.
Marie hesitated in the hallway.
‘You should get some sleep,’ he said.
‘So should you,’ she said. ‘Couch looks comfortable.’
Lennon drifted in and out of the world. His body ached for rest, but his mind raced. Every time his thoughts got caught in the quicksand at the edge of sleep they would break loose again, wild and darting.
DCI Gordon had taken his statement while Dan Hewitt and CI Uprichard stood in opposite corners. Hewitt had been pale and distant. Gordon had been gruff and matter-of-fact. Lennon told them he believed the man he had captured was responsible for the deaths of Kevin Malloy, Declan Quigley, Brendan Houlihan and Patsy Toner. Lennon watched them both as he spoke, but neither Hewitt nor Gordon reacted.
Hewitt and Uprichard left the room, but Gordon remained, when Lennon gave another statement to some pen-pusher from the Police Ombudsman’s office. Gordon said nothing, stared straight ahead, when Lennon said he believed elements within the security forces had been protecting the arrested man.
When the statements were done, and the pen-pusher had packed up and left, Gordon put his hand on Lennon’s shoulder.
‘That’s dangerous talk, son,’ he said.
‘It’s the truth,’ Lennon said.
‘The truth is a slippery thing,’ Gordon said. ‘Watch your back, son, that’s all I’m saying.’
