shouted. “Mr. Gillespie? Sir? Are you there, sir?”
I sat utterly still.
“Jesus Christ!” Callaghan had come into the living room. He could not see me for I was deep in the alcove beside the stove and Callaghan was staring at Gillespie. “Jesus Christ!” he said again, and whirled round, dragging his gun from his shoulder holster. He was wearing a shirt and trousers, but no jacket, tie or shoes. He must have been sleeping upstairs, and now he had woken to nightmare.
“Jesus!” He was in shock. He saw the broken window and ran toward it, then sensed that danger might lie on the other side so ran back to the room’s center, then he changed his mind again and went back to the window where, like a cop in a movie, he flattened himself against the drapes so he could peer round the corner into the salt darkness. He stood there, muttering to himself. I knew I would have to announce my presence, but I had to do it very carefully or else he would whirl round and shoot at my voice. He was twitchy as hell. I took a breath, readied myself to speak, when suddenly he turned, gasping, and I heard the rifle fire, its sound dreadfully loud in the confines of the house, and in the very same instant Callaghan fired back and I saw the muzzle flame of his pistol bright against the dark window.
Callaghan fired a second time, but the second pull on his trigger was merely a reflexive spasm of his fingers as he went down. He had been hit. I had seen the rifle bullet jar his chest like a seismic shock, and I saw the life flit out of him in that very instant and I knew that the gunman was a marksman of genius for he had exploded Callaghan’s heart with a single lethal shot.
Callaghan slumped to the floor. His second bullet had struck the ceiling to leave a bright splinter of raw wood protruding from a beam.
There was silence.
The killer was in the house. He had come into the house for what? Probably to determine the outcome of his night’s work. So in a second or two he would turn over Gillespie’s body and find he had killed the wrong man. He had surely been after me, no one else.
So what would he do? Flee? Or search the house? Either way I knew I should move. Get out! Into the dark wetlands where this lethal marksman could not see me. Yet to move would be to make a noise and attract his attention. Christ! Why had I not hidden the carbine in the truck? I tensed myself ready to move, but fear kept me still. If I gave the man a half-second to react I would be dead because this assassin was good, very good.
Then I heard an odd scraping noise from the far end of the living room. I was unsighted, nor did I intend to move and see just what was making the noise. Was the man dragging Callaghan’s body away?
Then there was a terrible splintering crash, and a moan, then silence. I waited. The cold wind sighed at the broken window and I could smell the bitter smell of propellant in the house.
“Oh, fock,” said the voice, and groaned.
I moved. Very slowly. First I stood, then I took a half-pace forward so I could see into the living room.
And there he was; slumped against the far wall. He had collapsed and his rifle had fallen a couple of feet from his right hand. He was wearing a black sweater, black trousers, black leather gloves, black shoes and a black balaclava helmet which showed only his eyes and mouth. The black sweater and trousers seemed to glisten at his belly, and I realized that Stuart Callaghan, with his first dying shot, had badly wounded the killer.
He saw me and his hand twitched toward the rifle, but the movement gave him a spasm of pain. He cursed, not in anger, but in resignation. “Oh, fock,” he said again.
“Hello, Seamus.” I crossed the room and kicked his rifle away, then stooped and picked up Callaghan’s fallen automatic.
“This is a focking mess, Paulie.” Seamus made an enormous effort to reach up with his right hand and pull off the black woollen balaclava helmet. It left his black hair rumpled. “Focker got me in the belly.”
“You were after me.”
“I thought that focker was you.” He jerked his chin toward the fallen Gillespie. From the outside, in the sudden light and with his back turned and wearing the yellow slicker he had found in my hallway, Gillespie must have looked very much like me. “Who the fock are they?” Seamus asked.
“The law. They came to question me.” I crouched in front of Seamus and tried to assess his injury. I was no expert, but it looked bad. The bullet, as best I could see, had struck Seamus low on his left hip, then must have ricocheted off the pelvic bone to splinter and mangle his guts. He was bleeding horribly. If I had used Gillespie’s cellular telephone to call an ambulance Seamus might have lived, but he understood why I did no such thing. Those who live by the sword must die by it.
I crossed to Callaghan, but without turning my back on Seamus. Callaghan lay on his back, his mouth brimming with glistening blood above which his teeth were bared in a feral snarl. “That was a good shot, Seamus.”
“I was always a good shot. I remember in Strabane once, waiting in a burned-out house, and a Brit soldier almost got me. Surprised me, he did. He came through the back door, see, and I was watching out the front, but I hit him the same way. Fired from the hip.” His speech was slow. Occasionally his breath would catch, interrupted by pain, but he was making sense. “I got away then.”
“You were only ever caught once,” I said.
“That was so focking ridiculous,” he said. “It was all a focking accident, Paulie, just bad focking luck. I’d left the flat not five minutes, and this wee girl jumped a red light, so she did, on the corner of Ormeau Avenue. You know, where the television place is? And I hit her smack on, and there was a bloody police Land-Rover right there and the fockers recognized me.” He had been heading south, making for Dublin with a stolen driving license in his pocket. The Army Council had reckoned he would have been safer in Dublin than in the north, even though he was wanted in both parts of Ireland. “The focking Brits said they were acting on information,” Seamus said bitterly, “but it was all an accident, nothing more. And that’s why she died, eh? Just because the focking Brits lied.”
“That’s why she died,” I agreed, but I did not want to talk about Roisin’s death. “Who ordered me killed?” I asked instead.
“Michael Herlihy, of course. He said you’d nicked the money, and you had to be punished.” Seamus drew in a terrible, shuddering breath. “I wouldn’t do it till I got confirmation, but it came, right enough.”
“From Brendan Flynn?” I guessed sourly.
“Aye.” Seamus tried to grin, but failed. “I’m sorry it had to be me, Paulie.”
“You’re not given much of a choice in these things.” I squatted in front of him. “Is it hurting, Seamus?”
“It’s sort of dull now, Paulie. Not so bad, really.” He sat in silence, his head against the wall. “Focking shame it had to be you. I always liked you.”
“I liked you, Seamus.” Already we were using the past tense.
“I remember Brendan Flynn telling me you were a dangerous one, but I reckoned you were all right.”
“I thought Brendan trusted me?”
“He wouldn’t trust the Pope, that one.” He sighed. “Why did you steal the money?”
“I didn’t. I wanted to, but I didn’t.”
“They say you did, but I suppose they’re nicking it for themselves. Just like they always do.” Blood was puddling under his buttocks. He was weakening so much that he could hardly lift his right hand. “There’s some ciggies in my shirt pocket,” he said. “Would you mind?”
I held the automatic close to his face as I groped under his sweater. I found the cigarettes and a lighter, put a cigarette between his lips and clicked a flame.
“You used to smoke, didn’t you?” Seamus asked.
“I gave it up.”
“Don’t you miss it, Paulie?”
“Smoking? Sure I do.” I eased away from him. “The day I get to heaven, Seamus, St. Peter’s going to be waiting at the Pearly Gate with a packet of twenty and a book of matches.”
“You think you’ll get to heaven?” The cigarette twitched in his lips as he spoke.
“We’ll all meet there, Seamus. You, me, all the boys. No Brits, though. And the hills will be green as emerald and the streams full of salmon and the sun ever shining.”
“Like Dunnamanagh, eh?” That was a dream that would never come true; the wee house in the fold of the good green hills of County Derry. Seamus blinked rapidly, maybe because the smoke was in his eyes. “There was even a girl in Lifford.”
“You? A girl?”
