Hopewell Avenue but the weight of victory and the burden of booze were adding extra time to the trek.
He chuckled again as he continued on his way.
Past a wall that bore the six-feet-high letters: NO
SURRENDER TO THE IRA.
He glanced at them but they didn’t register. He’d seen the same kind of graffiti for as long as he could remember. After a while it all blended into one, and became as much a part of the landscape as the terraced houses that wound through the city like files of troops.
He stood in front of the wall for a moment and saluted the words.This caused another ripple of giggling.
Sheila would be angry when he got home, he knew that. She’d go on at him for waking the kids and complain about his being drunk, but it would pass quickly enough. She could never stay mad at him for long and, besides, if a man couldn’t enjoy a few drinks when he’d just won such a magnificent trophy then where was the justice in the world?
He already knew where he was going to place the trophy. There was a spot on the mantelpiece between his wedding photo and those of his two children. It would look suitably imposing there.
He brandished it before him once more and walked on.
Nearly home now.
As the car pulled up beside him he gave it only a cursory glance. He thought for a moment about
stopping the vehicle and showing the occupants what he’d just won.
He giggled once more.
The car stopped and he was aware of the rear door opening.
Porter turned in the direction of the vehicle. Saw a man coming towards him. A man he didn’t recognise.
He felt strong arms enveloping him, pulling him towards the waiting car.
He dropped his trophy and saw it land in the gutter.
For fleeting seconds he did nothing. By the time he attempted to fight back he was sprawled on the back seat next to another man.
Porter couldn’t see faces. It was too dark inside the vehicle. He was about to say something when he saw the gun.
He almost giggled again. Almost asked if he could have his trophy back.
Two shots sounded, the muzzle flash and retort muffled, to a degree, by the silencer protruding from the barrel of the .22.
Both powered into his head.
The car drove off. As it did, one of the rear wheels crushed the trophy flat.
Doyle sat in the Orion and finished the rest of his breakfast. He balled up the empty crisp packet and Mars wrapper and dropped them out of the window into the street.Then he sipped at the Red Bull and watched the front door of number 15 Glen Road.
The cassette was on, turned down low.
‘.. .You had time to waste, time to wonder …’
Doyle looked down at the back of the paper spread out on the passenger seat.
‘… Time, to become someone else …’
He picked it up and re-read the previous night’s match report on the Liverpool versus Newcastle game. There was a photo of Liverpool’s winning goal and Doyle smiled to himself as he scanned it. Then he dropped the paper and returned his attention to the house.
He’d already been sitting there for a couple of hours. His right leg was stiff so he massaged the thigh with one hand.
‘Where the fuck are you?’ he murmured to himself, eyes never straying from the house.
As he leant forward he caught sight of his own reflection in the rear-view mirror.
You look like shit
His hair needed combing. He needed a shave. Needed a fucking shower.
Doyle wondered how much of his life had been spent sitting around in cars
waiting for people. Watching.
All part of the job, old son.
Surveillance. Tailing. Stake-out.
He preferred the term hunting.
Doyle ran a hand through his long hair then scratched at one of the scars that were so much a feature of his visage. He couldn’t remember where half of them had come from.Those or the ones that couldn’t be seen until he took off his clothes.
Each one was a reminder of pain.
So much pain.
All crammed into forty-four years.
Some of them wasted?
He sat back in his seat
‘… Might be a good thing, might be a bad thing …’
He yawned.
‘… But you can’t put your arms around a memory.’
Doyle jabbed the cassette off as he saw the young woman approaching the door of number 15. Five-three. Early twenties. Dark hair tied back in a pony tail.
Carrying three bags of shopping.
He watched as she fumbled for her key then let herself in.
Doyle looked at his watch. He’d give her ten minutes.
Shonagh Finan heard the knocking on the front door and put down her mug of tea.
She wandered through from the kitchen into the small living room, then out into the hall as another knock echoed through the house.
‘All right, all right, don’t knock the door down,’ she called, unfastening the lock.
Doyle nodded a greeting as she opened the door, aware of her appraising gaze.
‘Hi, there,’ he said, his accent impeccable. ‘Shonagh, right?’
She nodded. ‘I don’t know you,’ she told him.
‘Matt sent me,’ Doyle lied. ‘Can I come in?’
She hesitated a moment, hand still on the door knob.
‘It’s important,’ Doyle continued.
She stepped back and ushered him inside.
Step one.
He kept his hands in his pockets and waited in the hall. ‘Matt told me to meet him here,’ the counter terrorist informed her.‘He said he’d ring you. Tell you I was coming.’
‘I haven’t spoken to him,’ she said. ‘And I still don’t know who you are.’
‘Frank McKean,’ Doyle lied, pulling his right hand from his pocket and pushing it towards her by way of greeting.
Shonagh looked at the proffered appendage but declined to grasp it.
Doyle, with all the accomplishment of a seasoned actor, waved the hand in the air, embarrassed, then jammed it back into his pocket again. He attempted a smile and shuffled nervously from one foot to the other.
‘I’m a friend of Matt’s,’ he persisted.
‘I know most of his friends. I’ve never heard him talk about you before. Frank…’
‘McKean.’
‘That’s not a Belfast accent.’
‘Neither is yours.’
She smiled wryly.
Keep going.
‘I’m from the South,’ he lied.
‘Where?’
‘A little place called Ennis.’
