He stopped and looked at me with open hostility. A mixture of shame about what I had done, and fear that I would repeat the attack if I spoke to him, stopped me from returning his stare.
‘I believe you were the one who arrested her,’ he said, his voice low and insinuating. ‘And I thought I hated her.’
He shook his head and, tutting to himself, continued on into the courthouse. He sat in court each day of the trial and smiled when the verdict was announced and Caroline was led down to the cells to begin her sentence.
Patterson forced me into taking the month’s leave he had given me, despite my objections. In all truth, I could not bare the thought of sitting impotently by Penny’s bedside each day, watching her sleep. Her very state was a reminder of the futility of my work, which I had always convinced myself was about making the world a safer place for my children. I thought of her, Peter Williams, John Morrison and Anna McEvoy, all of whom had been touched by the events of the previous month.
But as the month passed, and I spent day after day with her, I reached some sense of equilibrium. Debbie and I took turns to read to her, or play her favourite music, in the hope that it might bring her back to us.
Vincent Morrison returned once more with his son. The boy stood by Penny’s side and told her all the news from school.
His father stood at the foot of the bed and spoke to me.
‘I understand your old partner was sentenced to five years. That’s tough going.’
‘Cunningham and his cronies can expect more than that.’
Morrison nodded. ‘They knew the risks when they started messing around with that nonsense.’
I turned and studied his profile. A thought struck me.
‘The Rising took out all the dealers along the border and introduced their own supplies. Now that Cunningham and the rest have been put out of action, whoever bankrolled them can take charge of the whole operation.’
He looked at me. ‘You know, now you mention it, you’re right.’
‘You’re controlling drugs for the whole area,’ I whispered, wary of his son’s presence in the room. ‘You rose right back on top again. You’re running the borderlands, you son of a bitch.’
His jaw set slightly at the final insult, then softened. He smiled at me coldly.
‘Prove it,’ he said. Then he moved over and stood beside his son.
In the early hours of Easter Sunday, over a month after her accident, Penny’s condition changed. I had left Debbie for an hour to go to the vigil Mass where I had lit my candle from the paschal candle and prayed that our daughter might come back to us.
I came back up to the hospital around 1 a.m. to let Debbie go home. The nurses came in and left a chocolate egg in the room, something which they did with all the children on the ward. One of them joked that she might waken to eat it.
Before she left, Debbie went over to kiss her goodnight as she always did. She leant on the bed, her hand resting on top of Penny’s as she laid a kiss on her forehead and urged her in whispered tones to come back to us. Then she suddenly started, emitting a tiny shriek which pierced the silence of the room.
‘She squeezed my hand,’ she said urgently, turning to me, her eyes sparkling with tears.
I moved beside her. ‘Are you sure?’
She nodded, her tears running freely. ‘Oh, Ben. She squeezed my hand.’
‘You might have imagined it,’ I said. I had several times myself thought I had seen her eyes flickering.
‘I didn’t. I felt her squeeze my hand, Ben. I felt her.’
She looked around, then shouted louder to attract some of the staff. ‘She squeezed my hand!’ she called out again.
Finally one of the nurses came in.
‘She’s wakening,’ Debbie said, smiling, her face smeared with tears.
‘Let me get the doctor to check,’ the nurse said cautiously. ‘Keep talking to her, just in case.’
While we waited for the doctor to arrive, we spoke to Penny, loudly encouraging her to waken. I was beginning to doubt Debbie’s claim when, of a sudden, I saw Penny flex one of her fingers, saw the ridge of her eyeball shift underneath the eyelid.
‘She’s wakening!’ I shouted, rushing to the door of the room to be heard.
When the doctor arrived, he checked her eyes with a pen-light, then tested her fingers one by one. As he did so, we heard, though barely audible, a soft moan escape her mouth. The young man turned to us, his face alight with his smile.
‘I think you’re right,’ he said. ‘She seems to be coming around. Congratulations.’
As dawn broke on Easter Sunday morning, Penny opened her eyes of her own accord and spoke her first words in over a month.
‘Mummy,’ she said dryly, the sound barely audible. ‘Daddy.’ She smiled benignly and moved her head to the side. On the bedside locker, Shane’s T-rex sat looking down at her. ‘Where’s Shane?’
We sat with her through that day, Shane perched constantly on her bed, telling her all that she had missed, and how much he had missed her. She tired easily and slept through much of what he had to say, but he continued unperturbed.
That night, reluctantly, Debbie went home, having not slept properly for two nights. Neither of us wanted to leave Penny for a moment, in case we returned to find her gone from us again.
I sat awake by her until the dawn, watching her sleep. I recalled how, when both she and Shane were just babies, I would check on them at night, standing beside the cot, holding my own breath and listening in the darkness for the reassurance of their breathing. If I could not hear them, I would lower my face close to theirs in a panic, hoping I might feel the warmth of each exhalation against my cheek.
I found that I did so again now. I sat in silence by my daughter’s hospital bed, and counted each breath she drew, their number measured by the dipping of the bedclothes above her heart, and the rising.
THE RISING
Brian McGilloway was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1974, and teaches English at St Columb’s College, Derry.
Also by Brian McGilloway in the Inspector Devlin series
BORDERLANDS
GALLOWS LANE
BLEED A RIVER DEEP
Acknowledgements
I have a number of people who deserve thanks for their help and support in the writing of The Rising. As always, thanks to my friends and colleagues in St Columb’s who have been incredibly supportive of all the books. Particular thanks to Bob McKimm, who remains one of Devlin’s staunchest supporters.
Thanks to a number of people who have supported the writing of the Devlin books in their own ways: Alex Mullan, Tara Vance, James Johnston, Eoghan Barr, Nuala McGonagle, Dessie Kelly, Susan Gill and Pawel in NWCLD, Margaret Giblin, Stephanie Swain, Belinda Mahaffey, Bobby McDaid and Rev. Edward Kilpatrick, and Harry Doherty. Thanks to Paddy McDaid and Carmel McGilloway for advice regarding legal procedures. All inaccuracies are my own.
Thanks to Peter and Jenny at RCW, Emily at The Agency, all at Dumont, Pete and Liz at St Martins and the fantastic team at Pan Macmillan; Cat, Ellen, Cormac, David, Sophie and Will.
Love and thanks to the McGilloways, Dohertys, O’Neills and Kerlins. In particular, I’m hugely grateful for the support of my sister, Carmel, and brothers, Joe and Dermot, and, of course, of my parents, Laurence and Katrina.
Finally, my love and thanks to Tanya, Ben, Tom and David, as always, for putting up with me.
First published 2010 by Macmillan
This edition published 2011 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2011 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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ISBN 978-1-4472-0258-5 EPUB
Copyright © Brian McGilloway 2010
The right of Brian McGilloway to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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The Rising The Rising (Inspector Devlin #4) Page 22