Sean was slumped against the passenger door with his head pressed against the roof of the car and blood oozing from a cut above his right eye.
Luckily Danny had been wearing his seatbelt otherwise he would have landed on top of him. Instead he was clinging on to the steering wheel and trying to manoeuvre himself into a position where he could wind down the window and escape.
‘Jesus, Danny, what the hell happened there?’
‘God only knows, I think the front tyre blew.’
‘We need to get out your side.’
‘You okay?’ asked Danny.
‘Fine! Got a crack on the head, but I’m fine. C’mon, let’s get out.’
Danny braced his legs against the steering column while he unclipped his seat belt, then clamped his arms on the side of the car and pulled himself clear.
He jumped down onto the rough tarmac, then turned to help Sean. As he reached in to take hold of his brother’s arm, he caught a movement on the hillside just a few hundred metres over to his left.
There was a muzzle flash.
Sean’s head was just above the level of the car door when the first bullet whistled past and caught Danny on the shoulder.
The impact spun his body backwards and sent him crashing to the ground.
Sean ducked back inside. Another round pierced the roof and buried itself in the padding of the driver’s seat – closely followed by another, then another.
Sean shouted to Danny, ‘Are you hit?’
The roof exploded just above his head.
‘Fuckers got me in the shoulder,’ replied Danny. ‘The front tyre’s in shreds: they must have shot it out.’
‘Where’s your gun?’
‘Nine mil’s in the glove box,’ replied Danny. ‘Armalite’s in the back.’
‘Any movement out there?’
‘Up on the hill to the left, but I’ve no idea how many.’
‘I’m going to throw you out the Armalite. Tell me when you’re set up, and see if you can keep the bastards’ heads down. I need to get out of here. You ready? Here it comes.’
The instant Sean pushed the AR15 assault rifle up out of the window he heard several more rounds cracking off the hillside.
Another three holes appeared in the car roof.
‘Have you got it?’
‘Yeah!’
‘On the count of three?’
‘Go for it!’ replied Danny.
‘One . . . two . . . three.’
Danny stood up with the assault rifle clamped to his injured shoulder and sprayed several short bursts into the hillside.
Almost immediately there was a return of fire from not one, but two locations – three hundred metres separating them.
Danny retaliated, this time alternating between the two areas.
Sean was already out of the window and scrambling across the door. He was nearly over the edge of the car when a bullet punched his leg out from underneath him. A searing hot pain surged up the middle of his calf. ‘Bastard,’ he screamed as he crumpled onto the ground next to Danny. ‘Ya fucker!’
His calf muscle had a six-inch tear running lengthways along it.
‘Is it bad?’ asked Danny.
Sean shook his head. ‘Nah! Stings like fuck, but I’ve had worse playing football.’
‘You reckon we could make it across that field?’
‘Probably . . .’
‘But?’
‘But, there’s no glory in running away. They’re never going to write a rebel song about two brothers that jumped over a hedge and crawled away.’
Sean and Danny exchanged a look.
‘We are in the shit, are we not?’ asked Sean. ‘If there are two snipers up on the hill, there’s bound to be another one at the bottom of the field behind just waiting for us to come leaping over that hedge. And then there’s the fucker that shot out our tyres. He’ll be along in a minute as well. These SAS guys give good ambush.’
‘We could split up, take a flank each, see how far we get down the field,’ said Danny. ‘Take at least one of them in a pincer movement.’
‘I’m not crawling anywhere,’ replied Sean.
‘Nah‚ neither am I,’ said Danny. ‘. . . Listen!’
‘What?’
‘What’s that noise?’ asked Danny.
A low rumbling noise like a peal of rolling thunder growled in the distance.
‘Here, you take the pistol and I’ll have this,’ said Sean, reaching over to take the Armalite from Danny. ‘They’ve got back-up. Shitehawks have called in a chopper.’
‘Ah well,’ sighed Danny, ‘that’s the end of that then, eh?’
‘No option but to take the fuckers on, eh?’
‘Aye, it looks like it,’ replied Danny. ‘Remember that night at Cailleach Berra Lough?’
‘Jesus! Talk about random! What the hell’s that got to do with anything?’
‘I never thanked you for saving my life.’
Sean thought for a second then said, ‘You’ve got it all wrong, Wub. It wasn’t me saved you. I was too scared to go on the ice. It was Lep ran on and grabbed you.’
‘You sure?’
‘Positive. That ice was thinner than a sheet of cling film.’
Danny looked up at the cloudless sky and sighed. ‘Ah, well . . . thank you, Lep.’
‘You know, the worst part of those years I spent in America was not having you there. I missed you like crazy, our lad. I wish we had a wee bit longer.’
‘Sure, you’ve nothing to worry about‚ Sean: we’ll be together for the rest of our lives,’ said Danny, looking over at his brother.
Another thought struck him. ‘What does Wub stand for?’
‘What made you think of that?’
‘Because I’ve never known.’
The helicopter was getting closer, drowning out their voices.
‘Wee ugly bastard,’ shouted Sean over the din.
Danny smiled.
Sean cocked the Armalite and stood up. ‘You coming?’
Danny raised himself off the ground and stood beside his brother.
They walked out from behind the car together and took it in turns to fire into the hillside and up at the approaching dark-green military helicopter.
Suddenly the air around them was filled with the rasp and crack of gunfire.
The ground they were standing on disintegrated and crumbled and seemed to vanish beneath their feet as the two men disappeared behind a fine mist of blood, dried earth and smoke.
Their bodies buckled and bucked as the bullets ripped and tore at their flesh.
When they fell they landed side by side in the ditch at the front of the upturned car.
Sean lay staring blindly at the clear blue sky overhead, his eye sockets filled with blood.
The shooting had finally stopped.
Through the stillness he could hear the echo of a woman’s voice calling to him.
*
Two young boys raced each other across the sands of Cushendun towards their parents, who were standing together at the head of the bay.
Sean could see his father waiting to sweep the winner up into his open arms. He tried even harder to catch his brother, who was just a few paces in front.
But as they approached the finish line, Sean noticed Danny starting to tire. Rather than push past and overtake him – which he could easily have done – Sean held back so that his brother could still win the race.
He stood and smiled at Danny’s whoops and screams as his dad spun him high through the air.
*
Sean reached out and fumbled beside him, searching for his brother’s hand. Using what little strength he had left, Sean pulled Danny closer.
‘You’ll be all right, our lad, don’t you worry now,’ he said as he kissed his brother on the forehead for the last time.
Epilogue
Niagara Falls‚ New York
Two days later at 11 a.m., a woman entered a small bank in Niagara Falls on the east coast of the United Sta
tes and opened a deposit account using a false passport and social security number. She told the bank clerk she was moving to the area and the money was the proceeds from the sale of her house back home. The clerk didn’t even look up when she handed over nearly $200,000 in cash. The transaction took less than ten minutes.
He only asked one question: ‘Do I spell “Marie” with or without an “e”, Mrs O’Hanlon?’
Marie slipped the deposit receipt in her purse and crossed the busy main street, heading for the small coffee shop on the corner of the crossroads. She ordered a tall latte and sat by the window watching the passers-by with distracted interest. Sean’s flight was due to arrive at Niagara Falls International Airport later that afternoon, so she had some time to kill.
She had no reason to doubt he would be on the plane.
Read on for an extract from
Blood Whispers
available now
Chapter One
‘Have you ever woken in the middle of the night and reached out for someone who isn’t there?’
The guy didn’t have to think too hard before shaking his head and saying, ‘I can’t say I have.’
‘It’s not something you’d forget . . . the feeling.’
‘What sort of feeling?’
‘Longing, regret . . . isolation, I don’t know. It’s an emptiness, like your soul is missing something.’
‘Are you alone when this happens?’
‘Usually, but not always; it’s got nothing to do with loneliness or being on my own.’
‘What do you think your soul is missing?’
Keira Lynch shrugged. ‘I don’t know?’
‘Is it the “dream” that wakes you up or the “longing” feeling you’ve just described?’
‘The dream exists on its own, it’s separate: they’re not connected . . . they happen at different times.’
‘So it’s not the dream – the girl screaming – that wakes you?’
‘It can, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m asking if the emptiness, the “reaching out” thing, is something you’ve come across before, that’s all.’ Keira felt exposed, vulnerable, like the guy hadn’t been listening. ‘And in the dream, it’s not a girl screaming, it’s a young woman, there’s a difference,’ she corrected him. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong.’
‘What am I thinking?’
‘It’s me screaming . . . my younger “self”, making the sounds . . . but it’s not me.’ Keira’s teeth set against each other. ‘They’re not a product of my imagination, they’re a recollection – the memory of something that happened – an actual event.’
‘The screams?’
Keira nodded her head. ‘A young woman howling and shrieking like an animal being slaughtered: much worse and far more sickening than could simply be described as a scream.’
‘In your dream do you know who this young woman is?’
‘In real life I know who this woman was . . .’
He waited for her to continue, but could see she was reluctant and changed the subject.
‘Is it connected to the thing with your wrists?’
Keira glanced down and saw that her hands were crossed and her wrists were pressed firmly together.
‘I suppose . . . yes.’
‘Do you rub them together like that often?’
‘Only when I’m stressed.’
‘Are you stressed now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you want to stop?’
‘No.’
‘How does rubbing your wrists help with your stress, d’you think?’
‘It reminds me not to take life for granted.’
‘Why would you take life for granted?’
‘I don’t . . . I rub my wrists together and it reminds me not to.’
‘Okay, why that particular action?’
‘It helps me remember: no matter what situation I’m in, nothing could be worse than this . . .’ Keira held out her upturned palms to reveal two, thin scars, one across each wrist just above the line of her cuffs. ‘Sometimes I wish the scars would disappear; sometimes I’m glad they’re there. They remind me that life is precious, and trying to make it shorter than it is already is a dumb thing to do . . . I’m lucky that I can remind myself.’
‘Do you want to tell me how you got the scars?’
‘No. Not right now . . . I will . . . but not right now.’
‘Okay, sorry . . . let’s rewind.’
The psychiatrist looked down at his notes. ‘You were going to tell me what you remember about the house.’
‘Every detail . . . even what it smelled like. A two-up-two-down tomb. It was damp, musty, stale; like it had been abandoned, left empty for a long time, the doors and windows never opened. Like the air inside had been there for ever.’
‘Where did it happen, where was the house?’
‘Where it happened isn’t relevant.’
‘I’m just trying to get a picture . . .’
Keira cut in on him, ‘It doesn’t matter where it happened. What matters is that it happened.’
He shrugged and continued, ‘Had he assaulted you?’
‘No . . .’ She thought for a second, then added, ‘Do you mean physically or sexually?’
‘Sexually.’
‘No. My hands were tied behind my back and my mouth was taped – except when they were feeding me. I guess you’d call that assault.’
‘Who are they?’
‘There were two others.’
‘How long were you held for?’
‘The room was in total darkness the whole time I was there – the windows boarded over – so I had no way of knowing. I found out later it was three days.’
‘How old were you?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Too specific.’
‘Roughly how old?’
‘Less than ten.’
This revelation stopped him.
He sat, slowly shaking his head from side to side, his eyebrows raised. ‘You must have been very frightened,’ he said eventually.
‘That’s one thing I don’t remember . . . how I felt at the time. I know what I feel about it now, but when I think back it’s like watching a movie with the sound turned down. I can describe everything I saw, or smelled even, but not what was going through my mind. I feel somehow detached from my younger self, as though she were someone else.’
‘Like it happened to someone else?’
‘No.’ Keira was adamant. ‘I know it happened to me, but I have no recollection of what I was feeling . . . emotionally.’
‘What do you feel about it now?’
‘Guilt . . . mostly.’
‘Why would you feel guilty about being kidnapped and held against your will?’
‘I don’t. I feel guilty about what happened . . .’ She paused once more, choosing her words carefully. ‘. . . How the situation was resolved.’
‘How was the situation resolved?’
Again she took her time before answering.
‘The way most problems were solved in those days . . . with a gun.’
‘The situation was resolved with a gun?’
‘That’s what I’m saying.’
‘Who had the gun?’
‘I did.’
‘Where did you get it from?’
‘My dad . . . though I didn’t know that at the time.’
A look of confusion flashed across his face. ‘Didn’t know that he’d given you a gun?’
‘Didn’t know that he was my dad. I’m still not sure. And he didn’t give me the gun . . . I took it from him.’
He was staring back at her, like he wasn’t sure where to take it next.
‘Why would you not know he was your own father?’
‘He wasn’t around when I was growing up. I had an uncle who was always over at our house. For whatever reason, I just assumed that he was my dad: that he and my mother had split up when I was b
orn, or some shit like that, and it was easier for my mum not to say anything. Then one day his older brother – who everyone assumed was dead – showed up out of the blue and it seemed to make more sense that it was him. I’m still not sure if that’s the case. But it seems the most likely scenario. We’ve never discussed it. I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think he even knew I was his daughter. It sounds complicated, but complicated is my normal.’
The psychiatrist wrote something in his pad, but didn’t comment. Instead he asked another question.
‘Who is “we”?’
‘My mum . . . and my gran.’
‘Why d’you think they didn’t discuss it with you?’
Keira shrugged. ‘Who knows! Too painful, maybe? I really don’t know.’
‘So what happened with the gun? Can you tell me?’
‘I went back into the house, along the hallway.’
‘Back?’
‘My dad and I had managed to escape.’
‘Why didn’t your dad go back inside?’
‘He couldn’t. He was injured. He’d been shot in the leg. He could barely stand.’
The guy nodded for her to continue.
‘There was a fight at the top of the stairs . . . on the landing, between my uncle and the main guy.’
‘Did you know him: the main guy?’
‘Not at the time, but I overheard my dad and uncle talking about it afterwards . . . I heard his name then, but that’s something else I need to keep to myself.’
‘You said there were three men altogether: what were the other two doing at this point?’
‘Nothing . . . they were already dead.’
‘So this guy was attacking your uncle?’
‘Yeah. He was screaming and howling, his arms flailing around, punching out. There was blood everywhere.’
‘Were you trying to get the gun to your uncle?’
‘I said a moment ago that I don’t remember what I was feeling at the time. That’s true, but I do know what I was thinking. From the moment I had the gun in my hand I knew what I was going to do. There was never any doubt. If I’m being honest, I don’t think I’ve been as certain of anything in my life since.’ Keira stopped talking and stared at the floor.
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