She walked quickly up to the main road and back into Felt Street, where her car was parked. She dropped the SIG Sauer and her balaclava back into the glovebox, as well as Bobby Quilty’s mobile phone. Then she started up the engine, did a quick three-point turn, and drove away. As she turned the corner into Blythe Road a police patrol car came speeding past her with its lights flashing and siren scribbling. It was followed almost immediately by another, and then by a fire tender.
Her hand was still shaking as she set her satnav for Forkhill. In current conditions, it told her, the drive would take her slightly less than an hour. She prayed that, apart from using his mobile phone to set off the briefcase bomb, Bobby Quilty hadn’t put in a call to the men who were holding John and Kyna.
As she turned on to the main M1 she glanced in her rear-view mirror and could see clouds of dirty smoke still rising over the rooftops from Felt Street. It gave her a strange feeling, driving away from a crime scene like this, instead of towards it. It went completely against her training and her experience, and her natural instincts.
But her plan had worked out so far, even though it had turned out to be more tragic than she could ever have imagined. She had to see it through to the very end, for John’s sake, and Kyna’s sake, and as a tribute to Alan.
She was passing Loughbrickland when it began to rain again, not lashing down, but a soft, persistent mizzle. She stayed dry-eyed. The time for crying would be later.
Forty-four
She made slow progress south because of the weather, and a broken-down car transporter at Newry reduced traffic to a single lane, but it was still only ten minutes past eight when Katie arrived in Forkhill.
She passed the Welcome Inn, where Alan’s Lesser Bastard worked – the young man who had seen John and Kyna taken into Bobby Quilty’s house. It was too early for it to be open and the only person on the village street was a woman in a hooded raincoat walking past McCreesh General Store and Funeral Director, with a miserable-looking mongrel on a string.
Alan had told her exactly where Bobby Quilty’s house was, only two and a half kilometres further south, right by the border. She drove past it to see how many cars were parked outside, if any. Behind the trees she could make out only one: a mustard-coloured Volvo. She would have bet 100 euros that it was the same mustard-coloured Volvo that had obstructed the gardaí who had been trying to give Detective Barry backup as he chased the cigarette-seller along MacCurtain Street, and the same ‘yellowy’ Volvo that had been seen in Parklands after Darragh Murphy had been shot.
Bobby Quilty had said that he would call ‘my pal Ger’ to have John and Kyna dealt with. Katie had guessed that he meant Ger Carmody, who she knew to be one of his closest henchmen, who kept an eye on his affairs in Cork when he was away in the North.
On the opposite side of the road, a few metres further south, there was a narrow farm track with overgrown hedges on both sides. Katie drove down it until she was out of sight of Bobby Quilty’s house. She parked her car close to the verge, in case a tractor needed to get past, although it looked as if the track was no longer in use.
Alan had said that when he had visited the house to check up on John and Kyna he had sneaked round the back, so Katie decided to do the same. She crossed the road and walked about 150 metres past the low stone wall in front of the house until she came to its perimeter fence. She looked around. All she could see were the low hills on either side of the road, and fields. The next house was more than a third of a kilometre away. It was still drizzling and there was nobody else in sight. At that moment, she could almost have believed that she was the only person left in the world.
She climbed over the wall and followed the three-bar wooden fence to the rear of the property, keeping her head down. There were enough bushes around the driveway to hide her from anybody who might be looking out of a downstairs window, and although there was a single upstairs window facing in her direction, it had a blind drawn down over it.
She climbed over the fence into the garden. As soon as she dropped down on to the other side, she froze. The back door of the house opened and a man appeared, wearing a white hat and sunglasses and a sagging black jacket. Ger Carmody – that grubby white hat was his trademark. He sucked at the butt-end of a cigarette and then flicked it out into the garden. Katie crouched low, hoping he wouldn’t see her in the long feathery grass. He blew out smoke, then he went back inside and closed the door behind him.
Katie waited for a few moments and then made her way towards the house. There was the shed that Alan had used for cover, and there was the large living-room window through which he had seen John and Kyna. The living room was dark inside, so all she could see was the reflection of the garden, and the hills in the distance.
Please God don’t tell me Bobby Quilty managed to make that call and they’ve been shot, or taken away somewhere else.
She wasn’t quite sure what she should do next. Maybe she should risk it and try to enter the house. With any luck, Ger Carmody had left the back door unlocked, or she could kick it open. But what if he hadn’t, or she couldn’t? Should she go to the front door and knock, and demand entry as a Garda officer? Supposing John and Kyna weren’t there any longer, and there was no trace that they had been?
She hunkered down beside the shed. She was feeling shivery now, although the morning wasn’t cold, just damp. The shock of the bomb on Felt Street was beginning to get through to her and she knew that what she really needed was a hot drink, and quiet, and a good long sleep.
Now that Bobby Quilty was dead, maybe she should give up trying to rescue John and Kyna single-handed and call for the police, although that could still be a highly dangerous option. There was only one car outside, but she didn’t know how many more of Bobby Quilty’s men might be inside the house. Apart from that, Ger Carmody had a record of extreme violence and if he were found guilty of unlawful imprisonment he would face going to jail for the rest of his life, so if police cars arrived outside he might feel he had nothing to lose. Bobby Quilty had been prepared to go out in a blast of glory, so it was possible that his Ger Carmody might do the same, and take John and Kyna with him.
Alan had been right, she thought. Her plan had been fraught with too many ‘what-ifs’, and that was what had killed him. She had to make a conscious effort not to think of him lying on that kitchen floor, looking so sad.
She was still trying to make up her mind what to do when she saw a shadowy movement inside the living room. Somebody was walking towards the window – a woman, by the look of it. When she came close, she saw that it was Kyna. She had a fawn blanket wrapped around her shoulders and her hair was all messed up. It was her face, though, that shocked Katie. Both of her eyes were purple and almost closed up, and her nose was swollen.
There was no sign of John, but Alan had said that his informant had seen him carried into the house on a stretcher, so maybe he was still unable to walk.
Katie made her mind up immediately. She drew her revolver out its holster and ran with her knees bent towards the window. As soon as Kyna saw her she dropped the blanket from her shoulders and flapped her hands wildly, as if to tell her to Come, and come quickly. She looked startled and relieved, but she was a Garda officer, too, and Katie knew that she wouldn’t panic. She mouthed something that Katie couldn’t hear, but she raised one finger, as if to tell her that there was only one man guarding the house. Katie lifted her hand to show her that she understood, then she went to the back door and tried the handle. Ger Carmody had left it unlocked. Bobby Quilty clearly hadn’t rung him, and he couldn’t have heard yet that he was dead.
Katie opened the door and stepped inside. She found herself in a gloomy kitchen with a pine table in the middle of it. The table was crowded with empty pizza boxes and KFC buckets and dirty paper plates and beer cans and coffee mugs and two ashtrays heaped with so many cigarette butts that they looked like maggots. The terracotta-tiled floor was so sticky that Katie’s shoes made a crackling sound as she walked across to the hal
lway.
The door to the hallway was already half open, but she stopped and listened before she opened it any further. She could hear a television, though she couldn’t make out what station it was tuned to.
She waited a little longer, but as she reached out to open the door wider she heard footsteps approaching up the corridor outside. Hurried, squeaky footsteps, as if somebody in crêpe-soled shoes had an urgent message to deliver.
She heard a door being unlocked and even though her ears were still singing from the explosion she could clearly hear voices. She heard Kyna saying, ‘What in the name of Jesus do you want now, you bastard?’ Kyna sounded very clotted, as if she had a cold.
‘Mother of God, that’s some bang off your man,’ said a deep, harsh voice with a strong Cork accent. She guessed that was Ger.
‘He’s desperate sick, that’s why,’ Kyna retorted. ‘He’s nearly dying and you haven’t the human heart to send for a doctor.’
‘Well, we don’t have to bother about it now. Things have changed. It turns out now that you and your manky friend here are surplus to requirements.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘It’s over, sweetheart. The Big Feller’s bought the farm.’
‘You what?’
‘It’s just been on the news, on the telly. There was a bomb set off in Belfast and seven fellers were done for, including the Big Feller.’
‘You’re not serious.’
‘It was on the news on the telly only a couple of minutes ago. How more serious do you want to be than that?’
‘I can’t believe it. So what happens now?’
‘So, like I say, you’re surplus to requirements. I’m out the gap, like, but I don’t need you and your stinky pal here.’
‘You can’t—’ Kyna began, but Ger must have closed the living-room door then because Katie couldn’t hear the rest of what she was saying. Not that she needed to. It was chillingly clear what he intended to do.
She pulled open the kitchen door. The living-room door was next to it, on the right-hand side, and she kicked that open. She stepped into the room with her revolver raised high up in front of her.
Kyna was standing by the window, her shoulders still wrapped in her blanket. Ger had crossed the room to the couch where John was lying and he was jiggling a large Colt automatic in his hand as if he were weighing it. John’s legs were draped in a sheet that was stained brown and amber with blood and pus, with several bluebottles crawling over it, and he looked appalling. His face was dead white except for the dark circles around his eyes. His jaw was hanging slack and his arms were crossed over his chest, like an effigy on a medieval tomb. His eyes were open but he was staring at the ceiling, and he didn’t acknowledge Katie’s appearance with even a flicker. Underneath that stained sheet, his infected feet were rotting and the stench in the living room was thick and sickly.
‘Put the gun down, Ger!’ Katie shouted at him, and she wished that she hadn’t sounded so shrill.
Ger jerked with surprise. ‘Christ on a bicycle, it’s you! And I thought the only bang I was getting in here was off of this feller’s feet.’
‘I said, put the gun down, or so help me I’ll drop you.’
Ger pointed his Colt at the crown of John’s head. ‘Oh, no. I think I have the advantage here, sweetheart. If you don’t put your little peashooter down, I’m going to blow your friend’s head halfway to Dundalk.’
‘You were going to do that anyway,’ said Katie. ‘So put the gun down or, believe me, I’ll kill you where you stand.’
Ger said, ‘You won’t, because you don’t want to see your friend here die, too. Which he will, if you shoot me, and you know it.’
Kyna dropped her blanket to the floor and said, ‘Listen, Ger. You want to get out of here, don’t you? I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll come with you as a hostage until you’re well clear of here. Then you won’t get killed, and John here won’t get killed, and by the grace of God I won’t get killed, either.’
Katie said, ‘If you agree to that, Ger, I’ll put down my gun.’
‘Even if you do that, darling, you’ll still be chasing after me, won’t you, and you’ll have these two as witnesses against me?’
‘Ger – if I do manage to find you and bring you up in front of a court, you’ll be better off facing a charge of false imprisonment than two charges of cold-blooded murder.’
Ger continued to point his automatic at John’s head, but there was no doubt that he was undecided.
‘You can say what you like,’ he told her, ‘there’s no way I’m going back to that fecking Portlaoise prison again. I’d rather die than go back to that fecking hell-hole.’
‘If you walk out of here peacefully today, without hurting any of us, then I’ll testify on your behalf,’ said Katie. ‘That’s if I ever catch you, which I probably won’t. If you have any sense, you’ll get out of the country and never come back.’
Almost half a minute passed. Katie’s hand was trembling from holding up her gun for so long and she could actually taste the rank smell of John’s decaying feet.
At last, Ger shook his head and said, ‘Nah... no chance. I know you, DS Maguire. You look like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth but you have some fierce sharp teeth in that same mouth, too. No matter where I go, you’ll make sure you lift me. Jimmy Malone – he was in Gran Canaria, wasn’t he, and you still had him extramadited, and what had he done?’
‘Jimmy Malone set fire to a house with six children in it.’
‘Wasn’t his fault they died. He didn’t know they was home.’
‘Come on, Ger, let’s all be reasonable,’ said Kyna, coming closer to him, with both hands outspread. ‘We can’t spend all day discussing this. The rest of the boys are going to be back soon, aren’t they, and how much do you trust them? You’re going to let them witness you shooting us? They’ll rat you out as soon as look at you. Much better if they come back and all of us are gone.’
She looked across at Katie and said, ‘There’s four more of them altogether. They went shopping to Newry early this morning because they’d run out of fags and bacon and booze. You know – the three staples of a civilized life.’
Katie didn’t take her eyes off Ger. He was talking tough and she found it almost impossible to read his expression behind those dark glasses. All the same, she was beginning to deduce from his indecision and his body language that he was actually frightened of her – or what she represented, at least. When he looked at her he saw Portlaoise high-security prison and that made him doubly unpredictable. From her experience, he was much more likely to pull the trigger if he was frightened, and if he killed John his adrenaline would start pumping and he would find it easy, if not exhilarating, to kill both Kyna and herself.
She went over to the bookcase and laid her gun down on it.
‘There,’ she said, although her heart was beating so fast that she was breathless. ‘All you have to do now is walk out of here. Kyna’s offered to go with you, to make sure that you get clear away. I promise you we won’t try to stop you or come after you, and I won’t put out any bulletins about you for at least twenty-four hours. You have my word on that, Ger.’
Ger lifted his automatic away from the top of John’s head, obviously trying to make up his mind. The instant he did so, however, Kyna spun around on one foot and kicked the gun out of his hand. He said, ‘Shite!’ and staggered backwards, but she went after him and kicked and punched him again and again, so fast that to Katie it was nothing but a blur of arms and legs. She kicked him hard in the crotch, and when he doubled forward she kicked him under his chin so that his jaw cracked and his hat flew off. He tumbled backwards into the space between the end of the couch and the wall, and she used the arm of the couch as a vaulting horse so that she could stamp on his ribs, right over his heart.
Katie circled around her and scooped up Ger’s automatic from the floor, then went back to the bookcase and collected her own revolver. Meanwhile, Kyna was kicking Ger repeat
edly in the side of his head. Finally she stood on his face, using her full weight, so that his dark glasses and his nose-bone both crunched.
‘Kyna! Jesus and Mary! I think that’ll do it,’ Katie told her.
‘The bastard!’ said Kyna in her clogged-up voice. ‘The total, absolute bastard! I was begging him to call for a white van for John, but he wouldn’t. Instead, he headbutted me and broke my nose.’
Katie looked down at Ger, with his dark glasses smashed on the bridge of his nose and blood running in streams down both sides of his face.
‘He won’t be doing a whole lot to stop us getting out of here now,’ she said. She knelt down next to John and took hold of his ice-cold hands. He stared back at her but he didn’t seem to know who she was.
‘John, it’s Katie. Do you understand me? It’s Katie. I’ve come to take you away from here.’
John continued to stare at her, and he whispered something, but at first she couldn’t make out what he was saying.
‘It’s okay, John. Everything’s going to be grand now. We’ll take you to the hospital to have your feet patched up and then you’ll be fine.’
‘Barney,’ whispered John. ‘Time for Barney’s walk.’
Katie’s eyes filled up with tears. She squeezed his hands and said, ‘Yes. Yes, it is. And soon you’ll be able to take him out yourself. Let’s just get you up off that couch and out of here. Kyna? Do you think you could give me a hand here? He won’t be able to walk by himself.’
Kyna was crouching next to Ger, who still hadn’t stirred. She was pressing her fingertips up against his neck, feeling for his pulse.
‘I think he’s dead,’ she said.
‘Serious?’
‘I can’t feel a pulse and he isn’t breathing. I think I’ve broken his neck.’
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