‘Wars aren’t moral!’
‘Spare me the shit, Hugh,’ Karen said. ‘You weren’t at war. You spent your days getting off on the power, on people being a little afraid of you. You mistook fear for respect. The night you maimed that guy in Glasgow, coming into the party late, bag in hand, standing with your arms up while everyone cheered you, like you were some kind of hero.’
‘Don’t!’ Hugh cautioned her, his teeth gritted, his gun levelled at her.
‘Or what? Are you going to shoot me?’
‘I should have, thirty years ago.’
Tony stepped in front of Karen, blocking her from Hugh. ‘It should be me. I told Hamilton about our plot, told him to leave. Karen was just trying to look out for me.’
‘Don’t think I haven’t enough bullets for the pair of you,’ Duggan said. ‘And you, Sean. You took her word for it. You believed her.’
‘We were all there,’ Mullan said. ‘You heard him; he admitted they’d broken up. There was no reason to think she was protecting anyone, least of all the ex-boyfriend she’d cheated on.’
Tony shook her head. ‘Is that what those questions were about? Whether you could trust Karen?’
Mullan nodded. ‘Her cheating on you saved both your lives. Ironic really. If you’d still been together, we’d have had to investigate a lot more.’
‘We need to keep moving,’ Barr said, surprising them, apparently, with the control he took of the situation. Tony wondered whether it was fear; what might happen to him, after all, if Duggan did turn his gun on them all?
‘We’ll go when I say we’ll go,’ Duggan said. ‘Just keep your mouth shut, son.’
Barr nodded, his jaw tight. ‘We need you to find Kelly’s grave,’ he explained. ‘We can deal with all this when we’ve done that. Now, more than ever, his family deserve to recover his body, especially if he was innocent.’
‘He was never innocent,’ Karen said resignedly, standing. ‘He just wasn’t guilty of this.’
She began moving again, not looking to Duggan to see how he might react. Tony fell in alongside her, Mullan and Barr a few steps behind, Duggan to the rear.
‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘You should have told me.’
Karen smiled, shook her head. ‘Seriously? I should have told you? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘When?’
‘Back then.’
‘I couldn’t. I didn’t have a chance. I’d no time.’
‘We were in a cellar for two hours, waiting for them to finish questioning Kelly.’
‘Two hours?’ In his memory, it had seemed perhaps twenty minutes. ‘I… I wanted to. I actually was about to when Duggan came in and told us we had to go.’
‘And afterwards?’
‘Duggan was with us.’
‘No, I mean after we came back. I risked my life for you; I’d no idea what you told them. If you’d confessed to them, I’d have been shot for lying. I trusted you to do the right thing. And afterwards, when we went back to mine, we had sex, we lay together and I waited for you to tell me. If ever there was a place or time for it, it was in those hours, lying together. I’d never have said a word, if you’d only told me, I’d have taken it to my grave for you. But you didn’t. You talked about everything but and then you went to sleep and pretended everything was OK in the morning. And I knew then, we were done. You didn’t trust me, which meant I could never trust you.’
‘I did trust you,’ Tony pleaded, turning to her, as if somehow convincing her now of this fact might change everything, might rewrite the past they didn’t share. ‘I told them that. I told you that, in the cellar. I told you I was sorry.’
‘Our entire relationship seemed to be marked with milestones of your apologies,’ Karen said. ‘You didn’t trust me enough.’
‘I was ashamed,’ Tony admitted. ‘It’s not that I didn’t trust you not to tell anyone; I was ashamed. I thought if you knew what I’d done, what I allowed us to do to Martin, that you’d…’
‘What?’ Karen said, stopping to stare at him.
‘That you’d not love me the same anymore.’
Karen nodded, even as Tony realized she was right: he hadn’t trusted her to love him no matter what he had done.
‘Jesus,’ he said, tears springing to his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘And there’s another one,’ Karen said, smiling sadly. ‘I know you are, Tony. I knew you were then, too. But I couldn’t be with someone I’d trusted with my life that didn’t trust me with his.’
‘We need to keep moving,’ Barr said behind them.
Tony looked at Karen, wanting to hold onto this moment, painful as it was, if only because it was something they shared, something that had brought them closer together. But she moved on.
Following her, he realized they were going down an incline, into a hollow in the woods. ‘This is it,’ he said. ‘This is the right path.’
Sure enough, a moment later, they came to the scar of where a stream had once cut through the woods, its bed now cushioned with fallen leaves.
Barr headed down to the right several hundred yards, tracing the dried stream’s progress. ‘Down here,’ he called.
They moved down to where he stood. As they approached, Tony could make out the rotted carcass of a tree trunk, which traversed the bed of the stream.
‘We’re on the right track,’ Barr said. ‘How much further?’
‘Not much,’ Tony said. ‘We’re nearly there.’
Chapter Fifty-One
‘We’re nearly there,’ Duggan said, his breath short, the words clipped.
He straightened in the grave, pulled his T-shirt free from where it had been tucked in at his waist. ‘Another few shovel loads will do us. You finish it; I’m going to find some large stones.’
‘What for?’ Tony asked. For a moment, he suspected Duggan wanted to place a marker on the grave, which would surely draw attention to its location.
‘We need to put some on top of him to stop foxes and the like from digging him up,’ Duggan explained as if speaking to a child. In terms of their levels of experience of such things, Tony reflected, Duggan’s assessment wasn’t far wrong.
Kelly lay on his side now, seemingly in a faint. His breathing had become quick and shallow. He whimpered where he lay, his body shivering involuntarily every few minutes. He seemed unable to lift his head from the ground and leaves and dirt were stuck to the side of his face. A leaf, attached to his lips, rippled and danced with each breath, but did not dislodge.
‘What will we do?’ Karen asked. She’d finished stripping him and had placed his clothes in the bag, which Duggan had given to her.
‘Should we let him go?’ Tony said, then realized that Duggan may not have gone too far away and might be wondering why the sound of digging had stopped. He took another shovel load of clay, deposited it to the side of the hole.
‘I don’t think he’d get very far,’ Karen said. ‘He’s sweating, but his skin’s cold.’
‘He’s in shock,’ Tony said. ‘See if you can rouse him.’
‘I’m going to undo his hands,’ Karen said.
She knelt behind him, working at the knots, but they were pulled tight by Kelly’s having struggled against them. She got down on all fours, leaning down, as if to use her teeth to loosen them.
‘Take his gag off,’ Tony said. ‘See if he’s awake enough to run.’
Karen nodded and, reaching down, pulled the gag loose from his mouth. ‘Martin,’ she hissed. ‘Martin?’
His eyes rolled towards her, his mouth lying open, his tongue moving uselessly.
‘He must be thirsty,’ she said. ‘We’ve nothing to give him to drink.’
‘Martin,’ Tony said. ‘Martin, can you hear us?’
Kelly’s eyes swiveled back towards his direction, but he seemed for a moment to struggle to focus. He tried to speak, but the words, dry and rasping, made no sense.
‘Martin, can you get up?’ Tony hissed. ‘Can you stand?’
In the mi
ddle distance, they heard something crash in the undergrowth and they both instinctively ducked. There was no further sound, and Tony guessed Duggan must have dropped some of the stones he was carrying. If they could hear him, he could hear them. He took another shovel load, deliberately clinking the metal edge against the side of a stone wedged about two foot down, the ringing carrying clear across the woodland floor. He deposited the spoil on the graveside, then hoisted himself up out of the hollow and scrabbled across to where Kelly and Karen were.
‘Martin, you need to get up,’ he said, shaking the man’s shoulders. His skin was clammy, sticky to the touch. Closer to him now, Tony could tell that he had soiled himself at some stage, though Karen had not mentioned it. The wounds on his arms and shoulders were vivid, despite the relative murkiness of the woods, their eyes having long since adjusted to the dark in which they worked.
‘Get up, Martin,’ he repeated, putting his hand in under Kelly’s trunk to try to help lift him. Kelly seemed to realize what he was doing, for Tony felt his weight shift as the injured man began using his legs to try to raise himself.
‘You need to go, Martin,’ Tony said. ‘We’ll say you ran when we weren’t looking. You need to go.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Kelly rasped. ‘I’m so sorry.’
They heard another crash, closer this time, and the hissed cursing of Duggan.
‘You need to go,’ Tony said, pushing him, encouraging him to leave. ‘Please, run.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Kelly repeated. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Please, run,’ Karen said. ‘Please, Martin.’
For a moment, Tony thought he was going to do so. His legs tensed, as if in preparation to sprint, but as he moved his foot, his weight seemed to drop under him and he stumbled, forcing Tony to have to grip him tighter to hold him. Kelly winced in pain as Tony’s grip encircled the bruises on his trunk.
‘Sorry, Martin,’ Tony said, hugging against the man to help him remain upright. He felt the weakness of Kelly’s pulse, the shallow rising of his chest with each quick breath. ‘Jesus,’ he said, the realization of what was happening made concrete with the smell of blood, sweat and piss, which emanated from Kelly’s skin. ‘Jesus, I’m sorry, Martin. I’m sorry. It shouldn’t be you, it should–’
‘He’s here,’ Karen cried, and Tony could not be sure whether she had heard what he was saying.
Duggan appeared into the weak light the torch he’d left at the edge of the clearing. He bore a number of rocks, cradled in his two arms, like children. He came across to the grave and, opening his arms, dropped them at the side.
‘You got him up,’ he acknowledged. ‘Good. Let’s go.’
Tony straightened, felt Kelly attempt to stand beside him. ‘Hugh, should we really do this?’
‘I knew you’d be the one to have second thoughts,’ Duggan said. ‘I knew you’d not have the balls for it.’
‘It’s wrong,’ Tony said.
‘His touting was wrong,’ Duggan said. ‘That’s the only thing that matters. How can you ever count on soldiers if they break the rules?’
‘We’re not soldiers,’ Tony said.
‘You’re not, that’s for sure,’ Duggan spat.
Tony angled himself to better support Kelly. ‘I don’t want to be a part of this,’ he said. ‘I can’t.’
‘You’re already a part of it,’ Duggan spat. ‘You got the mercury we used in a tilt switch. You helped watch the cop for weeks. You brought a car load of weapons and Semtex from Paisley into Glasgow. What do you think happened with those?’
‘No one knows I did that?”
‘Your fingerprints are on the car,’ Duggan said. ‘You couldn’t help yourself but have a look inside. You touched the boot.’
Tony looked at Karen who blushed. Clearly, she had told Duggan this after their first drive together.
‘I covered my hands with my sleeves,’ he offered weakly.
‘Catch yourself on,’ Duggan said. ‘You’re in this up to your neck. And you’re going to see this through with us, together. No one can talk if we’re all involved. That’s how it works. That’s what you signed up for.’
‘I didn’t sign up for this,’ Tony said, sullenly.
‘Your brother would be ashamed of you,’ Duggan said. ‘Man up and get him into the grave.’
Tony looked from him to Karen. She had lowered her head, the bag of clothes twisted in her grip. There was no other choice, he realized. Even if he admitted now that he had been the one to tell the cop, what good would it do? He told himself Kelly deserved it, but he did not believe it. In his heart, he knew that he was afraid to face the consequences of what he had done, that he was a coward. He hid his face against Kelly’s body, for shame, his hands touching a wound at the condemned man’s side that made him think of spears and a place of skulls.
‘Get him into his grave,’ Duggan repeated, then pulled the package from his pocket and, unwrapping it, revealed a pistol, its metal shining dully in the torchlight. ‘Let’s get this over with,’ he said.
Chapter Fifty-Two
‘Let’s get this over with,’ Mullan said. ‘Are we near?’
Tony stopped and surveyed the land ahead. A thick-trunked elm stood to one side, sycamores and beech ahead.
‘It was a clearing,’ Karen said. ‘There were thinner trees to one side of it. They’d be bigger now.’
‘Taller, but not much thicker,’ Tony said. ‘They were spruce, I think. I remember them, straight and thin. You burned the clothes just past them.’
Karen nodded, did not articulate her version of the memory.
‘How much longer?’
‘A few minutes,’ Tony said.
Duggan followed behind, not speaking, though maintaining his distance from them. Tony wondered at his thoughts, whether he was attempting to apportion blame, attempting to decide whom best should answer for what they had done to Martin Kelly.
They trudged up the incline on the opposite bank of the stream, their steps wide and laboured. Tony couldn’t remember if they had taken this path, though he had a memory of having taken Karen’s hand at one stage, on their way back, as they had passed the stream.
‘Over to the left a little,’ Duggan said. ‘We headed towards the sunset as we came up this way.’
Tony didn’t remember that, thought indeed that the sun had set already as they first made their way through the woods. But Duggan seemed certain. Either way, they were close.
Sure enough, after ten minutes of walking, they broke out into a clear area. It stretched for several hundred yards down from where they stood. Looking now, Tony guessed that where they’d stopped was a liminal point in the woodland, the stage at which the original ancient forest gave way to newer growth.
‘There was spruce on one side and an oak on the other,’ Tony said.
He made his way along the line of trees until, over to his left, he could see the thin lines of spruce trunks appear through the gaps in the tree line.
‘It’s around here,’ he called, moving on, scanning the edge of the original woodland as he did, looking for the oak tree, which he remembered. Forty yards further down, he found it.
‘This looks about right,’ Karen said. ‘Somewhere around here.’ Her eyes shone, her lip quivered a little as she brought her hand to her mouth and took a breath. ‘This is it.’
They stood in silence for a moment, even Duggan, as he drew level with them, not speaking, simply looking around the clearing, nodding to himself, as if confirming some suspicion he had not shared.
‘Mark it on your phone,’ Mullan said to Barr. The youth took out a mobile phone and, opening the Maps app, dropped a pin on their current location. ‘Thank you, all,’ Mullan said, when that was done. Then he turned to Duggan. ‘So, what now, Hugh?’
Duggan regarded him, sullenly. ‘I trusted you,’ he said.
‘Trust? What would you know about trust?’ Mullan said, scornfully.
‘I gave everything,’ Duggan shouted. ‘Everything. Just like you.
Except I’m not swanning about in chauffeured cars, joking with the enemy.’
‘No, you were joking with the enemy from the start,’ Mullan said. ‘We knew what you were. You want to shoot a traitor, you need to start with yourself.’
Tony flinched as Duggan pulled his gun, held it, wavering, pointed at Mullan. ‘That’s a lie.’
‘Hugh here was a Judas goat,’ Mullan said, turning to look at Tony. ‘That night you were lifted, he was in your cell, right? They’d seen us speaking to you at the funeral, wondered if we’d said something to you about what we were planning. They put him into the cell with you to encourage you to talk. I’ll guess he befriended you. Shared his smokes, maybe?’
‘His shirt,’ Tony said, nodding.
‘That was his role; convince the younger ones to say something they shouldn’t. Incriminate themselves enough that the cops could recruit them as informants.’
‘That’s lies,’ Duggan said, progressing now on Mullan, the gun pressing against the other man’s temple.
The Last Crossing Page 24