The Ghosts of Belfast (The Twelve) jli-1

by Stuart Neville

  “No,” Fegan said.

  The boy stabbed at the object with his finger.

  “No.” The word felt watery on Fegan’s tongue.

  The boy’s mouth gaped, his hands grabbing clumps of hair. Before the scream could come, Fegan reached in and lifted the Walther P99 from its nest.

  A grin blossomed on the boy’s face, his teeth glinting. He mimed the act of pulling back the slide assembly to chamber the first round.

  Fegan looked from the boy to the pistol and back again. The boy nodded. Fegan drew back the slide, released it, hearing the snick-snick of oiled parts moving together. The gun was solid in his grasp, like the shake of an old friend’s hand.

  The boy smiled, stood, and walked towards the landing.

  Fegan stared down at the Walther. He had bought it a few weeks after leaving the Maze, just for protection, and it only came out of the box for cleaning. His fingertip found the trigger curled inside the guard.

  The boy waited in the doorway.

  Fegan got to his feet and followed him to the stairs. The boy descended, the lean grace of his body seemingly untouched by the light below.

  Fegan began the slow climb downward. An adrenal surge stirred dark memories, voices long silenced, faces like bloodstains. The others came behind, sharing glances with one another. As he reached the bottom, he saw McKenna’s back. The politician studied the old photograph of Fegan’s mother, the one that showed her young and pretty in a doorway.

  The boy crossed the room and again played out the execution of the man who had taken him apart with a claw hammer more than twenty years ago.

  Fegan’s heart thundered, his lungs heaved. Surely McKenna would hear.

  The boy looked to Fegan and smiled.

  Fegan asked, “If I do it, will you leave me alone?”

  The boy nodded.

  “What?” McKenna put the framed picture down. He turned to the voice and froze when he saw the gun aimed at his forehead.

  “I can’t do it here.”

  The boy’s smile faltered.

  “Not in my house. Somewhere else.”

  The smile returned.

  “Jesus, Gerry.” McKenna gave a short, nervous laugh as he held his hands up. “What’re you at?”

  “I’m sorry, Michael. I have to.”

  McKenna’s smile fell away. “I don’t get it, Gerry. We’re friends.”

  “We’re going to get into your car.” The clarity crackled in Fegan’s head. For the first time in months his hand did not shake.

  McKenna’s mouth twisted. “Like fuck we are.”

  “We’re going to get into your car,” Fegan repeated. “You in the front, me in the back.”

  “Gerry, your head’s away. Put the gun down before you do something you’ll regret.”

  Fegan stepped closer. “The car.”

  McKenna reached out. “Now, come on, Gerry. Let’s just calm down a second, here, all right? Why don’t you give that to me, and I’ll put it away. Then we’ll have a drink.”

  “I won’t say it again.”

  “No messing, Gerry, let me have it.”

  McKenna went to grab the gun, but Fegan pulled his hand away. He brought it back to aim at the center of McKenna’s forehead.

  “You always were a mad cunt.” McKenna kept his eyes on him as he went to the door. He opened it and stepped out onto the street. He looked left and right, right and left, searching for a witness. When his shoulders slumped, Fegan knew there was no one. This was not the kind of street where curtains twitched.

  The Merc’s locking system sensed the key was in range, whirring and clunking as McKenna approached.

  “Open the back door,” Fegan said.

  McKenna did as he was told.

  “Now get in the front and leave the door open till I’m inside.” Fegan kept the Walther trained on McKenna’s head until he was seated at the steering wheel.

  Fegan slid into the back, careful not to touch the leather upholstery with his bare hands. He used a handkerchief to pull the door closed. Tom had seen him leave with the politician, so his prints around the front passenger seat didn’t matter. McKenna sat quite still with his hands on the wheel.

  “Now close the door and go.”

  The Merc’s big engine rumbled into life, and McKenna pulled away. Fegan took one glance from the back window and saw the twelve watching from the pavement. The boy stepped out onto the road and waved.

  Fegan lay down flat in the cloaking shadows. He pressed the gun’s muzzle against the back of the driver’s seat, exactly where McKenna’s heart would be, if he’d ever had one.

  2

  Fegan knew the streets around the docks would be deserted. The Merc’s engine ticked as it cooled, punctuating the occasional rumble of traffic from the elevated motorway behind, where the M3 became the M2. In front of them, the River Lagan flowed into Belfast Lough. The lights of the Odyssey complex shimmered across the water. The nightclubs inside it would be thronging with the young and affluent; young enough to have no memory of men like Fegan, affluent enough not to care.

  Beyond the Odyssey stood Samson and Goliath, the massive gantry cranes towering over the old shipyard. On the other side of Queen’s Island, a small airplane circled the City Airport, now renamed after the great George Best, the footballer who destroyed himself with alcohol. The plane’s engine whined and buzzed. McKenna’s shoulders rose and fell with each breath.

  Fegan raised himself up to sit behind the politician, the gun still at the center of the seat-back. The sweat-damped fabric of his shirt slid across his shoulder blades. He looked around the patch of waste ground they were parked on. No CCTV, no people. Only the rats to witness it.

  And the followers.

  They moved between the pools of darkness, watching, waiting. All except the boy. He leaned against the driver’s door, cupping his hands around his eyes, staring at McKenna though the glass.

  “Look at that,” McKenna said, indicating the stretch of land around the cranes. “They’re calling it the Titanic Quarter now. Can you believe that?”

  Fegan didn’t answer.

  “There’s a fortune being made out of that land. It’s good times, Gerry. The contracts, the grants, all that property they’re building, and everybody’s got their hand out. But, Jesus, they’re naming it after a fucking boat that sank first time it hit the water. Isn’t that a laugh? This city gave the world the biggest disaster ever to sail the sea, and we’re proud of it. Only in Belfast, eh?”

  McKenna fell silent for a few seconds before he asked, “What do you want, Gerry?”

  “Make a phone call,” Fegan said.

  “Who to?”

  “Tom. Tell him to close up. Tell him you dropped me off and you went to see someone at the docks. If he asks who, tell him it’s about a deal you’re doing.”

  McKenna’s laugh betrayed his fear. “Why would I do that? Why would I phone anyone?”

  “Because I’ll kill you if you don’t.”

  “I think you’ll kill me anyway.”

  Fegan looked up to the rear-view mirror. He could just make out McKenna’s eyes in the darkness, his glasses reflecting the light from across the water. “There’s dying and there’s dying, Michael. Two very different things. You know that.”

  “Jesus.” McKenna’s shoulders shook as he exhaled. “Oh, Jesus, Gerry. I can’t.”

  Fegan raised the Walther’s muzzle to the base of McKenna’s skull. “Do it.”

  McKenna bowed his head and sighed. His mobile phone’s screen washed the car’s interior with a blue-green glow. The phone beeped and burbled in his trembling hand before he brought it to his ear.

  “Yeah . . . Tom, listen, just lock up and take the cash home with you . . . He’s all right. I put him to bed. I’m over at the docks . . . To meet a fella . . . Just business. Listen, gotta go. I’ll pick up the cash tomorrow . . . Yeah, all right . . . See you then.”

  The phone beeped once, and its soft light died.

  McKenna turned his head.
“Do you remember when we were kids, Gerry?”

  Fegan smelled sweat and fear, McKenna’s and his own. Enough memories were stirring without this.

  McKenna continued. “Do you remember that time the Brits got us for bricking them? What were we, sixteen, seventeen? Remember, I threw the first one and went running. Wee Patsy Toner was too scared to do it, so he came running after me.”

  He craned his neck, trying to see Fegan. Fegan jabbed the gun’s muzzle against the back of his head until he looked straight ahead. Ahead to where the followers waited. Except the boy. He still stared through the driver’s window.

  McKenna laughed. “Not you, though. You were never scared. Not of anybody. You stood your ground. You waited till you saw the whites of their eyes before you chucked yours. Remember, you hit one of them in the face. Their heads were poking out the top of the Land Rover and the brick hit him right in the nose. Blood pissing everywhere.”

  “Enough,” Fegan said. Memory cursed him.

  “And then they chased us up the Falls. Jesus, do you remember? You and me laughing, and wee Patsy screaming for his ma.”

  Fegan pressed the gun harder against McKenna’s skull. “I said enough.”

  “And they got us in Brighton Street. Christ, they kicked the fuck out of us, didn’t they? Oh, that was a beating. And do you remember . . .” McKenna’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Do you remember they got hold of wee Patsy, and he pissed himself all over one of them?”

  A smile found Fegan’s lips and he wiped it off with his free hand. “They broke his arm for that.”

  “That’s right,” McKenna said, the laughter dying in his throat. “And we joined up the next day. Broke your ma’s heart, that, didn’t it?”

  “That’s enough.” Fegan’s eyes burned.

  McKenna’s voice turned to a snarl. “It was me got you in, Gerry. Me. I got you in with McGinty and the rest. They’d have never taken you without me. Don’t you forget that. You’d have been nothing without me, just another Catholic boy on the dole.”

  “That’s right,” Fegan said. “I’d have been nothing. I’d have done nothing. And those people would be alive. That boy would be alive. He’d have a wife, children, a home, all of that. We took that away from him. You and me.”

  McKenna’s voice boomed inside the car. “He was a fucking tout. He squealed to the cops. He was dead the second he opened his mouth.”

  A stillness settled in Fegan. “That’s enough,” he said.

  “Gerry, think about what you’re doing. The boys won’t let it go, ceasefire or not. Stormont or not. They’ll come after you.”

  A tear traced a warm line down Fegan’s cheek and he tasted salt. “Jesus, I promised myself I’d never do this again.”

  “Then don’t, Gerry. Listen, it’s not too late. You’re drunk and you’re depressed, I know. You’re not at yourself. There won’t be any trouble if you stop now.”

  Fegan shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  “Thirty years, Gerry. We’ve known each other thirty—”

  The Walther barked once, throwing red and grey against the windscreen. McKenna slumped forward onto the steering wheel, and the Merc’s horn screamed at the night. Fegan reached forward, pulled him back against the seat, and silence swallowed them.

  He climbed out of the car and used his handkerchief to open the driver’s door. In the scant light from across the water he saw McKenna’s dull eyes staring up at him, his designer glasses cracked and hanging off one ear. Fegan put another bullet in his heart, just to be sure. The pistol’s hoarse shout rippled across the Lagan towards the glittering buildings.

  Fegan wiped the wet heat from his eyes and looked around him. The followers emerged from the dark places and jostled for position around the open door, glancing from Fegan to the body, from the body to Fegan. He studied each of them in turn, his eyes moving from one to the next. He counted them as they retreated to the shadows.

  The boy wasn’t among them.

  One down.

  Eleven to go.

  ELEVEN

  3

  “That’s him,” McSorley said, pointing to a blurred image on a stained sheet of paper. It showed an elderly man unlocking the door of a post office.

  Davy Campbell turned the page on the tabletop to get a better look.

  Soft target, he thought. Typical.

  McSorley slurped at his beer and wiped his mouth clean. His denims were at least fifteen years too young for him. Hughes and Comiskey lounged on the other side of the booth. The drink had already reddened their eyes, and it was only lunchtime.

  McSorley addressed them. “You two hold on to his wife, and me and Davy will take care of him.”

  Campbell looked out the window to the sun-baked car park, the two rusted vehicles sitting there, and the mountains beyond. No traffic moved along the road on the outskirts of Dundalk. The diversions for the new motorway’s construction had whittled down business at the Player’s Inn to the extent that Eugene McSorley could talk aloud about his plans without fear of eavesdroppers. In a few months four lanes would carry traffic from the heart of Dublin all the way to Newry, just across the border in the North, and then on to Belfast. The port town of Dundalk would be bypassed altogether, along with the Player’s Inn.

  The Gaelic football memorabilia on the walls used to impress the tourists who landed by the busload on their way through to Dublin. They didn’t know how bad the food was until it arrived on chipped plates, wallowing in grease. The football shirts and trophies displayed around the bar looked a little sad now the only customers were this shower of shit.

  The landlord’s father, Joe Gribben Senior, had been on the 1957 Louth team that won the Sam Maguire Cup, and Joe Gribben Junior would never let it be forgotten. Born and raised in Glasgow, Campbell had no interest in Gaelic football. And Joe Gribben Junior wisely had no interest in this discussion, so he stayed at the far end of the bar, out of earshot.

  Comiskey leaned forward and waved a finger at Campbell. “How come he gets to go? Why’ve I got to stay with the auld doll?”

  Campbell reached out and seized the finger. “Get that out of my face before I break it off.”

  “Quit it,” McSorley scolded as he separated their hands. “Davy’s going with me ’cause he knows what he’s doing. All you know how to do is sit around and scratch your arse, so shut your trap and do what you’re told.”

  “Away and shite,” Comiskey said. He sat back and folded his arms.

  Campbell returned his stare until the other backed down. Were these really the best men McSorley could gather up? Taking a post office might raise enough cash to get some decent weapons, but what was the point of putting them in the hands of people like Comiskey? He’d probably shoot his own toe off.

  Not for the first time, Campbell wondered what the fuck he was doing with this lot. They called themselves Republicans, truer to the cause than those sell-outs north of the border, but they could barely organise a round of beers. One insane act nine years before had almost wiped the dissidents out. The disastrous bombing of Omagh killed twenty-nine civilians and two unborn twins on a summer afternoon in 1998, just months after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. What little support the breakaway Republican groups had evaporated overnight. The changes in the North were swelling their numbers, however, as more and more foot soldiers drifted to the dissidents; they feared becoming nobodies again now the movement had no further use for them. The peace process had left many idle hands, and the devil was busy doling out work.

  Some of the boys had objected to Campbell’s presence, seeing as he wasn’t even Irish, but his reputation had travelled ahead of him from Belfast. When he crossed the border to Dundalk, McSorley sought the Scotsman out and made him his right-hand man. The dissidents were made up of gangs like McSorley’s, some larger, some smaller, all loosely affiliated under a common cause. Soon, maybe this year, maybe next, they would pull together and be a real threat once more. Until then, they would continue bickering amongst themsel
ves while knocking over country post offices.

  A job’s a job, Campbell reminded himself. He sighed inwardly and let his eyes wander while McSorley recited the plan for the tenth time.

  His eyes stopped at the silent television over the bar. A photograph of a familiar face was replaced by footage of men in white paper overalls and surgical masks examining a Mercedes.

  “Look,” Campbell said.

  McSorley was too wrapped up in his own plan to notice, so Campbell slapped his shoulder.