The Ghosts of Belfast (The Twelve) jli-1

by Stuart Neville

  The van hit a pothole and Campbell had to brace himself against the dashboard. The old man cried out as he bounced between the van’s inside wall and its floor. Comiskey and Hughes were back at his tiny cottage, holding his wife until Campbell and McSorley returned with the contents of the post office safe. It was only a short journey into the village.

  “I suppose you’d have been one of the boys going after him, eh?”

  Campbell tried to read McSorley’s face, but darkness obscured all but the watery sheen of his eyes. “Might’ve been.”

  “No need to be shy with me, Davy. We’re mates, eh? You don’t talk much about what you got up to in Belfast.”

  “Not much to talk about.”

  McSorley gave a chesty laugh. “Oh, aye. I bet there’s not.”

  His face took on a sickly glow as they cruised into the village, its street lights washing them in orange. “I heard a story about you and some boy who tried to set up Paul McGinty. I heard you beat the life out of him.”

  “Yeah?”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “Well, people talk. You can believe whatever you want.”

  The van’s headlights picked out the green

  An Post

  sign and its brakes whined. The engine juddered as it died. McSorley gave the old man one quick glance and turned back to Campbell.

  “Some of the lads don’t trust you,” he said, his eyes narrow.

  “You mean Comiskey?”

  “Him and some of the others. They think it’s a bit funny, you just upping sticks and coming down here to us. Seeing as you were so close to McGinty and all. Some of the lads are worried about you.”

  Campbell let his hand wander to his thigh. His jeans stretched tight over the Gerber knife in his pocket. “Are you worried?”

  McSorley’s tongue pressed against the inside of his cheek, making his stubble bristle. “I don’t know. It could be McGinty sent you down here to keep an eye on us, see what we’re up to. Or it could be like you say: you just wanted to see some action.”

  Campbell kept his eyes locked on McSorley’s. “Like I said, you can believe whatever you want.”

  A sly grin spread on McSorley’s face as he nodded. “I think you’re all right, Davy, but I’ll tell you this.” He raised a finger at Campbell. “You ever prove me wrong, you better run like fuck, ’cause I’ll skin you alive.”

  McSorley splayed the bills out between his fingers. The balaclava didn’t mask his fury. “Three hundred and twenty fucking euro?”

  Campbell felt a guffaw climb up from his belly, but he trapped it in his mouth. The woollen mask made his beard itch.

  The old man cowered on his knees in front of the open safe. McSorley grabbed his pyjama collar with his free hand.

  “Three hundred and twenty? I didn’t do all this for fucking three hundred and twenty, you miserable auld shite. Where’s the rest?”

  The old man raised his shaking hands. “That’s all there is, I swear to God, that’s all.”

  McSorley shook him back and forth. “Quit talking shite and tell me where it is.”

  “I swear to God, that’s all. We only open half days. There’s some change in the till. You can have that if you want.”

  “Christ!” McSorley released the old man’s collar and shoved the notes into his pocket. He pointed to the counter at the front of the shop. “Davy, go and empty the till. And fill the bag up with fags. That’s all we’re going to get. Fuck!”

  Campbell went to the till. The next morning’s meagre float lay in its open drawer. He scooped up bills and coins, guessing them to total no more than forty or fifty euro, and dropped them into the sports bag. The shelves behind the counter were stacked with cigarettes and he swept them into the bag, on top of the money, feeling like a petty thief.

  Feeling like it?

  No, that’s exactly what I am, he thought as cigarette packets fell at his feet. Like a fucking druggie stealing fags to feed his habit.

  He cursed under his breath.

  “Come on,” McSorley shouted. He dragged the old man by the wrist, not even bothering to bind and gag him again.

  “I’m coming,” Campbell said, shoving the cigarettes down into the bag.

  McSorley stopped at the door. “I said come on, for Christ’s sake!”

  “All right!” Campbell pulled the zipper shut and hoisted the bag over his shoulder. He followed McSorley and the old man out to the street.

  McSorley dragged his whimpering captive to the back of the van and opened the doors. Something across the street grabbed the old man’s attention: a light at a window.

  “Help.” The cry was weak, but he tried again. “Help!”

  McSorley went to cover his mouth, but the old man found the strength to push his hand away. “Help me! Help!”

  Campbell walked towards them.

  “Shut up or I’ll fucking do you one,” McSorley hissed as the old man writhed in his grip.

  The bag slipped from Campbell’s hand, and he peeled the balaclava back from his face.

  “Help me! Somebody! Help!”

  The rage was white-hot and glorious as Campbell let it rain down on the old man’s head, and the force of it sent McSorley reeling. Blow after blow, the anger burned brighter, until the old man was a limp shape dangling from the van’s lip.

  “Davy!”

  Campbell drove his fist into the old man’s gut.

  “Jesus, Davy, stop!”

  He kicked at the old man’s knee.

  McSorley grabbed Campbell’s waist and pulled him back. “That’s enough, Davy. Come on.”

  Campbell tore McSorley’s arms away and spun to face him. “What do you think I am?”

  McSorley stepped back, his hands up.

  “Eh? What do you think I am? A fucking shoplifter?”

  “Davy, calm down a minute.” He pulled the balaclava from his head.

  “A thieving junkie? You think I came all the way down here to steal fucking cigarettes from old men?”

  McSorley’s mouth worked silently, his eyes white circles around black points.

  “Fucking amateurs!” Campbell turned on his heels and grabbed the bag from the ground. He threw it into the back of the van and bundled the old man’s legs in after it. “Come on to fuck,” he growled.

  Without asking, he climbed into the driver’s seat and sparked the engine. McSorley didn’t take his eyes off Campbell as he hoisted himself into the passenger seat.

  They drove in silence, McSorley giving the Scot sideways glances, while Campbell thought of the hole in Michael McKenna’s head, and the killer whose own life was surely forfeit.

  8

  Michael McKenna’s big house in the suburbs didn’t sit well with the party’s socialist manifesto, so Fegan wasn’t surprised his wake was held elsewhere. Instead, people paid their respects to McKenna at his mother’s terraced house on Fallswater Parade, a small red-brick two-up-two-down. It stood in a row of identical houses just off the lower end of the Falls Road, the jugular vein of the Republican movement in Belfast. Back in the bad times, people had compared this part of the city to Beirut. Fegan had always thought of it as the road home, leading as it did to the apex between the Springfield Road and the Falls, where his mother’s old house stood.

  As Fegan approached he tried to count the men crowding the tiny walled garden. They spilled onto the street, smoking, laughing and swapping stories. He gave up when the number passed twenty. He edged through them, returning the respectful nods and mumbled greetings. He knew most of these men, hard lads all, and liked none of them. They came from all over Belfast: Andersonstown, Poleglass, Turf Lodge, and some from the Republican enclaves in the north of the city and the Lower Ormeau. Fegan recognised a few faces from outside Belfast, places like Derry and South Armagh. A few wore shirts and ties to mark the solemnity of the occasion, more wore leather blazers, and the remainder dressed as casually as they did on any afternoon.

  Fegan caught a young man glaring at him from the livin
g-room window of the house next door. He probably owned the Volvo estate whose bonnet some of the boys rested on. Not that he would complain. He realised he’d been noticed and dropped the curtain in front of the window. Fegan imagined many of the street’s newer residents would eye this gathering with apprehension. The property boom had driven the young middle classes into parts of the city they’d never contemplated before. Pensioners who’d never seen money in their lives suddenly found themselves with hundred-grand nest eggs to cushion their dotage.

  Fegan went inside. The narrow hallway was shoulder-to-shoulder with mourners, and he had to fight a sense of drowning as he dived deeper into the house.

  “Gerry!” A small, elderly lady waved from a dense forest of black leather and green-striped Celtic shirts.

  Fegan squeezed through the mass of bodies until he reached her. “Mrs. McKenna, I’m sorry for your trouble.”

  She stretched up to embrace him. “Och, my boy’s gone, Gerry. Some bastard went and shot him. Here’s him fighting for peace and they shot him.” Her eyes were damp and angry as she looked up at him. “May God forgive them, for I won’t.”

  “Where is he?” Fegan asked.

  “Up the stairs, in his old bedroom. Sure, you know where it is, love. You spent plenty of time up there when you were kids. It’s a closed coffin.” Her voice cracked and her lip trembled. “I couldn’t look at him like that, not my handsome boy.”

  “I’ll go up and see him,” Fegan said before giving McKenna’s mother one more hug.

  He fought his way to the foot of the stairs and slowly made his way up, one step at a time. The smell of body odor rose with the heat and thickened as he climbed.

  McKenna’s old room was at the front of the house, overlooking the street. A respectful quiet lay between the four walls, and Fegan was grateful for the relative peace. The few mourners in here whispered amongst themselves, and Fegan’s sweat cooled on him. He could think of worse places to be than in a room with Michael McKenna’s coffin.

  Fegan made the Sign of the Cross as he approached the casket. This was a modest box, far beneath what a man of McKenna’s wealth might expect to rot in, but the humility of its grain, molding and fittings was not an accident. Tomorrow it would lead a procession along the Falls Road draped in an Irish Tricolor and Fegan would walk behind it, possibly even carry it some of the way. He was not a man of words, but he knew what hypocrisy meant. Still, hypocrisy was not rare among his old comrades, or in the party. He could live with it.

  He first met Michael McKenna on a hard bench outside the principal’s office in the Christian Brothers School. They both awaited a caning on a warm June afternoon, just a week or so from the end of term. Fegan couldn’t remember what his caning was for, but McKenna’s was for fighting. McKenna was a year older than Fegan, and as stocky as Fegan was skinny. He had blood on his knuckles. They sat in silence until Brother Doran called them in.

  Fegan took his strokes without making a sound. The corners of his eyes twitched as the WHAP! of bamboo on palm ricocheted off the office walls. He focused on the picture of the Virgin that hung above Brother Doran’s desk and set the pain aside. Turn away and be quiet, he thought. Brother Doran’s face grew more florid with each swipe. After five, he rested the cane on the joint between Fegan’s thumb and the heel of his hand.

  “You’re a stubborn little bastard, aren’t you, Fegan?” he said.

  The cane swished as it cut the air. It caught the joint hard. Fegan’s hand dropped away and he shifted his feet to center his balance. A small sun burned in his hand, but again, he set the pain aside. He raised it for more as a blood blister formed beneath the skin.

  Brother Doran stared into his eyes as his jowls trembled. “Stand in the corner, you impudent little shite.”

  Tears lined Michael McKenna’s cheeks by his third stroke. The fourth was half-hearted as Brother Doran seemed to tire. He dismissed the two boys with an angry flourish.

  As Fegan walked along the corridor outside, McKenna called, “You tell anyone I cried and I’ll beat your head in.”

  Fegan stopped and turned. “Go fuck yourself,” he said.

  McKenna blustered up to him, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “What did you say?”

  “Fuck off,” Fegan said. He turned and resumed walking.

  Two balled fists slammed into his back, and he staggered forward. He regained his balance and spun to face McKenna, his right hand ready.

  McKenna took a step back and jabbed at him with a grubby finger. “Just you watch yourself, right?” He turned and ran in the opposite direction.

  The next day, McKenna stopped Fegan in the playground and demanded to see his hand. Fegan showed him the purple and brown blood-blossoms on his palm.

  “Fuck me,” McKenna said. “Is it sore?”

  “What do you think?” Fegan said.

  “Looks it. Do you want to meet up later?”

  “What for?” Fegan asked.

  Lines appeared on McKenna’s forehead as he shuffled his feet. “Just, you know, for a laugh and stuff.”

  Fegan thought about it for a few seconds. He didn’t do that kind of thing. No harm in trying, though. “All right,” he said.

  He made many friends that summer. His mother didn’t approve. She reminded Fegan that Michael McKenna’s older brother was doing time in Long Kesh for having a gun. Fegan didn’t care. It felt good to have friends.

  Most of those friends were now in McKenna’s mother’s house, swapping stories of the old days, and Fegan dreaded listening to them. He stepped back from the coffin and crossed himself once more.

  The quiet in the room faded to utter silence. Fegan became aware of his own breathing and a presence behind him. He turned and saw a woman, ash-blonde and pale, tall and willowy, in the doorway. She was dressed simply and elegantly in a black trouser suit and white blouse. Fegan stepped aside as she approached.

  She extended her hand to the coffin, stopping when her fingertips were within millimeters of its glossy sheen. Her grey-blue eyes fixed on something Fegan couldn’t see, something far away. A small ache entered his heart as he wondered if she would weep at some memory of the man inside the box. She inhaled as she came back to herself. She blinked once and mouthed four words. Fegan’s ache turned to something darker when he traced the shapes her lips made.

  You had it coming.

  As she turned from the coffin, her eyes caught his and she froze, locked in Fegan’s knowledge of her words.

  You’re right, he wanted to say. He got what he deserved. Instead, he gave her the smallest of nods.

  Her cheeks flushed and she headed for the door. One of McKenna’s three sisters stood by it, watching the blonde woman. When Fegan saw the hate in Bernie McKenna’s eyes he knew who the woman was.

  Marie McKenna, daughter of Patrick and Bridget McKenna, niece of the late Michael McKenna. Seven years ago, at around the same time Fegan was first getting to know his followers, Marie McKenna had scandalised her family by taking up with an officer of the hated Royal Ulster Constabulary. Even worse, he was a Catholic cop at a time when joining the police was still an act of treachery. She was already in poor favor amongst many Republicans as she wrote for one of the Unionist rags, the Telegraph or the Newsletter, Fegan couldn’t remember which. A romance with a peeler cut her off from all but her mother.

  Gossip, shunning, even death threats against each of the couple were not enough to separate them. But pregnancy was. When Marie’s belly began to swell two years into their relationship, the cop made his excuses and left. For the sake of Bridget McKenna, Marie was begrudgingly allowed back into the family. Had she accepted an offer, made in kindness, to sort out the absent father, then perhaps the community would have opened its arms a little wider to her. As it stood, she was a pariah.

  Fegan could see the loneliness, the isolation, on her skin, just as he felt it on his own. The ache in his heart returned, heavier than before.

  Marie kept her eyes focused down and forward as she left the room. Her au
nt scowled as she passed, and Fegan heard the word “Bitch!” hissed after her. Heads turned to follow her progress through the bodies packed on the landing, and whispers cut the thick warm air.

  Fegan felt an inexplicable, irresistible urge to go after her. He fought it for a moment, but its strength dragged him to the door and out onto the landing, cutting the same path through the gathered people as she did. He was a tall man, but still he struggled to see over the mourners. There, between two shaved heads, he caught a glimpse of blonde hair, turning at the top of the stairs. He made it to the banister and watched Marie struggle down the steps for a second before he resumed his attempt to follow her. By the time Fegan reached the top step, she was at the bottom. He began picking his way down, watching her as she embraced McKenna’s mother, then seeing the mother’s mouth curl as Marie headed for the door.