The Ghosts of Belfast (The Twelve) jli-1

by Stuart Neville

  “Pádraig ...”

  “It’s too late for him. Swear you’ll leave me and Marie alone.”

  O’Kane nodded. “I promise. I swear to God.”

  “Swear on your children’s souls.”

  “I swear.”

  “All right,” Fegan said.

  He stood upright and crossed the pit to where Campbell sprawled on its edge, clinging to the last threads of life. His eyes were focused on something above and his lips moved silently. The UFF boys stood back, their faces glowing with animal pleasure.

  54

  “Davy.”

  Campbell searched for his name among the bloodied faces. All these people reaching for him, clutching at him, pulling him down with them.

  Who had spoken his name? Those men with the shaven heads and tattoos? No, they were dead years ago, broken into pieces in a cold concrete room. What did they want with him now? Their faces blazed in ecstasy.

  What do you want? His lips moved, he felt them, but no sound came.

  Something nudged his foot.

  “Here, Davy.”

  Campbell tried to raise himself, but his body split in two. His core spilled out from him as he moved. Oh yes, the shotgun. It had torn him open. Cool air seeped into the place where his stomach had been.

  He forced everything into his neck, lifting his head to see the voice. Hurricanes roared in his ears and his skin burned. A shape emerged from the fire, tall and thin.

  Gerry Fegan.

  He had something shiny and beautiful in his hand.

  “They want you, Davy,” he said.

  “Who?” Campbell asked, his voice a thin hiss.

  Fegan pointed to the tattooed men. They grinned at Campbell and he wanted to scream, but there was no air.

  “The UFF boys you set up,” Fegan said. “The ones you had me kill to cover your own tracks. It’s time to pay, Davy.”

  Fire turned to ice and tremors spread out from Campbell’s center. He recognised the shining thing in Fegan’s hand and heard its hammer click into place.

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  “Everybody pays,” Fegan said as the revolver’s muzzle stared Campbell in the eye. “Sooner or later, everybody pays.”

  Fury tore at Campbell’s heart. He wanted to taste Fegan’s blood, feel his flesh burst and split beneath his fingers, but the blackness flooded in.

  The UFF boys leaned close, grinning and hateful. The other faces, the bodies, the limbs, all dead and rotting, swarmed on him. One form moved closest, a tattered hole in his forehead, the sergeant’s insignia still on his epaulettes.

  Sergeant Hendry?

  The long-dead soldier sank his teeth into Campbell’s skin, tearing at the remains of his body.

  Fegan towered above them all.

  “Fuck you!” Campbell screamed. “Fucking do it! Do it now. Pull the fucking trigger. Come on, pull it. Shoot me. Pull the—”

  THREE

  55

  The revolver’s crack silenced the dogs for just a second. Fegan turned to the butcher, the black-haired woman and her baby. The woman gave him her small, sad smile.

  Fegan nodded and walked past Bull O’Kane, who kept his gaze on the ground. He walked towards the yard, where the farmhouse waited. He stopped just inside the barn, leaning out to see it. The world had taken on the strange blue light of early morning as the rain thinned to leave a dull sheen on the farmyard. Low growls and whines came from the stables.

  He breathed the tainted air for a moment, savoring the vivid clarity in his mind and the steadiness in his hands. His senses rang with life amid the smell of death. The chill at his center had become a bright flame, incandescent in his chest. Fegan studied the windows, looking for any sign of activity.

  McGinty and the others would have expected shots, but not a fire-fight. They would be watching.

  The Clio remained where he’d parked it, in the middle of the yard, between Fegan and the house. He had to get to it and the plastic bag taped under the passenger seat. He gave the windows and door another scan and set off at a crouching run.

  The kitchen door opened inward and Fegan dropped to his knees, just feet from the car. A shot came from the doorway and something cut the air above his head. The dogs started howling and barking and scratching again.

  It was Malloy. Fegan had just caught his stocky frame through the Clio’s windows. He listened for footsteps on the concrete. The noise of the dogs made it hard to be sure. He crawled towards the car, the wet concrete cold on his hands and knees.

  Another shot rang out. Fegan heard the bullet pierce the barn’s corrugated metal shell. It sounded like it came from the doorway. Malloy was still inside. Fegan reached the Clio’s rear driver’s-side door and edged up to the glass. The kitchen door was cracked open and he could see a disruption in the shadow beyond.

  He ducked down, his mind running in all directions. He didn’t want to kill Malloy, but he had to get past him.

  Fegan inched back up to the glass and peered through. He saw a hand appear from the shadows. It held a pistol. A shot blew glass around him as he covered his head.

  “I don’t want to kill you,” he called.

  He waited. No reply.

  “I only want McGinty. You can go if you want. I won’t hurt you.”

  “You’re a dead man, Fegan.” Malloy’s voice had the glassy edge of fear as it echoed round the yard.

  Fegan chanced another quick glance through the Clio’s windows, and ducked down again when he saw Malloy peering back through the narrow opening of the doorway. “You don’t have to die with McGinty. Not if you go now.”

  A bullet struck the Clio’s bodywork, somewhere on the other side of the car.

  “Please,” Fegan called. “I don’t want to kill you.”

  “Go fuck yourself!”

  Fegan sighed and closed his eyes. “I have to,” he whispered.

  He crawled along the Clio’s flank, from the rear to the front, keeping his head low as he approached its nose. He edged around the front, still hidden from the doorway. Looking up, he realised he would be visible from the upper floor on that side of the house. He watched the damp-stained net curtains for any sign of movement.

  Just a few more inches and the doorway would come into view. If Malloy still had the door only slightly open, Fegan would be obscured by the wood. He crept forward until he could see its flaking green paint. Malloy’s pistol appeared and a bullet struck the Clio’s rear quarter.

  He thinks I’m still there

  , Fegan thought.

  He came up over the Clio’s hood, steadying his arms on it, and put four shots through the wooden door. He listened, keeping the revolver’s smoking muzzle trained on the doorway.

  After a second or two he heard a weak cry and the sound of a body sliding down a damp wall and hitting the floor.

  Fegan cursed, bitter anger at the waste rising in him.

  He moved back behind the shelter of the car and edged his way round to the driver’s door. He hadn’t locked it. It creaked open and shattered glass spilled out. Fegan lay flat across the driver’s seat, dropped the revolver into the footwell, and reached down under the passenger seat. His eyes stayed on the house, at least what he could see of it through the cracked window. He found the plastic bag with its cold, hard contents, and pulled the tape away. It tore and he felt nine-millimeter rounds spill through his fingers onto the floor. There was a heavy clunk as the weapons fell away.

  Somewhere beneath the frantic barking and scratching of the dogs, Fegan caught the hint of voices from inside the house. He studied the windows as he drew his Walther from under the seat, followed by Campbell’s Glock. A net curtain in a window above the doorway swayed, disturbed by some passing shape. He threw himself backwards, a gun in each hand, just as a hole was blown through the car’s roof and a bullet gouged the upholstery where his head had been.

  The dogs’ whining and howling rose to a new pitch and blood thundered in his ears. But through that clamor came a sharper, more frigh
tening sound. A high, terrified crying.

  “Ellen,” he said.

  “Stay away, Fegan!”

  McGinty’s voice, shrill and jagged.

  “Stay away or I’ll kill them!”

  Fegan clung to the side of the car, listening to the girl’s cries. His heart threw itself against the walls of his chest; his stomach sank low inside him.

  “Ellen.”

  56

  Fegan looked to the followers standing over him, watching. The woman held her baby in one arm and raised the other towards the house. Her eyes told him, ordered him, to do it. Run, they said.

  Run, now.

  “Christ.”

  He tucked Campbell’s Glock into his waistband and scrambled along the side of the car towards its front. The stable doors rattled in their frames as the dogs flailed against them. He gave the upper windows one more glance before hurling himself at the house. A shot rang out and something tugged at his left shoulder.

  Fegan hit the door hard and stumbled over Malloy’s outstretched legs. He slammed against the far wall, dislodging loose tiles where the grout had rotted away. They shattered on the floor and he saw red spots appear among the fragments. His left arm felt heavy, like a stone had been tied to his wrist. He craned his neck round to see his shoulder. Nothing, just a nick.

  He looked back at Malloy’s prone form. The stocky man’s chest rose and fell in a skewed rhythm. His glassy eyes stared at something far away. The followers entered and lingered over him, tilting their heads as they studied him.

  Quick footsteps moved across the ceiling above.

  “Gerry?” McGinty, his voice muffled by the wood and plaster between them. “Gerry, don’t come up here, I’m warning you. Don’t. I’ll . . . I’ll . . . you know I’ll do it.”

  Ellen, crying.

  The woman stood beside Fegan, pointing to the doorway to the next room. The room where he’d last seen Marie and Ellen. The butcher joined her.

  “All right,” Fegan said.

  He headed for the door, the Walther leading the way. The old tattered couch still sat against the wall, sodden with damp and blood. Weak fingers of early light clawed through the grimy window. Fegan could see trees beyond what had once been a garden but was now lost under years of neglect.

  What was that?

  He stopped and listened. Hard, fast breathing. The sound of panic. It came from beyond the far door. The same door Marie and Ellen had come through not so long ago. How long had it been? Fifteen minutes? Thirty? An hour?

  The woman and the butcher took their places by Fegan’s side. They cocked their heads, listening. The baby was quite still in its mother’s arms.

  She turned to Fegan and smiled. She reached up and brushed his cheek. She nodded.

  Fegan looked back to the doorway and the darkness beyond. The breathing drew closer, its urgency growing. He stepped quietly towards the sound, the Walther between him and the shadows.

  A stair creaked. The breathing faltered, then came back, quicker than before. Fegan heard the hiss of fabric against wallpaper, someone sliding along the wall.

  Steady.

  A man’s high, nasal whine. Terror.

  Fegan stepped closer, shifting his weight slowly on the ancient floorboards. He kept the Walther drawn at waist level, in case they came in low. Closer. He could almost reach out and touch the door frame now. The breathing grew faster and faster, harder and harder.

  Then it stopped.

  Quigley burst from the shadow, a small pistol locked in both hands, his eyes bulging, his face burning, his knuckles white. He cried out when he saw Fegan’s Walther aimed at his heart, but he didn’t shoot. He stood frozen, staring, his breath held in his chest. Fegan saw the fear on him; he smelled the panic. This man was no killer.

  “Breathe,” Fegan said.

  Quigley stared back, veins standing out on his forehead and temples. His hands quaked. They held a .22 target pistol, little more than a toy.

  “Breathe or you’ll faint.”

  Air exploded from him in a long, desperate hiss. He inhaled with a tremulous gasp, and let it out again in a low moan.

  McGinty’s voice came from above. “Shoot him, Quigley!”

  Ellen cried.

  “You don’t want to die,” Fegan said.

  “Just shoot him!”

  “You don’t have to die,” Fegan said.

  Quigley couldn’t keep the gun aimed in one direction. It danced in his hands.

  McGinty’s voice was high and fractured. “For fuck’s sake shoot him!”

  “It’s your choice,” Fegan said. “You can live if you want to.”

  Despite its leaden weight, he raised his left hand, open. Quigley stared back, his eyes searching Fegan’s face.

  “You can live if you want to. Malloy and the Bull are hurt bad. The rest are dead. McGinty’s going to die soon. You don’t have to die with him. Choose.”

  Quigley’s eyes fell away and his shoulders slumped.

  “Quigley?” McGinty’s voice had lost its anger. “Quigley, what’s happening?”

  Quigley placed the gun in Fegan’s outstretched hand, his stare fixed on the floor.

  “Go,” Fegan said, slipping the gun into his jacket pocket.

  “Thank you,” Quigley said. He hurried to the kitchen door without raising his eyes.

  Fegan turned back to the shadows Quigley had emerged from. A door stood slightly ajar on the other side of a hallway. Morning light crept in from somewhere. Fegan pictured the rear of the house. There was a window at the center of the upper floor.

  “It must be at the top of the stairs,” Fegan said.

  The woman stepped closer to the darkness. With her free arm she signalled in and upwards. Fegan edged up to the door frame.

  “Quigley?”

  “He’s gone,” Fegan said.

  “Bastard! Fuck!”

  The voice wasn’t far away. Just at the top of the stairs, it sounded like. It resonated in the narrow hallway. Fegan eyed the door on the other side.

  “Don’t come up here, Gerry. I’m warning you.”

  Fegan took one breath before diving sideways, his left shoulder aimed at the door across the hallway. He caught a glimpse of McGinty’s silhouette against the window, Ellen writhing in his left arm, a revolver in his right hand. The gun boomed in the narrow passageway just as Fegan’s wounded shoulder connected with the door. The bullet scorched the air above Fegan’s head. The door burst inward, and he cried out in pain as he tumbled into the room. He fell against a stack of wooden chairs, sending them crashing to the floor.

  “Stay away, Gerry. Don’t make me hurt them.”

  Ellen screamed and cried.

  Fegan scrambled to his feet, his mind working fast. A revolver, six shots. He counted.

  “He’s fired three,” he said.

  The woman turned to him and nodded. Fegan held her burning gaze.

  “He’s got three left.”

  She stepped back out into the hallway, the baby wriggling in one arm, and pointed upwards with the other. Her fingers formed a pistol. The butcher stood alongside her and did the same.

  Together, they took aim at Paul McGinty, firing again and again, their mouths twisted and their teeth bared.

  “I know,” Fegan said, feeling a warm trickle down his left arm. Weariness gnawed at the edges of his clarity. “I know.”

  57

  Fegan listened to the sounds of McGinty’s hard breathing and Ellen’s soft cries. Three shots left. If he didn’t have more ammunition, that was. Fegan had to gamble on that. He had to make McGinty waste them.

  It was dark at the foot of the stairs. The only light came from the window behind McGinty and, even then, it was the thin glow of early morning. McGinty knew Fegan was a poor shot and he couldn’t risk hitting Ellen while trying to wing the politician. But McGinty also thought Fegan was crazy enough to try.

  Fegan looked around the room. The chairs lay scattered across the floor, and beyond them was a pile of old curtain mat
erial. He righted one of the chairs and draped a thick sheet of dark velvet over it. It was heavy, but he could manage with his good arm. He took quiet steps towards the door and raised the chair so it was level with his own shoulders. The woman and the butcher stepped back to give him room.

  He extended his arm, letting the curtain-draped chair’s shoulder creep out into the shadows of the hallway. Inch by inch, centimeter by centimeter, he let the oblique shape reveal itself to McGinty, hoping the folds of darkness might make it seem—