by Declan Burke
‘One last thing,’ I said.
‘Yes?’
‘Gerard Smyth.’
‘What about him?’
‘Will I be using his eye-witness account?’
‘It would be useful, certainly, to have some aspects of the story confirmed.’
‘Then I’ll need to know how he died.’
She didn’t flinch. ‘I am given to understand that he fell into a canal and drowned. Is that not the case?’
‘I don’t know. They’re still waiting on the results of the post-mortem.’
‘Ah.’
‘But I think they’re worried about the timing. That he fell into the canal the day after he handed over his testimony. A canal he knew well, a path he’d walked along for years.’
‘It does seem rather a horrible coincidence,’ she said. The diamond-blue eyes glittered. ‘A tragedy, really, for a man to have lived so long and then die so cruelly. A lesson to us all, I suppose, to never take anything for granted. Least of all life itself.’
Then she turned and limped away up the slope, her left leg swinging out from the hip in a crooked demi-rond.
I strolled down through the meadow, past the graves and on to the edge of the cliff. A short mossy incline, then a sheer fall to the rock-fringed beach far below. The headlands on either side curving around in a pincer movement, trapping a calm harbour. A small boat bobbing in the cove. Beyond, the lough was sapphire blue and white riffles, the low, lush hills of Donegal marching away north either side.
Idyllic, she’d called it. Well, she was right about that much.
You’re not tempted?
I was. Who wouldn’t be?
And all I had to do was mind my manners, avert my eyes and leave that solitary apple on the tree.
TWENTY-SEVEN
In the end they made the decision for me. I sat on the edge of the cliff and watched a small boat come throbbing around the western headland, buffeted by the swell as it came around in a crude arc, aiming for the bay. I could sympathize with the pilot, even though it was the person huddled in the bow that was taking the worst of the spray. Or maybe it was the boat I was sympathizing with. Either way I felt smacked around, no control over where I was going.
There were a lot of ifs and buts to negotiate if I was to play along with Carol Devereaux’s plan. The big one being Shay Govern. He was the man putting his money down, funding it all. And he deserved to know the truth.
If he still wanted to go ahead with the book after that, then great. The rest would work itself out.
By then – an omen – the little boat had turned into the calm bay and was making for the stony beach. I stood up and patted my pockets for my phone. Better to speak to Shay Govern alone, before he sat down with those contracts Carol Devereaux was so keen for him to sign.
Except the phone’s screen was dark, the battery long since dead, and I realized that there was no way Carol Devereaux would have told me what she had about Shay Govern if I’d had any way of contacting him in advance.
Which meant I needed to get to him before he sat down with those contracts.
I was turning away, the muscles in my lower back already screaming in anticipation of the stiff hike back up to the house, when I noticed the little boat had reached the shore, the person in the bow standing up now – something familiar in the stance – to step down into the shallows and haul on the boat to drag it up on to the stony beach while the pilot, up to his waist in water, shoved on from behind.
And then, the boat secured, the person on the beach reached back towards the pilot with both arms out, as if inviting a hug, and I was reminded of the sculpture in Rathmullan, the flight of the earls and those left behind on the shore with their arms aloft, beseeching …
But it wasn’t the pilot she was calling forward. The little lump in the middle of the boat came to life, stood up and turned unsteadily, wobbling as she put one foot in front of the other, eventually collapsing into those waiting arms.
Unmistakable, even from that distance.
Emily.
They came trudging up the path through the woods, Kee in front and murmuring over her shoulder to Emily, who was slumped in the piggy-back position. Jack Byrne five or so yards behind, what looked like a small black automatic dangling in his hand.
I waited until they had gone by and stepped out from behind the pine.
‘Jack,’ I said.
He came around fast, the gun coming up. Then he saw who it was and relaxed a fraction, just as Emily screamed, ‘Daddy!’
‘It’s OK, love. I’ll be with you in a second. I just need to talk to this man.’
‘There’s nothing to talk about, Tom.’
‘Where’s Martin?’
‘Martin, ah, had a bad accident.’
‘Fall into a canal, did he?’
‘Not exactly. But something along those lines, yeah.’
‘He’s dead?’
Jack nodded. The dread came seeping up from my gut, but right then I couldn’t afford to waste time mourning Martin Banks.
‘And I’m next,’ I said.
‘Daddy?’
‘Just hold on a minute, Emily.’ I hadn’t taken my eyes off Jack. ‘Is that it, Jack? Anyone who’s seen Gerard Smyth’s story, they’re being taken out. Yeah?’
‘You had your chance, Tom. You were asked nicely.’ He gave the automatic a little twitch. ‘Where is it?’
‘Where’s what?’
‘The laptop.’
‘It was destroyed, yesterday. When I got shot in the back.’
Jack flicked his eyes at Kee, then grinned. ‘So I hear. Rock salt, right? Burns like a bitch.’
‘Language, Jack. There’s a child over there.’
‘Sure, yeah. Language.’ He shook his head. ‘So where is it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Not sure I believe you, Tom.’
‘That’s up to you.’
‘Not really,’ he said. ‘I mean, your kid’s right there. So I’d say the onus is on you to persuade me.’ He glanced again at Kee. ‘Am I right?’
‘Who are you working for, Jack?’
‘What?’
‘I asked who you’re working for.’
‘If I was you,’ he said, ‘I’d be more worried about—’
‘The reason I’m asking,’ I said, ‘is he’s the guy who told you to take Emily. So I’m going to kill him once I’ve buried you.’
He studied me for a long time. ‘The idea,’ he said, ‘is nothing happens to the kid. But between you and me, that’s not the way it has to play.’
‘Daddy,’ piped Emily, half-muffled against Kee’s shoulder, ‘I’m scared.’
‘I know, love. But just listen to Alison for—’
‘Let’s cut the shit, Tom.’ Jack took a step forward. ‘Tell me where you’ve stashed the laptop, or what’s left of it, and then we’ll go from there. I tell Franco you played along, maybe we can work something out.’
‘You’re working for Franco now?’
‘Jesus, Tom. It was Franco all along. Franco was the one who found me, pushed Shay in my direction.’
‘I get it,’ I said. ‘And I know why. Franco’s looking to protect Shay, cut out anyone who’s trying to blackmail him about those kids getting burned to death.’
‘The kids?’ Jack grinned. ‘You think Franco gives a shit about any kids?’ He was shaking his head now. ‘Franco wants it all buried, Tom. All of it. But especially the bit about his father.’
‘His father?’
‘Christ, you know nothing, do you?’ Along with the gun he held all the aces, had nothing to lose. ‘Peter Govern, Tom. Known to his friends as Pedro, apparently. Also known, back in the day, although not to so many people, as the officer commanding of the South Derry IRA.’ He gave me a lazy grin. ‘All the reading you’ve been doing lately, you might know him better as Richter.’
‘Dad?’
I was still staring at Jack, that lazy grin. The last few pieces slotting in.
‘Daddy!’
‘Just wait, Emily.’
‘But Daddy, I want a—’
‘Oh, for the love of Christ!’ I roared, and went charging towards Kee and Emily. Kee already, instinctively, swinging Emily away from me, that rage. Jack stepping back as I surged past him.
Except I didn’t surge past.
Jack had made the same mistake they’d all made when it came to Emily. He’d presumed I’d be so terrified by their threats and guns that I’d be cowed, helpless. He didn’t realize that when you point a gun at a man’s child you strip away all the human decencies and lay bare the animal instinct.
He didn’t stand a chance.
He was still stepping back when I lunged to the side and drove my shoulder into his chest, his momentum carrying him back and down, and once he was down, winded by the impact, with my weight on top, he was never getting up. I scrabbled around and clamped one hand on the wrist of his gun hand and my forearm across his throat. Began the kill.
He bucked and thrashed and spat and gouged, and Jack Byrne was a big man, a heavy man.
It took him a long time to die, but by then I was in for the long haul.
Like he’d said, the onus was on me to persuade him.
TWENTY-EIGHT
I dragged Jack off the path, dumped him behind a fallen tree. Relieved him of the little black automatic – so confident had he been that he hadn’t even slipped off the safety – and found Kee’s Glock tucked into his waistband in the small of his back.
Then I took off up the path in a shuffling jog, my back screaming in pain, calling Kee’s name.
She hadn’t made it very far, no more than a couple of hundred yards, before she’d had to step off the path into the woods, Emily a dead weight.
‘Over here, Tom.’
A little depression, a dry stream bed. She’d hidden Emily behind some rocks and then found a dead branch for a weapon, taken up the best position she could.
When I went to Emily and held out my arms, she hesitated.
‘It’s OK, love. The bad man is gone.’
‘Are you still cross with me?’
‘I was never cross, hon. I was just pretending so I could fight the bad man.’
‘You were very stern.’
Stern. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll never do it again.’
She came to me then, and clung fiercely. Over her head I said to Kee, ‘What did she see?’
‘The fight.’
‘Nothing more?’
Kee shook her head. ‘He’s gone?’
‘All the way gone.’
She whistled.
‘Daddy?’
‘Yes, love?’
Talking into my shoulder, Emily’s voice was muffled. ‘Where’s Martin, Daddy?’
‘I’m not sure, Em. But we’ll find him.’
‘The bad man said Martin is gone to heaven.’
She was shaking now, as if she was suddenly cold. I tried to shush her but she erupted, bawling. ‘I was so f-frightened, Daddy.’ A huge gulp. ‘And you never came.’
‘I’m sorry, love. I’m so, so sorry.’
The shudders subsiding now. ‘D-don’t ever leave me again.’
‘I won’t. Once I do this one last thing.’
‘Tom,’ Kee warned, but I was kissing Emily on the top of her head, disentangling from her fierce hug.
‘Daddy?’
I handed the Glock to Kee. ‘If anyone except me comes back down that path, blaze away.’
‘I can’t allow that, Tom.’
‘You’ll need to use that,’ I nodded at the Glock, ‘if you want to stop me.’
‘Don’t go, Daddy.’
‘I have to, love. But don’t worry, I’ll be back soon.’
‘Please don’t go.’
She cried and begged as I limped away, out of the trees and up the path, each word a scourge driving me on.
I found them on the patio under the shade of an awning, the champagne already fizzing in an ornamental ice bucket that served as the table’s centrepiece. There was coffee too, and plates of sliced fruit. The contracts on creamy parchment in leather-bound folders.
Shay and Franco were on one side of the table, Shay with his chin cupped in his palm as they listened to Carol’s plans for expanding the nature reserve, which appeared to involve building an artificial breakwater around one of the bays on the island’s western side to create a kind of polder.
‘Tom,’ said Carol, breaking off. ‘So good of you to join us. Are you ready for that coffee now?’ Then, shading her eyes, she recoiled. ‘Good Lord,’ she said. ‘Are you hurt?’
The cuts and scrapes on my face, she meant, where Jack Byrne’s free hand had scratched and gouged.
‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Lost my balance and fell in the woods.’ I touched a hand to my back, indicating where I’d taken the blast of rock salt. ‘It’s nothing. I’ll clean up once this is done.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Really. It probably looks a lot worse than it is.’
‘Very well,’ she said, then nodded to Eoin as I sat down, taking the seat across from Franco. Eoin came forward and reached the bottle from the ice bucket and began pouring the champagne. I was last. I thanked him and followed everyone else’s lead in not commenting on how absurd it was to be waited upon by a man with a shotgun strapped to his back.
When all the glasses were charged, Carol picked up a spoon and tapped a tink-tink. ‘I somehow feel,’ she purred, ‘as if I should begin by saying, “We are gathered here today …”’
Shay grinned. Franco, poker-faced, sat forward and propped his elbows on the table.
‘Joking aside, I do feel that it is an appropriate way to begin,’ Carol went on. ‘Because what we are celebrating here today is a mutual commitment to a long-term relationship that I, for one, dearly hope will be more than financially beneficial to both parties.’
‘Hear-hear,’ Shay muttered.
‘We all understand, of course, that every relationship represents something of a gamble. Nothing is guaranteed. Every venture,’ and here she glanced at Shay, ‘commercial or personal, is fraught with risk. And yet we are all familiar with the idea of nothing ventured, nothing gained.’
‘No guts,’ Shay said, ‘no glory.’
‘Precisely put. I found myself humming a tune this morning as I dressed, a tune you will all know – indeed, it was so familiar, as sometimes happens, that it took me a moment or two to place it.’ She began, embarrassingly, to hum again, the opening bars to ‘Amazing Grace’. She cleared her throat. ‘That hymn, as some of you know, was written by a man notorious for his profanity, a slaver whose ship was wrecked out at sea and who found safe harbour, and enlightenment, right here in Lough Swilly. “I was lost but now am found, was blind but now can see.” How simple are those words, and how profound.’ She reached for her glass, held it up. ‘John Newton did not set sail on his slaving ship with the intention of inspiring millions of people, and yet his sordid venture was transformed by the power of grace into something so beautiful it will no doubt remain with us until the end of time.’
She was laying it on a bit thick but the message was clear: with one stroke of his Montblanc, the wretch Shay Govern was about to be saved.
She stood and held out her glass. There was a dull scraping as Shay and Franco pushed back their chairs and stood too. Then they all looked at me.
‘Tom? Won’t you join us in a toast?’
‘In a minute, sure. I’m just trying to remember how the rest of that hymn goes. Isn’t there something about the Lord promising good?’
‘I’m impressed,’ Carol said, although by now there was a slight strain on her smile. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you were a religious man.’
‘If I was religious I wouldn’t be trying to remember, I’d know it by heart. But there’s a bit in there, I think, about hope, and a shield.’
‘“The Lord has promised good to me,”’ Shay said. ‘“His word my hope secures. He will my shield and portion be, as long
as life endures.”’ A self-deprecating grin as heads turned towards him. ‘Beaten into me as a child,’ he said. ‘You never forget the rote learning.’
‘That’s the bit right there that’s bugging me,’ I said. ‘“His word my hope secures.”’
‘Tom,’ Carol said, a dull edge on the word.
‘I’m happy to sign that contract,’ I said, ‘once Shay signs off on what the book will say.’
‘How d’you mean?’ Franco said. ‘Signs off on what?’
I looked into those grey, lupine eyes. The man who’d had Gerard Smyth and Martin Banks killed. And Christ only knew what he’d planned for Emily once he knew I was out of the way.
‘Now isn’t the time, Tom,’ Carol urged.
‘Except it’ll be too late once Shay signs on the dotted line,’ I told Franco. ‘If we know anything about Shay Govern it’s that he’s a man of his word.’
‘Never mind his word,’ Franco said. His gaze shifted as he glanced past me. Then he came back, locked on. ‘What is it we should know?’
‘You expecting someone, Franco?’
‘What? No.’
‘Because Jack won’t be joining us. Jack’s been delayed.’
‘Delayed,’ he said, and there was recognition in those grey eyes now.
‘Jack who?’ Shay said. ‘Jack Byrne?’
Eoin was nobody’s fool. He’d been sitting on the patio’s low wall until he heard the tone of the conversation change, the tension in Carol’s voice. Now he was on the move, prowling in behind the table, the shotgun in his hands with the barrel nestled in the crook of his elbow. I wondered what it was loaded with today.
‘Jack Byrne,’ I said. ‘The very man.’
‘Why was Jack coming here?’ Shay said.
‘Tidying up loose ends,’ I said. ‘As in, anyone who’d seen Gerard Smyth’s testimony. Which I’m guessing included Jack himself,’ I said to Franco, ‘so I suppose I’ve done you a favour.’
‘Are you sure you’re OK, Tom?’ Shay said. ‘Because you’re not making a lot of—’
‘The kids never died,’ I told him. ‘In the church that night. It never happened. They all escaped. Carol’s mother got them out through a tunnel. Ask her yourself, it’s a terrific story.’