The Double Tap (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  His mother smiled. ‘You’re a good boy,’ she said.

  The boy carried the plate and glass over to the bedside table and put them down next to a box of tissues. He handed his mother a fork. ‘It’s beef stew,’ he said.

  ‘My favourite.’

  ‘It’s not your favourite. Your favourite is roast chicken, you always say. But I couldn’t make roast chicken.’

  ‘This is my favourite today.’ She took the fork and the boy held the plate for her as she speared a small piece of meat. She chewed slowly, then nodded. ‘Delicious.’

  ‘Yeah? Are you sure?’

  ‘Sure I’m sure.’ She reached over and ruffled his hair. ‘How was school today?’

  ‘Okay, I guess.’ He stood watching her, waiting for her to take a second bite, but she put the fork back on the plate and lay down, wincing as she moved. ‘Try some more,’ he urged. ‘It’s good.’

  ‘Maybe later.’ She sounded tired. She always sounded tired, the boy thought. As if she’d given up hope.

  ‘Didn’t I cook it right?’ he asked, frowning.

  She smiled. ‘You cooked it just fine. I’m tired, that’s all.’

  The boy put the plate on the bedside table and gave her the glass of milk. ‘Milk’s good for you,’ he said. She took a sip. It left a white frothy line across her upper lip. He reached over and wiped away the milk on her lip with his hand. ‘When are you getting better, Mum?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘Soon?’

  ‘Maybe soon.’ She patted the edge of the bed and he climbed up and sat next to her. ‘Do you know where Daddy keeps my medicine?’ she asked. The boy nodded. ‘I think I need some more,’ she said. ‘Can you bring it up to me?’ The boy chewed the inside of his lip. ‘You can do that for me, can’t you?’ she said. The boy shrugged. ‘Go and get it for me. Please.’

  ‘Daddy says …’ He tailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

  His mother reached over and patted his leg. ‘Your daddy says what?’

  The boy sighed deeply. ‘Daddy says only he can give you the medicine. He said you’re not to have it.’

  His mother nodded as if she understood. ‘I’m sure that if Daddy knew how much I needed my medicine he’d give it to me.’

  The boy turned his head away and stared at the door. ‘Daddy said not to.’

  His mother began to cough. The boy picked up the box of tissues and pulled one out for her. She took it and pressed it to her mouth as her chest heaved. He watched anxiously until the coughing spasm was over. When she took the tissue away from her mouth it was spotted with blood. His mother screwed the tissue up as if hiding the evidence of her illness. ‘You’re going to have to help me,’ she said.

  Dermott Lynch drove the Ford Granada slowly down the rutted track, the steering wheel threatening to tear itself from his gloved hands. It was only after he’d picked up the car that he realised it was an automatic and he was having trouble remembering not to use his left foot. It wasn’t as if he had a choice – the vehicle had been appropriated for him by two teenagers acting under IRA orders, and left in a car park close to Belfast railway station with its ignition key in the exhaust pipe. The Granada belonged to an old couple who lived in the outskirts of Belfast and they wouldn’t report it stolen until the following day, not if they knew what was good for them.

  Davie Quinn sat in the front passenger seat, sniffing as if he had the beginnings of a cold. His brother Paulie was in the back. From occasional glances in the driving mirror, Lynch could see that the younger Quinn brother was nervous. His cheeks were flushed and there was a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. ‘You okay, Paulie?’ Lynch asked.

  Paulie jerked as if he’d been stung. ‘What? Oh yeah. I’m fine.’

  ‘Good lad,’ said Lynch, smiling to himself. Thomas McCormack had insisted that the Quinn boys be taken on the job. They’d both conducted themselves well in Howth, but no shots had been fired and no one had been hurt. It was important to discover how the boys would react under pressure. He looked across at Davie. Davie was by far the more confident of the two brothers and had all the makings of an ideal volunteer. He had a sharp intelligence but he kept quiet when necessary. Lynch was all too well aware of how many operations had been blown by a youngster who was the worse for drink showing off to his mates or a girlfriend. The ceasefire meant that it was more important than ever before for the organisation’s volunteers to conduct themselves well. The IRA wasn’t being dismantled, it was simply going even further underground, waiting for the call to return to violence if the political process failed to come up with the goods. Discipline had to be maintained, volunteers had to be trained, and active service units continued to gather data on prospective targets in Ireland and on the mainland.

  If Davie handled himself well, Lynch would recommend that he be put forward for specialised training, with a view to sending him to the mainland as part of a deep cover active service unit. There was no doubt that he was committed to the Cause. His father had been gunned down in a Falls Road pub by three UFF men in ski masks, for no other reason than he’d been a Catholic. There had been no military honours at Paddy Quinn’s funeral, no pistol shots or tricolour draped over the coffin, because he had refused to have anything to do with the IRA. But his sons, they were a different matter. They’d joined the organisation a week after their father’s funeral, despite their mother’s protests.

  The track curved to the left and O’Riordan’s farm came into view, a ramshackle collection of weathered stone buildings, a grey metal barn and a gleaming white silo. Lynch parked in front of the silo and told the Quinn brothers to stay in the car.

  O’Riordan had the door of the farmhouse open before Lynch reached it, his arm outstretched. They shook hands and Lynch could feel the hard callouses on O’Riordan’s palms. It was a small farm and even with European Community subsidies it didn’t generate enough income for O’Riordan to employ more than two labourers, so he had to do much of the heavy work himself.

  The acrid smell of pig manure wafted over from one of the outbuildings and Lynch pulled a face. He preferred his pork sliced into rashers and sizzling in a frying pan. O’Riordan laughed at his discomfort and slapped him on the back. ‘You never could stand the countryside, could you?’

  Lynch cleared his throat and spat on the grass. ‘I suppose you need something to keep the cities apart,’ he growled. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Yeah. The stuff’s in the stable.’ O’Riordan stuck his hands into his brown corduroy trousers and walked with Lynch to a single storey stable building. He pushed open a door to an empty stall and held it open while Lynch walked inside.

  ‘Jesus, Pat. How can you live with this stink?’ asked Lynch, holding his nose.

  O’Riordan stepped in the stall and closed the door. He breathed in and grinned. ‘Nothing wrong with a little horseshit,’ he said. ‘It brings the roses up a treat.’ He picked up a shovel that was leaning against a whitewashed wall and used it to clear away the straw from a corner. He pushed the edge of the shovel into the gap between two of the flagstones and levered one up. Underneath were three stainless steel milk churns. ‘Give me a hand, will you?’ said O’Riordan as he placed the shovel on the floor. Together they pulled out the churns. O’Riordan unscrewed the caps and one by one emptied out more than a dozen polythene-wrapped parcels. ‘Choose your weapons,’ he said.

  Lynch peered at the parcels. ‘What have you got?’ he asked.

  ‘A sawn-off, an East German Kalashnikov, a Czech Model 58V assault rifle, a couple of Uzis, a …’

  ‘We’re not going to war, you know,’ interrupted Lynch.

  O’Riordan ignored him and continued to rattle off his list. ‘… half a dozen Czech M1970s, they’re just like the Walther PPK, a Romanian TT33, a Chinese Tokarev, a couple of Brownings, a 9mm Beretta …’ He prodded the parcels with his foot. ‘Oh yeah, an old Colt .45, but it hasn’t been fired for ten years or so and it’ll probably take your hand off.’ He stood up a
nd put his hands on his hips. ‘What do you feel like?’

  Lynch pursed his lips and scratched his beard. ‘Italian,’ he said eventually. ‘I feel like Italian.’

  O’Riordan bent down and picked up one of the packages. Lynch unwrapped the polythene. Inside was the Beretta wrapped in an oiled cloth with two clips of ammunition. He checked the action and nodded his approval. ‘Have you used it?’ Lynch asked.

  ‘Yeah, but it’s clean. What about the boys?’

  ‘Brownings. But make sure the safeties are on.’

  O’Riordan grinned. ‘And I’ll have the shotgun. Just in case.’

  ‘Just in case?’

  ‘Aye. Just in case we have to get heavy.’

  ‘We won’t,’ said Lynch.

  ‘We’ll see.’ O’Riordan replaced the remaining weapons in the metal churns and Lynch helped him put them back into the ground.

  ‘Regular arsenal you have here,’ said Lynch as he lowered the flagstone back into place and kicked straw over it.

  ‘It’s always good to have a little put by for a rainy day.’ O’Riordan was wearing a specially-made nylon sling under his coat and he slipped the sawn-off shotgun into it, then went outside. While Lynch carried the pistols over to the Granada, O’Riordan led a brown and white mare from a neighbouring stall into the one containing the hidden weapons. Lynch handed the still-wrapped Brownings through the window to Davie. ‘Check them, then hide them under the seats,’ he said.

  He tucked the Beretta into the back of his trousers and slid the spare clip into the inside pocket of his leather jacket before going back to join O’Riordan as he bolted the door to the stall. The horse snorted inside as if objecting to being locked up. Lynch knew just how the mare felt. He’d spent three years listening to the sound of cell doors clanging shut and it wasn’t an experience he’d care to repeat.

  O’Riordan winked at Lynch. ‘You ready?’

  ‘Sure.’ He looked at his watch. It was two o’clock. He wanted the job done before five, before the man of the house came home. ‘Where’s the drill?’

  ‘Charging.’

  ‘Charging?’ Lynch frowned.

  ‘Charged,’ said O’Riordan, correcting himself. ‘I had it plugged in overnight. The wife thought I was planning some DIY. She’s going to be disappointed, isn’t she? I’ll go get it.’

  O’Riordan disappeared inside the farmhouse and a minute or so later he reappeared with a Black and Decker cordless drill. He pointed it at Lynch and pulled the trigger and the bit whirred. ‘Okay, let’s go,’ he said, putting the drill into a white plastic carrier bag.

  Davie Quinn climbed into the back of the Granada without being asked. O’Riordan got in the front seat and nodded a greeting to the two brothers, but didn’t say anything.

  The four men drove to West Belfast in silence. As they entered the city they passed a convoy of grey RUC Landrovers driving in the opposite direction, their windows protected by steel mesh. ‘Bastards,’ hissed O’Riordan under his breath.

  Lynch smiled tightly. ‘Just be grateful they’re not heading our way,’ he said. He turned the Granada down a side road and parked in front of a pub. Like the Landrovers’, the pub’s windows were shielded with wire mesh. Two young men in anoraks and jeans stood in the entrance smoking cigarettes. The taller of the two nodded at Lynch.

  Lynch didn’t bother locking the car doors and the four men walked purposefully down the road, Lynch and O’Riordan in front, the Quinn brothers following closely behind. A woman in a cheap cloth coat walked by pushing two crying babies in a buggy. Two boys with dirty faces and scabby knees sat on the kerb with their feet in the gutter and turned to watch the men go past. Lynch wasn’t worried about witnesses, he was on Catholic territory.

  The house they were looking for was in the middle of a brick terrace, one of hundreds of near-identical homes, distinguished only by the colour of the peeling paint on the woodwork. Lynch pressed the doorbell and O’Riordan motioned for the Quinn brothers to stand to the side, out of sight. They heard footsteps, then the door was opened by an overweight grey-haired woman in a flowered print dress and a baggy green cardigan. Before she could speak, Lynch pushed her back into the hallway and pulled out his Beretta. The woman began to shiver and opened her mouth to scream. Lynch glared at her. ‘Be quiet,’ he hissed and clamped his hand over her mouth. O’Riordan slipped by and stood at the foot of the stairs. ‘Where’s the boy?’ whispered Lynch. The woman’s eyes gave her away, flicking towards the stairs. Davie Quinn closed the front door and locked it. From the kitchen Lynch could hear the tinny sound of a transistor radio. ‘Anyone else in the house?’

  The woman tried to speak and Lynch moved his hand away from her mouth. ‘My daughter,’ she said. ‘She’s only twelve.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Please don’t hurt us, son. We’re good Catholics. The boy wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

  ‘Where is she?’ Lynch repeated, holding the gun in front of her face.

  ‘The kitchen. There’s been a mistake, son, you can’t …’

  Lynch motioned to Paulie and the teenager used his hand to silence the woman. Paulie and Davie both had their guns out. Paulie was sweating but Davie seemed calm. They were both looking at Lynch, waiting for instructions.

  ‘Take her through into the front room,’ Lynch whispered to Paulie. As Paulie bundled the woman into the room, Lynch went along the hall to the kitchen with Davie. A young girl with mousy hair tied back in a ponytail was sitting at a small table reading a magazine. She looked over her shoulder as Lynch walked up behind her and her eyes widened in horror.

  ‘You’re here for Ger, aren’t you?’ she asked, her voice trembling like a frightened rabbit. ‘I told him. I told him you’d come for him one day. I fecking told him, so I did.’

  Lynch ignored the question. He picked up a tea towel and tossed it at Davie, then grabbed the girl by the shirt collar and pulled her to her feet. He half-dragged, half-carried her down the hallway to the front room.

  The woman was sitting hunched on a threadbare sofa, playing with a rosary. Lynch dropped the girl down next to her mother. ‘Please, son, don’t hurt my boy,’ whined the woman. She put an arm around the girl and pulled her close.

  ‘Your boy’s been selling drugs to kids,’ said Lynch flatly.

  ‘Oh no, son, you’re wrong. My Ger’s a good boy. A bit wild, maybe, but he’s a good heart …’ She began to cry softly.

  On the wall above the woman’s head hung a portrait of the Pope, and next to it a black-framed photograph of John F. Kennedy. The woman looked up and stared at the pictures, as if pleading for their support. Lynch felt no sympathy for her. He knew that she’d already been warned about her son’s drug-dealing. If she wasn’t prepared to keep her family in order, the organisation was. By whatever means it took.

  ‘Keep them here,’ he said to Paulie. He knelt down in front of the woman and put a hand on the rosary. ‘We’re not going to kill your boy, but if you tell anyone, anyone at all, we’ll come back. Do you understand?’

  ‘Don’t hurt him,’ she sniffed. ‘Please don’t hurt him.’

  ‘Do you understand?’ Lynch repeated. ‘Say anything and we’ll be back. And it won’t just be for the boy.’

  The woman nodded. She averted her eyes and began to mumble the Lord’s Prayer as she fingered the polished amber beads of the rosary. Lynch straightened up and motioned with his head for Davie to follow him. They joined O’Riordan at the foot of the stairs. O’Riordan had taken his sawn-off shotgun from under his coat. He nodded at Lynch and they moved silently up the stairs, Davie bringing up the rear.

  There were four doors leading off the top landing. Only two were closed. Lynch put his ear to one of the doors but heard nothing. He eased it open. It was the bathroom, a cheap yellow bathroom suite and a green knitted cover on the toilet seat, with a matching cover on a spare toilet roll. He closed the door.

  Davie was breathing like a train, his nostrils flaring. He had the tea towel in his left hand,
the Browning in the other, and Lynch was pleased to see he had the safety off and the barrel pointing straight up. His finger was outside the trigger guard, just as he’d been told. Davie swallowed nervously as Lynch brushed by him and stood by the second door. Lynch seized the handle, nodded at O’Riordan, and thrust open the door.

  The boy was standing in the middle of the bedroom, his back to them. He was listening to a Sony Walkman through headphones and playing air guitar, whipping his long red hair backwards and forwards in time to the music. The three men filed into the room and Davie closed the door behind them. It was a typical teenager’s room: rock ’n’ roll posters on the wall, a pile of dirty laundry in one corner, a cheap veneered bookcase filled with paperbacks, and a single bed with the bedclothes in disarray. It smelt of old socks and sweat and was almost as unsavoury as the stable where O’Riordan kept his arms cache.

  The boy whirled around then froze as he saw his visitors. His mouth fell open, then he was suddenly galvanised into action, throwing himself across the bed and clutching for the window. O’Riordan dropped the carrier bag on the floor, stepped forward and grabbed one of the boy’s legs, pulling him hard and throwing him onto his stomach. The boy began to scream as O’Riordan sat across the base of his spine, pinning him to the bed. The boy lashed out with his arms but O’Riordan wriggled up his back and used his knees to hold him down. ‘Fuck off, yez bastards!’ the boy screamed, bucking and twisting even under O’Riordan’s weight.

  ‘Davie, come on lad,’ urged O’Riordan. ‘Get on with it.’

  Davie rushed forward and used the tea towel to gag the struggling boy, then moved around to the foot of the bed and grabbed the boy’s ankles. O’Riordan put his head down close to the boy’s face. The towel muffled his screams. His cheeks were pockmarked with old acne scars and his red hair was unkempt and dirty, flecked with dandruff. O’Riordan grabbed a handful of hair and yanked his head back. ‘Listen to me, Ger. This is going to happen whether you struggle or not, do you hear me?’ The boy said nothing but continued to try to get up. O’Riordan thrust the barrel of the shotgun against the boy’s temple and tapped it, hard enough to hurt. ‘If you cooperate, they’ll be able to patch you up and you’ll be on your feet in a few months. Carry on fucking with us and you’ll never walk again. It’s up to you. Am I getting through to you, Ger?’ The boy suddenly went still. ‘That’s better,’ said O’Riordan. ‘Now take your punishment like a man and we can all get on our way.’ He sat up, keeping his weight pressed down on the boy’s shoulderblades.