And Blue Skies From Pain (46 page)

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Authors: Stina Leicht

BOOK: And Blue Skies From Pain
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“I’m to help in a robbery,” whispered Liam.
Another cold wind blasted its way between the tombstones and crosses. A woman shouted, and a wispy, dark blue scarf floated away into the sky, landing on the tin roof of a crypt. It swept over the smooth metal like a ghost but caught on a rough patch and trembled there, trapped and unable to pull itself free.
“And you’ve no wish to do this robbery?” Bran asked, his voice growing more solid.
“Of course not.” Liam risked a glance to his left and searched for a glimpse of Bran. It seemed a shadow moved on the other side of one of the largest Celtic crosses. A restless footfall crunched in the grit. “I’ve no wish to volunteer for the ’Ra again,” Liam said. “I’ve done with it. But he’ll not listen. He’ll have me for a wheelman whether I want it or not.”
“Mortals,” Bran said with a disapproving growl. “They should have respect. That’s all we ask. For all we do for them. For all they don’t know.”
Liam looked over to his right. Frankie was exactly where he’d agreed to wait. At the moment, he was smoking a cigarette and alternating his attention between the different funerals in an effort to disguise the fact that he was watching the blue RS parked among the ranks of mourners.
“The answer is simple enough,” Bran said. “Come home with me. Now.”
The idea was tempting.
Very
tempting. Leave Séamus to carry on without him. Liam would be free of it. And not only that, but free from the Grand Inquisitor and his knives as well. “I can’t,” Liam said. “They’re watching me. And Séamus will kill Father Murray if I do.”
And what would happen to Frankie, then? Where will he go, assuming Séamus doesn’t do for him? One day the Brits will have him, and he’ll land in prison for life.
“The holy man is a soldier. He knows it’ll come to dying one day.”
“Da, please. He’s a friend.”
“A friend, is he?” Bran asked. “Did he not hand you over to those butchers—”
“I volunteered. Do you not remember? For the peace.”
“He murdered your wee child before it was born. My grandchild.”
Liam paused. “Maybe your war is different. But this war, my war, turns people upon themselves. Flips everything. Makes the certain, uncertain, and the uncertain, certain. How do you navigate through the shifting lines and keep yourself whole? Father Murray thought he was doing what was right. And… I… I can’t judge him. Not when I’ve done for others for similar reasons.”
Sometimes with even less reason.
He thought of those months when he’d let the monster have its way. “If Father Murray is to die, then maybe it’s right I should die too. Maybe it’s best for you to leave me be.”
“Don’t do this, son,” Bran said. “Come with me. And we’ll discuss the matter. There are too many mortals here.”
“I can’t. My mate, Frankie, he’s caught in this too. And I’ll not leave him and Father Murray to suffer. Running isn’t the answer.” Liam blinked. Mary Kate would’ve been stunned to hear him speak those words.
Bran sighed.
“There’s something else. If I don’t do what Séamus wants, he might go after Ma,” Liam said, keeping his voice low. “Even so. This world is as important as yours. The two are connected. Have you not said so?” He waited. He had one last convincing argument that his father couldn’t and wouldn’t deny.
The Fey owe me a favor.
Liam didn’t want to use it because it would be rude to bring attention to the debt, but he would do it if he had to.
For Frankie and Father Murray.
The shadow cast on the ground near the big stone cross finally nodded. “Aye.” Bran paused. “You have the strength of your mother in you. It warms my heart to see it.”
Liam blinked.
“So, what is it you’ll have from me, then? I cannot bring the fian over to make war on this mortal.”
“Why not?”
“We’ve war enough of our own with the Fallen, or have you not noticed?” Bran said.
“You’ll not help, then?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“What are you saying?”
“I need time to think. Plan. Consult with Sceolán,” Bran said. “I’ll get back to you. Are you well enough for now?”
“Aye, that I am,” Liam said. “But the job is tonight. Don’t wait too long. I’ve a feeling Séamus may be for pulling up stakes after. And I don’t think the rest of us will be along for the ride, if you catch my meaning.”
“What?”
“Greed,” Liam said. “Occupational hazard in my line of work. Aye?”
Bran paused. “I thought this wasn’t your line of work anymore?”
Liam looked away. “It isn’t.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Bran said. “Or is it something you’re not telling yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
“You like the robbing, is it?”
“I do not!” Liam checked to see if Frankie heard and then lowered his voice. “It’s the driving. I love it more than anything I’ve ever done.”
“Ah, I see.”
“I don’t know what I’ll do when this is over,” Liam said. “I’ll miss the driving, so I will.”
“We’ll talk about it when the time comes,” Bran said. “Goodbye, son. Danu be with you. And good luck.”
“Same to you,” Liam said. “One more thing. Frankie. I wanted to talk to you about Frankie Donovan, if I could.”
“What about him?”
“Could you take him with you? Later, that is? He’ll need to be away for a wee bit once this shite has gone down,” Liam said. “I owe him.”
“That can be complicated.”
“I understand. I do. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t necessary.”
“I’ll see what we can do then.”
Car doors slammed.
Another of the funerals must have ended.
“Thanks, Da.” Liam turned and saw that the blue RS was now parked in front of his car. Two men had emerged. Both had brown hair and black wool hats. One wore a wool navy coat, and the shorter of the two was dressed in a black anorak. Liam recognised both men from the warehouse.
“Frankie!”
Frankie turned to see where Liam had pointed. “Hello, Eugene. Hello, Ned. What are you doing here?”
“More importantly,” the one in the anorak said, “what are the two of you doing here?”
“A quick visit with an old mate of mine,” Liam said.
“Oh, aye?” the one in the navy coat asked. “Which one is that?”
Liam motioned to Oran’s grave. “Oran MacMahon.”
Navy coat walked to Oran’s headstone and looked down to read it. “I see.”
The one in the black anorak strolled over to the Celtic crosses, obviously searching for anyone Liam might have been talking to while standing at the grave. The man in the anorak walked around the nearest crosses and scanned the nearby graves for any evidence that someone else had been present.
“We always have a wee chat before a job, Oran and me,” Liam said, lying. “For luck.”
“Come on, Eugene,” Frankie said. “We’re ready to go back now. Aren’t we, Liam?”
“Aye, that we are,” Liam said. “Any objections?”
Ned finished his circuit of the area around the grave and unable to find anything amiss, shrugged.
Eugene said, “Suit yourself.”
Liam nodded and headed for the black RS.
“Séamus doesn’t much care for what you’ve scrawled on that jacket of yours,” Eugene said, following. “I can’t say I do either.”
“I suppose it’s good that the jacket isn’t yours, then,” Liam said. He unlocked the door to the RS.
“We’re fucking watching you,” Eugene said. “One mistake. Put one foot off, Kelly. We’ve orders to top you.”
“Is that any way to talk to a mate?” Liam asked.
“Ned and me,” Eugene said. “We don’t know you. You’re not our mate.”
“Relax, will you? Everything is cool,” Liam said and slammed the door shut.
Frankie followed suit, closing the door with force behind him. “We’re so fucked.”
“Proper fucked,” Liam said, cranking up the engine and waving at Ned and Eugene.
“Royally fucked,” Frankie said.
“Oh, I don’t know if I’d go that far.”
“Were you able to… do whatever it is you came here to do?”
Liam pulled into the main drive with Ned and Eugene following behind him in the midnight-blue RS. “I was. I think.”
“You think?”
Unsure, Liam shrugged. The morning was filled with firsts. He’d never asked his father for anything before and wasn’t entirely certain he trusted that his father would come through. Liam’s stomach fluttered at the idea.
What was I thinking? I’m on my own. Just as I’ve always been. He’ll not show. It’s nothing but big talk. Don’t be a fool. Don’t bet your life on him. Worse, don’t bet Father Murray’s or Frankie’s.
“Don’t worry. I’ll think of something.”
“You said that before and that got us here. And you having a fine conversation with a gravestone.”
“I mean it.”
“Well, if you’re going to do it, you’d better do it fast. We’ll be back at the warehouse soon.” Frankie shook his head. “I don’t know how you’ll do anything when you said you’ll not carry a gun.”
“I’m not killing for the Cause.”
“So I heard.” Frankie said, “I suppose that leaves it to me.”
“There has to be another way.”
“If there is, I’m not seeing it.” Frankie lit up a cigarette.
“Give us one of those.”
Frankie handed over a lit cigarette, and Liam rolled down the window to blow out the smoke. He spied the midnight-blue RS in the rearview mirror. “Will you have a gun tonight?”
“I will.” Frankie rubbed his lip for the fifth time in an hour and then began to fidget with the radio. “We’re not expecting trouble. Not once we’re inside the bank. But I’ll be armed.”
“Something is bothering you. I can tell.”
“Well, for a start, we took a priest off the street, and there’s been no talk of it on the radio at all. No search either. Why? The Peelers should be going mad.”
That is odd,
Liam thought.
“Then there’s the other thing.”
“What other thing?”
“Have you not wondered where Henry and the others are?”
“Keeping watch at the bank,” Liam said. “Right?”
Frankie shook his head. “Séamus got this bright idea, so he did. Watch the employees for a few days. Find a man with a family. Follow him.”
Liam’s stomach did a slow roll. “He didn’t.”
“He did,” Frankie said. “They’re holding a bank teller’s wife and wean. As long as he cooperates they’ll be safe. He lets us in after the bank is closed. The job is done, we’re safe away, and Henry and the others will let them go unharmed.”
“Except we’ll not be safe away,” Liam said. “We’ll be topped or lifted. All of us. And what happens to that poor man’s wife and wean?”
This gets better and better. Fuck.
He breathed in a great lungful of smoke and blew it out. It helped his nerves a wee bit but not enough to slow his heart. “When our Séamus gets himself an idea he uses it over and over, does he?”
“I told you I didn’t like it,” Frankie said. He looked miserable. “I’m not supposed to know. Séamus has been fucking secretive about the whole job. I swear I’d not know what kind of vault they had, if he could’ve avoided telling me until we were standing in front of it.”
“So, how is it that you know about the second kidnap?”
“Henry told me.”
“And why did he do that?”
Shrugging, Frankie flicked his cigarette end out the window and watched as it bounced off of the midnight-blue RS’s windscreen. Ned, who was driving, honked the car horn. Eugene gave them the two fingers.
Frankie returned the gesture with a grin and said, “Because Henry can never keep his gob shut before a job. He can’t stop himself. It’s like diarrhea. He has to talk to someone the once. So, he tells me.”
“Séamus wouldn’t be happy to know that.”
“Aye. But Séamus doesn’t know. And he won’t. I’m in Henry’s unit. Better me than anyone. So, fuck Séamus. Séamus is an arsehole.”
Chapter 25
 
Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland
23 December 1977—7:55pm
 
 
 
“ K
eep your hands where I can see them,” Ned McCoy said, pulling a pistol from his pocket. Something in his voice said he almost regretted the request.
Liam left his hands on the steering wheel of the idling RS, and attempted to hide his nerves behind his balaclava. He wasn’t sure how successful he was. However, he supposed a certain amount of anxiety would be expected in anyone facing the business end of a gun. “Am thinking of having a cig. Is that all right with you?”
“Go ahead.”

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