Collusion (14 page)

32

The Traveller took a seat at the bar. There was plenty of choice; he was the only one here. Apart from the barman, Tom Mooney.

Mooney put down his newspaper. ‘How’re ya?’ he said, his head tilted, his eyes taking in every detail.

‘I’m grand,’ the Traveller said. He gave Mooney a wide smile.

‘That’s a bad-looking eye you’ve got there,’ Mooney said.

The Traveller’s fingers went to the heat above his cheek, stopped just short of touching the inflamed eyelid. ‘Infection,’ he said. ‘Stings like a fucker.’

‘You should see a doctor.’

‘Probably should. Probably won’t.’

Mooney stared for a second or two. ‘What can I get you?’

‘Pint of Smithwick’s,’ the Traveller said.

Mooney took a glass to the pump. The beer swirled cream and brown as it poured. He placed the drink on the bar. The Traveller put a ten next to it.

‘You’ve not been in here before,’ Mooney said as he wiped the bar with a damp cloth. ‘We get mostly regulars here, a pretty tight crowd. Not a lot of passers-by just drop in, if you know what I mean.’ He looked up. ‘Unless they’re after something, that is.’

The Traveller smiled. ‘Is that right?’

‘That’s right,’ Mooney said. He didn’t drop his gaze when the Traveller returned it. Bit of fight in him, by the look of his stance.

‘You think I’m after something?’

Mooney’s hands slipped beneath the bar counter, where the Traveller couldn’t see them. He wondered what the barman had under there. A baseball bat, most likely.

‘Yeah, I sort of got that notion,’ Mooney said. ‘Tell me straight what you want, and we’ll see how we go. I’ve had enough fucking about to do me for a right while, and I’m not in the mood for any more today. All right?’

The Traveller nodded. ‘All right. I’m looking for Patsy Toner. He drinks here sometimes.’

Mooney straightened. He tried to hide his surprise at the Traveller’s words, but failed. ‘He hasn’t been in here for a while.’

‘No? Where else does he drink?’

‘Different places,’ Mooney said.

‘There’s a lot of different places,’ the Traveller said.

‘This is the only place I pull pints in,’ Mooney said. ‘Can’t tell you much about anywhere else.’

The Traveller watched a thin film of perspiration form on Mooney’s forehead, the tensing of his forearms, the clenching of his jaw. ‘I’m not the only one’s been asking for him, am I?’

Mooney said nothing, just stared back.

‘Was it a cop?’ the Traveller asked.

‘Drink up,’ Mooney said. ‘Door’s over there.’

‘Big broad fella,’ the Traveller said, feeling a warm trickle down his cheek. ‘Sandy-coloured hair. Nice suit.’

Mooney grimaced. ‘Jesus, your eye.’

The Traveller pulled a tissue from the bundle in his jacket pocket. He mopped the wetness from his cheek. It left a mix of pale yellow and red on the paper. He sniffed and something cloying and tangy slipped down the back of his throat. ‘Give us some water, will you?’

Mooney hesitated, then filled a tumbler. The Traveller soaked a wad of tissue and dabbed his eye, wincing at the sting. The sodden paper came apart as he worked.

Mooney produced a bar towel from somewhere. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘It’s clean.’

The Traveller dipped a corner of the towel into the water and again dabbed his eye. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Listen, you seem like a decent sort of a fella. You say you don’t know where Patsy Toner is, no problem. But tell me straight: was there a cop in here asking after him?’

‘Yeah,’ Mooney said. ‘And I told him as much as I told you. Fair enough?’

The Traveller folded the towel as he studied the barman. Working in a place like this, he wouldn’t, couldn’t tell the cops anything substantial, even if Patsy Toner should happen to turn up dead. He must have kept some fierce secrets in his time. ‘Fair enough,’ the Traveller said. He indicated the towel. ‘Can I have this?’

Mooney shrugged.

‘And I was never in here, and I never asked you anything about Patsy Toner, right?’

Mooney said, ‘Like I told that cop, I hear nothing, I see nothing. Now, you going to finish that pint or what?’

The Traveller was about to answer when his mobile rang. Instead, he said, ‘See you around.’

He left the bar and answered the phone as he walked to his car.

‘You made an awful bollocks of things last night,’ Orla O’Kane said.

‘He got—’

‘I’m not interested in why you made a bollocks of it, I just want to know what you’re going to do about it.’

The Traveller unlocked the Merc and got in. ‘I’m going to kill the hairy-lipped wee fucker, that’s what.’

‘Make sure you do it today,’ Orla said. ‘Things are moving along, now. There’ll be a development within the next forty-eight hours, and you better be ready to do the needful.’

‘What sort of development?’ the Traveller asked.

‘You’ll know soon enough. Now for Christ’s sake, sort Patsy Toner out. And just to make life a little easier for you, I’m going to tell you where to find him.’

33

‘The Sydenham International,’ Patsy Toner said.

‘By the City Airport?’ Lennon asked.

‘That’s it,’ Toner said.

‘Give me half an hour,’ Lennon said.

The Sydenham International Hotel hadn’t aged well. It hadn’t been able to keep up with the wave of shiny new establishments that had mushroomed all over Belfast during the last few years, and its days were surely numbered now there were some decent hotels by the airport.

Lennon entered the dowdy reception area. The owners had done their best to spruce the place up, but failed. He peered into the dimly lit bar and saw Toner hunched over a glass in the darkest corner. Lennon took his time, let the lawyer sweat. He got himself a pint of Stella at the bar. The barmaid, who was just a little too old for her exposed bellybutton ring and fake tan, didn’t return his smile.

He crossed to Toner’s table. The lawyer had dark rings under his eyes and a sour odour about him. ‘What’s up?’ Lennon asked.

‘I need a smoke,’ Toner said. Lennon followed him out through a pair of patio doors to what passed for a beer garden: a patch of potholed tarmac and a couple of picnic tables with tattered parasols, along with a few buckets of sand for cigarette ends.

Toner placed his drink on a table and sat on the attached bench. He took a packet of Embassy Regal out of his pocket and offered one to Lennon. Lennon rarely smoked, even when he drank, but he took one just to get the lawyer on his side. He sat down opposite.

Toner sparked up with a cheap lighter and did the same for Lennon, smoke clouding the space between them. Lennon noticed Toner’s left hand again; waxy and thin, like it had been locked in a cast, the muscles atrophied.

‘Someone tried to kill me last night,’ the lawyer said.

‘I know,’ Lennon said.

‘At my flat,’ Toner said, his hands and voice shaking. ‘Someone tried to shoot me.’

‘I know,’ Lennon said again, but this time it was a lie. He had guessed as much about the attempt from what Hewitt had told him, but he didn’t know about any shooting.

‘You ever had a gun pointed at you?’ Toner asked. ‘You ever been shot at?’

‘Yes,’ Lennon said. ‘A few times. But then you should know that, shouldn’t you, Patsy?’

‘What?’

Lennon inhaled nicotine, let it sizzle through his brain. ‘Years ago, I was only a few months on the job, still a probationer.’ He exhaled a thin wisp of blue, wishing Toner smoked something heavier, like Marlboros or Camels. ‘Before the ceasefires. I was on a patrol in the city centre, just off Royal Avenue. Some of your lot ambushed us. Two of my friends died. I took a bullet in the shoulder, just under the armoured vest.’

‘My lot?’ Toner smiled under his moustache. ‘Nobody’s my lot. Not any more.’

‘Well, back then they were. Three boys were lifted for it within twenty-four hours. I was there to testify on the first day of the trial, but I never got a chance. You had the case thrown out on a technicality. The searches weren’t sound, so that was that. Two decent young men dead, I get a nice big scar to show for it, and three pieces of shit walk free. They probably killed again. How much did you make out of that case?’

‘I remember you now,’ Toner said. ‘You got a commendation or something for that, didn’t you? There was another survivor. You saved him.’

‘A medal,’ Lennon said.

Toner smirked. ‘You wear it much?’

‘I never collected it.’

‘Why not?’

Lennon took another hit of the cigarette, winced at the hot gravel in his throat. ‘Didn’t feel like it,’ he said. ‘So tell me about last night.’

Toner told Lennon about walking back to his shitty flat, approaching his front door, seeing the man in the old Mercedes estate dousing his face with water, and just knowing.

‘Knowing what?’ Lennon asked.

‘That he was there to kill me,’ Toner said, suddenly looking even smaller. ‘So I ran like fuck. Into the building, up the stairs, into my flat, and out the back down the fire escape. I kept thinking, Jesus, if there’s another one round the back, I’m fucked. But there wasn’t. There was just him.’

‘Who was he?’

‘I don’t know,’ Toner said.

‘Did you get a look at him?’

Toner shook his head.

‘Who do you think sent him?’

Toner sighed as his eyes went distant and watery. ‘I’m going to tell you this because I’ve got to tell somebody before I go off my head. It’s been eating away at me for months. I’ve been scared shitless.’ The lawyer’s voice rose to a whine. ‘I can’t eat. I have to drink myself unconscious just so I can get some sleep. I wake up every morning and first thing I do is puke.

‘I kept telling myself it was over and done with, all settled, all swept under the carpet. But I knew. I knew someone would come for me. And then I heard about Kevin Malloy, so it was just a matter of when. I knew they wouldn’t let me go.’

‘Who’s they?’ Lennon asked.

‘They?’ Toner gave a short, sharp laugh that choked in his throat. ‘“They” is fucking everyone. The cops, the Brits, the Irish government, the party, fucking Bull O’Kane.’

Lennon eyed Toner, wondered if he
had
lost it. ‘That’s a lot of people,’ he said.

‘Collusion,’ Toner said, his voice dropping to a low, angry hiss. ‘Everyone talks about collusion, how the cops and the Brits and the Loyalists were in it together. To hear some people talk, you’d think the Loyalists couldn’t take a shit without MI5 or Special Branch wiping their arses for them.’

Lennon laughed. ‘Look, I know about the Loyalists. Everybody knows—’

‘Everybody knows it all, but no one says anything. Look, collusion worked all ways, all directions. Between the Brits and the Loyalists, between the Irish government and the Republicans, between the Republicans and the Brits, between the Loyalists and the Republicans.’ Toner ran out of breath and his face reddened. He pulled hard on his cigarette and coughed. ‘All ways, all directions. We’ll never know how far it went. All the small things, all the big things. Loyalists supplying Republicans with fake DVDs and Ecstasy tablets. Republicans wholesaling laundered diesel and bootleg vodka to Loyalists. Feeding off the hate, letting on they’re fighting for their fucking causes when all the time they’re making each other rich. And the killings. How many of our own did we set up for the Loyalists to take out? How many of their own did the Loyalists set up for us? How many times did I get a taxi to some club or other on the Shankill with a name in an envelope, and two days later, some poor cunt from the Falls gets his head took off?’

‘I don’t understand,’ Lennon said. ‘What’s all this got to do with someone having a crack at you last night?’

‘Paul McGinty,’ Toner said. He raised his waxy hand to count on his fingers. ‘Michael McKenna, Vincie Caffola, Father Coulter, that cop who got shot in my car.’

Lennon’s chest tightened at McKenna’s name. He smelled blood, followed the scent. ‘The feud. I read the inquiry report. Some Scottish guy, an ex-soldier, was in the middle of it all. He stabbed the priest. He wound up dead in the shootout near Middletown, along with McGinty.’

‘Davy Campbell,’ Toner said. ‘He was an agent.’

‘An agent? How do you know that?’

Toner stared hard at Lennon as he ground his cigarette into the tabletop. ‘Because I got him in.’

Lennon felt the heat of his own cigarette as it burned closer to his fingers. ‘What, you mean—’

‘Yeah, I was a tout. I fed information about McGinty to MI5. They passed it on to Special Branch and Fourteen Intelligence Company, and anyone else they felt like sharing with. Like I said, collusion goes all ways, all directions.’

‘All right,’ Lennon said. He dropped the cigarette to the ground and crushed it beneath his heel. ‘So tell me what really happened.’

Toner let a long sigh out, his small chest deflating. He took another cigarette from the packet, didn’t offer one to Lennon, and started talking.

34

The Traveller recognised the cop’s Audi in the hotel car park. ‘Fuck,’ he said.

He steered the big Mercedes around the scruffy quadrangle of potholed tarmac until he found a spot behind a van. It would obscure him from the Audi’s position, but he could still see the car park’s exit. He’d be able to see the cop leave, and then he could go in after Toner. Room 203, Orla had said.

He lowered the driver’s side window a couple of inches. The breeze had started to cool as late afternoon approached. It felt good on his stinging eye. He adjusted his position so his bad shoulder didn’t rest against the seat back.

The cop troubled him. Christ knew what that little shite Toner was telling him in there. Had he got a good look at the Traveller the night before? Would Toner be able to give the cop a description? And if he could, would the cop make the connection with the man he’d seen on Eglantine Avenue earlier in the day?

The Traveller made his mind up. He didn’t care what Bull O’Kane had to say about it, he would take care of the cop when the job was done. As soon as he’d mopped up O’Kane’s unholy fucking mess, he’d indulge himself by breaking the cop’s neck.

Yes, that was how he’d do it. The cop was a big fucker, wide through the shoulders where the Traveller was narrow, but he reckoned if he could get him pinned, get a knee in his broad back – yes, a good grip, a good pull and a twist.

The Traveller ran the tip of his tongue across his upper lip. Suddenly he thought of Sofia, the scent of her, the softness of her buttocks and her belly. He shifted in the seat, his jeans pinching at him. The movement aggravated his shoulder, and he winced. The wince aggravated his eye, and he hissed through his teeth.

Sofia. Jesus, she was a good ride. He’d had his share of women, some he remembered, more he didn’t. But she was the best of them. There had never been that heat, that
scalding
heat, with anyone else. It burned his skin where it touched hers when he buried his face between her shoulder and her neck, the two of them shuddering together.

The Traveller decided there and then on another indulgence: after breaking the cop’s neck, he’d give Sofia a baby. When he was done here, and everyone who needed killed was dead, he’d go back to Sofia, throw her down on the bed, and tell her he was going to give her the child she’d wanted from her dead husband. After she’d caught pregnant, he’d never see her again. No sense in getting tied to a woman and a kid like that; he’d just give her what she wanted then leave her to get on with it.

So that was that. Break the cop’s neck. Give Sofia a baby. Simple, but then the Traveller had never found life complicated. He remembered his mother gathering him to her one day when he was a teenager, kissing the top of his head, saying, ‘Ah, son, you’ll always land on your feet. Just stumble on through. The devil looks after his own.’

And she was right. Even now, he couldn’t fathom why he’d taken a notion one day, left his mother’s home, got on a boat and crossed the Irish Sea. He’d wandered around Liverpool for a month, walking from one construction site to another looking for work, like generations of Irishmen had done before him. He’d eked out an existence for thirty days before finding himself in front of an army recruiting office.

He stood on the pavement looking up at the sign, at the posters in the window. He could no longer visualise the words, but he remembered the pictures. Young men in uniforms in exotic places, holding guns, climbing things, fixing things, driving things. The recruiting officer shook his hand, talked to him like a man.

A few months later, when he was still eighteen, he found himself in some fucking miserable place, one of those communist countries that had fallen apart, trying to protect processions of old women and little children as they trudged along mud roads, away from the massacres in their towns and villages. Made all that shit in Northern Ireland look like the kid stuff it was.

He’d had no stomach for the North and all its squabbling since then. Bunch of fucking selfish, childish, spoilt whiners who pissed and moaned and started throwing bricks when they couldn’t get their own way. Every time he saw some politician or other on the telly slabbering ’cause the other side got a better deal, the Traveller wished he could drag them by the hair to some village whose name he couldn’t pronounce and show them the babies torn in half by shrapnel, or a young mother raped and gutted because she was the wrong sort, her children left screaming at the memory of it for the rest of their miserable lives.

The Traveller would grab the politician by the throat, make the lying bastard look at it, make them see it all, and say, ‘There, now that’s a conflict. That’s a war. That’s hatred. That’s fear. That’s blood. That’s brutality. That’s killing for the sake of it. Look at it.’

He checked himself in the rear-view mirror. ‘Stop it,’ he said. ‘Just fucking quit it. Save it for Patsy Toner.’

The anger. Yet another symptom of losing a bit of your brain: a quick and violent temper. The Traveller breathed deep and pushed the rage back down to his gut where it belonged. He had to keep it in check, channel it, use it, not let it use him. There had been times, years ago, when he let it get the better of him. His vision would turn to a long red funnel, and some poor bastard’s brains would be spilled across a pavement, or their throat would be ripped open by a shard of glass. Not any more. He had learned to control it, keep it in his belly like a battery stores power. When he needed it, he could switch it on, just for a moment, just long enough to do the awful things that paid so well.

After a while it felt like nothing, as if taking a life was like taking a breath. Somewhere inside of him, in some deep unreachable place, the Traveller knew he was unwell. That was why he didn’t like doctors. He imagined they could see that dark spot on his heart, that black place where his rage kept his conscience prisoner, muted, sedated, anaesthetised, bound up by tangled images of children’s torsos stacked in piles, flies picking over the meat, the blood sticky beneath his boots, the stench punching him in the—

‘Fucking quit it,’ he said to the mirror. He brought his fingers to his bad eye and rubbed it hard.

The bright, scorching pain blasted all thought away. He gritted his teeth and swallowed a scream. A warm, thick wetness rolled down his cheek. He wiped it with his sleeve, looked at the thin streaks of yellow on the material.

‘Fuck,’ he said.

He got hold of himself just in time to hear the coarse bark and clatter of a diesel engine starting up. Was it the cop? The Traveller listened to the engine grumble as he watched the gate beyond the van, blinking away the blurring in his right eye.

There it was, the Audi, the big cop’s head just visible through the tinted glass. It pulled out into the traffic and disappeared from view.

The Traveller inhaled cool air through his nose, let it out through his mouth. The rage was barely contained, like a blister beneath his skin, ready to burst. It would be bad for Patsy Toner.