Dark Dawn (27 page)

‘I’m eating. You can sit here on your tod if you want.’

O’Neill got out of the car and walked up the path. After a few seconds Toner followed, walking up the hill ten yards behind the cop.

At the base of the tower was a flat piece of grass with three benches. Each had a small brass plaque, dedicated to someone. You could see for miles. On one side was an expanse of water, Strangford Lough. Two arms of land reached down either side of the large inlet. On the horizon, a low winter sun was starting to dip below the grey band of cloud. Newtownards stretched out to the left. You couldn’t make out Belfast, which was out of sight, hidden behind the Castlereagh hills.

On the nearby golf course, an old boy in an Argyle sweater was teeing off. He made a swipe, topping the ball which scuttled away into some gorse. The man was 200 yards away and out of earshot. It didn’t stop Marty though.

‘You’re shee-ite. And so’s your jumper.’

‘Sit down,’ O’Neill said to him.

He opened up the brown paper bag and handed the teenager a small square box with a burger in it. Marty took it suspiciously.

‘What?’ O’Neill asked. ‘You’re going to tell me you’re a vegetarian?’

The boy smiled slightly, taking a bite of the burger. He took several chews before speaking with his mouth full.

‘You can buy all the burgers you want. I’m not telling you fuck all.’

‘Dead on,’ said O’Neill. ‘It’s your call. I mean, it wasn’t my best mate that just got seven shades of shite beaten out of him.’

The two sat eating in silence. Marty took the pickle out of his burger and flicked it away.

‘Frigging pickles.’

They watched the golfer poke around in the gorse looking for his ball. He scraped it out with a club before standing up to take his shot. This one was much better. The small white dot bobbled down the fairway, coming to rest just beside the green.

‘I spoke to Mr Johnson at St Matthew’s. He said he hadn’t seen you for over a year.’

‘School? Don’t make me laugh.’

‘He remembered you though. Said you were a hell of a footballer. Hattrick in the Belfast Schools Cup. He said Glentoran had been looking at you. There was even a chance you could have gone across the water.’

Marty smiled. He remembered the hat-trick as if it was yesterday, the boys jumping on him down the back of the bus on their way home.

‘I know what you’ve been up to, you and Petesy. You’ve been working. Out there grafting.’

Marty sat up straight. He could get done here if he wasn’t careful.

‘Out on your own. Fuck Molloy and Tierney and those boys, right? Yeah. You’ve got yourselves some gear and gone it alone.’

O’Neill was fishing, voicing his theory as to why Peter Kennedy might have been done. He seemed to be on the money so far.

‘We have almost nothing on you. That’s how I know. You and Peter have been at this a while, but you’ve managed to keep a low profile. Stay under the radar.’

O’Neill paused, taking another bite of his burger. He looked at the open space in front of him. The golfer had arrived at his ball on the green, 500 yards away.

‘Bet you he gets it in two,’ O’Neill said.

They watched as the small figure knocked his ball on the green. He walked over and tapped the ball towards the hole. It didn’t disappear.

‘Hey. What do I know about golf?’ O’Neill mused. Then: ‘Thing is, Marty, you’re doing what you’ve got to do. That’s all. The problem’s not you. It’s not Peter. The problem is the guy in the Hugo Boss suit, standing in the toilet of a nightclub, hoovering a gram up his . . . Or the wee student at Queen’s, skinning up, dropping a few Es, then back to his lectures on Monday.’

O’Neill paused.

‘None of these guys are lying in the RVH like your mate. None of them are getting a baseball bat taken to them. None of them will be on walking sticks the rest of their life. I mean, sure, we could arrest you. Lock you up. But so what, right? Out here, we’re the least of your worries.’

O’Neill stopped talking. They sat there in silence, looking at the expanse of land stretching out below them. He was deliberately quiet, trying to get the kid to speak, to say something. After a minute Marty spoke.

‘It’s fucked up,’ he said. O’Neill thought he could feel an opening, but just as quickly, the silent stand-off resumed.

They sat for a few minutes. O’Neill had another go.

‘Have you ever thought it’s not fair? Like, why does it have to be yous always taking the hiding? Where were you when Peter was getting a beating? Hospital told me it was a bat with some nails through it. They hit him twelve times. Where were you, Marty? I thought you were his best mate? Aren’t best mates supposed to stick up for each other?’

O’Neill could sense the teenager tensing up beside him. He kept pressing.

‘We spoke to his granny at the hospital. Had she told you to take yourself off? Was that why you stormed out, holding back the tears? Did she blame you, Marty? Petesy didn’t seem like the kind of guy to go up against Molloy and Tierney. Was it
your
idea?’

Toner stared out at the horizon. It was cold. He felt as if he was in a different country. The coastline, the water, the green fields stretching off in the distance. Belfast seemed miles away, the streets around the lower Ormeau, almost another world.

Marty was half-listening to O’Neill; the other part of him was back by the side of the river, his face shoved into the gravel as the bat came down on Petesy.

‘Do you blame yourself, Marty – is that what it is? Have you been walking round, thinking it should have been you instead of your mate? Do you want some revenge – is that what you’re looking for? Because if it is, this is your chance. You’re not going to go up against these boys on your own. I’m the only way you can get to them. You need to use me. You need to help me. You need to tell me who it was that did Peter.’

They sat on for ten minutes. O’Neill went back to the well several times, evoking images of Peter Kennedy, the beating, the effects it would have on him. The teenager went back into his shell, shutting himself away from the cop, away from what he was saying. O’Neill eventually gave up and got to his feet.

‘Come on. Let’s go.’

They drove back into Belfast, the car-heater warming them after the cold outside.

‘You’re not a tout, Marty. You’re sticking up for your mate. Get the fuckers that did it to him. This is the only way. What else are you going to do? I know why you don’t want to talk. We don’t live where you live. We’re not going to be there when someone kicks your door in at three in the morning. Sure. You could call 999. You’d be as well asking for an ambulance though, by the time we got to you. It’s fucked up. You’re right. The whole thing’s fucked up.’

The traffic outside was starting to thicken. From the dual carriageway on the top of the hill the car looked down on Belfast. Church spires were sprinkled across the horizon, jutting up from rows of terrace housing. The two giant yellow cranes of Harland & Wolff straddled the docks.

‘Thing is, Marty,’ O’Neill continued, ‘eventually, someone’s got to take a stand. They shouldn’t get away with doing that to you. You guys take the risks – and for what? So they can come and beat the shit out of you when they don’t like what’s going on?’

Marty spoke for the first time since he had shouted at the golfer.

‘I’m not telling you who did Petesy. There’s only two people that know, me and him. They would know who’d told. And if they couldn’t get to me, they’d come back for him. And he’s had enough.’

O’Neill thought about it. The kid was right. He couldn’t talk. There was no way.

‘Fair enough. But you need to give me something. It’s the same people, right – the ones who did the kid we found by the Lagan the other week?’

‘That one. Yous are still after that?’

‘That’s right.’

Marty gave a short laugh. ‘That one’s a mystery.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nobody knows.’

‘What do you mean, nobody knows?’

‘I mean nobody knows.’

‘OK. Forget who did him. Who’s the kid?’

‘I just told you. Nobody knows.’

The teenager could have been lying but O’Neill didn’t think so. He’d thrown the comment away as if it was the least interesting thing he’d ever said.

As they neared the centre of Belfast Toner slumped down in the car seat, pulling his hat low over his face. O’Neill turned off the main road, driving under the bridge that used to lead to Central Station. It was deserted and dark. He slowed the car. The wheels hadn’t fully stopped before the door was open and Toner was gone. O’Neill looked in his rearview mirror, trying to pick out a shape in the darkness, but it was too late. The kid had already disappeared.

Lynch had been shadowing for two days now, watching, waiting. He knew O’Neill inside and out, almost better than he knew himself. As soon as he saw the photograph, Lynch had clocked him for one of the cops who had followed him out of The George. The other one must have been Ward.

O’Neill had been on an early shift, eight to six, though he wasn’t leaving Musgrave Street before nine. Lynch saw straight away why McCann wanted him dead. He was a peeler with no life. He worked, he slept. That was it. Not the kind of person you wanted sniffing round, asking questions. Fat and lazy, you could work with. Someone who could turn a blind eye, who could take a hint, who could be told. Lynch could see that wasn’t O’Neill.

The last two nights, after a ten-hour shift, he had driven round to May Street and parked up. For four hours he had sat and watched the comings and goings at The George. Lynch wondered how much he knew about McCann’s operation. He was there though, so he must know something.

The following morning in Stranmillis, O’Neill left for work just after seven. Thirty minutes later, Lynch dandered round the back, picked the lock and broke into the flat. At the front door lay a pile of unopened mail. On the top lay a brown A4 envelope with an entire book of stamps plastered to its front. Someone wanted to make sure that arrived, Lynch thought, stepping over the post.

Inside the place looked as if O’Neill had just moved in and was waiting on his stuff arriving. On the mantelpiece an opened electricity bill said he’d been there five months. The kitchen cupboards were bare apart from coffee, baked beans, a packet of digestives. On the counter sat a loaf of bread, a week out of date.

‘It’s an existence,’ Lynch whispered. ‘But I wouldn’t call it a life.’

O’Neill’s flat reminded him of his own place. It was functional, but not much more. On the bedside cabinet he saw a photograph of a woman giving a little girl a piggyback. They were running along a beach under a brooding grey sky with big Atlantic waves crashing in the background. It looked like Portstewart strand or somewhere in Donegal. Long brown hair fell across the woman’s face. She was attractive and the photo caught a moment – part-smile, part-laugh. The little girl looked like her mother.

Lynch started putting the pieces together. ‘So this is why you don’t go home at night,’ he whispered to himself.

His mind automatically kicked into gear. He knew if the woman and the girl were in the North, he’d have no problem finding them. McCann would have contacts in the Civil Service. Addresses were easy – Electoral Register, council tax, water rates. In the past they’d recruited sympathizers, people who wouldn’t pull the trigger, but who wanted to help, do their bit for the Cause. These days it would be a simple question of money. Everyone had their price. You passed on a brown envelope and a few days later you had an address.

Lynch wondered, was it necessary for the peeler to die? If the mother and daughter were brought into the equation, would O’Neill back down? He’d seen it before. All it took was a public place and a quiet word.

‘I want to talk to you about Ashfield Drive.’

He’d done it himself and watched as the implications slowly dawned on people’s faces. You didn’t need to raise your voice. They knew who you were, what you were capable of, and now you had an address. Sometimes folk didn’t believe you, so you gave them more. The sister, the mother and father, the cousin. Skegoneill Road, Eia Street, Henderson Avenue. Eeny, meeny, miny, mo . . .

Lynch stood in the bedroom, surprised at how easily the old patterns, the familiar logic of intimidation and threat, re-formed in his head.

Would
O’Neill back down? For some reason Lynch didn’t think so. Anyway, it didn’t matter. He knew McCann would never buy it. He wanted the peeler gone, off the street, eliminated. It wasn’t a discussion, it was an order. There was only one way this was going to go down.

That night in the Markets, Lynch crashed on to his bed and fell sound asleep. The job had given him a focus, a purpose. He had been filling his head with the minutiae of O’Neill’s routine and it had worked like a drug. When the alarm went off at seven he felt as if he’d slept for a week.

Lynch had decided on the spot. It would be outside the flat in Stranmillis, just as O’Neill arrived back from work. McCann could have someone at The George, watching the Mondeo. They would call when it pulled up and again as it left. Lynch would lie in wait, ambush him as he put the key in the door. It would be late, which meant little chance of witnesses and plenty of time to disappear.

Before leaving the house, Lynch took the shoe-box out from under his bed. He lifted out the tea-towel and unwrapped the Browning. He kneeled on the floor and took the pistol apart and cleaned it. He worked slowly and methodically, wiping and oiling each piece, before reassembling the weapon. This had been a ritual from years ago, before heading out on a job. The last thing you wanted was a gun jamming or a misfire at the critical moment. He knew two trigger men who had been shot themselves because of it.

At 11 p.m. Lynch was in position. There was an empty house on the opposite side of the street, three doors down from O’Neill’s flat. A hedge, 6 foot high, hid a small front garden. He hunkered down and waited. O’Neill was outside The George for the third day in a row. He had gotten sloppy, either that or he was desperate. It didn’t really matter, it was going to be the end of him. After an hour and a half, Lynch’s phone vibrated in his pocket. O’Neill was on his way.