The Rising (29 page)

‘What did he say?’

‘He remembered me from the hospital. I suppose he thought it was a set-up,’ she said. ‘He didn’t say as much, but I could tell. I convinced him it wasn’t, told him about Peter.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘That I knew where Kielty was. That I had heard that he had taken their drugs. I told him that Kielty had been boasting to Peter’s friends that he had stolen from The Rising. I told him that Kielty had staged his death, had sold drugs to my son and had killed him.’

‘What happened?’

‘He asked me why I was telling him all this, it had nothing to do with him. I told him I had thought he was connected with The Rising.’

The kettle switch clicked behind her. She brushed a strand of her hair from in front of her face. ‘He gave me Charlie Cunningham’s number. I called him and told him about Peter. I told him I wanted Martin Kielty dead, and the Drugs Unit man who had helped him steal their stash.’

‘Why, Caroline?’

She smiled at me. ‘Ben, you know why. I can’t pretend I’m all right with them getting away with what happened to Peter. Why should I have to be the only one who suffered?’

‘I tried my best, Caroline,’ I said.

She put her hand on my forearm.

‘I know you did, Ben. But they got away.’

‘Kielty was killed this morning. In front of his infant daughter.’

Caroline grimaced slightly, then shrugged, before turning back to the mugs of tea. ‘He deserved what happened to him. I’m not sorry for that.’

‘Rory Nicell was shot too.’

She nodded, as if expecting this news all along. ‘Is he dead?’

‘No,’ I said.

She stopped what she was doing and leaned forward on the worktop, her head bowed.

‘You have Morrison now,’ she explained. ‘Charge me and I’ll give evidence against him.’

I shook my head. Morrison had given her a phone number for The Rising, nothing more.

‘Yes, you can connect him to the killings. I knew they wouldn’t let it go. They couldn’t have someone boasting about stealing from them. That’s not how they work.’

‘You don’t understand, Caroline. I can’t get Morrison,’ I said. ‘Or you.’

She turned to me again, took my hand in both of hers.

‘They didn’t know where Nicell lived. Kielty couldn’t tell them. Cunningham called me this morning. I didn’t even think my officer number would still be accepted, but no one asked any questions.’ She paused. ‘But I knew it would lead someone back to me. That’s why I’m glad it was you.’

‘I can’t arrest you, Caroline,’ I repeated.

She tugged lightly on my hand, lowered her gaze to look up into my eyes. ‘If you don’t, someone else will. They’ll figure it out and come for me, Ben. I’m ready. This way I get to take down all of them, maybe right up to Morrison. I’ve nothing left here anyway.’

I could feel my eyes hot with tears. ‘I can’t, Caroline. I can’t arrest you. I can’t arrest Morrison; he saved Penny.’

‘He killed Peter,’ she said simply. ‘I’m not afraid, Ben. I want you to do this for me. Please.’

I looked at her face. She placed her hand against my cheek and I could recall her doing something similar, years earlier. She smiled softly, her own eyes moist with tears.

‘I want it to be you,’ she said. ‘It’s my choice. I’m ready.’

I lowered my head and nodded.

I felt her hand on my chin. She raised my face slightly, brought her face close to mine, placed her mouth against mine softly. Her lips were warm, the kiss gentle and brief.

‘Thank you,’ she said, as I became aware of the first wailing of an approaching siren.

She turned off the kettle at the wall.

‘You never got your tea,’ she said.

I took her by the arm and we walked to the front door and out onto the street. She stumbled once, as we crossed over the threshold, and I could feel resistance in her movements, as if she had realized for the first time exactly what she had asked me to do. I stopped beside her, looked at her questioningly, hoping she would nod and go back into the house. There was still a chance she could disappear. However, after the briefest pause, she took a deep breath and moved forward again, her hand clasped in mine.

‘Stay with me,’ she asked as the first Garda car pulled up sharply in front of the house. I put my arm around her shoulder, hugged her tight against me, rubbed her upper arm to dispel the shivering which began to rack her body.

She placed her hand against my shoulder blade, where the burn wound now seemed suddenly raw and exposed once more.

Around the time I was helping Caroline Williams into the back of the Garda car, Charlie Cunningham was being arrested at a checkpoint set up just south of Bundoran following the killings in Sligo. Two Gardai stopped his car and, searching it, found a handgun and a quantity of ammunition.

In the weeks that followed, Tony Armstrong was charged with the murders of Lorcan Hutton and Martin Kielty, as well as the attempted murder of Rory Nicell. Cunningham was charged with possession of a firearm which contravened his early release licence in the North and resulted in him returning to prison to complete his sentence.

Rory Nicell managed to salvage something, earning a reputation as a hero after the shooting. While still out of An Garda, he was publicly recognized by the Assistant Commissioner for being wounded in service, despite the fact he had resigned days before the incident.

Caroline Williams was charged with having information likely to be of use to terrorists, incitement to murder and impersonating a Garda officer. She was released on Garda bail of ten thousand euros while she awaited trial.

I had promised I would be there on her first day in court. As I stood outside the building, having a smoke, a small, squat figure approached me, his face pasty behind his darkening glasses. His nose was bent slightly out of shape, the crescent shape of the scar my wedding ring had caused when I struck him still clearly visible.

He stopped and looked at me with open hostility. A mixture of shame about what I had done, and fear that I would repeat the attack if I spoke to him, stopped me from returning his stare.

‘I believe you were the one who arrested her,’ he said, his voice low and insinuating. ‘And I thought
I
hated her.’

He shook his head and, tutting to himself, continued on into the courthouse. He sat in court each day of the trial and smiled when the verdict was announced and Caroline was led down to the cells to begin her sentence.

Patterson forced me into taking the month’s leave he had given me, despite my objections. In all truth, I could not bare the thought of sitting impotently by Penny’s bedside each day, watching her sleep. Her very state was a reminder of the futility of my work, which I had always convinced myself was about making the world a safer place for my children. I thought of her, Peter Williams, John Morrison and Anna McEvoy, all of whom had been touched by the events of the previous month.

But as the month passed, and I spent day after day with her, I reached some sense of equilibrium. Debbie and I took turns to read to her, or play her favourite music, in the hope that it might bring her back to us.

Vincent Morrison returned once more with his son. The boy stood by Penny’s side and told her all the news from school.

His father stood at the foot of the bed and spoke to me.

‘I understand your old partner was sentenced to five years. That’s tough going.’

‘Cunningham and his cronies can expect more than that.’

Morrison nodded. ‘They knew the risks when they started messing around with that nonsense.’

I turned and studied his profile. A thought struck me.

‘The Rising took out all the dealers along the border and introduced their own supplies. Now that Cunningham and the rest have been put out of action, whoever bankrolled them can take charge of the whole operation.’

He looked at me. ‘You know, now you mention it, you’re right.’

‘You’re controlling drugs for the whole area,’ I whispered, wary of his son’s presence in the room. ‘You rose right back on top again. You’re running the borderlands, you son of a bitch.’

His jaw set slightly at the final insult, then softened. He smiled at me coldly.

‘Prove it,’ he said. Then he moved over and stood beside his son.

In the early hours of Easter Sunday, over a month after her accident, Penny’s condition changed. I had left Debbie for an hour to go to the vigil Mass where I had lit my candle from the paschal candle and prayed that our daughter might come back to us.

I came back up to the hospital around 1 a.m. to let Debbie go home. The nurses came in and left a chocolate egg in the room, something which they did with all the children on the ward. One of them joked that she might waken to eat it.

Before she left, Debbie went over to kiss her goodnight as she always did. She leant on the bed, her hand resting on top of Penny’s as she laid a kiss on her forehead and urged her in whispered tones to come back to us. Then she suddenly started, emitting a tiny shriek which pierced the silence of the room.

‘She squeezed my hand,’ she said urgently, turning to me, her eyes sparkling with tears.

I moved beside her. ‘Are you sure?’

She nodded, her tears running freely. ‘Oh, Ben. She squeezed my hand.’

‘You might have imagined it,’ I said. I had several times myself thought I had seen her eyes flickering.

‘I didn’t. I felt her squeeze my hand, Ben. I felt her.’

She looked around, then shouted louder to attract some of the staff. ‘She squeezed my hand!’ she called out again.

Finally one of the nurses came in.

‘She’s wakening,’ Debbie said, smiling, her face smeared with tears.

‘Let me get the doctor to check,’ the nurse said cautiously. ‘Keep talking to her, just in case.’

While we waited for the doctor to arrive, we spoke to Penny, loudly encouraging her to waken. I was beginning to doubt Debbie’s claim when, of a sudden, I saw Penny flex one of her fingers, saw the ridge of her eyeball shift underneath the eyelid.

‘She’s wakening!’ I shouted, rushing to the door of the room to be heard.

When the doctor arrived, he checked her eyes with a pen-light, then tested her fingers one by one. As he did so, we heard, though barely audible, a soft moan escape her mouth. The young man turned to us, his face alight with his smile.

‘I think you’re right,’ he said. ‘She seems to be coming around. Congratulations.’

As dawn broke on Easter Sunday morning, Penny opened her eyes of her own accord and spoke her first words in over a month.

‘Mummy,’ she said dryly, the sound barely audible. ‘Daddy.’ She smiled benignly and moved her head to the side. On the bedside locker, Shane’s T-rex sat looking down at her. ‘Where’s Shane?’

We sat with her through that day, Shane perched constantly on her bed, telling her all that she had missed, and how much he had missed her. She tired easily and slept through much of what he had to say, but he continued unperturbed.

That night, reluctantly, Debbie went home, having not slept properly for two nights. Neither of us wanted to leave Penny for a moment, in case we returned to find her gone from us again.

I sat awake by her until the dawn, watching her sleep. I recalled how, when both she and Shane were just babies, I would check on them at night, standing beside the cot, holding my own breath and listening in the darkness for the reassurance of their breathing. If I could not hear them, I would lower my face close to theirs in a panic, hoping I might feel the warmth of each exhalation against my cheek.

I found that I did so again now. I sat in silence by my daughter’s hospital bed, and counted each breath she drew, their number measured by the dipping of the bedclothes above her heart, and the rising.

Brian McGilloway was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1974, and teaches English at St Columb’s College, Derry.

Also by Brian McGilloway in the Inspector Devlin series

BORDERLANDS

GALLOWS LANE

BLEED A RIVER DEEP

I have a number of people who deserve thanks for their help and support in the writing of
The Rising
. As always, thanks to my friends and colleagues in St Columb’s who have been incredibly supportive of all the books. Particular thanks to Bob McKimm, who remains one of Devlin’s staunchest supporters.

Thanks to a number of people who have supported the writing of the Devlin books in their own ways: Alex Mullan, Tara Vance, James Johnston, Eoghan Barr, Nuala McGonagle, Dessie Kelly, Susan Gill and Pawel in NWCLD, Margaret Giblin, Stephanie Swain, Belinda Mahaffey, Bobby McDaid and Rev. Edward Kilpatrick, and Harry Doherty. Thanks to Paddy McDaid and Carmel McGilloway for advice regarding legal procedures. All inaccuracies are my own.

Thanks to Peter and Jenny at RCW, Emily at The Agency, all at Dumont, Pete and Liz at St Martins and the fantastic team at Pan Macmillan; Cat, Ellen, Cormac, David, Sophie and Will.