Ли Чайлд - Belfast Noir

“You’re fussing,” said McCarthy. “Get on with your breakfast. That plateful was fried with love and it doesn’t deserve to get cold.”

Ten minutes later, though, O’Gorman stopped eating. “I can’t relax, Paddy. Just let me call a couple of the lads in case he decided to go to Milltown.” A couple of phone calls later, he stood up from the table. “Sorry, Paddy. I don’t get it, but Marty’s been sighted in the crowd walking toward Milltown. I’ve got to go after him.”

“When you’re halfway through brunch? Why?”

“Because he’s never done this before alone and he could get into a terrible state.”

“There’s got to be a first time, Joe. Maybe the lad wants a bit of independence.”

“Maybe he does, and if he looks okay I’ll keep my distance. But I can’t take the risk something’ll happen and he’ll get into a row and do someone harm. Jesus, Paddy, prison would kill him.” He grabbed his coat, muttered apologies, and ran for his car.

* * *

When crowds blocked the road, O’Gorman parked hastily and began trying to push his way through. Helped by another couple of calls, he knew Marty was now at the front, in the centre of the line just after the leading bands. He didn’t sight him until the Tannoy was relaying speeches. It was seeing Marty wearing a beret that turned O’Gorman’s worry into fear. “Do you have to be a volunteer to wear a beret, Uncle Joe?” was a question that the boy had asked only a few weeks back. The rucksack was unsettling. What could be in that? He thought of all Marty’s chatter about the Begley bomb and he fought panic.

He was almost within arm’s reach of his nephew when Marty jumped the wall that protected the dignitaries. As O’Gorman scrambled after him, his sister-in-law, her hand clasped to her mouth, was trying to grasp the implications of a montage that now had at its centre a photograph of Marty, wearing a black beret with a green, white, and orange badge that said, Free Ireland , and a smile of pure happiness.

PART II

CITY OF WALLS

LIGATURE

BY GERARD BRENNAN

Hydebank

I can’t breathe.

Too many people here, sucking up the air. We’re on top of one another wherever we go. Even the library seems full today. There’s a buzz among the inmates and I can hear somebody crying. I follow the sobbing to the corner nearest the librarian’s counter; away from all the rest of them. It’s one of the girls, like me. She’s not my friend or anything, but we’ve seen each other outside the counsellor’s office now and again. Both of us are having trouble adjusting. We don’t usually talk, me and this girl, but I think we could understand each other if we did.

“Hey. Hey you.”

She snuffles, watery and loud. I feel bad because she disgusts me.

“Dry your eyes a second, will you? What’s happening?”

The crying girl answers, her voice far too loud for the library: “A boy. There’s a wee boy dead over on the young offenders side. Hung himself, so he did.”

I know the word should be hanged . Meat’s hung, people are hanged. My ma telled me that one time, before she left us. I don’t correct the crying girl, though. She’s too loud and I know she’ll get us in trouble, but I want to hear everything before they make her pipe down.

“He used a ligature,” she says. “What’s a ligature?”

I wrap the cord of my trackie bottoms around my index finger. “Just anything, really.”

“I can’t hear you,” she says. “Speak up.”

I spy a screw coming up behind her. One of the big, dour male ones who reminds me of the Bible-thumpers who used to hang around Corn Market waving signs with aborted babies on them, scaring the life out of you. Something about his eyes, maybe. One time I nearly told him that I didn’t want a fucking abortion anyway. He gives most of the girls the creeps. I turn away to show him I’m not involved in the disturbance.

“You know, don’t you?” Yappy-hole asks again. She just won’t let it go. “What’s a ligature?”

“It’s nothing,” I hiss. “Look, just shut it!”

I don’t watch as the crying girl is led off by the big Bible-thumping creep, no doubt for a lecture where he’ll tell her that abortions are wrong and that she needs to do something about her leaky lamps before somebody hits her a punch in them.

Or, he might be telling her just to chill out.

Everybody needs to chill out.

Especially on the boys’ side.

Another one of them dead, like.

Doesn’t seem that long ago since that first wee boy killed himself over there. It must be crazy on their side. They’re all wee teenagers without an ounce of sense.

Sometimes they shout at us through the fence. It doesn’t bother me as much as it bothers some of the others. I know what wee lads can be like, especially when there’s a pack of them. Street-corner craic, like. But the eejits who work here take it all so serious. They say they have a duty of care, but they only care about themselves. Cover their own backs first, then tell us what’s good for us.

Our side of the fence is for women, but we call ourselves the girls . Most of us are only out of our teens, like. They’re the boys, we’re the girls. And at their age the boys are all gagging for it. Sex. Attention. Love. All of that shite.

My head’s filling up with too many thoughts.

I need to move . Do something.

So I take a dander to the common room. Don’t even know why I went to the library now. The librarian doesn’t have much time for me and I never liked books anyway. But then, when I get to the common room, I don’t know why the fuck I came here either.

All the usual cliques are in place.

And I don’t like the way that one bitch is staring at me.

“What’s your fucking problem?”

It’s out before I can prevent it. Too quick with the aggro.

I’m going to get in trouble again. Always being taught lessons, never learning them. At least it isn’t a screw this time. It’s the pretty blonde. Helen. She came in here last month and made friends with everybody. I don’t know how she did it. It was like a magic trick or something. All of a sudden the loud girls wanted to talk to her. They never spoke to me before then, so it’s not like I lost friends or anything, but I’m still annoyed about it.

“What’s your problem?” I say it louder this time.

Helen wears “going out” makeup every day. That’s the last thing any of us should be thinking about here. It’s like she can’t admit to herself that she’s going nowhere. She probably thinks she’s better than the rest of us.

The stuck-up bitch looks at me and touches her earlobe with her middle finger. Jangles a long earring. Can she not bloody hear me? Is that what that’s supposed to mean? Or is she giving me a sneaky finger?

My palms are sore. I should have cut my nails last night. How am I supposed to swing a decent dig when my nails are so long? I could scratch her.

But I should probably just calm the fuck down.

In through the nose, out through the mouth.

Like the counsellor taught me. Silly bitch.

Blondie’s smiling at me now. Looking me right in the eye. There’s them other girls behind her, but they’re creeping backward like shadows retreating from the sun; leaving the bitch to fight alone. And I’m white hot, ready to turn her to ashes.

“You girls all right in here?”

It’s the big SO. I didn’t know she was behind me. Like a lot of heavy women, she’s very light on her feet. Dainty. I’m not going to look at her. She has a mean stare. Mean little black bead eyes. She didn’t like it when I told her I hated the way she looked at me that time. Hate’s a strong word, apparently. But that’s fine. I’m no wee weakling, like.