Ли Чайлд - Belfast Noir

“You’re late.”

“Aye, sorry about that,” Lavin said, sounding anything but sorry. “Willie’s on his way, we’ll take his car.”

“What’s wrong with mine?”

“We’ll take Willie’s.”

Lavin removed a packet of cigarettes from inside his jacket. He shook one out, placed it to his lips, paused.

“D’ye mind if I smoke?”

“No.”

Lavin lit up, inhaled, and sent jets of smoke through his nostrils. Ed licked his lip: he hadn’t smoked a cigarette in almost fifteen years, but now, right at that second, he’d have given plenty to accept one and smoke it to the nub.

They sat in companionable silence. Lavin smoking, Ed watching the street. A little after seven, a silver BMW slowly passed the Renault. Ed tracked it with his eyes, thinking: A great white in urban waters . A little further on it pulled over to the kerb, and sat there idling menacingly.

“Let’s go.” Lavin tapped his shoulder. “If you’ve a phone with ye, leave it here.”

Ed removed his mobile from his pocket and placed it in the glove compartment. He and Lavin got out. Ed locked the car and hoped he’d see it again.

Lavin walked toward the BMW with a jaunty lope and opened the back door. “Get in.”

Ed did as he was told. Lavin got in after him, forcing him to shift across the seat until he was wedged against the massive shoulder of the other man sharing the backseat. A driver kept his eyes on the road, but the passenger, a man Ed recognised from photos as Willie Lynch, half turned and gave him an appraising once-over.

“Carrying anything on ye I need know about?”

“No.”

“Check him, Egg,” Willie said, as the car moved off down the street.

The man to his left, Egg, turned. “Lift yer hands.”

Ed did as he was asked. Despite the lack of space, Egg patted him down expertly, searching him for guns, phones, and wires: anything that might suggest he was not who he claimed to be.

“Clean.”

Ed lowered his hands.

“Sorry about that,” Willie said, smiling. “Ye can’t be too careful round these parts.”

Ed said nothing. He had long ago figured out that a taciturn persona would be easier to sell: nobody likes talkers.

They left Island Street, and Ed expected them to head for the A2, past the airport. They didn’t. Instead, the BMW toured the streets of Sydenham, hard lefts and rights, until Ed lost any sense of north, south, east, or west. He tried to note street names as terraced houses gave way to country roads, lampposts to trees, and soon Belfast was retreating in the rearview mirror. But still the flags, hanging like sleeping sentries. B-roads turned to narrow lanes, their signposts lost in hedgerows, white flashes in the dark.

“How long have ye known Craig then?” Willie asked.

“Awhile.”

“Aye?”

Ed shrugged, placed his hands on his knees, and held them there. Craig Ellis was somewhere on the continent, Spain they’d heard, shacked up with some barmaid who wasn’t fussy about who shared her bed. Intel said he was burning a hole through the money they’d paid him and was a risk to his cover. Ed was not in the least surprised. Men like Craig had no loyalty, they could be bought easily, turned easier. Had it been left up to Ed, Craig would have never seen the light of day again, but cooler heads had prevailed.

Willie was persistent: “Haven’t seen Craig in a while, have we?” He addressed this to Lavin though his eye never left Ed’s face.

Ed met his gaze. There was nothing to be done about it now. If there was doubt there was doubt.

“Where’d ye know him from?”

“Germany.”

“Oh aye?”

“Through Freddie.”

“Know Freddie, do ye?”

Ed kept his voice neutral. This was a test, of sorts. Everyone knew Freddie in the business. Small, Dutch, heavily tattooed. He was a pervert, universally disliked, but such an expert facilitator that his predilections were tolerated—to a point.

“I bought a foundation bitch from him.”

“Yeah, from Freddie, which bitch?”

“US import, papers carry back to Zebo.”

“Don’t they all.”

Lavin eased back slightly, but Willie’s eyes bored right through him. “Red nose, light, and fast.”

“That’s her.”

“Wondered where she’d gone. How’d you meet Freddie?”

“Wennqvist introduced us.”

“Wenn did?”

You bloody idiot, stop talking, Ed thought, stop talking: adding a name was a mistake—fuck names—never use names. He’d been told, hadn’t he? What the fuck was he doing? Wennqvist: shit, what did he know about him? Born in Finland in 1958, married, divorced, three children, two girls and a boy. None of the kids had anything to do with him. Records for armed robbery, assault, assault again, fraud, handling stolen goods, was shot in the gut in 1988, arrested for—

“When was this, when’d you meet Wenn?”

“Ach, years ago now.”

“Yeah?”

“Before the cancer.”

“That’s right, the poor fuck. Fag?”

This time Ed took the proffered cigarette and accepted a light. It was shocking how sweet and smooth the first drag went, how easily his body accepted that which he had rejected so long ago.

“That bitch was quality,” Willie said, settling back in the front seat. He laughed and the mood lightened. “So, you’re looking to put new blood in your line?”

“Yes.”

“Hard to get quality these days, too many fucking curs, bred by amateurs. Killing the game, killing the fucking game.”

“Not us though.” Lavin elbowed him sharply in the ribs. “Only thing we got is quality.”

“Aye,” Willie said. “Pup you’re going to see tonight, pure quality. You won’t get another like him on either side of the border, I can promise you that. Not even eighteen months old and he’s a stone-cold killer.”

“Stone-cold,” Lavin said triumphantly. “Never backs down, pure game.”

“Pure game,” Willie agreed.

Ed forced his shoulders to relax.

They took a left, drove along a road for another few miles, hung another left then another, finally turning onto a narrow country road that rose through unfamiliar hills. There were very few signs that Ed could see, and virtually no houses. Up and up the BMW went, the driver changing down through the gears as he navigated the twists and turns. At a set of stone pillars, he swung right and drove over a cattle grid and followed a long rutted lane barely wide enough for the car down to a small stone cottage. Ed had been so intent on not fucking up the conversation that he wasn’t sure where he was now.

The BMW stopped and the driver tooted the horn. After a moment the front door opened and a fat man, wearing a T-shirt that was several sizes too small for him, peered out. He waved a hand, went back inside, and shut the door.

They waited. Floodlights went on to the rear of the cottage. Ed saw a number of roofs outlined against the night sky.

“Let’s go,” Willie said.

Lavin got out, and Ed followed. Willie shut the door and hitched up his jeans. Egg and the driver stayed where they were.

“Are y’not coming, Egg?” Lavin said, bending at the waist and tapping the glass. There was a mocking note to his voice that made Ed glance at the big man, who stared resolutely ahead.

“Leave him be,” Willie said, and began to walk toward a side gate.

Lavin laughed, and elbowed Ed again. “Dogs put the shit up him.”

“Come on ahead,” Willie called.

Ed turned his head: the fat man stood at the gate, waiting.

The fat man, introduced to Ed as Hecky, led them through a small yard to a barn from which a multitude of dogs barked.

He unlocked the door, dragged it open, and hit a light switch. The smell hit Ed hard and he found he had to breathe in shallow sips to keep his gag reflex in check.