Jessie Keane: Ruthless

‘You can’t,’ said Rory, his face draining of colour at the thought of it. He was all too aware of Don’s reputation. Rufus had screwed over a man who would never forget, never forgive. He reckoned Don would hunt Rufus until his dying day. He couldn’t tell Rufus that, and he wondered if Rufus knew it. He was acting as if he didn’t. Or as if he didn’t care. But Rory had a pregnant wife, he had Megan. He had to stop this. ‘The neighbours are going berserk with curiosity as it is, wondering who we’ve got in here. You daren’t go out.’

‘Still, I’d like to.’ Rufus felt uneasy at what had happened. He felt responsible for Pikey’s unhappy end, and killing Pardew had been a sin after all. He knew it was stupid, but he’d always been the same. He was Catholic, even if he was a crook. He needed to make his peace with God.

‘We’ll see, OK?’ Rory said quickly. ‘See how you feel in a week or so. Then, if we can, we’ll sort something out.’

Rory went off downstairs, clutching his head as he entered the front room. ‘Shit, ’ he said forcefully.

‘What is it?’ Megan glanced up from the sofa.

Rory looked at his wife. She was still pretty, huge with the child though she was. His sweet Megan. He felt a surge of love for her, felt the need to protect her.

‘Rufus wants to go to see a priest,’ he said. ‘Make his confession.’

Megan straightened. ‘He can’t.’

‘I told him. He said even so, he’d like to.’

‘And what did you say to that?’

‘That we’d see in a little while.’

‘No! It can’t be done. Rory, as soon as he’s fit enough to travel, he should be out of here. You’re his friend. If he values you at all, he ought to realize the danger he’s putting you in.’

‘He should, but I don’t think he does.’ Rory sat down beside her, pulled her into his arms. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘Don’t you?’ Megan drew away from him, her face hard. ‘Well, I do. He’s going to get us all done for if he carries on at this rate. I want him gone .’ Her face softening slightly, she continued: ‘Rory, you’re a loyal man, a great friend. But there’s a point where loyalty gets stretched beyond breaking. Think of me, your wife. Think – for the love of God – of your child .’

‘I know, I know,’ he sighed.

‘Phone the Garda,’ said Megan.

‘What?’ Rory sprang back from her, leapt to his feet. ‘Are you mad? I can’t do that.’

‘Rory…’

‘No! I won’t hear of it. Call the police on my oldest friend? Don’t ever say that again.’

And he went off out to the kitchen.

Megan sat there, alone. Her eyes drifted to the phone book. She wondered how many D. Callaghans there were in there. Not that many, she imagined.

Not many at all.

A week later, Rufus slipped out of the house as discreetly as he could and went to St Vincent de Paul, the nearest Catholic church. He moved up the aisle and to the side of the vast building, his footsteps echoing. The priest was at the altar, kneeling, communing with his God. Rufus felt better just for being in here. He went to the little confessional and slipped inside, pulling the door closed behind him.

He waited.

Presently, the priest came into the box next door. The screen slid back between the two compartments, and Rufus could see a shadowy figure sitting there alongside him.

‘Bless me, Father,’ he said haltingly. ‘Forgive me. For I have sinned.’

‘What is the nature of your sinning, my son?’ asked the priest.

Rufus hesitated. But the confessional was sacrosanct. Any secrets divulged here would remain secret for ever.

‘I have committed a terrible sin, Father. I have killed a man.’

The priest was silent. Then he said: ‘Tell me.’

Rufus poured it all out. He mentioned no names, but he confessed to the killing of Pardew, and to his great remorse over the accidental death of Pikey. Even as he spoke of it, he felt lighter, better. He’d done the right thing, coming here. He knew it.

The priest told him what penance he had to perform. ‘Now go, my son, and sin no more.’

Rufus emerged from the church into a soft day, all drizzle and cloudy skies, but he felt as if he was bathed in warm, forgiving sunlight. He hurried along the road towards Rory’s house, but pulled up sharply when he saw the car there, and two big men standing at Rory’s door talking to Megan.

The relief he’d felt since the confession deserted him in an instant. He ducked behind a high wall, but as he did he saw Megan’s head turning, and her hand rising to point in his direction. The cow had seen him.

The men turned. Rufus recognized Col Ballard, one of Don’s enforcers. The other man was unknown to him. In an instant, they were on the move, running out of the gate and after him.

Rufus fled. Megan had betrayed him. Not Rory, never Rory, he knew that.

The men chased him through the streets and over garden fences. Jesus, won’t they give it up? he wondered, trying the handle of a door set into a garden wall. It opened and, panting, done in, still weak from his wound, he stepped into a deserted yard. On the other side of the wall he heard the pounding of footsteps, then voices. He prayed they wouldn’t open the door.

‘Where the feck did he go?’ gasped one.

‘That way,’ said the other, and then he heard their footsteps running away into the distance.

He’d lost them. For a moment there he’d thought he was a dead man, yet here he was, still in one piece.

God be praised.

Rufus staggered to his feet, opened the door and ran in the opposite direction to the one the men had taken. He was finished here. There was no one he could truly count on any more, not even his oldest and dearest friend.

It was time to get out of Ireland. Try his luck across the water in England. He had cousins there, they were big news in criminal circles. Best of all, Don wouldn’t have such an easy time tracing him there, as he’d managed to do here.

Rufus found that London was ripe for the plucking. There were all sorts of scams going down. The big gangs had the town sewn up tight, there was always breaker work on offer, sooner or later everyone needed some muscle at their disposal. But when he went looking for his Delaney cousins, he couldn’t find them.

Only rumours remained. That there had been a shooting and Tory and Pat were long gone. That Kieron was abroad somewhere, no one knew where. And as for the twins, they had gone home to Ireland. The irony of that didn’t escape Rufus. He’d come here, they’d gone there. He’d wanted to see his cousin Orla again. Very badly. And he was disappointed.

The old Delaney manor was now under the control of the Carter mob. Even the tiny bit of Limehouse the rival gangs had been squabbling over for years had fallen into Carter hands. As time went by, he pieced together bits of the story of how that came to be.

‘Christ, it was a right old bang-shoot,’ said Gabby James, one of Rufus’s new drinking buddies. ‘Word is, Redmond and Orla stuck Max Carter’s missus in the bloody crusher – she would’ve been squashed like a grape.’

‘Would have been?’ Rufus was downing a pint of Guinness.

‘The Bill got to her first.’

‘What about Redmond? What about Orla? They’re back in the auld country, are they?’

Gabby puffed out his cheeks and shook his head. ‘I heard they took a plane from Cardiff to Cork, or was it Dublin?’

Rufus thought of the farm in Limerick. ‘Shannon, I would think.’

‘Well, wherever. It never landed.’

‘You what ?’ Rufus spilled his Guinness. He’d not had much to do with Redmond, but Orla… ah God, there was something about Orla that had eaten into his very soul.