Jessie Keane - Ruthless

‘Mum!’ Layla ran to Annie.

‘Get back, get away from him,’ said Annie, her words slurring.

Shit, thought Max, and raised the gun, taking aim. But he couldn’t get a clear line of sight. Layla was between him and Rufus. And Rufus was about to shoot her dead.

‘Hey!’ shouted Alberto, off to the left, trying to draw fire.

Rufus paused. The light from the torch swung out to the left, then back. It was the moment Max needed. He moved aside, took aim. Then he became aware that there was something digging hard into his ribs: it felt like a gun.

‘Let’s all just drop the weapons now, shall we?’ said a deep Northern Irish voice in his ear.

‘Who’s there?’ demanded Rufus, the torch’s beam flashing wildly about.

The shot was almost deafening in the deep country silence. Rufus reeled back, clutching at his shoulder, staggering, dropping the thing in his hand – not a gun, Max noted, what the hell was that? There were other men here now, four of them, big hooded bruisers, all armed. Rufus collapsed to the ground.

Slowly, Max dropped his gun, took off the goggles and let those fall too. Alberto, Steve and Sandor did the same. The four hooded men snatched up everything. The man who had jammed his pistol into Max’s side went over to where Rufus lay, gasping, on the ground. Max watched him in the faint light from Rufus’s fallen torch. He had a stick and leaned on it heavily as he walked. Max thought he looked very ill, like he had something going on inside, a cancer eating him. He’d been a big man, you could see that, but the flesh had dropped from his bones and he was thin across the shoulders now.

‘Rufus,’ said Big Don Callaghan, looking down at the man on the ground.

Max could see that Rufus’s eyes were open, staring up at the man who’d shot him.

‘Don,’ said Rufus, panting. He almost seemed to be grinning. Then he winced, stiffened. ‘Ah, you just couldn’t let it go, could you?’

‘And why would I? Little Peter lying in a cold grave, burned to a cinder.’

‘I did penance for Pikey, Don,’ said Rufus, fighting to get the words out.

‘Not penance enough,’ said Don, leaning heavily on his stick. ‘But now you have.’

And he raised the pistol in his hand and shot Rufus straight between the eyes, three times.

Now what? wondered Max. These Irish had the drop on them. They had the guns, the sights. He looked over at Layla hugging Annie to her. Fuck’s sake. There was nothing he could do. If the frail old geezer with the stick wanted no witnesses, they were all toast.

Max started walking towards Annie and Layla. To his surprise, the men with the guns let him.

‘She OK?’ he asked his daughter.

‘I’m absolutely fine ,’ slurred Annie.

Max glanced at her curiously. She sounded drunk, but that couldn’t be. Then he stood over Rufus. He was dead, no doubt about it. He turned and looked at the man who’d shot him.

‘I’ve no quarrel with you,’ said Big Don Callaghan.

Close to, by the light from the torch, Max could see that he had the pallor and sunken cheeks of the terminally ill.

‘Nor me with you,’ said Max, moving in front of Layla and her mother.

Don looked down at Rufus. ‘It’s done now. Finished.’

With that, he walked away from the man he’d been chasing for fifteen years. Soon his hobbling form merged with the shadows of the night. His men followed. Then they were gone.

Annie was stumbling upright. She nearly fell again. Max grabbed her, stared at her face.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ he said. ‘Are you drunk ?’

‘That does appear to be the case,’ she said, and started weaving her way unsteadily back towards the building.

‘Whoa!’ Max caught her arm as she tottered sideways and almost went down again.

‘Redmond’s in there,’ she said, pushing him away.

‘What? ’

‘Redmond.’ Annie stumbled to the door. ‘He’s a priest.’

‘ Redmond Delaney? ’ Max followed her. Drunk? She was pissed as a rat.

‘He’s in here, he was talking to me…’ Annie all but fell through the door.

The lantern was still burning, its flame flickering, on the table. The whisky bottle, nearly empty, was there, and the two tin mugs.

‘He’s…’ she started, then she stopped dead.

Redmond wasn’t there.

He’d never been there at all.

She turned unsteadily. Grabbed the wall and held on.

‘Honey, you’re drunk. Come on,’ said Max, going back to the door.

Annie stood there, alone and swaying, staring around at the room where Redmond had talked to her, absolved her of her sins.

Max is right, it didn’t happen, it was just the drink…

And then her eyes fastened on something on the table just beside the lantern. There was a faint golden glint there. Annie lurched over and groped along the table, supporting herself. She reached out and picked the object up, held it in the palm of her hand and stared at the gold crucifix. It was Redmond’s pectoral cross. The mark of the priesthood. She felt gooseflesh break out on her arms. Felt the hairs on the nape of her neck stand up.

Oh my God. I didn’t dream it, she thought. He was here.

A faint breath of air wafted over her face, and she looked up.

The door at the back was hanging wide open, admitting the salty sea breeze. Not a dream then. Not the drink. Her hand folded over the cross, and she slipped it into her pocket.

‘Come on,’ said Max, reappearing in the front doorway. This time she went with no argument.

‘Where’s Alberto?’ Layla was outside, fretfully sweeping the torch around the area. She couldn’t see him. She couldn’t see Sandor either.

‘Dunno,’ said Max, none too bothered about it. He took a firmer hold on Annie, who was staggering about like someone caught out in a high wind.

‘But… we have to find them. We can’t leave without them.’

‘Yeah,’ said Max. ‘We can.’

And then Layla looked at her father’s face and she understood. Alberto had vanished into the night and he wasn’t coming back. He was gone.

She swept the torch around again.

There was no one there.

Alberto was gone, with faithful Sandor at his side.

He’d evaded the Feds and now he would simply slip out of the country and disappear. Layla was overcome with anguish as the magnitude of it hit home. She was never going to see him again. Never.

And then they saw the flashing blue lights and heard the sirens. The police had arrived.

‘Fuck it,’ said Max tiredly. ‘The cavalry’s here.’

Annie didn’t remember going home. All she knew was that she woke up one morning in her own bed, and her head hurt like hell, her eyes felt like they’d been scrubbed with Brillo pads, and her mouth was dry as the Gobi desert.

‘What the…’ she moaned, turning on to her back, her eyes flickering open and then instantly closing again as the sunlight pouring through the window scoured her retinas.

Fumbling, barely awake, she sat up, forced her aching eyes open and squinted around her. Yes, she was home. And she was – as usual – alone. And… oh now she was going to be sick. She stumbled from the bed and went to the bathroom and threw up. Then, groaning, she cleaned her teeth, rinsed her mouth, took two paracetamol out of the medicine cabinet and tossed them down with a glass of water, and tried not to look at the mess in the mirror. She failed. There was a large bump on her brow. The cosh. She fell back into bed, and was soon asleep again.

‘Is she going to be OK?’ asked Layla anxiously.