Matt McGuire - Dark Dawn

‘It’s fucked up,’ he said. O’Neill thought he could feel an opening, but just as quickly, the silent stand-off resumed.

They sat for a few minutes. O’Neill had another go.

‘Have you ever thought it’s not fair? Like, why does it have to be yous always taking the hiding? Where were you when Peter was getting a beating? Hospital told me it was a bat with some nails through it. They hit him twelve times. Where were you, Marty? I thought you were his best mate? Aren’t best mates supposed to stick up for each other?’

O’Neill could sense the teenager tensing up beside him. He kept pressing.

‘We spoke to his granny at the hospital. Had she told you to take yourself off? Was that why you stormed out, holding back the tears? Did she blame you, Marty? Petesy didn’t seem like the kind of guy to go up against Molloy and Tierney. Was it your idea?’

Toner stared out at the horizon. It was cold. He felt as if he was in a different country. The coastline, the water, the green fields stretching off in the distance. Belfast seemed miles away, the streets around the lower Ormeau, almost another world.

Marty was half-listening to O’Neill; the other part of him was back by the side of the river, his face shoved into the gravel as the bat came down on Petesy.

‘Do you blame yourself, Marty — is that what it is? Have you been walking round, thinking it should have been you instead of your mate? Do you want some revenge — is that what you’re looking for? Because if it is, this is your chance. You’re not going to go up against these boys on your own. I’m the only way you can get to them. You need to use me. You need to help me. You need to tell me who it was that did Peter.’

They sat on for ten minutes. O’Neill went back to the well several times, evoking images of Peter Kennedy, the beating, the effects it would have on him. The teenager went back into his shell, shutting himself away from the cop, away from what he was saying. O’Neill eventually gave up and got to his feet.

‘Come on. Let’s go.’

They drove back into Belfast, the car-heater warming them after the cold outside.

‘You’re not a tout, Marty. You’re sticking up for your mate. Get the fuckers that did it to him. This is the only way. What else are you going to do? I know why you don’t want to talk. We don’t live where you live. We’re not going to be there when someone kicks your door in at three in the morning. Sure. You could call 999. You’d be as well asking for an ambulance though, by the time we got to you. It’s fucked up. You’re right. The whole thing’s fucked up.’

The traffic outside was starting to thicken. From the dual carriageway on the top of the hill the car looked down on Belfast. Church spires were sprinkled across the horizon, jutting up from rows of terrace housing. The two giant yellow cranes of Harland amp; Wolff straddled the docks.

‘Thing is, Marty,’ O’Neill continued, ‘eventually, someone’s got to take a stand. They shouldn’t get away with doing that to you. You guys take the risks — and for what? So they can come and beat the shit out of you when they don’t like what’s going on?’

Marty spoke for the first time since he had shouted at the golfer.

‘I’m not telling you who did Petesy. There’s only two people that know, me and him. They would know who’d told. And if they couldn’t get to me, they’d come back for him. And he’s had enough.’

O’Neill thought about it. The kid was right. He couldn’t talk. There was no way.

‘Fair enough. But you need to give me something. It’s the same people, right — the ones who did the kid we found by the Lagan the other week?’

‘That one. Yous are still after that?’

‘That’s right.’

Marty gave a short laugh. ‘That one’s a mystery.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nobody knows.’

‘What do you mean, nobody knows?’

‘I mean nobody knows.’

‘OK. Forget who did him. Who’s the kid?’

‘I just told you. Nobody knows.’

The teenager could have been lying but O’Neill didn’t think so. He’d thrown the comment away as if it was the least interesting thing he’d ever said.

As they neared the centre of Belfast Toner slumped down in the car seat, pulling his hat low over his face. O’Neill turned off the main road, driving under the bridge that used to lead to Central Station. It was deserted and dark. He slowed the car. The wheels hadn’t fully stopped before the door was open and Toner was gone. O’Neill looked in his rearview mirror, trying to pick out a shape in the darkness, but it was too late. The kid had already disappeared.

Lynch had been shadowing for two days now, watching, waiting. He knew O’Neill inside and out, almost better than he knew himself. As soon as he saw the photograph, Lynch had clocked him for one of the cops who had followed him out of The George. The other one must have been Ward.

O’Neill had been on an early shift, eight to six, though he wasn’t leaving Musgrave Street before nine. Lynch saw straight away why McCann wanted him dead. He was a peeler with no life. He worked, he slept. That was it. Not the kind of person you wanted sniffing round, asking questions. Fat and lazy, you could work with. Someone who could turn a blind eye, who could take a hint, who could be told. Lynch could see that wasn’t O’Neill.

The last two nights, after a ten-hour shift, he had driven round to May Street and parked up. For four hours he had sat and watched the comings and goings at The George. Lynch wondered how much he knew about McCann’s operation. He was there though, so he must know something.

The following morning in Stranmillis, O’Neill left for work just after seven. Thirty minutes later, Lynch dandered round the back, picked the lock and broke into the flat. At the front door lay a pile of unopened mail. On the top lay a brown A4 envelope with an entire book of stamps plastered to its front. Someone wanted to make sure that arrived, Lynch thought, stepping over the post.

Inside the place looked as if O’Neill had just moved in and was waiting on his stuff arriving. On the mantelpiece an opened electricity bill said he’d been there five months. The kitchen cupboards were bare apart from coffee, baked beans, a packet of digestives. On the counter sat a loaf of bread, a week out of date.

‘It’s an existence,’ Lynch whispered. ‘But I wouldn’t call it a life.’

O’Neill’s flat reminded him of his own place. It was functional, but not much more. On the bedside cabinet he saw a photograph of a woman giving a little girl a piggyback. They were running along a beach under a brooding grey sky with big Atlantic waves crashing in the background. It looked like Portstewart strand or somewhere in Donegal. Long brown hair fell across the woman’s face. She was attractive and the photo caught a moment — part-smile, part-laugh. The little girl looked like her mother.

Lynch started putting the pieces together. ‘So this is why you don’t go home at night,’ he whispered to himself.

His mind automatically kicked into gear. He knew if the woman and the girl were in the North, he’d have no problem finding them. McCann would have contacts in the Civil Service. Addresses were easy — Electoral Register, council tax, water rates. In the past they’d recruited sympathizers, people who wouldn’t pull the trigger, but who wanted to help, do their bit for the Cause. These days it would be a simple question of money. Everyone had their price. You passed on a brown envelope and a few days later you had an address.

Lynch wondered, was it necessary for the peeler to die? If the mother and daughter were brought into the equation, would O’Neill back down? He’d seen it before. All it took was a public place and a quiet word.