Stephen Leather - The Double Tap

Lynch peered at the parcels. ‘What have you got?’ he asked.

‘A sawn-off, an East German Kalashnikov, a Czech Model 58V assault rifle, a couple of Uzis, a. .’

‘We’re not going to war, you know,’ interrupted Lynch.

O’Riordan ignored him and continued to rattle off his list. ‘. . half a dozen Czech M1970s, they’re just like the Walther PPK, a Romanian TT33, a Chinese Tokarev, a couple of Brownings, a 9mm Beretta. .’ He prodded the parcels with his foot. ‘Oh yeah, an old Colt.45, but it hasn’t been fired for ten years or so and it’ll probably take your hand off.’ He stood up and put his hands on his hips. ‘What do you feel like?’

Lynch pursed his lips and scratched his beard. ‘Italian,’ he said eventually. ‘I feel like Italian.’

O’Riordan bent down and picked up one of the packages. Lynch unwrapped the polythene. Inside was the Beretta wrapped in an oiled cloth with two clips of ammunition. He checked the action and nodded his approval. ‘Have you used it?’ Lynch asked.

‘Yeah, but it’s clean. What about the boys?’

‘Brownings. But make sure the safeties are on.’

O’Riordan grinned. ‘And I’ll have the shotgun. Just in case.’

‘Just in case?’

‘Aye. Just in case we have to get heavy.’

‘We won’t,’ said Lynch.

‘We’ll see.’ O’Riordan replaced the remaining weapons in the metal churns and Lynch helped him put them back into the ground.

‘Regular arsenal you have here,’ said Lynch as he lowered the flagstone back into place and kicked straw over it.

‘It’s always good to have a little put by for a rainy day.’ O’Riordan was wearing a specially-made nylon sling under his coat and he slipped the sawn-off shotgun into it, then went outside. While Lynch carried the pistols over to the Granada, O’Riordan led a brown and white mare from a neighbouring stall into the one containing the hidden weapons. Lynch handed the still-wrapped Brownings through the window to Davie. ‘Check them, then hide them under the seats,’ he said.

He tucked the Beretta into the back of his trousers and slid the spare clip into the inside pocket of his leather jacket before going back to join O’Riordan as he bolted the door to the stall. The horse snorted inside as if objecting to being locked up. Lynch knew just how the mare felt. He’d spent three years listening to the sound of cell doors clanging shut and it wasn’t an experience he’d care to repeat.

O’Riordan winked at Lynch. ‘You ready?’

‘Sure.’ He looked at his watch. It was two o’clock. He wanted the job done before five, before the man of the house came home. ‘Where’s the drill?’

‘Charging.’

‘Charging?’ Lynch frowned.

‘Charged,’ said O’Riordan, correcting himself. ‘I had it plugged in overnight. The wife thought I was planning some DIY. She’s going to be disappointed, isn’t she? I’ll go get it.’

O’Riordan disappeared inside the farmhouse and a minute or so later he reappeared with a Black and Decker cordless drill. He pointed it at Lynch and pulled the trigger and the bit whirred. ‘Okay, let’s go,’ he said, putting the drill into a white plastic carrier bag.

Davie Quinn climbed into the back of the Granada without being asked. O’Riordan got in the front seat and nodded a greeting to the two brothers, but didn’t say anything.

The four men drove to West Belfast in silence. As they entered the city they passed a convoy of grey RUC Landrovers driving in the opposite direction, their windows protected by steel mesh. ‘Bastards,’ hissed O’Riordan under his breath.

Lynch smiled tightly. ‘Just be grateful they’re not heading our way,’ he said. He turned the Granada down a side road and parked in front of a pub. Like the Landrovers’, the pub’s windows were shielded with wire mesh. Two young men in anoraks and jeans stood in the entrance smoking cigarettes. The taller of the two nodded at Lynch.

Lynch didn’t bother locking the car doors and the four men walked purposefully down the road, Lynch and O’Riordan in front, the Quinn brothers following closely behind. A woman in a cheap cloth coat walked by pushing two crying babies in a buggy. Two boys with dirty faces and scabby knees sat on the kerb with their feet in the gutter and turned to watch the men go past. Lynch wasn’t worried about witnesses, he was on Catholic territory.

The house they were looking for was in the middle of a brick terrace, one of hundreds of near-identical homes, distinguished only by the colour of the peeling paint on the woodwork. Lynch pressed the doorbell and O’Riordan motioned for the Quinn brothers to stand to the side, out of sight. They heard footsteps, then the door was opened by an overweight grey-haired woman in a flowered print dress and a baggy green cardigan. Before she could speak, Lynch pushed her back into the hallway and pulled out his Beretta. The woman began to shiver and opened her mouth to scream. Lynch glared at her. ‘Be quiet,’ he hissed and clamped his hand over her mouth. O’Riordan slipped by and stood at the foot of the stairs. ‘Where’s the boy?’ whispered Lynch. The woman’s eyes gave her away, flicking towards the stairs. Davie Quinn closed the front door and locked it. From the kitchen Lynch could hear the tinny sound of a transistor radio. ‘Anyone else in the house?’

The woman tried to speak and Lynch moved his hand away from her mouth. ‘My daughter,’ she said. ‘She’s only twelve.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Please don’t hurt us, son. We’re good Catholics. The boy wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

‘Where is she?’ Lynch repeated, holding the gun in front of her face.

‘The kitchen. There’s been a mistake, son, you can’t. .’

Lynch motioned to Paulie and the teenager used his hand to silence the woman. Paulie and Davie both had their guns out. Paulie was sweating but Davie seemed calm. They were both looking at Lynch, waiting for instructions.

‘Take her through into the front room,’ Lynch whispered to Paulie. As Paulie bundled the woman into the room, Lynch went along the hall to the kitchen with Davie. A young girl with mousy hair tied back in a ponytail was sitting at a small table reading a magazine. She looked over her shoulder as Lynch walked up behind her and her eyes widened in horror.

‘You’re here for Ger, aren’t you?’ she asked, her voice trembling like a frightened rabbit. ‘I told him. I told him you’d come for him one day. I fecking told him, so I did.’

Lynch ignored the question. He picked up a tea towel and tossed it at Davie, then grabbed the girl by the shirt collar and pulled her to her feet. He half-dragged, half-carried her down the hallway to the front room.

The woman was sitting hunched on a threadbare sofa, playing with a rosary. Lynch dropped the girl down next to her mother. ‘Please, son, don’t hurt my boy,’ whined the woman. She put an arm around the girl and pulled her close.

‘Your boy’s been selling drugs to kids,’ said Lynch flatly.

‘Oh no, son, you’re wrong. My Ger’s a good boy. A bit wild, maybe, but he’s a good heart. .’ She began to cry softly.

On the wall above the woman’s head hung a portrait of the Pope, and next to it a black-framed photograph of John F. Kennedy. The woman looked up and stared at the pictures, as if pleading for their support. Lynch felt no sympathy for her. He knew that she’d already been warned about her son’s drug-dealing. If she wasn’t prepared to keep her family in order, the organisation was. By whatever means it took.

‘Keep them here,’ he said to Paulie. He knelt down in front of the woman and put a hand on the rosary. ‘We’re not going to kill your boy, but if you tell anyone, anyone at all, we’ll come back. Do you understand?’