Adrian McKinty - I Hear the Sirens in the Street

She laughed bitterly. “Me? Me tell him to go to the police?”

And then the tears did start welling in her eyes. “The police? Nobody in this part of Islandmagee would ever go to the peelers.”

“So what did happen?”

She shook her head. “They put the body in the freezer. They would have cut him up and got rid of him and it all would have been fine, but for Martin. Fucking Martin.”

“What about Martin?”

“Martin was a fool. He had found Jesus. Jesus didn’t mind him helping his big brother do a dodgy deal with John DeLorean but Jesus apparently told him that now a man had died he had crossed a line and he had to tell his commanding officer about this entire fucking escapade.”

“Martin wanted to turn you all in?”

“Yes.”

“So you shot him?” I asked, astounded.

She shook her head. “I didn’t shoot him.”

“Who did?”

“I called Harry and told him about Martin’s plans. He said he would take care of it,” she said simply, and sat on the sofa. “Martin was going up to check on the yearlings but Harry came down over the fields. I heard them talking. Harry gave him every chance, but Martin wouldn’t take it. Jesus wanted him to tell the truth to his commanding officer and that’s what he was going to do.”

“And then?”

“And then I heard the shot. And Harry came in and told me it was done. We cooked up the story about the IRA and I called the police.”

“What about O’Rourke’s body?”

“That? We didn’t even think about that. Harry just left it there, padlocked in the freezer. Nobody would look there, nobody could get in there.”

“But he couldn’t leave it there forever, could he?”

“No. A couple of weeks ago he tells me that we have to get rid of it. The place was going to be hot what with DeLorean’s shipment coming in.”

“So he came to you to ask for one of Martin’s old suitcases.”

She nodded and fumbled for a cigarette.

“And that’s everything?”

“It is.”

“All right. We don’t have much time. I went out over the fields – laid a good trail, so that’s where they’ll be looking for me, but if they’ve any brains at all they’ll be coming down here soon enough. This is what we’re going to do. We’ll kill the house lights and sneak out to the yard. You’ll come with me in the BMW. I’ll run it without lights until we’re well away from here. I’ll take you to Carrick police station. It’ll be okay. You’ll turn Queen’s evidence. All you’ve done is conceal information from the police. I’ll see to it that you won’t do a day in jail.”

She shook her head. “I won’t be doing that,” she said simply.

“It’ll be okay. I’m not bullshitting you. You won’t do a day in jail. If you’re nervous, we’ll get you a new identity in England or Australia, wherever you want.”

She thought about it for a moment and shook her head. “No. I’m not going with you, Sean.”

“For God’s sake, woman! We don’t have fucking time for this!”

“You go.”

“We don’t have time for this! Come on!”

“No!”

“I won’t ask you again, we really have to—”

Headlights from several vehicles suddenly lit up the yard in front of the house.

“Come out, Duffy! You’ve got no chance!” Harry yelled from behind the stone wall.

“Shit! They got down here fast!”

“Come out, Duffy! Don’t make this hard on yourself!” Harry yelled from outside.

I looked to where the BMW was parked. Maybe twenty feet from the door to the driver’s side. And they were a hundred feet away armed only with shotguns. If we turned off the lights and we legged it, maybe we could make it.

“We can still make it to the car,” I said to her.

“ You can make it to the car. I’m not going with you.”

Her arms were folded across her chest. Her eyes were half closed.

In the kitchen I could smell the steaks burning.

“What are you talking about, Emma? I explained it to you. You won’t have to go to jail.”

“I’m not testifying against Harry.”

I gripped Emma by the shoulders and shook her.

“He killed your husband.”

“Martin grew up around here. He knew the score. You don’t go to the police. You don’t talk.”

“Are you mad? He shot your husband in cold blood.”

She nodded. “I know … I know. You go, Sean!”

The tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“You’re doing this for Harry? The man’s a sociopath.”

“You don’t understand.”

“The Larne copper. Harry took him out the same way he took out Martin, didn’t he?”

She nodded.

“But it wasn’t quite the same way. He shot him dead and then he shot into the garage wall three times. Why do you think he did that?”

“I don’t know.”

“I know. It was insurance. He wanted to make it look like a woman had done it. Like she’d missed with the first three and she got him with the others. He was setting you up, Emma. No doubt if everything went to shit he would have leaked other evidence implicating you in your husband’s murder. I’ll bet you he’s got your prints on key pieces of evidence.”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because he knows I wouldn’t talk. I’m from here. We take care of our own problems.”

“Like Martin?”

“Like Martin.”

“He’ll kill you too, Emma. Come with me! Come on, now, while we have the chance!”

She shook her head. “You go, Sean. You go!”

I couldn’t argue with her all night.

“Fuck it, then. Are you sure about this?”

“Yes.”

“Will you be okay?” I asked.

“They won’t harm me.”

“I’ll be back with the law, you realise that?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

I turned off the living-room light, got the car keys, opened the front door and ran. I got five feet.

Half a dozen separate shotgun blasts.

A white-hot pellet caught me on the shoulder and knocked me down. I landed flat on my back.

The car was impossible.

It might as well have been a million miles away.

More shotgun blasts and rifle cracks. I dived back into the house and closed the door.

Emma ran over to me. “You’re hit,” she said.

I took off my raincoat. It was only a glancing wound in my shoulder. But my cracked ribs were on fire.

“Help me up,” I said.

She put a hand under my shoulder and lugged me to my feet.

There were maybe half a dozen men out there now. They had shotguns and rifles. I had a .38 revolver with six rounds.

“What will you do now? Give yourself up?” she asked.

“Give myself up? They’ll kill me. You know they’ll kill me, don’t you?”

Her face was blank, distant, but then she nodded.

“There’s got to be a way out the back,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

She was talking as if she was in a trance.

Her features were frozen.

A rifle bullet smashed the living-room window and thudded into the back wall. The lights were off except for a side lamp next to the TV. I crawled across the living-room floor and knocked it off its stand.

I fumbled in my raincoat pocket for my pills. I swallowed two of them dry.

“The back door?” I asked again.

“Through the kitchen. If you open the door, you’ll see the chicken run and there’s a hedge. If you get over the hedge and keep going across the fields you’ll make it down to the lough shore.”

“And from there?”

“I don’t know.”

We’d cross that bridge when we came to it. Maybe I could get out into the water and float my carcass across Larne Lough to the Magheramorne side.

“All right. I’m going,” I said.