94

O’Driscoll said, ‘We should get you out of here.’

Fegan watched O’Kane chew his lip, possibilities flickering across the old man’s face, his eyes darting around the room. The heat in Fegan’s ear pulsed as warmth spread down his neck and over his shoulder. A hard line of pain ran along his cheek. He tasted the blood at the corner of his mouth.

‘Maybe we should get you to your room,’ O’Driscoll said. ‘Out of harm’s way, like. Just till yer man’s sorted things out.’

O’Kane glowered. ‘Don’t talk tome like I’m a child, for fuck’s sake. This is the one thing I want. This is all I want. Don’t fucking chicken out on me now. Don’t turn tail like every other bastard.’

O’Driscoll stepped away from Fegan, but kept a grip on his arm. ‘But, Christ, anything could be happening. You pay me to watch out for you and that’s what I’m doing. Now come on, we need to get you out of here and locked in your—’

‘Every one of you fuckers is the same,’ the Bull said, his voice cracking between high and low. ‘Them bastards in the North, they left me hanging. Everyone else abandoned me. Now you’re going to do the same?’

O’Driscoll held onto Fegan’s sleeve as he took another step towards O’Kane. ‘Jesus, no, Bull, I just want to make sure you’re safe, that’s all. I’m not going anywhere.’

Fegan’s instincts flew, measuring the strength of O’Driscoll’s grip, the distance between the men, the angles of their bodies, their centres of balance. He registered these calculations only as impulses, flashes in his brain before the act. But the act did not come. He suppressed it, a deeper and more trusted instinct telling him it wasn’t yet time to move.

O’Kane jabbed his thick forefinger at Fegan. ‘I’m not going anywhere till that fucker’s dead.’

‘You want me to do him?’ O’Driscoll asked.

‘No.’ O’Kane shook his head and met Fegan’s stare. ‘Bring him here.’

‘There isn’t time,’ O’Driscoll said. ‘We need to—’

O’Kane’s face reddened. ‘I said bring him here.’

The men led Fegan forward. He did not resist.

‘On his knees,’ O’Kane said.

O’Driscoll placed a hand on Fegan’s shoulder and pushed down. When Fegan didn’t submit, he kicked the back of his knee. Fegan went down hard, his kneecap cracking on the parquet flooring. The plastic sheeting rustled as the other knee followed.

O’Kane leaned forward in his wheelchair. ‘You could’ve killed me back there in that barn near Middletown. You had me at your feet. I was helpless as a pup, and you had a gun in your hand. Why didn’t you do it?’

‘Because I had no reason,’ Fegan said. ‘I was merciful.’

‘Merciful?’ O’Kane shook his head. You’re not making any more sense than you did back then, Gerry. Are the people still in your head? Are they still telling you what to do?’

‘I left them back there,’ Fegan said. ‘When I killed McGinty.’

‘McGinty was a cunt.’ O’Kane stretched a hand towards O’Driscoll. O’Driscoll placed a small semi-automatic pistol in it. It looked like a Walther PPK to Fegan. ‘Not too many missed that bastard after he died. I sure as fuck didn’t. You know, the politicians wanted me to let it go. They wanted the mess cleaned up, fair enough, but they didn’t see the sense in going after you. They said I should let it lie. But they don’t know you. They don’t know what you did to me. They don’t know how I haven’t slept a single night since then. I won’t live another fucking day with you in the world.’ He breathed hard as he pulled back the slide assembly to chamber a round. ‘So I told them, I says, I’m going after Gerry Fegan and that’s all there is to it.’

O’Kane pressed the Walther’s muzzle against Fegan’s forehead.

O’Driscoll shifted his feet, loosened his grip on Fegan’s shoulder. ‘Jesus, what’s that? Do you smell that?’

Ronan said, ‘Smell what?’

‘Smoke,’ O’Driscoll said. ‘Something burning.’

O’Kane lowered the pistol. ‘A fire?’

The image burst in Fegan’s mind, the dream that had haunted first his sleeping hours, then his waking: the child eaten by flames.

His instincts aligned, a perfect sequence of movements and pressures and weights plotted in his mind before he was even aware of them, telling him now was the moment to act.