I Hear the Sirens in the Street

31: IN EXTREMIS

Harry cleared his throat. “The whole thing started with one of Martin’s touts who spotted O’Rourke lurking around the DeLorean factory, taking photographs, asking questions. He stood out. He was an American.”

“And your brother came to you?”

“Yeah, Martin told me about it all. Martin knew that John DeLorean and me were pulling off a big score. He knew this guy was bad fucking news.”

“What did you do with the information?”

“I decided that we should bring O’Rourke in to answer a few questions.”

“How did you do that?”

“Got a few lads in balaclavas, stole a white Transit, grabbed him off the bloody street in front of some bed and breakfast in Dunmurry.”

“So you don’t know Willy McFarlane?”

“Who?”

Sweat was running down my forearm onto the .38. It was hard standing in this position with me ribs aching and the painkillers wearing off. Harry, by contrast, looked pretty fucking relaxed with the Remington.

“You brought O’Rourke here?”

“Nah. Took him down the salt mine.”

“And then what happened?”

“Nobody was going to kill him. That was never the plan.”

“What was the plan?”

“We just wanted to know who he was working for, what he knew, that kind of thing. We chained him to the generator in the mine and put the fear of fucking God into him. Martin did. He was used to interrogating touts and informers.”

“Did you torture him?”

“No. It was all talk. Torture? Martin wouldn’t have it. He said we didn’t need to torture him anyway. He said O’Rourke would tell us everything he knew, given enough time.”

He moved his shotgun a little and I straightened my arm to aim the .38 at his face.

“And then what happened?”

“Nothing. We lifted the informer who told us about O’Rourke, and gave him some money to disappear. He went over to England. So that took care of that, but O’Rourke was our main problem. Who was he? What did he want? Did he know about me and DeLorean and the deal? We needed answers.”

“So what did you do?”

“Martin said he could handle it all. I trusted him. I mean, O’Rourke was down the fucking mine. Have you been down there with the lights off? It’s like a pit of hell. Martin knew that that would work him and he told O’Rourke that if he didn’t tell us everything he’d fucking suffer the torments of the damned …”

“And what did O’Rourke say to that?”

“He said he would never talk. He said that we could do what we liked but he would never tell us anything. Eventually Martin grew to believe him. He started telling me that probably we should let him go.”

“But you didn’t agree to that, did you?”

“Did I fuck? So we kept on him day in and day out. And then one morning we go down to talk to him and his legs are still chained up to the generator, but somehow he’s got a hand free and he’s dead. At first we thought he’d had a heart attack but then we saw that he must have done it himself. He must have thought we were never going to let him go and he fucking topped himself. He must have had a hidden pill somewhere. Dumb fuck.”

“Suicide?”

“Suicide.”

“That’s good, Harry. That’s good for you. What can I do you for? Kidnapping? Sure, that’s only five years. You’ll be out in three. That’s nothing.”

I started moving towards the door.

“Stay were you are!” he growled.

“No, I’m going, Harry. I’m going to walk out of here and back down the hill to my car and you’re going to let me go. There’s no point escalating this. All I have is a piece of forensic evidence that says O’Rourke was stored in this freezer at some point. I can’t prove you kidnapped him. I can’t prove anything. So there’s no sense killing me with that there shotgun, not when a half decent lawyer will get this case thrown out of court. Okay?”

I started inching closer to the door and I gave him a wide berth as I went past. He kept his gun on me, I kept mine on him.

“It’ll ruin me,” he said.

“No, not if you’re acquitted. You’ll be fine.”

“I won’t be acquitted. You’ll fit me up. And I didn’t do it! I didn’t kill him.”

I was at the door.

“I believe you, Harry. And I’m leaving now. You’ll not do anything stupid, will you?”

“You’re not going anywhere, peeler!”

He should have fired the Remington from his hip – sure, there would have been a nasty kick but I’d have been wasted.

He didn’t, though. He was too well trained in the use of firearms. His father must have imprinted that lesson in him at an early age and in the second it took him to raise the shotgun to his shoulder I dived out into the rain.

There was a blast behind me and fire spat out of the barn door into the darkness.

I ran to the wall and hid behind an old combine.

I was plotting my next move when I suddenly heard a klaxon blaring up at the house. It sounded like one of those air-raid sirens from the war. It was no fucking air raid, it was Harry calling in his tenants. I’d have to get bloody moving.

I ran from behind the combine straight into a spotlight. There was a shotgun blast from somewhere near the house.

White hot shot flew over my head.

I ran behind a hay rick.

Men were yelling now. A posse of Harry’s friends and tenants. Old fucking retainers who would do anything he wanted, no questions asked, even if it was killing a copper. Maybe especially if it was killing a copper.

“He’s down there!” someone said.

“I seen him!” someone else shouted, and fired.

I hit the dirt, slewing into the mud.

“I nailed him!” a voice yelled.

No, you didn’t, but you bloody will soon.

I climbed over the stone perimeter wall that surrounded the estate.

“There he is!”

“He’s going over the wall!”

“After him! Billy, get your dogs! And Jack, cut the landlines at the junction box! He’ll not get away and he’ll get no help.”

I tore up into hills, heading out into the bog where the dogs would hopefully lose my scent. I ran through a stream, tripped on something, took a nasty spill and lay there panting for a minute before I got up again.

I doubled back towards the lane and Emma’s cottage. My ribs were screaming and I was covered in filth. Cora barked at me as I shambled across the farmyard.

I ran into the house.

“My God! What’s happened?” she said, her hand to her mouth.

“Where’s the phone?”

“What?”

“Where’s the fucking phone?”

“In the bedroom.”

I limped into the bedroom and dialled 999.

“Which service do you require?” the operator asked.

“Police! Quickly, Islandmagee out at—”

The line went dead.

I tried again and again but there was no dial tone.

“What happened?” Emma asked.

“Harry tried to kill me. He killed O’Rourke and threw him in his freezer. I’ve got the proof.”

Her face fell and she shook her head.

“No, Sean. He didn’t kill Bill O’Rourke,” she said in a monotone.

“He told you? You believe that?”

“It’s true.”

I took her by the shoulders and squeezed. “Tell it and tell it fast!”

“O’Rourke was spying on DeLorean. Causing all sorts of problems. Harry is landing something for DeLorean at his private slipway on the lough. The one you saw. Drugs, I think. It’s a big deal. They had to know if it had been compromised. Harry had Martin and a couple of his lads grab O’Rourke off the street. They were wearing balaclavas. They were only going to interrogate him and then let him go. They took him to the salt mine to question him. They must have gotten rough with him or he panicked or something. They weren’t going to kill him. They left him alone down there and one morning when they came to wake him he was dead. Martin thought he’d had a heart attack. Nobody knew what to do.”

She looked me square in the face. She’d confirmed Harry’s story and there was no nonsense about tears or throwing herself on the mercy of the court.

“It was no heart attack, Emma. He was smart. He knew this could happen in Northern Ireland so he made his own fucking suicide pill. Planted the plants, refined it himself. He didn’t want to be tortured to give the game away.”

She nodded. “We didn’t know about that.”

We, she said we.

“Martin told you about O’Rourke’s death, didn’t he? And you told him to go to the police, and Harry—”

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.

I couldn’t see her face now, but she whispered “Good luck.”

I crawled through the living-room doorway but as soon as I opened the back door shotgun pellets thudded into the door and into the gap above my head.

Fuck.

The house was surrounded.

I crawled back into the living room.

“They’re there ahead of me. Is there any kind of cellar or cellar door or priest’s hole, or anything like that?” I asked her.

“No. Nothing like that. A front door and a back door. That’s it.”

“There’s no way out!” Harry shouted.

I slithered to the broken window and looked out. Half a dozen shadowy forms arranged behind the stone wall. Maybe two more out back.

“I called the cops, Harry! The fucking cavalry is on its way! You boys better run if you don’t want to go down with your boss!” I yelled.

“We heard your conversation to 999 and we yanked the cable! Do you think we’re daft, Duffy?”

“Fuck!” I whispered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Come out and it’ll be quick, Duffy. No nonsense. No torture. We’ve got marksmen. You won’t even know it.”

I was beat already and the whole night was ahead of us. Night and into the morning and however long Harry wanted to keep at it on his private land.

The cars were still shining their headlamps at the farmyard and it was hard to see what was going on, but I did notice one careless fucker stand up to take a shot at the house. I lifted the .38 two-handed, carefully sighted it and squeezed the trigger. A crack, a slight recall, the man went down.

“That’ll gentle his condition some, eh, Harry!” I yelled. “And that goes for all of you fuckers! Who wants it next? Just remember that when Harry tells you to charge the house!”

“Peeler scum!” somebody shouted by way of retort.

“You’re doing this for Harry? You’re going to risk your life so he can make some cash in a drug deal? And what do you get out of it! Nothing! Think about that, too, before you charge!”

“We’ll be all right, you can’t watch both doors at once, can you, Duffy?” Harry yelled.

It was a good point.

Emma’s arm was on mine.

She was looking at me.

“He can’t, Harry! But together we can. I’ll cover the back with Martin’s shotgun and he can cover the front! The first man I see in my backyard is a dead man!” Emma yelled.

I couldn’t make out all of her face in the dark but I could see that smile and the fact that she was holding a double-barrel shotgun.

“You don’t have to do this, I’ll send you out under a white flag,” I whispered.

“I’m staying here!” she said and kissed me on the cheek.

Why the flip? Guilt? Resignation? Death wish? They were all good.

A volley of gun shots smashed the windows and sent sparks flying across the floor.

We hit the deck.

“You better cover the back door. Don’t expose yourself. Keep low,” I whispered.

She nodded and crawled towards the kitchen.

I waited for whatever was going to happen next.

No movement that I could shoot at.

The rain was getting heavy and the sky was moonless, starless, black.

Nothing happened for a minute. Two. Then I saw two arcs of fire and a Molotov cocktail landed on the thatched roof and another tumbled through the broken living-room window into the house, exploding in a sheet of crimson flame across the hardwood floor.

I pulled a curtain off the wall and threw it over the conflagration. The curtain caught fire and I had to smother it with my body. It singed my face, fizzled for a moment and then went out.

I knew now that it was all over. Of course, they would simply burn us out.

Why would they charge the house when they could stand behind the wall and lob Molotovs at us?

“Are you okay, Emma?” I yelled into the kitchen.

“I’m okay, are you?” she shouted back.

“I’m fine.”

I crawled into the kitchen. “What are we going to do?” she whispered.

I peered into the backyard. I could see bobbing lights beyond the fence. They were getting ready to fire another round of Molotovs.

“They’re going to torch the place,” I said.

“Oh, God! I’d rather be shot,” she said desperately.

“Do you want me to parley with them? You still have a chance.”

She shook her head. “No. No, it’s too late now. I’ve made my choice. I should never have … I’ve made my choice.”

I kissed her tear-stained cheek.

The men launched their Molotovs and I broke the kitchen window and shot at one of them as he threw. I missed him and both petrol bombs landed on the thatched roof.

Yeah, that was the way to do it.

Smoke rapidly began filling the kitchen.

“Follow me into the living room,” I said, and she slithered after me, but it was just as bad there too.

Thick black straw smoke from the thatch.

We began to cough.

I dry-retched.

“What are you thinking about now, Duffy?” Harry yelled.

I was thinking of a Butch Cassidy style run into oblivion.

“I was thinking how good it’s going to feel when I kill you, you cunt!” I yelled back.

And then I heard it.

Was it a hallucination?

No.

No, that was no trick of a desperate mind.

That was a fucking siren. Sirens.

“Sirens!” I said.

I turned to Emma. “I hear sirens.”

“Sirens!” I yelled out the broken window. “The peelers are coming for you, lads! If I were youse I’d bloody leg it!”

I turned to Emma. “Are you hurt?”

She nodded. “I’m all right.”

The sirens were tearing up the Mill Bay Road. Two police Land Rovers at least. Of course they had traced the 999 call. They didn’t need to hear the address. They needed only to triangulate the call line backwards through all the tumblers and switchboards, and Harry had helped them with local geography by giving them a nice big fire to steer towards.

I edged open the front door so we could breathe. We kept low to the ground and no one shot at us.

“Come back, you dogs!” Harry was yelling at his men who were sensibly making a run for it back to their houses.

“I really won’t have to go to jail, Sean? I couldn’t stand to go to prison,” Emma said in a low, ashamed voice.

“No. I give you my word.”

The sirens were now less than a mile away.

“It’s over, Harry! You’ve been abandoned! It’s finished!” I yelled into the darkness.

“Not quite, Duffy! Not quite!” he yelled back.

I heard an engine rev and a hand brake slip. I looked up and out into the farmyard. Harry’s Bentley was speeding towards us. There was a burning rag sticking out of the petrol tank. He had put a weight on the accelerator pedal.

He was walking behind it with the shotgun.

“Jesus! Quickly! Get into the back kitchen! He’s—” I yelled at Emma.

And

then

everything

was

light.