Collusion

59

Roscoe Patterson waited at the door to the apartment, arms folded across his chest. Tattoos of Ulster flags and fiery skulls decorated the skin. He nodded as they approached. Lennon carried Marie’s suitcase, and she carried a sleeping Ellen.

Roscoe handed Lennon the key. ‘I tidied the place,’ he said with a wink.

‘Thank you,’ Lennon said. ‘No one knows she’s here, right?’

‘Not a soul,’ Roscoe said. He slapped Lennon’s shoulder. ‘Look after yourself, big lad.’

‘Who is he?’ Marie asked once the lift doors closed on Roscoe.

‘A friend,’ Lennon said as he unlocked the apartment.

‘He doesn’t look like a nice man,’ she said.

‘He’s not,’ Lennon said. He carried the suitcase inside. ‘He’s a scumbag. But he’s an honest scumbag, and that’s good enough for me.’

Marie followed. ‘Do you trust him?’

‘I don’t trust anybody,’ Lennon said. He flicked lights on as he made his way towards the bedroom. True to his word, Roscoe had hidden the handcuffs and vibrators, the bowlful of condoms, the pornographic pictures on the walls. Lennon put the suitcase on the bed.

Marie hesitated in the hallway.

‘You should get some sleep,’ he said.

‘So should you,’ she said. ‘Couch looks comfortable.’

Lennon drifted in and out of the world. His body ached for rest, but his mind raced. Every time his thoughts got caught in the quicksand at the edge of sleep they would break loose again, wild and darting.

DCI Gordon had taken his statement while Dan Hewitt and CI Uprichard stood in opposite corners. Hewitt had been pale and distant. Gordon had been gruff and matter-of-fact. Lennon told them he believed the man he had captured was responsible for the deaths of Kevin Malloy, Declan Quigley, Brendan Houlihan and Patsy Toner. Lennon watched them both as he spoke, but neither Hewitt nor Gordon reacted.

Hewitt and Uprichard left the room, but Gordon remained, when Lennon gave another statement to some pen-pusher from the Police Ombudsman’s office. Gordon said nothing, stared straight ahead, when Lennon said he believed elements within the security forces had been protecting the arrested man.

When the statements were done, and the pen-pusher had packed up and left, Gordon put his hand on Lennon’s shoulder.

‘That’s dangerous talk, son,’ he said.

‘It’s the truth,’ Lennon said.

‘The truth is a slippery thing,’ Gordon said. ‘Watch your back, son, that’s all I’m saying.’

Marie and Ellen had been waiting for him in reception when he emerged at two the following morning. Marie had given her statement to a sergeant. There hadn’t been much to say, there or on the journey to Roscoe’s apartment in Carrickfergus; she’d seen nothing.

Daylight found the crack in the living room curtains. Seagulls screeched over the marina outside the window. Fatigue saturated Lennon’s mind. He drifted.

Lennon dreamed of the women he’d known, the women he’d lied to, the women he’d let down. He passed among them, tried to speak to them. They turned away. They would not listen. His mother stood at the centre of them clutching a tattered shirt. As he drew close he saw the blood on it. Liam’s shirt, the one he’d died in.

His mother said something, her words lost beneath the growing clamour of the women.

What? he tried to ask, but his lips and tongue were too leaden to form the word. He tried again, a dry croak this time. ‘What?’

She opened her mouth, the sound eaten by a new noise, a high chiming.

‘What?’ he asked again.

She smiled as she faded into darkness and said, ‘Answer the phone.’

Lennon sat upright, his head buzzing, his heart hammering. ‘Jesus.’

That high chiming again. He scanned the room looking for it. Marie’s shoulder bag lay on the glass coffee table, its mouth agape. Something glowed inside. Lennon leaned forward on the couch and reached inside the bag. The phone vibrated in his hand. He thumbed the green button and brought it to his ear.

‘Hello?’ he said, breathless.

A pause. ‘Where’s Marie?’

‘Who’s this?’

A loud speaker made an echoing announcement somewhere. ‘I want Marie,’ the caller said.

‘She can’t come to the phone,’ Lennon said.

‘Where is she?’

‘I can’t tell you that. Who are you?’

Another pause. ‘Is she safe? Is Ellen safe?’

‘They’re both safe. Who is this?’

‘Where are they?’

‘Are you … are you Gerry Fegan?’

Quiet for seconds, only bustle and echoes, then, ‘I’ll kill anyone who touches them. Keep them safe till I find them.’

‘Stay away,’ Lennon said. ‘Don’t come near them, do you hear me? Stay away from my daughter.’

‘You’re that cop she told me about,’ Fegan said. ‘You walked out on them.’

‘That’s nothing to—’

‘Keep them safe.’

Lennon heard a click, and the phone died.

‘Who was that?’ Marie asked from the doorway.