Collusion

83

Orla O’Kane stood over her father’s sleeping form. His throat rasped with every breath, a line of drool across his chin as if a snail had crawled from his mouth. A carapace of a man, skin laid loose over old bones and hate. No longer a giant of the soul, no longer a warhorse thirsty for the fight. Just an old man without the sense to know his true enemies. The giant vanquished.

She reached out and smoothed the wisps of white hair across his scalp. Love swelled in her until she feared it might burst from her breast. She took a tissue from her sleeve and dabbed at the drool.

Orla had lost count of the times she’d had to push that panicky feeling back down to her belly, the one that told her that her father had lost his grip on the world he had built for her, leaving it to career into the sun. It would burn up, along with everything she knew.

And no one would mourn its passing.

She thought of the little girl upstairs. The mother didn’t have long. Even if someone got her to a hospital, the greyness of her skin said it was too late.

But the little girl.

Maybe, when it was over and done with, the Bull might allow the little girl to live. He was not a monster, after all. Orla knew this to be true. She had not been raised by an animal, surely?

No, she had not. When things were settled, the little girl would live. And the little girl would need a place to live. A home. Orla had a house in Malahide with a sea view and a beach not twenty yards away.

Maybe, Orla thought.

‘I hope …’

She put her hand to her mouth when she realised she had spoken out loud. Her father stirred.

‘Hmm?’ He blinked at her, his eyes like fish mouths gasping in the air. ‘What’s wrong? What time is it?’

‘Shush,’ Orla said. ‘It’s early.’

‘Then what the fuck are you waking me for?’ He tried to push himself up on the bed, but his flailing moved only blankets and sheets. ‘What’s going on?’

Orla put a hand on his chest. She arranged pillows behind her father’s head. ‘Easy, now. Nothing’s wrong. It’s just the wee girl.’

As she hoisted him up to a sitting position, the Bull asked, ‘What about her?’

‘She said something.’ Orla pulled the blankets up and smoothed them. ‘Some nonsense about Gerry Fegan coming.’

The Bull’s eyes narrowed. ‘Nonsense? But worth coming in here and waking me up for.’

‘Maybe she contacted him somehow,’ Orla said. ‘I don’t trust that gyppo fella you hired. Christ knows what happened when he took them.’

‘Quit with the maybes and the somehows,’ the Bull said. ‘Tell me what you think. Is Fegan coming?’

Orla looked her father hard in the eye. ‘We have to assume so. If he’s as dangerous as you say, we can’t take any chances.’

The Bull stared at the far wall as he thought. ‘Right,’ he said. He reached for her hand, squeezed it. ‘You’re right. You’re a good girl, you know. Better than any of the men I raised, if you can call them that.’

Orla pulled the blankets back while she tried to hide the tears welling in her eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she said. She pulled his legs off the edge of the bed and knelt to fetch his slippers.

‘It’s nearly over,’ she said. ‘Gerry Fegan will be dead soon, and it’ll be over.’

The Bull’s shoulders dropped as he exhaled.

‘Thank Christ,’ he said.