The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 10

THE MESSAGE by Margaret Murphy

RULES OF THE game:

One, find your spot.

Two, stake your claim.

Three, warn off all comers.

Four, wait.

Vincent Connolly is keeping dixie on the corner of Roscoe Street and Mount Pleasant. Roscoe Street isn’t much more than an alley; you’d have a job squeezing a car down – which means he can watch without fear of being disturbed. He’s halfway between the Antrim and Aachen Hotels, keeping an eye on both at once. They’re busy because of the official opening of the second Mersey tunnel tomorrow; the Queen’s going to make a speech, thousands are expected to turn out – and the city-centre hotels are filling up fast. It’s the biggest thing the city has seen since the Beatles’ concert at the Empire on their triumphal return from America in 1964. That was seven years ago, when Vincent was only four years old – too young to remember much, except it was November and freezing, and he was wearing short trousers, so his knees felt like two hard lumps of stone. They stood at the traffic lights in Rodney Street, him holding his dad’s hand, waiting for the four most famous Liverpudlians to drive past. As the limo slowed to turn the corner, Paul McCartney noticed him and waved. Vincent had got a lot of mileage out of that one little wave. He decided then that he would be rich and famous, like Paul McCartney, and ride in a big limo with his own chauffeur.

Now it’s 1971, Vincent is eleven, the Beatles broke up a year ago, T-Rex is the band to watch, and Vincent’s new hero is Evel Knievel. For months, he’s had his eye on a Raleigh Chopper in the window of Quinn’s in Edge Lane. It’s bright orange, it does wheelies, and it’s the most beautiful thing Vincent has ever seen.

He doesn’t mind working for it. He’s never had a newspaper round, or a Saturday job, but he is a grafter. October, he can be found outside the pubs in town, collecting a Penny for the Guy. From Bonfire Night to New Year, he’ll team up with a couple of mates, going door-to-door, carol singing. Summertime, he’ll scour the streets for pop bottles, turning them in for the thruppenny deposit – one-and-a-half pence in new money. Saturdays, in the football season, he’ll take himself off to the city’s north end to mind cars in the streets around Goodison Park – practically the dark side of the moon, as far as his mates are concerned, but Vincent’s entrepreneurial spirit tells him if you want something bad enough, you’ve got to go where the action is.

He lacks the muscle to claim the prime spots – he’s got the scars to prove it – so, for now, he’s happy enough working the margins.

The Antrim is the bigger of the two hotels, and he angles himself so he’s got a good view. A half-hour passes, three lots of tourists arrive – all of them, disappointingly, by taxi. He settles to a game of single ollies in the gutter for a bit, practising long shots with his best marble, just to keep his eye in. It’s a warm, sunny June evening, so he doesn’t really mind.

Another fifteen minutes, and the traffic heading out of town is lighter; Wednesday, some of the shops close half-day. By six, Mount Pleasant is mostly quiet. A bus wheezes up the hill, a few cars pass, left and right, but you can count the minutes by them, now. Things won’t pick up again until after tea-time, when the pubs start to fill up. By six-thirty, he’s thinking of heading back for his own tea, when he sees a car stop outside the Aachen, off to his right.

One man, on his own. He sits with the engine running while he folds up a map. Tourist.

‘You’re on, Vinnie,’ Vincent whispers softly. He picks up his marbles and stuffs them into his pocket.

He’s still wearing his school uniform, so he’s presentable, but he’s pinned an SFX school badge over his own as a disguise. He licks both hands and smooths them over his head in an attempt to flatten his double crown, then he rubs the grit off the knees of his trousers. Now he’s ready, poised on the balls of his feet, waiting for the driver to get out so he can make his play.

In Vincent’s book, you can’t beat car-minding. It seems nobler than the rest, somehow, and it couldn’t be easier – no special props required – you just walk up, say, “Mind your car, mister?” and agree your price. Ten new pence is the going rate, but he’ll go as low as five, if the owner decides he wants to barter. It’s a contract. The unspoken clause – the small print, if you like – is cough up the fee, or you might come back to find your car on bricks.

The man shoves open the door and hoists himself out of the driver’s seat. He’s not especially tall, it’s just that the car he’s wedged into is a Morris Minor, a little granny car. Vincent squints into the sun, taking in more details: spots of rust mar the smoke-grey paintwork, nibbling at the sills and lower rims of the door. Even the wheel arches are wrecked. He curls his lip in disgust; a heap of tin – hardly even worth crossing the road for.

The man is five-nine or -ten, and spare. Collar-length hair – dark brown, maybe – it’s hard to tell from twenty-five yards away. He’s wearing a leather bomber jacket over an open-necked shirt. He stretches, cricks his neck, left, right, goes round to the car boot, and checks up and down the street, which gets Vincent’s spider-sense tingling.

He ducks deeper into the shadow of the alleyway, crouching behind the railings of the corner house. The man lifts out a vinyl suitcase in dirty cream. He sets it down on the road, reaches inside the car boot again, and brings out a small blue carry-all. He looks up and down the hill a second time, opens the driver’s door and leans inside. Vincent grips the railing, holding his breath. The man straightens up and – hey, presto – the bag is gone.

Still crouched in the shadows, Vincent watches him walk up the steps of the hotel. The front door is open, but he has to ring to gain entry though the vestibule door. Someone answers, the man steps inside, and Vincent sags against the wall. The bricks are cool against his back, but he’s sweating. He can’t decide if it’s fear, or guilt, or excitement, because he’s made up his mind to find out what’s in that small blue bag.

Taking money off strangers to mind their cars is a bit scally, but breaking into a car is Borstal territory. Not that he hasn’t done it before – for sunglasses left on the dashboard, or loose change in the glove compartment – small stuff, in and out in less than a minute. But this isn’t small stuff; the way the man had looked around before he ducked inside the car, it had to be something special in that bag. Money, maybe; a big fat wad of crisp new notes. Or stolen jewels: emeralds as green as mossy caves, rubies that glow like communion wine. Vincent sees himself raking his fingers through a mound of gold coins, scooping out emeralds and sapphires and diamonds, buried like shells in sand.

He is about to break cover when the lobby door opens and the man steps out. For a second he stands in the hotel doorway and stares straight across the road, into the shadows of the alleyway. Vincent’s heart seizes. He flattens himself against the wall and turns his head, hiding his face.

For a long minute, he shuts his eyes tight and wills the man away. When he dares to look, the man is already heading down the hill, into the westering sun. As he reaches the bend in the road, a shaft of sunlight catches his hair and it flares red for an instant, then he is gone.

Vincent can’t take his eyes off the car, almost afraid it will vanish into thin air if he so much as blinks. Less than a minute, he tells himself. That’s all it’ll take. But his heart is thudding hard in his chest, and he can’t make his legs work. Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. Because what if the man had forgotten his wallet in his hurry? What if he comes back? What if someone is watching from the hotel?

“And what if you’re a big girl’s blouse, Vincent Connolly?”

The sound of his own voice makes him jump, and he’s walking before he even knows it – one moment he’s squatting in the shadows, gripping the railings like they will save him from falling, the next, he’s at the car, his penknife in his hand.

Close to, the rust is even worse. Moggy Minor, he thinks, disgustedly – one doddering step up from an invalid carriage. Still…on the plus side, they’re easy: the quarter-light catch wears loose with age – and this one’s ready for the scrapyard. He pushes gently at the lower corner with the point of the knife blade and it gives. He dips into his pocket for his jemmy. It’s made from a cola tin, cut to one-inch width, and fashioned into a small hook at one end. The metal is flexible, but strong, and thin enough to fit between the door and the window frame. In an instant, he’s flipped the catch, reached in and lifted the door handle.

A Wolseley slows down as he swings the door open. A shaft of fear jolts through him, and he thinks of abandoning the job, but the chance to get his hands on all that money makes him reckless. He turns and waves the driver on with a smile, sees him clock the fake school badge on his blazer and grins even broader. The driver’s eyes swivel to the road and he motors on to the traffic lights.

Vincent slides inside the car, closes the door, and keeps his head down. The interior reeks of petrol fumes and cigarettes. The vinyl of the driver’s seat is cracked, and greyish stuffing curdles from the seams. He reaches underneath, and comes up empty.

Certain that any second he’ll be yanked out feet first, he leans across to the passenger side and feels under the seat. Nothing. Zilch. Zero. Just grit and dust and tufts of cotton. But the passenger seat is in good nick: no cracks or splits in the leatherette. So where has the stuffing come from?

Frowning, he reaches under again, but this time he turns his palm up, pats the underside of the seat. His heart begins to thud pleasantly; he’s found something solid. He tugs gently and it drops on to his hand.

He’s grinning as he barrels up the steps to his house. Vincent lives in a narrow Georgian terrace in Clarence Street, less than a minute’s walk from where the car is parked, but he has run past his own street, left and then left again, crossing Clarence Street a second time, on the lookout for anyone following, before cutting south, down Green Lane, covering four sides of a square to end up back at his house.

The door is on the latch. His mum is cooking lamb stew: summer or winter, you can tell the day of the week by what’s cooking; Wednesday is Irish stew. He scoops up the Liverpool Echo from the doormat and leaves the carry-all at the foot of the stairs, under his blazer, before sauntering to the kitchen.

“Is that you, Vincent?” His mother glances over her shoulder. “I thought you were at rehearsals.” His class has been chosen to perform for the Queen.

“We were so good, they let us finish early.”

He must have sounded less than enthusiastic, because she scolds, “It’s a great honour. You’ll remember tomorrow for the rest of your life.”

Vincent’s mum is a patriotic Irish immigrant. And she says he’s full of contradictions.

“The Echo’s full of it,” he says, slapping the newspaper on to the table.

She balances the spoon on the rim of the pot and turns to him. Her face is flushed from the heat of the pot; or maybe it’s excitement. She wipes her hands on her apron and picks up the paper. “Well, go and change out of your school uniform. You can tell Cathy, tea’s almost ready. And wash your hands before you come down.”

For once, he doesn’t complain.

He tiptoes past his sister’s bedroom door and sidles into his room like a burglar. He shuts the door, then slides the carry-all under his bed. He untucks the blankets from his mattress and lets them hang. They are grey army surplus, not made for luxury, and the drop finishes a good three inches clear of the floor. He steps back to the door to inspect his handiwork. He can just spy one corner of the bag. He casts about the room and his eyes snag on a pile of laundry his mum has been on at him to fetch downstairs. He smiles. Given the choice between picking up his dirty socks and eating worms, Cathy Connolly would reach for a knife and fork. Smiling to himself, he heaps the ripe-smelling jumble of dirty clothing on top of the bag.

He says hardly a word at the dinner table, evading his mother’s questions about the rehearsal by shovelling great spoonfuls of stew into his mouth. All the while, his sister looks at him from under her lashes, with that smirk on her face that says she knows something. He tries to ignore her, gulping down his meal so fast it scalds his throat, pleading homework to get out of washing the dishes.

His mother might be gullible, but she’s no pushover.

“You’ve plenty of time to do your homework after you’ve done the dishes,” she says.

“But Cathy could- ”

“It’s not Cathy’s turn. And she has more homework than you do, but you don’t hear your sister whining about doing her fair share.”

Cathy widens her eyes and flutters her eyelashes at him, enjoying her beatification.

He stamps up the stairs twenty minutes later, grumbling to himself under his breath.

“Where were you?”

His heart does a quick skip. Cathy, waiting to pounce on the landing.

“When?”

“Well, I’m not talking about when God was handing out brains, ’cos we both know you were scuffing your shoes at the back of the queue, that day.”

He scowls at her, but his sister is armour-plated and his scowls bounce harmlessly off her thick skull.

“Mary Thomas said you went home sick at four.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Is.”

He tries to barge past, but she’s got long arms and she is fast on her feet. “You’re a little liar, Vincent Connolly.”

“Am not.”

“Are. How would you know if the dress rehearsal went well? How would you know dress rehearsal finished early, when you missed the dress rehearsal?” She adds spitefully, “It’s a shame, really. Miss Taggart says you make a lovely little dancer.”

He feels the familiar burn of humiliation and outrage at the intrusion. She’s no right to talk to his class teacher like he’s just a little kid. He sees the gleam of triumph in her eyes and hates her for it.

Cathy is fourteen and attends the convent school on Mount Pleasant; she’ll be at the big parade, too. But while she gets to keep her dignity, playing the recorder, Vincent is expected to make a tit of himself, prancing about in an animal mask. In an animal mask in front of the Queen.

“Get lost, Cathy.”

Cathy pulls a sad face. “Now Miss Taggart says you won’t be able to be in the pageant.”

“You can have my mask, if you like,” he says. “Be an improvement.” Silly moo doesn’t know she’s just made his day. He makes a break for his room, and she gives way; it doesn’t occur to him that she let him pass. He’s thinking he’ll buy that Chopper bike with the money in the bag, take his mum shopping, buy her a whole new outfit. He’ll get his dad a carton of ciggies – the good ones in the gold packs. As for Cathy, she can whistle. No – he thinks, shoving open his bedroom door – I’ll get her a paper bag – a big one to fit over her big fat ugly head. No, a tarantula – no, two tarantulas – no, a whole nest of tarantulas. Six of them – a dozen – big enough to eat a bird in one gulp; evil creatures with bone-crushing jaws and fat bodies and great goggly eyes on stalks. I’ll make a cosy den for them under her pillow and stay awake until she comes up to bed… A whole hour later than him, by the way, ’cos Cathy’s a big girl-

He loses the thread of his fantasy. His bed has been carefully remade, the blankets tucked in. The dirty linen he’d used to camouflage the bag is folded neatly at the foot of the bed. And the bag has gone. He feels its absence like a hole in the centre of him.

Horrified, he whirls to face the door, but Cathy has slipped quietly away. Her bedroom door is shut. He boots it open.

Cathy is sitting cross-legged on her bed, the bag in front of her.

“You bloody-”

“Thief?” she says, in that pert way that drives him crackers. “Takes one to know one, doesn’t it, Vincent?”

“You give it back!”

She puts a finger to her lips and cocks her head. The front door slams. It’s Dad. She whispers, “Anybody home?”

Their father’s voice booms out, a second after, like an echo in reverse: “Anybody home?”

Her eyes sparkle with malicious good humour. “What would Dad say if he knew you’d been thieving?”

Vincent clenches his fists, tears of impotent rage pricking his eyes. He considers rushing her, but Dad would hear and come to investigate.

“Give me it. It’s mine.”

“Now, Vincent, we both know that’s not true.” She plucks at the zip and he wants to fling himself at her, to claw it from her grasp.

She shouts, “Is that you, Dad?” putting on her girly voice just for him.

Their father’s footsteps clump up the stairs. “How’s my girl?” he says.

“Just getting changed.” She raises her eyebrows, and reluctantly, Vincent back-heels the door shut.

Their father passes her door and they hear a heavy sigh as he slumps on to the bed to take off his shoes.

Cathy is smiling as she unzips the bag, and Vincent wants to kill her.

First, she looks blank, then puzzled, then worried.

“You can turn off the big act,” he whispers furiously.

Only she doesn’t look like she’s acting. And when she finally turns her face to him, her expression is one of sick horror.

“Oh, Vincent,” she whispers.

His stomach flips. The anticipated wealth – the bundles of cash, the glittering treasures of his imagination – all crumbles to dust.

Carefully, reverently, she lifts a Bible and a set of rosary beads out of the bag. The beads are dark, solid wood; a serious rosary, a man’s rosary. She holds it up so the silver crucifix swings, and he stares at it, almost hypnotized.

She reaches into the carry-all again, and brings out a small package, wrapped in brown paper. Three words are printed in neat block capitals on the front of it: “FOR FATHER O’BRIEN”.

They stare at it for a long moment.

“Vinnie, you robbed a priest.”

“He isn’t,” Vincent whispers, his voice hoarse. He feels sweat break out on his forehead.

Wordlessly, she holds up the rosary, the Jersusalem Bible.

“He can’t be – he was wearing normal clothes.”

“Shh!” She looks past him to the bedroom door, and he realizes he had been shouting. They hold their breath, listening for their father. There’s no sound, and after a moment she whispers: “He might be on his holidays.”

“He was wearing a leather jacket, Cath.”

She looks into his face, absorbing the information, but her eyes stray again to the parcel, as if pulled by a magnet. “So, maybe it’s his brother, or a friend. It doesn’t matter, Vinnie: that parcel is addressed to Father O’Brien. There’s no getting away from it – you robbed a priest.” She bites her lip. “And that’s a mortal sin.”

Cathy is in the Legion of Mary, and she’s been on two retreats with the sisters of Notre Dame. She always gets an A in Religious Education – so if Cathy says it’s a mortal sin, he knows for sure that the devil is already stoking the fires of hell, chucking on extra coals, ready to roast him.

“I’ll go to confession, I’ll do penance – I’ll do a novena,” he gabbles, trying to think of something that will appease. “I’ll do the Nine First Fridays-”

The shocked look on his sister’s face makes him stop. But the Nine First Fridays are the most powerful prayer he knows: a special devotion to the Sacred Heart, getting up at six o’clock on the first Friday each month for nine solid months to attend early mass and receive the Holy Eucharist – surely that will wipe his sin away?

“Vincent,” she says, gently, “there’s no penance for a mortal sin – and you can’t receive Holy Communion with a big black stain on your soul: it would be like inviting Jesus into your home with the devil sitting by the fire in your favourite armchair.”

When he was little, Vincent’s mum and dad both had to work, and Cathy would take care of him after school, in the holidays – even weekends, if Mum got the chance of overtime. Between the ages of five and eight, Cathy had been his minder, his teacher, his best mate, the maker-up of games and adventures. But he’d got bigger, and by his ninth birthday he wanted his independence. He became rebellious, and she was offended and hurt and that made her superior and sarcastic. Now, feeling the devil squatting deep inside him, chiselling away at his soot-blackened soul, he feels small again, frightened and lost, and he wishes she would take charge.

“What’m I gonna do, Cath?”

She stares at the neat brown package as if it’s radioactive.

“Vinnie…” She frowns, distracted, like she’s doing a difficult sum in her head. “There’s only one way to get let off a mortal sin.” She turns her eyes on him, and they are so filled with fear that Vincent is seized by a terrible dread.

“What d’you mean, ‘it’s gone’?”

The man in the leather jacket is standing in a phone box, opposite the clock tower of the university’s Victoria Building. The quarter chimes have sounded and the clock’s gilt hands read 6.32; he should be in position by now. He closes his eyes. “Gone…vanished. Stolen.”

“You lost it.” His unit commander’s voice is hard, nasal, contemptuous.

“I thought it would be safe in the car.”

“Oh, well, that’s all right then – anyone can make a mistake.”

“It was well hidden.”

“Not that well, eh?”

The man fixes his gaze on the gleaming face of the clock, willing the hands to move, but the silence seems to last an eternity.

“When?”

“Sometime between six last night and five this morning.”

“Twelve hours you left it?”

“Wouldn’t it draw attention if I checked the damn thing every five minutes?”

“Watch your tone.”

The man grips the phone receiver hard. The sun has been up since 4.30 and the temperature in the glass box must be eighty degrees, but he daren’t ease the door open for air.

“Is it set to go?”

“It’s on a twenty-four-hour timer, like you said. It’ll trigger automatically at three this afternoon.” He takes a breath to speak again, but the voice on the line interrupts.

“Shut up – I’m thinking.”

He waits in obedient silence.

“Whoever took it must’ve dumped it, otherwise you’d be locked up in a police cell by now.”

“That’s what I-”

“I’m speaking, here.”

He clamps his mouth shut so fast he bites his tongue.

“Even so, you’d better not go back to the hotel. Leave the car, catch a bus to Manchester. I’ll have someone pick you up.”

“I have a weapon. I could still complete my mission.”

“And how close d’you think you’d get?”

“I could mingle with the crowd. They won’t even see me.”

A snort of derision. “You’ve a whiff of the zealot about you, lad. They’ll sniff you out in a heartbeat, so they will – be all over you like flies on shit.” The man listened to the metallic harshness of the voice, his eyes closed. “This’s what you get when you send a dalta to do a soldier’s job.”

That stings – he’s no raw recruit. “Haven’t I proved myself a dozen times?”

“Not this time, son – and this is the one that counts.”

“It’s a setback – I’ll make up for it.”

“You will. But not in Liverpool; not today.”

“Look, I checked it out – the approach roads are closed, but there’s a bridge-”

“What d’you think you’ll hit with a thirty-eight-calibre service revolver from a bloody bridge?”

He wants to say he’s been practising – that he can hit a can from thirty yards – but that would sound childish. A tin can isn’t a moving target, and it takes more than a steady hand to look another human being in the face and fire a bullet into them. So he says nothing.

“No,” his superior says. “No. They’d catch you. And make no mistake – they would shoot you like a dog.’”

“I don’t care.”

“Only fools want to be martyrs, son. And if you don’t care, I do. I care that we’ve spent money on equipment and you let a scouse scallywag walk away with it. I care that security will be stepped up for every official visit after today – even if you walk away right now. Because there’s the small matter of a package that will turn up at three p.m.” He sighed angrily. “We’ll just have to pray to God the thieving bastard left it somewhere useful, like the city centre.”

He books his ticket for one o’clock and walks down to the docks to clear his head. They are still adding the finishing touches to the stands when he stops by the tunnel approach on his way back to the coach station. He joins a group of kids gawping through the wire mesh at the chippies hammering the final nails in the platform. He can see the plaque above the tunnel, draped in blue cloth. This is where the Queen will make her speech. A team of men are sweeping the road leading to the tunnel entrance and a dozen more are raking smooth the bare soil of the verges.

Attendance is by invitation only, but a man dressed in overalls and looking like he has a job to do might pass unchallenged and find a good spot under the stands. Only what would be the point? Without the device, it would be hopeless: even if he did manage to remain undiscovered, he would have to abandon his hiding place, walk out in front of thousands of people, place himself close enough to aim his pistol and fire.

Police are already clustered in threes and fours along the newly metalled road; there will be sharpshooters along the route – and, true enough, they would shoot him like a dog.

Father O’Brien hadn’t been anyone important. He didn’t have the ear of the bishop and he wasn’t destined for Rome; he hadn’t a scholarly brain nor a Jesuit’s mind to play the kind of politics it would take to elevate him above parish priest.

But he was a good man. He came from the fertile chalklands of Wexford, around Bantry Bay, where they spoke in softer tones, and faces were more given to smile. He liked a drink, and would stand you a pint if he fell into conversation with you at the Crown Bar, but he wouldn’t hesitate to tell a man when he’d had enough, and he’d tipped more than one out on to the street before he’d drunk his fill. The man’s father and the priest had come to blows over that; he’d taken to drinking after he lost his job on the shipyard. Father O’Brien had kicked his da out of that bar every night for a fortnight, until on the last day, his da got murderous mad. He swung wildly at Father O’Brien, out on the street, but the priest ducked and dodged, light on his feet, deflecting and blocking, until at last, dizzy and exhausted, his da had sunk to the pavement and wept.

“Ten thousand men work at the Belfast shipyard, Father,” he’d said, his words sloshing out of his mouth. “And just four hundred Catholics among them. You’ve a good education: can you tell me what makes a Protestant better at lugging sacks of grain than a Catholic? Is there some calculation that adds up the worth of a man and subtracts a measure of humanity because he was born a Catholic?”

Father O’Brien didn’t have an answer, but he sat with the boy’s father on the kerb, until he’d raged and wept the anger out of him, and then the priest walked him home. He knew this to be the God’s honest truth, for the man had seen it with his own eyes as a boy of fourteen.

Father O’Brien didn’t preach taking up arms against the oppressor. He wasn’t affiliated to the IRA, nor even Sinn Féin. “My only affiliation,” he would say, “is to God Almighty; my only obligation is to my flock.” Which was how he came to die. Not in a hail of bullets, but in the stupidest, most pointless way imaginable. A macho squaddie – a bad driver trying to impress his oppos – lost control of his vehicle turning a corner. Father O’Brien had been visiting a house in the next street, delivering the last sacraments to an old man dying of the cancer. The armoured vehicle skidded, clipped the opposite kerb, spun one hundred and eighty degrees, and smashed into the end of a terrace decorated with a painting of the Irish tricolour. Father O’Brien was pinned against the wall and died instantly.

He had been a gentle man, and a modest one, yet the violence and futility of his death had made a spectacle of him: a thing to point to as evidence of the British army’s lack of respect; a dread event for old men to sigh and shake their heads over; a lurid tale for children to whisper in the playground, of the priest who was cut in half by an armoured car. Father O’Brien was no longer remembered for the good he’d done in life – only for the notoriety of his death.

The man had meant to deliver a message: that Father O’Brien’s death would not go unpunished, and in failing in his mission he had failed Father O’Brien.

Vincent and Cathy stand in the porch. It’s just shy of seven o’clock, and the sun is shining hot through the top light of the front door. Cathy’s face is pale.

“You know what you have to do?”

He nods, but he has a lump in his throat as big as a bottle-washer ollie, so he can’t speak.

She straightens his tie and combs her fingers through his hair, staring solemnly down at him. He doesn’t squirm; in truth, he wouldn’t complain if she took him by the hand and walked with him down the street in broad daylight, because he does not want to do this alone.

She seems taller, today. Grown up.

“I’ll tell Mum you had to go early to rehearsals.”

He frowns, wishing he hadn’t skipped rehearsals the day before; thinks that dancing in an animal mask seems small humiliation, compared with what he has to do now.

“I’ll tell Miss Taggart you’ve got a tummy bug, in case it takes a while, so you’ll have to make yourself scarce for the rest of the day. All right?”

He nods again.

She hands him the small blue carry-all and blinks tears from her eyes.

He hefts the bag and squares his shoulders, setting off down the street like a soldier off to war.

The car is parked outside the hotel, but he waits an hour and still the man hasn’t come out. Another half-hour, and the manager appears on the doorstep.

“What’re you up to?” he asks.

“Is the man here – the one that owns the Morris Minor?”

The manager is broad-faced, with small eyes. He jams his hands in his trouser pockets and says, “What’s it to you?”

He’s wearing grey flannel trousers and a matching waistcoat to hide his soft belly; Vincent reckons he could easy out-run him, but his great sin burns his soul like acid, so he stills his itchy feet, and composes his face into an approximation of innocence.

“Got something for him.”

The manager lifts his chin. “That it?” He holds a hand out for the bag. “I’ll make sure he gets it.”

Vincent tightens his grip on the carry-all and takes a step back. “Is he in?”

“Went out early,” the man says. “Missed his breakfast.”

“I’ll wait.”

“Not here, you won’t – you’re making my guests nervous, loitering outside.”

“You can’t stop me. It’s a free country.” He feels a pang of guilt: he promised Cathy he’d mind his manners.

“We’ll see what the police’ve got to say about that.” The man narrows his eyes. “Anyway, shouldn’t you be in school?” His small eyes fasten on Vincent’s blazer pocket. He’s forgotten to pin the SFX badge over the real one. He clamps his hand over his pocket and the man comes at him, pitching forward as he lurches down the steps. Vincent turns and flees.

He pelts up the hill and cuts right into Rodney Street, then dodges left into the Scotch Churchyard and ducks behind one of the gravestones, hugging the bag close to his chest. He can’t stop shaking. The gardens of the convent back on to the graveyard; he’ll catch his sister in the grounds during break. He checks his watch – playtime won’t be for another hour-and-a-half. He sits down behind McKenzie’s pyramid to wait.

He would have gone – in fact, he was already on his way. If the bus hadn’t been diverted. If the driver hadn’t turned down Shaw Street. If the new route hadn’t taken them through Everton. If he’d looked out of the window to his left, rather than his right.

If, if, if… He would have stayed on the bus and been picked up in Manchester and made his ignominious way home. But in Everton, Orange Lodge and Catholic sectarianism was as strong as on any street in Belfast. A long stretch of grey wall ran beneath the new high-rise blocks on Netherfield Road. If he had turned away, just for a second, bored by the monotony of grey concrete and dusty pavements… But something had caught his eye; he glanced right and had seen the insult, daubed in orange paint on a grey wall – ill-spelt, angry, hateful: “THE POPE IS A BASTERD”.

He recoiled like he’d been spat at. All morning, a rage had smouldered, built from the tinder of grief and loss, fuelled by the shock of finding the device gone and, yes, by the mortification he had suffered in telling his commander. Now it sparked and flared, and he blazed with righteous fire.

He lurched from his seat to the front. “Stop the bus,” he said.

The driver didn’t even take his eyes off the road. “It’s not a request service, Paddy, lad.”

“Oh, good – ’cos this is not a request.”

The driver swivelled his head to look at him. “And who d’you think you are?”

The man took hold of the driver’s seatback and leaned in, allowing his leather jacket to fall open just enough to show the revolver tucked in his belt. “I’m the Angel of Death, son.”

It’s four minutes to three as he heads south-west down Birkenhead Road on the other side of the Mersey. He’d crossed the great wide dock of East Float and crossed it again, tracking over every one of the Four Bridges, lost. Forty-five minutes later, he’d fetched up at the Seacombe Ferry terminal, with just a handrail between him and the muddy waters of the Mersey. He could happily have thrown himself in, had a kindly ferryman not asked him if he was off to the parade, and given him clear directions to Wheatland Lane, where he might stand on the bridge and wave to the Queen. He barrels along, the little car’s engine screaming, past a stretch of blasted landscape. His heart is beating like an Orange Man’s Lambeg. It’s two minutes before the hour. She’ll give her speech on the Liverpool side, then motor through to Wallasey; giving him time to find a spot. He will deliver the message for Father O’Brien. He almost misses the sharp turn westward and wrestles the wheel right. The gun slides in his lap, and he catches it, tucking it firmly in his waistband.

He’s driving full into the afternoon sun, now; it scorches his face, burning through the windscreen, and he yanks the visor down. A sheet of paper flutters on to the dashboard. His foot hard on the pedal, he picks it up, squints at it as he powers towards the bridge.

It’s a note, written on lined paper, in a child’s neat handwriting:

His eyes widen. He hits the brakes. The car skids, turning ninety degrees, sliding sideways along the empty road. He reaches for the door, but his fingers seem too big, too clumsy to work the handle, he can’t seem to get a grip of the lever. He can’t seem to-

The thin, electronic beep of the clock in the bag under his seat sounds a fraction of a second before the flash. Then the windows shatter and the grey bodywork blows apart like a tin can on a bonfire.