Falling Glass (34 page)

Rachel saw everything and began yelling for the others but no one could hear her over the fire. Markov launched a crescent kick at Killian which he dodged.

“We don’t need to do this,” Killian muttered, scrambling to his feet.

“You talk too much,” Markov said, kicked Killian in the shin, grabbed the drawstrings of his hoodie and pulled Killian forward into an elbow punch that broke his nose. Markov hit him again with a right hook and a left uppercut.

Killian reeled.

Blood poured from his nostrils.

He gasped air and breathed more blood.

His eye was partially closed and couldn’t see but he could feel the punches raining in.

He put his hands over his head, stepped back, pulled the hood from his forehead and tried to open his eyes.

Markov did a knifehand strike to Killian’s throat and if it had connected properly that might have been it but Killian got up a partial block on pure instinct alone. His heart was racing. He was in full panic mode.

This guy was destroying him.

In a second or two he’d think to look for the gun again while Killian couldn’t see. And if he had a blade Killian was a dead man.

Killian had one play.

It was it or nothing.

He ran at Markov, picked him up bodily in a bear hug and kept running until they reached the sea.

Markov punched and hit him but Killian kept going until he could feel the surf about his knees and then he dumped the Russian in the water.

Killian shoved Markov under the breakers and pushed down on his shoulders.

He squeezed with those big butcher-boy fingers, holding Markov just beneath the surface while Markov punched and kicked and even screamed.

Killian began counting in his head.

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty.

Markov looked up through the waves.

He didn’t want to die here.

In Ireland.

So far from home.

So cold.

With this horrible man’s face the last thing he would ever see.

He didn’t want to die.

“Marina!” he screamed.

So cold.

So very cold.

Like Volgograd in winter.

Like Grozny.

That stupid Irishman, so slow, so old.

Look at him.

Look at him.

I should never have killed that priest.

So cold.

Marina…

When Killian reached 150 in his count he pulled Markov out of the water.

A crowd had gathered.

Killian dumped the dead Russian on the beach.

Rachel was up on the dune with Claire and Sue. As soon as she’d been able she’d gathered her girls and run. Good lass. He was proud of her.

“Is he dead?” Donal asked from behind him.

Killian turned, nodded.

“I suppose now we’ll have to call the peelers,” Donal said.

“Or just leave. Now,” Killian said.

“Was he local?” Donal asked.

“Russian. He was an iceman. He was going to kill Rachel. This whole attack was just cover for him,” Killian said.

Donal nodded and said no more.

Pavee didn’t pry. Killian fished out Markov’s wallet which contained a Nevada driver’s licence.

“You think we should up sticks and go?”

“Leave him here,” Killian said, his brain cooking.
If I’m fast enough I can pin it all on Markov. This and what comes after.

“Aye. We’ll go,” Donal said. “We’ll go to Donegal right now.”

Donal gave him a handkerchief for his nose.

“Thanks, mate. I’m sorry for all the trouble,” Killian said.

“Brother, think nothing of it, we’re all still alive and more or less in one piece,” Donal said.

“More or less,” Killian agreed.

Killian offered Donal his hand. Donal shook it, smiled.

“I’d be grateful if you’d take Rachel and the girls and look after them,” Killian said.

“What about you?” Donal asked.

Killian spied the Russian’s gun and used Donal’s handkerchief to pick it up out of the sand.

“I’m going to finish this.”

Donal nodded and pressed his forehead against Killian’s forehead.

“God and Mary and Patrick,” Donal said.

“Aye,” Killian replied.

He walked over to Rachel.

She was hugging her girls and crying. He kneeled beside her and wrapped his arms round all of them.

“I can’t take much more of this,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re not to going to have to.”

Rachel looked at him and she looked at the gun. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to end it. Tonight.”

“Tell me.”

Killian shook his head. “It’s best that you don’t know.”

Killian knelt next to Claire and Sue. “Goodbye girls,” he said and kissed first Claire and then Sue on the top of the head.

Claire politely said goodbye and Sue looked at him oddly and hugged his legs.

“I’m going to miss you, little one,” he said in Irish.

“Me too,” she replied in the same language and burst into tears.

He could feel his throat crack. “Now, now child,” Killian said and to Rachel: “Go easy on this one and she’ll be just fine.”

“Girls, give me one moment,” Rachel said, stood, took Killian by the arm and walked a little bit away.

“Where are you going?” she asked when they were out of earshot.

“It’s like I said, I’m going to finish this.”

“You’re going to see Richard? What are you going to do, Killian?”

“I’m going to take care of it. Come on, Rachel. Trust me,” he said and smiled.

She looked at him. Those dark eyes, that lunk jaw. He looked like a B-movie villain.

But he wasn’t a villain.

He had brought the best out of Sue.

And Claire liked him.

And he had saved their lives.

And now he was going to go and risk his life again.

For what?

“What have you got from all of this?” she asked.

Killian breathed deep and looked at her and the girls and he thought of the photo in his wallet. “I got plenty,” he said.

“I don’t think I understand,” she said.

“That’s okay,” he said.

“Kiss me,” she said.

“I can’t, I’m bleeding,” he said.

She grabbed his shoulders and pulled him close and kissed him and held him and burst into tears.

She knew that this was it for them.

One way or another.

But then it didn’t matter.

He had already given her everything he had. He had given her his time and his patience and he was offering up his life on the altar of her and the children’s future. And she was changed by him, changed for ever. Never again would she put the gun barrel in her mouth, never again would she surrender to despair or to fear.

As he said the great enemy was death.

The great enemy was death and as long as you breathed you were his master.

You could never forget that.

To live at all was miracle enough.

“I’m never going to see you again, am I?”

“If it all works out… no,” he said and kissed her on the cheek and walked to the car park, hot-wired the Merc, and headed south with the burning caravans and the crowd on the beach and the men loading horses into horseboxes fading quickly in the glass of the rear-view mirror.

chapter 18
once upon a time in belfast

I
N
P
AVEE SOCIETY, LIKE AT
I
LIUM, A MAN AND HIS ACTIONS WERE
identical. You didn’t think one thing and do another. If you ran, you were a runner. If you abandoned someone to their fate, you were a coward. You acted and the gods observed and Fate turned her wheel.

It was time to act.

Killian drove the Merc to Belfast along the A2.

He pulled into a BP station and bought paracetamol, a balaclava and WD40. He gulped the paracetamol and cleaned and oiled the .45, being careful to leave Markov’s fingerprints on the grip.

He drove to the Malone Road in leafy, wealthy south Belfast. He parked the Merc a street away from Tom Eichel’s house and put the gun in his pocket.

It was a comparatively modest Georgian three-storey affair with black, cast-iron railings and a door that opened onto the street. It was all location of course and around here it was two million five, easy.

Killian walked up the steps and rang the doorbell.

There was a pause before Tom opened it. He was dressed in a purple nightgown and holding a cup of tea. He should have thrown the tea and slammed the door immediately – his only chance, Killian thought.

Killian pointed the .45 at him. “Turn slowly, and put your hands up.”

Tom’s eyes were yellow and glazed. He seemed out of it.

“Turn slowly and put your hands up,” Killian repeated.

He set his teacup on the hall table and put his hands in the air.

Killian closed the front door behind him.

Tom was unmarried but you never knew who might be around. He made Tom walk him through the house and they finally retired to a book-lined living room where a peat fire was burning. They sat in leather armchairs on either side of the hearth. Killian made sure Tom was well away from pokers or fire irons.

There was a strangeness to Tom’s face and his movements were like a man drowning in molasses.

Killian looked into those yellow, beady eyes and noticed that the pupils were dilated. His face was flushed and there was sweat on his upper lip.

“Are you high?” Killian asked.

“Yes,” Tom said simply.

“On what?”

“H. Dragon chasing. Over tinfoil. Nothing too serious.”

“You’re a drug addict?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that. I have rigid discipline. Only in times of great stress or on special occasions. Half a dozen times a year at the most.”

“Which one’s this? A time of great stress or a special occasion?”

“A little of both.”

Killian leaned back in the chair and examined him. He wasn’t on top form. He was like a melted candle with his hair draped over his face and perspiration on his face. He looked haggard, tired.

“So,” Tom said at last.

“I need to ask you something, Tom,” Killian said.

“What?”

“It’s about Richard. I know that
you’ll
never stop but I would really appreciate your honest assessment of Richard. I’ve killed Markov and I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill you but what will Richard do? He’s an unknown quantity. Can I let him live or will he keep going after her?”

Tom’s eyes widened but he didn’t flinch.

He thought about it.

“I’ve put the fear of God into him. She’s a junkie, Killian. She’s capable of anything. If she told the cops or the papers there would have to be an inquiry. It took a while but I finally explained just how serious this all was to him. One of the girls in the house died during an abortion. She might be one of the ones in the tape. Jesus! It would be the end of everything.”

“So you think Richard will try and top her?”

“I do. There’s so many angles. We could blame her junkie pals, the IRA… And she’s silenced.”

Killian nodded. “That’s what I thought. It’s a real catch-22. If she says nothing she’ll never feel safe from Richard, if she goes to the police, the IRA will see to it that she never makes it to trial. At the very least she’ll never feel safe.”

Tom shook his head. “No,” he agreed.

“The only way is to take Richard out of the picture, you out of the picture and never mention the laptop or what was on it to anyone.”

They sat while the turf logs cracked and spat and the grandfather clock in the hall ticked.

“I suppose there’s nothing I can say to dissuade you,” Tom offered with a thin smile.

Killian shook his head.

“She got her hooks into you, huh?”

“It’s not like that,” Killian said.

“What about money? I have a lot of money,” Tom tried.

“No.”

Tom swallowed hard.

“So you’re just going to kill me?”

“I have to kill both of you.”

Tom nodded.

“Did Richard know about the attack on the tinkers?” Killian asked.

“Not a thing. Plausible deniability.”

“So he’s not sitting up waiting for a phone call?”

“No. Although that place is a bloody fortress.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s going to be tricky.”

Tom sniffed and bit his lip. He repressed a couple of sobs. He had a German father and an Ulster Presbyterian mother. Not the most demonstrative of combinations. “There’s really nothing I can say?” he asked.

“No.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“Please, Killian.”

“No.”

Killian didn’t want to torture the man. He lifted the .45.

Tom put up a finger. “Wait! You don’t have to actually shoot me, do you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“What if I overdosed? What if I injected myself,” he asked.

“You take it intravenously too?”

Tom laughed. “Not since the bad old days, not for years, but as you’ll find with your lady friend the hunger never leaves you.”

Killian walked him to a compartment in the floorboards. An iron lockbox with a passport, money, bags of unrefined heroin and cocaine, a bag of sterile needles.

“I’ve been saving this. For a rainy day,” he said.

He was excited now.

All he could think about was the hit. The adrenalin would make it all the sweeter.

“Do you need any help?” Killian asked.

Tom shook his head.

He cooked the heroin with a lighter, made a speedball with the cocaine, sucked up a dose to kill an elephant, tied off an arm, lay down on the sofa and injected himself.

He closed his eyes and a look of ecstasy passed across his face.

Fatal respiratory depression occurred when the cocaine wore off and the heroin was felt in isolation. His breathing became laboured and finally he stopped breathing all together. There was no death rattle, no heave.

Killian checked for a pulse, found nothing and left the house.

He drove the Merc back to Whitehead and parked it on a side street just before the Bla Hole cliff.

It was half a mile from here to Knocknagulla.

He got the spare tyre from under the cloth in the Mercedes’ boot. He put the tyre under his arm, turned up his funny-looking raincoat, rolled up the balaclava until it was just above his eyebrows and walked along the road.