Field of Blood (46 page)

a grip on the boards as Prentice and Goss hoisted him away with the

motion of the line. McAnally's eyes were locked on Ferris. `Don't you see? It's bloody Ferris ...'

Sam jabbed her elbow into Ferris's side. `Who is he?

'He's nothing you need to know about.' McAnally leered across the floor.

`That's a great bit of fanny, Ferris,' McAnally shouted. `You're on a better bloody

promise than I am ... You've got a right looking raver, I've got these jerks ... I hope it's a promise, hope it wasn't her that did your nose.'

Prentice was laughing, and Goss was trying not to look pained, and McAnally was

laughing with Prentice and giggling with Goss,. and leaning on their arms, and the singing died and the arm chains broke.

Ìs this some crack of Rennie's?' To Prentice it was a hell of a joke.

`Did Rennie put you up to being here?' Goss, embarrassed, trying

for his answers. Ì mean you're hardly in this dump out of choice.'

Ferris turned his back, he turned away so that he faced Sam.

`He's Belfast,' Ferris said simply. `He's nothing to do with here.'

`What is he in Belfast?

'He's ... Sam, I can't plead the bloody Official Secrets Act with you.'

`What is he?

'He's . . .'

He felt the fingers grappling with the shoulder of his jacket. He spun, McAnally was hanging to his clothes, and he stank of Scotch and the cheroot was still in his

mouth. Prentice and Goss were holding McAnally upright.

`Mister bloody Ferris ... Happy New Year, a fucking happier New Year than the last one was ... You've forgotten your Gingy, haven't you? You wouldn't be 253

thinking about Gingy when you've that fanny with you ... aren't you going to introduce us? You're friendly enough with Taig filth, with Gingy McAnally, when

you're 'cross the water. Aren't you going to be friendly now?

'I'd love to meet your friends, David,' Sam said, and she rolled her south‐of-England accent, and Ferris thought she might have winked at the minders.

Ferris said unhappily, `Sam, this is Sean McAnally, and this is John Prentice, and

this is Andy Goss ... gentlemen, this is Samantha Forster . . .'

`Pleased to meet you, Mr McAnally.'

`Fucking pleased to meet you, Samantha.'

`Watch your foul mouth, Gingy . . .' Prentice snapped.

`You're talking to a lady, Gingy . . .' Goss snapped.

`Good‐looking fanny, and all . . .' McAnally belched.

Ì hear you're a friend of David's, Mr McAnally.'

`Prefer to be your fucking friend, lady ... Get some drinks, Goss, for my friend and his fucking lady ... Piss off and get the drinks.'

`Gingy . . .' Ferris's voice was cold, quiet. `You are behaving like a silly shit, Gingy.'

`"A silly shit, Gingy",' McAnally tried to mimic Ferris. `Not good enough for the officer, are we? Not good enough when he's going to get laid by this lady ...

Where're those drinks, Goss?'

She was laughing. Her head was back, her hair was back. She was laughing through her open mouth, her open lips.

Ìf I was you, Mister officer, I wouldn't be hanging round the likes of us when you

could be laying that lady.'

The laughter was pealing in Ferris's head.

Ferris smashed his fist into the right‐side cheek of Gingy McAnally's face.

The fist slapped into the soft flesh of the cheek, crunched against the

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**jaw bone. Ferris had never before hit a man with the bare knuckles of his fist.

There was a moment of bewilderment spilling over McAnally's face,

then his mouth screwed tight with the pain.

`He's only drunk, there's no call . . .' Sam shouted. `You daft bugger,' Prentice growled.

McAnally's knees buckled. He crumpled down onto the floor, down amongst their

feet.

The bouncer piled into the knot of Prentice and Goss and Ferris and Sam. When

he pulled Goss's jacket the button cotton snapped and the jacket came open and

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the bouncer saw the shoulder holster and the wood handle of the P.P.K. Walther,

and he backed away. The music soared around them, and the dancers cocooned

them.

McAnally held his hand over the right side of his cheek.

The bewilderment was past, and the pain was overcome, he was suffused with fury.

Ì tell you what, Ferris, I'll tell you this ... if I ever had any doubts, I've no doubts now ... I'm out, I'm gone. You get on the phone to Mister bloody Rennie, and you

tell him from me, tell him that Gingy McAnally's on his bike. He can stuff his fucking immunity, he can shove his evidence up his arse ... You tell him that, you

tell Mister bloody Rennie that Gingy McAnally's not part of his bloody plans, not

any more . . .'

Goss bent to placate McAnally, and was shoved away.

`Don't play the bloody soft soaper with me. I'm gone ...'

There were tears welling in McAnally's eyes. He gazed up at Ferris. Àll the bullshit about friendship . . .' He tried to imitate Ferris's

accent. Ì'll stand beside you, I'll step in front of you ‐ horseshit. I'm

scum to you, to you I'm just a Taig tout. I'm not a person, I'm just a

Taig informer to be pissed on ...'

A crack in Sam's voice. She rounded on Ferris. Ìs he a supergrass?T 'He's a fucking supergrass, lady, he's a fucking stoogie.' McAnally

choked out the words, smeared his sleeve across his eyes.

`You're mixed up with people like this?

'Didn't he tell you what shit he's mixed with, doesn't he tell his

fanny?'

Ferris saw that Prentice's fists were clenched, that Goss was poised to come forward.

McAnally crawled onto his knees, pushed himself up, and stood in front of Ferris.

Ì'm out, I've quit.'

For a few steps McAnally staggered, then he seemed to regain his balance, and

he spun to the exit light. His head was down on his shoulders, he seemed not to

look ahead of him as he ploughed through the dancers.

'That was hell's clever,' Prentice said.

`You could have walked away,' Goss said. Òr did Rennie send you to cheer us all

up. If he did, haven't you made a bloody good job of it?'

Prentice sighed. He set off to follow McAnally. Ferris looked from Sam away to

the back of McAnally's head that was bobbing on the steps to the exit. He 255

muttered something, he didn't hear his own words and Sam wouldn't have heard

them, it was something of an apology.

Ferris ran across the floor, and he pushed Prentice back from the door, back down the steps. The bouncer was shouting in his ear that it was a respectable club, that his behaviour was a bloody disgrace.

The night air hit him. He tripped on a dustbin, clattered the lid off. He was in an

alleyway at the side of the club. He ran up the alley to the main street. He looked

right, then left, when he looked left he saw McAnally.

There was an oath from the alleyway behind him. He knew that Prentice had found the dustbin.

McAnally was holding onto a lamp post, and was vomiting. And he was crying, and Ferris could hear his sobs. A couple, arm in arm and in fancy dress, crossed

the road to avoid contact with McAnally.

He walked towards McAnally. McAnally would have heard his footsteps, and he

looked up and saw Ferris closing on him.

Ì said I'd bloody gone, I said I'd quit,' McAnally shouted. The vomit gleamed on

his shoes. He turned and shambled away up the street, and Ferris followed.

Ferris reached him at the traffic lights. McAnally stood, listless and with his head shrunk down into his shoulders, and waited for the lights to change. They crossed

the road together. He smelt the vomit on Gingy's waistcoat. Just as the

comedians said, it was always diced carrot. They walked past the shop windows,

past a patrolling policeman. In silence they walked until they came to a park.

There was a bench that was too near to the street and the lights for the couples

who shivered and sought warmth from each other's hands. Gingy had fought

back the tears, Ferris no longer heard the sounds of his crying.

Gingy sat on the bench. Ferris sat beside him.

Ì said I was quitting.'

Ìt was pretty daft what happened in there.'

Ì was going to quit, what happened inside's not to do with it.'

Ì'm sorry I hit you,' Ferris said simply.

Ì was pissed ... shit . . .' McAnally found the vomit on his hands. Ìt was the drink I'd taken.'

Ì didn't have to belt you.'

Ì'd have fucking belted me, if I'd been with the bird ...'

`So it happened, so it's history.'

`Did you walk out on your bird?'

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**Ferris took his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the mess from Gingy's

mouth, and took his hands and cleaned them, and he threw the handkerchief behind him into the Corporation's flowerbed.

Ì meant it, what I said, that I'm quitting.'

`They'll wreck you, they won't let you walk out. They'll put the mark on you.'

`You get so's you don't bloody care.'

`Rennie'll let it be known that you named the Monaghan man. He

burned to death, there'll be no love for you after that's known.' `Don't you listen, you get so's you don't bloody care.' `What happened, Gingy?'

Sean Pius McAnally told David Ferris about the telephone calls. `There's nothing

any of us can do about it,' Ferris said. `That's a bloody good help.'

Ì mean it, Gingy. You stayed in, she didn't.' `She's my wife, they're my kids.'

Ìt was her decision not to stay with you. She might change her mind.'

`She's never changed her mind yet,' McAnally laughed shrilly. And the laugh was

killed. Bright eyes staring at Ferris. `You want to know what it's like here?

'Tell me.'

Ì'm never out of their sight. It's all pals, isn't it? It's all Gingy and Johnny and Andy, it's all like we're bloody muckers in it together ... That's a lie. They say they're close on me because I need protection ... bollocks, they're with me so's I

don't quit ... but they can't stop me quitting ... I'm a bloody puppet to them. They tell me I need some clothes, so's we're out to the shops. I don't choose this suit,

Prentice chooses it. Prentice goes down the line and he decides what I'm going to

wear . . . I hate this bloody suit. Nobody asks me if I like the bloody suit. I'm not to open my bloody mouth, I'm just a parcel of shit that has to be tarted up. They don't want Gingy the way he is, used to be. They want him so's he's theirs. They

want the old Gingy buried, they want him like a bloody puppet, that they can sit

on their knee, that they can talk through. What do you call that?

'They call it a ventriloquist's dummy, Gingy.'

`That's what they want, Gingy for a dummy. I'm not having it ... They want to put

the mark on me, let them ... We're in a para barracks. The cover is that we're 'tecs over for a course. No sod's buying that. We're in a flat, top floor, end of corridor.

The door's always locked. They put me to bed, like I was a kid. I can hear them

when I'm in bed, I can hear them bloody laughing. The bloody walls are like cardboard, every time they bloody laugh I hear them. We go out each night, go

on the booze, and if I come out of the room after I've gone to bed, for a leak, then 257

the laughing stops. There's never any bloody laughing when I can get myself close to them.'

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Ferris shuddered in the cold, and Gingy's teeth were chattering, and he was gushing out his talk, as if speaking kept him warm. When he looked behind him

he saw the outline of Prentice sitting on a low wall of the park, fifty yards from

them, sitting and watching a man who was blown out.

Ì'm not a bloody fool, I know what they're at. They're at taking myself away from

me, they're at changing me. The clothes is changing me, and the bloody haircut's

changing me ... We went to church on Christmas morning, the local R.C. They looked a bit nervous, and they was watching everyone else so they'd get the movements right. I said I wanted to go to Confession, that was a morning after

Christmas. I didn't really want to go, I was chancing, but they said no, that I couldn't ...'

`What would you have confessed, Gingy?

'That's not your business.'

`Would you have confessed that you were an informer?

'Confession's not for blabbing about, not to the likes of you.'

Òr would you have confessed that you'd killed a judge and two detectives?

'Not your business.'

Òr that you were running scared?

'What do you know of running ... you've a bloody great army behind you. You're

not on your bloody own. If you were ever on your own, against them, then you

wouldn't give me talk about running scared.'

Again Ferris looked behind him. Prentice would have seen his face, white from the high street light. He saw Prentice raise his hand in acknowledgement. He knew that Prentice wouldn't approach. He knew Prentice would leave him to do

the graft alone, to bend McAnally once again back on course ... bastard.

`What else have you been playing at, Gingy?' Ferris asked briskly.

`Rehearsing, isn't that your word?

'Could be the word.'

`They've brought my statements over. We've been taking a morning on each

statement. Today it was what I said about Phonsie McGurr, yesterday it was Dusty O'Hara, day before was Fatsy Rawe. It's Brennie Toibin tomorrow ...