Shay wanted the screen to say Lisa. He needed to hear her voice. But it wasn’t. It was the priest. He pressed answer.
‘Shay? Jig’s in trouble.’
Shay snorted as if he’d been told a stupid joke.
Jig. Can you fucking believe it?
‘We need to find him . . . Shay?’
Shay stopped short from telling the priest to fuck off. Thick blood dripped through the tissues. He spread his legs apart to let it splatter on the ground. He grabbed his bloody rag and held it to his nostrils.
‘Can’t . . . help,’ he managed to say between spits and coughs.
‘Shay, something awful is about to happen.’
Shay ran his fingers along his nose again. The bone curved one way, then back the other way.
Must be broken. The pricks.
‘Shay?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Leo told me he was going to die tonight and that the crew were going with him. All of them . . . including Jig.’
Shay kept his head back and stared up at the sky, which flashed and exploded in colours. He sucked in air, struggling to cope with the choking sensation in his mouth and nose and the battering to his head.
‘He said the RCAD are in on it. He got me to say an Our Father with him and do an act of contrition.’
Shay leaned against a wall. He felt so weak and sick of it all. His tinnitus rang in his ear.
‘I’m at Jig’s mother’s house, but she won’t listen to me. She might to you . . . Shay?’
Shay hung up and dropped his hand down by his side, shoving his phone into a pocket.
Cunts, the lot of them. Fuck Jig. One less runt from a cesspit of a family. If Leo has a big bomb strapped to his bollocks and kills them all, good riddance.
He clenched his right fist and grated his teeth. Sweat ran down his spine.
Everything is fucked. My family. My career. The lot.
He pulled at his hair and scratched his face as he stuttered forward, weak and dizzy. He banged off a car and caught a glimpse of himself in the windows. The face looking back at him was smeared and swollen, bloodied and blackened, like something that crawled out of the mind of Francis Bacon. He laughed bitterly, spitting blood onto the pavement.
A girl and boy walked towards him, circling around as they approached. They looked the same age as Molly and Charlie. Shay bent down and held out his hand. They screeched at the sight of him and tore across the road, their trick-or-treat bags flapping in their hands.
Shay stood there looking at them as they ran away, glancing back at him in terror. He reached for his phone and pressed in Hall’s number.
‘Yes.’
‘Something’s going down,’ he said.
‘What phone are you ringing from?’
‘Emergency.’
‘You alright? Ring me from the other phone.’
‘Priest’s been on,’ Shay continued, managing to string a few words without spluttering. ‘Leo meeting Canal Gang. Tonight. All going to die. Jig even. RCAD involved.’
Silence.
‘We’re on top of it,’ Hall said.
Shay’s phone beeped with another call.
‘You don’t do anything,’ Hall said. ‘Is that clear?’
‘What?’ Shay shouted. ‘What about Jig?’
‘I told you, we’re on top of it. Do nothing.’
The line went dead.
The priest’s number flashed again.