“Jesus, you’re a fucking mess,” Campbell said.
“Fuck you,” Eddie Coyle said, forcing the words through the narrow opening of his mouth. Fegan had knocked out two teeth and dislocated his jaw. He looked like someone had molded his face from purple and yellow plasticine and sewn the pieces together.
“Shut up,” McGinty said from behind his desk. He pointed to the chair next to Coyle. “Sit down.”
McGinty had furnished his moderately sized constituency office with functional items, as befitted the party’s socialist dogma. Images of Republican heroes like James Connolly and Patrick Pearse decorated the walls. A map of Ireland divided into the four provinces hung above an Irish Tricolor.
“Our friend inside Lisburn Road station headed off a call from a hotel owner this morning,” McGinty said. “We were due a stroke of luck after the balls you two made of things.”
Campbell pointed to the ceiling, then his ear.
McGinty shook his head. “We’re clean. The place was swept for bugs this morning. As I was saying, our friend did well. He’ll get a nice bonus for his troubles and—despite my better judgment—you two get the chance to put things right. Do you think you can manage not to completely fuck it up this time?”
Campbell and Coyle did not answer.
“If I didn’t need to keep as few people in the know as possible, I’d have given this to someone else. But, as it’s a delicate matter, it’s up to you two.”
“Where are they?” Campbell asked.
“Portcarrick. It’s a little village up on the Antrim coast. Very pretty. There’s an old hotel on the bay called Hopkirk’s. They arrived there late last night, apparently. Gerry Fegan, Marie McKenna and the wee girl.”
Campbell knew the answer, but asked the question anyway. “What do you want us to do?”
McGinty gave him a hard stare. “Take a wild guess.”
“And what about the woman?”
McGinty’s eyes flickered for just an instant. “If she gets in the way, do whatever you have to.”
Coyle mopped drool from his chin with a stained handkerchief. He leaned forward in his seat. “And the wee girl?”
McGinty swivelled in his chair to look out the window at the greying sky. He wiped his mouth and looked at his hand, as if expecting to see blood there. “I said do whatever you have to.”
“No way I’m doing a wee girl.”
Squeezed between tight lips, Coyle’s words were hard to hear over the van’s rattling engine. It had been bought from a scrap dealer that morning. Red paint and rust had flaked at the touch of Campbell’s finger. He drove.
“It probably won’t come to that,” he said.
“But it might.” Coyle dabbed at his mouth.
“We’ll see. Do you know how to get to this place?”
“Sort of. Head for the M2. Keep going till you hit Antrim, then Ballymena. After that, we’ll have to go by the road signs.”
Campbell headed east across the city, onto the Falls Road and past the imposing Divis Tower, once a focal point of violence in the city. The top two floors of the twenty-storey block of flats had been commandeered by the British Army in the early Seventies for its views over the city. Because it stood at the heart of militant Republicanism, they could only access it by helicopter. Campbell had often wondered what it was like for the residents in the floors below, hearing their enemy’s footsteps above their homes, and the thunderous clatter of the helicopters bringing soldiers in and out, day and night. The army had abandoned it two years ago. Campbell imagined they were as glad to leave the tower as the residents were to see them go.
The van joined the Westlink, which in turn would lead them to the M2 and north towards the rugged Glens of Antrim. He winced now and then as the van’s jostling sparked painful flares in his side. The heavy clutch pedal did little for his injured thigh. The stop-and-start of traffic, backed up by roadworks to the south where the M1 joined the Westlink, only made it worse. What use was progress if all it caused was traffic jams? Peace had cost the people of Northern Ireland dear, but Campbell wouldn’t have been surprised if road congestion irked them more than anything else.
He looked across to Coyle in the passenger seat. “Tell me something. What is it with McGinty and that woman? There’s got to be more to it than her shacking up with a cop. What’s the story?”
“That’s none of your business,” Coyle said.
“Aw, come on.” Campbell shot him a grin. “Just a bit of gossip for the road, eh?”
Coyle sighed and shook his head.
“Jesus, come on, you miserable bastard. Why not tell me?”
“Three reasons.” Coyle counted them on his fingers. “One, you’re a cunt. Two, asking questions about Paul McGinty’s personal life is a fucking good way to get your legs broke. Three, talking hurts like fuck. Now shut your fucking mouth and drive.”