Blood From A Shadow (2012) Page 7

  Artie clicked his iPod into the dash and Leonard Cohen started to sing, “Hallelujah”, of course.

  “Ferdy never talked much about his time in Ireland, he wasn’t the sort of guy to speak about the past,” I said. “He was all about what’s happening now, what’s he going to do next. A bit like Gallogly that way, ambitious really, but wasn’t prepared to wait for things. That’s why he became a mercenary, he needed the adrenalin kick and fast money.”

  “Did he ever tell you what the local boys called him?” Artie asked. “No? Two Heads. Two Heads McErlane, that’s what they christened him.” Artie turned Leonard down a bit, he was going to tell me a story.

  “A friend of mine was the priest here at that time,” he said. “Ferdia was starting to get a bit of a name for himself, with all the fights he was getting into, so we arranged for him to start helping out in the parish. He used to take hot meals to the old people, did their shopping, that sort of thing. He hated it at first, but once he got to know the old people he loved it, and they all loved him. That’s when his good side came out, he had a really generous nature, liked to cheer the old ones up, would stay and chat to them for ages. That was the real Ferdia, as far as his mother is concerned. She thinks people don’t give him enough credit, don’t remember that side of him.”

  I was one of those people, our good times were taken for granted, then just faded away. All I had left were memories, but one quick dark image would always rout the years of laughter and brotherhood.

  “But there was always another side, dangerous, somehow apart,” he said.

  Cohen singing “I’m your Man”

  “There was a bad flood down there one night, down where the two rivers meet. One of the old people Ferdia used to visit was a bit of a local character, made poitin, you know, illegal moonshine?” he said.

  Yeah, I knew poitin, in all its varieties, none of them good.

  “Well, this old boy kept a couple of mares in a field down there, two mares and a foal. He was a great horse man when he was young but he neglected everything later on, poitin came first, you know. Now, if Ferdia was good with old people, he was great with the horses. He used to do everything the old boy neglected, but he really respected the old boy too, learnt a lot from him. Anyway, the night of the flood, Ferdia went down to bring the horses up to safety. But the old boy had a gallon of poitin to bottle, didn’t want Ferdia around, sent him away, said he would see to the horses himself.”

  I flashed the image of Ferdy and me, and the rest, shooting the goats herded by the villagers in Iraq. Somebody said the goats could be used to carry IED’s, but we didn’t need the excuse, it was fun, broke the boredom, and the only thing we couldn’t stick was boredom. But I could imagine him, as a kid, devoted to his horses.

  “When Ferdia came back later to check, the field was flooded and the foal was struggling in the river. Of course, the bold Ferdia jumped straight in and held the foal’s head above water. Nobody had mobile phones, cellphones, around here at that time, he couldn’t call for help. But Sarah got worried about him and came to look for him, found him in the river up to his chest, keeping the foal alive. She ran up to the old boy’s house and found him lying drunk. She phoned the Fire Brigade and the boys came out straight away, right enough, but the conditions were terrible, it wasn’t safe to put men in the river. They couldn’t get the foal out, the only thing they could do was to save Ferdia. But he wouldn’t budge, if the foal wasn’t going, neither was he,” he said.

  That image came easily to me. I had seen him put his own life in danger, without hesitation, to protect others, me included. You never know how anyone will react when bullets start whistling around their head, and a hero one day could just as easily be a coward the next, but I knew Ferdy didn’t experience fear like other people. He didn’t believe he could be killed, or he just didn’t care, or he wanted it, I wasn’t sure.

  “John McErlane begged him to come out, cried and pleaded with him. The other men had to hold the father down to stop him going into the water after Ferdia. Sarah stood there quietly, then went and waited under a tree. Just sat there, watching and waiting, that’s what the priest thought was the strangest thing of all,” he said.

  Now Artie Shaw, “Begin the Beguine”. Had the Americans changed Monsignor Arthur’s name, or was that his own idea?

  “After a while, the flood waters subsided and the men pulled the foal out. Ferdia hauled himself out and then collapsed. He was four days in Newry Hospital, hypothermia,” he said.

  “That’s what he was like, Artie,” I said. “If you were under fire, Ferdia McErlane was the guy you wanted covering your ass. Mrs McErlane can be very proud of him.”

  Artie looked at me, for just a second too long.

  “The other thing that happened though, the night Ferdia got out of hospital, was that the old boy was attacked in his house. A savage, inhuman attack. He was actually mutilated, red hot tongs used on him, I’ll spare you the details,” he said.

  He didn’t need to tell me more.

  “He survived, but wouldn’t tell who did it to him. Not the police, or the priest or any of his friends. Wouldn’t say a word about it. But you ask anyone in this parish, even now, nearly fifteen years later, and they’ll tell you Ferdia McErlane did that to that old man, because he was too drunk to tend his horses. Does that sound like the Ferdia you knew in Iraq, as well?” he said.

  He knew already. I shrugged. What more could I tell him?

  “The man was dying a couple of years later, so I visited him when I was home on holiday,” Artie said. “Visited as a neighbor and as a priest. He knew who I was, of course, Sarah’s cousin, he knew our seed and breed. He spoke about that night, told me he was afraid to die because he had already seen the devil. ‘That was the devil was in this house that night, Father, the devil. He shits on your God of love, so you are wasting your time, Father, you and the Pope and all the rest of them. We all are’. That’s what he told me, Con, and it made me think, I don’t mind admitting that now. You know, I’ve prepared many people to meet Our Lord, young and old. Those with genuine faith are content, usually. Without faith, everybody has some fear of the unknown. But that old man was the opposite. He was literally terrified out of his mind because of what he was convinced was waiting for him. Do you think he saw the devil that night?” Artie said.

  I knew what he had seen, I had seen the devil too.

  “Maybe he was a crazy old man who’d pickled his brain with rotgut whiskey,” I said.

  I wanted to tell him about my devil. Artie was a priest, maybe he could work his magic and exorcise the dark stain from my soul. He leant over to slide the volume up again, his story over.

  Lou Reed “Walk on the Wild Side”

  He wasn’t like any priest I had ever met, and that nagging alarm was strong in my head.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  We were on the fringes of a town, I didn’t know where, when Artie pulled off the main road and the black nose of the Merc probed thru the web of side streets, where the houses knitted more tightly together the deeper we went.

  “Looks like we’re going in circles here, you making sure I can’t follow this route again?” I said.

  “There are no CCTV cameras along this route, trust me,” he said. “Do you know there are more surveillance cameras trained on the general public in the UK than anywhere else in the world? More in London than they ever had here in the Troubles even. Tells you something about a place, doesn’t it, how they see the world? Anyway, we’re going to the shopping centre, you can go back there anytime you want.”

  We snaked along until I saw the steel and glass dome of a shopping mall, on its pedestal above the uneven roofs of the neighborhood.

  “That’s it ahead. I used to park down here, then walk down to the left. You’ll see a street going up that hill to the back of the shopping centre, then you’ll see steps to the back entrance, that’s where Swansea will be waiting”, he pulled the car into a dark laneway.

  “Doesn’t the M
all have CCTV cameras, what’s with your evasion tactics, unless you’re the only one has to stay hidden?” I said.

  “The cameras in the shopping centre will be switched off fifteen minutes before Swansea gets there. You’d be surprised how many ex-cops get security jobs in places like this. You’re very suspicious, Con, don’t you trust me?” he said.

  I shrugged.

  “Fair enough, but trust me on this, Swansea is the last person you should trust. He’s up to something, wants something, and he must think he can use you to get it. He’s the most devious fucker I know, and, coming from somebody that works in the Vatican, that’s saying something. I’ll be waiting here,” he said.

  I jogged down the street and turned left up the hill. The streets were quiet, no traffic, no people. The lights were out on this street but I could see a shape ghosted behind the beacon of a cigarette.

  “Do you control the street lights here too?” I said.

  “Nah, out of order, fucking electricity company. Hold on, I have to finish this before we go in, smoking is a capital offence now, you know,” Swansea said.

  Seven steps led to the doorway, narrowing as they rose. The glass door spilt the top three steps a slanted rectangle of warped neon, Swansea smoked in the pink sandstone twilight below. He wore trainers, track bottoms, a heavy padded anorak with his rugby club logo on his breast and a woollen hat pulled over his ears. Wearing thick spectacles this time, his eyes were magnified, red and tired.

  “Is this a disguise, what’re you supposed to be, a sports coach?” I said.

  “Fuck off, I left rugby training early to get here. I have to get back to pick up my grandson, so I don’t have time to fuck about, alright? Lutterall went ballistic when you didn’t show for your flight, but hey, that’s not my problem. That McCooey witch hunt was my problem, but I hear it’s gone away now. Is that something to do with you, you and this man Duffin that Lutterall hates?” he said.

  Swansea was a grandfather, had survived long enough to ensure his legacy. Ferdy’s uncles could have had grown families by now but Swansea had decided they would be forgotten long before he was.

  “Like I said before, I know nothing about it, that’s not why I am here. Who told you it was over?” I said.

  “A producer in that fucking Spotlight show. They had big plans to torch me on TV next week, but that’s fucked now, they’ll have to invent lies about somebody else. But you can’t expect any better from the BBC in Belfast, they are all Fenians now, even the Prods! It is the British Broadcasting Corporation, but they have forgotten which side they are supposed to be on!” he said.

  “So why the big secret about meeting me? What do you want from me?” I said.

  “Lutterall tells me this Duffin fella has something going on,” Swansea said. “It sounds like internal Yank politics, or maybe just the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing, that can happen too, Christ knows! Anyway, whatever it is, I need to know what’s happening here. It’s bad enough you fuckers running about as if you own the place, but if you’re keeping secrets from each other, that means I’m only getting half the picture. When you cowboys fuck off somewhere else, and you all do, in the end, I’ll still be here holding the broken pieces. Understand me?”

  I heard an engine in the distance. Was that Artie taking off?

  “Ok, why don’t you tell me what you think is going on, and I’ll try to fill in any gaps I can,” I said. “What about Monsignor Arthur, how come you have secret meetings with him? The American Friends of Justice think he is your arch enemy.”

  “Don’t waste my time, son,” he said. “You know all about that already, but here’s something we haven’t told anybody yet, our Forensic boys don’t like John McErlane for a suicide. They found traces that say his hands were tied when he shot himself.”

  I didn’t react.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “We all pissed ourselves laughing when we heard he had topped himself, and it looked straightforward enough. Too bad, we said, his ghosts caught up with him, probably, happens to a lot of them in the end. We won’t be crying for John McErlane, good luck to whoever did it.”

  “So what happens now? Why are you telling me?” I said.

  “Nothing happens, too much shit around that house, if we started a proper investigation, your ‘Friends of Justice’ would say we are harassing that poor family. If he was murdered, and that’s my gut instinct, which is never wrong, I may add, they’ll end up blaming us anyway. Probably blame me. I wouldn’t mind that if I had nailed the bastard, it would be worth it! But no, suicide suits us just fine at the minute. The thing is, this Duffin has put you in that house, I want to know what’s happening. I wasted a week in Washington with you fuckers listening to some dickhead lecturing us on ‘Synergy of InterAgency Stratagems’. As far as I remember, that means it works both ways, you tell us what you’re doing too. These cowboy operations usually end up fucked, so I need to know what the crack is now.”

  “What about Artie McCooey?” I said, hopefully.

  “Watch out for that two faced fucker, that’s all I’ll say. Thinks he’s above the law, him and that whore of his,” he said.

  He flicked the cigarette butt into the darkness, sparks ricocheted into the night, and we started up the steps.

  “Funny, that’s what he says about you, think you’re above the law?” I was prospecting.

  “I am the law here, son, he’s just a chancer likes to feel important,” Swansea said. “Tells everybody he was Chief Engineer of the Peace Process here, ha! That’s a laugh for a start. I hear he’s working on the Taliban now, poor bastards, he’ll probably bore them into surrender!”

  We were on the third step, the door opened and two security men appeared. Must be his people. Swansea’s eyes registered the faces, jumped in front of me, tried to push me against the wall with his left hand, tearing at his rugby jacket with his right. The first security man lifted his hand from a shopping bag and a cannon exploded twice, a spray of red foam steamed out of Swansea’s back, in my face, my eyes. I was deaf, if Swansea cried out as he somersaulted backwards down the steps, I didn’t hear. Three more men ran up the steps, dark figures until two more bomb flashes snapped the scene in my brain. Three men in overalls, plastic covers on their feet, two carrying pistols, one with an assault rifle.

  The security guards pushed me to my knees, gun in my mouth, screaming in my face. I couldn’t hear, my skull still vibrating. Then all five dived into two sedan cars that pulled up and then accelerated into the night.

  They were gone before I reached Swansea, on his back, trainer soles facing the door, top of his head sliding down to the street. His face was intact, looked content, but the back of his head had melted, smeared in a dark arc down the steps. His pockets were pulled out, the jacket ripped open. I frisked him, no cellphone, no wallet, no gun. His car keys were on the step below and something else, a rugby coach’s whistle, a silver island sinking in the rising tide of his life’s blood. I knelt on the step beside him and took his left hand in mine, felt the heavy gold wedding ring. I saw the halo vapor wane over his steaming body on the cold steps, tasted his death, absorbed the violent insult.

  Snap out of it! I ran to the mall door, locked now, heard a voice through the haze, marked the scene below.

  Artie pleading. Merc torch blazing. Swansea supplicant on Mall steps.

  I jumped the steps and into the car. Artie spun the tyres, raced off, too fast, too fast.

  “What happened, who did that, did anyone see you?” Artie was hysterical.

  “Slow down, Artie, slow down! Force yourself to breathe, like we’re just on our way back from a shopping trip, breathe in, breathe out, control, slow down,” I said.

  Artie slowed down but panic lost him in the maze of side streets, we came to a dead end. He was in a frenzy, couldn’t control himself, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

  “Christ, they’ll think I set him up! What the fuck happened!” he scratched out the words.

  I leant
over and smacked him in the face. The crack shut him up.

  “Get out Artie, I’m driving,” I said.

  I pushed him out the driver’s door, took the keys from the ignition and walked round to the driver’s side. Artie froze, shaking and trembling. I jumped out again, grabbed him by the collar and threw him in the passenger door. The stench hit me when I got back in the driver’s seat. Artie had shit his pants, not the hotshot now.

  They don’t drive automatics here, but I slid the gear lever ok, slowly traced the way to the main road. My foot slipped on the brake pedal once, just missed a lorry, Swansea’s thick blood treacherous on the sole of my shoe. Artie managed to recite directions and whispered his mantra, praying for Swansea’s soul and our escape. It was five minutes before I heard the sirens on the emergency vehicles, far away in the opposite direction.

  “Ok, Artie, I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” I said. “I’ll stop at a field somewhere and you’ll clean yourself up as best you can. Then you’re going to tell me what the fuck is going on here. Or else I’ll beat the shit out of you, whatever you have left, and dump you at a police building. Understand?”

  Artie nodded, worked his rosary beads, chanted his credo. I pulled up a dirt track and he hobbled behind a hedge. I heard his retching. He came back ashen faced, but calmer.

  “What happened back there, Con?” he said, his brain refuting the testimony of his eyes.

  “That was a hit, a professional whack job,” I said. “Two heavy calibre slugs to the chest, guy below sticks a gun in his mouth, blows his head to pieces. Swansea had no chance. I don’t even think he was carrying a firearm, he had no holster anyway.”

  “How did they know he would be there? They must have followed him, mustn’t they?” he said.

  “No way. They were waiting for us. Two inside disguised as security guards, three from behind, two drivers, probably more scouts, the street lights cut. No way. Swansea was sold out. First thing the cops will do is retrace his movements. That puts you and me in the frame, Artie, what do you think of that?” I said.