Collusion Read Free Page B

himself up.
    ‘You should’ve used the wheelie bin,’ Lennon called.
    Rankin dropped the two or three feet to the ground and turned.
    ‘It’s right here,’ Lennon said, indicating the plastic bin by the door. ‘You could’ve put it up against the wall, climbed on top, and you’d have been away.’
    Rankin pressed his back against the brickwork. His breath came in hard rasps, his eyes bulging. He still held the knife in his right hand.
    ‘Why’d you have to scare poor Sylvia like that?’ Lennon asked. He stopped a few feet from Rankin. ‘You can knife shit-bags like Rodney Crozier all day long for all I care, but putting the frighteners on a nice lady like Sylvia? That’s not on.’
    Rankin raised the knife. Sweat beaded on his forehead. ‘You keep away from me.’
    ‘Or what?’
    The siren drew close, another not far behind it.
    ‘Stay back,’ Rankin said. He grimaced and hissed through his teeth. His face reddened.
    ‘Or what, Andy?’
    ‘Or …’ Rankin dropped the knife and clutched his left arm with his right hand. He went down on one knee. His hands went to his sternum as if trying to hold his heart in place. His jaw muscles bunched and bulged as his face went from red to purple. ‘Fuck me,’ he said between gritted teeth.
    He hit the ground face first.
    ‘Jesus,’ Lennon said.

3
    The Traveller followed Orla O’Kane along the wide corridor. She had thick ankles. Her blocky heels made dull thuds on the carpet. A property developer by profession, she buried her father’s money in houses, hotels and office blocks. Most likely some of it went into this building, a mansion outside Drogheda, the former home to a British landowner, now converted to a private convalescent home.
    He couldn’t help but be impressed when he drove up the gravel driveway, cutting between lawns and landscaped gardens, the house standing three storeys high up ahead. The River Boyne ran behind it, the tall pylon of the new cable-stayed bridge carrying motorway traffic across the water visible above the treetops perhaps half a mile away.
    The rest of the building had been cleared; all the rooms were empty. He’d seen one cleaner and one nurse in the grand entrance hall. A few men loitered around the grounds and in the corridors, but they certainly weren’t medical staff, with their watchful eyes and bulges in their jackets.
    ‘Does he pay a lot of medical insurance, your da?’ the Traveller asked.
    She stopped, clicking her heels together. Christ, she had a big arse on her. Broad across the shoulders, too. Her business suit did its best for her, but she was a big lass, there was no hiding it. Not a bad face, though.
    ‘He values his privacy,’ she said over her shoulder. She had the hard consonants of a woman used to being listened to, not questioned.
    The Traveller smiled at her. If she’d been anyone else’s daughter, he might have had a crack at her. She’d be a good ride, he could tell, the hard-nosed ones always were. But this one was too dangerous.
    He followed her along a first floor hall in the east wing. She walked to the second-last door on the left. A grunt from inside the room greeted her knock. She opened the door and waved the Traveller through.
    Bull O’Kane sat in the corner, tall sash windows on either side of him. A neat lawn edged by copses led to a high wall perhaps forty yards beyond the glass. The river flowed on the other side.
    The daughter cleared her throat. ‘I’ll be outside if you need me, Da.’
    O’Kane smiled. ‘All right, love.’
    A draught cooled the Traveller’s back as the door swished closed.
    ‘She’s a good girl,’ O’Kane said. ‘Smart as a whip. Can’t keep a man, though. Always goes for gobshites.’
    The Traveller walked to one of the windows. ‘Quite a view,’ he said. A heron waded in the shallows across the rain-swollen river. ‘Good fishing here, I bet. Salmon, trout. I should’ve brought my rod.’
    ‘You don’t look like a knacker,’ O’Kane