The Ghosts of Belfast Read Free Page B

traffic from the elevated motorway behind, where the M3 became the M2. In front of them, the River Lagan flowed into Belfast Lough. The lights of the Odyssey complex shimmered across the water. The nightclubs inside it would be thronging with the young and affluent; young enough to have no memory of men like Fegan, affluent enough not to care.
     
     
Beyond the Odyssey stood Samson and Goliath, the massive gantry cranes towering over the old shipyard. On the other side of Queen’s Island, a small airplane circled the City Airport, now renamed after the great George Best, the footballer who destroyed himself with alcohol. The plane’s engine whined and buzzed. McKenna’s shoulders rose and fell with each breath.
     
     
Fegan raised himself up to sit behind the politician, the gun still at the center of the seat-back. The sweat-damped fabric of his shirt slid across his shoulder blades. He looked around the patch of waste ground they were parked on. No CCTV, no people. Only the rats to witness it.
     
     
And the followers.
     
     
They moved between the pools of darkness, watching, waiting. All except the boy. He leaned against the driver’s door, cupping his hands around his eyes, staring at McKenna though the glass.
     
     
“Look at that,” McKenna said, indicating the stretch of land around the cranes. “They’re calling it the Titanic Quarter now. Can you believe that?”
     
     
Fegan didn’t answer.
     
     
“There’s a fortune being made out of that land. It’s good times, Gerry. The contracts, the grants, all that property they’re building, and everybody’s got their hand out. But, Jesus, they’re naming it after a fucking boat that sank first time it hit the water. Isn’t that a laugh? This city gave the world the biggest disaster ever to sail the sea, and we’re proud of it. Only in Belfast, eh?”
     
     
McKenna fell silent for a few seconds before he asked, “What do you want, Gerry?”
     
     
“Make a phone call,” Fegan said.
     
     
“Who to?”
     
     
“Tom. Tell him to close up. Tell him you dropped me off and you went to see someone at the docks. If he asks who, tell him it’s about a deal you’re doing.”
     
     
McKenna’s laugh betrayed his fear. “Why would I do that? Why would I phone anyone?”
     
     
“Because I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
     
     
“I think you’ll kill me anyway.”
     
     
Fegan looked up to the rear-view mirror. He could just make out McKenna’s eyes in the darkness, his glasses reflecting the light from across the water. “There’s dying and there’s dying, Michael. Two very different things. You know that.”
     
     
“Jesus.” McKenna’s shoulders shook as he exhaled. “Oh, Jesus, Gerry. I can’t.”
     
     
Fegan raised the Walther’s muzzle to the base of McKenna’s skull. “Do it.”
     
     
McKenna bowed his head and sighed. His mobile phone’s screen washed the car’s interior with a blue-green glow. The phone beeped and burbled in his trembling hand before he brought it to his ear.
     
     
“Yeah . . . Tom, listen, just lock up and take the cash home with you . . . He’s all right. I put him to bed. I’m over at the docks . . . To meet a fella . . . Just business. Listen, gotta go. I’ll pick up the cash tomorrow . . . Yeah, all right . . . See you then.”
     
     
The phone beeped once, and its soft light died.
     
     
McKenna turned his head. “Do you remember when we were kids, Gerry?”
     
     
Fegan smelled sweat and fear, McKenna’s and his own. Enough memories were stirring without this.
     
     
McKenna continued. “Do you remember that time the Brits got us for bricking them? What were we, sixteen, seventeen? Remember, I threw the first one and went running. Wee Patsy Toner was too scared to do it, so he came running after me.”
     
     
He craned his neck, trying to see Fegan. Fegan jabbed the gun’s muzzle against the back of his head until he looked straight ahead. Ahead to where the followers