‘Sit down,’ he said.
Tom dropped the crate and did as he was told. ‘I need a smoke,’ he said.
Fegan nodded.
Tom took a packet of Silk Cut and a lighter from his shirt’s breast pocket. He put a cigarette between his lips. His hands shook too hard to get the lighter to catch. Fegan took it from him and thumbed the wheel. The flame sparked into life. He held it to the end of the cigarette. It danced in the flame. Tom sucked hard, coughed when the tobacco caught, blew the flame out.
Fegan set the lighter on the worktop. ‘You know why I came back?’
Tom shook his head, took a drag on the cigarette.
‘Somebody tried to take Marie McKenna’s daughter yesterday,’ Fegan said. ‘I need to know who it is.’
Tom coughed again. ‘I don’t know anything about it. She’s been gone for months, her and the wee girl. She cleared out after … you know.’
‘She came back yesterday,’ Fegan said. ‘Someone tried to snatch Ellen at the hospital. It said on the news someone was arrested. It didn’t say who. You know everything that goes on. People talk to you. Now you talk to me.’
‘I don’t know anything, Gerry, I swear to God.’
Fegan bent down so he was at eye level with Tom. ‘You know better than to lie to me.’
‘I didn’t know she was coming back,’ Tom said. ‘I saw that thing on the news last night, but I never knew it was her and the wee girl.’
‘Where’d she been?’
‘Away somewhere, nobody knows where. After that business with her uncle and all, she took off.’
‘What about that cop?’
Tom flinched. ‘What cop?’
‘The one she used to live with,’ Fegan said. ‘He’s the wee girl’s father.’
‘Yeah, I know who you mean,’ Tom said. ‘What about him?’
Fegan straightened and looked down at Tom. The barman could barely hold onto the cigarette. He had started sweating when Fegan mentioned the cop.
‘He’s been around here, hasn’t he?’
Tom opened his mouth ready to say something, but changed his mind. His shoulders slumped and he nodded.
‘What did he want?’
‘He was asking the same as you, about Marie McKenna and the kid, where they were. I told him the same as I told you: I know nothing about it.’
‘What does he look like?’
‘Big fella, broad-shouldered. Dirty blond hair. Dresses well.’
Fegan studied Tom as he sucked hard on the cigarette. ‘There’s more,’ he said. ‘Tell me.’
‘He asked about what happened with Michael McKenna and that business in Middletown. About the feud. Then he asked about Patsy Toner.’
‘And you told him nothing.’
‘That’s right.’
Fegan’s gut told him to keep pressing. ‘There’s more,’ he said.
‘No, that’s all,’ Tom said. He brought the cigarette to his lips.
Fegan reached out and took the cigarette from Tom’s mouth. He dropped it to the floor and crushed it beneath his heel. ‘There’s more,’ he said.
‘No, Gerry, that’s—’
‘Don’t,’ Fegan said. He stepped closer to Tom, forcing the barman to crane his neck to look up at him. ‘Don’t lie to me.’
Tom sighed. It turned to a whine in his throat, then a cough in his chest. ‘There was another fella came round. I didn’t like the look of him. He had a bad eye, infected or something. He was asking about Patsy Toner. Couple of days later, Patsy Toner drowns in a hotel bathtub.’
‘You think he was the one tried to take Ellen yesterday?’
‘Wouldn’t surprise me,’ Tom said.
‘What was he like?’
‘Dark hair, cut short. Medium height, sort of thin, but built tough. All knuckles and muscles and veins, you know? Southern accent, maybe like a gyppo.’
‘A traveller?’
‘Maybe. Thing is, there was something about him, the way he carried himself, the look in his eye. He was like …’
‘Like what?’ Fegan asked.
‘You,’ Tom said. ‘He was like you.’
67
‘Where’s the other fella?’ the Traveller asked, his eyes still raw.
‘I have asked my colleague to sit this one out,’ Gordon said.
‘Why’s that, then?’
Gordon arranged his pen and notepad on the table between them. ‘Because his presence was required elsewhere,’ he said. ‘Let’s proceed, shall we?’
The Traveller smiled. ‘Ready when you are.’
Gordon did not return the smile. ‘I’m curious as to what contacts you might have in Belfast.’
‘No comment.’
‘We’ve recovered only one weapon, and two clips of ammunition, during your arrest and subsequent searches. We suspect another party may be hiding items for you somewhere in the city.’
‘No comment.’
‘We’ll shortly have permission to search your hotel room. Are we likely to find anything incriminating there?’
No comment.’
‘If you cooperate with us now, tell us what we might find there, and where we might find it, that will be taken into consideration in our recommendations to the Public Prosecution Service.’
‘No comment.’
Gordon hit the stop button on the twin-deck tape recorder. He stood and came around the table. He perched on the edge, folded his arms across his chest, and looked down at the Traveller. ‘I miss the old days,’ he said.
‘That right?’ the Traveller said.
‘That’s right,’ Gordon said. ‘The days before the Police Ombudsman and the Human Rights Commission. Back then we could be a little more … well … vigorous in our interrogations. We used to do all sorts, and nobody minded. I put away a lot of scumbags in my time, most of them based on confessions. You should’ve been around then, seen where that “no comment” nonsense got you. I’m a Christian, you know.’
‘Good for you,’ the Traveller said.
‘Yes, it is good for me. The missus converted me. I used to be a drinker. She soon sorted that out, got me going to church, got me right with the man upstairs. That was back in, oh, ’79 or ’80. And I’ll tell you the funny thing: beating the likes of you senseless, knocking your teeth down your throat, that never bothered me. It never conflicted with my Christian beliefs.’
‘That was handy,’ the Traveller said.
‘It was indeed, son. You see, I hold my beliefs very dear. I live and breathe by them. But when it comes to someone like you, or any of those toe-rags I put away back then, my beliefs cease to apply. Because you’re an animal. The good Lord above has no more regard for you than for a pig in a slaughterhouse, and neither do I.’
The Traveller feigned offence. ‘Here, now, there’s no—’
‘Shut your mouth.’ Gordon leaned close. ‘We don’t do things the way we used to. I never saw it as torture, just rigorous interrogation. But the bleeding hearts and the politicians took a different view, so that’s that. But it’s not too late to turn the clock back. You’re already looking pretty rough, so I wouldn’t have to worry about leaving too many marks. Now you start talking to me, son, or you’ll be getting a lesson in the police procedures of yesteryear. Understood?’
The Traveller said nothing.
Gordon gripped the Traveller’s face in one meaty hand. ‘Understood?’
The Traveller shrugged.
Gordon took his hand away, wiped it on his trouser leg. ‘Right, then,’ he said. ‘Let’s get back to it.’
He returned to his seat and started the tape recorder.
‘Now,’ he said, taking his pen in hand. ‘Who is your contact in Belfast?’