“He’s down!” somebody was shouting. “I’m on him! I’m on him! He’s down!” There was an edge of panic to the voice.
Kilmartin had crawled around the back of the car. Minogue followed him. They both looked down the road. From nearly fifty feet Minogue could see how tightly a detective was holding his pistol, both arms extended fully. He was back on one foot as though ready to push a stalled car, and his gun was trained on a figure lying against the gate. The figure was not moving. There was another figure closer to Minogue and Kilmartin, that of the detective, leaning against the wheel of a car. Minogue saw him squirm slightly and relax.
Hoey was up first, with Minogue and Kilmartin after him. Gallagher came running down the footpath, the antenna of the handset whipping the air as he ran; he knelt by the seated detective and began fingering the man’s clothing. To his relief, Minogue heard the detective whispering to Gallagher. Gallagher’s hands moved down to the man’s leg. The detective nodded and leaned his head back against the car-wheel.
An elderly man with a newspaper dangling from his hand had opened a hall-door opposite and he was squinting out into near-darkness. Minogue heard another door scraping open as he went by Gallagher. Gibney was lying on his side by the gate. Minogue heard a voice from the front garden asking what had happened, who…? The detective who was training his gun on Gibney was staring intently at Gibney’s hands. He kept talking, but quieter now.
“Gill all right there? We need an ambulance, don’t we? I don’t know if this fella’s gone. Where’s the ambulance?”
“It’s all right now,” said Minogue firmly.
“Gill saw him coming up with the gun and he got one off, I saw it happening but I wasn’t quick enough-”
“It’s all right now,” Minogue repeated. “It’s over now.”
“I had to do it. Gill went down, I saw him shoot Gill!”
Kilmartin was fumbling for a pencil. Minogue looked down at the gun on the footpath near Gibney’s outstretched hand. There was a black stain near the gun and it was moving, getting bigger.
“Where’s Gorman?” Kilmartin barked. Minogue crouched down by Gibney, well outside the detective’s line of fire. Gibney’s chest was moving slightly.
“Is Gorman okay?” Kilmartin was saying. He knelt down by Minogue and poked a pencil through the trigger-guard of the automatic pistol. “That’s a parabellum, that is. A Beretta, I’ll wager,” he said.
The stain moving out from Gibney began to creep in a faltering line toward the roadway.
“Is he gone? He looks gone,” said the detective overhead.
Minogue heard sirens in the distance. A car burst into the street with its tyres howling. He crouched closer to Gibney and felt for a pulse under the jaw. The stain had emerged on the far side and new lines were branching out across the footpath. Farrell was hunkered down beside Kilmartin now. Kilmartin drew the gun carefully along the tarmac with the pencil.
“That his?” said Farrell quietly.
“Yes, sir,” answered the detective from above. “He drew on Gill and shot him, sir. I had to fire then or else…”
“It’s all right, son. Put that away now,” said Farrell gently. “You did what you had to do.”
“Where’s Gorman, Tommy?” asked Kilmartin.
“We’re all right. He’s in the garden, they pulled him down when the shooting started.”
“He’s breathing,” said Minogue and leaned his head closer to hear a faint, bubbling whistle that came at short intervals. He tried harder to distinguish the sound but there was shouting nearby. “We have to stop this bleeding,” he said then. “Better get him over so we can see it.”
As he reached a hand under Gibney, Minogue saw Gibney’s eyes open.
“Jesus,” whispered Kilmartin.
It was then that Minogue heard the bubbling sound again and he froze: Gibney was in bad trouble, it was a sucking wound from a punctured lung he had been hearing. “I have to turn you over,” Minogue said, fighting to keep his voice neutral. “You’re bleeding so I have to do something. The ambulance’ll be here any second. Can you hear me?”
Gibney blinked once. His eyes strayed from face to face. His lips moved slackly. He stared at Minogue again.
“I can’t hear you,” said Minogue. “Don’t talk now.”
Gibney’s face strained with the effort of protest. A whisper escaped him.
“A priest?” said Hoey.
Gibney blinked again. Minogue watched the lips try to shape a P.
“He wants a priest, all right,” said Kilmartin. He leaned further in over Gibney.
“I’ll say an Act of Contrition with you now while we wait for the priest,” said Hoey gently. “If you can’t say it, it’s OK, just follow along with me in your own mind.”
He didn’t remember all of the prayer, but Kilmartin carried him over the bits he had forgotten, those parts of the prayer which every Catholic was taught should be recited for the dying. Gibney’s lips began to move again half-way through.
Hoey finished the prayer as the approaching sirens became louder. The policemen blessed themselves. Gibney’s neck muscles stood out with the effort of trying to raise his head.
“Is it something you’d want to tell us?” whispered Kilmartin.
“Brian,” whispered Gibney and his head fell back.
“Brian Kelly, is it?” said Minogue.
Gibney blinked and grimaced. He tried to raise his head again.
“Only me. That’s all…” he wheezed. Hoey reached his hand under Gibney’s head. “Just me. Fine too… Only me. Had to…” whispered Gibney. His stare was fixed frantically on Minogue. Hoey let the head down slowly. The sirens were tearing open the night on the street now. The blue rotating lights flared off the cars nearby.
“Ambulance,” said Farrell, rising. He waved his arms at the glare of the approaching headlights. Minogue turned back to Gibney, whose eyes were closed now. His chin had sunk on to his chest. Hoey had been unable to extricate his hand from under the head and looked up at Minogue, puzzled. Cramp seized Minogue’s leg in a spasm then. He stood and hobbled to the gate, stretching and massaging the calf. He watched the ambulance attendant, a young man with a Frank Zappa moustache, roam with the stethoscope over Gibney’s chest.
Minogue turned away and saw people from houses on the street walking slowly toward them. The detectives were out of the van now, and sealing off the front of the house. Gorman’s voice startled Minogue who looked up from his crouch and saw Gorman’s pale face beyond the gate. Gorman looked down then and tried to bless himself, forgetting the handcuffs.
“Will you identify this man for us, Mr. Gorman?” Minogue heard Farrell’s acid tones.
“This is my friend, Eamonn Gibney,” said Gorman slowly. “Will someone please tell me if he’s alive?”
Nobody answered Gorman. Minogue stooped to massage his calf again. His chest felt tight and he drew in deep breaths. Farrell’s drawl sounded gravelly, mocking.
“Mr. Fintan Gorman? I’m Chief Superintendent Farrell of the Garda Special Branch. I’m detaining you under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, as I have reason to believe that you are involved in a criminal conspiracy prejudicial to the good order of…”
Minogue watched the mustachioed attendant trying again with the stethoscope, his eyes darting from side to side with the concentration.
“That Gill’s all right,” Kilmartin whispered close to Minogue’s ear. “No thanks to the fucking planning either, but don’t quote me here.”
Minogue shivered again. The attendant asked Hoey to help him draw Gibney out from the fence. He stepped in the blood as he hefted Gibney on to the footpath. More blood eddied out from under Gibney as he was moved.
“Jesus,” Minogue heard the attendant say in a cutting Dublin accent as he shook his head, “try and get a line on to him, quick.”
Hoey helped lift Gibney on to the stretcher. Minogue’s thoughts gathered around the cramp again. He imagined the bones in his ankle, his knee, the musculature that held a body upright, the miracle of walking. Gibney saying that it was just him. Then running, athletes running, that was miraculous too. Just him? Can’t believe that. Have to walk more, that’ll stop those cramps. Hoey was standing beside him now.