I ran at the door and hit it with my shoulder. It was a tough old plank of oak and I bounced back. The locks held. I slid my revolver in my belt and drew the sawn-off. I stood back and blasted the area round the keyhole. I kicked the door in and dived through headfirst, rolling into the small hall. Dermot was well down a long corridor dragging the woman into one of the rooms. She was shrieking her head off. I couldn’t fire in case I hit her. He slammed the door and locked it. I heard furniture being dragged across. I ran down the corridor like an avenging angel. I stood to one side of the door in case there was a third shotgun in Dermot’s hands.
‘Dermot! You might as well come out! Or I’ll come in and get you! I won’t harm the woman. Unless of course you’ve injured a single hair on the head of Samantha Campbell! In which case all bets are off. Do you hear me?’
All the response I got was more sobbing and more crashing of furniture. Then there was a new sound, of hinges opening, followed by the sound of feet on the gravel. He’d got out the window. I sprinted back down the corridor and flung myself through the front door. Dermot had dived into the car and was starting it up. The motor whirred and caught and he flung it into gear. The car shot forward sending pebbles flying back at my face. It accelerated down the 150-yard drive towards the wooden gate.
I dropped the sawn-off and gripped my revolver in both hands. I fired steadily, once, twice, three times, smashing the rear window but seemingly doing no other damage. I stuffed it in my waistband. I had one shot left in the sawn-off. I knelt, picked it up, and let fly. I blew a hole in the boot but the car sped on. Shit, shit, shit! I dropped the useless weapon and ran forward, maddened at my rotten shooting.
I snatched up the Dickson and broke it open. The two used cartridges spun into the air. I delved in my pocket and grabbed one shell. No time for a second. I rammed it home and slammed the gun closed. I knelt in the gravel, pulled the Dickson tight into my shoulder and took a deep breath. Then another. The car was racing for the wooden gate and escape. I took a careful bead on his head and then lowered the barrel. I needed him alive to find out about Sam. I squeezed the trigger. The gun jerked back into my shoulder. I waited. There was no time to reload and fire. He was within twenty yards of freedom.
At first I thought I’d missed and was regretting my generosity of not aiming at his head. Then I saw the car lurch to the side as a rear tyre blew. Slattery swung the wheel to counter it. Swung too far and was on the grass. Swung again, all the while accelerating, aiming to ram his way through the gate. But the big car pitched again and hit the solid stone pillar with an almighty crash. I ran down the drive ramming shells into my revolver.
There was a great hissing and clattering as the engine kept trying to pull the car forward. But the fan was jammed and there was nowhere to go. I wrenched the door open to find Slattery sitting with blood all over his face, groaning against the steering wheel. His head had gone through the screen. But I was taking no chances.
I caught him by his shirt collar and tried to drag him out of the car. He was stuck. I looked closer. The steering shaft running from the front axle up into the cabin had been driven back with the impact. Like a long blunt-ended spear. At the same moment his seat had catapulted forward. His chest was impaled on the central column. The bastard was dying.
He wasn’t getting off that easy. I grabbed his hair at the nape of his neck and shook him. ‘Where’s Samantha Campbell, you little prick!’ I shoved the gun barrel into his ear. ‘Where is she!’
Someone was running down the drive. It was the woman he’d used as a shield. Her legs were flapping as she stumbled forward in her bare feet. Her hands were clawing at her mass of white hair. ‘Don’t kill him! Oh, don’t kill him!’ she shouted and flung herself at me.
I pushed her back and held her away from me, as she flailed at my head. ‘OK, OK! Tend to your man!’
Her mad eyes searched my face and then she sagged like a broken doll. She dived into the car and held Slattery’s bloody head. He moaned and red seeped from his mouth.
‘He needs an ambulance!’ she shouted at me. ‘Get help! There’s a phone in there!’
‘Mrs Slattery?’ I said quietly, ‘he needs a priest.’
She stopped and turned to me, her eyes filled with despair. ‘That’s the last thing Derry Slattery needs. The very last thing.’
There was a sound from Dermot, a great groan. He turned his face to her and tried to speak. Only a moan came out of his broken lips.
‘Oh darlin’, don’t try to speak. You’ll be fine. Just wait. We’ll get the doctor to ye. Just you hold on.’ She turned to me. ‘Can we get him out? Make him more comfy?’
Together we tugged and pulled and manoeuvred his wrecked body out of the car and on to the grass. We laid him on his back and she cradled his head. She wiped the blood off his face as best she could using her skirt. Then she rocked him gently like a child until Dermot Slattery shuddered once more and gave up his violent life.
I have no idea why I helped her, but I found myself dragooned into dragging his body back the 150 yards to the house. We passed the now still body of Fergie without a glance. We dropped Dermot on a bed and I sought the kitchen. I found what I was looking for. It was Irish, but it had the same effect. I poured a big glass and ran some tap water into it. I slugged it back in two gulps. Then I stood by the sink and rinsed the blood off my hands and off my jacket sleeves as best I could. I realised my legs were shaking. The day was catching up on me. The familiar pattern. When the fighting stops the adrenaline drains away. I felt sick and leaned over the sink in case. For a moment I was flung back to the darkest days this past winter. Despondency swept over me, disorientated me. The smell of the foxhole in the Ardennes choked me. I’d lain in it for two days while the shelling and straffing went on. Just me and my dead corporal. It seems I’d only killed one dog out there. I sucked in air and clung to the sink until the nausea passed. I heard someone come in. I turned fast in case she was carrying a grudge and a gun.
She shouldered me aside and filled a bowl with clear water. She took a towel and went off again. Later she returned and flushed the bloody bowl down the sink. Then she rinsed her own hands.
‘I’m makin’ tea,’ she said.
‘Is that an offer?’
She shrugged.
FORTY-TWO
We sat opposite each other at the table, warily sipping the hot sweet tea. It was a bizarrely domestic scene given that three men and a hellhound lay slaughtered within twenty feet of us. Sometimes only old rituals get you through.
‘So, you’re the angel of death, Brodie.’ She said it like a fact, as though she’d been waiting for me, and was mildly disappointed at the guise I’d turned up in.
‘You’ll not believe me when I say I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs Slattery. But I am. I’m not sorry he’s dead though. He had it coming.’
‘Do ye think so, do ye! An’ what do you know of Derry Slattery? What do you know of his life?’
‘I know he took the lives of others. Or arranged for it to happen. Do you deny that?’
She took a deep breath and let it out. She shook her head. ‘It got out of hand. He didn’t start this way.’
‘Mrs Slattery, I don’t have time for his personal hard-luck story, with all due respect. I’m trying to find Samantha Campbell. Advocate Campbell?’
‘I know who she is! That bitch!’