As the barman put the drinks in front of him, a glass shattered inside the snug. In unison the bar turned its head, expecting fireworks. A burst of laughter erupted from the corner. It was only a spilled drink. The bar settled again and Lynch returned to his seat. Arthur lowered his voice and nodded towards the back of the pub.
‘Hallions. The lot of them.’
When he finished his drink Lynch made his excuses and got up to leave. As he backed out of the snug he bumped into someone.
‘Sorry there. .’
He turned to see six foot two inches of Sean Molloy staring down at him. Molloy stood with four men at his back, on their way out of the bar. He looked at Lynch, backing him up against the table. The room was silent, glasses hung in the air, halfway towards gaping mouths. Molloy spoke with menacing quiet.
‘If it isn’t Joe Lynch. The big hero. Out walking amongst us.’ He pushed Lynch in the shoulder with his finger. ‘If I was you, Lynch, I’d take a bit more care where I was stepping. These aren’t the good old days any more.’
Lynch knew about Molloy’s reputation. He was one of Gerry McCann’s boys and could handle himself. That wasn’t the worry. It was the four others that stood behind him. One more Lynch could handle, probably not two, and definitely not four. It didn’t matter who you were, four to one were pretty lousy odds.
No one in the bar moved.
Lynch looked at Molloy. It would be one punch and a run for the door. You would make it or you wouldn’t. The rest would look after itself. Lynch braced himself, ready to throw. At the same moment Johnny Tierney stepped forward and jostled Molloy along.
‘Come on, big lad,’ he said, slapping his mate on the back. ‘The birds are waiting. This one’ll keep. He’s not going anywhere.’
Molloy stepped back from the edge. The five men made their way out of the bar, Tierney smirking back at Lynch. Conversations resumed as the doors swung shut behind them. Lynch took his seat, making sure he could see the door, just in case. He looked at his empty pint. At his side, Arthur petted his dog and muttered to himself, under his breath.
‘Hallions, the lot of them.’
TEN
Ward gave it a poke down the middle with a three wood. Two hundred yards away the ball skipped over a ridge and disappeared out of sight. He’d always thought the first wasn’t the same, after they had filled in the bunker on the right-hand side of the fairway.
It was 7 a.m. and Fortwilliam golf course was deserted. Ward’s navy Mondeo sat alone in the car park. The fairways sloped along the side of Cavehill and down to Belfast Lough. The grass runway of the first shimmered silver with early-morning dew. This was Ward’s ritual. Nine holes of golf, early doors, while the world was still in its bed. He used an old, rusty set of clubs that had belonged to his father, and always played alone.
The day before, he had sat for three hours in a divisional meeting. Wilson gave a presentation on the last quarter’s crime stats for East and South Belfast. Slide after slide, he broke down call rates, arrest figures, charges brought. Each column totalled to a nice neat percentage. Policing by numbers. Round the table, the senior management of Musgrave Street nodded in agreement. You couldn’t blame them, Ward thought. The measurement, the neatness, the accountability. If he worked on the third floor and never left the station, he’d probably like to see something so neat and tidy.
Ward had sat in the meeting, staring at graphs and tables, wondering when policing had become a form of accountancy. Digging out his old notebooks, looking for Spender, had brought back memories from when he’d first joined up. He found himself reading over various incidents he’d attended. Detail after detail rose up within him — faces, names, charges; injuries, victims, suspects; blood spatters, registration plates, street addresses. Ward remembered his first ever Sergeant, Stanley Hannah. Hannah was in his late fifties, six two and built like a bear. He had been at Dunkirk and Normandy. It was an unwritten rule at Musgrave Street, every new man got six weeks with the Sarge. You rode together, twelve hours a day, Hannah conducting lessons on the art of policework. They would sit in the car, or walk the street. The Sergeant would ask — What do you see? What’s he doing over there? What kind of car’s behind you? How long has it been there? Hannah taught Ward — you watch, you listen, you remember. That was the job. You didn’t police with your fists and your boot. At least not when you could help it. In the early eighties things started to heat up and Hannah warned him, ‘This thing’s going to get a whole lot worse, before it gets any better.’
Ward took a five iron and knocked the ball towards the first green. He couldn’t get up in two any more. In fact, he hadn’t been able to manage it for a few years. There was no need to worry though. That was golf. It had a habit of telling you things you didn’t always want to admit to yourself.
Hannah had died in the early nineties. It was a big funeral. Guys came in from everywhere. From across the water. The church was dotted with CID from the Met, from GMP, from Strathclyde. Ward wondered what the Sarge would have said about the likes of Wilson, the careerism, the way the numbers-men now owned the force.
He pulled a wedge from his bag, thinning his third which skipped through the green and buried itself in a hedge that ran along the boundary of the course. After a quick hoke Ward walked to the second. An hour and a half later he was done. A par, a couple of bogeys and two lost balls. It would do. Coming down the eighth he had stopped and looked back up the fairway behind him. A pair of solitary footprints weaved their way down the wet grass. It was a quiet morning. There wasn’t a breath of wind and Ward felt as if the whole world was there, just for him.
Afterwards he lifted his clubs into the boot of his car. Ward looked round and saw that the car park was empty. He reached into the pocket of his golf bag and took out his personal protection firearm, a Glock 19. He put it in the door of the car, started the engine and headed for Musgrave Street.
***
Catherine sat in the coffee shop, her bag on her knee, thumbing the brown envelope. John was late. He was always late. It was half eleven and the lunchtime rush would be starting soon. She didn’t want an audience. Didn’t want to hear someone gossiping about their workmates while she handed her husband, the father of her child, a set of the divorce papers. She tried not to think about it, about what he would say. If only she could just hand them over — that was enough. It would start and she knew things would take on a momentum of their own.
The solicitor had told her he would post them to her husband. It was easier that way. She didn’t agree. No, she’d do it herself. It may only be your job, she thought, but it’s my life. And anyway, things aren’t always supposed to be easy.
As she waited, Catherine went over it in her head. It wasn’t a discussion. They weren’t going to argue. She would be calm. Tell him what was happening. Hand him the envelope. Simple.
A waiter dressed in black swept up to the table and asked for her order. She said she was waiting and looked at her watch. Her line manager at Anderson amp; James was a total clock-watcher. She’d have to be back no later than twelve.
O’Neill hurried into the coffee shop, his black coat fanning out as he turned the corner. His suit needed cleaning, his shirt could do with an iron and he hadn’t shaved. He leaned down to kiss her and she offered him her cheek. His smell lingered near her face, that familiar mix of tobacco and aftershave. Catherine felt some vague memory of desire stirring up inside her. She pushed it back down, reminding herself what she was there to do.