Sam could see it in O’Neill’s eyes. He had had the same look in Police College. His face had weathered, there were a few grey hairs, a few lines round the eyes. But that look was still there. O’Neill paused and took a drink of his coffee.
‘Why did you join up, John? Can you remember that far back?’
O’Neill exhaled slowly, his eyes in the distance.
‘There was a guy in our year at school. We were eleven, but he must have been held back somewhere along the way, because he was a year older. He was a big lad, from up the Ardoyne. His da was involved and was doing time somewhere. Maghaberry. The Maze. No one really knew.’
‘You going to tell me this kid stole people’s lunch-money, and no one would do anything about it?’
‘No,’ O’Neill said, smiling at the schoolyard cliche. ‘It wasn’t that obvious. It was just when we played football. No one wanted to tackle him. To embarrass him. Run the risk of annoying him. He could do what he wanted.’
‘So you joined up. .’
‘I don’t know. I just knew it wasn’t right. There are people out there who do whatever they please, and nobody ever wants to put a tackle into them. It’s the same everywhere. It’s the same at Catherine’s work, at Musgrave Street, the same on the street. People just taking things and nobody dares to say anything.’
O’Neill stopped and laughed quietly to himself. ‘That’s pretty serious for half eight in the morning.’
Sam didn’t flinch. ‘So that’s why you’re a peeler?’
‘This is me. This is what I know.’
She held his gaze, and after a few seconds excused herself and went to the toilet. O’Neill left money for the bill. Afterwards they stood in the car park, hesitant, not wanting to go their separate ways.
‘That was good,’ O’Neill said.
‘Yeah. I had a really good time.’
They paused, neither sure what to do. Shaking hands seemed naff.
‘We should do it again,’ Sam said.
‘Yeah. I’d like that.’
Before O’Neill could move she stepped in and kissed him on the cheek. He had sat over breakfast, watching Sam eat, wondering what it would be like to put his mouth on hers. He tried not to show his disappointment at the kiss on the cheek. It was something, after all. Sam turned and walked towards her car. She didn’t look over her shoulder, but got in quickly and drove away.
O’Neill smiled to himself as he walked out of the hotel car park. He wasn’t thinking about anything: not Laganview, not the boy, not the dead ends he’d spent most of last week chasing. His phone rang in his pocket. It was Musgrave Street so he answered.
‘DS O’Neill. It’s Chief Inspector Wilson.’ The voice was angry. The Chief Inspector had taken to calling every morning and every evening, piling on the pressure, giving O’Neill daily reminders that the case was going nowhere.
‘Can you tell me why-’
O’Neill spoke into the phone. ‘Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Hello!’
He switched the phone off, staring at the handset. There was a bin next to his car. He thought about it, but decided not to and got into the car, tossing the phone on the passenger seat.
‘Fucking twenty-first century.’
TWENTY-TWO
Friday morning at Musgrave Street and Doris was on the front desk. She’d spoken to Ward as he made his way through reception.
‘I think your boy is getting pretty close to the edge.’
Doris had been around long enough to see cases ruin detectives. It was the pressure, the obsession. Young guys trying to prove themselves but not realizing they were playing with a dud hand. The only thing to do was to fold and wait for better cards. An hour earlier O’Neill had walked past, looking as if he hadn’t slept for a fortnight.
Upstairs, half-drunk cups of coffee lay dotted round CID, a present from the nightshift. O’Neill sat between two stacks of folders, not looking up when Ward entered.
‘Still not handed in your homework, Detective?’
‘The dog ate it.’
Ward knew from Doris that O’Neill had been in well before his shift started. He’d probably spent half the night looking through files he’d sneaked home, thinking no one knew.
‘Grab your coat, son.’
‘How come?’
‘Because I’m the Inspector and you’re the Sergeant. That’s how come.’
Ward grinned as O’Neill threw down his pen and stood up.
‘You know, someone once told me something,’ Ward began.
‘Yes, Obi-Wan Kenobi?’ O’Neill replied.
‘If you’re in the shit, best thing to do is start throwing some. When everyone else is covered in it, you won’t feel so bad.’
‘So where are we off to then?’
‘We’re gonna throw a little shit.’
‘Sounds good to me.’
***
It was just after 11 a.m. when Lynch approached The George. His doorbell had rung at 9.30 that morning. It was one of the local kids who couldn’t have been more than ten years old.
‘Mr McCann wants to see you. Told me to give you this.’ The kid passed Lynch a bullet, a 9mm copper round. ‘Said it was time to bite the bullet.’
Lynch looked at the kid who smiled back, pleased at remembering his lines.
‘He made me learn it, so he did.’
Lynch imagined McCann making the kid repeat it back to him. Gerry McCann, the great educator.
McCann used The George as an impromptu office. Lynch had been summoned and told to be there at eleven. Before leaving the house, he took the Browning from the shoe-box under the bed and was about to tuck it into his trousers. He knew they’d pat him down though and a pistol wasn’t the kind of opening gambit you wanted with McCann. He knew he didn’t have much choice and put the gun back under his bed.
As Lynch approached the bar he saw Sean Molloy and one of his boys standing outside smoking. McCann was definitely inside. Molloy had two black eyes and a bandage across his nose. Lynch kept his head down and walked through the double doors into the bar.
Molloy had taken almost all Lynch’s attention as he walked up to the George. Not so much though that he didn’t notice the two peelers, parked at the end of the street in an unmarked Mondeo. He wondered if McCann’s boys had sussed they were there. From the two outside smoking, it didn’t look like it.
In the Mondeo, Ward was mid-sentence. ‘When we get in there, just follow-’
He stopped as he saw Joe Lynch approach the doors to the bar. O’Neill was reaching for the handle when Ward put an arm across him.
‘Hold on a minute. That was Joe Lynch just walked in there.’
‘Who’s Joe Lynch?’
‘Before your time. He did ten years in the Maze. They put four bodies on him but the word was there were a hell of a lot more. Let’s hang back a minute. The question is, what’s Joe Lynch doing with Gerry McCann?’
The George didn’t officially open until midday. McCann sat at the back, near the emergency exit. Lynch crossed the threshold and saw a few figures, dotted around, waiting. No one was drinking. A man stepped forward and put a hand to Lynch’s chest, looking him up and down before frisking him. To Lynch’s left sat two men in black leather jackets. One of them looked at him with a blank, pitiless stare. Pat down over, the man nodded and pointed at a seat.
Molloy walked into the pub and took up a stool near the door. He made eye-contact with the men in leather jackets. Lynch wondered if he had been set up but he put on an air of indifference, pretending to be oblivious as he planned an exit strategy. There were two doors. A lot of bodies at the front, so it would have to be the back. There’d be someone in the entry as well, although he wouldn’t be ready. Lynch would be on him before he knew what was what. Then he’d be away.
McCann sat at a table at the back of the bar, talking to Johnny Tierney. He handed over a white container the size of a car battery.
‘Three parts of this, to one part of the good stuff.’
Tierney smiled. ‘What’s it this time?’
‘Don’t you worry what it is,’ McCann laughed, shaking his head. ‘These fuckers round here will snort anything.’