Tierney joined in the laughter and handed the cutting agent to two young fellas in tracksuits. The three of them walked from the back of the bar, stopping to speak to Molloy before leaving.
The man who had frisked Lynch signalled that it was his turn. Three stone overweight, McCann sat before a large Ulster fry — eggs, sausage, bacon, fried soda, fried potato bread.
‘Joe Lynch. I was beginning to think that you didn’t like me.’
McCann pointed his knife at the plate. ‘Best fry in the whole of Belfast. Or so they tell me. Wife says these things’ll kill you. But sure if the Brits never managed it, what chance have a few rashers got, eh?’
McCann laughed at his own joke. The bonhomie was all part of the show, acting like he didn’t have a care in the world. The Master of the Universe, all under control. Lynch kept his guard up. With McCann you were only one wrong word away from getting your throat slit. Back when he was nineteen, McCann tea-bagged a guy, putting eight holes in him with a flick-knife, in the toilets of Durys in Blackstaff Square. The guy had offered to buy McCann’s bird a drink. He didn’t know who she was, let alone that she was with McCann. The club was full but not a single person came forward to the police. It was how things were.
‘So how are you enjoying being back, then?’
‘Fine.’
‘Having a bit of trouble sleeping, I hear.’
McCann raised an eyebrow. Lynch wondered who he had been talking to. Dr MacSorley? Marie-Therese? No. His house was being watched.
‘Bit sad, don’t you think, lying awake all hours. Is it nightmares? Have you tried sleeping with the light on?’ McCann laughed sarcastically. ‘Are you lying there thinking about your wee cell back at the Maze? Wishing you’d never got out? Liked doing your time for the Cause? Our Joe, the big martyr. Do you want your war back — is that what it is?’
Lynch didn’t answer. McCann hadn’t done a day inside so what the fuck did he know.
‘Do you want to know why it is that you can’t sleep?’
Lynch remained silent.
‘It’s because you’re not doing anything. And I’m not talking about walking round, going to the shops, getting on like an auld housewife. You need to get busy, get yourself involved, get the blood pumping, the juices flowing. Men like you, Joe, men like me — we can’t just sit around.’
McCann put a piece of sausage in his mouth and chewed it slowly, thinking.
‘Let me tell you a story. When I was a wee lad my da took me up to Bellevue Zoo. We were going to see the lions, the tigers, everything. I was so excited, I wouldn’t shut up in the bus the whole way up the Antrim Road. I’d seen them on TV, chasing zebras, hunting antelopes, attacking buffaloes. When we got there though, it was shite. There was this big lion, sitting there in his cage, just staring out. He no more looked like he could kill you than our neighbour’s cat. All day long he just sat there. Rocking back and forth, like some mental patient in Purdysburn.’
McCann pierced a bit of soda bread with his fork and pointed it at Lynch.
‘I don’t know the kind of shit you’ve heard. Peace Process. New Northern Ireland. The Assembly.’ He paused. ‘It’s a load of balls. Meanwhile you’re pacing back and forth, staring out of the bars of a cage you don’t even know you’re in. Is this what you did ten years for? A shitty wee house and a portable TV — is that what it was all for? All the time, all the jobs, all the sacrifice?’
Lynch remained expressionless. Inside he was on fire. Partly it was sitting there and being lectured on sacrifice by someone like McCann. The other part was hearing McCann voice some of his own thoughts since he’d returned to Belfast. Maybe the man was right. Who was he kidding, walking round, trying to pretend he was normal? How many normal people had the thoughts he had? Still, he wasn’t a criminal. He knew that. Thatcher had tried to tell them they were criminals. Ten men had died on hunger strike proving her wrong. No food for forty days. Death by starvation. They had shown her what real willpower was. That was discipline.
Lynch slid his chair back and made to stand up.
‘Where the fuck do you think you’re going?’ McCann raised his voice. Along the bar one of his men got up from his stool.
‘Sit the fuck down. I haven’t finished with you.’
Lynch looked down the bar. The man who had frisked him stood where he was. He sat down as McCann loaded his fork and shovelled it into his mouth. He chewed slowly, showing Lynch he was in no rush. He could keep him there as long as he wanted.
‘You owe me,’ McCann said.
‘How do you figure?’
‘The fucking punchbag sitting at the end of the bar — Molloy. He hasn’t worked for a week. The peelers have been on him like flies round shite. That’s bad for business. Costs me money.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Aye, dead on,’ McCann said sarcastically. ‘You’re going to do a bit of work for me. Pick up a package and deliver it. There’s five hundred quid in it for you. Take the money, treat that wee tart you have your eye on, take her out to dinner or something. She’ll be sucking your dick by the end of the week.’
Lynch stared at McCann.
‘Aaagh, stop being so fucking sensitive, will you? We’re all men here. She’s a good-looking bit, or at least that’s what the boys tell me. A bit young for you, mind, but sure, who the fuck am I to say?’
‘I’m not interested.’
‘I don’t give a shit if you’re interested or not. Molloy’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he’s a mean fucker once he gets an idea in his head.’
‘Come again?’
‘Don’t play the innocent with me. It didn’t work when the RUC grabbed you ten years ago and it’s not going to work now. Molloy’s young. He hasn’t been round the block as many times as me and you. He doesn’t know it takes a special kind of person to do what someone did to him. A person with patience. A person who can follow a target for days, weeks even. A person who can bide his time, wait until things are just right. Who can do a job and then vanish. Who doesn’t need to sit in a bar all day, boasting about what he’s done.’
Lynch sat in silence. McCann looked into his eyes. He had only been half-sure before, but meeting Lynch again, face to face, erased any doubts.
‘And sure, Joe,’ McCann lowered his voice, ‘if none of this interests you I can always send the boys round to that wee slut of yours.’
‘I don’t even know her. She’s nothing to do with anything.’
McCann shrugged his shoulders. ‘That’s not my problem.’
He ate another piece of sausage, chewing slowly before pointing at his mouth.
‘Cookstown sausages. Really good. You should try some.’
The two men sat in silence.
‘Who knows, Joe, you might even like it. Get the taste back. If you do, there is always work. Anyway, you’ll be picked up outside here at two on Thursday morning. Now fuck off till I finish my breakfast.’
Ward and O’Neill watched Lynch walk out of The George. He put his hands in his pockets, turning in the opposite direction from the Mondeo.
‘Forget McCann,’ said Ward. ‘He’ll be an easy find when we need him. Let’s have a word with Joe Lynch. Find out what he’s doing so far from home.’
At the end of the street Lynch looked left into the oncoming traffic. He crossed the road and headed down May Street, towards the city centre. Ward started the car and O’Neill jumped out on foot. May Street was busy with cars. O’Neill took out his mobile phone, dialled Ward and held it to his ear. He looked like any other office worker, nipping out to grab a sandwich. Lynch looked over his shoulder at the traffic, then crossed to the other side of the road before turning down Joy Street.
Ward ditched the car and joined O’Neill on foot. They were 100 yards back and broke into a jog as Lynch crossed the road at the end of Joy Street.
They arrived to see him disappear into SS Moore, a sports shop on Chichester Street. Moore’s was a local business, one of the few shops that hadn’t been taken over by the big chains. O’Neill and Ward picked their way between the traffic and entered the shop. At the counter a woman was buying a hockey stick for her teenage daughter. The girl looked mortified at having to be in the town with her mother. Near the back of the shop, a middle-aged woman inspected a rack of swimsuits. O’Neill did a three-sixty.