He looked to the windowsill. A glass stood empty, the kind of glass a toothbrush and toothpaste might stand in. All the other accouterments of male grooming remained, apart from a razor. Fegan had left in a hurry, but not so quickly that he hadn’t taken the essentials.
The back bedroom contained nothing, not even a bed. It was clean, but completely bare save for cheap, neatly fitted carpeting. Campbell considered tearing the carpet up for just a moment, but it looked like it hadn’t been disturbed since it was laid. His aching side would never forgive him.
Back on the landing, an airing cupboard revealed only sheets and towels, all neatly folded and stacked. Campbell dug through them, already certain it was a pointless task.
Just the master bedroom left now. He pushed the door open and it gave a hard creak. Just like Campbell, Fegan didn’t oil his hinges. The bed was stiffly made, apart from the slightest impression at its foot where someone had sat some time ago. He knelt down and peered underneath the bedstead. A shoebox was just within reach. Campbell pulled it out and opened it. It was empty, but had the greasy smell of gun oil and money. A single nine-millimeter round rolled from corner to corner.
“Fuck,” he said, and tossed the box to the floor. There would be nothing under the mattress or tucked into the pillowcases, so there was little point in pulling the bedding apart. He did it anyway.
“Where the fuck are you?” Campbell asked the pile of sheets and stripped pillows. The mattress leaned against the wall, revealing the bare slats of the bedstead. There was only one place left to look. He opened the wardrobe door and, as he expected, found only a few shirts and a worn pair of jeans. He quickly proved there was nothing in the pockets.
Campbell went to close the wardrobe door, but something caught his eye. Something small and oblong, pushed into the farthest corner. He reached down and lifted it out. It was a long flat wooden box coated in black vinyl. The sort of box loose jewellery might be stored in. He sat on the edge of the bed and opened it.
Letters, all unopened, all postmarked HM PRISON MAZE, all emblazoned with
Return to sender
. Campbell flipped through them, twelve in total. The most recent was at the top. He hesitated for just a second, then tore it open.
It was one page of small, neat handwriting. The words and letters were impossibly uniform in size and spacing, as if the writer were afraid of revealing anything of himself. It was dated the fourteenth of December 1997. A little over nine and a half years ago. Campbell held his breath as he read.
Dear Mother,
Father Coulter was here today doing his visits. He told me you are very sick. He said you have cancer. I asked my new psychologist Dr. Brady and he said they would probably let me out to see you if I ask them.
Please let me see you. I am sorry for what I did. I am sorry I let you down. I know you are ashamed of me. I don’t blame you. I am ashamed of myself.
Please let me come and visit you. If I could take back what I did I would. I know you have mercy in your heart. I had no mercy in my heart when I did those things but I have now.
Please have mercy. Please let me see you before you get any sicker.
Your son,
Gerald.
Campbell closed his eyes for a few seconds, feeling the paper’s texture between his fingers, listening to his own heartbeat. He opened them again and folded the letter before slipping it back into its envelope. Using his fingertip, he smoothed the tear over as best he could and returned the letter to the box. It fitted neatly into the back corner of the wardrobe, in the dark where he couldn’t see it.
“Fuck!” he said, startled at the vibration of his phone. He pulled it from his pocket and looked at the screen. Number withheld. It could be anybody. He thumbed the answer button and brought it to his ear. “What?”
“We’ve found them,” Patsy Toner said.
36
“There you go,” the young man said, dropping the sponge into the bucket. “Not the tidiest ever, but you wanted it quick.”
Fegan pressed two twenty-pound notes into the acne-faced kid’s hand. “Thanks.”
“You all right, mate?”
Fegan pushed his shaking hands down into his pockets. “I’m grand,” he said, and turned to the car.
Viper Stripes, they were called. A pair of ridiculous white bands that drew a line from the green Renault Clio’s nose, over the hood, along the roof, and back down the tailgate. They were supposed to look sporty, but Fegan thought they looked stupid, though no more so than the other little cars parked in front of Antrim Motor Kit. They all had spoilers, bulbous wheel arches and lowered suspensions, and they were all driven by spotty youths in baseball caps.
Fegan had stopped at a beauty spot along the coast and removed the number plates from another green Clio. They were now stuck over Marie’s plates using permanent tape he had bought in a hardware shop in Ballymena. It would take a most attentive police officer to recognise the car as belonging to a missing woman.
Ten or fifteen years ago it would have been impossible to drive from the coast, through two large towns, and on to Belfast without meeting a roadblock. An army or police checkpoint would have been a certainty along Fegan’s route, but not today. Many times he’d been pulled from a car by Brits or UDR, and searched at the side of the road while uniformed men ripped out the vehicle’s innards. The young men in their modified cars would be outraged if that ever happened to them, though their fathers, Protestant and Catholic alike, had endured it every day for decades.
The weather had turned. The warm sunshine of the previous weeks had begun to wane, and clouds hung low overhead. The world was turning grey, and Fegan felt a heaviness inside as he opened the driver’s door.
He lowered himself into the car, started the engine, and moved off. The Clio jerked at his clumsy gear changes; it had been a long time since he’d driven. He joined the system of roundabouts that led to the M2 motorway. In less than an hour he’d be in Belfast.
37
“Jesus, you’re a fucking mess,” Campbell said.
“Fuck you,” Eddie Coyle said, forcing the words through the narrow opening of his mouth. Fegan had knocked out two teeth and dislocated his jaw. He looked like someone had molded his face from purple and yellow plasticine and sewn the pieces together.
“Shut up,” McGinty said from behind his desk. He pointed to the chair next to Coyle. “Sit down.”
McGinty had furnished his moderately sized constituency office with functional items, as befitted the party’s socialist dogma. Images of Republican heroes like James Connolly and Patrick Pearse decorated the walls. A map of Ireland divided into the four provinces hung above an Irish Tricolor.
“Our friend inside Lisburn Road station headed off a call from a hotel owner this morning,” McGinty said. “We were due a stroke of luck after the balls you two made of things.”