Slip of the Knife

Reaching the edge of the short grass, he came to a fence into another field and climbed carefully over. The ground was looser here, strong grass that was razor sharp at the tips. He ran in a crouch, skirting the summit, his hand sweating around the plastic handle of the petrol can, making it slippery. He arrived at a tumbledown wall, two feet high, made of old stones, the mortar weatherworn and crumbling. He raised his eyes.

He had reached the old wall around the garden of the cottage.

And there at the far end, the flare of a match, a warm orange target in the dark. She was there, sitting in a chair, in the dark, quite alone.

He let his eyes adjust to the thin light. He could make out her face in the glow of the cigarette. She was smiling.

He watched her as he squatted on his haunches and set the petrol can on the uneven ground. Listening, alert to any noise he might make, he unscrewed the plastic lid, working his fingers slowly until it was quite loose. He lifted it off and set it on the ground.

And then he waited.

THIRTY-FIVE. INTO THE BAD FIRE

I

Paddy was on her third cigarette. It was quiet here and she didn’t like it. She could hear the grass waving in the wind, the scurrying of tiny feet back in the house, mice or rats, survivors of Callum’s killing spree. They seemed to have got into the roof and she was afraid they might drop down on her head, so she moved her chair out from the wall a bit.

She had been trying to think some momentous last thought, a great all-encompassing conclusion about the nature of existence, but her attention was drawn back by the mundane: she felt queasy after eating the Snickers bars, she was tired, she needed a pee. She might be here all night. For all she knew, Knox couldn’t get hold of McBree. She could be sitting here alone for ten hours.

She looked up at the dark sky. A thick band of navy blue rain was moving in from the sea, chasing seagulls inland. The distant landscape was becoming indistinct, melting into the dark.

She tried not to think about Pete or her mother or Terry Hewitt, just to smell the crisp evening air and feel the nicotine pulsing softly through her, pushing the weariness away and making her skin tingle, but her thoughts kept flipping back to her house and her son and all the deeds left undone, all the kindnesses unrepaid. If she had been at home she would have wandered into the office and filled her mind by doing some work.

She smiled to herself. IRA in Pay of British. Brits Pay IRA. Terror Boss Works for Us. She jumbled the headlines around; none of them worked all that well but she had fun doing it. Then she started on the article, imagining what Merki would make of the materials she had left him. Terror boss. They’d use that for sure.

Very slowly she became aware of a low droning engine on the road. At first it sounded like any other car slowing as it broached the sharp turn, but it didn’t speed up when it was past the danger spot. The wheels left the tarmac, began a tentative slide into the driveway, became a muffled crunch over grass.

Long shafts of white light glared around the side of the cottage, bleaching the grass blue. And then they cut out.

Paddy dropped her cigarette, opening the scissors, trying to find a way of holding them that wouldn’t mean pressing her fingers to the blade. She stood up stiffly, turning to the mossy path around the side of the house, expecting McBree to appear.

A soft breeze blew the hair from her face. Silence. He wasn’t coming around the side. He was going to creep up on her.

She felt horribly dismayed. It would have been less frightening if he had walked around to face her, spoke to her first, but McBree was pla

She turned her back to the wall, took a step sideways, and was swallowed by the darkness of the house.

II

The floor objected to every trespassing footfall so they both stood still, Paddy in the kitchen, hanging on to the cold metal of the range, feeling the greasy dust beneath her fingers and the cut of the scissors as she held them tight. He was near the front of the house, in one of the bedrooms or the bathroom, off to the left somewhere. She could hear his feet crunching on something, leaves or glass. The sound traveled through the warped walls, bouncing and distorting.

A floorboard groaned as he took a step and corrected himself. Cloth brushed a wall. He was hanging on to the wall because the floorboards would be better attached there. Smart. Following his lead, she slid around the room, taking careful steps, tiptoeing silently along the edge of the room, past the back door, around to the side of the dresser where it was dark. He would come in here, look around from the door, searching at head height. So she crouched, keeping her feet exactly where they had landed, twisting her knees to keep in the shadows.

She heard a breath, a nasal exhalation, coming from the living-room doorway. A congested smoker’s breath. And then McBree spoke, not whispering, just in a normal voice. As if he was asking for a paper.

“Well, you called me here.”

He was right. She slid up the crumbling wall to stand. He stepped around and looked at her, flashed a smile as if they were friends of old.

“Come out here,” he said, sounding kind.

But she didn’t. “Do you know who lived here?”

He gestured for her to come over.

Again, she stayed where she was. “Terry Hewitt grew up here.”

There was no flicker of recognition. “It’s like a lot of the old houses at home.”

“’S a bad road out there, isn’t it?”

“Bad, aye. Blind turn out there.” McBree looked around the room, as if there was anything to see in the inky dark. He reached into his pocket and took something out. She didn’t realize it was a packet of cigarettes until he lit one. He held them out to her, trying to goad her out of her corner.

She ignored the offer. “Terry’s parents died on that driveway. He was seventeen. Only child. First on the scene.”

“Aye.” He lifted his cigarette to his face, inhaling greedily, the glow casting a vibrant red over his glasses, masking his eyes. “My parents’ chip shop got bombed. That’s how they died. Ripped limb from limb, my daddy was.”

“Are you an only child?”

“God, no.” He looked at her pointedly. “There’s hundreds of us.”

“Did they get the bombers?”

“Who? The police?” He chuckled. “No, never got them. Knew them but never bothered arresting them.”

“And now you’re working for the people who let your parents’ killers walk.”

McBree gave a small start, then laughed at her and twirled a finger at his ear. “You messing with my head, are ye?”

“How can ye? What have they got over you? Are ye gay, or a gambler or something?”

He laughed again, less certainly this time. “You’re very young for your age. Things are more straightforward when you’re young.”

“Have they got pictures of ye doing something nasty? Torn loyalties: betray the cause or be known as a gay boy? Or did you just forget what side ye were on?”

“What side I was on?” His voice was high and as he looked at her she could see the hate building behind his eyes, the loathing that would justify the attack. “Like there’s two sides in the world and you get to pick one, you stupid bitch.”

“There’s more than two?”

He sneered. “Whose side are you on, ye fat, ignorant cow, your mother’s or your wean’s?” His glance slid suddenly to the side and she knew instantly that he regretted saying it. He lifted his cigarette to his mouth, sucked smoke deep, deep into his lungs, the red tip flaring against his troubled face.