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Chapter Twenty-Five
Lilith
I wished I wasn’t feeling like microwaved death. I wished I had Call Me Ed at hand. I wished we’d never set foot back in Ireland, and whilst I was at it, I wished for a pet unicorn. In the meantime, I got dressed. Trainers, tracksuit pants, a warm sweatshirt, my inhaler in the side pocket. Preparing myself. Preparing for something I couldn’t predict.
Whilst I was tying my laces my mobile phone rang; the number on the display wasn’t one I recognised, but I knew the timing couldn’t be an accident.
“Now then, you stuck-up wee bitch,” Ciaran O’Halloran said, as soon as I picked up the call. “Time to listen for once, instead of mouthin’ off. I’m not sure where you’re hidin’ right now, but I’m guessing you’re close and in exactly four minutes I’m goin’ to be in the street behind the Rossmont, and the clock starts the second I hang up. You’re goin’ to meet me there, and I’m lettin’ you know I’m armed.
Then you’ll hand over your phone to prove you haven’t called anyone, you don’t bring company, no nothin’, and you can bet I’ll check you’ve obeyed my orders the second you hand your phone over. It’ll just be you, and if you do what you’re told, your lover-boy might just survive the night. If you decide to do anything clever, then I promise you he’s dead. That means no calls, no secret messages, nothin’. We clear?”
“Perfectly clear thank you,” I replied as calmly as I could then ended the call before he could say anything else. I guessed the clock had started ticking.
Long before I met Finn and allowed myself to become his Lili, I had created and inhabited the character of Lilith Bresson so well that I had eventually become her. She was manipulative, imperious and frankly completely unlikeable and at that moment I had never felt less like her in my entire life, but that wasn’t the point; Lilith Bresson was also a fearless, ruthless survivor, and it was time for me to bring her into the fray.
I picked up Finn’s soft, grey beanie hat and pulled it down over my damp hair. I caught the softest trace of his fresh, citrus cologne then forced myself to take a slow, deep breath. Screw your courage to the sticking place, Lilith Bresson, I ordered myself, and headed for the door.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Finn
I didn’t know where we were headed, but I did know that it certainly wasn’t to a garda station. Over the years I’d been booked in at just about every one of their less-than-salubrious venues in Dublin, and the road that Stevenson was currently driving down didn’t lead to any of them. Combined with the frequent road signs for the coast that I kept spotting, I wasn’t filled with any confidence whatsoever that this was a legitimate arrest. But still that doubt lingered.
You’re not a killer, for fuck’s sake… I clung on to Lilith’s words as if they were a psychic life raft.
Not. A. Killer. I hadn’t murdered McKenna, I told myself. I wasn’t guilty, and no matter how much my brain tried to trick me into thinking I was capable of such an act, I hadn’t done it. For all the good that fact actually did me.
*****
I leaned my head against the car window with my hands cuffed behind my back and watched Dublin’s suburbs fall away in the evening gloom, slowly coming to the realisation that I might be viewing my native city for the last time. Sleet began to pattern the windscreen and I wondered if I was counting down to my final few breaths.
I tried to keep calm enough to think straight, but none of my thoughts were too good; I was pretty sure neither officer was part of the Armed Response Unit so they shouldn’t actually be armed - especially not with a battered old Glock that had last seen service in a shootout in the back streets of Tirana - and I was also fairly confident that driving a handcuffed prisoner out into the middle of nowhere instead of the nearest booking station wasn’t standard Garda procedure either.
I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer to St Jude, patron saint of desperate cases and hopeless causes on the basis that right now I was both those things, and asked for courage for whatever trial was yet to come.
*****
We drove for maybe another hour or so in excruciating, deafening silence. After all, what was anyone meant to say? I briefly considered ‘So, how much did they pay you for this?’ or maybe just, ‘How do either of you fuckers sleep at night?’ but decided against it when I realised didn’t actually want to hear their answers.
Eventually the car slowed and pulled into a sorry excuse for a parking lot. There were no street lights, no houses, just an array of shadowy low buildings and ramshackle sheds. Beyond that, the sea crashed against a low harbour wall and white spray, luminous in the fading light, rose up in clouds against a tenebrous sky.
I guessed we were at one of those countless little excuses for industrial estates along the east coast that housed everything from independent garages and boat repair shops to cannabis farms and fishing huts. It seemed like the perfect place to get away with murder.
Gravel popped and crackled under the wheels as the car slowed to a halt and McKinnon hauled on the handbrake. Stevenson hauled his portly frame over the passenger seat to address me. “Okay lad, we need you to get out here, alright?” There was an expression on his face that hovered between fear and regret, and under my current circumstances neither of those things was good.
I peered out of my window. “What, right here? You sure? Doesn’t look much like an official booking station to me, like.”
“Ah, don’t make this difficult son,” Stevenson said sadly. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed McKinnon gripping the steering wheel and taking slow, steady breaths to try and stave off a panic attack. I fervently hoped the bastard’s heart burst.
“So, what was it that started it all off for you fellas, eh?” I asked, not particularly expecting an answer. I just needed to say something, to remind them that I was human; to make it hard for them to do what they were about to do. “A few Euro for lookin’ the other way whilst the O’Hallorans flogged a few wraps of dodgy smack? A little bonus for a warning call to let them know some of your mates were on the way for a sniff around, or just a quick freebie from one of the poor sad wee mares they’re pimpin’ out?”
“Look fella,” Stevenson said, with a face on him that told me I’d been bang-on with my guess. “If you don’t make a fuss, we’ve been told that Lilith won’t be touched; it’s you he… they… I mean, ah, bloody hell, what I’m trying to say is we don’t want anyone else to get hurt either, okay? I know you won’t believe it but we’re not really the bad guys here - if anything, we’re under just as much threat as you.”
I gave him an incredulous stare and any humanity sailed out of the window. “Oh what, you want fuckin’ absolution now? Really? Jesus fuck! Well I’m sorry lads, but you’re not gettin’ it from me. Maybe try the fuckin’ Pope, yeah?” I spat.
I thought McKinnan might be about to cry. “Just do as you’re told and get out of the car, okay? I mean, I’m sorry about all this, but they’ve got stuff on my family, y’know? My youngest, Ryan, he’s only six for God’s sake.” As he spoke he shifted in his seat so I could see the Glock at his hip, as if I needed any kind of reminder that he was carrying the bloody thing.
And oh, I knew alright. Knew that their greed and their weakness and fear had led them further down that dark path than they’d ever intended to go, but now here they were, ultimately doing the bidding of some sad, perverted fuck they’d probably never even had the pleasure of meeting. I’d seen this played out time and time again at Albermarle Hall until Lilith Bresson, braver than either of these two fools could imagine, had turned up and said No to all of it.
