Dead And Buried. John Brennan

kill me, right now, just for the fun of it, and no one would ever know – it’d be like I’d just vanished into thin air.

      Then he thought of Ella and Christine – of them waiting for him to come home, of Chris never understanding what had happened to him, of Ella growing up without him. He felt tepid sweat leach from the skin of his palms.

      ‘I’ve been wanting to thank you, Conor – I can call you Conor, can’t I? – for helping young Patrick here out with that bit of difficulty he ran into,’ Marsh said. ‘You’re a resourceful feller.’

      Conor didn’t see the point in saying anything.

      Patrick, anxious, leaned in between the pair of them. ‘I told him, Con, what you done for me,’ he said. Then to Marsh, ‘He’s a good lad, boss, is Conor.’

      ‘I know that.’ Marsh nodded approvingly. ‘Brave. Loyal.’ He lifted his chin to meet Conor’s gaze. ‘We can use men like you.’

      Conor breathed in through his nose. It felt like his guts were in knots – like they’d twisted into a tight ball that now sat heavy as lead in his empty belly. He needed to piss. He clenched his fists. He knew what he needed to say – and he knew he’d have to be nuts to say it, here, now. His voice sounded like someone else’s. ‘You used me once,’ he said. ‘It won’t be happening again.’

      Marsh smiled. Again Conor knew: this man could kill me – he could make me just disappear.

      ‘Is that a fact?’

      Conor shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet. ‘It is, aye,’ he said, and braced himself to take a blow, or to fight, or to run. If he lashed out and made for the exit, how far would he get? Christ, Marsh probably had guys on every door.

      Marsh only smiled wider. ‘Can we talk privately?’ he asked, with theatrical politeness. He extended a hand to the open door of Patrick’s car. ‘In the vehicle?’

      Conor nodded without certainty. He felt so fucking stupid. That night, he should have just gone to the police. All that crap about loyalty, about Colm, it was the darkness crowding him. He should have punched Patrick’s lights out, called the police, and been back in bed by dawn. Why hadn’t he? Had he really thought Christine would be angry for handing over her little brother? Look at him now – standing there like a bloody Jack Russell beside his master. If the smooth fuck wasn’t grinning too!

      Conor didn’t have anything more to say. But then he’d known he was living on borrowed time. Marsh wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily. There was every chance he wasn’t going to let him off the hook at all. Get in that car, Con, he told himself, and you might not get out again. Again, he felt disembodied. Scared too, yeah, and…so damn disappointed with himself. You made this bed for yourself. You could’ve made it differently.

      He slid again into the passenger seat while Marsh settled himself at the wheel, smartened his rolled shirtsleeves, smoothed an eyebrow in the rearview, adjusted the sit of his black trousers.

      Through the side window Conor saw Patrick reach for the rear door handle. And he saw Marsh, with a negligent gesture, flick the central-locking switch in the driver’s door. Patrick tugged twice at the handle, then wised up. Shrugged. Stepped away.

      Just the two of them.

      ‘Now look—’ Conor began, but Marsh held up a hand.

      ‘No,’ he said. A quick shake of his head. ‘I talk first. I’m going to need you again, Conor. I’m going to need you to do a few more jobs.’

      He didn’t look at Conor as he spoke. He looked at the wheel and the dash, as if he were reading from notes, from a script – or from a contract.

      ‘I—’

      ‘You’ll let me fucking speak or you’ll be talking through a mouthful of broken teeth. Interrupt me again and I’ll have your fucking tongue sliced down the middle.’ Now he looked at Conor. ‘Simple rules, simple courtesies,’ he said.

      Conor sat silent. He gripped one hand with the other to keep them from shaking.

      Marsh resumed his recital. ‘Earlier today,’ he said, ‘three members of the Ulster Volunteers were murdered on the Shankill Road. Now, I’ve been made aware of who was responsible. I have their names, addresses, descriptions, registration numbers.’ He ticked the items off on his fingers. ‘And I have made plans for…reparation.’

      ‘Revenge.’

      ‘No, no, no.’ Marsh waved a dismissive hand. ‘Not revenge, Conor. Nothing so impractical. Favours, Conor, favours for friends. I do a brisk trade in favours. Revenge is messy, hot-headed, liable – as you good folk of Ulster know so well – to get out of hand. Favours are simply good business.’

      ‘I won’t. I couldn’t. I…this is…you’re—’

      ‘What this is and what I may be,’ Marsh interrupted him smoothly, ‘are none of your concern. The fact is, Conor, that you’re implicated. And, therefore, you can. You will.’

      Conor thought of Colm Murphy. Implicated – yeah, that was one word for it. Guilty was another one. Guilty was the word they’d use on the Falls Road – hell, the word they’d use on Coleraine Road – if they had any idea what he’d done. Betrayal was another one. Fucking Judas. Stinking Rat.

      Marsh wouldn’t have to kill him. There’d be Irishmen queueing up to do the job for him if word got out – if even a whisper got out.

      ‘Old Colm,’ Marsh said, as if reading his thoughts. ‘He was very close to the Maguire family, wasn’t he?’ A low whistle. A gesture with palms spread. ‘It takes a considerable man – a man of substance, Conor – to take sides against his own family. His own blood.’

      Conor could feel the tense muscles of his jaw quivering. Hold it, Con, he urged himself. Stay cool. Don’t rise to it.

      ‘I’ve never taken sides,’ he said, slowly, deliberately. He didn’t look at Marsh – he looked out of the window, out into the darkness. ‘I’m my own man. I’ve my own family—’

      ‘Oh, yes, the family…’

      Marsh left the word hanging, and Conor felt his bowels threaten to turn liquid. A mixture of anger and panic. ‘You listen!’ he hissed, his finger jabbing the air between them. ‘You fucking listen! You even go near my family, and I’ll—’

      ‘Steady, Conor,’ said Marsh. ‘You’ve got the wrong impression.’

      Conor’s whole face seemed to be trembling. He felt like a child, playing a grown up game he could never win. ‘I don’t take sides. I won’t work to an agenda.’

      Marsh laughed softly.

      ‘“I don’t take sides”,’ he quoted Conor back at him. ‘That’s quite a thing. That takes some balls. “I don’t take sides” – in this Godforsaken country. That’s quite a thing to hear, from the man who threw the sainted Colm Murphy on the fire.”

      ‘I’m not a fucking Republican,’ Conor said desperately. ‘I’m not a Loyalist. I’m not – I’m not bloody anything.’

      He felt Marsh’s hand grip his knee hard, and turned his head to see Marsh leaning towards him, eyes bright with a fierce amusement.

      ‘Doesn’t matter,’ the old soldier said. ‘All that matters, Conor, son, is that you’re mine.’

       Present Day

      CONOR tussled with the key in the stiff lock and slammed closed the door to the studio apartment. He looked up and down the street. No sign of Galloway, thank God. Maybe she’d realised he really didn’t want to be part of whatever plan she was cooking up.

      He crossed the road from the flat to the parked Land Rover, wondering if it was