Delia Cassidy said, “Where is your backpack, Liam?”
“On an Ulsterbus. In Dublin by now.”
“Never mind.” She sighed, rolling her eyes at her husband. “I would like to give that self-satisfied police inspector a kick up the behind, so I would.”
Jack Cassidy shrugged. Rory sat beside his mother and Liam. “Here, have a Mint Imperial,” he said to Liam.
“Thanks.” Liam took one from the bag. It had no taste.
The hospital was busy. Liam watched a bent old man, shuffling along the corridor, pushing a wheeled medicine bottle contraption ahead of him. He stopped for several seconds to catch his breath and then shuffled on. Liam felt like that old man, worn out, powerless.
The inspector came back. His blue eyes looked weary. To Liam he said, “The Mole, as you call him, might survive. Or he might not. It's too soon to know. I would like to ask you a few more questions.”
“We are taking Liam home,” said Delia Cassidy haughtily. “There will be time for questions tomorrow. Not today. Can't you see the boy is half dead?”
“My wife is right, Inspector,” said Jack Cassidy. “Your questions will have to wait.”
“Very well,” said the inspector. He said to Liam, “I will need to get a full statement from you tomorrow when you're rested, all right?” To Jack Cassidy he said, “In the meantime, I'm having the Grogans picked up and brought in for questioning.” He turned back to Liam. “You were brave,” he said sternly, “but you're lucky to be alive.”
“No thanks to you,” said Delia Cassidy coldly.
Liam shrugged. He was safe. There was nothing more for him to worry about. He could rest. The Mole would pay for his crimes.
The inspector said, “I will order a car to take you home.” He gave a stiff little nod to Delia Cassidy and moved off toward the elevator.
Delia Cassidy turned to Liam. “You're shivering, lovey. Are we all finished here?”
“Yes, finished,” he said. “It's over.”
The Cassidys smiled. Rory looped an arm round Liam's shoulders.
Delia Cassidy said, “Then let's go home.”
When they got outside they ran through a heavy shower to the waiting police car.
The police car soon had them home.
They hurried through into the warm kitchen. Delia Cassidy plugged in the kettle. “A drop of tea will warm us up.”
Liam stood and looked out the now-repaired kitchen window, the one that had been shattered by the Mole's bullet. He watched a starling picking about in the patch of grass near the garbage can in the tiny backyard. The rain had stopped. A shaft of bright sun cut through the clouds and lit the bird and the patch of grass. He listened to the whistle of the teakettle and the sound of Jack Cassidy humming under his breath as he rinsed cups and saucers in the sink.
He was safe here.
He slept.
The next morning, Delia Cassidy handed him a gold ring. He looked at it in the palm of his hand. She said, “It was your mother's marriage band. Now it's yours. And this too.” She handed him a chrome pocket watch on a silver-colored chain. He knew it well. He released the catch, looked at the fine black roman numerals on the white watch face, closed the front again, and weighed the watch in his hand, remembering the frown that creased his da's forehead whenever he squinted to read the time. This was Liam's inheritance: a wedding ring and a watch. His throat filled up. He pushed the ring onto the middle finger of his left hand and dropped the watch into his pocket.
“And here.” She held out the key to his house across the street. “You might want to pick up some of your things before the landlord empties the place.”
He made no move to take the key. He didn't want to cross the street and go inside the house where his mum and his da had been murdered.
“You do not have to go, of course, if you don't want to.”
There were things he would like to keep, things that belonged to his mum and his da, butâ¦
Delia Cassidy read his mind. “Will I come with you?”
“No, that's okay.” He took the key from her hand. “I'll go alone.”
He crossed the street. It felt strange going in. The house looked the same but felt different. Empty. Damaged. Defiled. He hated it now.
The smashed front door was gone. A second-hand one hung in its place. Probably from the builder's demolition yard. It was a brick color that did not match the dark green trim round the windows. Not that it mattered. The whole street was a mixture of mismatched colors, including the curbs outside the houses, painted the colors of the Irish Republic: green, white, and orange (or gold), meant to symbolize peace (white) between the Irish Republic (green) and the Protestant North (orange). Some white peace, thought Liam. Red would be more like it.
It wasn't the new door so much as the inside of the house itself that gave him the tight feeling in his chest, like his heart was being squeezed and he couldn't breathe.
He climbed the stairs. The door to his mum and da's room was closed.
Frightened at what he might see, he stood outside the door, steeling himself to enter. He didn't have to go in, he knew that; he could simply pass it by. But he gritted his teeth and opened the door and stood staring in. He could see the mess the bullets had made of the walls and the floor. The bed was gone. The rest of the furniture was shattered. Someone, probably the women on the street, had scrubbed and tidied the room. There was no blood that he could see. One step forward and he was inside the room, heart thumping. He saw a picture frame lying face down on the wrecked chest of drawers. He picked it up. It was a wedding picture: his mum and da when they got married, just the two of them, photographed cheek-to-cheek, smiling and happy, posing for the camera, his da in a suit and tie and his mum in a white dress. Both the picture frame and the glass were broken, but the picture was intact. He stared at it and felt his throat muscles thicken and his eyes fill with tears.
For the first time since their deaths, he let it all out. It was like a dam breaking.
He cried.
He sat on the floor and he cried.
When he was finished crying he moved across the hallway to his room. It looked much the same as when he had left it. He took down his circus posters and rolled them up together along with the picture of his mum and da.
Downstairs, he took a last look at everything: bookshelves full of books, photo albums, his da's newspapers and magazines strewn untidily on the coffee table, the sleeping telly, his mum and his da's library books, his mum's big ball of dark blue wool and a pair of knitting needles left on the couch, the blender on the drain board, cups and saucers in the kitchen sink, the silent kettleâ¦
He took the two photo albums of family snapshots with him and he left the house, closing its door for the very last time.
The seven men wheeled their wheelchairs into a brightly lighted room and lined up against a white wall. Each man wore a number on his chest.
It was a police line-up. Liam watched from a window in a separate room. There were three others with him, Jack Cassidy, Inspector Osborne, and a police assistant.
“The wheelchairs are from the hospital,” the inspector explained. “It's got to be a level playing field: each man the same.”
It was now November, and Belfast was well into its rainy season. A full four months had gone by since the Mole had toppled off the city hall dome, four months since Liam had been living in his new home with the Cassidy family.
He examined the faces of the men in the line-up. The Mole was the second man from the right, number six. He would know the man anywhere. He still saw him in his nightmares. He felt himself trembling. Jack Cassidy's big hand squeezed his shoulder.
Inspector Osborne spoke quietly to his assistant, seated at a desk in the room, and then turned to Liam. “Look at these men. Take your time. If you see the man who broke into your home and shot your parents, just tell me the number on his chest.”
Without hesitation Liam said, “Number six.”
“You sure?”
“I'm sure.”
Jack Cassidy gave his shoulder another firm squeeze.
Inspector Osborne nodded to his assistant and the men in the wheelchairs were led out of the room.
“It is all up to the police now,” said Jack Cassidy as they left the station. “Everything is in their hands.”
“Will they keep him in jail do you think?”
“Didn't you pick him out? Without hesitation. I watched you. You hardly looked at the others. It was obviously the right man, no question. I'm sure they will keep him in jail.”
“I hope they lock him up for ever and ever.”
“You were very brave in there, Liam. I was proud of you.”
“I didn't feel brave. I thought he would see me and jump out of his wheelchair and kill me.”
One evening a short time later, Liam opened the door to Inspector Osborne.
“May I come in?”
Delia Cassidy, working in the kitchen, heard his voice. “Come in out of the rain, Inspector.”
Liam stepped back and the inspector entered. “She's in the kitchen. Give me your coat and go on through. There's a fresh pot of tea just made.”
The three of them sat at the kitchen table. Delia Cassidy poured three cups of tea. “Jack and Rory are down at Rob O'Brien's, helping him fix his old car,” she told the inspector.
Inspector Osborne looked tired. He helped himself to milk and sugar. Liam and Delia Cassidy sat stirring their tea in silence, waiting for him to speak.
“Officer Cameron Bentleyâor the Mole as you call him, Liamâwill be spending the rest of his life in that wheelchair, the one he had at the line-up.” The inspector placed his teaspoon carefully, absently, in the saucer. “And in a couple of months or so, he will be facing two charges of murderâyour parentsâand one charge of attempted murderâyou.”
“I pray to God they send him to prison for the rest of his life,” said Delia Cassidy.
Inspector Osborne said, “If he's found guilty⦔
“Of course the man will be found guilty!” said Delia Cassidy.
“If he's found guilty,” repeated the inspector, “a life sentence would be the usual penalty. But the prosecutor plea-bargained the Mole into revealing the name of his accomplice. The Mole will probably serve only fifteen years instead of a life sentence.”
“I don't get it,” said Liam. “Do you mean the Mole gets a lighter sentence in exchange for ratting on his partner?”
“Yes,” said Osborne. “That's right. The name of the Mole's partner-in-crime is Kenny Dill. Dill has masterminded many killings, including those of your parents, but we could never pin anything on him before; he was too clever. Now we have a warrant out for his arrest. We also know now, for sure, that the killing of your parents was a senseless retaliation strike, as we'd suspected.” He shrugged. “It could have been anybody. It didn't matter to them.”
Liam looked at Delia Cassidy.
She took his hand and held it tight.
As far as Liam was concerned, it was all over. The Mole was in jail and soon, by the sounds of it, the other murderer would be in jail too. “What about Grogan?” he asked the inspector.
“Fergus Grogan will also testify. He will say that Bentley threatened and bribed him into helping catch you. He will probably get a reduced sentence for aiding and abetting. Three to five maybe.”
“Years?”
The inspector nodded. “Moira Grogan wasn't in on it, as far as we can tell, so she goes free. She was fired from the security division of course.”
When Inspector Osborne had gone, Liam sat down and sipped at a second cup of tea with Delia Cassidy.
“Ah, the man isn't all that bad,” she said with a sniff. “For a policeman, that is.” She gave another sniff. “It's just happy, I am, that he did his job and you're safe.”
They sat in silence for a minute.
“Rory is delighted you're living here with us, did I tell you that?”
He shook his head.
“Jack wanted children. We both did. But we could have only the one. Now Rory has the brother we always wanted for him.” She looked at him fondly. “And don't ye look enough alike to be twins?” She laughed, delighted with herself.
That night, when he went to bed, he felt emptied but new. It was as if he were starting over. He had a new family.
Rory, in the next bed, was quiet, leaving him be. Liam was grateful for this. He didn't need a lot of talk, not right now.
Tomorrow was Saturday and he and Rory would take the bus to the city, to the Youth Circus, and things would be just the way they used to be.
be just the way they used to Almost.
He would see Nicole again.
Life would go on.
These are a few of the dates that Liam memorized in school:
1170 AD: the king of England declares himself king of Ireland as well, which leads to war. Ireland loses.
1609: England gives Irish land to Protestant settlers from Scotland. Catholics are forbidden to own land, vote, or speak the Irish language. The Irish keep fighting for their freedom.
1829: the Irish people win the right to vote.
1916: a small Irish rebellion in Dublin. England wins once again and Irish leaders are executed or jailed. Angry Irish patriots join Sinn Fein (“ourselves alone”), a non-violent political group fighting for freedom. Many others join the IRA (Irish Republican Army), led by Michael Collins, to fight with weapons.
1921: Michael Collins forces England to allow self-government and freedom for all parts of Ireland except the mainly Protestant north, now known as Northern Ireland or Ulster, where most Catholics still have no vote and no control.
1968: Catholics in the North of Ireland (who do not use the terms Northern Ireland or Ulster), inspired by Martin Luther King in the United States, start to form civil rights groups, fighting non-violently for equal rights with Protestants. They organize protest marches, forbidden by the government. The protestors are attacked and gassed. Catholic homes, neighborhoods and churches are attacked by Protestant mobs. The Catholics arm themselves and begin to fight back. England sends troops to keep the peace.