She dried herself off and went into the bedroom. The sight of Shaun’s body made her tremble as she scattered her dirty clothes over him but this was only the first stage and she had to be strong. She then picked out from the wardrobe a top and a pair of linen trousers that could easily be torn. Although she’d washed her face it didn’t take much for the darkness to return to her eyes. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw it all. She saw everything. But she also saw the plan she’d worked out and it brought the colour back into her eyes. She had to win. She had to survive for the sake of her baby.
She went up to the front door and listened out. The rest of the people in the block were getting off to work and she screamed ‘ Get away from me! Leave Shaun alone! Please, leave him alone! No!’ Her long nails ripped into the fabric of the top and then the trousers. ‘ Get off me! You bastard!’ Then she slapped her own face and threw herself against the door. She knew that nobody would come to her aid. Nobody would dare interfere in the household of Shaun Campbell. She smiled with satisfaction and turned back to the hall. Then she spent the next few minutes ransacking the whole flat. She ripped wallpaper, pushed all the furniture over, broke pictures, emptied plants from their containers, smashed glasses and plates. The feeling she got from seeing everything in pieces was exhilarating and by the time she’d finished the scene looked like Baghdad on a bad day. This was going to work. This was so going to work.
She packed some of her things, including the torn top and trousers, in a bag and then she got dressed. Last Christmas she’d bought a long brunette wig for a different sort of look at a party and she put it on. It was perfect. She put on a long summer raincoat that she’d never worn before and nobody would ever think it was her underneath it. She checked herself in the mirror. She took a deep breath. She did look like a different person. She would need cash and Shaun always kept a hefty amount in a safe in the bedroom in case any unexpected deals came his way. She knew the combination, she knew where the key was, and seconds later she’d helped herself to nearly three thousand from the Campbell bank of laundered money.
She stepped back over the body and went into the kitchen. From the cupboard under the sink she
took out the two metal containers of liquid gas that Shaun used to fill up his cigarette lighters. She emptied the contents of the two containers all over Shaun and her clothes that she’d thrown over him. She picked up her bag and stepped back to the doorway. Then she lit a match and threw it down. He went up instantly and in a flash the flames caught the wooden frame of their bed. The bed where they’d conceived their baby. Pretty soon this whole flat where they’d shared their life together would be up in smoke.
She checked through the peep hole of the front door that there was nobody around and then she opened the door and slammed it shut behind her. She ran down the stairs and into the resident’s car park that was underneath the block. Shaun’s car was parked in the first line of spaces and she got in, throwing her bag onto the back seat, and drove off, leaving her own car parked nearby. She pressed the button to open the gate and then she was heading down Antrim Road. In the distance she could hear sirens. Someone must’ve dared to call the police. Or was it the fire brigade. Either way she’d be long gone by the time their noses sniffed what may have been going on. She didn’t look back. Not even once.
Graham called the number on his mobile from Manchester Airport. He’d just got off the early morning flight from Belfast City. Duncan’s voice answered. It sent a shiver down his spine.
‘ Ian Taylor’
Graham gave him a cock and bull story about needing to get a quote to convert his house into two flats. Ian told him he wouldn’t be able to undertake the job for a couple of months but if he was prepared to wait he’d happily give him the quote and see. He said if he wanted to see an example of his firm’s work he could come down to where they were working at the moment. Graham jumped into a taxi and as it drove him through the better off addresses of South Manchester he wondered what in the world he was doing.
‘ I knew it was you’ said Ian as he greeted Graham and asked him to come into the site office. He looked around cautiously but it didn’t look like Graham had been followed.
‘ Did you?’
‘ I recognised your voice’ said Ian, closing the door firmly shut behind them. This was one conversation he really didn’t want to be overheard. ‘ That’s why I asked you to come down here. And the name you used? Terry Carson? We used to hang around with him, remember?’
‘ I do. It was the only name I could think of’.
‘ Have you come on your own?’ Ian asked. It was weird seeing Graham standing there. He hadn’t changed much. A few grey hairs and a bit of extra padding round the middle but apart from that he was just older.
Graham looked puzzled by the question. ‘ Yes?’
‘ Did anybody follow you?’ Ian asked as he glanced out of the window, swinging his eyes back and forth just to confirm his assessment of a moment earlier.
‘ I don’t see how they could, I came straight from the airport’.
‘ Are you still with the police?’ asked Ian.
‘ Yes’ said Graham. He hadn’t expected to have the red carpet thrown down but neither had he bargained on Duncan being so suspicious. Did he really think he’d come to stab him in the back? ‘ Jesus, you feel like a complete stranger to me’
‘ That’s what I am’.
‘ We used to be friends. We were best friends’.
‘ That was a long time ago’ said Ian.
‘ I went to your funeral and it cut me up in pieces. We’d known each other since we were wee boys and been through so much and for the last twenty years I thought you were dead. Then an informant tells me you’re alive and that Derek Campbell wants your blood and for his trouble he ended up dead on my front lawn. So I called in a favour and got someone to risk his job to find out if it was true. I saw your mother and I wanted to tell her that the son she still grieves for is alive but I couldn’t tell her anything. I’m sorry but the least you could do is to talk to me’.
It was the first time Ian had clapped eyes on anyone from his old life and the years were falling like dominoes. How could he send Graham away? They’d been so close.
‘ Look, I’m sorry, Graham. This is a complicated time for me at the moment and then you turn up out of the blue. I am pleased to see you and there’s nothing I’d like better than to talk. There’s a pub next door. I’ll let the lads know I’m going off site and we can go in there’.
The King Edward was one of those small, cosy pubs, tucked away on a quiet suburban avenue and when Ian and Graham got there it had only just opened. There were a couple of old boys already sitting at the bar supping their pints.
‘ It’s too early for the hard stuff for me’ said Ian ‘ I’ve got masses of work to do this afternoon’.
Ian asked the barman for an orange cordial in a pint glass. Graham allowed himself a pint of lager. They took their drinks to a corner table. The pub was so small it was like sitting in someone’s living room.
‘ I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did just now, Graham’.
‘ It’s alright. I understand’.
‘ I’m sorry too about what I did to you and everybody’.
‘ You didn’t seem to have much choice from what I’ve gathered’.
‘ My God, you have been well briefed. What exactly do you know?’
‘ I know about the two republicans, your faked death, your new identity. I know why Campbell is after you. Has he shown himself yet?’
‘ Oh yes, he’s shown himself alright’ said Ian. So Graham didn’t know about his
extra curricular activities of the last twenty years. ‘ I coach a rugby league side and he torched the clubhouse the other night’.
‘ I can help you with him’ said Graham. ‘ I want to nail that bastard as much as you do’.
‘ Are you saying you want us to work together on this?’
‘ That’s exactly what I’m saying. That’s why I’m here. I want to help you’.
‘ You don’t owe me anything, Graham’.
‘ Call it for old
times sake’.
Ian ran his hand over his face. ‘ Jesus, Graham, you can’t compromise yourself or your job on my account. You’re a serving police officer’.
Graham laughed. ‘ My job! I spend all my time trying to undermine my Catholic boss who got the promotion instead of me. I’m past caring about all that shit, believe me’.
‘ I’ve often wondered what you’d done with your life’.
‘ Well, I got married’.
Ian remembered the girl who’d been hanging around Graham all those years ago.‘ To Wendy?’
‘ Well remembered. Yes to Wendy. We have three kids. She knows I’m here by the way. We don’t have any secrets’.
‘ Are you happy?’
‘ With the family side of my life, yes. Wendy is a good woman and a great mother to our kids. My youngest is only three, we slipped him in at the last minute, but the older two are doing well at school and turning out okay. I’m lucky that neither of them are into drugs or walking around with an MP3 player permanently attached to their ears. We can talk to our kids you know, they can talk to us. I’m proud of that’.
‘ Teenagers who still talk to their parents? You are lucky’.
‘ So what about you anyway?’
‘ It’s been hard these past twenty years, Graham’ Ian admitted. ‘ It’s been hard and it’s been lonely. I sometimes don’t know how I got through’.
‘ I’m sorry, mate. I really am’.
‘ Don’t be. I got myself into it’.
‘ Well it wasn’t quite as simple as that, mate’.
‘ Well, that’s generous’ said Ian.
‘ And what about … relationships?’
‘ You really want to know about my love life?’ Ian asked. The only time he and Graham had fallen out was when he told Graham he was gay. Graham hadn’t known how to handle it and he’d kept his distance for a while. But then he came round, said he’d been a stupid twat and they were as close again as they’d ever been.
‘ I asked didn’t I’
‘ Well up until a few weeks ago I was hopeless’ said Ian ‘ I pushed them all away when they got serious because I didn’t think that my other life was
compatable with being with someone. But recently I met a guy called Mark and he’s turned my world upside down, Graham. He’s made me want to close the door on the last twenty years and finally move on. I have to say that the feelings run even deeper than they ever did with Kenny’.
‘ Jesus, it must be serious’ said Graham. ‘ Does he know about Campbell?’
‘ He knows everything’ said Ian ‘ I don’t know why the hell he wants to stay with me given all of that but he does and he must have a wild heart to stand by me. When this mess is over we’ll get on with our lives and I tell you, he’ll never want for anything’.
‘ Would you ever go back to Ireland?’
‘ I don’t know’ said Ian, his head down. ‘ There isn’t a day goes by without me thinking about Mum, Dad, our Claire. I don’t know how I could go back even after all this is over and Derek Campbell is dealt with. I don’t know if I could make it right’
‘ It wouldn’t be easy’ said Graham. ‘ But surely not impossible?’
‘ I should’ve listened to you, Graham. I should’ve listened to you when you told me not to get involved with Campbell. If I’d have listened to you then I wouldn’t be in this mess now and I wouldn’t have done that terrible thing to my family and to you’.
‘ I could never have stopped you’ said Graham ‘ You wanted revenge for Kenny and nothing would’ve stopped you.’.
‘ You begged and pleaded with me’ said Ian.
‘ I remember’ said Graham.
‘ I told you to fuck off and mind your own business more than once’.
‘ I remember that too. Then one day you were gone and I was going to your funeral but look, we’ve kind of been over this and nothing about it can be changed Duncan, sorry, Ian’.
‘ It’s alright. And what you say is true’.
‘ I really have come to help, you know. As your old mate’.
Ian thought for a minute. It was so bloody good to see Graham again. He’d missed his old friend and it would really be something if their friendship could be salvaged.
‘ When are you going back to Belfast?’
‘ I’m booked on the five o’clock flight this afternoon’.
‘ Could you change it to a flight tomorrow?’
‘ Well, yeah … I could. What did you have in mind?’
‘ We need to get our heads together on this whole Campbell business and apart from that I’d just like you to come over to our place and meet Mark and stay over. I want him to meet the best friend I ever had’.
Graham was touched by the idea. ‘ Okay, I’ll ring up the airline and change my booking. I’ll need to call Wendy too. She was due to pick me up at the airport. When all of this is done I’ll bring her and the kids over’.
‘ I’ll look forward to it. You don’t know how much’.