Read Online Collusion by Stuart Neville - Free Book Online Page B

fucked off out of it,’ Rankin said. ‘Took the child with her, too.’
    Lennon straightened. ‘What do you know about that?’
    ‘Only what I heard. Like I said, I know boys on the other side. They talk.’
    ‘What did they say?’
    Rankin grinned. ‘I’ve said too much already, son. Best I shut my mouth now.’
    Lennon leaned on the bed, his face inches from Rankin’s. ‘What did they say?’
    Rankin mimed zipping his mouth shut, his eyes twinkling.
    Lennon grabbed the lapels of his dressing gown and pulled him close so their noses almost touched. ‘What did they say?’
    ‘Easy, son,’ Rankin said, smiling. He put a hand on Lennon’s shoulder. ‘I’m only winding you up. They didn’t say much, it was all a bit confused, like.’
    Lennon released the lapels and let Rankin sit back. ‘Go on.’
    ‘Everyone thought she just got the frighteners when her uncle got hit, and that whole feud kicked off. But then I heard some other stuff, just rumours, you know?’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘Like it wasn’t a feud,’ Rankin said. He smoothed his dressing gown over his chest. ‘Nobody could say for sure what it was, but it wasn’t a feud. Them three dissidents that blew themselves up had nothing to do with it, for one thing. What I heard, and don’t quote me, it was just the one man done it. Some fella just went clean buck mental and went after McKenna and McGinty and the lot of them.’
    ‘Bullshit,’ Lennon said. ‘There was an inquiry.’
    Rankin laughed. ‘Since when did an inquiry prove anything? Anyway, that’s what I heard. Might be true, might not. But that’s not all.’
    Lennon sighed. ‘Christ, just tell me.’
    ‘I heard the woman was mixed up in it, her and the wee girl. Your wee girl. Jesus, don’t tell me you didn’t know all this? Them Special Branch boys really don’t tell you fuck all, do they?’
    Lennon’s heart fluttered. ‘Is that it?’
    ‘It’s all I heard,’ Rankin said.
    Lennon backed towards the door, almost stumbled over the chair.
    ‘A thank-you would be nice,’ Rankin called after Lennon as he retreated from the room.

11
    ‘Thomas McDonnell,’ the doctor called. A long streak of piss with a miserable face, he hovered in the waiting-room doorway.
    ‘That’s me,’ the Traveller said.
    The doctor nodded and walked away. The Traveller followed him. He’d used the Community Hospital in Armagh before, and the name Thomas McDonnell. They had a man of that moniker in the system somewhere, and health care was free up here, so the Traveller had no compunction about using it.
    Except the Accident and Emergency doctors were always so fucking miserable. He’d had a broken right hand treated in the A&E at Craigavon once. A boxer’s fracture, they called it. He swore blind he hadn’t got it by punching some poor bastard’s face in, but they didn’t believe him. He could see the contempt on every single person who treated him that night. All except that little auxiliary nurse. The night hadn’t been a total loss in the end.
    This doctor was no more affable than the rest of them as he examined the Traveller’s eye. It had streamed all last night, keeping him awake as he lay in the back of the Mercedes, and he couldn’t stop squinting and blinking as he drove north this morning.
    ‘What happened?’ the doctor asked.
    ‘Got something in my eye,’ the Traveller said. ‘Hurts like fuck.’
    The doctor bristled. The Traveller noticed the little pin in the shape of a fish on the doctor’s lapel. Jesus, he was a God-botherer.
    ‘How did it get there?’ the doctor asked.
    ‘Don’t know,’ the Traveller said.
    The doctor sighed. ‘Head back.’
    Before the Traveller knew what was happening, the doctor squeezed some orange stuff out of a little tube into his eye.
    ‘Fuck’s sake,’ the Traveller said, blinking.
    The doctor sighed again. ‘It’s just to help me see better. Let’s have a look.’
    He pushed back the Traveller’s upper eyelid and shone a light in.