Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series Book 3) Page 5

  February 1973

  Billy

  David had weighed his options before giving Billy an answer. However, in the end he had gone to see Casey, not trusting the telephone for discreet communication. He had bearded the lion in his den, so to speak, sneaking in the back door of the Youth Center on the one night of the week that Casey still worked there.

  It had been a less than auspicious start to the proceedings, as Casey had greeted him with a gun and a brusque,

  “Who are ye and what the hell do ye want?”

  At least, thought David, swallowing hard to digest the heart in his throat, his disguise had fooled one of the Riordans. Then again, it was dark in the back entry and this was not a good neighborhood in which to be lurking unexpectedly around back doors.

  After David had stated his name and purpose, Casey had eased back on the gun but still sounded as though he would be happy to shoot David should he move too suddenly or say something Casey didn’t like.

  “Well now that I know who ye are, I’ll ask again. What the hell is it that ye want?”

  David explained about Billy’s request and the reasons behind it, then went on to explain how the request had come to him.

  “Me?” Casey Riordan demanded, raising a black brow and giving his visitor a narrowed dark eye that produced a familiar clench in David’s gut. Why he found Patrick’s brother so fearsome, he wasn’t certain. It wasn’t as if the man had ever harmed him—threatened it by his mere presence and aura, certainly, but never actually done it. Perhaps it was just that he really looked as though he would like to occasionally.

  “Yes, you,” David said trying to sound assertive. “He won’t talk unless it’s you. I’ve done my best to persuade him without your help, trust me, but he says it’s you and no one else. He was a friend of Lawrence’s, you see.”

  Casey nodded and sat, rubbing his large hands over his face and sighing heavily.

  “Aye, I see. Alright, tell the lad I’ll listen to what he has to say, but whether or no’ I can help is another matter altogether.”

  “You don’t need to. I’ll get him somewhere safe and set up. I’ll do it myself if the company won’t back me.”

  This received another raised eyebrow and a look of profound cynicism which David was all too well aware the British special forces had more than earned here in Northern Ireland. Often people who were lured into working for either the army or any of the more shadowy organizations that proliferated here like wheat on a threshing floor, were promptly and callously discarded once they had outworn their usefulness. At that point, the inevitable usually took place. If they were lucky—and they rarely ever were—it was a quick, if brutal, death. The unlucky ones found themselves bound and gagged and tortured in an isolated cottage for days until the merciful bullet to the back of the head was administered. Casey’s cynicism might be profound, but it was also the opinion and experience of a realist.

  “You loved Lawrence and he thought the world of you, so yes, I’d little doubt on that score alone that you would talk to Billy. We need to finish this for him, Casey.”

  Casey didn’t reply, and the dark eyes were as unfathomable as a lake in winter, but he nodded curtly. “Bring him then.”

  He had given David directions to a location in the countryside where he felt they could meet unobserved.

  The upshot of this consisted of David escorting a nervous Billy, who chewed his nails non-stop during the hour-long drive and was so tense that David’s shoulders felt as though they were up around his own ears by the time they arrived. If arriving was the correct state to describe the location Casey had chosen for their meeting.

  Ireland was scattered with small abandoned cottages, left as they stood generations before. The Irish did not believe in tearing down such buildings, for what if their inhabitants were to return and find their home gone? What if ghosts lingered near and sought shelter within walls that had once rung with laughter and song, once been both shelter and sanctuary?

  David thought even a ghost would be hard put to find adequate harbor from the elements in this particular cottage, for there were only three walls remaining and a tumbledown chimney wound about with vines and mortared with moss and lichens. A fingernail paring of moon sat, gold and watchful, just above the scrim of stone.

  The inside was empty, the only noise that of the wind moving through the trees and whistling softly against the ancient grey stone. A raven came flapping down and perched ominously on the top of what had once been a doorway. David felt an urge to quote Poe at it, but squelched it quickly for Casey had come round the edge of one ragged wall, silent as a wolf in the night.

  Billy quailed a bit when brought face to face with the man about whom he had heard much but never encountered in the flesh. David had a great deal of empathy for him, but pushed the boy forward with a gentle hand.

  “Sit an’ relax. I won’t bite ye,” Casey said to the boy, attempting to break the tension that lay over them all like glass.

  “Yer a wee bit more imposin’ than I imagined,” Billy said and sat as though he dared not disobey the big, dark man in front of him.

  “Aye, well, that may be so but Lawrence never feared me, not even when he first met me and nor need you. I’ll not hurt ye lad, nor abuse ye in any way. Just be straight with me an’ I’ll give ye the same in return. Fair enough?”

  Billy nodded and swallowed. Casey looked him in the eye and asked, “Will ye want yer man there to stay? I’m comfortable either way but I realize ye may not be, so what would ye prefer?”

  Billy looked at David, who nodded in assurance that whatever he wanted was fine by him.

  “He can stay. It’s better if ye both hear what I have to say, I think maybe.”

  Casey nodded. “Yer right. Good thinkin’, man.” He nodded to David to sit and David wondered how he had so completely taken control of the situation. The man was a natural, if at times reluctant, leader and all in his aura seemed to respond immediately to this fact.

  “So, let’s start with this—why me?” Casey asked, his expression guarded.

  “Because Lawrence was my friend. ‘Course we only ever called him Flip. He was a wee bit older than me but he looked out for us younger lads, even if it meant he had to steal or… other things, to keep us fed. There were five of us who lived on the streets together when the season was right for it. Had a wee tent that we set up behind some bushes in a vacant lot. We stole fruit from the markets an’ lemonade an’ bread an’ candy. ‘Twas grand when it weren’t rainin’. We was a ragged bunch but it was like havin’ a family for a bit, one ye’d scrabbled together from odds n’ sods, but a family anyway.”

  “So how did ye end up in the home?”

  “Got pulled in by the police for stealin’ a feckin’ tub of margarine, if ye can believe it. An’ once they realized I’d no family nor guardian, they put me in there. Boyd specializes in troubled boys, ye understand.”

  Casey nodded. “Aye, I imagine that makes it simpler for him to manipulate yez.”

  “He waits until yer likely to stay as not, because he treats ye like a wounded rabbit for a bit, aye. Ye get lulled into thinkin’ it’s not such a bad deal, three squares, a roof to keep the rain off and somewhere warm to sleep at night.” Billy shifted on the pine stump, ramming his hands deeper into his jacket.

  “Then ye hear steps on the stair an’ outside yer bedroom at night, an’ he pauses there as if he’s checkin’ to make sure everyone’s safe an’ sleepin’, but it don’t feel that way—ye know, like a parent checkin’ on a child. An’ then he starts with the rubbin’ against ye in the cloakroom or the kitchen when no one else is about, but like it’s accidental. An’ then one night he’s in yer bedroom an’ he’s rubbin’ himself on ye, or makin’ ye wank him with yer hand, or,” Billy shrugged, “he wanks ye, dependin’ on his mood, or he makes ye suck him off or take it in yer backside. It’s t
he price ye pay to have somewhere to live an’ most of the boys don’t have anywhere else to go. They just see it as part of the deal. Some of them don’t even have enough smarts to know it’s wrong.”

  “An’ what about yerself?” Casey asked, tone casual. “Did ye feel it was wrong when it started happenin’ to you?”

  Billy shrugged again, the blue eyes candid. “Aye, I did, but I was bein’ fed, an’ I figured I could stand it for a full belly. He didn’t hit me, nor did any of his friends—though some were a wee bit rough.”

  “How old were ye—when it started?”

  “Thirteen.” Billy’s voice was flat and his eyes no longer met Casey’s but looked out beyond to the horizon, though David was certain he was blind to the beauty of the evening.

  “Listen, it’s more than that. There’s a man comes round, but only after dark. I don’t think he’s there for any of the boys, but it’s like ye can feel that he’s there the minute he comes through the door. I’ve never seen his face, but I know his voice. It’s more educated soundin’, like he went to a good school or had money growin’ up. There’s somethin’ not right about him.”

  David took a deep breath through his nose, seeing clearly in his mind the strange man from his first night in the house, the one who had never revealed his face but whose presence had hung behind him like a chill draft from a cave.

  “I heard them talkin’ one night. I’d gone down for a drink of water. I’m light on my feet an’ the stairs don’t squeak when I take them like they do for some of the other lads. They were talkin’ about things to do with their wee club, rules an’ regulations an’ who owed money into the tea tin sort of thing an’ then suddenly the toff one was sayin’ somethin’ about eliminatin’ people. About makin’ targeted hits an’ havin’ a kill squad for it.”

  “An’ who were they plannin’ to kill?” Casey asked in a steel-edged tone.

  This news came as no shock to either David or Casey. There had been rumors of just such an organization for a long time, but to be told it was more than rumor still sat hard in a man’s stomach. James Kirkpatrick had told him it was true, but that finding the men behind it was like tracing smoke on a foggy day.

  “Republicans, Catholics—the toff said any Taig was as good as another.” Billy shrugged apologetically. “It’s not that I haven’t heard that sort of talk before, when men drink an’ get together for the drummin’ on the 12th but… it wasn’t so much the words he was sayin’ as how he was sayin’ them. He was so cold. I’ll tell ye…” Billy looked Casey in the face again, his blue eyes dark with fear, “not much scares me, but that man does.”

  Casey flicked a look at David, who tilted his head just enough to acknowledge it. They would have to talk more about this later, privately. It was more than either of them had anticipated hearing from Billy. The boy was taking an enormous risk in order to show good faith. What they did with it was up to them. It was the sort of knowledge David knew that they both would come to regret having.

  “Why would ye tell us this?” Casey asked, voice soft, but still with an edge that said he was wary of this boy.

  Billy shrugged and looked up at the crescent of moon. “Because people might not care so much about boys gettin’ raped, but this kind of information has real value. I don’t know a lot in this world, but that I know. An’ if this information should destroy the men involved, then they won’t be free to do anything else either. It would kill all the birds in the bush with one stone. And,” he gave David a slightly apologetic glance, “as a form of insurance, if ye know an’ something happens to me then I can’t just disappear with no one the wiser. Because I think that man knew I was listenin’ and I don’t know how he would know ‘twas me for I was well hid in the wee notch at the top of the stairs, but all the same, there’s a feeling in the pit of my gut that tells me he knows.”

  “Then ye’d best be careful, boy. An’ you too.” He nodded at David, then stood, signaling the meeting was at an end.

  He didn’t make any promises, and David understood the wisdom of that. Casey knew that boys like Billy didn’t trust promises or tender words. They would only believe in a man who had walked the same streets and had to be as tough as they did, even if for different reasons.

  Walking back through the twilit field with Billy in tow, David wondered if the can of worms they had just peered into was going to prove more than any of them had reckoned with.

  Casey sat for a time after David left with the boy, watching the whisper-thin crescent moon float over the hilltops. It was that lovely smoky gold that appeared this time of year. It was peaceful here, which was in part why he had chosen the spot. No one was likely to pass by. Sometimes it seemed as though no one had done so for several years, for it had that feel of a spot where there had been no human interference for a very long time.

  The place in his chest where Lawrence sat was raw and tender. He had been hit hard by Billy’s story. He wasn’t certain he believed the boy entirely. There was something a bit sly about him, for all the appearance of truth. But what boy, having lived at the mercy of Boyd McCarthy, wouldn’t be cagey and a wee bit sly? There were things that rang true, things that matched what Lawrence had told him. And David, who was living in the house, seemed to believe him and he trusted David’s instincts. There was a great deal that could be said about the British forces in Ireland, but generally speaking, they didn’t put complete fools in charge of the sort of operations David always seemed to be involved in.

  He sat until he was chilled and the moon had gone to hide amongst the high branches of a yew. He realized that he was no longer thinking about Lawrence or what the boy Billy had told him. He was thinking about his wife and avoiding what lay under that, the way one avoided a live wire or a pot of scalding lye.

  He had promised himself before their reconciliation he would not punish her for what she had done. He understood in a logical fashion that she had committed adultery in order to keep him safe, that she had believed—with a fair amount of cause—that she could keep him alive by going to Love Hagerty’s bed. Logic had little to do with emotion, however, and emotionally he had been furious and hurt beyond anything he had ever imagined. He felt like the proverbial lion some days. Only the thorn wasn’t in his paw, it was in his heart.

  Thus far, he had kept his promise. Outwardly, he thought he had done well, but now and again he would see how Pamela watched him with a haunted look in her eyes. Or how there was just a millisecond of hesitation at his touch, as though she felt the reticence in his heart that he tried so hard to hide. In those moments, he knew, he was not fooling his wife in the least.

  What they had between them was rare. He knew it, and he treasured it as something beautiful and whole that he had never expected to be blessed with. He thought of it sometimes as a pearl hidden away in the heart of an oyster, lucent and delicate, shimmering with an infinite variety of colors and lights. Now the pearl had been exposed, and there were flaws in it that he knew he would have to examine, but could not find the courage yet.

  He moved out into the night, leaving the crumbling stone walls behind. The raven had long flown and the land was flowing into the dark, melding with the sky.

  It was long past time to be going home.

  Chapter Six

  All or Nothing

  Since Lawrence’s death, Pamela had dreaded coming home to an empty house but tonight she was simply relieved to be in out of the rain. The sharp pain in her chest where Lawrence’s memory sat was slowly dulling, and this in itself made her sad because life moved on even when it seemed hardly possible for it to do so. She and Casey had begun to talk of him, though it was still difficult and not something they did often. But she knew when Casey was thinking about him, from the look on his face and the fact that he usually went outside and did any sort of hard labor he could find for an hour or two, before returning, looking marginally less haunted.

  She shut t
he door behind her, glad to be away from the city, away from today’s job. It had been a long, unpleasant day of taking pictures for the insurers of a pub that had been hit with a pipe bomb. A group calling themselves the ‘Redhand Defenders’ was taking responsibility. No one had been killed in the blast but there had been some very bad injuries and blood and charred flesh on the twisted stools and splintered woodwork.

  It was late and Casey wasn’t home yet. She sighed, eyeing the clock and easing her body into a kitchen chair. The Aga kept the house warm even when they were both gone for most of the day. On a filthy night like tonight, it was ecstasy to come home to a cozy, warm kitchen. Not that she was away much these days. Since she had realized she was pregnant she had quit her old job of photographing dead bodies, mutilated and otherwise, that littered the ditches and streets of Belfast and the surrounding countryside, compliments of their unofficial and never-ending war. She didn’t want to risk this pregnancy and she knew that her work was a bone of contention between herself and Casey. And their marriage was, she knew all too well, too fragile to bear much stress just now. Today’s job was a one off, a favor to an associate who had a family emergency. The few jobs she had taken in the last months had been mainly weddings, christenings and communions. Even those were getting awkward and exhausting as her belly continued to expand. It was time to quit until after the birth, and maybe stay unemployed for a good long while. The idea of being home with the baby each day held enormous appeal. Casey was making enough money for them to get by, even if only just. Remembering her own motherless and rather lonely childhood, she was firmly set on being there for her child. Casey had definite views on this issue too, and they did not include his wife—‘haring about the countryside after corpses an’ madmen,’ as he had succinctly put it.

  She took her shoes off and rubbed her feet. It was an awkward task at present, and soon to become impossible. She eyed the round of her belly with both affection and chagrin. The word ‘blooming’ had been used by a woman in the butcher’s shop yesterday, which she supposed was a kind way of saying ‘large’. Casey being the size he was, she expected a good-sized baby, but the magnitude of her belly now, at not quite seven months, was a bit alarming. The idea that she had somehow, despite all the birthing books’ assurances, to push this child out after another two and a half months of growing seemed utterly preposterous and entirely terrifying. As reassuring as Casey tried to be, she knew it was a journey that she had ultimately to make alone.