“Is that what this is about? You feel guilty for not taking baby brother’s calls, so you’re looking for a way to put the blame on me?”
“I listened to your story. Now you let me finish mine. By Sunday evening, Kev’s head was melted. And, like you said, he wasn’t the brightest little pixie in the forest to start with. All he could think of to do was the straightforward thing, God help him, the honest thing: talk to you, man to man, and see what you had to say. And when you told him to meet you in Number Sixteen, the poor thick bastard walked right in. Tell me something, do you think he was adopted? Or just some kind of mutation?”
Shay said, “He was protected. That’s what he was. All his life.”
“Not last Sunday, he wasn’t. Last Sunday he was vulnerable as hell and he thought he was safe as houses. You gave him all that self-righteous bullshit about-what was it again?-family responsibility and a bedsit of your own, same as you gave me. But none of that meant anything to Kevin. All he knew was the facts, pure and simple: you killed Rosie Daly. And that was too much for him to handle. What did he say that got up your nose that badly? Was he planning on telling me, once he could get hold of me? Or did you even bother to find out, before you went ahead and killed him too?”
Shay shifted in his chair, a wild trapped move, cut off fast. He said, “You haven’t a notion, have you? Neither of yous ever did.”
“Then you go right ahead and clue me in. Educate me. For starters, how did you get him to stick his head out that window? That was a cute little trick; I’d love to hear how you worked it.”
“Who says I did?”
“Talk to me, Shay. I’m just dying of curiosity. Once you heard his skull smash open, did you hang about upstairs, or did you go straight out the back to shove that note in his pocket? Was he still moving when you got there? Moaning? Did he recognize you? Did he beg for help? Did you stand in that garden and watch him die?”
Shay was hunched over the table, shoulders braced and head down, like a man fighting a high wind. He said, low, “After you walked out, it took me twenty-two years to get my chance back. Twenty-two fucking years. Can you imagine what they’ve been like? All four of yous off living your lives, getting married, having kids, like normal people, happy as pigs in shite. And me here, here, fucking here-” His jaw clenched and his finger stabbed down on the table, over and over. “I could’ve had all that too. I could’ve-”
He got some of his control back, caught his breath in a great rasp and pulled hard on his smoke. His hands were shaking.
“Now I’ve got my chance back. It’s not too late. I’m still young enough; I can make that bike shop take off, buy a gaff, have a family of my own-I still get the women. No one’s going to throw that chance away. No one. Not this time. Not again.”
I said, “And Kevin was about to.”
Another breath like an animal hissing. “Every bloody time I get close to getting out, so close I can taste it, there’s one of my own brothers holding me down. I tried to tell him. He didn’t understand. Thick bloody fool, spoilt kid used to everything falling in his lap, didn’t have a clue-” He bit off the sentence, shook his head and jammed out his smoke viciously.
I said, “So it just happened. Again. You’re an unlucky fella, aren’t you?”
“Shit happens.”
“Maybe. I might even fall for that, if it wasn’t for one thing: that note. That didn’t suddenly occur to you after Kevin went out the window: gee, I know what would come in useful right now, that piece of paper that I’ve had hanging around for twenty-two years. You didn’t trundle off home to fetch it, take the risk of being seen coming out of Number Sixteen or going back in. You already had it on you. You had the whole thing planned.”
Shay’s eyes came up to meet mine and they were blazing blue, lit up with an incandescent hate that almost knocked me back in my chair. “You’ve got some neck, you little bastard, do you know that? Some fucking brass neck, getting all superior with me. Of all people.”
Slowly, in the corners, the shadows clotted into thick dark lumps. Shay said, “Did you think I’d forget, just because that would suit you?”
I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do. Calling me a murderer-”
“Here’s a little tip for you. If you don’t like being called a murderer, don’t kill people.”
“-when I know and you know: you’re no different. Big man, coming back here with your badge and your cop talk and your cop buddies-You can fool anyone you like, fool yourself, go right ahead, you don’t fool me. You’re the same as me. The exact same.”
“No I’m not. Here’s the difference: I’ve never murdered anyone. Is that too complex for you?”
“Because you’re such a good guy, yeah, such a saint? What a load of shite, you give me the sick-That’s not morals, that’s not holiness. The only reason you never murdered anyone is because your dick beat your brain. If you hadn’t been pussy whipped, you’d be a killer now.”
