Shay barely heard me. He said, “At first I thought you just chickened out: didn’t have the guts, once it started getting close. I thought that for months, right up until I got talking to Imelda Tierney. Then I knew. It had nothing to do with guts. The only thing you ever cared about was what you wanted. Once you found an easier way to that, the rest wasn’t worth a damn to you. Your family, me, everything you owed, everything we’d promised: not a damn.”
I said, “Let me make sure I’ve got this straight. You’re giving me shit for not having killed someone?”
His lip pulling up in pure disgust: I’d seen that look on his face a thousand times, when we were little kids and I was trying to keep up. “Don’t get clever. I’m giving you shit because you think that puts you above me. You listen to me: maybe your cop mates all believe you’re one of the good guys, maybe you can tell yourself the same thing, but I know better. I know what you are.”
I said, “Pal, I can promise you, you do not have the foggiest clue what I am.”
“Do I not? I know this much: that’s why you joined the cops. Because of what we almost did, that spring. How it made you feel.”
“I had a sudden urge to make amends for my wicked past? The sappy streak is cute on you, but no. Sorry to disappoint.”
Shay laughed out loud, a fierce burst that showed his teeth and made him look like that reckless bad-news teenager again. “Make amends, my arse. Not our Francis, not in a million years. No: once you’ve got a badge to hide behind, you can get away with anything you like. Tell me, Detective. I’m only dying to know. What’ve you got away with, along the way?”
I said, “You need to get this through your thick skull. All your ifs and buts and almosts mean bugger-all. I did nothing. I could walk into any station in the country, confess every single thing we planned that spring, and the only thing I’d get in trouble for would be wasting police time. This isn’t church; you don’t go to hell just for thinking bad thoughts.”
“No? Tell me it didn’t change you, that month we spent planning. Tell me you didn’t feel different, after. Come on.”
Da used to say, a few seconds before the first punch, that Shay never knew when to stop. I said, and my voice should have made him back off, “Surely to sweet baby Jesus in heaven you’re not trying to blame me for what you did to Rosie.”
That twitch of his lip again, halfway between a tic and a snarl. “I’m only telling you. I’m not going to sit in my own home and watch you give me that self-righteous look, when you’re no different from me.”
“Yeah, pal, I am. We may have had some interesting conversations, you and me, but when you get down to the actual facts, the fact is that I never laid a finger on Da, and the fact is that you murdered two people. Call me crazy, but I’m seeing a distinction there.”
His jaw had set hard again. “I did nothing to Kevin. Nothing.”
In other words, sharing time was over. After a moment I said, “Maybe I’m losing my mind here, but I’m getting the sense you expect me to just nod and smile and walk away. Do me a big fat favor: tell me I’m wrong.”
That glitter of hate was back in Shay’s eyes, pure and mindless as heat lightning. “Take a look around yourself, Detective. Have you not noticed? You’re right back where you started. Your family needs you again, you still owe us, and this time you’re going to pay up. Only you’re in luck. This time, if you don’t fancy sticking around and doing your share, all we need you to do is walk away.”
I said, “You think for one second that I’m going to let you away with this, you’re even crazier than I thought.”
The moving shadows turned his face into a wild animal mask. “Yeah? Let’s see you prove it, pig. Kevin’s not here to say I went out that night. Your Holly’s made of better stuff than you, she won’t squeal on family; and even if you twist her arm, you can take everything the child says as gospel, but other people might not feel the same way. Fuck off back to your cop shop and get your little pals to blow you till you feel better. You’ve got nothing.”
I said, “I don’t know where you got the idea that I’m planning on proving anything.” Then I slammed the table into Shay’s stomach. He grunted and went over backwards with the table on top of him, glasses and the ashtray and the whiskey bottle thudding everywhere. I kicked my chair out of my way and dived after him. That was the moment when I realized I had come into that flat to kill him.
