A Secret Worth Killing For

She switches on the stair light and leads him up. With the university on holiday, both the ground- and upper-floor flats are empty. At the top of the landing, she slots a second key into a bare wooden door and ushers him in. She’s learnt the floor plan, memorizing rooms, doors, furniture, cupboard contents, electrical appliances. They’d better have got it right. She’d better have remembered it right.

‘Sorry, it’s a bit dire,’ she says. ‘My flatmates are away for the vac but I didn’t wanna be trapped at home with my ma and da.’ She pauses, feigning embarrassment. ‘It means I’m sort of camping in the bedroom.’ She nods towards the room at the back. ‘TV’s there if you want. I’ll make coffee. Oh, bathroom’s there.’

‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘I could do with it.’

She puts on the kettle. When it begins whistling, she creeps to the front door and peers out. They’re there. She puts the palms of both hands to the window, fingers and thumbs splayed out. Ten minutes. Ten minutes till the play ends and the job’s done. She wants it over.

She’s back in the kitchen just as he pulls the plug. She hears sounds of hand washing and face scrubbing. He’s preparing, cleaning himself for her. More washing sounds. She imagines him taking out his penis and soaping it in the basin. The nerves have been there all night. Now there’s a charge of fear.

He leaves the bathroom, turns into the narrow passage and stops by her in the kitchen. She’s pouring coffee into cups. He comes behind her and puts his arms round her, moving down to the roll of her waist and round to her buttocks. She leans back against him.

‘Look what I found,’ she says. She picks up the dusty, half-drunk bottle of Teacher’s that’s been placed beside the coffee and tea jars.

‘Scotch, not Irish,’ he leers, ‘must be my lucky night. She puts her left hand behind her, pats his buttock, then moves it around past his crotch. He’s erect. She can feel the evening’s drinks rising in her throat.

‘You carry the Scotch and glasses,’ she orders.

They retreat to the bedroom and she waits to see where he puts himself. He takes off his shoes; she follows suit. There’s a double bed and double duvet, but cushions on one side only.

‘Here looks comfortable,’ he says, stretching out on the bed. ‘And I can see the telly.’

‘Is that what you’ve come for?’ she asks, flashing her most alluring smile.

‘And the coffee.’ She pours two cups and brings him one. Then she pours Scotch into a tumbler and places it beside him. He puts his arms around her to draw her towards him.

‘Not yet.’ This is the moment she knows might come but can never fully prepare for. Joseph has suggested what to do if it gets this far – he says he knows what a man really likes. And it will incapacitate him, protecting her and making it easier for the boys after she’s left. She doesn’t even want to think about that.

Again she tells herself it’s just a play – and she’s just this evening’s performer. She forces herself. ‘Close your eyes,’ she whispers in his ear. She walks round to the front of the bed and strokes him from the toes up. Through ankles, calves, knees, hamstrings, fingers moving up to the front of the waist. There they stop, unbuckle the belt, and slowly slide down the zip fastener. His eyes remain closed, though he’s breathing faster and emitting soft murmurs. She pulls his trousers from beneath him and slips his pants down. The pants’ elastic waist reaches down to his tip – as it passes over, he bursts out and upright, swollen to a size she hasn’t seen on Joseph.

‘My word,’ she gasps. He opens his eyes, looks beyond his chest and stomach at her mouth level with the engorged tip. She gives it a short touch. He murmurs again. She feels burning in her throat. She mustn’t retch.

‘I just need to go the bathroom,’ she says, ‘make myself ready.’

‘I can’t wait,’ he whispers.

‘Course you can wait. Willpower. I wanna make it fun.’

‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ he sighs.

She closes the bedroom door behind her, goes to the bathroom and runs a tap. She re-emerges and creeps towards the front window. With her left hand she forms a zero with her thumb and forefinger and holds it against the glass. With her right hand she waves inwards. She re-enters the bathroom, stops the tap and pulls the flush. Both the flush itself and the refill are inefficiently noisy, an unexpected bonus.

Against their background sounds, she edges on her toes to the flat’s entrance, praying no floorboard creaks, and descends the stairs to the front door. As she opens it, they allow her to leave before they enter. Four of them, masked. She has a pang of sadness for the man she’s left behind and the ordeal he faces, then walks, increasing her pace with each step. The pavement is dry and smooth. It’s just as well as she’s been unable to retrieve her shoes. Joseph and his friends will tidy up. At least she’s wearing stockings.

She hurries past Botanic station, and over the roundabout into Great Victoria Street. Ahead the barricades are still up and no one is being allowed near the Europa. She stops; the fire in her throat rises. She runs to some railings, leans over, and retches. A tiny stream of bile, nothing more. It’s not nerves – or guilt – that’s brought it up, just the memory of touching him.

She straightens, skirts the crowd, turning right, then left towards the city centre. It’s still only 11.30 p.m., a single, eternal hour since they left the bar. Now she can lose herself in the late-night revellers and make her way to the black taxis heading for Andersonstown. A girl who’s had too good a night out and somehow managed to lose her shoes in the process.

Her heartbeat quietens. They may have made her complicit but, should they ever try again, she knows she won’t do it, whatever the consequences. It may be their life, it’s not going to be hers.

The curtain falls.

It’s over.

CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_1dfbd69f-c6e5-5017-8eb6-96ca0a475a83)

The next day, Sunday, she stays at home in her room.

‘Coming to Mass, Maire?’ her mother yells up.

She peers down from the landing and addresses the bottom of the stairs. ‘Sorry, Ma, still a bit off colour. You and Da go on.’ She wonders why they persist.

She spends the day in her room with the local radio on. All is quiet and she feels an overwhelming relief. By evening she decides she’s calm enough to appear for tea. She comes downstairs, where her father’s watching the six o’clock television news in the living room.

‘Jeez, Maire, have a look at this.’

The screen shows the taped-off street, and the flashing lamps of police cars and an ambulance beyond. Nausea rises, this time from her midriff. She’s missed the newsreader’s introduction and a local reporter is taking up the story. ‘It seems the male victim was lured to this flat off Botanic Avenue and then set upon by attackers waiting inside. It appears that some sort of fight may have broken out, during which the man was shot dead. It’s not known at this point who the victim was or whether the attack was a purely criminal one or had a political or paramilitary connection.’

‘What the hell was going on there?’ Stephen exclaims. The news gives way to the Sunday sporting action and he buries himself in the newspaper. Another day, another shooting.

She wants to retreat to her room but forces herself to stay with her da until the end of the weather forecast. She looks into the kitchen. The smells of cooking repel her.

‘Sorry, Ma, still off the food. Must be a bug or something I ate.’

Rosa watches as she goes back up the stairs. Something unusual is going on with her daughter but she knows better than to press. It will all come out in due course, or just go away.

Maire wants to go out, to run for miles, to lose herself in exhaustion. Anything to stop thoughts. But the summer nights are short and she’s afraid of the daylight. By 10 p.m. she can stand it no longer and leaves the house without a goodbye or see you later. ‘Must be something to do with Joseph,’ Rosa mutters to Stephen.

She paces the streets for an hour, taking deep breaths, willing herself to restore the calm she’s now lost. Did they, or rather Joseph, deceive her and always intend to kill? Perhaps the policeman was carrying a gun – though, if he was, he kept it well hidden – and managed to grab it as they entered. But she heard no shots as she walked away. It surely means they must have taken control of him.

Joseph gave her his word. He used the word ‘promise’. Was it a lie? Or was he lied to? She has a horrible vision of her brother as the mastermind. Surely that can’t be. More than betrayal, what she now feels is a sickening combination of terror and her own foolishness – the knowledge that she allowed herself to be deceived. She clings on to the hope that something went wrong in the flat – that he brought his death upon himself. That, in some sense, he deserved it. She wonders who will miss him and tries to banish the thought.

Without planning it, she finds herself near Joseph’s street – he still lives with his family and they’ve used a friend’s place to sleep together. Unable to stop herself, she approaches the house. At the last minute she delays, watching for movement through any gaps in the curtains. She sees none, but some ground-floor lights are still on and she rings the bell.

Joseph’s mother answers. ‘Maire, you’re looking in late.’

‘Sorry, Mrs Kennedy.’

‘It’s OK, love, come in.’

‘I was just looking for Joseph.’

‘Haven’t seen him today, love. You know how it is with him. Always in and out.’

‘OK, Mrs Kennedy, never mind. Thanks anyway. I’d better be away.’

The next day is worse. Silence. Alone. She’s been hung out to dry. She tells herself again that this is what it must be like. Despite the falseness she feels ever surer of, she craves to see Joseph. Perhaps he really does have an explanation and it can still be all right between them. She listens out for Martin’s footsteps and one of his cheery entrances into the house. It doesn’t matter what’s said, she simply needs someone who knows to talk to.

At lunchtime, the noose tightens. ‘The victim was Inspector Peter Halliburton, who was on secondment to local police from London’s Metropolitan Police Special Branch. Mr Halliburton, aged thirty-six, was married and had two children of six and eight. There has still been no claim of responsibility for his killing,’ announces the radio news.