'Why would he want to give us a lift?' asked Marie.

'Five thousand dollars,' replied Danny. 'If he wants more, turn round and walk out.'

Marie didn't look too sure. 'Does Sinner Joe have a donkey and cart big enough to take us all?'

'Don't worry; I think you'll find him receptive. The guy's got some previous. Has a few interesting jail tats on his face. I'm pretty sure he knows the score.'

'Why don't you go and ask?'

'Sean and I have got some talking to do.'

'I'll go, but only if you'll let me take the gun. Don't want you boys shooting each other just for the fun of it . . . you know what brothers are like.'

Danny flipped the safety catch on and handed her the gun.

'You sure Sinner Joe is his real name?' she continued. 'Seems to me everybody round here's got a goddamn nom-de-guerre.' Marie tucked the gun behind her back and walked across the car park towards the entrance of 'Must-go-Jean's' cafe. She heard a faint scuffling noise behind her and the smack of flesh on flesh, but didn't turn round to see who had landed the first punch.

'If I'd known we were going to be this busy I'd have hired in some help. What can I get for you, young lady?' asked the old guy behind the counter as Marie entered the cafe.

Marie was standing looking at ten or so empty booths and a guy sitting on his own at the end of the counter finishing off a huge plate of fried food. The guy was in his late forties and had three teardrops tattooed on his right cheek that were surrounded by a face full of craters. His nose had been broken so many times it looked like it was no longer fit for purpose. He chewed everything with his mouth open and sounded like a pig with a bad cold. His hands were covered in crude tattoos that had faded and blurred over time until they were barely distinguishable as anything other than dirty marks. She figured this must be him, but thought she'd better ask. 'Any of you gentlemen go by the name of Sinner Joe?'

The guy with the teardrops stopped eating and looked up from his plate. The older guy tipped his 'Birmingham Barons' baseball cap a little further back on his forehead and pulled on his cigarette. 'It ain't obvious to you?' he asked.

'It is, but I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings by asking the wrong guy.'

The man behind the counter wheezed out three small clouds of smoke as he laughed to himself. 'Well let's just say I'm already hurt. Always considered myself to have an angelic face, but just goes to show. Come over here and sit down, I'll get you a coffee. You want anything to eat?'

'No thanks,' replied Marie, 'coffee's fine.'

She walked over to the counter and pulled out a stool.

Sinner Joe's narrow eyes stared at her with suspicion. 'What d'you want, lady?'

Marie turned to face him. 'My friends and I were wondering if you had any space in your cabin.'

Sinner Joe took his time to answer. 'Where you heading?'

'Where you going?'

'Don't seem to me like it'd matter much. How many of you are there?'

'Three.'

The guy nodded to himself and repeated it like it was more than significant. 'Three, huh? They all as pretty as you?'

Something in the tarry gravel of his voice and the way he stared straight at her when he asked the question made the hairs on the back of Marie's neck stand on end.

'The other two are out in the lot beating each other to death so I doubt they'll be looking their best, but I guess it depends on what you call pretty.'

The old guy placed a chipped mug on the counter top in front of her and poured some coffee from a stainless-steel pot that he'd somehow managed to stain. 'You in the same party as the hothead came in to use the phone?'

'You could say.'

'Coffee with cream?'

'Milk please, just a splash.'

'Sugar?'

'I'm fine, thanks.'

'You want my opinion he's running around with the safety off,' said Sinner Joe, like he'd been giving the situation some thought prior to Marie coming in. 'Presents himself as "Mr Ordinary", but he got some cordite behind those eyes and acting like someone's just lit the blue touch-paper. They fighting over you?'

'No. From what I can gather it's because they're brothers and they're Irish. Who knows? They were hugging each other half an hour ago.'

Sinner Joe pushed his plate aside and flicked a cigarette from a soft pack of Camels. 'How'd you get here?' he asked.

'What d'you mean?'

'Did you walk, fly, drive? How'd you get to "Must-go Jean's"?'

'Drove,' replied Marie.

'Your car busted? See, I'm wondering why you need a lift.' Sinner Joe didn't give her a chance to answer. 'Don't worry, I'm just riding you, lady. I don't give a damn how you got here. I'm more interested in calculating how much it's going to cost you to get away from here. What's your name?'

Marie didn't have to think this time. 'Delores.'

'And what are your friends called, "Delores"?' He gave her name a little squeeze to let her know he didn't believe her, but he was happy to play along.

'Finn and Mr Leonard.'

'How much you got?'

'Three thousand.'

'Each. I'd say that's just about correct.'

'Three thousand in total,' said Marie.

Sinner Joe flicked his Zippo along his faded black jeans and lifted it to his mouth. He took one long draw on the cigarette and let the smoke slowly fill his lungs. When he spoke again, Marie was struck by how little of the smoke re-emerged.

'Delores, you need to tell Finn and Mr Leonard they gonna have to get a tow-truck, cause nine thou is as low as I can go.'

Marie took a sip of coffee and stood up. 'How much is the coffee?'

'Afraid it's a dollar,' replied the old guy behind the counter, with a frown. 'In case there's a next time, it's free if you order something to eat.'

Marie placed a ten-dollar bill on the counter and headed for the door without waiting for the change.

She got as far as twisting the handle before Sinner Joe spoke again.

'I guess I could do it for three . . . but it's got to be cash: I don't accept cards or cheques. Gasoline is over and above.'

Danny was a slow burner. When he was younger he'd take a lot of pushing around before he'd react then without warning, he'd explode. Every detail of every indiscretion, however minor, would be recalled and thrown back in a single angry outburst: he never forgot. If fists were flying, he would battle to the end even if it were obvious he wasn't going to win. Danny had no 'off' button. When he did snap in Sean's experience the best thing to do was get out of the way. Sean had no reason to believe that things were any different now it was going to be a long and dirty scrap. He tried to stand up and was caught with a hard right hook that knocked him back to the ground.

'Now listen to me, you little fucker,' said Sean, trying his best to stay composed. 'I don't want to fight, all right? If you just calm yourself down then I'll answer any questions you want to throw at me. But if all you're after is a punch-up, then I'm not interested. That said, if you lay a hand on me again I'll rip you to shreds . . . understood?'

Danny's eyes were ablaze. There was so much he wanted to say. His mother's breakdown, rlaith's grief, Lep's death, the dozen or so lives Danny had taken in the mistaken belief that he was avenging his brother's death and now Angela's and Niamh's disappearance: these were the grim consequences of Sean's bogus 'murder'. There were so many questions, but in the end they boiled down to just one.

'What . . . the . . . hell . . . happened?'

Danny spat each word out like a bullet across the arid patch of earth.

Sean picked himself up slowly from the ground and slapped the dust from his trousers with the palm of his hands, not once losing eye contact with Danny.

'Well, if you stop throwing your goddamn fists around for a second I'll tell you.'

Every night for the past eight years Sean had rehearsed the words in his head; he had imagined this meeting so many times. But now that Danny was standing in front of him and he had to say them for real, it was suddenly much more difficult.

'Obviously you got my message. I haven't been able to get a hold of Lep so I wasn't sure if he'd passed it on. After two eejits tried to whack me in a bar I figured he must have told someone.'

'He did pass it on but it cost him his life,' replied Danny.

Finn was visibly shaken by this news. 'Ah dear God rest his soul.'

It was a while before he spoke again.

'I was working secretly for the IRA as an intelligence officer, gathering information on suspected informers mostly, but my main target was the Thevshi "The Ghost". Every time it looked like I was getting close to discovering who the bastard was something would go wrong. My source would either disappear or get themselves murdered, or both. I was also doing a double-shuffle with the Special Branch at the time: low-impact shit. Feeding them just enough to make them think I was on their side. But all I was trying to do was find out who knew what, if anything about "The Ghost". Then one day I was taken up to Castlereagh by my handler a guy called Frank Thompson. He was there with a couple of other officers, but they were all as edgy as hell. Something was obviously going on, but I had no idea what. Halfway through the interview someone comes in and whispers something in Thompson's ear and the next thing they all disappear out the room, leaving me sitting there on my own: only they've left the door open. After about half an hour I'm still sitting there twiddling my thumbs, but I need to visit the gents'. So I wandered off down the corridor, did a piss and when I came out of the bog, there's cops running up and down the corridors looking for me. They dragged me back to the room and there's Thompson sitting waiting for me. Only now, the atmosphere is very different. "Where the fuck have you been?" he says. "For a pish," says I. Then he starts in on me, asking me what I saw, did I overhear anything: coming on all aggressive now. I told him the only thing I'd seen was my dick and the only thing I'd heard was the toilet flushing. But something had him rattled. From that day onward it all changed. I could never get a hold of Frank and he wouldn't return my calls. Then I started getting the phone-calls threatening to kill me . . . threatening to kill rlaith . . . even threatening to kill you.'

Danny didn't react. He stood there stony-faced and waited for Sean to continue.

'What stuck in my head the bit I keep running over and over is that Frank Thompson asked me at one point to give them more details about the operation we were planning, to bomb the Prime Minister when she was in Belfast. The thing is, I hadn't told him anything about that operation. There were only seven of us in the RA knew anything about it, so that narrowed my hunt for the Thevshi right down. It was a big op top secret the information could only have come from one of the other six. So whether he realised he'd made a slip-up, or whether "The Ghost" was in Castlereagh at the same time as me, and Thompson thought I might have seen him when I went off to the toilet, I don't know. But when the death threats started I knew they were serious. I knew the only way out was to disappear. If I'd tried to take you, or rlaith or Ma, we'd have all ended up dead. I had to disappear . . . but I also had to die.'

'Who were you reporting back to in the RA?' asked Danny.

'E. I. O'Leary.'

'Why didn't you tell him what was going on?'

'Because', replied Sean, 'he was one of the other six.'

The sight that greeted Marie on her return was not the one she had been expecting. The two men were leaning against the trunk of the car talking quietly to each other like they were making a plan. Danny had just handed a Sean small set of what looked like keys to a post-office box.

As she approached, Marie scanned their faces for signs of battle, but there didn't appear to be any.

'Have you boys kissed and made up?' she said.

'Sinner Joe not interested?' asked Sean.

'He wanted nine thousand dollars,' replied Marie.

'Did you tell him we only have five?' asked Sean.

'I told him we only have three.'

'What'd he say?'

'He's gone to the restroom to "evac his back-pack" his words not mine then he's dusting down his chauffeur's cap and he'll meet us over by the blue-and-white Kenworth with the tandem axle: says we're lucky he ain't pulling a load or he wouldn't be able to help us. I just smiled like I knew what he was talking about. Says he'll take us wherever we want to go, but we got to pay extra for the fuel . . .' she smiled half-heartedly before continuing ' . . . so, where d'you boys fancy?'

Danny pushed himself off the trunk and walked round to the driver's side of the car and opened the door. 'Sean is heading for the nearest train station with Sinner Joe and you and I are going in the Cadillac to visit some pals back in Tuscaloosa.'

'Oh!' said Marie. 'Nothing turns out the way you expect it around here does it?'

'D'you want to ride up front or get back in the boot?'

Chapter 33.

Cochron Road, Newry Wednesday late afternoon

Angela sat in the corner with her back pressed against the musty-smelling black drapes and cradled Niamh's tiny frame in her arms. The carpeted floor in front of them was covered with ominous black stains that glistened in the darkness and filled the room with a sickening aroma of stale blood and faeces. Someone had attempted to conceal the smell with disinfectant, but no amount of cleaning could ever neutralise the stench of death.

A door slammed in another part of the house. Seconds later Angela could hear someone making their way upstairs towards the room. The young girl's body tensed. Neither of them spoke as they sat staring at the door.

Niamh jumped when the lock turned with a sharp, metallic clunk. The handle twisted clockwise and the door swung open.

Standing in the doorway was the figure of a heavy-set man; behind him in the hall was the short skinny guy who had driven Angela to the house yesterday. Or was it the day before? Angela had lost all track of time.

'Take the young one downstairs and fix her something to eat, and get Slim to bring up the kettle,' said the big guy as he took a few steps into the room.

'Please don't. I don't want to go. Please,' sobbed Niamh.