‘Sit down!’ the unknown man said. ‘It’s OK.’

Tony stood a moment, as if in a paralysis of fear, before Mullan spoke more gently.

‘It’s OK, Tony. We just want to talk. That’s all. Sit down, please.’

His voice was so reasonable, so calm. He smiled at Tony, might have winked at him, were it not that the lights were so dim, his face so shadowed, Tony could not be certain.

Still, he moved forward and sat as instructed, swallowed dryly, waited.

‘Good man,’ Mullan said. ‘Let’s get started. We’ve some questions for you, Tony. You’re not in trouble. We just want to talk. You know me and Hugh. We’re joined by a comrade who will act as an impartial adviser. Is that OK?’

Absurdly, the situation felt more like a job interview than an interrogation, as if he were applying to work in the bar. Until the unknown man spoke.

‘You know why we’re here,’ he said. ‘All we need from you is the truth, son. Let’s not make this any harder than it needs to be for anyone. We already know what’s happened: you just need to tell us the truth.’

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty

‘I just want to know the truth,’ Duggan said. ‘I want to know who set Martin Kelly up.’

The locked gate meant they’d had to walk the incline up towards the tree line, a path along which, Tony thought he remembered, they had been able to drive the last time they had been here.

‘No one set him up,’ Mullan said. ‘You were there; we investigated it and he was the one we identified. We identified,’ he repeated, indicating both himself and Duggan.

‘Here’s the thing, Sean. I don’t believe you. The more I’ve thought about it, the more convinced I am that Martin was killed so someone else could cover for what they did.’

‘No one else thinks that, Hugh,’ Mullan said. ‘Just you. We were all happy just letting him be forgotten.’

‘No, you weren’t,’ Duggan smiled. ‘You need his grave. Looking to bolster your leadership chances with an act of reconciliation, like a fucking vulture picking over his bones for your own self-interest.’

‘And for the good of the country,’ Mullan said curtly. ‘What’s your interest then, Hugh? What are you looking for? You’re the one shot him and now here you are, looking to dig him up again?’

‘I know what I did,’ Duggan spat. ‘I think about it often. He’s the only one won’t give me peace.’

‘You’re looking for peace?’ Mullan laughed. ‘Says the man with the gun.’

‘Kettles and pots, Sean,’ Duggan said. ‘The great peacemaker with his armalite behind his back.’

‘Those days are gone, Hugh,’ Mullan said.

‘But not forgotten. I want the truth of what happened.’