Tony straightened, felt Kelly attempt to stand beside him. ‘Hugh, should we really do this?’

‘I knew you’d be the one to have second thoughts,’ Duggan said. ‘I knew you’d not have the balls for it.’

‘It’s wrong,’ Tony said.

‘His touting was wrong,’ Duggan said. ‘That’s the only thing that matters. How can you ever count on soldiers if they break the rules?’

‘We’re not soldiers,’ Tony said.

‘You’re not, that’s for sure,’ Duggan spat.

Tony angled himself to better support Kelly. ‘I don’t want to be a part of this,’ he said. ‘I can’t.’

‘You’re already a part of it,’ Duggan spat. ‘You got the mercury we used in a tilt switch. You helped watch the cop for weeks. You brought a car load of weapons and Semtex from Paisley into Glasgow. What do you think happened with those?’

‘No one knows I did that?”

‘Your fingerprints are on the car,’ Duggan said. ‘You couldn’t help yourself but have a look inside. You touched the boot.’

Tony looked at Karen who blushed. Clearly, she had told Duggan this after their first drive together.

‘I covered my hands with my sleeves,’ he offered weakly.

‘Catch yourself on,’ Duggan said. ‘You’re in this up to your neck. And you’re going to see this through with us, together. No one can talk if we’re all involved. That’s how it works. That’s what you signed up for.’

‘I didn’t sign up for this,’ Tony said, sullenly.

‘Your brother would be ashamed of you,’ Duggan said. ‘Man up and get him into the grave.’

Tony looked from him to Karen. She had lowered her head, the bag of clothes twisted in her grip. There was no other choice, he realized. Even if he admitted now that he had been the one to tell the cop, what good would it do? He told himself Kelly deserved it, but he did not believe it. In his heart, he knew that he was afraid to face the consequences of what he had done, that he was a coward. He hid his face against Kelly’s body, for shame, his hands touching a wound at the condemned man’s side that made him think of spears and a place of skulls.

‘Get him into his grave,’ Duggan repeated, then pulled the package from his pocket and, unwrapping it, revealed a pistol, its metal shining dully in the torchlight. ‘Let’s get this over with,’ he said.

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Two

‘Let’s get this over with,’ Mullan said. ‘Are we near?’

Tony stopped and surveyed the land ahead. A thick-trunked elm stood to one side, sycamores and beech ahead.

‘It was a clearing,’ Karen said. ‘There were thinner trees to one side of it. They’d be bigger now.’