Free Collusion by Stuart Neville

‘Hmm,’ the doctor said. The mint on his breath masked something sourer.
    ‘What?’ the Traveller asked.
    ‘There’s a foreign body under the upper lid, looks like a little fragment of wood, and you’ve a minor corneal abrasion. The nurse will irrigate the eye to remove the object and apply some antibiotic ointment.’
    ‘Nurse?’ the Traveller asked.
    ‘Mm-hmm,’ the doctor said.
    ‘No, you do it,’ the Traveller said.
    The doctor released the Traveller’s eyelid. ‘No need,’ he said. ‘It’s quite simple. She’ll just pour a bit of saline solution into the eye to flush it out and apply an antibiotic ointment to stop any infection. The abrasion will heal in a few days.’
    ‘You do it,’ the Traveller repeated. He grimaced as whatever the doctor had put in his eye found its way to the back of his throat.
    ‘Really, there’s no need. It’ll only take a—’
    ‘You’re the doctor, you fucking do it,’ the Traveller said. ‘It’s my fucking eye. It needs a doctor. I’m not having some blade just out of school poking at it. You do it.’
    The doctor did his best to look authoritative. ‘Please moderate your language, Mr McDonnell. Nurse Barnes is a skilled and experienced A&E nurse. She’s done this a thousand times. And I’m not sure she’d appreciate being called a “blade”.’
    The Traveller lowered his feet to the floor. ‘You do it,’ he said.
    ‘Honestly, there’s—’
    The Traveller stepped closer, the doctor’s ear within biting distance, and whispered, ‘You. Fucking. Do it.’
    The doctor’s voice quivered. ‘Mr McDonnell, we won’t tolerate abusive behaviour in this—’
    The Traveller seized the back of the doctor’s scrawny neck in his left hand, and pinched his windpipe between the fingers and thumb of his right.
    ‘Are you going to do it?’
    The doctor staggered back, taking the Traveller with him. A swivel chair tipped and fell to the floor. The doctor swiped a pen holder, scattering its contents across his desk. He made choked ‘Ack!’ noises as his face reddened.
    ‘Are you going to do it?’
    A scream came from behind. The Traveller twisted towards the voice, the doctor’s throat still in his grip. The nurse in the doorway screamed again.
    ‘Fuck,’ the Traveller said.
    He kicked the doctor’s feet from under him and ran.

12
    ‘I need a favour,’ Lennon said into his phone as he waited for the lights to change at the junction of the Lisburn Road and Sandy Row.
    ‘What sort of favour?’ Dan Hewitt asked.
    ‘I want to see some files,’ Lennon said. He held the phone between his ear and his shoulder as the lights changed and he released the handbrake. ‘Whatever you’ve got on the McKenna feud.’
    ‘No chance,’ Hewitt said. ‘You’ve no reason to see them. Not unless you’ve got a live investigation, and that mess was wrapped up months ago. What do you want them for?’
    ‘It’s something Andy Rankin said.’
    ‘What’s the feud got to do with him?’
    ‘Nothing, it was just something he mentioned. A rumour he’d heard. I want to check it out. Come on, you know I’m doing you a big favour settling for that GBH.’
    ‘And you’re getting back on an MIT in return,’ Hewitt said. ‘I think that makes us square.’
    Lennon struggled to concentrate on the road as he wove through side streets to get back to Donegall Pass. ‘I need to see them, Dan.’
    No you don’t,’ Hewitt said. ‘You want to see them. Not the same thing at all. I couldn’t let you have them even if I wanted to. I have to show a live investigation before I can pull the files.’
    ‘Shit,’ Lennon said. ‘There must be some way.’
    ‘If you want files on Rankin, I can maybe do something for you, within reason.’
    ‘How about if you cross-reference Rankin and McKenna? If there’s any match-up, can you give me the files? Crozier too. Rankin told me Crozier’s been taking over McKenna’s turf since he died. That ties it to my case.’
    Lennon listened