Free Collusion by Stuart Neville Page B

about this before.
AR: And I’m going to keep talking about it till you fuckers get your thumbs out of your arses and do something about it. Ever since Michael McKenna got his stupid brains blown out, Rodney fucking Crozier’s been palling up to them, getting his —
    McKenna’s name scratched at Lennon. Everyone on the force knew Lennon’s connection to McKenna, even if it was history. A third of a page was blacked out. Lennon skipped ahead.
—people talk, like. Crozier couldn’t have moved into that part of town if McKenna was still around.
JM: And?
AR: And if you lot don’t do something about it, I will. Fuck me, I never thought I’d see the day. One of our own running with the Liths, putting money in the other side’s pockets. I knew Rodney Crozier’s father. He’d turn in his grave if he saw who his son was doing business with.
JM: Listen, our hands are tied. We can’t mount an operation of that scale just on your say-so.
AR: Jesus, who runs the cops these days, eh? Who’s telling you to turn a blind eye to all this carry-on? That business with McKenna getting bumped off, then all the shit that —
    More lines scrawled over with black marker. The feud. The killings in Belfast. The bloodbath on an old farm near the border. The inquiry established that dissidents had ambushed the politician Paul McGinty there, and the investigation was concluded when three of them blew themselves up with their own bomb a few months later. A specialist forensics team had matched the remains of the guns in their car to the scene of the shootout.
    When Lennon heard the news of McKenna’s death his first thought had been of Marie and Ellen. He’d considered phoning her, even went as far as punching the number into his mobile, but then he realised he didn’t have a clue what to say. He could ask to speak to his daughter, but he knew Marie would say no. And anyway, what do you say to a child who doesn’t know you?
    It wasn’t for lack of trying on his part. For more than two years after Ellen was born he’d tried to initiate some kind of contact. He’d left her mother while she carried their child. He couldn’t forgive himself for that sin, so had no expectation of anyone else offering absolution, but Ellen was still his child. Marie refused every attempt, every approach. It was nothing more than punishment for his crime, and he knew he deserved it, but Ellen didn’t. He considered going through the courts, forcing Marie to give him access, but he’d seen how the system drove more families apart than it pulled together. Parents used their children as weapons against each other. He wanted no part of that. Eventually he decided it would be better to let the child grow up oblivious to him than make her the centre of a battle that wasn’t of her making.
    Lennon’s own father had abandoned his family, leaving only vague memories of a man who would roar with laughter one minute and strike out in anger the next. He’d gone to America, Lennon’s mother had said, and when he had enough money he would send for his wife and children. Years later, she still had that spark of hope in her eyes every time the postman shoved paper through their door. The letter never came.
    For Lennon, family did not mean warmth and comfort. It meant pain and regret. His family had cut him off for joining the cops; Marie’s family had done the same to her for taking up with him. Blood bonds were so easily severed, surely his child would be happier never having been tied to him in the first place.
    But he never forgot.
    Up until she moved away he had parked once or twice a week on Eglantine Avenue and watched Marie and Ellen come and go. Ellen looked like her mother, at least from a distance. He imagined getting out of his car, approaching them, hunkering down to see Ellen eye to eye, holding her small hand in his.
    But what good could come of that? It would only confuse the child, and Marie would whisk her away from him. She kept that hardness in her