Free The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville

leaving Toner standing with his palms up and out, like a man surrendering.
     
     
Fegan made his way to the back of the bar, to the darkest corner, behind a computer quiz game no one ever played. It gave him a good view of the room and the drunks moving between its shadows.
     
     
Just a wee job now and then, Toner said. Fegan knew what sort of wee job he was talking about. There were many errands a man like McGinty needed doing. Even now the politicians had taken over the movement, even though they were shifting away from the rackets, the extortion, the thieving, people still needed to be kept in line. Competition for the bars and taxi firms needed quashing. Drug dealers needed discouraging from selling in certain areas - unless they paid their dues, of course. Come election time, reluctant voters needed gathering up and escorting to the polling stations where they would be reminded whose name to mark. And then there were the many hundreds of people who only existed on election days.
     
     
The last election, just two months ago, had been the watershed. For the first time the country’s voters went to the polls knowing they would elect a real government, that at last it was over. Over for who? Fegan thought. The headaches started around then. The shadows darkened, the faces grew clearer. He had tried to turn away, to be quiet, but still they came.
     
     
Then the screaming.
     
     
By the time Toner shoved a bundle of polling cards into Fegan’s hand, he hadn’t slept for a week. He only voted once - some nobody campaigning about fuel tax got his mark - and threw the rest of the cards in a bin. The boys ran a sweepstake on who would cast the most votes. Eddie Coyle had won, having voted twenty-eight times between eleven different polling stations. He got nearly five hundred quid which his wife promptly took from him. McGinty gave him an extra five hundred on top, and Coyle wisely kept the reward secret. Five hundred was a small price for McGinty to ensure he kept his seat. The talk on the streets was the leadership wanted to pass McGinty over. He was tainted by the old ways, no matter how hard he tried to play the politician. But if he kept his vote solid, the leadership couldn’t discard him like they had so many others on the climb to government.
     
     
A familiar spark flared in Fegan’s temple. Icy webs crawled towards his center. A commotion at the bar’s front door announced Caffola’s arrival. Fegan had expected him to be here when he came an hour before, otherwise he would have spared himself the ordeal of being among these people. He decided to remain in his shadowy corner for now. It was early yet. Plenty of time.
     
     
As the ache behind his eyes deepened, Fegan watched.
     
     
Caffola’s cranium and gold earring reflected the dim lighting. His thick neck melded with his broad shoulders to give the impression of power and strength. He was strong, all right, Fegan knew that much, and vicious. It would be hard, but Fegan could take him.
     
     
When and where? Tonight, if he could. Somewhere away from here, possibly in Caffola’s own home. The thug was already drunk; his staggering gave him away. He might leave early. Fegan could follow him. Or he might be invited to someone’s home to drink the night through. If Fegan knew where, then he could go there, enter through some open window, and finish Caffola in his stupor.
     
     
Balance and patience , he thought as the shadows gathered. Balance and patience .
     
     
     
     
Caffola cornered Fegan in the toilets, backing him against the cold tiles. As red-faced drunks blinked at the urinals, pissing down their own legs, Caffola’s spittle made cold pinpoints on Fegan’s face. The alcohol on Caffola’s breath mixed with the reek of urine. Fegan swallowed bile.
     
     
“I think the world of you, Gerry,” Caffola slurred. His eyelids looked like they weighed a tonne. “Swear to God. You and me. Mates. Right?”
     
     
“Right,” Fegan said. The