Safe House (8 page)

“Liam! Is it yourself?”

“It is. I get one call a day. This is it.”

“I'm honored indeed.”

“So you should be. Your mum said you just got in from Mass. So this is Sunday, am I right?”

“It's Sunday, yes.” He sounded puzzled.

“Did you go to YC yesterday?”

“I did.”

“Was anyone…asking for me?”

“Asking for you? No. Nobody was asking for you.”

“Oh.”

“Who were you thinking might be asking for you?”

“No one special. I just thought maybe…Nicole?”

“Nicole! Ah! You're right. Nicole was asking for you. I forgot.”

“You're a jerk, Rory, you know that?”

Rory laughed. “I am. You're right. Sorry, Liam.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing much. Just wanted to know if you're all right.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“Told her you're all right.”

“You know what, Rory? Talking to you is like spitting into the wind.”

He laughed. “Ma is getting a bed for you to put in my room.”

“That'll be great.” He made an effort to sound cheerful, like his usual self. “So long as you don't leave your stinking socks on the floor.”

“Ha!” said Rory. “You should talk. Don't your own socks reek like rotten fish? Though it's not the smell so much. It's the way it makes…”

“…your eyes smart,” Liam finished for him. “Yes, I know, Rory. You're like a broken record.”

They had used the same lines and gags on each other ever since they were little kids.

“You're so funny,” said Rory. “Did I mention that everyone asks about you? You're a big hero around here: on the run from the Prod militants. You've made me famous. Like mad cow disease.”

“That's enough now,” shouted Moira Grogan from the kitchen.

“Tell Nicole, when you see her that I…”

“Hang up!” yelled Moira Grogan.

“Tell her I will be back soon, and…”

“You could tell her yourself by giving her a call.”

“I don't have her number.”

“Do you hear me, boy? I said hang up!”

“She wrote it down for you to call her. I have it here.”

“Rory! You're such an idiot. Why didn't you say? Wait; I'll get a pencil and write it down.” He hurried into the living room and grabbed pencil and paper. Moira Grogan looked like she was about to burst. Liam ignored her, picked up the phone again, and wrote down Nicole's number. “Okay, Rory, I have it. I gotta go.”

“Take care of yourself, boyo.”

“I will.” He hung up the phone. It was still early in the day. It might be a good time to catch Nicole at home. He started dialing her number.

Moira Grogan came marching out of the living room, furious, a cigarette dangling from her lips. “Hang up the phone. You had your call. It's only one call a day, remember?” She reached for the telephone. Liam stopped dialing and turned his back on her. She screamed at him, “Hang up that phone, right now, you hear?”

“There's another friend I have to call.”

“One call a day. Don't you understand?”

“You owe me from the days I didn't come down.”

She lunged for the phone. He held it away from her.

She pushed him and he staggered backward. The woman was heavy and surprisingly strong. The telephone receiver fell and dangled on its cord, swinging against the wall. He stepped forward, reached down for the receiver, and accidentally pushed her. She fell to the floor with a shriek. “You struck me!”

“No I didn't.” He held on to the receiver and watched her climb laboriously to her feet.

“You did. You struck me. Wait till Fergus hears about this.” She retreated to the living room, crying and muttering to herself.

to herself.

Old cow.

He dialed Nicole's number again.

“Hello.” A woman's voice.

“Mrs. Easterbrook?”

“Yes.”

“This is Liam Fogarty. I'm a friend of Nicole's from Youth Circus. Could I speak to her?”

“Yes, of course, hold on, Liam.”

“Liam? It's Nicole. It's good to hear from you.”

“I can't talk long. I'm…” He couldn't think of what to say next.

Nicole said, “I gave Rory my number but wasn't sure if you could call. I'm so happy you did. It's terrible about your mum and dad, what happened, I mean. I'm sorry. I can only imagine how awful it is for you, Liam.”

“Yes.”

It was good to hear Nicole's voice, but her choice of words reminded him they were on opposite sides: Hers was a Protestant Loyalist family; his background was Catholic Republican (or Nationalist). Only a Protestant would say, “I'm sorry” instead of the usual Irish Catholic, “Sorry for your trouble.”

“I missed you at YC yesterday. We all did.”

“Thanks. Were you flying?” Flying was the word they used for swinging trapeze work.

She gave a happy sigh. “All morning. I just love it so much. And in the afternoon Dubois was teaching swinging ankle hangs. Scary! You should've seen Dubois. She's amazing. Wish you could've been there.”

“Me too. But I might be a while yet.”

“I know. I'm sorry. Liam?”

“What?”

“I really miss you a lot. Come back soon, okay?”

Fergus Grogan didn't return until late, after Liam had gone upstairs, so the promised tongue lashing over the use of the telephone did not take place.

Later that night, Liam woke to the sound of footsteps on the stairs. The Grogans' bedroom door closed with a click. The digital clock showed 11:45 PM. He got up, switched off the light, closed his eyes and tried to get back to sleep. It was useless; he was wide-awake. After tossing and turning for a while, he got up, switched the light on again, and leaned on the wall, stretching his back and leg muscles. Then he got back into bed and read some more of White Fang, hoping this would help him sleep. But it didn't work; after half-an-hour he gave up and let the book drop to the floor.

One o'clock. He was suddenly very hungry. Maybe this would be a good time to creep downstairs and return the potato peeler to the knife drawer and see if there was anything to eat in the fridge. He slid off the bed, turned off his light, and bare-footed it silently down the stairs.

Voices in the kitchen. Men talking quietly. Fergus and another man. The other man's voice sounded familiar. Liam tiptoed along the short hallway toward the kitchen and then stopped. Police. A uniformed constable seated at the kitchen table was speaking in a low voice to Fergus, on the opposite side of the table.

The policeman handed something, a book or an envelope, to Fergus. “You better count it,” he said. “Make sure it's all there.” He leaned back in his chair and took off his uniform cap.

Liam stared in horror. The Mole!

Heart and stomach plunged.

The Mole was a policeman!

Handing Fergus an envelope of money!

Why would the Mole be handing Fergus a wad of money? Liam did not know the answer, but there was one thing he did know: His life was in danger again. He had to get out of the safe house or he was dead; he had to get out now, immediately. Heart thumping wildly, he turned and moved quickly and silently back along the hallway to the front door of the house and stopped when he saw the number of locks and chains. Impossible. There was no way he could open that door without the Mole hearing him.

He crept back up the stairs to his room. His legs felt wobbly. He switched on the light, got dressed as fast as he could, and slipped the potato peeler into his pocket. Then he opened the window wide. He looked down. The window was much higher off the ground than his bedroom window at home; it was a bigger house, with higher, old-fashioned rooms. Worse, there was no drainpipe to swarm down. Any attempt to escape out the window would be crazy. How far could he run on broken legs? The Mole would catch him. No, there had to be another way. He looked around the room quickly. The bed!

Luckily the bed was close to the window. Working fast, he pulled off the sheets and blankets, knotted them together, tied one end to the leg of the bed, and threw the “rope” out the open window. It was a trick he remembered from a movie. It had worked in the movie but would it work in real life? Movies were not real life, he knew that, but he had to try it—what else could he do? He couldn't escape from the main floor. They had it covered. He pulled on his socks and shoes and dressed himself quickly for escape. The rest of his things—a thin sweater, socks, underpants, gray wool watch cap, a couple of T shirts—he stuffed into his backpack. Then he threw in White Fang. He was operating on pure nerves and instinct. He switched off the light, dropped to the floor, and rolled himself out of sight under the bed, dragging the backpack with him.

Now all he had to do was wait, heart hammering.

He did not have to wait long.

He could hear his bedroom door opening. Slowly, quietly. Then somebody switched on the light.

“Shite!”

“What the…?”

He heard the men rushing about.

The Mole's voice: “The little Taig bastard's gone out the window!”

Fergus: “Quick! He can't have got far.”

The two men rushed from the room and down the stairs. He could hear them cursing and swearing as they searched for him outside.

Liam slithered quickly from under the bed, grabbed his backpack, and flew down the stairs. The front door was wide open. He could hear the men's voices outside. He ran as fast as he could out the door into the dark and the rain. He fled from the safe house, trembling and terrified, pushing his arms through the straps of his backpack as it bounced about like a wild thing on his shoulders.

…he was a maniac…

He ran through the rain, unconcerned about direction, concentrating on escape.

He heard the roar of the engine coming at him from behind. A desperate glance over his shoulder told him it was an armored police Land Rover—“meat wagon,” Catholics called it—intent on crushing his bones, cartilage, muscle, nervous system, brain, organs, and everything else that went into making the skinny parcel of humanity known to the world as Liam Fogarty. The motor thundered in his ears as it came up over the sidewalk at him. He threw himself into a doorway just in time to avoid falling under its wheels as it missed him by the width of a hand and crashed into the front door of the next house. He could see the Mole's enraged face behind the wheel, livid and contorted almost beyond recognition. The man had gone completely berserk; he was a maniac, no mistake about it. He gunned the engine and backed away from the house. Liam darted out of the doorway's protection and ran. The Mole roared after him. Legs pumping, arms whirling, Liam fled into an alleyway. The car followed, its high beam throwing Liam's own shadow eerily out in front of him. The narrow alley, not much wider than the car, left very little room for dodging. He would be creamed for sure if he didn't get back out onto the street. He was a fool to have come in, unless…with the sound of God-knows-how-many tons of speeding steel in his ears he saw a possible way out. Leaping into the air, he grasped the wet limb of a backyard tree and hauled himself high enough for the vehicle to speed beneath him, like a bull rushing under the matador's cape. With a scream of brakes it stopped and reversed, but by then Liam had thrown his legs over the wall and dropped out of danger, temporarily, into the backyard. He picked himself up out of the mud and leaves and made a mad dash for the street. Which way now? He turned right. He got to the corner of the street and glanced back. The Land Rover was only a few hundred yards behind. There was a main road up ahead. It was Newtownards Road; he recognized Freedom Corner from the huge Prod mural, with its red hand of Ulster, painted on the wall. A city bus was just pulling in to the bus stop. He glanced back again. The Land Rover wasn't far behind. Lungs bursting, he willed his legs to sprint for it. With a lunge he leaped onto the bus platform as the door was starting to close.

The bus driver's attention was on his mirror as he pulled out. “Trying to get yourself killed, are you lad?”

There were only a few people on the bus. He had the wallet Jack Cassidy had given him. There were four one-pound notes in it. The driver did not make change; the fare was 50p. He held up a pound note. “I've got no change.”

The driver gave him a look.

“Sorry, said Liam.”

“Take a seat then.”

He pushed the note back into his wallet and took a seat.

He looked back. The Land Rover was following close behind the bus, its windscreen wipers working steadily. He started brushing the worst of the dirt and leaves off his jeans and jacket. The bus crossed the River Lagan and was soon in the city center. They were slow getting through an amber light and the Land Rover was forced to stop on the red to avoid other traffic. They pulled to a stop on the far side of the junction. This would be his best chance, while the Mole was waiting for the light. He hurled himself off the bus.

He was on Royal Avenue, not far from the Castle Court shopping center. It was after two o'clock in the morning and he was wet, cold and tired. Mostly, though, he was scared. He knew what would happen if the Mole caught him. The thought terrified him. He heard again the sound of guns exploding, imagined torn flesh and broken bones and his blood pooling on the wet ground.

He ran.

A twinge from his injured foot.

Where to go? Going home was no longer an option for him; he no longer had a home. Unless he counted the Cassidy place as his new home. But he couldn't go there, not now. He would have to survive on his own somehow, without endangering the Cassidy family. He couldn't depend on Osborne or the police to help him, that was now obvious. Some safe house! But it was going to be tough. The Mole was a killer. A policeman and a killer. He looked back. No sign of the Land Rover. He had no doubt that the Mole was still searching for him; he had to get off the deserted and well-lighted main road and keep to the dark lanes. He had to find a place to stay the night. And if he was going to survive, if he wasn't to end up as dead meat, then he needed time to figure out his next move.