Page 89 of Dublin's Danger Dancer

“I’m going to kill him.” Liam says flatly. “How do you feel?” Liam asks, sensing a heavy weight sitting down on top of me.

“I don’t know what to feel.” The word leaves my mouth in a breathless rush. “Getting my revenge is the only thing that’s kept me breathing for the last twenty years. Now I feel lost.” I say in a moment of pure truth.

“I wish I could have given you the peace you deserved twenty years ago. I’m sorry.” He says.

Driftwood planks have been knocked together to form the door of the barn. They are so misplaced. Some are longer than the stone doorway. He lifts a plank next to the door and pushes it against the base.

“Are you really pregnant? No games now Ciara.”

I pull a breath deep into my lungs, willing the answer to be no.

“So you are?” He says.

“We have company,” I say as tyres roll over the scorched grass towards us.

Pop pop pop comes from inside the barn blowing holes out of the mismatched plank wood door.

Liam pulls me down to below the window line with him.

“Fuck. I left the saw on the bed,” I say.

The planks of the doors start to shake as Aaron tries to bust out of the barn.

We hear him take steps back as we see the outline of the hoods of garda vehicles race down the track towards us.

The first car pulls to an abrupt stop. The first person to get out is wearing flat loafers that look like they’ve come from a 1990s Clarks sale. The leg of those loafers belongs to Julia.

She runs towards us, wearing her black garda bullet-proof vest. “What’s the craic?” She asks crouching down beside me.

Shots blow through the glass of the window, unfurling a smattering of glass on the grass in front of us. Julia is already on her belly on the ground, shouting at the rest of the team to take cover.

“There is one shooter inside. He’s got access to three guns.” I say.

“Am I to assume from this tête-à-tête that your cover is blown? O’Shaughnessy here knows?”

“I know.” says Liam flatly.

“Then you also know you are coming back to Dublin in the back of my car.”

“I’d say I was sorry to hear your boss got murdered, but he was more bent than a Russian gymnast.”

“You could have informed me of that?” I say.

“I tried last year, when you were on gardening leave. I came to your apartment, but you weren’t there.”

“You could have tried again.”

“With Fergus watching me? I have kids who need me breathing to cook their dinner.”

“You could have got word to me another way.

“I could hardly send a feckin’ carrier pigeon. And anyway, I thought you were as bent as him, until now.”

“What changed your mind?”

“It was clear from the CCTV that O’Shaughnessy had taken you hostage from the casino. So I thought it would be a strange thing to do if you were helping him.”

“I hate to break up girls’ bonding at work. But Admir is about to break through the door.” Liam says.

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