I Hear the Sirens in the Street

her head.
    “No, Sean. He didn’t kill Bill O’Rourke,” she said in a monotone.
    “He told you? You believe that?”
    “It’s true.”
    I took her by the shoulders and squeezed. “Tell it and tell it fast!”
    “O’Rourke was spying on DeLorean. Causing all sorts of problems. Harry is landing something for DeLorean at his private slipway on the lough. The one you saw. Drugs, I think. It’s a big deal. They had to know if it had been compromised. Harry had Martin and a couple of his lads grab O’Rourke off the street. They were wearing balaclavas. They were only going to interrogate him and then let him go. They took him to the salt mine to question him. They must have gotten rough with him or he panicked or something. They weren’t going to kill him. They left him alone down there and one morning when they came to wake him he was dead. Martin thought he’d had a heart attack.Nobody knew what to do.”
    She looked me square in the face. She’d confirmed Harry’s story and there was no nonsense about tears or throwing herself on the mercy of the court.
    “It was no heart attack, Emma. He was smart. He knew this could happen in Northern Ireland so he made his own fucking suicide pill. Planted the plants, refined it himself. He didn’t want to be tortured to give the game away.”
    She nodded. “We didn’t know about that.”
    We , she said we .
    “Martin told you about O’Rourke’s death, didn’t he? And you told him to go to the police, and Harry—”
    She laughed bitterly. “Me? Me tell him to go to the police?”
    And then the tears did start welling in her eyes. “The police? Nobody in this part of Islandmagee would ever go to the peelers.”
    “So what did happen?”
    She shook her head. “They put the body in the freezer. They would have cut him up and got rid of him and it all would have been fine, but for Martin. Fucking Martin.”
    “What about Martin?”
    “Martin was a fool. He had found Jesus. Jesus didn’t mind him helping his big brother do a dodgy deal with John DeLorean but Jesus apparently told him that now a man had died he had crossed a line and he had to tell his commanding officer about this entire fucking escapade.”
    “Martin wanted to turn you all in?”
    “Yes.”
    “So you shot him?” I asked, astounded.
    She shook her head. “I didn’t shoot him.”
    “Who did?”
    “I called Harry and told him about Martin’s plans. He said he would take care of it,” she said simply, and sat on the sofa. “Martin was going up to check on the yearlings but Harry camedown over the fields. I heard them talking. Harry gave him every chance, but Martin wouldn’t take it. Jesus wanted him to tell the truth to his commanding officer and that’s what he was going to do.”
    “And then?”
    “And then I heard the shot. And Harry came in and told me it was done. We cooked up the story about the IRA and I called the police.”
    “What about O’Rourke’s body?”
    “That? We didn’t even think about that. Harry just left it there, padlocked in the freezer. Nobody would look there, nobody could get in there.”
    “But he couldn’t leave it there forever, could he?”
    “No. A couple of weeks ago he tells me that we have to get rid of it. The place was going to be hot what with DeLorean’s shipment coming in.”
    “So he came to you to ask for one of Martin’s old suitcases.”
    She nodded and fumbled for a cigarette.
    “And that’s everything?”
    “It is.”
    “All right. We don’t have much time. I went out over the fields – laid a good trail, so that’s where they’ll be looking for me, but if they’ve any brains at all they’ll be coming down here soon enough. This is what we’re going to do. We’ll kill the house lights and sneak out to the yard. You’ll come with me in the BMW. I’ll run it without lights until we’re well away from here. I’ll take you to Carrick police station. It’ll be okay. You’ll turn Queen’s evidence. All you’ve done is conceal information from the police. I’ll see to it that you won’t do a day in jail.”
    She shook her head. “I won’t be doing that,” she said simply.
    “It’ll be okay. I’m not bullshitting you. You won’t do a day in jail. If you’re nervous, we’ll get you a new identity in England or Australia, wherever you want.”
    She thought about it for a moment and shook her head. “No.I’m not going with you, Sean.”
    “For God’s sake, woman! We don’t have fucking time for