The Ghosts of Belfast Paperback - 2012

Excerpt

Maybe if he had one more drink they’d leave him alone. Gerry Fegan
told himself that lie before every swallow. He chased the whiskey’s
burn with a cool black mouthful of Guinness and placed the glass back
on the table. Look up and they’ll be gone, he thought.
No. They were still there, still staring. Twelve of them if he counted
the baby in its mother’s arms.
He was good and drunk now. When his stomach couldn’t hold
any more he would let Tom the barman show him to the door, and
the twelve would follow Fegan through the streets of Belfast, into his
house, up his stairs, and into his bedroom. If he was lucky, and drunk
enough, he might pass out before their screaming got too loud to
bear. That was the only time they made a sound, when he was alone
and on the edge of sleep. When the baby started crying, that was the
worst of it.
Fegan raised the empty glass to get Tom’s attention.
“Haven’t you had enough, Gerry?” Tom asked. “Is it not home
time yet? Everyone’s gone.”
“One more,” Fegan said, trying not to slur. He knew Tom would
not refuse. Fegan was still a respected man in West Belfast, despite the
drink.
Sure enough, Tom sighed and raised a glass to the optic. He
brought the whiskey over and counted change from the stained table -
top. The gummy film of old beer and grime sucked at his shoes as he
walked away.
Fegan held the glass up and made a toast to his twelve companions.
One of the five soldiers among them smiled and nodded in return.
The rest just stared.
“Fuck you,” Fegan said. “Fuck the lot of you.”
None of the twelve reacted, but Tom looked back over his
shoulder. He shook his head and continued walking to the bar.
Fegan looked at each of his companions in turn. Of the five
soldiers three were Brits and two were Ulster Defence Regiment.
Another of the followers was a cop, his Royal Ulster Constabulary
uniform neat and stiff, and two more were Loyalists, both Ulster
Freedom Fighters. The remaining four were civilians who had
been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He remembered doing
all of them, but it was the civilians whose memories screamed the
loudest.
There was the butcher with his round face and bloody apron. Fegan
had dropped the package in his shop and held the door for the woman
and her baby as she wheeled the pram in. They’d smiled at each other.
He’d felt the heat of the blast as he jumped into the already moving
car, the blast that should have come five minutes after they’d cleared
the place.
The other was the boy. Fegan still remembered the look in his eyes
when he saw the pistol. Now the boy sat across the table, those same
eyes boring into him.
Fegan couldn’t hold his gaze, so he turned his eyes downward.
Tears pooled on the tabletop. He brought his fingers to the hollows of
his face and realised he’d been weeping.
“Jesus,” he said.
He wiped the table with his sleeve and sniffed back the tears. The
pub’s stale air clung to the back of his throat, as thick as the duncolored
paint on the walls. He scolded himself. He neither needed nor
deserved pity, least of all his own. Weaker men than him could live
with what they’d done. He could do the same.
A hand on his shoulder startled him.
“Time you were going, Gerry,” Michael McKenna said.
Tom slipped into the storeroom behind the bar. McKenna paid
him to be discreet, to see and hear nothing.
Fegan knew the politician would come looking for him. He was
smartly dressed in a jacket and trousers, and his fine-framed designer
glasses gave him the appearance of an educated man. A far cry from
the teenager Fegan had run the streets with thirty years ago. Wealth
looked good on him.
“I’m just finishing,” Fegan said.
“Well, drink up and I’ll run you home.” McKenna smiled down at
him, his teeth white and even. He’d had them fixed so he could look
presentable for the cameras. The party leadership had insisted on it
before they gave him the nomination for his seat in the Assembly. At
one time, not so long past, it had been against party policy to take a
seat at Stormont. But times change, even if people don’t.
“I’ll walk,” Fegan said. “It’s only a couple of minutes.”
“It’s no trouble,” McKenna said. “Besides, I wanted a word.”
Fegan nodded and took another mouthful of stout. He held it on
his tongue when he noticed the boy had risen from his place on the
other side of the table. It took a moment to find him, shirtless and
skinny as the day he died, creeping up behind McKenna.
The boy pointed at the politician’s head. He mimed firing, his
hand thrown upwards by the recoil. His mouth made a plosive
movement, but no sound came.
Fegan swallowed the Guinness and stared at the boy. Something
stirred in his mind, one memory trying to find another. The chill at
his center pulsed with his heartbeat.
“Do you remember that kid?” he asked.
“Don’t, Gerry.” McKenna’s voice carried a warning.
“I met his mother today. I was in the graveyard and she came up to
me.”
“I know you did,” McKenna said, taking the glass from Fegan’s
fingers.
“She said she knew who I was. What I’d done. She said—”
“Gerry, I don’t want to know what she said. I’m more curious
about what you said to her. That’s what we need to talk about. But
not here.” McKenna squeezed Fegan’s shoulder. “Come on, now.”
“He hadn’t done anything. Not really. He didn’t tell the cops
anything they didn’t know already. He didn’t deserve that. Jesus, he
was seventeen. We didn’t have to—”
One hard hand gripped Fegan’s face, the other his thinning hair,
and the animal inside McKenna showed itself. “Shut your fucking
mouth,” he hissed. “Remember who you’re talking to.”
Fegan remembered only too well. As he looked into those fierce
blue eyes he remembered every detail. This was the face he knew, not
the one on television, but the face that burned with white-hot pleasure
as McKenna set about the boy with a claw hammer, the face that was
dotted with red when he handed Fegan the .22 pistol to finish it.
Fegan gripped McKenna’s wrists and prised his hands away. He
stamped on his own anger, quashed it.
The smile returned to McKenna’s lips as he pulled his hands away
from Fegan’s, but went no further. “Come on,” he said. “My car’s
outside. I’ll run you home.”
The twelve followed them out to the street, the boy sticking close
to McKenna. McKenna had climbed high in the party hierarchy, but
not so high he needed an escort to guard him. Even so, Fegan knew
the Mercedes gleaming in the orange street lights was armored, both
bullet- and bomb-proof. McKenna probably felt safe as he lowered
himself into the driver’s seat.
“Big day today,” McKenna said as he pulled the car away from the
curb, leaving the followers staring after them. “Sorting the offices up
at Stormont, my own desk and everything. Who’d have thought it,
eh? The likes of us up on the hill. I wangled a secretary’s job for the
wife. The Brits are throwing so much money at this I almost feel bad
taking it off them. Almost.”
McKenna flashed Fegan a smile. He didn’t return it.
Fegan tried to avoid seeing or reading the news as much as he could,
but the last two months had been a hurricane of change. Just five
months ago, as one year turned to the next, they’d said it was hopeless;
the political process was beyond repair. Then mountains moved, deals
were struck, another election came and went, while the shadows
gathered closer to Fegan. And more often than before, those shadows
turned to faces and bodies and arms and legs. Now they were a
constant, and he couldn’t remember when he last slept without first
drowning them in whiskey.
They’d been with him since his last weeks in the Maze prison, a
little over seven years ago. He’d just been given his release date,
printed on a sheet of paper in a sealed envelope, and his mouth was
dry when he opened it. The politicians on the outside had bartered for
his freedom, along with hundreds more men and women. They called
people like him political prisoners. Not murderers or thieves, not
extortionists or blackmailers. Not criminals of any kind, just victims
of circumstance. The followers were there when Fegan looked up
from the letter, watching.
He told one of the prison psychologists about it. Dr. Brady said it
was guilt. A manifestation, he called it. Fegan wondered why people
seldom called things by their real names.
McKenna pulled the Mercedes into the curb outside Fegan’s small
terraced house on Calcutta Street. It stood shoulder to shoulder with
two dozen identical red-brick boxes, drab and neat. The followers
waited on the pavement.
“Can I come in for a second?” McKenna’s smile sparkled in the
car’s interior lighting, and kind lines arced out from around his eyes.
“Better to talk inside, eh?”
Fegan shrugged and climbed out.
The twelve parted to let him approach his door. He unlocked it and
went inside, McKenna following, the twelve slipping in between.
Fegan headed straight for the sideboard where a bottle of Jameson’s
and a jug of water awaited him. He showed McKenna the bottle.
“No, thanks,” McKenna said. “Maybe you shouldn’t, either.”
Fegan ignored him, pouring two fingers of whiskey into a glass and
the same of water. He took a deep swallow and extended his hand
towards a chair.
“No, I’m all right,” McKenna said. His hair was well barbered, his
skin tanned and smooth, a scar beneath his left eye the only remainder
of his old self.
The twelve milled around the sparsely furnished room, merging
with and diverging from the shadows, studying each man intently.
The boy lingered by McKenna’s side as the politician went to the
unstrung guitar propped in the corner. He picked it up and turned it
in the light.
 “Since when did you play guitar?” McKenna asked.
“I don’t,” Fegan said. “Put it down.”
McKenna read the label inside the sound hole. “Martin. Looks old.
What’s it doing here?”
“It belonged to a friend of mine. I’m restoring it,” Fegan said. “Put
it down.”
“What friend?”
“Just someone I knew inside. Please. Put it down.”
McKenna set it back in the corner. “It’s good to have friends,
Gerry. You should value them. Listen to them.”
“What’d you want to talk about?” Fegan lowered himself into a chair.
McKenna nodded at the drink in Fegan’s hand. “About that, for
one thing. It’s got to stop, Gerry.”
Fegan held the politician’s eyes as he drained the glass.
“People round here look up to you. You’re a Republican hero. The
young fellas need a role model, someone they can respect.”
“Respect? What are you talking about?” Fegan put the glass on the
coffee table. The chill of condensation clung to his palm and he let his
hands slide together, working the moisture over his knuckles and
between his fingers. “There’s no respecting what I’ve done.”
McKenna’s face flushed with anger. “You did your time. You were
a political prisoner for twelve years. A dozen years of your life given up
for the cause. Any Republican should respect that.” His expression
softened. “But you’re pissing it away, Gerry. People are starting to
notice. Every night you’re at the bar, drunk off your face, talking to
yourself.”
“I’m not talking to myself.” Fegan went to point at the followers,
but thought better of it.
“Then who are you talking to?” McKenna’s voice wavered with an
exasperated laugh.
“The people I killed. The people we killed.”
“Watch your mouth, Gerry. I never killed anybody.”
Fegan met McKenna’s blue eyes. “No, the likes of you and
McGinty were always too smart to do it yourselves. You used mugs
like me instead.”
McKenna folded his arms across his barrel chest. “Nobody’s hands
are clean.”
“What else?” Fegan asked. “You said ‘for one thing’. What else do
you want?”
McKenna circled the room, the boy following, and Fegan had to
twist in his chair to keep him in sight. “I need to know what you told
that woman,” McKenna said.
“Nothing,” Fegan said. “I’m not much of a talker. You know that.”
“No, you’re not. But a reliable source tells me the cops are going to
start digging up the bogs near Dungannon in the next few days.
Round about where we buried that boy. His mother told them where
to look.” McKenna moved to the center of the room and loomed over
Fegan. “Now, how did she know that, Gerry?”
“Does it matter?” Fegan asked. “Jesus, there’ll be nothing left of
him. It’s been more than twenty years.”
“It matters,” McKenna said. “If you open your mouth, you’re a
tout. And you know what happens to touts.”
Fegan tightened his fingers on the chair’s armrests.
McKenna leaned down, his hands on his thighs. “Why, Gerry?
Why’d you tell her? What good did you think it’d do?”
Fegan searched for a lie, anything, but found nothing. “I thought
maybe he’d leave me alone,” he said.
“What?” McKenna straightened.
“I thought he’d go,” Fegan said. He looked at the boy aiming his
fingers at McKenna’s head. “I thought he’d leave me alone. Give me
some peace.”
McKenna took a step back. “Who? The boy?”
“But that wasn’t what he wanted.”
“Christ, Gerry.” McKenna shook his head. “What’s happened to
you? Maybe you should see a doctor, you know, get straight. Go away
for a while.”
Fegan looked down at his hands. “Maybe.”
“Listen.” McKenna put a hand on Fegan’s shoulder. “My source
talks only to me, nobody else. You’ve been a good friend to me over
the years, and that’s the only reason I haven’t gone to McGinty with
this. If he knew you opened your mouth to that auld doll, it’s your
body the cops would be looking for.”
Fegan wanted to jerk his shoulder away from McKenna’s hand. He
sat still.
“Of course, I might need you to return the favor. There’s work I
could put your way. I’ve a few deals going on, stuff McGinty isn’t in
on. If you can stay off the drink, get yourself right, you could be a big
help to me. And McGinty doesn’t need to know what you said to that
boy’s mother.”
Fegan watched the boy’s face contort as the other shadows gathered
around him.
“Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Gerry?”
“Yes,” Fegan said.
“Good man.” McKenna smiled.
Fegan stood. “I need a piss.”
McKenna stepped back and said, “Don’t be long.”
Fegan made his way up the stairs and into the bathroom. He closed
and bolted the door but, as always, the followers found their way in.
Except the boy. Fegan paid it little mind, instead concentrating on
keeping upright while he emptied his bladder. He had long since
gotten used to the twelve witnessing his most undignified moments.
He flushed, rinsed his hands under the tap, and opened the door.
The boy was there, on the landing, waiting for him. He stared into the
darkness of Fegan’s bedroom.
Fegan stood for a moment, confused, as his temples buzzed and the
chill pulsed at his center.
The boy pointed into the room.
“What?” Fegan asked.
The boy bared his teeth, and his skinny arm jerked towards the
door.
“All right,” Fegan said. He walked to his bedroom, glancing back
over his shoulder.
The boy followed him into the darkness and kneeled at the foot of
the bed. He pointed underneath.
Fegan got to his hands and knees and peered under the bedstead.
Thin light leaking in from the landing showed the old shoebox hidden
there.
He raised his head, questioning. The boy nodded.
Fegan could just reach it if he stretched. He pulled it towards
himself. Something heavy shifted inside as it moved, and Fegan’s heart
quickened. He removed the lid and was met by the greasy smell of
money. Rolls of banknotes were bundled in here, twenties, fifties,
hundreds. Fegan didn’t know how much. He’d never counted it.
But there was something else, something cold and black lying halfconcealed
in the paper. Something Fegan didn’t want in his hand. In
the semi-darkness his eyes found the boy’s.
“No,” Fegan said.
The boy stabbed at the object with his finger.
“No.” The word felt watery on Fegan’s tongue.
The boy’s mouth gaped, his hands grabbing clumps of hair. Before
the scream could come, Fegan reached in and lifted the Walther P99
from its nest.
A grin blossomed on the boy’s face, his teeth glinting. He mimed
the act of pulling back the slide assembly to chamber the first round.
Fegan looked from the boy to the pistol and back again. The boy
nodded. Fegan drew back the slide, released it, hearing the snick-snick
of oiled parts moving together. The gun was solid in his grasp, like the
shake of an old friend’s hand.
The boy smiled, stood, and walked towards the landing.
Fegan stared down at the Walther. He had bought it a few weeks
after leaving the Maze, just for protection, and it only came out of the
box for cleaning. His fingertip found the trigger curled inside the
guard.
The boy waited in the doorway.
Fegan got to his feet and followed him to the stairs. The boy
descended, the lean grace of his body seemingly untouched by the
light below.
Fegan began the slow climb downward. An adrenal surge stirred
dark memories, voices long silenced, faces like bloodstains. The others
came behind, sharing glances with one another. As he reached the
bottom, he saw McKenna’s back. The politician studied the old
photograph of Fegan’s mother, the one that showed her young and
pretty in a doorway.
The boy crossed the room and again played out the execution of the
man who had taken him apart with a claw hammer more than twenty
years ago.
Fegan’s heart thundered, his lungs heaved. Surely McKenna would
hear.
The boy looked to Fegan and smiled.
Fegan asked, “If I do it, will you leave me alone?”
The boy nodded.
“What?” McKenna put the framed picture down. He turned to the
voice and froze when he saw the gun aimed at his forehead.
“I can’t do it here.”
The boy’s smile faltered.
“Not in my house. Somewhere else.”
The smile returned.
“Jesus, Gerry.” McKenna gave a short, nervous laugh as he held his
hands up. “What’re you at?”
“I’m sorry, Michael. I have to.”
McKenna’s smile fell away. “I don’t get it, Gerry. We’re friends.”
“We’re going to get into your car.” The clarity crackled in Fegan’s
head. For the first time in months his hand did not shake.
McKenna’s mouth twisted. “Like fuck we are.”
“We’re going to get into your car,” Fegan repeated. “You in the
front, me in the back.”
“Gerry, your head’s away. Put the gun down before you do
something you’ll regret.”
Fegan stepped closer. “The car.”
McKenna reached out. “Now, come on, Gerry. Let’s just calm
down a second, here, all right? Why don’t you give that to me, and I’ll
put it away. Then we’ll have a drink.”
“I won’t say it again.”
“No messing, Gerry, let me have it.”
McKenna went to grab the gun, but Fegan pulled his hand away.
He brought it back to aim at the center of McKenna’s forehead.
“You always were a mad cunt.” McKenna kept his eyes on him as
he went to the door. He opened it and stepped out onto the street. He
looked left and right, right and left, searching for a witness. When his
shoulders slumped, Fegan knew there was no one. This was not the
kind of street where curtains twitched.
The Merc’s locking system sensed the key was in range, whirring
and clunking as McKenna approached.
“Open the back door,” Fegan said.
McKenna did as he was told.
“Now get in the front and leave the door open till I’m inside.”
Fegan kept the Walther trained on McKenna’s head until he was
seated at the steering wheel.
Fegan slid into the back, careful not to touch the leather upholstery
with his bare hands. He used a handkerchief to pull the door closed.
Tom had seen him leave with the politician, so his prints around the
front passenger seat didn’t matter. McKenna sat quite still with his
hands on the wheel.
“Now close the door and go.”
The Merc’s big engine rumbled into life, and McKenna pulled
away. Fegan took one glance from the back window and saw the
twelve watching from the pavement. The boy stepped out onto the
road and waved.
Fegan lay down flat in the cloaking shadows. He pressed the gun’s
muzzle against the back of the driver’s seat, exactly where McKenna’s
heart would be, if he’d ever had one.

Media reviews

“Not only one of the finest thriller debuts of the last ten years, but also one of the best Irish novels, in any genre, of recent times.”
—John Connolly

“Neville’s novel is a coldly lucid assessment of the fragility of the Irish peace … a rare example of legitimate noir fiction.”
—The New York Times Book Review
 
"Perfect for summer—especially if you want to be reminded of what a blessing it is to live in relatively peaceful times."
—Slate

“The best first novel I’ve read in years…. It’s a flat-out terror trip.”
—James Ellroy

“The Ghosts of Belfast is a smart and atmospheric thriller about the many causes served and corrupt pockets lined courtesy of sectarian hatred.”
—Maureen Corrigan, NPR.org

"Stuart Neville is Ireland's answer to Henning Mankell."
—Ken Bruen

“Stuart Neville's tightly wound, emotionally resonant account of an ex-IRA hit man's struggle to conquer his past, displays an acute understanding of the true state of Northern Ireland, still under the thumb of decades of violence and terrorism.”
—Los Angeles Times

“Both a fine novel and a gripping thriller: truly this is a magnificent debut.”
—Ruth Dudley Edwards, author of Ten Lords-A-Leaping
 
“Stuart Neville goes to the heart of the perversity of paramilitarism.”
—Sean O’Callaghan, author of The Informer

“An astonishing debut. Brilliantly conceived, masterfully written, Stuart Neville’s The Ghosts of Belfast is both a heart-pounding thriller and a stunning examination of responsibility and revenge. He is going to be a major new voice in suspense fiction.”
—Jeff Abbott
 
“Stuart Neville will go far as a writer . . .  It’s a wonderful novel, brave and fierce and true to its place and time. I sincerely hope it sells a million copies.”
—Crimespree

“Stuart Neville belongs to a younger generation of writers for whom the region's darkest years are history—but that history endures, as his first novel, The Ghosts of Belfast, shockingly demonstrates…. This noir thriller plays out in a Belfast that, even in summer sunshine, remains oppressively gray. The clannishness of its inhabitants is vividly evoked in Neville's descriptions of a tiny rowhouse packed with mourners for a murdered man's wake or a seedy pub where the bartender has learned to look the other way when violence arrives. A riot scene, one of the novel's best, captures a new generation's appetite for blood and an old veteran's nostalgia…. In scene after gruesome scene, Neville attempts to persuade us that this time around, with this repentant murderer, the killing is different.”
—Washington Post

“Neville’s debut is as unrelenting as Fegan’s ghosts, pulling no punches as it describes the brutality of Ireland’s 'troubles' and the crime that has followed, as violent men find new outlets for their skills. Sharp prose places readers in this pitiless place and holds them there. Harsh and unrelenting crime fiction, masterfully done.”
—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
 
“[A] stunning debut.... This is not only an action-packed, visceral thriller but also an insightful insider’s glimpse into the complex political machinations and networks that maintain the uneasy truce in Northern Ireland.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
 
“In this well-crafted and intriguing series debut, Neville evokes the terrors of living in Belfast during 'the Troubles' and manages to makes Fegan, a murderer many times over, a sympathetic character…The buzz around this novel is well deserved and readers will be anticipating the next book in the series.”
—Library Journal, Starred Review
                                                                                                                                                                                         
“Explosive and absorbing ... The Ghosts of Belfast is an intense meditation on obligation, necessity, and war. Within Stuart Neville’s rich vocabulary, complacency is not a word to be found.”
—Sacramento News and Review

“The Ghosts of Belfast is a tale of revenge and reconciliation shrouded in a bloody original crime thriller.... Fierce dialogue and the stark political realities of a Northern Ireland recovering from the ‘Troubles’ drive this novel. It's not difficult to read this brilliant book as an allegory for a brutal past that must be confronted so the present ‘can be clean.’”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“In his stunning debut, Stuart Neville delivers an inspired, gritty view of how violence's aftermath lasts for years and the toll it takes on each person involved. The Ghosts of Belfast also insightfully delves into Irish politics, the uneasy truce in Northern Ireland, redemption, guilt and responsibility ... Neville delivers an emotionally packed novel that is both empathetic and savage. Neville never makes Gerry's visions of ghosts seem trite or silly. Like his countryman, John Connolly, Neville keeps the supernatural aspects believable ... The Ghosts of Belfast is a haunting debut.”
—South Florida Sun-Sentinel

“If you by chance have never read Stuart Neville’s Belfast Trilogy, it’s time to redeem yourself.”
—Grift Magazine

“A brilliant thriller: unbearably tense, stomach churningly frightening … a future classic of its time.”
—The Observer

“Stuart Neville's blistering debut thriller is a walk on the wild side of post-conflict Northern Ireland that brilliantly exposes the suffering still lurking beneath the surface of reconciliation and the hypocrisies that sustain the peace.”
—Metro (UK)

“Neville has the talent to believably blend the tropes of the crime novel and those of a horror, in the process creating a page-turning thriller akin to a collaboration between John Connolly and Stephen King.”
—Sunday Independent (Ireland)

“A gripping, original thriller."
—Sunday Times

“[Neville] is … uniquely, tragically equipped to be able to think through complex issues of justice and mercy.”
—Irish Times