She said, ‘I wanna go, I wanna go,’ and started crossing and uncrossing her legs. Then she stood up and was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet.
I said, ‘OK, we’ll go. Come on, come with me.’
I didn’t need this, but I had to do it. I couldn’t have her shitting all over the carpet.
I got hold of her hand. I took the doorstops from the outer office door, gently opened it and checked the corridor.
We moved across the open-plan office, through the glass door and into the fire-escape corridor. We went into the toilet and turned on the toilet light. Poor girl, she was pulling down her trousers in such a hurry she was fumbling with her buttons. I helped her, but, even so, she nearly missed the toilet altogether in her rush.
I was wasting time. I had to go back to the machine and she might be there for five minutes or more. Backing away, I said, ‘Don’t move, and don’t flush the toilet afterwards; I’ll do all that for you. I just have to go back one minute and get the computer working. I’ll be right back. Remember, shhh, be quiet!’
At that particular moment she didn’t really care where I went or what I did. She was in her own heaven.
Wup!
I left her and quietly ran towards the office. Once I’d got the disk copying again I’d come back to Kelly, clean the shit out with my hand, and put it in the cling film. Then I’d keep pushing the toilet brush down the pan to lower the level of the water by pushing it through the U bend, and get some fresh water from the drinking fountain to bring the level back up again.
I got back to the office and pressed the Y key. Then I went to the bag to fetch the cling film.
And it was then that I heard her scream.
Instinctively, I pulled out my pistol and went against the wall. I checked chamber and took off the safety catch with my thumb.
I could feel my heart beating faster and the familiar sensation of cold sweat breaking out over my body. My body was getting ready for fight or flight. The screaming was from the area of the fire escape, my only way out. It looked as if I would have to fight.
25
My heart was pumping so hard it was nearly in my mouth. I’d learned long ago that fear is a good thing. If you aren’t scared you’re lying – or you’re mentally unstable. Everyone has fear, but as a professional you use training, experience and knowledge to block out the emotion and help you overcome the problem.
I was still thinking it out when I heard a longer, more pitiful scream of ‘Nick! Help me!’ The sound went through me like a knife. Images flashed through my mind of her curled up in a ball in the hidey-hole, of brushing her hair and playing that stupid video-watching game.
I was by the office door leading out into the corridor.
I heard a man’s voice shout, ‘I’ve got her! I’ll fucking kill her! Think about it. Don’t make me do it!’
It was not an American voice. Or Hispanic. Or anything else I might have expected. But I knew it straight away. West Belfast.
It sounded as if they were now in the main office area. He started to shout more threats at me above Kelly’s screams. I couldn’t make out every word and I didn’t have to. I got the message.
‘OK, OK! I’m going to come into your view in a minute.’ My voice echoed in the semi-darkness.
‘Fuck you! Throw your weapon into the corridor. Do it!’
Then I could hear him shouting at Kelly, ‘Shut the fuck up! Shut up!’
I came out of the office and stopped just short of the corridor junction. I slid my pistol out into the main corridor.
‘Put your hands on your head, walk out to the middle of the corridor. If you do anything else, I’ll fucking kill her – do you understand?’
The voice was controlled; he didn’t sound like a madman.
‘Yes, I’m coming out, my hands are on my head,’ I said. ‘Tell me when to move.’
‘Now, you fucker!’
Kelly’s screams were deafening, even through the glass door.
I started to walk and, in four paces, came to the corridor junction. I knew that, if I looked left, I’d be able to see them through the door, but that wasn’t the game just now. I didn’t want eye-to-eye; he might overreact.
‘Stop where you are, you fucker!’
I stopped. I could still hear the whimpering. I didn’t say a word or turn my head.
In films you always hear the good guy give encouragement to the hostage. In real life it doesn’t work like that; you just shut up and do what you’re told.
He said, ‘Turn left.’
I could now see them both in the shadows. Kelly had her back to me as he dragged her towards me with a weapon stuck in her shoulder area. He pushed the glass door open with his foot and came out into the light of the corridor.
As I saw him my heart dropped from beating in quick time to a slow thud. I felt as if a 10-ton weight had just been dropped on my shoulder.
It was Morgan McGear.
He was dressed very smartly in a dark-blue two-piece suit and a crisp, clean white shirt; even his shoes looked expensive. It was a far cry from the Falls Road uniform of jeans, bomber jacket and trainers. I couldn’t see exactly what sort of weapon he was carrying; it looked like some sort of semi-automatic.
He was watching me, working me out. What was I doing here with a small child? He knew he had control, he knew there was fuck all I was going to do. He now had his left hand wrapped around her hair – what a pity I hadn’t cut off more in the motel room – and he had the weapon stuck into her neck. This was not a meaningless gesture; he was capable of killing her.
She looked hysterical, poor kid, she was panicking big-time.
He called out, ‘Walk towards me – slowly. Walk now. C’mon, don’t fuck with me, you shite.’
Every noise in the corridor seemed to be amplified tenfold; McGear shouting with spit flying out of his mouth, Kelly screaming. It seemed to reverberate round the whole building.
I did as he said. As I got nearer I looked at her and tried to get eye-to-eye; I wanted to comfort her, but it didn’t work. Her eyes were swollen with tears, her face was soaking wet and red. Her jeans weren’t even done up yet.
He got me within about ten feet of him and now I looked into his eyes, and I could see that he knew he was in a position of power, but flapping a bit. His voice might have sounded confident, but his eyes gave it away. If his job was to kill us, now was his moment. With my eyes I said to him, Just get it over and done with. There are times when, after using plans A, B and C, you must accept you’re in the shit – or shite as this boy would say.
He snapped, ‘Stop!’ and the echo round the corridor seemed to reinforce the threat.
I looked at Kelly, still trying to get that eye-to-eye contact to say, Everything’s all right, everything’s OK. You asked me to help you and I’m here.
McGear told me to turn round and now I knew it was time to flap.
He said, ‘On your knees, you fucker.’
Facing away from him, I went down so I was sitting back on my heels; if I had the chance to react, at least from here I had some sort of springboard.
‘Up!’ he shouted. ‘Get up, get your arse up!’ He knew what I was doing; this boy was good. ‘Kneel upright. More, more. Stay there, fuck you. Think you’re some fucking hard guy . . .’
He moved behind me, dragging Kelly with him. I could still hear her cries, but there was another noise now. Something else was moving; it wasn’t just their movements and Kelly’s moans. I didn’t know what it was, just that something unhealthy was going to happen. All I could do was close my eyes, grit my teeth and wait for it.
He took a couple of laboured steps towards me. I could hear Kelly getting nearer, obviously still in tow.
‘Keep looking straight ahead,’ he said, ‘or I will be hurting the wee one. Do what I say or—’
Either he didn’t finish his sentence or I didn’t hear it. The bang on the top of my shoulders and head sent me straight down.
I went into a semi-conscious state. I was awake, but I knew I was fucked, like a boxer who goes down and is trying to get up to show the referee that he’s all right, but he’s not, he’s all over the place.
I felt nailed to the floor; as I looked up, I couldn’t see what had done the damage. It hadn’t been a pistol. It takes a decent weight to knock a person over. Whatever it was, it took me down good-style.
The strange thing about the next bit was that I knew what was happening, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I was aware of him pulling me over onto my back and jumping astride me, and I felt cold metal being pushed against my face and finally into my mouth. Slowly, slowly, it dawned on me that it was the pistol, and the jumble of words he was screaming became clearer and clearer. ‘Don’t fuck with me! Don’t fuck with me! Don’t fuck with me!’ He sounded out of control.
I could smell the fucker. He’d been drinking; there was alcohol on his breath. He reeked of aftershave and cigarettes.
He was sitting astride me with his knees on my shoulders and the pistol stuck in my mouth. He still had his left hand around Kelly’s hair and had pulled her onto the floor; he was tugging her from side to side like a rag doll, either for the sheer hell of it, or perhaps just to keep her screaming and make me more compliant.
All I could hear was scream, scream, scream; ‘Don’t fuck with me!’; scream, scream, scream; ‘Don’t fuck with me! Think you’re a fucking hard guy, do you, think you’re a fucking tough guy, huh?’
Not good. I knew what they did to ‘hard guys’. McGear once got an informer into a flat in the Divis estate for questioning; his kneecaps were drilled with a Black & Decker, he was burned by an electric fire, then electrocuted in the bath. He managed to jump out of a window naked, but broke his back. They dragged him back into the lift and shot him.
I felt as if I was drunk. I was aware of what was happening, but it was taking too long for the message to reach my brain.
Then the software started to kick in. I tried to see if the hammer was back on the pistol, but all I could still see was bubbles of red light in front of my eyes and starbursts of white. All I could make out was a blur of screaming and ranting from him, ‘You bastard! I’m gonna fuck you up! Who are you?’ and the screaming from Kelly. It was total confusion.
I tried again to focus my eyes and this time it worked – and I could see the position of the hammer.
The hammer was back. It was a 9-milly. But what about the safety catch? It was off.
There was nothing I could do. He’d got his finger on the trigger; if I struggled, I was dead, whether he intended it or not.
He said, ‘You think you’re fucking hard? Do you? Do you? We’ll soon see who is the hard man.’ Then he jumped his weight up and down to crush my chest, forcing the pistol harder into my mouth.
To add to the confusion, Kelly was still screaming with terror and pain. I didn’t have a clue what was expected of me; all I knew was that I had a pistol stuck in my gob and this guy was in charge.
He started to regain his composure. The pistol was still shoved hard into my mouth, but he was beginning to ease himself to his feet. He did it by putting weight on the pistol and hand and then against my face, and, as the pistol turned in my mouth, it twisted painfully up against my cheek and teeth, scraping them with the foresight. And all the time he kept a grip on Kelly’s hair, pulling her round all over the place.
He moved back, keeping the pistol aimed at my chest.
‘Get back up on your knees!’
‘All right, mate, OK. You got me, OK.’
As I moved I saw the fire extinguisher that had taken me down. The skin at the back of my head was split open. There was blood oozing out all over the place and matting all the way down the back of my head. There was fuck all I could do; you just can’t stop capillary bleeding.
I got back on my knees, my arse up in the air again so I wasn’t resting on the back of my feet, and I was looking at him, trying to sort myself out. He started to walk backwards towards the office and kept the weapon pointing at me.
‘Come on, hard man, on your knees.’
I got the hint he wanted me to follow him.
By now Kelly was in shit state. There was a small trail of my blood being wiped along the floor. Kelly must have been kneeling in it before she was moved. She had her hands on his wrist, trying to support herself. She kept on tripping up, walking on her knees, trying to pick herself up, as if she was getting dragged behind a horse. All he was interested in was moving backwards with the weapon pointing at me.
He said, ‘Stay where you are!’ and then shuffled backwards past the door to the large office.
I was trying to compose myself; I knew I didn’t have long to live unless I took some action.
‘In there!’
I started to shuffle in.
‘Walk!’
I got up and walked into the room, my back still towards him. I walked slowly towards the coffee table and was just about to move off to the side to go round it when he said, ‘Stop! Turn round!’