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I walked away from Altnagelvin into a growling darkness. The clouds were low and threatened rain. The wind was soft but still had bite to it. There was a curfew, but my bed was the other side of the Foyle and I’d already done my last vile deed for the day. So I set off walking.
You see, after Father Jack finished Ma’s last rites, and as Maeve and Rhuari knelt by her bedside to pray, I took him aside and quietly asked, “When do you visit with Eamonn?”
“I’ll see to it he’s informed—”
“When?” I snapped, cutting him off. I had no patience for his excessive words.
He eyed me, irritated. “They’ll let me, immediately, for something like this but—”
“When you see him, tell him his mother said she does not want him to join in the hunger strike.”
“I’m not going to lie to him and—”
Again, I cut him off. “Ma told me as she lay there dying that it was a mistake. That she did not want him to be part of it, and that he should back away.”
“Brendan, it is sin to lie about something so vital—”
“I’m not lying,” and it was an effort for me to keep my voice low enough so the others couldn’t hear. “You will tell him that it is his mother’s dying wish that he not do this.”
He gave a sharp sigh. “You’re concerned over nothing. He’s only in the queue, and not even in the top twelve on the list, so—”
“Tell him, anyway.” And I forced each word out like a near hiss.
He gave his cool, condescending look then started to move away. “We’ll see.”
I grabbed him by the arm and said, “Father Jack, do as I say or I will destroy you and everything people believe about you.” And I knew the second part of my threat was all he truly cared about.
He spun on me, furious, and growled, “You have the nerve to say that to me? A man of God who—?”
I nearly spat out, “How’s Father Demian doing?”
“What?”
“I hear he was shot. Not killed, merely castrated by a couple bullets. Some would say justice was served.”
The look on his face became one of the purest anger. “What does he have to do with this?”
“Right, I should refer to him by Danny Gallagher’s pet name, Father Devil. I know what he did to Danny, and God knows how many other lads he could get his hands on.”
He barely kept himself in control, his voice a low vicious growl. “You are referencing something about which you know nothing!” And suddenly I noticed his light brogue was damn near non-existent.
I smiled. “I also hear you were instrumental in getting him transferred to Nottingham. How many kids did he molest there?”
The anger in his face shifted to sharp wariness.
I went in for the kill. “That’s quite a little game you priests have—do something wrong and all you get is moved to another parish where you can start fresh and new, once again a man of God with no one knowing the better till you do wrong, again. It wouldn’t take much to reveal Father Devil’s evil, and how many times he’s been moved, and how neatly the church has kept it hidden. And all because you won’t give my brother a message from his dying mother. Is that the right thing to do, Father Jack? Where’s that milk of human kindness you so love to talk about?”
He stepped back from me. Leaned himself against the wall, for support. Licked his lips a couple of times. He was trying desperately to figure some way around my brutally blunt threats. I kept my focus on him, as hard and cold as I could, but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Maeve looking at us, a frown on her worn face. She’d be over in a minute and I wanted this settled before she got to us.
Father Jack took in a deep breath and whispered, “What makes you think he’ll believe me?”
“Because he wants to,” I snarled back. “And I mean it—if Eamonn joins with the strikers and he dies, I will send your soul to hell on earth. Do you understand me?”
He straightened himself and looked me up and down, his mask back on. “You’ve become quite an evil man, Brendan Kinsella.”
“I learned from the best.”
Disdain flashed across his eyes. “And to think I thought you the weak one.”
I had to laugh at that. “This is how strength operates?”
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