what are you holding out for? You'll fucking die – you really going to leave the Brit sitting pretty while you take the punishment? Where is Finbar? And where's the Brit?'
I brushed the back of his calf with the forks and he swivelled like a break-dancer. 'Come on, we can do this all night. Dom here's paid his electric bill. It ain't going to be cut off.'
I sparked up his mobile, a cheap old red and grey thing. He had no call history, no address book. Whoever he needed to call, or whoever was going to call him, they knew each other's numbers.
I gave his arse a jab this time. His body hit the floor like it was trying to melt into it. His breaths came fast and short.
'OK, here's the deal. You tell me who you were going to call once you'd lifted us, and I'll go easy with the cutlery. Let's start from there, yeah?'
His right cheek was pressed to the floor. I brought the forks down level with his left eye.
'What about a jab to the frontal lobe? A couple of seconds of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest treatment. You'd end up barking at the moon every Tuesday. Come on, you're not fucking helping yourself. Where is the boy?'
He closed his eye. 'They'd fucking kill me.'
I touched the forks quickly to his skull and he half gurgled, half screamed. I gave him a Timberland in the ribs for good measure. 'Shut the fuck up. That's not what I want to hear.'
Dom grabbed my arm. 'Nick . . .'
If he was suddenly trying to play the good guy, fuck him. This was the only way we'd get results this side of lunch-time.
'No, mate. If he doesn't tell us, he's going to die.'
Mr Green opened his eye again to see the forks just inches away. 'All right, then, just tell us who you were going to phone. Who were you going to contact to say you'd got us?'
Snot dribbled from his nose and formed a small puddle of slime on the floor. He sniffed hard. 'The Brit . . . I was going to call the Brit . . .'
'And what was the Brit going to do?'
'He was waiting.'
He couldn't control his breathing. The electricity churning through his heart had interfered with the comms system linking his brain and lungs.
'If you don't come up with some answers, the next zap's going to kill you.'
I got down on my knees and leant forward until our faces were level. I wanted to make sure I was close enough to hear if he started to have a heart attack. 'I bet you never thought this would happen when you signed up, eh? Now where's the boy?'
'Dun . . . Dundalk.' It was scarcely more than a whisper.
'Dundalk?'
He nodded like a drunk on a pavement.
'And that's where you were going to take us?'
He nodded again.
'What was going to happen there?'
He didn't need to draw pictures. We both knew. He was probably the one who would have done it.
I stood up.
I wanted him to get his breath back. He still had work to do.
I undid his day sack. 'Right, Dom,' I said. 'Let's have a look at this boy's party bag.'
103
I knew Dundalk well. It was only an hour and a bit up the motorway, and just this side of the border. As a young squaddy in South Armagh's bandit country, I'd often hear PIRA test-firing their homemade mortars down there. It was a sure sign we were going to get zapped within the next couple of days.
Later, when I was in the Regiment, the area still teemed with known PIRA ASU members, until we were told to do something about it. Who knows? Maybe it really was me who'd killed Little's mate. I hoped so.
Dom had all the gear from Mr Green's day sack on the floor. They'd come well prepared. There were foot-long strips of thin rubber to tie us up; gaffer-tape for our mouths; even a couple of black motorbike bags with drawstrings to bung over our heads.
Mr Green had finally managed to control his breathing. I knelt down beside him again. 'I don't want to know, so don't tell me – but if you've got kids and want to see them again, you'll do as you're told. I'm giving you the chance to live, here. You understand?'
He understood.
'In a minute, you're going to give that body of yours a shake and load your mate into the back of the