“Come on, let’s get moving,” Tommy shouts, pointing the gun at me again.
Trudge, trudge, trudge up the hill, but it must be said that I have learned much in this little interaction. The man with the gun is about forty-five or fifty. A school biology teacher? All that stuff about protein receptors … No, he probably read all that in New Scientist magazine and remembered it. Not biology. Doesn’t seem like the type who was smart enough to get a pure science degree. Geography, maybe. Bit of a hippy, probably a lefty radical, and that was definitely a Derry accent. We almost certainly went to the same rallies in the early 70s. Definitely a Catholic too, which would mean he’s probably a teacher at St Columb’s, St Joseph’s or St Malachy’s. That’s a lot to work with. And he’s the leader, a couple of decades older than the other two. If I can turn him the rest will snap into line.
A big if.
“Rhodopsin my foot. I fell,” shovel man says, passing the woman the water bottle. “Twice. And it’s going to be worse going downhill. Mark my words. We’ll all be going arse over tit. You’ll see.”
The woods are thinning out a bit now and in the far west I can see headlights on a road. Ten miles away, though and going in the other direction. No help from there.
A gust of clear, elemental wind blows down from the hilltop. I’m only wearing jeans and a T-shirt and my DMs. At least it’s my lucky Che Guevara T-shirt, hand-printed and signed by Jim Fitzpatrick himself. If a dog walker or random hiker finds my body a few years hence and the T-shirt hasn’t decayed maybe they’ll be able to identify me from that.
“Careful on this bit!” Tommy says. “It’s mucky as anything. There’s a bog hole over there. Dead ewe in it. But once we’re through that, we’re there.”
We wade through a slew of black tree roots and damp earth and finally arrive at a dell in the wood that must be the designated execution spot.
It’s a good place to kill someone. The ring of trees will muffle the gun shots and the overhanging branches will protect the killers from potential spying eyes in helicopters and satellites.
“We’re here,” Tommy says, looking at his map again.
“There must have been a better way to come than this,” shovel man says, exhausted. “Look at my trainers. These were brand new gutties! Nikes. They are soaked through to the socks.”
“That’s all you can say? Look at my gutties! Complain, complain, complain. Do you have no sense of decorum? This is a serious business. Do you realise we’re taking a man’s life this morning?” Tommy says.
“I realise it. But why we have to do it in the middle of nowhere halfway up a bloody mountain I have no idea.”
“And here’s me thinking you’d appreciate the gravity of the task, or even a wee bit of nature. Do you even know what these are?” Tommy asks, pointing at the branches overhead.
“Trees?”
“Elm trees! For all we know maybe the last elm trees in Ireland.”
“Elm trees my arse.”
“Aye, as if you know trees. You’re from West Belfast,” Tommy snarls.
“There are trees in Belfast. Trees all over the shop! You don’t have to live in a forest to know what a bloody tree is. You know who lives in the woods? Escaped mental patients. Place is full of them. And cultists. Ever see The Wicker Man? And big cats. Panthers. The Sunday World has a photograph of—”
“Gentlemen, please,” the woman says, reaching us. “Are we finally here, or what?”
“We’re here,” Tommy mutters.
“Well let’s get this over with then,” she says.
“Uncuff him and give him the spade,” Tommy says.
Shovel man uncuffs me and leaves the shovel on the ground next to me. All three of them stand way back to give me room.
“You know what to do, Duffy,” Tommy says.
“You’re making a big mistake,” I say to him, looking into his brown eyes behind the balaclava. “You don’t realise what you’re doing. You’re being used. You’re—”
Tommy points the revolver at my crotch.
“I’ll shoot you in the bollocks if you say one more word. I’ll make you dig with no nuts. Now, shut up and get to work.”
I rub my wrists for a moment, pick up the shovel and start to dig. The ground is damp and soft and forgiving. It won’t take me ten minutes to dig a shallow grave through this stuff.
Everyone is staying well out of shovel-swinging range. They may be new at this, but they’re not stupid.
“I’ll be glad when this is over,” the woman whispers to the younger man. “I’m dying for a cup a tea.”
“And I could do with a ciggie. Can’t believe I left them back at the farm,” he replies.
“Tea and cigarettes is all they can think about when we’re taking a man’s life,” Tommy growls to himself.
“It’s easy for you, you don’t smoke. I …”
I turn down the volume so they’re nothing more than background noise.
I think of Beth and Emma as I dig through a surprising line of chalk in all this peat. Chalk.
Emma’s smile, Beth’s green eyes.
Emma’s laugh.
Let that be the last thing in my consciousness. Not the babel of these misguided fools.
Shovel.
Earth.