not quite there yet but yes – yes, he will.’
Geek glances suspiciously at Panzer. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me, boss? Why’s it suddenly so important that Finbarr gets involved?’
‘You’ve had him for a year now, so it’s hardly sudden. Look, he’s turning out to be a pain in the ass, if you must know,’ Panzer says, barely able to disguise his exasperation. ‘He needs the discipline of responsibility.’
‘Don’t all kids? I’ll take him down to Dublin with me next week, shall I?’
‘Good idea. But make it clear to him that he’s there only as an observer. These druggies are dangerous hombres.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Geek says, walking away. He turns back. ‘This Dublin thing …’
‘What about it?’
‘Are we getting into the drugs business, permanently, like?’
‘No. This is a one-off.’
‘Good. I don’t like drugs.’
Seeing Geek move away, Ructions approaches Panzer and gets into the passenger seat of the golf buggy. Not for the first time his attention is drawn to his uncle’s startling weight loss. What’s going on with you, Panzer? What are you not telling me? You’re looking more like The Devil every day. Has his errant spirit transferred to you? ‘It’s a good day for mountaineering,’ Ructions says.
‘I need to catch a dog trial first,’ Panzer says, driving over behind the stables to his dog track.
The oval-shaped, sandy track is 660 yards in circumference, but the trial distance is only 525 yards – the length of an average greyhound race. Private greyhound trials have always been a nice earner for Panzer; his discretion is celebrated, and owners throughout Ireland know that whatever times their dog records, it never leaves his track.
Panzer speaks to a middle-aged man in a duffle coat. He has a hugely impressive Salvador Dali moustache and a lanky teenage sidekick. Ructions takes out a fifty-pence piece and twiddles it from one finger to the next. Down at the starting stalls, the handlers put two yelping dogs into the traps. One handler speaks into a two-way radio. The artificial hare is released. The stall doors open as the hare flashes past, and the dogs bolt after it. As the leading dog blazes past the finishing post, Panzer and the man with the Dali moustache click their stopwatches simultaneously, while the teenager goes after the greyhounds. After a while, Panzer looks down and scuffs the ground. Ructions has seen this routine before; it’s anti-up time. No one gets ripped off, but Panzer always comes out of these things richer than when he went in.
A fat rat disappears behind the back of the stables and scurries along the wall into the nearby field. ‘I’m gonna have to do something about these rats,’ Panzer says as he gets into the driving seat of the golf buggy.
The drive across Hannahstown to the Black Mountain is interrupted only by occasional greetings from walkers and joggers, most of whom know Panzer as ‘The King of Hannahstown’ – a title bestowed upon him by an over-zealous press. They pull up just below the BBC Television mast and alight. Ructions lifts the golf bag and slings it over his shoulder. A pathway of squishy, rubbery mats cuts a corridor across the mountain. It seems to Ructions that the mats, with their hundreds of tiny squares, are losing the battle against the encroaching moss and bogland. Nature is the real king up here. Soon they cross the wooden bridge, veer right, and then carry on to the end of the rubber pathway. They toddle along silently, each man cultivating his own thoughts, until eventually they cut down the mountain and halt before a steep drop.
‘My God,’ Panzer exclaims, ‘will you look at that?’ He inhales deeply, his chest expanding and his shoulders rising and falling. ‘I’ve been up here hundreds of times and every time, it just … it just knocks the malt out of me.’
‘It never lets you down, that’s for sure,’ Ructions replies, his eyes straying right to the hazy Mountains of Mourne.
Belfast’s two giant shipyard gantry cranes, ‘Samson and Goliath’, reach up into the ripe late-autumn sky. Two cross-channel ferries pass each other in the shipping lanes of Belfast Lough. A doe rabbit bolts out of the side of the mountain and runs into a bank to their right.
Ructions reaches into the golf bag. ‘Five iron, M’Lord?’
‘Oh, I don’t think so, O’Hare,’ Panzer says fancifully. ‘I rather think I want distance today. Perhaps the driver?’
‘An excellent choice, M’Lord.’
Both men put their tees in the ground and set their golf balls on top of them. Ructions’ practice swings have the fluidity of one who knows what he’s doing.
‘So, nephew, our insider,’ Panzer says, ‘do you trust him? I mean, do you really trust him to—’
‘He’s a she,’ Ructions says, ‘and yeah, she’s sound.’ Ructions draws back slowly and drives the ball so far that it disappears beneath the curvature of the mountain.
‘Not bad,’ Panzer says, standing over his ball. He steps away and sits down on a large stone. ‘So tell me about her?’
‘Her name’s Eleanor Proctor—’
‘A Prod?’
‘No, she’s a Catholic who married a Prod. You would’ve known her old man … Tommy O’Driscoll.’
‘“The Fair Man”?’
‘One and the same.’
‘I knew Tommy well. He was the best councillor ever to sit on Belfast City Council. Did me a few turns with planning applications, he did.’ Panzer addresses his golf ball, then turns back to Ructions. ‘What’s she like, this Eleanor?’
‘She’s feisty.’
‘What way feisty?’
‘She knows her own mind; she’ll not be led.’
‘Not even by you?’
Ructions hesitates as he tries to find the right words. ‘She’s a strong woman.’
‘You never answered my question.’
‘She’s helping us because she wants to.’
‘Ah, but why does she want to?’ Panzer asks. ‘That’s what I want to know. What’s in it for her?’
‘Me.’
‘You?’
‘Me.’
Panzer kicks the ground below him, just like he had done before he settled up with the greyhound owner with the Dali moustache.
Come on, Panzer. Spit it out – whatever it is.
‘You’re wondering what’s going through my mind, aren’t you?’ Panzer says.
Ructions shrugs.
‘I’ll tell you. I’m asking myself if my right arm has fallen for the mark.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous? I’ll be as ridiculous as I fucking well want to be.’
Ructions zips up his golf bag, an act not unnoticed by Panzer. ‘Shall we head back?’ Ructions says.
Panzer stands directly in front of Ructions. ‘You don’t think I’ve a right to ask hard questions?’
‘Sure you have, and I’ve no problem answering them. But suggesting I’ve fallen for the mark—’ Ructions points his finger. ‘That’s way out of order. I deserve better than that from you and you know it.’
Panzer puts his hands on Ructions’ shoulders and looks into his eyes. ‘Ructions, son, this is serious shit, and I don’t mind admitting I get the jitters every time I think of this job. I can’t remember myself ever