“All right. I’m going,” I said.

I couldn’t see her face now, but she whispered “Good luck.”

I crawled through the living-room doorway but as soon as I opened the back door shotgun pellets thudded into the door and into the gap above my head.

Fuck.

The house was surrounded.

I crawled back into the living room.

“They’re there ahead of me. Is there any kind of cellar or cellar door or priest’s hole, or anything like that?” I asked her.

“No. Nothing like that. A front door and a back door. That’s it.”

“There’s no way out!” Harry shouted.

I slithered to the broken window and looked out. Half a dozen shadowy forms arranged behind the stone wall. Maybe two more out back.

“I called the cops, Harry! The fucking cavalry is on its way! You boys better run if you don’t want to go down with your boss!” I yelled.

“We heard your conversation to 999 and we yanked the cable! Do you think we’re daft, Duffy?”

“Fuck!” I whispered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Come out and it’ll be quick, Duffy. No nonsense. No torture. We’ve got marksmen. You won’t even know it.”

I was beat already and the whole night was ahead of us. Night and into the morning and however long Harry wanted to keep at it on his private land.

The cars were still shining their headlamps at the farmyard and it was hard to see what was going on, but I did notice one careless fucker stand up to take a shot at the house. I lifted the .38 two-handed, carefully sighted it and squeezed the trigger. A crack, a slight recall, the man went down.

“That’ll gentle his condition some, eh, Harry!” I yelled. “And that goes for all of you fuckers! Who wants it next? Just remember that when Harry tells you to charge the house!”

“Peeler scum!” somebody shouted by way of retort.

“You’re doing this for Harry? You’re going to risk your life so he can make some cash in a drug deal? And what do you get out of it! Nothing! Think about that, too, before you charge!”

“We’ll be all right, you can’t watch both doors at once, can you, Duffy?” Harry yelled.

It was a good point.

Emma’s arm was on mine.

She was looking at me.

“He can’t, Harry! But together we can. I’ll cover the back with Martin’s shotgun and he can cover the front! The first man I see in my backyard is a dead man!” Emma yelled.

I couldn’t make out all of her face in the dark but I could see that smile and the fact that she was holding a double-barrel shotgun.

“You don’t have to do this, I’ll send you out under a white flag,” I whispered.

“I’m staying here!” she said and kissed me on the cheek.

Why the flip? Guilt? Resignation? Death wish? They were all good.

A volley of gun shots smashed the windows and sent sparks flying across the floor.

We hit the deck.

“You better cover the back door. Don’t expose yourself. Keep low,” I whispered.

She nodded and crawled towards the kitchen.

I waited for whatever was going to happen next.

No movement that I could shoot at.

The rain was getting heavy and the sky was moonless, starless, black.

Nothing happened for a minute. Two. Then I saw two arcs of fire and a Molotov cocktail landed on the thatched roof and another tumbled through the broken living-room window into the house, exploding in a sheet of crimson flame across the hardwood floor.

I pulled a curtain off the wall and threw it over the conflagration. The curtain caught fire and I had to smother it with my body. It singed my face, fizzled for a moment and then went out.

I knew now that it was all over. Of course, they would simply burn us out.

Why would they charge the house when they could stand behind the wall and lob Molotovs at us?

“Are you okay, Emma?” I yelled into the kitchen.

“I’m okay, are you?” she shouted back.

“I’m fine.”

I crawled into the kitchen. “What are we going to do?” she whispered.

I peered into the backyard. I could see bobbing lights beyond the fence. They were getting ready to fire another round of Molotovs.

“They’re going to torch the place,” I said.

“Oh, God! I’d rather be shot,” she said desperately.

“Do you want me to parley with them? You still have a chance.”

She shook her head. “No. No, it’s too late now. I’ve made my choice. I should never have … I’ve made my choice.”

I kissed her tear-stained cheek.

The men launched their Molotovs and I broke the kitchen window and shot at one of them as he threw. I missed him and both petrol bombs landed on the thatched roof.

Yeah, that was the way to do it.

Smoke rapidly began filling the kitchen.

“Follow me into the living room,” I said, and she slithered after me, but it was just as bad there too.

Thick black straw smoke from the thatch.

We began to cough.

I dry-retched.

“What are you thinking about now, Duffy?” Harry yelled.

I was thinking of a Butch Cassidy style run into oblivion.

“I was thinking how good it’s going to feel when I kill you, you cunt!” I yelled back.

And then I heard it.

Was it a hallucination?

No.

No, that was no trick of a desperate mind.

That was a fucking siren. Sirens.

“Sirens!” I said.

I turned to Emma. “I hear sirens.”

“Sirens!” I yelled out the broken window. “The peelers are coming for you, lads! If I were youse I’d bloody leg it!”

I turned to Emma. “Are you hurt?”

She nodded. “I’m all right.”

The sirens were tearing up the Mill Bay Road. Two police Land Rovers at least. Of course they had traced the 999 call. They didn’t need to hear the address. They needed only to triangulate the call line backwards through all the tumblers and switchboards, and Harry had helped them with local geography by giving them a nice big fire to steer towards.

I edged open the front door so we could breathe. We kept low to the ground and no one shot at us.

“Come back, you dogs!” Harry was yelling at his men who were sensibly making a run for it back to their houses.

“I really won’t have to go to jail, Sean? I couldn’t stand to go to prison,” Emma said in a low, ashamed voice.

“No. I give you my word.”

The sirens were now less than a mile away.

“It’s over, Harry! You’ve been abandoned! It’s finished!” I yelled into the darkness.

“Not quite, Duffy! Not quite!” he yelled back.

I heard an engine rev and a hand brake slip. I looked up and out into the farmyard. Harry’s Bentley was speeding towards us. There was a burning rag sticking out of the petrol tank. He had put a weight on the accelerator pedal.

He was walking behind it with the shotgun.

“Jesus! Quickly! Get into the back kitchen! He’s—” I yelled at Emma.

And

then

everything

was

light.

32: IN THE WORLD OF LIGHT

Silence. The silence of mice in graves. The silence of non-being. Nothingness singing to itself.

…

…

…

Time passing.

Ash.

Death’s hand. Warmer than I was expecting. Welcoming.

…

…

…

Rain on my face. Starlight. Pain naming me into consciousness.

A sleepwalker getting to his feet.

Me.

Comparatively unscathed.

Two arms. Two legs.

A ringing in my ears.

Lucky.

Lucky Sean Duffy, that’s what you should call me.

The house?

There is no house.

The house is levelled.

“Emma! Emma!”

I see her.

It must have been from a heavy stone in the wall.

It would have been instantaneous.

I kiss her shattered face. Her blood on my lips.

I walk away from the debris.

The Land Rovers are coming to me across the valley.

The sirens so close now.

A melody.

Glissando-like runs from two pianos, the first playing that Chopinesque descending ten-on-one ostinato while the second playing the more conservative six-on-one.