“Why was the Gray Man in Bulgaria, then?”
Glazebrook shrugged. “I didn’t know he was. Might have something to do with his actions in Russia.”
“I need more.”
“There is no more to be had from me tonight. I can make some calls. I will do that for you. My nation owes you for what you did back a million years ago.”
Tully raised a hand. “There you go, Whetstone. Sir Allen promised to look into—”
“What if I don’t believe him?” Coyle said. “I’m supposed to leave now and wait on my phone to ring?”
Tully was adamant, and he was scared. “Now, look here. Sir Allen is shooting you straight. If he says—”
Now Glazebrook interrupted. “You’re calling me a liar? You’ve slipped into my home like a pest, threatened to wring my neck, and called me a liar?”
Coyle said, “Oh, Iknowyou’re a liar.”
Before anyone could speak, Coyle said, “The men you sent me after in Ulster, when I was just a lad. When I was trying to right the wrongs done to my da. Two of them were involved in my father’s death. But the others? That was simple score settling with you lot. You tricked me, cooked up bogus proof. I figured it out decades ago. You two lied to me. Had me kill men, women, old touts who’d pissed you off over the years. They’d nothing to do with me, never did me any wrong, and I put a bullet or two in all of them.”
Tully said, “I don’t know what you’re—”
“Fuck off, Tully. Glazebrook is a shite, but he’s British. You’re a bloody Irishman, turning on your own.”
“You turned on your own,” Tully said, his voice quivering in fear.
“I turned on those who killed my da. Family is everything, don’t you agree?”
Tully didn’t know what to say. He hesitated, thinking of a response.
But he never said another word. In a sudden movement, Coyle’s left hand came out of his coat, his arm extended towards Tully, a gun with a silencer at the end of it.
It barked once, loud in the library, but quiet enough that the sound wouldn’t travel all the way outside.
Tully fell back into his chair. His arm knocked his glass of port off the table; it crashed on the hardwood floor.
The wheezing of a sucking chest wound came right after. Glazebrook launched to his feet in terror, but when the gun was pointed towards him, waving him back into his seat, he slowly sat back down, his eyes bounding between the wounded Irishman and the armed man.
Between victim and perpetrator.
Bill Tully was still alive. Gasping shallowly in the chair, a hole in his chest. Blood trickled from his mouth.
His eyes were wide from shock; the firelight flickered in their wetness.
Campbell Coyle remained standing in front of the fireplace; his shadow danced across the room with the flames, but his body stayed ramrod still.
Sir Allen began to speak, but Coyle cut him off before a single word came out.
“I’m not fucking about, Glazebrook. Don’t look so upset. You never gave a toss about Tully, any more than me. You are one of those Brits who thinks he’s superior to us Irishmen.”
“Of…of course not.”
Bill Tully slumped forward in the chair, crumpled to the floor. A gurgling came from the heap.
“Why did you do that?” the older man asked.
“I needed him to get in to you. I didn’t need him after. He quickly became useless. You see? I want to be certain that you understand this, so that you realize the very second you have nothing left to offer me, your life means fuck-all.”
With a little smile, he said, “I won’t kill you unless you’re useless.”
