The Family Firm

Chapter 51

Vinny Smith stumbled through St Patrick's Romance Catholic Church Cemetery in the middle of the night, pissed as a newt and carrying a bottle of Bushmills in his hand. He was stinking of it; he hadn't showered in days, and patchy bits of facial hair cast a dark shadow along his maw. His black hair stuck up in places and, along with his clearly-slept-in clothes, he looked completely and utterly dishevelled.

Ever since the wedding, he couldn't sleep, he couldn't eat, he couldn't even think. Everything that could have gone wrong, had. The only thing he had set out to do had been butchered like a hog. Junior was alive, and his poor wife was dead. He didn't mean to shoot that woman, honestly. He would have never hurt a woman, not willingly. It was Junior who needed to die. Junior was the one that ruined everything for him. Because of him, Vinny's father's business had gone under, the same father who now hated Vinny for everything that had happened. Vinny himself had been deformed by Junior after that fight in secondary school; he had been handsome before, and now he could see the hesitation in people's eyes when they looked at him. He felt like a monster, but he wasn't, he wasn't . . .

He was frozen in place as he found the grave. It was easy enough to spot, surrounded by a mound of fresh soil and a plethora of flower bouquets and wreaths from both those who knew the victim personally and sympathisers who had seen the news story. And there, on the headstone, read the heart-wrenching words:

NIAMH REGAN O'SHAUGHNESSY

3 APR 1979 – 15 MAY 2001

"BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART, FOR THEY WILL SEE GOD."

– MATTHEW 5:8

As soon as he read the words, big tears welled up in Vinny's eyes and spilled out onto his cheeks almost instantly. Before long, he was sobbing in long whines that shook his entire body. He collapsed onto his knees and sank into the soft dirt, wailing so violently he was unable to stop himself or stifle the noise.

After some time, when his crying had settled to some degree, he choked out: 'I didn't mean to. You have to believe me, I didn't mean to do it. Oh, God, it's eatin' me up inside. I would have never hurt you, Miss O'Shaughnessy. Never. I didn't mean to. I swear it, I didn't mean to. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry . . . '

Trying to collect himself, he rolled over onto the seat of his trousers and took a swig from the uncapped bottle of whiskey. A good portion had slopped out, but he didn't notice. Tears and tendrils of snot ran down his face which he wiped at periodically as he glanced around the cemetery. It was silent. Dead silent.

Suddenly, he felt uneasy. He could hear the distant sound of traffic that seemed completely drowned out by the wind whispering through the trees and their trembling leaves. Each time the breeze billowed past him, he felt as if icy fingers had brushed against the hairs on the back of his neck, and he jumped, glancing quickly behind him to make sure no one was there. Somewhere, he knew there was a pair of eyes watching him.

Swallowing thickly, he glanced back towards the soil beneath him. In his mind he could picture Niamh's body resting serenely in her casket, in the wedding dress she had been wearing when she died, slender hands folded ahead of her waist. Sweat beaded up on his forehead and upper lip, and as he wetted his lips he could taste it on his tongue. He felt paranoid, as if he had just woken up from a nightmare. It became suddenly very clear to him that he stood on ground that contained hundreds of corpses, some of which had rotted away to bones and dust, others he could imagine barely looked dead at all, only sleeping.

That was how he pictured Niamh—like the girl he'd seen in the photos on the news, not as he had seen her that fateful night, splattered with her own blood. He had not seen her face then but he did in his dreams, all flesh and blood and unrecognisable. He had dreamt of her every night since then, which was why he had come to the cemetery at all. He knew it was a risk being there, but he needed to clear his conscience, needed to apologise. He needed Niamh to understand that it had been nothing personal, that it was all an accident . . .

'I'm sorry,' he whispered out again, glancing back and forth like a mad man. He heard something snap, like a branch, and stood so quickly his head was spinning and he dropped the bottle of whiskey he was holding. Frantically, he squinted into the darkness on all sides of him. It was her! She was there, watching him! She wouldn't forgive him, she wanted to haunt him!

As quickly as he could, he turned to run away, but something grabbed the leg of his trousers and he yelled as he fell onto the dirt. Nothing coherent formed in his mind, only the terrified thought that Niamh's hand, now nothing but bone and sinew in his imagination, had shot up out of the ground with the intention of burying him down below with her. He could practically smell her rotting corpse as he tried to crawl away to little avail, not realising that the smell was from the sick that had made its way into the back of his mouth, and that the hand grabbing him was in fact only a piece of a funeral wreath his trousers had snagged on.

Frantically, he managed to stand and ran blindly into the darkness, each ragged breath he took burning his lungs as the bile rose further into his throat. He ran so quickly out of his own fear that he didn't notice the large, black figure standing ahead of him until he had run directly into it.

Looking up, he saw in what small light permeated the cemetery someone he knew it couldn't possibly be; light eyes, dark hair, full lips, crooked teeth . . . Junior.

Suddenly, the blood rushed out of his head and he felt his body becoming weak, losing consciousness just before he fell completely limp in the man's arms.

Freddie looked at the stinking piece of scum that had collapsed in his grasp, and struggled a brief moment to hold him upright. Suppressing the urge to break his fucking neck right then and there, he spoke to the man standing outside the car parked kerbside. 'Come on, Lenny. Let's get him in the boot.'