The Runaway by Martina Cole Page A

the dining room and wiped one hand across his sweating face. ‘They’ll hang you out to dry, boy. What are you? Stupid? Are you that fecking eggity you think you can get away with murder?’
    The boy slowly pulled himself to his feet, using the mahogany table for support, his fingerprints standing out like beacons on the highly polished surface.
    They looked at one another then, both men, each wary of the other.
    ‘That’s the last time you raise your hand to me, Dad. Next time I’ll fight you back.’
    They stared each other out, both battling with the rage inside them. Eamonn was pleased to see his father drop his eyes first.
    ‘You’re a fecking fool, boy, if you think you can walk away from this one.’
    Eamonn laughed then. ‘But I have, Dad. It’s been a week and not a sniff from the Old Bill. They don’t care about the likes of Carter, no more than they do the likes of us. It made the Evening Standard , and not a fucking dicky bird since. Except for locally, that is. In fact, I’ve been offered a job.’
    The derogatory snort from his father made Eamonn’s whole body tense up.
    ‘A job, is it? What kind of job would that be? Bashing old ladies over the head for their bit of pension? Armed robbery? Or how about a nice clean minding job, a sixteen-year-old hard man? Jasus save us, I’ve heard everything now.’
    Eamonn watched as his father dropped into a chair, an old man suddenly, the usual surly cockiness gone from him. He looked defeated, and instead of being pleased at this change in his antagonist, it hurt the boy. His father, for all his faults, real or imagined, had always seemed the epitome of the hard man. Now he found this hard man had feet of clay, and that inability to understand his son’s actions hurt deeply.
    ‘I’ve been offered a job by Dixon. It’s only picking up rents, but it’s a start. I can go great guns from there, I know I can.’
    Eamonn Docherty looked at his son, noted his size, his dark good looks, and patent lack of intelligence.
    ‘Picking up rents, eh? Lucrative job that. If you don’t get caught, of course, or fall foul of anyone.’
    The big man leant forward in his chair then, a desperate note in his voice as he pleaded with his son. ‘Is that what you really want? I wanted you to be someone, a normal person, son. I didn’t want you to end up like me. I thought you despised what I was, what I became? I thought you wanted better?’
    ‘I do, Dad. That’s why I’m taking the job. I won’t end my days like you, mate, poncing off some little widow, trying to con her last few quid out of her. Living for the pub opening and a decent bit of dinner on the table. You did what you set out to do, Dad. You made me want more, and this is the only way I’m going to get it.’
    ‘Have you no remorse at all, son? For stealing that young lad’s life away?’
    Eamonn shrugged once more. ‘Not really, no. Why should I? He wouldn’t have if the boot had been on the other foot. I’m nearly seventeen, Dad, a man in my own right. What you think is nothing to me. The funny thing is, it never was. You’re nothing to me, mate. Nothing to anyone except yourself. You have a high opinion of yourself, always did. But I could see you for what you were - a big Irish ponce. You lived off Madge. Her earnings kept you in the pub. She slept with men and you slept with her, knowing that. I think more of her than I do of you, Dad. Because Madge, for all her faults, never pretended to be something she wasn’t. If you died in the morning, I wouldn’t shed a tear. So now you know.’
    The older man hung his head and stared at the lino below his feet. Tears stung his eyes and he blinked them away before looking once more into his son’s face.
    ‘I tried my best, Eamonn son. We can only do our best.’
    ‘That’s exactly the point I’m trying to make. One man’s meat is another man’s gravy, eh? I’ll be moved out by the weekend.’
    As the man watched his son leave the room he felt an