Page 18 of The Twins

“What had he done, this Archie McDougal?”

“He was, is, a nasty piece of work.” I paused while my soufflé was set down in front of me. It smelled divine. “He’d been in and out of prison several times already, one count of manslaughter due to careless driving and two of theft. And then he’d decided to up his game as it were; he robbed an old couple in the middle of the night in Glasgow. The husband produced a gun; it was a farmhouse, he was licensed to have one, and Archie got it off him, shot him in the face.” I paused; the photographic evidence had been horrible. “And his wife, bless her, she’d tried to get to her husband but fell and had a massive stroke. She died, too.”

“What a bastard.” Cillian’s eyes darkened, and his mouth flattened.

“If he hadn’t broken into their home they might still be alive, right?” Finn shook his head.

“Yes.” I picked up my fork. “They were old but they were well. They still ran their smallholding with hardly any help.”

“So he killed them.” Cillian looked at Finn. “In cold blood.”

“Yep, I’d say so,” he replied. “Ticks all the boxes.”

Something passed between them. I didn’t know what.

I took a bite of my starter, and the creamy cheddar coated my tongue.

“Are you saying he just got off?” Finn asked, also digging into his food. There was a flush of color on his cheeks. “No recourse, no justice.”

“Yes, scot-free. He claimed self-defense and diminished responsibility and I won the case for him.” I paused and closed my eyes. My heart squeezed with regret. “I wish I’d lost that case.”

“He deserved to go down for it,” Cillian said, “and you knew it.”

“I did know it, and what’s more, so did he. He was a boaster, you know, laughed about the fact he’d killed the old dude who’d pointed a gun at him, laughed harder at the irony of the wife dying without him having to shoot her, too.” I pulled a face. “He claimed diminished responsibility because his doctor had prescribed him sleeping tablets, which he admitted to me he’d sold, so he hadn’t even taken them. But of course, I was bound by client confidentiality during the case.” I shuddered. “He was a creation of the Devil, still is, he walks free now that he’s done his time for breaking and entering.”

Both men were quiet.

I took a deep breath and resumed eating. Archie McDougal wasn’t someone I liked thinking about.

“It must be conflicting for you,” Finn said. “When you don’t believe in a case.”

“It is, but thankfully it’s rare. I’m senior enough to get to pick and choose my cases these days, plus there is sometimes a reason for crime; addiction, revenge, self-defense, and those cases are interesting, too.” I waved my hand in the air. “But enough about me, tell me about your home in Ireland.”

Cillian smiled. “Ah yes, home sweet home. County Wicklow, just south of Dublin, that’s where we grew up.”

“And your parents are still there?” I asked.

“Our ma is, our da died years ago, when we were only five.” Finn sat back, his starter finished.

I was still acutely aware of his warm leg against mine. “That’s horrible, I’m sorry.”

“It was tough,” Cillian said. “We were the only kids in the village without a father, and our mother had to work in the local glass factory to support us.”

“And do you have siblings?”

“No, just us,” Finn said. “Which is why we try and get over to see her several times a year.”

Cillian touched the gold cross on his necklace. “She’s got her sister nearby and lots of friends, we check in on her a few times a week. Give her a call, you know.”

“You are good sons.”

“Well, that depends, we probably should have stayed in Ireland to be really good.”

“Why did you leave?”

“We went to London to begin with, to find a place to set up our gym, but it was too bloody expensive. So we got chatting to a guy, a cop, who was off duty and from Oxford. He said to try this area. It’s more affordable but still plenty of guys willing to pay for gym membership.”

“And he was right,” Finn said. “And so here we are, all these years later.”