“Yes, sir.”
“Another thing. Keep your mouth shut. Give me any trouble and I’ll send Scully to give you a seeing to. They’ll find you in the Thames with your balls cut off.”
Reid went through the door and Angus, plainly terrified, stood back. Scully patted his face. “You mind what Mr. Reid says, there’s a good boy,” and he went out.
KEOGH ATE THE ham sandwich she had brought sitting at the end of the table, and she sat opposite, a mug of tea in her hands. Benny had gone back to the farm. Keogh finished it and lit a cigarette.
“How are you? How do you feel?”
“About the job you mean?” She shrugged. “I’ll be fine. I’ve done things for Uncle Michael before, dangerous things. I can look after myself.”
“At your age you shouldn’t have to.” He stood up. “Come on. We’ll get a breath of air.”
The mist drifted in creating a strange and somber world. Reeds lifted on either side of the creek, water gurgled in the mud flats, and as they walked along the broad track birds lifted in protest on either hand.
“A strange place, this,” Keogh observed.
“Yes, I’m not sure that I like it.” She frowned. “It makes me feel uneasy.”
“I know what you mean.”
They reached the jetty and paused. The tide was out and iron girders were exposed, corroded by rust.
“I wonder what it was built for?” she said.
“God knows. Been here for years. Victorian from the look of it, but it still looks substantial enough.”
They walked along it, waves lapping around the girders below with a hollow booming sound. There was no rail at the end, only at the sides. Keogh peered over and noticed a jumble of granite blocks in the shallows.
“There’s your answer,” he said. “They must have shipped granite from here in the old days.”
“I see.”
She stood to one side, hands gripping the rail, and looked out to sea, a strangely forlorn figure in her raincoat and beret.
Keogh leaned on the rail beside her. “What do you want, Kate? What do you really want out of life?”
“God knows. All I’ve ever known was the Troubles. I was born the year they started. All I know is the bombing and the killing. My family, friends, all gone.” Her face was bleak. “Life is supposed to be for the living, but all I see is death. Does that make any sense to you?”
“Perfect sense.” Keogh nodded. “The terrible thing and you so young.”
She laughed. “You’re not exactly a graybeard yourself.”
“A very old thirty-two,” he said and he laughed.
Steps boomed along the jetty and they turned and saw Ryan coming toward them. “God, what a lousy day,” he said.
Keogh pointed down into the water. “It’s to be hoped the tide is in at the right time tomorrow.”
“It will be, I’ve double-checked, and it’s a high one.” He took out a cigarette. “One more thing. Hugh Bell is dead.”
“My God,” Kathleen said. “How did that happen?”
So Ryan told them.
AS THEY WALKED back along the jetty, Keogh said, “Reid can’t touch you once you’re back home with that transporter. All right, maybe your Army Council don’t like people going their own way and acting without orders, but you’ll be a bloody hero to them. They’ll welcome you with open arms when they hear about the bullion.”
“Let’s hope so. It’s Reid I’m concerned about. Unless I miss my guess, he’d like to have it all for himself.”
“Well, fuck him,” Kathleen said angrily.
“You mind your tongue, girl,” Ryan told her.
“But if he doesn’t know about Kilalla, he isn’t a threat,” Keogh said.
“Not when we land, but later.” Ryan shrugged. “Who knows? Anyway, let’s go back to the farm. I’ve got the Land Rover at the cottage.”
MARY POWER PROVIDED a simple meal at one o’clock, vegetable soup, a cheese salad, and the inevitable tea. Afterwards, as she cleared the table, she said to Benny, “Mind your chores now. The sheep in the north meadow need seeing to.”
He nodded eagerly, got his cap, and went out. A moment later Keogh, standing at the window, saw him cross the yard, a sack across his shoulders against the rain, the dog at his heels.
“He’s a worker, that lad, I’ll say that for him.”
“And in the mind still a child,” she said. “He has to be told everything.”
Ryan finished his tea and stood up. “I want to look at the ambush site again. We’ll go in the Ford van, me and Kathleen. You follow on the Montesa. I’ll give you one of the radios. When we get there, you carry on up the road a mile or two, then contact me. Use the call sign Eagle One, like I said. I’ll be Eagle Two.”
“Fine by me,” Keogh told him.
AS THE FORD turned into the track toward the road leading down Eskdale, the girl was at the wheel. She glanced at her uncle.
“You know I’m not even licensed to do this. I’m under age.”
“And you handling a wheel to the manner born since you were fourteen. I mind that night when I took a bullet and crashed my car near Kilkelly.”
“And you phoned me from a roadside phone box and told me to get the boys to come and get you.”
“And came yourself, you little devil, and in a stolen car.”
“Well, who showed me how to hot-wire a stolen car?”
“I know, and to my shame.” He laughed. “The state I was in when you got there. Soaked to the skin in a stinking ditch, a bullet in the shoulder, and then you crashed through that RUC roadblock.”
“Great days, Uncle Michael.”
“Were they?” He lit a cigarette and opened the window. “Sometimes I’m not so certain anymore. I must be getting old.” He smiled suddenly. “One thing I am sure of. You’re a remarkable girl, Kathleen, and you deserve better. Dammit, you could be an early entrant for the University.”
“Oh, hold your tongue,” she told him. “I’ve more important things to do with my life.”
He sat there thinking about it, and a moment later they reached the junction and pulled in.
KEOGH FOLLOWED TWO hundred yards behind. He was wearing the biker’s black leather jacket and the helmet. In spite of the rain, he was enjoying himself, and the Montesa responded well.
The Ford van turned into a lay-by a few yards from the junction. Keogh raised a clenched fist in greeting and carried on.
RYAN SAT IN the van, the two-way radio in his hand, opened the door, and looked out at the lay-by. “This will do fine. After all, we don’t want to block the road so effectively and this thing burning so that I can’t get by in the transporter.”
At that moment Keogh’s voice crackled over the radio, “Eagle Two, this is Eagle One. Are you receiving me?”
“Loud and clear,” Ryan said. “Anything to report?”
“Nothing but birds, the sea, and this bloody rain. Can I go now?”
“I’ll see you back at the farm. Over and out.”
Ryan switched off the radio and smiled at Kathleen. “I’ve seen enough, girl, so back to Folly’s End it is.”
MARY POWER SERVED the evening meal at seven o’clock, roast lamb, potatoes, carrots, cabbage. What fascinated Keogh was the vast amount of food Benny managed to put away.
“Jesus, but you’d think it was going to be his last meal on top of earth,” Keogh said.
“Well if he does the work of three men, he’s entitled to eat three men’s food,” Kathleen put in.
