To the Death

vanished into the night. What was that all about? She was on the verge of stamping her foot in temper when the phone rang again.

She answered it immediately, and a voice just said, “I love you,” before the line went dead.

She was not quite sure whether to laugh or cry. And she chose the latter. With happiness. That he was safe, and he loved her, and tomorrow they would be together.

Ravi too was discontented with the fifteen-second duration of their call. But he had to adhere to that rule, because that rule meant the call could not be heard, traced, or recorded. Ravi was keenly aware that the National Security Agency in Maryland had tapped into Osama bin Laden’s phone calls and often listened in on the terrorist mastermind talking from his cave to his mother in Saudi Arabia. If they could eavesdrop on the great Osama, they could locate him. Fifteen seconds only.

He had the name of a Dublin hotel, and he flagged down a cab before it drove into the station and told the driver to take him to the Paramount Hotel, corner of Parliament Street and Essex Gate. The place had a Victorian facade, but inside it was all 1930s, very comfortable, and Ravi thankfully checked in. Last time he had slept had been in the submarine, and dearly as he would have liked to join Shakira in the Merrion, he thought he might get more sleep this way, and anyway he did not wish to be seen publicly with her in a place where staff might recall them.

Tomorrow morning he would risk watching the television news.

0900 Tuesday 17 July Skibbereen Garda Station

Detective Superintendent Ray McDwyer decided he needed help. The wound to Jerry O’Connell’s forehead was something he had never seen before. The bone was completely splintered between the eyes, and the nose bone had been driven upward and into the brain with tremendous force. The crushing blow to the forehead could have been delivered by a blunt instrument, but there was no sign that any implement whatsoever had been used on the nose.

Ray had spoken to the police pathologist, and he too was mystified. And together they decided that there was something all too precise about this killing. The murder had been carried out by an expert, someone who knew precisely what he was doing. There were no signs of a struggle, no other bruises, no abrasions. The killer had taken out Jerry O’Connell instantly, with the minimum of fuss.

At twelve minutes after nine o’clock, Ray McDwyer phoned London and requested help from New Scotland Yard, Special Branch.

At first Scotland Yard wondered what all the fuss was about, the murder of a dairy farmer in a remote spot on the Irish coast. But Ray was persuasive. He told them he thought they were dealing with a highly dangerous character, who might have come in from the sea and might have bigger things on his mind than knocking over a dairy farmer. And after about ten minutes, the duty officer at the Yard was inclined to agree. “We’ll send someone over,” he said, “direct to Bantry. This morning.”

Twenty minutes after Ray put down the phone, a local farmer, Colm McCoy, walking his dog, found Jerry’s truck hidden in the birch trees. He’d already seen the Cork Examiner and knew about the murder and that the truck was missing. The newspaper had specified there were four large milk urns in the back, and Colm knew what he’d found.

He called in to the Garda Station, and ten minutes later two police cars turned up, with four officers including Ray McDwyer himself. Behind them came a tow truck to haul Jerry’s vehicle out.

“Touch nothing,” said Detective McDwyer. “Take it away and have them check for fingerprints. Then tell the Milk Corporation to pick up the cans, dispose of the milk, and return them to the O’Connell family.”

Meanwhile, back at Crookhaven, officers in a Coast Guard launch were calling on every yacht and fishing boat in the harbor, asking everyone aboard if they had seen any strangers, either afloat or on land.

The operation had been going on since 8 A.M., and they had drawn a complete blank until they reached Yonder. And there Captain Bill Stannard told them about the little boat that had chugged past him just before six o’clock the previous morning.

“It was a Zodiac,” he said. “Maybe twelve-foot. Yamaha engine. We got one just like it riding off the stern.”

“Did you see who was driving?”

“Sure, I did. Just one guy. There was no one else aboard.”

“Did you see his face?”

“Not really. He was going past, real slow, when I woke up. He was not an old guy, and he looked kinda broad and tough, short, dark curly hair.”

“What was he wearing?”

“Now that’s what I do remember. It was a brown jacket. Could have been leather, but I think it was suede. Looked smart, kinda out of place out here on the water.”

“Collar and tie?”

“No. He had on a dark T-shirt. I think it was black.”

“Did you see which way he went?”

Bill Stannard pointed to the shore, farther into the harbor. “He was headed that way, but I was real tired, never saw him land. I guess the boat’s over there somewhere, because I definitely never saw him leave.”

“Any idea where he came from?”

“Hell, no. I never caught sight of him until he was more or less alongside. But there’s nothing much down toward the harbor entrance. The guy just showed up, out of nowhere.”

In the following twenty minutes, the police and Coast Guard searched the harbor from end to end for a twelve-foot Zodiac with a Yamaha engine. Nothing. And no one else had seen it, either. Which presented the investigation with a blank wall, the main trouble being that everything, including the murder, had taken place too early, when hardly anyone was awake.

Back in Skibbereen, Detective Ray McDwyer decided to concentrate on the killer’s getaway. It was clear that he had driven away from the crime scene in Jerry’s truck and had come as far as Skibbereen at the wheel. But what then?

The Crookhaven team called in to report the mystery man in the Zodiac, arriving in the harbor wearing a brown suede jacket and a black T-shirt. Both he and, more surprisingly, the boat had vanished.

Ray assessed that the man had somehow left the area from Skibbereen, and since there was no car dealer open at that early hour, he must have either gone on the bus, taken a taxi, walked, or stolen a car. There had been no report of anything stolen, so Ray dispatched an officer to check the taxi company. He and Joe Carey made calls to any business that might have been operational at seven in the morning.

The choice was limited. In fact, it didn’t stretch much beyond the Shamrock. Joe Carey went in first and beckoned for the youth behind the counter to come over for a quick word. The two had known each other all their lives, and Joe was friendly.

“Hello, young Mick,” he said. “Right now we’re looking for a fella who may have come in here yesterday morning, a little after seven.”

“Anything to do with that murder in Crookhaven yesterday?”

“Mind your business.”

“Sure, it is my business,” replied Mick, quick as a flash. “Any time there’s a bloody killer out there threatenin’ the lives of me and my fellow citizens, right there you’re talking my business. Anyway, I already read your boss is in charge, so it must be about the murder.”

Mick Barton proceeded to fall about laughing, despite the seriousness of the situation. He was only two years out of school, where he had been the class wit, and now he was the cafe wit. Joe Carey punched him cheerfully on the arm.

“Come on, now, the boss will be in here in a minute. Just let me know if there was a fella in here yesterday, early, wearing a brown suede jacket. A complete stranger.”

“No jacket,” said Mick. “But there was a fella, a stranger who came in. He drunk two big glasses of orange juice down in about twenty seconds. Then he had toast and coffee.”

“What was he wearing, Mick?”

“I think it was a black T-shirt, and he was carrying a leather bag.”

“Anything else you recall about him?”

“He could have been foreign. He was dark, short curly hair, heavyset. But he spoke English, naturally, or I