“City people have no more sense than they need, out in this weather.”
“Sure and it’s not baked beans nor Jameson whiskey he’s afteTbuying.” Speculation about the new occupant of the Old Manse had swiftly become one of the village’s main diversions, with regular bulletins broadcast by the girl on the local telephone exchange two overseas telephone calls, by the postman no mail deliveries, by the dustman the disposals into the dustbins were made up mainly of empty
Heinz baked beans cans and Jameson whiskey bottles.
“I still think he’s from the trouble up north,” said the shopkeeper’s wife. “He’s got the look and the sound of an Ulster man.”
“Hush, woman.” Her husband cautioned her. “You’ll bring bad luck upon us. Get yourself back into the kitchen now.” The man came in out of the rain and swept the tweed cap off his head, beating the water from it against the jamb of the door. He had black straight hair, cut into a ragged fringe above the dark Irish visage and fierce eyes, like those of a falcon when first the leather hood is slipped.
“The top of the morning to you, Mr. Barry,” the shopkeeper greeted him heartily. “Like as not it will stop raining, before it clears.”
The man they knew as Barry grunted, and as he slipped the waterproof cape from his shoulders, swept the cluttered interior of the little general dealer’s store with a quick, all, embracing glance.
He wore a rough tweed jacket over a cable-stitched jersey and brown corduroys tucked into the top of the Wellington boots.
“You finished writing on your book, have you?” Barry had told the milkman that he was writing a book about Ireland.
The Wicklow hills were a stronghold of the literary profession,
there were a dozen prominent or eccentric writers living within twenty miles, taking advantage of Ireland’s tax concessions to writers and artists.
“Not yet,” Barry grunted, and went across to the shelves nearest the till. He made a selection of half a dozen items and laid them on the worn counter top.
“When it’s good and wrote I’m going to ask the library to keep a copy for me,” the shopkeeper promised, as though that was exactly what a writer would want to hear, and began to ring up the purchases on his register.
Barry’s upper lip was still unnaturally smoother and paler than the rest of his face. He had shaved away the dark droopy mustache the day before arriving in the village, and at the same time had cut the fringe of his hair that hung almost to his eyes.
The shopkeeper picked up one of the purchases and looked inquiringly at Barry, but when the dark Irish face remained impassive and he volunteered no explanation, the shopkeeper dropped his eyes self-consciously and rang up the package with the other purchases and dropped it into a paper carrier.
“That will be three pounds twenty pence,” he said, and closed the cash drawer with a clang, waiting while Barry stung the cape over his shoulders and adjusted the tweed cap.
“God be with you then, Mr. Barry.” There was no reply and the shopkeeper watched him set off back across the bridge before he called his wife again.
“He’s a surly one, all right, he is.”
“He’s got him a girlfriend down there.” The shopkeeper was bursting with the importance of his discovery. “He’s up to a nice little bit of hanky-panky.”
“How do you know that?”
“He was after buying women’s things you know.” He hooded a knowing eye.
“No, I don’t know, “his wife insisted.
“For the curse you know. Women’s things,” and his wife glowed with the news, and began to untie her apron.
“You’re sure now? “she demanded.
“Would I ever be lying to you?”
“I think I’ll go across to Mollie for a cup pa tea,” said his wife eagerly; the news would make her the woman of the hour throughout the village.
The man they knew as Barry trudged into the narrow, high-walled lane that led up to the Old Manse. It was only the heavy boots and voluminous cape that gave him a clumsy gait, for he was a lithe, lean man in prime physical condition, and under the brim of his cap the eyes were never still, hunter’s eyes probing and darting from side to side.
The wall was twelve feet high, the stonework blotched with silver-grey lichen, and although it was cracked and sagging at places,
yet it was still substantial and afforded complete privacy and security to the property beyond.
At the end of the lane there was a pair of rotten and warping double doors, but the lock was a bright new brass Yale and the cracks in the wood and the gaping seams had been covered with fresh white strips of pine so that it was impossible to see into the interior of the garage.
Barry unlocked the brass Yale lock and slipped through, pulling the latch closed behind him.
There was a dark blue Austin saloon car parked facing the doors for immediate departure. It had been stolen in Ulster two weeks before, re sprayed and fitted with a roof rack to alter its appearance,
and with new licence plates.
The engine had been tuned and checked and Barry had paid nearly twice its market value.
Now he slipped behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition. The engine fired and caught immediately. He grunted with satisfaction; seconds could mean the difference between success and failure, and in his life failure and death were synonymous. He listened to the engine beat for half a minute, checking the oil pressure and fuel gauges before switching off the engine again and going out through the rear door of the garage into the overgrown kitchen yard.
The old house had the sad unloved air of approaching dereliction.
The fruit trees in the tiny orchard were sick with fungus diseases and surrounded by weed banks.
The thatch roof was rotten-green with moss, and the windows were blindman’s eyes, unseeing and uncaring.
Barry let himself in through the kitchen door and dropped his cape and cap on the scullery floor and set the carrier on the draining board of the sink. Then he reached into the cutlery drawer and brought out a pistol. It was a British officer’s service pistol, had in fact been taken during a raid on a British Army arsenal in Ulster three years previously.
Barry checked the handgun with the expertise of a long.
familiarity and then thrust it into his belt. He had felt naked and vulnerable for the short time that he was without the weapon but he had reluctantly decided not to risk carrying it in the village.
Now he tapped water into the kettle, and at the sound a voice called through from the dim interior.
“Is that you?”
“None other,” Barry answered drily, and the other man came through and stood in the doorway to the kitchen.
He was a thin, stooped man in his fifties with the swollen inflamed face of the very heavy drinker.
“Did you get it?” His voice was husky and rough with whiskey, and he had a seedy run-down air, a day’s stubble of grey hairs that grew at angles on the blotchy skin.
Barry indicated the package on the sink.
“It’s all there, doctor.”
“Don’t call me that, I’m not a doctor any more,” the man snapped irritably.
“Oh, but you are a damned fine one. Ask the girls who dropped their bundles-“
“Leave me alone, damn you.” Yes, he had been a damn fine doctor. Long ago, before the whiskey, now however it was the abortions and the gunshot wounds of fugitives, and jobs like this one.
He did not like to think about this one. He crossed to the sink and sorted through the packages.
“I asked you for adhesive tape, “he said.
“They had none. I brought the bandage.”
“I cannot-” the man began, but Barry whirled on him savagely, his face darkening with angry blood.
“I’ve had a gutsful of your whining. You should have brought what you needed, not sent me to get it for you.”
