and he had developed the instincts of the hunted animal. He could sense danger, the presence of the pursuers, even when there was no real evidence. It made him restless to stay longer in one place than was necessary, especially when he was on a job. He had been here twelve days, and it was far too long. The more he thought about it the more uneasy he became. Why had they insisted he bring the brat to this isolated, and therefore conspicuous, little dead-end? There was only one road in and out of the village, a single avenue of escape. Why had they insisted that he sit and wait it out in this one place? He would have liked to keep moving. If he had had the running of it, he would have bought a second-hand caravan, and kept rolling from one park to another his attention wandered for a few moments as he thought how he would have done it if he had been given the planning of it.
He lit a cigarette and gazed out of the rain-blurred window panes,
hardly aware of the muttered complaints and misgivings of his companion. What they should have done was crop the brat’s fingers and bottle all of them to send to her father at intervals, and then they should have held a pillow over her face and buried her in the vegetable garden or weighted her and dumped her out beyond the hundred fathom line of the Irish Sea that way they would not have had to bother with a doctor, and the nursing Everything else had been done with professional skill, starting with the contact they had made with him in the favela of Rio de Janeiro, where he was hiding out in a sleazy one-room shack with the half-caste Indian woman, and down to his last fifty quid.
That had given him a real start, he thought he had covered his tracks completely, but they had him made.
They had the passport and travel papers in the name of Barry, and they did not look like forgeries. They were good papers, he was sure of it, and he knew a lot about papers.
Everything else had been as well planned, and swiftly delivered.
The money a thousand pounds in Rio, another five thousand the day after they grabbed the brat, and he was confident that the final ten would be there as it was promised. It was better than an English gaol,
the “Silver City” as the Brits called their concentration camp at the
Maze. That was what Caliph had promised, if he didn’t take the job.
Caliph, now that was a daft name, Gilly O’Shaughnessy decided for the fiftieth time as he dropped the stub of his cigarette into the dregs of his teacup and it was extinguished with a sharp hiss. A real daft name, but somehow it had the ability to put a chill on the blood,
and he shivered not only from the cold.
He stood up and crossed to the kitchen window. It had all been done with such speed and purpose and planning everything so clearly thought out, that when there was a lapse it was more troubling.
Gilly O’Shaughnessy had the feeling that Caliph did nothing without good reason then why had they been ordered to back themselves into this dangerously exposed bottleneck, without the security of multiple escape routes, and to sit here and wait?
He picked up the cyclist cape and tweed cap. “Where are you going?” the doctor demanded anxiously. “I’m going to take a shufti,“Gilly O’Shaughnessy grunted as he pulled the cap down over his eyes.
“You’re always prowling around,” the doctor protested.
“You make me nervous.” The dark Irishman pulled the pistol from under his jacket and checked the load before thrusting it back into his belt.
“You just go on playing nursemaid,” he said brusquely. “And leave the man’s work to me.” The small black Austin crawled slowly up the village street, and the rain hammered on the cab and bonnet in tiny white explosions that blurred the outline, giving the machine a softly focused appearance, and the streaming windscreen effectively hid the occupants.
It was only when the Austin parked directly in front of Laragh’s only grocery store and both front doors opened that the curiosity of watchers from behind the curtained windows all down the street was satisfied.
The two members of the Irish constabulary wore the service blue winter uniform with darker epaulettes. The soft rain speckled the patent leather peaks of their caps as they hurried into the shoP.
“Good morning, Maeve, me old love,” the sergeant greeted the plump red-faced lady behind the counter.
“Owen O’Neill, I do declare-” She chuckled as she recognized the sergeant there had been a time, thirty years before, when the two of them had given the priest some fine pickings at the confessional. “And what brings you all the way up from the big city?” That was a generous description of the quaint seaside resort town of Wicklow, fifteen miles down the road.
“The sight of your blooming smile-2 They chatted like old friends for ten minutes, and her husband came through from the little storeroom when he heard the rattle of teacups.
“So what is new in Laragh, then?” the sergeant asked at last.
“Any new faces in the village?”
“No, all the same faces. Nothing changes in Laragh, bless the Lord for that.” The shopkeeper wagged his head. “No, indeed only new face is the one down at the Old Manse, he and his lady friend-” he winked knowingly but seeing as how he’s a stranger, we aren’t after counting him.” The sergeant ponderously delved for his notebook, opened it and extracted a photograph from it;
it was the usual side view and full face of police records. He held the name covered with his thumb as he showed it to them.
“No.” The woman shook her head positively. “Himself down at the manse is ten years older than that, and he does not have a mustache.”
“This was taken ten years ago,” said the sergeant.
“Oh, well, why didn’t you say so.” She nodded. “Then that’s him.
That’s Mr. Barry for certain sure.”
“The Old Manse, you say.” The sergeant seemed to inflate visibly with importance, as he put the photograph back into his notebook. “I’m going to have to use your telephone now, dear.”
“Where will you be after telephoning?” The shopkeeper asked suspiciously.
“Dublin,” the sergeant told him. “It’s police business.”
“I’ll have to charge you for the call,” the shopkeeper warned him quickly.
“There,” said the wife as they watched the sergeant making his request to the girl on the village switchboard. “I told you he had the look of trouble, didn’t I? The first time I laid eyes on him I knew he was from up in the North, and carrying trouble like the black angel.”
Gilly O’Shaughnessy kept close in under the stone wall, keeping out of the slanting rain and out of the line of sight of a casual watcher on the slope beyond the river. He moved carefully and quietly as a tomcat on his midnight business, stopping to examine the earth below the weakened or tumbled places in the wall where a man could have come over, studying the wet drooping weeds for the brush marks where a man might have passed.
At the farthest corner of the garden, he stepped up onto the leaning main stem of an apple tree to see over the wall, wedging himself against the lichen-encrusted stone, so that the silhouette of his head did not show above the wall.
He waited and watched for twenty minutes, with the absolute animal patience of the predator, then he jumped down and went on around the perimeter of the wall, never for a moment relaxing his vigilance,
seemingly oblivious to the discomfort of the cold and the insistent rain.
There was nothing, not the least sign of danger, no reason for the nagging disquiet but still it was there. He reached another vantage point, the iron gate that led into the narrow walled alley, and he leaned against the stone jamb, cupping his hands to protect match and cigarette from the wind, and then shifting slightly so he could see through the crack between wall and gate and cover the walled lane, and the road beyond as far as the bridge.
Once again he assumed the patient watching role, closing his mind against the physical discomfort and letting his eyes and his brain work at their full capacity.
Not for the first time he pondered the unusual system of signals and exchanges of material that Caliph had insisted upon.
The payments had been made by bearer deposit certificates, in
Swiss francs, sent through the post to his Rio address and then to his collection address in London.
He had made one delivery to Caliph, the bottle and its contents and two telephone calls. The delivery had been made within two hours of grabbing the girl, while she was still under the effects of the initial shot of the drug. The doctor Dr. Jameson, as Gilly
O’Shaughnessy liked to think of him had done the job in the back of the second car. It had been waiting in the
