Drink with the Devil

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 greybeard yourself.’

‘A very old thirty-two,’ he said and he laughed.

Steps boomed along the jetty and they turned and saw Ryan coming towards 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 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 towards the road leading down Eskdale, the girl was at the wheel. She glanced at her uncle.