Hang on St. Christopher (The Sean Duffy #8)

24

BELFAST-KNOCK-SHANNON-INVERNESS-REYKJAVIK-JFK

You know me. Always keen to explore a lead, especially if it’s in an out-of-the-way locale with almost no chance of bearing any fruit, and especially if I’m picking up the tab from my own pocket. What is that? Dedication to the job? An unquenchable thirst for justice? Or an eejit semiretired copper with too much bloody time on his hands?

All of the above, probably.

I called the airport and got the manifest. Eight passengers for the Belfast International Aer Lingus flight to Knock. Five male passengers. No ID required for this flight, but four of those passengers had a name that showed up in UK or Irish records. One passenger’s name on the manifest was John Smith.

He wasn’t even trying.

Either that or he was just having a laugh.

It was three p.m.

I picked Emma up from nursery school. “I have a new joke, Daddy.”

“Go on, then.”

“There are two cats: an English cat called One Two Three, and a French cat called Un Deux Trois. They are in a contest to swim the English Channel. Which cat won?

“I don’t now.”

“The English cat. Because the un deux trois quatre cinq.”

I laughed and she laughed, and it was a lovely moment.

Beth wasn’t stupid. She could tell I was heading out before I even broached it. I had laid out the leather jacket with the escape kit in the sleeve, and I had cleaned my .38.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Lead on a case. A tip-off.”

“You’re not a full-time detective anymore, Sean. Isn’t it Lawson’s?—”

“No, this was a tip-off for me personally. I have to go.”

“Where?

“Belfast Airport and then Knock in County Mayo. Do you want to know more?”

“Is it IRA? Is it dangerous?”

“No and no.”

“When do you leave?”

“I have to leave now. It’s a hot tip.”

Beth nodded.

She got it.

She knew me.

I wouldn’t let it go.

I’ll never it let it go.

Beemer to Glasgow Airport.

I flashed my warrant card so that I could take my weapon on the plane.

“Are you on an official investigation, or is this a?—”

“It’s an official RUC investigation.”

Glasgow to Belfast International.

“DI Duffy, Carrick RUC. I’m going to need to look at the security tapes from yesterday.”

Two hours of scrolling through the tapes, and I had a blurry image of passenger John Smith. Six feet one, twelve stone, sandy hair, white shirt, no tie, brown sport jacket, brown trousers, black oxfords.

Last flight of the night to Knock.

A lecture from the airport fuzz: “You won’t be allowed to use your weapon in the Irish Republic. You must report immediately to the local Garda station and?—”

Yeah, yeah.

Eleven p.m. A Dash 7 turboprop aircraft. I was the only passenger.

I’d been to Knock before. Twice. And I wasn’t even a good Catholic.

An Cnoc, meaning the Hill, or, more recently, Cnoc Mhuire, “Hill of (the Virgin) Mary.”

As boring and poor and damp as every other village in this part of County Mayo until August 21, 1879, at approximately eight p.m., when the Virgin Mary, together with Saint Joseph and John the Evangelist, appeared to fifteen of the villagers for over two hours during a rainstorm. The villagers had not read David Hume on miracles, nor were they surprised by the Virgin’s pale skin or her ability to speak Irish.

The shrine grew in popularity throughout the twentieth century, and eventually an airport and a new church were built. By the time of Pope John Paul’s centenary visit in 1979, Knock had become one of Europe’s major Catholic Marian shrines, alongside Lourdes and Fatima.

A million visitors a year now, either to give thanks or to beg for Our Lady’s intercession.

As I said, I was an old hand.

Airport to the village by taxi. A visit to the basilica, where at this time of night (midnight) in the cold drizzle there were still two nuns and the mother of a severely handicapped boy in a wheelchair. Everyone was praying except, probably, the boy in the wheelchair.

I crossed myself and thanked the Virgin and John the Evangelist and Saint Joseph and Saint Christopher the protector of travelers and Saint Michael the Archangel, the patron saint of policemen.

“ Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in muliéribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen ,” I muttered to myself, and walked back down the hill.

I ignored the new church, which was an architectural monstrosity, and headed straight for the hotels. There were quite a few hotels in Knock now, and it took until three in the morning before my printout of the airport security camera footage bore fruit.

“Oh, yes, that’s Mr. Daley, an American gentlemen,” said the night manager of the Holiday Inn at Carrowmore.

“Is he still here, by any chance?”

The concierge shook his head. “No. But you only just missed him. He checked out yesterday morning. Or rather, the day before yesterday since we’re after midnight now.”

“Rental car or airport?”

“Oh, he was flying out. We had to call him a taxi.”

“What time was that?”

“First flight out. Seven in the morning.”

“He say what part of America he was from or what he did for a living?”

“Oh, no, Mr. Daley kept very much to himself.”

“I’ll need a taxi to the airport.”

Knock Airport at 3:30 a.m. Every shop closed, no flights due in or out until nine, security reduced to two men and a dog.

But if you kick up enough of a fuss, the people will come.

After a few hours, I found Mr. Daley’s face on the security tape of a noon Aer Lingus flight to Inverness. There wasn’t another flight from Knock to Inverness until noon today, but there was a nine a.m. flight from Shannon Airport. The man matching Mr. Daley’s description had called himself John Williams on this flight. No ID had been required on the flight from Knock to Inverness, but John Williams was the name on the ticket.

Need to rent a car and drive to Shannon and fly to Inverness.

“How far is it from Knock to Shannon?” I asked the bleary-eyed man from Hertz.

“I think it’s about a hundred and fifty kilometers.”

“What’s that in real money?”

“A hundred miles.”

“So about two hours?”

“No, the roads aren’t good, it might take you nearer three.”

I was there in one hour forty minutes, in a Toyota Corolla whose suspension would never be the same again.

Shannon to Inverness.

Now, why the hell would Mr. Williams go to bloody Inverness?

I sat at the airport and thought about it.

Williams or Daley or whatever he was called was a good Catholic.

He killed people, clinically in cold blood, but he was a good Catholic, and before he had ended his mission he had gone to Knock to seek compassion from the Holy Virgin.

And then?

Then he would either go back to Belfast and continue to do what he had been doing, or...

He’d go back to America.

Why Inverness rather than Belfast?

Because he was careful. He wanted to jump from airport to airport, from identity to identity, to shake any pursuers off his tail.

I took the photos I had to every desk at Inverness Airport, and finally someone recognized my traveler.

Williams had flown out of Inverness last night on Iceland Air 134 to Reykjavik on, get this, a US passport. His name, apparently, was Brian Smith, and he was from Philadelphia.

When I called the embassy, it turned out that there were more than a hundred Brian Smiths from Pennsylvania, forty-three of whom held valid US passports. But when they faxed me the passport photo pages to the airport police offices at Inverness Airport, none of the photographs matched.

“When’s the next flight to Reykjavik?”

“They’re not very often. The next one isnae until six o’clock tonight.”

“Book me on it.”

I couldn’t take my gun to Iceland, so I had to leave it with the police in Inverness.

I called Beth and Emma and explained that the lead was taking me to Iceland.

I had a feeling the trail was going to go cold there. Mr. Smith was a very cautious man indeed, and no doubt, in Reykjavik there was yet another identity waiting for him.

“Be careful, Sean,” Beth said. “It sounds like you’re following a very dangerous man.”

“It’s Iceland. I don’t think there’s been a murder there in ten years.”

“Well, don’t be the first.”

“I won’t, and I’ll bring youse back something. Something Icelandic.”

Time to kill in Inverness, but I didn’t feel like sightseeing, so I just stayed in the airport until flight time.

I called Lawson.

“Carrick RUC, this is Sergeant Lawson,” Lawson said.

“It’s Carrick CID and you are Detective Sergeant Lawson. How many times do I have to tell you?”

“Sir? Where are you?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not in the building. I’m safely in Scotland. Inverness Airport. Do you want to know why I’m in Inverness Airport?”

“I have a feeling I’m not going to like the answer, sir.”

“Is Crabbie in today? He should be in on this call too.”

Lawson found McCrabban and put me on speaker.

I told them everything: Killian’s lead, the man’s multiple identities and passports.

“What are you thinking, Sean?” Crabbie asked.

“I’m thinking what you’re both thinking. He’s a fucking iceman from America who has been brought in to terminate O’Roarke’s crew. Someone from outside the movement brought in by O’Roarke’s rivals so there is no possibility of this coming back to bite anyone in the arse.”

“So you’re thinking the assassins got assassinated by another assassin before they could assassinate anyone?” Lawson said.

“I maybe wouldn’t have used the word assassin so much, but that’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

“Who is this guy?” Crabbie asked.

“A real cool pro. I’m guessing mafia or something. Perhaps ex-CIA ’cause of the tech. Definitely a top guy, though.”

“He sounds like he could be big trouble,” Crabbie said.

“Don’t worry, lads, I’ll be careful. If I find him, I won’t be able to do anything about it but report it to the local cops, so this is where you come in, Lawson.”

“Sir?”

“We’re going to need to act fast on an international arrest warrant. Prep the paperwork, will you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. I’ll keep youse in touch.”

I bought a Walkman tape player/recorder and took Iceland Air 134 to Reykjavik.

Flight half-full.

I landed at Keflavik Airport four and a half hours later.

I did my usual routine. I introduced myself to the airport police, showed them my ID, and explained what I was about. Everybody spoke English—better English than mine in several cases. The cops accompanied me as I showed Smith’s photograph to all the airline desks, but Reykjavik was a busier airport than either Knock or Inverness, and no one remembered our boy.

I checked flights out of Reykjavik under the name Brian Smith, but of course, no one matching that name had left in the past twenty-four hours. No one with the name Brian Smith had gone through passport control.

The security footage from passport control was no help either. Several flights had landed at once, and hundreds of men had come through roughly matching Williams’s height and build, but none that looked exactly like him.

He had switched identities again.

This, it seemed, was where the trail went dead.

Smith could be any one of hundreds of men flying anywhere.

It was all really rather brilliant. This was how a professional lost a tail. Multiple flights, multiple identities before continuing to his final destination.

Two days of this, staying at the airport Hilton, looking at grainy CCTV tapes, eating Hafragrautur (oatmeal and water) for breakfast, and cod and chips for lunch and dinner.

Sympathetic local peelers, a good airport bookshop where I found Louis MacNeice and W. H. Auden’s Letters from Iceland .

The hotel room. Night. A bed. A table. A desk. A lamp. Some nice stationery. A Bible in Icelandic, which began with 1 í upphafi skapaei Gue himin og jore. 2 Jorein var tá aue og tóm, og myrkur grúfei yfir djúpinu, og andi Gues sveif yfir votnunum. 3 Gue sagei: “Verei ljós!” Og tae vare ljós. Too much bloody light, in fact. Through double curtains at midnight, the sun had still not quite set. I read one of MacNeice’s bits from Letters from Iceland, which was typically Ulsterish in its gloomy portents but which got my mood perfectly:

So I write these lines for you

Who have felt the death wish too.

But your lust for life prevails ? —

Drinking coffee, telling tales.

Our prerogatives as men

Will be cancelled who knows when;

Still I drink your health before

The gun-butt raps upon the door.

I pulled back the curtain and stared at the annoying twilight. This was all bloody pointless, wasn’t it? It wasn’t even my case. I got up, dressed, and got a taxi to the airport. I went to the Iceland Air information desk to book a flight home, but there was no one there. There was no one in the entire airport apart from a couple of sleepy security guards and a cleaning crew.

I walked around looking at the closed shops and restaurants. There is something beautiful and depressing about an empty airport with its harsh lighting and its implicit message that to go is the great thing, that here is the place you should not be.

Buses to Reykjavik ran every twenty minutes day or night, rain, shine, or snow. I was leaving Iceland today come what may, and I’d never seen anything of the place.

I went outside.

It was 4:25 a.m., but of course the sun was up.

The bus driver, a suspiciously cheerful lady with curly red hair, asked me in English where in the city I wanted dropped off.

“I don’t know. Anywhere, I suppose. I just want a quick look ’round. I’m flying out this afternoon.”

“I will drop you at the Rat House.”

“That sounds like my kind of place.”

A twenty-five-minute run through what appeared to be a volcanic wasteland until we hit the outskirts of Reyk. Pretty, colorful houses that weren’t at all like the tin shacks of MacNeice and Auden’s day.

The bus driver dropped me at the Ráehús Reykjavíkur, which turned out to be the city hall and visitors’ center.

There were plenty of people around: elven, athletic, handsome people in T-shirts and light jackets. A grubby dark-haired, unshaven, smelly Mick in a leather jacket, black jeans, and Doc Martens looked well out of place.

I walked to the harbor and the city center.

People said “good morning.” It was that obvious. I said “good morning” back.

An attractive, friendly city on a lough, filled with attractive, friendly people. It was Belfast’s northern evil twin. No, Belfast was the evil twin and Reyk was the good twin.

“Good morning,” a gorgeous silver-haired lady walking a dog said.

“Morning.”

“Good morning,” a pretty young jogger said.

“Morning.”

“Good morning,” a fetching young couple pushing a pram said together.

“Morning.”

I was starting to hate this town.

I found myself at the Hotel Borg on Posthusstraeti.

I went inside.

“Good morning, sir, how can we help you?” a bright young thing asked at reception.

“Is the bar open?”

“No, I’m sorry, but the bar won’t be open until noon. Are you a guest at the hotel? We start serving breakfast at seven.”

My head hurt, and all this “good morning” shite was giving me dyspepsia.

“Can I get a coffee at least?”

The bright young thing smiled, shook her head, and repeated: “I’m sorry, sir, we don’t start serving breakfast until seven.”

I’d given up the smokes; otherwise, this would have been the perfect place for a consolation ciggie. My hand reached in my jacket pocket anyway and brushed not against my cigarette packet but against the envelope containing Mr. Smith’s photograph from Belfast International Airport.

I put my warrant card and the photograph on the reception desk.

“I’m a policeman from Ireland. You haven’t seen this man, by any chance, have you?”

The receptionist frowned. “Hmmm,” she said.

“Hmmm, what?”

“That looks a lot like Mr. Wilson. He comes here two or three times a year. He just checked out yesterday.”

Holy living fuck.

“Do you have a forwarding address for Mr. Wilson, by any chance?”

“Yes, I think so.”

She rummaged in her files for a moment.

“Emmet Wilson, Twenty-Two Ferry Street, Middle Bay, Virginia 22432, USA.”

“Thank you very much,” I said, writing the information down in my notebook.

“Would you like me to make you a breakfast reservation?”

I thought about what Michael Forsythe had told me. My name had come up in some weird circles in America.

Michael was trying to warn me off. His mate Killian was sending me the other way.

But America was where I needed to go. Now.

“Sorry, what?”

“A breakfast reservation?”

“Oh, no thanks, I have a plane to catch.”