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

28. A Sort of Ending

CHAPTER 28

A SORT OF ENDING

Better the anticlimax. The disappointing theme in the minor key after the timpani, trombones, and tubas. A solitary violin reprising the melody until the scratching stops and silence overwhelms the music.

I examined Donnolly’s wounds and made sure they weren’t life threatening, and then I tied him to the heating pipe in his basement. I gave him a water bottle, a pack of Ritz minis, and a pot to piss in and told him that once I was back in Ireland, I’d call the police to come and rescue him. He asked me to call not the police, but a number at the CIA.

I wrote down the number.

“So you’re not going to kill me?” he asked.

“I’m a cop,” I told him. “I’m not habitually in the execution business.” I showed him my Walkman. “And this tape will discourage you from getting into the execution business with me. If any sudden accidents happen to me or my family, copies of this tape will be sent to the Guardian , the Washington Post , the New York Times, the Nation, and the BBC.”

“You’ll blow up the peace process?”

“To protect my family? Bet your arse.”

“You need to uncuff me.”

“Fuck that.”

“I need to show you something in my safe.”

“The safe?”

“The safe.”

“Just tell me where it is and the combination.”

Upstairs. The den.

Safe behind a picture of the Virgin on the wall.

The combo, 33L, 44R, 44L.

The red file. The second one from the top.

Inside, there were photographs of my house in Portpatrick. A photograph of a girl curled on the sofa in her golden blanket. The Irish princess in exile in the foreign court.

I took the file downstairs.

“You know where I live! You’ve had goons scouting my house?” I said, furious.

Donnolly nodded. “Go home, Duffy. Forget everything that happened here.”

“I can’t do that.”

“For the sake of your little girl, do exactly that.”

I showed him the tape. “It seems we’re at a stalemate here. If I go public, bad things will happen to me. If bad things happen to me, this tape goes public.”

“Stalemates are okay. A stalemate has kept the peace in Europe for forty-five years. Peace is coming, Duffy. Don’t fuck it up.”

“Don’t you fuck it up either. I’m not a man to be trifled with.”

I looked him in the eyes to make sure he believed me, to make sure he’d tell his superiors not to mess with me.

I paused on the stairs and looked at him. “A 750 Norton? Seriously? Everybody knows you can’t trust a Norton.”

I went upstairs and locked the front door. I drove the Buick to Dulles and booked my ticket. I bought a Lisa Simpson doll for Emma and fancy chocolates for Beth.

DC to Glasgow direct.

Flight touching down at three in the morning. A bleak, dark, wet Scottish morning, but a morning in the UK, where the CIA would not be able to lift me so easily.

I’d be as good as my word, and later on today I’d make multiple copies of the tape I’d made, and give them to my family solicitor with instructions to send to the media in the event of my untimely death.

I went to a bank of phone booths and called Donnelly’s supervisor at Langley.

“Who is this?” he asked.

“It’s the man who tied Kevin Donnolly up in his basement in Middle Bay, Virginia. I’ve left enough food and water for a day or two, but he’d appreciate it if you came and rescued him as soon as possible,” I said, and hung up.

I found the BMW unscathed in the medium-stay car park.

I drove through Glasgow until I found a phone box.

I sat in the car in the rain, thinking.

No, you don’t get to murder Micks on my watch for free.

Not completely for free, anyway.

The phone box was covered in ads for prostitutes, and it reeked of urine. Standard stuff for this part of town.

I dialed Brendan O’Roarke’s number.

“Who is this? You know what time it is?”

“They’re going to try to hit you in the next two weeks. Vary your routine. Leave the bloody country if you can. They’re coming for you. This is not a joke.”

“Who is this?”

“A concerned citizen.”

“I recognize this voice.”

“Don’t say any names.”

“I won’t. Is this a warning, then?”

“It’s a tip I heard, that’s all. Watch out, and tell your big brother to watch out too.”

I hung up.

Aye, I don’t hold with Brits and Americans going around killing Irishmen.

And maybe it was for the greater good, but at least I’d done my due diligence.

All I could do.

He wasn’t going to vary his routine. Or if he did, it would be only for a day or two. Complacency would kick in and the goons would kill him. They’d kill him and his crazy brother in France. Good riddance, really, nutcases like them.

Back out of the fragrant phone box, into the Scottish rain.

Rain from a low-pressure system that was moving quickly through western Britain, bringing heavy precipitation that was bouncing off the pavement. Of course, the black BMW 325i didn’t mind the rain at all. Sitting there waiting for me like a demonic familiar.

Presents in the back seat, raincoat in the passenger’s side.

Glasgow to Portpatrick is a comfortable two-hour run down the motorway and the A77. An hour and a half if you don’t mind risking the traffic police.

I did it in fifty-nine minutes.

No cops, no hassle.

The house quiet.

I went in through the back door and up the stairs.

I checked on Emma and tiptoed into the bedroom. I stripped and slipped beneath the sheets.

“Is that you back?” Beth moaned, half in and half out of sleep.

“Yes.”

“Did everything go okay?”

“It all went fine.”

“Did you keep your receipts?”

“Receipts?”

“So the police can reimburse your meals.”

“I forgot to do that.”

“You should have kept your receipts,” she said, and went back to sleep. I lay there for a bit and then went downstairs to make a cup of coffee.

I removed my wallet containing my battered Saint Christopher medal and the lucky postcard of Saint Michael (the patron saint of peelers) trampling Satan, by Guido Reni.

Coffee and a slice of toast with butter and marmalade.

I went into the living room, stoked the embers in the fireplace, and as a reward for my endeavors poured myself a glass of the twenty-five-year-old Bowmore.

Peace is coming, Duffy. Don’t fuck it up.

I sat in the easy chair and looked out at the water. Now that the rain had blown through, it was a calm, clear day. From the house on the cliff, it was only twenty miles across the narrowest bit of the Irish Sea to the lighthouse in Whitehead. A little farther to the left, I could see the power station chimney at Kilroot, and a little beyond that lay Carrickfergus and Belfast.

So near and yet so far.

We were safe here.

Donnolly knew where I lived. The company knew where I lived. MI5 and -6 knew where I lived. But they wouldn’t come for me. I knew how to keep my mouth shut.

Jet, the cat, appeared from wherever he had been sleeping or hunting—his only two modes of existence.

“Hey,” I said, and he acknowledged my presence.

I rubbed his neck, drank the coffee, ate the toast, sipped the whisky.

It got boring.

To hell with the minor key, the anticlimax, and the silence. I looked through my Chess Records Howlin’ Wolf singles collection, found “Spoonful,” slipped it out of its sleeve, and carefully laid it on the turntable. I got up and examined the Picassos on the wall.

I liked them a lot. And I liked Chester (Howlin’ Wolf) Burnett singing Willie Dixon’s words and telling it exactly like it was:

Men lies about little,

Some of them cries about little,

Some of them dies about little,

Everything a fight about a spoonful,

Just a spoonful,

That spoon, that spoon, that spoon, that...

I opened the door to the back garden.

A Turner smear of red in the eastern horizon. The sky, the color of a robin’s egg, was frozen with expectation. Night had been vanquished. Nothing could stop the day. The Earth was spinning on its ellipse around the local star, and the morning would come...

Was coming...

I watched the cat stretch and begin a fresh patrol.

I looked through my notebook and removed the last twenty pages, ripping out everything I had learned in the previous fortnight.

I read through the pages, dropped them on the fire, and watched them curl and burn.

I drew a line through the poem I’d written. It was too obvious. Too on the nose. Poetry should make you work a wee bit.

I sat back on the chair and listened to the music and drank.

Howlin’ Wolf singing. Otis Spann on piano. Hubert Sumlin on guitar.

Perfect.

I finished the whisky.

The sun was climbing over the North Sea now.

Britain was in light, Ireland in darkness.

But, who knows, maybe not for much longer.