Death in the Burren (14 page)

He was rewarded with the view of Patsy McBride being shoved into a car at gun point by a masked man and then being driven away at high speed.

For a moment Paul couldn’t believe his eyes at this totally unexpected picture and confessed afterwards to being divided in his mind for a split second as to how he should react. He admitted that his first instinct as a writer was to grab pen and paper to record the details of what he had seen for further use. It was almost as if he had seen something of interest on a television screen and, not needing to react in any way, took steps to note down the details.

Then, at the other end of the split second, reality jolted him into action and he shouted at his unfortunate wife, “Honey, wake up for God’s sake. Patsy McBride has been kidnapped by a masked gunman and we’d better do something. Quick!”

Mrs. Schmitt stiffened and then sat bolt upright, as if jerked by some unseen pulley. Her half closed eyes made out the picture of her husband’s wildly staring face and she tried to understand what he was saying.

Paul sat on the edge of the bed and gripped her shoulders.

“Honey I’m sorry for this but it all happened like lightning.”

“What? What happened Paul?”

He explained what he had just seen. “Now I want you to telephone the police,.. or,.. or the Gardaí isn’t that what they call them? I’m throwing on some things and then I’m going to follow them.”

“You can’t do that, Paul. They’ve got a gun, for God’s sake!”

“Listen, honey, you get the police now and I’ll telephone if I find out which road they took. It’s a long shot but it’s worth a try. Don’t worry, I’ll keep well away from them. Don’t you worry about that for one moment. I won’t be taking any chances.”

Then, grabbing the keys of his hired Ford Fiesta, he kissed his wife and dashed out leaving her groping for the telephone.

As he sped down the drive Paul Schmitt cursed as he noticed a car awkwardly placed near the entrance gate. At first he thought it would block his exit onto the road but as he approached he could see that he would be just able to squeeze past.

Paul glanced at it for a moment with curiosity as he manoeuvred onto the road and it was then that he received his second big shock of the morning. A figure in the rear seat, securely gagged and clad in an ill fitting raincoat, was shaking it’s head wildly from side to side in an obvious effort to attract his attention.

Shock number two was accompanied by dilemma number two.

Should he press on with his plan to assist Patsy or should he do something about this unfortunate who was frantically seeking his assistance?

“Oh shit!” Paul swore out loud as he stopped the car, knowing that this instant decision was probably going to leave Patsy completely in the lurch.

He scrambled from the car, removed the gag and pulled back the hood of the raincoat which had fallen awkwardly over the face.

“My God you’re a woman!”, he jerked back.

“Right first time,” she smiled weakly, “now would you please untie my hands and help my friend. He’s in the boot.”

By this time Paul Schmitt was so confused that he said no more, but simply followed her instructions.

He untied her hands, and as she began working on them to restore the blood circulation he released the boot lid with the internal lever and went back to investigate.

Shock number three!

“Mr. McAllister!” he exclaimed, as he saw his course lecturer lying on the floor of the boot in the same predicament the woman in the back seat had been.

“W
E WERE COMING DOWN
off Corkscrew Hill when the engine began spluttering and it was then that they noticed the fuel gauge was showing empty. They seemed to panic for a bit but stopped outside here with the idea of taking another car. They didn’t speak at all, just made signals and pointed to communicate with each other.

I was terrified. They had obviously planned to take us in the new car but Patsy’s intervention knocked them off course and they took her instead. One hostage is as good as another for insurance, I suppose, especially as they were masked and we do not know who they were. They had to get away fast after Patsy’s bellow, so we were lucky that they decided they hadn’t time to take us as well.”

Susan was explaining to Paul Schmitt and the hotel manager, in his office while they drank coffee. She shivered involuntarily as she spoke, and was obviously totally drained by her experience.

“I’m pretty certain who the taller of the two was. I’d bet a fortune that I saw him talking to Jack Cameron at the Orchid Hotel last week, but I don’t know who he is,” McAllister seemed to be recovering quickly from his ordeal even though he had been sitting there for only a few minutes, but at this stage his body must have been working on pure five star adrenaline.

“However I’m not going to waste any more time talking,” McAllister went on, “we’ll have to help Patsy.”

“Right on!” Paul slapped his knee, stood up quickly and was ready for action. “I’ll follow them as originally planned even though it’s a faint hope now. My wife telephoned the police but I may be able to help. At least I would recognise the car quickly, it was a red Opel, wasn’t it. One of those German cars?”

“That’s right,” the hotel manager said, “an Opel Corsa. It belongs to one of our guests.”

“Okay, I’m off then.” Schmitt headed for the door.

“Me too.” McAllister stood up stiffly in his badly crumpled track suit and hobbled after him.

“That’s not a very good idea,” Susan was appalled, “you must be on the verge of collapse, John.”

“I couldn’t sit here wondering what’s happening to Patsy at the hands of those lunatics. You know how dangerous they are, Susan. I’ll have to go too. That’s if it’s okay with you, Paul.” He looked expectantly at him.

“Sure,” Schmitt shrugged and spread his hands, “I guess it’s alright with me. You’ll only be sitting in the car after all.”

He looked at Susan, “Okay?”

Susan shrugged. She was too exhausted to worry any further.

The two men left and as they passed Frank Holland’s car at the end of the drive McAllister wondered what had been happening to both Ann and Frank since he had left them sitting in his Sierra.

“Would you mind telling me what the Hell’s going on around here?” Paul Schmitt looked very hard at McAllister.

“You’ll probably find this very hard to believe, but I really don’t know.” McAllister confessed.

“Don’t you have any idea who those guys are who stuck you in the boot?”

“As I said I think I saw the tall man last week at the Orchid Hotel, but that’s about it.”

“How come they grabbed you in the first place?”

McAllister explained about the fires and how Susan and he had been hijacked on their way to get help.

“A bunch of arsonists if you ask me.”

“It had crossed my mind,” McAllister agreed, “but I’m stuck for a motive.”

“Arsonists don’t always need a motive. Some of them do it for kicks.”

“One thing had crossed my mind.” McAllister went on. “The two places they burned down…..”

“Two places?” Schmitt cut across him.

“Oh yes. When we finally succeeded in making our escape from the guest house we spotted a large fire in the distance coming from what could only have been the Orchid Hotel.”

“Wow! This is really something big! What have we got here? A revolution?” Schmitt’s instinct as a writer began to tell him he may have struck gold. This could be a really marketable story.

“I don’t think so. There can be a certain amount of resentment occasionally of outsiders moving in to quiet areas, but I thought all that was a thing of the past. Anyway it’s generally confined to other nationals taking over prime locations and becoming territorial about them. Michael Balfe and Frank Holland couldn’t be accused of that.”

“They’re the hotel owners?”

“Yes, as Irish as the rest of them, and anyway they both brought a little bit of prosperity with them, jobs and that sort of thing.”

“You’ll get loonies everywhere, though. Boy, have we got them in The States! “

They drove on, ever watchful for signs of the red Opel.

“I just thought of something,” Paul Schmitt went on, “maybe they robbed the safes in those places and then burned them down to cover themselves.”

“It’s possible, but I don’t think so,” McAllister was thoughtful, “they didn’t seem to be carrying anything when they hijacked us. At least I don’t remember anything like that.”

“You can stuff an awful lot of loot in your pockets if you really try.” Schmitt continued to test his theory.

“You could be right, I suppose.” McAllister admitted. “It’s as good an explanation as any, but it does seem to be a very drastic way of covering one’s tracks, burning down two large buildings.”

“It’s all part of the modern trend,” Schmitt went on, “when they steal cars nowadays to carry out big jobs they just burn them when they’re finished. The cops can convict you now if they find a single hair, so they take no chances. Burn the evidence. No problem.”

“I got the impression that the two were desperate alright. I must confess I got very panicky a few times and thought they were going to finish us off. I’m convinced if they had the slightest suspicion we knew who they were that we would both have got a bullet in the head.”

Schmitt hissed through his teeth. “Wow, we’re really dealing with something very dicey here.”

“That’s what has me so worried about Patsy.” McAllister peered anxiously along the road and up the hills on both sides of them. “It might be better, come to think of it, if they did get away and then they would have no further need to hold onto her. They might just let her go in some remote spot and make off.”

“You might be right,” his American companion agreed.

They drove in silence for a while scanning the road ahead, and the surrounding countryside, for signs of their quarry.

“I still don’t get it.” Schmitt again gave McAllister a very penetrating look. “On the face of it you seem to me to be getting in somebody’s way a lot of the time.”

It was McAllister’s turn to look puzzled. There was something unnerving about the way Schmitt stared at him. He didn’t respond immediately but began to ask himself what he was doing being driven, in the early morning, through the Burren countryside by an almost total stranger who was asking him some very searching questions. He almost felt obliged to account to Schmitt for his movements, and also, that Schmitt wasn’t too happy with his replies.

McAllister began to feel uneasy but decided to continue the conversation as casually as he could.

“Yes, I’ve been having a very eventful time since I arrived and I can tell you the whole business has left me shattered.” He went on in some detail about the incident at Black Head on his journey down, the two murders, the attempt on his own life the arson attacks, and their aftermath, which he was living through at this very moment.

As he spoke McAllister gave the deliberate impression he was simply droning on but all the while he was regarding Paul Schmitt with a new found interest, searching in his mind for a possible place for him in the scheme of things. He did so in the full realisation that he might be indulging in paranoia. On the other hand he now decided to regard everything and everybody with suspicion until he knew the real truth about what was going on.

They reached the point where two narrow roads met the main road from Ballyvaughan on the left hand side. McAllister knew that one skirted the seaward slopes of Cappanawalla, went past Newtown and eventually joined the coast road between Black Head and Ballyvaughan. The other led along the valley on the other side of the mountain and reached the Caher River.

Neither route struck him as a likely choice for somebody trying to vacate the area, with speed as their top priority, so they continued on towards Ballyvaughan.

A moment later McAllister, who had been scrutinising the slope to their right, caught a glimpse of something bright red and signalled to Paul Schmitt, who carefully slowed the car to take a look.

“I
F YOU SO MUCH AS MOVE A MUSCLE
I’ll break your neck right here and now.”

The masked man had pushed Patsy firmly to the floor, face down, in the rear of the Opel Corsa and, putting one knee on her back, pressed his whole weight on her.

She gasped for breath.

“That was a close one.” The masked driver had stopped the car and was looking back at his companion. “What are we going to do now?” he asked. They had passed the church on the outskirts of Ballyvaughan

and were rounding the bend into the village when a Garda car had shot through from the direction of Black Head and, passing Hylands Hotel, continued on towards Bell Harbour. Patsy’s captor thought for a moment.

“We’ll have to turn back.”

“But we can’t go back. They probably still have that road-block at Toomaghera which means we’ll never get past Lisdoonvarna.”

“Turn back and shut up. I’m thinking.”

Patsy sensed the anxiety levels rising in the two men.

The Corsa did a U turn and they backtracked slowly and cautiously along the road they had just travelled.

“Now, when we reach it, take the turn to Aillwee Cave.”

“What’s the point in going up there? We’ll just be stuck on the side of the mountain.”

“Listen, just do what I say if you’ve no brilliant ideas of your own. We really don’t have many options left.”

They continued in silence for a while. The man took his weight off Patsy but commanded her not to move.

Then he said to his companion, “Listen, if we’re going to get out of this mess we’ll have to work together and keep the aggro down. Now I’ve an idea. We’ll dump this in the Aillwee Cave car park, where it probably won’t attract any notice, and then we can walk right over the top of the mountain to either Bell Harbour or Ballyvaughan. We’ve a good chance of finding a boat and maybe get out to sea. They won’t be looking for us in that direction.”

“I suppose it’s worth a try, but it’s a long walk, especially with her.” He nodded in Patsy’s direction.

“Don’t worry about her. She won’t give any trouble. I’ll see to that.”