Death in the Burren (15 page)

They continued on and as they reached the final turn to go up the steep hill to Aillwee Cave the driver suggested continuing on instead, towards Leamaneh Castle, as an alternative escape route.

“No. I don’t like the idea. The Gardaí will have cars out all over the place by now and we’ll probably run into some of them. Our best chance is to get rid of this car and do what I suggested.”

“And another thing,” he went on, “we’d better get rid of these masks. There’s no point in wearing them any more.”

Patsy swivelled her eyes back as far as she could to identify her back seat captor but couldn’t see who it was. By this time, however, she was fairly certain she had recognised his voice.

The car droned up the hill for a while and then stopped.

“Oh, blast it!”, swore the man in the back seat,” I forgot about the gates. There’s one here and another just before the Farm Shop. They won’t be open for a while. The Cave doesn’t open for business until ten o’clock.”

“Here, let me take a look. You keep an eye on this one.” He got out of the car to examine the gate.

A moment later Patsy, who was too scared to move and too aware of her vulnerability even to contemplate an escape, heard

him suggest shooting off the slide bolt guides to open the gate.

“I think they’re fragile enough to break off.”

“That would be madness. The sound of the gun would carry for miles.”

“Right.” There was a short pause. “Okay. So we leave the car and walk from here. It’s not much further to the cave and we can take that short cut after the Farm Shop which will speed us up.”

“What do we do with our friend here?” asked the driver.

Patsy wondered what would happen to her now. Would this be the end of her journey?

“She could be a bloody nuisance. She’ll probably slow us up. But she’s really our trump card in case we’re cornered. We’ll need a hostage if that happens.”

“Right, so let’s go.” The driver sprang out and slammed the car door.

Patsy’s back seat captor issued an abrupt order.

“Up you get and do exactly as I say. If you slow us down for even a second I’ll take great pleasure in putting a bullet in you. Now I really mean that. No second chance.”

Patsy rose stiffly from the floor of the car and emerged onto the roadway to confront her abductors. Her suspicion that the gun wielder was Andy O’Lochlen was confirmed, but she did not recognise his taller companion.

“So it is you,” she began, in a voice noticeably lacking in it’s usual strength and authority.

However O’Lochlen was in no mood to converse. “Now let’s get this perfectly understood. We’re in a hell of a hurry, so no talking and get moving as fast as you can.”

The tall man strode up the steep hill with Patsy following in line and O’Lochlen bringing up the rear. When they reached the picturesque Farm Shop building they left the road and took the walking route up through the trees emerging eventually at the edge of the flat car parking area.

They paused for a moment. O’Lochlen noted that the time was approaching eight o’clock and then said they would go straight up the mountain using the stone wall which began to the right of the entrance building as cover. It wasn’t very much but it was all that the bare mountainside had to offer.

The weather had begun to change. The sky had begun to cloud over and a freshening westerly wind was making life even more miserable for them as they moved ever higher, exposing themselves to it’s early morning chill.

Patsy was beginning to wish she had had breakfast before she was swept up in this mad expedition. The lack of food, the exercise and now the effects of the worsening weather were combining to make her feel quite ill. Her usual fortitude had abandoned her.

It struck her that her captors must be feeling the same way and that if their journey took much longer it might have the effect of testing their patience to the point where something irrational would happen.

A sudden squall lashed them with a sheet of rain and their progress up the uneven limestone terraces was made infinitely more difficult by the wet surfaces. It was impossible now to maintain their rate of progress.

O’Lochlen was becoming anxious and irritable as he urged them on, but each step was complicated by the mixture of shapes into which the limestone had been formed, some pieces smoothly rounded, some offering dangerous jagged edges, and all the while the space between the erratically spaced slabs threatened to punish a miscalculation in their step.

Another squall enveloped them in a cloud of driving rain and this time, instead of blowing over, it remained to torture them by soaking right into their inadequate clothing and making it more difficult for them to pick their way up the mountainside. The wind also tore into them driving a chill, through their wet clothes, right into their bones.

In these conditions tired limbs began to protest and Patsy was the first to stumble.

O’Lochlen immediately barked at her and, under another threat of dire vengeance, she pulled herself to her feet and trudged on upwards. She prayed that she could maintain her effort and not cause her abductors problems, but the conditions continued to worsen and her anxiety increased.

Patsy could see that the man in front of her was suffering badly too, as he struggled to maintain his course in the blustery tormenting wind.

Suddenly, as she felt her resolve breaking, O’Lochlen shouted at them to stop.

They turned around to face him.

“I’ve decided we’re not going to make it all the way across the mountain in these conditions. We’ll have to go back down to the cave entrance, I have another idea.”

“Thank God for that.” The tall man shouted back to O’Lochlen, who had difficulty hearing him as his voice was carried away up the slope by the wind.

They huddled together discussing the situation and O’Lochlen then beckoned to Patsy to turn back once the tall man had again resumed the lead.

The journey down the slope was, if anything, more difficult to negotiate but at least there was the prospect of an early end to their discomfort when they had found shelter.

However that was some way off yet. Now with the rain driving directly into their faces, and the wind tearing at their clothes it was becoming progressively more difficult to see where to put the next step and to maintain any kind of balance.

The trio slithered and stumbled and Patsy kept her spirits up by hoping and praying that the two men would have accidents, leaving her free to escape down the hillside. The tall man in front of her was certainly in distress and pitched sideways a number of times as he lost his footing. On one occasion he screamed when the hand he extended to stop a fall was caught by a jagged edge which sliced into the palm.

O’Lochlen urged them on continually with dire threats of what would happen if they did not reach cover.

The trees near the entrance to the cave, to the side of the car park, beckoned to them, offering, as they did, some shelter from the elements. They were their goal but a large amount of difficult ground had to be covered before that haven was reached.

The rain and wind, as if noticing their intentions, seemed to make monumental efforts to prevent them from reaching the trees but they eventually slithered down the last few feet of tortuous treacherous limestone into this flimsy shelter.

They lay gasping on the wet ground glad to be partially shielded from the Atlantic storm.

O’Lochlen was the first to speak. He addressed his companion who was wincing from the pain of the dreadful hand wound which continued to bleed profusely.

“It’s nearly ten o’clock now and the visitors to the cave will start arriving.”

“There won’t be any visitors on a day like this.” The tall man grunted as he lay panting.

“You’ll be surprised. And, anyway, this weather may not last for much longer. We were just unlucky to be caught in it.”

They were silent for a while, each person coping as best they could with the misery of their situation.

O’Lochlen then went on, “What we need is transport and I reckon some sort of a van would be the best cover for us. The Gardaí won’t be looking for a van, and we can hide her in the back.”

P
AUL SCHMITT EASED THE CAR
to a halt as they nosed cautiously around the bend, revealing the red Opel Corsa. It was parked near the locked gate, which barred the road to Aillwee Cave.

He slowly clicked up the hand brake and turned off the engine.

McAllister, beside him, stared warily at the Opel and held his finger to his lips in an indication to Schmitt not to make a noise. He then carefully lowered his window and listened intently. There wasn’t a sound.

The two sat there, watching the car in front of them as if hypnotised, not sure what to do next.

The sky was beginning to cloud over and a breeze fluttered at the open window.

Eventually, McAllister rolled it up again and turned to Schmitt.

“Is this the car?” he whispered.

“Yep. No doubt about it,” came the muffled response, “there’s that same blue duffel bag in the rear window.”

They lapsed into a wary silence for another few moments.

“What do we do now? Any ideas?” asked Schmitt.

“I’m not sure,” admitted McAllister, “ but we can’t sit here forever.”

“I’m with you so far.”

McAllister was about to speak again when a van, with Aillwee Cave markings, came from behind and stopped at the gate. A man hopped briskly out, unlocked it, opened it fully and secured it to a post. He then drove on smartly in the direction of the cave, taking no notice of them or the red Opel.

“They’re obviously opening for business shortly,” said McAllister, “and as there’s no sign of our friends or Patsy here perhaps we should drive on and have a look around. They must be somewhere in the vicinity. They couldn’t have gone far if they’ve abandoned the car, but I wonder what they’re up to.”

“I’ll just have a look inside before we go on,” said Schmitt, and he walked over to the Opel.

He came back shaking his head. “Nothing to be seen. No sign of anything.”

McAllister regarded his companion thoughtfully.

“What did you expect to see? A dead body or two? A map giving details of where they were planning to go next? A change of clothes…….”

“Come on McAllister, no need for that. Hey wait a minute!”

Schmitt dashed back to the Opel, reached inside and came back clutching something black in his hand.

“You’re a genius McAllister. Not exactly a change of clothing, but near enough. That was stupid of them, wasn’t it?”

He held up two items which McAllister peered at questioningly.

“Face masks, buddy. I didn’t take any notice of them at first but when you said that about clothes I thought it would be worth another look, and here we are, face masks. When you really think about it they do not need these any more.”

“But careless, as you say, to leave them behind.” McAllister felt a sense of urgency. “I think we should press on.”

Schmitt started the car and they drove past the gate and the stone Farm Shop, with it’s matching dovecot.

The weather had suddenly deteriorated and rain began to fall heavily as they climbed the steep twisting road to the cave building.

As they reached the car park plateau they noticed the van parked near the entrance.

“I think we should wait just about here,” McAllister suggested, “as far away from the entrance as possible so that we can get a good view.”

“Okay,” agreed Schmitt, as he stopped the car, which was being buffeted now by the blustery wind. “We won’t get much of a view of anything in this weather, though.”

The rain suddenly pelted down and exploded on the hard surface of the car park. It drummed on the roof and lashed against the side windows where Schmitt sat.

They both felt miserable and cold.

“This is a crazy climate you have here.” Schmitt said. “The early morning was so pretty and now look at it.”

“Four seasons in one day.” McAllister moaned, as if by way of explanation. “With a bit of luck it will pass over fairly quickly.”

“It can’t be quick enough for me.” “Where can they possibly have taken Patsy?” McAllister asked after a while.

“Don’t ask me.” Schmitt looked helpless. “I haven’t a clue where we are, let alone where they might be, or where we should be looking for them.”

“One thing strikes me as funny though,” he went on after a short pause.

“What’s that?” McAllister asked.

“Where the hell are your police? I would expect they’d be buzzing the whole area after what happened last night.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that. The Gardaí know the options for somebody trying to make a getaway and I’m sure they would have closed them down. Why do you think those people drove up here with Patsy and abandoned the Opel?”

As they spoke two cars arrived in close succession and the occupants, obviously holidaymakers, dashed into the cave building.

“So what do we do?” asked Schmitt “There’s no point in sitting around here forever, either.”

“There’s not a lot we can do with this rain teeming down, but I think we should stay for a while. As I said, they cannot have gone far without the car, so they must be somewhere nearby. Let’s wait and hope a little longer. If the rain stops then we can search around.”

The occasional car arrived, spilling it’s occupants into the rain for the dash to the cave entrance, and there were soon a dozen, or so, vehicles clustered around the building. A large khaki coloured bus, with German wording on the side, ground it’s way up the slope and sank gratefully into it’s slot on the far side of the building, which soon swallowed up the enthusiastic teenage occupants.

This was followed, soon after, by a white van with just two side windows in the front, which had to park slightly nearer to McAllister and Schmitt. Nobody emerged for a while, but when the rain eased off temporarily, two workmen in dungarees, one carrying a large toolbox, climbed out and walked towards the cave entrance.

Schmitt sat drumming his fingers nervously on the steering wheel.

“What wouldn’t I give for a hot coffee,” he said longingly.