The Death of an Irish Sea Wolf (2 page)

FORD KNEW THE boat—or at least the type—since he had sailed one in his youth between the wars.

Then his father had operated a legitimate import/export business by day, but by night he had made his real money. From Harwich in England he had smuggled alcohol, tobacco, gasoline—any commodity that was in short supply or heavily taxed—into the Weimar Republic.

An eighty-foot North Sea pilot schooner made little more noise than the water cut by her sharp bow. Drawing a mere eight feet, she could sneak into the sleepy, shallow ports off the Friesland coast that the authorities never thought of patrolling. Yet her beam was great enough for substantial cargoes of contraband. “Why risk confiscation for a pittance,” his father had instructed him. “If you’re going to steal, steal big.” Words that had later come to haunt Ford.

Now he wondered at the fluke of an exact replica of such a boat sailing back into his life at the end of his seventh decade. Clement Ford was not given to superstition, but his life on Clare Island had made him attentive to the vagaries of chance. According to more than a few of the island’s inhabitants, there was no such thing as coincidence.

God—they had it—spoke to us through other persons,
places, and even things. Could the boat now be a warning? Ford thought it might.

A sliver of waning sunlight was still striking the graceful, white hull, where she was anchored in the harbor not far from the granite breakwater and short quay. From the crosstrees of her two tall masts, working lights had been hung. Once the sun faded, the deck would be awash in achromatic light.

Raising the binoculars to his eyes, Ford discovered he did not need their night-seeing capability. He had positioned himself, as he always did on such an occasion, in the topmost open window of the small O’Malley castle. Now a national monument, it had guarded the harbor in ancient times and did so again for Ford.

From there the quay with its short jetty and tall protective wall were about a hundred yards away and the schooner perhaps two hundred where she was riding easily on her anchor in a stiff chop. Bracing his elbows against the castle wall, Ford focused the vessel in.

There were two men working the rigging, furling and securing the sails, while a third hand, who moved like a woman, was belaying line and stowing running gear. All were dressed in bright orange foul-weather gear that displayed the name of the vessel—
Mah Jong
—on the back in Chinese-like letters.

When the schooner swung on her anchor, Ford noted that her home port was “New Orleans, La.” and he wondered if the boat had embarked from there. If so, the crew had time and good weather to work on the boat. The topsides bore none of the encrusted salt or dull bronze that an ocean crossing inevitably produced. Everything from her paint through her brightwork to her sheets and canvas seemed fresh or recent-lyitted out.

Or could the boat itself be new—a reproduction of a North Sea pilot schooner? If so, Ford wondered where the plans had been got, who had built her, and at what cost. She was something he would like for himself, or would have, were he younger and less beset by his history. Apart from Breege’s ring, Ford had assiduously avoided any display of wealth that would raise questions.

Now another figure appeared on deck, who was not garbed in storm gear. Instead, he wore a simple Norwegian fisher
man’s cap and pea jacket, both navy blue. Below were denim trousers and storm boots. A small but broad, older man, he looked jaunty and nautical with his gloved hands clasped behind his back and a lidded pipe in his mouth. On the blast off Clew Bay, puffs of blue tobacco smoke bolted past the antennae on the cabin top.

It was only then that Ford realized how well provided the vessel was with modern communications equipment. In addition to the standard Loran, radar, and VHF arrays in the masts, he counted four other aerials and dishes that he did not recognize, not having kept himself up on every advance in marine electronics.

Now the female deckhand began loading duffel bags into the large jolly boat at the stern of the schooner. As the old man approached her, Ford realized that there was something vaguely familiar about his bearing and the way he moved. Stiffly, proudly, as though unable to conceal a swagger.

More so, when the right hand came up, and he spoke some order. The hand chopped down to make his point, stiffly, all in one piece. The woman immediately stopped what she had been doing and followed his commands. Turning, the man then peered up into mast lights and said something to the two men above him, who were now climbing down and had nearly reached the deck. Ford froze.

What? Was his imagination playing a trick on him? Was all the superstitious claptrap of the last fifty-years causing him to make too much of this boat that was like the one from his past? No, he thought not. Even allowing for the passage of time, it could be nobody but Angus Rehm, the man he had bested all those years ago. Granted Rehm’s face was creased with age and the hair that was visible along the sides of his temples white, not blond. But there was no mistaking the face, the eyes, the gestures. And the hand.

Ford tightened the binoculars to his eyes and reached for the automatic-focusing button.

Which was when the mast lights were extinguished.

Ford flicked on the night-seeing capability, but he had not even accustomed his eyes to the greenish-yellow, infrared image, when a hooter aboard the schooner began blaring. At first Ford supposed it was some warning system, telling the
crew that the bottom was too shallow or the anchor had lost its grip. Or that fuel or gasoline was leaking.

Until he saw the man in the cap and pea jacket reach inside the companionway and retrieve what looked like a scanning device. With it, he began sweeping the beach, the hills, the hamlet of cottages and houses that bordered the harbor, the pub, and finally the quay, the jetty, and the castle. He stopped there with the device virtually pointed at Ford.

Ford heard a command shouted from the boat, and then a klieg light—as bright as burning magnesium—swept him standing there in the open window of the castle, and then returned.

Like a large, old, slow animal caught in headlamps, Ford stood there, blinking. Only then did he realize that one of the electronics systems aboard the schooner must have detected the infrared illuminator in his binoculars, and Rehm had then used the scanner to locate him.

Ford switched off the infrared, and stepped into the shadow of the castle wall. But too late. Or was he imagining all of it. Or getting soft, as the Irish spoke of senility. No, damnit—the arc light was still emblazening the open window. What to do?

Flee—back to Breege and see if he could get her out of the house and to some safe haven at least for the night, and then off the island altogether in the morning. Rehm would see him, of course, the moment he got beyond the wall that surrounded the castle. Clare Island was treeless, and Ford could only hobble on his gimpy knees. And realizing how truly helpless he was, they would swoop down on him like the predators they were.

Instead, Ford chose a different course. Demonstrating the daring that had marked his naval career, he stepped back into the light and trained the binoculars on the boat. There he found Rehm—he was sure of it!—staring back at him with another pair of glasses.

Rehm then lowered his binoculars, and Ford watched and read his lips as he said, “It’s him. The Sea Wolf,” before the klieg light was switched off.

Ford had to wait until his eyesight returned before making his way down from his precarious perch in the dark castle.
Once outside, he paused to look back at the schooner in the harbor, still scarcely able to credit what he had seen. Even with all his years of strict vigilance, Ford had been caught out nearly from the moment the bastard had dropped anchor. If he couldn’t now hear the chop rushing past the boat’s long white hull, he might again think it a cruel dream. Or a hallucination.

Breege, who was guiltless, was his first concern. Not that Ford himself felt any guilt. If anybody, it was Rehm who had been the criminal and a special class of being—a kind of devil. Witness the fact that he had hardly aged. Ford should have stamped him out when he had the chance, those many years ago.

The black curtain of the storm had descended, and Ford only managed to keep to the muddy path that was lined with bogs because he knew it so well. He tried to think of his options. Years ago, when he fully believed in the possibility that Rehm would one day arrive, he had developed a complicated escape plan. Now he could scarcely remember the details. And how to get himself and a blind, frail woman off the island at night in the midst of a storm?

The wind was howling about his ears, and a cold rain stippled his face whenever he turned to the west. In the far distance, he could see the yellow lights of his snug cottage. How he longed to sit himself down by the fire and smoke his pipe. Had he not earned that much in his old age?

No, he had
earned
nothing. But much less so Angus Rehm.

AT THE DOOR of his cottage, Clement Ford did not bother to remove his hat or coat. He merely stepped inside, threw the bolts on the cubby and main doors, then divested himself of the heavy pair of high-tech binoculars. Making his way quickly to the kitchen, he found Breege busy about their tea.

“Back so soon? Was it a party boat, or did the storm prove too much for you? I haven’t heard the wind howl like this all the year long.” She was working at the cooker, holding out a hand to feel the heat from a burner before setting down a pot.

The kitchen was warm, the air redolent of the cooking meal. Again Ford thought he would give almost anything just to be able to collapse into his chair and forget what he had just seen. But there was no time for comfort. And how to tell her so she would listen and heed his words. Breege could be stubborn in her own pleasant way, and she had as much as ruled him, lo these many years.

“You haven’t taken off your coat,” she said, being able to smell the dampness on him. “Or your boots. There’s muck on them.” Suddenly she stopped what she was doing and turned to him, her beautiful, blind eyes finding his own, as though she could actually see him.

“Ah, Breege”—Ford began in lament, which he knew was
a blunder—“it’s wrong that it should arrive at a time, like this, when we’re so old. But remember how I said years ago there would come a day when I would ask you to leave this place—no questions asked?”

She nodded the perfect arrangement of dark hair that only recently had begun to turn silver. She had always set it herself—by feel!—and the process had never ceased to entrance Ford. At that moment he believed he had never loved her more. “Well—that day has come.”

The slight smile that pouted her definite cheeks did not fade. “Clem—is this a joke?”

“I
wish
it were. I don’t know how to tell you, Breege, so you’ll believe me—but after all these years he’s here. Rehm.”

She paused for a moment before continuing her labors over the cooker. “Really? What did you say his name was again?”

“Rehm. Angus Rehm.”

“
Rehm
. What a curious name! And Scots! How it fits what you told me about him at Oxford and during the war. I mean, like the word, the one in Latin. Ar ee em. Oh”—she raised a finger—“and there’s a rock group by that name now. I heard them over the wireless the other day.” Breege moved toward the fridge. “Tell me now—how do you know it’s Rehm?” She removed a plate of butter from its depths. “Or are you after nipping into the pub.”

Ford sighed in exasperation. “Breege—listen to me. It
is
Rehm, the man I told you about. I’d know him anywhere. It’s like”—Ford glanced behind him down the hall toward the door—“he’s hardly changed. And he’s got three others with him that I could count.”

“But, sure, even if it is, couldn’t we just ring up Kevin O’Grady, who’ll have them off the island by noon?” She reached for a pot handle and gave it a shake.

O’Grady was a retired guard. Otherwise Clare Island did not have—or want—a resident police officer. Nor did Ford wish to bring the police into the matter, since they might ask questions that he would rather not answer. And Breege was innocent of everything in every way; she deserved to live out her days as she would have, had he never entered her life. Ford turned back to the front door.

There at the pegs he removed her storm coat, a woolen hat,
and a muffler. In their bedroom he found her warmest stockings. From a drawer in his own dresser, he removed the Webley automatic that had still been strapped to his side that morning in the spring of 1945 when Breege and her aunt had found him on their beach half-dead, washed in with the tide.

While recuperating, Ford had stripped down the weapon to its component parts, then desalinized, lubricated, and reassembled the pieces. Through a connection in Dublin, where Ford went from time to time, he had obtained a stock of ammunition. Over Breege’s objections, he had also taught her to shoot as straight as she could at what she could hear. Now Ford slid a clip of seven bullets into the Webley and dropped it into his anorak.

Back in the kitchen, he found Breege standing on her side of the table. She was pouring tea from the kettle. On platters there were lamb chops, green vegetables, and potatoes along with a tureen of fish chowder that was one of Ford’s favorite dishes. Suddenly he was hungry. And angry.

“Now sit down and eat,” she said. “You’ll soon find yourself feeling much better. Did I tell you what’s coming over the telly this evening? You’ll like it—all about the Russian Navy. They’re selling it piecemeal to anybody who can pay the price. And what they can’t sell is just being left to rust.”

When Breege sat, Ford merely swung her chair round so he could take the slippers from her feet and slip on the stockings and Wellies.

“What are you doing, Clem?” she asked in her usual pleasant tone of voice, although he was handling her.

“Breege, my love,” he began, hoping she might credit his concern, “I don’t think you fully understood what I said. That…
bastard
is on the island. And he’s equipped and not alone. No. When I flicked on the infrared, some device on his vessel detected me.”

“You? How? Detected what?”

“The infrared illuminator in my new binoculars, I assume.”

“Well, how did it do that? What’s infrared?”

Ford only shook his head, knowing any explanation would be pointless and probably fatal at this juncture. “They caught me in their floodlights,” he went on. “He—Rehm—saw me.
He won’t wait until morning. One question in the pub, and he’ll be onto where we are, and a quick strike is best for him. A storm? Better still.” Ford pulled off her slippers and began fitting on the stockings.

The wind was now keening around the house.

“After fifty years you still know what this Rehm looks like?”

“Yes. The size, the shape of him. The way he walks. He even had gloves on his hands.”

“But it’s cold. That’s a storm you’re hearing outside. Everybody
should
have gloves on his hands. Even yourself.”

“Breege—I looked into his face! In the glasses. It’s him.”

She put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Luveen—look at me and listen.”

Ford glanced up into her pretty face.

“Has it never occurred to you that we’re getting old? And you have been…
consumed
by this matter and this man many a long year. Could it be that he has now come alive
in your imagination
? Sometimes things I think about over much assume a reality of their own. Sure, I say this because I love you, and for no other reason.”

“Keep your foot still,” Ford replied. “I’m going to dress you for outside so you’ll be warm. You are my life, and if you won’t walk yourself, I’ll carry you.”

“You, with your bad knees? Clem—where would we go?”

It certainly was
the
question. Years ago Ford had maintained a boat that he kept on the other side of the island in an isolated cove. But it had been destroyed in a rogue storm, and Ford had not replaced it,
because
of the time that had passed. “Out of here. We’ll find some place to stay for the night. It’ll give us time.”

“And him time too, if he’s real. Clem—what’ll people say, our just leaving in the dead of night? They’ll be worried sick about us. Think of the talk! They’ll call the guards.”

“Let them say what they will, as long as it’s not over our dead bodies. I’ll figure something out.” It came to him then that he’d seen Packy O’Malley’s boat docked at the jetty. It was small but fast and able, even in a storm sea, and the man would be glad to do him a favor. “And if not of yourself,
think of the Trust—the good it can do. And will, if we can keep it out of Rehm’s hands.”

“But isn’t it
his
?”

“
No
, damnit!” Ford had on Breege’s Wellies now, and he tried to stand so he could help her to her feet. But his knees would simply not support him, and he staggered against the door to the press. “As I told you, what he had was stolen itself, from whom I don’t know.”

“But you have an idea.”

“Yes, but that’s not
knowing
!” he said far too strongly. “And if he gets it now, after how we watched over it all these years and made it grow, it would be a double shame.” Having regained his balance, Ford reached down for her elbows.

“Wait,” she objected, trying to pull his large hands away. “Clem, luveen. Let me go, please. Please!”

He released her, and she reached for and found his hands.

Again she looked up at him. “If that’s what’s so important to you—why don’t you tell somebody else where it is and how to keep it safe. That way, if this Rehm does come for us, and the worst happens, the Trust will continue.

“Now, please—sit down with me and eat your tea, which is what I have every intention of doing myself. Come Armageddon or Angus Rehm.” Obviously she still did not believe him.

Ford released her and straightened up. She had a point. Confiding in somebody else was something that Ford had been considering now over the last several years, since it would be necessary eventually. He would not live forever. But who? He could never decide. Who could he possibly trust with such a secret? Well, now he had to.

Breege herself had
never
wanted to know the details of the Trust with its Dublin connection or even the location of the cache here on the island. “Why,” she had asked, “when I could never see the blessed hidey-hole anyhow? And even you think it’s dangerous going up there.”

Also, Breege was a woman who lived in the present. “As long as I have you, Clem, and we’re happy here—I don’t care how much we have or haven’t. Before you, my aunt and
I lived on the little we could get for ourselves—her even then an old woman and me blind.”

Ford now sat in his chair beside her. “Like who?” to confide in, he meant. “We should have decided this long ago.”

Breege rearranged her chair and picked up her knife and fork. “Now, try a chop, Clem. They come from Achill, and you know how nice the spring lamb tastes from there. They say the sheep feed on clover the year round.”

“Breege—
who
?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You know more people than I.” She began carving the meat on her plate. “What about Mirna? She’s a quiet, careful person and educated. And
she
would probably sympathize with our intentions for the Trust. No—she
would
sympathize, being the artist that she is. Are you eating, Clem?”

Pondering what he knew about Mirna Gottschalk, Ford did not answer.

“Well, since you aren’t, why don’t you go tell Mirna, and I’ll finish my tea. If you’re still…disturbed about this when you get back, why, I’ll leave here with you. For the hotel. I can register as…I don’t know. Mary Robinson”—who, of course, was the president of Ireland—“and you can hide in the cellar, since you’re so conspicuous.” Breege had a sense of humor, though Ford did not appreciate it at the moment.

He sighed again; it was hell getting old. Certainly he wouldn’t be able to carry her very far under any condition, and she was right about one thing—it was time to confide in somebody. Maybe Mirna
was
the one. She had a fine young son in Dublin, who had already benefited substantially from the Trust and could deal with the details on that end. And Mirna’s house was but a long, if arduous, mile away, over the hill in back of the house and then along the cliff.

He stood. “Right—we’ll compromise. Here are my terms. After your tea, you take this and sit with it in your chair in the sitting room with your face to the door. If anybody comes into the house apart from Kevin O’Grady, you’re to use it, as I taught you.”

Breege turned her head to him. “Use what?”

“This.” He placed the Webley on the table beside her plate.

She put down her fork and felt it. “The pistol?” she asked incredulously. With a click she dropped the knife on the plate. “Clem—have you quit your senses?
Me
use that? Why I—” but she thought better of it.

“All right,” she relented. “Anything you say. I’ll take myself into the chair and sit in it. If anybody but Kevin comes in, I’ll…well, I’ll do what I must. When you return, we’ll leave. Perhaps the air will do me good. But you must speak to Mirna first.”

She retrieved her knife and fork. “I don’t mean to be difficult about this, but I would like to know what excuse you’ll give when asking Kevin to come ‘
sit
’ me? And don’t think to tell him I’m the frightened one.”

Ford moved toward the phone in the hallway. “I’ll just ask him to come.” And bring a gun, he thought. He had never requested anything scurrilous of O’Grady, and the man would do his bidding.

How long did he have? Ford tried to think of how Rehm would proceed.

He would make no direct inquiry of, say, the barman there at the island’s only pub in the harbor. Instead, he would engage some local in conversation. Dressed in their storm gear with the name of their vessel,
Mah Jong
, on their backs, they would order drinks, and the topic of their voyage or the boat would soon come up, given the interest of island folk in boats and visitors. Rehm had been a charming, engaging man back when Ford had known him, and he was undoubtedly more practiced now. But he had also been a careful man.

He’d say something like “We were wurried aboot this place,” in his heavy Scot’s burr that even in their Oxford days was devised. “While we were anchoring, we glammed a hoary great giant, peeking out at us from the castle walls. Are there Druids on the island?”

The locals would laugh. “Oh, that’s just Clem Ford, our
resident
Druid,” as Ford had once overheard himself described. “He’s harmless, really. Just likes to get a look at any new boat that puts in.”

“Strange—we didn’t see him again. It was as though he melted off into the hills.”

“Not to worry. Clem lives up on the flanks of Croaghmore,
the mountain you can see looking west. A pretty, rambling cottage that was left to his wife. She’s an O’Malley, like so many of us on the island.”

And Rehm would have him. Another, say, ten or so minutes to change the topic of conversation, finish their drinks, and amble off. “We’ll go up to the hotel now, have ourselves a night ashore. Cheerio. See you tomorrow.” Then maybe a half hour to pretend registering in the hotel, and an hour to get their bearings and travel by the road in the dark here to Ford’s cottage. They’d not risk an overland route with the chance of walking into a bog or waking a dog.