The Death of an Irish Sea Wolf (20 page)

“I know it’s a great weight to drop on you after all this time, and I haven’t had a moment’s rest since you came into the shop, hammerin’ my head off the wall whether I should
tell you. But I decided God had put you in the way of us again, just at the age when a boy needs some male guidance.

“But I’ll leave it up to you if you want to see him or let him know. As I said, I never wished to intrude on your life, which is the reason I didn’t tell you earlier, and we can continue on like that, if you wish. He’s got his uncles and cousins, whom he sees. Also, please don’t think this is the beginning of any attempt to bind you to us or to secure monetary help. His grandfather took care of that for Lou, and fortunately the business is good. Too good. I scarcely have time to care for myself, as perhaps you noticed.”

There was nothing to say to that either.

“Hughie—are you there?”

At the continued silence she rushed back into speech. “Sure, it must be a devastating lot to take in all at one go. But I’ll leave it up to you. Do you have our number?”

“Yes.”

“Good-bye, Hughie.”

“Good-bye, Lee.”

She rang off, and Ward lowered the receiver into its yoke. Looking up, he found three pairs of eyes on him; from the other room he could hear McGarr’s voice saying, “What about this bloke? He’s about the right age, and he looks stocky, like you said.”

“I’ve got a son,” Ward announced.

“The kid from the jewelry shop? Sigal and Son?” Bresnahan asked.

“You’re not in earnest surely!” Noreen said. Dubliner to the core, being privy to a breaking story of such import concerning two people who were not only known to her, but who were also particular friends and prominent in their specialties was meat and drink to her. No,
three
people, since Ruth was unquestionably involved. “Leah Sigal’s son? You have a child by my Leah Sigal?”

Ward only looked at her; it was as though she were speaking Swahili. He could hear the words, but he still could not comprehend the meaning. He did not know how or in what way his life had been changed, but it had.

“I think it’s absolute
magic
! Leah is one of the best people I know. I often wondered how the boy ended up with such a
downright Celtic name. It’s spelled ell, you, gee, haitch, you know. Lugh.” Noreen enthused before remembering Ruth. “I mean, when and where did you know her?”

“In the
biblical
sense,” Bresnahan put in acidly. “There’s no
other
knowledge for some patriarchs.”

Said Maddie, “But Hughie isn’t married, Ma. How can he have a son?”

“You certainly spread yourself thin.” Bresnahan eased herself into a chair.

“More than a decade before I knew you,” Ward managed, moving woodenly toward the sideboard. But he had lost his appetite, as well as his idea of himself as being essentially a free spirit. What was that statement by one of the German writers? When your child is born, it is you who is the dead one. Or, at least, it is your freedom that dies. Ward could not piece it out completely; it was too early.

Also, a child was such a responsibility; there were so many pitfalls and traps out there, as Ward knew from his own experience. But he also felt a profound pity and sorrow for the boy—
his
boy—who had not known his own father for fourteen years.

As surely, Lee—or Leah—had taken a chance. He wondered if the boy would ever forgive her for keeping them apart for so long.

“Hughie—please don’t keep us waiting. Give us the details.” Noreen was beside herself to learn when and where. In her own cosmogony, the two were worlds apart—a Ph.D. historian with a refined taste in jewelry and objets d’art, and Ward, who was without a doubt the second toughest man (in the best sense) that she knew. Her own being the first. “You had an affair—when?”

But Ward said nothing.

“He can’t remember, there’s been so many. Also, he’s your archetypal ‘gentleman.’ You know, the one that kisses but never tells. Can you imagine he once said that to me?”

“But have you ever seen the lad? Now that I think of it, he’s the—” Noreen caught herself.

“If you say spit and image I’ll never speak to you again, so help me,” said Bresnahan.

“Well”—Noreen looked away, not wishing to wrangle—
“the resemblance is certainly remarkable. But then Leah is dark too.”

There was a long pause, during which they listened to McGarr’s continuing questions in the next room, mingled with shouts, laughter, and revelry both in the hotel proper and down in the lane below the windows. The O’Malleys were in party form.

Finally Bresnahan said, “Cripes—how do I compete with the woman?” She held up three fingers. “She’s wealthy, I assume?”

Noreen shook her head. “I have no idea, but I assume—”

Bresnahan did as well. “Bags of money. Two, she’s produced a veritable clone of the man and weathered fourteen years as a lone parent without a complaint that he ever heard. And three—she still worships the very ground he trods. You should have heard her there in the shop, falling all over herself with flattering questions—the boxing, the cops. If himself and I had a child, we’d toss up a mutt, half dark, half red.”

Noreen raised a hand to stop her. Some things said, even half in jest, could never be taken back. And it wasn’t as if Ruth and she were having a private chat, woman to woman. There he sat, the impregnator himself, right across from them.

“And have you ever seen her?”

Weekly at least, thought Noreen. Not only did they own complementary businesses, they were friends. They checked in on the phone, went places together, even met for a drink and gossip at least once a fortnight. Suddenly Noreen realized why Leah had always seemed so interested in the Squad with clever questions tactfully put to elicit information about Ward. But their friendship had not been based on that alone. No. Noreen could remember scads of other occasions—at auctions, sales, and estate closings—when they spoke only about the matters at hand and had lunch and a laugh afterward. Ward could do worse than either woman. What a delicious dilemma.

“I asked you, have you ever
seen
her?”

Uh-oh, somebody big and dangerous was waxing wroth. Noreen nodded. Now, if she were to retain Ruth’s friendship, she knew she could utter only the truth; anything less would
be transparent. “I’d say there was a time that she was nicely put together.”

“Yah—like
now
. I can only imagine what she was like before.”

Well, one thing for Hughie, Noreen thought—he always had great good taste in women. But fortunately, all that came out of Noreen’s mouth was “I’ve seen her at charity affairs and so forth looking ravishing. But always alone. During the week, it’s as if she doesn’t try.”

“And talk about
one love
.”

Noreen was happy Ruth had said it, because the thought had occurred to her too.

Ruth stood and moved to the sideboard and Ward’s brimming plate. She carried it over to him. “Looks like you’ve got your plate filled, me mahn.” Ward only set it aside.

The door opened, and McGarr entered the room. “What’s this—a séance? There’s a boat anchoring in the harbor.” He pointed out the window. “Rice might be there, but we need somebody with a camera.” He glanced at his watch. “And the ferry’s due any minute.”

“Oh, Daddy—do we have to?” Maddie complained. “I want to go swimming with the other kids.”

McGarr reached for his daughter, who was his love and life, and hoisted her into the air. “And swimming you will. Humpty and Dumpty over here will pick up our slack, being paid for it,” as Noreen and Maddie were not. It was then that he noticed Ward. “What’s with you?”

“He’s just been told he’s a daddy,” said Bresnahan.

“No—” It was out of McGarr’s mouth before he could take it back, but, he supposed, it was inevitable.

“Congratulations” was his second thought. “When can we expect the addition?”

“Ah, yehr late,” Bresnahan replied disgustedly. “Fourteen years, in fact.”

McGarr looked to Noreen for an explanation, but she averted her eyes.

“I’m sure he’ll fill you in, man to man.”

“Later then. Right now, Hughie, I want you to get back to Dublin and see what you can do with the Clare Island Trust, the possibility of some Republican connection, and the lists
we put together of the people who came to the island today. Once you get in place, we’ll send you tomorrow’s additions, and so forth. Can you leave immediately?”

Ward stood. “If I can get off the island.”

“Rice will arrange that.”

McGarr turned to Bresnahan. “Something wrong, Rut’ie?”

“Ah no, not a thing. I was just thinking how convenient it is, lashing back to Dublin and the ready-made family. Is it a setup? Did you two choreograph the entire blessed revelation?”

McGarr was at a loss, but when no explanation was offered, he simply walked back into the other room and closed the door.

Thought Noreen: given the country’s approach to contraception and abortion, Irish women with unwanted pregnancies had typically gone to England to give birth and had then given their babies up for adoption. Years later, those same children—wishing to know their birth mothers—had successfully met the other and then carried on with their lives.

Here the shoe was on the other hoof. Albeit cloven.

BERNIE M
C
KEON’S BRIEF touch with serenity was over, he could tell. With a resentment bordering on anger he watched the bikers, hikers, trekkers, and even joggers heave into view from the south of the island, singly and in clutches—in one case of nineteen. They were on the roads, in the treeless meadows and bogs, even now climbing the steep gray-green flanks of Croaghmore. The O’Malleys had obviously arrived.

From the east and west boats had also appeared, one of which had gathered McKeon’s attention rather more grippingly than the others. It also corrupted the feeling of “fleshless beatitude” (he had dubbed it) that he had been nurturing since his reclusion in the lighthouse turret.

For at the wheel was nothing less than a great blond and bronzed goddess, who, in squatting to drop anchor and a second time to deploy a rubber dive raft, presented for McKeon’s optically enhanced delectation the most shapely and ample pair of orange cheeks that he had viewed in many a moon. McKeon liked his women big.

Running up a blue-and-white international code flag, she also showed him the rest of her generous and nearly bare anatomy, before ducking down into the small cabin in the foredeck. But nobody else seemed to be aboard, which was
a no-no for divers who were warned time and again never to dive alone. McKeon’s sixth son was a diving enthusiast.

She soon reappeared, dressed in a wet suit with a mask, tanks, flippers, and the complete regalia including a curious-looking belly pack. McKeon had not seen the likes of it before and wondered what she had in there. From a deck locker, she pulled out a speargun, and without further ado got into the rubber raft and paddled in toward the cliffs, out of McKeon’s field of vision.

And, sure, weren’t there several other boats farther along the cliffs, fishing with rods in the turquoise shallows and one now pulling in a lovely big mackerel. Suddenly McKeon was hungry.
And
thirsty. He was just a fleshly sinner after all, he concluded.

The final boat was so far along the cliffs by Croaghmore that McKeon could barely make out the two figures on deck, but they appeared to be loading a net into a skiff. One man then took the oars, and they soon too were out of sight, rounding the cliff beyond the Ford cottage where McKeon had lost the woman and nearly drowned two nights before.

Also, there was some new action on the southeastern flank of the mountain, a single figure trudging up a goat path. He was heading toward a ridge that was cast in deep shadow, now that the sun had begun to decline. McKeon recognized the man’s gait, his build, the khaki hat and jacket; the figure then turned his face to him and waved. It was McGarr. Unclipping the VHF radio from his belt, he held it up and shook his head.

McKeon understood what he meant. They could chance using the radio only in an emergency, so as not to scare off the raiders. Even if they used the police channel with DSC (Digital Selective Calling) that transmitted digital messages to only specific receiving stations, or if they employed a complex scrambling code, they could not be sure they would not be heard.

While costly, the electronics needed to interdict such systems could be purchased on the open market. The best were portable, some even handheld, and every major drug dealer in Dublin had them.

McKeon glanced down at his own handset to make sure it
was still functioning. Every once in a while throughout the day, a voice had come on chatting almost exclusively about fishing or the weather or asking a boat to pick up something on the mainland.

The most often heard voice was that of “Paulie-O’,” who McKeon assumed was Paul O’Malley. He always had something to tell the various captains about catches, conditions, and the presence of water bailiffs, sometimes citing what he called “other sources.”

By that McKeon guessed he meant the Weather Fax and Fish Fax services that he subscribed to and read off to a inquisitive captain when asked. He invariably added what he had picked up on his other radios that could be heard in the background whenever he came on.

McKeon watched now as McGarr chose a perch on the side of the mountain. Removing his own binoculars from a case, he settled himself under a low ledge that virtually obscured him from sight. Had McKeon not seen him take the position, he would not have been able to tell he was there.

Which cut McKeon’s area of sweep in half. Beginning at the far perimeter, he began raking the binoculars back and forth in horizontal bands, ever closer to his own post there in the lighthouse. Once the sweeps were completed, he then checked all figures that he had seen or anything else that seemed different or suspicious, particularly in the immediate vicinity of the Gottschalk residence, including the glimpse he could catch of the cliffs and the ocean below. He then swept the entire grid vertically, from the fields near the lighthouse to the edge of his perimeter, which was roughly half the distance to Croaghmore. McGarr, he knew, was doing the same with his half.

But apart from the dive boat with the goddess, none of the O’Malleys—pushing out from the harbor after finding all rooms taken—had gone anywhere near the Gottschalk place which lay as far north as it was possible to walk. Tents were now being pitched wherever the landscape offered shelter from the wind. In fact, Timmermans had said he’d heard that some of the O’Malleys actually preferred camping out. “You know, to make contact with the earth where most of the generations of their clan were conceived, passed their days, and
were buried. It’s said some of them go away fulfilled.” There had been a twinkle in the Belgian’s eye.

Shades of a pagan rite, thought McKeon. No, some
excellent
pagan rite, Christianity—or, at least,
his
Christianity—being no more than a light gloss on the surface of his personality. Whenever it was scratched, up came the battle helmet with horns, the cudgel, the flagon, horses, hounds, and women—all glimpsed in his mind’s eye under a full summer moon. McKeon howled lightly, then scanned the area below the cliffs. The mermaid had yet to return.

Already McKeon could count eleven tents up with several others on the rise. It was only a matter of time before they discovered the sheltered boreen running from the main road to the Gottschalk compound of buildings. And night was only a few hours off.

Now a solitary figure had appeared at what was marked on the map as a standing stone in Ballytoohy, due south of the lighthouse. He was a short, square, older man in a cap and spectacles who had a large rucksack strapped over his shoulders and some sort of device in his hands. It was long and thin with handle spokes for…turning?

After examining the standing stone on all sides, he laid the device on the ground, pulled off the rucksack, and removed a notebook. Carrying it over to the plinth, he squatted down on the far side where he was no longer visible to McKeon, and certainly not to McGarr both because of the distance and an intervening ridge.

Anyhow, it was then that the radio bleated, as a scrambled voice came on, perhaps from one of the “factory” fishing ships that earlier had been working the waters to the west of the island. Spaniards, they had been catching tuna, Paulie O’ had told some of the local fishermen. There was a reply, and yet another from a third source with a deeper voice. And then nothing.

As with all other transmissions—especially now that Chief Superintendent McGarr had given him the duty—Paulie O’ had taped the exchange, which he ran through his computerized code descrambler that copied the unscrambled voices on a disc. He then listened to the transmission a third time
and immediately activated the voice-recognition telephone that was attached to his robotic wheelchair. He spoke the number that Chief Superintendent McGarr had given him.

The language was not Spanish, and Paulie had heard the language only once before. It was Afrikaans.

When the Dublin number answered, Paulie played the unscrambled voices a fourth time to the man on the other end, who was a translator. “Is that all of it?”

“The lot.”

“Do I tell you what they said?”

“If you would.” Paulie was trying to sound calm and cool, as though all of this was just S.O.P. to him, when it was without a doubt the most exciting challenge he had faced since the accident that had crippled him. His mother had wanted to help, and they’d had a dreadful row with Paulie making a run at her in the automated chair. When she fled down the stairs, he locked the door.

“Are you ready?”

“Ready.” Paulie switched on the recording function of the telephone answering machine which gave off a bleep.

“The first voice says, ‘Helmet here, in place. Can you read me, Heather?’

“The second voice—the woman’s voice, I take it—replies, ‘Yes, Helmet, Heather here. In place.’

“Then the first again, ‘Good. And you, Ducal?’ or Dugald, I couldn’t make out which.

“Ducal answers in a playful voice, ‘Yes, Father. Don’t do anything foolish. I have you in my sights.’ And that’s it.”

Paulie thanked the man and rang off, only to be faced with an enormous decision—to alert McGarr that the raiders were back and on the island, “in place” by their own assessment.

McGarr had told Paulie, “I’m going to leave it up to you. Be judicious. Contacting us could tip our hand, but anything vital we should know.”

Paulie now thought—their taking the chance of checking in like that, telling each other they were in place, could only mean that not all of them were visible to each other (only Ducal or whatever his name was could see Helmet) and that they were in the places from which they would strike. And
confident! Paulie did not speak Afrikaans, but the playful tone was unmistakable.

Problem was—Paulie could see just about everything everywhere that McGarr and his man up in the lighthouse could (and better because of the power and quality of his Swarovski spotting scope), but there seemed to be nothing unusual. Just like the “Rally” before and the one before that and before that, the O’Ms were raising tents and starting campfires.

Musical instruments had been brought out, and he could see people singing. A donkey pulling a cart with a big barrel of Guinness on the back, which had collected a crowd in one place. Others of Paulie’s clans people were moving from one fire to the next; the “partying” had obviously begun and would continue at many campsites right through to the dawn.

It was a perfect blind for the raiders, and at the very least McGarr should know that they had established themselves somewhere among the crowd. With his chin, Paulie activated the VHF, but he decided to forgo the police band and leave off the DSC signal and scrambler which is what the electronically adept would expect of the police. And then, had they been monitoring Channel 16 for any length of time, which he was sure they had, they would have heard him signing on and off, speaking with the local fishermen.

“Paulie O’ to Fish One.” It was the call name they had agreed upon for McGarr.

“Fish One here.”

“Fish One, how’s the luck?”

“Miserable.”

“You mean, you don’t have your limit?”

“There’s not a squid between here and Nova Scotia.”

“Have ye’ checked that limp thing in yehr britches lately?”

“Paulie O’, if I was there, I’d catch yehr neck, and then what?”

O’Malley laughed. “I’ll try to forget you said that, yeh shagger. Me callin’ with where the fish are.”

“In the market or a seal’s belly. Or is this where I begin the penitential prayers?”

“Well, now—that’s better. For a wee afternoon of velvet scoops, I’ll tell you this; there’s mackerel, tuna, and hake.”

“Where?”

“Whoa, buck—are we agreed?”

“Jaze—how many scoops fill a wee afternoon?”

“As many as I can keep down.”

“No problem, then—ye’re on. Two it is.” McGarr tucked the speaker into his chest and laughed, as though to suggest that there were others listening in the cabin of a boat. “As for the mackerel, tuna, and hake?”

“Ye’ bastard, yeh—I shouldn’t tell yeh this, but on ’Turk.” He meant Inishturk, which was another island to the southwest of Clare Island.

“Where off Turk?”

“Haven’t I got three reports?”

“Of mackerel running? The bloody Spics have probably hoovered up the rest.”

“Strong and clear. All on the surface.”

“You mean, walkin’ round, just waiting for the net?”

“Depends on who’s handling the net. The boats I spoke with say they got their quotas, and the schools keep narrowin’, like they’ll link up soon. But it should take
you
the rest of the night. I’ll give me love to your missus.”

“I can’t thank you enough.”

“Not to worry, she will. She always does.”

When McKeon looked up from his own VHF that he’d been staring at, concentrating on every little word, there she was—McGarr’s missus. With her daughter, Maddie, Noreen was at the south edge of McKeon’s sector. And what were they doing?

He raised the binoculars to his eyes.

They were staring down at what looked like a mound of stony rubble. As she spoke, Noreen was scrabbling the toe of a shoe through the debris.

And something else had changed in McKeon’s sector. But what?

Pulling down the binoculars, he surveyed the mile-square sector with his eyes alone, looking for the anomaly. What was it? The tents were all still in place, one more of them fully up; the large family had secured an enviable spot in the lee of a flat mound of land where they had a strong turf fire
burning and their other gear was being pulled from tuck bags; the three mountain bikers had joined up with a fourth and were trying to negotiate a bog.

There it was—the man at the standing stone had been joined by another person. McKeon raised the binoculars to his eyes again.

She was a rather large but pleasantly made woman dressed in boots and khakis with something like a bushman’s hat over her blond hair. Her well-tanned face was framed by tortoiseshell sunglasses. Reaching down for the device that the old man had been carrying, she followed him away from the stone.

McKeon began working the grid again, with renewed dedication, now that they knew that the raiders had arrived. Still, there was nobody even remotely close to the Gottschalks’ compound. The big new Land Rover was still parked near the house. Smoke was coming out of what McKeon supposed was the kitchen chimney. He glanced at the door, hoping that Timmermans would not forget his tea, now that the lighthouse was overrun with O’Malleys. McKeon would not dare leave his post.