by Iain Cameron
The harsh sound of two bangs broke the stillness of the evening. She turned to look out to sea, an instinctive reaction as it sounded like a ship firing its distress flares. She looked back. Sam’s t-shirt was marked by two large, red blotches. He had slumped to the ground like a discarded rag doll.
She screamed, or gasped, she didn’t know as she couldn’t be sure of the sounds coming out of her mouth. The man turned, and she saw the gun in his hand. She wanted to run to Sam, to hold him in her arms, to tell him a helicopter and medics were on their way, but the sight of the weapon galvanised her. She ran away from the gunman, towards the beach, leaping over sand dune after sand dune as another shot rang out, whipping up the ground beside her.
She ran along the beach for thirty or so metres before heading up through the long grass. The ground felt firmer and she increased her pace. She ran, her eyes blinded by tears, but she knew she had to get away from that evil man or she would die here, just like her new husband. She wiped her eyes and a steely determination took hold.
While at university, she’d competed in the inter-university games, both in track and cross-country events. She hadn’t done much in the way of running for the last two years that she’d been working, but the resolve she used to have to pull away from opponents and win races came back to her as if it had never been away.
The ground was rocky and undulating with clumps of grasses and holes and ruts made by rodents. There was little in the way of cover: no trees, barns or walls, which caused a wave of panic. The gunman could easily see where she was going, even though he didn’t look like a young man and couldn’t keep up with her pace.
She chanced a look round. The cottage had disappeared from view, but she could see the man running, not at her pace, but running nevertheless. At any moment she expected a shot to ring out, but perhaps the uneven nature of the ground, a succession of dips followed by climbing small rises, meant he couldn’t get a clear line of sight. Thank God for that.
She leapt over small rocky outcrops and rounded several larger ones, keeping up an unrelenting pace as she had done in every one of her races, grinding down anyone who came within touching distance. Her spirits rose when the features in the distance became clearer: a dry-stone wall, a ruined building and, about another two kilometres beyond this, a house, most likely a farmhouse.
There was another farmhouse, now over to her left and located close to the sea, but early on she’d decided not to go there. It was too close to the gunman’s house for her to lay any distance between them, and if she wandered too close to the cliff she’d be trapped with nowhere to go.
She climbed over the dry-stone wall and, a few minutes later, reached the ruined building which she could see now had once been a sizeable house. She ran behind a wall and, peering out, had a clear view of the route she had taken. She stood there for several minutes, catching her breath and looking to see if the gunman was still following her. She had run about three kilometres and, if timed, she imagined it would be close to her personal best. Light was fading fast, the sun sinking into the distant sea and she wished she could do the same; he couldn’t follow her there.
She couldn’t see the gunman. Back at the cottage, she’d only seen him for a few seconds, but he wasn’t a young and fit assassin, likely to pop up behind her any second as they did in movies. He was a middle-aged to elderly man who looked to be in good shape, but no way could he have beaten her here. What she didn’t understand was why she couldn’t see him. Had he ceased the pursuit, too out of breath, or conscious of having a dead man on his lawn? More likely, he knew she couldn’t go anywhere. They were on an island, and he could pick her off as she approached the ferry terminal, or as she talked to one of the boatmen about hitching a ride to the mainland.
She turned her back on the view, slid down the wall of the ruined house and slumped to the ground crying, feeling utterly bereft and empty. She wasn’t crying for the predicament she found herself in, but at the thought of Sam lying there, killed by an evil man. A man who was now probably dragging his body over to a ditch to throw it in. She and Sam had only been married for a matter of months. Even though they had been seeing one another for over two years before, they were both looking forward to their new life together. She sobbed and sobbed.
When it felt like the tears would no longer flow, she wiped her face and rose to her feet. Her muscles and joints were stiff, and for the first time that day, she felt cold. Dressed for a beach barbecue, she was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, with a sweatshirt in the bag back at the beach to ward off night-time chills. Oh, how she missed the warmth of the fire and the heat of Sam’s body.
She stepped out, ready to restart her run, when she noticed a loose lace. She bent down to tie it. Just then, she heard a ting from the wall, just above her head and a small shower dust fell on her face. A bullet had clipped the wall, striking the place where her head had been moments before. He’s here! She had been sobbing longer than she realised.
Her body began to shake, not from the cold of the late summer evening, but from fear, anxiety, nerves; uncontrollable terror. Thoughts of Sam, the shooting, the gunman, the yacht, pinged around her head like a hockey puck. She felt as if her head would explode. She took deep breaths and held them for ten seconds, a technique she used at the start of each race to calm her nerves. She needed to catch a grip or she would die here.
She looked around and made sure he wasn’t standing close by. She stooped low and crept around what remained of the house’s crumbling walls, but couldn’t decide what to do. Should she creep around the rubble of this old house until it became really dark, or try to make a run for it? She tried to think rationally. She couldn’t run with him so close, despite the fading light; running across a landscape with no cover would turn it into a turkey shoot, with her as the fowl. But neither could she keep walking around the ruins all night. All it would take was one mistake and he would shoot her. What she needed to do, she finally decided, was to find a good hiding place.
Keeping low, trying not to expose herself, she moved into the house, climbing over piles of bricks and masonry. Up ahead, she spotted the perfect place. It looked like a large fireplace with most of it still intact, but with several large concrete slabs, perhaps once used for supporting the ceiling or part of a wall, lying in front of it. She looked around for the gunman and, a few seconds later, thought she saw his shadow. When he moved behind a wall, she climbed over the concrete slabs and dropped into a small gap between them. Being a trim size 8, she fitted through the space without a problem, and knew that someone with the bulk of Sam or the gunman couldn’t follow.
She sat there crouched down among the bird and mouse droppings as the light finally disappeared. The gunman was trying to make as little noise as possible as he moved around the ruined building, but now and again she heard his movements as he disturbed a piece of loose rubble or kicked a stone. Perhaps he would give up, believing she had fallen over the cliff in panic, but no way was she moving from her hiding place to check.
Chapter 42
The helicopter clattered over the sea, leaving the Irish mainland behind. In the darkness up ahead, Matt could see the outline of the Aran Islands. He’d decided against attacking Patrick Doherty’s house by using a stealth approach, instead favouring a kick-the-door-down sort of approach.
The quiet method would require the helicopter to be parked a long way from Doherty’s house, making it difficult for the team to find its location in the dark. Any closer, and the sound of a helicopter landing at night on an island, devoid of trees and other forms of ground cover, would carry far and serve to alert Doherty as to their imminent arrival.
Siki’s monitoring of crimes on the west of Ireland around the coasts of Counties Mayo, Galway, and Clare had come up trumps when reports were received by the Garda of a young woman in distress. She’d appeared at the door of a farmhouse on Inishmore, babbling about a gunman who had shot and killed her husband and was now trying to kill her. Luckily, Siki had found the story around the
same time as the Garda were mobilising. Matt asked them to stand down until he and other HSA agents could arrive on the scene and they’d agreed to mount a joint operation.
A fly-over by an Irish Coast Guard helicopter, heading out to sea to assist sailors in distress, was a common enough sight in these parts. It confirmed the location of Sam and Zoë’s yacht, the place where the alleged shooting had taken place and the presence of the householder. All the information they had about the incident: Zoë’s description of the attacker, his reasons for shooting Sam Davidson, the location of the secluded cottage, pointed to Patrick Doherty, but it couldn’t explain why the Irishman hadn’t hightailed it after the shooting.
Zoë Masterton’s suggestion that perhaps he’d believed she had fallen over a cliff in the bad light sounded plausible enough, but perhaps something else was behind it. Perhaps, at such short notice, he didn’t have anywhere else to go. In which case, it would make him a dangerous adversary, making him behave like a tiger trapped in a corner.
Matt looked over at Rosie, one hand holding the overhead strap, the other cradling her weapon. She nodded in acknowledgement. It was hard to speak, the deafening noise of the aircraft limiting all chatter to only what could be relayed over the intercom. It was also hard to recognise her features in the subdued light, decked all in black with a heavy flak jacket and metal helmet.
‘One minute to touchdown,’ the pilot said into their ears. ‘Everyone in position.’
Matt looked round at each HSA agent: Joseph, Rosie, and Jess. They all nodded. Matt braced himself for the landing. It wouldn’t be the gentle hover used to pull stricken sailors from sinking ships, but a raid descent – a sudden bump designed to get them in as fast as possible, giving Doherty the minimum amount of time to prepare.
‘3-2-1. Jump!’ the voice over the intercom said.
Seconds later, Matt and the other HSA agents were running towards a group of parked vehicles. After a short exchange of words with the Garda commander, Eamon McLeish, the group of ten suited-and-booted officers fanned out and headed towards Doherty’s cottage. To ensure McLeish didn’t feel undermined by HSA’s presence, Matt suggested they should both go in together.
They stood either side of the front door. The back door and windows were being covered by other officers and they were confident Doherty was inside. Several lights were burning and they could see the flicker of a fire in the wood burner. Matt tried the door handle. It was worth a try, but they had a door banger standing-by, just in case.
The handle turned and the door slowly opened. McLeish went in first, covering the area to the left, with Matt close behind covering the right. Matt registered the local environment almost on instinct: stairs straight ahead, kitchen to the left, lounge to the right, the air pungent with cooking smells and the smell of burning wood to ward off the chill of the night.
The lounge looked homely, with a well-used settee, television, wood fire, and coffee table scattered with magazines and newspapers including the Belfast Telegraph and An Phoblacht, a left-wing Irish republican paper. On the table beside the window lay a laptop. ‘Clear!’ Matt called. McLeish echoed.
Matt left the lounge and walked into the kitchen. He could hear the team upstairs calling, ‘Clear!’ as they moved from room to room.
‘Look at this, Matt,’ McLeish said, ‘a pot bubbling away on the hob, the oven roasting a piece of what smells like chicken.’ Matt spotted a cigarette burning in the ashtray.
‘He must have heard the helicopter coming and scarpered,’ McLeish said. ‘With such a head start, he could be anywhere.’
‘No, I think he’s only gone a minute or two. Gather the men together. We need to spread out and look for him.’
‘How do you work that out? With a five or ten minute lead, he could be miles away by now.’
McLeish had a worn, jowly look belying his thirty-six years and making him look ten years older.
‘You a smoker?’
‘No.’
‘Me neither, but my mother was. See the cigarette, there?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s been burning for no more than a couple of minutes.’
The Garda officer strode past Matt, stood at the bottom of the stairs and bellowed, ‘Down here you lot, now!’
Minutes later, the attack force was divided in half. Two long lines of coppers, one combing the area to the left of the cottage, the other to the right, HSA agents with torches leading the way, scanning the bracken for the fleeing man. The search was made easier with tall cliffs on one side and a flat landscape before them. If not for the darkness, illuminated by a waning moon partially obscured by wispy clouds, they would spot him in seconds.
Fifteen minutes later they came upon a ruined house and, by the description given to the Garda by Zoë Masterton, this looked to be the place where she’d hidden from Patrick Doherty. The depleted force of six officers did their best to surround the place before stepping inside, torches being used not only to try and spot the fugitive, but also to make sure they weren’t stepping on loose stones or into a hole.
It was a slow, tedious process, as the missing man could have secreted himself within the rubble, or continued to dodge them as the team of officers was insufficient to conduct an effective search. After a few minutes Matt called a halt.
‘I want everyone to spread out and wave your torches slowly from left to right across the ruin, overlapping with the light from your neighbour.’
They did this, playing the light back and forth. After about thirty seconds, Matt could see Doherty wasn’t hiding there. The ruin looked grey, almost silver in the moonlight and any dab of colour from Doherty’s clothing or his face would easily be seen.
‘He’s not here,’ Matt said. ‘Let’s move on.’
Matt spoke into the radio to tell McLeish, leading the other group about their progress.
‘We walked up the only hill in the area and even before reaching the top we could see he wasn’t there. We’ll walk back to join you.’
‘We’re heading to the farm beside the cliffs.’
‘That’s the McCafferty’s farm. Ronan and Siobhan live there.’
‘Roger that.’
The McCafferty’s farm was the nearest inhabited house to Doherty, his neared neighbour, but not close enough for them to see when one another was at home. This no doubt suited Doherty, he wouldn’t want anyone knowing the cottage was occupied as any visitor, particularly the Irish, would recognise him without too much trouble.
Approaching McCafferty’s farm, Matt decided he would call off the search after visiting this property, and resume it again in the morning. It was a risk, but with officers watching ports, and the Coastguard on the alert for any unusual boat movements, it was a one he was willing to take.
Their party of HSA agents and Garda officers was big enough for a raid on Doherty’s cottage, but inadequate for a night-time search. Doherty could easily evade them by hiding in a ruin, barn, hen coop or natural hiding place, such as a cave or a dry-stone wall, within a five-kilometre vicinity. With him effectively trapped on the island, tomorrow Matt would airlift in some off-road vehicles and more officers, enabling them to cover two or three times as much ground as they could tonight.
Several lights were burning in the farmhouse, and while he could hear the clucking of chickens, he couldn’t hear a barking dog, a common enough occurrence on every farm Matt had ever known. They made their way towards the front door. Matt knocked. No reply and no sounds from inside, not even a domesticated, non-working dog. Matt knocked once more. Again, no reply.
He was reluctant to walk into someone’s house unannounced and find them alarmed at the sight of his blackened face, Kevlar kit, and the scratched carbine in his hands, but he didn’t have much choice. He opened the door. He instructed the rest of the officers to stand outside while he and a Garda officer who spoke Gaelic, walked inside.
The lounge door was closed, light leaking from a gap between the door and the bottom sill. Matt turned the handle and push
ed the door open. The absence of the barking dog was explained, as a Collie was lying on the flagstone floor, fast asleep. He could tell it was an old dog, probably deaf as it didn’t rouse at the presence of two strangers.
He could see Siobhan McCafferty. She was standing in front of the fireplace with Patrick Doherty directly behind, holding a gun to her head.
Chapter 43
‘Put the gun down, Doherty,’ Matt said tersely, ‘you’re outnumbered.’
‘Who the fuck are you, you English bastard?’
‘Matt Flynn, HSA. The guy beside me and his mates outside are from the Garda; that is if you prefer the local boys.’
‘I don’t give a fuck where you’re from, I want you to get the hell out of here.’
Doherty didn’t look like the genial old fellow in the pictures Matt had seen, perhaps a cultivated image to attract others to his cause. When he spoke, his mouth twisted in a nasty shape, his other features contorted into a tense frown.
He had his arm around Mrs McCafferty’s throat with their back to a large fireplace that didn’t look as if it had been lit for a while. Doherty was a slim man of average height and Mrs McCafferty was a large woman in both height and girth, effectively shielding the IRM man.
On the settee with his arms and legs tied, was the motionless figure of Mr McCafferty. He looked unconscious and sported a bloody wound on his head, as if he’d been smacked with a heavy object.
‘We can’t do that.’
Matt’s shoulders were relaxed, his carbine seemingly pointed at nothing in particular, but alert, looking to see if Doherty moved his gun or shifted his body position, giving Matt something to aim at.
‘I mean business here. If you and the plods don’t get out of this house, I’ll shoot these two people here.’