The Midnight Bell

by Jack Higgins

  “But what has that got to do with Devil’s Jump?”

  “Because, during the revolution, a man was running so hard to get away from the militia that he jumped one hundred feet down into the sea and survived. Local tradition says it was Wolfe Tone.”

  “What a great story,” Hannah said. “Can I look?”

  “Of course, but you must promise me not to do anything silly. Over the years, there’s been the occasional accident and what might have been a suicide or two. The fencing is not the best. Tad got Eli to put a concrete platform there with a steel railing. There’s only room for two or three people at the same time, but the view is fantastic.”

  And so it was, leaning over to see Drumore House, way below them on the right, the narrow road, the boathouse, and the jetty. But up here, high on the cliff as it reared up, Hannah was dizzy with pleasure to look at the sea swelling a hundred feet below.

  “It isn’t dashing in, one wave after another. Why is that?”

  “Honeycombed with caves and canyons and deep gorges, all under the water. Highly dangerous to dive down there. Difficult to handle your depth in such fierce currents.”

  “But you’re an expert in that kind of stuff. I remember Sara saying the reason Ferguson wanted you originally was because you’d done great work underwater for the Israelis. Then you went on to discover a German U-boat in the Virgin Islands.”

  “Well, there you are,” Dillon said. “Look at all that fun you’ve missed. Heavy stuff, Hannah, the world down there is something very special indeed. I remember trying it on my twenty-first birthday, with little training to speak of. I was resting, having been on the run for a while, and a man called Harry Leary, who fished out of a village called Bundy four miles up the coast, gave me a few lessons. He also ran cargoes by night for the IRA.”

  “It must have been exciting, all that.”

  “It was, Hannah; I never knew such excitement, with a pistol in my pocket plus a belief you could change things, all the fine young men, as the poet said, and most of them long gone. So tell me, girl, what was it all about?”

  “Don’t ask me, Seaneen, sure, and I’m only a beginner.”

  “Then let’s get back to see what’s going on,” and he took her hand, and they walked down the hill to Drumore House, where they found the festivities had just begun.

  Billy Spillane’s cook turned out to be his daughter, Peggy, who had a restaurant in Omagh and visited him when needed to keep the café at the aero club in order. She had taken over the huge old kitchen table, which was already occupied at one end by Tad and Hugh Tulley, white of hair and seated in a wheelchair.

  “Sean, it’s yourself,” he roared. “And who is this beautiful creature you’ve got with you?”

  Introductions were made while Peggy danced around the table laying a wonderful meal of cold cuts of beef, ham and turkey, salmon and salads, cold beer, red wine, and white in ice buckets. Tad said, “A fabulous spread, you must agree. Harry Leary is on his way, Sean, and bringing his son Tim. I hadn’t realized you’d given him a call.”

  “Great comfort to the Provisional IRA,” Tulley said. “Of course, fishing off the Sealark like he used to in the old days, using the breathing apparatus. It was all a mystery to the rest of us.”

  “But not for his son, I think,” Dillon said.

  Hannah stopped smiling. “Damn you, Sean Dillon. If you are considering going diving in a certain hell hole in search of a mythical Maria Blanco, I’m not having it.”

  “My darling girl, trust me and all will be well.” He smiled at Eli. “As fine a spread as I’ve seen in a long time. May we start? The Learys can play catch-up.”

  —

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, the Learys appeared and joined in, and a fine time was being had by everyone so there was considerable surprise when Dillon said to Eli, “I haven’t told you, but I’ve found a cure where Finbar’s gun is concerned.”

  There was total silence from everyone, for the scandal of it was known to the entire village, so Tad asked, “Are you certain?”

  “Any bet you like, but you must bring him to join us so that he will realize his stupid game is up.”

  Tad was uncertain. “You’re sure?”

  Sean turned to Eli. “Remove the irons from his ankles and bring him down.”

  —

  FINBAR WAS DISHEVELED and unshaven when Eli shoved him into the room, and he stood there, wrists chained so that they were a foot apart, as he stared out through the open French windows. He turned to look them over.

  “You bunch of shites. What are you staring at? You can’t break me, not even my bastard of a son can do that.”

  “But I can,” Dillon told him. “A two-shot derringer with hollow points. Just one of those would certainly cause the instant death of your own son, and I refuse to allow that. After all, you killed his mother, and that, I would suggest, is enough.”

  “The smallest of guns.” Finbar smiled like the Devil, evil. “You’ll never find it in a place this size. It’s been tried. He had all his mates looking and getting nowhere. Do you think you can do better?”

  Dillon took out what looked like a large mobile phone. “This is a key tool in the bomb disposal trade, but it has other uses, and my friend, Lieutenant Colonel Giles Roper, knows them all. Every weapon is unique as regards the metal used to create it, and the derringer is no different. The device will find it like a dog finds a bone—and we already have a reaction here in this room. As Sherlock Holmes would say, always choose the obvious. The kitchen, on this occasion.” He walked to the grandfather clock by the fire, opened the face, and turned with the pistol in one hand and the device bleating in the other.

  Finbar howled with rage, grabbed the edge of the tablecloth in both hands, sweeping a good deal of what was on the table to the floor, and then ran out through the French windows, chained hands held in front of him, running at extraordinary speed up the slope toward the edge of the cliff.

  Tad and Dillon went after him, Billy Spillane following, but Tim Leary, a younger man, overhauled them easily enough, and called to Finbar, “Don’t be a fool. There’s only one way down.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Finbar had paused beside the platform. “Go to hell, the lot of you,” and he dived into space, chained hands out in front of him.

  His pursuers walked the last few yards to where Tim Leary peered down into the maelstrom. “Swallowed him on the instant,” he said, as Hannah limped up to join Dillon and Tad. “We’d better phone Sergeant Ryan in the village just to keep it official, but he was as mad as a hatter. The whole village knew it. My God, it’s hell down there.”

  “Just the place for you and the great Sean Dillon when he’s chasing death or the prospect of it,” Hannah said.

  Dillon approached her, and said, “Are you ready to go back now? We’re leaving.”

  “Not at the moment, my leg’s aching. I’ll see you later.”

  She watched them go, then followed, leaning on her stick and thinking of what had taken place, finally resting on a bench just above the boathouse and jetty, trying to make sense of what had happened.

  It was all linked to the mystery of the Maria Blanco, the treasure ship loaded with twenty-five million in gold ingots. Thinking about it was doing her head in, so she called Roper.

  “Finbar is dead,” she said, and explained what had happened and the situation at Drumore. “I just don’t buy this account of the Maria Blanco slipping out to sea with a cargo of twenty-five million in gold ingots and never being heard of again. I wondered if you could help?”

  “So what do you want to know?”

  “Could you use your powers to have a look in RUC intelligence files of the period and find out what was going on with that job. Like now, please? I’m going down to Drumore to a very IRA supper that includes Hugh Tulley, the chief of staff at the time.”

  “For you, anyth
ing. I’ll call soon. Over and out.”

  —

  PEGGY SPILLANE WAS making up for the disaster at lunch by providing a rather happier supper. She gave Hannah a glass of elderflower wine and told her to rest, and she found herself looking at Hugh Tulley in a different way, because he’d pulled off the original robbery, a desperate business that had not been forgotten in the village nor had the casualties.

  Eli was cheerful enough, probably the loss of Finbar just sinking in, and he was offering champagne from the cellar, but that didn’t seem appropriate to Hannah, considering what had happened to Finbar. And then Roper called her, and she went out in the hall to listen.

  —

  “AS IT TURNS OUT, there was no gold in that convoy. It was part of a plot to persuade the IRA to attack, and the details were such that the RUC never wanted to explain it and instead left it to legend, the whole affair classified,” Roper told her. Hannah thanked him and went back to the meal.

  “You must excuse me,” she said. “I’ve just been filling my boss in on the Finbar tragedy and he was giving me details of the Maria Blanco affair.” She turned to Tulley. “I don’t know how long they sent you to the Maze Prison for, but it must have been a high price to pay for no gold, and don’t tell me they didn’t let you know that.”

  Billy Spillane said, “God save us, I used to believe when I was first learning to dive that I might find it down there on the bottom somewhere.”

  “Well, if you’d asked nicely, Eli might have put you out of your misery and told you there was nothing there.”

  Eli looked Hannah full in the face and smiled. “You guessed it was me, didn’t you?”

  “It had to be, Eli,” she said. “Nothing else made the same kind of sense.”

  Tulley said, “It couldn’t have been Eli, I handcuffed him myself. I took his spare key.”

  “I had three or four keys knocking around the boathouse, so when you locked me up again after I’d finished loading the boat, and you cleared off in your truck, I freed myself,” Eli said.

  “What then?” Hannah asked.

  “I checked the boxes and discovered they were empty, which annoyed me, and I took the Maria Blanco around to where Finbar jumped and sank her, so in a way, I suppose, he found her today. After that, I handcuffed myself and waited to be found.”

  “And never spoke of it again.”

  “That was because Finbar wouldn’t leave it alone.” Eli turned to Tad. “I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  “I forgive you, you old devil. You’ve done me a favor. There’s a man I know who is going to be very angry when he hears the news about the Maria Blanco, so we’ll open a couple of bottles of champagne, and you can join me in wishing the worst of health to a scoundrel called the Master.”

  —

  AT TEN-THIRTY, the guests having departed, it was unusually warm, the French windows standing open, Hannah stretched out in a swing chair reading a magazine while Tad and Dillon sat on either side of a coffee table talking together in hushed voices.

  “There should be no comebacks as far as I can see,” Dillon said. “The RUC did nothing wrong. They didn’t even supply false ingots in the boxes. Just space.”

  Tad laughed hugely, and Eli came in pushing a loaded trolley. “I think you’ve had enough of the other kinds of drinks today, so I thought a nice cup of tea and a bun might appeal before you go to bed. I’ll leave you to it. Goodnight and blessings.”

  Hannah got up yawning, crossed to the trolley, and started to pour. Tad said, “You’re not supposed to do that these days.”

  “That covers a lot of things, Tad,” and her Codex sounded.

  “Give me one guess,” Hannah said. “It’s you.”

  The Master laughed out loud. “That is what I like about you, Hannah. Direct and to the point.”

  She turned to the others. “Who wants to speak to him? The Master.”

  “I suppose I might as well,” Dillon said, and called out, “I wouldn’t have thought there was much to interest you at Drumore after today’s dramatic events. Empty boxes are the big joke around here. You’ve got to give it to the old RUC. They certainly made us lose face.”

  “And is that all you can say?”

  “Well, I suppose I could add that I’m sorry for the large number of people who hung on to the faint hope that somehow they’d come across the Maria Blanco with twenty-five million on board. It’s a big letdown to discover it never existed in the first place.”

  Hannah clapped her hands slowly. “God bless you for that, Sean. I couldn’t have put it better myself. Wouldn’t you agree, Tad?”

  “I would indeed, Hannah. Life is hard knocks, and I think you are experiencing that, Master, whoever you are.”

  “How unfortunate to have to hear that from a man who so callously saw his father’s end this day. I think it will merit retribution for certain.”

  “So bring it on.” Hannah was angry. “Do your worst. I’m going to bed, and you can go to hell,” and she switched off.

  “Does that make you feel better now?” Dillon asked.

  “I suppose so. What happens tomorrow?”

  “You and I fly back to Barking. Tad is staying on here for a while.”

  “The lawyers have a host of things to do,” Tad told her. “It’s a new era for Eli, so I want to help him settle in.”

  “Well, all that sounds perfectly splendid to me, but I still need my bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  —

  IT WAS RAINING, a touch of fog in the air, when Eli delivered them to the aero club. Hannah gave him a kiss as he passed the hand luggage to them.

  “Take care, big man; it’s your world now.”

  He smiled as he drove away, and they turned to Billy Spillane, who waited in the entrance to the café, and Dillon said, “How does it look?”

  “Well, you can see the Isle of Man.”

  “And how far is that?” Hannah inquired.

  “About fifty miles. They have the airport there at Castletown and it’s open for business. A quick jump to the mainland and it’s clear all the way to London.”

  “Let’s get on with it,” Dillon said, and shook hands. “An interesting weekend.”

  “One I’ll never forget,” Billy said, as he led the way. “God bless the both of ye.”

  They boarded the plane; the airstair door clanged shut. “I’ll join you in the cockpit if you don’t mind,” Hannah said.

  “Fine by me. Put on your earphones. I’ll take the left seat.”

  She settled in the right, and he switched on. The engines coughed into life and roared along the runway, lifting them off, and she was aware of the Isle of Man in the distance.

  She leaned back, brooding about what had happened for twenty minutes, then, glancing to her right, was aware of a few light feathers of smoke coming out of the engine.

  “Should that be happening to the starboard engine?” she asked Dillon.

  He glanced sideways and stopped smiling. “No, it damn well shouldn’t.” He checked the controls. “And the extinguisher isn’t responding.”

  “Should we turn back?” she asked.

  “No, we’ll do better to make for Castletown airport on the Isle of Man. If I push it, we could be there in fifteen or twenty minutes. I’m calling them now,” which he did.

  The air-traffic controller was a woman, her voice sweetly calm. “We’ll make ready at once to receive you. Good luck.”

  The engine suddenly belched black smoke, and Dillon told Hannah to get the life jacket from under her seat and put it on.

  “What the hell for?”

  “In case we have to land in the sea.”

  “And you can do that?” she demanded, as she struggled into the life jacket.

  “Yes, I’ve done it before.” And he called, “Castletown, I’m sure you got that. I’m going to
dive to a thousand now or maybe lower because I’ve just noticed a flicker of flame out there.”

  The controller said, “If you have to land in the sea, it is on your side this morning. Light winds and small waves, so approach with landing gear retracted, full flaps, and reasonable power.”

  At that moment, the Chieftain shuddered as the other engine packed in, and Dillon said, “Well, that’s a problem in my situation, but as I can spy the airport half a mile away, let’s forget water landings and go for broke. I’m coming straight in, trailing smoke, so that should make the evening news on television.”

  He turned to Hannah. “I think you should go back as far as you can. You’ll stand a better chance there.”

  “No, I won’t,” she said. “Just get it done, cousin.”

  The Chieftain emerged from over the sea very low through a curtain of rain and black smoke, dropping down for its entry and bouncing, then down again to continue along the runway pursued by two fire tenders and a number of other vehicles.

  They slid to a halt, and Dillon unbuckled his seat belt and reached to do the same for Hannah. Her eyes were closed, and she crossed herself.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Just celebrating being alive.”

  “Then let’s go and open the airstair before they take axes to it.”

  He led the way, she followed with the hand luggage, and he got the door open. The closest fireman reached up to help Hannah and Dillon down to willing hands, which passed them on to a van with a driver and a man named Morgan who was head of some sort of special security and wanted to know their business. As both Dillon and Hannah were able to provide MI5 warrant cards, they soon found themselves in a private lounge.

  Dillon said, “Do you need a doctor or anything?”

  “Absolutely not. I’m just a little shocked, not only to be still alive but also to also realize what an absolutely brilliant pilot you are.”

  “I’ll leave you with the task of speaking to Giles about that and asking him whether we could have Lacey and Parry fly up from Farley in the Gulfstream.”