“Hurry up, damn you!” John said. He thrust Charlie against the door. “You’re a human shield, Charlie boy, how do you like that?” Over Charlie’s shoulder, as the door burst open, he saw Sheila struggling wildly, kicking and punching a big man wearing a black mask made of tights.
At first frozen with horror at O’Brien’s brutal action, Sheila had recovered her senses.
Activated like an electronic toy by sheer boiling anger, she hurled herself at O’Brien, almost making him overbalance with the shock, interrupting his message to Hugh Frazer Knight, knocking the mobile phone out of his hand.
It was only for a moment that she had the upper hand. Within seconds O’Brien had recovered his balance, both physical and mental.
“Grab the bitch, Danny!” he roared, himself seizing Sheila by her abundant hair and pushing her to her knees. “Take her off me! I need to finish this message!”
Then John fired the gun.
Impelled by his rage he would willingly have poured bullet after bullet into O’Brien’s body but the risk of hitting Sheila was too great.
Instead he fired in the air but the impact was just as great.
Every head in the room turned to him, gaping with horror and shock.
Danny, about to move forward to obey his master’s commands, turned into a statue on the spot.
O’Brien himself, at a loss to know what was happening, released Sheila slowly and waited to see what John’s next move would be.
He had not long to wait.
Still pushing Charlie in front of him, John advanced into the room.
“The first of you three thugs to move wins the prize and gets the next round of bullets,” he remarked conversationally. “It would make it easier for me to deal with you, if there were fewer of you, so don’t tempt me, right?”
“John,” Sheila cried thankfully.
“Don’t get between me and these animals, Sheila,” John said. “Have either of them got guns?”
“I don’t think so, John,” replied Sheila meekly. “The big one put his gun down over there when he started phoning and I think the other one dropped his ages ago when he went to fetch some stuff from the other room.”
“Okay, gather them both up and put them outside the door here. Be careful coming past me, now! And then you can have a hunt around and see if you can find some rope, okay?”
Sheila, feeling rather like a schoolgirl obeying her teacher’s rules, but only too happy to obey, scuttled off to find and retrieve the ropes that had been used to tie up herself and her fellow hostages. They were lying carelessly flung down on the floor of the room next door. She hurried back with them.
“Good,” was all John said. “Now, you.” He was speaking to Montgomery Spears.“See what you can do about tying up these people. You can help him, Sheila. And, you,” he turned his attention to where Rosemary Frazer Knight was sitting crouched in an unhappy heap on the floor nursing her damaged wrist, “see if your phone’s still working and, if it is, let your husband know you’re okay.”
Although his voice was calm, John was finding it almost impossible to keep his anger in check. In spite of himself, he was aware that he was shaking.
When Rosemary made no effort to lift the phone, Sheila finished tying a tight knot in the rope she had twisted round O’Brien’s arms and moved forward to take the mobile herself.
“Hugh Frazer Knight?” she said, her voice cool and sweet. “Your wife is okay. We’ve all just been rescued, so don’t worry.” She paused and looked at John for directions. “What about sending for the police –?”
“It’s okay,” John cut in, his voice slowing down with effort as the adrenalin began to drain out of him. “I’ve already phoned the police and told them where you all are. They should be arriving any time now.”
The relief, to Sheila, was enormous. She was becoming less and less sure of how long John could go on controlling these people with one gun.
She felt her head growing light. She wondered how much longer she could stand up.
John, who was just as unsure about himself, felt his legs growing steadily weaker. He couldn’t stand here much longer holding this heavy gun and keeping alert. And supposing the guards from the front of the building heard something or came to check that everything was okay?
It was with great thankfulness that he heard at last the noise of sirens and approaching cars and, minutes later, the thud of heavy feet on the staircase.
The rescue party had arrived.
As the first policeman burst through the door, Sheila’s head finally gave up and she collapsed in a heap at his feet.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Sheila returned to consciousness to find herself in a hospital bed. It took a few moments for her to orientate herself.
She struggled to sit up and a nurse came hurrying over.
“Just take it easy, pet,” she said. “Don’t try to get up yet.”
Sheila looked around her.
She was in a private room with an open door through which the nurse had been able to keep an eye on her movements. It was painted in shades of yellow and grey, with pretty matching curtains and duvet cover. There was a small cabinet beside the bed with a yellow shaded lamp and a switch on a long lead.
Sheila looked at the nurse, a youngish woman with small neat features and light brown hair.
“Why am I here?” Sheila asked. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”
“Mr. Delmara insisted,” the little nurse said. “He’s paying for the private room, you see, and he insisted that you should be kept over night and have a thorough check-up.”
“This is all wrong,” said Sheila vigorously. “The beds must all be needed for people who are actually ill. All I did was faint. Where is Mr. Delmara? Let me talk to him.”
“He’s having a cup of coffee in the canteen. He wanted me to let him know when you recovered enough to talk.”
“Then could you let him know now, please?” Sheila urged. “I really don’t want to stay here tonight. It’s so unnecessary.”
“I’ll see if someone can get hold of him,” the little nurse promised. She left the room with a swish of starched skirts.
Sheila lay back and closed her eyes. To her surprise, her head had started swimming again.
Francis came into the room with his usual controlled elegance.
“Well, beautiful, so you’re with us again?”
“Francis, why on earth am I here? I’m perfectly all right.”
“Sheila, beautiful, I just need to be sure. You were found in a collapsed heap by the policemen who rescued you all, and carried out on a stretcher. You’ve been through a traumatic experience. I want to be sure there’s nothing seriously wrong.”
“Thank you for your concern, Francis,” said Sheila dryly, “but I wasn’t hurt. I just made a fool of myself by fainting. And now I want to go home if you wouldn’t mind cancelling your arrangements for me. Kind of you, but unnecessary.”
“Well, good,” said Francis, unperturbed. “But I really think you should stay for the rest of the night, now you’re here. It’s after half three in the morning, you realise.”
Sheila hadn’t noticed it was so late.
“Tomorrow, if the doctor gives you a clean bill of health, go by all means. But I have to protect the assets of Delmara Fashions, my dear.”
Sheila suddenly felt herself shaking violently.
Perhaps she was less fit to move than she had assumed. With the shuddering came further memory. Some of the events of the last few hours returned to her in vivid detail.
Involuntarily she closed her eyes and began to shake again.
Francis, watching her carefully, smiled wryly.
“So – will you stay?”
“Francis, tell me about it,” Sheila burst out suddenly. “People have been hurt, haven’t they? Pat? That woman, Mrs. Knight? That other man, Gavin something? Please tell me!”
Francis looked at her gravely.
“Pat is quite badly injured. He has a brok
en leg and some broken ribs. He also hurt his head which may be the most serious part of it. But he’ll recover and, if the head injury isn’t bad, he’ll be back to normal eventually. But, yes, that young solicitor Gavin Phillips is dead. And two of the security men are in Intensive Care but out of danger, they say. No-one else, as far as I know.
Rosemary Frazer Knight is fine. Suffering from shock, a minor burn and some bruising, that’s all. Her husband took her home as soon as she had been treated. The gang have all been arrested. O’Brien and his men, I’m told. I don’t really know much more than that.”
Sheila was silent for a moment, assimilating what he had told her. Her thoughts raced from Mrs. Knight to Gavin Phillips whom she had never met, to Pat, and back again. And where was John? Suddenly, as the name O’Brien struck a cord, she remembered the letter in Roisin Boyd Cassidy’s box.
“.… dealing with Knight’s supermarkets … sometime in Jan …”
“Oh, no!” Sheila whispered. “Oh, no!”
To Delmara, it seemed as if she was reacting to what he had told her.
“Go to sleep, now, if you can,” he said gently. “Don’t ask any more questions tonight. You’ll hear all the details tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will have to talk to the police,” Sheila said. She looked whiter than ever. Delmara wondered for a moment if she was about to faint again. “There’s something I’ll have to tell them. Can you let someone know that, Francis, please? But not tonight. Not tonight.”
She shuddered again.
“I’ll ask the nurse if you can have a sedative,” Francis said. He was looking worried. “You can see for yourself that this has affected you badly. You need a good sleep and a chance to recover in peace.”
But long after Delmara had gone, Sheila lay awake, tossing and turning in spite of the sleeping pill.
The scenes of that evening were imprinted on her mind and came back constantly, one after the other, highlighted and stark.
But over and above everything else was the memory of Mrs. Boyd Cassidy, so old, so frail, so kind, believing she could trust Sheila because of her memories of the past, yet tied up in such horrific criminal activity.
No-one was above the law. No-one could be excused for taking part in such actions.
But Mrs. Boyd Cassidy ...
If Sheila told the authorities what she knew ...
But would it even be evidence?
Was it something they could take to court? Sheila didn’t know.
The more she thought of it, the flimsier it seemed.
She felt trapped.
She needed badly, for her own peace of mind, to do everything she could to prevent a repetition of last night. If anything she knew could help, then she must tell someone.
She saw again Pat Fitzwilliam lying on the ground, white faced and unconscious.
Then she thought again of the old lady, so kind and trusting. It was impossible that she could be involved in such acts as this.
But what else was she to believe?
At last, at dawn, pure physical exhaustion took its toll and Sheila drifted off into an uneasy sleep.
The rattle of the nurse’s trolley coming round with early morning tea finally woke her.
A heavy weight descended on her heart before her eyes were open.
It was while sipping her morning tea, propped up against pillows, that Sheila made her decision.
This information that she had couldn’t be held back – the letter in Mrs. Boyd Cassidy’s box.
She had read the letter and made a mental note of the contents, but then, why, she could not now understand, had she done nothing about it?
She hadn’t taken it seriously enough.
She had gone almost at once to New York and when she had come home it had been nearly Christmas, and the knowledge that she held had passed almost entirely from her mind.
Now, realising this, she felt angry at her own self-centredness.
She must give the police the potentially valuable information which she held. She saw now that she was very much to blame for not having done this long ago.
The decision lifted a weight from Sheila’s conscience.
She lay back and dredged her memory to ensure that it was accurate.
“Nurse,” she asked as the breakfast trolley reached her room and the nurse came in to pull the table across her bed, “can I talk to someone from the police? Is there anyone still about?”
“Oh, there’s always policemen about in this hospital!” answered the little nurse. “I’ll see what I can do for you, love. If I can get hold of one, I’ll send him along. Porridge or cornflakes?”
“Porridge, please,” said Sheila who had a healthy appetite this morning. “Thank you, nurse.”
Presently she heard a clomping of feet and a big, heavily-built policeman looked round the door and came in.
“Miss Sheila Doherty?” he inquired. Sheila nodded, hastily finishing her mouthful of porridge. “I’m Constable William Kirk. I’m told you’re ready to speak to the police, to make a statement about last night?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, fire ahead,” said the policeman, settling himself on the straight-backed chair by Sheila’s bed and taking out a notebook and pen.
“But I’m afraid it doesn’t really amount to much.”
“We’ll be able to tell that when we know what it is,” said Constable Kirk unsmilingly. “Go ahead, Miss Doherty. First tell us about last night.”
Sheila spoke in a nervous rush. She went through the events both at the Magnifico and at the farmhouse, with the constable occasionally asking questions. Then she went on quickly, before she could change her mind,
“About six months ago, I was down in Dublin and I was introduced to a lady called Mrs. Boyd Cassidy. I was told she had criminal – drug – connections. I’ve no way of knowing if that was true. No evidence to produce against her. In any case, she’s living down there out of your jurisdiction. But one evening when I was in her house I saw a letter, in a locked box in her private room, written to her by someone called O’Brien, saying that they intended to deal with Knight’s supermarkets on January 21.
That’s all, really. I don’t know if it’s any help. I would have told someone sooner but I wasn’t sure what it meant and I thought you wouldn’t find it much use. But after last night, I suppose it’s clear enough now and I wanted to tell you anything that might help at all.”
As she finished speaking, another shudder ran over her and she lay back against the pillows with closed eyes.
“Thank you, Miss Doherty,” said the policeman briskly. “This may turn out to be very useful information or it may not. But you were quite right to tell us. You can’t remember any other details about this letter?”
“No, I’m sorry, it was very short. I think it said they would be in touch about a meeting for planning soon. That was it. Oh, yes, there was an address, 3a Thomas Street, they could use as a new safe house.”
Constable Kirk closed his notebook and stood up.
“Someone else may want to speak to you about this, Miss Doherty. But in any case, thanks again. I’ll head on, then. The sooner this can be acted on, the better.”
He made a good-bye gesture with his hand and went briskly through the door.
Sheila felt glad he had gone.
She was relieved to have passed on her responsibility. As she lay back against the pillows and drifted off to sleep again, ironically her last thought was a thankful relief that she had probably said nothing which could really be acted on which could hurt Roisin Boyd Cassidy. Such a vague letter could, after all, mean anything.
As she sank deeper into sleep, Constable Kirk’s information began its journey up the line until at about two o’clock that afternoon it reached someone of sufficient seniority to act upon it and to contact his opposite number in the Gardai.
A decision was taken at a very high level that Roisin Boyd Cassidy must be questioned.
But when the very important pol
icemen arrived at Mrs. Boyd Cassidy’s house later that day by appointment, they were greeted by a sobbing Reilly.
“Oh, sir,” Roisin Boyd Cassidy’s confidential maid of three decades wailed out. “Oh, sir. She’s gone. I don’t know if she took anything or what. She told me she wasn’t prepared to have to speak to you. She went up for her afternoon nap two hours ago and when I went in to see if she was ready to get up, I thought at first she was sleeping peacefully, but when I touched her hand it was so cold! She’s gone!”
Roisin Boyd Cassidy had taken her own way out rather than allow the consequences of her activities to catch up with her.
She had died painlessly, the doctor reported, from an overdose of tranquilisers.
She had broken the rules for the last time.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Phil slept late that morning.
She was woken by a thunderous knocking on the door of the flat.
Jumping out of bed, still half dazed with sleep, she dragged on her jeans and stumbled out into the passage barefoot to open it.
“Who’s there?” she called in a loud voice. “What’s wrong?”
“Open up!” came a response from outside the flat. “This is the
police!”
Phil fumbled at the catch of the door and managed to release it. At once the door was pushed wide, nearly knocking her to the ground, and several large men in uniform rushed past her. Breathless, Phil pulled herself together and tried to speak.
“What’s going on? Who are you?” she managed at last.
The men had spread out and were searching the flat, throwing open doors, pulling the clothes off the bed. Phil could hear them in the kitchen pulling open cupboards and drawers, and in the living room where they seemed to be pushing the furniture about and wreaking havoc.
“PSNI,” said one of the men briefly to Phil. He was tall and thin with a sandy moustache.
Half crouched by the wide open door, clinging to it for support, Phil stared at him, her eyes big with both terror and anger.
Anger triumphed sufficiently to make her snap out “Where’s your search warrant? What right have you to charge in here?”
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