Running Blind / The Freedom Trap

by Desmond Bagley

  I nearly lost my temper but kept my voice even. ‘Maybe it’s true. Maybe it’s because your Irish girls can’t find good husbands at home so they have to cross the Irish sea,’ I said coolly.

  Lynch’s face darkened and his hand tightened on his glass. As he straightened up from leaning on the counter O’Donovan said sharply, ‘Seamas, that’s enough, now. You’ve got as good as you’ve given, which does not happen too often, so put your glass back in your mouth or on to the counter. I’ll have no breakages in my house unless it’s your head with a bottle I’ll be holding.’

  Lynch sneered at me and turned his back. O’Donovan said, not very apologetically, ‘You’ll understand the English are not well liked hereabouts.’

  I nodded. ‘And with good reason, from some of the things I’ve heard. As it happens, I’m not English—I’m Australian.’

  O’Donovan’s face lightened. ‘Are you, now? I ought to have known from your pleasant ways and your good manners in the face, of provocation. That’s a great country—it is, indeed.’

  I finished my drink as I saw Alison giving me a come-hither look. O’Donovan watched approvingly as I sank the full Irish measure in four seconds flat. I put down the empty glass. ‘It’s been nice talking to you, Mr O’Donovan,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back.’

  ‘And you’ll be welcome,’ he said.

  I went to join Alison at the door. As I passed Lynch he stuck his foot out backwards but I neatly evaded it and carried on. I wasn’t looking for a fight. Alison opened the door and went outside. I was about to follow her but stood aside as a big man entered. He walked past me and then paused uncertainly.

  I ran for it. It was Taafe, and while his thought processes might have been slow they hadn’t stopped altogether. While he was making up his minuscule mind about what action to take I dashed outside and grabbed Alison’s arm. ‘Run for the car!’ I said urgently. ‘We’ve found trouble.’

  What I liked about Alison was her quick comprehension. She wasted no time insisting on having an explanation, but immediately took to her heels and ran. She must have been in superb physical condition because she could cover the ground faster than I, and within a hundred yards she was ten yards ahead.

  Behind I heard boots thumping the ground as someone chased behind and I reckoned the someone was Taafe. It was now dusk and the light was ebbing from the western sky which is why I didn’t see the fishing net spread out to dry about twenty yards from where we had left the car. I got my feet tangled in the netting and pitched forward to the ground.

  That made it easy for Taafe. I heard the crunch of his boots as he ran up, and then the rasp of the engine as Alison started the car. The next thing I knew was Taafe had put the boot into me good and solid. He had boots like a skinhead, probably steel-tipped, and one of them crunched into my side with terrifying force. He made no sound apart from a heavy breathing.

  I rolled over, desperately trying to free my feet, and his foot whistled past my head so closely that I felt the draught. If he kicked me in the head it would be lights-out for Stannard—maybe permanently. The engine of the car roared and then we were illuminated as Alison switched on the headlights.

  I looked up and saw Taafe loom over me, his teeth drawn back over his lips in a snarl as he manoeuvred for another kick. I rolled frantically and saw a stab of light from the direction of the car, and heard a report as from a dud firecracker. Taafe made a gargling sound in his throat and suddenly collapsed on top of me. He made horrible noises as I heaved him off and then he writhed on the ground clutching his left knee.

  I ripped the netting from my feet and ran to the car. The passenger door was open and Alison was revving the engine impatiently. As I tumbled in she was putting a small pistol into the glove compartment and, before I got the door closed, she was away, swinging the car around and barely avoiding Taafe who still wriggled on the ground.

  I gasped, ‘Where did you shoot him?’

  ‘In the kneecap,’ she said. Her voice was as steady and cool as though she was discussing a shot on the target range. ‘It seemed the best thing to do. He was going to kill you.’

  I turned and looked back. Although it was dark I could see someone bending over Taafe. It was someone tall and lean and it could very well have been Seamas Lynch.

  IV

  ‘Wheeler,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘What can you tell me about him?’

  It was next morning and we were having breakfast in my bedroom. If the management thought this an irregular procedure they showed no sign of it, and, in view of the previous evening’s brouhaha, I didn’t feel like being pinned down to a static and open position in the public dining room.

  She spread marmalade on toast. ‘MP for Harlingsdon East, very wealthy, not too popular with fellow Commons members, so I understand.’

  ‘And a foreigner?’

  She wrinkled her brow. ‘I believe he is. But he must have arrived in England a long time ago. He’ll be naturalized, of course.’

  ‘Can a foreign-born person become an MP?’

  ‘Oh, yes; there have been quite a few,’ Alison said indistinctly past the toast

  ‘An American President must be American born,’ I said. ‘What about an English Prime Minister?’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any rule about it,’ she said. ‘We’d have to look it up in Erskine May.’

  ‘What’s his standing? In politics, I mean? Is he a Minister or anything like that?’

  ‘He’s a very vociferous back-bencher.’

  I snapped my fingers. ‘That’s where I saw his name before. He was blowing off steam after Slade and I escaped. Going on about “gangsters in our English streets”. I read about him in the Sunday Times.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alison. ‘He made quite a noise about it in the House. The PM put him down quite firmly.’

  I said, ‘If what I’m thinking is correct then he’s got a hell of a nerve. Try this on for size. Mackintosh sees Wheeler and he’s hit by a car—a hit-and-run car. I take a notebook from Jones which mentioned Clonglass. In Clonglass we run across Wheeler; we also ran into Taafe—and too bloody hard, if I might say so—and I know that Taafe is one of the Scarperers. Wouldn’t you think it would be too much of a coincidence for Wheeler not to be implicated with the Scarperers?’

  Alison buttered another piece of toast; the girl had a healthy appetite. ‘I’d say he’s in it up to his neck,’ she said concisely. She paused. ‘What I don’t understand is why Taafe didn’t shout; he didn’t make a sound even when I shot him.’

  ‘I don’t think he can shout,’ I said. ‘I think he’s dumb. I’ve never heard him speak. Let me have a look at that pistol of yours.’

  She leaned over, picked up her bag, and produced the pistol. It was a very natty little weapon, only .22 in calibre and with a total length of less than four inches—hardly the gun for accurate shooting in uncertain light at any range over twenty feet. I said, ‘Did you intend to hit Taafe in the kneecap?’

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘He had one foot off the ground but even then these bullets are so small that if I’d hit him anywhere else it wouldn’t bring him down. I could have gone for a head shot, of course, but I didn’t want to kill him.’

  I looked at her with respect. As I had thought, Mackintosh gathered around him people with talents. ‘So you did intend to hit him where you did.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, and put the ridiculous little gun away.

  I said, ‘Let’s get back to Wheeler. What kind of a foreigner is he? Or was he? Where did he come from?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t taken much interest in him. But the details ought to be in Who’s Who.’

  ‘I’m thinking of Slade,’ I said. ‘He was taken out of the house near Limerick four days ago. That yacht is very convenient. If it has been anchored at Clonglass for more than four days and Wheeler decides to take off on a Baltic cruise this summer then there’ll be a bloody good chance that Slade is on board. It’s just a hypothesis, mind you.’

  ‘I like it.’
>
  ‘I’ve got a few more. What about this one? Let’s say there’s a man called X who is either a Russian or favours the Russian philosophy; and let’s say he devotes his time to springing Russian spies from British gaols. He’d need assistance and where would he get it?’ Alison opened her mouth to answer but I ploughed on. ‘There’s a fair amount of anti-British feeling in Ireland, especially now that Northern Ireland has blown up, and the IRA is still an active force. I detected a bit of that ill feeling last night.’

  ‘Was that the man you were talking to at the bar?’

  ‘He was Seamas Lynch and he seemed to hate my guts on principle. What’s more, he works for Wheeler and I think I saw him helping Taafe when we left last night. But I digress. Let’s say Mr X organizes the Scarperers from elements of the IRA. He has the money to get it started but from then on it’s self-financing because the Scarperers don’t confine their attention to spies. The IRA need the money and it’s a better way of getting it than holding up banks, so they’re happy. Mr X is also happy because the IRA are doing a good job for him. How does that strike you?’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Mr X being Wheeler?’ She shook her head sadly. ‘Self-made millionaires aren’t usually enthusiastic communists.’

  ‘How did he make his money?’

  ‘I think he made his first fortune in the property boom of the 1950s and early ‘60s. Then he got into the property market in the United States and made another fortune. Time had a front cover article about him; they called him “Wheeler-Dealer.” Since then he’s diversified into nearly everything you can think of that makes money.’

  ‘And he still has time to be a Member of Parliament! He’s a busy little man.’

  ‘Too busy to be a Russian spy,’ said Alison.

  ‘Maybe.’ I had my own reservations about that. I said, ‘I’d like to know how Mackintosh is getting on. Will you telephone?’

  ‘I was going to,’ she said. ‘I think we ought to get rid of the car. It will have been seen at Clonglass.’ She hesitated. ‘I’ll go out and get another. I don’t think you ought to walk the streets of Galway just now.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘They’re not likely to know much about me yet,’ she said. ‘We weren’t conspicuously together last night.’

  ‘Providing Sean O’Donovan has kept his mouth shut,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll have to chance it,’ she said, and picked up the telephone.

  She put a call through to London and talked to someone at the hospital. Her words were brief and she did more listening than talking but I knew what was happening by the expression of her face. She put down the handset and said bleakly, ‘Still no change. He’s fighting hard—but he would.’

  I lit a cigarette. ‘Have you known him long?’

  ‘All my life,’ she said. ‘He’s my father.’

  V

  That led to an argument. My immediate reaction was to say that I’d get on with the job myself while she went back to London.

  ‘Damn it!’ I said. ‘You ought to be there. You’ll never forgive yourself if he dies in your absence.’

  ‘And he’d never forgive me if Slade gets away because I’m too damned sentimental,’ she said. ‘You don’t know my father very well, Owen, if you think he’d want that. He’s a hard man.’

  ‘And you’re a hard woman,’ I said. ‘A chip off the old block.’

  She said tautly, ‘An unnatural daughter?’

  ‘I think you ought to go back,’ I said stubbornly.

  ‘And I’m staying,’ she said, equally stubbornly. ‘I have two jobs to do here. One is to help you to get Slade. You can’t run up against this crowd by yourself.’

  ‘And the other?’

  ‘To stop you getting yourself killed, you damned fool!’

  I was turning that over in my mind while she opened her suitcase and impatiently ripped open a brown-paper parcel, revealing more money than I’ve seen anywhere outside a bank. For a moment that diverted me. ‘How much have you got there, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Five thousand pounds,’ she said, and tossed me a bundle of fivers. ‘There’s five hundred. We might get separated and you’ll need the money.’

  I said drily, ‘Her Majesty’s Treasury is becoming unreasonably reckless. Do I sign a receipt?’

  ‘I’m going’to find out what I can about Wheeler,’ she said. ‘Don’t move out of this room.’

  She stuffed the rest of the money into one of those oversized bags women carry and stormed out of the room before I could say another word. I sat down bonelessly on the bed and looked at the bundle of notes, one hundred sheets thick, and the only thought in my head was the irrelevancy that she had called me by my given name for the first time.

  She was away for two hours and came back with news—Wheeler’s yacht was on the move, heading south. She didn’t know if Wheeler was on board or not.

  She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket, a printed page from a book. ‘I bought an old copy of Who’s Who. It was a bit too big to lug around so I tore out the relevant page.’

  She passed it to me and pointed out the paragraph. Charles George Wheeler, aged 46, was born in Argyrokastro, Albania. Albania! He was a Member of Parliament with three honorary doctorates, a member of this, an associate of that, a fellow of the other. A flat in London, a country house in Herefordshire; clubs so-and-so and such-and-such—my eye skipped down the page until I was suddenly arrested by an entry—Interests—penal reform, for God’s sake!

  I said, ‘How does he come by the name of Charles George Wheeler?’

  ‘He probably changed it by deed poll.’

  ‘Do you know when he arrived in England from Albania?’

  ‘I know nothing about him,’ said Alison. ‘I’ve had no occasion to study him.’

  ‘And his yacht has gone south. I’d have thought he’d have gone north—to the Baltic.’

  ‘You’re still assuming that Slade is aboard.’

  ‘I have to,’ I said grimly.

  Alison frowned. ‘He might be going to the Mediterranean. If so, he’ll refuel somewhere in the south, perhaps Cork. I have a friend in Cork: an old lady—an honorary aunt. We can fly to Cork from Shannon.’

  ‘There’ll be more coppers than tourists at Shannon Airport,’ I said. ‘I can’t risk it.’

  ‘Airports are big places. I can get you through,’ Alison said confidently.

  ‘And how will you account for me to your old aunt?’

  Alison smiled. ‘I could always twist Maeve O’Sullivan around my little finger.’

  VI

  We sneaked into Shannon Airport quite easily and unobtrusively. It seemed to me that their security was lousy, but the places are so big and the perimeters so extensive that to make them leakproof would swallow all the profits. Within fifteen minutes, after a bit of radio natter, we were in the air heading for Cork while I watched Alison’s expert handling of the controls. She flew the plane—a Piper Apache—like she did everything else—with an economy of movement and a total lack of showmanship. I wondered what it was like to have Mackintosh as a father. Some girls might have found it a traumatic experience.

  Maeve O’Sullivan lived in Glanmire on the outskirts of Cork. She was very old, but still quick and sharp-eyed and shrewd as the proverbial barrel-load of monkeys. She crowed with delight as she saw Alison and gave me a glance which stripped me to the bone in two seconds. ‘You’ve been away too long, Alison Mackintosh.’

  Alison smiled. ‘Smith,’ she said.

  ‘And so it is—so it is. A sassenach name for a Celt, more’s the pity.’

  ‘This is Owen Stannard,’ said Alison. ‘He’s working for my father.’

  The wise old eyes regarded me with renewed interest. ‘Is he, now? And what devil’s business is that young rip up to now?’

  The idea of a man as hard-bitten as Mackintosh being referred to as a young rip made me want to smile, but I manfully repressed it. Alison gave me a warning glance. ‘Nothing that should concern you,’ she sa
id tartly. ‘He sends you his love.’ I mentally agreed with her that it would not be a kindness to tell the old lady of his condition.

  ‘You’re just in time for your tea,’ said Mrs O’Sullivan, and went off in a bustle into the kitchen with Alison close behind her. I sat down in a big armchair which swallowed me in comfort, and looked at my watch. It was six-thirty—early evening—less than twenty-four hours had passed since Alison had punctured Taafe in the kneecap.

  ‘Tea’ proved to be an enormous meal with many dishes thrust upon us, interspersed with brisk and depreciatory comments on the poor appetites of young folk these days. When I called the old lady Mrs O’Sullivan she laughed and said, ‘You call me by my name, young man, and I’ll feel easier,’ so I called her Maeve, but Alison called her Aunt Maeve.

  ‘There’s something I must tell you, Aunt Maeve,’ said Alison. ‘Owen, here, is wanted by the garda , so no one must know he’s here.’

  ‘The garda, is it?’ cried Maeve. ‘It’ll not be dishonest, I know; but is this Alec’s doing?’

  ‘In a way,’ said Alison. ‘It is important.’

  ‘I’ve held my tongue about more things than you’ve ever spoken in your life, girl,’ said Maeve. ‘You don’t know what it was like here in the old days, and now the crazy men are at it again in the North.’ She looked up with sharp black-button eyes. ‘It’s nothing to do with that, is it, now?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Nothing to do with Ireland at all, really.’

  ‘Then I’ll keep my peace,’ she said. ‘You are welcome in this house, Owen Stannard.’

  After tea we washed up and Maeve said, ‘I’m an old woman and I’m wanting my bed. Make yourselves easy, the pair of you.’

  ‘I’d like to use the telephone,’ said Alison.

  ‘It’s there when you want it. Put your sixpences in the box—I’m saving up for my old age.’ Maeve shouted with laughter.