“What about the compound? Are we taking it?”
“We’ll see.”
Shane let out a snort of impatience. “What do you want me to do with the two they brought in?”
“Bugger me, how is it these country mogs think it’s still business as usual? It boggles the mind. Who do we have?”
Sullivan glanced at some pages on the desk.
“An elderly woman, Margaret Keenan, for suspected murder, and a Catholic priest, James Ryan, brought in for it looks like accessory to murder.” He looked at his boss.
“Process the old woman through Mengert’s bunch and show the good father the working end of a shovel.”
“Will the Vatican give us a hard time?”
“How will they ever know? Go ahead and get it done. No sense in wasting a day’s food on her.”
Sullivan gathered up his papers.
“Something on your mind, Shane?”
“No. No, it’s just…this part of…the new restructuring is…challenging.”
“So do it quickly then.”
CHAPTER TWO
John walked swiftly to the Royal Oak public house on High Street. It was midday and he didn’t expect to see much in the way of clientele even though the Crisis seemed to have significantly altered standard drinking hours in Wales. He’d slept in a ditch half way between Fishguard and Goodwick—a mile from where the barge had dropped him off three days earlier.
Three days in Wales and so far no sign of Gavin. With the dire warnings of the barge pilot ringing in his ears about not being allowed to return to Ireland in his lifetime, John was feeling his first twinges of doubt since he’d slipped out of the front gate at the compound.
His mother must be going out of her mind. And Mike? It wouldn’t matter if John brought Gavin back gift-wrapped with an apple in his mouth. Mike would hug the daylights out of John—just before he throttled him. Probably Gavin too. John grinned. Thinking of Mike and his mother made him feel a little better, until he felt the crushing guilt of what he knew his leaving had caused them.
Where was the bastard? The note Gavin left him had clearly said he was going to Fishguard. John would have loved to know why since as far as he could make out, Fishguard was a festering eyesore with a growing infection on the side.
Protected from waves generated by the prevailing westerly winds, Fishguard Bay was placid and calm with most of its forty odd fishing boats either moored close to the shore or not far off. It was easy to see the ban on travel to Ireland was killing the fishing trade. What was also clear from the moment John stepped into the village was the sickness and poverty.
Before the plague, this town had probably supported itself pretty comfortably during the Crisis. If you had fish and decent land behind you for grazing and farming, what more did you need?
John stood outside the pub and knocked on the window. Today, the man was waiting for him. He wrenched the door open and John slid through the gap. The arrangement wasn’t great and it wasn’t easy, but it covered the necessities. For nearly a day of cleaning the back bogs and what used to be the kitchen, John was given two meals—both fish. And he felt lucky to have them. He’d hoped for sleeping accommodations too but the proprietor was an untrusting man. He lived in the pub with his mother, his wife and two small children.
John wasn’t even sure that the pub belonged to him. After the bomb, back in Ireland where John came from, people moved out and new people moved into vacant spaces and claimed as their own. There were no landlords anymore and even if there were, what would they be paid? Money had become worthless within days of the bright flash over the Irish Sea.
Mr. Quig was a middle-aged man not given to idle chat or smiles. John often heard Quig’s children while he worked but had never seen them. The work wasn’t pleasant but he knew it would sustain him while he spent his evenings searching for Gavin.
The first day he arrived, after walking the mile from Goodwick where the barge left him, he was spotted by a group of boys who chased him until he disappeared in the winding streets of the fishing village. There was no doubt in John’s mind they meant to relieve him of his knapsack and there was no real assurance they wouldn’t kill him while they were at it. Especially since John wasn’t comfortable just handing over his stuff. He hadn’t seen that gang of boys since then but made a point to carefully hide his knapsack in the woods between Goodwick and Fishguard when he travelled.
There was a train alongside the pathway that had literally been stopped in its tracks at the moment four years ago when the EMP exploded and stopped time for the Welsh. The passenger cars had long been stripped clean of anything of use or value. Weeds grew between the track rails and out of the windows. John considered stashing his bag there but decided the place was too obvious. Instead he opted for branches in the trees or wedged the bag into the thick tangle of rhododendron hedges that lined the road.
Quig jerked his head to indicate that John was to go to the kitchen but he needn’t have bothered. John knew the drill. He walked past the bar—a cheap formica and wood construction that had bar stools jammed up to it, many of them broken. Guess he’s not too worried about lawsuits, John thought as he went to the kitchen. There wasn’t running water, of course, but rather than make a fire to heat up the water he needed, Quig insisted John wash the plates and glasses with cold water. With the disease that was on their doorstep, it amazed John that the man didn’t see a problem with that. Worse, because John knew the dishes and pans weren’t being cleaned properly, he was at risk himself for getting sick since all his meals were taken there. It didn’t matter. In the end, he was always too hungry not to eat.
After cleaning the pots and pans in the kitchen—and wondering how Quig’s patrons paid him for the food he obviously cooked for them—John took his fish sandwich out into the back alley to eat. Quig had already let a few people into the bar. There was no point in savoring his lunch. He had too much work to do. He wolfed it down and emerged from the alleyway.
His plan so far had been to create a grid that allowed him to systematically question at least one person a day from each quadrant. Gavin had red hair and while that wasn’t that unusual in Wales, it was something to start with.
John walked down the main street of Fishguard which was what he used to reconnoiter the town. To the west and toward the harbor, he’d leave for last. It looked to be more residential to the east. John took the first street on his right and jogged until he came to a row of fishing cabins whose paint was long peeled from them. Some of the cabins had their windows broken out and the weeds were thick and tall around them.
A young man stood outside one of the houses, urinating against the side of it. John waited until he was done and then made a deliberate noise to announce himself. The man whirled around.
“Oy, ye gave me a fright!” he said. He had an Irish accent which wasn’t much of a surprise this close to Ireland.
John had decided to mask the fact that he was American. He needed to blend in during this fact-finding mission.
“Oy, yourself,” John said, giving a wave and approaching him. “I’ve lost me mate and was wondering if you’d seen him?”
The man, probably not long out of his teens himself, frowned and watched John approach with unconcealed suspicion.
“Whut’s he look like?” the man asked.
“Tall, Irish, red hair.”
“Sure, that’s all of us!” the man said grinning and John laughed too although neither he nor the young man were tall or had red hair.
“What part of Ireland are ye from?” the man asked.
“Me friend is from the coast,” John lied. “But I have reason to believe he’s here in Fishguard.”
“A fisherman, is he?”
Okay this is getting tiresome.
“Have ye seen anyone sounds like him, I wonder?” John said, forcing his voice to stay friendly.
“Naw. Sorry, boyo.”
“No worries. If you do see someone like that, could you tell ‘im John’s looking for hi
m?”
“Would that be you, then?”
“It would.”
John waved and retreated. He knew the man was still standing there, watching him leave. That in itself wasn’t unusual. Everybody was suspicious of everybody these days. He had just enough time to talk to one more person before he needed to get back to the pub. He’d prefer it to be someone older—and female, ideally, but they tended to stay hidden indoors. He trotted further down the street until he saw a woman sitting on a porch. She was wrapped in a blanket and held a metal water bottle in her hand. It seemed so strange to see evidence of athletic centers nowadays. The water bottle had been common a few years back—hikers and bikers had them mostly. To see it now looked as out of place as a pig pushing a shopping cart.
“Excuse me, Missus,” John called to the woman, careful not to approach too closely or give any hint that he might be thinking of climbing the stairs.
“Jeremy!” the old woman shrieked in response. John stopped, his eyes on the door to the cottage behind her. Unless Jeremy was an Olympic track star, John had plenty of distance between them to spring safely away if he needed to. He held up his hands.
“I just wanted to ask if you’d seen someone, ma’am,” he said.
“Feck me, you a Yank?”
Crap. He’d forgotten to fake an Irish accent.
“He’s a good friend of mine, missing. Tall, red hair…”
The door behind the woman swung open and an old man came to stand next to the woman.
“What’s this?” the old man said.
“Lad says he’s looking for his friend. He’s American.”
“American?” The old man turned to scrutinize John. “I don’t believe it.”
“Say something, boy,” the woman said to John, “in your American words, like.”
“I’m looking for my friend,” John said tiredly. It was starting to seem clear that these two didn’t know anything. But at least he was pretty sure he could outrun the old geezer if he had to.
“Feck me, you’re right. What the hell’s an American doing in Fishguard?” the old man said, settling onto the top stair of the porch as if ready to watch his favorite TV program.
“Well, I’m looking for my friend,” John said patiently. “Have you seen anyone new in town? Tall with red hair? His name’s Gavin Donovan.”
“Is he American, too?”
“No sir.”
“Why would he be here in Fishguard?”
“I don’t really know except his grandfather lives here. Maybe you know him? Archie Kelley?”
“Archie Kelley you say?”
“Yes sir.”
“Feck me, ye hear how he talks? Just like those chaps on fecking CSI Miami.”
Before John could ask his question again, the old woman began violently coughing and the old man jumped up to thump her on the back. Did she have the sickness? There weren’t many people on the streets of Fishguard and some mornings when John came to the pub he’d see a body laying on the sidewalk. When he came out at midday it was always gone. He took that as a good sign. It was when people stopped collecting the dead that he figured things were going south pretty fast.
“I’m sorry you’re sick, ma’am,” John said. “Is it…the illness everyone’s talking about?”
“Aye,” the old man said, holding the woman’s bottle and rubbing her back. “Doc says she’s got a fifty-fifty chance of beating it. Plenty of sunshine and liquids he says, didn’t he, Alice?”
The woman’s coughing finally subsided and she beckoned John to approach them. He stood at the foot of the steps. He knew he needed to get back to the pub if he wanted to keep his arrangement, but if either of these two knew Archie or had heard of Archie’s grandson Gavin being in the area, he needed to stay and hear it.
“Is this Archie fella Welsh, do ye ken, lad?”
“No, ma’am. He’s Irish. We heard he was living in Fishguard.”
“Sorry, lad,” the old man said, rearranging the blanket over the woman’s knees. “We don’t know your friend or his grandfather. We don’t get out much.” He looked past John as if he could see into the heart of the little fishing village. “It’s dangerous now and people are afraid.”
The old woman cackled abruptly. “Only now it’s me they’re afraid of. Afraid of catching what I got.”
“I’m sorry,” John said. “Can you tell me where the doctor is you saw?” It occurred to John that with the sickness, there must be a decent infrastructure of healthcare set up. It might not be better than wandering around asking random people, but on the other hand, it couldn’t hurt.
The old man pointed inland as if John could see the clinic from there. “It’s in the main town,” he said.
John frowned. “I thought this was the main town.”
“No, lad, this is Lower Fishguard.”
“The original village,” the old lady rasped.
“It’s a right jog over yonder hill but you look a strapping lad. You’ll take it without stretching your leg.”
“It took us near the whole day,” the woman said. “And then it was for nothing.”
“I imagine the clinic was pretty full?” John said. If the streets are averaging a body a day, the clinic was bound to be stuffed to the rafters with sick people.
“Aye,” the old man said sadly. “And no medicine nor any knowledge of how to stop it or why.” He shook his head.
John thanked them for their time and hurried back to the pub. He wasn’t sure he’d gotten any helpful information. But he went back to work with a heart heavier than when he’d begun.
*****
Later that evening, John left the pub, exhausted and already cold. It was a good mile hike to where he’d hidden his pack. At one point he was tempted to go back to the old couple to see if they’d put him up for a night or two. He figured he could find something to do for them in trade. On the other hand, he couldn’t help thinking about what the old man said about some people getting the sickness and others not and nobody knew why. Maybe the ditch was the safest place for him.
John didn’t mind the dark because it hid him from anyone who might want to stop him. While he didn’t travel with his valuables, sometimes the frustration of finding a traveler with nothing to steal would prompt a bandit to do worse. It made sense, the stories he’d been told. These were dangerous times.
Quig had been annoyed with John’s late return and, as a result, John’s dinner was smaller than usual so he walked back to his ditch hungry, bracing against the wind that whistled down through the tunnel of trees that led to Goodwick. He’d need a better shelter tonight. It was much colder and the sky had threatened rain all day. As if on cue, he felt the first drops before he was halfway to his backpack. Pushing up his collar to prevent the cold onslaught from pouring down his shirt, John quickened his steps though the bracken and dun-colored underbrush. Rather than go straight to his pack, he always crouched in a nearby bush to listen and wait. In his experience, people who wanted to ambush you didn’t have the patience to be still for long.
Confident that there was no one out in this weather but himself, he walked the rest of the way to where he’d hidden his pack. It was still there. Without realizing he was going to do it, he pulled the gun out of the pack, tucked it in his waistband and slipped the pack onto his shoulder and headed back to Lower Fishguard. Although he’d slept worse in the last four days, he couldn’t shake loose the idea that a warm dry place to rest his head could be had.
He walked back to the old couple’s house. It looked dark and he thought he should be seeing at least the flicker of candles or a lantern. He tried to think of what he could offer the couple in exchange for a night’s lodging.
He knocked on the front door. There seemed to be no activity in this neighborhood and he wondered if the other houses were even inhabited. That wouldn’t surprise him. Life sucked everywhere these days and it was human nature to move on to see if it didn’t suck a little less somewhere else.
“Go away, ye bastard!�
� the old man yelled, his voice wobbling with fear. “I’ve got a gun!”
“It’s only me, sir. The American kid?”
John could hear conversation and footsteps from inside.
“Is that you, lad?” the old man said.
“Yes sir. I was wondering if I could sleep on your porch tonight because of the rain.” Given the old guy’s obvious terror, John didn’t feel like he could ask to come inside.
No answer. John turned to look at the porch. It beat the hell out of the ditch with the one exception that he would be sitting on his pack and anyone could come and relieve him of it. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all. Suddenly the door jerked open and the old man’s face appeared. He looked like he was about to speak but then his eyes went to something behind John and he slammed the door again.
John turned to see three men standing in the drive in front of the porch, no more than twenty yards from him. They’d come in the dark and they’d come silently. That, combined with the old man’s reaction to them, made John drop his backpack at his feet and turn to face them. The gun in his waistband gave him courage.
“There’s sickness in there, boyo,” one of the men said. “Reckon you probably caught it just standing on the porch.” He wasn’t a large man or very young. The only weapon he held in his hand was a cricket bat. The two men with him held rope and an axe.
“What’s it to you?” John said,
The man’s face glittered sweat in the dark. John couldn’t make out his features but he could see the whites of his eyes shifting as the guy looked from him to the door of the house.
“Oy, lads, seems this gobshite wants to take us on!” Now John could see his teeth flashing in the dark.
John looked at all three men, wondering if they would try to rush him. At this distance, he could shoot all three if he had to. An image flashed into his mind of poor old Seamus and how he’d shot three gypsies intent on murdering him and John’s mom—all because the gypsies hadn’t thought he was a threat.
And if this was another world or another time, I’d lift my shirt to show you not to approach, John thought as he watched them take the measure of him. I’d give you a chance to walk away rather than take your chances with the young punk with a gun.
Irish End Games, Books 4-5-6 Page 26