by Stuart Woods
“It doesn’t sound as if there’s a prayer of his doing the Azores race, does it?”
“No,” she said, “not for an ordinary person, but then, Mark’s not ordinary. He was still pretty groggy when I left him, but he was talking about the race. I know this sounds mad given the circumstances, but he just might make it. I think Mark must have the greatest recuperative powers of any human being who ever lived, Jesus Christ only barely excepted. But he has to have something to aim for, something to keep him going. That’s why what you’re doing with the boat is so important. Call him tomorrow, if you can. It’ll boost his spirits.”
For three days it rained steadily, inhibiting what I already considered an impossible task. I talked with Mark twice, and he was full of helpful ideas and suggestions, but I told him that my circumstances made it difficult for me to call every day. I wanted to have progress to report when I talked with him. On the fourth day it stopped raining, and I made better progress. At the end of the week my cold had improved, and I had everything sorted and had made a list of the location of every piece of equipment and where it was to be installed.
The next morning the cold that I had thought was healing had degenerated into something awful. I took to my bunk, and it got worse. Everything went wrong; I couldn’t keep anything down or, for that matter, up. I grew very weak and was obviously running a high temperature. I drifted in and out of sleep, too sick to fix myself much to eat or even to think about going into Cobh for a doctor. Even when I began to come out of it some days later, I was so weak that I couldn’t sit up. It was another couple of days before I could move about without fear of falling, and by the time I felt like thinking about work again, ten full days had been lost to whatever bug I had had. I checked the calendar; I had just about four weeks before I would have to sail away from Ireland in order to be in Plymouth in time to provision the boat and make her ready for the race. And nothing had been installed yet.
Now that I was recovering, I was starving, too, and I had eaten absolutely everything aboard. I gathered up my dirty laundry and sweat-soaked sleeping bag, staggered to the van with the bundle and drove into Cobh. I found a fish-and-chips place and gorged myself, then left the laundry in a coin-operated washing machine and went grocery shopping. My packages in the van, I went back to the laundry and got everything into the dryer. Then I nearly fainted. I sat down heavily on a bench, alone in the place, sweat pouring off me. I reckoned I had made my outing a bit too soon. Shortly, I found a bucket and threw up the fish and chips. Dizzy and lightheaded, I began to hallucinate, thinking I could hear the sound of children singing. Then the door opened and a moment later a voice said, “Mother of God, Will, what’s wrong?”
I didn’t answer; it was clear to me that this was a part of my hallucination, along with the singing children.
“Is this a friend of yours?” another voice asked with obvious distaste.
“Yes, sister. You go on with the girls, I’ll join you in a minute.”
I put down my bucket and sat back. The sound of the dryer going round seemed calibrated to the spinning of my head. I was almost certain Connie Lydon was standing in front of me.
“Are you ill?” she seemed to ask.
Then the spinning stopped, and I saw that she really was there. “Hello,” I said, “What are you doing here?”
“We’ve brought the girls over on their end-of-term outing,” she said. “I asked if you’re ill.”
“I’ve been ill,” I said. “I thought I was over it.”
“Are you all right, now?”
I nodded. “Oh, yeah, I just need to rest for a minute.” Then I thought, what am I saying? If I’m all right, she’ll go away. I leaned against the wall and groaned slightly. She took my arm and led me back to the bench.
“You look awful,” she said.
She was right, of course. I hadn’t shaved in ten days; my hair was matted and hadn’t been cut for weeks, and my filthy clothes hung on me. My belt was two notches tighter than usual. I stole a glance at my reflection in the soap machine; there were dark circles under my eyes. Perfect. I wiped my sweaty forehead with my sleeve. “I’ll be okay,” I said, as unconvincingly as possible. “I just need to get back to bed.”
“What are you doing in Cobh?”
“I’m … uh, staying over here, temporarily. Really, I’ll be okay, I’ll just get my laundry in the van and get going.”
“You stay right here,” she said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
She left the shop. I ran to the window and saw her having a discussion with a nun next to a schoolbus full of little girls. The nun nodded and got aboard the bus; it pulled away. Connie started back to the shop. I ran for my bench.
A few minutes later, I was directing her down the dirt lane toward where the two yachts were moored. “Stop here for a minute,” I said. She stopped the van. “I’m going to have to have your promise not to tell anyone what’s down here. If you don’t think you can keep quiet about this, I’ll drive you back to town right now. I’m feeling a bit better.” I wiped my forehead again for effect. She gave me a disgusted look and continued to drive. From her expression, I thought my plan was working.
Then she saw the two yachts and stopped again with a gasp. “What is going on here? I heard that you and Mark had left the country with the boat.”
“Mark has left the country,” I said. “He’s in a military hospital in England. And you’re the only one who knows that the boat and I are still in Ireland. I hope I can trust you, Connie.”
I woke late that night and looked about me. Toscana was spotlessly clean again. The food and my clean clothes were neatly stowed. Connie Lydon slept softly on the settee berth opposite mine. And I felt really good for the first time in a long time. I fell asleep again easily.
44
PATRICK PEARCE stood in the call box for nearly half an hour before the phone rang. It was raining lightly outside, and no queue had formed for the box. He had stood all that time with his hand holding down the cradle and the receiver to his ear, pretending to talk. When it finally rang, he released it so quickly there was only a tiny tinkle. He had not spoken with his brother since his mother’s death.
“Pat, how are you?”
“I’m grand, Michael. God, it’s good to hear your voice.” He was nearly trembling with excitement.
“Pat, do you think you’d still like to do a bit of work?”
His heart leapt. “Oh, Jesus, yes. You just tell me what.”
“How about a spot of lunch then, old boy?” His upper-class English accent was very good.
Pat laughed. “Are you sure it’s all right?”
“Ah, sure it is. It’s all in how you do it. Can you meet me in Central London in an hour?”
“Sure. Where?”
“A pub called the Grenadier. It’s in Wilton Row, just off Wilton Crescent; a dead-end mews right behind St. George’s Hospital, at Hyde Park Corner.”
“Right.”
The Grenadier was among the most fashionable of the West End’s pubs, full of businessmen, debutantes and affluent American tourists. Trust Michael, it wasn’t the sort of place the police might keep a watch, like the Irish pubs in south London. Pat laughed aloud when he saw his brother ambling down the mews. He was wearing striped trousers and a bowler hat and carrying an expensive brief case and a furled umbrella. They got some sandwiches and a pint and sat on a bench in the mews. It had stopped raining, and the June sunshine was warm. Pat noticed immediately that the bench commanded a full view of the approach to the pub, and that there was a walkway leading toward Hyde Park Corner. The mews was not a dead end for a man on foot. Michael would not let himself be boxed in.
“You look bloody marvelous, even in that getup,” Pat said.
“Just a bit of camouflage,” Michael chuckled, keeping his posh accent. “One can’t go about looking like a policeman’s idea of a terrorist, y’know.” He took a sip of his pint and a bite of his sandwich. “You know, your little number with Thrasher’s books did
a lot better than our gelignite. We’ve had many a good laugh about that. How much did he actually run out of the country?”
“Not a penny, that I know of,” Pat said smugly. Michael’s eyebrows went up. “I cooked the whole thing.”
“How?”
“It was easy, once I got a grasp of their computer procedures. I used their own programs against them, just changed a lot of entries to establish a pattern.”
Michael looked at his brother with new respect. “That’s bloody marvelous, it really is. It’s given Thrasher fits; can’t even come into the country, from what I hear. I’m surprised there haven’t been any repercussions. Or have there?”
“I haven’t been able to find any very good work since. The Avondale thing has got about in accounting circles, so I’m done for in the City or the West End. I’ve been making ends meet by doing freelance bookkeeping for some small businesses down Streatham, mostly.”
“Is that it? Thrasher hasn’t retaliated in any other way?” Pat took a deep breath. “There was something else, but I handled it.”
“Tell me.” Michael was all business now.
“Thrasher put a goon on me. Ex-copper called MacAdam.”
Michael’s eyes widened. “Pat, did you do Blackie MacAdam?”
Pat looked at his brother evenly, his pride welling. “I did.”
Michael stiffened and began searching faces in the little crowd outside the pub. “Pat, has anybody been on you? I need to know that now.”
“Relax, Michael. They came to see me once, very politely. Didn’t even ask me in for a chat. I think somebody on the force may have known he was looking at me, but there was absolutely nothing to connect us. I looked ‘em in the eye and told ‘em I’d never heard of MacAdam, didn’t have a clue.”
“And you think they bought it?”
“I promise you, Michael, there hasn’t been so much as a hint of interest since, and that was in January. If they’d had anybody on me since, he’d have been bored to death, I can tell you, following me about to job interviews and to the pub and the like. A week after the bastard went the papers had it all wrapped as a fire to cover a burglary/murder. It was a hot blaze; took out the wine merchant downstairs and the building next door. I arranged a gas explosion. Couldn’t have been anything left but cinders.”
Michael relaxed a bit. “That’ll go down well with the lads. MacAdam was a real bother when he was on the force; hated the Irish. Pity we couldn’t have taken credit somehow.”
“Well, he won’t bother another Irishman again.”
Michael took one more careful look about, then took a new tack. “Pat, there’s something you can do for us, something bespoke for you.”
“Just tell me.”
“We’ve a couple of new people we think are going to be very useful. They’re green, just out of training, really, but they’ve got guts, and they’re ….well, one of ‘em’s smart. My bishop want’s ‘em controlled at a distance, and I reckon you’re ideal. Oh, it’s known you’re my brother, but nobody’s made us together for years, and they’ve never successfully connected you with anything. Are you game?”
“You know I am. How d’you want me to handle it?”
“Well, it’s delicate. First, I want you to transmit orders to them; second, I want you to keep tabs on them, as closely as you can.”
“You worried about them? Too green?”
“I’m worried, all right, but not because they’re green. They’re dangerous. They’ve insisted on an independence that worries me, and the bishop has gone along with it, I don’t quite know why. I think there may be some personal connection there that I don’t know about. Certainly they’re from his diocese, and I think he must have recruited them. There’s something going on there.”
“All right. How do we manage communications?”
Michael tapped the briefcase that lay on the bench between them. “There’s a nice bit of money in here. I want you to set up a business of some sort, but I don’t want you so busy that you can’t get away when you need to.”
“I could open an accountant’s office, do the same sort of thing I’m doing now. It only takes a couple of days a week.”
“That’s ideal. Don’t hire any help, though. Get a phone and a second, ex-directory number. Put an answering machine on it, one of those with a remote device. Check it twice a day, no matter where you are. Before we part today, I’ll give you some phone numbers for contact purposes. They’ll have the same numbers, if for any reason they can’t communicate with you.”
“Are we never to meet face to face?”
“On the contrary. I want them used to seeing you from time to time. If they give us too much bother, they’ll be excommunicated, and you’ll perform the ceremony, so I don’t want them uncomfortable about meeting with you.”
“I understand. What do they look like, and where will I meet them?”
“Set your meetings for places like this. Keep it upmarket. Dress well. As for what they look like, they’re sitting on the bench across the mews, just opposite.”
Pat turned and looked, being careful to keep it casual. A young couple, trendily dressed in the best Kings Road style, sat sipping their drinks. The man was thickly built, clean-shaven, his hair carefully cut. The young woman was tall, robust, with fairly short and beautifully styled auburn hair. “The girl’s a stunner,” he said quite involuntarily.
“In more ways than one,” Michael replied wryly. “She’s the smart one; very clever. He’s right under her thumb. Remember this, Pat, it’s important: if she’s taken out of the picture in any way—killed, even detained—do him immediately. He can’t be left to run loose on his own. Got that?”
Pat nodded. “I’m going to need a weapon.”
“That’s in the briefcase, too. Nice little nine-millimeter automatic and two boxes of cartridges. I expect you still carry a knife. If you get the order to excommunicate, do it without hesitation. I know it might be tough with somebody as beautiful as that, but do it.”
“I understand. If you say it’s to be done, it’ll be done.
They talked a few minutes more about communications; Michael gave him some phone numbers to memorize. “They’ll be known to you as priest and nun. You’ll be the curate. They’ve already got their first assignment. I’m sending them down to the west country. There’s a concentration of training for Her Majesty’s forces down there. I want a little havoc wrought at the Royal Marine establishment in Poole and at Plymouth, too. After that they’ll communicate with you. As soon as I’ve left, go over there and make their acquaintance briefly. Set up your own contact schedule, and leave a message for me at one of the Dublin numbers if you need me, and I’ll call you back. We’ll stick with automatic call boxes, they’re safest.” He stood up and shook hands, leaving the briefcase on the bench.
“Goodbye Michael. You’re doing fine work; I hear about it all the time; I’m proud.”
“Take care, Pat. It’s been good seeing you. I don’t expect we’ll manage it again for a while to come. Take care.”
Michael turned and walked up the footpath toward Hyde Park Corner, his bowler cocked at a jaunty angle, his umbrella resting on his shoulder in a mock military manner. Pat Pearce picked up the briefcase and walked across the mews toward the young couple, who turned to meet him.
45
CONNIE’S PRESENCE transformed my attitude to- ward what needed to be done on the boat. Abruptly, my dire pessimism was changed to a wild optimism. A clearing of the weather and a long, sunny spell helped, too. Connie had completed her school year, now, and had time on her hands. Although she refused to sleep aboard Toscana again, she came nearly every day and offered the best possible sort of support. She handed me tools, made notes on our progress, shopped for food and prepared it, lent muscle when mine alone wasn’t enough, and applauded, encouraged, and even admired my work.
We began by locating the electric bilge pump (it was in the bilges) and connecting it. It ran off the ship’s twelve-volt batteries and kept the bo
at dry, in spite of steady leaking, which I still could not locate. I got the diesel generator hooked up and going, and that gave us power for tools and bright working lights. I installed the two toilets, fitted the heater and attached dozens of small pieces of gear. Connie sanded and varnished the interior, applying coat upon coat until it began to gleam. I noticed that the power cord on the sander was fraying badly and made à mental note to replace it, something I would, to my everlasting regret, forget to do. I drilled holes in the stern and bolted on a prefabricated steel bracket, then mounted the large, Hasler windvane self-steering gear, leading the control lines to the helm, using Toscana’s similar but smaller installation as a guide.
With less than two weeks to go before the boat’s absolute last departure day, I began to install the electronic gear, and here I ran into problems. When Mark had taped all the electrical wiring he had marked every piece of the glossy, plastic tape with a felt-tipped pen. While nobody was looking, the damp atmosphere inside the yacht eroded the markings until they finally vanished. That meant I had to work my way through the whole of the wiring loom, identifying each wire as I connected it, which brought on the kind of frustration that always comes when one person begins a job and another finishes it.
Connie arrived every morning about nine and left about six in the evening. Although it was an hour’s drive each way, she adamantly refused to stay overnight and lightly brushed aside my tentative attempts to get physical, until I was afraid to try for fear of outright rejection. The other guy, I knew, was hanging in the background, and while she was spending every day with me, she was spending every evening—maybe every night—with him. It drove me crazy. It didn’t seem to bother her in the least. That drove me crazy, too.
As soon after my illness as I could I called Mark. Annie answered the phone.
“Willie! Where have you been? We’ve been worried sick! Are you all right?”
I explained my illness and recovery. “How’s Mark?”