The wolf at the door sd-17

by Jack Higgins

  "How did you know that?"

  "Your mother talking to mine. They're at it all the time since your dad passed away. So what are you going to do? She was saying if it hadn't been for your dad, you'd have tried for Sandhurst and the army."

  "Yes, I enjoyed my time with the OTC at school, but that's all in the past. I'm thinking of coming to Queen's and doing an MBA. What do you think?"

  There was a long pause, then Liam said, "Jesus, Daniel, with your academic success you could take your pick of universities where life would be a lot less stressful. I'm not knocking Queen's, it's a damn good university, but Belfast is still a war zone, and you're English."

  "No, I'm not, I'm half Irish," Daniel said.

  "You're English every time you open your gob," Liam said. "And that won't go down well with a lot of people."

  "So you're telling me not to come over?"

  "Now, why would I do that? The Coogans have never taken kindly to being ordered what to do, and you're half a Coogan. Let me know when it's definite, but let me give you a piece of advice: make sure you have a passport with you when you come."

  "But Ulster is part of the United Kingdom. Surely you don't need a passport when you enter the country?"

  "Security is the name of the game here. The police and army have got complete power to stop, search, and question you anytime they choose. It's useful to have your passport with you as an identity card. Take care-and let me know what you decide."

  "I'm going to come, Liam, that's a given."

  "Stubborn young bastard, aren't you? On your own head, be it. Just stay stum when you come, and don't tell people what you are." He started his course at Queen's later than usual, at the beginning of November, winter on the horizon. It seemed to rain a lot, although he didn't let that put him off, venturing downtown with a raincoat and umbrella, obviously sticking to the city center at first. In spite of the bad weather, he found himself enjoying what many people called the most dangerous city in the world. That was a matter of opinion, of course, but it was true that the Europa close to the railway station was the most bombed hotel in the world. He ventured in for a drink one time, and marveled at the extraordinary feats of bravery that had taken place there on the part of bomb-disposal experts.

  His room in a hall of residence was a short walk from the university. A great deal of his work was personal research, but there were occasional seminars and lectures, so he did get the chance to sit in with people. There were students from all over the world and from all over England, but, for the majority of them, the accent of Ulster was unmistakable. You couldn't tell who was Catholic and who Protestant, and yet the war being waged in the streets outside was as much about the religious divide as anything else. Sitting in the common room of the students' union, or drinking in the bar and observing his fellows, there didn't seem to be any difference, but there was, and occasionally it surfaced.

  After a general seminar one day, he stayed on to discuss something with his professor. Visiting the bar afterwards, he was hailed by two third-year students named Graham and Green who'd also taken part in the seminar. They were local students from Derry, which was all he knew about them except that they didn't appeal, particularly Green, with his greasy, unkempt hair and shabby jeans. His liking for the drink was also clear. A nasty piece of work, Daniel had decided, and he tried to avoid him.

  "Come on, man," Green said. "You need a drink. What a bloody bore Wilkinson's seminar was. He gets worse all the time. Get us some beers, why don't you?"

  Daniel joined them with reluctance, returning with three bottles from the bar, determined to be off of there in ten minutes. Green was already edging into drunkenness. "How's it going, my English friend? Someone said you were from Yorkshire."

  Remembering Liam's advice, Daniel hadn't advertised his Ulster roots. "That's right."

  "Are the girls any good where you come from?"

  Daniel shrugged. "The same as they are anywhere, no different." "Nice girls, are they, decent? Not like those cows over there?" He indicated two girls sitting in the corner, chatting over coffee. They were perhaps eighteen, in denim skirts and jumpers.

  "I don't understand," Daniel said carefully.

  "They're Fenian sluts," Green said. "They'd shag anybody."

  Graham nodded seriously. "You'd need a condom there, they've probably got the pox."

  "Because they're Catholics?" Daniel asked.

  "It's a known thing," Green said. "So watch it."

  "But how do you know I'm not a Catholic?"

  Graham said, "Well, you've got a Yorkshire accent." He roared with laughter, then paused. "Here, you're not, are you?"

  "What the hell has it got to do with you what I am?" Daniel turned and went out, angry and thoroughly depressed.

  He walked back to the residence hall and discovered a message for him pinned to the bulletin board. It was from Liam, asking him to get in touch, so he did, and waited, and Liam came back to him half an hour later.

  "How's everything?"

  Daniel took a deep breath and swallowed his anger. There was no way he could tell Liam what had happened. "Fine, Liam, it's working out very well."

  "That's good. Listen, I've a surprise for you. My wee sister, Rosaleen, is in town this weekend, staying with friends. She's a teaching assistant in an infant school. She's coming home Monday, but she's free Sunday night, Daniel, and a charmer. She'd love to meet you."

  "And I'd love to meet her. Let's make it at my residence hall since we've never met, that's the easiest. I'll give you my verdict."

  And she was a charmer, young and pretty, with black hair, reminding him totally of the dark Rosaleen of Irish legend. They called his room to tell him he had a visitor, but, as he was going downstairs, he knew it must be her the first time he saw her. She carried an umbrella, for it was raining outside, and wore a dark blue overcoat over a dress and ankle boots, a bag hanging by a strap from her left shoulder.

  She smiled as he took her hand and reached up to kiss his cheek. "It's so grand to meet you, Daniel."

  The only fly in the ointment were Green and Graham, who appeared from the common room at that moment. They looked astounded. "What's this, Holley, where have you been hiding it?"

  Obviously the worse for drink again, and he took her hand. "Come on, Rosaleen, we'll go down the road and have a bite to eat."

  As they wandered out, behind them Green said, "Rosaleen, did you hear that? She's a fucking Fenian."

  Daniel started to turn, and she pulled him around. "Never mind them, they're just Protestant shites that can't keep their gobs shut."

  She was calmly fierce, so he gave in, offered his arm, and they went down the road together. "Where would you like to go?"

  "Oh, fish-and-chips in a cafe will do me fine, with a cup of tea, and you can tell me all about yourself."

  They spent two hours enjoying the simple meal and discovering each other. He was extolling the joys of Wharfedale in the West Riding of Yorkshire, she the beauty of the South Armagh countryside, and they vowed to exchange visits. It was ten o'clock when they left. The rain had stopped, but the streets were Sunday-night empty.

  "If we walk back to my residence hall, I could call a taxi," he said.

  "Belfast taxis anytime of night cost a fortune, and that's when you can get one. It's not all that far to where I'm staying, fifteen minutes." She laughed. "Well, maybe twenty."

  "Nothing at all," he said, offered her his arm. They waited for a white van that had been parked across the street to start up and drive past them, and then they began to walk.

  It began to rain again, and she got the umbrella up, laughing, and they hurried on, and there was only the odd car passing, and then nothing, as they turned into an empty street, its shops locked up, with their lights on, and bare of parked cars, a police regulation to discourage bombers. A white van-was it the same one?-eased out of a street behind them, passed, and then braked, the driver and his passenger wearing black hoods. The rear doors burst open, and two more men jumpe
d out wearing hoods, one of them holding a revolver.

  Rosaleen cried out, and Daniel closed in on the man holding the revolver, grabbing for it with one hand and, in the struggle, tearing off the hood, revealing Green. Daniel shoved him away, still trying to wrench the weapon from Green's grasp, but another man had run around the van and grabbed him from behind.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Daniel shouted as he struggled, but Green, laughing madly, cried, "I'll tell you what we're doing, you fugger. We're Red Hand Commandos, and we're going to teach you and that Fenian bitch some manners."

  Behind him, Green struggled to force Rosaleen into the back of the van, and Daniel heard it and her cry of despair, and then Green reversed his grip on the gun and struck Daniel a heavy blow across the side of the head, and that was the end of it.

  Daniel came to in subdued darkness, his head throbbing and matted with blood, and discovered that he was in the back of the van, street light filtering in from the windscreen. He tried to sit up and found that his wrists had been tied in front of him with some rough cord. Raising his hands, he could see that the knot was large and had obviously been done in a hurry. He had no difficulty in getting his teeth into it and was free in a couple of minutes.

  Heavy rain drummed on the roof, and he slid to the rear and pushed open the doors with his feet, aware of the van's tool kit to one side. He opened it and found a tire iron. He hefted it in his hand for a moment, then got out.

  He was in a cobbled courtyard, a wide gate behind him standing open, a streetlight beyond showing old and towering warehouses. He turned and found a four-story building. A light over a large painted sign revealed "Bagley Ironworks, White Lane, Belfast." The whole place looked old and decrepit, but there was a dim light inside, and he went up some stone steps and pushed the door open.

  There were workbenches, a jumble of machinery, hoists hanging from above, rain drifting in, and a woman crying, then begging and pleading. He stood there frozen. Then she screamed, and somebody shouted, "Be quiet, you bitch," and there was the sound of a heavy blow.

  As he started upstairs, the tire iron ready in his hand, he heard a sudden, desperate cry. "No, please, not that."

  "Shut your gob" was followed by sustained blows, and a voice saying, "Stop it, you bugger, you'll kill her."

  Daniel reached the top of the stairs and found the door half open. Green was sitting at a table, an open whiskey bottle beside him, fiddling with the Smith amp; Wesson. A door was open behind him, and suddenly it seemed very quiet.

  A voice said, "Jesus, you fool, you have killed her."

  Green turned to the open door. Daniel lurched forward and smashed him across the skull with the tire iron, then picked up the revolver just as Graham appeared in the doorway and shot him in the heart at point-blank range. As Graham was hurled backwards, Daniel took two quick paces forward and shot the next man he saw in the back of the head as the man started to turn.

  The fourth man was old and wizened and shaking in terror. "For pity's sake, don't, I never laid a finger on her."

  "Then why's your belt undone and your fly open, you lying bastard?" Daniel stepped close and put a bullet between the old man's eyes.

  The sight of Rosaleen now was something that would stay with him always and change his life forever, make him a different man, for dead she was, beyond any doubt, and lying on what was presumably some janitor's bed. He found an old rug to cover her broken and defiled body.

  He went back into the other room and he heard a moan. Green was stirring, and, almost without thinking about it, Daniel shot him in the head. He picked up the open bottle of whiskey, raised it, swallowed some down, and emptied the rest of it over Green's corpse.

  "You Prod bastard, Green," he said. "Well, I'm a Prod bastard, too."

  Looking around, he realized the place must have been an office of sorts in its day. There was a wall phone by the far door, and he went and tried it and, by some miracle, it still worked, so he did the obvious thing and called Liam.

  Liam called back surprisingly quickly, for once. "Now then, Daniel, how are things going with you and Rosaleen?"

  And Daniel told him.

  He was sitting at the table, clutching the revolver, the blood oozing from the side of his skull, when Liam arrived almost an hour later, patted Daniel on the shoulder, and went straight into the janitor's room. When he came out, the look on his face was terrible to see.

  There were half a dozen hard-looking men with him and two paramedics in green. Liam kicked Green's corpse, and said, "Get rid of this rubbish and his pals. Round the back in the river will do." He eased the gun from Daniel's grip. "I'll have that now, son."

  "I couldn't save her, Liam."

  "You did your best. I'd say four kills is a remarkable number for a beginner."

  "And you're an expert, so you would know?"

  "That's right, cousin. I've been with the Provisional IRA since the beginning. Red Hand Commandos are Protestants closely linked to the UVF. We'll make them pay."

  "Nobody can make them pay for what they did to her."

  "I know, son, I know." Behind him, two men brought Rosaleen out in a black body bag, supervised by a paramedic.

  "What is this?" Daniel asked.

  "We have an ambulance below. The police don't stop ambulances at night. We're going to take you to a convent down in the country, where the nuns are a nursing order and good friends of ours."

  The other paramedic came forward and examined his head. "That's not good at all. We've got to do something about that and fast." He called to a couple of men. "Just take him down."

  Which was really the end of it, because although Daniel remembered being on a stretcher in the ambulance across from the black bag, he couldn't recall a single thing about the journey afterwards.

  St. Mary's Priory, it was called, and the Mother Superior, a Sister Bridget Blaney, was a qualified surgeon, for they were Little Sisters of Pity, a nursing order whose help was there for all who needed it, and, in troubled times, that was bound to include the IRA.

  Coming to his senses, Daniel found himself coming out of an anesthetic in a recovery room. Sister Bridget herself, still wearing scrubs over her habit, was smiling gently, Liam anxious behind her.

  "You'll be fine, Daniel," she said. "The faintest of cracks on the side of your forehead. Fifteen stitches will give you an interesting scar, but what you need is a solid week's rest in bed. Liam has told me of the circumstances here."

  "Everything?" Daniel said weakly. "Rosaleen?"

  "God rest that child's soul, for I knew her well. She is in heaven now, and I shall pray for her, and so must you."

  He smiled weakly. "I'm not baptized in the faith, Sister, my father wouldn't have it, but my mother is a good Catholic and a matron at a hospital in Leeds."

  "Well, I'm sure she mentions you in her daily prayers, and I will, too."

  "Even though I'm a Protestant?"

  "Even that," she said cheerfully. "But you must rest now, and Liam has to leave to take Rosaleen home to Crossmaglen and her family, so say your good-byes."

  She went out, and Liam said, "Now, do as she says and take it easy. I'll be back."

  Daniel said, "Just tell me one thing. You and Provos…"

  "What about it?"

  "You're not just another volunteer, you're bigger fish than that?"

  Liam took his right hand and held it tight. "After what you did for my beloved sister, I count you closer than any brother. No secrets between us ever, so, yes, I am."

  Daniel nodded weakly. "I understand Eamon de Valera's father was Spanish, and it was his mother who was Irish. It's the same for me, if you think of it, except my father was Yorkshire."

  Liam frowned slightly. "What are you saying?"

  "That maybe you could use me. I know I'm still on morphine and things are a little fuzzy, but I don't think there's a place in my life for the old Daniel anymore. I killed four men a few hours ago, face-to-face and as close as you could get, and it didn't both
er me. God bless Rosaleen, and I hated them for what they did to her, but to be able to do what I did, Liam." He shook his head. "There was a devil inside me, deep and hidden, but he's found his way out."

  Liam's face was grave. "Rest, son, that's what you need. I'll take your love to the family, and I can tell you now you have theirs for eternity."

  Rosaleen's funeral was on Wednesday afternoon, three days after Liam left with her body, and the following morning, to Daniel's astonishment, there was a knock on his door, it opened, and his mother entered, Liam behind her.

  "My God, I can't believe it," Daniel said.

  She kissed him, and pulled a chair forward. "Your aunt spoke to me the moment she received the news from Liam. There's a direct flight to Belfast from Leeds Bradford Airport. I was able to be at the funeral. I know, Daniel, the whole dreadful story and what those swine did to my beloved niece."

  "And what I did to them?" Daniel said.

  "Trouble, violence, the gun, is the history of Ireland, Daniel. I was born to it, and the history of the Coogan family is full of it. What you did had to be done, a terrible deed. How could I love you the less for it, but I agree with Liam. It's best you go away for a while, leave the country, in case there's even the slightest chance of this being held at your door."

  It was interesting that Liam had said it to her, but he let that go as she got up. "You're away, then?"

  "Yes, Liam has one of his men taking me to the airport now. I love you dearly. Keep in touch any way you can," and she was away.

  "The shock of my life, that," Daniel said. "Now, what's all this about me going away?"

  Liam now took the chair. "What you were saying about joining us? Now that your head's clear, do you still feel the same way?"

  "More than ever."

  "I have a suggestion. We can't manage Sandhurst for you, though I know you had an interest in going there, but we do have good relations with our Islamic friends. We've sent people with great success to Algiers, where we have an excellent contact. All this costs money, but we have plenty of that coming in from the States, and Qaddafi's been more than friendly to us."