by Peter Corris
I presented my driver's licence to the woman at the table.
She ran her heavily ringed finger down her list. 'Welcome, Mr Hardy. You're a Malloy, I see.'
'That's right.'
'I'm Molly Maguire and here's your kit and name tag. Inside you'll find the events planned and a ticket to the dinner. I see you booked for two other people.'
'Yes. My partner Sheila's not well. She's staying in town for now but I'll take her kit. She'll be up and about soon. Has Jack Casey checked in?'
'Sorry to hear that about your lady friend.' She studied her list. 'No, not yet.'
'How about Seamus Cummings? Old mate of mine. I'm anxious to catch up with him.'
'Hmm, yes, he registered earlier today.'
'Did he say where he was staying?'
'Oh, I remember him now. He didn't look well. He said he'd be getting a cabin at the caravan park. They're quite comfortable, I believe.'
'D'you know what he was driving?'
One question too many. She looked suspicious and automatically glanced across to where I'd parked my car. 'And where are you staying?'
I gave her one of my smiles. 'Sorry to be so nosy. Doesn't matter. I'm at the caravan park.'
The smile and the apology brought her round. 'It's just that you sounded a bit official. Not too keen on officials, us Travellers.'
'Right. They told me in Ireland officials put bars up at a certain height on the car parks to prevent the Travellers bringing in their vans and trailers.'
'Oh, have you been there?'
'Very recently. I met up with quite a few Malloys.'
That won her over. 'Perhaps you might give us a little talk about your trip.'
Not likely, I thought, but I smiled again and nodded as I picked up my kit and Sheila's and moved away.
'Mr Malloy…'
I turned back. 'Hardy.'
'I'm sorry. Your friend Mr Cummings should be at the caravan park by now. I'm sure you'll be able to find him.'
And so can Jack Casey, I thought. The idea of Casey operating on his own worried me. We had different priorities, as he'd said. In a way he was as obsessed by mercenaries as Patrick had been by the Travellers. To get the inside track on the Olympic Corps could do him an enormous amount of good professionally. Mercenaries being killers by definition, Casey had had dealings with men with blood on their hands in his research. In fact it might've been part of the attraction. The fact that Cummings was probably a murderer as a civilian was something Casey should be able to take in his stride.
I drove to the caravan park and asked if Cummings and Casey had checked in. They had, both taking cabins.
'Will you be staying, sir?' the manager, a beefy, hearty type in a flannie and beanie asked.
'Not sure. I'd like a word with them first. Can you give me the numbers of their cabins?'
'Thirty-one for the 4WD and thirty-three for the ute, in the third row. Better make up your mind. Them gypsies is coming in fast.'
Patrick, who would have loved the idea of the gathering, wouldn't have liked to hear that. I left my car outside the park and walked in along the gravel road. It was an orderly and well-maintained establishment. The cabins were laid out in rows, about ten in each, probably sixty plus all up. An adjacent area was set aside for powered sites to be used by cars or vans and there were a few tents over in a corner close to what looked like a shower and laundry block.
Some of the cabins had occupants, most didn't, but there were signs that they were taken-boxes, boots and sneakers on the porches, clothes on the retractable lines. I did a careful reconnoitre: cabin 33, Cummings's, was the third last in the row; Casey's was the last. I had my hands in my pockets, just strolling around, but I had a feeling of being vulnerable and an unusual sensation of wishing I was armed.
A Holden ute was parked near Cummings's cabin, 33, but there was no sign of Casey's SUV. I walked away thinking that this was all wrong. To the extent that we'd had a plan, our idea was to locate Cummings, watch him and decide what to do when we'd sussed him out. Casey's jumping the gun had blown that out of the water.
A golf cart came trundling down the road, driven by the manager. He pulled up beside me.
'Thought I should tell you, mate, that there's only two spots left. And I just remembered that I saw the two blokes you was asking about driving off in the big 4WD a bit before you showed up. Slipped my mind, being so busy, like.'
It sometimes happens. I had absolutely no idea what to do next. Had Casey gone willingly? For that matter, had Cummings gone willingly? In either case, where? And why? With a vehicle like that, there were very few places in the whole bloody country they couldn't go. I rang Casey's mobile and was told that the phone had either been switched off or was not contactable.
I left a message: Jack, Cliff. Where are you and what're you doing? Call me.
Couldn't put it any plainer than that.
I drove back to the township and the motel. I knocked, said her name, and Sheila let me in. The room was warm and she'd stripped down to a spencer and her trousers. She grabbed me, pulled me inside, and we kissed. She had a classical music concert playing at low volume on the TV, a bottle of white wine open and a newspaper folded to show the cryptic crossword. She broke away, went to the mini-bar for a glass and waved at the bottle. I nodded and she poured.
'How're you feeling?' I said.
'I'm fine. It was just an emotional glitch. I go up and down a bit as you've probably noticed. I wasn't expecting you back so soon but I'm glad. Is there anything lonelier than a motel room on your own?'
'No. Absolutely not.'
She picked up her glass. 'So, what's happening? What're you doing?'
I told her in detail, partly to straighten things out in my own mind. When I finished I said, 'In answer to your second question, I haven't the faintest bloody idea.'
'Maybe something'll come to you. Meanwhile, let's not waste this nice warm room and comfy bed.'
We made love. She dozed while I stared at the ceiling trying to work out what might have happened. As Sheila had said, Cummings looked unnaturally thin in the Irish photograph and the woman at the farm said he looked ill. Casey was solid and strong. I'd back him in a physical contest against a man who appeared to be in poor heath. But there was the matter of a shotgun and experience. You'd have to back a veteran of the Irish troubles and the Angolan civil war over a cotton-wooled Gulf War I participant.
Sheila stirred and came awake. She saw me staring into space and elbowed me lightly in the ribs. 'I've remembered something.'
'Mmm?'
'I don't think Paddy ever mentioned anything about this Irish Traveller stuff…'
'I think he only found out about it after you split.'
'… but Seamus did. He knew about it. He told me about moving around in Ireland from one place to another. Something about dogs and horses. He said he missed it. I think I made fun of it, said something about gypsies, and he got angry. He did that a lot-got angry. I gave him reason, but he was angry by nature. Which made him exciting, back then, as screwed up as I was.'
'Well, I gather they had a hard time, the Travellers, until fairly recently. A sort of minority. The kids' education would've been buggered up, and Ireland was in a mess until the IT and the tax people got together.'
'Yes, but the point is, he's come here for this gathering and paid good money for it. And you say he looks unwell but he came anyway. If he's got any say in it, I reckon he'd be at this dinner. Don't you?'
25
It seemed a reasonable assumption, and it was the only one we had to work with. We had our tickets to the dinner and surely there was safety in numbers. If Cummings showed up at the dinner he was hardly likely to cause trouble with so many people around. Also, to judge by the men I'd seen out at the farm and the few arriving at the caravan park as I left, there were some pretty formidable faces and bodies among them.
I moved into Sheila's room with my baggage and we set about making ourselves presentable for the evening. We sho
wered; Sheila dealt with her hair and face while I shaved. The event was bound to be far from formal, but Molly Maguire had been pretty dolled up with rings and with little mirrors on her skirt and her velvet jacket, so I guessed people would go in a certain amount of style. Best I could do was a clean white linen shirt, black slacks and shoes and a newish olive jacket. Sheila teamed her boots with black velvet pants, her red sweater and a jacket with silver threads running through it. She wrapped her scarf round her neck and paraded for me.
'What d'you reckon?'
'Can you flamenco?'
'If I have to. How about you?'
'Love, I can barely waltz. Jive a bit if I'm pissed enough. Come to think of it, I know your married and stage names but not your maiden name. Don't tell me it's Kelly or Higgins.'
'Fitzsimmons; Cornish. My great-great-something grandfather was transported for smuggling.'
'Good for him,' I said.
'Jesus, it's like night football,' Sheila said.
The lights were visible from a kilometre away. The road to the gate and the area around the farmhouse were lit up and the building itself glowed like a beacon. An attendant directed the car to a parking area and we joined a troop of people heading for the house. The women, of all shapes and sizes, wore colourful dresses, skirts and blouses, nothing drab. I was more or less in tune sartorially with the older men except for one thing-no hat. Hats and caps were in-green, white, black, red-and feathers were popular as well.
We presented our tickets at the door and were ushered by a young woman, in a floor-length dress and jangling bangles, around the verandah to the back of the house. The wide verandah had been built in to form a long room with trestle tables and chairs down the centre. There looked to be seating for a couple of hundred, with place cards propped up beside the cutlery and a very encouraging array of bottles. About half the places were already occupied with more people flooding in, and the noise level was going up. The background music, fiddles and pipes and drums, was battling against the chatter and the clink of glasses and bottles. The air was smoky. Potbelly stoves at either end of the room were dealing with the chill.
'Like the old days,' Sheila said, 'when you could have a smoke with your tucker.'
'Problem for you?'
'We'll see. Anyway, this could be fun.'
The band was grouped at the end of the room on a raised platform. Three men and two women with a variety of instruments in use and others propped up waiting to be played. The girl who'd brought us in had a list and she directed us to seats near the middle of the room. We sat down with a pair of Hennessys next to me and an ancient Clancy next to Sheila. The protocol was printed on the place card: Say 'Burl talosk' to your neighbour, shake hands or kiss, fill your glass and toast each other. We did, me with Guinness, Sheila with red wine. I squinted through the haze. If it got much worse, I'd have trouble seeing people at either end of the table, but, so far, there was no sign of Seamus Cummings.
We went through the ritual, chatted to each other, the people on either side, and the ones opposite. The menu featured leek and potato soup, casseroled rabbit and apple pie. The wines were all cleanskins from the Hunter Valley. The Guinness ran out quickly before the soup arrived. I tried not to be looking too obviously as the places filled up. There were bound to be no-shows for one reason or another, but there were only about five or six chairs unoccupied when the music stopped and a man identified by the old fellow next to me as Corey O'Loughlin, our host, got up and announced the order of business. There was to be a welcoming address at the end of the first course by himself and a short speech about the history of the Irish Travellers in Australia by Dr Brian O'Keefe…
'And then youse can dig into the apple pie and the sweet wine and dance the calories off as we clear the room.'
There were cheers, hoots and hollers as the band struck up again. O'Loughlin was a two-metre giant, built in proportion. I couldn't help watching him as he drained a glass, took up a fiddle and joined the band. When I looked back at the table I saw Seamus Cummings, deeply tanned, skeletally thin, sitting on the opposite side a few seats away, staring at Sheila, who was deep in conversation with the woman next to her. When she stopped to take a drink she saw Cummings. She could hardly miss him, his gaze seemed to send out a beam of hot light.
Sheila turned to me. 'He looks like death.'
She didn't mean deadly. Cummings was much thinner than when I'd seen him in Ireland. His shirt and jacket hung loosely on his bony torso and his hands around a glass of wine were like thin, brown, articulated sticks. He nodded at Sheila who nodded back. He shot me a look that was hard to interpret-indifference, or contempt-and turned his attention to his food.
Sheila had finished her soup and just pushed the rabbit around on the plate. I'd eaten half of mine but now I lost all appetite.
'What do we do?' Sheila whispered.
'We wait.'
It was difficult not to stare at Cummings, who seemed to have abandoned interest in us and was listening to what his neighbour was saying while alternating bites of his food with sips of his wine. He nodded and smiled and the smile was ghastly in that fleshless face.
The music stopped and the gigantic O'Loughlin called for quiet in a roaring voice none would disobey. He introduced the small, dapper man at the top table as Brian O'Keefe and yielded the floor to him.
I can't say that I took in a word of what O'Keefe said. I was aware of laughter and people nodding in agreement and an occasional clap, but my mind was fully occupied with two questions: Where was Jack Casey and what was Cummings likely to do?
O'Keefe finished and sat down. The apple pie and cream arrived and the talk started up, louder as some of the diners got oiled and competed with the music. Plates cleaned, mouths wiped, people began to get up from the table and drift away to form groups. The music picked up pace and started to sound like the introduction to a jig. Cummings levered himself up slowly and walked to the end of the table. I stood but he gestured for me to stay where I was as he approached, bracing himself now and then on the backs of chairs. He reached us and stood, wheezing and sucking in the smoky air.
'Hello, Sheila, old darlin'. You're looking well.'
Sheila had stayed sitting. 'Hello, Seamus.'
He smiled. 'You don't think I'm looking well?'
Sheila said nothing. Cummings was as tall as me and he looked me straight in the eye.
'Cliff Hardy,' he said. 'You have the misfortune to closely resemble a piece of shite named Paddy Malloy.'
'I resent that,' I said. 'He was my cousin and yes, I did look like him.'
'That's right, you did. Cousin, is it? If I was to tell you about the cousins I've lost… Now I suggest you two have a little dance. I'd ask you, Sheila, but I'm a bit past the dancin' myself. I'll just watch, and if I see you leaving or making telephone calls, you'll not see your bearded professor friend ever again.'
'Where is he, Cummings?'
Cummings smiled and did a little, jerky jig, as if warming up for a dance he'd never complete. 'Now, now, have a little patience. You've taken a lot of trouble and some time to reach this point, Hardy. Just be patient a while and you'll learn all you want to know.'
26
It's an old trick-you get the people you're trying to control to do something they don't want to do, just for starters. I stood my ground with my hand on Sheila's shoulder.
'Fuck you,' I said. 'Get on with whatever you've got in your sick mind.'
That death's-head smile again. 'I'm sick all right, but my mind's as clear as a Galway stream. Just stay with me-the threat remains the same.'
The organisers were clearing away the trestles and chairs and the remainder of the food and drink, and the musicians were refreshing themselves before their next onslaught. People were gathering in groups ready to dance. Cummings backed away carefully, taking small steps. The healthy tan was deceptive; his sunken eyes were pools of pain as he moved and his hands shook as he took a mobile phone from his pocket. He reached the wall and steadied hims
elf, fighting for breath. Sheila and I moved with him, keeping a couple of metres away as he sent a text message.
'You're very sick, Seamus,' Sheila said. 'You need help.'
He put the phone away. 'I'm beyond help, darlin', but I've done the two things I needed to do so it doesn't matter a tinker's curse.'
A paroxysm of coughing shook him; his knees sagged but he fought to keep himself upright. This was a very determined man.
'Let's go,' he said when he'd recovered. 'I just have to say goodbye to Mr O'Loughlin, fine man that he is.'
Painfully slowly, Cummings approached O'Loughlin, who was loading wood into the potbelly stove near the band. O'Loughlin saw him and straightened up.
'Long live the Travellers of whom I'm a proud member. Sorry I can't stay longer, but I'm broken down in body as you see, but not in spirit.'
O'Loughlin took Cummings's outstretched hand in the gentlest of holds and put his other hand lightly on his shoulder. The contrast between the two men could not have been greater-O'Loughlin must have weighed 120 kilos and Cummings looked to have wasted away to about half that and, although Cummings was tall, O'Loughlin topped him by a head. Sheila and I hung back.
'My name is Seamus Cummings of County Galway. I want to thank you, Mr O'Loughlin, for a fine evening and to say slan.
' Slan to you, Seamus, and may God bless you.'
'I doubt that, but thank you.'
Cummings turned towards us as O'Loughlin gave us a salute-the gallant support staff. Cummings looked about to fall and I couldn't do anything but step forward and take his arm. We left the room as the band struck up and the so-inclined Travellers swung into their dance. We reached the door and Cummings, feather light, turned to take a last look. I heard a sniff from Sheila and when I looked I saw her dabbing at a tear with the sleeve of her jacket.
Jesus, I thought, this man murdered her husband and my friend. What the hell is going on here?
We shuffled along and I couldn't tell whether Cummings was as decrepit as he seemed. He'd appeared to be all right when he took his seat and while he was eating and drinking. I strongly suspected that, weak though he undoubtedly was, he'd play on his appearance for any advantage he could get.