Dancing With Mortality

by Mark McKay

  ‘Are we done now?’ he asked O’Neill.

  ‘Yes. Your face will be known after tomorrow, remember that. I don’t know where you’re staying, but I recommend getting right out of circulation now. How long can you stay in Ireland?’

  Harry considered. He had money in the bank and no gainful employment. ‘For as long as I need to.’

  ‘I have a suggestion then.’ He passed Harry a sheet of paper. ‘This is the address of a cottage friends of mine own on the Dingle Peninsula. There’s no one around for miles. You can have it for a nominal charge for the next month if you need it. If you want it, let me know and they’ll fix it up with fuel and food for you.’

  ‘Ok, thanks. I’ll take it. Tell them I’ll be arriving Monday night.’

  Chapter 20

  In the final hour of his journey, rain and wind lashed the car incessantly. It was dark now, and even with the wipers on top speed the sheets of water clinging to the windscreen would only clear for a split second at a time. He slowed right down and was glad that traffic was light tonight. O’Neill had given him a phone number and a name, Deirdre Brennan. He was to meet her at 7pm at a bar in Dingle and then follow her to the cottage.

  The rain eased off as he reached the town. He found a place to stop and phoned Deirdre to find out exactly where the bar was. He was half an hour early, so he found ‘The Shamrock’ and settled down with a pint of lemonade to await her arrival. The place was quiet; perhaps the weather was keeping everyone indoors tonight. Or perhaps this assortment of elderly men sitting alone reading newspapers, and the odd groups of younger people chatting and laughing in a convivial yet almost circumspect manner, were a typical Monday evening crowd.

  She’d given him a brief description of herself on the phone, so when he saw a blonde wearing a grey windbreaker come in he raised his hand. She spotted him, walked across and introduced herself. She was in her mid-thirties and tall. When he stood up to greet her they were almost eye to eye. Her hair fell in tangled waves to her shoulders around a narrow face with strong cheekbones and a prominent nose, and her eyes were brown and steady.

  ‘You found your way then?’ Her voice had a soft southern accent that was easy on the ear.

  ‘When I could see the road. Does it always rain here?’

  She laughed. ‘Quite often. This is the West Coast you know.’

  She accepted his offer of a drink and they chatted. She lived with an older sister in the town and worked at a crafts shop. She knew David O’Neill through her brother in Dublin. The cottage belonged to the family and was let out in the tourist season.

  ‘It’s quite remote, almost on a cliff top,’ she said. ‘There’s a little beach within walking distance, which you’ll probably have all to yourself.’

  He followed her car as they drove out of town along the coast. She turned onto a single-lane, unmarked road about 20 minutes later, which wound up a steep hill then dropped down to a plateau on the other side. The stone-built cottage had been constructed on this flat area and was bordered by a stone wall. Deirdre opened a wide, farmyard-style gate and they drove in, parking at the rear. Sighing gusts of wind blew in from the sea, and he could hear the rumble of waves breaking in the distance. He got out of the car and followed her inside.

  She showed him around. There was a kitchen, dining room, and a living room with a large fireplace downstairs, and two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. The fireplace had been cleaned and stocked with logs, and Deirdre talked as she kneeled in front of it and struck a match to coax it into life.

  ‘We have electric storage heaters which come on at night. They’re ok, but you need the fire really at this time of year. There’s plenty of wood in the outbuilding. The fridge is full, there’s some booze in the cupboard if you want it, and the TV works.’

  ‘No internet?’

  ‘No, sorry about that. And the phone signal can be erratic too. There’s a landline here though. Call me if you need anything.’

  He thanked her and shortly afterwards she left, saying she’d drop in one evening during the week to see how he was doing. She’d shown no curiosity about his visit and he wondered what O’Neill had said about him, if anything.

  The fire was burning nicely now and he pulled up a chair, warming his hands. The heat soon permeated the room and he found himself drifting off as he gazed into the flames. He shook himself awake and went into the kitchen to investigate the contents of the fridge. It was well stocked with frozen meat and a selection of vegetables and juices, with plenty of milk and eggs. He found a tin of vegetable soup and heated that up then followed it with an omelette. There was a cupboard with bottles of red wine and even a bottle of Jameson’s Whiskey, which he looked at longingly. Tea would have to suffice. He thought about ringing O’Neill but when he checked the phone there was no signal and he didn’t want to use the landline. He decided to simply sit in front of the fire for a while and then have an early night.

  He’d been sitting about 15 minutes, enjoying the heat and the play of the flames, when he began to feel an unaccountable sadness creeping over him. It started as an ache in his gut and then spread to his chest, and for a moment he thought he might be sick. Then suddenly he was crying. What the hell? he thought. He realised that a split second ago he’d been thinking about the night Natalie was killed, and then the dam had burst, releasing the guilt he’d always felt but never allowed himself to express. He put his head in his hands and let the tears flow. The intensity and unexpectedness of it all surprised him. Then he found he was berating himself: he should have been driving, he should never have been so stupid as to accept the loan of the vehicle in the first place, he should never have accepted the job with SIS. He was a fool, and he was responsible for Nat’s death. What gave him the right to go on living when he’d effectively murdered his own wife?

  In spite of the fire he was shivering, and now he felt a deep self-loathing and disgust displacing his guilt. He went upstairs to the bedroom and retrieved the shoebox from his luggage and then sat again in front of the fire, cradling the Walther in one hand. Perhaps he could play a little Russian Roulette to pass the time. He laughed, and there was a touch of hysteria in it. Difficult to play Russian Roulette with a semi-automatic, the next bullet was always available. Made it easier really.

  The landline rang and he jerked upright in his chair. It was Deirdre.

  ‘Sorry, Harry. I forgot to tell you, the switch for hot water is under the sink. Put it on for an hour or so before you want a bath or whatever.’

  He mumbled his thanks and hung up. He was breathing heavily, and his body felt heavy, almost immobile. He stumbled back to the chair. The phone call had interrupted the emotional turmoil, snapping him out of what he realised had been a frightening downwards spiral that could have proved fatal. For a moment there he’d lost all control. He’d never felt suicidal before, but he realised now that over the past few days he’d been a little depressed. He could only put it down to the medication. If that was the case then giving a gun to a depressed man was a recipe for disaster. He’d need to be very careful about his moods while he was here if he wanted to avoid a repetition of what had just happened. At least he knew the warning signs now.

  He shook his head. How ironic. The drugs that were supposed to cure him might kill him instead, however indirectly. No, sod it, he thought. He hadn’t come all this way for nothing, whatever he was or wasn’t responsible for, he knew he wanted to go on living. There was too much left to be done.

  He replaced the Walther in its shoebox and stashed it in a kitchen cupboard, thinking that if he woke up in the night determined to top himself he might regain his senses on the way downstairs. The whole episode had frightened him, but he seemed to have his sanity back, at least for the moment. He sighed loudly. He’d had enough excitement for one night. It was time to get some sleep.

  There was still no signal in the morning. The heating had come on so the upper part of the cottage was a lot warmer now. The curtains in his bedroom had been partially drawn when h
e went to bed, and it wasn’t until he parted them to let in the morning light that he first saw the sea.

  The land around the house was green and treeless, dropping away from the plateau on which the cottage stood in a gentle slope that extended for some 300 metres before levelling out again near the cliff edge. The coast on both sides stretched in long jagged curves into the distance, with no houses in sight. He could see a few sheep faraway to the right, otherwise the place was deserted.

  Straight ahead was the Atlantic, looking grey and ominous under the black clouded sky, filling his eyes and his mind with its sheer size and majesty. Now that the wind had subsided, the sound of the waves was constant, and he realised that even as he’d slept he’d been aware of that sound. He stood and watched for a while, letting the sight and sound heighten his senses and clear his head. Then it started to rain, and he yawned and came out of his meditation. He was hungry.

  He knew he couldn’t stay here much longer; he needed to get back to London to collect his next batch of drugs. His thought processes had become a little muddled; he’d blithely told O’Neill he could stay as long as he needed to. He was becoming absent-minded as well as depressed. Well, for as long as he was here he needed a routine. He would visit Dingle town once a day and pick up reading material, and call O’Neill for an update. Then, whatever the weather, he would get some exercise walking the clifftops. Maybe Deirdre would consent to have dinner with him. He wasn’t accustomed to a solitary existence and would welcome the company. He could hardly have stayed indefinitely anyway. If there was a public enquiry it might not get underway for months. And bringing a civil case against Fitzpatrick for murder would come down to Harry’s word against his. There was no prospect of a conviction.

  He had a week to play with. He wondered if Sabine was ok, she didn’t as yet know where he was and what he was doing. And since turning off the phone three days ago he hadn’t seen her daily texts. He wanted to know how she was.

  He had breakfast and then rummaged through his luggage for the same jacket he’d worn in Sweden. It had a hood and should keep out the Irish weather. The rain had stopped, so he ventured outside. He checked the outbuilding, which was full of logs, then walked directly down from the cottage to the cliff, looking for the beach Deirdre had told him about. He could see it easily enough, and the cliff wasn’t sheer. At this point it was more of a steep-sided hill, and someone had dug out a pathway, with a handrail arrangement made up of posts hammered into the ground and joined with rope. The beach itself, a sandy cove about 200 metres wide, was about 50 metres below him. He wasn’t sure if the tide was in or out, so he decided to pick up a tide table when he got to town and then wandered along the cliff top for an hour until the rain returned and drove him back to the cottage.

  It was late afternoon when he got into Dingle. He called O’Neill first.

  ‘There is a development,’ said O’Neill. ‘Fitzpatrick has been suspended from his position while RSF hold some sort of internal enquiry.’

  ‘Is that good?’

  ‘It means that your story has got them wondering. They will ask him a lot of difficult questions about his past, and if they start believing he might even conceivably be working for British Intelligence, he’ll never be trusted again.’

  So the best I can do is ruin him politically, Harry thought. Still, it was never going to get any better than that.

  ‘Oh, and I have a message for you,’ O’Neill continued, ‘Someone called me trying to get hold of you, wants you to call him.’

  ‘Really – who?’

  ‘A Jack Hudson, said you had his number.’

  Harry felt a stab of alarm. ‘Did you tell him where I was?’

  ‘Course not, you do know him I take it.’

  Harry suddenly felt unexpectedly calm. ‘Yes, I know him. Tell me, did he call you on your mobile?’

  ‘Yes he did actually.’

  After mentioning his phone signal problems and promising to call again same time the next day, Harry rang off. Then he tried Sabine, but got her voicemail. He left a long message bringing her right up to date with his activities, and said he’d try to call again tomorrow. Then he picked up a tide table, a couple of books and some assorted newspapers, and went back to the cottage.

  The next day the rain had gone. The sea had transformed from grey to blue, and the white billowy clouds parted, allowing a sprinkling of sunshine which brought a sparkle to the water. It was still cold, though, and Harry made his way down the track to the beach with his jacket zipped tightly around him. He walked the length of the tiny inlet, watching the surf breaking on the rocks offshore or swirling in little pools of white foam at the waters edge. The only company came from the seagulls crying and circling overhead.

  He’d brought a cardboard box from the cottage and he rigged it up with a broom so the brush end supported the box at chest height, with the handle dug into the sand. Then he stepped back ten metres and took the Walther from his jacket. He’d decided to use one clip of ammunition on target practice, and he took his time, remembering the stance, the two-handed grip, and the sighting before squeezing off the first shot. It was loud, but not loud enough to worry about in this remote location, and he discharged the rest of the magazine in quick succession. The box had been blowing sideways a little in the wind, but most of the bullet holes were close to centre, with two bullets going into the wood of the brush. He grimaced and hoped Deirdre wouldn’t notice the damage next time she swept the place. He had satisfied himself that he could still fire a gun and probably hit what he was aiming at, should it become absolutely necessary.

  He retrieved the spent cartridges, and broke up the box so he could flatten it out and use it as a cushion on the damp sand. He sat cross legged with the gun still in his hands, watching the sea rise and fall and wondering about Jack’s intentions. It made no sense for SIS to harm him, after Michael’s death a repeat performance would only cement any doubts anyone might have about Fitzpatrick. Still, if anyone other than Deirdre knocked on the door he wanted to be ready.

  Sabine answered the phone that evening, and he felt a rush of relief when he heard her voice.

  ‘Did you understand my message?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I got it all. I admire what you’re doing, but will it make any difference?’

  ‘It won’t send him to jail, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Then you’ve done all you can. Go home. You can’t hide in Ireland forever.’

  That evening, after he’d eaten and stoked the fire, he thought over her words. Dingle was a way to avoid dealing with his issues and nothing more. A probable divorce and the twenty years of unresolved guilt and anger could all be conveniently shelved while he played at discrediting a murderous Irish politician. He was marking time, and time was not a commodity that he could take for granted anymore. In fact it was foolish to think that he’d ever taken it for granted. It was time to stop procrastinating and get on with the rest of his life, however long that might be.

  He stayed two more days. The space and the sea calmed him, and he felt the clean coastal air charging him with energy on his walks along the cliff top. On the Thursday night he called Deirdre and told her he’d be leaving the next day, and asked how she wanted to be paid.

  ‘David will pay,’ she replied. ‘Hope you enjoyed it for the short time you were here.’

  ‘I did. I just need to get home now, that’s all.’

  ‘I’ve been reading your story, Harry. Good luck, and come back again some time.’

  When he arrived back in Dublin he returned the car and took a room for one night at the Harcourt. He would catch the bus to Belfast in the morning and call in on Michael Senior and then fly out that evening. He rang O’Neill to say he was back in town and to find out if he had time to meet. The newspaper man was surprised to learn he’d left Dingle, and agreed to call in at the Harcourt after work. When he arrived that evening he was excited.

  ‘Fitzpatrick will be on TV at 7.30, you might want to watch it.’

/>   He wouldn’t reveal anything else, but by his demeanour Harry knew it must be important. He played along, and they had an early dinner in the hotel restaurant before going up to his room and tuning in to the news.

  Fitzpatrick was the leading item. It was a live broadcast, and he was shown sitting at a kitchen table in what must have been his home. Two grim faced men in suits, presumably RSF members, stood behind him, but the camera focused exclusively on Fitzpatrick as he read from a prepared statement.

  ‘After recent newspaper reports and an internal investigation by my own party, I would like to state that I have been working as an agent for the British Intelligence Services since 1979. This is a role I took up after being compromised in a manner I do not wish to disclose. I would also like to state that I did not knowingly conspire in the murders of Siobhan O’Reilly and Natalie Ellis in 1981, as reported in the Irish Times, and accept no responsibility for these regrettable deaths. I am resigning from my position of Treasurer with the Republican Sinn Fein party, effective immediately.’

  He looked haggard and uncomfortable throughout, and refused to take any follow-up questions. O’Neill was jubilant, thumping Harry on the back and thrusting his fist in the air.

  ‘Bloody fantastic – the best result we could have hoped for.’

  ‘I wonder how they found out,’ mused Harry. He felt decidedly underwhelmed even though his efforts in the press had just been vindicated.

  ‘They must have gone over that period with a fine-tooth comb,’ said O’Neill, ‘and somewhere along the line he gave the game away. We’ll never know in all probability.’ He gave Harry a curious glance. ‘You seem less than pleased, Harry.’

  Harry forced a smile. ‘I am pleased, of course I am. And a bit shocked, I didn’t expect this kind of revelation, and so fast too. But he lied about one thing as far as I’m concerned.’