Rain on the Dead. Jack Higgins
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‘Just a moment, you two.’
They turned, and Sara said, ‘Yes, sir, was there something else?’
‘Yes.’ Cazalet was smiling. ‘Very private and between us. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about the CIA. Thank God you were there last night. It’s people like you who guard the wall for all of us, and I, for one, am extremely grateful.’
There was a silent moment as his words sank in, and then Sara smiled and said, ‘It’s been a privilege to serve, Mr President,’ and she followed Dillon out.
Later that day, in the Gulfstream heading home, Ferguson stayed towards the front of the cabin video-conferencing while Flight Lieutenant Parry moved along from the cockpit, visited the kitchen area, and came out with coffee.
‘We’ve got some storms threatening in the mid-Atlantic, so make sure you belt up if you go to sleep. And’ – he looked a little uncomfortable – ‘could you advise Dillon to watch his drinking?’
He and Sara exchanged a look, then he moved back towards the cockpit. She reached up to a locker and found a couple of blankets, and Dillon, who’d been to the toilet, returned with a glass in one hand. She tossed one blanket to him and draped herself in the other.
‘I’d be careful with your booze intake, Sean,’ she advised. ‘Rough weather forecast.’
They sat with their backs against the rear bulkhead on either side of the aisle, and he touched her. ‘Just the one, and then I’ll probably have a sleep.’
‘So you’ve still got problems?’
‘As a matter of fact, I’ve been thinking about what Cazalet said about people like us guarding the wall.’
‘That was a fine thing for him to say, but then he’s a fine man.’
‘I agree, but it made me feel ashamed.’
She frowned. ‘But why should it do that?’
‘Oh, not living up to the image, in my case allowing a mental aberration to cloud my judgment, but I see sense now. I’ve been wrong, but at least when you see you have, you can put it right.’
‘Are you going to talk to Ferguson about it?’
‘Eventually, but I need to consult Roper first.’
Ferguson switched off the screen, turned, and called to them, ‘That’s it for me. I’m taking a pill. With any luck, I’ll sleep through to Farley Field,’ and he pulled out a blanket and settled down.
Sara lowered her voice. ‘Come on, Sean, what’s going on?’
‘Well – I believe I know the identity of two people involved in the Nantucket business.’
She was astonished. ‘But you haven’t said a word of this to anyone. Why not?’
‘There’s an Irish connection, a question of mistaken loyalty to family on my part. It has to do with the death of my father in Belfast in 1979, when he blundered into a firefight with British paratroopers and was killed. I can see now I was wrong. It will be put right, that’s all that counts. God knows what Ferguson will do, but I’ll take that as it comes.’
‘Sean, what are you talking about?’
‘Well, if you’ll shut up for a while, girl dear, I’ll tell you,’ Dillon said. ‘In my early years in Collyban, my father in London trying to make a place for us, I was raised by my uncle, Mickeen Oge Flynn. His son Tod and I were like brothers. We tackled the old upright in the front parlour together, learned to play passable barroom piano, accompanied by our friend, Tim Kelly, on clarinet. A boy with a real gift, believe me. Then I went to London and got involved with the theatre, as you know.’
‘Sean, what on earth has this to do with anything?’
‘It has to do with everything,’ Dillon said. ‘Be patient. What with the Troubles, we just kept in touch with the family by phone from London, and I knew that Tod and Tim Kelly had made something of their music, played in bars and clubs, and it was Uncle Mickeen who phoned me with the news of my father’s death. He said that nobody from Collyban would be going up to Belfast for the funeral, as it would be too dangerous.’
Sara said, ‘And I imagine he thought the same for you.’
‘I suppose so, but I told him I’d be there, and he said he ought to warn me that Tod and Kelly, who were going to take care of the funeral, were Provisional IRA and on the run as far as the army and police were concerned.’
Sara shook her head. ‘So, needless to say, you went?’
‘A rushed flight, Belfast greeted me with pouring rain. Taxis were available, though expensive. I was dropped at St Mary the Virgin Church in Samson Street near the docks. Three vans had men standing around them under umbrellas, watching. I hurried through a decaying graveyard and entered the church.’
‘And what did you find?’
‘It was like most of them, half dark, burning candles, an effigy of Mary and the Christ child by the door. I remember putting my fingers in the holy water – habit, I suppose. There was the aisle between the pews towards the altar, a closed coffin on trestles, an old priest in a cassock, no vestments. Tod stood there, obviously startled by the door opening, a Browning ready, and Tim Kelly was opposite, a clarinet in his hands.’
‘“God in heaven, you’ve come.” Tod stepped forward and gave me a hug.
‘“It’s where I should be,” I told him, “But there are vans outside, and we seem to be attracting attention.”
‘“UVF Protestant bastards,” Kelly told me. “They’d hang the lot of us if they could.”
‘“Never mind that now,” Tod said. “Father Murphy’s done with his prayers and will see to the burial with the sexton after we’ve gone. It only remains for Tim’s tribute.”’
‘Tribute?’ Sara said. ‘What was that?’
‘My father had a favourite old Irish folk song, “The Lark in the Clear Air”, and the sound of that clarinet played in the Gershwin style, soaring up to the roof, was the most poignant thing I’d ever heard, has remained with me forever. There were voices outside, but the music stilled them. There was a moment of silence as Kelly finished – then a brick came in through a window. Tod pulled a Smith & Wesson revolver out of his pocket and pushed it into my hand. I’d done a training course on the use of weapons on stage.’
‘Which was your only experience of handling a gun?’ Sara said.
‘Exactly. Father Murphy shouted, You know the way out, boys. Don’t worry about me. They wouldn’t dare to harm a priest. The church door swung open, men burst in, the first one already firing a pistol,’ Dillon continued. ‘He hit me in the left shoulder. I staggered back, firing blindly, and caught him in the throat. Tod shot the man behind them, driving the others back, then got an arm around me, hustled me into the vestry, Kelly following, down some steps to a cellar. There was a manhole in a corner, they opened it, and we scrambled into a sewage tunnel, big enough to walk along, all the way down to the docks.’
‘And obviously, you got away,’ Sara said.
‘That part of the city is an underground network of similar tunnels. I remember us surfacing in some sort of large garage full of trucks and vans, and then I blacked out, so I can only tell you what I was told later.’
‘And what was that?’
‘The Provos had the trick of using ambulances they’d got their hands on, manning them with their own people wearing hospital uniforms. Tod told me they had a real nurse pump me full of morphine, then he and Kelly scrambled in the back wearing hospital scrubs and we were away, sailing through every roadblock.’
‘To where?’ Sara asked.
‘Over the border into the Republic, to a charity hospital called St Mary’s Priory