Now and in the Hour of Our Death (10 page)

The big peeler, with the ponderous gait of his kind, moved up to Sammy.

“Evening, sir. Can I see your licence?”

“Aye, surely.” Sammy produced the pink cardboard square.

“Thank you, Mr. Pollock.” The constable wrote something on a clipboard. Sammy knew that every crossing would be logged. Time. Driver's name and address. It was a good thing that British driving licences did not carry photos and, like plates, were easy to forge. An Active Service Unit in Newtownstewart had a graphic artist as a member. He took care of the forgeries.

He returned the licence. “I'll hae to take a keek in the beck.”

The way the man said “hae” for “have,” “keek” for “look,” “beck” for “back,” and the sibilance of his s's marked him as a County Antrim man, not a local who might have recognized Sammy. So much the better.

Sammy accompanied the constable as he walked to the rear of the horse box.

“Open her up please, sir.”

“It's empty.”

“I'm sure it is, sir, but I still need to hae a look.”

Sammy unlatched the tailgate. “Help yourself.”

The police officer swung up inside and scraped the loose straw aside.

Sammy's palms started to sweat.

“Sorry about that, but you never can be sure.” The policeman dismounted. “Bit late to be going down to the Republic.”

“I've to pick up a horse in Stranolar.” The town was near enough to Ballybofey, and you
never
told the peelers exactly where you were going. “I'll be back this way in a couple of hours.”

“I'll still be here. I'll be here all fuckin' night.”

“Rather you nor me.”

The constable shrugged. “Goes wi' the job.” He nodded at the tailgate. “Close her up, Mr.”—he consulted his clip board—“Pollock, and away you go.”

“Right,” said Sammy and bent to his work.

“Sorry to have held you up. I'll give the
Garda Síochána
detachment on the other side a bell, let them know you're clean.”

“I'd appreciate that.”

“Night, sir.”

“Night.” Sammy snibbed the last latch.

*   *   *

Sammy passed a finger post that pointed back along the road he'd traveled.
BEALACH FÉICH
6. He was glad to be leaving Ballybofey. It had taken longer than he'd anticipated to load the ArmaLite semiautomatic rifles and five hundred rounds of .223 ammunition. Sammy had recognized the guns as Bushmaster XM-15 M4 A3s, an American civilian version of the U.S. Army's M16. Thirty kilos of Semtex, and separately wrapped consignments of RDX and PETN, the explosive components of Semtex, to be used in the manufacture of detonating cords, completed the load, all tucked in safely beneath the floor—and under the sharp hooves of a bad-tempered chestnut gelding.

He didn't anticipate trouble at the border. The
Gardai
and the RUC detachments would be tired by now. More careless. He'd told the peeler that he was meant to be collecting a horse, and what was in the back? A fucking great horse. All he had to do once he'd passed the checkpoints was get the horse into the paddock and the shipment into its hiding place in Ballydornan churchyard. Then home, a wee whiskey, and bed.

Sleep would be good. The only other thing he had to do before turning in was to make a phone call. From a coin box. A call that couldn't be traced.

He thought about the hint that Erin had let slip about something that might be going to happen at the Kesh. Would that be the key to let him out of the mess he was in?

There was a public phone about a mile away. He accelerated, reached the kiosk, stopped, and turned off the Rover's lights.

Coins in the slot. Double ring. A sleepy, “Hello?”

“It's Sunshine.” Stupid fucking code words.

“Yes?” Interest in the voice now.

“I've something for you. Something big.”

“Have you? Tell me.”

“Not now. The light's on in this kiosk, and I'm stickin' out like a sore thumb.”

“All right. Tomorrow. Ten
A.M
. Point Alpha.”

“Right.” Sammy hung up. His breath had steamed up the windows of the call box. He stepped outside, leaving the door ajar. The automatic light went off, and Sammy shrank into the darkness. The sooner he was out of here, the better. He didn't want Cal or Erin to be missing him, but if he didn't get the horse into the paddock soon, one of them might start to wonder what had held him up.

 

CHAPTER 8

VANCOUVER. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1983

“Damn. Just missed another one. I told you parking would be tight at Granville Island on a Saturday night.” Tim hunched over the wheel.

“Look. There.” Fiona pointed to a space near the grey silos of the Ocean Cement Company. “That car's backing out.”

“Bloody good.” Tim stopped, indicated left, waited for the other car to pull out, and slipped his BMW into the spot. “Hop out and I'll lock up.”

She joined him for the short walk to Bridges restaurant. He took her hand, and the warmth of his pleased her.

“Have I told you you look smashing tonight?”

“Thank you, sir.” She had been satisfied with the effect of her carefully chosen white silk blouse and bottle-green skirt. She'd left the top two buttons of the blouse undone to show just enough cleavage. Three open would have been tarty.

He glanced down and said, “Best gams in Vancouver.”

Her dark pantyhose did set her legs off well, and the curves of her calves were accentuated by her black patent-leather pumps, the high-heeled sneakers Tim had asked for.

“You try walking in these heels.”

“Nah. I'd rather look at you in them, and anyway we're here.”

A hostess greeted them, showed them to a window table in the upstairs nonsmoking section, and left two menus. “Your waiter'll be with you in a moment, sir.”

The place was packed.

Tim held Fiona's chair. He sat opposite.

“Fancy a drink?”

“Wine, please.” Ten years ago, she might have had one glass of sherry, but Tim had taught her about wines and she particularly liked Chardonnay.

“Let's have a bottle.” Tim leaned across and whispered, “I'm as dry as a dead dingo's donger.”

Fiona adopted her best schoolmarm voice. “Tim Andersen. What a thing to say to a lady,” but her words were masked by a wide grin. “I think it's true what they say about Aussies.”

“And what might that be?”

“That God invented Australians so that Americans would at least
appear
to be cultured.”

“Too right.” Tim laughed and picked up his menu. “Now. Let's see what looks good in this.”

She practically knew Bridges' menu by heart. As he read, she looked out of the picture window.

Not quite the same vista as from Kits Beach. The single span of Burrard Street Bridge blocked the view.

As usual, False Creek was busy. Water-buses dodged between incoming and outgoing sailboats, their wakes crossing and criss-crossing and sparkling in the evening sun. To her left, the slips of Burrard Civic Marina were crammed with commercial fishing boats, sharp-bowed, businesslike. Behind them, moored pleasure crafts' masts were an aluminum forest.

Fiona half-heard Tim discussing the wine with the sommelier.

A kingfisher, iridescent blue, its flight sudden and jerky, skimmed over the water, scolded the gulls, swooped over the fishing boats, and vanished among the pleasure crafts rocking in their berths to the wakes from the creek. Tim's boat,
Windshadow,
was among the yachts.

Tim loved that boat. The day he'd asked her to come in out of the rain and she'd admired his vessel, he'd said, “I love this little darling.” He'd had the kind of look on his broad face that she imagined Romeo would have had under Juliet's balcony.

He was still reading the menu. She would take a bet with herself that he'd order calamari to start with, then red snapper. That's what he'd had when he'd brought her here for lunch back in January. It had been a different hostess eight months ago who had greeted Tim like an old friend. “Hello, Doctor Andersen. For two?” she'd said.

Fiona had been surprised that he hadn't made a fuss about being medically qualified when he'd introduced himself. She'd liked that. A lot.

She had followed him to a table, and they'd sat on soft-cushioned, cane-backed chairs. The cane, she remembered, had felt lumpy against her rain-dampened sweater.

“
Doctor
Tim?” she'd asked.

“'Fraid so, and to get the rest of the questions out of the way, chief of endocrinology at Saint Paul's Hospital up on Burrard Street, prof. at UBC, fifty-six years old, came to Canada in fifty-five, married a Canadian…”

“You're married?” She'd sat back in her chair. Hard. Not another one. She'd started to rise.

“Was. My ex and my two boys live in Ontario.”

“Oh.” She'd sat down.

He'd leaned across the table, smiled, and said, “Now, you know everything about me. Let's order, and then you can tell me all about Fiona Kavanagh.”

She couldn't remember what she'd ordered, but he'd had—

“I'm going to have calamari…”

“And red snapper.” She laughed.

“How did you know that?”

“It's what you had the first time we came here.”

“And you had oysters and fish and chips.”

So she had. Trust him to remember. The pair of them were like a couple of sixteen-year-olds getting dewy-eyed when they heard the tune that had been played at their first dance together. For old times' sake, then. “Oysters Rockefeller and Atlantic cod and french fries, please.” To hell with diets, even though McCusker had been switched to a low-fat cat food.

“Fish and chips? You can take the girl out of Ireland, but…”

The waiter leaned past Fiona. He showed the wine's label to Tim, who nodded.

The waiter poured.

She sipped. It was a Chardonnay, crisp and fruity.

“Would you care to order, sir?”

Tim ordered.

“We're very busy tonight. It may be some time.”

“No worries.”

The waiter left.

“Cheers.” Tim lifted his glass.

“
Sláinte mHaith.
” This was a damn sight better than parent-teacher interviews. The wine was cold on her tongue.

Tim pointed to the marina. “Fancy taking
Windy
out tomorrow? Forecast's good.”

“Love to.” He'd started taking her sailing in April, and she'd taken to it like a duck to water. “Where'll we go? Where the wind blows?”

“Bowen Island?”

Around them the hum of the conversations of the other diners was punctuated by the gulls outside that bickered like the women of the Falls hanging out their washing and calling insults to their neighbours across the backyard fences.

“Lovely. I'd enjoy…” Fiona was conscious of someone standing near her.

A harsh voice said in a thick Belfast accent, “'Scuse me. Fiona? Fiona Kavanagh? I don't mean to interrupt like, but…”

She knew that voice. She spun in her seat. She no longer could hear the sounds of background conversations, the mewling of the gulls.

A short man shot out his lower jaw, grinned, and said, “
It is
. It is, so it is. How's about ye?” He turned to Tim. “I didn't mean to intrude, like, but I've not seen herself there for about ten years and the missus says to me, so she does … she's over there in the smoking bit … Siobhan's with her. She's my daughter,” he explained to Tim. Jimmy pointed to a table in the corner. “The missus says, says she, ‘See you that there woman who's just come in? She looks a hell of lot like Davy's Fiona.' ‘Away off and chase yourself,' says I, but the more I looked…” He held out his hand to Tim. “Jimmy Ferguson, by the way.”

“Tim Andersen.”

Fiona glanced across the room to where two women sat, one middle-aged, the other young, tall, with waist-length blonde hair. They waved. Fiona waved back.

“Jesus, Fiona, the things you see when you don't have a gun.”

Gun. She flinched. Guns. Belfast. Jimmy Ferguson, housepainter and ex-Provo. The last time she'd seen Jimmy in Belfast, she'd run into him, quite by accident, in Smithfield Market, after she'd left Davy. She'd asked Jimmy to give her regards to Davy, and he'd phoned her. Asked her to meet him.

She took a deep breath. “Are you living in Vancouver, Jimmy?”

“Aye. Me and the missus emigrated to join Siobhan in Toronto. She sponsored us. She'd been out there for a while. You mind she'd been visiting us when…? She went back after…”

After—after Davy had met with her, told her he
would
leave the Provos and come to Canada—and the feelings she'd had that night flooded back. She slipped her hands under the table, not wanting Tim to see how much they trembled. After—after he'd done one more mission, the mission that had blown up in his face as Jimmy's appearance here tonight had exploded in hers.

“Yes.” Fiona's voice was cold. “I do.” She could see Tim's brow wrinkle.

Jimmy's jaw flicked. “Aye, well, we'll say no more about
that
. Anyroad, I'd enough saved up for to buy a wee painting business in Toronto. But the winters was fierce, so they were. I tell you, when I go to hell, ould Beelzebub won't be asking me to stoke the furnace. He'll hand me a snow shovel.” Jimmy tittered at his own joke. “I sold up and bought a partnership in a place out here a couple of years back. And do you live here, too, Fiona?”

“I do.”

“I'll be damned. Small world. I knew you'd come to Canada after us. Me and Davy still write to each other. He told me you'd come.”

He wrote to Davy.

Jimmy blethered on. “I'll tell you one thing: You've not lost your Ulster accent.”