Confessional. Part 48

He had a momentary vision of the wretched encampment, imagined the slow and inevitable brutalization of the years. And she was worth more than that. Much more.

'Don't be stupid,' he said. 'Get in!'

'What for?'

'I need you to drive the jeep, don't I, while I follow the map? Down through the glen below and over that centre hill. There's a farm in a place called Glendhu outside Larwick.'

She got behind the wheel quickly, smiling. 'Have you friends there?'

'Not exactly.' He reached for his bag, opened it, pulled open the false bottom and took out the bundle of banknotes. 'This is the kind of stuff they like. What most people like if it comes to that.' He pulled several notes off, folded them and put them in the breast pocket of her old reefer coat. That should keep you going till you find your grannie.'

Her eyes were round in astonishment. 'I can't take that.'

'Oh yes, you can. Now get this thing moving.'

She selected a low gear and started down the track carefully. 'And what happens when we get there? To me, I mean?'

'We'll have to see. Maybe you could catch a train. On your own, you'd probably do very well. I'm the one they're really after, so your only real danger is in being with me.'

She didn't say anything to that and he studied the map in silence. Finally, she spoke again. 'The business about me and Murray. Does that disgust you? I mean, the wickedness of it?'

'Wickedness?' He laughed softly. 'My dear girl, you have no conception of what true wickedness, real evil, is like, although Murray is probably animal enough to come close. A priest hears more of sin in a week than most people experience in a lifetime.'

She glanced at him briefly. 'But I thought you said you only posed as a priest.'

'Did I?' Cussane lit another cigarette and leaned back in the seat, closing his eyes.

As the police car turned out of the carpark at Glasgow Airport, Chief Inspector Trent said to the driver, 'You know where we're going. We've only got thirty-five minutes so step on it.' Devlin and Fox sat in the rear of the car and Trent turned towards them. 'Did you have a good flight?'

'It was fast, that was the main thing,' Fox said. 'What's the present position?'

'Cussane turned up again, at a gypsy encampment in the Galloway Hills. I got the news on the car radio just before you got in.'

'And got away again, I fancy?' Devlin said.

'As a matter of fact, he did.'

'A bad habit he has.'

'Anyway, you said you wanted to be in the Dunhill area. We're going straight to Glasgow Central Railway Station now. The main road is still flooded, but I've made arrange-no

ments for us to board the Glasgow to London express. They'll drop us at Dunhill. We'll also have the oaf who had Cussane and lost him in the first place, Sergeant Brodie. At least he knows the local area.'

'Fine,' Devlin said. That takes care of everything from the sound of it. You're armed, I hope?'

'Yes. Am I permitted to know where we're going?' Trent asked.

Fox said, 'A village called Larwick not far from this Dunhill place. There's a farm outside which, according to our information, operates as a safe house for criminals on the run. We think our man could be there.'

'But in that case, you should let me call in reinforcements.'

'No,' Devlin told him. 'We understand the farm in question is in an isolated area. The movement of people in any kind of numbers, never mind men in uniform, would be bound to be spotted. If our man is there, he'd run for it again.'

'So we'd catch him,' Trent said.

Devlin glanced at Fox who nodded, and the Irishman turned back to Trent. 'The night before last, three gunmen of the Provisional IRA tried to take him on the other side of the water. He saw them all off.'

'Good G.o.d!'

'Exactly. He'd see off a few of your chaps, too, before they got to him. Better to try it our way, Chief Inspector,' Harry Fox said. 'Believe me.'

From the crest of the hill above Glendhu, Cussane and Morag crouched in the wet bracken and looked down. The track had petered out, but in any case, it had seemed politic to Cussane to leave the jeep up there out of sight. There was nothing like an ace in the hole if anything went sour. Better the Mungos didn't know about that.

'It doesn't look much,' Morag said.

Which was an understatement, for the farm presented an unlovely picture. One barn without its roof, tiles missing from the roof of the main building. There were potholes in the yard

filled with water, a truck minus its wheels, a decaying tractor, red with rust.

The girl shivered suddenly. 'I've got a bad feeling. I don't like that place.'

He stood up, picked up his bag, and took the Stechkin from his pocket. 'I've got this. There's no need to worry. Trust me.'

'Yes,' she said and there was a kind of pa.s.sion in her voice. 'I do trust you.'

She took his arm and together they started down through the bracken towards the farm.

Hector Mungo had driven down to Larwick early that morning, mainly because he'd run out of cigarettes although come to think of it, they'd run out of almost everything. He purchased bacon, eggs, various canned foods, a carton of cigarettes and a bottle of Scotch and told the old lady who ran the general store, to put it on the bill, which she did because she was afraid of Mungo and his brother. Everyone was afraid of them. On his way out, Hector helped himself to a morning paper as an afterthought, got into the old van and drove away.

He was a hard-faced man of sixty-two, sullen and morose in an old flying jacket and tweed cap, a grey stubble covering his chin. He turned the van into the yard, pulled up and got out with the cardboard box filled with his purchases and ran for the door through the rain, kicking it open.

The kitchen he entered was indescribably filthy, the old stone sink piled high with dirty pots. His brother, Angus, sat at the table, head in hands, staring into s.p.a.ce. He was younger than his brother, forty-five, with cropped hair and a coa.r.s.e and brutal face that was rendered even more ugly by the old scar that bisected the right eye which had been left milky white.

'I thought you'd never come.' He reached in the box as his brother put it down and found the whisky, opening it and taking a long swallow. Then he found the cigarettes.

'You idle b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' Hector told him. 'You might have put the fire on.'

Angus ignored him, simply took another pull at the bottle, lit a cigarette and opened the newspaper. Hector moved across to the sink and found a match to light the Calor gas stove beside it. He paused, looking out into the yard as Cussane and Morag appeared and approached the house.

'We've got company,' he said.

Angus moved to join him. He stiffened. 'Just a minute.' He laid the newspaper down on the draining board. 'That looks d.a.m.n like him right there on the front page to me.'

Hector examined the newspaper report quickly. 'Jesus, Angus, we've got a right one here. Real trouble.'

'Just another little Mick straight out of the bogs,' Angus said contemptuously. 'Plenty of room for him at the bottom of the well, just like the others.'

That's true.' Hector nodded solemnly.