Confessional. Part 51

Devlin opened Fox's shirt and examined the wound just below the breast on the left. Fox's breathing was bad, his eyes full of pain. 'You were right,' he whispered. 'He's good.'

'Take it easy,' Devlin said. 'I've called in Trent and Brodie.'

He could already hear the Ford approaching. Fox said, 'Is he still in the house?'

'I doubt it.'

Fox sighed.-'We c.o.c.ked it, Liam. There'll be h.e.l.l to pay over this. We had him and he got away.'

'A bad habit he has,' Devlin said again, and the Ford entered the farmyard and skidded to a halt.

Cussane sat sideways in the pa.s.senger seat of the jeep, feet on the ground. He was stripped to the waist. There wasn't a great deal of blood, just the ugly puckered lips of the wound. He knew that was a bad sign, but there was no point in telling her that. She carefully poured sulfa powder on the wound from his small medical kit and affixed one of the field service dressing packs under his instructions.

'How do you feel?' she asked anxiously.

'Fine.' Which was a lie, for now that the initial shock was wearing off, he was in considerable pain. He found one of the morphine ampoules. They were of the kind used on the battlefield. He gave himself an injection and the pain started to ease quite quickly.

'Good,' he said. 'Now pa.s.s me a clean shirt. There should still be one left.'

She helped him on with it and then his jacket and raincoat. 'You'll be needing a doctor.'

'Oh, sure,' he said. 'Please help me. I've got a bullet in the shoulder. The first thing he'd reach for would be a telephone.'

Then what do we do? They'll really start hunting you now. All the roads covered.'

'I know,' he said. 'Let's have a look at the map.' After a while, he said, 'The Solway Firth between us and England. Only one main route through to Carlisle via Dumfries and Annan. Not much road to plug.'

'So we're trapped?'

'Not necessarily. There's the railway. There might be some sort of chance there. Let's get moving and find out.'

Ferguson said, 'It's a mess. Couldn'rbe worse. How's Harry Fox?'

'He'll live, as they say. At least that's the local doctor's opinion. They've got him here in Dumfries at the general hospital.'

'I'll make arrangements to have him shipped down here to London as soon as possible. I want him to have the best. Where are you phoning from?'

'Police headquarters in Dumfries. Trent's here with me. They're turning out all the men they can. Road blocks and so on. The weather isn't helping. Still raining like h.e.l.l.'

'What do you think, Liam?'

'I think he's gone.'

'You don't think they are going to net him up there?'

'Not a chance in the wide world.'

Ferguson sighed. 'Yes, frankly, that's how I feel. Stay for a while with Harry, just to make sure, then come back.'

'Now - this evening?'

'Get the night train to London. The Pope flies into Gatwick Airport at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. I want you with me.'

Cussane and Morag left the jeep in a small quarry in a wood above Dunhill and walked down towards the railway line. At that end of the small town, the streets were deserted in the heavy rain and they crossed the road, pa.s.sed a ruined warehouse with boarded-up windows and squeezed through a gap in the fence above the railway line. A goods train stood in the siding. Cussane crouched down and watched as a driver in overalls walked along the track and pulled himself up into the engine. 'But we don't know where it's going,' Morag said.

Cussane smiled. 'It's pointing south, isn't it?' He grabbed her arm. 'Come on!'

They went down the bank through the gathering dusk, crossed the line as the train started to move. Cussane broke into a trot, reached up and pushed back a sliding door. He tossed in the bag, pulled himself up, turned and reached for the girl's hand. A moment later and she was with him. The wagon was almost filled with packing cases, some of them stencilled with the address of a factory in Penrith.

'Where's that?' Morag asked.

'South of Carlisle. Even if we don't go further than that, we're on our way.'

He sat down, feeling reasonably elated, and lit a cigarette. His left arm worked, but it felt as if it didn't belong to him. Still, the morphine had taken care of the pain. Morag snuggled beside him and he put an arm around her. A long time since he had felt protective towards anyone. To be even more blunt, a long time since he had cared.

She had closed her eyes and seemed to sleep. Thanks to the morphine, the pain had not returned and he could cope when it did. There were several ampoules in his kit. Certainly enough to keep him going. With the bullet in him and no proper medical attention, sepsis would only be a matter of time, but all he needed now was thirty-six hours. The Holy Father flew into Gatwick in the morning. And the day after that, Canterbury.

As the train started to coast along the track he leaned back, his good arm around the girl, and drifted into sleep.

MORAG CAME AWAKE with a start. The train seemed to be skidding to a halt. They were pa.s.sing through some sort of siding and light from the occasional lamp drifted in through the slats, picking Cussane's face out of the darkness. He was asleep, the face wiped clean of any expression. When she gently touched his forehead it was damp with sweat. He groaned and turned on one side and his arm swung across his body. She saw that he was clutching the Stechkin.

She was cold. She turned up the collar of the reefer coat, put her hands in her pockets and watched him. She was a simple girl, uncomplicated in spite of the life she had known, but blessed with a quick mind and a fund of sound common sense.

She had never known anyone like Cussane. It was not just the gun in his hand, the quick, cold violence of the man. She had no fear of him. Whatever else he was, he was not cruel. Most important of all, he had helped her and that was something she was not used to. Even her grandfather had difficulty in protecting her from Murray's brutality. Cussane had saved her from that, and she was enough of a woman to realize he'd saved her from far worse. That she had helped him simply did not occur to her. For the first time in her life, she was filled with a sense of freedom.

The wagon jolted again, Cussane's eyes opened and he turned quickly, up on one knee, and checked his watch. 'One-thirty. I must have slept for a long time.'

'You did.'

He peered out through the slats and nodded. 'We must be moving into the sidings at Penrith. Where's my bag?'

She pushed it across. He rummaged inside, found the

medical kit and gave himself another morphine injection. 'How is it?' she asked.

'Fine,' he said. 'No trouble. I'm just making sure.'

He was lying, for the pain, on waking, had been very real. He slid back the door and peered out and a sign for Penrith loomed out of the dark. 'I was right,' he said.

'Are we getting out here?'

'No guarantee this train goes any further and it's not much of a walk to the motorway.'

'Then what?'

There'll be a service centre, a cafe, shops, parked cars, trucks. Who knows?' The pain had faded again now and he managed a smile. 'An infinite possibility to things. Now give me your hand, wait till we slow right down, and jump.'

It was a longer walk than Cussane had antic.i.p.ated so that it was three o'clock when they turned into the carpark of the nearest service centre on the M6 and approached the cafe. A couple of cars moved in off the motorway and then a truck, a freightliner so ma.s.sive that Cussane didn't see the police car until the last moment. He pulled Morag down behind a van and the police car stopped, the light on top of it lazily turning.