Читать книгу Cry of the Hunter - Jack Higgins, Justin Richards - Страница 7

Fallon awakened suddenly and completely and lay staring blindly into the darkness. Gradually the room began to take shape as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, and he reached for cigarettes to the small table that stood beside the bed. He closed his eyes against the sudden flare of the match and inhaled deeply. His throat was dry and his mouth tasted bad. He groaned and his searching hand groped again in the darkness until it located a bottle.

He pulled the cork with his teeth and swallowed deeply. The whisky burned its way down to his stomach, filling him with a nausea that was followed by a pleasant glow. He leaned back against the pillows with a sigh of relief.

Rain spattered on the window with ghostly fingers and he looked at the luminous dial of his watch and saw that it was eleven-thirty. He wondered what day it was. He lifted the bottle to his lips again and considered the point. He was still dressed so he must have been drunk when he went to bed. That much was obvious, but beyond that point it was difficult to go for memory had a way of playing tricks on him. He decided he must be getting old and took another generous swallow from the bottle. He remembered getting up and it had been a fine morning. He had tried to work but the words had refused to come and the whisky hadn’t helped. It hadn’t helped at all. One thing was certain. He couldn’t have lain there for more than a day because his watch was still going.

A sudden gust of wind loosed a tendril of ivy from the wall and set it tapping against the window with an eerie monotony that was unnerving. He shivered and raised the bottle to his lips again. It was empty and he dropped it carelessly to the floor and decided to get up.

He stubbed his cigarette into the ashtray that stood on the small table and then, suddenly, he was alone with the darkness and it moved in on him, pushing against his body with a terrible weightless pressure that was terrifying in its relentless force. The darkness moved in and moved out and a curious sibilant whisper rippled through the void. For a moment he swayed on the edge of panic and then he hurled aside the bedclothes and lurched to his feet.

His trembling fingers fumbled with matches and a small flame blossomed out of the darkness. He turned up the wick of the bedside lamp with his free hand and touched it with the match. Light spread to each corner of the room, driving the shadows before it, and he sat down on the bed and lit another cigarette with hands that shook slightly.

After a while he took the lamp and went into the bathroom. His shirt was damp with perspiration and he stripped it from his body and sluiced his head and shoulders with cold water. As he dried himself he examined his face in the mirror. Dark, sombre eyes that were too deeply set in their sockets, stared out at him with an expression he could no longer analyse even to himself. The ugly, puckered scar that slanted across his right cheek, lifted the corner of his mouth giving him an oddly bitter and sardonic expression that was accentuated by the dark fringe of his beard.

He returned to the bedroom and rummaged in a drawer until he found a clean shirt. He pulled it quickly over his head and buttoned it with fingers that had found their sureness again and then he took the lamp and left the room. It was cold in the stone-flagged passage and he passed quickly into the kitchen. He took a bundle of kindling from a box in one corner and went into the main room of the cottage.

His typewriter rested on a table by the window and the floor was littered with crumpled balls of paper. He gathered them together quickly and used them to start the fire with. In a few moments the dry kindling was burning brightly and he carefully added logs from the pile in the hearth.

He sat back on his heels and stared deeply into the bright flames and after a while, when the fire was burning steadily, he straightened up and moved to a dresser on the far side of the room. He took down a fresh bottle of whisky, turned down the lamp, and sat in a chair by the fire, a glass in one hand and the bottle on the floor beside him.

The flames flickered across the oak-beamed ceiling, casting fantastic shadows that writhed and twisted constantly. The liquor in the glass gleamed, amber and gold, and Fallon savoured it slowly and felt its warmth flowing into him. He sighed with pleasure and started to refill his glass and suddenly a light flashed through the window, illuminating the far wall for a second, and disappearing as quickly as it had come.

He moved quickly to the window and peered out into the darkness and the driving rain. There was nothing to be seen. He was about to turn away when car headlights appeared from a dip in the road below. The car was moving slowly and then it appeared to stop. He watched it for a few moments until the lights moved forward again and turned into the track that led to the cottage.

Fallon pushed the typewriter out of the way and opened a drawer in the table. He took out a Luger automatic pistol and an electric torch. He checked the action of the Luger and then opened the door and moved out into the covered porch.

The car came to a halt a few feet away and the engine was turned off. For a little while there was silence and he waited patiently in the darkness as the rain hammered steadily into the ground. He heard one of the doors open and there was a snatch of conversation and then the door closed again and two figures came towards him. They paused a few feet away from the porch and a voice said, ‘It’s a God-forsaken spot. Do you think he’s here?’

Fallon eased the safety-catch off and held the Luger against his right thigh. He raised the torch and said quietly, ‘He’s here!’ Light stabbed through the darkness, picking out the startled faces of the two men who stood before him.

There was silence and then a voice that he had not heard for many years said, ‘Is it yourself, Martin?’

For a moment he held the torch steady on them and then he directed the beam downwards and said, ‘You’d better come in. Watch the step with that leg of yours, O’Hara.’

He went back into the cottage and turned up the lamp. The two visitors followed him in and closed the door behind them. Fallon turned and faced them. He suddenly realized that he was still holding the Luger in one hand and he laughed shortly and put it down. The younger of the two men said, ‘Old habits die hard.’

Fallon shrugged. ‘What would you be knowing about my old habits?’

The man he had addressed as O’Hara laughed. ‘A good answer,’ he said. ‘A good answer.’ He was old with sagging shoulders and he supported his massive frame on a stick.

‘You’d better take your coat off and sit down,’ Fallon told him. He turned away and took two extra glasses from a shelf.

The younger man helped O’Hara off with his coat and the old man sat down in a chair by the fire with a sigh of relief. ‘Ah, now, is it a drop of the right stuff you’re going to offer us?’ he said as Fallon came forward with the glasses.

Fallon poured a generous measure into a glass and gave it to him. ‘Who’s your friend?’ he said.

O’Hara laughed again. ‘Fancy me forgetting my manners like that. This is Jimmy Doolan. He’s wanted to meet you for a long time, Martin.’

Doolan smiled quietly and held out his hand He was a small, quiet man with good capable hands and a Dublin accent. ‘I’ve dreamed of this day, Mr Fallon. You’ve been a hero to me since I was a kid.’

Fallon grunted. ‘A fine sort of hero.’ He handed Doolan a glass of whisky. ‘A lot of bloody good it did me.’

A puzzled expression appeared on Doolan’s face and O’Hara leaned forward and said easily, ‘Now then, Martin. Don’t tell me you’ve turned bitter in your old age.’

Fallon shrugged and sat down. ‘Bitter? It depends how you look at it. It’s one of the few luxuries I can afford these days.’

There was another short, uneasy pause before O’Hara said, ‘How’s the writing going? I never seem to see anything under your name.’

Fallon nodded. ‘You never will. I write thrillers under two different names. They wouldn’t interest you. They don’t even interest me. All they do successfully is pay the bills and keep me in whisky.’

Doolan leaned forward. ‘Don’t you ever feel like doing something else, Mr Fallon?’

Fallon looked at him for a moment and then smiled. ‘Not particularly. What would you suggest?’

Doolan fumbled for words. ‘Well, now, what you were doing before was not such a bad thing.’

‘I was in prison before,’ Fallon told him. ‘I was doing hard labour. Would you have me do that again?’ There was a short, tense silence and he stood up and said, ‘What is it, O’Hara? What do you want with me?’

O’Hara sighed heavily and poked a log that was threatening to fall into the hearth, back into place with the end of his walking stick. ‘The Organization needs you, Martin,’ he said. ‘It needs you bad.’

Fallon started so that whisky slopped over the edge of his glass. He gazed at O’Hara in astonishment and then he laughed harshly. ‘The Organization needs me?’ he said and there was incredulity in his voice. ‘After all these years it needs me?’

O’Hara nodded slowly. ‘It’s right enough. Doolan and I have been asked to come and see you.’

Fallon began to laugh uncontrollably. ‘That’s rich,’ he said. ‘That’s damned rich.’

Doolan jumped up and said angrily, ‘What’s so funny, Mr Fallon?’

‘The fact that the Organization can bloody well do without me,’ Fallon said. ‘That’s what’s so funny.’

Doolan swore savagely and turned to O’Hara. ‘Is this the great Martin Fallon? Swilling his guts with whisky and rotting in a back-country pigsty?’

Fallon moved so quickly that Doolan didn’t stand a chance. A fist caught him high on the right cheek and he stumbled, tripped over a loose rug and fell heavily to the floor. Fallon hauled him to his feet and pushed him down into a chair. ‘Listen to me,’ he said, and his voice was ice-cold. ‘When I was a schoolboy I lived and breathed the I.R.A. I joined when I was seventeen. When I was twenty-two I was the leader of the Organization in Ulster. I was a name in the land. I’m forty years of age and I’ve spent nine of them in prison. I’ve done my share for Ireland.’

‘Now then, Martin,’ O’Hara said soothingly. ‘No one is denying what you’ve suffered but it should only strengthen your resolve to fight until the whole of Ireland is free again.’

Fallon threw back his head and laughed savagely. ‘For God’s sake, are you still handing out that kind of clap-trap? The country is as free as it wants to be. If they ever want to change things north of the border they’ll do it through the government and through law. Guns and bombs will only serve to make them realize how well off they are without us.’

Doolan groaned and shook his head several times and Fallon handed him a glass of whisky which the small man swallowed at a gulp. After a while he fingered his face gingerly and said with a wry smile. ‘That’s a hell of a wallop you’ve got, Mr Fallon, and no mistake.’

Fallon grinned and sat down. ‘I’m sorry I lost my temper,’ he said, ‘but you touched me on a raw spot.’

‘It’s a thing I wouldn’t advise any man to do,’ Doolan said feelingly.

O’Hara coughed and spat into the fire. ‘We wouldn’t have come to you if there was anyone else, Martin. It’s desperate work and you’re the only man for it, and that’s a fact.’

‘You’re wasting your time,’ Fallon told him.

Doolan moved uneasily and there was puzzlement in his voice. ‘Do you mean to tell me you won’t help us, Mr Fallon?’

Fallon took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘That’s about the size of it.’ Doolan turned helplessly to O’Hara and Fallon went on. ‘That old spider there knew damned well that I wouldn’t stir a finger. He’d no right to bring you here.’

O’Hara raised his eyes piously to the ceiling and Doolan said, ‘But why now? You were the greatest of them all. You were worshipped throughout the length and breadth of Ireland.’

Fallon nodded and said lightly, ‘If only I’d got myself killed. It would have been even better. Another martyr to the cause.’ Doolan made a sudden exclamation of disgust and turned away and Fallon said seriously, ‘How old are you, lad? How many times have you been over the border? I’ve spent more than a lifetime over there. I’ve spent eternity many times over. I’ve been chased throughout the length and breadth of Ulster, and England, too. Five years ago I escaped from Dartmoor Prison. For three weeks I was hunted like an animal before I reached this country again. Oh, I was the great hero until I told them at Headquarters that I was through. O’Hara was there. He knows what happened.’

‘You were a sick man, Martin,’ O’Hara said smoothly. ‘You weren’t in your right mind.’

Fallon laughed grimly. ‘I was right in my mind for the first time in my life,’ he said. ‘I’d had plenty of time to think it over.’

‘But you can’t leave the Organization,’ Doolan said. ‘Once you’re a member, it’s for life. There’s only one way out.’

‘I know,’ Fallon said. ‘Feet first, but that’s where I had them, you see. You can’t court-martial and shoot the greatest living hero you’ve got. That wouldn’t do at all because the rot might set in. People might begin to think there was something wrong. No, you just put up with him and heave a sigh of relief when he buries himself in the wilds. And who knows – if you’re really lucky he might even drink himself into the grave.’

Doolan stared helplessly at him and O’Hara said, calmly, ‘What a one for the words you always were, Martin. What a one. But we still haven’t got down to business.’

Fallon shook his head and, despite himself, a reluctant smile came to his lips. ‘You’re wasting your time, O’Hara,’ he said. ‘I’m safe here. Four strong walls and a roof to keep out the rain, my typewriter to pay the bills and plenty of booze.’

‘Just so,’ the old man replied. ‘The whisky to try and fill the emptiness in you.’ He cackled suddenly. ‘Why man, the Irish Sea itself couldn’t fill that hole inside you.’

For a brief moment Fallon’s face slipped and a terrible expression came into his eyes and then he regained control and smiled lightly.

‘It’s you that should be writing the books and not me,’ he said.

O’Hara leaned back, a satisfied smile on his face. ‘Are you ready to hear why we’ve come, then?’

For a moment Fallon hesitated and then curiosity got the better of him. He shrugged. ‘All right. I’m listening. It can’t do any harm.’

O’Hara nodded and Doolan leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘Have you heard of Patrick Rogan, Mr Fallon?’

Fallon frowned. ‘I knew him well. A mad, hair-brained fanatic. He was shot dead in a running fight with the police on the Belfast Docks.’

‘He had a son,’ O’Hara said, quietly.

‘Yes, he had a son,’ Fallon said. ‘Shamus they called him. He was killed in nineteen-forty-five in a raid on a police barracks in County Down. I’ve forgotten the name of the place.’

‘There was another son,’ Doolan said. ‘Did you know that? Only a nipper when his father was killed. Don’t you read the papers here, Mr Fallon?’

‘I’m careful not to,’ Fallon said.

Doolan smiled briefly and went on. ‘Two years ago there was a clean sweep made in Belfast and the polis lifted most of the leaders. Patrick Rogan was only twenty and he hadn’t been over there long but he rose to the occasion and proved himself his father’s son. He took over leadership of the Organization and was so successful we left him in charge.’

Fallon raised his eyebrows. ‘He must be quite a boy.’

‘He is indeed, Mr Fallon,’ Doolan said, ‘and one we can’t do without. He’s walked the path of danger these two years, a hero and a legend to his people.’ He paused and the only sound in the room was the crackling of the logs in the fire and the drumming of the rain against the window. O’Hara coughed asthmatically and Doolan said, heavily, ‘He was taken the day before yesterday.’

There was another short silence and then Fallon said, ‘Well, it comes to us all in the end. He lost, that’s all.’

‘We must have him out,’ O’Hara said suddenly. ‘He must never stand trial.’

Fallon’s eyes narrowed and he looked first at Doolan, who dropped his gaze, and then at O’Hara. He laughed briefly. ‘What kind of a line are you trying to give me? Why shouldn’t he stand trial? I stood trial. What makes Rogan so different?’

Doolan sighed and said to O’Hara, ‘We’ll have to tell him the truth. It’s no good.’

O’Hara nodded. ‘I knew we would. I didn’t think he’d be fooled for a minute.’

Doolan turned to Fallon. He seemed to search for words and then he said, ‘You see, Mr Fallon, Rogan is everything I said he was. He’s served his country well. He’s done good work in Ulster, but…’

‘He’s not to be trusted,’ O’Hara said. ‘It could be the end of the Organization in Ulster if he ever stands trial.’

Fallon poured himself another drink and said coolly, ‘The work of years going up in smoke, eh? That wouldn’t be so good. How can he do it?’

Doolan sighed wearily and leaned back in his chair. ‘The polis are holding him at Castlemore. He managed to get a message smuggled out to us yesterday. He says we must get him out before they move him to Belfast. If we leave him to stand trial he swears he’ll make a deal with the polis. He’ll tell them everything they want to know about the Organization in Ulster if they promise to go easy on him.’

Fallon frowned. ‘He must be mad. He knows the first thing he’d get from the Organization, even if he was freed, would be a bullet. He’d do better to take his sentence and bide his time.’

O’Hara shook his head. ‘There’ll be no biding his time, Martin, if he is sentenced. He shot a peeler dead and crippled another. They’ll hang him so high the crows won’t be able to get at him.’

Fallon whistled softly. ‘God help him then. They’re hard men to deal with at the best of times. Devils, when one of their own has been killed.’

‘You can see why we came to you, Mr Fallon,’ Doolan said. ‘There’s nobody else left up there. Nobody that’s good enough to handle a job like this.’

Fallon laughed coldly. ‘And you think I’m going to stick my head into that hornets’ nest? You must be mad.’

‘You mean you refuse to help us?’ Doolan said.

‘I wouldn’t raise a finger,’ Fallon told him. ‘Rogan shot a peeler. He knew what he was doing. Now he can take the consequences.’ There was a hard finality in his tone.

Doolan turned to O’Hara, but the old man didn’t seem to be attending. He sat erect, his head slightly on one side as if he was listening for something. Suddenly he pulled himself to his feet and went across to the window. He peered out and when he turned there was a slight smile on his face. ‘Don’t worry, Jimmy,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be all right. The trouble with you is you don’t understand the Irish temperament.’ He chuckled to himself and shuffled back to his chair by the fire.

At that moment Fallon became aware of the sound of a car engine muffled by the rain. He turned and said, ‘What dirty trick have you got up your sleeve now, O’Hara?’

The old man smiled genially and took out his pipe. ‘No tricks, Martin. Psychology. It’s a grand thing, and after all – we must move with the times.’

As the car stopped outside Fallon filled his glass with a steady hand and poured the whisky down his throat in one easy swallow. He said, ‘You’re wasting your time, old spider.’

A knock sounded on the door and Doolan stood up, a frown on his face, and said to O’Hara, ‘What’s going on? You told me nothing of this?’

O’Hara smiled. ‘A small plan of my own.’ He nodded reassuringly. ‘Answer the door, Jimmy.’

Doolan walked slowly to the door and opened it. At first Fallon saw only the man and then he realized that a woman was leaning on his arm. For a moment he thought that she was wearing a cloak and then, as she moved forward into the light, he saw that she had an old, yellowing trenchcoat thrown lightly over her shoulders. In one hand she held a cane with which she tentatively felt her way. Her hair was snow-white and shone like a halo in the lamplight.

A terrible unease touched Fallon’s heart and his hand tightened around his glass. The woman halted in the centre of the room and her escort moved back to the door. O’Hara got to his feet and said, ‘I’m glad you could come, Maureen.’ He moved forward and took her hand. ‘This must seem like a strange meeting to you, but I knew you would want to speak with him before he goes to save Patrick.’

The woman turned her face into the light and stared across the room with opaque, sightless eyes. ‘Where are you, Martin Fallon?’ she said.

O’Hara turned to Fallon, his face expressionless. ‘Martin, this is Patrick Rogan’s mother come to see you.’

Fallon placed his glass carefully on the floor and got to his feet. When he looked at O’Hara there was contempt on his face and the old man dropped his eyes. He moved forward and said, ‘I’m here, Mrs Rogan.’

She raised her hand and gently touched his face with the tips of her fingers. The skin was drawn tightly over her bones and it was parchment yellow. She looked incredibly ancient and timeless and there was the mark of great suffering upon her face. She said, ‘I’ve given a husband and a son to the cause, Martin Fallon. I’ve given enough.’

He took her hand gently in his. ‘Enough and to spare, Mrs Rogan.’

‘You will save Patrick for me,’ she said. ‘You will bring him home safely.’ It was a statement of fact that admitted no denial.

Fallon looked into the vacant, useless eyes and tried to find words to answer her. Bitterness welled up inside him and a deep hatred for O’Hara who had placed him in such an impossible situation. How could he say no and continue to look upon the suffering in the face before him? He tried to speak and then, as if she sensed the turmoil within him, an expression of panic crossed her face and her hand tightened on his. It was as if she could see into the very depths of his soul. She swayed suddenly and he reached forward to steady her. ‘You will save him?’ she said in anguish. ‘You must!’

There was a great silence as she waited for his answer and Fallon smiled and gently squeezed her hand. ‘I’ll bring him safe home to you, Mrs Rogan,’ he said. In his heart he knew that from the moment she entered the room, fate had taken control.

She sighed as though from a great distance, and swayed again and he steadied her and said, ‘You’d better come and lie down for a while.’

She nodded several times and leaned heavily on his arm. Doolan moved quickly to open the door for them and they went out into the passage and passed through into the bedroom.

When Fallon returned O’Hara and Doolan were in the middle of a heated argument. Doolan said, ‘I still think it was a shameful trick, using the woman.’

O’Hara raised a hand. ‘Don’t talk to me of tricks,’ he said. ‘In this game anything goes. Ask that man there,’ he added, pointing to Fallon as he joined them. ‘He’s used a few in his time.’

Fallon threw himself down into his chair. ‘Oh, he’s right enough,’ he said to Doolan. ‘Anything goes. It’s the only way to get things done, but the old spider’s over-reached himself this time.’

‘And how do you make that out?’ O’Hara demanded.

‘Simple – the whole thing’s doomed to failure from the very beginning. Do you think for a moment that the police have the slightest intention of letting anyone even get near to Rogan? There are three thousand peelers over there who want one thing very badly at the moment. They want to see Patrick Rogan hang and they’ll make damned sure nobody interferes.’

O’Hara nodded and said calmly, ‘I know that. I told you it was a desperate business, but if anyone can do it, you can.’ Fallon gave an exclamation of disgust and the old man went on. ‘No, Martin, I mean it. The trouble with most of the boys when they get over the border is that they begin to crack right way. They take the whole business too damned seriously. Now, you never did.’

‘Are you mad?’ Doolan said indignantly. ‘I’ve never heard such nonsense in my life.’

Fallon threw back his head and laughed. ‘He’s right though,’ he said. ‘I never did.’ He glanced at Doolan’s outraged face and sobered up. ‘The only way to survive over there is to treat the whole thing like a game,’ he said. ‘It’s like war – it is war. But it isn’t like the books or the ballads at all. It’s dirty and dangerous and incredibly stupid.’

‘And that’s the only philosophy that can ever achieve the impossible,’ O’Hara said.

Fallon leaned forward. ‘You’d better give me what information you’ve got,’ he said. ‘Where are they holding him?’

Doolan nodded and smiled. ‘That’s about the only bright spot,’ he said. ‘We do have some secret information. They’re still holding him in Castlemore, but a friend on the inside gave us a tip this morning. They’re going to move him to Belfast tomorrow night on the nine o’clock mail train. The whole thing’s being done very quietly.’

Fallon nodded. ‘Because they expect the glory boys to try something foolish.’

‘You’ll want the address of our local headquarters in Castlemore,’ Doolan said.

Fallon shook his head. ‘No thanks,’ he said. ‘In the first place, I wouldn’t feel safe working with a local group. There’s still a reward of two thousand quid on my head. No – I’ve got to do it on my own. It’s the only way.’

O’Hara nodded in approval. ‘You’re right, Martin. It’s the only way, but you’ll be needing a hidey hole of some sort.’

Fallon smiled. ‘I’ve one or two of my own. Reliable ones from the old days.’ He stood up and moved across to the window and looked out into the night.

‘When will you go?’ O’Hara asked.

Fallon lit another cigarette. ‘In an hour or so. I’ll cross the border before morning. I can catch the milk train for Castlemore at Carlington.’ He moved back to the fire and said, ‘I’ll give myself three days at the outside. If we get away with it I’ll bring him straight here. No sense in getting him arrested on this side and put in that fine new detention camp they’ve got.’ O’Hara nodded and Fallon sighed and said, ‘I’ve been happy here, O’Hara. Happy for the first time in my life. If I ever get the chance I’ll pay you back for doing this to me.’

O’Hara half-smiled and shook his head. ‘No you won’t,’ he said. ‘You’re not the sort. Besides, you’ve never been happy here.’ His eyes challenged Fallon calmly, surely, and Fallon suddenly knew that what the old man said was true.

He threw his cigarette into the fire and left the room. He quietly opened the bedroom door and went in. Mrs Rogan slept peacefully, her face calm and tranquil in the lamplight. Fallon opened a wardrobe and taking out a tweed suit, changed quickly. When he was ready, he took a battered rain hat and an old trench coat from a hook behind the door. For a moment he stood at the bedside looking down at the sleeping woman and then he turned down the lamp and moved to the window.

A bare half-mile away through the darkness was the border. Within a few hours be would be in great danger. The rain hammered endlessly on the glass and the wind called to him as it moaned through the trees. A sudden spark of excitement moved within him. He smiled softly in the darkness and turned and quietly left the room.