let it pass. ‘I’d better be on my way.’
Pope nodded. ‘Make sure it’s the right one. No detours to Holyhead for the Irish boat.’
Rogan turned very slowly, his face quite expressionless. ‘And what would you be meaning by that?’
Pope forced a smile. ‘Nothing, Irish, nothing. It’s just that the Big Man’s invested a lot of money in you. He’s entitled to see some return.’
The next moment, a hand had him by the throat, pulling him close and the rush of blood seemed to be forcing out his eyeballs.
‘When I do a thing, it’s because I want to,’ Rogan said softly. ‘Always remember that, Pope. Nobody crowds Sean Rogan.’
Pope went staggering back against the whitewashed wall and slumped to the ground. He crouched there, sobbing for breath, aware of the Ford starting up and moving out across the yard, the engine fading into the distance.
A footstep scraped on stone and a voice said calmly, ‘Friend Rogan plays rough. A dangerous man to cross.’
Pope looked up at Henry Soames and cursed savagely. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’ He groaned, swaying a little as he got to his feet. ‘If I’d any sense I’d pull out of this now.’
‘And lose out on all that lovely money?’ Soames patted him on the shoulder. ‘Let’s go back inside and I’ll go over it again. I think you’ll see things my way.’
Round the bend of the road, Rogan parked the car by a five-barred gate and walked back the way he had come. There were several reasons for such a course. In the first place he didn’t like Pope, in the second, he didn’t trust him. And there was the intriguing fact that the tyres of both cars had been wet although the brake had supposedly been under cover since the previous day.
Nearing the cottage, he left the road, pushed his way through a plantation of damp fir trees and crossed the yard at the rear. A curtain was drawn across the window, but when he bent down he could see most of the living room through a narrow crack.
Henry Soames and Pope were sitting at the table engaged in earnest conversation, the whisky bottle between them. Rogan stayed there for only a moment, then turned and retraced his steps.
So – the plot thickened. Most puzzling thing of all, how did Colum O’More come to be mixed up with such people? There was no answer, could be none till he reached Kendal. He leaned back in his seat and concentrated on the road ahead.
After midnight Rogan had the road pretty much to himself, although from Bristol to Birmingham and north into Lancashire he came across plenty of heavy transport working the all-night routes.
Just after two a.m. he stopped at a small garage near Stoke to fill up, staying in the shadows of the car so that the attendant didn’t get a clear look at his face.
He made good time, always keeping within any indicated speed limits, and dawn found him moving north along the M6 motorway east of Lancaster.
The morning was grey and sombre with heavy rain clouds drifting across his path, and to the west the dark waters of Morecambe Bay were being whipped into whitecaps. He opened the side window and the wind carried the taste of good salt air and he inhaled deeply, feeling suddenly alive for the first time in years.
He stopped the car, took out the vacuum flask and stood at the side of the road looking out at the distant sea while he finished the coffee. It was difficult to believe, but he was out. For a brief moment, the strange, illogical thought crossed his mind that perhaps this was only some dark, hopeless dream from which the rattle of the key in the lock of his cell door would awaken him at any moment, and then a gull cried harshly in the sky and rain started to fall in a sudden heavy rush. He stood there for a moment longer, his face turned up to it, and then got back into the car and drove away.
He arrived in Kendal just after seven and found the place, like most country market towns at that time in the morning, already stirring. He located the Woolpack Inn in Stricklandgate without any trouble, pulled in the car park and switched off the engine.
It was a strange feeling waiting there in the car, like the old days working with the Maquis in France, and he remembered that morning in Amiens with the rain bouncing from the cobbles and the contact man who turned out to be an Abwehr agent. But then you never could be certain of anything in this life, from the womb to the grave.
He opened the packet of cigarettes Pope had given him, found it empty and crushed it in his hand. A quiet voice said, ‘A fine morning, Mr Rogan.’
She was perhaps twenty years old, certainly no more. She wore an old trenchcoat belted around her waist and, in spite of her head-scarf, rain beaded the fringe of dark hair which had escaped at the front and drifted across her brow.
She walked round to the other side, opened the door and sat on the bench seat beside him. Her face was smoothly rounded with a flawless cream complexion, the eyebrows and hair coal black and her red lips had an extra fullness that suggested sensuality. It was the sort of face he had seen often on the west coast of Ireland, particularly around Galway where there had been a plentiful infusion of Spanish blood over the centuries.
‘How could you be sure?’ he said.
She shrugged. ‘I had the number of the car and Colum showed me a photograph. You’ve changed.’
‘Haven’t we all?’ he said. ‘Where do you fit in?’
‘You’ll find out. If you’ll let me get at that wheel, we’ll move out.’
He eased himself across the seat. She slid past him. For a moment he was acutely conscious of her as a woman, a hint of perfume in the cold morning air, the edge of the coat riding above her knees. She pulled it down with a complete lack of self-consciousness and started the engine.
‘I’d like to stop for some cigarettes,’ Rogan said.
She took a packet from her left pocket and tossed them across. ‘No need. I’ve got plenty.’
‘Have we far to go?’
‘About forty miles.’
She was perfectly calm, her hands steady on the wheel as she took the brake with real skill through the narrow streets and the early morning traffic, and he watched her for a while, leaning back in the corner.
A fine, lovely girl this one, but one who had been used by life and not kindly. The story was there in the shadow that lurked behind the grey-green eyes. Hurt, but not broken – the courage showed in the tilt of the chin, the sureness of those competent hands. The pity of it was that she would never let anyone get close to her again and that was the real tragedy.
Her voice cut sharply into his musing. ‘You’ll know me next time?’
‘And would that be a bad thing?’ he grinned lightly. ‘Liverpool-Irish?’
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘No accent like it in this world or out of it.’
She smiled in spite of herself. ‘You
