was headed. Strictly speaking, it might be inside the estate. However, Macken doubted there’d be much in the way of patrols, even though it was the country seat of Lord Brookemartin, Northern Ireland’s seemingly permanent prime minister. From what little Macken had been able to glean, it seemed the local police did not exert themselves unnecessarily.
Macken reached the lakeside and built a hide of branches and foliage under an overhanging tree, the better to fool the fish and any passers-by. He wrapped himself in his bivouac sheet, leaving his arms free. He laid out a small sack for any catch. Then he slotted his rod together, threaded line through the eyelets and tied on a fly and hook.
He prolonged the moment before the first cast, then flicked his rod forward, sending the line floating over the lake. He kept his elbow tucked in, letting the elasticity of the rod do its work, saving his own energy.
The hook and fly set off widening skin-deep circles across the velvety smooth water. Macken let the line drift. There was no urgency. He hoped there were dollaghan moving below. The big, brown fish were like sea trout, but swam upstream from the inland sea of Lough Neagh, to lurk in the rivers and lakes that fed it. They wouldn’t be rushed. They were sensitive. Easily spooked at night by a torch or match flare. Sometimes they came quietly. Other times a dollaghan could surprise you with an arm-wrenching tug, then try to free itself with a head-shaking twisting retreat through weeds and snags.
Macken let the world of men retreat. He focused on the depthless surface scum on which the fading evening light shimmered in shifting patterns. It was gently mesmerising. Sometimes he looked deeper into the green shallows, where indistinct, dark shapes moved like faint, floating threads across the liquid of an eyeball.
The warm evening drew in. Shadows hid him. Macken relaxed into a state where he thought and worried about nothing. Not his job, not the world, nor his place in it. He was conscious only of the air and leaves around him, the insects, the birds and of course the water – from which he’d occasionally draw a brown dollaghan. One of them cooked over an early morning fire would do very well for breakfast. In this stillness, Macken passed the hours into night, eventually, imperceptibly, falling into sleep.
*
An eye pressed to the slit, he gazed at the flame in the window. Then it shivered and was gone. Now there was only darkness. It brushed past him, stroking his face. It caught in his throat. It tasted of soil. It smel t overpowering. It clutched at him, wrapping itself round him, covering him, making it difficult to breathe.
He curled himself into a tight ball and closed his eyes to hide from the strange shapes closing in. He squeezed closed his mouth and nostrils to prevent the tendrils of darkness creeping inside. He blocked his ears against the scratching by his head.
The child hummed quietly to himself, and then louder until the sound inside his head overcame the sounds outside. Then the shivering began. From the chill. Or from the familiar fear that the darkness would be never ending. That the light would not return.
He rocked and rolled in the dirt to fight the shivering, and to comfort himself. His own arms wrapped around himself where other arms had once held him. Behind the lids of his closed eyes, he concentrated on the glow of the flickering flame. But soon even that was merely an uncertain memory in the darkness.
CHAPTER 4
Macken twitched awake an hour before dawn. He was too canny to draw attention to himself, and so remained still, taking in his surroundings. There was just a hint of moonlight on the lake. If only this were the beginning of time spent here, he wished, rather than the beginning of the end. He’d have to make a fire, gather his kit and set off into town. But the calm and solitude were so comfortable. And the water so inviting. An early swim would be just the thing to get the blood circulating, he thought.
He stripped and slipped into the dark water. Jesus, it was cold. Macken ducked under the surface and swam till he had to come up for air. Then he struck out across the lake, turning at the far bank, moving more slowly now. Beads of water spilt from his fingers like scattered pearls. He turned on his back and smiled, savouring the freedom of the coolness round his body, and nothing but sky above.
If the Longrock Road battlers could see him now, he thought. But then a feeling came over him that someone was watching. If he had not been almost just floating, the rush of water round his ears would have masked the rustling in the bushes. Macken sank till only his face broke the surface, treading water slowly. Something, or somebody, was moving near where he had left his belongings.
This could be tricky, he thought. He couldn’t lurk offshore till they left, because the cold was seeping through him. And his gear was ripe for the taking. No point shouting an official challenge either. A thief could be away with his uniform, before he was out of the water. Who would believe he was a peeler anyway, naked and dripping in the dark? There was no good hoping it was a bailiff either. Even if his discarded uniform persuaded the bailiff not to shoot, the evidence of the fish in the sack could turn this into a very embarrassing first day in Blackwatertown.
Macken slowly moved nearer, and then sidled through reeds to the shore. He crept up the slippery bank and stealthily towards two backs.
*
‘Watch it!’ Macken heard someone whisper. ‘Could be a trick.’
‘Calm down, Cedric. We know it’s not the peelers anyway.’
This second, older voice seemed more knowing. ‘The fishing gear looks more like someone in the same line as us than the bailiff.’
‘Sure you’d never see yon fella at this time of the morning,’ said the younger voice, sounding reassured. ‘And it looks like our friend here has caught us breakfast.’
‘Thank God for that,’ said the older man, ‘after the night we’ve had. Lift them and see what else there is before the mystery man returns.’
Macken crouched. This was disastrous. Losing the fish was acceptable, but not the rest. His fingers touched and then curled round a fallen branch. A weapon. But even with the element of surprise it was only a branch, and by the lightness of it, rotten and hollow. It would break if he hit one of them. And yet, as his fingers travelled to the open end of the wood, he had a crazy idea. Don’t think, he told himself. Just do it.
In a moment they’ll realise it’s a police uniform, thought Macken. He stepped forward silently and placed the end of the branch gently against the bigger man’s back.
‘Don’t move or I’ll plug you.’ Macken put on as gruff a voice as he could manage. ‘Thieving scumbags. Hands in the air.’
This is the moment, thought Macken, where I’m done. Or I get away with it.
Macken could feel the man considering, and then speak.
‘Easy now. Let’s not get excited.’ As he spoke, he began to turn.
‘Keep turning,’ barked Macken, ‘and I’ll drop you first, and then your friend.’
The man stopped turning.
Macken continued. ‘I’d be within my rights to shoot you with no questions asked.’
‘Hold on now, hold
