The Great Fury

by Thomas Kennedy

  “What about cities?” Oengus asked even though he wasn’t really interested.

  “Not so much,” John conceded. “But some individuals still have magic in their genes and it pops out along the generations.”

  “That or through the occasional intermarriage,” Danu added.

  “Ok,” Oengus said.

  There was a silence. Oengus realized they had been skirting around the subject. He bit on his biscuit and waited.

  Danu looked to John.

  “Oengus I stole you,” John said. “You are a stolen child.”

  Chapter Four

  Live Corp was a hedge fund situated in the heart of the financial district of New York. Housed in an unpretentious Brownstone Building it had only a copper plate with its name on the door and if anything seemed a small player in a big market. Lived Dutronc was the President and Head of Operations. Lived Dutronc was a tall distinguished man with grey hair.

  It was clear that he was agitated as he walked up and down in front of the Boardroom table.

  The board of directors squirmed under his gaze but tried to look casual and in control. But Johnson, who was in attendance but not a member of the board, was anything but casual. He looked ready to bolt. He froze as he met Dutronc’s eye.

  “Apple shares? How did we miss the dip?” Dutronc asked.

  “We bought in early and the stock has risen twenty five times since then,” Johnson defended.

  “That was then. This is now,” Dutronc said coldly.

  “We should hold. They’ll come back. Still a good long term hold,” Johnson said.

  Dutronc regarded Johnson with distaste. He had an aversion to bad news. Johnson was regarded as good in appraisal terms and supposed to be good under pressure. Dutronc decided that was probably true.

  “Adjourned,” Dutronc said.

  The members of the board sighed with relief and gathered up their papers.

  “Hold?” Johnson asked with trepidation.

  “Hold Apple shares,” Dutronc said with a nod of approval. Needing no encouragement Johnson packed up his papers and got back to his desk.

  Morag was in charge of M Division. It was the smallest division in the organization and very niche. Morag also took a turn at keeping the minutes of the regular Board Meetings. She sat and waited until everyone had departed. She finished off the minutes with the reference to Apple shares.

  Dutronc took a cup of coffee, sat and sighed. It had been a hard session and he’d had to grandstand to drive fear into the hearts of his board. He was a firm believer that fear was not only the best motivator but that it also gave him immunity from counter questions. He liked his board cowed and acquiescent.

  Morag came and stood behind him and massaged his shoulders. Dutronc acquiesced with a small smile.

  Live Corp was a niche market specialist Hedge Fund. They invested in the service of human weakness and were strong in drink, drugs, and sex. They had a simple philosophy built around the theory that ‘evil was good’ for business.

  The purchase of Apple shares had been back in the day when it was held in certain quarters that the cell phone was the root of evil. Opinions had changed since but Live Corp had held on as the shares had preformed beyond all expectations.

  “Human weakness is still a viable philosophy. Lots of people want to use cell phones,” Morag soothed.

  “It has been our winner for a while now but the hedge fund needs to find a new star. Something that will rise and rise,” Dutronc said.

  “Problem is there is not enough evil,” Maedbh soothed further.

  “Disagree Maedbh,” Dutronc said disengaging from her smoothing massage. It was time for their usual routine of scanning the Divisional reports and replying to the afternoon post.

  Maedbh sat and took out her notebook.

  “Maedbh the world is rife with evil. We need to get a bigger market share,” Dutronc said mildly.

  “Yes sir,” Maedbh said agreeably.

  “Anything special?” Dutronc asked, picking up the divisional reports.

  “A couple of good assassinations. Also there is a quirky item from Technical that I think is worth attention,” Morag summarized.

  “Quirky?”

  “My area, M for magic.”

  “We’ll get to that but first the assassinations. They seem to be doing rather a lot of it in Russia? Perhaps we need to ease back? I really think assassination should be a last resort in business. Who organized them?”

  “Organized by the A Division as usual. R division requested them. It seems the police in consort with lawyers in Russia tried to rip us off. R division said the only way to sort it was to kill them. They said the Russian courts were no use.”

  “No real respect for property law in Russia,” Dutronc agreed. “Better they are careful whom they pick as partners in future rather than to have to assassinate,” he added.

  “Noted.”

  “Morag, I think maybe an appointment with Weinstein, he’s R division is he not? I’ll talk to him.”

  “Done,” Morag promised.

  “Morag where are we on the water project. This is the key project for your area,” Dutronc asked.

  “We are very advanced sir,” Morag reassured. “We need to recruit one more key person for the team.”

  “Are you on schedule? Our trading room will have to make forward financial commitments and your timetable is critical Morag.”

  “We are on schedule Sir. You can give the go ahead to the Hedge Fund Traders,” Morag said.

  “Good, well done so far Morag. Who is this extra person you need?”

  “Not critical but important for plan B,” Morag said.

  “How is plan B?”

  “We have put in the extra tunnel as you suggested Sir,” Morag reassured.

  “Good, good, anything else?”

  “I need a trip to Ireland for the target recruit. I have someone in mind.”

  “I’ll let you lead on that Morag. Anything else.”

  “Something I might use the trip to Ireland to investigate,” Morag said.

  “Something quirky you said?”

  “I put it on top of your reports Sir. The technical research group thinks they may have spotted something. It’s from an Irish Times report.”

  “Yes?”

  “Maybe nothing, maybe something,” Morag said as Dutronc read the report.

  “Two missing feared dead, off the Blasket Islands in Kerry,’ Dutronc read out loud.

  “That was the headline but search parties found nothing,” Morag added.

  “So?” Dutronc prompted.

  “The paragraph on local superstitions is interesting.”

  Dutronc scanned down the article.

  “They say that the locals blame the fairies, saying there is some history of a family vendetta with the fairy folk,” Dutronc looked up and added sarcastically, “Is this really the Irish Times?”

  “The missing man is a New York fireman and a hero of nine eleven. So the Times did a major article and sent their people down there. Interestingly although the reports said a local boy was missing there is no record of his existence. Technical thought, strange but interesting.”

  “And did they follow up?” Dutronc asked.

  “It seems the Irish Times reporter was a good Gaelic speaker and listened to some drunken conversations in the local pub about a stolen child and a suggestion that he’d been stolen back by the Sidhe, which is the local name for the fairy folk,” Morag added.

  “Interesting,” Dutronc conceded.

  “The Irish times ran a feature on superstition in their weekend review. That part of the world is still Gaelic speaking and the locals are very close mouthed. But they still believe in Otherworld and Leprechauns and the like.”

&
nbsp; “But the editor knew a good story. Any follow up?”

  “It ran out of steam when there were no bodies found.”

  “Recommendation?” Dutronc asked.

  Morag extracted the final page of the Technical Report. “Technical say it is a long shot but worth a follow up,” she said.

  “Well it’s your area. You decide. Perhaps you should pay a visit while the story is still hot. How long is it now?”

  “Over a month,” Morag admitted.

  “Go now or don’t go at all,” Dutronc said.

  “Don’t forget we are booked for a Broadway show for Saturday week,” Morag offered.

  “Business before romance Morag. Anyway if you go now you might get back in time,” Dutronc said laconically.

  “And if I don’t get back in time?”

  “I can take that good looking blonde girl who does reception.”

  “Dutronc, don’t you dare!”

  “Suggest go now and you should be back in time. How long since the incident. Did you say a month?”

  “About a month and a week,” Morag said.

  “Then get on to it Morag. Trails go cold very quickly,” Dutronc instructed.

  Morag made a face and shrugged. Dutronc was not a man to argue with.

  “Anything else?” Dutronc asked.

  “Money laundering report from South America, we are ...” Morag began, realizing that the agenda had moved forward.

  “Arrange for Kenny to come and brief me.” Dutronc interjected, adding, “We don’t want a war,”

  As Morag went back to her office she felt a twinge of excitement. It was a number of years since she’d made a trip to Europe. And she would expense an Irish trip to Live Corp. Already she was thinking about what she might wear.

  Chapter Five

  A month to the day from the time O’Sullivan had posted two of his passengers as missing on Great Blasket, John came down the trail from the traffic lights with a jaunty step and a whistle on his lips.

  It was early morning and Kevin O’Sullivan had just let off his first batch of tourists of the day. He had no reason to expect return passengers at that time.

  John walked up to the ticket point at the gangplank and presented his return half of the ticket he’d bought the previous month.

  O’Sullivan looked at the ticket and then at John.

  Kevin got on his cell phone to call his father to hold position in the main boat. Then Kevin took him out and O’Sullivan took him aboard.

  “Where’s the boy?” he asked.

  “Back with his own people,” John replied with an enigmatic smile and stepped on to the empty boat.

  When they reached Dunquin John disembarked and walked up the pier to the bus stop. O’Sullivan watched him go and then was distracted as he ticketed the next batch of tourists.

  “So you think John hopped on the bus and went straight back to America?” the Sergeant asked when O’Sullivan put it to him at lunchtime.

  O’Sullivan had sought the Sergeant out as soon as he’d tied off the boat for his hour-long lunch break. He knew it was the habit of the Sergeant to take his lunch in the snug of the local pub and sure enough he’d found him there.

  “If he was going back to his sister why wouldn’t he walk it?” O’Sullivan offered by way of reply.

  “Maybe I’ll walk myself up there and talk to the sister,’ the Sergeant said and took a slug of his pint of Guinness.

  “Go easy,” O’Sullivan cautioned, “for hasn’t she lost her only son.”

  “Aye,” the Sergeant remarked.

  The barman arrived with two plates of fish and chips and set them on the bar.

  “Two more pints please Paddy,” O’Sullivan ordered.

  “You’ll be driving that boat?” the Sergeant asked, worried to see O’Sullivan drinking in the middle of the day.

  “Two pints under a feed of fish and chips won’t leave a mark,” O’Sullivan replied.

  The Sergeant grunted and set about his meal. He liked the fish, fresh as it was out of the sea that same day.

  “Funny thing,” the Sergeant added, pausing then to chew.

  O’Sullivan looked up and waited.

  “When the whole affair went public it seemed straight forward. A case of a boy and his uncle.”

  “It was,” O’Sullivan affirmed.

  “But on subsequent enquiry, when the detectives from Dublin got involved, it came about that the missing boy’s mother Bridget did have a son.”

  “So?”

  “But the record shows that the son died. She hardly had another did she? For the Dublin detectives could find no record either on the register of births and deaths and marriages or on the parish record of another son. Did she have another and forget to register him born?”

  “They say locally...” O’Sullivan began but then stopped. He’d remembered that the Sergeant wasn’t a local, having been transferred out of Cork some thirty years ago. And although well liked and respected, the Sergeant would always be what they called ‘a blow in.’

  “I know, I know,” the Sergeant interjected gently. “They say that the Sidhe stole Bridget’s child and left a sickly one in its place to die. Then the brother John stole one of the Sidhe children and took him back to his sister Bridget.”

  O’Sullivan sipped his pint. The Sergeant had got it in one.

  “And that child died forty years ago,” O’Sullivan added.

  “But you said the missing boy was about sixteen?” the Sergeant pointed out.

  “Well now isn’t Bridget well into her sixties?” O’Sullivan asked.

  “Yes?” the Sergeant asked in a tone to encourage more.

  “So she hardly had a child in her fifties,” O’Sullivan explained.

  “So how can there be a boy of sixteen? That’s the exact question the Dublin detectives asked,” the Sergeant said with a grin. He felt that there was energy in the discussion and they were getting to it, whatever it was. He let O’Sullivan finish his next bite of fish and waited.

  “They call him the stolen child. He doesn’t age much. It’s taken him forty years to get to be sixteen. His mother had to take him out of school,” O’Sullivan said.

  “Slow witted?” the Sergeant asked.

  “Not a bit of it. His mother educated him. She even has the computers and the Internet. No flies on her. He’s as sharp as a blade that boy. It’s him she sends to sell the sheep these days and not the father, for the boy is better at it. And there’s them that would be afraid to cheat him!”

  The Sergeant swallowed the last mouthful of his first pint and squared his shoulders as if to make an announcement.

  “In my official capacity,” the Sergeant began. He paused to take a steep slug of his second pint. “I can’t put in a report of a stolen Sidhe child into the paperwork. No one up in Dublin believes in Fairies. They’d retire me while laughing their heads off.”

  “True for you,” O’Sullivan said agreeably. “You’d be a laughing stock alright Sergeant. But what are you to do?”

  “Bottom line,” the Sergeant replied, “the child never existed officially. And now John the fireman has reappeared and gone back to America.”

  “Right,” O’Sullivan agreed.

  “Better finish up,” he added looking at the clock over the bar.

  The Sergeant’s voice tone was as clear as a bell when he spoke. “Case closed,” he said. “I’ll do the paper work. And I’ll talk to the parents of the child,” he added.

  “Just don’t talk to the press,” O’Sullivan advised as he stood and took his leave.

  It was the afternoon of the next day when the Sergeant set out to talk to Oengus’s mother Bridget. He’d spent the morning checking things out and settling the paperwork. But he wasn’t looking forward to meet
ing Bridget.

  He took his black bicycle and walked it up the steep entrance road into Dunquin. On the main road he saddled up, having put on his bicycle clips, and he set out.

  He knew he’d be an object of wonder to the tourists in their fine coaches travelling the Ring in style. A policeman on a black bicycle was always a target for the cameras but from his point of view it was a part of the fun. There were so many tourists these days that more and more of the locals were beginning to develop eccentricities so as to appear interesting. But for the Sergeant the bicycle had served him this thirty years and he had decided it would do him his time. He liked the bike and the fresh air and for the exercise.

  As befit his rank and high office, Bridget showed the Sergeant into the parlour as soon as he had taken off his bicycle clips and come in the open door.

  She had greeted him from the front as soon as she saw him come up the lane and had had shooed stray hens out of his way.

  As usual a kettle was simmering on the kitchen range and courtesy demanded a cup of tea with scones to settle him about his business.

  The pleasantries took the first quarter of an hour and then the Sergeant got to the point of his visit.

  “Your brother John has come back off the Great Blasket,” he said.

  Bridget was stunned. “Back you say?”

  “I did a check on the flights out of Shannon and he’s used his open return ticket to fly Aer Lingus to New York. He had a hire car. I think it was Hertz?”

  “It was sent back when he went missing,” Bridget explained.

  “My enquiries confirm he got a bus out of Dunquin and then another bus out of Dingle. And he took the first available flight.”

  “Sure he was dying of the cancer,” Bridget said quietly.

  “O’Sullivan’s son Kevin said he’d a spring in his step and him coming down to the boat at Great Blasket,” the Sergeant contradicted.

  “And did he take Oengus with him?” Bridget asked.

  “To America?”

  “Where else Sergeant?”