Now and in the Hour of Our Death

by Patrick Taylor

  There was a public phone about a mile away. He accelerated, reached the kiosk, stopped, and turned off the Rover’s lights.

  Coins in the slot. Double ring. A sleepy, “Hello?”

  “It’s Sunshine.” Stupid fucking code words.

  “Yes?” Interest in the voice now.

  “I’ve something for you. Something big.”

  “Have you? Tell me.”

  “Not now. The light’s on in this kiosk, and I’m stickin’ out like a sore thumb.”

  “All right. Tomorrow. Ten A.M. Point Alpha.”

  “Right.” Sammy hung up. His breath had steamed up the windows of the call box. He stepped outside, leaving the door ajar. The automatic light went off, and Sammy shrank into the darkness. The sooner he was out of here, the better. He didn’t want Cal or Erin to be missing him, but if he didn’t get the horse into the paddock soon, one of them might start to wonder what had held him up.

  CHAPTER 8

  VANCOUVER. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1983

  “Damn. Just missed another one. I told you parking would be tight at Granville Island on a Saturday night.” Tim hunched over the wheel.

  “Look. There.” Fiona pointed to a space near the grey silos of the Ocean Cement Company. “That car’s backing out.”

  “Bloody good.” Tim stopped, indicated left, waited for the other car to pull out, and slipped his BMW into the spot. “Hop out and I’ll lock up.”

  She joined him for the short walk to Bridges restaurant. He took her hand, and the warmth of his pleased her.

  “Have I told you you look smashing tonight?”

  “Thank you, sir.” She had been satisfied with the effect of her carefully chosen white silk blouse and bottle-green skirt. She’d left the top two buttons of the blouse undone to show just enough cleavage. Three open would have been tarty.

  He glanced down and said, “Best gams in Vancouver.”

  Her dark pantyhose did set her legs off well, and the curves of her calves were accentuated by her black patent-leather pumps, the high-heeled sneakers Tim had asked for.

  “You try walking in these heels.”

  “Nah. I’d rather look at you in them, and anyway we’re here.”

  A hostess greeted them, showed them to a window table in the upstairs nonsmoking section, and left two menus. “Your waiter’ll be with you in a moment, sir.”

  The place was packed.

  Tim held Fiona’s chair. He sat opposite.

  “Fancy a drink?”

  “Wine, please.” Ten years ago, she might have had one glass of sherry, but Tim had taught her about wines and she particularly liked Chardonnay.

  “Let’s have a bottle.” Tim leaned across and whispered, “I’m as dry as a dead dingo’s donger.”

  Fiona adopted her best schoolmarm voice. “Tim Andersen. What a thing to say to a lady,” but her words were masked by a wide grin. “I think it’s true what they say about Aussies.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “That God invented Australians so that Americans would at least appear to be cultured.”

  “Too right.” Tim laughed and picked up his menu. “Now. Let’s see what looks good in this.”

  She practically knew Bridges’ menu by heart. As he read, she looked out of the picture window.

  Not quite the same vista as from Kits Beach. The single span of Burrard Street Bridge blocked the view.

  As usual, False Creek was busy. Water-buses dodged between incoming and outgoing sailboats, their wakes crossing and criss-crossing and sparkling in the evening sun. To her left, the slips of Burrard Civic Marina were crammed with commercial fishing boats, sharp-bowed, businesslike. Behind them, moored pleasure crafts’ masts were an aluminum forest.

  Fiona half-heard Tim discussing the wine with the sommelier.

  A kingfisher, iridescent blue, its flight sudden and jerky, skimmed over the water, scolded the gulls, swooped over the fishing boats, and vanished among the pleasure crafts rocking in their berths to the wakes from the creek. Tim’s boat, Windshadow, was among the yachts.

  Tim loved that boat. The day he’d asked her to come in out of the rain and she’d admired his vessel, he’d said, “I love this little darling.” He’d had the kind of look on his broad face that she imagined Romeo would have had under Juliet’s balcony.

  He was still reading the menu. She would take a bet with herself that he’d order calamari to start with, then red snapper. That’s what he’d had when he’d brought her here for lunch back in January. It had been a different hostess eight months ago who had greeted Tim like an old friend. “Hello, Doctor Andersen. For two?” she’d said.

  Fiona had been surprised that he hadn’t made a fuss about being medically qualified when he’d introduced himself. She’d liked that. A lot.

  She had followed him to a table, and they’d sat on soft-cushioned, cane-backed chairs. The cane, she remembered, had felt lumpy against her rain-dampened sweater.

  “Doctor Tim?” she’d asked.

  “’Fraid so, and to get the rest of the questions out of the way, chief of endocrinology at Saint Paul’s Hospital up on Burrard Street, prof. at UBC, fifty-six years old, came to Canada in fifty-five, married a Canadian…”

  “You’re married?” She’d sat back in her chair. Hard. Not another one. She’d started to rise.

  “Was. My ex and my two boys live in Ontario.”

  “Oh.” She’d sat down.

  He’d leaned across the table, smiled, and said, “Now, you know everything about me. Let’s order, and then you can tell me all about Fiona Kavanagh.”

  She couldn’t remember what she’d ordered, but he’d had—

  “I’m going to have calamari…”

  “And red snapper.” She laughed.

  “How did you know that?”

  “It’s what you had the first time we came here.”

  “And you had oysters and fish and chips.”

  So she had. Trust him to remember. The pair of them were like a couple of sixteen-year-olds getting dewy-eyed when they heard the tune that had been played at their first dance together. For old times’ sake, then. “Oysters Rockefeller and Atlantic cod and french fries, please.” To hell with diets, even though McCusker had been switched to a low-fat cat food.

  “Fish and chips? You can take the girl out of Ireland, but…”

  The waiter leaned past Fiona. He showed the wine’s label to Tim, who nodded.

  The waiter poured.

  She sipped. It was a Chardonnay, crisp and fruity.

  “Would you care to order, sir?”

  Tim ordered.

  “We’re very busy tonight. It may be some time.”

  “No worries.”

  The waiter left.

  “Cheers.” Tim lifted his glass.

  “Sláinte mHaith.” This was a damn sight better than parent-teacher interviews. The wine was cold on her tongue.

  Tim pointed to the marina. “Fancy taking Windy out tomorrow? Forecast’s good.”

  “Love to.” He’d started taking her sailing in April, and she’d taken to it like a duck to water. “Where’ll we go? Where the wind blows?”

  “Bowen Island?”

  Around them the hum of the conversations of the other diners was punctuated by the gulls outside that bickered like the women of the Falls hanging out their washing and calling insults to their neighbours across the backyard fences.

  “Lovely. I’d enjoy…” Fiona was conscious of someone standing near her.

  A harsh voice said in a thick Belfast accent, “’Scuse me. Fiona? Fiona Kavanagh? I don’t mean to interrupt like, but…”

  She knew that voice. She spun in her seat. She no longer could hear the sounds of background conversations, the mewling of the gulls.

  A short man shot out his lower jaw, grinned, and said, “It is. It is, so it is. How’s about ye?” He turned to Tim. “I didn’t mean to intrude, like, but I’ve not seen herself there for about ten years and the missus says to me, so
she does … she’s over there in the smoking bit … Siobhan’s with her. She’s my daughter,” he explained to Tim. Jimmy pointed to a table in the corner. “The missus says, says she, ‘See you that there woman who’s just come in? She looks a hell of lot like Davy’s Fiona.’ ‘Away off and chase yourself,’ says I, but the more I looked…” He held out his hand to Tim. “Jimmy Ferguson, by the way.”

  “Tim Andersen.”

  Fiona glanced across the room to where two women sat, one middle-aged, the other young, tall, with waist-length blonde hair. They waved. Fiona waved back.

  “Jesus, Fiona, the things you see when you don’t have a gun.”

  Gun. She flinched. Guns. Belfast. Jimmy Ferguson, housepainter and ex-Provo. The last time she’d seen Jimmy in Belfast, she’d run into him, quite by accident, in Smithfield Market, after she’d left Davy. She’d asked Jimmy to give her regards to Davy, and he’d phoned her. Asked her to meet him.

  She took a deep breath. “Are you living in Vancouver, Jimmy?”

  “Aye. Me and the missus emigrated to join Siobhan in Toronto. She sponsored us. She’d been out there for a while. You mind she’d been visiting us when…? She went back after…”

  After—after Davy had met with her, told her he would leave the Provos and come to Canada—and the feelings she’d had that night flooded back. She slipped her hands under the table, not wanting Tim to see how much they trembled. After—after he’d done one more mission, the mission that had blown up in his face as Jimmy’s appearance here tonight had exploded in hers.

  “Yes.” Fiona’s voice was cold. “I do.” She could see Tim’s brow wrinkle.

  Jimmy’s jaw flicked. “Aye, well, we’ll say no more about that. Anyroad, I’d enough saved up for to buy a wee painting business in Toronto. But the winters was fierce, so they were. I tell you, when I go to hell, ould Beelzebub won’t be asking me to stoke the furnace. He’ll hand me a snow shovel.” Jimmy tittered at his own joke. “I sold up and bought a partnership in a place out here a couple of years back. And do you live here, too, Fiona?”

  “I do.”

  “I’ll be damned. Small world. I knew you’d come to Canada after us. Me and Davy still write to each other. He told me you’d come.”

  He wrote to Davy.

  Jimmy blethered on. “I’ll tell you one thing: You’ve not lost your Ulster accent.”

  “Nor you, Jimmy.”

  “Still thick as champ.”

  “That’s creamed potatoes, scallions, and buttermilk, Tim.”

  Tim’s frown had deepened. “Pay no attention to me. You two carry on.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Jimmy, “but her and me and poor ould Davy go back a powerful long ways.”

  “How’s Siobhan?” Fiona did not want any more mention of Davy. Not in front of Tim.

  Jimmy’s smile faded. He shot his lower jaw. “She’s grand … now. It took her a brave while to get over that bastard, pardon my French, Richardson that called himself Roberts.” He glanced over to his table, then lowered his voice. “Sometimes I think she’s still carrying a torch.”

  Fiona felt the lump start in her throat.

  “If it hadn’t been for him shopping Davy, you and…”

  “Let the hare sit, Jimmy.”

  “Aye. Least said soonest mended. Anyroad, she got married to a Canadian lad. He does something in TV. They’ve two youngsters. He’s working in Montreal. He couldn’t get away, so she come out here by herself for a wee visit like. The youngsters are at home with a babysitter and…”

  “Excuse me, sir.” The waiter stood, balancing their starters on a silver tray.

  “Just a wee minute.” Jimmy produced a camera.

  The flash dazzled Fiona.

  “I’ll run away on. Tell you what, could we get together after supper for a half-un in the bar?”

  “Certainly,” said Tim.

  No. Fiona shouted inside herself.

  “Right.” Jimmy started to leave but turned to Fiona. “When I get this developed, I’ll send one to Davy. He keeps on asking me if I ever run into you.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The waiter served.

  Fiona smiled at Tim with her mouth. Her eyes were lifeless. “Folks from back in Ireland. They never know when to shut up. You didn’t have to agree to have drinks with them, you know.” She toyed with her oysters, appetite gone.

  “He seemed like a decent enough chap.”

  “I’m sure he did, but … Tim, I’d rather not talk about it just now.” It wasn’t fair. Her nightmare had brought memories of Davy McCutcheon surging back to her two nights ago. Since then, she’d thought more deeply about Belfast than she had for months. She didn’t need another reminder from, of all people, Jimmy Ferguson.

  “Come on,” Tim said, a smile now on his face, “sounds like a bit of a mystery to me. ‘That bastard Richardson that called himself Roberts’? ‘Him shopping Davy’?” The smile faded. “I’ve never seen you look so rattled. Perhaps you should tell me about it.”

  She could hear his concern for her. Dear Tim. She would tell him. Sometime.

  She laid her fork on her plate. “I will, Tim, but … not just now.”

  “Pity.” His voice was level. “I was going to ask you about this Davy fellow.”

  CHAPTER 9

  THE KESH. LISBURN. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1983

  “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, amen.”

  Davy and the men around him echoed the priest’s final amen, the smell of the altar boys’ incense heavy in the air. Another mass was over. He went not because of any deep faith but because there was a comfort in the service, the old well-remembered phrases learned as a skinny youngster at Saint Mary’s Chapel just around the corner from his home on Conway Street.

  “… Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death.”

  Going to chapel was something to do on a Sunday, a break from the everyday with its monotonous regularity.

  Get up when you’re told. Eat breakfast when you’re told. Swab out the corridors and earn a little remission time. Eat lunch when you’re told—and the food was always the same—grey meat that was so overdone you couldn’t tell if it was pork, beef, or lamb. Soggy vegetables, hard, half-boiled spuds. Stale bread. Stewed tea. Back in your cell by two o’clock for the daily head count. The screws had become more insistent on that since 1981, when eight Provos had shot their way out of Belfast’s other top-security prison, the Crumlin Road Jail.

  Davy lingered in his pew, letting the other men push past him. The room was peaceful and spacious. Not like his eight-by-eight cell.

  He watched the priest and his acolytes clearing away candles, crosses, and chalices, putting Communion wafers back in a pyx. They had to tidy up all vestiges of their brand of Christianity. There’d be a Protestant service starting here soon.

  Any devout Protestant who was in jail for being a Loyalist paramilitary would think a crucifix was a sign that the Antichrist had been in the room. They were men who daubed the gable ends of the houses in Belfast’s Sandy Row ghetto with slogans like “Home rule is Rome rule” and “Fuck the pope.”

  But this was a multidenominational chapel.

  At least that’s what the authorities called it. He knew bloody well that once the needs of the Republican Catholic prisoners and the, almost to a man, Free Presbyterian Loyalists had been catered to, there wasn’t much call for the place to accommodate any members of other faiths like Jews or Buddhists or Hindus.

  He smiled and remembered an old one-liner.

  A Provo grabs a man on a Belfast street. “Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?”

  “I’m a Hindu.”

  “Aye, but are you a Catholic Hindu or a Protestant Hindu?”

  Black humour had always been part of the Irish way of dealing with disaster. The recipe for Potato Famine soup? “Take a gallon of water and boil it ’til it’s very, very strong.”

  Davy enjoyed a good laugh as much as anyone, and, God knew, there wasn’
t too much to laugh at in this place.

  He looked across the room and saw Eamon deep in conversation with three men. Davy had no doubt about what they would be discussing. After Mass was a good time for Eamon to meet inmates from other H-blocks.

  One of the three, a short, dark-haired man, carried his left shoulder higher than the other. He wore spectacles. In the past, that wee shite Brendan McGuinness had not even bothered covering up his empty eye socket. The Brits had given him a glass eye. Taken him out of the prison for a couple of days to the Royal Victoria Hospital to have the job done.

  Davy wondered if they’d cleaned the bugger’s teeth while they were at it. Back before the Brits had stuck McGuinness in here, there had always been a greenish tinge to the man’s smile. The unholy bastard. Davy hated McGuinness.

  That turd had been the architect of Davy’s last mission, the one that had got him in here, and he’d be one of the ones that Eamon would be going with when the attempted jailbreak happened. Davy had no doubt that if the men did get out of the Kesh, they’d be rounded up in no time flat. McGuinness and his like were going to land Eamon in the shite up to his nostrils.

  Davy didn’t want to share the same room with the bastard.

  He genuflected to the altar, crossed himself, rose, and limped down the aisle and back to cell 16. He’d have one more try to persuade Eamon to give up the stupid notion but was certain he would fail. Eamon Maguire, for all his seeming good nature, was, deep inside, as fanatical as any man in the place.

  * * *

  “Tiocfaidh àr la, Father Davy.” Eamon bounced into their cell.

  To Davy it sounded like “chucky air la.” He knew that it was Irish for “our day will come” and was the standard greeting of one Provo inmate to another, so much so that they called themselves Chuckies.

  “Right enough. That’ll be the day we’ll have to walk crouched over to avoid all the pigs that’ll be flying about the place,” Davy said.

  “Don’t be at it, Father. One day”—Eamon plumped himself down on his cot—“one day there’ll be a green, white, and gold Irish flag flying over the Belfast City Hall instead of a Union Jack.”