The Blood Dimmed Tide

by Anthony Quinn

  ‘Hundreds upon hundreds. These were the only ones I had time to take.’

  Ahearne licked his lips. Sweat formed on his pale forehead. He stared at the inky writing that spread in all directions, and the clusters of drawings that grew along the margins.

  ‘I have an idea what these patterns might represent,’ he said. He turned to one of the volumes on his shelves. After several minutes, he raised his head and said, ‘Progress, definitely progress.’

  However, it was at least a further half hour before he closed the reference book.

  ‘What light do you think these symbols will shine on Rosemary’s death?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. I have a vague idea they might explain what drew her to Blind Sound. But perhaps there’s nothing remarkable about the lists at all.’

  ‘The messages from the script are remarkable. Truly ground-breaking. They possess a licentiousness and daring I have rarely encountered in the spiritual world. I had never thought our ethereal companions could be so charged with sexual energy.’

  ‘But what about the dates and geometric signs,’ I interrupted. ‘Do they refer to cult rituals? Some kind of initiation ceremony?’

  ‘No. I believe they have nothing to do with ceremonies or rituals.’

  ‘What then? Politics? Revolutionary tactics?’

  ‘Not these either.’

  ‘Do you have any idea at all?’

  ‘The connection between Rosemary’s journal and the spirit messages is the universal magic of the number twenty-eight. They are both moon charts. Rosemary’s, as far as I can interpret, was recording the sea’s sly tides, while the spirits are tracking the secret female tides, and in particular, the menstrual cycles of Yeats’ wife.’ He flattened out the pages of the script. ‘We see here the great circle of twenty-eight lunar phases with precise instructions as to how often and in what positions to have intercourse. I shan’t explain the code any further for fear of making you blush. Suffice it to say, these are details which should be confined to the Yeats’ bed chamber.’

  They had been, I thought to myself. Now I understood why Yeats, an international expert on the occult, had been less than keen to publicise his wife’s expertise at automatic writing.

  Ahearne turned to Rosemary’s chart. ‘Here we see the same circle of twenty-eight phases along with what are possibly water depth recordings, times and locations.’

  Ahearne’s theory made sense. I saw how both sets of numbers and drawings were based upon the lunar calendar. One of them was written by a woman desperate to conceive a baby, while the other by a woman secretly recording the lunar phases of the tides to help a submarine or boat make a clandestine landing on the Sligo coast.

  Ahearne’s eyes shone with admiration. ‘Rosemary was attempting to plot a navigational course for smugglers along a very treacherous part of the coast. Her task was far more difficult than that of a helmsman with a compass and sea maps under his nose. She had to work out the meaning of the waves and the tides, as well as measure the depth of the water at different points in the bay. The sea is a secret world, more secret than the invisible world of spirits, and just as full of portents and clues.’

  Ahearne watched me with eyes that looked neither old nor weak. He was aware of the windfall of leads his breakthrough offered to a ghost-catcher. However, I removed the bundle of papers reluctantly, as though they comprised a trap of my own making.

  ‘Do you want my advice?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘This is a much more delicate investigation than even Yeats first realised.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘There is a political dimension. Irish Republicans will not want their movement mired in scandals involving murdered smugglers. Be careful of what rash steps people like Gonne might make to preserve their good name, and remember she has a powerful protector working within the Irish constabulary.’

  ‘Who are you talking about? Inspector Grimes?’

  ‘I never betray my informants.’

  I left Ahearne’s shop and wandered aimlessly through Sligo’s side streets, wondering how I was going to proceed with the evidence that Rosemary had been involved in smuggling. Almost immediately, I was aware that I was being followed. They had no faces, these shadows; they were more like phantoms. I paused at a street corner, waiting for them to approach, but for some reason they held back.

  In the silence, I could hear the wash of the sea. It seemed to be slowly wandering towards me, over the roofs of the houses. I came across a river and followed it down to the harbour. I could just make out Rosses Point and the cliffs of Blind Sound through the evening sea mist that had settled over the coast. I walked to the pier’s edge and stood contemplating the waves as they lapped against the grey walls.

  I went over in my mind the complicated chain of events that had begun when a young woman’s body drifted ashore in a coffin, and ended with Captain Oates’ murder on the same beach. I tried to digest the fact that Rosemary had been a smuggler, and Clarissa’s claims that a man in some sort of uniform was involved in the background, pulling the strings. Had it been Captain Oates or a member of the local Constabulary? Nothing was as it seemed. The collection of evidence and the establishment of a chain of proof was so much more difficult set against the murky backdrop of a country on the brink of rebellion. Two people had been killed and an innocent girl awaited trial. How was a secretary from London, intent on finding physical evidence for the existence of spirits, going to discover what really happened? And what if I did manage to look into the dark heart of Sligo and discern the face of a murderer? What then? Who could I trust to tell my suspicions? A feeling of impotence rose within me, along with a sickly sense of dread.

  The throbbing sound of wind and water on the move distracted me from my thoughts. I looked up in time to see a sailing boat round the pier as slowly as a piece of driftwood. Its sleek lines contrasted sharply with the waddling tubs of moored fishing boats and the dark hulls of steamers. There was no one on deck, but somehow I sensed the presence of an invisible hand controlling its movements. The wind rippling through the sails carried the boat on a lazy pirouette towards the open sea. I stared at the name painted on the side, just visible above the lapping waves. Cheerful Charlie, it read.

  When the boat reached the end of the harbour wall, a figure appeared from below and began adjusting the rigging. The wind moulded the sail, filled it taut, and soon the boat was slipping beyond the lamp-lit frontage of the harbour and skidding across Sligo Bay, a ragged line of surf rising from its prow.

  Darkness advanced, a moonless night, I thought, perfect for smuggling. I was about to return to the town when I noticed a light shining from the harbour master’s cabin. Through its window, I spied a moon-faced man studying a large sea chart that kept rolling up like the spring of a watch.

  I knocked on the door and greeted him good evening.

  ‘An Englishman, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’ My throat constricted as though I was trying to swallow a piece of gristle. How strange it sounded to be an Englishman. And how curiously dangerous a word it seemed in the gathering darkness.

  However, the master’s face was open and friendly. ‘Lost on your evening stroll, sir?’

  ‘Not quite. I’m trying to find out who owns the sailing boat that just left the harbour. The Cheerful Charlie.’

  ‘I can’t disclose such details.’

  ‘Does it belong to a member of the Crown forces?’

  His eyes said yes. Then a wary look overtook him. ‘Are you a British agent, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ I lied in a clipped tone.

  ‘You and your comrades will be very busy tonight then, sir.’

  ‘We’re always busy.’

  I bid him goodnight and walked back to the end of the harbour pier. The boat had long since disappeared into the unknown gloom. I stared out at the tortuous cliffs of Bli
nd Sound and watched as a small winking light sent out a secret signal from the black rocks. For the first time since arriving in Sligo, I felt a firmness and clarity to my thoughts. A sense that I could penetrate the mysteries surrounding that remote western shore.

  24

  Nine of Rods

  THERE was no moon above, just a canopy of silver stars creating a pattern of glittering fish scales on the sea at Blind Sound. I paid a tinker to get me there on his pony and trap, and he rode like a soul escaping the gates of hell. It was past midnight when he dropped me off.

  The force of the sea-breeze I encountered on the beach made me feel as though I was still being pulled by a galloping horse. I leaned forward and traversed the beach, guided by the booming of the waves and the stinging wings of spray. In the darkness, I felt that the silver strand was a narrow bridge between two voids, the sea on one side and the black cliffs on the other. I found shelter behind a large rock, and making myself as unobtrusive as possible, sat and watched the faint light playing on the waves.

  I didn’t have long to wait. Two swimmers, bare-chested and muscle-bound, emerged from the waves with thick ropes tied around their waists. They dragged themselves onto the sand. As soon as they had their breath back, they began hauling on the ropes until a string of barrels floated ashore. They lifted the barrels one at a time, and walked them through the slippery rocks and boiling surf until they reached the mouth of the cave. There was something practised and disciplined about their movements. After they had delivered the final pair of barrels into the cave, they clambered in and disappeared from view.

  I crept after them, aware that I was stepping into a dangerous void. I had spent so many days in Sligo staring into the deep unanswering gloom of Blind Sound that it had taken on a terrible beauty, one which I desperately wanted to fathom. The cave loomed before me, its arched entrance like a man-made tunnel running east into the heart of the cliff. The tide had filled it with rushing water, which the smugglers had used to float their contraband out of sight. I could hear the echoes of the barrels knocking against rocks as the incoming water sent them cannoning deep into the tunnel. I waded into the water and felt myself sink into a heavy load of seaweed that rose and fell with every wave washing into the cave’s recesses.

  I waded deeper, feeling the current of the tide rippling around me, moving at increasing speed. Every now and again I caught the echo of someone barking orders from deep within, and a ghostly ripple of light play upon the slick tunnel wall.

  I kept moving until the water grew shallow and I felt soft sand beneath my feet. The tunnel rose slightly and led back to another opening to the sea. The Atlantic swelled and broke against a steeply sloping beach. I stopped. The men and the barrels had disappeared. There was nowhere for them to have gone, except back into the ocean. I returned down the tunnel. The tide had ebbed making my return journey slightly easier.

  As I explored the cave, the voices returned, as though the men had been waiting in the shadows for me. I heard the moan of wood rubbing against rock and the scolding voice, shouting orders. A ribbon of light appeared in the water beneath a jutting rock draped in barnacles and seaweed. Beside it was a small iron wheel, which I had missed the first time. I turned it first clockwise and then anti-clockwise. It groaned, and slowly the barnacle-crusted rock began to shift. It wasn’t a rock at all, but a solid iron gate, cleverly disguised, which concealed an entry to a secret tunnel. I kept turning the wheel and the gate opened fully, the seawater rushing in, dragging me along with it. Pieces of a loose-fitting jigsaw began to lock together in my mind. The opening and closing of the gate acted as a sluice, which might account for the mysterious behaviour of the tides and currents in Blind Sound. I swam with that slick and furtive current and pulled myself onto a narrow ledge running alongside the gulley.

  Traces of the men’s echoing voices lingered and then faded. I sat without moving, listening intently, feeling the tension in my shivering body, the taste of apprehension in my mouth. Crouching, I made my way deeper into the tunnel, feeling my way along sharp outcroppings. There was nothing but silence and darkness. Even the wash of the sea was muted. The smugglers must have made their escape along this secret tunnel, I thought.

  Eventually, the rock wall gave way to earth and crumbling shale; the salt smell of the sea was replaced by the odour of soil and organic matter. My hands felt around strange smooth shapes embedded in the soil like fossilised roots and eroded rocks. I pressed on, my instinct still warning me that I was in grave danger. The smugglers might be waiting somewhere ahead in countless invisible nooks. Or they might be inches away from my groping fingers, ready to launch an ambush.

  Soon I saw a flickering light and heard the men whisper less than fifty yards further up the tunnel. Their hoarse voices brought a level of intimacy to the gloom. They were murmuring about coffins and dead bodies. I moved forward as quietly as I could but my feet crunched on something skeletal and friable. The whispering stopped and the flickering light vanished. Minutes later the light reappeared on the cave wall, only this time it was closer, brightening and fading with the steady rhythm of a pendulum. Flickering shadows jumped towards me. They were advancing towards me with their lamps.

  Slipping and falling, I clambered back the way I had come. The ground was interspersed with rocks and I kept catching my feet. My clothes were torn and my fingers covered in blood from the repeated falls. I kept going, hoping to smell or hear the sea, or glimpse starlight on breaking waves. I plunged back into the pitch-black water of the gulley, but the sea’s hazards proved more unpredictable and less easily avoided. A rogue barrel riding the current came rocketing up the cave and struck me across the head. Knocked sideways, I coughed and spluttered, my throat scalded with brine. I moved back up the cave, watching out for the dangerous silhouettes of escaped barrels. The lack of light made the network of caves and tunnels appear more labyrinthine than they actually were. Unfortunately, the sea was rising through the interlocking caves, cutting off my path to Blind Sound. I was forced to crawl back up the tunnel to try and make my escape via dry land.

  I tried to read the air by listening and sniffing. The updraught of salt air fought with the mineral smell of earth. The muffled sound of men moving in cramped confines was broken into echoes and garbled by the advancing wash of breaking waves. I found myself a niche, and tucking up my knees, sat and waited.

  I was convinced the smugglers were still searching for me, but when the sound of their voices faded and then vanished altogether, I began to suspect they had made good their escape. A while later, I jerked awake, horrified to have fallen asleep in that dark chamber that was as cold as a crypt.

  I spent the next few hours trailing miserably through a lattice of pitch-black tunnels until I was absolutely spent of energy. In the seething darkness, I might as well have been trapped in a spider’s giant web. In places, the roof had collapsed, and great slabs of earth shifted out of place like a fallen deck of cards. I came across lumps of broken wood that must have acted as supports for the tunnel roof. Another set of cards shifted out of place in my mind, one bearing the faces of Maud Gonne, Clarissa and Captain Oates. How much did they know about this tunnel? I wondered.

  At one point, I felt a breath of cold air on my face. Higher up on the wall, my fingers found the lower rungs of a metal ladder, leading to a hidden cleft. I clambered up the ladder and saw that it led to an exit hole. A view of the starlit sky hung above as from a distant window pane. I climbed further and waited a few feet beneath the exit, listening tensely. At first, the only sound was a sea breeze ruffling through marram grass. Then I heard voices approach, low cautious voices. They were searching for something. Small stones and twigs crunched underfoot as the men above extended their investigations. The tension made my stomach knot. I heard the scrape of stone against stone and then a disturbingly hollow clonk as a slab of rock was shifted across the exit hole, sealing me in pitch blackness. The cool draught of night air was replaced by the i
odine tang of seaweed welling up from below. I wedged my back and shoulders against the rock but it would not budge.

  For the first time of my life, I felt the terror of being buried alive. I crouched against a hollow in the cave wall, thinking that it might end up being my grave. I felt a tail slither across my leg. There would be rats, mice and other vermin living in colonies close by. I ran my tongue over dried lips and tasted blood. My mouth felt full of salt, and as time passed, I grew thirstier. I could hear groundwater trickling from the roof of the tunnel. I knelt and tried to catch the drops in my mouth but with little success. By a stroke of fortune, my groping hands found a rock that had cracked into the rough shape of a bowl in which water had formed a little pool. I raised the rock to my parched lips and drank slowly. The water was slightly warm, with the faint metal tang of groundwater, but delicious.

  I slipped back into an uncomfortable sleep, and awoke cold and stiff, staring at a pale light creeping from the upper end of the tunnel. Daylight at last. I pushed my back against the wall and looked around me. While I had slept, someone had removed the slab of rock covering the opening. I sensed my surroundings in fits, moments of clarity alternating with confusion. The oddly shaped rocks, I now saw, were human bones, and the pieces of wood the splintered remains of coffins. The tunnel had wormed its way through some sort of cemetery. I shuddered when I realised the rock bowl I had drunk so greedily from was in fact the upper half of a human skull. When I realised that I had sought refuge amid the remains of human skeletons, my stomach convulsed with nausea. Falling on all fours, I ejected its contents in a stream of vomit. My mind was still churning through the horror when I heard the low tones of men’s voices from above.

  One by one, a group of black silhouettes assembled around the light of the exit hole like dark birds gathering on a branch. Suddenly, I was alert to every detail happening around me. I thought of the collapsed graves, the landslides on the beach, Rosemary’s body enfolded in a twenty-year-old coffin, and the pauper’s coffin found by Gonne, and the entire malign operation became clear in my head.