Passport to Peril

by Lawrence Block

  “It might,” he said. “I should think that the fewer people who know, the better off you are. I think there may be a way out for you that wouldn’t involve all that trouble with the authorities.” He smiled sadly. “As a priest, perhaps I should advise you to cooperate with the authorities. But the Irish clergy have a long history of opposition to government. We were hunted down like common criminals in the old days, you know. During the Penal Law days, they paid five pounds for the head of a priest, and no questions asked. And after Cromwell came the situation didn’t improve all that much either, from what I’ve heard. So I’m not too great a believer in trusting governmental authority without question. You may be better off avoiding them entirely. You might even have to go on to Berlin as planned.”

  “But how could I do that? I can’t let them get the film.”

  “There should be a way out. I’ll have to think about it, Ellen. I’m going back to Dingle now. I’ll spend the night there, wander about, see what I can learn. I’ll come by for you in the morning. Do you think you’ll be all right here until then?”

  “I’m sure I will.”

  “You won’t be nervous, all alone here in the middle of nowhere?”

  “No, I’ll be all right.” She swallowed. “I was a lot more nervous in Dingle. I’ll be fine now.”

  After he had left, after she could no longer hear the putt-putt of the little red Triumph sedan, she walked to the narrow doorway and looked out at the countryside. Night was coming fast. She wondered, now, how she would be able to stand it. She was exhausted but felt she would be unable to sleep. She had not eaten in hours, and yet the thought of food left her with a weak feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  She ran her hands over the thick stone walls of the oratory. One of the most perfect and well-preserved of early-Christian church buildings in Ireland—that was how Sara Trevelyan’s guide book had described it. Now, though, she saw it not as an architectural masterpiece but as a temporary refuge. She might have been moved by the building, coming on it as a tourist, but in her present situation she could not react to it in that fashion. She was grateful for it as a place to hide in, a roof over her head, a secure corner where she could hide and wait for Father Farrell.

  It was growing dark. Would animals enter the place at night? At least, she thought, she was safe from snakes. There really weren’t any in Ireland, venomous or otherwise. Not, she had learned, because of the work of good St. Patrick; there had never been snakes in Ireland, as the island had separated from the European land mass before snakes had evolved, and so they had never appeared there.

  An interesting fact, she thought, but one that would not do much to help her get through the night. What other animals might come around? She didn’t know; the only sort she had seen in the country were domestic animals, cows and horses and pigs and goats and sheep, wandering at will in the country roads and over the green countryside. She didn’t suppose she had anything to fear from them.

  A fire would keep animals away, but how could she build one? There was nothing inside the oratory, no wood, and any wood lying about outside would be far too wet to burn. Besides, she realized, a fire might do more harm than good. It could attract attention, and that was the last thing she wanted.

  She walked through near darkness to the blanket Father Farrell had spread out upon the floor for her. She opened the paper bag and examined three thick ham sandwiches. She took a bite of one and chewed it and had trouble swallowing it. She put the sandwiches away and closed the bag.

  She stretched out. The ground was very hard. She looked around at darkness. She was tired, so tired…

  It was still pitch dark when she awoke, surprised that she had fallen asleep. She was hungry now and ate all three sandwiches. She wished there were something to drink. She went outside. It had stopped raining, but the sky was still fully overcast, with neither the moon nor the stars visible. She wondered what time it was.

  Her thoughts kept her company for the next few hours. They were bad companions at best. She thought about David Clare, and how she had felt about him, and what he really was. She was furious with him, angrier still at herself for being so easily taken in.

  She cried bitterly, fought against the tears, then gave in and cried some more. She felt more foolish than ever, sitting outside an ancient building in the dark of an Irish night, far from everyone, far from home, crying like a child. But she went on crying, and when the tears stopped she felt somehow better, more sure of herself.

  After a while she lay down on the blanket again and slept. She tossed with dreams, all of them bad, and when she awoke a second time it was morning and the sun’s rays swept in through the little doorway. She was hungry again and wished that she had thought to save one of the sandwiches for the morning.

  She went outside, into the chilly dawn, holding the blanket around her shoulders. She stood there waiting for Father Farrell, and when she heard the first sounds of an automobile engine she started down the hill toward the road to greet him. Then she realized that it might not be him, that it could in fact be anybody, and she withdrew into the embracing sanctuary of the oratory until the red Triumph came into view.

  He brought breakfast—some soft rolls, some cold sausage, a whole quart of milk. After she had eaten they left the oratory and got into his car.

  “Some bad news first,” he said. “I’m afraid it confirms all the worst that you’ve thought about Clare. That woman you’d spoken with…”

  “Sara Trevelyan?”

  He nodded. “There was an auto accident in town. A woman was struck down by a car—”

  “Oh, no!”

  “I’m afraid it’s true. The woman was Miss Trevelyan, and it seems she was killed instantly. Hit-and-run, of course; the police have no clue to the driver.” He shook his head sadly. “They assume it was an accident. You and I know better. It seems evident that the poor woman was purposely and deliberately murdered and that your David Clare had a hand in it.”

  “That’s—that’s horrid! Why would he…”

  “You spoke to her. He must have known it. His kind don’t like to leave witnesses alive, I understand. And so he killed her. He’s probably killed before, and one murder more or less…”

  She hardly listened to the priest’s words. It was almost impossible to believe that the gentle retired schoolteacher from Cornwall was dead. She had been so intensely alive, so young and vital in spite of her years, that it seemed incredible that she could be dead.

  And the thought of David’s doing the deed, of David at the wheel of a speeding car, bearing down on the woman, the car’s bumper hurtling into her, lifting her up, hurling her forward…

  She could not bear to think of it.

  David. She saw now that she had all along been hoping against hope that somehow she could have made a mistake, that he was innocent. In spite of everything, a portion of her mind had still loved him in a way, had still hoped to find him vindicated. She had never been entirely able to believe that he was what he now appeared to be, a spy and a killer.

  But it was true. Already an innocent person had been sacrificed to him. And he would kill her just as easily, just as dispassionately.

  “I’ve come up with a plan,” Father Farrell was saying. “I’ve had all night to work it out, and I think it may go fairly well. You see, it’s necessary for you to get away from here as quickly as you possibly can. And it’s also absolutely necessary for you to avoid contact with the authorities. But at the same time you don’t want to be giving aid of any sort to Clare and his crew of villains. I think I’ve found an answer.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll drive you to Shannon. I’ll stay with you there, keep you out of sight until it’s time for your plane to leave. You’ll get on your flight to Berlin right on schedule.”

  “But…”

  “What could be simpler? While you’re in the air, I’ll return to Dingle. I’m sure I can contrive to have Clare arrested, at least detained for the time being. After all, I’m a
n Irish priest, and he’s a foreigner. I can invent some excuse, I’m sure. Say that he tried to pick my pocket. Accuse him of public blasphemy.” His eyes twinkled. “Almost any excuse will do, actually. It’s a far cry from the days when Priests were hunted for sport. The authorities are Irish now, and they listen when we speak. I won’t have to put Clare away for any great length of time. Just long enough so that you can get to Berlin before he gets in touch with his colleagues over there.”

  “And then?”

  “Then they’ll have no way to know that the plans are changed. They’ll snatch your passport one way or another, according to plan. They’ll open it up and take out the scrap of film and find a way to return the passport to you. You’ll do your part in the Berlin folk festival, receive a full measure of applause, no doubt, and then find your way back to New York.” His eyes narrowed. “I fear you’ll take bad memories of Ireland with you. But I hope they’ll fade in time and that you’ll remember the good things about our nation and forget the bad.”

  She thought for a moment. “There’s one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, I can’t really pass on the information, can I? I mean, I wouldn’t want to be a part of their spying. Don’t you see?”

  “Of course I see. And you won’t.”

  “But…”

  From a pocket he drew forth a small scrap of film similar in appearance to the one she had found beneath her passport photograph. “Just ordinary film,” he announced. “But at first glance it looks quite like that devilish item from your passport. Of course, once they examine it through a viewer they’ll know a mistake’s been made, but even then they won’t expect you’ve had anything to do with it. And in the meantime I’ll forward the real microfilm to the American authorities. Anonymously, of course.” He chuckled. “When the men in Berlin realize they’ve been had, it won’t be you who comes in for their fire. They’ll suspect Clare has done them out of the goods, and they’ll probably come gunning for him. So you’ll be entirely in the clear, and no one will ever connect you with what has happened.”

  “I see.”

  “I think it’s a good plan, Ellen. Of course, I’ve not had much experience in this sort of thing, but I do think it might work.”

  “Yes,” she said. “It might.”

  “There’s no other way. You have to go to Berlin or you’ll arouse suspicion. And you have to stay away from Clare. And of course, if there’s nothing in your passport when you get to Berlin…”

  “Yes. I understand.”

  “I brought a tube of glue,” he said. “Let me have the passport and photo and all.” She gave them to him. “And the piece of film,” he added. “I’ll want to get that to the right people.”

  She gave him the film, and he opened up the passport and went to work on it. “You might get the blanket from the building. And pick up any papers left behind.”

  “I forgot all about that.”

  She hurried back to the oratory, folded the blanket carefully, picked up the debris from last night’s dinner and this morning’s breakfast, stuffed everything into a paper bag, and carried the bag and blanket to the car. He opened the trunk and put everything inside, then handed her passport to her. “All set,” he said. “I have the other piece of film, I’ll take care of it. And I suspect it’s time the two of us got started for Shannon. We’ll take the northern route across the peninsula to Tralee. If he’s thought to set up a roadblock, he’ll have blocked the southern road. That’s the more usual route, the one your bus took coming to Dingle. From Tralee we’ll drive straight to Shannon.”

  “You could leave me in Tralee. I could take a bus…”

  He touched her hand. “No chance of that,” he said. “You’re in trouble, and I’m going to help you get out of it. I’m on vacation, remember. My time is my own.” His lips narrowed. “I can’t think of a better way to spend it.”

  Thirteen

  From Gallarus Oratory they drove almost all the way back to Dingle town before cutting off to the left. Then they were on a rough, narrow road heading northeast between two groups of mountains. He pointed out the Brandon Mountains to their left, the Central Dingle range to the right.

  “This is one of the prettiest drives in all of County Kerry,” he told her. “There’s a rough beauty to this peninsula that can’t be surpassed anywhere in Ireland. They filmed Playboy of the Western World here, you know. In Inch, on the southern shore of Dingle peninsula. And the Blasket Islands are just offshore at the western tip of the peninsula. They’re uninhabited now. They ran into a couple of bad fishing seasons, and in nineteen fifty-three the government moved all the islanders over to the mainland. But some of the folk still talk of returning to the islands again. They’re a hardy people who only know a hard life. Long hours of work and little pleasure, and always the danger of shipwreck.”

  He talked easily, and she relaxed in her seat beside him and thought that everything was going to be all right now. She was having a nice ride, watching lovely scenery, safe in the company of this gentle priest. And it would all be over soon. Shannon, then Berlin, then New York—and it would be over, like a bad dream, and she would be safe.

  And someday, she thought, she would quite forget David Clare.

  I never shall marry

  I’ll be no man’s wife

  I’m bound to stay single

  All the days of my life

  “Have you spent much time in this part of the country?”

  “Some,” he said. “Family, you know. On my mother’s side. It was a grand place to come in the summer, for the swimming and fishing.”

  “I suppose County Clare is very beautiful too.”

  “Oh, indeed.”

  “I suppose it takes a foreigner to appreciate an area, though. Don’t you think so? A native is apt to take anyplace for granted. I know I’m that way at home. America’s a grand country, and there are so many exciting places in it, and yet because I live there I rather take them for granted. I suppose you’d be that way yourself, in Ireland.”

  “Perhaps. I was more the sightseer in Africa than I am in my own native land.”

  “I guess everyone’s that way.” She looked out the window. The car had reached the summit of a hill, and she looked at the valley spread out below. Bare rocks, the lush green of the grass, the ribbons of piled stone fences, the stones arranged without mortar like the stones of Gallarus Oratory, though in a much less precise fashion.

  “I suppose that’s why you never visited the oratory before,” she said.

  “Pardon?”

  “Oh, I mean that it’s odd you never went to Gallarus Oratory before. If you weren’t from Ireland, you’d probably have made a great point of seeing it on your first visit to Dingle. But instead you came here often and never did get to the oratory until last night.”

  “That’s an interesting thought.”

  “And I’m the same way. I’ve lived in New York ever since graduation, and do you think I’ve ever been to the Statue of Liberty? No tourist would think of missing it, but I’ve never gone, and I probably never will get around to it. I keep meaning to, but I know I’ll always be in New York and the statue will always be there, and so it’s easy to put it off. Though I almost went a couple of years ago. Maybe you read about the time that some lunatics were going to blow it up? And the Washington Monument, and I forget what else?”

  “Yes, it was in the Dublin papers. And then just recently some of my own countrymen blew up the Nelson Pillar in O’Connell Street, of course.”

  “I know. Anyway, after that happened—or after it didn’t happen, I mean—well, I was going to go to the Statue of Liberty, because for a while it looked as though it might not be there forever. But I didn’t. Did you have a subscription to the Dublin papers while you were in Africa?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Well, you said the bomb scare was in the Dublin papers, but then you must have been in Tanzania at the time, mustn’t you? Did you have a subscription or did a relat
ive just send you the papers now and then?”

  “Oh,” he said. “Yes, that’s it. My cousin sent me parcels from time to time, things one couldn’t get where we were, and he’d use the papers as packing material. So I’d get to read them now and then. It kept me in touch after a fashion.”

  “It must be strange to be away so long.”

  “Yes.”

  She lapsed into silence. When she got home, she thought, she would have to go to the Statue of Liberty. She really meant it this time. She would go just like all the tourists, and she would walk up the steps inside and everything. Could you still walk up the arm? She seemed to remember that those stairs had long been closed, but she wasn’t certain.

  “Look at the view, Ellen.”

  “Oh, it’s beautiful!”

  “It is, isn’t it? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, coming to such a beautiful country without a camera?”

  “Oh, but I’m no photographer. And I did have my tape recorder. Oh, I almost forgot. You’ll take care of my things, won’t you? The guitar and the suitcase and the tape recorder? I won’t need them in Berlin, I can borrow a guitar, but you’ll ship them to me in New York?”

  “I’ll take care of everything.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful.” She looked out the window, then glanced at him again. “How did you know I didn’t bring a camera?”

  “You told me.”

  “I did?” She frowned, unable to remember. “When?”

  “On the plane. You made light of it at the time. Don’t you remember?”

  “It’s funny, but I don’t. I must have been chattering like a magpie that morning.”

  “You were upset over what had happened the night before.”

  “I must have been.”

  “And that may explain why you’ve forgotten talking about the camera. Your mind was on the purse-snatching incident, and so you don’t remember what you’d said to me.”

  “That must be it.” She sat for a few more moments in silence. Then she said, “I wonder what he’s doing right now.”

  “Clare? Looking all over Dingle for you, I suspect.”