Reaper

by Hurley, Graham

  “My stuff?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh dear …”

  Buddy could hear the chuckle in the old man’s voice. He was still curious, even now. Why hadn’t the transmitter worked? Why hadn’t the charge gone off? There was a silence on the line. Then the old man came back.

  “Bit of a con, wasn’t it?” he said. “That Le Havre job?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I checked up. Oil tankers, my arse. There were no fucking oil tankers. You never went near the place.”

  “So?”

  “So who cares? I don’t. Except I saw that chart of yours. Portsmouth Harbour. South Railway Jetty …’ He paused. “Where are you living?”

  “Ireland.”

  “Yeah. Good fucking riddance.’

  Buddy hesitated. It wasn’t the answer he wanted, but it was an answer just the same. He frowned, determined to be quite sure.

  “You buggered the detonators?” he queried.

  “Of course I did.”

  “You knew what I was up to?”

  “Yeah. More or less.” There was a long silence. Then Buddy heard the old man laughing again. “Fucking women …” he said, putting the phone down.

  August, height of the season, Buddy met the young guys who ran the diving school over at Derrynane Harbour. They came into the hotel one night, late, looking for a client. Buddy found the girl they wanted, and afterwards they bought him a drink. They talked diving for several hours, impressed with Buddy’s experience. Later that month, they asked him to fill in for one of the other instructors who’d got ear trouble. Buddy agreed, and spent four afternoons out on the water, air diving from a Zodiac dinghy.

  The arrangement prospered. In September, he dived with them again, ten days this time, partly as an instructor, partly as another pair of hands on the lobster trawls. They dived commercially, supplying the hotels and restaurants up and down the coast. Lobster, in the shell, was selling for £4 a pound. It was good money, and Buddy began to wonder about chucking in his other job.

  Then, late September, came the knock at his door. He had no phone. Messages from the school, when they were that important, were run by the girl who looked after the business side. She had a small Renault van and a faint Australian accent. She liked Buddy a lot. She stood in the windy sunshine, grinning.

  They had a new client, an oldish guy who’d recently retired and wanted to go out fishing. He had no interest in diving but he had a pair of rods and an empty deep freeze and was happy to pay fifty quid for the hire of a boat and someone to take him out in it. As well as the Zodiac, the school kept an eighteen-foot dory, glass-fibre, with an Evinrude outboard. The other two instructors had gone back to college in Cork, but Buddy had often used the dory as a safety boat and knew it well. Would he oblige the old fella and take him fishing? Buddy said he would. The outing was fixed for the following week.

  On the morning of the fishing trip, Buddy got up later than usual. High tide was mid-afternoon. He’d agreed with the girl to be down at the boat for eleven o’clock. Weather permitting, they’d have five hours afloat before darkness and the full weight of the ebb tide turned against them.

  Buddy rode down to the harbour on the ancient bike he’d acquired from the local postman. The day was breezy, with more wind and the possibility of rain forecast for the late afternoon. In the bay, there was already a chop on the water, and further out, beyond the end of the Lambs Head, there was a sizeable sea running. Parking his bike by the caravan that served as the diving school’s offices and clubhouse, Buddy began to wonder whether fishing was such a great idea after all.

  The client had already arrived. Buddy could see him down on the beach, talking to the girl at the water’s edge. The girl had retrieved the dory from its moorings, and stowed the man’s rods and tackle. Buddy walked down the beach towards them. He’d brought a pair of heavy seaboots and a couple of thick sweaters against the weather. He had some handlines of his own, too, in an old canvas bag, with hooks and feathers for the mackerel that were still shoaling in the bay. The girl saw him coming, and waved. He waved back. The client didn’t move, his back to Buddy, his hands deep in the pockets of what looked like a brand new oilskin. Buddy joined him at the water’s edge. The man was still staring out to sea.

  “Dodgy weather,” Buddy said. “Still fancy it?”

  The man turned round. He was smiling. He extended a hand.

  “Certainly,” he said.

  Buddy stared at the man. Nothing had changed. The same long face. The same careful parting. The same pale eyes. Scullen. The girl looked quickly between them, sensing the atmosphere, not altogether sure of herself.

  “You guys know each other?”

  Buddy nodded. “Yeah” he said.

  “Hey—” the girl grinned, breaking the ice, pulling the dory towards her, steadying it against the constant nudge of the waves, “great.” There was a silence. Then Scullen glanced at the boat.

  “I’m ready,” he said, “if you are.”

  They butted out through the waves, Buddy in the stern with the outboard, Scullen up front, crouched in the bow, holding the painter to brace himself against the buffeting. Spray came flying backwards, and Buddy watched it flattening the man’s hair, dripping off his bony face. He was smiling again, a deeply private smile, and Buddy knew that it was no coincidence, the booking, the request for the boat and a skipper. The whole thing was carefully contrived, and Scullen – as ever – was in control.

  Buddy eased back on the throttle and glanced over his shoulder. Already they were nearly a mile out, the first of the big ocean swells lifting the dory, the unseen hand beneath them. Off to the left, across the bay, lay the Lambs Head. The tides around the end were especially dangerous, one current colliding with another, creating overfalls and eddies, a death sentence for anyone in a small boat. Buddy looked at Scullen. The man had yet to turn round. He opened the throttle again and set course for the end of the Lambs Head.

  They were there in less than ten minutes. Away from the lee of the promontory, out in the ocean, the wind was strong, gusting across the water. It was much colder, and the blues and greens of the bay had given way to a gunmetal grey, laced with white as the waves crested and broke, roaring down on the dory. It was a foolish place to be, and Buddy knew it. They had less than half a mile of searoom, and if the outboard failed, they’d be on the rocks. He throttled back again, holding the dory bow first into the waves.

  Scullen, at last, turned round. Water glistened on his face. Across the waist of the dory was a plank seat. Buddy nodded at it, an invitation to talk, and Scullen clambered carefully towards him, holding both sides of the dory, trying to brace his body against the surge of the waves. He got to the seat and straddled it. Buddy throttled back even more, shouting above the roar of the ocean.

  “You knew I was here?” he said.

  Scullen nodded. “Yes.”

  “You really want to go fishing?”

  “No.”

  Buddy looked at him a moment, not quite knowing what to do next, what to say to this cold-faced zealot who’d walked into his life, who’d invited him to blow up half the Task Force, who’d killed his wife and now – once again – had seized the initiative. Buddy glanced down at the canvas bag at his feet. There was a knife in the bag. The blade was at least six inches long. If he chose to, he could get it over and done with now, half a minute’s abrupt violence, the man overboard afterwards, the most unfortunate of accidents. He looked up again. “I could kill you now,” he said. “Perhaps I should.”

  Scullen didn’t appear to be listening. His hand had reached inside his oilskin. Buddy watched him carefully, half expecting a gun of some sort, but he produced an envelope instead. It was blue, with an airmail sticker. He passed it across to Buddy. “Read it,” he said. “Please.”

  Buddy looked at him a moment, then slipped the letter from the envelope and flattened the single page against his knee. The sun had gone in now and it was even colder. He glanced at the letter, re
cognizing the address at once. Pascale’s place. The clinic in Boston. He frowned, his eye racing on through the letter, oblivious for a moment to the wind and the waves. The letter was brief. It acknowledged receipt of “Dr Kennedy’s” report. It confirmed that Jude’s condition had deteriorated. Under these new circumstances, the offer of the operation had been withdrawn. The letter closed with an expression of polite regret. Buddy looked up.

  “Who’s Dr Kennedy?’

  “A specialist. From Dublin.”

  “He saw Jude?”

  “Here. In Kerry.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said she was very sick.”

  Buddy nodded, suddenly angry. “I know that,” he said, “that was your fault. When she came over, she was fine. You were supposed to take care of her. You didn’t. That’s why she died.”

  Scullen looked at him for a moment, then shook his head. “Dr Kennedy is a psychiatrist,” he said. “Your wife was mentally sick. She’d lost the will to live. She told me so herself.” He paused. “She wanted to die. She asked me to help her.”

  Buddy stared at him, trying to imagine the scene between them, not wanting to believe it. “She asked you to help her die?” he said.

  Scullen nodded. “Twice.”

  “But you wouldn’t?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m a Catholic, Mr Little. We Catholics respect life.” He paused, ducking a wave that broke over the side of the dory. “I’m simply here to tell you what happened. It’s important that you know. That’s why I came.”

  Buddy looked at him, then laughed. “But you’re a terrorist,” he said. ‘You kill people for a living. It’s your job. It’s meat and drink to you.”

  Scullen shook his head. “I’m a soldier,” he said softly. “There’s a difference.”

  Buddy gazed at him for a long time, half repelled, half fascinated by this strange man who dealt in lives and deaths, who appeared to have no regrets, no shreds of doubt. There were a million questions in his head, and they all began and ended with Jude, and he was still trying to sort out the one that really mattered when the wave hit. It wasn’t an especially big wave, but he’d let the dory drift off a little, enough to let the foaming crest steal beneath the bow, and hoist the dory up, the weight in the back, up near the vertical. Buddy reached out for Scullen, trying to steady him, the conversation far from over, but it was too late. The man fell bodily onto him, arms and legs and a wild cracking of skulls. Buddy found himself on the ribbed floor of the dory. He could taste blood. He could smell petrol. He grabbed wildly for the throttle. The engine had stopped.

  The wave foamed past. The dory righted itself, drifting broadside on now, an easy target for the next wave. Buddy was on his knees in the stern, pulling frantically at the outboard. Then he saw the feed pipe to the fuel can. It had severed at the engine end, the connector smashed. Fuel was slopping everywhere. Buddy looked up. The rocks of the Lambs Head were barely four hundred metres away. He swallowed hard. No lifeboat, he thought. No helicopter. Just little me. And little him.

  He reached down. Scullen was lying in the bottom of the dory. Buddy turned him over. His mouth was gashed and he’d lost a tooth or two but he was still conscious. His eyes were wide and his lips were moving. He looked like a wild animal, and when Buddy hauled him into a sitting position, he could feel the fear in the man, all control gone, his whole body trembling, blood bubbling wordlessly around his mouth.

  Buddy glanced up again. He could hear the thunder of the surf on the rocks, tons of water exploding, huge gouts of spume. They were still beam-on to the waves. The wind and the tide would do the rest. In a couple of minutes, it would all be over.

  He looked down at Scullen. His eyes were closed now. Buddy tightened his grip on the front of his oilskin and shook him hard. Scullen began to moan, a soft, almost imperceptible noise that came from way down. Buddy looked at him a moment longer, then slapped him hard across the face. The ring on his third finger scored a line across Scullen’s cheek. The wound began to bleed. Buddy slapped him again. Concentrate, for Christ’s sake, he thought. Listen to me. He pointed to the rocks. He put his mouth to Scullen’s ear.

  “In a minute,” he yelled, “we’ll jump.”

  Scullen’s eyes opened. He looked up, hearing him, following the pointing finger, understanding, shaking his head.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Scullen said nothing. His mouth was still pouring blood. “There’s no point,” he whispered at last, “I can’t swim.”

  Buddy gazed at him, then he started to laugh, and Scullen looked at him for a moment, uncomprehending, then his eyes closed again, and the dory began to roll, sideways on to another huge wave, and Buddy tried half-heartedly to brace his body over Scullen’s, but the boat had gone too far, and they both tipped out, the wave surging past them. Buddy reached up, trying to grab the lines looped around the side of the dory, but it was already beyond him, borne on towards the rocks by the next wave, carrying the sound of his laughter with it.

  They found the bodies at last light. Scullen was sprawled on the beach, abandoned by the receding tide. Buddy was trapped in a gully amongst the rocks, way out, towards the end of the Lambs Head. The farmer who found him, looking for sheep, marvelled at the way the sea had left him, on his hands and knees, his head up, as if he’d found a path, or heard a summons.

  EPILOGUE

  Autumn, 1982

  Late October, plans for the new mainland campaign well under way, the two men met once again in the tiny cramped office with the view of Lough Swilly. The Chief had motored over from Belfast. O’Mahoney was living in a flat down the road. O’Mahoney made the tea. The Chief poured.

  The Chief sat down in front of the desk. O’Mahoney helped himself to sugar. The last evidence of Scullen he’d only found the previous day, two sheets of paper in an out of date London phone book. The handwriting on the paper had been Scullen’s. He’d recognized it from the countless lists the man had once sent him, during the early days, his first tours of duty on the mainland.

  Now, he pushed the notes across the desk. The Chief picked them up and read them without interest. He hadn’t thought about the Qualitech job for months. It was part of an episode he’d consigned to the shredder. Scullen had gone. Scullen was history. The away teams must find new paths forward. He glanced up. “So?” he said.

  O’Mahoney sipped his tea. He’d been thinking hard about Qualitech for most of the night. He’d woken up at two in the morning. He couldn’t get the idea out of his head. He looked at the Chief. “The Brits planted the bomb, right?”

  The Chief nodded. “Right.”

  “On a twenty-eight day timer. Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Giving themselves plenty of leeway. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “So …” He picked up the Chief’s copy of The Times. The Chief had brought it over from Belfast. There was a frontpage report on the first day of the Tory Party Conference. “Why don’t we pull the same stunt but think even longer term? Fifty days? A hundred? Find a place we’ll know she’ll be. Look at her diary? Make a date?”

  He opened the paper. On page two there was a photograph of the Prime Minister. She was standing on the steps of her seaside hotel. She was smiling. O’Mahoney tore the photo from the paper, very carefully, and laid it on the desk. Then he looked up at the Chief.

  “Well?” he said. “Don’t they have these conferences every year?’