Morag came awake and lay staring up at the ceiling blankly, and then she remembered where she was and turned to look at Cussane beside her. He slept quietly, his breathing light, the face in repose, very calm. He still clutched the Stetchkin in his right hand. She gently eased her feet to the floor, stood up and stretched, then she walked to the window. As she looked out, Hector and Angus Mungo crossed the yard and went into the barn opposite. She opened the door and stood at the top of the stone stairs and was aware of some sort of engine starting up. She frowned, listening intently and then quickly went down the steps and crossed the yard.
In the bedroom, Cussane stirred, stretched, then opened his eyes, instantly awake as usual. He was aware of the girl's absence at once, was on his feet in a second. Then he noticed the open door.
The barn was rilled with the sour-sweet smell of mash for the Mungos operated their still in there. Hector switched on the old petrol engine and pump that provided their power supply, then checked the vat.
'We need more sugar,' he said.
Angus nodded. Til get some.'
He opened a door that led into a hut built on the side of the barn. There were various supplies in there, all necessary ingredients of their illegal work, and several sacks of sugar. He was about to pick one up when through a broken plank, he saw Morag Finlay outside, peering in through a window at what was going on in the barn. He smiled delightedly, put down the sack and crept out.
Morag was not even aware of his approach. A hand was clamped over her mouth, stifling her cry and she was lifted in strong arms and carried, kicking and struggling, into the barn.
Hector turned from stirring the vat. 'What's this?'
'A little nosey-parker that needs teaching its manners,' Angus said.
He put her down and she struck at him wildly. He slapped her back-handed and then again with enough force to send her sprawling on a pile of sacks.
He stood over her and started to unbuckle his belt. 'Manners,' he said. That's what I'm going to teach you.'
'Angus!' Harry Cussane called from just inside the door. 'Are you a bastard by nature or do you really have to work at it?'
He stood there, hands negligently in the pockets of his raincoat, and Angus turned to face him. He bent down to pick up a shovel. 'You little squirt, I'm going to split your skull.'
'Something I picked up from the IRA,' Cussane said. 'A special punishment for special bastards like you.'
The Stechkin came out of his pocket, there was a dull thud and a bullet splintered Angus Mungo's right kneecap. He screamed, fell back against the petrol motor and rolled over, clutching at his knee with both hands, blood pumping between his fingers. Hector Mungo gave a terrible cry of fear, turned and ran headlong for the side door, arms up in a futile gesture of protection. He burst through and disappeared.
Cussane ignored Angus and pulled Morag to her feet. Are you all right?'
She turned and looked down at Angus, rage and humiliation on her face. 'No thanks to him.'
He took her arm and they went out and crossed the yard to the kitchen door. As the girl opened it, Harry Fox called, 'Hold it right there, Cussane!' and moved from behind the parked van.
Cussane recognized the voice instantly, sent the girl staggering through the door, turned and fired, all in one smooth motion. Fox fell back against the van, the gun jumping from his hand. In the same moment, Devlin came round the corner and fired twice. The first bullet ripped Cussane's left sleeve, the second caught him in the shoulder, spinning him round. He went through the kitchen door headfirst, kicked it closed behind him, turned and rammed home the bolt.
'You're hit!' Morag cried.
He shoved her ahead of him. 'Never mind that! Let's get out of here!' He pushed her up the stairs towards the bedroom. 'You take the bag,' he urged her, and ran across to the open door and peered out.
The van, with Fox and Devlin, was just round the corner. He put a finger to his lips, nodding to Morag, and went down the stone staircase quietly, the girl following. At the bottom, he led the way round to the back garden, ducked behind the wall and started along the track through the bracken that led to the head of Glendhu.
zzo
Devlin opened Fox's shirt and examined the wound just below the breast on the left. Fox's breathing was bad, his eyes full of pain. 'You were right,' he whispered. 'He's good.'
'Take it easy,' Devlin said. 'I've called in Trent and Brodie.'
He could already hear the Ford approaching. Fox said, 'Is he still in the house?'
'I doubt it.'
Fox sighed.-'We cocked it, Liam. There'll be hell to pay over this. We had him and he got away.'
'A bad habit he has,' Devlin said again, and the Ford entered the farmyard and skidded to a halt.
Cussane sat sideways in the passenger seat of the jeep, feet on the ground. He was stripped to the waist. There wasn't a great deal of blood, just the ugly puckered lips of the wound. He knew that was a bad sign, but there was no point in telling her that. She carefully poured sulfa powder on the wound from his small medical kit and affixed one of the field service dressing packs under his instructions.
'How do you feel?' she asked anxiously.
'Fine.' Which was a lie, for now that the initial shock was wearing off, he was in considerable pain. He found one of the morphine ampoules. They were of the kind used on the battlefield. He gave himself an injection and the pain started to ease quite quickly.
'Good,' he said. 'Now pass me a clean shirt. There should still be one left.'
She helped him on with it and then his jacket and raincoat. 'You'll be needing a doctor.'
'Oh, sure,' he said. 'Please help me. I've got a bullet in the shoulder. The first thing he'd reach for would be a telephone.'
Then what do we do? They'll really start hunting you now. All the roads covered.'
'I know,' he said. 'Let's have a look at the map.' After a while, he said, 'The Solway Firth between us and England. Only one main route through to Carlisle via Dumfries and Annan. Not much road to plug.'
'So we're trapped?'
'Not necessarily. There's the railway. There might be some sort of chance there. Let's get moving and find out.'
Ferguson said, 'It's a mess. Couldn'rbe worse. How's Harry Fox?'
'He'll live, as they say. At least that's the local doctor's opinion. They've got him here in Dumfries at the general hospital.'
'I'll make arrangements to have him shipped down here to London as soon as possible. I want him to have the best. Where are you phoning from?'
'Police headquarters in Dumfries. Trent's here with me. They're turning out all the men they can. Road blocks and so on. The weather isn't helping. Still raining like hell.'
'What do you think, Liam?'
'I think he's gone.'
'You don't think they are going to net him up there?'
'Not a chance in the wide world.'
Ferguson sighed. 'Yes, frankly, that's how I feel. Stay for a while with Harry, just to make sure, then come back.'
'Now - this evening?'
'Get the night train to London. The Pope flies into Gatwick Airport at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. I want you with me.'
Cussane and Morag left the jeep in a small quarry in a wood above Dunhill and walked down towards the railway line. At that end of the small town, the streets were deserted in the heavy rain and they crossed the road, passed a ruined warehouse with boarded-up windows and squeezed through a gap in the fence above the railway line. A goods train stood in the siding. Cussane crouched down and watched as a driver in overalls walked along the track and pulled himself up into the engine. 'But we don't know where it's going,' Morag said.
Cussane smiled. 'It's pointing south, isn't it?' He grabbed her arm. 'Come on!'
They went down the bank through the gathering dusk, crossed the line as the train started to move. Cussane broke into a trot, reached up and pushed back a sliding door. He tossed in the bag, pulled himself up, turned and reached for the girl's hand. A moment later and she was with him. The wagon was almost filled with packing cases, some of them stencilled with the address of a factory in Penrith.
'Where's that?' Morag asked.
'South of Carlisle. Even if we don't go further than that, we're on our way.'
He sat down, feeling reasonably elated, and lit a cigarette. His left arm worked, but it felt as if it didn't belong to him. Still, the morphine had taken care of the pain. Morag snuggled beside him and he put an arm around her. A long time since he had felt protective towards anyone. To be even more blunt, a long time since he had cared.
She had closed her eyes and seemed to sleep. Thanks to the morphine, the pain had not returned and he could cope when it did. There were several ampoules in his kit. Certainly enough to keep him going. With the bullet in him and no proper medical attention, sepsis would only be a matter of time, but all he needed now was thirty-six hours. The Holy Father flew into Gatwick in the morning. And the day after that, Canterbury.
As the train started to coast along the track he leaned back, his good arm around the girl, and drifted into sleep.
MORAG CAME AWAKE with a start. The train seemed to be skidding to a halt. They were passing through some sort of siding and light from the occasional lamp drifted in through the slats, picking Cussane's face out of the darkness. He was asleep, the face wiped clean of any expression. When she gently touched his forehead it was damp with sweat. He groaned and turned on one side and his arm swung across his body. She saw that he was clutching the Stechkin.
She was cold. She turned up the collar of the reefer coat, put her hands in her pockets and watched him. She was a simple girl, uncomplicated in spite of the life she had known, but blessed with a quick mind and a fund of sound common sense.
She had never known anyone like Cussane. It was not just the gun in his hand, the quick, cold violence of the man. She had no fear of him. Whatever else he was, he was not cruel. Most important of all, he had helped her and that was something she was not used to. Even her grandfather had difficulty in protecting her from Murray's brutality. Cussane had saved her from that, and she was enough of a woman to realize he'd saved her from far worse. That she had helped him simply did not occur to her. For the first time in her life, she was filled with a sense of freedom.
The wagon jolted again, Cussane's eyes opened and he turned quickly, up on one knee, and checked his watch. 'One-thirty. I must have slept for a long time.'
'You did.'
He peered out through the slats and nodded. 'We must be moving into the sidings at Penrith. Where's my bag?'
She pushed it across. He rummaged inside, found the
medical kit and gave himself another morphine injection. 'How is it?' she asked.
'Fine,' he said. 'No trouble. I'm just making sure.'
He was lying, for the pain, on waking, had been very real. He slid back the door and peered out and a sign for Penrith loomed out of the dark. 'I was right,' he said.
'Are we getting out here?'
'No guarantee this train goes any further and it's not much of a walk to the motorway.'
'Then what?'
There'll be a service centre, a cafe, shops, parked cars, trucks. Who knows?' The pain had faded again now and he managed a smile. 'An infinite possibility to things. Now give me your hand, wait till we slow right down, and jump.'
It was a longer walk than Cussane had anticipated so that it was three o'clock when they turned into the carpark of the nearest service centre on the M6 and approached the cafe. A couple of cars moved in off the motorway and then a truck, a freightliner so massive that Cussane didn't see the police car until the last moment. He pulled Morag down behind a van and the police car stopped, the light on top of it lazily turning.
'What shall we do?' she whispered.
'Wait and see.'
The driver stayed behind the wheel, the other policeman got out and went in the cafe. They could see him clearly through the plate glass windows. There were perhaps twenty or thirty people in there, scattered amongst the tables. He took a good look round and came out again. He got back in the car and was speaking on the radio as it drove away.
They were looking for us,' Morag said.
'What else?' He took the Tarn O'Shanter off her head and stuffed it in a nearby waste bin. That's better. Too much like advertising.' He fumbled in his pocket and found a five pound note which he gave to her. They do take-outs in these places.
Get some hot tea and sandwiches. I'll wait here. Safer that way.'
She went up the ramp and into the cafe. He saw her hesitate at the end of the counter, then pick up a tray. He noticed a bench against a low wall nearby, half-hidden by a large van. He sat down and lit a cigarette and waited, thinking about Morag Finlay.
