Falling Glass (23 page)

Richard poured them another measure and drank his at a gulp, but his friend and advisor left his drink alone.

“Well?” Tom asked after a minute.

“The girls are my number one priority. I love them, more than life itself.”

I do not, Tom thought, but merely said: “He understands that.”

Richard sighed and nodded. “Aye, okay, then,” he said. “Do whatever you have to do.”

chapter 13
the lady in the lake

I
N THE BLUE LIGHT OF MACHINES, IN HOUSING ESTATES, IN GRIM
flats and new apartments, in cottages, caravans, cars, faerie rings and sacred groves, Ulster was waking up.

Killian stood on the ferry, waiting. He had paid his pound and the ferryman was hoping for another customer to make this journey at least a little more economical.

The two of them stood there together.

Not talking.

Killian lit a cigarette.

The man lit a pipe.

Swans lifted into the air, disturbed by a noise to the south.

Joog, joog, joog, joog, joog, joog. A helicopter thudding over the bogland and the lake. The twin rotors of a Chinook, carving up the landscape and sending shivers through the sheep as it flew low along the border at a demented pace. A claw of blades and points, roaring under the thin saliva-coloured clouds. It was a throwback. It was rare to see an army chopper these days and the men instinctively ducked as it passed overhead showing its wide bottom that curved up in a slug of antennae and projectile flares. Well that’s Rachel and everyone else on the island awake, you eejits, Killian said to himself.

But it was clipping so quickly that before the thought had barely jumped
across his neurons, the chopper was gone, the double rotors singing and revolving in a lazy edit of diminishing noise and fuss and leaving behind a flap of birds and an embryonic stillness.

“Hey, you wanna get cracking?” Killian asked the man.

There were no other distractions and clearly no other passengers so the ferryman muttered: “Well, I suppose we’ll give this a wee go.”

He was a balding ginger bap in his late fifties. Pale with big orange freckles all over his face. He was dressed in heavy tweeds and a wool hat and he was sweating like a bastard.

He pressed a red button, a motor whirred, he turned a small wheel and the large flat-bottomed boat putted into the lough.

The fickle rain was easing now and compacting everything in front of Killian into a fine residue of comfort-drizzle. He stood there by a guard rail and drank from the ferryman’s thermos filled with coffee, taking a sip from the thin plastic mug to quench his thirst. It tasted foully of the flaked pieces of white dye on the lid.

“Ta,” he said and passed the cup back.

Out of the reeds a curlew rose and flapped into the air.

It was calm, lovely, like being inside a frickin’ Yeats poem.

The ferryman started fiddling with a radio but he couldn’t get anything and the hissing noise was upsetting the ducks.

“Could you cut that out, mate, I’m having a wee moment here,” Killian said.

“No, I’ve got it. It’s a geographic thing. A quirk. There’s an array of cosmic forces that works through the exact way you position the aerial, only I can do it,” the ginger bap said.

“Array of cosmic forces,” Killian muttered to himself before Radio 3 came in clear as bell. He didn’t know classical music but this was definitely Mozart or one of the biggies and Killian had to admit it actually improved the “moment”.

The ferryman steered them around the swans, who had landed again, and after only a few minutes brought them to a rickety wooden jetty that could have done with a nail or two and a couple more tyres along its side.

The boat touched and Killian got off.

He had been expecting to immediately see the settlement but instead he found himself in a field with a deciduous wood beyond.

“Where do I go?” Killian asked.

“Ach, there’s a wee path, follow it for about five minutes and you’ll come to the village if you can call it that. Here, you wouldn’t mind asking if there’s anyone who wants to go back to the mainland would ya? I’ll wait here a quarter of an hour and then I’ll go back.”

“No problem,” Killian said and set off along a not terribly worn-looking trail through the grass.

Starlings flitted among the dandelions and bluebells, and red hawks were hovering in the air above the woods. There were butterflies everywhere: purple hairstreaks, dingy skippers, essex skippers, gatekeepers, clouded yellows.

It took him back to childhood walks with his da and uncle: apple scrumping, blackberrying, mushrooming. Of course they’d had the lore and knew every type of medicinal and edible plant.

All that knowledge that had gone with that generation – few traveller kids these days were interested and Killian wondered if any of them could even tell a chanterelle from a death’s cap.

He entered the wood and was surprised to find himself in an old growth forest among ash, oak trees and giants ferns. Moss was growing on fallen trunks and the smell was close and heady. He hadn’t gone a minute before he saw a deer staring at him from a hillock between the trees.

“Good morning,” he said.

The deer watched him and when he passed by she bent her head and began nibbling at a wet mound of grass.

Through the trees he could see houses now, or rather wooden cabins, four of them close to one another with a cement block toilet and washhouse near the shore.

In one of the cabins a curl of blue smoke was drifting from the chimney stack.

He could hear children’s voices.

They were fighting and then one of the children began to cry.

“You’re bad!” a girl exclaimed. There was fistling ahead and a girl ran into the trees and stopped in front of him, open-mouthed.

She was about five with reddish curly hair, small pointy ears and greyish otherworldly eyes. She was wearing a grubby yellow dress and no shoes. She could have passed for Pavee easily.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I’m Killian,” he replied.

She nodded and then, remembering why she was running in the first place, she started to cry.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, getting down on one knee in front of her.

“Everyone’s always cross with me,” she said with little sobs gultering out.

“Who’s everyone?” Killian asked.

“Mum and Claire. Claire says I’m stupid, that I don’t know anything. Not even the alphabet,” the girl said.

“What’s your name honey child?”

“Sue.”

“How old are you?”

“Five.”

Killian stood. He vaguely remembered something in the notes about “learning difficulties” for this one. Richard had also said that Rachel had taken heroin while pregnant with Sue.

She seemed fine to him though. Were kids in the straight world supposed to know their letters by five? It hardly seemed possible. Five?

“Come now, wipe those cheeks and I’ll take you back to your mummy,” Killian said.

“I don’t want to go back, I want to go with you,” Sue said, “you’re the only one who’s ever nice to me.”

“I’ll tell you what, I’ll take you back but we’ll go the long way round, is that okay?”

“Aye, okay,” she said.

Killian offered her his big oversized paw and she slipped her fingers
into it. From the outside this scene must have looked like that bit in Frankenstein when the girl goes walking with the monster. Of course, thought Killian, the monster brained her.

He led her back through the woods.

The deer unfortunately had gone but when they got to the meadow the butterflies were all still there.

“Do you see these butterflies?” Killian asked.

“Of course, I’m not blind!” the girl said, all eggy with him which he liked.

“Do you know any of their names?”

“They’re just butterflies, so they are.”

“No, no, no, they all have names. Three names. An English name, a Latin name, an Irish name. Would you like to know some of them?”

For the first time a little smile appeared on the girl’s face. “Maybe,” she said.

“Okay, see that big orange one with the white and black underside? Normally they don’t survive the winter, can you guess what that one’s called?”

“No.”

“It’s called a painted lady. What’s it called?”

“A painted lady,” Sue said.

“That’s a funny name isn’t it? Okay, now you see those wee pale blue ones?”

“Aye.”

“They’re called holly blues.”

“That’s easy. Holly blues. What’s that white one?” Sue asked.

“That’s called a wood white, it’s not very interesting,” Killian said.

“I like it!” Sue insisted.

“Ooh, now, look at that lemony yellow coloured one. I’ve only ever seen one of those once before. That’s called a brimstone butterfly. In Irish we call it a
buiog ruibheach
, in France they call it the
le citron
which means the lemon. That’s a good one to see, it’s lucky.”

Claire’s eyes widened. “Lucky?”

“Uh huh.”

“Now,” Killian said briskly. “Tell me them all back.”

“Painted lady, holly blue, a wood white and a brimstone butterfly which is the lucky one.”

“Very good. Now you know something your sister doesn’t. Let’s go find them, shall we?”

Sue shook her head. “Tell me one more thing first.”

Killian rubbed his chin. “You drive a hard bargain,” he said, “Okay, you see that little bird in the tree. The one making all that racket?”

“Yes!” Sue said enthusiastically.

“That’s a wheatear. It’s a very special bird. Tough little guy. It flies further than any other small bird. All the way across the mountains and the ocean and the desert. Just a few weeks ago that cheerful little chap was in the middle of Africa. What do you think about that?”

“Cool! What’s he called? A wet ear?”

“Wheatear. He’s got a nice song too hasn’t he? He’s happy to be alive after all that perilous flying. Okay now young lady, let’s go.”

They held hands back through the wood until they came out once more at the cabins. The older girl was down by the water launching driftwood into the gentle current.

“Go play with your sister now, be careful of the water, and I’ll talk to your ma,” Killian said.

“I’ll tell Claire about the butterflies and the wheatear.”

“Do that but don’t tease her with something you know and she doesn’t.”

“She does it to me,” Sue said.

“Ach, you be the better’un now, run along bairn,” Killian said.

Sue ran to her sister and Claire gave her a hug and they began to play with the wood together.

Their ma was further up the shingle beach having a fag and gazing out at the lough. Rachel hadn’t seen him yet and he framed her in the TV set of his fingers to get a bead. Aye, she looked a good bit like her photo. Wilder now, thinner, but still very attractive. He took a picture of
her with his camera phone to send to Sean later. She was wearing jeans and a baggy green jumper and black wellington boots.

He walked to the beach so she’d see him in her lateral vision and wouldn’t be startled.

At the first crunch of his shoes on the shingle she turned.

“Morning,” he said.

“Morning,” she replied suspiciously.

“Is this an all-female preserve?”

“No,” she said suspiciously. “Are you looking for Andrew? He’s not here. He’s down in Enniskillen for a couple of nights.”

You shouldn’t have told me that, Killian thought. Better to let me think that you’ve got allies everywhere.

She threw the cigarette into the lake. He walked closer. She had freckles on her cheeks and the scarlet traces in her hair were glinting in the sunlight. Her hands were very white against the green of her sweater, fretting with nowhere to go once the cigarette was done.

Her head turned and looked at the cabin. To late to run for your gun or your phone, Killian thought. He stopped a few feet from her and shifted position so that he was balanced on his back foot and more relaxed.

Her arms were crossed.

“What can I do for you, Mr…?”

“Killian,” Killian said offering his hand.

She shook it limply and put the offending palm under her armpit.

“So what’s this about?” she asked.

“Your husband hired me to find you, Mrs Coulter.”

Her eyes widened momentarily.

“There must be some mistake, I’m not Mrs…” she began, but the words died on her lips.

She bent down and picked up her box of cigarettes. Her hands were shaking and when she put the fag in her mouth she couldn’t get it lit. Killian cupped his hands over the end and lit it with his own lighter.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

Part of him wanted to tell her about her parents in Ballymena, but
since the cops were undoubtedly going to blame that little episode on a mysterious burglar it wouldn’t be wise. Sean would keep his mouth shut, Ivan would certainly keep his mouth shut and everyone else who knew the truth of the matter was dead.

“I intercepted a letter to your ma with this address on it,” he said.

“I haven’t written to my mum in years, I don’t even know where she is. She’s in England somewhere,” she said triumphantly.

“I’m sorry. Not your ma. Your da. You were communicating with your father through his lodge in Ballymena. The RAOB. The Royal and Ancient Order of Buffaloes, I believe.”

She shook her head and muttered “fuck” to herself.

She looked at him. “How much is Richard paying you? I’ve got money. I could pay you to go away for twenty-four hours,” she said.

Killian nodded grimly. “How much?”

“Five grand.”

“Mr Coulter is paying me half a million for finding you and the girls,” Killian said.

“Half a million!”

“Half a million.”

She shook her head and then she nodded again. “Ah, I see, it’s not about the girls is it? It’s about the laptop now, isn’t it? I should have kept my stupid mouth shut. My bloody bake is always getting me in trouble. Richard hadn’t even told Tom.”

Now it was Killian’s turn to look confused. “What laptop?”

She smiled and blew smoke into the air.

“He didn’t tell you either?”