On the Edge of the Loch: A Psychological Novel set in Ireland (36 page)

The plastic skin snapped.

He sprang for the bayonet, three strides, got it, swept immediately to the side, gained balance and leverage. But the Shift Commander’s reflexes fired almost as fast. He had turned his prey in front of him, fingers of both hands embedded in the young man’s neck.

Tony’s attention riveted to Yablonski’s face; there he’d read what was coming, as he’d done so often in other battles. He arced to his right, bayonet primed, feet and shoulders poised to drive it. Fighting with a weapon for the first time, at twenty-one, incarcerated; the irony of it flashed through his head. Four years since Margo and Stewie stopped being Margo and Stewie, since Jesus Pomental died and started haunting him. Four years of torture, to this.

‘Put it down!’ Yablonski roared.

Tony noted each edgy shift in his target. The young man’s eyes had begun bulging, gurgling coming up out of his constricted throat. No way he could put it down. Too late to be afraid. Whatever was about to happen, he wouldn’t put it down. If he did, he’d die here, today. The German kid too, probably. And the swine goes free: cutting, raping, killing. The young man looked to be losing consciousness, choking, sinking lower, harder to hold up. If he dropped, it would be just him against King Kong Yablonski. One against one. The way he liked it on the street. One would win. One wouldn’t. Except here, one could die. Maybe two. Even all three.

‘Lay it down and this is over,’ Yablonski shouted. ‘No charges. Got my word, boy. No charges, no charges. We all walk outa here, all of us. Or you’re a fucking dead man.’

TV talk, Tony thought. Nobody talked like that on the street, not on his streets. And with the swine’s face pumping sweat, it was clear the fear of death was in him. He faked a lunge. Yablonski jerked back, held the young man farther out in front of him. Tony registered the change; here was the mistake he’d been watching for. For this opponent knew nothing of Anto MacNeill: how his mind worked, what he could do with speed and leverage and fighting skill, what he was willing to risk, and ready to lose. He moved forward, bayonet low and angled, shoulder coiled, studying the Shift Commander’s flushed face. Then another step closer to the enemy.

‘Kill me or him, you fry, y’hear me? You fry! Y’hear? You fry!’ Yablonski’s words poured out, his head a damp, glistening ball.

For Tony, rehearsal was over. He’d pick his spot, strike fast, retreat. He had him now; he was street-sure of that. He stalked his retreating target, blade tip four feet from Yablonski, two feet from the barely-conscious kid now drooling spit. Had to go for it, he told himself. At best force a surrender, then make his case. Slim chance. If not, do what he had never done deliberately. Don’t get played for a fool, don’t fuck up. No backing out now, no matter what. Miss the kid, be sure to miss the kid.

What he’d do he had learned in boxing. The kid could still see, had instinct, which was needed for the move to work; he’d see the bayonet coming for him, he’d collapse, become a deadweight, too heavy to hold up, Yablonski would back away without his shield. The feint-and-hit. Aim directly at the kid, last-second pull back, then the strike, the real one, go all the way, with power and legs, for the Shift Commander.

Go!

The instant the strike started the young man’s head fell forward. Inches away, the bayonet pulled back, then lunged explosively forward again, the real strike under way, then a corrective jiggle that slowed the weapon so that it missed the falling blond skull, raw steel still going, slicing through air, still going. Bayonet into chest, into grizzle.

Yablonski stumbled back, stayed up, the blade in him; he pulled it out, barrelled toward the young man now on hands and knees. Tony caught the young man’s hair, tried to haul him aside, but he sank flat to the floor. Then a glimpse, the red blade flashed into Tony’s peripheral vision. Too late. He felt the metal piercing the flesh of his upper leg, then slashing across his ribcage. He was hit. Hard.

Before the bayonet came again his reflexes shot him not into retreat but forward. He swung a hard fist into the Shift Commander’s mouth. Yablonksi reeled backwards, tripping the alarm as his naked, wet mass thudded onto the tiles. Almost immediately he was back up, mouthing vengeance. Bayonet primed, he made for the now crawling young man. Before he could strike, the steel underside of a desk chair crunched into his face, knocked him across the credenza and down, his body a blotched mess. Alarms blaring now, he scrambled up for the third time, this time without the weapon, and with a roar he charged forward. Tony stood his ground, his strike hand ready. He feigned right, jinked left, and with all the leverage his wounded body would allow, he unleashed an upward thrust. The blade drove into Yablonski’s middle. His bulk bulldozed on, crashed against a wall. He tried to extract his weapon of forty-nine notches. It would not part from him. Eyes rolling, then closing, he slid down in stages until coming to a stop, seated erect.

Tony MacNeill surveyed the passing. Benjamin Arthur King Kong Yablonski, Shift Commander, State Prison. Pervert, and more.

Dead.

22

To the west, rain clouds still hung over a wild, hissing Atlantic. He trudged along a line of storm-torn fuchsia, battling wind and hill and a weekend that had left him craving sleep. Just before Greyfriars B&B the green Escort slowed alongside him.

‘Tony, Lenny’s not with you?’ Cilla shouted.

For a second he caught himself smiling, a rarity in recent days. He watched her manoeuvre onto the shoulder and into a tight 360-degree turn. The feeling in him, he thought, was something like belongingness; though he wasn’t sure that was it. Whatever, he felt taken by the unexpected comfort she induced in him, her unique brand of corny: jeans, boots, curls and ruggedness. And intensity. And looks.

‘Where’s Lenny?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Dublin. Coming back tonight, the late train.’

‘She’s not in Dublin. She was – ’

‘She’s with my sister, Kate, in Dublin.’

‘No! No, she’s not. She was here yesterday.’

‘That’s not possible. I saw her in Dublin. I mean I talked to her there.’

‘When? When did you talk to her?’

‘Night before last. Saturday. I phoned her there. Why? What’s wrong?’

‘Paddy met her yesterday. Mairead told her you got the train to Dublin. She was depressed, Paddy said, very down. Now she’s missing, she’s nowhere in the village. Paddy’s racing around like a madman.’

‘You sure about this?’

‘I’m telling you, she was here in Aranroe yesterday; she’s not here now.’

Tony sank into his thoughts.

‘What? What is it? You know something?’

He shook his head. What was in his mind was too frightening to think.

‘Leo’s in a state. He went to Greyfriars with her, looking for you. It’s just over an hour now since she rang him.’

‘She’s at the Beehive. Or in the Horslips. Got to be.’

She’s not, I told you. I’ve searched, so has Paddy. We were praying she was with you. The weather’s set to turn.’

‘Lenny phoned Leo? What are you saying? She called Leo an hour ago, and?’

Cilla’s eyes turned away then back to him. ‘You ready, for a shock?’

‘What?’

‘
I love you, dad
. That’s what she said, nothing else. Now you know.’

‘Father, daughter: I figured that. So what, what does it mean?’

‘She never called him dad or da or father, never in her life. And she thinks you took off. I hope I’m wrong, but it could mean she was saying goodbye.’

‘Oh Christ. Intinn Island. She told me, she said she, she – ’

‘What? Say it.’

‘She said her soul, her spirit, would always . . . Devil’s Cove! It’s Devil’s Cove, I’m sure.’

‘Let’s hope to God you’re wrong. C’mon, get in.’

Tony threw his backpack into the car. Before they could pull out, the blaring yellow taxi drew up alongside them with Paddy, Eilis and Madeleine onboard.

He was the last person to see her, Paddy reported breathlessly. Drove her up yesterday to the Abbey. Should have said to Leo about how she was; thought it was just a little mix-up, be fixed in no time. He was collecting Leo now, to drive along the road to Killadoon. Eilis and Madeleine were hiking over the head, to the beach. Wherever she’d taken off to, she’d a good hour head-start.

‘Tell Eilis the wind on the head will be crazy,’ Tony said. ‘Could sweep someone over the edge.’

‘Go, Paddy, you go on. We’re going to the loch,’ Cilla said. ‘If we don’t find her, we’ll try cross over to Intinn, Devil’s Cove.’

The taxi sped up the hill, the Escort in the opposite direction.

Out beyond Loch Doog, beyond the pincer headlands, the ocean roared like thunder, throwing up mountains of white spume. From the mainland they scanned the length of Intinn, a mile offshore but densely wooded. Nothing moved on the island but windblown trees and bushes. They then bustled down to the water, where a cluster of small rowboats bumped together. The brown boat was missing, the Quins’ boat, Cilla declared; no one other than Lenny would have taken it, and she was not a strong rower.

They scoured the strait separating them from the island. Nothing but water and a few lobster pot markers.

‘It’s doable,’ Tony said. ‘Close enough to get over there.’

‘Wind’s kicked up in the last half hour; it was calm up to then,’ Cilla said emphatically. ‘She made it across. Definitely.’

Tony grabbed the line of a tar-black boat and waded out to it, Cilla behind him. He turned, raised his hand. She slogged past him.

‘No, Cilla! I don’t want you with me.’

‘Not your call,’ she said, and climbed into the boat.

Standing knee-deep in the slapping water, he watched her ready both oars in their locks, exuding her own stamp of invincibility. The instant, fleeting as it was, felt to him like it fused their spirits, and maybe their destinies. At her insistence they sat abreast, each grasping a heavy oar.

Out past the headlands the flap and furl of the ocean smacked the little boat high and low, racked the oars against joints and muscle and washed surf over them. Farther out, gyrating air currents sucked them into a swirl. No word was uttered by either, no sigh or cry or curse. Nor did either break from the rises and drops and pulls that kept them stable and lugged the island closer.

Halfway across, something hit their boat, a jarring thud that sent them chasing after their oars. Seconds later it hit again, this time appearing alongside them. The brown boat. Empty. Both oars inside, lying side by side, under water.

‘Doesn’t mean a thing,’ Cilla roared over the hiss and rumble. ‘Broke off in the storm. Happens.’ She re-sank her oar and pulled harder, forcing Tony to match her, all the way across.

On Intinn Island they slogged up to Rock Cottage. Found it locked. No sign of life. Tony searched around the side. No key.

‘Fuck it, don’t do this!’ he yelled toward the dark clouds now stealing the blue sky. ‘Don’t do this to me!’

Cilla tugged at him. ‘Not your fault! None of it.’

He broke her hold. ‘She’s gone to Devil’s Cove to die.’

‘No, she’s not. Stop saying that! We’ll go there, now. If she’s not there, she’s back on the mainland.’

He shot away, Cilla at his heels, through ferns and whitethorn, not certain he’d remember the trail Lenny had shown him. But soon they emerged onto a familiar stretch of shoreline; they raced past rocks and tide-pools with never more than a couple of strides between them, until together they rounded the tip of Intinn and onto Devil’s Cove, into a vortex of elements.

He halted there and stared as though hypnotised by some invisible force. Everything was intact in front of him: Lenny reclining, beautiful, full of life, full of sun, him beside her, serene in this new world they had brought to each other, each on fire, on the white sand, newly free, she teasing him into swimming naked, then lying together, soaking up the world’s warmth. All in a flash, the life he had lived in one single month.

Cilla’s shouting snapped him alert. They pushed on, down the curving beach, searching land and the thundering waves.

Nothing here for him, the voice inside his head insisted, no human life, just the Devil’s winds and waters, no sun, no child at play, no joy-filled woman; just dreams, hers and his, drowning in a world in which he could no longer believe.

‘Look!’ Cilla’s yell jolted him once again, from higher up on the sloping sand. ‘The rocks! The rocks!’

His eyes shot to a cluster of sea-rocks three hundred feet away. In the erupting tide a rose-pink form was beating against the weed-encrusted boulders. They ran toward it, straining to maintain sight of it.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Cilla cried, reaching for him. ‘Holy Jesus!’

They raced into the surf together. The form kept tossing chaotically, ballooning, disappearing and reappearing. Now well out of his depth, he battled through walls of water, arms working machine-like, until he reached the rose-pink form.

A nylon jacket! No body. He searched about. Lenny’s ski jacket. No body. An empty jacket. He started back toward shore. No reason to believe the worst, he told himself, and he wouldn’t, he just wouldn’t. She was powerful in any water, he’d seen that, a fish, dolphin-like, a survivor.

But as his feet found the bottom Cilla’s face tore at his hope. From twenty feet he saw the agony in her, saw that within her lay something only she knew, the gravity of which he could not undo. He could turn around, swim away, swim out, not face it; the notion overtook his mind; no he couldn’t, he couldn’t wipe away what Cilla knew, nor turn back time, nor change what was coming.

Nearer to her, her bearing told him she would lead him, that he should follow. She circled around a set of giant beach rocks, toward the spot where he and Lenny had sat watching the red sun sink into the western ocean. He trailed after her, dead to the elements, asleep to all but the beating inside him.

On the sand lay clothing neatly folded, anchored by three sea stones. Cilla dropped to her knees: blue jeans, black turtle-neck sweater, sneakers, and tucked between them a folded white cap. From inside the cap she extracted an empty pill bottle, then a gold chain with a tiny cross of Connemara marble. She held it out to him, kept holding it out. Her hand took his, fought it into shape, and into his palm she placed the chain and small green cross.