'Easy,' she said. 'You'll be fine. Remember me? I'm Moira McGregor. You're in my shop.'
'What about the Italian and that fellow Hardy?'
'They're upstairs. We've sent for a doctor.'
He was still confused and found it difficult to think straight. 'My bag?' he said slowly. 'Where is it?'
The big policeman, Brodie, loomed over them. 'Back in the land of the living, are we?' There was an edge to his voice. An unpleasantness. 'Worth a couple of dozen candles to the Virgin, I suppose.'
He went out. Moira McGregor smiled at Cussane. 'Take no notice. You saved that man's life, you and Hardy. I'll get you a cup of tea.'
She went into the kitchen and found Brodie standing by the table. 'I could do with a touch of something stronger myself,' he said.
She took a bottle of Scotch and a glass from a cupboard and put them on the table without a word. He reached for a chair and pulled it forward, not noticing Cussane's bag which fell to the floor. The top being unzipped, several items tumbled out, a couple of shirts and the pyx and the violet stole amongst them.
'This his bag?' Brodie asked.
She turned from the stove, a kettle in her hand. 'That's right.'
He dropped to one knee, stuffing the items back into the bag and frowned. 'What's this?'
By some mischance, the false bottom of the bag had become dislodged in the fall. The first thing Brodie discovered was an English passport and he opened it. 'He told me his name was Fallen.'
'So?' Moira said.
'Then how come he has a passport in the name of Father Sean Daly? Good likeness too." His hand groped further and came up, holding the Stechkin. 'God Almighty!'
Moira McGregor felt sick. 'What does it mean?'
'We'll soon find out.'
Brodie went back into the other room and put the bag down on a chair. Cussane lay quietly, eyes closed. Brodie knelt down beside him, took out a pair of handcuffs and, very gently, eased one bracelet over Cussane's left wrist. Cussane opened his eyes and Brodie seized the other wrist and snapped the steel cuff in place. He pulled the priest to his feet, then shoved him down into a chair.
'What's all this then?' Brodie had the false base up completely now and sifted through the contents. 'Three handguns, assorted passports and a sizeable sum in cash. Bloody fine priest you are. What's it all about?'
'You are the policeman, not me,' Cussane said.
Brodie cuffed him on the side of the head. 'Manners, my little man. I can see I'm going to have to chastise you.'
Watching from the door, Moira McGregor said, 'Don't do that.'
Brodie smiled contemptuously. 'Women - all the same. Fancy him, do you, just because he played the hero?'
He went out. She said to Cussane desperately, 'Who are you?'
He smiled. 'I wouldn't bother your head about that. I could manage a cigarette, though, before bully-boy gets back.'
Brodie had been a policeman for twenty years after five years in the military police. Twenty undistinguished years. He was a sour and cruel man whose only real authority was the
uniform, and his religion had the same purpose as the uniform, to give him a spurious authority. He could have rung headquarters in Dumfries, but there was something special about this, he felt it in his bones, so instead, he rang police headquarters in Glasgow.
Glasgow had received photo and full details on Harry Cussane only one hour previously. The case was marked Priority One with immediate referal to Group Four in London. Brodie's telephone call was transferred at once to Special Branch. Within two minutes he found himself talking to a Chief Inspector Trent.
Tell me all about it again,' Trent told him. Brodie did so. When he was finished, Trent said, 'I don't know how much time you've got in, but you've just made the biggest collar of your career. This man's called Cussane. A real IRA heavy. You say the passengers on the bus he was on are being transferred to the train?'
That's right, sir. Flooding on the road. This is only a milk stop, but they're going to stop the Glasgow express.'
'When is it due?'
'About ten minutes, sir.'
'Get on it, Brodie, and bring Chummy with you. We'll meet you in Glasgow.'
Brodie put down the phone, choking with excitement, then he went into the sitting room.
Brodie walked Cussane along the platform, one hand on his arm, the other clutching Cussane's bag. People turned to watch curiously as the priest passed, wrists handcuffed in front of him. They reached the guards van at the rear of the train, the guard standing on the platform beside the open door.
'What's this?'
'Special prisoner for Glasgow.' Brodie pushed Cussane inside. There were some mailbags in the corner and he shoved
him down on to them. 'Now you stay quiet like a good boy.'
There was a commotion and Hardy appeared at the door, Moira McGregor behind him. 'I came as soon as I could,' the foreman said. 'I just heard.'
'You can't come in here,' Brodie told him.
Hardy ignored him. 'Look, I don't know what this is about, but if there's anything I can do.'
On the platform, the guard blew his whistle. Cussane said, 'Nothing anyone can do. How is Tisini?'
'Looks like a broken leg.'
'Tell him his luck is good.'
There was a lurch as the train started. 'It suddenly occurs to me that if I hadn't drawn you in to help, you wouldn't be here now,' Hardy said.
He moved out to join Moira on the platform as the guard jumped inside. 'Luck of the draw,' Cussane called. 'Don't worry about it.'
And then Hardy and the woman were swept away into the past as the guard pulled the sliding door shut and the train surged forward.
Trent couldn't resist phoning Ferguson in London and the Directorate-General patched him in to the Cavendish Square phone. Fox and Devlin were out and Ferguson answered himself.
Trent here, sir, Chief-Inspector, Special Branch, Glasgow. We think we've got your man, Cussane.'
'Have you, by God?' Ferguson said. 'What shape is he in?'
'Well, I haven't actually seen him, sir. He's been apprehended in a village some miles south of here. He's arriving by train in Glasgow within the hour. I'll pick him up myself.'
'Pity the bugger didn't turn up dead,' Ferguson said. 'Still, one can't have everything. I want him down here on the first available plane in the morning, Chief-Inspector. Bring him
yourself. This one's too important for any slip-ups.'
'Will do, sir,' said Trent eagerly.
Ferguson put down the receiver, reached for the red phone, but some innate caution stopped him. Much better to phone the Home Secretary when the fish was actually in the net.
Brodie sat on a stool, leaning back in the corner watching Cussane and smoking a cigarette. The guard was checking a list on his desk. He totalled it and put his pen away. Til make my rounds. See you later.'
He went out and Brodie pulled his stool across the baggage car and sat very close to Cussane. Tve never understood it. Men in skirts. It'll never catch on.' He leaned forward. 'Tell me, you priests - what do you do for it?'
'For what?' Cussane said.
'You know. Is it choirboys? Is that the truth of it?' There were beads of perspiration on the big man's forehead.
'That's a hell of a big moustache you're wearing,' Cussane said. 'Have you got a weak mouth or something?'
Brodie was angry now. 'Cocky bastard. I'll show you.'
He reached forward and touched the end of the lighted cigarette to the back of Cussane's hand. Cussane cried out and fell back against the mailbags.
Brodie laughed and leaned over him. 'I thought you'd like that,' he said and reached to touch the back of the hand again. Cussane kicked him in the crutch. Brodie staggered back clutching at himself and Cussane sprang to his feet. He kicked out expertly, catching the right kneecap, and as Brodie keeled forward, raised his knee into the face.
The police sergeant lay on his back moaning and Cussane searched his pockets, found the key and unlocked his handcuffs. He got his bag, checked that the contents were intact and slipped the Stechkin into his pocket. He pulled back the sliding door and rain flooded in.
The guard, entering the baggage car a moment later, caught a brief glimpse of him landing in heather at the side of the
track and rolling over and over down the slope. And then there was only mist and rain.
When the train coasted into Glasgow Central, Trent and half-a-dozen uniformed constables were waiting on platform one. The door of the baggage car slid open and the guard appeared.
'In here.'
Trent paused at the entrance. There was only Lachlan Brodie nursing a bloody and swollen face, sitting on the guard's stool. Trent's heart sank. 'Tell me,' he said wearily. Brodie did the best he could. When he was finished, Trent said, 'He was handcuffed, you say, and you let him take you?'
'It wasn't as simple as it sounds, sir,' Brodie said lamely.
'You stupid, stupid man,' Trent said. 'By the time I'm finished with you, you'll be lucky if they put you in charge of a public lavatory.'
He turned away in disgust and went back along the platform to phone Ferguson.
Cussane at that precise moment was halted in the shelter of some rocks on top of a hill north of Dunhill. He had the ordnance survey map open that he'd purchased from Moira McGregor. He found Larwick with no trouble and the Mungos' farm was just outside. Perhaps fifteen miles and most of that over hill country, and yet he felt cheerful enough as he pressed on.
The mist curling in on either hand, the heavy rain, gave him a safe, enclosed feeling, remote from the world outside, a kind of freedom. He moved on through birch trees and wet bracken that soaked his trouser legs. Occasionally grouse or plover lifted from the heather, disturbed by his passing. He kept on the move, for by now his raincoat was soaked through and he was experienced enough to know the dangers of being in hill country like this in the wrong clothing.
He came over the edge of an escarpment perhaps an hour
after leaving the train and looked down into a valley glen below. Darkness was falling, but there was a clearly defined man-made track a few yards away ending at a cairn of rough stones. It was enough; he hurried on with renewed energy and plunged down the hillside.
Ferguson was looking at a large ordnance survey map of the Scottish Lowlands. 'Apparently he got the coach in More-cambe,' he said. 'We've established that.'
'A neat way of getting to Glasgow, sir,' Fox said.
'No,' Ferguson said. 'He took a ticket to a place called Dunhill. What in the hell would he be doing there?'
'Do you know the area?' Devlin asked.
'Had a week's shooting on some chap's estate about twenty years ago. Funny place, the Galloway hills. High forests, ridgebacks and secret little lochs everywhere.'
'Galloway, you said?' Devlin looked closer at the map. 'So that's Galloway?'
Ferguson frowned. 'So what?'
'I think that's where he's gone,' Devlin said. 'I think that's where he was aiming to go all along.'
Fox said, 'What makes you think that?'
He told them about Danny Malone and when he was finished, Ferguson said, 'You could very well have something.'
Devlin nodded. 'Danny mentioned a number of safe houses used by the underworld in various parts of the country, but the fact that he's in the Galloway area must have some connection with this place run by the Mungo brothers.'
'What do we do now, sir?' Fox asked Ferguson. 'Get Special Branch, Glasgow, to lay on a raid on this Mungo place?'
'No, to hell with that,' Ferguson said. 'We've already had a classic example of just how efficient the local police can be; they had him and let him slip through their fingers.' He glanced out of the window at the darkness outside. 'Too late to do anything tonight. Too late for him as well. He'll still be on foot in those hills,'
'Bound to be,' Devlin said.
'So - you and Harry fly up to Glasgow tomorrow. lou check out this Mungo place personally. I'm invoking special powers. On this one, Special Branch will do what you want.'
He went out. Fox gave Devlin a cigarette. 'What do you think?'
'They had him, Harry, in handcuffs,' Devlin said, 'and he got away. That's what I think. Now give me a light.'
Cussane went down through birch trees following the course of a pleasant burn which splashed between a jumble of granite boulders. He was beginning to feel tired now in spite of the fact that the going was all downhill.
