James Benn - Evil for evil

"Red Jack? Do you think he did this?" Grady sounded incredulous that Taggart would kill Pete, that I'd even consider the possibility.

"I have no idea. Same car, that's all. It could mean anything. It's no coincidence, though."

"No, you're right about that, boy. Damn!" He shook his head, gripping the reins tighter around his ruined hands. "May the devil swallow him sideways, the fellow who did this."

"Move along now," the sergeant said, waving his hand in the direction of the village.

"Move yourself, you English thief. Don't tell me to move along in my own village!"

"Take it easy," I said, holding my palm out to the sergeant, who had stiffened at the insult, his hand resting on his holster. "The soldier who was killed was a friend of ours; he doesn't mean anything by it."

The sergeant let his hand drop to his side. I looked up at Grady.

"I don't much like the sight of that uniform, as you know," said Grady, his face stern as he gazed straight ahead. His tone contained all the apology he was capable of, and the British sergeant moved away and got into the staff car.

"I know," I said.

Grady looked down at me and winked.

"The curse of his own weapons upon him," he whispered, and laughed. "What are you doing with a bastard like that anyway?"

"It's a long story."

"It'll keep. I'll be back in an hour, Billy Boyle. Meet me at my home and I'll put the kettle on. It's a cold dawning for all here."

"OK, I will."

"First turning back there," he said with a backward nod as he flicked the reins and the pony clip-clopped away. Grady turned and stared at the Austin as he passed it, and his shoulders sagged. The staff car, mysterious with darkened windows and shining grillwork, started up, its growling engine powerful and alien in the small country lane. The driver turned the car around in the road, leaving deep tire marks on the soft shoulder and spitting mud as he gained traction. He drove behind Grady slowly; the old man didn't coax the pony into a trot or move an inch from the center of the lane. Finally, the road branched near the pub, and the staff car accelerated, disappearing around the corner.

The curse of his own weapons upon him. A frightening curse, and I shivered. Even the memory of Slaine's legs and the enticing soft sound of nylon rubbing against nylon did not warm me.

"Who was that?" Adrian Simms asked. He seemed chilled too. His hands were stuffed into his pockets and his shoulders hunched.

"Military matter," I said.

"With that sleekit sergeant? Who is he driving around in that big automobile?"

"What did you call him?"

"Sleekit. What you might call a sly one, with a dab of dishonesty thrown in."

"Do you know him?" I asked.

"I've seen him around. Cyrus Lynch. He's one of the secret bunch up at Stormont. He's brought in IRA boys and Red Hand boys. Most are never seen again."

"What about the Black Knights?"

"What about them?" Simms said, his eyes darting to where Carrick stood by the car. "What do they have to do with anything?"

"Just wondering if they were ever arrested along with the Red Hands."

"I doubt it," Simms said, sounding affronted. "They're mainly businessmen, respectable citizens. They do good works for the church."

"Is DI Carrick one?"

"Ach, aye. A man in his position almost has to be."

"And you?"

"None of your damn business, Boyle. When are you going to stop wasting time and find out where Taggart is with those weapons? You know, the fellow who killed Sam Burnham?"

"Right about now," I said, but it was to his back.

There had been nothing else in the car. Carrick said I should watch out for Sergeant Lynch, that the man wasn't trustworthy. Maybe because he was an Englishman who arrested Protestants as well as Catholics, which made him sleekit. We waited until a truck came to tow the Austin out of the ditch, searched the ground some more after it was pulled out, and found nothing but flattened grass stained with engine oil.

I'd asked Jack Patterson to dig up a picture of Pete. I wanted to show it around the branch of the Northern Bank in Armagh, but I didn't tell him that. He said he'd get one from Pete's personnel file. Then I asked DI Carrick for a photo of Jenkins, figuring they had to have surveillance shots of him.

"Sorry, Lieutenant Boyle," Carrick said, sounding like he actually was. "We can't do that. Jenkins's file is sealed. Orders from Stormont."

He wouldn't say more, and I got the same feeling from him that I used to get from my higher-ups in the Boston PD when the heavyweights in city hall hushed something up. Frustration and embarrassment, mixed with a sternness fueled by anger at having to toe someone else's line. I didn't press him.

THE ROAD TO Grady O'Brick's place was more like a track, suited to a pony and narrow cart. Branches reached out low into the road, caught on the jeep's fender, and brushed against the windscreen. Washed-out ruts kept the going slow but the land was even on the shoulders, and when I had to I went up on one and plowed through the underbrush. I wasn't the first, as crushed bushes ahead showed. They were starting to pop up and send out shoots. I recognized elderberries, just like the bushes we had at home in our backyard, behind the garage. My mother loved the purplish black fruit that hung in clusters, since it attracted songbirds. Most of these berries were gone now, eaten or dropped to the ground, leaving their long, narrow leaves and reddish network of stems to brush against the jeep.

The path opened to a clearing and I parked on a flat rise, where long slabs of gray granite rose from the ground like giant steps. At the top sat Grady's cottage, the whitewashed stonework solid under the thatched roof. A single small window faced me, next to a door painted bright red. There was no sign of him or his pony, so I got out, stretching my legs in the warmth of the sun. The land sloped down behind his house, a rocky grade descending to a low, flat expanse of green and brown grasses, interspersed with standing water, soggy paths, deep trenches, and piles of sodden peat. A cart path led to a long shed, set just below the rear of the cottage. The sides were alternating slats of rough-cut wood, letting the wind through to dry the harvested peat, which was stacked higher than my head. It all smelled faintly of cut grass, rotting vegetables, and thick mud.

"If a man has water and peat on his land, 'tis all he needs for the hard times," Grady said. He'd come up so quietly, I hadn't noticed he was standing right behind me. "Let me unhitch Dora and then we'll sit."

We left Dora with fresh hay and an apple Grady produced from his pocket. He sat on a wooden bench by his front door and removed his rubber boots, thick with drying mud. He set them under the bench and sighed deeply, leaning back to rest against the rough stone, letting the early morning sun wash his brow.

"It's a hard job, the peat," he said. "But there's nothing like the death of a young man to make an old man glad of his pains."

"My father once told me the saddest sight he ever saw was the dawn the day after his brother was killed." I was surprised I had said that. It had come out without a thought, something my dad had mentioned once when we'd gotten up early to go fishing. I'd been fourteen, maybe fifteen. I still remembered that dawn, Cohasset Harbor at our backs and the red-streaked horizon to the east, my dad and Uncle Dan sharing a thermos of coffee with their pal Nuno Chagas. Nuno was a Portugee lobsterman who had smuggled rum and whiskey during Prohibition. He'd had some dealings with Dad and Uncle Dan that had resulted in cases of unmarked bottles down cellar and a more open friendship after repeal in 1933.

The light dawning over the far Atlantic horizon had turned from dark reds and blues to gold reflected off the chop. At my age then, the talk and actions of men like Nuno, Dad, and Uncle Dan were strange territory. Little was ever said but they all moved with certainty around each other, as if they knew each other's thoughts. I remember wishing I could be like them, confident in their silence and ready for whatever the day offered. I wanted strong arms like theirs too, and all those things that seemed to be forever beyond my body and mind.