Adrian McKinty - The Bloomsday Dead

Sheep loomed out of the murk in front of me, coming down from one of the upper fields. Bedraggled, waterlogged. Even an older, more experienced ewe drenched with muck, staring at me with desperation in her dead eyes.

“Go on, scoot,” I told her, and she and the other sheep scrambled away into the heather. I stopped for a second.

Unnerved.

I found the path again. A concrete-and-gravel job. “The path to the future,” I muttered. Soaked, slippery, unseen-the adjectives working for both literal and metaphoric journey.

I followed it farther around to Black Head. Slider had been right. It split here. The upper path wound up to the lighthouse at the top of the cliff, the lower made its way down almost to the water.

“This way,” I said to myself, and found my place along the lower route. The direction of the cave.

I hoped my information was correct. But it had to be. I had frightened the truth out of that son of a bitch. And if he was lying, if he had pulled this wee hidey-hole out of his arse, he was a more impressive individual than I gave him credit for.

The path worked down to the bottom of the cliff. Spray hitting me every time a wave broke.

Lightning had transformed the sea between Ireland and Scotland into a landscape spectral and fantastic. Splintered light showing the hills in Galloway and their mirrors in the Glens of Antrim. And for a moment, if you were so inclined, you could almost imagine that the boiling waters between Ireland and Britain were, in fact, a silent valley of writhing souls in Hades.

I shivered.

The wind howling up to thirty or forty miles an hour now, ringing in my ears. I cursed, but I couldn’t hear my own voice.

I walked a little farther, turned a corner, looked up, the lighthouse suddenly seventy-five feet above on the clifftop. A spectacular sight. The large white structure silhouetted against the storm clouds and the big mirrored bulb radiating powerful beams across the water-visible from Scotland and the Isle of Man. I stood transfixed. I had never seen anything like it. Great sheets of light above me, rotating and hyp-notic. Millions of candlepower warning ships about the coast of Ireland from as far away as the Earth’s curve would allow.

And all of it coming together.

Like I knew it would.

The crescendo.

The climax.

The lighthouse. The lightning. The storm. The night. The frothing sea and rain. It was a coda from Götterdämmerung and enough to make you scrap your disbelief in the sympathetic fallacy.

“A hell of a night,” I said to no one.

I walked farther along the lower path. The tide was high and the sea was only a few vertical feet beneath me. And, Jesus, of all places to meet, why this one? I was hard pressed to think of a more desolate spot in the whole of Ireland. You certainly couldn’t make a quick getaway from here and you couldn’t count the money and you couldn’t wait in comfort. The only advantage would be the certitude with which you could verify Bridget’s adherence to the plans. You’d see her coming from a mile off. She’d have to be alone. No cops and no goons could possibly follow her without being seen. If she approached from the south, from the direction I was taking, you’d come from the north, over the fields. You’d do the exchange at the cave and both parties would go home the way they came.

I turned another corner as a deck of cold water smashed into the bottom of the cliff, the initial break missing me but the bounce off the cliff catching me full on the back.

Bugger.

The path had a safety rail here now. But I wasn’t going near it. Rusted and warped by wind, rain, and spray, it didn’t look at all safe. I hoped Bridget wouldn’t put her trust in it. Christ, it would give and she’d be in the Atlantic, doomed, drowned, dead.

I shook my head.

There it was again.

A contradiction of emotions. For wouldn’t that be in my best interests, if Bridget did somehow end up in the sea? Wouldn’t things be much easier for me if Bridget was erased from my life forever? No more vendetta, no more blood feud? No more waking in the middle of night, my heart pounding, reaching for the Glock under my pillow?

A dead Bridget would be my chance for a normal existence. The first chance in twelve years.

I turned the final corner and the sound of the sea changed. A hollow, booming noise echoing off the walls. A black void in the cliff face.

I took out my revolver.

This was the cave. The Witches’ Cave. The name an unwelcome dose of melodrama in a spot that was bloody tight enough.

Why hadn’t I thought to bring a flashlight? I walked over the slime-covered rocks into the cave mouth. I clutched the revolver. Maybe the girl was here already. Maybe she was tied up and I’d rescue her and save the day and Bridget’s eternal love would shine down from on high. Maybe all would be forgiven and I’d live happily ever after.

Aye.

I crouched and hunched farther into the pristine darkness. The cave went back a good bit into the cliff, but sea spray could still make it this far and on the seventh wave it smacked into the walls and drenched me again. I crouched lower and moved forward a little. How deep did this bastard go?

I stooped almost horizontal and inched ahead even more slowly. I was being careful, but despite my caution I still managed to slip on the rocks and cut myself badly on the left hand. Fortunately, the revolver was in my right, but I didn’t want to lose it now, so I put it back in my jacket pocket.

I kept still for a moment and got on my haunches.

My eyes adjusted, and from the ambient light and odd lightning flash, I could see for certain that the cave was empty. No girl, no kid-napper, no Bridget.

Garbage, seaweed, beer cans, sodden paper, some luminous graffiti but nothing that looked as if anyone had even been here recently.

Shit. Had Slider stroked me after all? This was no place for an exchange. Jesus, this was no place at all.

“Is there anybody here?” I called out.

Not a sound. Not even a goddamn echo.

I looked at my watch. 11:00, it said. Oh, yeah. Broken. But it was bound to be after midnight now. Bridget would be on the move. Juking from phone box to phone box and car to car. Probably heading for Dublin or Donegal or the hill of Tara. Anywhere but here. What a waste of time.

“Ya did it to me, Slider. Conned me. Stroked me,” I said.

Well, I was committed to this place now in any case. The only course would be to wait. If they didn’t show up at midnight, I’d have no option but to head for the nearest ferry port or air terminal. Get out of Ireland as soon as possible. Bob’s brother had been very clear. If Bridget gets the girl or the girl dies, all bets are off. He and the whole organization would be coming to kill me and with the full wrath of Bridget and her men I wouldn’t last a day in this country.

I shivered and sat down on a rock. I could have done with a cigarette. A nice wee ciggy to warm me up. I tapped my watch and wound it, listened, took it off, and threw it behind me into the stinking, moving pile of flotsam and jetsam.

Seawater was coming in along the bottom of the cave now. Maybe McFerrin was even smarter than I thought. He tells me about this cave in the middle of bloody nowhere. He figures I’ll go wait inside it like a complete eejit. He knows that at high tide the cave is completely submerged and by the time I realize this, I’ll be goddamn drowned.

Great.

Nice plan. I suppose you thought you’d be waiting for me in hell with a big grin on your face. That right, Slider? I looked at the water level. Was it rising? I tried to see if there were high-tide marks on the walls, but you couldn’t tell.

Sometimes it was the wrong thing to kill a man. Maybe I should have brought the son of a bitch with me. Someone to talk to while we waited. And then I could have popped him. Then again, no. Too many difficulties.