Leaving his bag on the roadside next to the milk truck, he clambered down the cliff and dislodged Jerry, dragging the body around the gorse and jamming it into the far side. Now it would not be noticed from above, although it was still just visible if someone was really looking. Which, Ravi guessed, they would be before this day was done.
He climbed back up the cliff and considered his getaway options. Walk or ride? And then he boarded the milk truck, revved the engine, put it into gear, and took off, with the urns rattling in the rear. He considered that he was, more or less, safe for another half hour, before someone missed either Jerry or the truck.
There was only one way to drive, and that was straight along to Goleen, through the village, and on to Schull, Ballydehob, and Skibbereen. He kept his driving gloves on and kept going, passing the West End Hotel in Schull, where, unbeknownst to him, his wife had stayed last week.
Only one person in the entire fourteen-mile journey noticed him. Patrick O’Driscoll, the driver of the central milk tanker, was just coming out of Murphy’s Breakfast Bar in Goleen when he saw O’Connell’s truck with the usual four big urns of milk come fast through the village, drive straight past the dropoff point, and keep going out along the road to Schull. He found that puzzling, but guessed Jerry must have had an errand. Still, he thought, he’d better get back here quickly, or I’ll be gone, and then he’ll have to drive to Skibbereen.
Meanwhile, Ravi was approaching the market town of Skibbereen and preparing to ditch Jerry’s truck. He slowed down a half mile out of town and turned onto a farm track that led to a house situated beyond a wood. Ravi swung into the trees and drove for about three hundred yards before coming to a halt in a dense clump of birch trees. He switched off the engine, grabbed his bag, and walked on to Skibbereen. It was 7:15 in the morning, and the town was more or less deserted.
Ravi had eaten nothing since the previous evening and had not had anything to drink for many hours. The lure of the Shamrock Café was too strong for him to resist, and he took off his jacket, which he knew made him very distinctive in these rural areas. He stuffed it into his bag and walked inside, where he ordered toast, orange juice, and coffee from a very sharp young Irishman, aged around twenty, who Ravi thought would probably end up mayor of Skibbereen one day. He asked about the bus to Cork City and was told it left daily at 8 A.M. from outside the Eldon Hotel on Main Street.
Ravi sat at a table with his back to the counter. The excesses of killing Jerry and climbing up and down the cliff had made him thirsty, and he hit the orange juice in one go, then ordered another. He was so thirsty, he ignored the terrorist’s mantra never to do anything that would cause anyone to notice anything. The kid behind the counter might now remember.
The mistake was small, and Ravi cast it to the back of his mind. He ate his buttered toast and drank his coffee. He paid with his euros and made his way out to the Eldon Hotel for the bus to Cork. The journey was a little over forty miles, but it took General Rashood much longer.
Twice he left the bus, at Clonakilty and again at Inishannon on the Bandon River. Both times he waited for the next one, but at Clonakilty he caught sight of the Michael Collins Centre and spent a half hour standing at the back of a group of tourists, listening to the guide recounting the exploits of Ireland ’s great twentieth-century patriot.
Eventually he arrived in Cork just before 12:30, and, since he would shortly be wanted for murder, decided to take a circuitous route to Dublin rather than the regular direct rail link from Kent Train Station. He elected for a long train ride along the coast to Waterford, and then to take the three-hour ride on the railroad up to Dublin.
Every step of the way, Ravi did everything possible to cover his tracks. On the train to Waterford, he changed carriages every half hour. He spoke to no one, ate nothing, drank nothing, kept his head buried in a succession of newspapers. People may have seen him, but no one had time to take a lasting impression of him.
He arrived in Waterford late in the afternoon. It was Monday, July 16, the first day Shakira would be looking for him in Dublin, in the precincts of the Mosque at five in the afternoon. He was not going to make it. But the Mosque, in Ravi ’s mind, was only a “fail-safe.” He had Shakira’s cell-phone number, but intended to use it only in an emergency, perhaps just once, in the middle of Dublin where it would be untraceable.
And was this ever an emergency. In the following few hours, Ravi was aware, he would become an unknown but hunted man. He did not believe he had left many clues behind, but the Irish Garda would be very angry that a well-liked farmer from West Cork had been brutally murdered two miles from his home. And it would not take them long to deduce that the killer was a stranger.
There were two police cars outside Seaview Farm, where Mrs. Mary O’Connell was utterly distraught. Yes, Jerry had left with the milk at the usual time, and no, he had not been seen since. And no, he had never gone missing before.
Down on the waterfront, there were two more police cars, with Garda officers calling at every shop, business, and private home. There weren’t many, but everyone who spoke to the Garda that morning knew Jerry, and had not seen him that day.
Detective Superintendent Ray McDwyer, who had taken over this relatively routine missing-person case, was thoughtful. He sat alone in the police cruiser, waiting for his driver, Officer Joe Carey, who was busy talking to the girl who pumped gasoline at the waterfront garage.
When he returned, Ray suggested the most useful thing they could do would be to check out whether Jerry had indeed arrived at the dropoff point in Goleen with his four cans of milk. He made one quick phone call to the Central Milk Corporation and came up with the name of the tanker driver, Patrick O’Driscoll, who lived in Goleen.
Ten minutes later, they were at his front door, and Patrick quickly explained the unusual events of the early morning: “Sure, I saw Jerry’s truck come speeding through the village around seven this morning. He drove straight past the collection point and kept on going.”
“Did you see him come back?”
“I did not. And I noticed that his other four cans were still there when I packed up at two o’clock. I collected no milk from Jerry today.”
“Was the truck going unusually fast?”
“Well, Jerry always did drive it pretty quickly, but this morning it was going real quick, even for him.”
“Did he wave to you, or acknowledge you in any way?”
“He did not. Just went right by.”
“Mr. O’Driscoll, I want you to think very carefully before you answer this question. Are you absolutely certain that Jerry was behind the wheel of that truck when you saw it drive straight through Goleen?”
Patrick O’Driscoll hesitated. “Well, I’d thought he was… when you see a fella like Jerry every day of your life, you get a kind of set impression. You know. Truck, milk, and Jerry.”
Detective Ray McDwyer smiled. He was a well-dressed serious man of around forty and looked like the managing director of a bank. But he was a very good policeman, and there were those who thought he would climb even higher in his chosen profession.
“Patrick,” he said, “I want you to swear to God you saw Jerry Driscoll in his truck driving through Goleen this morning.”
Patrick was silent for a few moments. And then he said, “I’m trying to get the picture clear in my mind. And I can do no more. But I cannot swear Jerry was behind the wheel. That truck was past me in a flash, and to tell the truth, if I hadn’t known it was Jerry’s truck, I would not have known who the hell it was.”