When he awoke, the sun was shining. His watch said ten, which meant that he had slept for only three hours, yet he felt utterly refreshed and wide awake. He felt for the gun and stroked it, then looked across to where Collins had pulled the quilt right up over his head and was breathing with the deep regularity of sleep. Miles slipped out of bed, leaving the gun under the pillow, and picked up his clothes from in front of the fire, which was still burning. His clothes were dry, except for a patch of damp here and there. The faint odors of sweat and dried urine were not inviting, but he dressed anyway, leaving off his shoes. Collins’s breathing was becoming rather too deep, and he might wake himself with a snore soon. Quickly, Miles returned to the bed and slid the gun into his pocket, wrapped still in its plastic packet.
What now? He could disarm Collins, or he could make his escape. He had heard no sounds from the kitchen or from upstairs. The farm seemed utterly deserted: no hens clucking in the yard, no dog, no tractors or jeeps, no clanking of machinery at all. This was the Marie Celeste of agriculture: the bread and butter lying out, the kitchen still warm from the previous evening, the door unlocked. It all seemed to him — for the first time — very strange, and he wondered why he had not mentioned this to Collins, who now snorted once, turned beneath the quilt, and began to breathe more regularly again.
Miles, stepping over the pile of clothes, the outstretched legs, the shoes, managed to pull open the door without a sound, watching the figure in the chair as he did so. He entered the short hallway and tiptoed into the kitchen, closing that door behind him. So far so good.
Then he caught sight of the girl at the kitchen table, and felt his chest tighten into a clenched fist. But the girl stared at him as though it were the most natural thing in the world for a stocking-footed stranger to appear before her. She was eating bread and jam, and, sure enough, Miles could smell the unmistakable aroma of newly baked bread, half a loaf of which sat on the table alongside a new wedge of butter. The girl turned her sleepy gaze back toward the table. She was nine or ten, her eyes and hair dark, her face thin and sharp. Miles could think of nothing to say, so he decided to ignore her. He started to walk toward the kitchen door, deciding at that moment, shoes or no, to leave, but he kept his eyes on the girl in case she should set up a hue and cry.
Finally, he decided to make a sign to her that she should remain quiet, and that was what he was doing when the door pushed itself open and Will Collins came in from the yard, clean clothes on his back and black Wellington boots on his feet.
‘No need for that, Mr. Flint,’ he said casually. ‘Marie’s dumb, can’t utter a sound. She won’t give you any trouble.’
‘Who the hell is that in the room?’ gasped Miles.
‘Oh, that’s Champ. He lives here. Has he fallen asleep by any chance? I take it that’s why you’re out here. And about to leave us by the look of it. Well, go ahead.’
Collins made a sweeping gesture with his arm, holding the door ajar for Miles.
‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Though I should warn you that your friends are still in the neighborhood. They won’t be for long. I’ve just telephoned the local gardai with an anonymous tip-off that they’re here and have broken the immigration laws in the process. They’ll be chased off in a hurry, I should think, but if you want to take your chance just now, be my guest.’
Collins was smiling like a schoolboy: he’d gained the upper hand again and was delighted with himself. Miles walked back to the table and sat down across from the girl. He smiled at her, and she smiled back.
‘Suit yourself,’ Collins said, closing the door with a slam, which eventually brought the man called Champ staggering into the room.
‘He’s made off, Will!’ he shouted before seeing Miles seated quite peaceably at the table. ‘Oh, Jesus, mister, what a fright you near gave me.’
Laughing, Collins went to the stove to pour out more tea.
In the rich, primitive warmth of the kitchen, they smoked cigarettes and played gin rummy. Miles took long puffs of those cigarettes he won, though he had not smoked for years. As an undergraduate, he had affected a liking for Gauloises so as to appear bohemian. Now he smoked to blend in with Collins and Champ. It was an old and trusted psychological ploy — become like your captors. It made their minds easier to read, and also made it more difficult for them to justify murdering you. So he smoked, not heavily or with any conspicuous show, just enough. And, playing cards, he made sure that he lost as often as he won, even if it meant cheating against himself.
More often than not, they used candles instead of the low-wattage electric lighting. This made the room more intimate still, so that everyone felt very comfortable in the presence of everyone else. Just the desired effect. Miles was practicing on Champ now, trying to ingratiate himself. Champ was a simple man, but not simple-minded. He had told Miles that working the land gave a man time to think, lots of time, and offered also the opportunity for a kind of communion with natural justice, so that the man-made farce called ‘justice’ came to seem utterly ridiculous.
The farm, however, was no longer a working concern. Most of the fields had been sold to a property developer in Dublin, who would let it molder until the time was right for building or selling. Miles reckoned that Champ was fifty, though he might be a bit younger or a bit older. The land did that: it made the young old before their time, and the old seem eternally young.
During the days, Collins wandered through the fields and around the farm, keeping himself to himself. He had agreed to allow Miles an amount of freedom, and so Miles too walked the farm, inspecting the carcasses of rusting cars and antiquated machinery, watching the wooden planks of the cowshed crumble to dust beneath his palm, rotten with woodworm. Everything here had run down in accordance with the rules laid down by nature itself. Soon the rusting scrap would be covered by earth and grass, wild seedlings of oats and barley, bright flowers.
In the warmth of the kitchen, kitted out in some of Champ’s old work clothes, Miles thought of London. What would Sheila be thinking? He wondered, too, about the traitor, the smiling Arab, the whole game. He had swallowed a great draft of fear, and it had destroyed a tiny, important part of him. There remained a maddening need to know the truth, even if the reward for knowing that truth was received point-blank and without mercy.
But he would never discover the truth unless he could escape from the farm. He needed Collins’s help, needed to persuade him to arrange passage to London, and that, finally, meant telling him everything.
Twenty-One
‘We’re going to Drogheda.’
‘Who’s Drogheda?’
‘It’s not a who, it’s a where. Champ’s gone to pick up a car for us. Can you drive?’
‘Yes.’
Miles wondered, is this it, a drive into the country, down a lane, into some woodland, and then the gun at the base of the neck? Dying somewhere in Ireland, a lowly statistic that might never even come to light.
‘About Champ...’ Miles began, curious and trying to calm himself.
‘What about him?’
‘Is he your... father?’
Collins roared with laughter.
‘Of course not. Jesus, I wonder if I should take that as an insult?’
‘I shouldn’t if I were you. He’s a very clever man, and a very sane one. What about Marie?’
‘Oh, Marie’s his daughter right enough.’
‘And his wife?’ They were in the yard immediately outside the kitchen door. Collins seemed to be scanning the horizon for some kind of prey.