He did the same with Claire, who took it with a good deal more scepticism.

"What now?" Rachel said.

"Sh.o.r.e," he said.

"I think Claire steers better than I do," Rachel said.

Claire took over and did indeed do it better than her mother. "The jetty?" she asked.

"Aye, keep going love, you're doing great."

"You launched the laptop on a life ring?" Killian asked Rachel, impressed.

"It worked. He chased it, not us."

Killian grinned. The Russian was a bobbing presence four hundred yards to the north. The laptop was an orange blob fifty yards beyond that, almost out of sight.

"Let him have it," Killian said.

He could already foresee the double cross coming and smiled at the complications that this would cause Tom Eichel and Richard Coulter.

But it was not to be.

A fast moving cigarette boat was gunning up from the Lower to the Upper Lough probably on its way to the Shannon ca.n.a.l. The big purple- painted, high-sided boat, was easily clipping twenty-five knots.

It missed Markov by ten boat lengths but the wake knocked him about a bit and of course overturned the life ring.

The laptop and all its secrets joined all the other secrets at the bottom of Ireland's holiest lake. Markov screamed in frustration just as the ferry touched the jetty on the mainland side.

"That's a crying shame," Killian said with a grin.

They piled into the Mercedes just as rain began to pour heavy and cold out of the low clouds.

He flipped on the windscreen wipers and the lights and drove onto the B127.

"I can't believe we made it," Rachel said.

Killian safetied the Heckler and Koch and pa.s.sed it back to her. She put it in the Mercedes' s.p.a.cious glove compartment.

"And all without a single shot being fired," he said with satisfaction.

At the junction of the B127 and the A34, he took the A34 road east.

"Where are you taking us?" Rachel asked, a furrow of suspicion forming between her eyebrows.

"Somewhere you'll be safe," he said.

She looked at him and she looked at the girls and then back at him. This is my whole universe and I'm giving it to you, she seemed to be saying.

"I give you my word," Killian said. She looked into his slate-grey eyes, which told her that where he was from, this actually meant something.

"How are you doing back there, girls?" Killian asked.

"We're doing okay," Claire said bravely.

"Where are we going now?" Sue asked.

"Do youse like animals?" Killian wondered.

"What sort of animals?" Sue asked.

"Horses, goats, dogs, cats, chickens, donkeys," Killian explained.

"I like horses," Claire said.

"I like horses too," Sue added.

"And I like horses," Rachel echoed.

"Well then ladies, I think you're really going to like this place," Killian said.

CHAPTER 15.

AFTER THE EQUINOX.

Killian knew about Islandmagee of course, but for some reason in his forty years walking the old sod he had never been there. It was an isolated part of Northern Ireland but they weren't that far from the ferry port Larne or from Belfast, or indeed from Coulter's main house in Knocknagulla.

The best that you could hope for was that Tom Eichel and d.i.c.k Coulter wouldn't think of looking right under their noses.

The Pavee weren't exactly in the business of concealing their movements either. It had only taken him two phone calls from a hotel lobby in Enniskillen to find out where the travelling clan had moved to now, although the last phone call had been entirely in Shelta, a language neither Coulter nor his agents would have any knowledge of.

Islandmagee was one of a dozen campsites in Ulster that the diminished band of the Cleary-McKentee Pavee shifted to when they had either exhausted the resources and patience of the locals in their last camp or when everyone just felt that it was time to move on to somewhere new. This was never done by a vote or a meeting, just a growing sense that the time was right to go.

Islandmagee, like the other places in the Pavee Dreaming, was a holy place: in Irish it was known as Oilean MhicAodha, Aodh being one of the many sea G.o.ds of the Ulaidh. It was a particularly resonant holy site, not unlike Newgrange or Tara or Emain Macha; in the Annals of the Four Masters it was recorded that Neimhid of the Long Arm led the very first colony into Ireland through Islandmagee in the year of the world 2859, founding a settlement there called Rath Cimbaeitchn Seimhne.

In popular mythology too Islandmagee was a haven for the ancient peoples and the Wee People and it also had a reputation for witchcraft - in 1711 a local woman was pilloried in the last such witch trial in Irish history. You could see why the Pavee would be attracted to such a place and when a sympathetic farmer had let them camp on his land at Brown's Bay in the northern part of the peninsula, it had become a new stop on their travelling route.

Killian hadn't been to this particular part of the Pavee sacred way, but as a boy he had spent much of his time on the road, mostly in the South of Ireland and England. Indeed he always remembered with a shudder the two unpleasant years in the early eighties when he and his clan family had been forced to live on a bombsite in north Belfast, as a way of making sure the children went to a local school and the adults claimed unemployment benefit from only one dole office.

Of course none of the children ever had gone to a school and the adults still claimed dole from two or three offices, and finally after a couple of sectarian/racist attacks that got mentioned in the English newspapers the government had relented, offering those Pavee who wanted council houses a place at the top of the list and those who wanted to move on in their caravans a chance to move on.

Neither option had appealed to Killian, who had by then reached his seventeenth birthday and who went first to London and then New York to offer his expert car thieving and chop-shop skills to people who would appreciate them.

But over the years, more and more of the Pavee had taken the offer of council homes and as the older population died the number of travellers who actually travelled shrank.

Of the 15,000 Pavee in Ireland, perhaps only two or three thousand nowadays were truly nomadic.

Killian had no idea what to expect when he arrived at Brown's Bay. Would there be five caravans or fifty? Would there be young people or just oldsters? Would anyone remember him? Would they welcome him or turn him away? Would she be there? Or had she long since moved to England or America?

The drive from Fermanagh to the coast of County Antrim had taken all day and as they arrived the sun was setting on the vernal equinox which marked the beginning of the quarterly horse fair.

Killian had forgotten about that.

But he had promised horses and although in the old days you might have seen hundreds, now that meant, at the very least, a few dozen, which was more than enough to excite both girls as they pulled up the B560 and parked in the large car park at Brown's Bay.

There were hunters and ponies aplenty in muddy fields and the auction ring and some even on the beach where they were getting a free fetlock bath in the surf. The actual horse auction was only one part of the fair, there was also a chip van, an ice-cream van, a couple of stalls selling handicrafts, a fortune teller and a mini carousel for the kids.

The traveller settlement itself was a line of small white caravans facing the beach. Fourteen caravans, he counted, which was a couple fewer than he'd been expecting.

Killian drove through the car park and parked the Mercedes in the field where the Pavee camp was located.

"Are we here? Is this it?" Rachel asked.

"This is it," he said.

He got out of the Merc, opened the back door, and gave Claire and Sue two more pound coins each.

He looked at Rachel.

"Okay for them to get an ice cream each?" he asked.

"I don't see why not," she said.

"Can we go see the horses?" Claire asked excitedly.

"Yes, but be careful of them and don't touch them and stay where I can see you," Rachel said.

"Okay," Claire said.

"Keep an eye on your sister, and stay where I can keep a direct eye on you," Rachel emphasised.

The girls ran off.

Rachel turned to Killian. "What is all this?" she asked with a little smile on her face.

"A horse fair."

"I can see that, I mean, where are we? What are we doing here?"

"We're on Islandmagee. We're among my people. I'm going to see if we can stay for a few days. We'll be safe here," he said.

"Oh," she said and nodded absently.

"We'll be safe here," Killian said again.

"Yes," she said.

Her eyes were red, distant.

"Are you okay? Are you hungry?"

On the journey they had only stopped once at a Kentucky Fried Chicken and Rachel had eaten nothing.

"I'm okay," she said.

"Look, it's been a traumatic day for all of us, we need food and rest. You should try and eat something."

Rachel nodded. "I could do with a cup of tea," she said.

"That's the spirit," Killian said. "Now, I'm going to see if there's a spare caravan where we can stay."

Rachel nodded. "I'll go down to the beach. I'll keep an eye on the girls from down there," she said.

"Okay."

She walked over the field and onto the Brown's Bay beach. It was a nice beach, sandy and long and protected from the swells on two sides by the headlands.

She took off her shoes and rolled up her jeans and let the water coat her toes.

Killian grinned. He was right about her. Search for her near the sea, boys, that's where she's happiest.

Rachel looked back at Killian and smiled at him.

She was grateful that he had done this. That he had taken over. She was so tired of all it.

She needed someone to confide in. Someone who would carry her burden for a while. Killian seemed to be that man.

They had a built a small bonfire on the beach and were burning driftwood and kelp. It smelt good and she walked over to it to keep herself warm and to be nearer the girls who were in the queue at the icecream van.

The sun had set over the Antrim hills and the sky had turned scarlet and persimmon. Scotland was already in silhouette and she could see the many lighthouses that ran along the Ayrshire coast and each of the glens along the Antrim coast was a different colour.

Blue. Indigo. Violet. Green.

And the water between the kingdoms gla.s.s. A silver grey cistern on which no ships moved.

Rachel looked at the sky and s.p.a.ces between the stars - into that deep forever - and cried with relief.

She let the tears flow and flow and went over to the girls and joined them in the queue.

"What do you want, love?" the ice-cream man asked.