He lifted his potatoes and walked off.

Patricia emerged from the hall bang on time, then spoilt the achievement by gossiping on the steps for ten minutes while I drummed on the wheel of the car. Her T-shirt looked damp, her hair dank.

*Don't worry about me,' I said when she slipped into the front seat, *I've nothing better to do.'

*True.'

*I was being sarcastic.'

*I wasn't.'

I started the engine. Little Stevie started crying. Patricia jiggled him about a bit. By the time we were out of the gate, he had settled again. He was his mother's son all right.

*Feeling good then?'

*Knackered.'

*And what's out of the Sisters of No Mercy?'

*Not a lot.'

I tutted. *You had an hour.'

*I was exercising.'

*Nevertheless, you had an hour.'

She ran a hand through her hair, which couldn't have been pleasant. *I hear they escaped. In a boat.'

*That I know. Nothing else?'

She shook her head. *I'm not the journalist, Dan. We've had this out before. I work in a tax office. You work in a newspaper. Tax your brain on this, not mine.'

*Well, thanks for your help.'

As we reached the junction at the bottom of the hill Patricia pointed across at the harbour. *Bit of a crowd gathering there,' she said, *if that's of any interest to you, lover.'

*I'm not blind.'

I hadn't noticed it, in fact. There was a crowd, on the far side of the harbour, and getting larger. I turned the car right and drove along the front as far as I could, then parked. I opened the door and jumped out. Then I leant back in.

*Coming?'

*Wait until I get Stevie . . .'

I closed the door and hurried on along the harbour. Patricia yelled something after me, but I was too curious to pay attention. There were about thirty locals gathered at the end of the looping harbour. They stood at the edge, looking down towards the water. About half of them carried guns. I squeezed my way through to the front. Father White was just making his way up a set of slippery-looking steps from a trawler, his pudgy hand clamped around the belt of a man in front of him for balance. Behind him, seven or eight others waited to step off. A small motorboat was tied to the back of the trawler.

Puffed by his exertions, Father White stood sucking air for several moments. The crowd shuffled back to give him s.p.a.ce. The other crewmen took the steps at a much faster pace and were soon gathered about the priest.

*What's the news, Father?' one of the crowd shouted.

*Did ye catch them?'

*Of course they didn't catch them; wouldn't they be in the boat, Dermot?'

Father White raised his hands. *As you can see, we've found Carl Christie's boat. It was floating a empty a about three miles off Ballycastle.'

He reached into his pocket and produced a pistol, which he held aloft.

Murmur. Murmur. Murmur.

*On the boat we found Constable Murtagh's gun, his shoes and his warrant card.'

Murmur. Murmur. Murmur.

*We can only guess at what might have happened. Perhaps Mary Reilly, in her distressed state of mind, or in an act of remorse and contrition, threw herself overboard. Constable Murtagh, perhaps, dived in to save her, and both were lost. I don't know. It could have been like that.' He drew his hands together. *Let us pray now for their lost souls.'

Heads were bowed. His wasn't. His eyes were wide and their glint was not one of sorrow for a tragic loss, but of triumphant elation.

32.

For the following three days the island was quiet a too quiet, as they say.

A watch was kept along the coast for any sign of the bodies, but the perceived wisdom was that if they were washed up anywhere it would be on the mainland, and that might not be for weeks, months, or even years, such was the malevolence of the currents. A service of remembrance was hastily arranged in the church, and was well attended. The spirit of the service was one of relief rather than sorrow. Mother Reilly wasn't there. A woman who visited her said she had accepted the news with dignity. Constable Murtagh had no living relatives on the island.

I busied myself in the cottage, at my desk, making notes for my epic. This was relatively easy. Notes for a novel are a joy, because they require neither style nor cohesion, two qualities I've rarely been accused of. Patricia kept herself busy with the baby and coming to terms with using more than one ring on the cooker at a time. Moira and Christine came around one day for lunch, and the chat was good, perhaps because it did not dwell excessively on the obvious. The att.i.tude was very much: she's the Messiah, so what? Have a biscuit. At one point Moira asked when I was coming round to do more interviews with her and my face went as red as a beetroot. Patricia was busy feeding Stevie and didn't notice. Christine busied herself in the garden, making sure that the hedgehog had enough undergrowth in its box to see it through the winter. She was remarkably patient, given the creature's lack of animation. As a child I would have clodded it with half bricks.

On the Thursday evening Duncan Cairns came for dinner. It was a star-filled autumn night. Patricia set a big coal fire which threw an ancient light upon our little dining room. I pulled the cot into this cosy setting, and after dinner we all relaxed and enjoyed the warming glow. Duncan seemed different: quieter, almost melancholic, his big frame squashed into a little armchair, his long legs stretched out in front of him. His face was dourly set; every so often his eyes would flash or darken in the half-light with some mysterious thought. We fell into periods of silence, punctured only by Little Stevie's contented gurgles and the spit and crackle of the fire. It was extremely pleasant. I didn't say a word out of place. I'd been given my orders.

Duncan broke one such silence with an *excuse me' and pulled himself to his feet.

*It's just down the hall,' Patricia said, but he shook his head and smiled, then crossed to the door where his coat hung on a hook. He slipped his hand into a pocket. When he returned to his seat he held a bottle in his hand. He turned it towards me in the glow. The label said Bushmills. The capacity ten gla.s.ses. But the liquid inside was crystal clear.

*It's a cold night,' he said, watching me carefully, *I thought we might have a wee nip of this.'

He reached the bottle across to me. Our fingers touched momentarily around it. Bonding for real men. I unscrewed the top. Positioned my nose above the neck with the precision of a docking Apollo. Smelt. Whoosh!

I pa.s.sed it along to Patricia. She smelt it as well, and nearly toppled over. She pa.s.sed it back. I took a sip, held it in my mouth, then thought I better swallow because my fillings were starting to melt. Down it slipped, like lava; if Patricia's impenetrable stew had not already laid down a diamond base in my stomach it would have burnt its way through to my feet.

*Jesus Christ,' I growled with an involuntary impression of Tom Waits. *That's a bit rough.'

Duncan threw his head back and roared. I pa.s.sed the bottle to him. He took a lengthier gulp, then sat back and let the joy course through him.

I looked at Patricia. *Jesus Christ,' I said again.

He pa.s.sed the bottle to Patricia. She sniffed it again. Her face contorted. Then she gave a little shrug, pinched the end of her nose between two fingers, then tipped the bottle back. She paused just before the alcohol reached her lips. *If we're all blind in half an hour,' she asked with Minnie Mouse intonation, *who's going to feed the baby?'

She wasn't looking for an answer. She took a slug, fought with it for a while, but eventually conquered it. A true Starkey. Then she gave a big smile.

*Gee,' she managed after a bit.

She pa.s.sed the bottle back to me. I showed it to Duncan. *You first,' he said.

I sat it on my knee. *What's come over you, Duncan?' I asked.

He pursed his lips. *Just thought you might like a drink. You don't object, do you?' I shook my head. *Dr Finlay intimated that you might enjoy one.'

*Well, I do. I'm just surprised. At you. At it. I do believe you're starting to trust us.' I held the bottle up, swished the alcohol about. *I take it this is very definitely against the law. There hasn't been a repeal of prohibition, has there?'

*No. Of course not. We make it ourselves.'

I took another mouthful.

While I was incapacitated, Patricia leant forward. *We?'

*Uh, yeah.'

*We who?'

*Does it matter? Enjoy. There's not a lot of it about. And it's killed no one yet.'

*I like the "yet".'

*It's rocket fuel, Duncan,' I whispered.

He nodded.

In half an hour we were all drunk, and, as they do, tongues began to loosen. Duncan began to tell us a little more about his island. It wasn't a question of us a me a wheedling it out of him; he wanted to talk, and I fancied the alcohol had been his way into it, that he could say to us under the influence what he didn't have the confidence to talk about in real life. He was a big handsome fella, but he had the inert shyness of an islander, brought up to keep his own counsel. Now his mind was being asked to cope with things bigger than island minds were meant to, and he needed to talk it through in order to sort it out for himself. He started hesitantly a slow, slow, quick quick, slow, dancing around the facts, ignoring chronology, speaking as the ideas entered his head.

*There are six of us. Were seven.' He rubbed his hands quickly over his face, as if he were washing. *Mickey. Mickey Murtagh. G.o.d rest his soul.'

*Seven what?'

*Seven of us as liked to drink a bit. We used to hang out together in Jack McGettigan's back in the old days.' He laughed suddenly. *The old days. Last year or two ago. Then Jack saw the light, and the Council saw the dark, and suddenly there was nothing to drink any more. So we set about making our own. Took a while to perfect. We had some supplies of the old stuff set aside, thinking something like a ban was on the cards, so we've mixed and matched a bit. Not much of the old stuff left now.' He took another swipe at the bottle, then pa.s.sed it back to me. *That day Mickey Murtagh made a run for it a took us by surprise. The search 'n' all. I had to get out of there pretty quick, up into the woods to dismantle our stuff before they found it and thought about doing the same to us.' He shook his head sadly. *Poor Mickey. Never was much of a swimmer, but still tried to save Mary. A good man, Mickey.'

I nodded sagely. *Seemed like it.'

*I never met him,' said Trish.

*A good man,' Duncan repeated. He let his eyes linger on Patricia again; before, it had annoyed me, but now I took it for what it was, friendly eyes on a pretty woman.

*So there's a gang of youse meet up somewhere and drink,' said Patricia.

*Aye. Talk and yitter about all this, and what we can do about it.'

*And what can you do about it?'

He gave a sad laugh and rubbed his sleeve across his mouth. He said a quick sorry. *Old habits die hard.' Patricia smiled. *What can we do? Not much. Sad, really. Our leading light sails off and drowns. The most constructive thing we've done so far is a bit of vandalism on a church.'

The graffiti, of course. *You did that?'

*Not me, no. I can spell. Willie . . . well, he was never one for the education. It was stupid anyway.'

*I got the Mary Reilly bit, but the letters, what was that all about? The AF . . . whatever.'

*AFLR,' said Duncan, spelling them out with a finger in the air. *Obvious, if you think about it, Dan. Alcoholic Front for the Liberation of Wrathlin.'

He let it sit for a moment. And then we all dissolved. It was a wonderful thought.

Patricia, having drunk marginally less, recovered first. *Are you serious, really? This Alcoholic F . . . thing?' she asked.

Duncan gave a little shrug. *More serious than we should be. Less serious than we could be. I mean, what are we? A teacher. A doctor . . .'

*Dr Finlay,' I said.

He nodded. *Anyway, half a dozen of us who aren't very happy about the way things are turning out.'

*Do youse believe in Christine?' Patricia asked.

*Believe?'

*You know what I mean. That she's the Messiah.'

*No. I don't think we do.'

*You don't think, or you don't?'

*We don't think. Maybe we should be the Agnostic Alcoholic Front. The point is, it's not Christine that we object to. It's what has grown up around her. The laws, the prohibition, the intimidation. The dictatorial nature of the Council, of Father White in particular.'

*But not Father Flynn?' I asked.

*Flynn's heart's in the right place, if you'll excuse the expression, but he's not a born leader. He's too nice. White's adept at playing people off against each other, at making promises, at pushing through repressive laws.'

*I thought you islanders were a really tight-knit bunch,' I said, *but White's only been here a few months and he already seems to be running the show.'

*What gave you the impression he's only been here a few months?'

*I . . . well, I don't know. I thought . . . someone told me that he'd only recently arrived. I had the impression that he'd only recently converted to the McCooeys.'

Duncan shook his head. *You couldn't be more wrong. Father White's been in on it from the start. Sure wasn't he priest here for thirty years before Flynn ever came back?'