Turbulent Priests (Dan Starkey 3) (28 page)

As we climbed into Dr Finlay’s Land-Rover, Patricia shook her head again. ‘What’s the
point
?’

Willie Nutt put his head out of the window. ‘I haven’t had a pint of Harp in eight months,’ he said. ‘
That’s
the point.’

She moved around to the driver’s door. ‘You’re only asking for trouble. Doctor – surely you see the stupidity of this.’

Dr Finlay smiled sympathetically. ‘Of course I do, dear,’ he said, and pulled the door shut.

She hurried round the front, catching me as I put one foot into the vehicle. ‘Dan?’

‘What?’

‘Promise me one thing.’ She grabbed my arm, then brushed her lips across my cheek.

‘What?’

‘If you find it, the drink, don’t bring it all back here. We’re in enough trouble.’

‘I’m not stupid, Patricia.’

‘Well, what do you intend to do with it?’

‘Drink it, of course.’

‘Every last drop,’ said Willie Nutt, laughing.

‘This isn’t funny,’ said Patricia.

Finlay started the engine. I gave my wife a loving shrug, then looked at my companions. With the doors closed and the windows up, I became suddenly aware of a strange, unappetising smell.

Finlay kept the lights off. The moon winked out from between storm clouds as we bumped carefully along the lane. The bumps could have been potholes or rabbit skulls. Willie Nutt sat in the back beside Duncan, softly laughing to himself and sipping.

‘Is he wise?’ I whispered to the doctor.

‘Wise enough.’ He looked up at Willie in the mirror.

Willie caught his eye, leant forward. ‘I’ve betrayed Christine,’ he said.

I looked at him. I didn’t know what to say.

‘I’m Judas,’ he said.

I looked at him still.

He held up his bottle. ‘And this is Judas’s carry-out.’

He cackled once and sat back. I glanced at Duncan, but he wasn’t listening. He was staring out into the darkness, his face shadowed save for a hint of white where he bit down on his lip.

‘He’s not wise,’ I said to the doctor.

‘Wise enough,’ said the doctor.

I looked back again. ‘You okay, Duncan?’

Duncan nodded absently. ‘Sure.’

‘Thirsty?’

He cracked a little. ‘Aye.’

‘Good.’

I nodded at Willie. ‘So what do you do for a living?’

He gave a gap-toothed smile. ‘What’dya think?’

I’d pretty much guessed already. ‘Does it involve fish?’

‘Aye.’

‘Catching them?’

‘Smoking them.’

‘You smoke fish?’

‘Aye. And cigarettes.’

‘Which do you prefer?’

‘Well, I don’t lie back with a smoked herring in me gob after sex. He-he-heh.’

Finlay glanced back. ‘Since when did you start having sex, Willie?’

‘He-he-heh,’ said Willie and snuggled down in his seat.

We drove in silence for about five minutes. There was no other traffic. Then Finlay nodded forward. ‘It’s only up the road here,’ he said.

‘This Mulrooney that owns the field. He’d know the drink was there, wouldn’t he?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Finlay.

‘We can hardly ask him,’ said Duncan.

‘But it’s not likely someone can bury the entire contents of a bar in one of your fields and you not know anything about it,’ I said. ‘He may be keeping guard.’

Finlay shook his head. ‘Gerry Mulrooney is eighty-nine if he’s a day and is mostly away with the fairies. You could build forty-eight bungalows in his front garden and he mightn’t notice.’

‘Oh.’

‘So we’re not likely to be disturbed,’ he continued, ‘at least not by him.’

‘He-he-heh,’ heheed Willie Nutt from behind.

‘
He’s
already disturbed,’ I said.

Finlay shook his head. ‘Leave him be. He’s as sound as a pound. He just enjoys his own company.’

The doctor pulled the car into an open gateway and then we trundled slowly along the edge of a field. When he stopped the vehicle and switched the engine off we were enveloped by the sound of angrily crashing waves. Spits of sea and rain stung us as we clambered out. At least the noise of it all would disguise our digging. About three hundred yards back
up on the brow of the hill sat Mulrooney’s farm. There was a light in one window.

Finlay produced a torch from beneath his seat and shone it around the corner of the field where it dipped towards the sea. The grass, knee length everywhere else, was noticeably shorter here, but that was to be expected with the sea salt and wind.

‘I’m sorry, I only have the one torch,’ Finlay said, ‘but we should spread out along here, look for . . .’

‘Look for this?’ Willie Nutt shouted.

‘Shhhh,’ Duncan hissed nervously.

Willie had tramped some twenty yards back, unnoticed. His diminutive frame was almost lost in the dark, but as we hurried towards him we could see that he was standing by an untidy scar cut into the grass with a low mound of earth at its centre, like a scab.

Finlay clapped Willie on the back. ‘You have a nose for alcohol, young William,’ he said.

Duncan shook his head. ‘Jackie didn’t disguise it very well.’

‘He’s been careless because he’s been nervous,’ said the doctor.

We unslung the spades and stood on either side of the mound, each of us waiting for another to plunge the blade into the soft earth. The wind whipped through us. It was unpleasant business.

Willie Nutt offered his bottle round again.

We weren’t that cold.

‘Party time just around the corner, boys,’ Finlay said finally and plunged his spade into the mound.

‘Digging up our own pub,’ said Willie, following suit. ‘Kegs and kegs and kegs of beer.’

‘I’m going to set a keg up in my back room,’ said Duncan.

‘I’m looking for a fine Irish whiskey,’ said Dr Finlay, heaving his first shovelful carelessly behind. ‘Black Bush. And a nice Guinness.’

‘Strongbow cider,’ I said. I set shovel to soil. It slid easily into the wet ground. ‘I haven’t had it for years. I’ve a real taste for it now. The apples. Worst hangover in the world, cider, but it’s worth it.’

‘A child’s drink,’ said Finlay.

‘Kegs and kegs and kegs and kegs,’ said Willie Nutt. And added, ‘He-he-heh.’ As a catchphrase it hardly dazzled, but it was not unendearing, and certainly preferable to the smell of smoked fish.

‘Old Jack’ll get a right shock if he sees the dark again,’ said Duncan, ‘and comes looking for it.’

‘Serve him right,’ said Willie, thrusting his spade into the black earth again. Soon the soil was flying backwards.

After a short while we needed a rest. It had been an undisciplined rush and we were already puffing. I rubbed my hand across my brow. Sweating hard despite the cold. I wasn’t used to physical exertion. My muscles were already aching, despite my weekly press-up.

‘Deeper than I thought,’ said Duncan.

‘Ach, not that much further,’ said Finlay, ‘and then a wee whiskey.’

Duncan sounded a note of caution. ‘People are bound to notice the smell of alcohol. On your breath tomorrow.’

Willie stopped digging, spat. ‘So?’

‘We need a supply of breath fresheners,’ I said with the confident authority of a professional, ‘so people won’t be suspicious.’

‘People will get suspicious if we suddenly start buying breath fresheners,’ said Duncan, resting his own blade for a moment.

‘Ach pish,’ said Willie Nutt and thrust his spade into the soil again. ‘Breath fresheners!’

He wasn’t the sort of man who had time for anything fresh. Besides, a quick gargle with the rotgut he was drinking would kill any unwanted odours. A bath in it wouldn’t do him any harm either.

Clink.

Metal blade on something solid.

‘Hallelujah!’ exclaimed Willie.

Clink.

Duncan, about eight feet further along, hit something as well. He let out a whoop. ‘We found it! The sly old sod did bury it!’

‘You didn’t believe me,’ I said.

‘I believed you, Dan,’ said Finlay. ‘I didn’t believe Old Mother Reilly. But now I’m prepared to kiss her sweet blue lips.’

Yuck, I thought.

As we began to scrab away the remaining soil we began to see little glints of silver – but it didn’t feel like keg metal. Willie, the most industrious of us all, dropped his spade behind him and stepped down into the shallow trench we had created. He knelt and pushed away handfuls of soil with his chubby fingers. Then he felt along the surface. The space he’d cleared was maybe three feet across. He searched for the edges.

He looked up at us where we stood leaning on our spades, steadying ourselves against the wind. We were keen to discover, but not keen enough to discover first. There is something eerie about dark holes on stormy nights. The rain had grown heavier and was cascading steadily into the trench, causing it to sludge up. ‘What is it, Willie?’ Duncan said urgently.

Willie shook his head. ‘Like tarpaulin, silver tarpaulin. Thick as hell. Heh, bastard’s wrapped the booze up tight in it. We’ll have to dig right down the sides till we find the join. Less you’ve got something’ll cut through it, Doc?’

Finlay shook his head. ‘Not here. Maybe at home. I never thought.’

‘Who could think of it?’ said Duncan. He peered at the tarpaulin. The rain and the digging had made the sides slippery and he was careful not to lean too far forward. ‘How long do you think it will take, to dig down?’

Willie gave a little shrug. ‘Not long. If we keep at it. No way of telling how deep it goes. But it can’t be that far down.’

Duncan cast a nervous glance back towards the farm on the hill. ‘Maybe we should leave it,’ he said. ‘Come back another night. Earlier.’ He peered at his watch. ‘It’s four already. Soon we’ll be stuck with all the booze and it’ll be too bright to hide it. We should come back.’

‘Aye,’ said Willie, ‘bollocks.’

He had a point. ‘Duncan,’ I said, ‘we’re nearly there. If we leave it now the trench’ll only fill up with water and the job’ll be twice as hard.’

‘Maybe we should just leave it altogether.’

‘You’re getting cold feet, Duncan,’ said Finlay.

‘Cold and wet feet.’

‘Then let’s get the job finished, and then we’ll bathe those poor feet of yours in whiskey.’ He brandished his shovel again. ‘Okay? It won’t take long.’

Duncan lifted his shovel reluctantly. ‘Aye. Okay. I suppose. Let’s get on with it then. But let’s hurry.’

The dig was on again.

This time, after half an hour, we each took a hefty swig of Willie Nutt’s bottle. We were miserable, cold, tired, sopping. But the home fires were soon burning.

The soil was coming away very easily, but the more we tore at it the more Somme-like the conditions underfoot became. If we’d been kids, we’d have loved it. But we were grown men with a drink problem and it was no laughing matter.

And then we reached the bottom. Willie, of course, struck first. Blade on solid stone or rock. Again he dropped his
spade and scrabbed away final handfuls of oozy mud. He picked up something and smoothed as much dirt as he could off it.

‘What is it?’ asked Duncan.

‘Just a brick,’ said Willie. He examined it briefly then tossed it in Duncan’s direction.

Duncan ducked. ‘Watch it,’ he said.

Willie bent down again and, with his hands, began to trace, then dig, along his side of the trench, revealing as he went brick after brick securing the end of the silver tarpaulin.

‘Jesus,’ said Duncan, ‘it’s about bloody time. My hands are going to fall off.’

‘Ach,’ said Finlay, ‘we’re there now, aren’t we?’

He carefully stepped out from his side of the tarpaulin and half slid in beside Willie and Duncan on theirs. I joined them too.

We paused for a moment, we four rebels, and smiled at each other. Then we bent and lifted the remaining bricks and threw them behind us. Willie finished first and started to lift the tarpaulin.

‘Hey!’ said the doctor.

Willie snapped round.

‘Let’s do this with a bit of style, our Willie. It’s not every day you discover buried treasure.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Now, we each take hold of the tarp, and on the count of three, we throw it back. And then we crack open one of the finest alcohols known to man, the old Black Bush, and thank the Lord for watching over us.’

‘Amen to that,’ said Duncan.

‘Yes, indeedy,’ said Willie.

We took hold.

‘One,’ said Finlay.

‘Two,’ said Finlay.

Deep breath.

‘Three,’ said Finlay.

Up and away flew the tarpaulin, shimmering in a darting shaft of moonlight.

And our feet gave way in the tramped trenched mud as we scrambled back in panic. Down came the jumble of bodies, engulfing us in the rotting dead.

We screamed, louder than any wind, and tore at each other in desperation.

35

The day didn’t break. There was no fracture of the night. The morning light oozed through the mist like sour cream from a depressed sponge.

Damp. Cold. Shivery. We sat in the Land-Rover, lost in thought, waiting for the light. We three. Dr Finlay drummed anxiously on the wheel. Duncan, beside him, nails bitten to the quick, stared ahead; I lay in the back, chipping the mud from my jeans. No words were exchanged. Lost in our own nightmares. Willie Nutt had run away. Out into the dark. Screaming.

In the scramble out of the trench Finlay had dropped the torch, and nobody was prepared to go and rummage amongst the dead for it. I had the memory only of hollow eyes and rigid bone and the crazy death smile of a decaying head thrown up at me by the avalanche of remains. Of scrambling
up the side of the trench and feeling a hand grab my leg and pull me back and screaming myself and kicking out and then hearing the shout of pain and fear and realising that it was Duncan grabbing at me in his panic and not the living dead pulling me down to hell. The realisation did not halt me; there was no helping hand for him, nor for Dr Finlay, older, less agile, clawing at the slippery sides, eyes bulging, his professional familiarity with death of no service to him. I ran and threw myself through the hedge into the next field, ignoring, welcoming even, as a confirmation of life, the tear of thorn and bramble, the sting of nettle.