‘And your wicked ways,’ McAteer called.
Egan rattled a length of heavy chain. Cussane glanced towards him, then turned to Deegan, taking off his hat and holding it across his chest. ‘There’s no way we can discuss this, I suppose?’
‘Not a chance,’ Deegan told him.
Cussane shot him in the chest through the hat and Deegan was punched back against the rail. He dropped the Stechkin on the deck, overbalanced, grabbed for the rail unsuccessfully and went into the sea. Cussane was already turning, firing up at McAteer in the wheelhouse as he tried to draw back, the bullet catching the big man just above the right eye. Egan lashed out at him with the length of chain. Cussane avoided the awkward blow with ease.
‘Bastard!’ Egan cried, and Cussane took careful aim and shot him in the heart.
He moved fast now. Pocketing the Stechkin Deegan had dropped he launched the inflatable with its outboard motor which was stowed amidships. He tied it to the rail and went into the wheelhouse where he had left his bag, stepping over McAteer’s body to get it. He opened the false bottom, took out the plastic explosive and sliced a piece off with his pocket knife. He stuck one of the pencil timers in it, primed to explode in fifteen minutes and dropped it down the engine hatch, then got into the inflatable, started the motor and moved back to shore at speed. Behind him, Sean Deegan, still alive in spite of the bullet in his chest, watched him go and kicked slowly to keep afloat.
Cussane was well on his way when the explosion rent the night, yellow and orange flames flowering like petals. He glanced back only briefly. Things couldn’t have worked out better. Now he was dead and McGuiness and Ferguson would
call off the hounds. He wondered how Devlin would feel when he finally realized the truth.
He landed on a small beach close to Ballywalter and dragged the inflatable up into the shelter of a clump of gorse bushes. Then he retraced his steps up to the wood where he had left the motorcycle. He strapped his bag on the rear, put on his crash helmet and rode away.
It was another fishing boat from Ballywalter, theDublin Town, out night-fishing, which was first on the scene. The crew, on deck handling their nets about a mile away, had seen the explosion as it occurred. By the time they reached the position where theMary Murphy had gone down, about half an hour had elapsed. There was a considerable amount of wreckage on the surface and a life-jacket with the boat’s name stencilled on it told them the worst. The skipper notified the coastguard of the tragedy on his radio and continued the search for survivors or at least the bodies of the crew; but he had no success and a thickening sea mist made things even more difficult. By five o’clock, a coastguard cutter was there from Dundalk, also several other small fishing craft, and they continued the search as dawn broke.
The news of the tragedy was passed on to McGuiness at four o’clock in the morning and he, in turn, phoned Devlin.
‘Christ knows what happened,’ McGuiness said. ‘She blew up and went down like a stone.’
‘And no bodies, you say?’
‘Probably inside her, or what’s left of her on the bottom. And it seems there’s a bad rip tide in that area. It would carry a body a fair distance. I’d like to know what happened. A good man, Sean Deegan.’
‘So would I,’ Devlin said.
‘Still, no more Cussane. At least that bastard has met his end. You’ll tell Ferguson?’
‘Leave it with me.’
Devlin put on a dressing gown, went downstairs and made some tea. Cussane was dead and yet he felt no pain for the man who, whatever else, had been his friend for more than twenty years. No sense of mourning. Instead a feeling of unease like a lump in the gut that refused to go away.
He rang the Cavendish Square number in London. It was picked up after a slight delay and Ferguson’s voice answered, still half asleep. Devlin gave him the news and the Brigadier came fully awake with some rapidity.