Not long now. No more than fifteen miles to his dropping-off point at Dunhill. From there, a few miles on a side road to a hamlet called Larwick and the Mungos’ place, a mile or two outside Larwick in the hills.
The driver had been speaking into the mike on his car radio and now he switched over to the coach’s loudspeaker system. ‘Attention, ladies and gentlemen. I’m afraid we’ve got trouble up ahead just before Dunhill. Bad flooding on the road. A lot of vehicles already stuck in it.’
The old woman in front of Cussane called, ‘What are we supposed to do? Sit in the bus all night?’
‘We’ll be in Corbridge in a few minutes. Not much of a place, but there’s a milk stop there on the railway line. They’re making arrangements to stop the next train for Glasgow.’
‘Three times the fare on the railway,’ the old woman called.
‘The company pays,’ the driver told her cheerfully. ‘Don’t worry, love.’
‘Will the train stop at Dunhill?’ Cussane asked.
‘Perhaps. I’m not sure. We’ll have to see.’
Lag’s Luck, they called it in prison circles. Danny Malone had told him that. No matter how well you planned, it was always something totally unforeseeable that caused the problem. No point in wasting energy in dwelling on that. The thing to do was examine alternatives.
A white sign, Corbridge etched on it in black, appeared on the left and then the first houses loomed out of the heavy rain. There was a general store, a newsagents, the tiny railway station opposite. The driver turned the coach into the forecourt.
‘Best wait in here while I check things out.’ He jumped down and went into the railway station.
The rain poured down relentlessly. There was a gap between the pub and the general store, beams stretching between to shore them up. Obviously the building which had stood there had just been demolished. A small crowd had gathered. Cussane watched idly, reached for the packet of cigarettes in his pocket and found it empty. He hesitated, then picked up his bag, got off the coach and ran across the road to the newsagents. He asked the young woman standing in the entrance for a couple of packs of cigarettes and an ordnance survey map of the area if she had it. She did.
‘What’s going on?’ Cussane asked.
‘They’ve been pulling down the old grain store for a week now. Everything was fine until this rain started. They’ve got trouble in the cellars. A roof fall or something.’
They moved out into the entrance again and watched. At that moment, a police car appeared from the other end of the village and pulled in. There was only one occupant, a large heavily-built man who wore a navy-blue anorak with sergeant’s stripes on it. He forced his way through the crowd and disappeared.
The young woman said, ‘The cavalry’s arrived,’
‘Isn’t he from round here?’ Cussane asked.
‘No police station in Corbridge. He’s from Dunhill. Sergeant Brodie – Lachlan Brodie.’ The tone of her voice was enough.
‘Not popular?’ Cussane asked.
‘Lachlan’s the kind who likes nothing better than finding three drunks together at the same time on a Saturday night to beat up. He’s built like the rock of ages and likes to prove it. You wouldn’t be Catholic, by any chance?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘To Lachlan, that means antichrist. He’s the kind of Baptist who thinks music is a sin. A lay preacher as well.’
A workman came through the crowd in helmet and orange safety jacket. His face was streaked with mud and water. He leaned against the wall, ‘It’s a sod down there.’
‘That bad?’ the woman said.
‘One of my men is trapped. A wall collapsed. We’re doing our best, but there isn’t much room to work in and the water’s rising.’ He frowned and said to Cussane, ‘You wouldn’t be Catholic by any chance?’
‘Yes.’
The man grabbed his arm. ‘My name’s Hardy. I’m the foreman. The man down there is as Glaswegian as me, but Italian. Gino Tisini. He thinks he’s going to die. Begged me to get him a priest. Will you come, Father?’