She passed him the newspaper Donal had given her. He looked at his photo and read the salient facts quickly. He smiled wryly. Someone had been on to him a damn sight more quickly than he would ever have imagined.
‘So where to?’ she asked impatiently.
He made his decision then. ‘Turn left and keep climbing. We’re going to try and reach a farm outside a village called
Larwick on the other side of those hills. They tell me these things will go anywhere, so who needs roads? Can you handle it?’
‘Just watch me!’ she said, and drove away.
THE GLEN was mainly national forest and they left the road and followed a track through pine trees, climbing higher and higher beside a burn swollen by the heavy rain. Finally, they came up out of the trees at the head of the glen and reached a small plateau.
He touched her arm. ‘This will do,’ he called above the roaring of the engine.
She braked to a halt and switched off. Rolling hills stretched on either side, fading into mist and heavy rain. He got out the ordnance survey map and went forward to study the terrain. The map was as accurate as only a government survey could make it. He found Larwick with no difficulty. Glendhu, that was where Danny Malone had said the Mungos’ farm was, a couple of miles outside the village. The Black Glen it meant in Gaelic and there was only one farm marked. It had to be the place. He spent a few more minutes studying the lie of the land below him in conjunction with the map and then went back to the jeep.
Morag looked up from the newspaper. ‘Is it true> all this stuff about you and the IRA?’
He got in out of the rain. ‘What do you think?’
‘It says here you often pose as a priest. That means you aren’t one?’
It was a question as much as anything else and he smiled. ‘You know what they say. If it’s in the papers it must be true. Why, does it worry you being in the company of such a desperate character?’
She shook her head. ‘You saved Donal at the burn and you didn’t need to. You helped me – saved me from Murray.’ She folded the paper and tossed it into the back of the jeep, a
slight frown of bewilderment on her face. ‘There’s the man in the paper and then there’s you. It’s like two different people.’
‘Most of us are at least three people,’ he said. ‘There’s who I think I am, then the person you think I am.’
‘Which only leaves who you really are,’ she cut in.
‘True, except that some people can only survive by continuously adapting. They become many people, but for it to work, they must really live the part.’
‘Like an actor?’ she said.
‘That’s it exactly, except that like any good actor, they must believe in the role they are playing at that particular time.’
She lay back in the seat, half-turned towards him, arms folded, listening intently and it struck him then that, in spite of her background and the sparseness of any formal education in her life, she was obviously highly intelligent.
‘I see,’ she said. ‘So when you pose as a priest, you actually become a priest.’
The directness was disturbing. ‘Something like that.’ They sat there in silence for a few moments before he said softly, ‘You saved my hide back there. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have been in handcuffs again.’
‘Again?’ she said.
‘I was picked up by the police yesterday. They were taking me to Glasgow in the train, but I managed to jump for it. Walked over the hill from there and met you.’
‘Lucky for Donal,’ she said. ‘Lucky for me, if it comes to that.’
‘Murray, you mean? Has he been a problem for long?’
‘Since I was about thirteen,’ she said calmly. ‘It wasn’t so bad while my Mam was still with us. She kept him in check. But after she left…’ She shrugged. ‘He’s never had his way with me, but lately, it got worse. I’d been thinking of leaving.’