‘Sean,’ he said in a hoarse whisper. ‘Sean Rogan, by all that’s holy.’
The shock was like a physical blow and Rogan swallowed hard and moved to meet him, hand outstretched. ‘Colum, you old devil. A long time.’
For a moment in their handclasp there was a touch of the old strength he remembered, but only for a moment and Colum O’More laughed harshly. ‘They say Time changes all things, Sean. Me, he decided to kick straight in the teeth. I’m glad he’s dealt better by you.’
He turned and limped along the whitewashed corridor and Rogan followed him, aware of the clothes hanging in folds upon the skeleton of the man he had once known.
The living room was simply furnished with a table, a couple of easy chairs by the fire on the open hearth and rush matting on the floor. Colum O’More sank into one of the chairs and looked at Hannah.
‘There’s a bottle on the sideboard, girl, and glasses, and don’t be telling me I shouldn’t. I’m past caring.’
Rogan unbelted his coat, took it off and sat in the other chair. ‘What happened, Colum?’
The old man shrugged. ‘The hard life I’ve led, past sins catching up on me. Does it matter?’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen a man look better from seven years in an English gaol.’
Rogan shrugged. ‘Remember what Tom Clarke wrote? Never give in. Keep fighting and hang on to your self-icspect?’
O’More nodded. ‘And didn’t he do just that for fifteen years?’
Hannah poured whisky into two glasses and brought them across and the old man slipped an arm around her waist. ‘Lucky for her I’m not thirty years younger, Sean. A hundred per cent this one.’ He smiled up at her. ‘Make him some breakfast, girl, while we talk.’
She looked once at Rogan, an unspoken message in her eyes, and went out. O’More drank some of his whisky and sighed with pleasure. He took out a pipe and started to fill it from a worn leather pouch. ‘You’ve just been on the news. By now they’ll be running round in circles blocking every road off that damned moor and here you are, three hundred and fifty miles away where they’d least expect to find you. There must be a small laugh in that, surely.’
Rogan toasted him briefly. ‘Thanks to the Big Man.’
‘The Organization looks after its own,’ Colum O’More said. ‘The time we’ve taken, I’ll admit, but that was no fault of mine.’
There was a small silence and Rogan said carefully, ‘And what would be the quickest way to Kerry from here, Colum?’
‘Well, now, Sean, wasn’t it that I wanted to discuss with you?’
There was something deep here, something he as yet didn’t understand, that had been under the surface of things since Soames had made his visit to the prison a hundred years ago. Rogan took out a cigarette and lit it with a burning splinter from the fire.
‘It’s been a long time, Colum, too long for awkwardness between us. Say what you have to say.’
The old man shrugged. ‘It’s simply told. We have a job for you.’
‘We?’
‘The Organization.’
‘I understood it had folded when they called off the border war.’
Colum O’More chuckled. ‘A tale for fools and old women, but times have been difficult, Sean. We’re reorganizing on a big scale, we need money.’
‘And where would we be finding that?’
The old man turned to the table, opened the drawer and took out a map which he unfolded on the floor. It showed the Lake District in detail and he used his stick as a pointer.
‘The Glasgow to London mail train comes down through Carlisle and Penrith. Notice that it doesn’t touch Kendal. That’s served by a local line. It joins the main line at Rigg Station eight miles south of Kendal.’
‘So?’
‘Every Friday, the Central Banks Association sends an armoured van from Penrith. It does a sort of circle through the Lakes and down the coast, calling at Kes-wick, Whitehaven, Seascale and so on. From Broughton, which you’ll have passed through on your way here, it goes up to Ambleside, then down through Windermere to Kendal. It arrives at Rigg Station at three in the afternoon where it meets up with the London Express.’