they dropped down through the pleasant wooded valley.
The main street was deserted, but as they approached the village inn, Hannah clutched Rogan’s arm tightly. A police sergeant in peaked cap and heavy blue raincoat stood on the steps talking to a middle-aged woman.
Rogan drove steadily past, but when he glanced in the mirror, they were both watching the jeep as it moved away along the main street. The sergeant turned and said something to the woman and they went into the inn quickly.
‘Did you see that?” Hannah said.
Rogan nodded grimly. ‘We’ll have to take that un-fenced road over the top now. No choice.’
He pushed his foot down hard until the needle flickered on sixty and the old jeep roared along the road, spurning the gravel. It took them no more than two or three minutes to reach Beckfoot and he braked, and flung the jeep into the side turning.
They climbed into another world, grey and sombre, dark crags, dripping with moisture, looming out of the mist on either hand. The road stretched before them, unfenced, but surprisingly well surfaced and the jeep slowed as the slope lifted before them.
The roaring of the engine in low gear was almost unbearable and the old aluminium body rattled alarmingly. Rogan checked the petrol gauge and saw they were down to the last gallon.
‘How far have we got to go?’ he shouted.
Hannah had another look at the map. ‘About six miles to Bootle, but we don’t need to go right in. There’s a track branching down to the coast road. A mile, maybe two, to Marsh-End. Have we enough petrol?’
He nodded and changed into top gear as they breasted the slope and moved past Mere Crags across a jagged plateau, shrouded in fog.
It came to him, with something like surprise, that they had nearly made it, that with any kind of luck at all another ten minutes, fifteen at the most, should see them
at Marsh-End. The road started to drop steeply into a grey void and he took it on the run, braking on the corners instead of changing to a low gear.
About a quarter of a mile outside Bootle they came to a finger-post sign carrying the legendWhicham, and turned into a narrow, rutted track that brought them on to the coast road three or four minutes later.
Mist drifted in across the marsh carrying the good salt smell of the sea, and Rogan’s spirits lifted. The signpost for Marsh-End loomed out of the gloom. He turned into the track and they lurched over the rutted surface through the trees beside the creek and rolled to a halt in the yard.
When he switched off the engine and turned to Hannah her eyes were shining. ‘So we made it after all?’
He grinned and squeezed her hands. ‘I hope you’re a good sailor. It’s a rough crossing in a small boat.’
Fog rolled in across the marsh, pushed by the wind, and he opened the door and got out. Brendan pulled the mailbags to the ground and dragged them round to him. The house was strangely quiet and the windows stared blindly down at them like dark eyes. Rogan frowned, picked up the mailbags and crossed to the door. Hannah opened it for him and led the way along the narrow passage.
Colum O’More was in the easy chair by the fire, his head lolling to one side. As Rogan dropped the mailbags, Hannah moved forward and examined the old man quickly.
‘Is he dead?’ Rogan said.
She shook her head. ‘He’s very cold, though.’
There was no fire in the grate and Rogan went to the sideboard, opened it and found a bottle of Irish whiskey. He.half filled a glass, went back to the chair and forced a little of it between the old man’s lips.
Colum O’More coughed, his head shaking from side to side and then his eyes opened suddenly. He looked at Rogan blankly for a moment and recognition dawned.
‘Sean boy,” he said in Irish. ‘Is it yourself?’
‘And none other, Colum Oge,’ Rogan answered in the same language.
The old man’s eyes moved to Hannah and he smiled. ‘You too, girl, dear.’