Vanbrugh was first through the door, Gregory close behind. He dropped to one knee beside the old man, raising his head gently, but Colum O’More stared blindly into eternity.
‘This one’s had it/ Gregory said, getting to his feet beside Morgan. ‘What about him?’
Vanbrugh shook his head and picked up one of the packets of banknotes. ‘Didn’t do anybody much good, this little lot, did it?’
Dwyer came in from the kitchen in a hurry. ‘Someone made a run for it through the back door and clouted a constable. Sounds like Rogan.’
‘Better get after him then,’ Gregory said.
Vanbrugh led the way through the kitchen and across (he yard. It was almost nightfall, and the fog drifting through the trees turned the marsh into a place of shadows.
‘You round up every man you can,’ he told Gregory. ‘Dwyer and I’ll go straight in after him. He can’t have gone very far.’
Gregory turned, blowing his whistle sharply and Vanbrugh ran forward into the trees, Dwyer at his heels. Branches lashed against his face and he held up an arm to ward them off and stumbled on. Within a few moments they came to a narrow track that led across a stone causeway. On the other side, there was a turning to the left through tangled undergrowth and Vanbrugh paused, struggling for breath.
‘I’ll try this one, you go on ahead. Whatever happens, don’t try to take him on your own. You aren’t that good. If you catch sight of him, blow your whistle and I’ll come running.’
Dwyer nodded and moved into the fog and Vanbrugh turned into the track through the undergrowth and started to run.
Rogan could hear the police whistle muffled b) the fog, but distinctive enough for all that, and he put down his head and ran, crashing through a plantation of young firs, the branches whipping his sides. He tripped and fell, rolling down a small incline and again heard the police whistle.
He got to his feet, staggered forward and blundered through a fringe of bushes into the side turning that led down to the creek. He started to run, his chest heaving
painfully, and burst through the trees on to the bank of the creek beside the launch a few moments later.
Hannah ran to meet him, her face a pale blur in the evening light. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Never mind me,’ he said. ‘There are peelers all over the place. Get on board.’
Brendan stood in the stern with a ten foot pole, hopping with excitement. ‘Are we ready to go, Mr. Rogan? Shall I give the engine a turn?’
‘And attract everyone for miles around?’ Rogan shook his head. ‘We’ll let the tide take us out through the estuary,’
He ran to the single line that still held the launch to land and cast off. The vessel swung out from the bank at once, caught by the tide, and Hannah called anxiously, ‘Quickly, Sean.’
As Rogan took a step forward, Vanbrugh ran out of the undergrowth and cannoned into him. They rolled over and over on the ground, fetching up against a line of old rotting palings, Rogan on top. His great hands fastened around the policeman’s throat and then he recognized him. He released his grip and got to his feet.
‘Get up.’
They stood facing each other in the half-light, police whistles sounding monotonously from every part of the marsh, and Hannah gave a stifled cry.
Vanbrugh looked at her, shadowy and insubstantial in the fog as the launch drifted away, then he turned back to Rogan.
‘Well, get moving, for Christ’s sake!’
Rogan plunged into the water. He waded out to the launch, pulled himself up over the rail and took the pole from the boy. He turned and looked back at Vanbrugh for a long moment, then raised his hand in a half salute and poled the launch into the fog.
Vanbrugh stood there staring into the grey void and, after a while, Dwyer arrived. ‘Any sign of him, sir?’
Vanbrugh shook his head. ‘Got a cigarette?’
Dwyer took out his case. As he was giving him a light, there was the faint, distant rumble of an engine breaking into life.