The Great Fury (5 page)

Chapter Five

A month to the day from the time O'Sullivan had posted two of his passengers as missing on Great Blasket, John came down the trail from the traffic lights with a jaunty step and a whistle on his lips.

It was early morning and Kevin O'Sullivan had just let off his first batch of tourists of the day. He had no reason to expect return passengers at that time.

John walked up to the ticket point at the gangplank and presented his return half of the ticket he'd bought the previous month.

O'Sullivan looked at the ticket and then at John.

Kevin got on his cell phone to call his father to hold position in the main boat. Then Kevin took him out and O'Sullivan took him aboard.

“Where's the boy?” he asked.

“Back with his own people,” John replied with an enigmatic smile and stepped on to the empty boat.

When they reached Dunquin John disembarked and walked up the pier to the bus stop. O'Sullivan watched him go and then was distracted as he ticketed the next batch of tourists.

“So you think John hopped on the bus and went straight back to America?” the Sergeant asked when O'Sullivan put it to him at lunchtime.

O'Sullivan had sought the Sergeant out as soon as he'd tied off the boat for his hour-long lunch break. He knew it was the habit of the Sergeant to take his lunch in the snug of the local pub and sure enough he'd found him there.

“If he was going back to his sister why wouldn't he walk it?” O'Sullivan offered by way of reply.

“Maybe I'll walk myself up there and talk to the sister,' the Sergeant said and took a slug of his pint of Guinness.

“Go easy,” O'Sullivan cautioned, “for hasn't she lost her only son.”

“Aye,” the Sergeant remarked.

The barman arrived with two plates of fish and chips and set them on the bar.

“Two more pints please Paddy,” O'Sullivan ordered.

“You'll be driving that boat?” the Sergeant asked, worried to see O'Sullivan drinking in the middle of the day.

“Two pints under a feed of fish and chips won't leave a mark,” O'Sullivan replied.

The Sergeant grunted and set about his meal. He liked the fish, fresh as it was out of the sea that same day.

“Funny thing,” the Sergeant added, pausing then to chew.

O'Sullivan looked up and waited.

“When the whole affair went public it seemed straight forward. A case of a boy and his uncle.”

“It was,” O'Sullivan affirmed.

“But on subsequent enquiry, when the detectives from Dublin got involved, it came about that the missing boy's mother Bridget did have a son.”

“So?”

“But the record shows that the son died. She hardly had another did she? For the Dublin detectives could find no record either on the register of births and deaths and marriages or on the parish record of another son. Did she have another and forget to register him born?”

“They say locally...” O'Sullivan began but then stopped. He'd remembered that the Sergeant wasn't a local, having been transferred out of Cork some thirty years ago. And although well liked and respected, the Sergeant would always be what they called ‘a blow in.'

“I know, I know,” the Sergeant interjected gently. “They say that the Sidhe stole Bridget's child and left a sickly one in its place to die. Then the brother John stole one of the Sidhe children and took him back to his sister Bridget.”

O'Sullivan sipped his pint. The Sergeant had got it in one.

“And that child died forty years ago,” O'Sullivan added.

“But you said the missing boy was about sixteen?” the Sergeant pointed out.

“Well now isn't Bridget well into her sixties?” O'Sullivan asked.

“Yes?” the Sergeant asked in a tone to encourage more.

“So she hardly had a child in her fifties,” O'Sullivan explained.

“So how can there be a boy of sixteen? That's the exact question the Dublin detectives asked,” the Sergeant said with a grin. He felt that there was energy in the discussion and they were getting to it, whatever it was. He let O'Sullivan finish his next bite of fish and waited.

“They call him the stolen child. He doesn't age much. It's taken him forty years to get to be sixteen. His mother had to take him out of school,” O'Sullivan said.

“Slow witted?” the Sergeant asked.

“Not a bit of it. His mother educated him. She even has the computers and the Internet. No flies on her. He's as sharp as a blade that boy. It's him she sends to sell the sheep these days and not the father, for the boy is better at it. And there's them that would be afraid to cheat him!”

The Sergeant swallowed the last mouthful of his first pint and squared his shoulders as if to make an announcement.

“In my official capacity,” the Sergeant began. He paused to take a steep slug of his second pint. “I can't put in a report of a stolen Sidhe child into the paperwork. No one up in Dublin believes in Fairies. They'd retire me while laughing their heads off.”

“True for you,” O'Sullivan said agreeably. “You'd be a laughing stock alright Sergeant. But what are you to do?”

“Bottom line,” the Sergeant replied, “the child never existed officially. And now John the fireman has reappeared and gone back to America.”

“Right,” O'Sullivan agreed.

“Better finish up,” he added looking at the clock over the bar.

The Sergeant's voice tone was as clear as a bell when he spoke. “Case closed,” he said. “I'll do the paper work. And I'll talk to the parents of the child,” he added.

“Just don't talk to the press,” O'Sullivan advised as he stood and took his leave.

It was the afternoon of the next day when the Sergeant set out to talk to Oengus's mother Bridget. He'd spent the morning checking things out and settling the paperwork. But he wasn't looking forward to meeting Bridget.

He took his black bicycle and walked it up the steep entrance road into Dunquin. On the main road he saddled up, having put on his bicycle clips, and he set out.

He knew he'd be an object of wonder to the tourists in their fine coaches travelling the Ring in style. A policeman on a black bicycle was always a target for the cameras but from his point of view it was a part of the fun. There were so many tourists these days that more and more of the locals were beginning to develop eccentricities so as to appear interesting. But for the Sergeant the bicycle had served him this thirty years and he had decided it would do him his time. He liked the bike and the fresh air and for the exercise.

As befit his rank and high office, Bridget showed the Sergeant into the parlour as soon as he had taken off his bicycle clips and come in the open door.

She had greeted him from the front as soon as she saw him come up the lane and had had shooed stray hens out of his way.

As usual a kettle was simmering on the kitchen range and courtesy demanded a cup of tea with scones to settle him about his business.

The pleasantries took the first quarter of an hour and then the Sergeant got to the point of his visit.

“Your brother John has come back off the Great Blasket,” he said.

Bridget was stunned. “Back you say?”

“I did a check on the flights out of Shannon and he's used his open return ticket to fly Aer Lingus to New York. He had a hire car. I think it was Hertz?”

“It was sent back when he went missing,” Bridget explained.

“My enquiries confirm he got a bus out of Dunquin and then another bus out of Dingle. And he took the first available flight.”

“Sure he was dying of the cancer,” Bridget said quietly.

“O'Sullivan's son Kevin said he'd a spring in his step and him coming down to the boat at Great Blasket,” the Sergeant contradicted.

“And did he take Oengus with him?” Bridget asked.

“To America?”

“Where else Sergeant?”

“No sign of Oengus,” the Sergeant said softly.

“Oh,” Bridget said and sipped her tea.

The Sergeant looked her straight in the eye. “Bridget the funny thing is that there is no official record of Oengus being born or alive,” he said.

“But you've seen him in the flesh yourself Sergeant,” Bridget pointed out.

The Sergeant couldn't hold his gaze. “Now and then but you've kept him well hidden on this farm,” he said.

“I took him out of school to give him personal tuition. He knows the reading, writing and arithmetic as good as anybody and he has all the computer stuff with Facebook, Bebo and other things I never heard about,” Bridget explained.

“Kevin O'Sullivan took the boat ticket from your brother John but he said there was no sound or trace of Oengus. And John told O'Sullivan that Oengus was with his own people.”

The Sergeant paused and took his tea waiting to see how she'd react.

Bridget stood and went to the window. The Sergeant sipped his tea in the silence and tried her scones.

She stood a while and then turned to face the Sergeant.

He was taking his time, spreading butter and jam on the scones and eating with relish. Bridget had a name for her baking.

“He's not here. We are his people,” Bridget said.

The Sergeant continued to chew. Bridget turned again to the window. “I'll go and ask for him back,” she said.

“To where and how?” the Sergeant asked.

“Great Blasket, that's where I'll go and I don't know how I'll ask. But if that's where he went then that's where I'll go.”

The Sergeant remained seated but squared his shoulders. “Now Bridget,” he said, “we don't want you going missing. Hasn't there been enough of a fuss.”

“I'm going.”

The Sergeant finished his tea and scones and left with a friendly smile. But he was worried.

He decided to talk to O'Sullivan and get him to keep her off the island.

***

Morag was packed and ready to leave New York when one of her technical team rang.

“The missing fireman has turned up back in New York. It was on the local news. He said he was camping on one of the smaller Islands and not missing at all. He said the Irish Police should have tried to get him on his cell phone. But he said maybe there was no reception on a remote island. Anyway he's back and unharmed.”

“Did he sound creditable?” Morag asked.

“He said he'd been brought up on the Blaskets and knew how to survive on fish and local fauna. Said his health had greatly improved and he was looking forward to getting back to work.”

“And the boy?”

“John, the fireman, said there was no boy with him and the local ferryman must have made a mistake. He said the Dublin police could confirm there was no such boy. He said his nephew died forty years ago.”

Morag considered after she had hung up. She got her researcher to check it out. The researcher confirmed that there was no evidence of a boy called Oengus to be found in local records either in Kerry or the central registry in Dublin, Ireland. The local police had closed the case.

Morag asked for more on the fireman.

A day later she got a report. The fireman was behaving normally and had reported to work after his vacation. He was due to retire soon and the mayor had sent him congratulations and wished the nine eleven hero a long and happy retirement.

But Morag was not entirely satisfied. The trip was scheduled so she decided she'd still do a follow up.

***

O'Sullivan refused to sell Bridget a ticket to the Blaskets.

“I don't want another missing person off my boat,” he'd said, having promised the Sergeant not to let her sail.

“I'll take my husband's Curragh,” she said bitterly.

“Bridget a Curragh is just a wooden frame with tarpaulin and hide for a skin.”

“I know what a Curragh is,” Bridget interrupted.

“Then you'll know its no boat for the Blasket sound,” O'Sullivan said forcibly. “Even experienced fishermen are nervous of the currents out there,” he added.

Faced with O'Sullivan's refusal and his impassive stance, Bridget took herself back home.

“O'Sullivan showed some sense,” her husband Patrick said when he heard the story.

“Maybe you'll go?” she suggested.

“Maybe I will but not before I finish helping O'Shea with his sheep. He was good enough to help us and we are obliged.”

“The sooner the better then,” she said and threw some turf on the fire.

She knew she'd have to bide her time. But in time she was determined to find her lost son even if she had to beg the Sidhe, even if she could find them. There had to be a link on the Blaskets.

***

Of an afternoon Kevin O'Sullivan arrived with his last load of tourists for the day. On Great Blasket there was a crowd of the morning trippers waiting to be brought back to Dunquin.

He could hardly believe his eyes when he saw Oengus skipping down along from the traffic lights towards the boat with a sprightly black and white poodle type dog running around yapping and accompanying him.

He let the tourists aboard and waited for Oengus to arrive, holding the poodle in his arms.

“My uncle came yesterday, he had both tickets,” Oengus explained. “Do you mind if I bring the dog?” he added.

“Your uncle came about a week ago,” O'Sullivan said.

“Really? I don't think so. Sure we only spoke yesterday.”

“Get on board anyway,” Kevin O'Sullivan said gruffly.

With a happy grin Oengus picked up the dog and went aboard.

O'Sullivan was thinking as he disembarked his passengers in Dunquin. His son Kevin had told him what Oengus had said about talking to his uncle the day before. He'd heard it said that time passed at a different pace in Otherworld and what might seem a week to a mortal man on earth might be a day or less to the Sidhe in Otherworld. Not that Oengus resembled in anyway to a fairy.