It's an old trick-you get the people you're trying to control to do something they don't want to do, just for starters. I stood my ground with my hand on Sheila's shoulder.
'Fuck you,' I said. 'Get on with whatever you've got in your sick mind.'
That death's-head smile again. 'I'm sick all right, but my mind's as clear as a Galway stream. Just stay with me-the threat remains the same.'
The organisers were clearing away the trestles and chairs and the remainder of the food and drink, and the musicians were refreshing themselves before their next onslaught. People were gathering in groups ready to dance. Cummings backed away carefully, taking small steps. The healthy tan was deceptive; his sunken eyes were pools of pain as he moved and his hands shook as he took a mobile phone from his pocket. He reached the wall and steadied himself, fighting for breath. Sheila and I moved with him, keeping a couple of metres away as he sent a text message.
'You're very sick, Seamus,' Sheila said. 'You need help.'
He put the phone away. 'I'm beyond help, darlin', but I've done the two things I needed to do so it doesn't matter a tinker's curse.'
A paroxysm of coughing shook him; his knees sagged but he fought to keep himself upright. This was a very determined man.
'Let's go,' he said when he'd recovered. 'I just have to say goodbye to Mr O'Loughlin, fine man that he is.'
Painfully slowly, Cummings approached O'Loughlin, who was loading wood into the potbelly stove near the band. O'Loughlin saw him and straightened up.
'Long live the Travellers of whom I'm a proud member. Sorry I can't stay longer, but I'm broken down in body as you see, but not in spirit.'
O'Loughlin took Cummings's outstretched hand in the gentlest of holds and put his other hand lightly on his shoulder. The contrast between the two men could not have been greater-O'Loughlin must have weighed 120 kilos and Cummings looked to have wasted away to about half that and, although Cummings was tall, O'Loughlin topped him by a head. Sheila and I hung back.
'My name is Seamus Cummings of County Galway. I want to thank you, Mr O'Loughlin, for a fine evening and to say slan.
' Slan to you, Seamus, and may God bless you.'
'I doubt that, but thank you.'
Cummings turned towards us as O'Loughlin gave us a salute-the gallant support staff. Cummings looked about to fall and I couldn't do anything but step forward and take his arm. We left the room as the band struck up and the so-inclined Travellers swung into their dance. We reached the door and Cummings, feather light, turned to take a last look. I heard a sniff from Sheila and when I looked I saw her dabbing at a tear with the sleeve of her jacket.
Jesus, I thought, this man murdered her husband and my friend. What the hell is going on here?
We shuffled along and I couldn't tell whether Cummings was as decrepit as he seemed. He'd appeared to be all right when he took his seat and while he was eating and drinking. I strongly suspected that, weak though he undoubtedly was, he'd play on his appearance for any advantage he could get.
Bottles empty and not empty had been stacked on a sideboard in the hallway and Cummings suddenly pulled free of me.
'Better pick up a few,' he said. 'We've paid for it after all, and we've got a long night and a lot of talking ahead of us.'
I picked up three bottles. Sheila seemed to be moving in a trance-like state. Cummings noticed.
'For Christ's sake, Sheila,' he rasped. 'Grab a bottle or two. What's wrong with you?'
Sheila's head came up and she moved quickly to block his path. 'Grab them yourself, Seamus. It's a long time since I did what you told me.'
'Did at one time though, didn't you, darlin'? And loved it.'
'Knock it off,' I said. 'We're not going one step further until you tell us what's going on.'
'How about your friend?'
'He's not a friend. He's someone I used to help track you down.'
'Is that a fact? He'll be disappointed to hear it. We drove about a bit and got on famously. I told him some things he didn't know and helped him sort out the dirty lies from the dirty truths.'
'The blarney is giving me the shits. Who did you send the text to?'
Ah, good question. Just the right question. I can see that you have a brain in your head. Well, I might say the same as you. He's no friend of mine but someone I've found useful. I think we may have more in common than it looks, Hardy.'
'If it's the right question, what's the answer?'
Cummings laughed and the movement brought on another spell of coughing and forced him to lean against a wall again. 'He… he's by way of being a member of the Australian intelligence service, oxymoron though that is, and he's known about me and Patrick Malloy and you and your friend Casey for days and days and days. And I know about him, so I thought to invite him along to a little meeting.
Not a ceilidh, mind, Hardy, but you'll want to be there for certain.'
We followed Cummings in his black ute away from the farm.
'I hope you've got that gun with you,' Sheila said. 'I haven't, it was a temporary measure.' As I expected, Cummings turned in at the caravan park. I drove past.
'What're you doing?'
'Taking you back to the motel.'
'You do and I'll never fucking speak to you again.'
'Sheila, he's a killer.'
'Maybe he was, but not now. You saw and heard him. The man's on his last legs. He wants to talk. I'm involved in this, Cliff. I want to see it through.'
She had a point. I slowed down. 'I don't like the sound of the intelligence people being involved. A minute ago you were wishing I had a gun.'
'I was dramatising. It's one of my faults. How can it hurt to have a security guy there? Look, I meant what I said, Cliff. I like you a lot. I think we could be good together, but I'm buggered if I'll be sidelined. Turn around… please.'
I did. It wasn't late and the boom gate hadn't come down. The place was fairly well lit and I remembered the layout well enough to navigate back to cabins 31 and 33. The black ute was there, parked next to 33 with Casey's SUV by 31. The porch light was on at 33 and Cummings stood at the door wrapped in a blanket. His breath steamed in the cold air. We drew up behind the SUV and got out, Sheila carrying one bottle and me two.
'We were waiting for the grog. Lose your way, did you?'
His grin showed that he knew exactly what had happened. I didn't give him the satisfaction of a reply. 'Jack?' I called.
'Careful, you'll wake the neighbours,' Cummings said.
Casey appeared behind Cummings. He looked strained and white as he puffed nervously on a cigar. A movement behind him suggested there was someone else inside.
'Better get in here, Cliff. Tell Sheila to wait in the car.'
'Dunno about that, Jack. She'd be likely to ram your vehicle and then have a go at the cabin. That'd wake the neighbours.'
'That's right,' Sheila said. 'Fuck you, Jack.'
'All in together then,' Cummings said. 'It'll be a little cramped, but who looks for a lot of room at a good party, eh?'
Cummings and Casey eased back inside and Sheila and I went up two steps to the porch and through the door. The cabin was bigger inside than it looked from outside. There was a kitchenette and doors to what I assumed to be a bathroom and sleeping area. A table stood in the middle of the room, and there was space for four chairs around it and two armchairs in the corners. An oil heater was keeping the place warm.
Jack Casey sat at the table. Cummings eased himself into one of the armchairs. The other was occupied by a pale man with thinning ginger hair. He wore a suit and tie and stood as we entered to offer the chair to Sheila, smoothing down his tie as he did so. Sheila shook her head. We deposited the bottles on the table where they joined a half-full bottle of Johnny Walker red. Casey had an empty glass in front of him and the other man had a glass at his feet.
'This is Martin Milton-Smith,' Cummings said. 'He's by way of being with ASIS, isn't that right, Martin?'
Milton-Smith subsided back into his chair and reached for his glass. 'Something like that.'
'Something like that,' Cummings repeated.
'We've met,' I said. 'You visited Pat in hospital.'
'That's right.'
'I didn't like the look of you then anymore than I do now. I should've asked Pat who you were, but that was back when I thought I knew who he was.'
Cummings moved the scotch bottle an inch. 'I don't like to mix my drinks and I fancy a drop of that good wine we had tonight. Would you care to fetch a couple of glasses, Hardy?'
He was at it again, running the show. I pulled out a chair for Sheila and then opened both the other doors, switched on the lights and looked inside. Both empty.
I sat and said, 'I think Jack could get the glasses. Probably knows where they are, same layout as his cabin.'
'Good point,' Cummings said.
Still without speaking, Casey got up and brought three tumblers from the kitchenette.
'I'm for the red,' Cummings said. 'Sheila? Hardy?'
I poured him a glass of red and one for myself. Sheila waved a refusal.
'Okay, Seamus,' I said. 'You've had your fun. Now let's hear what this is all about.'
'I think I should step in here,' Milton-Smith said, 'just to bring you up to date as it were. We've had a watching brief on Professor Casey for some time, ever since his research started to touch on matters of national security. He has been very careful but apparently he was carried away by information brought to him by you, Mr Hardy. We've been able to monitor his emails and telephone calls.'
'I hope you're proud of yourselves,' I said.
'It's not a matter for pride, simply of doing what has to be done. Anyway, we tracked you and Professor Casey here which led us to Mr Cummings, in whom we have a special interest.'
'And that's a black lie,' Cummings said. 'I've been doing more tracking than being tracked. I invited you here, remember.'
'I think we know why,' Milton-Smith murmured.
'I don't. What's all this "we" business?' I said. 'You make it sound as if you've got spooks hiding behind every rubbish bin.'
'Not quite, but certain assets are in place.'
'That sort of language makes you a laughing-stock,' Sheila said.
'I don't think you'll be laughing by the time we finish here, Ms Fitzsimmons. Mr Cummings…?'
Cummings took a big swallow of the red, cleared his throat and drew in a deep breath. 'Most people don't know what a shite hole Angola was all through the seventies and eighties. They'd no sooner got their independence from Portugal when they started fighting each other under different names- MPLA, FLNA, UNITA-it was like something out of The Life of Brian, except that it wasn't funny. They reckon forty thousand people were killed and about a million were made homeless in the first couple of weeks.
'Then the Soviets and the Cubans hopped in with tanks and planes and the slaughter went on and on. Those bloody Africans hate each other worse than they hate us, and they hate us like poison. The different sides started to enlist mercenaries-a few of them got themselves topped in '76, but they were just the ones the media picked up. Hostages were being taken every other day and murdered and mercenaries, a lot of them undocumented in the sort of language Martin likes, just fuckin' disappeared. This went on well into the eighties when the world's attention had switched elsewhere. Some of those militia leaders who felt they'd missed out on the goodies or had axes to grind were getting dollops of money from here and there and still recruiting.'
'Ratbag people like the Olympic Corps,' I said.
Cummings showed more emotion than he had so far. 'I know where you got that, from Paddy Malloy. All fuckin' wrong. It was an elite group. The best.'
Couldn't buck that sincerity. 'Okay,' I said.
'You can't imagine what it was like fighting in that country. Just existing's hard enough. The border with the Congo was like a sieve, anyone could get across and the Congo River, in case you don't know, has these heavily wooded islands in it you can hide in, retreat to, attack river traffic from. Angola's all fuckin' mountains when it isn't swamp and jungle. Insects to eat you alive, elephant grass to slice you to bits. Malaria… anyway, we were fighting for this splinter group from the MPLA faction that pretty well had everyone else against it. Did well, too, scored some heavy hits.'
The energy seemed to drain out of him. He drank some wine, took a pill bottle from his pocket, shook some pills into his palm and took them with another gulp of wine. There was no blarney now, no performance. He was living the experience.
'We were betrayed and ambushed. We lost two good men and twelve of us were taken. There were four Australians in the team including Malloy, but he was a plant, working for UNITA.'
'And for his country,' Milton-Smith said.
'Oh, that's right. Your government was very opposed to any of its citizens being mercenaries. Happy for them to fight for the fuckin' Brits and Americans anywhere in the world, but not for themselves. Not for filthy lucre.'
'Not for communists,' Milton-Smith said.
Cummings ignored him. 'He betrayed us. We were hauled off to a bush jail and I'm telling you Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib're picnic spots compared to that. We were beaten and starved and raped. My brother, a year younger than me, was beaten to death, slowly, right in front of me.'
'What happened to you, Seamus?' Sheila said.
'Oh, I was beaten, too, and shot and buried, but I survived, after a fashion. I spent some time with decomposing corpses. It hurts your mind as well as your body and it's something people like you wouldn't know anything about. I got back on my feet for a while, as you know, Sheila, but it all caught up with me in the end. This fuckin' cancer came as no surprise. I lived just to come face to face with Paddy Malloy and I came to Australia time and time again to look for him, but I never found him.'
'That's why you freaked out when you saw my picture of him,' Sheila said.
'Right, darlin'. I missed my chance then. I got drunk and went to jail and when I got out you'd gone and he'd gone and I was back where I started.'
'How did you know Paddy betrayed you?' Sheila said.
'I can answer that,' Milton-Smith said. 'He tortured a man to death to get the information about Malloy. Very nasty.'
'And then you saw him at the Ballintrath ceilidh,' I said.
'I did and it was a sweet moment. He didn't see me. He was too busy dancing and he was too pissed. I made myself scarce, but I knew him at once. I've kept tabs on you and him ever since. Missed you here and there but I picked you up again. I've had some help.'
I shook my head and he laughed.
'Don't get upset, Hardy. I had professional help. Better than you or maybe just younger. Fuck it. Paddy Malloy killed my comrades and my brother and left me a wreck and that's why I did for him in a way he'd understand. I'd do it again. I wish to Christ I could do it again.'