The Death of an Irish Sea Wolf Read Free Page A

by the fire and smoke his pipe. Had he not earned that much in his old age?
    No, he had earned nothing. But much less so Angus Rehm.

CHAPTER 3
    AT THE DOOR of his cottage, Clement Ford did not bother to remove his hat or coat. He merely stepped inside, threw the bolts on the cubby and main doors, then divested himself of the heavy pair of high-tech binoculars. Making his way quickly to the kitchen, he found Breege busy about their tea.
    “Back so soon? Was it a party boat, or did the storm prove too much for you? I haven’t heard the wind howl like this all the year long.” She was working at the cooker, holding out a hand to feel the heat from a burner before setting down a pot.
    The kitchen was warm, the air redolent of the cooking meal. Again Ford thought he would give almost anything just to be able to collapse into his chair and forget what he had just seen. But there was no time for comfort. And how to tell her so she would listen and heed his words. Breege could be stubborn in her own pleasant way, and she had as much as ruled him, lo these many years.
    “You haven’t taken off your coat,” she said, being able to smell the dampness on him. “Or your boots. There’s muck on them.” Suddenly she stopped what she was doing and turned to him, her beautiful, blind eyes finding his own, as though she could actually see him.
    “Ah, Breege”—Ford began in lament, which he knew wasa blunder—“it’s wrong that it should arrive at a time, like this, when we’re so old. But remember how I said years ago there would come a day when I would ask you to leave this place—no questions asked?”
    She nodded the perfect arrangement of dark hair that only recently had begun to turn silver. She had always set it herself—by feel!—and the process had never ceased to entrance Ford. At that moment he believed he had never loved her more. “Well—that day has come.”
    The slight smile that pouted her definite cheeks did not fade. “Clem—is this a joke?”
    “I wish it were. I don’t know how to tell you, Breege, so you’ll believe me—but after all these years he’s here. Rehm.”
    She paused for a moment before continuing her labors over the cooker. “Really? What did you say his name was again?”
    “Rehm. Angus Rehm.”
    “ Rehm . What a curious name! And Scots! How it fits what you told me about him at Oxford and during the war. I mean, like the word, the one in Latin. Ar ee em. Oh”—she raised a finger—“and there’s a rock group by that name now. I heard them over the wireless the other day.” Breege moved toward the fridge. “Tell me now—how do you know it’s Rehm?” She removed a plate of butter from its depths. “Or are you after nipping into the pub.”
    Ford sighed in exasperation. “Breege—listen to me. It is Rehm, the man I told you about. I’d know him anywhere. It’s like”—Ford glanced behind him down the hall toward the door—“he’s hardly changed. And he’s got three others with him that I could count.”
    “But, sure, even if it is, couldn’t we just ring up Kevin O’Grady, who’ll have them off the island by noon?” She reached for a pot handle and gave it a shake.
    O’Grady was a retired guard. Otherwise Clare Island did not have—or want—a resident police officer. Nor did Ford wish to bring the police into the matter, since they might ask questions that he would rather not answer. And Breege was innocent of everything in every way; she deserved to live out her days as she would have, had he never entered her life. Ford turned back to the front door.
    There at the pegs he removed her storm coat, a woolen hat,and a muffler. In their bedroom he found her warmest stockings. From a drawer in his own dresser, he removed the Webley automatic that had still been strapped to his side that morning in the spring of 1945 when Breege and her aunt had found him on their beach half-dead, washed in with the tide.
    While recuperating, Ford had stripped down the