Stillness and Storm Page 3

genius to figure out what all the fuss was about. If John Neilson’s death wasn’t natural, if it was an IRA execution, then it meant that there was a leak somewhere in their program and all the other informers were also at risk.

  I was really troubled and upset when I heard about this, right down in the pit of my stomach. I really disliked the man but I couldn’t help wondering how much of John Neilson’s unpleasant manner was an act. What was the real Sean O’Neil like? Was he a man who had become so sick of violence that he’d turned his back on a lifetime. Did that violence haunt his dreams? Or was he someone who’d betrayed his friends in order to get a comfortable retirement funded by the British government? Did he believe that he was safe, hidden away on the other side of the world, or did he always live in fear, knowing that one day a quiet angel of death with a soft Irish voice would come and tap him on the shoulder?

  The police were, of course, very interested in the Irish bike rider and I told them my story much as I’ve just told it to you. They made me repeat it over and over, always asking questions about the smallest details. They were particularly interested in who the rider’s friend back home might be. No one was supposed to know that Sean O’Neil was here or that his name was now John Neilson. Was there a leak? Or had the loneliness of his exile outweighed the risk and driven him to contact some of his family or friends back in Ireland. There was no way to know.

  They really wanted to know who the rider was but she had vanished, she and her big, black, ugly motorbike. I gave them the name she registered under and the address she gave, back in Ireland, but they didn’t seem to think that would be much use. They were most annoyed that I hadn’t asked for identification or even noted the registration number of the bike but it’s like I told them – it was winter, we were empty, and I’m not a nosy person. In my job it doesn’t pay to be.

  In the end, there was simply no evidence of foul play. John Neilson was drunk and the cliff path was dangerous, especially in the wind and the dark of the coming storm. All of his injuries were consistent with his having fallen from the clifftop to the rocks below. The police finally publicly closed the investigation, concluding that he had simply stumbled and fallen to his death. Whether they actually believed this or not, I don’t know. They all started to pack up and go home. The government men in dark suits had listened a lot and spoken little. They didn’t share any of their thoughts on the matter.

  The whole business still haunts me and it still plays on my conscience. In part, at least, because when I told my story I left out one detail. I don’t know why. Perhaps it was because I liked her, with her quiet friendliness and focused stillness. Perhaps it was simply that she looked stunning with that long red hair of hers. Perhaps it was all the stories my grandmother told me about the famine and the Black and Tans. Whatever the reason, the police didn’t think to ask and I didn’t explain.

  You see, I didn’t see her that night until she was standing right next to me. In order to come upon me that way, without being silhouetted against the river by the lightening, she must have come down the other path: the cliff top path. John Neilson may have been drunk, and the path is certainly dangerous, but that night he wasn’t alone and I fear for the rider’s soul.”

  “And for your own?”

  “Yes Father, and for my own.”

  Grey clouds filled the long summer twilight and the rain fell, not heavily but persistently. It made the stones of the ruined monastery gleam in the evening light as she sat, still among the ruins. She faced the eastern wall of the old chapel where a round hole was the only evidence of an ancient rose window. Once this would have been the sanctuary and there would have been prayers and an altar. Once this would have been a sacred place where God himself was present. Now it was just stones, weathered by time, by the wind and rain. She sat, still and unnoticed, in the grey of the summer rain. The rain that washed from her face all trace of the tears that flowed freely down her cheeks.