“BOTH THE BISHOP and the monsignor were very pleased with your work in the West Country,” Pearce said. “Why haven’t you been in touch? It’s been almost three weeks.”
“It seemed a good idea to lie low for a bit,” Maeve replied. “And we weren’t so happy with the Plymouth results.”
“Considering who you got, I don’t think you should be worried about who you missed. He’s not that important, anyway.”
Maeve looked at the newspaper in her hand again and ground her teeth. “I wanted to let you know it’ll be a week or ten days before we’ll be ready for further instructions. We’ve some personal business to attend to.”
“Personal business? You must be joking. The monsignor wouldn’t like it.”
“Fuck the monsignor,” she said. “I’ll call you when we’re ready again.” She hung up the phone and read the brief article on the sports page again.
Former Royal Marine Captain Mark Pemberton-Robinson, accompanied by his wife and one other crew in his new, 60-foot yacht, Wave, has won the Azores Race in just under ten days, finishing only seconds ahead of the 49-foot trimaran Three Cheers. Captain Pemberton-Robinson, who built the yacht for the 1972 Single-handed Transatlantic Race, is returning singlehanded from the Azores to Ireland, where the yacht was built, thereby greatly exceeding the required 200-mile qualifying cruise for the Transatlantic. “I want to see she has a real workout, “ he was quoted as saying. Wave departed Horta, on the island of Faial, on August 3, and her skipper expects the sail to Ireland to take only eight or nine days, since the return passage should be downwind.
She drove back to the caravan park. “We’re taking a little Irish Holiday,” she said to Denny, tossing him the paper.
He read it quickly, smiling. “So we’ll get another go at him, then.”
“At him and the boat, too, with what I’ve got in mind.” She briefly explained her plan.
“Red will be all for it, I know he will, but how are we going to get weapons over? The ferry ports are crawling with Special Branch types.”
“We can manage with what’s available locally,” she said. “We’ll take the Swansea-Cork ferry as foot passengers, do the job, and take it right back. Call Red and tell him to meet us the day after tomorrow. That should put us there a day or so ahead of time. And tell him to keep his mouth shut; you know how he talks.”