Chapter 101

 

Southern Ireland, 1984

 

David Martin had spent a difficult time. On the day he finished with the arrangements necessary to bury his aunt and uncle, he’d been forced into a search for their only son. Convinced the brat had panicked and run off to God knew where, he’d wasted a week in the search. When he finally discovered what Jack Walsh had known all along that the Army had the boy he was livid with rage. Then when Walsh told him there was only one possible solution, he kept trying not to think about Kevin as a person, a boy, his own blood only he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t just write his young cousin off as a war casualty. Martin had supplied the drug that was supposed to be cyanide—he’d switched it with another. When they’d seized the ambulance and he saw what he had created he turned to Seamus O’Donnell, the only man he dared to trust, for help.

The two young males who stopped David Martin’s car wore Levis and loose plaid shirts so they passed easily as groundskeepers. They didn’t hassle him nor halt his journey by much but it upset him for he didn’t recognize either. His coming and going from the large house hadn’t been monitored for several years so it felt like home to him.

“Seeing to your own security now?” It was almost an accusation as he encountered O’Donnell.

“Have to watch myself and my family.” Seamus O’Donnell admitted. “But I can’t afford the wrong associates. My new people are so clean they squeak when they move. I will soon have a new bride and hopefully my own campaign to commence. Tea?” His offer was shrugged off.

“Can’t be staying long.” Martin answered. “Got a bit a traveling to do again.”

“And just how far you lads taking this game?”

“Thought you were staying squeaky clean? How’s Kev?”

“Judge for yourself.” O’Donnell moved out from the desk with a motion for the other to follow. Leading the way down the hall to the new east wing, he admitted, “It doesn’t look all that promising, lad. They’ve rigged up a type of glove to protect him from himself. The constant supervision makes restraints unnecessary but,” he shook his copper mane, “only Colin.”

“Colin?”

“I’m an ass,” O’Donnell admitted. “And I’ll be honest it scares the piss out of me. I’ve been subjected to Kevin’s violent mood swings myself. Though he is smaller, he could easily injure the boy.”

“Then why do you let Colin near him?”

“Because I’ve not the heart to keep the lad away. Wait ‘til you see them together. During those few hours a day, Kevin acts almost normal.”

“Why would Colin make a difference?”

“You’ll have to discuss it with Ben. But I gather it has something to do with Colin’s age. He’s still a child. He talks and acts innocently. In him Kevin sees no threat.” They stepped into a large bright airy room as a woman rose with a welcoming smile. The man on the couch gave a wave and continued to softly read aloud. Both adults were dressed casually, in slacks and loose shirts. The teenager lay curled on the other end of the couch from where the man sat. Kevin made no attempt to recognize his visitors. His blank blue stare remained fastened on the door behind them.

“Colin, bless him,” the nurse said, “came for a bit this morning. Kevin’s been calm since. Colin promised he’d be back. I think Kevin is waiting for him.”

She was attractive in a simple way; strands of silver in the light brown hair complimented an over-forty face. The brightness of her hazel eyes and the openness of her smile immediately put a stranger at ease.

The male, edging on middle age, was safely well proportioned but not overwhelmingly big. There was gentleness in his features; yet, when introduced, David Martin noticed strength in the handshake and an authoritative ring to his tone. Martin had to concede Seamus O’Donnell had an unerring ability to choose the proper people for any job.

~~~

 

“Don’t stare at the recorder that way, lad.” Ben Connelly’s tone tingled with disgust. “It’s a useful tool.”

“Too bloody useful,” David Martin said, “in the wrong hands.” Once Good friends, the lives of the two men confronting each other had taken very different paths.

“And sure, I’ll not be asking those kinds of questions,” came the psychiatrist’s angry retort. “My concern is for Kevin.”

Martin protested. “Ben, the lad was seven, nearly eight years younger. Until lately the most I saw of him were weddings and funerals—maybe a few holidays. I never paid him any mind. I remember he was one spoilt pain. Ask my sister, now she was right fond of the little twerp.”

“Don’t you think she’s been helping?” Connelly’s anger was barely contained. “And it’s breaking her up inside. Now, you’ve a few seconds to grant the boy?” It was more an accusation than question that Martin answered with a lift of his shoulders. “Good! There could be something, a remembrance or a fantasy lurking in Kevin’s memory and you may be able to shed some light before we start hypnosis. I’ll record so I’ll have more to work with. Unless, you are free to stay and help?”

“Record!” Martin said adding the renewed declaration, “Remember, I hardly knew Kevin as a child.” Yet as the years shifted backward, with coaxing from the doctor, it was strange how much David Martin did recall of his own youth. There was this one night Martin was with Kevin…

~~~

 

“T

hat night, that whole bloody day in fact, I remember too well,” David Martin laughed. “Davis boy got a hold of this book, a real gem for a couple of adolescents ‘raised in the sight of God’ was the way my pa put it before he wailed the sin out of my ass. Suppose Davis received his hiding too, never admitted it though. Doomed to my room early, come bed time they popped Kev in with me.” Martin remembered. “Must of been five, six by then. Between the too descriptive novel and my tanning, I was more than a bit bothered,” he grinned. “With the brat in my room couldn’t do much about it.

“From experience, I knew once it got dark the men would gather on the back porch and relive their past while they soaked up the stout. That porch had a flat roof right beneath my window. They kept their conversations low so the only way I could hear was to belly out on the roof. Soon as I figured the kid was asleep, I did just that.

“Then came a damn whimpered, ‘what cha doing Davy?’ The bugger was standing in the window behind me! Afraid he’d give me away, I had to make him a party to my crime so I coaxed him out.

“It was a grand night. Kevin’s pa, my uncle Myles, was spewing off about his prison years. Knowing he’d only been a boy himself then, and though I’d heard the stories a number of times, I really enjoyed them. What made that night even more memorable was the look on the runt’s face. His eyes were round circles of fear.

His pa gave fine voice to an experience: ‘Sure’n that bastard Neil laid claim ta all the dogends. Big rough bloke nobody gave him no lip. Then Kelly came. Kelly rightly nipped those butts, no question, passed ‘em out like the fair son he was. The English bastard could have gone after him man-like. Might of even taken Old Kell. Neil was a good stone or better heavier. No, he waited till we lined up for the loo. Lined up for every friggin’ thing—Moved in behind Kelly, caught him with his pants down ready ta squat. Bloody well ripped him open from neck ta asshole. Twice, for the screws pulled him off. Poor Kelly ended up with his face in the bowl.

‘Later we heard those thumps and bellows coming from the chokey. Sure we heard Neil gettin’ his and not a lad was sorry. Our PO give himself the pleasure; mean and a bit of a poof, he could scare the piss out of a fellow with a look. Never had a real go around with him myself, but heard tell, when they made ya strip, he’d have the screws hold ya down while he used his rod on the insides of a bloke’s legs.’

~~~

 

“About that time,” a grown up David Martin said, “the kid started holding himself and whimpering he had to pee. I tried to hush him and shove him towards the window. But he begged, go with me. Not understanding little boy fears, I don’t remember what nasty thing I said, but damn didn’t he bound through that window with a racket and leave me with four angry adult males staring up.”

“So you got another hiding?”

Nah, my pa never inflicted more than one corporal punishment at a time. He kinda liked me. Told me later I shouldn’t pay heed to men’s tales—they got bloodier with each relating.”

“I wonder? Did anybody bother to tell Kevin that?”

“Are you joking, man, if they’d guessed the lad was with me, my pa would have broken his own rule and my ass.”

“So, Kevin most likely went on believing it all to be the truth? He had his own father’s testimony to go by. Between the drugs, the emotional shock of losing his parents, the lad believed he was faced with years in prison and terrified of what could happen to him. You know Dave; we may never bring him back. Your sister blames you.”

“No damn way! Wasn’t me mixed him in. He did that on his own with his parents’ blessing.” Suddenly his outrage faltered and he asked, “Do you think I could be any real help to him?”

“Perhaps. But then what? He learns to depend on you and before he’s ready you end up dead or in prison.”

“Not figuring on doing either.” He grinned.

“Most of you don’t. But it happens too often for a good average. You must be carrying one hell of a grudge? Why? Because of your pa’s death. I understood they proved an IRA bomb brought that plane down?”

“That’s bull, lad, the security in London was so tight in eighty-one with the ‘hunger strikers’ dying here, the King of Martyrs couldn’t have bought himself a seat on that plane.”

“Holy Mother, you can’t believe the government—”

A raised hand halted the statement. Martin went on. “All I’m certain of is the IRA had no reason to blow it. They had four members of the inner circle on board—none in disgrace. No one else of importance, except my father and the rest of the men that started the IGA.”

“A new terrorist group.”

“Not then,” Martin answered. “But that bombing put a different sort of leadership at the helm; a lot different from my pa and his business associates.”

“A reborn David Martin with a hard-on for the English?”

“You set me too high, lad.” Was followed by a vile sneer. “I’m little more than an errand boy and a glorified baby tender.”

“More like a child molester!” Connelly accused. “And in a worse way than a sexual deviate!”

Martin’s eyes narrowed as he coldly stated, “Ben, we’ve been friends too long so I’ll not take that as an honest personal affront.”

“Take it however you please. I had to care for the O’Donnell boys when you brought them back to Seamus. Now your own cousin—”

“Those were all army leavings, lad.” Martin rose quickly. “Be back when our tempers cool a bit.”

In a way Connelly’s decision not to take his offer of aid was a relief to Martin. His obligation to Kevin would have prevented his fulfilling Devlin’s orders. Less than an hour ago he had ordered him to New York. And he couldn’t just fly into JFK—hell no! He had to fly into Boston pick up a ride there and drive on to New York meet the kid and fly out to Montreal to London. He was facing a lot of long tiring hours with the final destination connecting him up with one aggravating bastard—Rory Hanlon. The idea of being subjected to this nemesis again was not setting easy in David Martin’s mind.