No Comebacks

The big man flashed his torch over the sheaf of papers he had taken from Murphy. He stopped at the cargo manifest and thrust it under Murphy's nose.

'Did you not look at this, you fool?' he asked.

Murphy took out his growing panic on the driver. 'Why didn't you tell me this?' he demanded.

Sheer outrage gave Clarke boldness in the face of his unseen persecutors. 'Because I had a fecking gag over my mouth, that's why,' he shouted back.

'That's true, Murphy,' said Brendan, who was rather literal.

'Shut up,' said Murphy, who was becoming desperate. He leaned closer to Clarke. 'Is there not any brandy underneath it?' he asked.

Clarke's face gave away his utter ignorance. 'Brandy?' he echoed. 'Why should there be any brandy? They don't make brandy in Belgium.'

'Belgium?' howled Murphy. 'You drove into Le Havre from Cognac in France.'

'I've never been to Cognac in my life,' yelled Clarke. 'I was driving a cargo of rose fertilizer. It's made of peat moss and dessicated cow manure. We export it from Ireland to Belgium. I took this cargo over last week. They opened it in Antwerp, examined it, said it was substandard and they wouldn't accept it. My bosses in Dublin told me to bring it back. It cost me three days in Antwerp sorting out the paperwork. Sure, it's all there in the papers.'

The man from the North had been running his torch over the documents he held. They confirmed Clarke's story. He threw them to the floor with a grunt of disgust.

'Come with me,' he said to Murphy and led the way outside. Murphy followed, protesting his innocence.

In the darkness of the yard the big man cut short Murphy's protestations. He dropped his attach^ case, turned, gripped Murphy by the front of his windcheater, lifted him off his feet and slammed him into the barn door.

'Listen to me, you little Catholic bastard,' said the big man.

Murphy had wondered which side of the Ulster racketeers he had been dealing with. Now he knew.

'You,' said the big man in a whisper that froze Murphy's blood, 'have hijacked a load of bullshit — literally. You have also wasted a lot of my time and my men's time and my money...'

'I swear to you.. .'croaked Murphy, who was having trouble with his air supply, 'on my mother's grave ... it must be on the next ship, arriving at two p.m. tomorrow. I can start again...'

'Not for me,' whispered the big man, ‘cos the deal's off. And one last thing; if you ever try and pull a stroke like this on me again I '11 have two of my lads come down here and redistribute your kneecaps. Do you understand me?'

Sweet Jesus, thought Murphy, they're animals these Northerners. The British are welcome to them. He knew it was more than his life was worth to voice the thought. He nodded. Five minutes later the man from the North and his four empty trucks were gone.

In the farmhouse by the light of a torch Murphy and his disconsolate gang finished the flask of whiskey.

'What do we do now?' asked Brady.

'Well,' said Murphy, 'we clear up the evidence. We have gained nothing but we have lost nothing, except me.'

'What about our three thousand quid?' asked Keogh.

Murphy thought. He did not want another round of threats from his own people after the scare the Ulsterman had thrown into him.

'Lads, it will have to be fifteen hundred apiece,' he said. 'And you'll have to wait a while until I make it. I cleaned myself out setting up this stroke.'

They appeared mollified if not happy.

'Brendan, you, Brady and Keogh should clear up here. Every scrap of evidence, every footprint and tyre track in the mud, wipe it out. When you're done, take his car and drop the driver somewhere south of here by the roadside in his stockings. With tape on his mouth, eyes and wrists, he'll be a while getting the alarm up. Then turn north and drive home.

'I'll stick by my word to you, Keogh. I'll take the truck and abandon it way up in the hills towards Kippure. I'll walk back down and maybe get a lift on the main road back to Dublin. Agreed?'

They agreed. They had no choice. The men from the North had done a good job of smashing the locks on the rear of the artic's trailer, so the gang hunted round for wooden pegs to secure the two hasps. Then they closed the doors on its disappointing cargo and pegged them shut.

With Murphy at the wheel the juggernaut growled back down the track from the farm and turned left towards the Djouce Forest and the hills of Wicklow.

It was just after 9.30 and Murphy was past the forest on the Roundwood road when he met the tractor. One would think farmers would not be out on tractors with one faulty headlight, the other smeared with mud, and ten tons of straw bales on a trailer at that hour. But this one was.