The Boatman's Wife(64)

‘Whatever way,’ Deirdre said, looking at her face in her compact while applying her signature red lipstick.

‘Okay,’ Niamh said, trying to remember the quickest route to South Armagh. ‘What town are we headed for?’

‘Crossmaglen. Mind, we’re muckers,’ Deirdre said, snapping her compact shut.

Not ever, Niamh wanted to say out loud. We will never be friends.

‘Your name is Lucy, I’m Nancy,’ Deirdre told her.

‘What if they ask for ID?’

‘Say you forgot it, and smile at the Brits,’ Deirdre said with confidence. ‘I do it all the time.’

‘What’s in the boot?’ Niamh asked.

‘Don’t start me,’ the other girl replied, with a clip to her voice.



Within the hour, they were slowing down at a checkpoint. Tension shivered down Niamh’s spine. She’d no idea what was in the boot, but she guessed it must be guns. What would happen if they were caught?

She clasped her hands in her lap to stop them from shaking. The soldier peered in the driving window.

‘All right, girls? Where you off to?’ His eyes skimmed over Niamh to focus on Deirdre.

‘We’re visiting my granny in Enniskillen,’ Deirdre said, her voice transformed, Derry accent gone, soft and girlish. Niamh looked across at her as she flicked her fair hair, and pouted with red lips. How could she do it?

The soldier looked back at Niamh. She tried her best to smile too, but he clearly smelt the fear coming off her.

‘’Fraid I’m going to have to ask you girls to get out the car.’ The soldier indicated, with his gun pointing downward. ‘We’re doing random checks today. Nothing to worry about.’

Thick terror choked Niamh’s throat as she got out.

She glanced over at Deirdre, who had wandered over to the other soldier and was transfixing him with her cleavage.

‘Isn’t it a grand day?’ she said to him.

‘Yeah,’ he replied, still staring at her tits. ‘At least it isn’t bloody raining.’

Under instruction of the first soldier, Niamh unlocked the boot with trembling hands. He ordered her to step back. He pulled back the carpet, took out the spare wheel and had a good look. To Niamh’s astonishment, there was no bag of guns hidden underneath. Relief washed through her. She thought she might faint.

‘Okay, girls, ta very much,’ the squaddie said. ‘On you go.’

As soon as they were round the bend, and the soldiers had disappeared in the distance, Deirdre began to laugh.

‘What the fuck!’ Niamh said, turning to her.

‘The Brits are such dickos!’ Deirdre gloated, the expression on her face transformed from innocent to contemptuous.

‘Can you tell me why I am smuggling an empty car across the border?’ Niamh said, furious.

‘It’s not empty, eejit,’ Deirdre said. ‘The Brits looked in the wrong place.’

Niamh glanced over as Deirdre patted the door beside her.

‘They’re in the door panels,’ Deirdre said.

‘What’s in the door panels?’ Niamh asked, but even as she said it, she felt the cold realisation of what she had just smuggled across the border. Explosives.



Hours later. After the longest morning of her life, Niamh was heading back home. She felt sick and tired down to the pit of her belly. Deirdre had directed her to a rundown old farmhouse in the Catholic heartland of South Armagh.

Two men Niamh had never seen before in her life had emerged from the farmhouse as they’d pulled up. No introductions were made. Better they didn’t know each other’s names.

There had been no sign of Brendan. Even more surprising, one of the men had kissed Deirdre on the cheek. Was he a relative? Evidently not, Niamh had realised, when she saw Deirdre kiss the stranger back on the lips. The air felt charged with danger, and dark secrets.

The second man, tall with fair hair and a hard face, had told Niamh to go for a walk and come back in an hour.

She had wandered in the boggy woods, glancing at her watch as the minutes ticked by. She and Jesse had arranged to meet at the travel agency in Sligo at three o’clock in the afternoon. It was already nearly one o’clock. There was no way she’d make it. Her plans with Jesse seemed so trite, in comparison to what she was actually involved in. She’d stopped walking, putting her hand on her thumping heart. Had she just smuggled explosives across the border? It didn’t seem real.

But when she returned to the farmhouse and walked in through the back door, the first thing she saw was Deirdre carefully handling the packs as if they were newborn babies. As she placed them on the wooden kitchen table, the fair man whipped around, a gun in his hand. Niamh gave a small scream in fright.

‘You should have knocked,’ the man said gruffly, lowering the gun.

Niamh took a step back in shock. Until now, everything she’d done for Brendan had been hidden. She’d never seen a weapon, even. But this was all horribly real.

At last, the other man – Deirdre’s second boyfriend or lover – had told her she could leave.

Niamh had walked out the farmhouse without so much as goodbye to any of them. She was so angry. It felt as if she’d been kidnapped. Brendan and Tadhg had forced her to cross a line, and she’d never forgive them.

She slammed her foot down, not caring if the car revved loudly, and tore off out the yard of the farmhouse and down the narrow lanes.