Chapter 136: The Missing Boat

The whole of the room was silent and the fire had gone down to embers and the lamp was low and Mairéad stood at the table with the paper in her hand.

“Say that again,” I said.

“I have signed a challenge,” Mairéad said. “It is in the hand of a lawyer in Galway and it has a date on it and it says the woman Niamh is a claimant and that I am the Alpha and that the challenge is on the headland at Dún Aonghasa at dawn on the fourteenth of July with the whole of the co-op on the shore.”

The whole of the room went up.

The woman with black hair was on her feet with her hand up.

“There is a thing about a challenge,” she said. “It is a paper that a claimant signs and that an Alpha answers and it is heard on a headland and not in a court. And there is a thing about a challenge that is signed on the eleventh of July and put in the hand of a lawyer in Galway on the night of the eleventh. It is a paper that is going to be in a file in Galway before the morning and there is not a wolf in this building who is going to be able to set it aside.”

“You resigned,” I said. “On the pier. In front of the whole of the co-op.”

“I resigned and I did not sign a paper and there is a thing about a resignation that is said out loud on a pier and that is not written down and signed.” Mairéad put her hand on the table. “It is a resignation that a lawyer in Galway is going to say did not happen.”

The whole of the room was silent.

“Then there is a thing I have to say,” I said, “and I am going to say it in front of the whole of this pack and then I am going to ask the court a question. The challenge is a paper and a paper that is in the hand of a lawyer is a paper that is going to be in a file before the morning. And there is a thing about a challenge that is in a file. It is a challenge that is going to be heard on a headland at dawn on the fourteenth and not in a room in Galway with nine wolves and the whole of the file read out loud.” I put my hand on the table. “So there is a choice. A headland at dawn with a woman who has been an Alpha for fourteen years and who has been a wolf for sixty nine. Or a room in Galway with nine wolves and the whole of the file and the whole of the co-op. And there is a thing about a choice that is put in front of a pack at one in the morning by a woman in a black coat. It is not a choice. It is a thing that is meant to look like a choice.”

Mairéad looked at me.

“There is a thing about a headland at dawn,” she said. “It is not a thing that a wolf who has been in a village for a month is going to be able to win. And there is a thing about a room in Galway. It is not a thing that a woman who has been in that chair for fourteen years is going to be able to survive.” She put the paper down. “So I have given the pack the thing that a pack has always been given. A choice between a fight and a file. And there is a thing about a pack that has been given that choice for thirty six years. It has always chosen the fight.”

The whole of the room was silent.

And then Tom said, “There is a thing about the fourteenth of July that the whole of this room has not said out loud. It is a full moon. And there is a thing about a full moon and a headland and a challenge. It is the one night in the year when a wolf is at the strongest and the one night when a wolf cannot hold a thing back. And there is a thing about a woman of sixty nine and a woman of forty two on a headland on a full moon. It is not a fight. It is a thing that is going to be over before the moon is over the water.”

The whole of the room was silent.

“Then there is a thing I have to say,” I said. “And I am going to say it and then I am going to go down to the telephone. The challenge is a paper and the paper is going to be in a file before the morning. But there is a thing about a paper that is in a file and that is signed by an Alpha who has resigned on a pier in front of the whole of the co-op. It is a paper that a court is going to look at and it is a paper that is going to be in a room in Galway on the fourteenth with the whole of the file and the whole of the list and the whole of the co-op.” I put my coat on. “So I am not going to answer the challenge on a headland. I am going to answer it in a court.”

The whole of the room went up.

And then Ahern came in from the corridor with his face grey and his coat on and a paper in his hand.

“There is a thing about the telephone,” he said. “I have been on it since I went out and I have been on it to the newspaper in Dublin and to a man I know in the guards and to a man in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. And there is a thing about the evening that the whole of this room is going to hear. The boat that was at the wall at Dun Laoghaire is not at the wall. The Star of the Sea is out of Galway and she has been out since nine o’clock and she is not on the water and there is not a wolf in this city who has seen her.” He put the paper on the table. “And there is a thing about a boat that goes out of Galway at nine o’clock on the night of the eleventh of July. It is a boat that is going to the west coast and there is a thing about the west coast on the fourteenth. It is a headland and a co-op and a challenge at dawn.”

The whole of the room went silent.

“Then there is a thing I have to say,” I said. “And it is the thing that has been in front of me since the pier at Dun Laoghaire and that I have not said out loud. The woman in the house on the road is not in a room in Dublin and she has not been in one since Monday. She is on that boat and she has been on it since nine o’clock and she is going to the west coast and she is going to be on that headland on the fourteenth with her sister and a challenge and a paper and a lawyer in Galway.” I picked up my coat. “So there is a thing the pack has to do before the morning. Not a choice. A thing that has to be done. There is a boat missing and there is a woman on it and there is a headland at the end of it and there is not a wolf in Galway who is going to be on that headland on the fourteenth if we are in a room in this building reading a file.”

The whole of the room was silent.

“Then there is a thing I have to say,” Cormac said, “and I have been sitting on it since the shop and I am not going to sit on it any longer. There is a boat at the wall at the bottom of the town and she is called the Kathleen and she is Tom’s brother’s and she is not the fastest thing in Galway but she is fast and she knows the coast. And there is a thing about the Kathleen that I have not told a living soul. Tom’s brother came to me in the shop at five o’clock this morning and he said, there is a thing about the boat and the boat is fuelled and she is at the wall and there is not a wolf in Galway who knows it. And I said, why are you telling me, and he said, because I am not going to be the wolf who stood on a pier and did not say a thing.”

The whole of the room went up.

“Then there is a thing we are going to do,” I said. “And we are going to do it now and we are going to do it the way a pack does it. Not the whole of us. The whole of us on one boat is a thing that is going to be seen. A small thing. Five wolves and a boat and the coast in the dark.” I looked at the whole of the room. “Declan and Cormac and Mary and Arthur and me. And there is a thing about the five of us that the whole of this pack is going to hear. If we are not on that headland by dawn on the fourteenth, then the pack is going to be in that room in Galway with the whole of the file and the whole of the list and there is not going to be a wolf on the shore.”

And then Padraig came in from the corridor with his coat over his head and a paper in his hand.

“There is a thing about the boat,” he said. “I have been on the telephone to the harbor at Dun Laoghaire and to the coastguard at Rossaveal and to a man in the guards at Galway. The Star of the Sea was seen off the Aran Islands at eleven o’clock and she was going north and there was a light on her and there was a woman on her deck in a good coat.” He put the paper down. “And there is a thing about the north. It is not the west coast. It is Killybegs and it is Donegal and it is the house on the hill that the children were taken out of in 1961.”