Chapter 99: The Mother Who Arranged It

The ring of stones was full of lamps and the whole co-op was standing on the headland and Mairéad was sitting on the flat rock with the telephone receiver in her hand and her silver hair down over her black coat.

“There is a thing I have to say,” I said, “and I am going to say it before the moon is up and before any wolf on this headland says another word about a hunt.” I took the bundle of letters out of my coat and held them up. “These are the letters that came from Galway to Maire's cottage every week since April and every one of them is in the same hand and every one of them is addressed to the Alpha of Dún Aonghasa. The last one came on the twelfth of June and it said, the woman from Dublin is to be hunted on the headland at the full moon and the wolf who takes her is the wolf who keeps the seat.”

The whole headland was silent.

“A wolf in Galway wrote that,” I said. “And a wolf in Galway sent the hunters down this coast in 1995 and 1996 and a wolf in Galway signed the payment to Kelleher and Sons in August 1995 and the Keeper of the Rolls put his name at the bottom of it. And there is a thing about that payment that I have been turning over since the boathouse. It was countersigned by the enforcer of this region and the enforcer of this region in 1995 was Korkut and Korkut was in this village for three days in June and he has been taking money from this pack for eighteen years.” I put the letters down on the rock. “But there is a thing about the hunters that no one has asked and that I am going to ask now. The hunters were paid in August 1995 and they went north and they put a scare into a pack and the scare went wrong and a wolf died. And the payment was signed by the Alpha and countersigned by Korkut and signed at the bottom by the Keeper. And the Alpha who signed it was not a woman in Galway. It was a woman in a black coat who was sitting in that chair in the hall.”

Mairéad did not move.

“You signed it,” I said. “You signed the payment to the hunters and you signed it in your own hand and Arthur drew up the paper and you put it in the book. And there is a thing about that which is worse than a signature. You were the Alpha who called the hunters to this coast and you were the Alpha who called them again in March and you were the Alpha who sent Tom up to the coastguard cottage with the woman with red hair on the night of the claim.”

The whole headland stirred.

“I signed it,” Mairéad said. “I signed the paper in 1995 and I signed it because Korkut put it in front of me and because there was a pack in the north that was making trouble for the shore and because I was told that a scare would keep them quiet.” She looked up. “And there is a thing about that which I have been carrying since 1995 and that I am going to say now in front of the whole co-op. The scare went wrong because the hunters were not told to scare. They were told to kill. And the wolf who told them to kill was not me and it was not Korkut and it was not the woman in Galway. It was a hunter called Owen who had been paid twice for the same job by two different wolves and who took the second payment and did the killing.”

I turned round. Owen was standing at the back of the ring with his cap in his hand and his face gone the colour of the stones.

“That is not true,” he said. “I have never been paid twice for a job in my life.”

“Then there is a thing I have to say and it is the thing that has been in front of me since the pier,” I said. “The men from Sligo came down this coast in 1995 and they went north and a wolf died. And the payment for that job was signed by the Alpha and countersigned by the enforcer and it came out of the co-op's account and it went to a company in Sligo. And there is a second payment that was made in the same month out of a different account and it went to a different company and it is in the file in Galway and it is signed by the Keeper of the Rolls and it is countersigned by a man whose name is Kern.” I looked at the whole co-op. “The hunters were paid twice. Once by this pack out of the co-op's money and once by Galway out of the Keeper's money. And a wolf who is paid twice for the same job is a wolf who does the job properly and a job done properly in 1995 was a wolf dead in the north.”

Owen put his cap on and did not say anything.

“And there is a thing about March,” I said. “The woman with red hair came to this village in March and she went to the hall and she was in the car on the night of the claim and she put a rope round my sister's neck. And there is a thing about her that the whole co-op has not heard. She was not a schoolteacher from Dublin and she was not a banished wolf and she was not a claimant. She was a woman who had been paid to come to this village and do a job and the job was to put a claimant in the water and to make it look like a sentence of the headland. And the wolf who paid her was a woman in Galway who has been paying women to do jobs in this village since 1961.” I looked at Mairéad. “And the sentence of the headland was signed in Korkut's name and countersigned by Kern and there is a wolf in this village who signed it in a hall with a boy behind the table with his hands over his ears and who said, this was ordered, and the wolf who ordered it was the woman in Galway.”

The whole headland was silent.

Mairéad stood up off the rock.

“The sentence of the headland was ordered by Eileen,” she said. “I signed it in Korkut's name because she told me to and because she has been telling me what to do since I was nineteen years old and because a woman who has been told what to do since she was nineteen does not stop when she is forty two.” She put her hand on the rock. “And there is a thing about March that I have not said and that I am going to say now. The men from Sligo were on this coast in March. They were in the north cove for three days before the claim and they were paid by a woman in Galway and they were told to be ready. And when the claim was made and the woman was taken and the sentence was signed, it was not me who called them. It was the woman in Galway and she called them from a house in Galway and they came down to the cove and they stood on the slip and they waited for a body.”

The whole co-op was silent.

And then Owen said, “There is a thing I have to say and then I am going to put my hands behind my head and let the co-op do what it likes with me. I was on that slip in March. I was paid by a woman in Galway to take a woman off the rocks and put her on a boat and take her north and I did it and she is alive because of me. And there is a thing about the woman in Galway that I have not told a living soul. She is not a wolf who writes letters in a house in Galway. She is a wolf who has been in this village and who has been in the north and who has been on this coast for thirty six years. And there is a thing about her that I have known since 1995 and that I have been paid to keep quiet. She has a mark on her throat that is broken and she has been in a pack and the pack was this pack and the wolf who broke the mark was a wolf in this village.”

The whole headland was silent.

“Who?” I said.

Owen looked at Mairéad.

“Ask the Alpha,” he said. “Ask her who broke her sister's mark in 1961.”

Mairéad stood on the flat rock with the telephone receiver in her hand and her silver hair down and her face grey.

“My mother broke it,” she said. “My mother broke my sister's mark in 1961 with a false bond and a false scent and my sister has been a wolf with a broken mark since she was nineteen years old and she has been in Galway writing letters and calling hunts and putting money in banks and she has never once set foot in this village since 1961.” She put the receiver down on the stone. “And there is a thing I have to say and then I am going to sit down on this rock and the co-op can do what it likes with me. My sister is called Eileen and she has been the Alpha of this pack since 1961 and I have been the woman who signed the papers and the woman who said this was ordered. And the wolf who ordered the sentence of the headland and the hunters and the men from Sligo and the rope in the boathouse was my sister and I have been her hand for thirty six years.”

The whole co-op went up. The whole of it, forty wolves on their feet at once, and Tom was shouting and Hannah was shouting and Arthur had his stick up and the eleven wolves behind Mairéad had shifted and were standing with their heads down.

And then, from the track below the ring, a woman’s voice said, “There is a thing about the sentence of the headland that the whole co-op has not heard.”

The whole ring turned round.

It was Maire. She had come up the track with a lamp in her hand and her grey plait down her back and her face was white and she was holding a paper.

“This came to my cottage on the evening bus,” she said. “It is from Galway and it is from the Keeper of the Rolls and it is addressed to the co-op. And it says the sentence of the headland was signed by the Alpha and countersigned by the enforcer and confirmed by the Keeper and it says the woman Siobhan was executed under the law of the Council and that the law of the Council is the law of this pack and that a wolf who says otherwise is a rogue.” She held the paper up. “It is signed by the Keeper and it has the seal of the Council on it and it came on the bus with a letter for the Alpha that says the wolves who have been asking questions in this village are to be put out of the territory before the sun is up or the pack will be under trusteeship by the evening.”

The whole headland was silent.

Mairéad looked at the paper.

“That is the trap,” she said. “That is the trap that has been set since April. My sister has been waiting for a wolf to come into this village and pull a safe out of a well and make a claim and put the whole of it in front of a co-op. And when the whole of it was in front of the co-op she was going to send a paper from Galway that says the law is the law and the wolf who says otherwise is a rogue.” She stood up. “And there is a thing about the paper that she has not thought of. It is signed by the Keeper of the Rolls and the Keeper of the Rolls is a man called Kern and Kern has been taking money out of this pack since 1961 and the whole of it is in a file in Galway with his name on every page.”

The whole co-op was silent.

And then, from the dark below the ring, a boat’s engine turned over.