Chapter 24

(LONDON – 1984)

Danny thought it was odd to be closing out that momentous year of 1984 in the heart of his opponent's homeland but the common sense of hiding in the open was so ingrained with his persona that he accepted it as the best course of action at a time when he had so few options remaining.

There was absolutely no doubt left in his mind that the familiar haunts in Belfast were nothing less than a trap from which there was no respite. He was equally as unsure even down in the southern free zone because there were so many informers and undercover operatives mixed into the general populace that he was even suspicious of any priest under the age of forty.

He thought it might be a good idea to visit his cousins living in one of the less popular areas in London proper hoping that they would not ask too many questions and were as secretive as his other relatives back home.

His cousins were the Kelly's and there were a lot of them.

That was probably a good thing because one more Irishman in the pack would hardly be noticed by the authorities unless they were on a state of high alert. Fortunately, the explosion at Brighton was not front page news any longer in the newspapers across the nation and was relegated to small updates on page three or page seven or some ridiculous interview with a so-called "witness" that probably was nowhere near the scene of the blast at that exact time.

He exited the bus on the corner that matched the instructions given to him over the phone by the garrulous Patrick Kelly. Patrick was the oldest of the Kelly offspring and was at least a decade older than Danny although he still had that "young lad" persona that made him eternally young. It was a personality that would be sure to disappear as soon as he settled down and got married to a decent, God-fearing woman. He was the sort of man that needed the firm hand of a sober female to keep on the straight and narrow and his ma was too filled with other concerns to worry about a grown man of a roving nature when it came to female companionship.

Danny remembered Patrick as being a trouble-maker of sorts when they lived nearby back in Ireland but he kind of liked that about him because he was always demonstrating his total lack of respect for any sort of authority either from the government or from the church. That appealed to Danny's hidden nature buried deep underneath his altar boy exterior and that look of innocence that masked his fierce emotions.

He asked a teenaged girl for directions to the Kelly's street and got a staccato reply in barely understood English that reminded him of the difficult-to-understand Derry accent that mystified him even when he wasn't in his cups. Still, her arms and her hands got the message across and he shouldered his carryall finding the house with very little difficulty. The first thing he noticed on the street outside was the chaos of playing children with their non-stop energy and continuous shouting with jarring peals of laughter that would be certain to raise the dead if a cemetery was in the neighborhood.

They were playing football of a sort.

It was obviously with the rules of the street and made no difference if you were a boy or a girl as long as you could kick the ball with some degree of skill. He thought back to his short-lived childhood and remembered how exciting it was to play such made-up games with the confidence that it was the only way the game should be played. They paid absolutely no attention to him because, after all, he was only another "grown-up" and grown-ups were a complete bore and easy to ignore.

The building was one of those "flat-roof" affairs with bricks that had certainly seen better days. It was one of many all lined up in perfect "dressed down" order from the corner to the unbelievably high chain link fence at the far end that established a border with the railroad track. The trains were so frequent and familiar to all the residents that they barely noticed them any longer. Visitors like Danny found them to be quite disconcerting with their noisy passage and rumbling shake underfoot like some mini-earthquake of unknown strength. They came and went with full authority like unwelcome guests in a public display of unconcerned separateness.

The pavement was both cracked and marred with disjointed chalk drawings and outlines of games familiar from a long-forgotten youth. The empty cans of beer on the stoop were a certain sign that he had indeed found his cousin's happy home. Danny never knew a male Kelly to be long without a can or a glass in his hand opining about the faults of the world around him.

He was reaching out to push the buzzer on the side of the front door when the door burst open and a pair of laughing young girls ran out to run down the cracked sidewalk with flashing legs and shorter than usual skirts that refused to stay down in respectable discreetness in front of the rowdy boys with rude stares and dirty mouths. Danny had to laugh at their total lack of respectful behavior when grown-ups were not around to instill a sense of decorum. It was just like he had behaved as a child even when he had graduated to being an altar boy of some standing in the eyes of the parish priest.

He looked at the wide-open door but still resolutely pushed the buzzer hoping to bring someone in charge to the front door. It surprised him that the buzzer was inoperative and he could hear no sound at all inside the long hallway with the faded paintings hanging on paint-chipped walls in dire need of some attention. Since there was no other way to draw attention other than making a racket and banging on the doorway, he did just that and shouted out,