Chapter 3: The Dublin Road

Norm Hailman was cold. When he got off the boat on the southern side of the lough there had been no one to meet him, like he’d been told there would. The boat didn’t wait. Norm sat down in the lee of a wall for about an hour, hanging around in case someone turned up. They didn’t. As it got lighter, Norm wanted to be on the move.

He walked about fifteen miles as dawn turned into morning and then afternoon. He felt like he was being watched all the time, even though there weren’t many people about. He caught himself worrying more about the reaction of women than men, even though it was an irrational response where he now was. He still hadn’t got used to the idea that he was beyond the reach of New Order.

To reduce his paranoia he changed his route but skirting around the villages and farms added miles. He couldn’t avoid the roads completely though and that was another source of worry. It seemed like that a Garda patrol was going to drive up at any minute. He wasn’t sure what he would say to them if they stopped him. There hadn’t been any hints from the team that had got him here. All they had said, was “you’ll be all right, don’t worry about it.” Should he declare himself as some sort of political refugee? Did not wanting to be buggered by your girlfriend with an eight inch strap-on dildo constitute a valid asylum claim under the Geneva convention? He wasn’t sure, but he was fairly confident that he didn’t want to discuss it with an Irish police officer anyway.

It began to get dark. He found a barn to rest up in overnight. November in County Cavan was no place to be out overnight if you could avoid it. Then he headed south-west from Belcoo to get as far as he could from the border. He followed the edge of Lough Allen and knew if he passed by Leitrim he’d eventually get to the Dublin road. In as much as he had any sort of plan, he reckoned his best bet would be to find his way to Dublin and get some sort of work there. The further south he got from the border, the less likely he would be to run into Garda patrols. He hung on in the barn until late in the morning.

Travelling was not as easy as he had thought it would be. There were some suspicious looks as he went through the smaller villages. He knew he looked dishevelled and unshaven already. He tried to walk as if he had every right to be there and knew just what he was doing. It seemed to be working. Nobody challenged him. Maybe they were put off by the smell he seemed to have picked up in the barn, though, he thought.

He was well out in the countryside, miles from anywhere and thinking about maybe changing over to moving at night and resting up during the day when a van slowed down on the road beside him. Norm wasn’t pleased to be attracting attention. “Are you looking for a lift?” the driver asked.