The Stop After Dunmor

Eamon kept one hand on the office door and the other away from the telephone. Outside, the county vehicle idled with its passenger door open. Its headlights washed the churchyard wall and made the wet stones shine.

“We can let it go,” Rachel said. “Or we can go with him.”

Declan was looking at the vehicle’s radio aerial. “It’ll go whether I’m in it or not.”

“That’s what we don’t know,” I said. “It may be waiting for you to get in.”

He looked at me. “And if it is?”

I had no useful answer. I could not tell whether the route needed his body, his name, or only a listener. It had already used his name to open the vehicle. I wanted to keep him in the office, away from the thing that had called him. The telephone had rung there. The county vehicle had answered. The office was no safer just because we had shut its door.

Eamon glanced at the county vehicle through the window. “I can keep this door closed.”

“Stay here,” Rachel told him. “Don’t answer anything. Even if it sounds like us.”

“I understand.” His gaze settled on me. “You should know I won’t be able to keep the line from ringing.”

“I know.”

The telephone rang again, and Eamon flinched. He stayed by the door.

Declan stepped outside. Rachel followed. I paused long enough to look at the open ledger on Eamon’s desk. The page held our names and that shallow, uninked groove beneath them. I wanted to take it. I wanted the paper in my hands, where I could examine what had been pressed into it. Rachel was already waiting by the vehicle, and the phone rang a second time.

I left the ledger where it was.

The passenger door had unlocked. No keys sat in the ignition, but the engine was running, its idle steady. Declan stood beside the door without getting in.

“If we go,” he said, “we go together.”

Rachel got into the front passenger seat. Declan climbed into the rear. I took the seat beside him and pulled the door shut. The interior smelled of damp wool and cold metal. A folded county map sat in a plastic pocket behind the front seat. Its edges had softened with use.

I leaned forward and looked beneath the dashboard. “Give me a minute.”

“Mark,” Rachel said.

“I’m not stopping the car. I’m checking what it’s using.”

The radio had a small fuse panel beneath it. I found the radio fuse and pulled it. The display went black. The engine continued to idle. For a few seconds, nothing else changed.