Page 148 of Hang on St. Christopher

“DI Duffy, Carrick RUC. I’m going to need to look at the security tapes from yesterday.”

Two hours of scrolling through the tapes, and I had a blurry image of passenger John Smith. Six feet one, twelve stone, sandy hair, white shirt, no tie, brown sport jacket, brown trousers, black oxfords.

Last flight of the night to Knock.

A lecture from the airport fuzz: “You won’t be allowed to use your weapon in the Irish Republic. You must report immediately to the local Garda station and?—”

Yeah, yeah.

Eleven p.m. A Dash 7 turboprop aircraft. I was the only passenger.

I’d been to Knock before. Twice. And I wasn’t even a good Catholic.

An Cnoc, meaningthe Hill,or, more recently, Cnoc Mhuire, “Hill of (the Virgin) Mary.”

As boring and poor and damp as every other village in this part of County Mayo until August 21, 1879, at approximately eight p.m., when the Virgin Mary, together with Saint Joseph and John the Evangelist, appeared to fifteen of the villagers for over two hours during a rainstorm. The villagers had not read David Hume on miracles, nor were they surprised by the Virgin’s pale skin or her ability to speak Irish.

The shrine grew in popularity throughout the twentieth century, and eventually an airport and a new church were built. By the time of Pope John Paul’s centenary visit in 1979, Knock had become one of Europe’s major Catholic Marian shrines, alongside Lourdes and Fatima.

A million visitors a year now, either to give thanks or to beg for Our Lady’s intercession.

As I said, I was an old hand.

Airport to the village by taxi. A visit to the basilica, where at this time of night (midnight) in the cold drizzle there were still two nuns and the mother of a severely handicapped boy in a wheelchair. Everyone was praying except, probably, the boy in the wheelchair.

I crossed myself and thanked the Virgin and John the Evangelist and Saint Joseph and Saint Christopher the protector of travelers and Saint Michael the Archangel, the patron saint of policemen.

“Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in muliéribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen,” I muttered to myself, and walked back down the hill.

I ignored the new church, which was an architectural monstrosity, and headed straight for the hotels. There were quite a few hotels in Knock now, and it took until three in the morning before my printout of the airport security camera footage bore fruit.

“Oh, yes, that’s Mr. Daley, an American gentlemen,” said the night manager of the Holiday Inn at Carrowmore.

“Is he still here, by any chance?”

The concierge shook his head. “No. But you only just missed him. He checked out yesterday morning. Or rather, the day before yesterday since we’re after midnight now.”

“Rental car or airport?”

“Oh, he was flying out. We had to call him a taxi.”

“What time was that?”

“First flight out. Seven in the morning.”

“He say what part of America he was from or what he did for a living?”

“Oh, no, Mr. Daley kept very much to himself.”

“I’ll need a taxi to the airport.”

Knock Airport at 3:30 a.m. Every shop closed, no flights due in or out until nine, security reduced to two men and a dog.

But if you kick up enough of a fuss, the people will come.

After a few hours, I found Mr. Daley’s face on the security tape of a noon Aer Lingus flight to Inverness. There wasn’t another flight from Knock to Inverness until noon today, but there was a nine a.m. flight from Shannon Airport. The man matching Mr. Daley’s description had called himself John Williams on this flight. No ID had been required on the flight from Knock to Inverness, but John Williams was the name on the ticket.

Need to rent a car and drive to Shannon and fly to Inverness.

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