Hi there,

I hope you all had a nice period of festivities and a good transition into 2020! :)

Finally I managed to write a little further. Couldn't let them dwell forever with this archivist in the old Abbey, couldn't I?

Alas, they have to stay there a short while longer, but at least, things are progressing now.

Enjoy the reading,

Far

14. Chapter - A fishing hut might come in handy

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Outside Cong Abbey, about 11.40 am

Max had lingered behind some bushes to the right of the portal, still near the parking lot, while she observed the interaction between Auggie, Logan and the archivist. After the big portal door was closed, she swept her gaze around but couldn't make out any human movement or noise. So she began to move further to her right, deeper into the park around the abbey towards the ruins of the old fishing hut.

The park consisted mostly of green lawn with some low brushes and hedges. Nothing extraordinary, but a bad choice for taking cover. The possibilities for Max were strongly diminished. The river was bordering the whole area in the shape of a loop. Beyond the river behind the Abbey Max could adumbrate a forest. At least near the river in the back of the park Max spotted some high and old trees. But they were too far away to come in handy. No, she had to bridge the gap to the fishing hut as smoothly and fast as possible and then take cover there.

Luckily, there really seemed to be nobody nearby as she started to run as fast as she could to the withered red ruins which were situated on an island in the river, that had been built artificially in the middle ages. During the run Max turned around to look for possible pursuers, but there was still nothing to be seen. ‚Good', she thought to herself. Just a few glimpses later Max jumped inside the ruins and crouched down. It was a good thing that there were some small window openings in the ruins, where she could peer out toward the abbey entrance and the path towards the parking lot and the street.

As Max was sitting there inside the old building, she mused about how it must have been like for the fishing monks at their time. How many men had been sitting at exactly this spot over the ages, all day waiting for the fishes to bite?

Waiting was not exactly within her branch of superskills, and thinking about the poor monks gave her a little humble feeling as time passed on.

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Inside Cong Abbey, around noon

Logan tried to push properly into the room, but after he managed the little step down with the help of Auggie, he could only reach the first table to his left hand. The room was so fully stuffed with boxes full of all kinds of paper, books and manuscripts that all the pathways were far too narrow for his wheelchair to pass through. Left of the entrance was a recess with no boxes and one reading table that provided a little bit more space towards the walls.

Logan sighed and installed himself at the table with the back to the wall, so that he could observe the most of the big room. Only the space to his left was invisible due to the high shelves that blocked his view. He put discretely Auggie's hand on a chair right next to him, so Auggie could also sit down.

The archivist still didn't seem to notice Auggie's blindness. That was good, Logan thought to himself.

The archivist then addressed him and asked him with still a little bit of annoyance in his tone: „And what are you searching for exactly?" He was standing opposite of Logan, supporting himself on the table.

Logan gave him in short sentences the trigger words of their research so far - including the family names of the Slievemore stone - and the archivist went away to dig into the papers.

After a while the archivist came back with full hands, saying: „For the White family of Slievemore I couldn't find a lot at that short notice, and it's tricky to be sure those are the papers of the correct family, since it is such a common name. If you want more about them, you need to give me more time to prepare." He lift up one eyebrow and shot Logan a dunning glance.

Then he continued, obviously satisfied with himself: „But for the other names, especially for the Toolins, I found a good deal. Here you go."

He smiled at Logan, as he pushed a lot of the papers and three books in different sizes into his direction.

Logan smiled back with his most friendly and handsome smile he could muster.

„Thanks a lot! Now, while I have a look at these, is it possible that you try to find something about the shipping traffic in combination with the Marconi station?"

Auggie nodded to that. While they were already there, why not try to dig on his enigma as well?

The archivist now lifted both eyebrows and gave them a look. After a short while he asked: „You are aware that this is a church archive, are you?"

Logan and Auggie nodded eagerly and as innocently as schoolboys.

Auggie answered in his most diplomatic tone: „Yeah, well, it could have been worth a shot, right? You never know…."

The archivist nodded. „You are right, you never know what you might find. I'll have a short look, but don't be disappointed if there is nothing."

Now it was Auggie's turn to smile contented. „Sure. But thanks anyway for searching!"

As the archivist went away, Logan was already buried deep inside the papers of the Toolin family.

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Castlebar hospital, at about the same time

The sharp chemical smell and the muggy air were always the worst aspect of her visits to the hospital. Niamh drew a last air of fresh breath outside the grey building before she entered it. This time she had left the children with her favorite neighbour, she wanted to be alone with Kieran. Luckily she already knew her directions from the last visits to Kieran. He shared his room with another man who was in his late sixties and had a hip replacement. They apparently got along quite well, although Kieran was not yet very social or even talkative. He was still in pain and therefore often drowsy by the medicine and he slept a lot.

Niamh reached the door of Kieran's room, which was situated on the second floor at the end of a long corridor on the left side of the building. Towards the window front at the end, the corridor opened to a small waiting area with a three-piece suit next to a low plastic table in the middle, which was laced with magazines and papers. Directly below the window was additionally a small children's corner with a couple of used looking toys.

She knocked on the door, listened a short while and entered as there was no response. To her surprise, Kieran's bed was empty and his roommate seemed to be deeply asleep. Carefully Niamh closed the door, stood a short while uncertain in the corridor and took a seat in the waiting area. In any case, Kieran must pass through the corridor after his treatment or whatever he left the room for. She let her gaze meditatively browse around and then got hooked by a magazine cover of "salmon & trout", which lay there on the plastic table. The lead article was anyhow about fishing in the bay next to the Marconi station. It peaked her interest. She knew that Kieran and Auggie had been researching the Marconi station and also the nearby shipping routes.

She took the newspaper, tried to read the article, but it was really not her subject. She knew, that she had to get this magazine to Kieran somehow. Quickly, she looked around the corridor, but nobody was there. There was a totally absence of life shortly after noon in this part of the building. Also no surveillance cameras, she noted gladly. Then she rolled the magazine and let it slip into her purse.

Smilingly she then grabbed another magazine with more interesting subjects for her and waited.

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Inside Cong Abbey, a quarter to 1 pm

Auggie heard that Logan scribbled incessantly into his small notice pad. He didn't want to disturb him and let his flow of thoughts drift along while he listened to all the interesting small noises the building, the archivist, Logan and even the wind outside created.

It was meditative and he didn't feel the time pass away until finally Auggie was pulled out of his state by the shuffling steps of the archivist who came back.

"Yes, sir, as I already said, I am afraid that there is next to nothing on this subject in our archive. I found just this."

With these words, he pushed a small folder on the table in Auggie's direction. Auggie said quite grateful: "Thank you sir, I am very pleased that you took the effort to find it!"

With these words, he put his hand onto the folder - thankfully the archivist had made noises while pushing it over the table, so he could know the rough position of it.

The archivist shrugged. "Don't thank me too early. It's not a lot, really."

"I will have a look nonetheless.", Auggie responded smilingly.

With that, the archivist nodded and left them alone once again. Logan was impressed, how sovereign Auggie did handle the potentially awkward situation.

He said softly: "Here, let me change your folder with mine, so that I can read it and you can pretend to read."

They quickly switched folders and Logan began to have a look into it.

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Outside Cong Abbey, about 1.15 pm

After a time period that seemed to be ages for Max, she saw him coming through the now starting drizzle. The man was wearing a dark blue woolen pullover with a hood, black trousers and - Max sighed as she saw it - he held some sort of pistol in his hand. Max couldn't tell which exact gun it was because of the distance, but it didn't matter a lot, considering. The man was approaching the entrance of the abbey and then took cover at exact the same spot where Max had taken cover beforehand, as she observed the interaction of Logan and Auggie with the archivist.

Max sighed again. Fine.

Now they could drop out of the building any minute and the killer was sitting right between them!

‚Just Great!', Max thought, ‚and how on earth shall I rescue you this time?'