It was her, wasn't it? (Inspiration point).

It was the way she moved her head that allowed him to recognise her from such a distance, but he didn't believe his eyes. He couldn't be seeing her. It couldn't be her, she was dead, killed by a bullet five years ago in a street in Belfast. But it looked so much like her. The way her shoulder length, thick auburn hair sort of bounced up and down as she walked. Her head slightly tilted to one side, her slim, straight figure rising and falling in time with each click of her high heels. She walked like a model on the catwalk….it had to be her, or his memory was playing tricks with him. He quickened his pace in an effort to catch up with her. He would never have any peace if he didn't satisfy himself by seeing her face close up.

They had met six years ago, he had been on secondment to the Belfast branch of his bank and had spent the weekend at a quiet village on the coast to the north east of the city. That Sunday morning he had been sitting on a rock watching his beachcasting rod, more in hope than anticipation of catching anything. She had appeared from the far end of the beach throwing a ball for her dog to chase. The dog had raced after the ball and gathered it up into his mouth but instead of returning to her had dropped it expectantly at his feet. He did what anyone would do, he picked the ball up and threw it down towards the waves gently lapping the shoreline. The huge Irish Wolfhound enthusiastically bounded after it.

"Sure, you'll catch nothing there," she had told him, "The best place to fish is just around the corner, on the other side of Inspiration Point." He had thanked her and replied that he doubted if he would catch anything anywhere. They had then walked together over the headland to the small pile of rocks that jutted out into the sea and having put fresh bait on his hook he re-cast the line into the rising tide. He caught two fine sea bass, the first he had ever caught. They agreed to eat them for lunch and returned to the tiny village together. She told him she lived at the far end of the main street, his rented cottage was at the end nearest the sea, she knew it well, it belonged she told him to her auntie who spent most of her time in Belfast where she had shop that made and sold curtains.

For him it had been love at first sight! He couldn't get her out of his mind and at every opportunity he had returned to the village to see her. They always met on the beach in the same spot where he had first seen her. He was sure she returned his feelings but there was a problem, she was a devout Roman Catholic, he was Jewish. Even so he had tried to rationalize his thoughts, it wouldn't be the first time such a marriage had taken place and wouldn't, he was quite certain, be the last. But she was adamant "Yes!" she had told him, she did return his feelings but "No!" she couldn't take him to meet her family, they simply wouldn't accept the situation and she couldn't bring herself to put them through what would have been for them a great ordeal. Finally she agreed to join him in Belfast. She would stay at her Auntie Annie's, she took a far more lenient view of things than her parents. At least that was progress he had thought, but her strict catholic upbringing had prevented the sort of progress he had hoped for. He had never met her Auntie Annie and was never invited to visit the shop where she lived, still they were happy for the year before that terrible afternoon in the City Center.

It was a Thursday afternoon, much like any other but this one was to change the course of his life. Closing time was four o'clock, at three-fifty-five he found himself staring down the barrel of a sawn-off shotgun that was poking though the grill of his cashier's position. The Bank's instructions to it's employees were very clear. "Keep calm and do as you are told, do not try to be a hero." Three more masked men spread out behind the first and another thrusting his way to front demanded in a thick Irish accent that the door to cashier's room be opened, then having barged through shouted at the manager to open the safe. The terrified manager willingly complied with the order and the robbers piled all of the cash into haversacks that they then slung onto their backs and having cleared the entire contents of both the safe and the tills backed out into the street. As soon as the last of them had disappeared through he door he hit the alarm button beneath his position and bells and sirens shrieked into life. Pandemonium broke out as the staff of the bank rushed to the back doors. The men white faced, the women screaming. The manager grabbed the telephone and reported the details to the police. The raiders were gone but the tension remained.

In reality it was only a few minutes before the Police were banging on the back door but it seemed like hours. He wanted to get out of that building, he could think of nothing but the sight of those twin barrels threatening to end his life and the pale blue eyes staring malevolently at him through the balaclava mask. He really did feel that he had stared death in face. But he had lived! The thought filled him with joy and he wanted only to get out of that building and rush to the curtain shop to tell her he was OK.

The street was filled with people rushing about in all directions, he realized with horror they were all running for cover. At far end of the street parked across the road was a British Army personnel carrier,it had responded to a call from the police for help in an armed IRA attack on a bank. From the slits in the side pointed at least half a dozen machine guns. Crouched in doorways along the street were the raiders, each trying to open a door to gain entry to a building and so escape the threat of a gun battle they clearly wouldn't win. One by one they disappeared into doorways that seemed to open for them rather too easily. There were just two left, the first made a zig-zagging run for another doorway now open further along the street, he didn't make it, a single shot brought him down and he lay where he fell, motionless. The last of them realizing that the he no chance to escape held up his hands and began to walk towards the soldiers.

That was when he saw her, it was her, he could tell even from that distance, the deep auburn hair, the walk, the tilt of her head. She kept walking as if unaware of the drama enacting around her, out of the side street she came and walked towards the now surrendering robber. He seeing a possible way out of his dilemma grabbed her and producing a hand-gun from his pocket, held it to her head. The raider's arm around her neck, they both backed towards the side street from which she had emerged. Three spiteful sounding shots rang out, the first hit the robber in the side of his head throwing him backwards, the second hit him in the chest as he lay on the ground and the third…hit her in the chest. She collapsed beside her captor, blood from both together on the pavement in death as they had been seconds before in life. Soldiers spilled out of the carrier gathered both bodies onto stretchers and disappeared just as quickly as they had come, back into the safety of the armoured vehicle.

That was the lat time he saw her. He frantically contacted every hospital in the City and for months afterwards haunted the offices of the police and the army. Neither could or would help. It was as if she had never existed. They admitted that they had shot and killed two robbers that afternoon and had subsequently recovered the bank's stolen money. They even admitted that they knew the names of the other robbers and would be apprehending them soon, and they eventually did, but a civilian? There were no records of a civilian being killed in the action and no reports of a woman being admitted to hospital with gunshot wounds. He went to the curtain shop to ask her auntie if she could throw any light ion the matter but found that the shop was closed and looked as though it had been derelict for years. He discovered much the same on his return to the village where they had met. The house she said she lived in was empty and looked as if it had been so for years and no one in the village knew of a girl fitting the description of his love.

The Love of His Life had simply disappeared. Until today!!! And there she was a couple of hundred yards in front of him, in Oxford Street, in London. He broke into a run. He must catch up with her.

It was her! He knew it! He caught up with her on the corner, she turned and smiled him. "Hello my love," she said in her wonderful, gentle Irish brogue. "I'm so glad to see you, I've missed you so much!" He reached out to her. "I've missed you too," he said "But it's all OK now." They clung to each other and both wept tears of pure joy.

The witnesses all agreed. It wasn't the driver's fault. The man just appeared out of nowhere, raced across the road and into the path of the oncoming car. The driver had no chance to miss him. The paramedics did all they could but realized from the start that their task was hopeless. The strange thing was, they told others at the hospital, he must have been in terrible pain despite the drugs they gave him but he was smiling right up to the time he died.