The Private Wound

by Nicholas Blake

  “Why should Kevin get so angry then?”

  “It was all the other questions upset him. Who was the fellow he met in Galway? Where? Why? He had the answers, of course. Another time Concannon came—it was only yesterday—he started pestering me. What state was Kevin in when he got back? Had he ever run out of petrol before? I said Kevin was tired and irritable when he got home, and went straight to bed. D’you know, we’ve had Concannon’s men searching this house,” she exclaimed indignantly. “It made me wild. I was hard set explaining it to the children.”

  Maire poured herself another whiskey absent-mindedly, then apologised and gave me one too. She was flushed. I perceived she was not used to drinking.

  “You were worried by Kevin arriving so late?”

  “Worried? Why, I even went out to—”

  Maire clapped her hand to her mouth, in an absurd schoolgirlish gesture.

  “Went out to look for him?” I prompted.

  “Now I’ve given myself away, haven’t I?” she replied, too brightly. “It was all right. Katie sleeps in for the children.”

  She took another gulp of the whiskey. “It’s desperate strong. Oh, I forgot to put any water in it. I’ll be leading myself into bad ways.”

  “How far did you go, Maire?”

  “How far? Oh, I see. I took my bicycle a mile or two along the road. I thought he’d be coming back that way, not the main road. I was in a great terror he’d had an accident.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Half ten? Eleven? I don’t remember exactly. He’d said he’d be home by nine, you see. Then I thought, well he may have taken the main road after all, and he’ll find me out, so I bicycled back in a lather. I got home only a little before him.”

  “Did you tell Concannon this?”

  “I did not. It’s no business of his.”

  “But you told Kevin?”

  “I did so. It made him wild.”

  “Why on earth should it?”

  “He went on as if—as if I’d been spying on him that night.”

  The word “spying” pointed up a falsity I had vaguely felt in Maire’s narration. Sipping my whiskey, while she went out to greet the children who had just returned from their picnic, I sought to define it. Something about her manner had not rung true: it was almost as if she were repeating a story she had got by heart.

  Then light broke. Kevin had returned a little before midnight, Maire only a little before him! Therefore, on her bicycle, she should have caught him up on the road. She had left the house at 10.30 to 11. She would reach the end of the track to Lissawn in about ten minutes (“I bicycled a mile or two along the road”). What was she doing, then, for the best part of half an hour?

  When Maire came back into the room, I said at once, “Perhaps you were.”

  “Were what? I don’t understand.”

  “Spying on Kevin.”

  The green eyes flashed at me. She looked almost beautiful, with the colour on her high cheek-bones. Her mouth was trembling. Before she had time to speak, I went on, “Jealousy doesn’t shock me, Maire dear. How long did you spend in the Lissawn demesne that night?”

  For a moment I thought she was going to hit me. “How dare you? You must be out of your mind! I never set foot—”

  I interrupted, pointing out the discrepancy of the times. “You see, Maire, either you were bound to overtake Kevin on the road, or else you bicycled along the track beside the Lissawn gates and went home that way.”

  She held out a bit longer, but I could not afford to relax: if she was in a trap, I was in a far worse one. “This is between us two, Maire. Please be honest with me.”

  Then at last it came out, incoherently, piece by piece. For some weeks before, she had noticed in her husband a nerviness, and a reticence unusual even for him. “He said once he thought there were men following him.” The day he drove to Galway, Maire felt an uneasiness, a duplicity about him—and a kind of hangdog bravado, which always had aroused her suspicions about him and Harriet. She even felt something wrong about the naturalness of his references to the Galway trip and his affectionate leave-taking. “He seemed excited underneath, perhaps a little apprehensive.”

  Alone in the room after the children had gone to bed, jealousy worked on her like a slow poison. Presently she could stand it no longer. She was convinced that Kevin had either gone off with Harriet or was to meet her that night. She rang Lissawn House. Flurry answered. “Is Harry there?” “She is. Will I fetch her?” Maire said no, fudging up some message he could give Harriet.

  Her mind was not set at rest. When Kevin had not arrived by 10.30 she knew he must be dallying with Harriet. She bicycled to Lissawn, and crept around in the demesne, listening, peering through the trees.

  “And he wasn’t there?”

  “Please God, he wasn’t. They might have been in one of the outhouses, though. I didn’t dare go near the house.”

  “Or the river?” I asked carefully.

  “I didn’t walk the length of it. I tried to keep hidden among the trees most of the time.” Was this said a bit evasively?

  “You might have seen her body—on that green spit Flurry fished from the first day I met you.”

  Maire shuddered. “Was that where?—I didn’t know. I wasn’t close to that bit of the river. Oh, Dominic, I feel so ashamed of myself. Spying after Kevin. I must have been mad that night.”

  “So you saw nobody at all?”

  “Nobody. And heard nothing. Wait now—as I was cycling back, I saw a drunk fella ahead, only a few hundred yards from the town. I didn’t recognise him—my bicycle lamp isn’t very good. Then I saw the fella was reeling about in the road. I didn’t dare pass him, so I waited a couple of minutes till he’d gone into the town.”

  “You ought to tell Concannon.”

  Maire looked at me in consternation. “You mean, he was the murderer?”

  “Well, some drunken tramp might have wandered into the demesne—tried to rape her. That’s the sort of man Concannon’d be looking for.”

  “Oh, I could never tell the superintendent. What’d he think of me at all, after telling him such lies.”

  “You wouldn’t want an innocent man hanged for Harriet’s murder.”

  “I wouldn’t want anyone hanged for it, God forgive me.”

  “I told you, the people here think I did it. Concannon probably thinks so too.”

  Maire glanced at me timidly. “They’re fools then. Why should Mr. Concannon put it on you, for goodness’ sake?”

  “Surely you know?” I said roughly.

  After a moment’s pause, she answered. “Well, there’s been talk, I give you that.”

  “Talk?

  “We, Kevin and I, thought—we heard you were a bit sweet on Harriet.”

  “‘Sweet!’” I exploded. “Good God, I was passionately in love with her. Sorry. But I can’t stand any more of this Irish—”

  “So she got you too. Poor Dominic. Never mind now.”

  I found myself in tears. Any sympathetic voice could do it to me. “She wasn’t wicked, Maire. Believe me, she wasn’t,” I quavered. She held my head against her for a minute. Then,

  “You must have some food. No, not with the children. I’ll bring in a tray for you. Wait while I get you something.’’

  Maire left me alone in the room. I could hear the voices of the children chattering next door. I thought of Flurry’s desire to have a child; and the night I had left Harriet to her fate by the river. I thought of Maire, wandering in the demesne, wild with suspicion and jealousy. Lucky she had not seen me or heard our voices.

  But perhaps she had seen Harriet, after I’d left her—seen her naked there by the river, and in a fury of jealousy attacked her. No, that was ridiculous. A woman does not go out armed with a penknife against another woman. Or does she? But surely Maire would not have told me about her visit to the demesne that night if she had a worse thing than jealousy on her conscience? I wondered would she confess to Father Bresnihan when he ret
urned. He would be bound by the seal of the confessional; but he would tell Maire it was her duty to let Concannon know of her movements that night.

  Kevin was another matter. So practical, efficient a man to let his car run out of petrol? It would be a good cover for an assignation with Harriet. No, that was absurd; she wouldn’t have made assignations with both of us; and he could hardly have gone to the Lissawn just on the chance of finding her there. But perhaps, sensing that I was going to throw her over, she had arranged for Kevin to meet her there after I left—perhaps even for a confrontation between us. She loved to arouse jealousy: she was a primitive woman in that way. Suppose Kevin had been watching her and me from behind the trees? I had not made love to her. But there was quite enough in the scene to provoke his bitterest jealousy. Kevin was a physical coward, Flurry had told me. He would not dare to confront me, perhaps: but after I had left her—?

  If he had had a brainstorm then, sweeping away his usual circumspection? I imagined Harriet mocking him for his cowardice, exasperating his nerve till he pulled out the knife and struck insensately at the body I had stolen from him. I knew all too well how she could get under a man’s skin.

  But the blood. He must have got some on his clothes. Maire would have seen it when he returned. The police had searched the house. Wait a minute, though. Kevin was a calculating man. He would not murder in hot blood. He would strip for her, and plunge in the river afterwards to wash away the stains. Which Concannon no doubt suspected I had done. I saw Kevin’s shark-mouth bending over her, and the knife upraised. I shuddered through my whole body.

  Maire came in with a tray. “I’ve rung Flurry. He’ll be over any moment on his motorbike. Now you must eat something, Dominic. You look exhausted.”

  She sat with me till Flurry arrived. I told him about the boycott.

  “Where’s Kevin?”

  “He’ll not be back till to-morrow,” said Maire. “He went to Dublin.”

  “Never here when he’s wanted. C’mon then, Dominic. I’ll fix them myself.”

  I thanked Maire, and followed him out of the house. A few corner-boys glared at me from the other side of the street, but they didn’t dare open their mouths with Flurry there. We went to Leesons Store first, Flurry pushing his bike beside me. A fine mist of rain was falling. In his old trench-coat Flurry looked formidable.

  “Where’s Brian?” he demanded of the assistant.

  “He’s not available,” said the man.

  “He’d better be. Go fetch him. Jump to it, boy.”

  The assistant went behind the scenes. The shop was empty but for us two. The manager appeared.

  “What’s all this about Mr. Eyre being refused supplies?”

  “Sure it’s no doing of mine, Flurry. Mr. Kevin said—”

  “To hell with Mr. Kevin!”

  “I’d lose my job, Flurry, if—”

  “You’ll lose something more if you turn obstinate on me.”

  “Well, if you’ll take the responsibility.”

  “I’ll take it all right,” said Flurry grimly.

  I repeated my order. We conveyed the carton, on the saddle of Flurry’s bike, to Sean’s garage where I had left my car.

  “Fill it up,” ordered Flurry when Sean appeared. “No, not my tank, Mr. Eyre’s.”

  Sean gave him a shamefaced look. “Well now, Flurry, it’s like this,” he began.

  “Be damn to what it’s like. D’you sell petrol outa that pump or don’t you?” Flurry’s eyes were hard as chips of granite. Where was the easy-going, flabby man I had known?

  “If you say so.” Sean gave him a puzzled look, and filled my tank.

  “That’s better. And don’t let me hear any more of this nonsense. I think we’d best have a drink after that, Dominic.”

  We crossed the street to the Colooney. Haggerty’s ruddy face paled as we strode into the bar.

  “I hear you refused my friend a drink just now, Desmond.”

  “I did,” said the manager, trying to brazen it out.

  “Well, now you’ll give him one. On the house.”

  “I have a bit of a problem here, Flurry. It’s not that I—”

  “Hold your whisht! You’ll have a worse problem on your hands if—”

  “I’ll ring Mr. Kevin first, and tell him there’s been some mistake.”

  “You can’t,” I said. “He’s in Dublin.” Haggerty looked nervously round the bar. But the other two occupants had slid out after a glance at Flurry, whose hands were in the pockets of his macintosh trench coat.

  “Well then, as a favour to you, Flurry—”

  “No, no. You have the wrong idea, my brave boyo.” The big man’s voice had turned gentle as syrup. “My friend, Mr. Eyre, is doing you a favour by drinking your whiskey. And don’t put any more water in it than there is already in the bottle.” Flurry’s voice rose to a bellow. “Get on with it or I’ll break your neck!”

  “Now that’s no way to be talking, Flurry.” But, at a movement of Flurry’s huge hands, Haggerty shrank back and set about filling a couple of glasses.

  When we went out again, I tried to thank him. Flurry brushed it aside. “When the Mayor’s away, the mice can play. Maybe they’ll make me deputy-mayor. I wish I knew what the hell Kevin was at. Of course, he’d do it in a roundabout way. Just a word dropped here and there—‘I wonder do we have a right to serve Mr. Eyre, in view of’ etc. etc. A nod’s as good as a wink from him. He has half the town in his pocket. Well, you’d best sail in convoy a while longer. I’ll follow you up to my house. I’ve things to tell you.”

  We were in the sitting-room at Lissawn House. I had not been there since Harriet’s death. The room was cool, though the day was warm outside; and her belongings still strewn about made it seem the more deserted, the more lifeless. It was strange to see Flurry, though, moving around it with a new decisiveness, as though her death had given him a fresh lease of life. He had entirely broken through the abject despair it had put him in at first.

  Against all likelihood, I felt at ease with him; and this deepened the unreality of my situation.

  “I never trusted that fella Haggerty,” he was saying: “he’s a jackal. Not that my brother’s any class of lion. Now, before Seamus comes in, I’d best tell you what I prodded out of him the other day. He it was shot your hat off from behind the bushes. He only wanted to fright you off.”

  And left the warning note in my cottage too, I thought.

  “He’s a loyal man. You and Harry had him worried—you know what I mean—and he thought he was protecting my interests. He wasn’t trying to kill you, only warn you off. Will you forgive him?”

  “Of course. Though I’m not the man who ought to be forgiving anyone,” I replied miserably.

  “That’s all right then.”

  “Flurry, the way you’ve treated me since—it’s all beyond me. You seem the only person here who doesn’t suspect me of—”

  “Ah, don’t deceive yourself about that, Dominic. You used to think I was a soft man, gone to seed, didn’t you now? Maybe you were in the right of it. But things have changed. In the Trouble, I had the execution of some of the Tans; but I never allowed it till I’d proved their crimes against them. I like you, Dominic,” he went on with a steely glance at me. “But if I proved it was you who killed Harry, you’d get no mercy from me.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I know that. I accept it.”

  “I used to think you a poor sort of thing. But I’ve changed my opinion: you’ve a real bit of spunk in you. Come in and sit down, Seamus. I’ve been rescuing Dominic. They put a boycott on him in the town. Did you know that?”

  “I heard tell of it yesterday.”

  “My brother won’t be best pleased when he hears I’ve stopped it. No more loans from the Mayor,” said Flurry with a harsh laugh. “But why did he do it?—tell me that.”

  “First he wanted Mr. Eyre in Joyce’s cottage, so he could keep him under his eye. Now he’s trying to drive him out of the place altogether,” said Seamus. �
��It doesn’t make sense to me at all.”

  “Was it he who tried to have me drowned?”

  I intercepted a look between Seamus and Flurry. “It might have been,” said the latter, “though I don’t like to think it of my own brother. If he thought you were a danger to him—but how could you be?”

  “A bloody queer way to set about it,” said Seamus. “Sure why couldn’t he have Mr. Eyre knocked on the head and finished in the cottage?”

  “Perhaps he’s superstitious—didn’t want my blood on his hands. It’d be O.K. if the sea did the murder for him,” I replied. The light-hearted suggestion was received with greater gravity than it deserved.

  “Mr. Eyre could be in the right of it.”

  “Oh, come off it, Seamus. I wasn’t being serious. Even an Irishman is not as superstitious as all that.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past Kevin to think that way,” said Flurry. “But I don’t believe he meant more than to give Dominic the fright of his life.”

  I stared at him. “Well, that’s a new idea!”

  “Seamus and I have been putting our heads together. That place where Father Bresnihan found you is not a true quicksand. Your car didn’t sink in deep. There wasn’t a spring tide that month—the water only came half-way up the car, and Sean got it dragged out easy enough after. I don’t say Kevin’d have lamented much if you’d died of heart-failure when you saw the waves rising up the car at you, but that’s another thing. No, he just wanted you frit out of the place.”

  “And silenced,” put in Seamus.

  “Silenced? But—”

  “You’d heard something that night was a danger to him. He wanted you out of the country, Mr. Eyre. And he wanted you to realise that, if you passed on this information he believed you had, it would be the worse for you.”

  “I don’t get it, Seamus.”

  “It was a last warning. If you did not clear out and keep silence when you got home, he’d have you followed to England, and dealt with there. It wouldn’t be the first time the I.R.A. took vengeance on an informer who’d left this country. He wanted you to have a taste of his power, so you’d leave him alone.”