by W. C. Ryan
Harkin gathers his thoughts. If the column’s recollection is correct – that Maud was killed by someone else shortly after the ambush – then it seems likely that whoever killed her must have either been part of the ambush or have known it would take place. There is a third possibility, of course. That it was someone from the house itself.
‘I think we need to find out from Matt Breen who his source was, for a start.’
Driscoll rubs his chin, a gesture that is becoming familiar to Harkin as a precursor to bad news.
‘That may be difficult,’ he says. ‘That was Matt’s house we passed.’
Harkin remembers the woman’s crying and the hostility of the crowd.
‘You didn’t think to mention that when we passed?’
‘Would his name have meant anything to you?’
Which is probably a fair point, Harkin concedes.
‘Was he tortured?’
Driscoll nods.
‘I saw the body.’
‘And you’re not worried he’ll have talked? That the same thing will happen to you?’
Driscoll meets his gaze for a moment, then looks away. It seems it’s not a subject he wants to discuss.
‘I’m needed here,’ Driscoll says. Then, after the briefest of pauses. ‘If you want to find out who the source is, it’ll have to be through Father Dillon. He’s the parish priest at St Ann’s. It’s a small church in the town, a little out of the way. I’ll try and talk to him this afternoon – I have to meet the two o’clock train anyway.’
Harkin looks around him. The only sounds are the cry of a gull from the shore and the crunch of the gravel underfoot as he shifts his weight. There is an atmosphere about the place that he doesn’t like. As though something bad has happened here, which of course it has, but something else as well. He glances up at the house and its empty windows, black against the grey granite.
‘I’ll need to talk to him as well.’
Driscoll nods.
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘This card evening they were at? Who else was there?’
‘Moira Wilson, she has a fishing lodge between here and Ballynan – that’s where Sir John Prendeville lives. The Eustaces, who live further along the road.’ Driscoll indicates further to the west. ‘Dr Hegarty from the town, Teevan and Abercrombie from the barracks, Maud and Cartwright, and, of course, Sir John himself.’
‘Why didn’t Abercrombie drive them back, as was originally planned?’
‘He was called away. He and Teevan drove separately, so I suppose Teevan felt obliged.’
‘Any idea why Maud changed her mind about staying?’
‘You’ll have to ask Sir John.’ Driscoll takes a deep breath and exhales. ‘Do you mind my asking what the point of all this is? The column didn’t kill her, but your investigating her death isn’t going to change anyone’s opinion one way or another.’
Harkin holds his gaze, then gives him a half shrug.
‘Maud Prendeville was one of the last to leave the burning GPO in 1916 and one of the last to surrender after the Rising. Her being killed by her own comrades is not the way we’d like to have her remembered. If there is any chance we can find proof that will stand up to scrutiny, then we need to find it.’
‘And what about the fact she was travelling in a car with an RIC district inspector. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She’d have told you the same herself. Our lads didn’t kill her, but they easily might have.’
Harkin smiles patiently.
‘As I said, if they didn’t kill her, then I need to find out who did.’
Driscoll looks sceptical.
‘What are you going to do? Go round asking questions? The police won’t like that much.’
‘Sir John took out a life assurance policy on Maud’s life some years ago. I work for the insurance company who issued the policy. I have all the paperwork. They may not like it, but they can’t stop me.’
Driscoll looks at him in astonishment. Harkin shrugs.
‘It’s a real company. It’s all above board.’ He nods over to the gate lodge. ‘What about these people? I’d like to talk to them for a start.’
‘Patrick Walsh and his wife. They were tied up, they saw nothing.’
‘They might have heard something, though.’
Driscoll nods, although his lack of enthusiasm is clear.
‘They’re staying with his brother the other side of town for a few days. I’ll see what can be done.’
‘And I’ll need to meet with Commandant Egan as soon as is possible.’
‘I’ll pass a message on.’
Harkin takes a few more steps along the drive towards the house. The coat feels heavy on his shoulders. He is tired. He wonders, for a moment, what he is doing here, of all places.
‘So after you heard the gunfire?’ Harkin says, summoning up the energy to continue. ‘What happened then?’
‘I went to the house so no one could point a finger at me. Then Billy, myself, Charlotte and Lord Kilcolgan went down to the gate.’
‘And you heard no more gunfire?’
‘Apart from the single shot. A few minutes after the ambush itself.’
‘You’d reached the others when you heard it?’
‘I was just walking in the door.’
‘How long did it take to get there?’
Driscoll looks sheepish.
‘I had to get dressed. And my mother didn’t want me going out. It took a little while.’
‘How long exactly?’
‘Maybe five minutes. I don’t have a watch.’
‘The others were there, though? When you arrived? Lord Kilcolgan and Billy and Charlotte? What about the servants?’
‘There aren’t many. My mother, who was in the cottage. Murphy the butler, but he’s not much use these days, and then Bridget the maid.’
Harkin takes one final look around.
‘Anything else you’d like to tell me?’
Driscoll rubs his jaw once more. Harkin waits. For some reason Driscoll appears to be embarrassed.
‘There’s one thing,’ Driscoll says, his eyes shifting away from Harkin’s. ‘Billy saw the White Lady. Just before the ambush. A ghost.’
Harkin can feel his eyebrow rising and Driscoll, glancing back at him, sees his bemusement.
‘Look, I know what you’re thinking, but the story is that before a Prendeville dies, the White Lady appears. So they say, anyway.’
‘And the White Lady is . . .?’
‘You’d better ask the Prendevilles.’
As they walk back to the carriage, Harkin sees a scrap of white in the undergrowth to the side of the path. He leans down and finds a half-smoked cigarette butt, damp from the rain, although the label is still legible. There is a small shield embossed in gold on the paper, and then the words Péra – New Bond Street. Frowning, he reaches into his pocket for his handkerchief, folds the cigarette butt up into it, and follows Driscoll to the carriage.
CHAPTER 9
T
he hall door is opened by an elderly servant in a butler’s coat that seems too big for him, as though he has shrunk in on himself. Harkin remembers Murphy, but this is a diminished version compared with the one he recalls. The butler glances quickly past Harkin, his watery gaze scanning the immediate surroundings of the house, a nervous tongue flicking over his purple lips.
‘Murphy, it’s good to see you again.’
‘And yourself, Mr Harkin,’ Murphy says, looking out past him once again. ‘You didn’t walk here from Dublin, did you?’
The butler seems frail to the point of decrepitude but he spins Harkin around with ease, before pulling off his coat with a practised tug that sends shrapnel grating inside Harkin’s shoulder.
‘Driscoll picked me up from the station.’
‘Of course he did. Of course he did.’
Harkin looks about him. The long central hall relies on whatever light comes through the windows at the front of the house and those tha
t circle the high roof above. The day, unfortunately, is overcast and when he looks up Harkin can see how the glass in the windows has been clouded by years of grime. The resulting gloom shadows the interior of the house, reducing the furniture to dark shapes. The walls are lined with dead animals, clustered in groups. As his eyes adjust, he sees a tiger, a lion and a small herd of decapitated antelope. The little light there is illuminates bared teeth and staring glass eyes.
‘Had you any trouble on the road?’ Murphy asks, leading him into the house.
‘No. Apart from the fog.’
As he follows Murphy, he pass more animals: stags, a quantity of villainous-looking foxes, a badger and, for some reason, a border terrier. He can see cobwebs stretched between antlers and bare patches where fur has been taken by moths. The slain creatures look down on him – reproachful, melancholy, or, in the foxes’ case, furious.
‘Thank God for that. What with Egan’s bandits seen this morning coming down from the mountains only five miles from here.’
Harkin is brought back to the conversation with a jolt. He wonders if the information about the column is correct.
‘So close?’
‘He has the whole country in a state of terror,’ Murphy says, in a doleful tone.
There is movement on the staircase at the end of the long gallery and two huge wolfhounds come loping out of the gloom, tongues lolling and grey coats matted, their paws padding on the marble tiles. They approach Harkin with curiosity, the smaller of them sniffing at his crotch. They smell of wet wool and forest floor.
‘Get out of that, Fiachra,’ Murphy says, half-approvingly. ‘Leave Mr Harkin alone, like a good beast.’ He makes no effort to remove the dog, however, so Harkin pushes it away himself.
‘He likes you,’ a voice says.
When Harkin looks up he could swear he sees Maud Prendeville coming down the staircase, caught in a rare shaft of light. She has the pallor of a spirit, but then her heels begin to click as she approaches him across the marble chessboard floor, so he presumes she must be real.
‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,’ she says, squinting at him with amusement.
She is not Maud, he can see that now – although she has the same clear green eyes. He remembers, in the nick of time, Maud’s younger sister.
‘You must be Charlotte.’
He gives Fiachra a sharper shove, which the dog seems not to mind, sauntering off towards the peat fire that glows in the large fireplace and arranging himself in front of it like some canine pasha.
Charlotte takes his hand and he is grateful for the solidity the touch offers him. She would have been about fifteen the last time he saw her, which would make her twenty-three now.
‘Did you have a pleasant journey down, Mr Harkin?’
He remembers his manners, at last.
‘I am very sorry about Maud, Miss Prendeville. A terrible business.’
She gives him a half smile.
‘Thank you.’
She examines him, as though seeing him afresh. When she speaks again, her tone is grave.
‘I prefer Charles,’ she says.
‘Charles?’
‘To Charlotte. Should we ever move past the formalities, Charlie is also acceptable.’
CHAPTER 10
T
he dining room is, like the rest of the house, dark; its three large windows look out towards a black, squall-torn sea and a troubled sky that is blacker still. Harkin finds himself sitting at one end of a long table that has been set for five, although two of the places remain empty. The silver cutlery gleams dully in the flickering light of a single candle. Marble columns line the walls and another smouldering peat fire, bigger than the one in the entrance hall, pops and wheezes behind him. Portraits of Prendeville ancestors line the yellow silk wallpaper. Long-nosed, haughty men, and pale women each as elegant as the fashion of the time allows her. Lord Kilcolgan sits, slouched beneath their gaze at the top of the table: a silvering thicket of hair, half-closed eyes, another of those long noses, and a moustache that obscures his mouth and much of his chin. Charlotte sits opposite Harkin. The candle flickers in time with the rain that lashes the windows.
‘We have a generator, you know,’ Lord Kilcolgan mutters as Murphy places a bowl in front of him, the soup sloshing as it lands with a bump. ‘For electric lights and so on. But they won’t send a fellow from London to fix it. Say it’s not worth risking a life with the situation being what it is. So we’re reduced to candles.’
Harkin looks up at the layer of dust that covers the bulbs in the chandelier hanging over the table, and tries to remember if they were lit the last time he was here. He thinks not. Perhaps his expression reveals his thoughts because he sees Charlie glance at him quickly before looking away.
‘Father,’ she says.
‘I know,’ Kilcolgan says, nodding in Harkin’s direction. There may be a smile underneath the moustache but Harkin cannot see it. ‘I have become something of a bore about the electricity. Without the lights the house is too dark, you see. Too many shadows.’
The conversation lapses. Harkin finds his attention drawn, not for the first time, to the empty places. Charlie sees the movement of his eyes.
‘I’m sure they’ll be here soon. Murphy, is there any sign of Billy?’
Murphy shrugs and seems to think this is a sufficient response. Then he seems to remember there is a stranger present and summons an ingratiating smile for Harkin.
‘I told him he was mad to go out, but he wouldn’t listen,’ he says. Then adds, as an afterthought, ‘Miss Charlotte.’
‘What soup is this, Murphy?’ Lord Kilcolgan asks, examining it.
Murphy looks down at the bowl he is carrying and frowns.
‘I’ll ask herself,’ he says.
He puts the last bowl in front of Harkin, and then disappears through the side door from where he can be heard descending the servants’ staircase. In his absence, it seems to Harkin that the shadows in the room grow closer. The soup is the same grey as the exterior of the house.
‘Mushroom,’ Charlie says. ‘It could be something else, of course, but I believe it should be mushroom. Today is Tuesday.’
Harkin lowers his head to hide his smile. He can hear steps climbing the stairs from the kitchen. He feels laughter building inside him and he knows it is of the nervous variety. He reminds himself that there is grief in the house.
An attractive woman in her late thirties, wearing a black dress with a high collar, and with her hair tied back, steps into the room and stands facing the table. She is silent, but her demeanour seems to be one of tested patience. Lord Kilcolgan looks a little unsettled by her arrival.
‘We didn’t mean to disturb you, Mrs Driscoll.’
‘I exist to be disturbed, my lord. Did you have a question about the food?’
‘Only that we were wondering what the soup was?’
‘Can you not tell?’
‘Is it perhaps mushroom?’
Mrs Driscoll’s severe expression is hard to read, but on balance Harkin thinks she is not pleased by the question.
‘Does it taste of mushroom?’
‘It does,’ Lord Kilcolgan says tentatively.
‘Well then. Will you be wanting anything else?’
‘That will be all for the present, thank you.’
The family exchange glances when she leaves and would perhaps have discussed the conversation, but Murphy returns, wheezing, from his journey to the kitchen. He makes a slow, careful expedition around the table, picks up a fork from the empty place setting for a reason that isn’t quite clear, then disappears into the bowels of the house once again. Charlie gives her father a meaningful look.
‘Yes, but what would he do with himself?’ Lord Kilcolgan says. ‘And we are used to him.’
‘Hasn’t he a daughter in Dublin?’
‘Despises her. And she’s not very fond of him. There’s nothing to be done. Anyway, Mrs Driscoll wouldn’t hear of it. There would be war if we we
re even to suggest it.’
Charlotte turns to him, her green eyes shadowed.
‘Mr Harkin, you must see how reduced Murphy is. From when you last saw him.’
He pauses, considering his response. Then smiles.
‘He does seem a little smaller.’ He glances up and sees Charlie’s grave expression and wonders if they have not noticed. ‘And older, but isn’t that often the way of things?’
‘Quite so,’ Kilcolgan says, after a long pause, then closes his eyes and lifts a spoon to his mouth. The soup leaves a creamy tideline on his moustache.
There is a clatter of boots running along the central hall and then heavy steps pounding up the central staircase. Something is knocked over along the way and clatters to the floor. The steps pay it no heed.
‘That’ll be Billy,’ Lord Kilcolgan says, and there is a flicker of disapproval in his expression. ‘He’ll be soaked to the skin. Change of clothes, I shouldn’t wonder.’
Sure enough, not more than a minute passes before the man himself appears, finishing the knot of his tie as he enters, his hair and face still wet from the rain outside, his cheeks rosy with the cold. He is wearing a dry tweed jacket.
‘Don’t get up, Mary,’ he says to Harkin with a nod. ‘I shall slip in, almost unnoticed.’ He glances towards his father, who mutters something under his breath. ‘Well, perhaps not entirely unnoticed.’
Harkin returns his friend’s smile but it’s immediately clear to him all is not well. The jollity seems forced and underneath the tousled blond hair, Billy’s eyes are dark. His mouth curls, first up, then down, and Harkin wonders if Billy is even aware of it. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Billy was on the verge of tears.
‘It’s good to see you,’ Harkin says, and tries to send Billy some comfort through the warmth in the words.
‘Mary?’ Charlie asks.
‘Yes, very unusual name,’ Billy says, his brittle jollity back in play. ‘Do you think there is some soup left in the tureen? I think I’ll make poor Murphy’s life a little easier and help myself.’
He stands and walks over to the serving table, lifts the cover from the tureen and inhales.
