by W. C. Ryan
‘She didn’t deserve this,’ the man says. ‘None of them did.’
Harkin considers Teevan and the little that he knows about him and can’t find it in his heart to disagree. There will always be good men on both sides of a war. He sighs and knows the man will take it as his agreement.
‘You must be Harkin,’ the man says, turning to look at him.
‘And you must be Vane,’ Harkin says.
‘Shall we walk back to the house?’
It is dark underneath the overhanging trees, and the sound of their footsteps seems amplified in the enclosed space.
‘You were delayed this morning?’ Harkin asks, when it seems as though the silence between them is becoming awkward.
‘Yes, I needed to see a man in Dublin quite urgently. Otherwise we might have ended up travelling down together.’
There is a little more light when they leave the shade of the trees and Harkin glances across at Vane quickly, wondering if there is some significance to his mentioning this meeting. As he does so, Vane leans towards him, as though checking something himself.
‘You seem familiar, if you don’t mind my saying,’ he says.
Harkin keeps his face impassive, reaching inside his pocket for his cigarettes.
‘Do I?’ He makes a pretence of examining Vane in his turn. ‘I don’t think we’ve met but it’s certainly possible.’
‘You were with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, weren’t you? First battalion?’
‘For a while,’ Harkin says, alarm clenching at his stomach. ‘You?’
‘Glosters. Perhaps we met over there? We were alongside your first battalion once or twice. Passchendaele, certainly. Were you around for that?’
There’s an intonation to the question that reminds him of when the Germans would send over a single shell for range and distance. This fellow, Harkin could swear, knows he was in Passchendaele. He reminds himself that it’s likely he has the information from Billy, but Harkin decides to proceed cautiously all the same.
‘I don’t remember much from Passchendaele. I was knocked about a bit. Concussion.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. I wish I remembered nothing about Passchendaele. Still, that which does not kill you and all that.’
‘If you say so,’ Harkin replies, and then, hoping to change the direction of the conversation, opens his cigarette case, takes one for himself and offers the case to Vane.
‘I don’t mind if I do,’ Vane says.
‘What brings you to Ireland?’
They are close to the house now and Vane halts and, after a brief search, finds a lighter in a pocket. The flame, over which they both lean, reveals an intentness in the major’s expression which increases Harkin’s discomfort.
‘Horses,’ Vane says with a smile. ‘For the army.’
‘I thought the Glosters were an infantry regiment.’
Vane’s smile broadens, as if congratulating Harkin.
‘Like you, I have other strings to my bow.’
‘Like me?’
‘Insurance, isn’t it? Amongst other things as well, I’m sure.’
Harkin concentrates on his cigarette, doing his best to keep his concern under control.
‘Yes.’
‘Well then, if you’re working in insurance, why shouldn’t I be buying horses?’
‘No reason at all. Although, I’ve left the army.’
‘Yes, indeed you have. We mustn’t forget that. Anyway, these days the army is always seconding chaps here and there.’ Vane exhales a cloud of smoke. ‘Lord Kilcolgan tells me you doubt the IRA is responsible for Maud’s death. That you’re down here investigating on behalf of your employers. Did Sir John really have a life assurance policy on Maud? It seems rather odd.’
‘I’m not really supposed to discuss our clients’ insurance arrangements with unconnected persons.’
Vane chuckles, and the sound of it causes a cold sweat to prickle the nape of Harkin’s neck.
‘Quite so. Are you permitted to discuss your reasoning for doubting the IRA killed Maud?’
‘I don’t see why not.’
Harkin chooses his words carefully when he explains about the single shot and the IRA’s disavowal of the act. The glowing tip of Vane’s cigarette reveals the major’s concentration on his words.
‘I suppose it’s a slim possibility,’ Vane says, when he finishes, ‘but perhaps a little far-fetched?’
‘It just seems an odd inconsistency.’
‘Their denying it?’
‘Yes. Why bother? She was, after all, travelling with an RIC district inspector.’
The major considers this.
‘Will you be asking them?’
‘Me? Ask the IRA?’ Harkin says, attempting to sound sceptical.
Vane circles his cigarette. Indicating their surroundings.
‘I don’t know Ireland very well, Harkin, but I should think they might want to tell you their version of the story, if they did in fact leave her alive. They’re unlikely to talk to the authorities but they might talk to you. Don’t you think?’
‘I suppose they might,’ Harkin says, non-committally.
‘That’s what I would do,’ Vane says, then adds, examining Harkin, ‘I suspect you are well ahead of me there, though. A clever fellow like you.’
There is a short silence which Vane breaks by looking at his wristwatch with the surprise of a man who has forgotten he owned one. He drops his half-smoked cigarette to the ground and stamps it out with his shoe.
‘Is that the time? We should dress for dinner.’
‘I’ll just finish this and I’ll be in,’ Harkin says.
Vane smiles and makes his way into the house, leaving Harkin with his cigarette.
He stands there, smoking, and thinking back over the conversation. It could be his imagination, but it felt as though Vane was toying with him. If Vane is involved in intelligence, and Harkin has a strong suspicion that he might be, then Dublin should be able to identify him. In the meantime, there are plenty of rocks in this part of the country. If the worst comes to the worst, he will find a rock and hide himself under it. The door to the house opens and Billy comes out.
‘Vane said you were out here. Did you bring evening wear from Dublin?’
Harkin gives him a dazed look.
‘Not to worry,’ Billy says, coming closer and taking his elbow. ‘I’ll fix you up. You’re about Arthur’s size.’
CHAPTER 15
A
n hour later, Harkin finds himself standing in the long hall that forms the spine of the house, a glass of madeira in his hand, wearing a dead man’s clothes and being interrogated by an elderly man of impressive height and even more impressive whiskers. General Somerville is holding a tumbler full of whiskey and, to judge from his red face and slight sway, it’s neither his first of the evening, nor a beverage he’s unfamiliar with.
‘Harkin, you say?’ The general looks at him suspiciously. ‘No, don’t know the name. How do we know you? Who are your people?’
Harkin looks around him at the faded elegance of the mainly elderly gathering and wonders, not for the first time, what he is doing here. He can see Vane on the other side of the room, and notices that the major looks over from time to time, as though checking in case Harkin might run off.
‘I went to Trinity with Billy and then I served with him during the war.’ The general looks dubious, and Harkin finds he resents the man’s questioning him as though he were some wayward trooper up in front of him on a charge. He allows some of the resentment to seep into his reply. ‘My father was a solicitor. My mother is a widow. My brother one of the glorious fallen.’
The general’s eyes widen, then his downturned lips break into a smile.
‘I have you. Maud’s chap.’ He turns to call across the room in a loud grating voice to an equally tall matron with a pince-nez and a feather boa. ‘Clem? He’s Maud’s fellow. The one she threw over. His father is a solicitor.’
There is a momentary lull in the co
nversation and twenty or so pairs of eyes turn to face Harkin. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Billy break off his conversation and then he is beside Harkin and taking his elbow.
‘General, may I take Captain Harkin away from you?’
‘Captain, is it?’ the general says, approvingly. ‘Of course, of course.’
The general makes his way across the room to pass on this final nugget of information.
‘You look a little shook,’ Billy says in a quieter voice, even though a sheen of sweat is making his own forehead shine in the candlelight.
‘Just tired, that’s all.’ The evening coat Harkin is wearing smells of mothballs and, as the room warms up, its previous owner.
‘You’ve made quite the impression on Hugo Vane.’
‘Have I?’ Harkin says, his stomach twisting.
‘He’s been singing your praises to Father. I told him he must have the wrong fellow.’
‘He’s an interesting man. Have you mentioned me to him before? Just as a matter of interest.’
‘No, not at all. Why do you ask?’
‘No particular reason. He said he was in the trenches alongside ours at Langemarck. I was wondering if perhaps you’d been talking over old times.’
Harkin can see a shadow pass behind Billy’s eyes for a moment, before he shakes his head, as if to rid himself of the memory of Passchendaele as well as the question.
‘God, no. I never even want to think about that place, let alone talk about it.’
‘Not even to Maud?’
‘Maud? Maud had her own problems. I wouldn’t have burdened her with mine on top.’
Billy’s answer does raise the question of who or what is Vane’s source. It’s a question that gives Harkin pause for thought.
‘Where did all the servants come from?’ he asks, nodding at the staff who move through the crowd with a calm efficiency well beyond the elderly Murphy, although under the watchful eye of Mrs Driscoll, who observes them from the second step of the staircase, giving direction when needed.
‘Uncle John. The wine as well. He says he wants to see Maud off in style. Drink up. He’ll no doubt take back any bottle that isn’t empty tomorrow.’
There must be a hundred candles in the room, giving off a scent of beeswax that mixes with the smell of the logs in the fireplace to almost overpower the damp, decay and wet dog that he remembers from earlier. The candles’ yellow glow does not quite reach up to the gallery landing on to which the doors to the bedrooms open. He sees a face looking down on them for a moment and thinks it might be Bridget, the maid, but she leans back when she sees him, disappearing into the darkness.
The guests themselves are in good spirits, despite the occasion, and the candlelight is forgiving. Up close it is possible to see that their dress is often from ten or twenty years earlier – a little worn and in need of alteration, the white waistcoats no longer as pristine as they might once have been. It is also curious how old the guests are, with only a handful of younger women and no young men at all except for Vane, Billy and himself. He comments on it to Billy, remembering Moira Wilson’s remark from earlier.
‘Most men my age have gone elsewhere. There’s nothing here for us now, in the country at least, and it’s not safe either. I hope being Maud’s brother is some protection, but it’s hard to be certain. The general was held up for his guns by Volunteers just before Christmas. Everyone knows a family whose house has been burned to the ground or someone who has been told to leave the country on pain of death or murdered as a police informer. We’ve been lucky.’
Harkin thinks about the smouldering cottage he passed that morning, and the tortured Volunteer left dead at the crossroads.
‘It will be over soon,’ he says, but he knows that things will never go back to the way they were.
CHAPTER 16
I
t might be tiredness, or Sir John’s generosity with his wine, but Harkin’s head is not quite with him when he slips out of the drawing room. It is quiet in the long hall and the candles are no longer lit. He is just wondering how he is going to make his way up to his room when the door opens behind him. He turns to find Lord Kilcolgan holding a brass chamber-stick, its candle already lit.
‘You’ll need this.’
Harkin remembers passing a table of them as he left the room, but Harkin having electricity in his small suburban home, their purpose hadn’t occurred to him in his befuddled state.
‘Thank you for coming down.’ Kilcolgan’s voice is even gruffer than usual; the candle’s flame lights him from below so that the contours of his face are deeply shadowed. ‘Maud would have been pleased.’
For a moment Harkin thinks Kilcolgan is going to add to this, but instead the older man, flustered, thrusts the chamber-stick at him and retreats so quickly into the drawing room that there is no time to say anything in reply. Harkin looks at the door and considers following him back in, but then decides it is too late – and what, after all, would he say? Instead, he turns and makes his way across the marble floor towards the staircase and hopes he can remember where his room is.
As the noise of the others recedes, the sounds that Harkin makes – his footsteps, the rustle of his clothes as he moves, even his breathing – become more pronounced. The house has a thick silence which seems to magnify them. The shadows stretch out around him, across the chequered tile floor, illuminating the animals that line the walls, their eyes seeming to follow him as he moves.
He has felt like a stranger most of the evening, conscious of the hundred ties that bind the others while excluding him. At least he managed to speak to the Eustaces, but they could tell him nothing about the card evening – or Maud – that he didn’t know already. Now he finds that the long day has caught up with him, and left him exhausted.
When Harkin begins to climb the staircase, each step creaks in a different key and he is conscious of a murmur of wind coming through the window alongside which he passes. It sounds like a warning whisper. He clings to the thick banister, his dead man’s clothes like a weight on his shoulders. He stops on the landing, looking back down along the hallway despite his better judgement, and sees, at the far end, the amber glow of the fireplace grow bright for an instant as a gust of wind comes down the chimney. If it is giving out any warmth, it does not reach this far; the air is chill upon his skin.
When he eventually reaches his bedroom at the back of the house, he closes the door behind him and leans against it, breathing heavily. The room is smaller than he remembers, almost claustrophobic, as though the walls are closing in on him. It has been used as a place to store old luggage when not putting up the likes of him. A stack of cases and trunks stands along one wall, with faded hotel labels and military destinations still stuck or chalked on their cracked leather exteriors. But there is a fire in the grate that is still lit, just about, even though the candle flickers when the wind, with a plaintive whistle, slips through a gap in the window frame. His breathing gradually slows and he does his best to clear his head. There is a key in the door and he turns it, locking himself in, though he has nothing to be afraid of. He is just tired. There is nothing more to any of this that a good night’s sleep will not fix.
Harkin pulls back the curtains and finds the gap between the sash window and its frame and finds a sock in his suitcase to plug it with. There is a stillness now in the room, despite the occasional laughter that echoes up from below. Outside, the wind is pulling at the trees and, in the distance, waves roll onto the shore.
He leans his forehead against the glass, closing his eyes. How long he stays in this position, he has no idea, but the creak of a floorboard somewhere reminds him that he is in a house full of strangers. He closes the curtains and begins to undress in the light of the single guttering candle and the feeble fire, and he remembers the stories Maud would tell about the house and its past. Then he remembers the ghost that Driscoll says Billy saw before Maud’s death. His mind wanders back to the last time he stayed in Kilcolgan, before the war, but he ca
nnot think about that visit or Maud now. He is not strong enough. Instead he takes a few minutes to write a brief letter about Vane which he hopes Driscoll will be able to forward to Dublin then lies down, blows out the candle and pulls the blankets up around his chin.
He does not fall asleep immediately, instead watching the swirling shapes the fire throws up on to the ceiling. He does not let his eyes close. He is not ready to brave sleeping yet.
A motor car arrives outside, the latecomers complaining loudly about Volunteers making even funerals impossible. He listens as the last of the guests make their way upstairs to bed and hears someone laugh nearby, then there is only the moan of the wind, the slow creaking of the house’s timbers, like a ship at anchor, and an occasional low metallic clang from somewhere in the pipes.
If he sleeps, he fears he will dream of the war. So he lies there in his narrow bed, watching the last glow on the ceiling. Eventually, however, the sounds of the house, the sea and the wind pushing against the window combine into a strange music in which he loses himself.
CHAPTER 17
A
night-time road stretches ahead of Harkin like a long, twisting hangman’s rope. He is in the passenger seat of a car which is being driven at breakneck speed. The car’s headlamps are like searchlights that flick back and forth across the low, rough country, turning the stone walls that line the road white. The car is going too fast, but he can’t hear any engine, only the swish of its tyres as it navigates the bends and turns. Somehow he knows that the journey ends with a death and he finds himself pushing back into the leather seat, his hands rising up of their own accord to cover his face. It is cold in the car and he feels it creeping through his veins, turning them to ice.
Ahead he sees a low fog, bare trees reaching up from it like bony fingers. Then they are inside it but the car does not slow down, the driver somehow knowing when to turn and when to slow. Then the car passes through stone gates and they are travelling along an avenue of closely overhanging trees. They have no leaves, only bare thin branches. He reaches up to touch them as they pass but they are out of reach, and then the trees are behind them and the house is up ahead, black against the dark night sky.
