by W. C. Ryan
‘I didn’t know you were so close to Maud,’ Harkin says, and it comes out like an accusation but at least it came out. The major’s smile takes on a bitter tinge.
‘Am I a suspect?’
Harkin swallows, and attempts to shake his head.
‘That kind of investigation would be the RIC’s responsibility.’
‘Ah yes. The RIC.’ The major looks across at the columns of smoke that rise from the smouldering town. ‘I rather think that investigation has been closed, don’t you? In the circumstances I welcome questions being asked about Maud’s death. Whoever chooses to ask them.’
Harkin does not trust himself to speak. He feels the ground reaching up towards him and it is all he can do to stay on his feet.
‘If Maud survived the initial ambush,’ Vane says, ‘and it seems she might have, then I suppose someone must have had a reason to want her dead.’
‘Indeed,’ Harkin manages to say.
‘I can think of one possible reason,’ the major continues. ‘What did you say the name of the insurance company you worked for was again?’
‘The All-Ireland Insurance Company,’ Harkin says, the words heavy on his tongue.
He can see the recognition in the major’s eyes, even before he says anything. When he does speak, it is with a careful detachment.
‘Yes, I thought that was the one. I believe I have come across the name. I did wonder if Sir John was the only beneficiary of the policy. But perhaps, now I think of it, that is an unlikely motive.’
Harkin says nothing and the major nods, as though in agreement with himself.
‘I suppose another reason someone might have killed her is if she had some information that might have been compromising to them.’
It doesn’t seem that Harkin is expected to give a response, so he doesn’t.
‘Of course, there is another possibility,’ Vane continues. ‘That the IRA considered her presence in the car to be an act of treachery. It wouldn’t be the first time such a thing has happened.’
The suggestion takes Harkin aback, so that he almost surfaces from the bleary sense of dislocation into which he is slipping. The approach of an Auxiliary officer in his tam o’ shanter cap and dark green tunic provides a convenient, if not very welcome, interruption. A reversed holster sits on the officer’s thigh, the leather gleaming black.
‘Vane,’ the officer says, nodding to the major, then looks at Harkin expectantly, as if anticipating an introduction. He’s a small man, wiry, with the jutting chin of a martinet. A clipped moustache lurks under an aquiline nose. His eyes are grey and there is a challenge in them.
‘Mr Harkin, this is Major Abercrombie. He commands the Auxiliary unit in the town. I’m sure you must know him by repute?’
Abercrombie responds to Vane’s introduction with a look of mild amusement.
‘I know all about Mr Harkin.’ Abercrombie places an emphasis on the word ‘Mister’. ‘I’m told you intend to interfere in police business. It would be most unfortunate if you were to do so.’
Abercrombie’s words are like a splash of cold water, reviving Harkin to some extent and causing him to wonder who has told Abercrombie about him, before deciding it is a question for later.
‘The insurance company I work for has a liability as a result of Miss Prendeville’s death,’ Harkin says, pleased that his voice remains low and more or less in control. ‘It is customary in such cases for us to look into the circumstance of the loss.’
Other mourners have turned to look in their direction – he can see Moira Wilson’s pale, concerned face, her arm caught in the elbow of an older man. He wonders if it is her father. The last thing he wants is to get involved in a shouting match at a funeral. He’s fairly certain it isn’t the done thing.
‘“The insurance company I work for”,’ Abercrombie growls. ‘I don’t care who you work for. The only investigation into this matter will be carried out by the Royal Irish Constabulary, namely by me and my men. Is that clear?’
‘I’m afraid you have no legal authority to prevent me going about my employer’s lawful business.’
Abercrombie steps closer, staring up at him, his teeth clenched. More faces are turning towards them, but if Abercrombie is aware of them, he shows no sign that he cares.
‘Go back to Dublin, Mr Harkin. We have martial law in this part of Ireland. Don’t tempt me to demonstrate the extent of my legal authority and the limits to your legal protection.’
Something about the man, haranguing him at a funeral, in his own country, has pushed Harkin to the point of resistance. He nods towards the burning town, continuing to speak quietly but his anger giving his words force.
‘Is there a particular reason you don’t want anyone else to investigate murders in this part of the country, Major Abercrombie?’
Harkin can feel the blood thumping in his ears, and he wonders what he must look like, standing there, toe to toe with the Auxiliary. When Vane speaks it sounds as though he is far away. His voice is calm, but firm.
‘Abercrombie, this is my cousin’s funeral. If you would like to continue this discussion, it will have to wait for another time. That is an order. Do you understand?’
There is a moment of indecision, then Abercrombie’s eyes seem to lose some of their intensity, although the anger still simmers in them.
‘I know whose funeral it is, Vane. A rebel’s. No loyal officer should be present.’
He turns and walks away, the quiver of his rage apparent in each jerky movement. They watch him leave the churchyard and climb into one of the two Crossley Tenders parked on the road outside, and then drive off. The Auxiliaries in the back unsling their rifles as they do so.
‘He seems to be a very angry man,’ Harkin says.
‘I hesitate to offer advice, Harkin—’
‘But you think I should take the first train to Dublin?’ Now that his anger has passed, Harkin finds it has left him drained. ‘You’re probably right.’
‘May I ask a question?’ Vane says, and Harkin finds himself sighing. He is tired of the pretence.
‘Isn’t that what men like you do? In your line of work?’
Vane shrugs.
‘Sometimes.’
Harkin’s suspicion hardens to a certainty. If he isn’t a British intelligence officer, how can he order Abercrombie around?
‘My question is whether you have a good enough reason to believe the IRA didn’t kill Maud? This five-minute delay before the single shot. Is it enough to risk your life, do you think?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I think it is.’
‘I see.’
Vane looks down at the ground for a moment, as though considering the implications of Harkin’s answer. When he looks up, it appears he has made a decision. He nods curtly.
‘I’ll have a word with Abercrombie. However, I suggest you avoid him where possible.’
Harkin opens his mouth to say something but Vane is distracted by a commotion at the door of the church as the coffin, carried by assorted Prendevilles, slowly makes its way across the churchyard, weaving in and out among the scattered tombstones and gathering in its wake a flow of black-garbed mourners. Vane and he follow, although Harkin feels as though he is moving in a kind of dreamlike state.
The open grave around which they gather brings another memory he can’t trifle with. The dark earth is flecked with human bone and it reminds him so strongly of the trenches that he can hear what sounds like the rumble of gunfire in the distance. He hopes it is thunder, but when he looks up it is night and the mourners have been replaced with soldiers from his battalion. Their faces are grey, lit intermittently by the orange muzzle flashes of nearby artillery, and the pale red of signal flares. He recognises each one of them, despite their injuries. All of them, he knows, are dead. They stare at him with blank expressions, their faces immobile, as stiff as photographs. A building is burning nearby and he thinks it must be the church. He can hear the cracking of its rafters and smell the bodies that are burning within
. It reminds him of the dream the night before, and he is, once again, very cold. He wonders what his dead comrades want from him, and then he looks into the grave and sees that the corpse that lies there, wrapped in a groundsheet except for the face, is his own.
He shouldn’t have come to this funeral, or down to this place. He should have stayed in Dublin, no matter what the boss said.
Harkin thinks this even as the last of the strength seeps out of his legs and he feels his knees buckle, aware suddenly that Moira is beside him with the older man she had been arm in arm with. He feels their urgent hands pulling at him to keep him on his feet.
They are too late.
CHAPTER 21
H
arkin doesn’t fall into a complete void. He is conscious, at one stage, of a circle of concerned faces looking down at him, the grey sky above them and the spatter of raindrops on his face. At another point he is placed on the back seat of a motor car, his head in someone’s lap. He thinks it might be Moira Wilson’s, but he is not certain of anything except that his head hurts and he has a strong desire to be sick. Later, he surfaces to find himself being carried up a wide staircase and it is Billy’s face looking down at him, as he sways from side to side with each step the bearers take. He is looking up at the windows that run the length of the ornate ceiling above Kilcolgan’s long central hall, noticing the damp patch that deforms a laughing cherub. He knows he is unwell because he is shivering. Then he is placed in a very soft, but cold, bed.
He warms it with his fever.
*
When he awakes, it is night. The curtains have been left open and he can see, through the large sash windows, a silvered swirl of stars. He is no longer in the small room with the suitcases and trunks. He is lying in a wide bed with thick, carved pillars at each corner. A chest of drawers sits against the wall to his right and there is an armchair beside it. He is wearing pyjamas and they are a soft, thick cotton, better than his own; he presumes they must belong to Billy. His throat is dry and he reaches for the glass he sees on the bedside cabinet. A woman is sitting beside the bed and, when he moves, she stirs. She lights a candle and he recognises Mrs Driscoll, wearing black, her grey hair pulled back into a bun.
‘You’re awake?’
‘I seem to be.’ His voice is hoarse, more of a croak than anything.
‘Would you like some water?’
He nods and she reaches to fill the glass from a small jug. He takes it from her, but his hand is shaking and he spills some of it as he drinks it, sideways. It dribbles down his cheek. She tuts and reaches forwards to dry his face with a linen napkin, taking the glass from him.
‘What time is it?’ Harkin asks.
‘I heard the clock strike three a few minutes ago.’
He must have slept but he is still exhausted. He rests for a moment, the effort of reaching for the glass and returning it having spent much of his energy, then, with an effort, pushes himself up to a sitting position. He tries to make some sense of his situation, gathering together the few snatches of memory he has.
‘I fainted?’
‘You did. At Miss Prendeville’s funeral.’
He can’t say that he’s surprised by the hostility in her voice. Everything is clear up until when he met Vane and Abercrombie; after that less so, except for the dead soldiers staring at him from across the grave, their sunken eyes regarding him without emotion, or even interest. He feels his stomach contract, recalling enough to realise he must have passed out beside the grave, just as Maud was about to be interred.
How can he have done something so . . .? He searches for a word and can find none that accurately encapsulates it. It is certainly worse than ‘embarrassing’. A silence falls between them.
‘I wanted to talk to you before,’ Harkin says eventually.
‘Why?’
‘I wanted to ask about the night Maud was killed. About the days leading up to it. About her state of mind.’
‘Why should I tell you anything about Miss Prendeville?’
He sighs.
‘It will get me out of here more quickly.’
Mrs Driscoll considers this.
‘Ask me your questions.’
‘You heard the gunfire?’
‘I couldn’t help but hear it.’
‘What did you do then?’
‘I got out of bed, got dressed and ran up the house.’
‘And Sean?’
There is a momentary hesitation, so brief he isn’t certain it was there at all.
‘He did the same.’
‘Where did he go to?’
She is irritated with the questions now.
‘Didn’t I say? The same as me. He went straight up the house.’
‘You didn’t stop him leaving, thinking it was dangerous, perhaps?’
Mrs Driscoll looks at him, her eyes black in the candlelight.
‘His place was with the Prendevilles,’ she says. ‘The same as mine.’
‘Who reached the house first?’
‘He’s a young man. Who do you think got there first?’
Which isn’t really an answer. He feels sleep tugging at him.
‘What about Maud?’ he asks. ‘Did anyone have a reason to kill her?’
His eyes have closed of their own volition, but when he opens them briefly he sees that her eyes are wet.
‘Get some rest now,’ she says, getting to her feet. ‘That’s enough with your nonsense questions.’
Harkin watches Mrs Driscoll stand and walk towards the door, taking the chamber-stick with her. After she’s left, he’s uncertain she was ever there at all.
*
Later – he is not sure when – he surfaces from a troubled sleep to find that his hand is being held. Instinctively he feels his fingers tighten around the hand that holds his. He opens his eyes to see Moira, her pupils dark circles in the candlelight. He opens his mouth to speak but she reaches over to place a finger on his lips.
‘Don’t try and talk. I’ll talk if there’s talking needs doing. Close your eyes and I’ll tell you a story about a woman who loved a man and he didn’t know it.’
He closes his eyes and listens as she tells her tale.
The characters are familiar, but the story is new to him.
CHAPTER 22
W
hen Harkin wakes for the third time he thinks there is a little more light in the sky. He lies there looking out through the window, savouring the warmth of the bed and the taut cotton pillowcase. He listens to the house but hears nothing. It is as though it is deserted. The guests must have left after the funeral. He wonders how they managed to carry on with it, after the show he made of himself. He pushes himself up, then swings his legs from under the covers. When he tries to stand, the carpet seems to move under his feet, as though the house were afloat. He has to sit back for a moment before allowing his legs to take his weight once more, using them to carefully push himself upright. He keeps a hand held out towards the bed in case he needs to steady himself. He wonders what he must look like, standing there in the silvered dark, bent over like an old man reaching for his walking stick. The thought makes him smile and he feels the better for it.
He takes stock. There’s a door beside the chest of drawers which must lead somewhere. He sees a candlestick and a box of matches on a small side table, although he doesn’t feel the need to light it; the room is dark, but he can make things out well enough in what little light there is. Paintings look down at him from the walls, their subjects just visible: landscapes; horses; ships; buildings. He can make out pale faces in the gloom – more Prendevilles, he suspects – and imagines their cold eyes regarding him in turn, finding him wanting. Once again Harkin remarks to himself on the strange stillness the house has. He places his hand against the pillar at the foot of the bed and turns slowly to examine the rest of the room.
Near the first of the windows there is a dressing table and at the foot of the bed a chest. Finally, there is a second armchair beside the far window,
and someone is sitting in it. A woman, lit by the starlight so that she seems to glow. She stares out at the sea beyond, her expression unclear from where he stands.
At first he thinks it must be Mrs Driscoll, or perhaps Bridget, but the woman is younger than Mrs Driscoll and wears a long dress of a quality that neither she nor Bridget will ever wear. Her dark hair, a luminescent silver in the half-light, is braided to hang in a thick rope that rests on her left shoulder, before falling down over her chest. She holds it in her right hand, like a club. Her nose is straight, her lips full and for an instant he thinks it must be Charlie, but it isn’t. Charlie doesn’t wear the perfume his nostrils are filled with. Only Maud did . . . and the woman who helped him across the bridge in the Dublin fog.
The carpet beneath his feet seems to slip away but he doesn’t fall. Harkin grips the pillar with both hands and holds on to it, using it to pull himself onto the bed, where he sits. He doesn’t take his eyes off the figure in the armchair. He knows she can’t be there, that she is either imagined, or something altogether outside any reality he understands. He watches her uncertainly, wanting to confront whatever she is. He locks his elbow around the pillar, as though escorting it, and feels himself begin to shiver. She doesn’t move, not even to breathe. He stays there, his eyes fixed on her, until the cold creeps further into his bones and the shivering becomes uncontrollable. He tries to summon the energy to walk over to her – to try to touch her, to confirm to himself that she is not real. But what if his hand touches flesh?
When she turns to face him, the emotion Harkin detects is, to his relief, one of compassion – perhaps even sympathy. She holds his gaze and he loses himself in it. Memories flood back, as well as regret for what might have been. Then her gaze shifts, but he cannot take his eyes away from her to see what has attracted her attention. Then she looks back to him once again, something like a question in her expression. To his surprise he finds that he is no longer afraid. It is as though they have come to some sort of agreement.
He sits there, watching her for a long time, expecting something more, but there is no change to her steady gaze and tiredness tugs at him. Eventually, he reaches a decision and pushes himself back along the bed and gets beneath the covers, allowing the warmth to seep back into him.
