The Winter Guest

by W. C. Ryan

  ‘So Driscoll’s in the clear?’

  ‘Not at all. He was the last person to see Dillon alive. Perhaps the priest knew something about Driscoll and Maud Prendeville that Driscoll didn’t want to come out – or something else. Once Driscoll knew you’d be visiting Dillon this morning, perhaps he felt he had to act.’

  ‘So we need to talk to Egan?’

  ‘Yes. And then Driscoll. Either way, he has some explaining to do.’

  CHAPTER 34

  B

  allycourt is more of a gathering of dwellings than a village – a scattering of ramshackle houses and cottages and a small thatched church, with a crossroads as their focus. The road that has brought them this far carries on through the village up to the gap in the hills beyond it. There is no pavement in the village, and the road itself is more of a long muddy streak of gravel than anything else. The only other vehicle on display is a dilapidated, horseless cart that stands beside the church.

  ‘This could be a one-horse town if only they had a horse,’ Bourke says, slowing the car to little more than walking pace. The sound of the car’s engine brings wary men and women to their doors and windows, and a handful of shoeless children gather to watch them, their feet caked brown.

  ‘You can stop here,’ Harkin says, indicating the entrance to the church, and Bourke slows still further till the car comes to a halt.

  ‘That will be your pub,’ Bourke says, indicating the long low-slung thatched cottage from which men are coming out to stand watching them. It doesn’t look as though the villagers are inclined to welcome strangers in a motor car with a Dublin registration. Harkin suspects Bourke is enjoying the situation.

  ‘I hope you’ve put dubbin on your boots, Tom. I’d say it’s three inches deep.’

  ‘So I’m the one going in, is it? I thought you were concerned about me.’

  ‘I scare people – isn’t that what you said? Anyway, someone needs to keep the car’s engine running if we need to get out of here quickly and you can’t drive.’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘Too late to be telling me that now.’

  Bourke leans down to press twice at a panel, which drops down to reveal a Mauser automatic pistol held in place by two leather straps. He undoes them and holds the gun low between his knees.

  ‘If you want me to go in, I’ll go in. But if Driscoll set this up, he’ll likely have given your name and description, not mine. Are you up to it?’

  Harkin sighs. The truth is he feels better for the drive, even though that doesn’t mean he wants to get out of the car. He reaches for the door handle all the same, thinking, as he does so, that if Driscoll is a traitor, then this could be a trap.

  ‘If this goes badly,’ Harkin says, ‘I want you to pass on my annoyance to Sean Driscoll.’

  ‘You can count on it,’ Bourke says, sliding back the safety on the Mauser.

  Harkin steps out of the car into a stagnant puddle. He looks down to see how deep his boots have gone in. No more than two inches. Bourke was wrong on that, at least. He takes his time to look around at the scattering of men and women who have gathered to examine him. No one has thrown anything so far, or even said anything, and he takes this as a good sign. He nods to them, but no one acknowledges this, so he takes a breath and begins to walk across the road, stepping carefully.

  As he does so, a young man in a long black overcoat and a flat cap, like every other man he can see, comes walking along the road. He walks an unsteady, weaving path and the other inhabitants step back to give him a clear passage. He seems oblivious to Harkin and, as he comes closer, Harkin can hear that the man is singing to himself. Harkin continues his slow walk, changing direction slightly to avoid the singer, at which point it seems he finally notices Harkin, comes to a halt and, still swaying, examines him.

  The young man has a sharp face, all edges and points, as pale as a sheet of paper, that reminds Harkin of a saint in a religious painting, except that the young man is most likely drunk. The black hair that curls out from under his cap is caught by the breeze, and the young man reaches up to slowly push it away from dark blue eyes that seem to have a touch of madness about them. He has not shaved and the collarless shirt beneath the coat is dark with dirt. At first he seems confused by Harkin’s presence but then he looks closer, and his mouth curls in a sneer, revealing the yellowed stumps of rotten teeth.

  Harkin also stops, close enough now to see crusted blood on one of his ears, a scuff on the young man’s cheekbone and a fat, broken lower lip. The young man has a thin neck and a prominent Adam’s apple which bobs as he swallows. Harkin can smell him now. The sour smell of old drink and ancient sweat. The contempt in the man’s expression is almost a physical force. They look at each other and Harkin is conscious of his ironed suit and leather boots, his trench coat and his hat. He sees himself, for a moment, from the viewpoint of the people in the village. He thinks back to the burning cottage on the first day and doesn’t like the version of him he suspects they see.

  ‘Good morning,’ Harkin finds himself saying, and immediately wishes he hadn’t spoken.

  ‘Good morning,’ the man answers in exaggerated imitation.

  Harkin begins to walk towards the bar, deciding to ignore him. But the man leans back, then flings his head forwards, spitting into the long puddle in which they both find themselves. It isn’t aimed at him, or if it is, it’s aimed poorly, but the intention to offend is clear and Harkin decides that, from the perspective of the people in a place like this, he probably deserves it. The young man stands, swaying, as though offering Harkin a challenge, before scowling once again, and turning to walk away.

  Harkin glances at the retreating figure one last time, then walks forwards towards the bar. The men who have gathered in the doorway move slowly out of his way, except for one of them, a stocky older man in an apron who leads the way inside.

  Harkin has to stoop to enter and, as he does so, he is greeted by the smell of old drink and ingrained cigarette smoke. It’s as familiar to him as baking bread. The man in the apron moves behind the counter to stand at the cash register and Harkin pauses for a moment, looking into the empty unlit interior, and then glancing over the shelves of branded tins and boxes. The man behind the counter says nothing.

  ‘Mr O’Brien?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘A bag of sugar,’ Harkin says. ‘And three candles. Please.’

  To Harkin’s faint surprise, there is a telephone on the wall and the publican turns to it, winding the handle. When the operator comes on, he asks for someone called O’Mahony. When he comes on the line, O’Brien tells him that the items he asked for have arrived, and asks if he wants someone to bring them out or will he collect them himself. He listens to the answer and rings off. He turns back to Harkin.

  ‘You’re expected. Carry on up the road and there’ll be someone waiting for you. They’ll direct you from there.’ Then O’Brien’s grave face breaks into a smile. It takes Harkin by surprise. ‘Is there anything else you need before you go?’

  Harkin, bemused, points at a shelf of Sweet Afton cigarettes, while rooting in his pocket for a shilling.

  ‘Give me a packet of those.’

  *

  By the time Harkin gets back to the car, the panel in the door is back in place and the Mauser out of sight.

  ‘All good?’ Bourke says.

  The men and women who were watching them earlier have gone on about their business and the village seems almost deserted once again, except for the children, who have gathered by the gate to the church. They look hungry, like everyone else in the village except, perhaps, Mr O’Brien.

  ‘I think so.’

  Harkin passes on the publican’s directions. The children watch them as they leave the village and when Harkin looks back over his shoulder as the car begins to climb the road to the gap, he sees them standing in the muddy road until eventually they can be seen no more.

  ‘Imagine living in a place like that?’ Bourke says, and Harkin is surprised
by the spurt of anger that twists inside his stomach.

  ‘Imagine what that place would be like if Irishmen owned the land on which they stood,’ Harkin says. ‘And made their own laws.’

  Bourke laughs without humour.

  ‘You think it will be any different if that happens?’ he says. ‘You’re an optimist, I’ll give you that.’

  ‘Maybe not right away,’ Harkin says, ‘but one day.’

  The road begins to snake back on itself as they climb higher, the landscape around them barren and covered by gorse and rock, broken up in places into small fields with thick stone walls. What grass there is stands stiff in the wind. Harkin looks behind them at the sea and the white-edged coast. On the far side of the bay, he can just about make out Kilcolgan.

  After about ten minutes’ driving, they crest the rise and begin to descend the other side of the hills, the countryside below them opening up to view.

  ‘Have we gone too far?’ Bourke says, perhaps sensing that Harkin has begun to worry they have missed whoever is to meet them.

  Harkin doesn’t answer, his attention focused on a young red-haired boy of about fourteen, in a black woollen jumper and a grimy cap, leaning against a stone wall. As they approach, he nods to them and stands up, stepping forwards onto the road. Bourke slows the car and the youngster leans in when he rolls the window down. He looks from Harkin to Bourke and then back again.

  ‘Mr Harkin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Any chance of a lift?’

  ‘In you get.’

  The boy directs them along the road for about another mile and then tells Bourke to take a left turn along a narrow lane which doesn’t look as though it has seen much traffic in recent times, and certainly not a car. Trees soon surround the lane, and Harkin is sure he sees two men with rifles standing in among them. He looks across to Bourke, who nods that he has seen them also. Soon the boy tells them to stop beside a small farmyard. Another two men stand in front of it, bandoliers of ammunition across their long coats, one wearing a flat cap and the other a fedora.

  ‘Stay here for a minute,’ the boy says, and goes to speak to the two men, before waving them forwards. They are patted down for weapons and then taken into the farmhouse.

  They find themselves in a long low room and both Bourke and Harkin have to lean down to avoid the low-slung beams. Harkin takes off his hat and looks around, his eyes slowly adjusting to the gloom. An elderly woman is busy at the open hearth at the far wall and young men are gathered around it, sitting on the few chairs and stools, on the ground and against the walls. The smell, a mixture of wet wool and the sour odour of men who have not washed for some time, is familiar to Harkin. The men that he can make out have two- or three-day beards, and their tired eyes look back at him without much interest. Tough men. Harkin wonders how the message came over the hill from Ballycourt, because there has never been a telephone in this house.

  ‘Our guests from Dublin.’ A small, wiry man sitting at the only table in the room waves them over to sit with him.

  Their interest satisfied, most of the Volunteers in the low room look away and begin to converse in low voices. Those who have a plate of food are eating; the others, waiting. The noise reminds Harkin of early evening in a pub. The small man’s blue eyes sparkle, although it isn’t clear to Harkin if it’s with amusement or something less friendly.

  ‘I have orders to assist you, of course.’

  ‘Mick Egan?’

  The small man nods.

  ‘You’ll be Tom Harkin and you –’ he gives Bourke an appraising glance – ‘will be Vincent Bourke.’

  Harkin looks around, uncomfortable to be speaking in front of so many men he does not know.

  ‘Don’t worry about them. If they want to listen in, they will. If they don’t, they won’t. Whatever we have to say to each other is for everyone’s ears. That’s how we operate. No secrets in this unit. Well, not many, at least.’

  Harkin explains why they are there, which seems to come as no surprise to Egan. Egan takes them through the column’s activities on the day of the ambush, from Matt Breen’s arrival with news of Abercrombie’s likely visit to Kilcolgan, through to the ambush itself and then the final pistol shot, heard when they were already some distance away from the smoking car.

  ‘Miss Prendeville was unconscious but we left her comfortable enough. Other than that, all we did was take Teevan’s revolver and a rifle that we found in the boot. We didn’t wait around – I wanted to be back in the hills before the light came up.’

  ‘Driscoll told us the information for the ambush came through Father Dillon.’ Harkin decides to hold the news about the priest’s death back for the moment.

  ‘That’s right,’ Egan says, frowning, and Harkin wonders if it’s at the memory of Matt Breen, or perhaps because he is thinking ahead to what Harkin may say next.

  ‘Do you know who gave the information to Dillon?’

  ‘I say we have no secrets, but Matt would keep some things to himself. That source was important to us and Matt was careful to protect him. If all of us knew who he was, it would have put the source at risk.’

  ‘Any suspicions?’

  ‘None I would put my name to. Why do you ask?’

  ‘If Maud was killed by someone other than the men of your column, they probably knew when the ambush was due to take place. It’s unlikely they were there by coincidence.’

  Egan leans forwards, interested.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘But Sean Driscoll wasn’t anything to do with the ambush?’

  ‘No.’ Egan speaks the word slowly. Harkin can see his mind working behind those cool blue eyes.

  ‘But might he have known about it?’

  Egan examines Harkin intently.

  ‘He might have done.’

  ‘You’re not certain.’

  ‘I only know Matt met him after he met Father Dillon, to pick up whatever news Sean might have had for us. I don’t know if Matt told him about the ambush. I doubt it, but he may have.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Sean wouldn’t have been happy about an ambush so close to Kilcolgan. It might be Matt decided it was safer for him and for us if Sean didn’t know about it. Sean is a reliable man, but he would have a loyalty to the Prendevilles as well.’

  ‘But you’re not certain?’

  ‘In all the rush to get there in time, I never asked Matt what Sean knew and what he didn’t. To be honest, I didn’t want to ask him in case he’d tell me something I didn’t want to hear. We had a great opportunity to deal with Abercrombie. I knew there would be a risk to Sean Driscoll but it was a risk I was ready to run.’ Egan lifts his eyes to gaze steadily at Harkin. ‘To tell the truth, I would have shot up that car even if I’d known Maud Prendeville was in it, so long as I thought there was a good chance I could plug Abercrombie at the same time. I’ve no regrets. In case that isn’t clear to you.’

  ‘I would think the chances of Lord Kilcolgan letting the Auxiliaries have the house as a base are significantly greater as a result of the ambush.’

  Egan looks up at him sharply, as though assessing the statement for a criticism, or something else. He smiles.

  ‘I wouldn’t like the Auxies to be based in Kilcolgan House. It would suit them very well and it wouldn’t suit us at all. But it’s a factor I took into consideration.’

  The intent in the words is clear.

  ‘What about afterwards? You didn’t ask Breen then?’

  ‘I didn’t speak to Matt after the ambush. He peeled away from the column after an hour or so – he had business to attend to – and you know what happened to him after that.’

  Harkin nods, thinking the information through.

  ‘All your men were with you when the single shot was fired?’

  Egan nods once again, but there is a question now, Harkin can see, that the commandant wants to ask, and it’s about Sean Driscoll. Harkin takes the appointment book out of his pocket and opens it on the table at the date of
the ambush.

  ‘This is Father Dillon’s appointment book. I’m guessing ‘B.M.’ is Matt Breen.’

  Egan leans forwards to examine the initials and then nods.

  ‘That would be the time Matt met him.’

  Harkin turns back to the page before.

  ‘Any idea who “K. R.” is? It might be the source of the information.’

  Egan thinks for a moment.

  ‘I suppose I always suspected the source was someone in the RIC barracks in town. The only person I know of in there with initials similar to that would be Richard Kelly. Dicky Kelly. A sergeant.’

  ‘I’ve met him.’

  ‘It’s a possibility, anyway,’ Egan says. ‘Do you mind me asking how you come to have Father Dillon’s appointment book?’

  ‘We found him hanging from a rope this morning. Someone tried to make it look as though he’d hung himself. We think he was murdered.’

  Egan nods slowly, and Harkin turns the pages to yesterday’s date.

  ‘He had an interesting visitor last night.’

  Egan leans forwards and reads Sean Driscoll’s name. Then he leans back and, apparently absent-mindedly, takes a tobacco pouch from his jacket pocket and begins to roll himself a cigarette.

  ‘Come out for a walk with me while I smoke this. Our hostess doesn’t like us smoking inside.’

  Outside they stand in the small, rocky farmyard, watched by an ancient sheepdog and, at a distance, by the two guards. A few lethargic chickens peck at the ground around their feet.

  ‘Tell me what else you’ve found out about Sean Driscoll. I can tell there’s more.’

  Harkin fills him in about the inconsistencies in Driscoll’s account of the ambush, the letters to Maud Prendeville and about her pregnancy. Then, a little reluctantly, he tells him about Abercrombie’s visit to Moira Wilson’s the night before.