In the Country of Shadows (Exit Unicorns Series Book 4)

by Cindy Brandner

  “Is there anything new?”

  “No,” he said bluntly, and if she wasn’t mistaken, with a little scoop of satisfaction that it should be so. There was nothing to hang her hope on, and yet nothing to take it away either. A woman could find comfort in that, if of a small and precarious sort.

  “Have ye considered that it might be an own goal by those pricks in the ‘Ra?”

  “No,” she said flatly, wanting to tell him that her eyes were in her head and not her chest, as that’s where he kept training his gaze. She couldn’t afford to antagonize him because she needed any bit of help she could find.

  He shrugged. “There isn’t any news. Some police feel the need to mollycoddle families, but I think honesty is kinder in the long run. So ye need to start reconcilin’ yerself to the idea that yer husband is dead, an’ likely has been from the day he disappeared, unless he was tortured somewhere for a bit first.”

  She jerked back feeling like the man had slapped her. He might as well have for the shock was the same. He was being deliberately cruel. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand that an absence this long didn’t portend well, but to have it so bluntly stated, with such malice that it fairly dripped from him like cream from the whiskers of an overfed cat, was like taking a punch to the stomach when she wasn’t prepared for it in the least.

  She stood to go, her entire body tingling with both hurt and humiliation. She intended to be out of the station and safely in her car before she had any sort of reaction. She would not give this man the satisfaction of her pain.

  He followed her out into the lobby area. She wished he would just stop, and let her go on alone. She could smell his body odor and it was making her nauseous. Sweat and something else—an undernote like curdled milk.

  Her hand was on the door when he spoke again.

  “Woman that looks like you won’t have no problem findin’ herself another husband. I wouldn’t fret too much over the one ye lost.”

  She did not turn, she did not trust herself to look at him and keep her ability to remain calm. If she looked at him, she might well fly at him like a banshee and scratch his eyes out. Instead, she walked out of the station flushed with humiliation and shaking with fury. If he had wanted to make it clear that she could expect no help from the police, then the message was received. She got in the car, aware she was still watched for she could feel his eyes fixed upon her.

  She looked in the rearview mirror as she backed out, and wished she hadn’t. Constable Blackwood was standing watching her, his arms crossed over his chest and his cold grey eyes trained on her. She thought she might be sick, and was furious with herself when tears started to gather in her eyes. She pushed on the gas pedal hard enough that the car lurched forward before it caught and sprayed gravel, and then it shot out of the parking lot.

  She drove. The dark bird in her chest was beating its wings so hard she thought she might pass out. She had been afraid that this might happen, that the police would take against her and her questions because Casey had once been a member of the PIRA.

  She drove past the turn-off that would take her home, but only realized it a few moments later. She needed to turn around somewhere; Isabelle would need feeding soon and there was no spare bottle for her in the fridge. Her milk had been unreliable since Casey’s disappearance because it had been so difficult to stick to Isabelle’s feeding schedule and the stress and anxiety weren’t helping to keep up her supply. She stopped at the first lay-by she came to on a narrow country road that was little more than a paved cow trail. The lay-by was merely a small indent in the thick hedgerow which lined both sides of the track. The leaves rustled in the breeze, speaking of the rain to come, or given the cold maybe even a fall of snow.

  She was shaking so hard she had great difficulty turning off the ignition. The tears were gone now, though she felt it might have been a relief to cry. It wasn’t going to happen, even if it felt most days that there was an ocean of them trapped inside her. Rage and fear she could feel, but not grief, because grief would be an acknowledgement of something she could not admit.

  She sat there watching as the drops of sleet came and slid down the windows of her car. She thought she must be in shock sometimes, because despite the pain and panic that were her constant companions there was still a sense of falsity to this, as if she would wake up tomorrow morning and hear Casey whistling downstairs as he made the morning tea or turn over in the bed and find the sheets still warm from his body, the scent of him, dark and musky, there in the sheets. She had not been able to sleep in the bed since he’d disappeared.

  She sat until the windows were fogged with her breath and she had regained some small bit of composure, or what now passed for composure. It was a small and miserable shield that did little to protect her from the slings and arrows of living in this country.

  She turned over the ignition and squared her shoulders, waiting for the bird in her chest to give a few more flaps. Then she pulled the car back out onto the narrow road. If the police wouldn’t help her, she thought she knew someone who would.

  Chapter Four

  Noah

  PAMELA WAITED BY THE STONE wall that set the boundary for the southern end of their property. She stood where the wall ended in a clump of elm, slick-dark and laden with sleet this evening. It had not been an easy task to set up this meeting. It had taken screwing her courage to the sticking point and asking Kate to talk to her brother on her behalf. For two weeks she had waited before his answer came. Pamela was, like most people who lived in the fragile state of the murder triangle, somewhat terrified of the man. The PIRA was a different entity altogether in South Armagh, at times they made the Belfast wing of the Provos look like old world gentlemen. Noah Murray was the godfather of the hard men in Armagh, and he was feared far and wide for good reason.

  She shivered, it was a cold evening, and while she was well bundled against the weather, she was never warm anymore. She glanced around, this was her own land, but everything looked ominous to her. Vision became skewed in the wake of a disappearance, roads and paths that seemed merely just that before became sinister in their various turns and twists; the crooked trunk of a tree at a bend in the road, the way water pooled in a familiar depression suddenly seeming a black and ominous divining mirror. Every turning of a path, every fork in every road, now represented something different to her than it had before, because what if that was the place where Casey had vanished, what if that was the exact ripple in the air where he had turned his head and looked back at home one last time?

  She understood suddenly that she was afraid she would always be standing here, stuck in time, looping forever around that one instance, the events of a single moment, events of which she did not know the slightest detail and thought, perhaps, she was too much a coward to know the entire story. To find the one person that did know, that she would give her life for. For someone to tell her, even without mercy or regret—this, this is what happened to your husband, to the man you loved, this is where he was taken, this is where he was left. And yet, when she was awake in the pits of another three o’clock in the morning, did she really want to know, would knowing change anything? Would it ease the pain in her heart and the cold place in the world where, when she reached out her arms, he no longer existed? It was a real danger, the possibility of getting stuck there in that place forever, waiting for someone who was not ever coming home, while the world around you moved on, lived, laughed, loved and breathed without feeling like they had broken glass in their chest.

  They were the questions she had to ask herself. Questions about every word, every nuance, every look and every small detail that might be nothing, but might be everything in finding the trail that led to Casey. Why that day? Had he done something that she was unaware of or met with someone unexpected?

  If there was one man who might tell her the things she needed to know without mercy or regret, it was the man she had arranged to meet here tonight. For Noah Murray had his finger on the pulse of every heartbeat
in the Armagh region, though her knees got rather more shaky when she thought about how many heartbeats he was rumored to have put a full stop to.

  Kate had been a bit hesitant when she first approached her with her request.

  “Did ye not tell me my brother had threatened to kill ye once?”

  “He did, but it was a long time ago, and I haven’t poked my nose into any of his business since. Please Kate, will you think about it? He might be the only person who can help me.”

  Kate nodded, the sympathy on her face stark. “Aye, Pamela, ye know I would do anything to help.”

  And she had, setting up this meeting despite her own reservations about the wisdom of it. Pamela was having her own doubts just this moment, though it did not matter, for she would do much worse to find so much as a whisper about what had happened to Casey.

  Just when she thought Noah wasn’t going to show, he walked out of the trees, silent as a wolf, hands in his pockets and his face hidden beneath the brim of a poor boy cap.

  He came and stood beside her, taking his cap off. He was a good deal handsomer than she had imagined him. She had half expected the man to look like the monster he was reputed to be. He looked a great deal like his sister, for he was fine-featured with the dark chestnut hair and the distinctive gentian eyes which Kate also had. He was slender and stood about six inches above her, which put him just over six feet. She knew he was four years older than Kate, which made him only three years senior to her. He was just thirty in terms of actual time, but a lifetime older in terms of experience. That quality made itself felt quite clearly.

  “What is it that ye want then?” he asked, clearly not one for either intrigue or small talk.

  She took a breath for courage and plunged in at the deep end, suspecting there was no other way to approach things with this particular man.

  “I want to know if you know anything about my husband’s disappearance?”

  He didn’t seem surprised by her question. She thought it likely Kate had apprised him of just why she wanted to meet with him.

  “Are ye askin’ if I murdered yer man?”

  “I suppose, in part, I am,” she said aware that her knees were roughly the consistency of badly-set jelly, but relieved that her voice didn’t shake in the least.

  “No, I didn’t. I had no troubles with him.”

  “Do you know of anyone who did?”

  His eyes narrowed and she felt like a goose had walked firmly across her grave.

  “An’ why do ye imagine I’d tell ye if I did?”

  The man had a point there, why would he tell her? He owed her nothing. She would have to go with the truth once again, because she had no other chips with which to barter.

  “Because I’m slowly losing my mind,” she said softly, “and though everyone else thinks you’re the most cold-hearted bastard on the planet, I think you’re maybe not entirely without compassion. The truth is if anyone can find out, it’s you. That’s why I asked.”

  He laughed. “I am the most cold-hearted bastard on the planet, truth be told. It’s rare for someone to have the courage to say it to my face.”

  She shrugged. “You don’t seem terribly sensitive to me, so I doubt it will bother you overmuch.”

  He laughed again, a soft laugh for such a hard man.

  “Ye’re not one to butter a man up with soft words, are ye?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “I only agreed to meet with ye because of Kate.”

  “I know.” She held his gaze; she couldn’t afford to falter with this man.

  The gentian eyes were cold as the snow that lay thick in the fields.

  “If I do this for ye, then I expect a return on my troubles. I’m not like the other men ye’ve known—the ones who would do anything ye ask, because of the way ye look. I’m not weak for that sort of thing.”

  “I suspect you’re not weak for any sort of thing,” Pamela said tartly. She knew she ought to be afraid of him, he was feared county-wide for good reason, but she found his company oddly comforting. She had the sense that he would not lie to her nor would he make promises he couldn’t hope to keep. “What sort of return are you talking about?” She was blunt, because there was no other way to be with this man, and because she wanted it clear from the start that she would not go to his bed, if that was what he had in mind.

  “I’ll not expect ye to sleep with me—I can see that ye scruple at that idea. Occasionally, I may ask ye to put up a man on the run, someone who needs a room to hide in for a day or two. It will be made clear to them that ye’re a respectable widow with wee ones to care for, an’ they are to behave themselves or answer to me. Trust me when I say Mrs. Riordan, that none of them want to answer to me if they can avoid it.”

  “I’m not a widow,” she said indignantly.

  He shrugged. “Maybe ye are or maybe ye aren’t, it remains to be seen. Thinkin’ that ye’re a widow will give ye a respectability in the lads’ eyes, an’ they are less likely to get ideas in their heads.”

  “What makes you think they will give me any trouble?” she asked. She could hardly imagine any man’s desire overcoming his fear of the man in front of her.

  “Just because I’m not weak for it,” he said, “doesn’t mean that I’m not well aware that other men are. I know ye understand who I am an’ know what I’ve done, but I’ve made a deal with ye, an’ I’ll not allow ye to be hurt for keepin’ yer end of it.”

  “How will this work?” she asked, swallowing over the dryness in her throat. It wasn’t fear exactly that she felt, only the sense that if she put one foot on this road there would be consequences, and there would never be any turning back.

  “I’ll let ye know if an’ when I need yer help, an’ I’ll arrange to meet here with ye, should I have anything to tell ye. What I find out about yer husband, whatever that might be, I’ll be sure to tell ye right away.”

  “Okay,” she said and for a fleeting second heard her husband’s voice clear as day in her head.

  “Have ye completely lost yer fockin’ mind, woman?”

  “Yes, yes I have,” she replied to him.

  “What?” Noah was looking at her curiously, and she realized she had spoken her answer out loud.

  She shook her head. “Sorry, it was nothing, just mumbling to myself.”

  He nodded. “I’ve got to go, I’ve other appointments to keep this night. Are ye all right to walk back on yer own?”

  “Of course I am,” she said stiffly. He merely put his cap back on his head, gave her a curt nod and melted away into the night. She stood for a long time after he left, looking at the spot where he’d stood, but not seeing anything. The wind had changed direction while she’d talked to him, and the sleet had turned to snow. Tiny stars fell, landing on the stone wall, glimmering there for a second before melting into oblivion. She touched one, and felt the small chill on her fingertip, there and then gone. Like her husband, there one moment and gone the next.

  She took a breath, feeling the terrible weight in her chest, as if a stone sat there. She closed her eyes and tilted her face up to the night sky, letting the snow fall on her eyes, and nose and lips. And she said the prayer she never stopped saying inside her mind, in her heart.

  “Come home to me, man, come home to me please, please, please…”

  Sometimes she thought if she just kept her eyes closed long enough, she would finally wake from this nightmare, that she could conjure back life as it had been, and Casey would be there in front of her, warm and big and secure. Her man, her husband, her love.

  But when she opened her eyes, there was only the night sky above, the trees around her and the heavy silence of falling snow.

  Chapter Five

  The King of the County

  UPON SLIEVE GULLION, on a fine day, you could see eight counties clear as glass, laid below at your feet. It could make a king of the most ordinary man to see such a sight and know it to be his own, even if only for a fleeting moment. For Noah Murray the sight was just
that wee bit different for much of what he saw lying below him, glimmering under a light covering of snow, was indeed within the hand of his considerable power. South Armagh was his own private fiefdom. Even the British Army acknowledged that he was the ruler in this tiny kingdom. They had learned long ago to step lightly upon this land, and when they hadn’t he had brought it sharply to their attention.

  South Armagh had long been a land apart. Even in a country of rebels and outlaws, South Armagh was considered a wild zone, a no man’s land where the Provisional Irish Republican Army had their own set of rules and an autonomy which even the Belfast Brigade dared not gainsay. Geographically it was set up to be a bandit’s paradise with the Gap of the North being the only entry into or out of the kingdom of Ulster into the Leinster of old. In other times people refused to come to South Armagh to either trade or buy solely because the chance of being set upon by thieves was almost certain. That hadn’t changed much and many people would go out of their way to avoid the county altogether, or lock their doors and make a run for it through the beautiful rolling countryside banded with blackthorn hedges and low stone walls.

  The Defenders, an organization that many saw as the seedling of what eventually would become the Irish Republican Army, had its genesis in this land. Enmity was handed down through the generations, old tragedies neither forgiven nor forgotten. Outlaws like Redmond O’Hanlon still lived in memory as if they had only faced the hangman yesterday and the legends of Cuchulain and the Hag of Beara were as much a part of the landscape as the stones of the mountain upon which Noah now stood. It was still a land of legend, of outlawry and savage violence when tribal lines were crossed. And in this land, one man was king.

  Noah Murray was considered the single biggest threat to domestic security within the United Kingdom. It was no small thing to be such. His farm was under near constant watch by army surveillance teams dug in close to the border crossing point. In the last five years several million pounds had been spent on building watchtowers just to the north of his farm. But there were ways to elude the army and their intelligence gatherers. They had not caught him yet, though he had endured many a search of his land and house and been beaten more than once at the hand of interrogators. It was a matter of course, and he bore it when he had to and struck back when the bastards least expected it.