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

by Cindy Brandner

  The captain sputtered over his tea a little. “Lord James Kirkpatrick?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s my understanding they were not romantically involved, but merely friends.”

  The captain turned over the picture of the house. There was more than one photo of the woman. He flicked through them quickly; each had been taken from a distance, for the subject was clearly unaware of the camera’s eye upon her. The pictures were innocuous enough, showing her in simple day-to-day tasks or actions—riding a horse, pushing a pram, presumably with a baby inside, though in Belfast it didn’t pay to presume anything. She was lovely, there was no denying that, and something more, something that made itself apparent even here in the static medium of a photo. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, but to have such a draw even in a picture, he knew it must be very powerful in the actual presence of the woman. And if Lord James Kirkpatrick was involved with her in some fashion, it took her importance in the scheme of things to a whole different level.

  James Kirkpatrick was surrounded by a blackout of information that resembled a big granite wall, and that told the captain a great deal about just what His Lordship’s extra-curricular activities were. If he was more highly-placed than the SAS, it meant he was intelligence and someone was very concerned with keeping his history secret. James Kirkpatrick was someone he did not particularly wish to tangle with, and it was possible, the snarled threads of Ulster being what they were, that keeping an eye on this woman could attract the man’s attention. You pulled one thread here and the entire picture unraveled before your eyes, revealing something underneath that was far more trouble and far uglier than what you’d bargained for.

  “And what is her connection to Noah Murray? This is not a man who socializes with the neighbors after all.”

  “His sister is involved with the younger of the Riordan brothers. It’s possible they met through her.”

  “If it’s not romance, then what? And if it is romance, you will be able to knock me off this chair with a feather.”

  “We’re not certain, sir. He comes and goes at odd hours, not so much like a lover, but rather like a man who is trying to keep something secret.”

  “What, is the question? And why this woman? Is her land convenient to something, or is she connected to something larger that he wants a piece of? You know this man doesn’t do anything without an eye to his own advantage.”

  “Well, sir, it could be her connection to James Kirkpatrick that he’s interested in.”

  The captain contemplated that nugget for a moment. The situation had all the hallmarks of something that could turn into, to use a term the Americans had for situations like this, a clusterfuck of phenomenal proportions. No man messed with British Intelligence without being fully aware he was stepping into a viper pit. But the potential here for finding a way into the incredibly tight network Noah Murray maintained in South Armagh was too great a temptation.

  The captain tapped his finger on a picture of the woman.

  “I want you to look into everything—her connections, her financial situation, if there’s anyone she’s afraid of, et cetera. I want to know if we can turn her into an asset for our side. I want a full report before anyone makes a move, understood?”

  The young soldier nodded. “Consider it done, sir.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Visit

  EACH TUESDAY, PAMELA spent the afternoon at Jamie’s house, going over a variety of business, mostly the leftover bits and pieces from her time managing the companies. He said he enjoyed having someone else understand the whole wooly ball of the business, rather than each person he dealt with having acquaintance with only one or two aspects. She brought her children with her, so that they could visit with Maggie, Vanya and Shura—all of whom were very fond of Isabelle and Conor. More often than not they stayed to dinner at Jamie’s insistence, and the latter half of Tuesday had become a bright spot in her week.

  Today, however, there was a strange car in the drive in front of the house and a sense of tense expectancy about the house itself when she let herself in through the kitchen entrance.

  Conor rushed to Maggie, who leaned down to engulf him in a capacious hug. Pamela put Isabelle on the floor and removed her pale pink sweater. Maggie kept a box of toys in the kitchen for the children, and Pamela fished out a ragdoll that wouldn’t be harmed if Isabelle drooled on it and handed it to her daughter, who clutched it up and stuck an arm directly in her mouth.

  Maggie looked at her then, and Pamela knew she hadn’t imagined the strange tension outside.

  Maggie, as was usual, was to the point. “Julian is here. He arrived an hour ago.”

  “Did Jamie know he was coming?”

  “Aye, he only gave a day’s warnin’, barely enough time to change the sheets an’ put together a decent dinner. I tell ye,” Maggie harrumphed, “the boy flusters a person, he looks too much like Jamie for anyone’s comfort.”

  “I know,” she said, dreading the encounter. “Perhaps I should just go home.”

  Maggie laughed, a somewhat grim sound. “Oh no, ye won’t get away that easy, Jamie said to send ye on through when ye arrived. There’s no runnin’ for it now, he’ll have heard that truck ye’re drivin’.”

  She sighed. There were few things she wanted to do less than see Julian once again, but Maggie was right, Jamie would know she had arrived.

  “Let me take the tea in then, Maggie, it will give me something to do with my hands.” Maggie had been assembling the tray when she walked in, and now she poured water into the teapot and added a delicate lavender teacup that was Pamela’s favorite to the tray.

  Maggie nodded. “All right, saves me goin’ in there. The tray is a bit heavy, so mind how ye go.”

  A bit heavy was an understatement. Looking down at the array of sponge cake, lemon drop cookies and sugar-dusted scones, Pamela wondered if Maggie was trying to lull everyone into some sort of sugar and starch détente. She traversed the long corridor without incident, and was relieved to see that the door was ajar. She tapped it lightly with the edge of the tray, so that she wouldn’t come upon the two men unawares.

  They rose as one when she entered the room. Each man was a study in that same cat-like grace; it was like being in some strange hall of mirrors. Seeing the two of them together in the same room gave her a slight case of vertigo. The china rattled in an alarming fashion, and Jamie quickly took it from her, setting it down on the low table between the chairs. She sat down and was dismayed to find that her knees were knocking a little. She had first met Julian when he had arrived unannounced with Jamie’s Uncle Philip, at a Christmas party she was hosting in Jamie’s absence. She had very nearly been sick from shock that night. In subsequent encounters with Julian, she had come to see how different he was in nature from Jamie, and it caused a neat divide between the two men. But now, seeing them only feet apart, Jamie with the elongated look to his eyes that he only got when truly furious and Julian mirroring that expression in sapphire across from him—well it was entirely disconcerting. If she’d had a fan handy she would have used it, and smelling salts wouldn’t have come amiss either.

  She wasn’t sure what they were talking about, though Jamie drew her into the conversation with his usual skill and Julian greeted her like she was an old acquaintance of whom he was fond. Which, she thought turning her gaze to him, could not be further from the truth. Today he wore a shirt that highlighted the dense sapphire of his eyes and a pair of charcoal grey dress pants. Both were custom-made and she had a funny feeling that the clothing had been made by Jamie’s own tailor, as the cut was the same. Jamie was far more casual in a cream sweater and jeans that had seen better days. He looked like he’d been caught working in the stables when Julian arrived. It didn’t appear to bother him, for he seemed relaxed, annoyingly so. Her own nerves did not feel quite so sanguine.

  She was, truth be told, surprised that Julian dared to show his face here after all the trouble he had made in Jamie’s absence. She had no grea
t fondness for him, but he was, regardless of her own issues with him, Jamie’s son. Jamie would want to get to know him, as was his right.

  She poured the tea and handed a cup to each man, though Julian had a tumbler of whiskey in front of him. Jamie watched as she did this, observing Julian’s reactions to her and hers to him, which might be best described as icily polite on her end and restrained on Julian’s. And then it was her turn to observe as she sat back in the chair and sipped at her tea. Jamie’s face, of course, gave nothing away. Since Russia, he was even harder to read, as if his time there had forged an opacity to his daily interactions.

  She of all people understood what this meant to Jamie—Jamie who had buried three infant sons because of a genetic heart disease, Jamie who had never thought to have a living son of his own body. She only prayed he would not allow it to make him vulnerable to this beautiful boy across from him, for Julian was as treacherous as the rocks that lay just below the surface of a calm sea. She had been likewise susceptible to him, due to his remarkable resemblance to his father, but fortunately she had also distrusted him in equal proportion, understanding that looking like Jamie did not make Julian his equal in character. He had proved in short order that he was not anywhere near the man his father was by trying to steal not only his companies but also the house in which they now sat. She felt distinctly twitchy, like there were ants crawling in a mound at her feet ready to swarm up her legs.

  “We have been discussing,” Jamie said, “Irish history.”

  Discussing Irish history with Jamie, Pamela well knew, was akin to stepping out into a minefield whilst hopping on one leg. Hopping while carrying lit dynamite she amended, as she realized the subject at hand was the recent withdrawal, by the British government, of special category status for Irish republican prisoners. Because England’s occupation of Ireland had no real legal underpinning, Irish republicans had long been treated as political prisoners. Now suddenly it had been withdrawn by an English politician who ought to have known better.

  “You’re part of the United Kingdom, and therefore subject to its laws,” Julian was saying, in defense of the reversal.

  “British law?” Jamie laughed. “Britain has always had one set of laws for herself and her wealthy, and another set for those she sets out to conquer and considers savages. Britain has, as I’m sure you know, been the biggest transgressor of her own laws.”

  “No,” Julian said with a rather superb haughtiness, “I don’t know that. You can hardly expect a whole separate set of rules for your little corner of the United Kingdom. It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Perhaps perfidious Albion is so black and white, but I can assure you Northern Ireland is not.” Jamie took a bite of a scone, as if they were discussing the weather, or cricket. Pamela arched a brow at him, wondering if he was deliberately baiting the boy. Jamie merely smiled at her, in the maddening fashion which told her exactly nothing.

  “Perhaps it would benefit all of you if you realized that the law and the world sees you as British.”

  “We prefer to define our own nationality here, rather than have it handed to us at the end of a gun.”

  “I think you all have a greater fondness for the gun than do your neighbors across the sea. After all, we don’t kill our own with such appetite. Murder is murder, regardless of whether it is wrapped in the flag of nationalism.”

  “Oh, the civilized Englishman, rarer than the Dodo bird, and far more elusive,” Jamie said softly, but there was no mistaking the icy edge to his words. “Would you like me to list the atrocities that have been committed in this country at the hands of your oh-so-civilized countrymen?”

  “Englishmen are your countrymen, lest you forget,” Julian replied, no small edge in his own voice.

  “Ah, that’s what your countrymen tend to forget—this is not England and never will be.”

  “And yet still it is British law that rules this land,” Julian said, tipping the crystal tumbler he held, so that the light swam like a delicate water sprite through the gold of the whiskey.

  “If that is true,” Jamie said, wiping crumbs from his sweater with a brisk hand, “then British law would have to truly apply. It doesn’t here. You can’t say, as the politicians have been saying—a crime is a crime, murder is murder and then apply different consequences to it. You can’t have the SAS hunting these so-called ordinary murderers down, nor can you have special prisons manned by special guards, nor Diplock courts where a trial, and I use that term loosely, takes twenty minutes and has no jury. You can’t keep prisoners on remand indefinitely, postponing their trials again and again, just to keep them locked up for as long as possible. There is no internal logic to such a system that says these crimes are equal and ordinary, regardless of the root cause, and then apply special punishments to said crimes.”

  Pamela felt as if she were a spectator at a rather brutal game of ping pong, watching the ball being hit back and forth with ever more vigor and anger. Jamie was right, and Julian could not possibly understand just what a complicated snarl the mix of history and politics was here in Belfast. Murder was never just murder here, nothing was straightforward, most acts of violence had roots that twisted their way back to a very deep place, where many factors played a part: family history, the street you lived upon, the grammar school you had attended, the way you prayed before you closed your eyes at night and which sports teams you supported. Here the political was personal, always.

  “Is there logic to it? Eight hundred years of rebellion and madness and brother killing brother—can there be logic to such a thing?”

  “It’s not something insiders understand, never mind outsiders,” Jamie said quietly. “This country has been riven down the center, often by outside forces whose interests have never served the Irish well. There is a saying that if you’re not confused, you don’t understand the situation. That tends to be rather too accurate in Northern Ireland.”

  “Well, one thing isn’t confusing,” Julian said, putting his tumbler down with a small thump, “and that is the English are clearly the villains of this piece, and all the internecine killing can be laid at our feet, rather than taking a long look in your own mirror.”

  Pamela cleared her throat, harboring a wild hope that she could think of a new subject that was less fraught with potential bombs. It was a howl of outrage from Kolya that put paid to the conversation. Jamie excused himself and left the room.

  The tension went down a notch, but no more than that, for she found herself eye-to-eye with Julian. The sapphire eyes were discomfiting, for he had Jamie’s trick of making it seem as if he looked right through you, only with Jamie it was because her friendship with him often made her motives and feelings transparent to him. She was vulnerable to Jamie, but she did not mind because he would never abuse that fact. With Julian it felt like exploitation, as though he would pick over a person’s soul and look for any weakness to use later to his own advantage.

  “I was sorry,” he said, “to hear about your husband.”

  “Were you?” she said, very cool, though the teacup in her hand was near to shattering from the pressure of her fingers. “Somehow I don’t think so.” She would not discuss Casey with this man, nor would she suffer any false sympathy from him, and false she was certain it was.

  “You do not like me, I know this,” Julian said, his eyes holding a small umber flame within. It was only the reflection from the fire, but it gave him a slightly demonic glow.

  “You gave me little reason to,” she said frostily.

  “Perhaps we can start fresh,” he said, “for my father’s sake, if nothing else.”

  “Perhaps,” she said guardedly, remembering how overly familiar Julian had been with her and how he had offered to take her on as his mistress, once he took over Jamie’s house and life. He had assumed that she had been such to Jamie and as he had rather succinctly asked, ‘Do I inherit you along with the house?’ No one could accuse him of a lack of hubris at least.

  “You spend a deal of ti
me here?” he asked, like he was merely making conversation, but it was never so simple with him.

  “I do, not that it’s any business of yours.”

  “No,” he drawled in imitation of Jamie’s most irritating tone, “I suppose it isn’t, though you should bear in mind that he does not keep his mistresses long. Just ask my mother how long she lasted.”

  “Then I needn’t worry, need I? Because his friends, he keeps forever.”

  Suddenly she realized that Jamie was standing in the doorway, the air around him still as if he stood in a place apart. She tensed a little, as this was always an indication that he was well and truly angry. Clearly, he had overheard the last of their exchange.

  “You,” he said looking at Julian, “are a guest in my home and as such I will give you what that courtesy demands. I would ask that you give the same in return. If you feel you cannot, then you may leave.” His tone was mild, but Pamela shivered a little on Julian’s behalf.

  Julian colored, a tide of red rising from his collar to stain his cheeks. Like Jamie, he had fine skin and the flush turned his eyes a deeper blue, almost black in its density. Jamie’s eyes turned dark like that when he was in the grip of high emotion too.

  “I have plans for this evening,” he said, somewhat stiffly, “so I won’t be here for dinner. Friends are here in the city and I’ve promised to see them tonight. I will be back later if that’s still all right by you.”

  “Of course it is,” Jamie said easily, “you’ll find Irish hospitality is without stint. I don’t take disagreements personally. I do, however, take insults toward my friends as such. You owe the lady an apology.”

  She shook her head at Jamie, but he merely gave her a sardonic lift of one eyebrow in reply.

  “No, he’s right, I do owe you an apology. I’m sorry if I offended you, Pamela,” Julian said, and she feared for a moment that he might actually take her hand or touch her just to emphasize his words. She would hit him if he did, or throw the tea left in her cup in his face.