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

by Cindy Brandner

  Touch was the most primary of the senses for her. She was highly responsive to it, a trait Casey had been very fond of. His touch had been both security and passion; but mostly it had been home. She had been touched before by rage, both literally and figuratively, and though this was like that feeling, it also wasn’t. It was a threat, made without words, still it was entirely effective. She looked down, catching at her breath, trying to calm her shaken nerves and then turned to look behind her. There was a crowd gathering, people clucking with concern, but the constable was gone, melted into the bricks and dirty cement and the low grey clouds of the city, as if she had imagined him.

  “Are ye all right there, lass?” The driver of the car which had narrowly missed hitting her, was standing over her, visibly shaken. He put his hand out to help her up. She rose shakily, hoping her knees would bear her up.

  “I tripped,” she said, “I’m sorry.”

  “No need for that,” he said gruffly, “I’m glad ye’re not hurt, that was too near a thing all together.”

  “I’m fine, just a little shaken up,” she said. She looked around, a small crowd had begun to gather to see what had happened, and she felt a fine dew of perspiration break out on the back of her neck. These might be perfectly kind people in their everyday life, but let a small mob gather and realize she was a Catholic woman in their neighborhood and they might not remain kind and concerned.

  She walked quickly back toward the courthouse, stopping only to dampen the back of her neck with water from a fountain. The small of her back still had an unpleasant tingle where Constable Blackwood had pushed her and she felt the first flush of fury start in her body. How dare he touch her, how dare he put her in danger because he’d formed some baseless dislike of her due to her religion and her name. She was shaking as she wrung the handkerchief out and then wiped her face with it.

  She waited in a teashop for a while since she didn’t think she could stomach being patted down by the security at the courthouse right now. She took her time drinking the tea, grateful for the heat and the fortification of caffeine and sugar. After she was done, she walked back toward the courthouse, its grim façade only topped by the razor-wired front of the Crum opposite. She had waited until she thought the time was close for them to come out, as it wasn’t safe to loiter anywhere in Belfast and particularly not outside a court of law, situated across from one of the most notorious jails in the land.

  By the time Patrick emerged, looking ridiculously formal in his lawyer’s garb, she was composed, at least outwardly; inwardly she was still slightly nauseous and entirely furious. Pat grinned at her and gave her a discreet thumbs up, his wig ever-so-slightly askew on his dark curls. She took a deep breath of relief that tingled all the way down to her toes. He walked over to her and she stood, waiting to hear the details of what had taken place.

  The relief in him was palpable, and she realized just how exhausted he looked. Between his work and his worry for her and the children, and the fact that she knew he was the one person on earth who was every bit as haunted as she was by Casey’s disappearance, it was a wonder the man hadn’t collapsed at some point.

  “I don’t think it could have gone better, frankly,” Pat said, answering the question that was on her face. “Tomas was a wonder, sharp as a brass tack an’ didn’t miss a point anywhere. The judge didn’t even hesitate in his decision, just said there were clear grounds for an appeal, an’ that he was appalled at how the original case had been handled.”

  “Congratulations, Patrick. I’m so pleased for you both.”

  He smiled. “This is when the real fun starts, I guess. I’m not sure I know how I feel about it, truth be told.”

  She knew too well what Pat meant by that statement. If the RUC hadn’t been paying attention before, they most certainly would be now. With the rumors going about that there were off-duty officers involved in the random shooting of Catholics, some in the city, others out in the countryside, an act like this was tantamount to painting a scarlet bullseye on their own backs. It could bleed out to all of them, affect their lives or take their lives. It didn’t require much of anything in this country, catching the wrong eye in the wrong moment was enough. She half expected there would be no more work photographing the dead once this was out. In truth, she was surprised they had continued to offer her work for this long as it was.

  She thought briefly about telling him of the constable’s threat, though there was little enough to tell and she didn’t want to ruin Pat’s moment of victory. There would be time enough later. For it wasn’t just the shove into the road, it was that after the hand had yanked her back she’d heard the words, spoken in that guttural hiss, “Next time, bitch, next time.”

  “Pamela, don’t look like that. I’m just having a moment of doubt, because I thought we’d lose an’ I’d go back to conveyancin’ and writin’ up wills. We’ll dig our heels in, do our job properly an’ take what precautions we can. Beyond that…” He looked down at her and smiled, trying to impart reassurance to her. She took his hands and smiled in return, though she was still cold all over from the touch of the constable’s hand.

  “Beyond that,” she said, “we pray.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Tea Spot

  IT WAS, TO SAY THE LEAST, nerve-wracking to play host to IRA men on the run. What struck Pamela at times was how young many of them were, and how likely it was their lives would end either in a hail of bullets or in a very long prison stint. Often both eventualities played out to their inevitable and tragic ending. It was a process sometimes referred to as republican university.

  There was a young man asleep in her shed this very morning. Noah had arrived with him in the early hours after a skirmish with an Army patrol the night before outside of Newry. Right now the ground was too hot to move him. She had made him breakfast after she returned from a short visit to her neighbor Lewis. Conor had stayed with Lewis who had promised to bring her son back after lunch. She had packed the food for the young man in a feed bag, so that she could move it from the house to the shed without raising suspicion, lest the British Army had eyes on her and her property. Noah had promised to move him after nightfall.

  She opened the door to go out to the shed, only to find herself confronted by a man standing in the small covered porch attached to the side door. She jumped back, cursing inwardly as she felt the tea in the bag slosh.

  The man standing before her was clean cut—short brown hair, dark brown eyes, and healthy pink-cheeked skin. He was dressed in a sweater and jeans that were far too new. He looked familiar though it took her a moment to place him. She had bumped into him in a local shop the other day, and he had knocked her groceries out of her hand and been extremely apologetic afterwards, trying to make small talk while he helped her pick up apples and butter and bread. Then she had seen him at Gallagher’s Pub, having a casual pint, and telling Owen he was a tourist that was lost. That he should show up here, unannounced, was far too coincidental to be coincidence. She got straight to the point.

  “I’ve seen you three times now. Even in a country this small, the odds aren’t in favor of that. What is it that you want?”

  “I was told this was a safe tea spot.”

  Pamela frowned. “What on earth would make you think that?” A tea spot was essentially a safe house for a British soldier if things got too hot on the ground, which in Belfast and its environs was more often than not. Their house had most certainly never been considered a warm and fuzzy sort of place for a British soldier. Not that she believed for a New York minute that this man was a regular soldier. She knew that it was common for intelligence to try to make casual contact with someone they felt might be a potential informant ahead of time to decide how amenable that person might be to any recruitment overtures.

  “I understood one of our officers used to come here on a regular basis.”

  She knew he meant David Kendall, but considering that the man had worked undercover for the most part, it struck her as odd that th
is young man would know anything about his movements. David had been a friend, though, even if he had been using Casey for information that last year.

  She thought about the young man in her shed, and said a silent, but very fervent prayer in her head that he would not wake up and walk out into the yard. The word awkward would be beggared for belief in the light of such a situation.

  “You’re not welcome here,” she said, giving the man her best hard stare. That was the truth. It could be a death sentence for her if it should be discovered that the British thought they had a welcome of any sort at her house. She would be branded a tout and shot in the back of the head without a care for her children. Rumor was enough to kill a person in this land. Proof was not necessarily required in the court of retribution.

  “Either you let me in or I will call my superiors and tell them about the young man in your shed.”

  If blood could actually freeze in the act of moving through veins, she was quite certain hers would have then and there.

  “Am I to believe you won’t tell them anyway?”

  He put a hand to the door so she couldn’t close it. “For now, yes.”

  She put the feed bag on the bench in the porch, and stood aside.

  “You have five minutes,” she said, “and no more.”

  “Five minutes isn’t even time for a cup of tea,” he said, and there was no false friendliness in his face any more. He was here on business.

  “What is it that you want, Mr….?” She let the address hang in the air, as he hadn’t given her a name even though she knew it was unlikely she would get a real name, just a cover.

  He didn’t take off his shoes, which were rather mucky from coming across her yard, and no doubt tramping through her property. He sat at the table without being invited to do so, apparently there wasn’t even going to be a pretense at cordiality.

  “Davison,” he said. “Mr. Davison.”

  “Please just state your business, Mr. Davison, I don’t want to prolong this encounter.”

  He smiled. It wasn’t a friendly expression, but more like a baring of teeth.

  “A woman who likes to get straight down to business, I like that. I’ll lay it out for you just as baldly. We want an end to the conflict here, and people like Noah Murray are playing a long game. He’s pacing the war and that gets in the way of us ending things here. We want certain players removed from the board in order to clear the way for a series of moves.”

  “Pacing the war?” His chess analogy annoyed her, as if the people of this country were merely pieces to be moved about in some greater game, which sacrificed humans like they were little more than wooden pawns.

  “Low intensity, striking now and again, but not so much that it becomes an open conflagration that they can’t control. If you keep it going, you have a purpose—keep it going long enough, maybe you finally defeat your enemy, through boredom if nothing else.”

  “Boredom? Is that what you call state sanctioned terror?”

  “We’re not the terrorists here; that would be your friend Noah Murray and his ilk.”

  “Oh, that’s right, just the mad Irish fighting with each other, no other hand stirring the pot. No eight hundred years of occupation by a foreign power, and certainly never any abuse of said power.”

  He waved a broad-fingered hand, as if to dismiss eight hundred years of history. “It’s not us keeping it going, we’re merely here policing. It’s a dirty little war, and someone has to oversee it.”

  She laughed. “Oh of course, the great peacekeepers because the mad Fenians can’t be expected to control themselves all alone. Just why is it that you think the British Army is here?” she asked. “If it’s a dirty war, it’s because you made it so a long time ago. You people play games in Ireland; you play games and use the locals as pawns and sometimes we die for a game we didn’t choose to play.”

  “You’re talking of play in a game you didn’t choose, and yet you were married to a PIRA rebel and now that he’s gone, you’ve taken up with a known terrorist.”

  “Taken up?” she said coldly. “You could phrase it more clearly, Mr. Davison, I’m not squeamish about words.”

  “Noah Murray. You’re close with him.” He emphasized the word ‘close’ so that she could have no doubt what he meant. It wasn’t mere innuendo. “You didn’t waste much time, did you?”

  Pamela crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back into the support of the counter. She didn’t want to betray her nerves in any way to this man, though he had to know how terrifying it was to have an intelligence officer in her kitchen.

  “Let’s cut to the chase,” she said. She didn’t want Conor to return home to find this man in their kitchen and Isabelle could only be expected to nap for a short while longer. She did not want her children to be seen by him, even if they had been taking pictures of the lot of them all along.

  “Money, it seems to us that you might need some. We’d be happy to help you out in that arena.”

  “I don’t want money, and if I did I certainly wouldn’t take it from the British government,” she said hotly. “You have no business prying into my finances.”

  “It’s neither here nor there as to whose business it is, the fact of the matter is you have what—three mortgage payments left in the bank, and you’re losing business right and left. Unless you find a new job, and find it soon, you’re going to lose your property.”

  “I don’t want your money, I don’t want anything to do with you or anyone you represent, be it queen, country or covert organization. Now, if you don’t mind, I have things I need to do and I would like you to leave.”

  He leaned back in the chair, crossing one booted foot over the other, bits of dirt crumbling and falling onto her freshly washed floor.

  “Your husband had no trouble taking money from British coffers. I’m surprised you’re so scrupled.” His smile was chilly and repugnant.

  “He would never have taken money from you or your like,” she said, furious. On this much she was certain, Casey would have rather begged in the streets for his meals and lost the house from under them than take traitor’s money, which is how he would have viewed such a thing.

  “You think not? Well, I suppose if it gives you comfort, it’s best to stick tight to your illusions. If you want to know what happened to your husband though, we’ll be more help to you than Noah Murray.”

  “How is that? The police have no idea where to look, why should I believe you do?”

  “We have resources the police don’t have access to.”

  It could be true, and then again, it might not be. It wasn’t beyond the forces to lie in order to manipulate and get what they wanted. There had been a scandal not long ago in which it had been revealed that one of British Intelligence’s top informers had been killed by another informant in order to protect his own identity. There was a hierarchy within the world of touts that made it a lethal pecking order. In the end, she trusted Noah more than she trusted this man and his superiors.

  “Please just go.” She hoped her voice didn’t convey her desperation because if he scented weakness, she would never get rid of him.

  He stood, and she stayed where she was, partly because she needed the counter to hold her up and partly because she would not give him the courtesy of walking him to the door. He needed to understand he was not welcome here.

  “Before I go I will say this, this man you’ve gotten into the figurative bed with—he’s a smuggler, he’s got an empire going with illegal activities of all sorts and he’s well known as the godfather of the South Armagh PIRA. In bandit country, he’s the king bandit and yet he’s never been arrested, never taken in by British forces. You might well ask yourself, Mrs. Riordan, just why that is.” He handed her a card. She took it, just wanting an end to this visit. The only thing on the card was a number.

  “Please go,” she said coldly.

  He nodded and left. She closed the door firmly behind him and locked it. She ran upstairs and watched out her bedroom
window to be certain he left the yard. He was already gone though, disappeared in the way that spooks did. That he worked for Special Branch or British Intelligence she had no doubt, which wing was up for debate, but she would guess MI5 or any of their covert splinters. Regardless, it was deep water in which she now found herself treading.

  She collapsed onto the bed, her knees going out from under her all at once. She put her head into her hands, vainly trying to regain her equilibrium. It made her lightheaded with fear to know that British Intelligence had such knowledge of her circumstances. It had been naïve of her not to realize it, especially after their association with David. She had been so distracted by Casey’s disappearance that many things that ought to have been obvious to her had slipped her notice all together.

  It wasn’t personal, she understood that. In his view he was only doing what he needed to do to get his job done and further the aim of his superiors. He wanted to seed doubt in her regarding Noah, and regarding Casey. It was the first step, fear plus uncertainty amounted to making decisions in a state of panic. Just then, Isabelle let out a howl, putting a halt to her train of thoughts.

  She rose, knees still shaking and went down the hall to the children’s bedroom. Isabelle was standing in her crib, one small hand clutching the railing and the other tugging at her ear. The latter was always a sign that she was getting ready to cut a new tooth. She reached up her arms as Pamela came near, and Pamela picked her up and held her close. The baby was still sleepy and cuddled tightly to her, putting her head on Pamela’s shoulder. She kissed Isabelle’s frowsy little head, and stroked her back. She needed changing, and would soon want to be fed. Conor would be home shortly too, and she would have her family around her, which was all the normalcy a woman could hope for in this country. Maybe any country, come to that.