The Reverend appeared, walking toward him briskly, clad in normal street clothes—dark pants and a pale blue sweater. He looked, Jamie thought, rather normal and not like his usual water-pale and rather ominous self.
“How can I help you, Mr. Kirkpatrick?”
“I want to know where Pamela is, and don’t even bother telling me you don’t know.”
The man made a good show of surprise. “What has happened to her?”
“She disappeared two days ago.”
“What makes you think I know where she is?”
“Your little girlfriend knows, if you don’t. Ask her.”
“If you know that much then you know she also hasn’t been home in several days. I don’t know where she’s gone.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute, Reverend. I think you know exactly what she’s been up to and where she has gone.”
Lucien looked up, eyes cold, but with a faint puckering in his brow which told Jamie it was possible the man hadn’t anticipated this move in his game. “I don’t know. If she had plans, she didn’t see fit to inform me.” His mouth was in a tight line that looked, Jamie thought, rather like fury. “She has gone out of bounds without permission.”
It was an odd comment. Jamie took the letter from his pocket and handed it to the man. “Are you saying you don’t know anything about this letter? And all the ones that followed?”
Lucien looked it over, his face smooth and placid. “This? No, what a horrible little screed. You’re saying someone has been sending Pamela letters such as these for some time? Well, you know it is a rather moralistic country, except when it comes to murder. She has never truly seemed to understand that.”
He was lying; Jamie was certain of it. He knew about the letters but he hadn’t realized how far the game had gone without his permission.
“I believe Elspeth has taken her under some misguided idea that the baby Pamela is carrying is yours. Where do you suppose the woman got such a notion?” There were no good options as to what had happened to Pamela, but this one—being taken by this madwoman, was one of the worst. Just be alive, sweetheart, just be alive. I will do the rest.
“What are you willing to barter for this information?” Lucien asked coolly enough, but Jamie could see the pulse thumping in his neck. He was excited.
“I think, Reverend, we both know you’re holding most of the cards in this game. So what is it you want to barter?”
“The things our kind usually trade in—information, blackmail, blood.”
“Information?”
“Well, we could begin with the rather elaborate hopscotch you’ve indulged in since your return from Russia, all under the rather clever disguise of business trips—linen, whiskey, wheat, vodka and forests. And yet, there was always a double purpose to those trips. Meetings with others of your kind, traders in black secrets. All of you pieces on the board of intelligence and people dying horrible deaths for knowing too much or having seen the wrong thing at the wrong moment. And what was it that you sought, James? Once you found it, were you satisfied with the bargain you’d struck? To sell your soul for a woman you don’t love and then have nothing left to give to the woman you do? That’s a fool’s bargain.”
“Information has a variety of values—all scaled and weighted, one thing against another. So here’s a question for you, Reverend. What about the kill squads? The off-duty policemen and the members of the UVF and UDA who have made it their part-time occupation to murder innocent Catholics in their homes and on the streets these last few years. What is it you know about that, Reverend?”
“Why would you think I know anything about that?” The Reverend’s voice was calm but there was a slight flush of color on either cheekbone.
“Because you’re the root of that particularly poisonous tree, aren’t you?”
“I’m a man of God, Mr. Kirkpatrick. I don’t sully my hands with the acts of fanatics.”
“No, you stir them up and give them names and then let slip their leashes as one does with dogs of war. Is that how you justify what you do? Because you believe you’re involved in some kind of crusade? Blood always flows back to the hand which let it in the first place.”
“Does it? I supposed you might know, Mr. Kirkpatrick, sins of the father and all that, not to mention your own sins.”
“I’m not here to discuss my family history. I need to know where Pamela is. So which is it to be, Reverend? Information, blackmail or blood?”
“Information I have and blackmail,” he shrugged, “it doesn’t excite me these days.”
“So blood then?” Jamie asked. He felt coldly resolved. He had known going into this it was possible the man might demand the ultimate sacrifice. And yet, because this man did not understand love, he could not know it was, in the end, not the ultimate sacrifice.
“You would hand me the means to your own destruction?”
“If that’s the price you require for their location.”
“What if I require your life—no tricks, no double cross?”
“No tricks, no double cross, you have my word.” Jamie said, “I have to know Pamela is free and safe first. That’s my one condition.”
Lucien eyed him speculatively. “I find it interesting just how self-sacrificial love is. You would sacrifice yourself and she would mourn you for the rest of her life. It’s madness of a sort, isn’t it?”
“It’s the only kind of madness that makes life worth living,” Jamie said. “Now, tell me, do you know where she is?”
Lucien nodded. “Yes, I believe I do.”
Chapter Eighty-eight
The Shooter
FINN HAD FELT the questioning of his cousin had merited an actual trip to Belfast. He had packed a small bag and told Casey he would be gone two days and no more. He left him in charge of the pub, which at least Casey thought gave him something to do with the time which seemed to hang heavier than a millstone around his neck. He had asked Finn to be discreet and not to tell this Tomas anything which might raise his suspicions. Until he understood his own history, he didn’t want to spring any traps on himself.
Finn was gone three days and Casey thought he might well lose his mind at that point. He had refused to get his hopes up because he didn’t feel that he could manage the crash which would come if there was no news on who he was, or worse yet, that no one was looking for him.
When Finn did finally return, Casey was certain the news was bad. The normally ebullient man looked like he had just come back from a funeral. He came in, shooed out the two customers Casey had been serving, flipped over the sign in the window to read ‘Closed’ and then turned to him.
“Take down the Angel’s Ether, lad, an’ pour us both a generous slug of it. I’ve a bit to say an’ I suspect bein’ a little drunk isn’t goin’ to hurt either of us by the end of it.”
Casey did as he was told and then brought the drinks to the table where Finn now sat polishing his glasses.
“For the love of God, man, did yer cousin know anythin’ or not?”
Finn took a swallow of the drink and then let out a long breath. Casey thought he might throttle him as a way of ending the suspense.
“Aye, he had information all right. Only he didn’t need to give it to me. I found it for myself.”
He thought he might actually pass out from the sudden lurch his heart took but he settled for a good-sized swallow of Finn’s wicked brew. Finn reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small pile of Polaroid photographs. He slid one off the top and pushed it across the table toward Casey.
“This man,” he tapped the glossy surface of the top picture, “is yer brother. He works for my cousin, Tomas. I tell ye, lad, the day ye walked into this pub was fate, pure an’ simple. I knew the minute I saw him, the two of ye had to be related. He’s that much like ye. He’s nearly as tall as ye, too; ye must come from a race of giants. He’s a lawyer. He’s got Tomas’ respect which means he must be smart an’ tough as nails. His name is Patrick.”
C
asey cupped the picture in his hand and stared at the man in the photo. He was tall, indeed, with a thatch of dark curls and a smile that would have melted the ice off a winter pond. His brother. His heart seized within him and for a second he felt dizzy and like he might pass out.
“Take a breath, lad, an’ then take a drink. I had a chat with him, an’ I asked the odd question, did he have siblins’ an’ the like. He said, aye, he’d a brother but the man had been missin’ for three years. An’ that brother left behind a wife an’ two little ones. A boy named Conor an’ a wee girl named Isabelle.” He pushed another picture across the table. “Those two are your children.”
He tried to pick up the picture but his hand was shaking too hard. Finn reached over and handed it to him, placing it gently in his palm. “Yer brother had them with him; they had dinner with us.”
“They’re beautiful,” he said, though in truth he couldn’t see them through the tears which stood in his eyes.
“Aye, they are that, an’ both spirited as well. Yer lad is right smart, let me tell ye. He knows all sorts about plants an’ animals, an’ Tomas said he can ride a horse real well an’ sail, too. The wee girl is a fiery one. She’s a temper on her. Yer brother said, ‘She takes after her daddy, that one.’”
“And my wife?” his voice shook even as he said it. She was real, the woman he’d longed for and dreamed about was real.
“Ah,” Finn said, “well that’s where things get a wee bit more complicated. She didn’t come to dinner that night as she wasn’t feelin’ just the thing. So I thought to myself, ‘Finn, ye can’t go back to the man without seein’ his wife,’—the question was how to do that. I’m not proud to say that I stole a book off my cousin’s shelves an’ took it to her house. I told her Tomas had asked me to drop it by for him as he remembered her wantin’ to borrow it. She seemed puzzled, as well she might, bein’ that she’d not asked to borrow it in the first place. She’s lovely, an’ I don’t just mean the way she looks, but a lovely person all together. She had me in for tea. I felt terrible, I tell ye. I’m sure she thinks I’m a right strange one because I asked to take pictures of the house tellin’ her I was lookin’ to renovate an old farm house of my own. Then I insisted she get into the frame as well. She obliged me, though she was startin’ to give me looks which didn’t bode well.”
Finn handed him the last picture. She was three-quarters to the camera and she was smiling, though she also looked a touch suspicious. He knew that look, he knew that face. There was relief knowing she hadn’t just been a dream, she was real and she was his—or she had been for a time.
“God, she’s beautiful,” he said, feeling the tightness in his chest again.
“Aye, she is.”
There was a long silence but Casey knew the difference between silence because there was nothing to be said, and silence because there was an enormous elephant walking about the room.
“What is it ye’re not sayin’, Finn?”
“She’s pregnant.”
Jamie Bloody Kirkpatrick had been the answer when he’d asked, with great calm, just who the father of this pending baby was. Well, Finn had just said James Kirkpatrick, Casey had added the bloody in himself. The damn woman had to make things as complicated as possible. And that, he thought, he did remember—just how bloody difficult and stubborn she was.
He had some thinking to do. It was a lot to digest—all the things that Finn had told him.
He wasn’t surprised to find out that the wee farm with the fairy house was his home, or had been at least. He went there one evening and the house was lit up and he could see people moving about inside. He knew he couldn’t just walk up to the door and knock on it. She was pregnant and the shock of it could hurt her or the baby. Besides, until he knew what he was doing, he couldn’t just walk into their lives in such a manner.
So he’d done what he’d done for the last few years every time he was troubled. He walked. He walked and he walked, past seashore and farm, past city and field, he walked by day and sometimes well into the night. Since he had been told about his children, and now that he knew their names and the name of his wife, he felt like a man who had something to lose. Which was ironic, he thought, considering he’d already lost them. He kept walking until he had found himself back on the wee bit of land, standing beside the fairy house as a three-quarter moon rose over the thatched roof of the farmhouse. The house had been dark but it was late, and he thought it likely everyone had gone to sleep for the night.
He had brought a milk-white stone with him, and it glittered like a bit of the moon had fallen into his hand. He put it in the library of the fairy house and then checked the hole behind the shelves. There was a paper there. His heart thumped against his ribs and he felt both scared and excited. The letter was written in a child’s hand, one who was just learning his letters. Conor. Each letter was big and clearly had been put to paper with painstaking effort.
Deer Daddy, it began. I hop u got my uthr letrs. Pleez come home. Mama iz not goin to merry Noah enny mor. I miss u. Luv, Conor
Not going to marry Noah? Who in bleeding hell was Noah? And why had Pamela been about to marry him when she was having a baby with James Bloody Kirkpatrick? He snorted, feeling a rush of anger. He’d been gone three years, not thirteen. The woman hadn’t wasted a lot of time, had she?
And then he traced his fingers over those words again, crooked and misspelled and maybe, he thought, the finest words ever written. I miss u. Luv, Conor.
He read the letter through three times more and then Casey Riordan, who had for so long thought he was a man without a home, without love or connections, put his head in his hands and cried for the man he had been in another life.
Now here he stood, looking up at the old workhouse and still not certain about the best thing to do for the sake of his family. He had a longing to talk it all through with his brother, even if he didn’t really know the man anymore. Still just having his name—Patrick—made Casey miss him.
He’d decided to spend the night here. Light a fire, have something to eat and get some sleep. He had nowhere else to go, truth be told, even if Finn had made it clear he was welcome to his spare room for as long as he liked. Now that he knew where home was, nowhere else felt right. And yet he couldn’t go home. It was ridiculous.
He moved forward through the trees, wishing he hadn’t left McCool behind with Claudia. He missed the damn cat. At least a man could talk to him and not feel like he was completely mad. He watched the ground as he walked, there were too many loose stones buried in the vegetation and he didn’t want to risk a fall. Suddenly he realized that there was light falling on the tree branches above his head. He stopped and looked up. There was someone in the building. He froze to the spot, the branches above dripping sleet onto his head. He counted three windows with visible light. He knew immediately which room it was. The long one—the sleeping dormitory. It had a sound floor, though to his way of thinking, the room was a bit exposed. He felt slightly annoyed, like this was his house and someone had entered it uninvited. He turned to go, thinking he would walk back to his truck. Something compelled him to turn back—curiosity, he thought, a thing which always got a man into trouble.
There was a set of stairs at the far left of the building. They were in terrible shape and not the least bit safe, but he didn’t want to walk into something he had no business witnessing. That was a quick way to get killed in this country. He knew there was an alternate route to the room though. There was a long narrow corridor which ran the length of the building right up to the dormitory section. He’d discovered that there was a secret hidey-hole in one of the rooms next to the dormitory as well, while rambling through the building one day. He’d thought at the time that someone had once used the hidey-hole, which was little more than a concealed cupboard, to spy upon the inmates of the workhouse. Inmates had been separated by sex and he thought it likely an overseer had put the spyhole in to watch the women in their sleeping quarters.
The stairs were ev
en trickier than he had remembered and he held his breath several times as he clung to one edge and then the other until he made it to the second floor. From here it was the long hall that ran the length of the building. Once he traversed it, he would be really close and would need to access the area behind the fireplace. He would have to be quieter than the proverbial mouse if he wanted to get near enough to hear the people.
He removed his boots at the top of the stairs. He hunkered down low, his boots in his hand and moved slowly along the hall, careful to avoid any of the fallen pieces of roof and branches littering the floor. He asked himself what the hell he thought he was doing and why it mattered to him who was here in this building. It was not his and therefore no trespass had occurred, and yet he kept moving, compelled by he knew not what.
He made it to the room unseen. Inside it he moved carefully; there was only one wall between him and the main room now. In the corner was the cupboard and at the back of that was a small space which backed to one of the two hearths in the sleeping dormitory. He wedged himself in and shut the door behind him slowly and carefully so that it didn’t make any noise and give him away.
The room was lit by two lanterns and a fire. There were three men, clustered together at present, arguing. Arguing over who was going to kill the woman curled up on a mattress in the corner. The pregnant woman on the mattress. He looked at her and understood why he’d been compelled to come and see who was in this building because the pregnant woman on the mattress was his wife. The fact of it slammed into him like a riptide had grabbed him about the knees and was about to pull him out to sea.
“I didn’t sign up to kill a pregnant woman,” the one man said heatedly. “Killin’ that murderin’ son-of-a-bitch Murray was one thing, but this is somethin’ else an’ I want no part of it.”
In the Country of Shadows (Exit Unicorns Series Book 4) Page 99
