‘Not if he was afraid of jeopardizing the escape and Mrs. Tulford herself. But … but it might be more than that—some new device we have for detecting enemy submarines. That would be vital information Erich wouldn’t want to trust to just anyone, wouldn’t it?’
She had used we and enemy without having realized it, had been searching for reasons herself. He’d not say anything then. He’d see if she ran on with it like a fellow conspirator.
‘Perhaps they’ve all come to a consensus of what’s been happening to their U-boats,’ said Mary. ‘Erich’s U-121 was supposedly sunk in January but there have been others since—at least three that I know of have officers in Tralane.’
O’Bannion knew that he was impressed but that her figuring things out for herself could be both a good and a bad thing. Berlin wanted Kramer—that was clear enough. They might well pay the price they’d been asked, and then again, they might not. The Germans were far from easy. They didn’t trust the Irish any more than he and the others trusted them, and she’d have reasoned this out too. No doubt Kramer’s superior officers had agreed to let him be the front man because he’d succeeded in being intimate with her but Kramer would not have been given the Tulford woman’s address. He’d have had to get that from someone higher up and that could only mean they must be wanting to break someone else out with him. She would not have been told this, but had she thought of it? If so, she was definitely not saying. A woman then who could go on giving her thoughts aloud and yet still hold something back even when afraid the next bullet could well be for herself. And if not that, then the hangman’s noose.
The wind teased the cigarette smoke from him, she catching whiffs of it now and then, she exuding a sensuality he found troubling, for she wasn’t really aware of it, but was it fear that made her like this, he wondered, or simply the nearness of him?
‘Mrs. Fraser …?’
‘Yes?’ she asked, stiffening in alarm at the sound of his voice.
‘Has Kramer said he’d take you with him?’
The nod she gave was that of a realist. Still staring at the bullet, she felt the metal of its brass casing, then that of the lead slug.
As she put it away, he heard her saying, ‘I don’t want any killing. One won’t be of much use, will it?’
As if that, in itself, made it easier for her conscience.
Exhaling the last of the smoke, he quickly stubbed the cigarette out and brushed away the soot mark, saw her notice this, a woman then who, even though afraid, could find the will to search for every little detail in the hope it might be useful.
He’d give her a grin and let her in on it. ‘You never can tell who’ll come by to have a look.’
‘Isn’t one of the others watching out?’
She had pinned her hair back at the sides and had tied it behind with a bit of brown velvet to match, but several strands had come loose down there on the road by the school and the sunlight had found these, bringing out the coppery tints, the cloud shadows only darkened.
When her throat tightened under such a scrutiny, he said almost brutally, ‘For now that’s all. Tell Kramer you’ll be in touch with Mrs. Tulford. You’re to stay at the White Horse right enough. See if he gives you anything for her to send over. It’s my bet that he won’t, but ask it of him anyways. Tell him you have no other choice but to find out which of them were responsible for the hanging of that man. If he wants out badly enough, then he has to cooperate.’
‘But … but why? What’s it to you people whether Trant and the colonel find out who hanged that man?’
He’d let her see him drop his eyes down over her. Involuntarily she pressed her hands against those thighs, failing entirely to realize how provocative the gesture was. ‘Why the interest in a hanging that wasn’t one of ours? Is it not obvious?’
When she shrugged, he let her have it, ‘Because you’re going to have to lead the British into thinking you’ll cooperate. They won’t have it any other way, and you know that as well as I, but you must always keep them waiting for a little more even if you do chance to find out who was responsible.’
Long after he had left her, Mary remained sitting with her back to the wall, exhausted by the encounter. Shutting her eyes, she let her hands move firmly down over her thighs right to the knees then slowly back up and down again, trying to ease the tension only to realize that she’d been doing this as he’d looked at her. Had he thought to get her to believe she could seduce him into being careless?
He would know she wasn’t fool enough to think such a thing. Then why had her hands been on her thighs like that when she’d known he was looking at her in such a way? Had she secretly wanted to feel the touch of him?
‘I hate myself,’ she said, and getting up, went over to her bicycle to leave the ruins to the softly falling leaves.
The shed was behind the house and well off to its left. As Mary turned in at the drive, the last of the light streaked the sky, etching the plum-coloured clouds that lay like flat, elongated strings of mountains in the west.
Riding under the copper beeches—immense things, they were—she went into the deeper darkness of the wisteria whose long arbour stretched almost to the stable. Hopping off the bike, she walked it along the path that turned off here to the shed, she cursing the sound of the sprocket, for she didn’t want to have to talk to William just now, didn’t want to have to talk to anyone.
The shed gave out on to the gardens and was used for all sorts of things. Tools, firewood, peat and vegetables, apples, paints and turpentine, the smells of these being everywhere. A kind of sanctuary.
Leaning the bike against a pillar post, she picked her way through to the workbench. The house was in total darkness, the blackout curtains all thoroughly drawn. Mrs. Haney never let a chink of light escape. Every evening now Bridget would be sent out to check, then the two of them and William would be off home. They didn’t live far—about a mile back of the garden along a path across the fields.
Mary knew that it couldn’t be easy for them to make that walk, that each evening now, it would be getting harder and harder. Caithleen would have to be taken to Dublin, and the sooner the better.
There were baskets and pots of bulbs on the bench—tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and crocuses—things they’d forced and had had around the house last winter. Hamish loved gardening, loved so many things …
What light there was gave a rippled mirror-sheen of darkness to the windowpanes as she listened to the wind, to the sound of the crickets and then to that of William’s quiet and deferential knock at the mudroom door.
He’d be told to see if her bike was back. She had about two minutes and in that time so many things to think about.
A thin film of grease still clung to the bullet. Reaching out, she picked up one of the daffodil bulbs, pressed her middle against the edge of the workbench, was momentarily lost to the bullet and the paper dryness of the bulb, she seeing Hamish in the garden in his old clothes, for he loved nothing better unless it was his fishing. She knew she would never be able to face him with the truth of what she’d done, that she mustn’t ask for his help—they’d kill him if she did, but softly said, ‘Darling, please help me before it’s too late.’
‘M’am, is that you?’
Had William overheard her? He was standing in the doorway, his silhouette all too clear. ‘Yes. I … I was just putting my bike away. You can tell Mrs. Haney I’ll be there in a minute. She can leave now, if she wants.’
‘M’am, it’s Caithleen. She be in a terrible state. Mrs. Haney is beside herself with the worries and fearful the girl will come to harm.’
‘All right. I’ll come with you.’
Blinking at the unaccustomed light, she saw at a glance that Bridget was the one in trouble and that Mrs. Haney was indeed beside herself with worry. The woman didn’t wait.
‘M’am, would you please be going up them stairs to that poor
wee girl? Bridget and I have tried everything. ’Tis the flood itself, and she wrung dry yet producing the waters of Babylon.’
Could nothing go right? ‘Isn’t Dr. Fraser home?’
‘He is not, m’am. He’s been away to Tralane this whole time, he has. Arguing his case, pleading with them to listen to God’s good sense. But was you not with him? The doctor did say he’d be picking you up in Ballylurgen or along the road. It is a Thursday, is it not? Market days be library days at the castle. We all thought …’
Had Hamish seen her walking the bike across those fields to the ruins? Had he stopped the car and not honked its horn, but stood at the side of the road watching her? Did he know with whom she’d met?
‘M’am, was you not with him, then?’ asked the woman.
‘No, I wasn’t. I was out.’
Out was it? Mary could see the question rise in Mrs. Haney’s gullet but would have to ignore it. ‘Bridget didn’t tell Caithleen I was to take her to Dublin, did she?’
Ria wrung her hands. ‘She did, m’am, and that’s the way of it.’
‘But Dr. Fraser warned you all to say nothing of it.’
‘He did not, m’am. ’Twas yourself what did.’
‘And is that why you let Bridget tell her? Mrs. Haney, I really wish you’d …’
‘M’am, let us make a bit of peace between us. The girl was trying to kill herself. Bridget found her in the bathroom with the doctor’s razor.’
‘She didn’t! That’s simply not true!’
The deal table separated them, Bridget looking up from it now to be silenced with a glance.
‘The Lord knows I would wish it wasn’t so, m’am, but ’tis. Caithleen being such a good Catholic knows only too well what awaits her if she should ever do such a terrible thing, and she with ground Sheffield ready enough to slash her fair wrists!’
‘But why, Mrs. Haney? Why?’
‘Why indeed, m’am? Because that girl has lost her love, her home, her friends and family—everything that counts for a girl of seventeen. She knows her uncle and her cousin are in prison for what she said, and no amount of caring seems enough. Bridget thought that by telling her she was being sent to England, Caithleen would stop, but ’t has only made her worse. Now the girl wants to go home, Mrs. Fraser. She knows she’s going to die no matter what.’
‘They’ll kill her.’
‘Then go you up and try to talk her out of it before she runs off on us and we find her in Lough Loughie or hanging from a tree.’
The bedroom was in darkness, the girl lying on her side facing the wall. Mary knew she had been secretly avoiding her, that the sight of her brought only panic and remorse. ‘Caithleen, it’s me. I’m so sorry this had to happen to you. It wasn’t supposed to. Things … things just got out of hand, I think. The colonel’s sister will look after you. Hamish … Hamish will see that there’s enough money set aside for your clothes and such, and that you’ll not want for anything.’
It sounded so damned paternalistic of her, so bloody British, thought Mary.
‘“Not supposed to,” and not meant for me, Mrs. Fraser?’
Hamish came into the room with Robbie and told him to put his muzzle on the edge of the bed. ‘Caithleen, this won’t hurt a bit, not if you hang on to my wee dog. You need to sleep, then we’ll sort all this out, no fear, you understand?’
Hiking the girl’s nightgown, Fraser rubbed a spot on her seat with an alcohol swab, then found his hypodermic syringe and, glancing up at Mary, spread thumb and forefinger over the smooth, soft contours before jabbing the needle in and rubbing the spot again. ‘There, it’s done, Caithleen. There’ll be no more talk of your killing yourself, do you hear me, lass? As God is your witness, swear you will put the thought right from you.’
He pulled the nightgown down, began then to gently rub the back of Caithleen’s neck and shoulders. Perhaps five minutes passed, perhaps a little more.
‘She’s asleep. She’s gone off, Hamish.’
‘Och, I know she has. You look as though you could do with some yourself.’
‘Will the colonel really let me take her to Dublin on Sunday?’
And why Dublin? Why not Belfast or even Derry? ‘He wants another week.’
He’s holding out on you—Mary could see it in the look he gave. ‘And when that week’s done?’
The truth at last, was it? ‘It could well be another and another. I tried to reason with them, but they wouldn’t listen.’ Gently he brushed a hand over Caithleen’s head. ‘Robbie, stay.’
‘Let me, Hamish, just for a bit.’
‘And when she awakens?’
‘I … I’ll try to make her understand.’
‘To salve your conscience?’
‘Yes. Yes, that’s it exactly.’
‘Ah sure, and isn’t death an Irish pastime, missus? Come like the skirts of mist at morn to sweep in over them lovely hills and stretch out Her fingers to touch and take at will.’
They’d been talking about Caithleen. ‘Parker, you can’t mean that.’
‘And why not? Isn’t it a self-evident fact that the Irish do be killing each other since long before the time of Christ Himself, not to mention St. Patrick? I do believe ’tis written in them blessed stars above, missus, and in the potatoes and all below. There be no end to it.’
His gumboots were mired in cowpats, the herd was bawling from the pasture, the pipe smoke particularly fragrant—had Hamish been talking to this stooped little man whose eyes were like lumps of anthracite and whose skin really was the colour of oak tannin and like something that had been left in a bog? ‘You saw me on the old tote road to Newtonhamilton.’
And she accusative of it. ‘That I did, missus, and you the picture of heaven itself with your jacket off and folded up and that bunch of Michaelmas daisies in your carrier basket. You was wearin’ a smile so lovely it touched me heart, it did.’
‘It didn’t, Parker, because I wasn’t smiling.’
‘No, missus, you wasn’t.’
‘Did you see anyone with me?’
O’Shane drew on his pipe. The two of them, each now with a foot up on the lowest rail, were resting their arms on the gate to the highest of his fields. From where they were standing, the land fell away to the banks of the Loughie in the valley below.
He’d have to tell her something. ‘Well now I did and I didn’t, missus, and that’s the truth of it.’
‘You told Mrs. Haney you’d seen me—she’s the source of that pipe tobacco you’re smoking.’
One could seldom get away with a thing. ‘I did, that I did. She asked it of me, missus. That woman has a nose for trouble like a sow after rats.’
‘You hinted at it first, Parker. Ria then pried it out of you. She bribed you. Bribed you with my husband’s tobacco—stolen tobacco.’
Mrs. Mary Fraser was so dismayed, O’Shane was afraid he’d lost a friend. ‘It’s what I didn’t tell her that counts.’
‘Then you did see someone with me.’
She had come all the way up here just to ask it of him, she had, was that afraid Ria had not only found out she had met someone at that old bridge but had gone to have a look at it herself.
‘I did, missus, and I didn’t. Them bushes was in the way and you the clearer of the two, him keeping to the cover like. But I’ve kept it to myself, I has. I was hoping you’d tell me yourself, you see. There could be any number of explanations—the world’s full of them and me with ears big enough to take in the lot.’
Mary wished she hadn’t come. She’d been hoping that what he’d have to say would have cheered her up. ‘Can I ask that you not tell anyone, not for a while? Not even Hamish, Parker. Not until it’s … it’s over.’
Had it come to that? he wondered, fearing for her. ‘Of course, missus. I be the very soul of discretion. You have my word on it, if I’m to keep you as a fri
end.’
O’Shane gripped the hand she had thrust out. He wanted to say the O’Bannions were always a bad lot, the Darcys far worse. He wanted to tell her that Liam Nolan was excitable and inclined to do the very thing she’d least expect, but he would have to hold his tongue and merely nod because that was how one kept death from the door.
There were thousands of buttons in the box but none to match the one she’d lost. Alone in her room after lunch, Mary dumped the box on the carpet and began to spread the things.
There were buttons and buttons. They went back through the years from Mrs. Haney’s own scavenging to that of her mother and grandmother. All had been avid collectors, the things picked up in streets, shops, churches, shrines and on pilgrimages, at county fairs, too, and cattle auctions, in theatres as well and on trains, even out in the countryside on picnics and no doubt in the most unlikely of places.
Pins had also been a priority—straight ones, bent ones, safety and dress. Needles, too, and bits of thread and gold and silver brocade. She had to find a match or replace them all. Jimmy Allanby would have found and kept that button to confront her with it no matter. The more she searched, the more anxious she became. It had been horrid of Parker to have said that of death with such cheerful acceptance, as if there really could be no stop to the killing, as if it had been preordained.
The blouse had cost Hamish a fortune in Edinburgh. He’d remember the day he’d bought it for her, would remember how pleased she’d been. It wasn’t often, was it, that a husband intuitively knew not only quality but what suited best? An impromptu gift, an impulse—hadn’t that been what had pleased her most?
Of course it had, but Jimmy would show the button to him.
Mary lost herself to the hunt. Things were strewn all over the carpet now. Among the pins there were the flags of an independent Ireland, those of the Ulster Orange and King Billy, as if the keeping of the one negated the throwing away of the other. When a pair of bare feet appeared out of the corner of her eye, she looked up to see the ankles and then the hem of the flannel nightgown. The girl had the loveliest sea-green eyes, dark at some hidden thought, light with intent, but widely set under the fine brush of brows that were just a touch darker than the chopped-off hair.
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