by Charles Todd
“I wasn’t lurking. I’d hoped you might be able to leave the house to look for me.”
“What did you do with Mrs. Flynn’s chair?”
“Eileen’s mother? It’s safe enough. And I can mend it.”
“Couldn’t you have dressed a bit less noticeably?”
“I could have done. But I’d be spotted as soon as I came down the road. I don’t think they care much for gypsies in this corner of Ireland. Making a spectacle of myself, making the village laugh, was the best way of insuring I could stay here a day or two . Who took Michael? And do the same people have Dawson?”
“I can’t tell you. Michael won’t talk about what happened to him, and so I’m not sure why he disappeared. There’s something going on, Simon. Have you met the tall thin man with the violin?”
“I have. A nasty one, that. Do you think he’s behind all that’s happened?”
“I don’t know. Possibly. And then there’s Niall, Terrence’s younger brother. I don’t trust him, either.”
“And the—” He didn’t finish what he was about to say. He broke off and suddenly went still. Then he said, “Go, quickly.”
In the same instant I heard someone shouting my name.
“Terrence. You saw him with me in the village. I must stop him.”
He shouted again.
Abandoning Simon there, I ran through the trees, trying not to stumble over what might be lying beneath the rotting cover of winter leaves. Anything to prevent Terrence from coming to meet me.
I saw him as I reached where the trees were thinning. He had already moved away, starting back across the meadow. I called to him, and he turned.
“I’ve told you about wandering off!” he replied, coming back for me.
I didn’t want to shout what I knew, but when he was closer, he got his news in first.
“Give me your hand, we’ve no time to waste. The Constabulary has come to question Michael.”
Together we ran back across the meadow. I wondered what Simon was thinking as he watched.
Already out of breath, I broke free at the stile, saying, “No, let me follow you.”
He climbed over, reaching back for me, but I managed quite well on my own.
I could see the Constable’s bicycle leaning against the side of the house.
“Eileen is doing her best to put him off. Of all the times for you to go wandering!”
We were halfway across the lawns now, and I managed to say, “You need to know something—”
“There isn’t time.”
“But there is.” I stopped, midstride, but he carried on, and I had to catch him up. We walked in the front door, and I glimpsed Mrs. Flynn’s face at her window as we passed under it. Without pausing we went into the front room.
The Constable and Eileen were standing on either side of Michael’s bedding. She was flushed, and he was clearly adamant about something.
I said with my best Matron’s voice, “What are you doing, disturbing my patient?”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Michael had his firmly shut.
“I need to question him. I’ve put it off, allowing him to recover, but now I must do my duty.”
And Eileen, almost overriding his words, was saying, “He’s not well enough!”
I said, ignoring her, “He’s had a terrible beating, and so far he has not been conscious. I believe he knows where he is, that he’s under our care, but the only word he’s spoken to us is his wife’s name. And I am not even certain that wasn’t in delirium. His fever is high from his wounds.”
It was true, that was what all the others had heard, except for the usual medical questions about his wounds and seeing to his needs, but I wasn’t about to tell this man what Michael had whispered to me. I couldn’t be sure where his allegiances lay, and if there was any chance at all of getting both Eileen and Michael out of here safely, it was best to let the world think he was very ill and unable to tell us anything.
The Constable dropped to his knees, touching Michael’s shoulder, calling his name. Eileen flew around the bed and tried to stop him. And Michael rose—figuratively speaking—to the occasion, groaning and muttering “No—no—” as if he expected to be struck again, pulling away. His face was still ugly with bruising and half-healed cuts, he certainly looked the part of a very ill man.
The Constable, uncertain whether he was being played, called his name again, but there was no response.
The worst of Michael’s fever had fallen, but he was still warm to the touch, and I was sure the Constable had felt it through his shirt as he put a hand on Michael’s shoulder.
He remained unconvinced, but he could hardly take hold of the poor man, pull him up, blankets and all, and force him to speak. Still, I bit my tongue to stop me from giving him a piece of my mind.
Finally, to save face, the Constable nodded his head, and got to his feet. Looking toward me, he asked, “How soon will he have recovered sufficiently to be interviewed?”
“I can’t tell you that. Only a doctor could.”
He considered me for several minutes, then asked, “Where have you been?”
“I walked for a little while in the meadow. As you can understand, I don’t get much sleep just now. And I must keep a clear head.”
He nodded again, then said, “And you never treated him, during the war?”
“As far as I know, the first time I saw this man was in the church on Saturday. I knew who he was only when the bride cried out his name.”
He’d asked me that before. I was beginning to think he believed that somehow Michael Sullivan and I had been in collusion in some fashion. But why? As British spies? What could be going on out in this spit of land jutting into the Atlantic that would attract even one British spy, much less two? Or three, counting the Major.
But then they had been in the Irish Guards, hadn’t they?
I wished him away, but he lingered, speaking to Terrence about Fergus Kennedy, telling him that the man’s brother was coming over to see to the body.
Finally he was finished and out the door, still questioning Terrence. Eileen was biting her lip, still on edge, staring out the window.
I looked down at Michael just then, and I saw that his eyes were open, and he was staring at me, trying to convey some urgent message. Clearly, he couldn’t speak while Eileen was there, and I couldn’t lean down to hear a whisper.
I nodded, and had just looked away when Eileen turned back into the room. “I heartily dislike that man,” she said. “He’s cruel.”
“Has he gone?”
“Yes, I saw him mount his bicycle and ride off.”
“Then I must speak to Terrence. See to Michael, he may wish to have a little milk or some tea.” I didn’t want her to follow me.
But Terrence wasn’t in the passage, as I’d expected him to be, and the last thing I wanted to do was go to his room. I wasn’t even sure which was which, and I could just as easily knock at Niall’s door.
Angry with him, I went through the house and out to the barn, where I discovered him looking in on the horses. He was abrupt when I called to him.
“The man’s gone. Thank God. You should have been within call.”
I didn’t waste my breath. “They’ve taken the Major. Whoever they are. It wasn’t easy. There’s blood, so we know he put up a fight.”
“What?”
I had his full attention now.
“What do you mean, taken?”
“Just that. He wasn’t there for his meals—and he could hardly decide to dine at the pub. So I went to a place he’d mentioned—”
He cut across my words. “Where? Show me.”
I hoped Simon had moved on. I was sure he’d have a look at the pond before leaving the spinney, and would search for anything I might have missed. I’d been more concerned about not finding myself taken as well, before I could tell Terrence what I’d seen. But what if he’d encountered the Constable somewhere on his way back to the village? I couldn’t worry about that�
�it was the Major who needed our help now.
We went back to the meadow, into the little wood, and we hurried on to the pond. I showed Terrence what I’d noticed, the bruised grass and the blood on the stone.
“If he’d slipped and fallen, even if he’d hit his head, he’d still be here. Or he’d have found his way home. I might even have stumbled across him in the meadow or among those trees. But he’s gone. Without a trace.”
Terrence was casting about, looking for any indication that he’d been taken. “You can see here,” he said after several minutes, pointing to another patch of bruised grass. “He was dragged. No sign of a horse. They couldn’t have risked that. But they purposely dragged him, then picked him up and carried him off. In that direction.”
The ground was rough here, stones just showing in places, nettles and other sour land growth. Dragging the Major must have been paying him back for fiercely resisting. And once he was unconscious or too dazed to fight on, his attackers made greater speed by lifting him.
Terrence dropped into a squat, studying something, and I felt a frisson of fear that he’d found a print left by Simon. But a Regimental Sergeant-Major would be far too experienced to make a mistake like that.
“Look here,” Terrence was saying, and I hurried forward to see what he’d discovered.
It wasn’t a footprint. His carriers had put the Major down for a time, because we could see blood on the bent stems and low-growing weeds where his head must have rested.
I looked back. We’d come some distance from the pond. It appeared that the Major’s attackers had set him down, and while one watched, the other had gone to another small stand of trees just ahead, to fetch a horse.
For just ahead, some thirty paces, there were droppings.
Terrence saw them as well. “It must have grown tiresome, carrying a dead weight between them.”
I didn’t care for the words dead weight.
I said, “If he was dead, they’d have left him. I don’t think they intended to kill him, just to render him manageable while they took him away.”
Terrence regarded me for a moment. “Killing an Englishman would be a badge of honor in some quarters.”
“Yes, I’m sure. But I’d rather believe that they wanted him for other reasons.”
He was still watching me closely. “What has Michael been saying?”
“Mostly Eileen,” I retorted. “And groaning.” I turned the question back at him. “What did you think he might be saying?”
“Well, for one thing, it would be damned helpful to know who had taken him, why, and how he got himself free.”
“That’s three things.”
He shook his head, angry. “Don’t play games with me, Bess Crawford.”
“I’m not. But you know this part of Ireland far better than I do. You know the people here. You know which causes they support. Why can’t you think of a good reason for taking first Michael and now the Major?” It was in a way a taunt. “Or are you afraid that your brother is involved—or your grandmother for all I know—and in that case blood is thicker than water. As they say.”
“Damn it, woman! I don’t have any ties to Major Dawson. But I do to my cousin. And she was bent on marrying the man. And that was the best thing for her. So why would I abduct the groom and stop the wedding?”
“But it wasn’t stopped,” I replied, standing my ground. “He got free—or was released somehow. That’s the only reason it went on.”
“If I’d been behind it, I’d have killed the man and been done with it!” he said roughly, and turned back toward the house.
“Aren’t you going to track the horse?” I asked.
“I know where it was going. I live here, as you said. On the other side of those trees is a farm lane, disused now, but once it led to a road.”
“How could they transport a bleeding man thrown over the back of a horse down a well-traveled road?”
He turned. “I didn’t say it was well traveled. But they could have had a cart or a wagon or even a caravan waiting. Covered with straw or sacks, even behind a crate of chickens, who would guess a man was hidden there? A better use of my time is collecting a search party.”
He had a very good point.
I set out after him, and by the time we came to the spinney, he had stopped to wait for me to catch him up.
His head to one side, the late sun on his face, making it hard for me to read, he said, “Have you not given a thought to the fact that both Michael Sullivan and Major Dawson are Army men? British Army men? Whether they call themselves the Irish Guards or not, they pledged their allegiance to the Crown when they signed on. And what better way to start a new and bloody Rising than by attacking that hated symbol of our oppression?”
Chapter Twelve
I had to admit that Terrence was right. It made sense. What better preparation than to question two military men—one from the ranks and the other an officer. About such things as where to find uniforms, where the point of an attack ought to be focused, even how to behave as soldiers, look like them, until they were ready to act.
As soon as Michael had told someone—anyone, even Eileen’s grandmother or the priest—that he was pleased to have his commanding officer to stand with him at his wedding, the planning must have started. A godsend to men looking for any opportunity to cause trouble.
And they had left Terrence out of it, because he was related to the bride and might not be trusted to spoil her wedding.
Terrence was saying, “I see it hadn’t occurred to you.”
“I’d been considering a more personal level.”
“So like a woman!”
We had come out of the spinney and were crossing the meadow now, wasting no time returning to the house.
I said, “Actually, I thought stopping the wedding might be more to your grandmother’s taste then defeating the British. I can see that I was wrong.”
To my surprise he laughed. But it wasn’t with amusement. “She’s capable of many things, my grandmother.”
“What will you tell her? That’s he’s been taken, like Michael?”
“That we can’t find Dawson and we’re sending out a search party.”
And then we were approaching the door. I looked up to see Mrs. Flynn at her window.
Terrence must have seen her as well. He caught my hand, pulled me to him, and kissed me. And then let me go.
Wanting nothing more than to slap his face, I went after him into the hall. But he turned as soon as we were out of Granny’s sight, looked at me with nothing like a lover’s expression, and said softly, “Don’t take it personally, my dear. I wanted to give her something more to worry about than the Major’s disappearance.”
He was already on his way through to the kitchen, heading toward the stables.
I was starting after him when the door to the front room was swung open, and at the same time, I heard the door to Granny’s room open as well, the angry thump of her cane heading for the top of the stairs.
Both Eileen and her grandmother rounded on me as if I’d committed an unpardonable sin. I was ready to kill Terrence as Eileen said, “I saw that. What have you been doing behind our backs?”
And Mrs. Flynn, staring down at me with daggers in her gaze, was saying, “I asked you once what was between you and my grandson, and you lied to me—you are little more than a whore.”
Anger changed to fury. I seldom lose my temper—really lose it. I took after my mother in that respect. But I was beginning to see what Terrence Flynn had been up to. If I was suddenly made unwelcome in this house, I’d have no choice but to go. And the quickest way to make that happen was to appear to be dallying—for want of a better word—with the son of the house.
He wanted me gone—for my own safety? Or his?
I looked from one to the other and said with what came out as contempt, not shame, “Oh, do shut up, both of you. There are more things on my mind than your precious Terrence. For one, something has happened to Major Dawson, and I need he
lp, not recriminations. And for another, I wouldn’t marry that Irishman for any amount of money you could offer me. If you feel like lecturing someone for what just happened, I suggest you speak to him.”
I left them with their mouths wide open in shock and hurried out to the stables, but Terrence had already saddled the mare and was mounting as I came through the wide doors.
“Not now,” he said, and pointed the mare toward the door. I moved as quickly as I could, but her flanks brushed me as she set out.
Dusk was already falling, the sky a lurid red in the distance, somewhere out to sea. Overhead it was lavender now, fading from pink.
I marched back to the house and went from the kitchen into the front room.
Eileen was standing in the middle of the floor, clearly uncertain what to say to me.
I ignored her, kneeling by Michael and saying, “Major Dawson has just gone missing. As you’d done, last week. I need to know everything you can tell me—everything you remember—”
Eileen was on her knees on his other side. “Don’t do this—”
Michael’s eyes were open, and if not completely lucid, he was capable of understanding me.
Still ignoring her, I said, “You’re well enough. Talk to me. Where can I find him? Where were you taken?”
He cleared his throat. Eileen cried, “Please, leave him alone. Don’t do this.”
“I don’t have any choice.”
Michael’s voice was still rough as he said, “I don’t remember much. A-a boat, rocking. The smell of the sea. Not—not a river. There were four of them. I-I was blindfolded, I couldn’t see their faces. They all—all but dragged me ashore. I was held between two of them, stumbling with them. From—from the shore, then grass. There was a horse. I was put in the saddle then. We walked for a-a long time—climbing. I had a-a terrible headache. They must have drugged me. And several times I-I was quite sick, the motion of the horse, whatever I’d been given. Then we were—I could feel the wind blowing. Somewhere high. I was kept there.”