‘All right, it’s settled.’ Finn came in and helped himself to a glass of wine from the bottle of which Constance and I had already drunk half. ‘Danny’s going tonight.’
‘No!’ wailed Liddy. ‘You can’t be so mean! Please, Dad!’
‘Sweetheart, I’m sorry.’ Finn attempted to put his arm round his elder daughter but she shook him off. ‘You must understand, it’s for his sake as much as anyone’s that he gets away at once. This isn’t a game, Liddy. This could have serious consequences for all of us.’
‘You’re afraid people will find out and blame you,’ said Liddy accusingly. ‘They might even unfrock you or whatever they do to senators.’
‘Don’t be a fool.’ Finn looked seriously annoyed. ‘Danny knows too much. Men have been shot by the IRA for far less. If you care anything at all about him, you’ll do everything you can to get him away now.’
‘Where’s he going to go?’ Liddy’s lower lip was trembling.
‘To France. He speaks good French apparently and it’ll be easier to lose himself there than in England. I’ve already arranged with a man I know in Paris to get him a room and some kind of job.’
‘Paris!’ Liddy was silent for a moment, presumably contemplating running away to join Danny, perhaps modelling for the Paris shows, becoming a muse for Yves Saint-Laurent.
‘How’s he getting there?’ asked Constance.
‘As soon as Father Deglan and Basil Molesworth have gone I’ll drive Danny to Rosslare. There’s a ferry to Cherbourg tomorrow morning.’
‘But it’s six or seven hours to Rosslare! And you’ve just driven from Dublin! You’ll be shattered!’
‘I’ll be all right. I’ll get a couple of hours’ sleep in the car before going back to Dublin.’
‘Dad, can I come with you?’ Liddy clutched his arm and looked up at him with pleading eyes. ‘I’ll do anything you want if you’ll let me. I’ll – I’ll – clean your shoes for a year. I’ll give up swearing. I’ll … I can’t think of anything. You say and I’ll promise to do it, whatever it is.’
‘I hope you realize now, Liddy, how little your father asks of you.’ Constance sounded cross. ‘But you’re asking a great deal of him. If he takes you he’s got to drive all the way back here and then again to Dublin on Monday morning.’
I looked down at the breadcrumbs I was making, in case my eyes were also pleading.
‘I know. But, Dad, darling Dad, I’ll love you for ever if you’ll do this for me. I’ll work hard at school and get those foul exams. Please!’
Liddy was gazing up at her father with just Violet’s way of turning her head so that she looked at one sideways through her lashes.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘If it means so much to you, you can come.’
‘Angel father!’ Liddy hugged him and kissed him. ‘I promise I’ll slave all the rest of this term and next.’
‘I’d rather you worked hard because you realized that it was in your own best interests.’ He put her a little away from him. ‘You little idiot!’ he said. ‘Don’t you know I’d do a lot more than drive a few extra miles if it would make you happy?’
‘Would you?’ Liddy looked amazed. ‘In that case, I’m sorry if I’ve been a pig. I’ll try much harder from now on to be nice to you.’
Finn laughed. ‘I look forward to that. But for now, let’s concentrate on getting through the next twenty-four hours. Danny had better go back to bed until it’s time to leave. He needs all the rest he can get. Be as discreet as you can be. The fewer people who know where Danny is, the better. Don’t even tell your mother. Certainly don’t tell Timsy or the girls. I saw Kit’s car outside. Does he know about Danny?’ Liddy nodded.
‘Yes,’ said Constance. ‘But surely you trust him? I look on him as a member of the family.’
‘It’s important you don’t tell Kit that Danny’s leaving tonight or where he’s going.’ Finn looked briefly at me. ‘Kit works for the British government.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ Constance stopped stirring and turned to face him, drips of the béchamel sauce she was making for oeufs mollets Maintenon falling from her wooden spoon and spotting the flagstones.
‘What? You don’t mean he’s a spy?’ Liddy gave a scream of delight.
‘Well, you could call it that if you wanted to be melodramatic, but only in a very small way. He’s not going to be parachuted into the Soviet Union to infiltrate the KGB or sabotage the latest nuclear submarine. All he does is supply information.’ Finn put down his glass and helped himself to some of the grated cheese, spilling a few shreds down his shirt front and adding to the mess on the floor. I wanted to protest but my mind was in revolt. I continued to push stewed onions through a sieve as I tried to take in what Finn was saying. ‘The business of intelligence on both sides of the Irish Sea is a web of conflicting gossip, lies and wishful thinking. There are thousands of informers – touts, as they’re known – and there are those whose job it is to collate the information, extract the bits that might be true or at least useful, and feed them back to HQ. Handlers, that’s what they call them, isn’t it? I expect Kit was recruited at university.’ Finn sent me a quizzical glance. ‘That’s the strange way the English do things.’
‘I thought … He said he was a literary agent!’ Constance rubbed the back of her hand across her forehead, streaking it with soot. ‘Bobbie, had you any idea?’
I shook my head dumbly.
‘So he is.’ Finn tried to brush away the cheese that had fallen on his trousers. ‘It’s the perfect job for getting about the place, ostensibly to speak to publishers and authors and incidentally picking up useful knowledge to send back to base. It’s not as you see it in films. The FBI won’t be bugging the Fitzgeorge Arms. Nor will Kit have an armoury of lethal weapons disguised as fountain pens and wristwatches. All he does is follow a lead that’s given him and report back if anything comes of it. It’s a sideline, quite lucrative, I imagine, and lending a certain glamour to a young man’s existence.’
‘How do you know?’ I asked. All the time Finn had been speaking I had been revolving ideas in my mind and coming to hazy and implausible conclusions.
‘I rang up a man I know in Whitehall. He confirmed my suspicions that Kit was a tiny but useful cog in British Intelligence.’
‘But what made you suspect in the first place?’
‘Oh, several things. He’s remarkably well informed about Irish politics. Most English people, even politicians, don’t begin to understand the complexities. And he mentioned the change of boundaries between North and South that was proposed under the Heath government. Remember? He talked about it at dinner one night. It was top secret, yet Kit knew more about it than I did. That made me extremely curious. And you recall how he was off like a shot the minute Mountbatten was killed? His comings and goings seemed to be adventitious yet they coincided with external events in a way that aroused my interest. That’s why I decided to investigate. I even wondered, vaingloriously, if it was me he was checking up on. But now I think not.’ He glanced again at me.
‘Are you going to expose him, Dad?’ Liddy sounded excited. ‘Can I be there?’
‘I’m not going to tell him I know about his cloak-and-dagger work if that’s what you mean by exposure. Why should I? Kit’s done me no harm, nor anyone else here as far as I know. It’s not a crime to assist the government of your own country. On the contrary, it shows a laudable patriotism. Intelligence is an essential part of the administration of every nation in the world. Kit is merely the modern equivalent of a messenger with a cleft stick.’
‘In that case’ – Constance waved her spoon – ‘he’d be the last person to want to help the IRA, surely? So why shouldn’t he know about Danny?’
‘It’s not as straightforward as that.’ Finn poured himself another glass. ‘For one thing, Danny has information that would be extremely interesting to the British. You don’t think Danny would tell the Old Enemy what they’d want to know without persuasion? My guess is he’d rather be
tortured by his own countrymen.’ I winced as I heard this. Surely we English didn’t go around beating the soles of people’s feet and electrocuting their genitals? ‘Besides,’ Finn continued, ‘politics is a dirty game. Sometimes it’s useful to have pawns to exchange. You can’t get the enemy to co-operate unless there’s a face-saving trade-off.’
‘But Kit’s a friend!’ Constance looked distressed. ‘He’s been so good, so helpful. And he loves our family! He’s often said so. I can’t believe he’d do anything we didn’t want him to.’
‘No one in politics can afford to be sentimental, Con,’ Finn said gently. ‘It’s better not to put friendship to the test.’
‘Bobbie, you haven’t said anything.’ Constance turned to me. ‘Isn’t this just the most disillusioning thing you’ve ever heard? Though of course I realize that Kit’s on your side – that is, if you had a side, darling Bobbie, for I’ve never felt for a single moment that we weren’t on the same side – but what I mean is, that as far as you’re English then he’s on your team but … Oh dear, I hate the idea of him not being utterly frank and open with us. Did he really say nothing about it to you? Not even hint if there was something he was investigating locally? Oh no, of course that’s ridiculous. He came here because of you.’
When she said that I felt an additional smart of pain and sorrow because without intending to Constance had put her finger exactly on the bruise. Oh yes, he was here because of me. I was certain of that. I felt rather than saw that Finn was observing me. He had carefully exculpated Kit as far as was possible, had presented a fair, neutral picture. He wanted me to believe that this unsuspected, possibly perfidious facet of my fellow countryman need make no difference to my future plans, should they happen to include Kit. It was extremely chivalrous of Finn, I thought with a feeling that amounted to savagery.
I tried to decide how to play it. Shocked? Amused? Indifferent? Suddenly a smell of burning reached my nostrils. ‘Con! The sauce!’
‘This canary pudding is just like our mess cook used to make it,’ said Basil Molesworth. I took this as a compliment. ‘There wouldn’t happen to be a spot more jam?’
‘I’m afraid it was undeservedly popular. I don’t suppose marmalade would do?’
The colonel shook his head. ‘Not to worry. Look at that young woman now.’
My eyes travelled round the dining table, wondering whom he might mean. Jasmine, sitting opposite me, looked delicious in a Schiaparelli pink silk suit. Next to Finn was Constance in her becoming black dress. I leaned forward to see Liddy on the other side of the colonel, in my pin-tucked shirt from Mexicana – Liddy, of course, not Basil – worn with black trousers tucked into high-heeled boots in the style of a sans-culotte. All of them were worth looking at. ‘She’s come on a lot since Christmas. More substantial, though I know you ladies don’t like to hear that. But she no longer looks as though a cold winter would do for her. And she’s talking fairly fluently now too. I don’t go in much for miracles – leave that sort of thing to the competition, eh? – but I’ve got to admit it’s the nearest thing to one I’ve ever seen.’
Violet was sitting at the foot of the table in the place that for a season had been mine. She was looking bright-eyed, pretending to listen to Eugene, her spirits quite recovered now her husband was home.
‘I remember when Finn brought her back here for the first time. Pretty as a fairy then, quite in your own style, my dear, but something of a pussy-cat. Mischievous, you know. That must have been’ – he rolled his eyes upwards while he calculated – ‘over seventeen years ago. Finn’s grandfather – the Master, we all called him – was alive then. It was Finn’s birthday. A good party, bonfires all over the estate, plenty of liquor, the usual black crows in attendance’ – he glanced at Father Deglan on the other side of the table – ‘disapproving of youth and high spirits. My, but there were some shenanigans that night! Violet was the belle of the ball. Of course we had pretty enough local girls, splendid teeth and good riders to hounds, but they didn’t have Violet’s winning ways. She could charm you off your perch like a fox charms birds from the trees. She made me shiver in my shoes! I’ve never gone for women you couldn’t call a friend, but most of the other men there would have given their right hands for a smile from her. But she only had eyes for Finn.’ The colonel shook his head then laughed at some sudden memory. ‘It was about nine months from that night that little Phyllida put in an appearance. They’d married hastily in Dublin a few months before. The Master was furious about it but I said to him, “What are you bellyaching for, you old fool? She’s as lovely a girl as you could want and Finn’s a fine man. They make the handsomest pair in Connaught and they’re in love. Who cares about a few months either way?” But the Master was a Catholic so he thought it was a sin, the silly old … I hope I’m not speaking out of turn? You’ll be a Protestant, I take it.’
‘I am, if I’m anything, and no, you’re not.’
‘That’s good. Religion’s throttled the life out of this country. When they got hold of the schools that put the lid on it really. Still, no use moaning about it now, the harm’s done and there’s change in the wind. We’re beginning to feel the influence of the rest of the world now and by golly it’s a damned good thing.’ The colonel drained his glass of a superb Château Yquem which I was sadly aware was entirely wasted on the canary pudding. ‘Do you know, I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed a conversation so much for a long time. You must allow me to say, my dear, that not only are you a strikingly beautiful woman but you’ve the brains to match.’
‘Thank you.’ I had spoken barely a dozen words throughout but the colonel had been too busy enjoying his own loquacity to notice. ‘Are you sure you won’t have any more pudding?’
The colonel patted his stomach and shook his head. ‘Love to but—’
Whatever he was going to say was drowned by a screech from Jasmine. Most of us remained calm, piercing screams having become part of the pattern of our lives since Jasmine’s arrival. Basil and Father Deglan looked thoroughly alarmed and Finn glanced around uneasily.
‘There’s a man looking through the window,’ cried Jasmine. ‘A hideous creature with a deformed face!’
‘Nonsense!’ said Maud. ‘You’re hysterical. Pull yourself together.’
‘I saw him!’
‘I once had a Malay girl in the kitchen,’ said Maud to no one in particular. ‘Never again. She could only cook rice and she had the morals of a whore.’
‘Don’t worry, Jazzy,’ said Kit, who was sitting next to her. ‘It’s just one of the local lads. Too much in-breeding—’
The dining-room door was flung wide and in rushed Timsy, Katty and Pegeen, their eyes wide, their mouths gaping.
‘What is it?’ asked Constance. ‘What’s the matter—’
She stopped in mid-speech. Behind them came three men whose appearance was terrifying. Their features had been distorted by stocking masks. One of them carried a gun. I had seen guns before. During shooting lunches at Cutham the hall had resembled an arsenal. But I had never seen a gun pointed at anyone. As its owner waved it round the table at each of us in turn, I felt real fear. Jasmine, temporarily checked by surprise, gave vent to a long penetrating shriek at full volume that made all of us, including the intruders, jump.
‘Shut your mouth!’ said the gun-toter, aiming it at Jasmine. ‘Or I’ll shut it for you with a bullet!’ His accent seesawed between American and Irish.
Jasmine sensibly did as she was told, contenting herself with hiding her face against Kit’s shoulder and uttering the occasional protesting sob. Flavia, who was whiter than the tablecloth, threw her arms about her mother.
‘All right, ladies and gentlemen,’ said the gunman with fine sarcasm. ‘Don’t trouble yourselves to get up. No one’s to move. Just give us Danny Quill and we’ll not disturb your banquet any longer.’
For a while no one spoke. Liddy stared down at her plate and looked as though she was going to be sick.
Then Finn said, very cal
mly, ‘I’m afraid you’ve come on a wasted journey. Quill left the house this morning.’
‘Oh, no, I’ll not buy that. He was seen coming into this house last night. There’s been a watch kept on the gate since dawn. No one’s been in or out except Sam O’Kelly and the kids and you, Senator. We caught up with O’Kelly later. He knows better than to lie to us. Quill’s here all right.’
‘What makes you think he went out by the gate?’ said Finn. ‘There’s a channel from the lough that runs out to the sea. He was picked up by motorboat long before dawn and taken round to Westport. By now’ – Finn looked at his watch – ‘he should be somewhere in the North Channel. Poor fellow, apparently he suffers badly from sea-sickness.’
It was a good performance, unhurried, relaxed as though it was nothing to Finn whether anyone believed him.
‘You’re lying.’
Finn shrugged his shoulders. ‘Why don’t you search the house?’
The one in charge turned to his minions. ‘Do as he says. Get going.’
‘Where shall us begin, Terry?’ said one with a sweep’s brush of black hair sticking up through the top of his mask. He had a high, almost girlish voice. ‘I don’t know me way round at all.’
‘Sean Donoghue!’ said Katty. ‘I thought it was you! You should be ashamed of yourself!’
‘Gobshite!’ Terry cuffed the unfortunate Sean with the barrel of the gun.
‘Hoo-hoo,’ bleated Sean, nursing his ear. ‘There was no call for to do that!’
‘Wait till I tell your ma of you, Sean Donoghue!’ said Katty.
Terry pointed his gun at Katty’s aproned bosom. Her little black eyes were fierce, her hooked nose haughty as she crossed her arms and glared at him. She could have been taken as a model for Madame Defarge. I was impressed, being quite sure I could not have put on such a show of courage myself.
‘You do any tale-bearing,’ said Terry, ‘and I’ll blast out yer brains for ye, sure as a monkey likes bananas.’
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