Macaffety paused to prop his plastered leg up on a chair beside his desk. "I'm trying to advise you as Lord Bowley would. It was his paper, Sean, he'd want you to do your best by it. I think he would say an hour a day isn't enough. This is too big. It happened too fast. I think he'd say take a week off to think things over before you do anything."
Dinny sat smiling, waiting for an answer. It was good advice and Sean knew it. Dinny always gave good advice. And half an hour later Sean was outside on the street, with a whole week ahead of him to ponder his future.
The unexpected freedom felt strange. He strolled the streets for an hour, trying to concentrate, but not really knowing what to do with himself. He paused at Green's bookshop, browsing through the book laden tables set out across the pavement. He had read a good deal that year, encouraged by his father and Dinny. It was one of his father's rules. "Read about famous men," his father had urged during their walk across Ireland, "learn how they dealt with problems." Which was all very well, Sean reflected, but nothing in the biographies of Pitt and Gladstone and the like seemed to have the slightest relevance to his life.
Then came the most extraordinary stroke of luck - or chance - or fate, Sean could never explain it. After all, at the time, his perusal of those old books could not have been more casual. He flicked a page here and there - most of his mind still back at the Gazette and on Dinny's advice. Certainly there was nothing eye-catching about the book. Its blue cover was stained with ink on one side and the fly leaf was torn. But he bought it for sixpence and carried it off to Bewley's to read.
Sean read that book twice, that day. He read it again the next morning, and again the day after. It was the most extraordinary story he had ever read - the life and times of Alfred Charles William Harmsworth - who had been born in Dublin, at Chapelizod, half way to Palmerstown. Not that he had lived there for long. "The Troubles" had frightened his mother so much that they had moved to England, to Hampstead in London. At school young Alfred had run the magazine and been taught chemistry by H. G. Wells, one of whose books Sean had since read. But it was what happened to Alfred when he left school that excited Sean. Using a borrowed five hundred pounds Harmsworth had founded a magazine called Answers, and then a picture paper called Comic Cuts. Comic Cuts alone earned profits of £25,000 a year, and with those profits Harmsworth bought the London Evening News, which itself showed a profit of £14,000 by the end of twelve months. Harmsworth went on to found the Daily Mail - then, in 1908, he bought The Times, the most famous paper in London. Harmsworth grew rich, very wealthy indeed - and he became Lord Northcliffe when King Edward created him a baronet. And Lord Northcliffe became powerful. In fact one line in the book drew Sean's eye like no other ... "In the heyday of his newspaper empire, Lord Northcliffe as good as ruled England."
Sean was mesmerised. As good as ruled England - and England with a King and an Empire, a Parliament and a Prime Minister - yet the man who had built assets ruled them all! Exactly what Sean had wanted to tell his father when they had walked back from Coney Island.
It was an astonishing discovery, vindication too in a way. Sean compared himself to Harmsworth, diffidently, laughing at his audacity. Yet there were similarities. Both born in Dublin for a start, and although Harmsworth's London school may have provided a fine education, Sean had been taught the rules by his father. And while Harmsworth had run his school magazine, Sean had learnt about business with his donkeys. He had done more ... he had had his first woman, he had bought the Gazette - and all by the age of seventeen!
Then Sean stumbled upon the most curious link of all. A shiver ran up his spine. Harmsworth had died the year Sean was born. Coincidence ... and yet... Sean's blood tingled at the wild thought... had his love of newspapers been somehow passed down from one Irish-born to another? His heart leapt at the idea of living a life such as Harmsworth's ... yet why not ... he had started already ... he knew newspapers ... and he had been taught the rules by his father. Why not indeed? But to emulate Harmsworth he would have to do as Harmsworth did ... and cross the water to London.
Maeve O'Flynn's prediction rang in his ears, "Ireland won't hold you. You'll go far, Sean Connors, and I'll not stand in your way."
Every night that week Sean tried to talk to his father, but Pat Connors was busier than ever. He had taken to carrying a gun again. Sean knew why of course ... the hunt for Liam Riordan. Had Pat betrayed the slightest fear, Sean would have felt selfish about thinking of his own ambitions - but Pat treated the matter of Riordan with total contempt.
"Riordan," he said, when Sean finally cornered him late on the Friday evening, "aye, he's around, but don't you worry about that. What puzzles me is why he's come back. He knows me of old. He knows I meant it about killing him. I'll shoot the bastard stone dead if I set eyes on him. And I'll have the law on my side. There's every Guard in Dublin looking for him, and he'll be knowing it. So why come back to face odds like that, that's what I'd like to know."
"He's a fool," Pat continued, "living in the past. Riordan and his big mouth, always going on about the people - I speak for the people,' shouts Riordan. Maybe he did once, but not any more. I reckon to know what the people want a damn sight better than Riordan - and they don't want more bloodshed, which is what they'll get if they listen to the likes of Liam Riordan."
He paused to throw more turf on the fire. "Does he think he's alone in wanting one Ireland? My God, no man wants that more than me. But fighting's not the way. Mick Collins must spin in his grave. To think he nearly had it, all those years back, before the British wriggled out of the Boundary Commission. Sure, Mick never would have let them get away with it. That's what the likes of Riordan did for Ireland - murdered the man we needed most."
Sean waited, knowing his father would continue.
"He's up to something right enough," Pat said into the fire. "There's been a few meetings up at Rathfarnham, plotting the devil knows what. But we'll catch him, don't worry yourself." He grinned and turned to face his son. "Still, that's enough about Riordan. What have you been doing? I bumped into Dinny this evening and he says you've been taking time off."
So Sean told him about the week to think things out.
"Well, it's Friday," Pat said. "What decisions have you reached?"
Sean wanted to say he was going to England. He burned to talk about Alfred Harmsworth. He wanted his father to read the book for himself. There was so much to talk about. But Sean's words died in his throat. How could he even think of going away when Liam Riordan was still loose? Suppose he went to London and something terrible happened to his father? Sean couldn't risk that. So he smiled and shook his head.
"There's an idea at the back of my mind, but I'm not ready to talk about it yet. Let's give it a bit more time."
Time, thought Sean, as he went up to bed - time for the Gardai to take care of Riordan.
A week later the Gardai were still hunting for Liam Riordan - and north of the border the RUC were turning Belfast inside out in the search for the murderers of Lady Averdale.
The razing of Brackenburn set off the biggest manhunt in years. Not a night passed without B Specials careening through the Falls, searching and questioning. The city was pulled apart. In Stormont, Prime Minister Craig faced mounting pressure to re-introduce internment. Newspapers demanded the proclaiming of a state of emergency. "If an Averdale can be murdered," ran the argument, "no Protestant in Ulster is safe."
Tension increased daily. Small incidents threatened to erupt into mob violence. A policeman conducting interviews in the Short Strand was pelted with bricks. A man was knifed during an argument about the British Royal Family. Catholics and Protestants alike scurried about their business, keeping to their own neighbourhoods as much as possible. The weather was unseasonably warm. Belfast sweltered in an Indian summer and waited for the storm to break.
Meanwhile the RUC investigations took a step forward. Working closely with Eoin O'Brien, detectives pursued a theory about the warning telephone message. "Remember," the caller had threatened, "next
time you kill a man like Mick Nealson, the IRA will kill you." RUC questioning started with Nealson's relatives and friends, then expanded to every one of the forty-two Catholics dismissed from Averdales. Thirty-six had watertight alibis. Which narrowed the search down to five - three of whom seemed to have vanished entirely.
At seven o'clock one morning, RUC detectives raided a small house in the Falls and dragged two women from their beds. One was taken downstairs for questioning. She was forty-nine years old and had been in poor health for over a year. Her name was Mary Riordan - wife of Liam, and mother of Matt.
For such a frail woman, Mary Riordan resisted bravely. She was quite ignorant about Matt's involvement, but she had watched him become close to Ferdy Malloy. She had been powerless to prevent it. More nights than not she cried herself to sleep, yearning for the old days in Dublin when Matt was a boy. Left alone she might have made him into a doctor. He would have saved lives, not taken them. But Liam had returned - and Pat Connors had followed him - to send them to this hell-hole in the Falls and to Matt's terrible beating outside the gates of that factory. That was when he changed. He was never the same after that.
"America," she lied, in answer to their questions. "My son is in America with his father."
The questions came faster ... when did he go ... where was he living ...
"You're a liar, Mary Riordan! A fucking Fenian whore of a liar!"
The house was searched. Her meagre possessions were flung all over the floor. Upstairs floorboards were ripped from the joists.
"When did you last see your son? How long have you lived here? Where does your money come from? How do you support yourself? Your son is a murdering bastard!"
"America," she wailed, "my son's in America with his Da."
"Liar! Liam Riordan is in Dublin. Even his own kind are hunting him."
Then came the newspapers - Dublin newspapers, with Liam's face all over the front page. She told herself it was a trick, Liam was in America...
Questions poured over her in a deluge ... some quick, some sly, some brutal ... and all the time "Your son is a murdering bastard!"
After five hours of merciless bullying something happened to Mary Riordan's brain. She lost the power of speech. She rocked back and forth in her chair, whimpering like a beaten animal, her tear-stained face as clenched as a fist. She had told them nothing, for there was little she could tell - and by noon that day she could not tell anyone anything at all. She had resisted beyond her endurance. Her eyes glittered with an insane gleam as she leapt from her chair to snatch two crayon drawings down from the mantelpiece. She gathered them to her lap, smoothing the paper over her knee, heedless of the men's questions, aware of only one thing - the sketches she had made of Matt while he lay recovering from the injuries inflicted outside Averdale's factory.
It took the four detectives thirty minutes to realise what had happened. An ambulance was summoned. They took the drawings away from her, tearing the corner of one as they prised it loose from her fingers. Then she was sedated and rushed to the asylum.
She died after five days - a small, shabby death, unnoticed by the world - but the death of Mary Riordan was as much part of the Irish tragedy as that of Dorothy Averdale - and those others who, a few days later, went to their graves.
No man looked closer to the grave than Mark Averdale. His face was gaunt and drawn. Dark circles beneath his eyes added to his haggard expression. He had lived in his father-in-law's house since the destruction of Brackenburn, but he could stay no longer - he had to escape from the weeping of Dorothy's mother, and Sir Henry's angry ranting. In Mark's opinion, the Manners had lost a daughter, but he had lost far more than a wife.
The initial shock had shattered him. He had only left the house once, and that to attend the funeral, a nightmare from which he escaped as soon as he could, to flee back to his darkened rooms.
In an odd way he had mourned Dorothy - giving her credit for being a good wife; efficient with the staff, frugal with expenses - unexciting in bed perhaps, but at least she had tried, which was more than most wives did, or so he had heard at the club.
But more than Dorothy he mourned the loss of Brackenburn - that great mansion which had been his birthright. Everything was gone ... the Averdale collection ... his African pavilion ... Not an hour passed without the memory of some lost treasure taunting him - a Van Gogh, a Poussin, Constable's "Willow Trees", portraits by Dore - all overshadowed by the loss of Rouen's masterpiece. To have lost the nymph by the poolside was the cruellest blow of all.
He sought solace from the photographs. He thanked God for them. They were his link. Kate had gone, but still she lived. Here was her golden-red hair, her flashing green eyes and alabaster white skin ... her breasts, her arms, her long, long thighs. Just by being there she helped him survive. The nymph by the poolside had gone, but Kate the young mother was still his to possess.
The prospect of that gave him strength. Not during the first week when he was physically sick, nor the second when he was too angry to think straight, but after fifteen days mostly spent alone in his room Mark Averdale began to apply his agile brain to the business of living. Which is when he sent for Eoin O'Brien.
They met in Sir Henry's study. Mark listened grimly to a recital of all that had happened since Black Friday.
O'Brien pulled a handbill from his pocket. "The RUC are looking for a man called Riordan. He was employed at the factory, he was one of the Croppies I fired."
Mark studied the charcoal sketches printed on the Wanted poster. He listened carefully to O'Brien's account of the interrogation of the mother, and the past IRA activities of the father.
"Vermin," Mark scowled, "vermin, the whole bloody family."
"These posters are outside every police station in Ulster," O'Brien said. "The chief constable assures me -"
"Offer a reward. Five thousand pounds, for information which leads to his capture. Get our own posters printed. Croppies will shop their own mothers for the right price."
O'Brien made a note and might have replied, but Mark was warming to his theme. "Let the press know - I want that reward headline news. Then get onto the Prime Minister's office - thank him for his wreaths, and ask if he'll see me tomorrow afternoon ..."
Mark dictated orders for another hour, combing through O'Brien's report to identify priorities. O'Brien was a thorough man himself, but honest enough to doubt his ability to match Lord Averdale's efficiency. It was a revealing glimpse of the steel which usually lay cloaked beneath an air of casualness.
Eoin O'Brien sensed much the same thing the following morning, when he accompanied Lord Averdale on an inspection visit to Brackenburn. They sat in the back of the Averdale Rolls-Royce and O'Brien did his best to answer an endless stream of questions. He confirmed that the architects and insurance evaluators would be at the house, together with Donaghue, Lord Averdale's broker. Mark nodded approval, then tried not to wince as the gutted ruins loomed into sight.
Brackenburn! His heart lurched as he looked at the burnt-out shell. Part of the great hall was still standing - but little else. He watched the architects poke about in the rubble, talking in funereal voices of restoration. God, what was left to restore! How could a drawing by Sickert be restored, or a Daumier cartoon, or a sketch by Brague. Such treasures were irrecoverable ... priceless possessions, lost forever. He raised his eyes to the roofless outline of the upper floor, where the nymph by the poolside had adorned a wall. He shuddered, then turned away, unable to look any longer. By God, someone would pay!
O'Brien blanched as he saw Averdale's face, empty of colour save for the eyes which blazed bright with hatred. It forebode a difficult day. Many would incur Averdale's wrath before it was over - and O'Brien's resolve not to be among them strengthened ten minutes later. Lord Averdale erupted furiously at Donaghue. The broker had remarked that the insurers were in some difficulty about arranging compensation, destruction had been caused by civil disturbance - so negotiations with the government were necessary. It sounde
d like the thin edge of the wedge. Mark Averdale exploded with temper. Not one of the men gathered around the Rolls-Royce was left in any doubt - an Averdale had suffered loss - Averdales were paid - and God help any man who failed to discharge his responsibilities. The impact of the rebuke was reinforced by Mark Averdale's venomous language. Donaghue could not have been lashed more viciously with a horsewhip.
When Mark Averdale finished he turned on his heel. "Come on, O'Brien. We'll leave these gentlemen to their duties."
He stepped into the car, while O'Brien rushed to the other side. Then they departed, leaving some of the most respected professional men in Belfast gaping after them. A myth was destroyed in that instant. People had said that the current Lord Averdale, obsessed as he was with works of art, lacked the ruthlessness of his father. It was Donaghue who put it into words - "By Christ, they're all the same. Scratch an Averdale and there's a tiger under the skin."
Which were O'Brien's thoughts too, not that he expressed them, in fact he had no time to express anything. "Look here, O'Brien," Lord Averdale said, "this man Riordan and his IRA rabble might make another attack. They might even attack you. After all, they associate you with Nealson's death. Not your fault, but you can't reason with vermin like Riordan."
O'Brien said he had no fear for himself - which was exactly what Mark Averdale had anticipated. "That's not the point. I never doubted your courage for a minute. But you have a wife and children, O'Brien. After what's happened I really do feel a responsibility to protect them."
Mark Averdale unveiled his carefully made plans. The O'Briens would move to the country, just for a few weeks - "My guess is the trouble will blow over once this Riordan is behind bars, but until then ..." The Averdale estate at Keady covered a thousand acres, and the big house could be made ready by the morning. Their whereabouts would be kept quiet of course ... naturally the Prime Minister would be told, and the Chief Constable ... "but the fewer people the better. And your wife will adore Keady, so will your children. The Brackenburn staff will be there to see to their comfort. There is a separate wing I can use, so apart from that your wife can have the run of the house."
Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1 Page 110