Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1

by Ian St. James

  Val had installed a wireless to amuse him. They listened to music together, with Val adjusting the volume when he dozed, and they always listened to the news. The political situation in Europe was worse than ever. Hitler grew more bellicose every day. Europe, and the world, continued to teeter on the brink of war. But it was not the European news which caused Sean's relapse - it was an announcement made on Thursday, after the six o'clock news:

  "Here is a police message. The police have now named the man believed to have been responsible for last Friday's bomb explosions in Coventry. He is Matthew Riordan, known to be a member of the IRA, and who for some time has been living at 82, Dunster Road, Solihull, Birmingham. Riordan is in his early twenties and was clean shaven when last seen. Height about five feet nine, medium build, light brown hair. Anyone knowing his whereabouts or who think they have seen a man answering to this description should contact their local police station at once. It is emphasised that this man is almost certainly armed”

  Sean went rigid. "Matt Riordan!" He spat the hated name like a curse. It was a curse.

  "Sean!" Val flew to his side. "Sean, darling -"

  "Riordan! Fucking Riordan!" He stared at the ceiling, seeing only memories.

  "Sean. Darling ..."

  He turned, not seeing her, wiping his face on the pillow to get rid of the spit. "Sean!"

  He saw the lane at Keady ... the Da, blood everywhere ... oh Da, what have they done? "Darling ..."

  The room flickered in and out of focus. Val bending over him ... here... in this hospital. Broken, swathed in bandages ... and all because of Matt Riordan!

  "Oh my God, Sean, what's the matter ..."

  But he had passed out.

  It was an awful night. When he came round they sedated him heavily. Val was beside herself with remorse, blaming herself, frightened by the hatred she had seen in his eyes - the look on his face - and she had never heard him use such language.

  Dinny and Michael arrived at eight o'clock to find Sean deeply drugged and Val on the verge of collapse. Dinny took charge, suddenly as authoritative as when in his office. As soon as Val told him about the broadcast Dinny acted. "You're coming with me," he told her, "and you'll listen to me if you care for Sean Connors at all!"

  He might have slapped her face. She went whiter than ever. Even so, she protested about leaving. Dinny pointed at Michael, "That boy's known Sean all his life. Do you think he'd let anything happen to him?"

  He took her to a restaurant a hundred yards from the hospital. It wasn't much of a place and they made an odd looking couple - not that Dinny was concerned with appearances. He found a corner table and made her drink some brandy, then he got some hot soup inside her. After which he talked about Sean. She had known about the donkeys, but not what had happened to them. She knew he had loved his father, but had not known how his father had died. Dinny told her everything - about Brigid and Maureen and how they were killed - and of Pat's terrible revenge. And of how Sean bought the Gazette and sent Tomas and the family to Australia. He talked of the Riordans, both father and son - and he told her all about the Killing at Keady. He talked and talked and talked.

  She couldn't stop shaking. Her meal went cold on her plate. Dinny sent it away and persuaded her to have another bowl of hot soup instead. She was steadier after that, even though she was appalled by the terrible violence in Dinny's story.

  Finally, after a few deep breaths, she regained control of herself. Her eyes met his, "You're tremendously proud of him, aren't you?"

  He toyed with his glass. "Sure and why not. There's a woman in Dublin who believes he will conquer the world. And maybe she's right."

  Val's eyes narrowed. "Is she pretty?"

  "Most men think so."

  "Does Sean?"

  "Reckon he did, once."

  It was the first Val had heard of a rival. She mustered her courage. "Does she - did she love him very much?"

  Dinny grunted. "Did, and still does, and always will I reckon. And her getting married an' all." He smiled kindly across the table. "But she would have held him back and hadn't she the sense to see it. That's why she let him go. It would have been like caging a skylark."

  Val's hands clenched into tiny fists. "And me, Mr Macaffety. I'll hold him back too. Is that what you're saying?"

  His eyes came up to meet hers and his smile widened. "Sure now, wouldn't you be the finest skylark a man ever set eyes on."

  She hugged his arm all the way back to the hospital. Michael sat in the bedside chair like a proud sentinel. The doctor was satisfied that his patient would survive the latest shock to his system.

  Dinny blushed scarlet when Val kissed him goodbye - after which she shooed everyone out and settled herself next to the bed, to think over what Dinny had told her. "A different world," she whispered, "you're from a different world, my darling." Her eyes brightened a few minutes later and a smile came to her lips. "Sure now," she said in a passable imitation of Dinny's brogue, "wouldn't I be proud of you too? But I'll be wanting to hear all about this Irish colleen when you wake up."

  The following morning, Sean awoke with a temperature. Val kept him quiet all day and the wireless firmly switched off - so it was not until Freddie arrived that she learned the news.

  He told her in the corridor, out of Sean's hearing. "Germany invaded Poland this morning. There's nothing much from Chamberlain yet," he said as she clutched his arm, "perhaps peace is still possible."

  She did not share the news with Sean, even the next morning when he looked very much better. Dinny arrived before midday, with Michael and Senator O'Keefe. They were on their way to the station.

  "I've a paper to run and a proprietor to keep happy," Dinny said firmly. "You are on the mend now, and this nurse of yours will soon have you up and about."

  After Michael and the Senator had said their goodbyes, Valerie walked them to the hospital gates.

  Sean could feel his strength improving. The fever had passed. When Val returned he pleaded in vain to be allowed to listen to the radio. He wondered if her refusal had anything to do with Riordan. She wouldn't even discuss it. The best he got was her promise that he could hear the news tomorrow.

  "But tomorrow's Sunday. Nothing ever happens -"

  "So don't bother to listen at all. I'm sorry, darling, no more chances."

  He was sedated again in the evening and was asleep when Freddie arrived.

  Val went out to the corridor to be brought up to date. "Everywhere's buzzing with rumours," Freddie said grimly, "the trouble is nobody is saying anything very definite. I've been on to Churchill but his lips are sealed. Chamberlain is supposed to be making a broadcast in the morning."

  Sean dreamt vividly that night. Friends flitted through his dreams, all jumbled up. Dinny was drinking stout in the Lord Lovat at Shadwell instead of in Mulligan's Bar. Michael was working for the Daily Mirror and not the Gazette... and Freddie was talking on the telephone, his face wet with tears. Sean's own face felt wet, wet with spit... Riordan's spit.

  Then he awoke. His surroundings registered. Hospital, bandages, his leg in plaster. It was Sunday, 3 September. Val and Freddie were standing at the far side of the room, listening to the wireless which was barely audible. Sean strained to hear. He recognised Chamberlain's voice, creaking with emotion ...

  "Everything that I have worked for, everything that I hoped for, everything that I have believed in during my public life, has crashed in ruins ..."

  The war! War had begun.

  "The end of the world," Sean whispered, and wondered if it would be.

  Chapter Five

  People reacted to the outbreak of war in different ways. Freddie Mallon was triumphant, forecasting that Hitler would get his comeuppance at last. Not everyone was so sanguine. George Hamilton remembered the trenches from World War I and thought it would be a very hard slog. Besides, this time there was German air power to reckon with - Hyde Park was already being turned upside down with air-raid shelters. London might be bombed flat like Madrid.
Eaton Square could be reduced to rubble and ashes. But even if that happened and the worst came to the worst, George could never leave London, he had a business to run. So he took a suite in the Dorchester for "the duration of the war" and closed his house in Eaton Square. He went a step further by offering Ashworth to the Government as a military hospital, together with the use of his two motor cars. "May as well," he told Cynthia, "there'll be damn all petrol in another month."

  George Hamilton's businesslike approach was seen as a shrewd move by others. A steel and concrete structure like the Dorchester stood a better chance of withstanding a Blitzkrieg than did London's brick houses. Besides, hotel life was one way of coping with the shortage of servants.

  Within weeks the wealthy were flocking to book suites at the Savoy and the Ritz - among them Duff and Diana Cooper, and Charles Sweeney with his beautiful wife.

  Among the grand houses closed in London was the Belgrave Square residence of Lord Averdale, who had been a constant visitor to the capital that year. In fact he had spent more time in London than in Belfast, which was perhaps not surprising after the Killing at Keady.

  Mark Averdale's face bore lines of suffering which ought not to have been there. After all, he was only twenty-eight. The murder of Sheila O'Brien had devastated him. The burning of Brackenburn had been torture enough, the loss of Rouen's Kate catastrophic - but the loss of the personification of Kate, Kate in the flesh, the Kate he had touched and almost possessed - that was the final blow. Grief tore him apart. He drifted for weeks, miserable and purposeless. All of his plans had involved Kate. Brackenburn would have been restored to former glories and Kate would have reigned as a Queen. Without her, without even Rouen's masterpiece, raising Brackenburn from the ashes seemed pointless.

  Bleak-eyed and inconsolable, he had brooded for days. Of course he saw people. He even attended meetings with the RUC, where he had learned with astonishment that the body of Liam Riordan had been found at the roadside at Keady - Liam Riordan, father of Matt! The same Matt Riordan who had destroyed Brackenburn. Hardened police officers blanched. "I don't just want this Riordan caught," Mark blazed, "I want him dead. He's vermin. Understand? Destroy him like vermin. I want to be able to look down on his body and spit on it!"

  But Matt Riordan was not to be found.

  Fifteen days elapsed before Mark Averdale's tormented mind grasped the one thing that could restore purpose to his life. Kate the young mother was dead - but Kate the child still lived! She and her injured brother had been taken from Keady Manor by their maternal grandparents. Mark vaguely remembered meeting them at the funeral the man was a doctor, retired, his wife was semi-crippled with arthritis. They had taken the child Kate from under his roof, from under his very nose.

  Mark began to function again. Three days later, shaking off the numbness of shock, he called on the grandparents by appointment. With typical thoroughness he had investigated their circumstances before his visit. The doctor was sixty-eight and his wife five years younger. They lived quiet country lives in modest surroundings, without servants except for a girl from the village.

  Mark's charm devastated them. He apologised for his behaviour at the funeral. He had been so overcome that to comfort others had been beyond him. He explained how close he had been to Eoin, their son-in-law, and to Sheila, their daughter ... the three of them had been so full of plans ... in time the O'Briens would have become wealthy ...

  The grandparents listened misty-eyed as Mark pleaded to be allowed to provide the children with the futures Eoin would have wanted for them. The boy would receive the best education money could buy. The girl would be raised as a young lady. They would live Averdale lives, with all that that implied ...

  The old lady was overwhelmed, but the doctor was cautious. The children were in his charge, Mark's proposals would take them away. Besides, the boy had suffered terrible acid burns, he might be a cripple for life. Mark flinched. He had a horror of illness, the very idea of a cripple made his flesh creep. Nonetheless he had recognised from the outset that it was both children or neither, so he persevered - "You must visit," he pointed to the Rolls-Royce outside the window. "I'll have you collected whenever you wish. Please stay at my homes as my guests." He paused for emphasis, "Between us we must do all we can for the children."

  The discussion lasted two hours, with Mark promising to return the following week - "With my lawyer, who will be helpful to all of us."

  Agreement was reached at the second meeting. The courts would be asked to endorse Mark's appointment as the children's guardian - a mere formality in view of his name and the settlements involved. The elderly doctor had argued tenaciously. Mark was to be responsible for their care and well-being, their education, their moral safety, their upbringing as good Presbyterians, and so much more - more than he had intended. He had not really wanted to be burdened by the boy at all. He shrugged, once the boy was well he could be sent away to school. The most important point, the most wonderful aspect of the whole thing, was his capture of Kate.

  Again he pored over his photographs behind locked doors. The pain of seeing Sheila O'Brien's naked loveliness was muted now - his sense of loss was diminished. He gloried again at the thrust of her breasts and the long line of her thighs - gloried in the certain knowledge that another Kate would be his - at last, one day in the future.

  Life took on new meaning for Mark Averdale. Six weeks after the Killing at Keady he travelled to London to engage a nurse for the girl and a tutor for the boy. He conducted the interviews himself and chose with care, examining credentials, verifying references, explaining requirements. Finally he selected a Miss Rose Smith and a Mr Wyndham Williams, who despite his name was Belfast born and well aware of the Averdales.

  Mark's plans were now made. The children would live in London, at least for a while, and Mark would visit them frequently. It resolved a number of problems. His most gracious home in Ireland was now Keady Manor, a most unsuitable place for the children after what had happened. Besides there was Riordan to worry about. The RUC had warned - "The IRA have made you a prime target." Mark was unafraid for himself - whatever the Averdales were, none were cowards. "No surrender," was part of their creed. Another Averdale trait asserted itself - "What we have we shall hold" - and Mark's most precious possession was Kate. Twice he had been robbed of her beauty. It would never happen again. She would be removed to London and safety.

  It took Mark two weeks to adjust his business affairs. He compensated for the loss of Eoin O'Brien by dividing his work among others, none of whom were as competent, but with Mark providing tighter control he thought he would manage. He remained in close touch with the RUC and warned them that he would often be away in London - "Even so, wherever I am, send word when you arrest Riordan. Better still, send word that you've killed him."

  He saw nothing of the children during this time, but made his influence felt by moving the nurse into the grandparents' house and lodging the tutor nearby.

  Thus began the new lives of Timothy and Kathleen O'Brien.

  Mark moved with unseemly, almost indecent haste. He was worried that Riordan might strike again and that Kate would be harmed, but he found another reason for the grandparents - "The children's lives have been shattered enough. If they put roots down here, with you, it will be another upheaval to make changes later. There's no telling what harm that could do."

  The doctor agreed that children need a settled routine. To move them to London seemed a big step, but it was taken, and two weeks later the party left Ireland, with Timothy in a wheel-chair because of his damaged legs. The tearful grandparents comforted themselves with Mark's parting words - "Next week the best man in Harley Street will work on those legs." And a Harley Street specialist did, though his diagnosis differed little from that already given - that in time, and with proper exercises, Timothy O'Brien's legs should mend - after a fashion.

  Mark cringed at the prospect of sharing his house, indeed part of his life, with a cripple. He wanted the boy packed off to schoo
l at the earliest moment, and he gave Wyndham Williams his instructions the very same evening - "Exercise him until he drops. To hell with his lessons. I'll not be plagued by a snivelling cripple."

  An established tutor might have resigned, but Wyndham Williams was not established. He was a young man with a reputation to make, who needed the cachet of the Averdale name to impress future employers. He had to take what material he was given if he was to become known as a "moulder of men". It was a difficult assignment, but he took it on with one condition - that the boy be left completely in his charge, a proviso which Mark Averdale accepted with a sigh of relief.

  Wyndham Williams was a clever young man. He suffered no illusions about the difficulties presented by Timothy O'Brien. More than the boy's legs had been damaged. Timothy had worshipped his mother and idolised his father. Now he had nothing - less than nothing. Crippled, often in pain, apparently abandoned by his grandparents, uprooted to a strange place by a strange man called Lord Averdale who flinched whenever their eyes met. Timothy O'Brien made a pitiful sight: red-eyed from constant weeping, white-faced from pain and shock, he had nothing to live for.

  Williams gambled. He persuaded Tim to talk about the Killing at Keady. He made him talk. Time and again Tim was prodded into grisly descriptions. The boy broke down. He wept. He begged not to be forced to relive the worst moments of his life. But Williams was remorseless "What happened then - who shot your mother - which man killed your father?" In truth the boy never knew. He described a tall man in the lane, a man with black hair who waved a revolver - but it had all happened so fast. He did not want to talk about it. He wanted to die. He wanted to be with his mother in Heaven.

  "And what will you tell her? That you just let it happen? That you didn't love her enough to go after her murderers? You let them escape ...

  "I'm not grown-up," Tim wailed, "besides ..." he gestured at his legs.

  Williams snorted. "That wouldn't have stopped Eoin O'Brien. Your father was brave, everyone says so. He would have hated those men so much -"