by Paul Reid
Tara moved past and walked down the corridor. She found another grille, which she unlocked, and it led towards an oak door. It opened without a key. There was a cell beyond. She took the gun from her handbag and walked towards the bars.
And almost screamed at the sight of him.
Adam awoke.
He was sitting again, he realised. In an empty room, before an empty table. His wrists were bound fast behind the chair. He spat a gob of blood from his throat and his front teeth moved with the effort. Three were loose. His tongue felt the serrated edge where one had chipped. His head and cheekbones throbbed, his eyes stung. Every breath stabbed a lance of agony into his ribs.
And he heard the footsteps.
He had given them nothing, yet he wanted little more now than to weep. To bawl. Enough. Enough.
The footsteps slowed. Somebody screamed. Through his blackened eyes, he made out a shape.
“Adam,” she cried in horror. “Adam, what have they done to you?”
He stirred. Through hazed vision, he saw her face. “Tara,” he stammered. “Tara, how did you get here?”
She hesitated. His vision swam again. “Tara . . . ”
“You lied,” she said.
It took several moments for him to register her voice. Several more to register her words. He coughed. “Tara, darling, I can explain everything.”
“Don’t,” she snapped. “No more darling.” Her hand moved.
Now he saw the pistol, aimed between the iron bars into his cell. He strained against his chains and winced at the pain. “Tara, I love you. Know that. You must let me explain.”
“I loved you too,” she whispered. “I loved you, and you let me love you.” She steadied her voice and steadied the pistol. “Did James hurt you?”
“We had a spirited discussion. Yes, he did.”
“Good. Maybe you told him the truth, and God might just forgive you. Before you meet Him.”
“I won’t speak to James. I want to speak the truth to you, Tara.”
“Truth? Do you even know what the word means? Do you know anything, compassion, feelings . . . ”
“Tara, I served the British too, like your friend James. I saw the empire’s compassion and feelings in France. I’ve seen it here in Ireland. And I could gladly do without it.”
“Such a noble fellow. Aren’t you, Adam?”
“No, I know fine well that I’m not. But I’m trying to be. I’m an Irishman and I love my country.”
“You love nothing. You’re a destroyer of lives and innocence, nothing better.” Tears filled her eyes. “And it’s such a waste. Such a damned waste. I loved you, Adam.”
He heard the snicker of the pistol being cocked. Tara’s hand was no longer shaking, and he felt a wave of dismay at seeing her driven to this point—this final, horrible resolution. “I see. I suppose I deserve it. I’ve escaped a few scrapes before, but luck runs out for every man. But the difference is,” he met her eyes, “I’ve never cared an ounce before. This time I do. Because I love you.”
“Don’t,” she pleaded, then louder, “I said don’t! Because I don’t love you. You’re evil. A killer. You’re a liar.”
“Not a liar. I wanted to spare you more hurt. I wanted us to be a normal couple, to live our lives like any couple would. Goodness, Tara, I wanted to marry you.”
“All those times you went away on business. I can imagine what kind of business.” Her pistol hand was shaking again before her eyes flashed in fury. “Marry me, did you just say? A married couple? Like my mother and father? Murdered in their own home? By you.”
“I did not murder your mother and father. Whatever my other sins, I am not a murderer. A killer, yes, I know, but not a murderer. I’ve only done what I thought is right.” He blinked bloodshot eyes. “And I’m not a liar, Tara. Please believe me. Believe me when I say that I love you. Believe me when I say that I want to marry you. Believe me when—”
She squeezed the trigger.
The gun fired.
Her shot took Adam high and flung his body and chair backwards onto the ground. Blood spurted from his shirt. He gave a great heave for air, but his chest suddenly seized and his eyes rolled back into his head until only the whites showed.
She screamed again.
James was dreaming of a green lawn, tree-shaded in the afternoon, of tea served in china cups and glasses of lemonade. Laughter. Friends. English accents.
The dream faded.
His eyes opened groggily. Somebody was shouting at him.
“ . . . below, sir. Honestly, sir! Wake up!”
James lifted his head. There was a half-empty coffee cup on the desk. “Wha—what?”
“There’s a shot fired below, sir. In the cells. I heard it!”
One of the RIC constables was standing in the doorway of James’s office. James rubbed his nose. “A shot? But there’s a guard down there.” He yawned twice, then his eyes focused. “There’s a guard, isn’t there? Answer me.”
The constable looked hopeless. “I only heard it a moment ago. I’ll go down and check.”
“Never mind, I’ll do it.” James rose from his chair and checked his pistol. “A shot? A single shot? Who’s the guard?”
The guard was Constable Bob Higgins. As the pistol shot echoed through the corridors, he gave a yelp, flung his newspaper aside, and yanked open the iron grille. He thundered red-faced down through the corridors and roared out, “Ma’am! Miss! Are you all right?”
He reached the next door and grabbed the handle. It was locked.
And then a second shot rang out.
“What the hell is going on?” He pounded the door. “Ma’am!”
Tara’s hand was shaking so violently that the revolver slipped from her grip. The impact upon the concrete floor triggered the firing mechanism, and the second bullet ricocheted off the walls. Adam lay on his back inside the cell, hands still bound, his feet kicking out before he stopped moving.
It might have been the shock of that violent noise or the sight of Adam thrown on the ground, blood on his shirt, but she was struck by a sudden clearance of mind, a rinsing out of her jumbled emotions, so that stark reality took hold again. For a dreadful moment she thought him dead, and she scrabbled through the keys, trying each one on the cell door until the lock released. She went to him and managed to haul his chair upright . “Adam, can you hear me? I’m sorry. Oh, God, I’m sorry. I thought . . . I made myself believe you were him. That you were Larry Mulligan. But you’re not, you’re not . . . ”
His eyes opened. He smiled weakly. “If you were going for my black heart, then you’re a poor aim.”
She looked down and saw a patch of bright blood seeping from the outer flesh of his shoulder. A clump of skin and muscle had been ripped clear. It was bleeding steadily.
“Not fatal yet,” he acknowledged, “though it’s going to hurt like hell. Why don’t you have another try?”
There was a roar and a hammering on the door up the passage.
Suddenly, fiercely, with her energies refocused, she blinked her eyes and grabbed his cuffs. “I have to get you out of here. Hold still. There’ll be a key for these.”
“What for? You’ve already made up your mind.”
“Oh, Adam, I don’t know. You’ve betrayed me, but I don’t want you to die. God knows, I don’t want that. I was wrong to mistake you for him.” She worked until finally the manacles released. “Can you stand?”
“This is madness, Tara. You’re going to get yourself in trouble.”
“Just stand. I can get you out of here.” She lifted his arm round her shoulder and led him out. He staggered but then braced himself.
“I’m all right. I can walk. What about that guard on the other side of the door?”
“Just be ready to move quickly.” She picked up the pistol and went ahead of Adam. Unlocking the door, she was greeted by the appalled countenance of Constable Higgins.
“Ma’am,” he blurted in heart-seizure, “what the—”
�
��Take off your clothes,” she ordered.
“Ma’am?”
“Take off your clothes,” she snapped and pointed the pistol at his head. He gulped and then stripped as commanded. Adam watched in dazed numbness.
“Now get in there.” She gestured for Higgins to get behind the oak door, and once he was inside, she locked it. With a glance up the corridor, she said, “We haven’t much time. Put these on.” She helped Adam to get the constable’s jacket and trousers on, then she plucked Higgins’s cap from the ground and clamped it onto his head.
“Tara,” Adam warned her, “we’ll never away with this. I can hear people coming.” There were loud boots on the floor above them. Running feet.
“I know a quicker way out.” She took his arm and led him hobbling beyond the stairwell and farther down the corridor into almost pitch-darkness. An unlocked storeroom had an adjoining door that led to another stairwell, slick with dampness and disuse. Adam followed her awkwardly up the steps. It emerged onto the floor where the stationery office was. Around the next corner, they could hear men stampeding down the main stairwell to the cells, cursing and damning each other, James’s voice the loudest. She pulled Adam in the opposite direction.
“The next door leads outside. But we’ll have to get past the sentries. Close the buttons on that coat. You’re a policeman, remember? Walk like one.”
Adam, too wracked with agony to protest, tried to comply.
“What do you mean it’s locked?” James bellowed and kicked the door. “Open it, you blubbering lump!”
“But I can’t,” pleaded the man at the other side. “Listen to me, sir! Listen! They’ve escaped. Your secretary and the suspect. They’ve escaped. And he stole my clothes, sir. I’m naked, I’m—”
James scowled at the constables beside him. “What’s the idiot on about? My secretary?” Then he froze.
No.
Surely not. That was impossible. He clenched his fist.
“Sir, I can get fresh keys,” one of the constables offered.
“She’s got him out,” James wailed. “She’s got him out. I knew it! Damn your eyes, man, the prisoner is running for it. Search the entire building. For Christ’s sake, don’t let them get to the gates!”
The sentry at the guard gate brightened visibly as Tara approached.
“Miss,” he tipped his cap. The rain was pouring steadily, but he stepped out to acknowledge her. “Leaving us again?” He hesitated when he saw the slow-moving figure behind her.
Adam wore the police uniform well and had the cap’s brim pulled firmly below his eyes. But his legs were wobbling and an enquiring eye would have spotted the bruised, bloody marks around his mouth.
Yet the sentry seemed preoccupied by other thoughts. He glanced only once at Adam, grunted, “Sir,” and then gazed back at Tara with a look of some disappointment and not a little jealously. “You have a good day, miss.”
“Yes.” That was about the only word that she could manage. She resisted the urge to grab Adam’s arm and say, “Hurry up,” but instead walked quietly across the road towards the hackney cars. “I have absolutely no idea where we’re supposed to go now.”
Adam, breathing in his unexpected freedom, felt his senses reawaken. The pain eased a little, though the flesh wound where she’d shot him was starting to voice its indignation. “I’m going to need a change of clothes. And a bloody doctor.”
“Where? My house won’t be safe.”
“Neither will my flat. They probably have the address from Allister, the useful ass.” He signalled to the first hackney. “I know somebody who can help us. But I’m afraid you’re not going to like it.”
By the time James emerged into the courtyard of Dublin Castle, he had half a platoon of policemen running behind him. They made for the sentry gates, and James roared at the guards, waving his pistol.
“Look lively there, you lot. We’ve got a suspect loose in the grounds. Have you seen anything?”
The sentries came quickly to attention and shook their heads in apology. “He didn’t come this way, sir. Can’t have scaled them high walls neither, or we would have saw.”
“He’s dressed as a policeman. And I think there’s a woman with him. Tara, you know Tara?”
One of the sentries frowned, swallowed, and visibly quailed. “You mean Miss Reilly, sir?”
“Yes, damn you. Have you seen her?”
The sentry nodded in embarrassment. “She . . . she just left with a policeman, sir.”
James raised his hands in the air and let loose every foul sentiment he could muster in one breath. Then he turned back on the sentry. “Where? Where did they go?”
“I saw them get into a hackney, sir. I didn’t see which street it went—”
James was already running back towards the Castle, and he shouted orders at the constables behind him as he went. “I want cars, trucks, motorcycles. Sweep the goddamn streets. Sweep them! All right? Just bloody find them!”
The hackney moved over the bridge, into Sackville Street, and up towards Parnell Square. The rain had eased, an eye in the storm. Tara glanced at Adam’s wounds and clasped her eyes.
“I can’t do this,” she whimpered. “I can’t do this. Where are we going?”
“To find the only person I know will help me,” Adam said. “Can you please trust me and stay on my side?”
“I don’t know.” She shuddered. “I’ll stay with you, Adam, but only to see you safe. But our business is not resolved. You do know that?”
“I know,” he nodded. “I know.”
“And what I now know about you, Adam . . . that has not gone away.”
The driver glanced round anxiously. “You all right, sir? You look like, God knows. Get in a fight?”
The bruises on Adam’s face were starting to colour horrifically. He shook his head. “Fell down some stairs. Clumsy, eh?”
“Where you want me to take you, sir? The hospital?”
“Parnell Square will do fine.”
He dropped them off at the eastern side of the square. Tara gave him his fare, and once he was gone she looked at Adam. “Where now?”
“There’s a hotel nearby. A friendly one. Follow me.”
Trying to disguise his injuries as best he could, he led her to Vaughan’s and pushed in the door to the gloomy lobby. The young male at the reception glanced up and swore when he saw the constable’s jacket.
“It’s not mine,” Adam explained quickly. “I’m afraid I don’t know your name. But I’m in need of some help. Bowen’s the name. Adam Bowen.”
The young man immediately stiffened. “I’m Billy,” he said. “Billy McDonagh. I know you. I mean, I’ve heard of you.”
“I’m looking for the big fellow, Billy. Has he been in?”
“You know the big fellow, Mr. Bowen. He’s out and about.”
“That’s fine. But I’m going to leave a message for him. Give it to him the minute he comes in.”
“I can do that, Mr. Bowen. Are you—are you hurt?”
“I’m in a spot of bother, yes. So I’m going to be lying low. I’ll give you the address. Got paper?”
Billy handed him a desk pad and pencil. Adam scribbled down in haste:
Bowen Hall, on the Rathmichael road, near Puck’s Castle.
Compromised. Need doctor.
Adam folded the paper and pushed it across the desk. “I’ve got peelers looking for me, so make sure he gets that message soon. All right? I won’t survive the night otherwise.”
“Yes, sir.” Billy swallowed nervously. “I will.”
“Good man.” Adam led Tara back outside and glanced up the street. “We’re going to need another hackney.”
She glared accusingly at him. “The big fellow. I know who that is. I know, Adam! How could you—”
He closed his eyes briefly, staggering a little. “Not now, Tara. This body of mine is in trouble.”
“And where do you want to go now? Bowen Hall? I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s a fa
mily property. A ruin, but it’s about the only place I can think of where we’ll be safe from them.”
“We? I’m not part of this, Adam.” She cut off when she saw again the wracked look on his face, his skin now shockingly pale. The blood from his bullet wound had started to seep through his jacket. “Adam, all right. I’ll call one of the cars across the street.”
They climbed into the back. It was a long drive through the city towards Shankill and Rathmichael. Adam settled himself as comfortably as he could. He took Tara’s hand and squeezed it. After a moment, she sighed and squeezed back.
“We’ll be all right now, Tara,” he whispered. “We’ll be all right.”
Back at Vaughan’s, Billy McDonagh opened the piece of paper and read it. Then the footsteps came. The door to the lounge opened. Billy pressed the message to his chest.
“He said it was for the big fellow. He said—”
“I heard everything he said, you fucking fairy.” Mulligan sauntered towards the desk. “Now give it to me.”
“But the big fellow—”
“I’ll pass it to the big fellow.” Mulligan leered over the youngster and snatched the paper. He read it and smiled. “Bowen Hall indeed. Never made the connection before. But sure, what kind of Englishman would he be without a stately pile to his name?” He chuckled then. “’Twas burnt in the Fenian rebellion of 1867. My own grandfather had a hand in it. Been a ruin ever since. So that’s where the young Bowen and his traitor tart are headed now.”
Billy watched anxiously. “Larry, are you—”
“Get my coat and start the motorcycle, Billy,” Mulligan ordered. “I must be going now. I’ll be paying a little house visit upon two dear old friends of mine.”
Morning slid into afternoon. James and his constables searched the quays from Poolbeg to Kilmainham, then back along the north side of the river. They ransacked Tara’s house and Adam’s flat and even did a root-around in Bowen & Associates. They found no sign, no leads, no clues.