by Anne Perry
‘They became lovers, Kate and Narraway,’ Cormac said bitterly. ‘She told us what he was planning, he and the English. At least that’s what she said.’ His voice was thick with grief.
‘Wasn’t it true?’ she said when he did not continue.
‘He lied to her,’ Cormac answered. ‘He knew what she was doing, what we all were. Somewhere she made a mistake.’ The tears were running down his face and he made no effort to check them. ‘He fed us all lies, but we believed him. The uprising was betrayed. Stupid, stupid, stupid! They blamed Kate!’ He gulped, staring at the wall as if he could see all the players in that tragedy parading in front of him.
‘They saw she had lied to us!’ he went on. ‘Narraway did that to her, used her against her own people. That’s why I’d see him in hell. But I want him to suffer further, here on earth, where I know it for certain. Can you make that happen, Mrs Pitt? For Kate?’
She was appalled by the rage in him. It shook his body like a disease. His skin was blotchy, the flesh of his face wasted. He must once have been handsome.
‘What happened to her?’ It was cruel to ask, but Charlotte knew it was not the end of the story yet, and she needed to hear it from him, not just from Narraway.
‘She was murdered,’ he replied. ‘Strangled. Beautiful Kate.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She meant it. She tried to imagine the woman, all passion and dreams, as Cormac had painted her, but that vision was the memory of a man in love with an image. Kate had ceased to be breathing, fallible, able to laugh and be hurt, wake and sleep like anyone else.
‘They said it was Sean who killed her,’ he went on. ‘But it couldn’t have been. He knew better than to believe she would have betrayed the cause. That was Narraway again. He killed her, because she would have told them what he had done. He would never have left Ireland alive.’ He stared at Charlotte, his eyes brimming with tears, waiting for her to respond.
She forced herself to speak. ‘Why would he? Can you prove that?’ she asked. ‘I mean, can you give me anything I can take back to London that would make them listen to me?’ She was cold now too, dreading what he might say. What if he could? What would she do then? Narraway would excuse himself, of course. He would say he had had to kill her, or she would have exposed him and the uprising might have succeeded. Perhaps that was even true? But it was still ugly and terrible. It was still murder.
‘He killed her because she wouldn’t tell him what he wanted to know. But if I could prove that, do you think he’d be alive?’ Cormac asked harshly. ‘They’d not have hanged poor Sean, and Talulla be an orphan, God help her.’
Charlotte gasped. ‘Talulla?’
‘She’s Kate’s daughter,’ he said simply. ‘Kate and Sean. Did you not know that? After Sean and Kate died she was cared for by a cousin, so she could be protected as much as possible from the hatred against her mother. Poor child.’
The dreadful, useless tragedy of it overwhelmed Charlotte. She wanted to say something that would redeem any part of the loss, but everything that came to her mind was banal.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m . . .’
He looked up at her. ‘So are you going back to London to tell someone?’
‘Yes . . . yes I am.’
‘Be careful,’ he warned. ‘Narraway won’t go down easily. He’ll kill you too, if he thinks he has to, to survive.’
‘I will be careful,’ she promised him. ‘I think I have a little more to learn yet, but I promise I’ll be . . . careful.’ She stood up, feeling awkward. There was nothing to say to complete their conversation. They moved from the desperate to the mundane as if it were completely natural, but what words were there that could be adequate for what either of them felt? ‘Thank you, Mr O’Neil,’ she said gravely.
He took her to the door and opened it for her, but he did not offer to find her any transport, as if for him she ceased to be real the moment she stepped out onto the pavement.
‘Where have you been?’ Narraway demanded as soon as she came into Mrs Hogan’s sitting room. He had been standing by the window, or perhaps pacing. He looked exhausted and tense, as if his imagination had plagued him with fear. His eyes were hollow and the lines in his face deeper than she had ever seen them before. ‘Are you all right? Who’s with you? Where is he?’
‘Nobody is with me,’ she answered. ‘But I am perfectly all right.’
‘Alone?’ His voice shook. ‘You were out on the street alone, in the dark? For God’s sake, Charlotte, what’s the matter with you? Anything could have happened. I wouldn’t even have known!’ He put out his hand and gripped her arm. She could feel the strength of him, as if he were quite unaware how tightly he held her.
‘Nothing happened to me, Victor. I wasn’t very far away. And it isn’t late. There are plenty of people about,’ she assured him.
‘You could have been lost . . .’
‘Then I would have asked for directions,’ she said. ‘Please, there is no need to be concerned. If I’d had to walk a little out of my way to get here it wouldn’t have hurt me.’
‘You could have—’ he began, then stopped, perhaps realising that his fear was disproportionate. He let go of her. ‘I’m sorry. I . . .’
She looked at him. It was a mistake. For an instant his emotion was too plain in his eyes. She did not want to know that he cared so much. Now it would be impossible for either of them to pretend he did not love her, and she could not pretend she did not know.
She turned away, feeling the colour burning on her skin. All words would be belittling the truth.
He stood still.
‘I went to see Cormac O’Neil,’ she said after a moment or two.
‘What?’
‘I was perfectly safe. I wanted to hear from him exactly what happened, or at least what he believes.’
‘And what did he say?’ he asked quickly, his voice cracking with tension.
She did not want to look at him, to intrude into old grief, which was still obviously so sharp, but evasion was cowardly. She met his eyes and repeated to him what Cormac had said, including the fact that Talulla was Kate’s daughter.
‘That’s probably how he sees it,’ Narraway answered when she had finished. ‘I dare say he couldn’t live with the truth. Kate was beautiful.’ He smiled briefly. In that moment she could imagine the man he had been twenty years earlier: younger, more virile, perhaps less wise.
‘Few men could resist her,’ he went on. ‘I didn’t try. I knew they were using her to trap me. She was brave, passionate . . .’ He smiled wryly. ‘Perhaps a little short on humour, but far more intelligent than they realised. It sometimes happens when women are beautiful. People don’t see any further than that, especially men. It’s uncomfortable. We see what we want to see.’
Charlotte frowned, suddenly thinking of Kate: a pawn to others, albeit one that they wanted, fought over, desired. ‘Why do you say intelligent?’ she asked.
‘We talked,’ he replied. ‘About the cause, what they planned to do. I persuaded her it would rebound against them, and it would have. The deaths would have been violent and widespread. Attacks like that don’t crush people and make them surrender. They have exactly the opposite effect. They would have united England against the rebels, who could have lost all sympathy from everyone in Europe, even from some of their own. Kate told me what they were going to do, the details, so I could have it stopped.’
Charlotte tried to imagine it, the grief, the cost.
‘Who killed her?’ she asked. She felt the loss touch her, as if she had known Kate more than simply as a name, an imagined face.
‘Sean,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know whether it was for betraying Ireland, as he saw it, or betraying him.’
‘With you?’
Narraway coloured, but he did not look away from her. ‘Yes.’
‘Do you know that, beyond doubt?’
‘Yes.’ His throat was so tight his voice sounded half strangled. ‘I found her body. I think he meant me to.’
She could not afford pity now. ‘Why are you sure it was Sean who killed her?’ She had to be certain so she could get rid of the doubt for ever. If Narraway himself had killed her it might, by some twisted logic of politics and terror, be what he had to do to save even greater bloodshed. She looked at him now with a mixture of new understanding of the weight he carried, sorrow for what it had cost him: whether that were a shame now, or a lack of it – which would be worse.
How did that affect Pitt? He would always hurt for his mistakes, and for the decisions from which there was no escape. Thank heaven the biggest ones were not his to make.
‘Why are you sure it was Sean who killed her?’ Charlotte repeated.
He looked at her steadily. ‘What you really mean is, how can I prove I didn’t kill her myself?’
She felt a heat of shame in her own face. At least she would not lie to him. ‘Yes.’
He did not question her, or blame her for thinking it possible.
‘She was cold when I found her,’ he replied. ‘Sean tried to blame me. The police would have been happy to agree, but I was with the Viceroy in the Residence in Phoenix Park at the time. Half a dozen staff saw me there, apart from the Viceroy himself, and the police on guard duty. They didn’t know who I was, but they would have recognised me in court, if it had been necessary. The briefest investigation showed them that I couldn’t have been anywhere near where Kate was killed. It also proved that Sean lied when he said he saw me, and that by his own admission, he was there.’ He hesitated. ‘If you need to, you can check it.’ His smile was there for a moment, then gone. ‘Don’t you think they’d have loved to hang me for it, if they’d had the ghost of a chance?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, feeling the weight ease from her. Grief was one thing, but without guilt it was a passing wound, something that would heal. ‘I’m . . . I’m sorry I needed to ask. Perhaps I should have known you wouldn’t have done it.’
‘I would like you to think well of me, Charlotte,’ he said quietly. ‘But I would rather you saw me as a real person, capable of good and ill, and of pity, and shame . . .’
‘Victor . . . don’t . . .’
He turned away slowly, staring at the fire. ‘I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.’
She left quietly, going up to her room. She needed to be alone, and there was nothing either of them could say that would do anything but make matters worse.
They were at breakfast the following morning: she with a slight headache after sleeping badly; he weary, but with the mark of professionalism so graciously back in place that yesterday could have been a dream, something she thought of that had never happened.
They were eating toast and marmalade when the messenger arrived with a letter for Narraway. He thanked Mrs Hogan, who brought it, then tore it open.
Charlotte watched his face but she could not read anything more than surprise. When he looked up she waited for him to speak.
‘It’s from Cormac,’ he said gently. ‘He wants me to go and see him, at midday. He will tell me what happened, and give me proof.’
She was puzzled, remembering Cormac’s hate, the pain that seemed as sharp as it must have been the day it happened. She leaned forward. ‘Don’t go. You won’t, will you?’
He put the letter down. ‘I came for the truth, Charlotte. He may give it to me, even if it is not what he means to do. I have to go.’
‘He still hates you,’ she argued. ‘He can’t afford to face the truth, Victor. It would place him in the wrong. All he has left is his illusions of what really happened, that Kate was loyal to Ireland and the cause, and that it would all have worked, except for you. He can’t give that up.’
‘I know,’ he assured her, reaching out his lean hand and touching her gently, for an instant, then withdrawing it again. ‘But I can’t afford not to go. I have nothing left to lose either. If it was Cormac who created the whole betrayal of Mulhare, I need to know how he did it, and be able to prove it to Croxdale.’ His face tightened. ‘Rather more than that, I need to find out who is the traitor in Lisson Grove. I can’t let that go.’ He did not offer any rationalisation, taking it for granted that Charlotte understood.
It gave her an odd feeling of being included, even of belonging. It was frightening for the emotional enormity of it, and yet there was a warmth to it she would not willingly have sacrificed.
She did not argue any further, but nodded, and determined to follow after him and stay where she could see him.
He went out of the house quite casually, as if merely to look at the weather. Then, as she came to the door, he turned and walked quickly towards the end of the road.
She followed after him, barely having time to close the door behind her, and needing to run a few steps to keep up. She had a shawl on and her reticule with her, and sufficient money for as long a fare as she would be likely to need.
He disappeared round the corner into the main street. She had to hurry to make sure she saw which way he went. As she had expected, he went straight to the first carriage waiting, spoke to the driver, then climbed in.
She swung round with her back to the road and pretended to look in a shop window. As soon as he had passed she darted out into the street to look for a second carriage. It was long, desperate moments before she found one. She gave the driver the address of Cormac O’Neil’s house and urged him to go as fast as possible. She was already several minutes behind.
‘I’ll pay you an extra shilling if you catch up with the carriage that just left here,’ she promised. ‘Please hurry. I don’t want to lose him.’
She sat forward, peering out as the carriage careered down the street, swung round the corner and then set off again at what felt like a gallop. She was tossed around, bruised and without any sense of where she was, for what felt like ages, but was probably no more than fifteen minutes at most. Then finally they lurched to a stop outside the house where she had been the previous evening.
She stepped out, taking a moment to find her balance after the hectic ride. She paid him more than he had asked for, and then an extra shilling.
‘Thank you,’ she said. Then she walked up the same path she had trodden in the evening light such a short time ago. Somehow, at midday, the path looked longer, the bushes more crowding in, the trees overhead cut out more of the sky.
She had not reached the front door when she heard the dog barking. It was an angry, frightening sound, with a note of hysteria to it, as if the animal were out of control. It had certainly not been like that yesterday evening. It had been calm, resting its head on O’Neil’s feet and barely noticing her.
She was surprised Cormac did not come to see what the fuss was. He could not possibly be unaware of the noise.
She touched the door with her fingers and it opened.
Narraway was standing in the hall. He swung round as the light spread across the floor. For a moment he was startled, then he regained his presence of mind.
‘I should have known,’ he said grimly. ‘Wait here.’
The dog was now throwing itself at whatever barrier it was that held it in check. Its barking was high in its throat, as if it would rip someone to shreds the moment it could reach them.
Charlotte would not leave Narraway alone. She stepped inside and looked for the umbrella stand she had noticed yesterday. She saw it, picked out a sharp-ferruled black umbrella and held it as if it were a swordstick.
The barking was reaching a climax.
Ahead of her Narraway went to the sitting-room door, to the right of where the dog was hurling itself at another door, snarling in a high, singing tone as if it scented prey close at last.
Narraway opened the sitting-room door, then stopped motionless. Charlotte could see over his shoulder that Cormac O’Neil was lying on the floor on his back, a pool of blood spreading on the polished wood around what was left of his head.
Charlotte gulped, trying to stop herself from being sick. Yesterday evening he had been alive, angry, weeping with passion and grief. Now
there was nothing left but empty flesh lying waiting to be found by people who might or might not even care about him.
Narraway went over and bent down, touching the skin of Cormac’s face with his fingers.
‘He’s still warm,’ he said, turning back to look at Charlotte. He had to raise his voice above the noise of the dog. ‘We must call the police.’
He had barely finished speaking when there was a bang of the front door swinging open again and hitting the wall, and then footsteps.
There was no time to wonder who it was. A woman screamed with a short, shrill sound, and then seemed to choke. Charlotte swivelled round to stare at Talulla Lawless. She was ashen-faced, her hand to her mouth, black eyes staring wildly past Charlotte and Narraway to the figure of Cormac on the floor.
Behind her a policeman tried to catch his breath as a wave of horror overtook him.
Talulla glared at Narraway. ‘I warned him,’ she gasped. ‘I knew you’d kill him, after yesterday. But he wouldn’t listen. I told him! I told him!’ Her voice was getting higher and higher and her body was shaking.
The policeman regained control of himself and stepped forward, looking at Charlotte, then at Narraway. ‘What happened here?’ he asked.
‘He murdered my uncle, can’t you see that?’ Talulla shouted at him. ‘Listen to the dog, dammit! For God’s sake, don’t let him out, he’ll tear that murderer apart! That’s what brought me here. I heard him, poor creature.’
‘He was dead when we got here!’ Charlotte shouted back at her. ‘We don’t know what happened any more than you do!’
Narraway stepped forward to the policeman. ‘I came in first,’ he said to the policeman. ‘Mrs Pitt waited outside. She has nothing to do with this. She never met Mr O’Neil until very recently. I’ve known him for twenty years. Please allow her to leave.’