Transgressions, Volume 4

by Ed McBain

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.

  Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Introduction

  HOSTAGES

  THE CORN MAIDEN: A LOVE STORY

  APRIL

  SEPTEMBER

  THE RESURRECTION MAN

  DR. GEORGE NEWTON—1852

  DR. GEORGE NEWTON–DECEMBER 1859

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Notes

  Copyright Page

  Introduction

  When I was writing novellas for the pulp magazines back in the 1950s, we still called them “novelettes,” and all I knew about the form was that it was long and it paid half a cent a word. This meant that if I wrote 10,000 words, the average length of a novelette back then, I would sooner or later get a check for five hundred dollars. This was not bad pay for a struggling young writer.

  A novella today can run anywhere from 10,000 to 40,000 words. Longer than a short story (5,000 words) but much shorter than a novel (at least 60,000 words) it combines the immediacy of the former with the depth of the latter, and it ain’t easy to write. In fact, given the difficulty of the form, and the scarcity of markets for novellas, it is surprising that any writers today are writing them at all.

  But here was the brilliant idea.

  Round up the best writers of mystery, crime, and suspense novels, and ask them to write a brand-new novella for a collection of similarly superb novellas to be published anywhere in the world for the very first time. Does that sound keen, or what? In a perfect world, yes, it is a wonderful idea, and here is your novella, sir, thank you very much for asking me to contribute.

  But many of the bestselling novelists I approached had never written a novella in their lives. (Some of them had never even written a short story!) Up went the hands in mock horror. “What! A novella? I wouldn’t even know how to begin one.” Others thought that writing a novella (“How long did you say it had to be?”) would constitute a wonderful challenge, but bestselling novelists are busy people with publishing contracts to fulfill and deadlines to meet, and however intriguing the invitation may have seemed at first, stark reality reared its ugly head, and so …

  “Gee, thanks for thinking of me, but I’m already three months behind. deadline,” or …

  “My publisher would kill me if I even dreamed of writing something for another house,” or …

  “Try me again a year from now,” or …

  “Have you asked X? Or Y? Or Z?”

  What it got down to in the end was a matter of timing and luck. In some cases, a writer I desperately wanted was happily between novels and just happened to have some free time on his/her hands. In other cases, a writer had an idea that was too short for a novel but too long for a short story, so yes, what a wonderful opportunity! In yet other cases, a writer wanted to introduce a new character he or she had been thinking about for some time. In each and every case, the formidable task of writing fiction that fell somewhere between 10,000 and 40,000 words seemed an exciting challenge, and the response was enthusiastic.

  Except for length and a loose adherence to crime, mystery, or suspense, I placed no restrictions upon the writers who agreed to contribute. The results are as astonishing as they are brilliant. The three novellas that follow are as varied as the women who concocted them, but they all exhibit the same devoted passion and the same extraordinary writing. More than that, there is an underlying sense here that the writer is attempting something new and unexpected, and willing to share her own surprises with us. Just as their names are in alphabetical order on the book cover so do their stories follow in reverse alphabetical order: I have no favorites among them. I love them all equally.

  Enjoy!

  En McBAIN

  Weston, Connecticut

  August 2004

  ANNE PERRY

  Anne Perry is the bestselling author of two Victorian detective series that are practically mandatory reading for any aficionado of the historical mystery. Her Thomas Pitt series and the William and Hester Monk series, although both set in the same nineteenth-century London, take very different looks at English society. She is also writing another acclaimed historical series set during the French Revolution, and consisting of the books A Dish Taken Cold and The One Thing More. She has also started another series set during World War I, which launched with the acclaimed novel No Graves As Yet. Besides this, she has also written a fantasy duology, Tathea and Come Armageddon. But no matter what genre she writes in, her deft, detailed research, multifaceted characters, and twisting plots have garnered her fans around the world. In her spare time she lectures on writing in such places as the cruise ship the Queen Elizabeth II. Recent books include Angels in Gloom and Dark Assassin.

  HOSTAGES

  Anne Perry

  Bridget folded the last pair of trousers and put them into the case. She was looking forward to the holiday so much there was a little flutter of excitement in her stomach. It would not be the west coast she loved with its clean wind off the Atlantic and the great waves pounding in, because that would mean crossing the border into Eire, and they could not do that. But the north coast held its own beauty, and it would be away from Belfast, from Connor’s responsibilities to the church, and most of all to the political party. There was always something he had to do, a quarrel to arbitrate, someone’s bereavement to ease, a weakness to strengthen, a decision to make, and then argue and persuade.

  It had been like that as long as she had known him, as it had been for his father. But then the Irish Troubles were over three hundred years old, in one form or another. The courage with which you fought for your beliefs defined who you were.

  There was room for more in the suitcase. She looked around to see what else to put in just as Liam came to the door. He was sixteen, tall and lean like Connor, not yet filled out with muscle, and very conscious of it.

  “Are you packed yet?” she asked.

  “You don’t need that much, Mum,” he said dismissively. “We’re only going for a week, and you can wash things, you know! Why are we going anyway? There’s nothing to do!”

  “That’s exactly what I want to go for,” she answered with a smile. “Your father needs to do nothing.”

  “He’ll hate it!” Liam responded. “He’ll be fretting all the time in case he’s missing something, and when he comes home he’ll only have to work twice as hard to put right whatever they’ve fouled up.”

  “Has it ever occurred to you,” she said patiently, “that nothing will go wrong, and we’ll have a good time? Don’t you think perhaps it would be nice to be together, with no one else to think about, no one demanding anything, just for a few days?”

  Liam rolled his eyes. “No,” he said candidly. “It’ll bore me out of my mind, and Dad too. He’ll end up half the time on the phone anyway.”

  “There’s no phone there,” she told him. “It’s a beach house.”

  “The mobile!” he said impatiently, his voice touched with contempt. “I’m going to see Michael.”

  “We’re leaving in a couple of hours!” she called after him as he disappeared, and she heard his footsteps light and rapid along the passage, and then the back door slammed.

&
nbsp; Connor came into the room. “What are you taking?” he asked, looking at the case. “What have you got all those trousers for? Haven’t you packed any skirts? You can’t wear those all the time.”

  She could, and she intended to. No one would see them. For once appearance would not matter. There would be no one there to criticize or consider it was not the right example for the wife of a minister and leader of the Protestant cause. Anyway, what she wore had nothing to do with the freedom of faith he had fought for since he was Liam’s age, costing him the lightheartedness and the all too brief irresponsibility of his youth.

  But was it worth arguing now, on the brink of this rare time together? It would sour it from the outset, make him feel thwarted, as if she were deliberately challenging him. It always did. And she wanted this week for them to have time away from anxiety and the constant pressure and threat that he faced every day at home, or in London.

  Wordlessly she took the trousers out, all but one pair, and replaced them with skirts.

  He did not say anything, but she saw the satisfaction in his face. He looked tired. There was a denser network of fine lines around his eyes and he was greyer at the temples than she had realized. A tiny muscle ticked intermittently in his jaw. Although he had complained about it, denied it, he needed this holiday even more than she did. He needed days without duty, without decisions, nights of sleep without interruption from the telephone, a chance to talk without weighing every word in case it were misjudged, or misquoted. She felt the little flutter of pleasure again, and smiled at him.

  He did not notice. He left, closing the door behind him.

  She was crushed, even as she knew it was stupid. He had far too much else on his mind to bother with emotional trivialities. He had every right to expect that she should take such things for granted. In the twenty-four years of their marriage he had never let her down. He never let anyone down! No matter what it cost, he always kept his word. The whole of Northern Ireland knew that, Catholic and Protestant. The promise of Connor O’Malley could be trusted, it was rock solid, as immutable as the promise of God—and as hard.

  She heard the words in her mind with horror. How could she even think such a thing, let alone allow it to come into her head. He was engaged in a war of the spirit, there was no room for half measures, for yielding to the seduction of compromise. And he used the right words, she could feel her own temptation to water down the chastenings, in order to achieve a little peace, to yield on truth just for respite from the constant battle. She was heart and soul weary of it. She hungered for laughter, friendship, the ordinary things of daily life, without the pressure of outward righteousness and inner anger all the time.

  And he would see that as weakness, even betrayal. Right cannot ever compromise with wrong. It is the price of leadership that there can be no self-indulgence. How often had he said that, and lived up to it?

  She looked at the trousers she had taken out of the case. They were comfortable, and she could wear flat, easy shoes with them. This was supposed to be a holiday. She put two pairs of them back in again, at the bottom. She would do the unpacking anyway, and he would never know.

  It was not difficult to pack for him: pyjamas, underwear, socks, plenty of shirts so he would always have a clean one, sweaters, lighter coloured casual trousers, toiletries. He would bring his own books and papers; that was an area she was not expected to touch.

  Three middle-sized cases and Connor’s briefcase would fit into the trunk of the car easily. The bodyguards, Billy and Ian, would come separately, following in another car, and they were not her responsibility. In fact she would try to imagine they were not there. They were necessary, of course, as they always were. Connor was a target for the I.R.A., although as far as she knew they had never physically attacked him. It would be a politically stupid thing to do; it would be the one thing that would unite all the disparate Protestant factions in one solid outrage.

  And for the verbal attacks, he gave as good as he received, or better. He had the gift of words, the knowledge, and above all the passion so that his sermons, and his political speeches, almost interchangeable, erupted like lava to scorch those who were against his vision of Protestant survival and freedom. Sometimes it was directed just as fiercely at those on his own side who wavered, or in his view committed the greatest sin of all, betrayal. He despised a coward even more than he hated an open enemy.

  The doorbell rang, and then, before anyone had had time to answer it, she heard the door open, and then Roisin’s voice call out. “Hello, Mum! Where are you?”

  “Bedroom!” Bridget answered. “Just finishing the packing. Like a cup of tea?”

  “I’ll make it,” Roisin answered, arriving in the doorway. She was twenty-three, slim, with soft, brown hair like Bridget’s, only darker, no honey fair streaks. She had been married just over a year and still had that glow of surprise and happiness about her. “You all ready?” she asked.

  Bridget heard a slight edge to her voice, a tension she was trying to conceal. Please heaven it was not a difference with Eamonn. They were sufficiently in love it would all iron out, but Bridget did not want to go away for a week leaving Roisin emotionally raw. She was too vulnerable, and Eamonn was like Connor, passionate about his beliefs, committed to them, and expecting the same kind of commitment from those he loved, unaware of how little of himself he gave to his family, forgetting to put into word or touch what he expected them to know. “What is it?” she said aloud.

  “I’ve got to speak to Dad,” Roisin answered. “That’s what I came for, really.”

  Bridget opened her eyes wide.

  Roisin took a quick breath. “Sorry, Mum,” she apologized. “I came to wish you a good holiday too. Heaven knows, you need it. But I could have done that over the phone.”

  Bridget looked at her more closely. She was a little flushed and her hands were stiff at her sides. “Are you alright?” she said with a pinch of anxiety. She almost asked her if she were pregnant, there was something about her which suggested it, but it would be intrusive. If it were so, Roisin would tell her when she was ready.

  “Yes, of course I am!” Roisin said quickly. “Where’s Dad?”

  “Is it political?” It was a conclusion more than a question. She saw the shadow deepen in Roisin’s eyes, and her right hand clench. “Couldn’t it wait until we get back? Please!”

  Roisin’s face was indefinably tighter, more closed. “Eamonn asked me to come over,” she answered. “Some things don’t wait, Mum. I’ll put the kettle on. He’s not out, is he?”

  “No …” Before she could add anything else, Roisin twisted around and was gone. Bridget looked around, checking the room for the last time. She always forgot something, but it was usually a trivial thing she could do without. And it was not as if they were going abroad. The house on the shore was lonely, that was its greatest charm, but the nearest village was a couple of miles away, and they would have the car. Even though they took bread and potatoes and a few tins, they would still need to go for food every so often.

  She went through to the kitchen and found Roisin making the tea, and Connor standing staring out of the window into the back garden. Bridget would like to have escaped the conflict, but she knew there was no point. She would hear what had been said sooner or later. If they agreed it would be a cause for celebration, and she would join in. If they didn’t, it would be between them like a coldness in the house, a block of ice sitting in the kitchen to be walked around.

  Roisin turned with the teapot in her hand. “Dad?”

  He remained where he was, his back to the room.

  She poured three cups. “Dad, Eamonn’s been talking with some of the moderates about a new initiative in education …” She stopped as she saw his shoulders stiffen. “At least listen to them!” Her voice was tight and urgent, a kind of desperation lifting it a pitch higher. “Don’t refuse without hearing what it is!”

  He swung around at last. His face was bleak, almost grey in the hard light. He sounded
weary and bitter. “I’ve heard all I need to about Catholic schools and their methods, Rosie. Wasn’t it the Jesuits who said ‘Give me a child until he’s seven, and I’ll give you the man’? It’s Popish superstition founded on fear. You’ll never get rid of it out of the mind. It’s a poison for life.”

  She swallowed. “They think the same about us!” she argued. “They aren’t going to give in on teaching their children as they want, they can’t afford to, or they won’t carry their own people!”

  “Neither am I,” he replied, nothing in his face yielding, his jaw set, his blue eyes cold.

  Bridget ached to interrupt, but she knew better. He found her ideas woolly and unrealistic, a recipe for evasion, an inch by inch surrender without the open honesty of battle. He had said so often enough. She had never stood her ground, never found the words or the courage to argue back. Somebody had to compromise or there would never be peace. She was tired of the cost of anger, not only the destruction of lives, the injury and the bereavement, but the loss of daily sanity, laughter and the chance to build with the hope of something lasting, the freedom from having to judge and condemn.

  Roisin was still trying. “But Dad, if we gave a little on the things that don’t matter, then we could stick on the things that do, and at least we would have started! We would look reasonable, maybe win over some of the middle parties.”

  “To what?” he asked.

  “To join us, of course!” She spoke as if the answer were obvious.

  “For how long?” There was challenge in his voice, and something close to anger.

  She looked puzzled.

  “Rosie, we’re different parties because we have different principles,” he said wearily. “The door has always been open for them to join us, if they will. I am not adulterating my beliefs to please the crowd or to win favours of anyone. I won’t do it because it’s wrong, but it’s also foolish. As soon as they’ve got one concession, they’ll want another, and another, until there’s nothing left of what we’ve fought for, and died for all these years. Each time we give in, it’ll be harder to stand the next time, until we’ve lost all credibility, and our own can’t trust us any more. You’re one or another. There’s no half way. If Eamonn doesn’t know that now, he’ll learn it bitterly.”