Transgressions, Volume 4

by Ed McBain

  “I know. But we can’t take the hard liners with us. They’ll call him a traitor, and he couldn’t bear that.”

  “Captain going down with the ship?” He had a slight, wry humour in his voice, but a knowledge of tragedy as well.

  “I suppose so,” she agreed.

  A gull wheeled above them, and soared up in the wind. They both watched it.

  She thought of asking him what they were waiting for, but she was not certain that Paddy was waiting, not as Dermot was. Should she warn him, say that Dermot was different, darker? Perhaps he already knew, and it would be disloyal to Connor if she were to say anything to Paddy that could be of help to him. Perhaps she shouldn’t be speaking to him at all, more than was necessary.

  “I must go in,” she said aloud, turning towards the kitchen door.

  He smiled at her, not moving from her path, so she passed almost close enough to brush him. She smelled a faint odour of aftershave, clean cotton from the shirt she had laundered. She forced the thoughts out of her mind and went inside.

  The evening was tedious and miserable. Connor paced back and forth until Dermot lost his temper and told him to stop. Connor glared at him, and kept pacing. Dermot walked over to Liam and lifted the gun, held by the barrel.

  “You don’t need to do that!” Paddy said angrily. “Mr. O’Malley’s going to do as he’s told. He doesn’t have the control of his nerves that Bridget has. He doesn’t take easily to not being master of his fate.”

  The dull red colour rose up Connor’s face, but he did not take his eyes off Dermot, the gun still within striking distance of Liam’s head.

  Liam sat motionless, white with misery, not fear for himself, but embarrassment for his father, and helpless anger that Bridget had been singled out for strange and double-edged praise. His loyalties were torn apart. The world which had been difficult enough had become impossible.

  “I’m going to bed!” Connor said in a voice so hard it rasped on the ear.

  “Good,” Paddy agreed.

  Dermot relaxed.

  Liam stumbled to his feet. “So am I! Dad! Wait for me!”

  Bridget was left alone with Paddy and Dermot. She did not want to stay, but she knew better than to follow Connor yet. He needed time on his own, to compose himself, and to pretend to be asleep when she came. There was nothing she could say to comfort him. He did not want her understanding, he would only take it for pity. He wanted respect, not companionship, honour, loyalty and obedience, not the vulnerability of love.

  She would stay here for at least another hour, saying nothing, making tea for them if they wanted it, fetching and carrying, doing as she was told.

  The morning began the same, but at quarter to ten suddenly Dermot stiffened, and the moment after, Bridget also heard the whine of an engine. Then it cut out. Sean went to the door. Everyone else waited.

  The silence was so heavy the wind in the eaves was audible, and the far cry of seabirds. Then the footsteps came, light and quick on the path. The door opened and Roisin came in. She looked at Bridget, at her father, then at Paddy.

  Paddy beckoned her to follow him, and they went into Liam’s bedroom.

  Dermot started to fidget, playing with the gun in his hand, his eyes moving from Connor to the door, and back again.

  Connor stared at Bridget.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Some kind of a message?”

  “Maybe it’s money …” he mouthed the words.

  “Where would she get money?”

  “The party,” Liam was close beside them. “They’d pay for you, Dad. Everybody’d give.”

  Bridget looked at him, he was thin, very young. In the sunlight from the window she could see the down on his cheek. He shaved, but he didn’t really need to. He was desperate to believe that his father was loved, that the party respected him and valued him enough to find whatever money was demanded. She was afraid they would be politically astute enough to see the value of a martyr—three martyrs—four if Roisin were included. Please God she wasn’t! Why had Eamonn sent her, instead of coming himself?

  The door opened and Roisin came out, Paddy on her heels.

  Dermot stared at him, the question in his eyes.

  Connor was so stiff he seemed in danger of losing his balance.

  Paddy faced him. “There’s been a slight change, Mr. O’Malley,” he said softly, his voice a trifle husky. “One of your lieutenants, Michael Adair, has gone over to the moderate camp.”

  “Liar,” Connor said immediately. “Adair would never desert. I know him.”

  Bridget felt her stomach clench inside her. Connor spoke as if to change one’s mind were a personal affront to him. She had felt Adair’s doubt for several months, but Connor never listened to him, he always assumed he knew what he was going to say, and behaved as if he had said it. Almost as he did with her!

  “It’s not desertion, Dad,” Roisin said awkwardly. “It’s what he believes.”

  Connor’s eyebrows rose. “Are you saying it’s true? He’s betrayed us?” His contempt was like a live thing in the air.

  “He has either to betray you or himself,” Roisin told him.

  “Rubbish! You don’t know what you’re talking about, Rosie. I’ve known Adair for twenty years. He believes as I do. If he’s turned his coat it’s for money, or power, or because he’s afraid.”

  Roisin seemed about to say something, then she turned away.

  “Traitor!” Liam said, his pent-up fury breaking out at last. “You’re best without him, Dad. Someone like that’s worth nothing to them, or to us.”

  Connor touched his hand to Liam’s shoulder in the briefest gesture, then he turned to Paddy. “It makes no difference. If you thought it would, then you’re a fool!”

  “Adair carries weight,” Paddy answered. “He represents many. He could still carry most of your party, if you gave him your backing.”

  “My backing?” Connor was incredulous. “A traitor to the cause? A man who would use my imprisonment by you to seize the leadership? He’s a greedy, disloyal coward, and you’d deal with him? You’re an idiot! Give him a chance and he’ll turn on you too.”

  “He’s doing what he believes,” Roisin repeated, but without looking at her father.

  “Of course he is!” Connor spat. “He believes in opportunism, power at any price, even betrayal. That’s so plain only a fool couldn’t see it.”

  Paddy glanced at Bridget, but she knew the denial was in his eyes, and she looked away. Roisin was right. Connor had expected, bullied, ignored argument and difference, until Adair had been silenced. Now in Connor’s absence, and perhaps hearing that he was hostage, he had found the courage to follow his own convictions. But she did not want Paddy even to guess that she knew that. It seemed like one more betrayal.

  Paddy smiled, a funny, lopsided gesture with self-mocking in it as well as humour, and a touch of defiance. “Well, Mr. O’Malley, aren’t there enough fools? But for the sake of argument, what if you were to give Adair your support, written in your own hand, for Roisin here to take back, would that not be the best choice open to you now? All things considered, as it were?”

  “Ally myself with traitors?” Connor said witheringly. “Endorse what has happened, as if I’d lost my own morality? Never.”

  “Then maybe you could just retire, on grounds of health?” Paddy suggested. He was leaning against the kitchen bench, his long legs crossed at the ankle, the light from the window shining on his hair. The lines on his face marked his tiredness. He had seemed younger at the beginning, now it was clear he was over forty. “Give it some thought.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my health!” Connor said between his teeth.

  Dermot twisted his gun around. “We could always do something about that,” he said with a curl to the corners of his mouth that lacked even the suggestion of humour.

  “And explain it as what?” Paddy rounded on him. “A hunting accident? Don’t be stupid.” He turned back to Connor before he saw the m
oment of bleak, unadulterated hatred pass over Dermot’s face, making it dead, like a mask. Then he controlled it again, and was merely flat, watchful. It touched Bridget with a quite different, new fear, not just for herself but for Paddy.

  “You’re wasting your time,” Connor answered, exactly as Bridget had known he would. He was not even considering it, not acknowledging change, he never had. Now he did not even know how to. He had made his own prison long before Paddy and his men came here with guns.

  “Are you sure about that?” Paddy said softly.

  “Of course he is!” Dermot cut across him. “He was never going to agree to anything. I could have told you that the day you set out.” He jerked his head towards Sean, standing at the far door and the way out to the beach. Sean straightened up, holding his gun steady in front of him.

  Paddy was still staring at Connor, as if he believed that he might yet change his mind. He did not see Dermot move behind him, raise his arm and bring it across sharply on the side of his jaw. Paddy crumpled to his knees, and then forward onto the floor.

  “Don’t!” Sean warned as Connor gasped, and Roisin made a sharp move towards Paddy. “He’ll be alright.”

  Dermot was taking the gun out of Paddy’s waistband. He stood up again, watching Bridget rather than Connor or Liam. “Just don’t do anything heroic, and you’ll be alright.”

  “Alright?” Connor was stupefied. “What the hell’s the matter with you? He’s your own man!”

  Roisin ignored him and bent to Paddy who was already stirring. She held out her arms and helped him to climb up, slowly, his head obviously paining him. He looked confused and dizzy. He was gentle with Roisin, but did not speak to her. Awkwardly he turned to Dermot, who was careful to keep far enough away from him he was beyond Paddy’s arm’s length. He held the gun high and steady.

  Sean was watching the rest of them. “The first one to move gets shot,” he said in a high-pitched voice, rasping with tension. “None of you’d want that, now would you?”

  “Dermot?” Paddy said icily.

  “Don’t be losing your temper, now,” Dermot answered. “We did it your way, and it didn’t work. Not that I thought it would, mind. O’Malley wasn’t even going to change. He can’t. Hasn’t left himself room. But you wouldn’t be told that, you and your kind. Now we’ll do it our way, and you’ll take the orders.”

  “You fool!” Paddy’s voice was bitter and dangerous. “You’ll make a hero out of him! Twice as many will follow him now!”

  “Not the way we’ll do it,” Dermot answered him. “And stop giving me orders, Paddy. You’re the one that’ll do as you’re told now.”

  “I’m not with you. This is the wrong way. We already decided …”

  “You did! Now I’m in charge …”

  “Not of me. I told you, I’m not with you,” Paddy repeated.

  Dermot’s smile was thin as arctic sunshine. “Yes, you are, Paddy, my boy. You can’t leave us. For that matter, you never could—at least not since we shot those two lads up the hill, and buried them. Markers are left, just so we could direct anyone to find them, if it were ever in our interest.” He raised his black eyebrows in question.

  The blood drained out of Paddy’s skin, leaving him oddly grey. He was not old, yet Bridget, looking at him, could see the image of when he would be.

  “That’s why you killed them …” he said with understanding at last.

  “We killed them, Paddy,” Dermot corrected. “You were part of it, just like us. Law makes no difference who pulls the trigger. Isn’t that right, Mr. O’Malley?” He glanced at Connor, who was still standing motionless. Then the ease in Dermot’s face vanished and his voice was savage. “Yes of course that’s why we did it! You’re one of us, whether you like it or not. No way out, boy, none at all. Now are you going to take your gun and behave properly? Help us to keep all these people good and obedient, until we decide exactly what’s to be done with them. Now we’ve got the pretty Roisin as well, perhaps Mr. O’Malley will be a bit more amenable, not to mention her husband. Though to tell the truth, maybe we’d be better not to mention him for yet a while, don’t you think?”

  Paddy hesitated. Again there was silence in the kitchen, except for the wind and the sound of the gulls along the shore.

  Liam stared at his father, waiting.

  At last Paddy held out his hand.

  “For the gun?” Dermot enquired. “In a little while, when I’m satisfied you’ve really grasped your situation. Now, Mrs. O’Malley.” He turned to Bridget. “We’ve one extra to feed. You’d best take a good look at your rations, because there’ll be no more for a while. I’m not entirely for trusting Paddy here, you see. Not enough to send him off into the village, that is. So be sparing, eh? No seconds for anyone, in fact you’d best be cutting down a bit on firsts as well. D’you understand me?”

  “Of course I understand you,” she replied. “We’ve got a whole sack of potatoes. We’ll live on those if we have to. We haven’t much to season them with, but I suppose that doesn’t matter a lot. Connor, you’d better move in with Liam, and Roisin can come in with me. I’ll wash the sheets. It’s a good day for drying.”

  “That’s a good girl, now,” Dermot approved. “Always do what you’re told, don’t you! I’d like a woman like you for myself, one day. Or maybe with a bit more fire. You can’t be much fun. But then I don’t suppose Mr. O’Malley is much of a man for fun, is he? Got a face like he bit on a lemon, that one. What do you see in him, eh?”

  She stopped at the doorway into the hall and looked directly at him. “Courage to fight for what he believes, without violence,” she answered. “Honour to keep his word, whatever it cost him. He never betrayed anyone in his life.” And without waiting to see his reaction, or Connor’s, she went out across the hall and into first Liam’s bedroom, taking the sheets off the bed, then her own. They could watch her launder them if they wanted to. She wouldn’t have gone anywhere before, but with Roisin here as well, she was even more of a prisoner.

  There was a separate laundry room with a big tub, a washboard, plenty of soap, a mangle to squeeze out the surplus water, and a laundry basket to carry them out to the line where the sea wind would blow them dry long before tonight.

  She began to work, because it was so much easier than simply standing or sitting, as Connor and Liam were obliged to do.

  She had filled the tub with water and was scrubbing the sheets rhythmically against the board, feeling the ridges through the cotton, when she heard the footsteps behind her. She knew it was Roisin.

  “Can I help, Mum?” she asked.

  “It doesn’t take two of us,” Bridget replied. “But stay if you want to.”

  “I can put them through the mangle,” Roisin offered.

  They worked without speaking for several minutes. Bridget didn’t want to think about why Roisin was here, who had sent her with the message, but the thoughts crowded into her mind like a bad dream returning, even when her eyes were open. She was the only one they had told where they were going, not even Adair knew. Roisin had tried so hard to persuade Connor to moderate his position on education before they left. Bridget had never seen her argue with such emotion before. When he had refused, she had looked defeated, not just on a point of principle, but as if it hurt her profoundly, emotionally. The loss was somehow permanent.

  “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” she said aloud.

  Roisin stopped, her hands holding the rinsed sheets above the mangle. The silence was heavy in the room. “Yes,” she said at last. “I was going to tell you, but it’s only a few weeks. It’s too soon.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Bridget said quietly. “You know, that’s all that matters.” She wanted to be happy for her, congratulate her on the joy to come, but the words stuck in her throat. It was why Roisin had betrayed her father to the moderates, and for Eamonn. She not only wanted peace, she needed it, for her child. Everything in her now was bent on protecting it. It was part of her, tiny and vulnerable, needing her s
trength, her passion to feed it, keep it warm, safe, loved, defended from the violence of men who cared for ideas, not people. Perhaps Bridget would have done the same. She remembered Roisin when she was newborn. Yes, she would have done whatever was necessary to protect her, or Liam, or any child.

  Roisin started the mangle again, keeping her face turned away; she did not yet realize that Bridget knew. She would have done it for Eamonn as well. He was another idealist, like Connor. Roisin was vulnerable herself. It was her first child. She might be ill with it.

  She would certainly be heavy, awkward, needing his love and his protection, his emotional support. She might even be afraid. Childbirth was lonely and painful, full of doubts that the baby would be well, that she would be able to look after it properly, do all the things she should to see nothing went wrong, that the tiny, demanding, infinitely precious life was cherished. She would be desperately tired at times. She would need Eamonn. Perhaps she had no choice either.

  “Your father doesn’t know,” she said aloud.

  Roisin pulled the wrung sheet out from between the rollers and put it into the basket, ready for the line. “I’ll tell him in a couple of months.”

  “Not about the child.” Bridget passed her the next sheet. “He doesn’t know that you told the I.R.A., or whoever Paddy is, where we are.”

  Roisin froze, hands in the air. There was no sound but the dripping water.

  “I know why you did it,” Bridget went on. “I might have done the same, to protect you, before you were born. But don’t expect him to understand. I don’t think he will. Or Liam.”

  Roisin’s face pinched, looking bruised as if some deep internal injury were finally showing. Roisin realized she had always expected her father to reject her, but she had not thought about Liam before. It was a new pain, and the reality of it might be far worse than the idea, even now.

  “I thought when he realized how many of us want peace, he might change, even a little,” she said. “Someone has to! We can’t go on like this, year after year, hating and mourning, then starting all over again. I won’t!” She bit her lips. “I want something better.”