‘Bridget, our kitchen girl, is helping Mrs. Haney’s brother and his wife. Ria’s very religious.’
‘So I gather, but in November, in an icy rain?’ he all but shouted, startling her and Dr. Connor.
Jimmy still hadn’t moved.
Trant set his cap and gloves on the table. ‘The point is, Mrs. Fraser, your cook was hoping to meet someone.’
‘And did she?’ Jimmy had finally thought to watch her—she being the closer of them to the front entrance and freedom.
Again there was that dryness of Trant’s. ‘We were rather hoping you’d be able to shed a little light on the matter.’
Dr. Connor flicked an anxious glance from one to the other of them. To distract him from trying to make a run for it, Mary heard herself saying, ‘Doctor, doesn’t this cut of mine need a bandage?’ but her voice must have been too high, for he leapt at the sound of it.
‘Your cut? Ah no, m’am. No, indeed. Th’ redness will soon pass and you’ll have the fine brush of the morn in no time.’
‘Tea, Major?’ asked Mary. ‘I was just about to make some. Dandelion if you would prefer, or the black currant.’
Dandelion … Just what the hell else had she been up to? he wondered. ‘With your permission, Mrs. Fraser, Captain Allanby will search the premises. Captain, see to it.’
They’d find the bomb, find the dynamite …
Warming the Brown Betty Mrs. Haney always used, she set out a plate of scones, pots of raspberry jam and a little honey, the cups and things, the saccharin, too, and margarine automatically following, she moving now just to give herself something to do. ‘Doctor, I’ll take your coat and bag through to the foyer, but would you see to the kettle for me?’
The two of them had been caught out—they gave every indication of this, thought Trant, nodding to indicate that she could momentarily leave. ‘There’s no escape,’ he said.
From the hall, Mary could hear them upstairs. They were going through the bedrooms. There was mud from their boots on the carpet, more of it on the stairs.
Covering Connor’s bag with his overcoat, she set both on the bench across from the foyer’s mirror. When she reached the staircase that led to the attic, she hesitated. Jimmy would have found everything by now, would know she and Connor had already moved some of the dynamite into Tralane.
‘Where is he, Mary?’
The timbers in the attic and the brick chimneys framed him. ‘Who?’ she asked, genuinely puzzled—had he not found the dynamite?
‘You know bloody well who. Kevin O’Bannion.’
They’d thought him hiding in the house. ‘I’ve no idea. Look, he certainly wouldn’t have come here with you constantly watching the place.’
As in the kitchen, Jimmy didn’t move, but stood just waiting for her to do something. ‘What about Nolan and the Darcy woman?’ he asked. ‘Admit that you’ve met with them.’
‘I haven’t left the house since I came back here from Tralane on Thursday. No one, except for the postman and Dr. Connor, have been to see me and he’s only just arrived as you must surely know.’
She had come up the last of the stairs to finally stand before him. ‘What about that husband of yours?’
‘Hamish? You know very well he’s in Scotland. I had a letter from him the other day. If you like, I’ll show it to you.’
Allanby noted how worry furrowed the cut on her brow as doubt about the husband crept in. He saw her thinking that Fraser might well have found passage across the North Channel, saw her eyes moistening at the thought.
Glad that he had hurt her, he stepped brusquely past and went down the stairs.
Mary heard him barking orders to his men. They’d search the ground floor now and then the cellar. She hesitated, said, Hamish? to herself, and went along to the steamer trunk to hesitate yet again. She’d have heard Hamish if he’d come home. He’d not have had time to get his revolver but she knew then that he’d try to do so if … if ever he did manage to make it back.
Leaving the trunk, she uncovered the dynamite which lay between the floor joists beneath a wicker hamper in a far corner and under an ample dusting of moth crystals with splashings of turpentine on covering rags. Taking a half-dozen sticks—gathering them quickly into her arms as one would sticks for the fire—she bundled them into her apron and headed for the stairs. It was crazy of her to do this. Crazy!
Running down the stairs, she reached for Connor’s bag, fought to open it and found so little room it caused her to drop one stick on the floor. One! Would have to kick it under the bench and hope for the best. Shoving the rest down into the bag, she left it unfastened under the coat and raced for the kitchen.
It was Trant who, startled by her sudden reappearance, said jovially, ‘Ah, here she is. The doctor and I were just having a chat. You’ve been playing quite a double game with us, haven’t you?’
She couldn’t look at Connor. She mustn’t! ‘Only what you’ve told me to do.’
‘Then why did that cook of yours tell us …’
‘Major, if you’ve harmed Mrs. Haney …’
‘Harm her? Good gracious me. Most cooperative. Said you had wanted her to contact Kevin O’Bannion and that she’d done so. Oh come now, Mrs. Fraser, your cook’s not in the Kilimain Jail or in Mountjoy. Nothing like that. Your Mrs. Haney’s a realist. Given the circumstances, she caught the drift and readily agreed to assist us. I daresay she’ll be home tomorrow.’
Again the moment would remain fixed in memory. The major sitting with his elbows on the table, Dr. Connor still holding the teapot, the crumbs of a broken scone strewn across the table in front of Trant. ‘They haven’t come to see me, Major. No one’s hiding here. I … I just couldn’t face going to Tralane anymore.’
‘But you will on Tuesday as usual. That right?’
‘Yes. Yes, I’ll be there then.’
Unable to sleep—how could she after what had happened today?—Mary lay on her side in bed, hugging the pillows and staring at the electric heater whose coils crackled as the thing warmed up and then as it cooled.
There’d be no need for her to go to Tralane. Nolan had wanted the break to take place very early on that Tuesday; she’d have arrived hours after it had occurred. Hours, but by then Jimmy would have come for her and she’d have run out across the fields here, have run until …
Dr. Connor had taken the dynamite with him and not given a hint of anything untoward when he’d picked up that bag of his. The stray stick had been recovered, but it was never going to happen. There’d be no break at all and Trant had known this, no chance for them to reach the rendezvous. How could there be?
The heater reached its maximum and automatically began to cool, the cherry red of its coils waning to yellow and then to amber. All night it would repeat this cycle. Hamish had bought it for her in Armagh, had been so pleased with himself. The automatic safety feature was both ‘economical and prudent.’ She loved him dearly but knew it was too late for this.
Just when the heater started up again, she’d never know. Even at its peak, the thing threw only the dullest of lights, but had she drifted off, had something awakened her? ‘Who’s there?’ she asked, her voice that of another person.
The coils began to crackle as she got out of bed. Reaching for her dressing gown, she began to pull it on only to hesitate. She wasn’t alone. There was someone else in the room. Nolan … was it Nolan?
He was standing against the far wall, beside her bureau and had been there for quite some time. Had he been listening to see if she’d been asleep? Had he thought to murder her in bed?
Letting the dressing gown slip from her fingers, she heard it crumple to the floor, heard this against the crackling of the heater and the loneliness of the wind outside.
He stepped from the wall; she thought to run but when he took hold of her by the shoulders, she heard him saying, ‘I got here as soon as I
could. Your Mrs. Haney did a fine job of leading them astray.’
He was holding her up. Her knees felt as though they would buckle. ‘Kevin, you’ve got to take me with you. Trant knows everything.’
He let a breath escape but didn’t remove his hands, would feel how nervous she was, how very afraid.
‘Trant doesn’t know what he needs to know. The break’s still on.’
She stepped away from him and he wondered if she was done with all notion of him and reasoned that she was. ‘Why haven’t they stopped you?’ she asked. ‘Did you have to kill one of them out there?’
She had turned sideways to him and he saw that her hair was loose and knew she must wear it that way every time she went to bed. ‘The Brits won’t know I’ve been and gone unless you tell them.’
Briefly, and as quickly as she could, this contact person of theirs told him what had happened. The fact that Trant had discovered the tunnel wasn’t good, and she’d been only too aware of this, but he’d best remain calm and decisive. ‘The Germans will have to make some other arrangements. Liam will be ready in any case. Perhaps we’ll handle the whole thing from outside.’
He had meant it too. ‘Nolan told me to have the car ready.’
O’Bannion gave her a nod. He’d let her think what she would. So much depended on the element of surprise. A massive detonation directly beneath the garrison’s barracks with half the men asleep would have been perfect. Absolute chaos had been crucial to the plan, so much so he wondered now if they really shouldn’t call it all off. ‘Does Trant think you lied to him about the date of the breakout?’
Her head was shaken, she having lost some of her wariness.
‘I don’t think so, but he … he does expect me to be there on Tuesday.’
‘What have you done with the rest of the dynamite?’
‘It’s in the attic. I … I didn’t have time to give Dr. Connor any more blasting caps. I … I can get it for you now.’
He asked for a bag to carry it in and she couldn’t help wondering if there was safety in helping him but said, ‘A canvas hamper for the firewood. It’s … it’s in the kitchen.’
‘Get it and the rest.’ She was gone in a flash, that little woman. Suddenly exhausted, for he’d been on the run for days and had more of them to come, O’Bannion went over to the bed and sat on its edge, warming his hands at her electric fire. Christ, there’d been one damn thing after another with this caper. The sooner it was over and done, the better. And the Fraser woman? he asked. Just what the bloody hell had she really been up to on her own? She was not a woman to take orders for long. Not that one.
When she brought him bread and cheese and the last of a brandy bottle, she left him again to get the explosives, but left him with the trembling touch of a hand. Had it been one of friendship after all, of ‘Thank God it was you, Kevin’; or had she reasoned that a certain element of closeness would suit her purposes best?
‘You have to take me with you,’ she said.
Startled, for he’d not heard her return, O’Bannion looked up from the heater, still couldn’t see her, but had she read his mind?
Watching him, her back to the closet door, for she’d come into the room so silently he’d not seen her even yet, Mary wondered at his gazing so deeply into the electric fire. Had it been the look of a man who knew in his heart of hearts that the battle before him had already been lost?
He longed for a cigarette, but she’d none and he didn’t want her going downstairs again to look for one. ‘I’ve a good twenty miles to cover before dawn,’ he said, the weariness suddenly there so strongly she’d wonder at it and have to feel a particle of sympathy for him. ‘If you do get through to Huber and the others, for God’s sake tell them the rendezvous has been arranged. Tell them we’ll do all we can and that it’ll have to be enough, but that they must be ready at a moment’s notice. The north gate as before. Don’t be forgetting that and having them go to some other place.’
She would sit on the floor now, Mary told herself, would hug her knees as she looked up at him. What light there was would give shadows to the clefts in his face, and the deepness of those shadows would only grow as the coils cooled.
He was looking at her now, was wondering what she’d do and thinking she’d try something.
‘You really do have to take me with you, Kevin. You can’t leave me behind to face things on my own, not after all I’ve done.’
Dear God but she was a beautiful thing, but what the hell had she in mind?
‘The rendezvous is on Inishtrahull,’ she said. ‘If anything should happen to me, I’ve left a message with someone I trust implicitly.’
Startled, alarmed, he let the ghost of a sad smile momentarily lighten the grim grey darkness he felt. ‘You were not to know, but we’ll take you with us, never fear.’ It had to be the husband she’d left the damned thing with.
Mary knew that the nightgown clung to her thighs well enough. She’d a good figure and he’d been only too aware of it, couldn’t seem to stop those sad grey eyes of his from slipping over the length of her. ‘Why does Nolan need our car when he knows the British will only recognize it, if by no other means than its licence number, the shortage of petrol and the need for ration coupons?’
She was playing with him, was using that body of hers to tempt him. ‘He must have some place in mind to ditch it.’ Had she really sent a note to that husband of hers? Ria had said the two of them were very much in love and that the doctor would lay down his life for his young wife, she her own for him.
He’d take another pull at the bottle, would give her time to sort out any such thoughts. Liam would have taken care of things by now. They’d have to kill the husband as well if he got in the road again, but Fraser really was in Scotland. The censors would have got at that ‘message’ of hers and she’d have damned well known this but had been bluffing anyways. ‘Don’t leave the house until midnight,’ he said, ‘then drive like the blazes for Tralane and have the motor waiting for us at that clearing by the lake. We’ll meet up with you there.’
He had said it as if he had really meant it and she told him she was glad he was back. ‘It’ll make all the difference, Kevin. I know it will.’
As he reached for the canvas bag she’d stuffed, light from the heater caught in the gold that was around that pretty neck of hers and hanging with a key from a bit of string. She’d been kissing that ring when he’d first come upon her and hadn’t yet realized she’d not tucked it out of sight.
When she said ‘You’d best go. I think I heard something,’ he left her without another word, left her standing beside the bed, she fingering the ring now and knowing that she had betrayed herself.
At dawn, she watched the drive and the road beyond. There were now some eighteen hours left, but was it meaningful that the remaining time and the date of the breakout should be the same?
At noon a milk cart turned in, its driver, one of the local farmers, touching a turf-stained cap in salute to his passenger. Bundled in an ankle-length muskrat coat that must reek of moth crystals, that fedora of his tilted well back, Hamish gazed fondly up at the house he loved, and when she opened the door to stand gaping at him, he said, ‘Mary, lass, are you no glad t’ see me?’
There were two suitcases, the one of books, for it was the heavier, he clutching both by the handles as if just back from America.
‘Well, lass, do I not warrant a word, let alone the kiss of welcome?’
‘But … but how did you … ?’
Trapped she was and looking pale and anxious and not glad to see him at all. ‘Och, I found a passage of my own. Where’s Robbie? I don’t hear his welcome. Has something …’
Stricken by the news, he fought for words. ‘Dead? My wee dog? Ah, say it isn’t so.’
When she didn’t answer, he set the cases down and asked if there was petrol in the car.
‘No! No, it
… The tank was drained.’
‘And me a doctor?’
‘By Jimmy. They … they’ve been watching the house and were afraid someone might try to use it.’
‘Then I’ll have to take the pony trap. Aye, I will. The colonel and I’ll have words on this. My Robbie taken from me while my back was turned and me not here t’ see it would na happen!’
‘Darling, wait. Please come in. Let me fix you something to eat. You must be starved.’
And she like a Jezebel! ‘I’ve eaten well enough. I’ll away to Tralane, I will.’
Nothing would stop him, and there was nothing for it but to close the door. His suitcases sat out there for hours until at last she could stand it no longer and had carried them in. Then she went upstairs to the attic, to his steamer trunk to get the revolver and its box of cartridges before he did. She couldn’t have him lying dead in the road like Parker, couldn’t come upon him that way.
The gun and the cartridges went into her rucksack, shoved well down and hidden as best she could, everything left in the shed now, for if she had to use her bike, she would. She’d never touch the car, but Hamish might and she couldn’t have that either. No, she couldn’t.
At 5.00 p.m. he still hadn’t returned, nor at 6.00. Dreading what she had to do, Mary went out to the stable, to the car. The smell of petrol seemed everywhere when she opened the bonnet and shone the torch over the engine, but she’d never find the bomb. Never.
Lying under the car, she shone the torch up into the engine and right away found it fastened to a pipe: three sticks of gelignite wrapped tightly together with electrician’s sticky black tape. One primer stick and two wires that ran from the blasting cap but all too soon disappeared up into the engine.
Kevin had known Nolan had been out here wiring it up while the two of them had been in her room. Though she had suspected as much, it was still a terrible letdown.
Slowly, with infinite patience, she ran her fingers gingerly along the wires. Could they safely be cut?
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