Turning off the lamp, she made her way into the luxurious bedroom, picked up the phone, and pressed zero. Housekeeping answered immediately. “Can I help y’, Miss McCarthy?” asked a voice, vowel-flat and softly accommodating, the brogue of West Belfast.
Unconsciously, Meghann slipped into the familiar cadence. “If it’s not too much trouble, you can wake me at nine. I’ve an appointment in the Falls.”
“No trouble at all, dear,” the voice replied. “Get some rest now.”
Grateful for the comforting thickness of the down comforter, Meghann snuggled into its luxurious warmth. Her last conscious thought was that, at this very moment, reporters were assembling in the downstairs lobby. This time she would tell them everything.
At eleven o’clock the following morning, Meghann arrived on Annie Devlin’s doorstep. She carried a kidskin briefcase and wore a designer suit of forest green tweed. The pleated skirt ended above her knees, and the jacket, nipped in at the waist and tailored to perfection, was both feminine and professional.
A news crew stood on the pavement filming her arrival, but Meghann appeared oblivious to the attention. She flashed them a brilliant smile, tucked an errant curl behind her ear and knocked on the door of the refurbished brick house.
Annie was no stranger to Meghann’s charm. Hiding her amusement, she motioned the younger woman inside, closed the door against the invasive cameras, and hugged her fiercely. “We heard the news this mornin’,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “John Hume was on the telly. He’s talking about a jury trial for Michael if he’ll come in on his own. However did you manage it, Meggie?”
Meghann squeezed her godmother’s shoulders and stepped back. “He’s still only talking. He’ll have to do more than that before I believe him.” Annie’s forehead wrinkled and Meghann laughed. “Never mind. Just remember to be very kind to the press. Answer their questions. Tell them about Michael and what he was like as a child. Be sure they know about his writing and his academic credentials. Personalize him as much as possible, and never, ever mention the IRA. If anyone asks, tell them you know nothing about such nonsense. Always repeat that Michael is a good boy who wants nothing more than to come home. Can you do that, Annie?”
Annie nodded. “Aye. It’s the truth, except for the IRA part. I knew that he was one of them. Mother Mary, how could he not be? I prayed every day that he would change his mind. Michael is brilliant. He had choices, something the others didn’t have. Never underestimate the power of prayer, Meggie. It was prayer that finally made Michael come t’ his senses and leave that violent nonsense behind.”
Meghann sat down on a chair. A strange ringing sounded in her ears. She couldn’t have heard correctly. “What are you saying, Annie? I thought Michael was the leader of the Falls Road Brigade for West Belfast.”
Annie’s blue eyes widened. “Michael is an elected member of the Sinn Fein political council. He hasn’t been active in the IRA for years, not since he argued for a cease-fire and decommissioning in exchange for a seat at the peace talks.”
“Sinn Fein is legal.”
“Aye.”
All at once a very large piece of the puzzle fell into place. The Irish Republican Army wasn’t turning on one of their own. Michael was a dissenter, worse than a dissenter. He was a talented writer, an inspirational orator who had defected from the ranks. Discrediting him would be of great benefit to them. But why had he allowed her to believe he was still connected? There were too many missing pieces to make any sense of it. “Where is he, Annie?” Meghann asked.
Annie Devlin’s face went blank. “He asked us not t’ tell you, for your own protection.”
“Can you get a message to him?”
“Aye.”
“Tell him I need to see him.” Meghann hesitated and chewed the inside of her lip before continuing. “Tell him I need to arrange a meeting with Andrew Maguire, off the record.”
“It will be very dangerous for you, Meggie, especially if no one knows y’re goin’. It may be dangerous for Michael, too.”
“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.” She patted the older woman’s lined hand. “Why don’t we let Michael decide if it’s too dangerous?”
Annie snorted. “Y’re talking about a boy who grew up on these very streets. When did danger ever stop him?”
Meghann flushed and looked away. When she spoke her voice was so low that Annie cupped her hand behind her ear and leaned forward. “He may not mind for himself, but this time he’s not alone. Michael would never put me in danger.”
She felt her godmother’s eyes on her face and knew that Annie was assessing her statement. Not much escaped Annie Devlin’s piercing blue gaze.
“Y’ trust him that much, do you?” Unconsciously, Annie repeated the question Connor had put to Michael just two days before.
Meghann lifted her head and looked directly at the woman who had raised her. This time her voice was confident, her words clear and strong. “I trust him with my life, Annie. I always have.”
Satisfied that everything was going in the right direction, Annie reached over and touched Meghann’s clenched hands. “Keep me company while I make us a pot of tea. Such talk is a wee bit tiring. How do y’ do it, Meggie, and still stand up at the end of the day?”
Meghann followed Annie into the kitchen and sniffed the air. She had never felt more energized. “I’m used to it. Um, something smells delicious.”
Annie beamed. “Soda bread was always y’r favorite. Did y’ think I’d forgotten?”
Annie never forgot anything, not a birthday, not a First Communion, not a favorite color. Make the slightest wish in her presence and it was stamped indelibly on her brain, resurfacing at some future date, wrapped in colored foil under the Christmas tree, beside a plate at Easter dinner, or under a pillow on Saint Stephen’s Day.
Horrified at the mist appearing before her eyes, Meghann turned away, pretending to search for the teacups.
“They’re in the same place they always were,” Annie said gently, “and there’s no shame in a tear now and then. Emotions keep us all humble.”
“Tell that to your son,” Meghann mumbled under her breath.
Annie’s eyes twinkled as she set out the napkins. “I believe I’ll leave that to you. And remember that I’m not deaf yet.”
***
Meghann unlocked the door of her hotel room and stepped inside. Immediately she sensed it, the sweet unmistakable smell of recently burned carbon. Someone had been in her room. Maybe he was still here. Breathe, Meggie, breathe, whispered a memory from Cupar Street. Meghann breathed, gathered her nerve and fumbled for the light switch.
“Don’t turn it on,” said a voice she would have known anywhere.
Relief weakened her. She sagged against the wall. “For heaven’s sake, Michael,” she gasped. “You might have given me some warning.”
He stepped out of the shadows and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. “There wasn’t time. Why do y’ want to see Maguire?”
She ignored his question. “Why did you allow me to believe you were still part of the IRA?”
Michael shrugged, walked across the room to the couch and sat down. “Once an IRA man always an IRA man. That’s all that matters t’ the British and the RUC.”
Her voice was soft, like music. “What made you change your mind, Mick? Why aren’t you one of them any longer?”
Something flickered in his eyes. “It isn’t important, Meggie.”
“It is to me.”
“Would my reasons make a difference t’ you?”
She thought for a minute. Michael was no longer a soldier in the Irish Republican Army. Somehow, some way, he had come to the conclusion of all reasonable men, that murder could not be justified, not even in the name of freedom. Would there be anything that wasn’t worth that end result, any reason at all that would make her draw back in horror, leave this room, this country, this man, and take up her sane and comfortable life in London? “No,” she said quietly
. “The only thing that matters to me is that you are no longer connected.”
He kept his eyes on her face, wondering how much to believe. After all, she was the girl who’d left him without a word. She smiled and his heart swelled. She was also the woman who’d come back without conditions. “Frankie McLeish was killed the morning of his daughter’s baptism,” he told her.
“I know. I’m so sorry, Michael. I read about it in the paper.”
Michael’s mouth twisted into a bitter grimace. “He was seen comin’ out of the RUC station. They didn’t even bother t’ check it out before they targeted him as an informer. Turns out he was a community advocate for peace. The Kashmir neighborhood is mixed, and the people there have done well together mostly because of Frankie. All he wanted was a contribution for the rummage sale. That’s why he had two hundred quid in his pocket. I tried t’ convince them. I thought I had until he turned up dead on the steps of Saint Stephen’s, his wife holdin’ the baby and his family all around.” He looked up, pain and rage reflected in his eyes. “Can you imagine it, Meggie? A boy you loved like a brother gunned down on the steps of his church, by mistake?”
She shook her head, her eyes wide and unblinking in an effort to keep the tears at bay.
“I kept wonderin’ how many other mistakes we’d made and how many more we’d make. That did it for me.”
Meghann crossed the room and sat down beside him, deliberately pushing aside her reaction to his nearness. “It explains why you’re suddenly expendable.”
“I’d thought of that, but ten years is a long time. Why would they wait so long to be rid of me?”
“Perhaps because they never had reason before.”
Michael frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Meghann leaned forward, elbows on her knees, hands clasped. “Until very recently a peace settlement has never been seriously considered. Suddenly it’s a real possibility. But Britain stalls, first to pander to the loyalists, second to wait out the elections. Fourteen months go by. Tired of waiting, the IRA breaks the cease-fire, hoping to frighten the parties involved into coming back to the table, thereby moving the process forward.”
“Why James Killingsworth, and why me?”
“This is only speculation, of course, but it’s possible that someone wants to discredit you. By claiming you are not connected and that you acted on your own, two goals are accomplished: Sinn Fein is painted in a positive light and an eloquent critic who was one of their own is eliminated. As for choosing Killingsworth for a victim, who in all of Britain had more press coverage? Of course, there’s another possibility.”
“What’s that?”
“Perhaps not everyone wants peace, and Killingsworth was a serious threat. Your part could have been played by anyone who was at the Europa Hotel that day.”
She watched him as she spoke, hoping to gauge his emotions from his eyes and the expression on his face. To her disappointment, he kept himself carefully neutral, veiling all thoughts from her probing gaze. “This can’t be a surprise, Michael. Surely you knew that someone set you up.”
He nodded. “Aye. But I hoped it would take a bit longer for you to come to the same conclusion.”
“Why?”
He reached for her hand. Keeping his eyes fixed on hers, he lifted her palm to his lips and kissed the warm center before answering. “Because now you’ll insist on something dangerous like interviewing Andrew Maguire, and there won’t be anything I can do t’ stop you.” Bending his head, he kissed her palm again and then turned her hand over and leisurely kissed each finger before drawing her into the circle of his arms.
Meghann released her breath and closed her eyes, giving herself up to the erotic pressure of his mouth on her skin. For a few insecure moments she had thought Michael intended to behave as if their relationship was nothing more than that of any client with his attorney, as if their last two days in Donegal had never been. She had prepared herself to go through the motions, to pretend there was nothing between them if that was the way he wanted it. But the moment he reached for her and their eyes locked, Meghann knew she couldn’t have managed it. She would have promised him anything, groveled if necessary, just to have him touch her again. Silently she blessed him for removing the possibility of that humiliation.
“Christ, Meghann, I’ve missed you,” he whispered against her hair. “Tell me y’ feel the same.”
She nodded, burrowing her face into his shoulder, afraid to speak and disturb the magic.
He lifted her chin and found her mouth. Desperation and the limits of time heightened their exchange, and too soon he forced himself to pull away, removing his hands from beneath the smooth skin of her jumper. “I wasn’t planning t’ do that,” he admitted shakily.
Meghann went completely still. “Why not?”
“It isn’t fair, not after what I came here to ask.”
“Are you suggesting that I’ll do whatever you ask because of a few kisses?”
“Of course not.”
“No?” She stared at him, noticing the rising color under his skin.
Lord, she was quick. Exasperated, Michael came out with it all at once. “I don’t want y’ anywhere near Andrew Maguire.”
“I need him, Michael.”
“He won’t crack. You can’t really believe that a man who’s held his position for fifteen years will tell you anything.”
“He doesn’t have to. It’s his reaction I want.”
Michael shook his head. “It won’t work. Andrew has dealt with this before. He already knows what you’ll ask him.”
“I hope so. That strategy usually works best.”
“What are y’ talking about?”
Meghann shook out her hair and straightened her shoulders. “I’m a barrister, Michael, and a very good one. Trust me on this.”
“You, I trust. I wish I could say the same for him.”
She slipped her hand under his. “Arrange the meeting. He can’t hurt me. I promise.”
***
Michael was so preoccupied that he almost didn’t see the army barricade set up on the corner of his mother’s street. By the time he did it was too late to turn back. Holding his breath, he kept his head down, slowed his pace and walked right past them.
“Hey, you there. Stop and turn around.”
Michael cursed under his breath and turned. There were three of them, and they were too close for him to make a run for it.
The short one lifted his flashlight. “Why, it’s Devlin again. I’ll be damned if I’m going to run his papers through another time. Don’t you ever stay home, Devlin?”
Michael took his cue and pretended to be Connor. “Y’ know how it is, lads. A pint tastes that much better in good company.”
“Go along with you, bloody Taig. You’re making our job that much harder. Don’t come through again or I’ll take you in.”
Michael couldn’t resist. “And what might the charges be?”
The soldier thought a minute, then grinned. “Suspicious activity.”
Michael turned and continued walking until he reached his mother’s porch. There, he lifted his hand in a mock salute to the soldiers and opened the door.
“For pity’s sake, Mick.” Annie hurried over to lock the door behind him. “Y’ can’t just walk down the street pretendin’ you’re John Major. I nearly took my last breath when I heard them shoutin’ at you.”
“It wasn’t me they were shoutin’ at, Ma. It was Connor.”
“What nonsense are y’ talking, lad? Connor’s asleep in his bed.”
“I’ll need to wake him. Someone must take a message to Andrew Maguire. He’ll know who to trust.”
Annie’s brow wrinkled. “Y’ must be slippin’, Michael, if y’ couldn’t talk her out of it.”
Michael grinned and Annie’s heart leaped. It was there again, the old brightness that drew everyone into the circle of his charm.
“Meghann’s tough, Ma. I don’t think anyone could talk her out of something she wanted to
do.”
“No one ever could,” his mother agreed. “Except you,” she added quietly before climbing the stairs to wake Connor.
Seventeen
Meghann shivered and moved closer to Michael. The night was bitterly cold, unusual for late summer. A heavy fog hung uneasily over the brick buildings and high above, shrouded in mist, streetlights glowed, changing the color of the fog from gunmetal gray to a dull yellow-white. Fifteen years ago Meghann had known the streets of West Belfast as well as she knew the songs in her mother’s music books. Now, everything had changed.
Tidy brick-terraced buildings had replaced the row-house tenements where she had grown to maturity. Hearth fires had given way to central heating, and indoor plumbing provided every family with its own bath and toilet. No longer did boarded-up dwellings with broken windows hide Irish political prisoners, and the dark entries that back in the seventies had served many a lad fleeing from English bullets were now sealed and whitewashed.
The standard of living had improved tremendously for residents of West Belfast, but it frightened Meghann to see how similar and characterless each residence had become. O’Connor’s pub no longer bordered Springfield Road’s Peace Line. McMahon’s convenience store had given way to a gravel parking lot used primarily as a storage site for British tanks.
There was little time for reflection. Michael moved through the backstreets at a murderous pace. He seemed unusually preoccupied and in no mood for conversation. She refused to delve too deeply into the reason for the tension lines creasing his forehead, but she knew intuitively that the stiff angle of his right arm and the way he kept his hand concealed inside his pocket did not bode well for the meeting ahead.
He made an immediate left, leading them down the stairs of a neat brick building, where he knocked three times and waited without speaking. Minutes passed. Finally someone opened the door.
Michael reached out to pull Meghann against him. His breath tickled her ear. “Stay behind me,” he ordered, waiting until she nodded before releasing her.
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