Irish Lady

by Jeanette Baker

  She followed him down the stairs into a well-lit sitting room. At the back of the room, behind a large desk was Andrew Maguire, Belfast Brigade’s Officer Commanding and the man believed by many to be the war hawk of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

  Two burly men in denim trousers and black ski jackets stood by his side. One stepped forward, frisked Michael and pulled the gun from his pocket before moving back to his original position.

  Maguire never blinked. Meghann’s heart pounded. She had never seen Andrew Maguire. For as long as she could remember he had been a legend in the streets of Belfast, and yet his fit body and thick blond hair made him look much younger than his forty-five years.

  Few in the movement commanded as much respect as Andrew Maguire. He had never been convicted of a crime, and for the last twelve years his canny intelligence had kept him out of the interrogation center, something few IRA men could claim. Among the Falls Road nationalists his reputation for fairness assumed heroic proportions. The mere mention of his name engendered more reverence than a papal visit.

  Michael had explained it to her. Within the small Catholic population of Belfast, the IRA’s leadership came from a close-knit clan of approximately forty active volunteers and twice as many supporters. Blood relationships and family ties were strong. Leaders came from within the political wing of Sinn Fein and other individual IRA men. The structure of the Brigade began with the Officer Commanding. Below him was the Belfast Brigade command, approximately ten experienced men with two or three elected Sinn Fein officials. Then came the command staff responsible for supplying all weapons, the engineering staff for constructing bombs, the finance department for raising funds, and the internal security unit for routing informers. These were small, fluid groupings of two to three men, more like the branches of a family than a true military structure. Everyone knew everyone else. Families frequently intermarried. To penetrate the security of the IRA extended family in Belfast was virtually impossible.

  Andrew Maguire personified the Irish republican struggle. He, more than anyone else, had kept the movement together for more than twenty-five years. Maguire appeared to be what every IRA man aspired to be. His dress was casual, consisting of tweed jackets and denim trousers. No one had ever seen him wear a tie. He accepted no special favors, standing in the queue at the infirmary and walking his children to church. It was reported that he didn’t drink, smoke, or cheat on his wife. He attended Mass every Sunday and spoke ill of no one but the British. If Andrew Maguire said something, every Irish Catholic in Belfast believed it. He had been Michael’s mentor. He was also a complete fraud.

  Meghann took the initiative. Without approaching the IRA leader or extending herself in any way, she greeted him from where she stood. “Good evening, Mr. Maguire. I’m Meghann McCarthy, Michael’s attorney.”

  Cold gray eyes flicked over her, assessing her accent, the color of her hair, and the deceptively simple but expensive navy wool coat and low-heeled shoes. There was no doubt that she despised him. His mouth twisted into a contemptuous smirk. “How does a high-powered London barrister become interested in the case of a former IRA activist?”

  “I’m sure you already know the answer to that,” she replied. “In fact you probably know everything about me including the fact that I was born and raised in the Falls.”

  Michael slouched by the door, looking relaxed. He returned Andrew’s thoughtful gaze with a level, unblinking stare.

  “How are y’, Michael?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve been better.”

  Meghann cut in. “I’d like to ask you some questions, Mr. Maguire.”

  The blond man nodded. “For obvious reasons I don’t give interviews. But for Michael’s sake, I’ll make an exception.”

  “Very well, then.” Meghann approached the desk and sat down in a chair. “Shall we begin?”

  Andrew raised his light eyebrows and looked at Michael, who remained silent. “I’m at y’r disposal, Miss McCarthy, or shall I call y’ Lady Sutton?”

  “Don’t call me anything, Mr. Maguire. This isn’t a social visit. We won’t be meeting again. Please tell me what your position is regarding the murder of James Killingsworth.”

  “Surely y’ already know the answer to that.”

  “No, actually, I don’t.”

  For the first time since their arrival, Andrew Maguire appeared impatient. “My position is the official one. The IRA has no knowledge or information regardin’ the murder.”

  “Michael was in the audience at the Europa Hotel at your request. Why wasn’t his name on the guest list?”

  Maguire shrugged. “I assume he used another name or he attended without an invitation. We don’t usually advertise our whereabouts.”

  Meghann folded her hands in her lap and looked directly at Maguire. “Who do you think is responsible for the murder of James Killingsworth?”

  His features assumed an impassive expression. “Mr. Killingsworth is responsible, as is the British presence in Ireland. There will be no more political murders when people like you realize that y’ have no future in Ireland.”

  “I’m Irish, Mr. Maguire,” she reminded him. “My parents died in the Cupar Street burnings. I have no reason to apologize for my presence here. As for your answer to my question, I can only say that you are incredibly naive for a man in your position. There most certainly will be political murders. In fact there will be a bloodbath such as this country hasn’t seen since the Easter Rising. I only hope you’re prepared for it.” She stood. “I believe I’ve enough information for now. Thank you for your time.”

  She didn’t like him. He could sense it. It was more than his IRA affiliation. It was something deeper, something personal. In response to a subtle inclination of his head, the two men flanking him moved from behind the desk to take their positions on either side of Meghann. “Turnabout is fair play, Miss McCarthy. There are some questions I’d like t’ ask you.”

  “Another time.” She started toward the door, but the men stepped closer, blocking her way. “I beg your pardon,” she said to the expressionless faces. The men didn’t move. Meghann turned back to Maguire. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

  Andrew Maguire stood and leaned over his desk, resting on his hands. “A Catholic girl from Belfast who made good among enemies. But this isn’t England, Meghann. It’s Belfast. And in West Belfast, I am the law.”

  “Not quite, Andrew,” Michael said steadily. His voice, deadly and cold as ice, cut through the tension in the room. In his hands, aimed straight at Andrew Maguire’s heart, was a nine-millimeter handgun, an identical copy of the one sitting on Maguire’s desk. “Call off your guards, put your hands over your head and turn around.”

  “Don’t be an arse, Devlin. Y’re no killer.”

  “What do y’ think, Meghann? The man knows I’m not a killer. Should we call him in as a character witness?”

  “Let’s go, Michael,” she stammered.

  “You’re right, Andrew,” Michael continued. “I’m no killer, but I’ve kneecapped a man or two in my time.”

  The man on Maguire’s right lunged toward the gun on the desk. Meghann heard a muffled crack. The man cried out and fell against the desk, clutching his knee. Blood gushed from the artery. No one moved. Meghann looked at the spurting red stream coming from the hole in the man’s leg and her legs buckled. She would have fallen if an iron hand hadn’t closed around her arm.

  “Don’t faint now, Meggie,” Michael ordered, pulling her behind him. “We’ve got t’ get out of here first.”

  “Not just yet, Devlin.” In those few seconds when Michael’s attention had been distracted by the whiteness of Meghann’s face, Andrew Maguire had reached into the drawer of his desk and pulled out a long-barreled handgun with a checkered handle, calling card of the Irish Republican Army. He leveled it at Michael’s head.

  “Y’ were never unreasonable, although we didn’t always see eye t’ eye. Because we’ve come through a great deal together I won’t lie t’ y
ou now. We had nothing t’ do with Killingsworth’s murder, but the Brits won’t believe it. They want one of us t’ pay, and you were there when it happened. I won’t say that it doesn’t tie ends up nicely for us, because it does. Consider it your sacrifice for Irish freedom. You’ll be a martyr, Mick, unless this pretty Irish colleen can produce the real killer.”

  “Kill me now, you bloody son of a bitch. Do y’ think I don’t know what this is about? Y’ don’t want peace. What would happen t’ the powerful Andrew Maguire if Irishmen were no longer shootin’ at each other?” Michael sounded nothing like himself. The man in the ski jacket continued to bleed on the floor. He appeared to be unconscious. Meghann watched in horror as Andrew’s fingers closed around the trigger.

  “No,” she cried out. “My God, please, don’t!” She closed her eyes, praying for a miracle, waiting for the muffled crack and the sound of Michael’s body dropping to the ground. But neither came.

  Weak with relief, she opened her eyes and witnessed an unexplainable phenomenon. The lights had dimmed. Andrew’s gun was no longer pointing at Michael, and standing between the two of them was a woman dressed in white, speaking in the low tones of the language Meghann had first learned at her mother’s knee. She barely had time to notice the coppery color of the woman’s hair before absolute darkness settled in.

  Across the room, Andrew cursed. A gun discharged and the acrid unmistakable stench of gunpowder filled the room. Meghann dropped to the floor. Close to her head, someone breathed. A hand closed over her arm and Michael whispered, “Hold on.”

  Meghann reached out, found the leather of his belt and clung to it while he dragged her across the room to the end of the carpet. She felt stone steps beneath her knees. Releasing her hold, she scrambled to her feet. The smell of roses was overwhelming. Instinctively, she knew which way to go. Fumbling for Michael’s hand, she took the initiative and followed the floral scent, leading him through the twisted maze of quiet streets at a pace that burned her lungs until her breath would no longer come.

  The distance back was traveled in much less time than it had taken to arrive. Strangely enough, there were no English troops at the Falls Road barricade. They crossed without arousing attention. Neither one spoke. A thick mist cocooned them in a foggy chrysalis. Meghann’s senses were unusually sharp. Occasionally, when she leaned forward, she caught the fragrance of dried rose petals. She wanted to speak, to ask if Michael had seen the apparition in white. But something held her back.

  All at once the fog lifted. Bewildered, Meghann stopped and turned to Michael. He stared at her oddly. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she stammered.

  “Like what?”

  “As if I were some strange creature you had never seen before.”

  He shook his head. “Sometimes I try t’ imagine what your life was like after y’ left the Falls.”

  She laughed uncertainly. “What has that got to do with anything?”

  Michael searched her face. “One minute you’re so pale I thought I’d have t’ carry you all the way and the next you’re leadin’ us out of that death trap as if the devil himself was at our heels.”

  “I didn’t lead us anywhere,” she said flatly.

  He frowned. “Of course, y’ did. How do y’ think we got here?”

  Meghann opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again. The woman was nowhere to be seen. Michael would have told her if he’d seen her, and if he hadn’t he would never believe her. She shrugged. “I’m not I sure. Call it intuition.”

  He nodded slowly. “Perhaps. Your instincts are very good, Meghann.”

  She considered lying and rejected the notion. Neither would she tell him about the woman who had led them to safety. Settling on a partial truth, she said, “I grew up in the Falls, Michael. If that doesn’t teach self-preservation, nothing will.”

  The set of her jaw told him he would learn nothing more tonight. Wrapping his arm around her, he held her closely against his side. “Y’ need some rest, Meggie. I’ll leave y’ at your hotel.”

  “Where will you go?” she asked.

  He smiled grimly. “I’ll turn myself in. Thanks to you I’ve been allowed a jury trial. I’ll be all right.”

  Meghann rested her head against his shoulder and bit her lip. “I won’t let them hurt you. I promise.”

  He smiled against her hair. Despite her profession she was an innocent. “I’ve no choice, Meggie. I’ve got to go back. We’ve always known that.” Brushing his lips against her forehead, he pulled away too quickly. “I’ll see y’ on visitors’ day.”

  She smiled. “Along with every Devlin in the Six Counties.”

  “Don’t pout,” he teased. “If y’ do your job, you’ll have plenty of time with me later.”

  “You have no idea how the thought reassures me.”

  Michael grinned. “Y’ aren’t prone t’ flattering a man, are you, Meg?”

  She considered his question, remembering the elegance of her London town house and the three country seats she had inherited upon David’s death. For fifteen years Meghann had grown accustomed to the taste of aged wine, the softness of cashmere against her skin, the scent of expensive perfume, the dull glow of gold at her neck and wrists, the company of people who had never known what it was to be hunted, trampled, and spat upon.

  Michael would never know how much she had given up to defend him. His world was one of secret meetings, abandoned houses, plastic bullets, and the constant fear of treachery. He knew nothing of elegance or comfort or the never-ending surge of relief after one’s bankbook was tallied to find that the principle had never been touched. Michael was not materialistic. He had the ideology of a true socialist, taking only what he needed and nothing more. She had grown up in semi-poverty, just as he had. Why were her needs so much more complicated than his?

  Meghann ran her tongue over dry lips and looked up. In the darkness, under the white light of the street-lamp, he stood before her, tall and capable, his face leeched of all color except black, stark white, and shades of gray. Black hair fell across his forehead. Black brows were etched against white skin. Gray shadows filled in the hollows beneath jutting cheekbones, and around the black pupils of his eyes the dramatic blue had become clear shards of gray. His jaw was set, his eyes narrowed. He seemed harder somehow, and filled with purpose, nothing at all like the man she had lived with in Donegal.

  This man was a street fighter, a rebel, a former member of an illegal underground organization. He really didn’t need her at all. Win or lose, Michael Devlin would never hang from the end of a rope. If the verdict did not turn out in his favor, someone from that world into which he was tied would spirit him over the walls and far away until the name of Michael Devlin was all but forgotten in the streets of Belfast.

  All at once the horror of it consumed her. She had found him again and she didn’t want to lose him. But where was her place in the life he had chosen? Where did an anarchist fit into the world of an English barrister? The widow of Lord David Sutton could not marry a man who had admitted to being a member of a terrorist organization. Dampness seeped through the wool of her coat. She shivered. Neither one had spoken for several minutes.

  “Cold?” Michael asked, breaking the silence.

  She nodded.

  He held out his arms and despite everything she knew she walked into them. His heart beat evenly, reassuringly, against her chest. “It isn’t that I don’t know how to flatter a man,” she explained, “but with you, I never think of it. You don’t seem to need your ego polished. It’s one of the things I most admire about you.”

  Amusement colored his voice. “Oh, but I do need it, Meggie. Can y’ imagine how I felt all those years ago when y’ left my house and took your own flat? Except for a few brief months I never knew where I stood with you.”

  Meghann lifted her head and stared at him. “You’re joking.”

  “No.”

  She settled back against his chest and forced the confession from her lips. “From the time
I was ten years old, I adored you.”

  “Y’ ran away the first time I kissed you and wouldn’t speak t’ me for days,” he reminded her.

  Color rose in Meghann’s cheeks. “The girls at school were obsessed with sex. The nuns knew it and told us that kissing the way we had was a dreadful sin.” She laughed shakily. “I was such a child, Michael, and so very sure you would think I was fast.”

  His breath was warm against her cheek. “All I could think about was how young y’ were and how very much I wanted t’ kiss you again. I fell in love with you, Meggie. I’ve never wanted anyone else.”

  Meghann’s heart lifted. The air felt like spring. “Have you any idea what a fourteen-year-old girl would give to hear that? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You ran away. I knew you weren’t ready.”

  “I’m not running now,” she said just before his mouth stopped her breath.

  ***

  Later, Meghann couldn’t recall how they managed the walk to the garage in Donegall Square where her car was parked, nor could she tell anyone how they avoided the roadblocks set up at random intervals throughout the city. Michael knew a backstreet route to the hotel. Meghann distracted the man at the desk by asking for her messages while Michael walked up the utility stairs and slipped into her room.

  She took the elevator. Pressing her ear against the door, she heard the sound of water running. Reassured, she opened the door, bolted it behind her, slipped off her shoes, and curled up on the bed. Minutes later Michael came out of the bathroom with a comb in his hand and a towel around his waist. He held up the comb. “Do y’ mind?”

  Suppressing a smile, she shook her head. He had kissed her senseless, used her toothbrush, touched every inch of her body in ways she had never dreamed possible and still, he asked permission to use her comb.

  Meghann disappeared into the bathroom. It was one of those times for a direct appeal. “Please, God,” she prayed, “don’t let him fall asleep before I’m finished.” Surely that wasn’t too much of a request, not nearly in the same league as let the jury declare him innocent or make the IRA and the British government forget all about him.