Treason at Lisson Grove

when I have no choice.”

“Talulla was a child!”

“Children grow up.”

Did he know, or guess, whether Talulla had killed Cormac? She looked at him steadily and found herself a little afraid. The intelligence in him was overwhelming, rich with understanding of terrible irony. And it was not himself he was mocking: it was her, and her naivete. She was quite certain of that now. He was a thought, a word ahead of her all the time. She had already said too much, and he knew perfectly well that she was sure Talulla had shot Cormac.

“Into what?” she said aloud. “Into a woman who would shoot her uncle’s head to pieces in order to be revenged on the man she thinks betrayed her mother?”

That surprised him, just for an instant. Then he covered it. “Of course she thinks that,” he replied. “She can hardly face thinking that Kate went with him willingly. In fact if he’d asked her, maybe she would have gone to England with him. Who knows?”

“Do you?” she said immediately.

“I?” His eyebrows rose. “I have no idea.”

“Is that why Sean killed her, really?”

“Again, I have no idea.”

She did not know whether to believe him or not. He had been charming to her, generous with his time and excellent company, but behind the smiling facade he was a complete stranger. She had no idea what was going on in his thoughts.

“More incidental damage,” she said aloud. “Kate, Sean, Talulla, now Cormac. Incidental to what, Mr. McDaid? Ireland’s freedom?”

“Could we have a better cause, Mrs. Pitt?” he said gently. “Surely Talulla can be understood for wanting that? Hasn’t she paid enough?”

But it didn’t make sense, not completely. Who had moved the money meant for Mulhare back into Narraway’s account? Was that done simply in order to lure him to Ireland for this revenge? Wouldn’t Talulla’s rage have been satisfied by killing Narraway herself? Why on earth make poor Cormac the sacrifice? If she wanted Narraway to suffer, she could have shot him somewhere uniquely painful, so he would be disabled, mutilated, die slowly. There were plenty of possibilities.

And why now? There had to be a reason.

McDaid was still watching her, waiting.

“Yes, I imagine she has paid enough,” she said, answering his question. “And Cormac? Hasn’t he too?”

“Ah yes … poor Cormac,” McDaid said softly. “He loved Kate, you know. That’s why he could never forgive Narraway. She cared for Cormac, but she would never have loved him … mostly I suppose because he was Sean’s brother. Cormac was the better man, I think. Maybe in the end, Kate thought so too.”

“That doesn’t answer why Talulla shot him,” Charlotte pointed out.

“Oh, you’re right. Of course it doesn’t …”

“Another victim of incidental damage?” she said with a touch of bitterness. “Whose freedom do you fight for at such a cost? Is that not a weight of grief to carry forever?”

His eyes flashed for a moment, then the anger was gone again. But it had been real.

“Cormac was guilty too,” he said grimly.

“Of what? Surviving?” she asked.

“Yes, but more than that. He didn’t do much to save Sean. He barely tried. If he’d told the truth, Sean might have been a hero, not a man who murdered his wife in a jealous rage.”

“Perhaps to Cormac he was a man who murdered his wife in a jealous rage,” she pointed out. “People react slowly sometimes when they are shattered with grief. Cormac might have been too shocked to do anything useful. What could it have been anyway? Didn’t Sean himself tell the truth as to why he killed Kate?”

“He barely said anything,” McDaid admitted, this time looking down at the floor, not at her.

“Stunned too,” she said. “But someone told Talulla that Cormac should have saved her father, and she believed them. Easier to think of your father as a hero betrayed than as a jealous man who killed his wife in a rage because she cuckolded him with his enemy, and an Englishman at that.”

McDaid looked at her with another momentary flare of anger. Then he masked it so completely she might almost have thought it was her imagination.

“It would seem so,” he agreed. “But how do we prove any of that?”

She felt the coldness sweep over her. “I don’t know. I’m trying to think.”

“Be careful, Mrs. Pitt,” he said gently. “I would not like you to be incidental damage as well.”

She managed to smile just as if she did not even imagine that his words could be as much a threat as a warning. She felt as if it were a mask on his face: transparent, ghostly. “Thank you. I shall be cautious, I promise, but it is kind of you to care.” She rose to her feet, vigilant not to sway. “Now I think I had better go back to my lodgings. It has been a … a terrible day.”

When she reached Molesworth Street again, Mrs. Hogan came out to see her immediately. She looked awkward, her hands winding around each other, twisting her apron.

Charlotte addressed the subject before Mrs. Hogan could search for the words.