before tonight, taking absurd risks, telling lies, in order to help a man of whom she knew so little? Why did she ache with a loss for him?
Because she imagined how she would feel if he were like her — and he was not. She imagined he cared about her, because she had seen it in his face in unguarded moments. It was probably loneliness she saw, an instant of lingering for a love he would only find an encumbrance if he actually had it.
‘I hear Talulla Lawless gave you a little display of her temper,’ McDaid interrupted her thoughts. ‘I’m sorry for that. Her wounds are deep, and she sees no need to hide them. But it is hardly your fault. But then there are always casualties of war, the innocent often as much as the guilty.’
She turned to look at his face in the momentary light of a passing carriage lamp. His eyes were bright, his mouth twisted in a sad little smile. Then the darkness shadowed him again and she was aware of him only as a soft voice, a presence beside her, the smell of fabric and a faint sharpness of tobacco.
‘Of course,’ she agreed very quietly.
They reached Molesworth Street and the carriage stopped.
‘Thank you, Mr McDaid,’ she said with perfect composure. ‘It was most gracious of you to have me invited, and to accompany me. Dublin’s hospitality is all that has been said of it, and believe me, that is high praise.’
‘We have just begun,’ he replied warmly. ‘Give Victor my regards, and tell him we shall continue. I won’t rest until you think this is the fairest city on earth, and the Irish the best people. Which of course we are, in spite of our passion and our troubles. You can’t hate us, you know.’ He said it with a smile that was wide and bright in the lamplight.
‘Not the way you hate us, anyway,’ she agreed gently. ‘But then we have no cause. Good night, Mr McDaid.’
Chapter Five
Charlotte faced Narraway across the breakfast table in Mrs Hogan’s quiet house the next morning, her mind still in conflict as to what she would say to him. She needed far more time to weigh what she had heard, although even that might not help.
‘Very enjoyable,’ she answered his enquiry as to the previous evening. And she realised with surprise how much that was true. It was a long time since she had been at a party of such ease and sophistication. Although this was Dublin, not London, society was not very different.
There were no other guests in the dining room this late in the morning. Most of the other tables had already been set with clean, lace-edged linen ready for the evening. She concentrated on the generous plate of food before her. It contained far more than she needed for good health. ‘They were most kind to me,’ she added.
‘Nonsense,’ he replied quietly.
She looked up, startled by his abruptness.
He was smiling, but the sharp morning light showed very clearly the tiredness in his face, and something that might even have been fear. Her resolve to lie to him wavered. There were many ways in which he was unreadable, but not in the deep-etched lines in his face or the hollows around his eyes.
‘All right,’ she conceded. ‘They were hospitable, and a certain glamour in it was fun. Is that more precise?’
He was amused. He gave nothing so obvious as a smile, but his expression was just as plain to her.
‘Whom did you meet, apart from Fiachra, of course?’
‘You’ve known him a long time?’ she asked, remembering McDaid’s words with a slight chill.
‘Why do you say that?’ He took more toast and buttered it. He had eaten very little. She wondered if he had slept.
‘Because he asked me nothing about you,’ she answered. ‘But he seems very willing to help.’
‘A good friend,’ he replied, looking straight at her.
She smiled. ‘Nonsense,’ she said with exactly the same inflexion he had used.
‘
‘Isn’t Ireland full of people you have known a long time?’
He put a little marmalade on his toast.
She waited.
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘But I do not know the allegiances of most of them.’
‘If Fiachra McDaid is a friend, what do you need me for?’ she asked bluntly. Suddenly to learn that seemed very urgent. Was she a diversion, someone to watch while he did the real discovering? Then a worse thought occurred to her: perhaps he did not want her in London where Pitt could reach her. Just how complicated was this, and how ugly? Where was the embezzled money now? Was it really about money, and not old vengeances at all? Or was it both?
It was more urgent than ever that she learn the truth, or at least all of it that still shadowed the present.
He had not answered.
‘Because you are using me, or both of us, with selected lies,’ she suggested.
He winced as if the blow had been physical as well as emotional. ‘I am not lying to you, Charlotte.’ His voice was so quiet she had to lean forward a little to catch his words. ‘I am. . being highly selective about how much of the truth I tell you.’
‘And the difference is. .?’ she asked.
He sighed. ‘You are a good detective — in your own way almost as good as Pitt — but Special Branch work is very different from ordinary domestic murder.’
‘Domestic murder isn’t always ordinary,’ she contradicted him. ‘Human love and hate very seldom are. People kill for all sorts of reasons, but it is usually to gain or protect something they value passionately. Or it is outrage at some violation they cannot bear. And I do not mean necessarily a physical one. The emotional or spiritual wounds can be far harder to recover from.’
‘I apologise,’ he responded. ‘I should have said that the alliances and loyalties stretch in far more complicated ways. Brothers can be on opposite sides, as can husband and wife. Rivals can help each other, even die for each other, if allied in the cause.’
‘And the casualties are the innocent as well as the guilty.’ She echoed McDaid’s words. ‘My role is easy enough. I would like to help you, but I am bound by everything in my nature to help my husband, and of course myself. .’
‘I had no idea you were so pragmatic,’ he said with a slight smile.
‘I am a woman, I have a finite amount of money, and I have children. A degree of pragmatism is necessary.’ She spoke gently to take the edge from the sting in her words.
He finished spreading his marmalade. ‘So you will understand that Fiachra is my friend in some things, but I will not be able to count on him if the answer should turn out to be different from the one I suppose.’
‘There is one you suppose?’
‘I told you: I think Cormac O’Neil has found the perfect way to be revenged on me, and has taken it.’
‘For something that happened twenty years ago?’ she questioned.
‘The Irish have the longest memories in Europe.’ He bit into the toast.
‘And the greatest patience too?’ she said with disbelief. ‘People take action because something, somewhere has changed. Crimes of state have that in common with ordinary, domestic murders. Something new has caused O’Neil, or whoever it is, to do this now. Perhaps it has only just become possible. Or it may be that for him, now is the right time.’
Narraway ate the whole of his toast before replying. ‘Of course you are right. The trouble is that I don’t know which of those reasons it is. I’ve studied the situation in Ireland and I can’t see any reason at all for O’Neil to do this now.’
She ignored her tea. An unpleasant thought occurred to her, chilling and very immediate. ‘Wouldn’t O’Neil know that this would bring you here?’ she asked.
