‘Your brother killed Cormac,’ he spoke at last.
‘No, he didn’t. Cormac was already dead by the time we got there.’
He was startled. ‘We? You went with him?’
‘Just after him, but only moments after. .’
‘Then he could have killed him before you got there!’
‘No. I was on his heels. I would have heard the shot. I heard the dog begin to bark as Victor entered.’
He let out a long, slow sigh, as if at last the pieces had settled into a dark picture that, for all its ugliness, still made sense to him. His face looked bruised, as if some familiar pain had returned inside him.
‘You had better come into the study,’ he said wearily. ‘I don’t know what you can do about any of it now. The police believe Narraway shot O’Neil because they want to believe it. He’s earned a long, deep hatred here. They caught him all but in the act. They won’t look any further. You would be wise to go back to London, while you can.’ He led the way across the floor into the study and closed the door. He offered her one of the leather-seated chairs and took the other himself.
‘I don’t know what you think I can do to change anything.’ There was no lift in his voice, no hope.
‘Tell me about transferring the money,’ she answered.
‘And how will that help?’
‘Special Branch in London will know that Victor did not steal it.’ She must remember always to refer to him by his given name. One slip, calling him ‘Mr Narraway’, and she would betray both of them.
He gave a sharp bark of laughter. ‘And when he’s hanged in Dublin for murdering O’Neil, what will that matter to them? There’s a poetic justice to it, but if it’s logic you’re after, the fact that he didn’t steal the money won’t help. O’Neil had nothing to do with it, but Narraway didn’t know that.’
‘Of course he did!’ Charlotte retorted instantly. ‘How do you think I know?’
That caught him off guard; she saw it instantly in his eyes.
‘Then what is it you want me to tell you?’ he asked.
‘Who helped you? Someone in Lisson Grove gave you the account information so you could have it done. And it was nothing to do with helping you. It was to get Victor out of Special Branch. You just served their purpose.’ She had not thought what she was going to say until the words were on her lips. Did she really mean that it was Charles Austwick? It didn’t have to be; there were a dozen others who could have done it, for a dozen other reasons, even one as simple as being paid to. But again that came back to Ireland, and who would pay, and for what reason — just revenge, or an enemy who wanted their own man in Narraway’s place? Or was it simply an ambitious man, or one Narraway suspected of treason or theft, and they struck before he could expose them?
She watched Tyrone, waiting for him to respond.
He was trying to judge how much she knew, but there was also something else in his eyes: a hurt that so far made no sense as part of this old vengeance.
‘Austwick?’ she guessed, before the silence allowed the moment to slip.
‘Yes,’ he said quietly.
‘Did he pay you?’ She could not keep the contempt from her voice.
His head came up sharply. ‘No he did not! I did it because I hate Narraway, and Mulhare, and all other traitors to Ireland.’
‘Victor is not a traitor to Ireland,’ she pointed out. ‘He’s as English as I am. You’re lying.’ She picked a weapon out of her imagination. ‘Did he have an affair with your wife, as well as with Kate O’Neil?’
Tyrone’s face flamed, and he half rose from his chair. ‘If you don’t want me to throw you out of my house, woman, you’ll apologise for that slur on my wife! Your mind’s in the gutter. But then I dare say you know your brother a great deal better than I do. If he is your brother, that is?’
Now Charlotte felt her own face burn. ‘I think perhaps it is your mind that is in the gutter, Mr Tyrone,’ she said with a tremor in her voice, and perhaps guilt, because she knew what Narraway felt for her.
She could think of no defence, so she attacked. ‘Why do you do this for Charles Austwick? What is he to you? An Englishman who wants to gain power and office? And in the very secret service that was formed to defeat Irish hopes of Home Rule.’ That was an exaggeration, she knew. It was formed to combat the bombings and murders intended to terrorise Britain into granting Home Rule to Ireland, but the difference seemed pedantic and hardly mattered now.
Tyrone’s voice was low and bitterly angry. ‘I don’t give a tinker’s curse who runs your wretched services, secret or open. It was my chance to get rid of Narraway. Whatever else Austwick is, he’s a fool by comparison.’
‘You know him?’ She seized the only part of what he was saying that seemed vulnerable, even momentarily.
There was a tiny sound behind her; just the brushing of a silk skirt against the doorjamb.
She turned round and saw Bridget Tyrone standing a yard from her. Suddenly Charlotte was horribly, physically afraid. She could scream her lungs out here and no one would hear her, no one would know. . or care. It took all the strength she had to stand still, and command her voice to be level — or at least something like it.
It would be absurd to pretend Bridget had not overheard the conversation.
Charlotte was trapped, and she knew it. The fury in Bridget’s face was unmistakable. Just as Bridget moved forward, Charlotte did also. She had never before struck another woman. However, when she turned as if to say something to Tyrone and saw him also moving towards her, she swung back, her arm wide. She put all her weight behind it, catching Bridget on the side of the head just as she lunged forward.
Bridget toppled sideways, catching at the small table with books on it and sending it crashing, herself on top of it. She screamed, as much in rage as pain.
Tyrone was distracted, diving to help her. Charlotte ran past, out of the door and across the hall. She flung the front door open, hurtling out into the street without once looking behind her. She kept on running, both hands holding her skirts up so she did not trip. She reached the main crossroads before she was so out of breath she could go no further.
She dropped her skirts out of shaking hands, and started to walk along the dimly lit street with as much dignity as she could muster, keeping an eye to the roadway for cab lights in the hope of getting one to take her home as soon as she could. She would prefer to be right away from the area.
When she saw an unoccupied cab, she gave the driver the Molesworth Street address before climbing in and settling back to try to arrange her thoughts.
The story was still incomplete: bits and pieces that only partially fitted together. Talulla was Sean and Kate’s daughter; when had she known the truth of what had happened, or at least something like it? Perhaps more importantly, who had told her? Had it been with the intention that she should react violently? Did whoever it was know her well enough, and deliberately work on her loneliness, her sense of injustice and displacement, so that she could be provoked into murdering Cormac, and blaming Narraway? To her it could be made to seem a just revenge for the destruction of her family. Sometimes rage is the easiest answer to unbearable pain. Charlotte had seen that too many times before, had even been brushed by it herself long ago, at the time of Sarah’s death. It is instinctive to feel there must be someone to blame for random injustice, and that someone must be made to pay.
Who could have used Talulla that way? And why? Was Cormac the intended victim? Or was he a victim of incidental damage, as Fiachra McDaid had said — one of the casualties in a war for a greater purpose — and Narraway was the real victim? It would be poetic justice if he were hanged for a murder he did not commit. Since Talulla believed Sean innocent of killing Kate, and Narraway guilty, for her that would be elegant, perfect.
But who prompted her to it, gave her the information and stoked her passions, all but guided her hand? And why? Obviously not Cormac. Not John Tyrone, because he seemed to know nothing about it, and Charlotte believed that. Bridget? Perhaps. Certainly she was involved. Her reaction to Charlotte that evening had been too immediate and too violent to spring from ignorance. In fact, looking back at it now, perhaps she had known more than Tyrone himself?
Perhaps Tyrone himself was, at least in part, another victim of incidental damage. Someone to use, because he was vulnerable, more in love with his wife than she was with him, and because he was a banker and had the means.
Charlotte could no longer evade the answer — Fiachra McDaid. Perhaps he had not anything to do with the past at all, or any of the old tragedy, except to use it. And for him winning was all, the means and the casualties nothing.
