Closed Circle (40 page)

The lure of good whiskey was strong at that moment. I needed something to burn away the horrors of the day the horrors of all I had done and learned. I dropped the bag and pushed it under the table with my foot, then summoned a casual smile. "What else should I be frightened of?"

"Nothing, sir." Rafferty grinned. "Not even shipwreck when I'm here to ease your passage."

And so, as the boat pitched and rolled at anchor while the gale blew itself out beyond the shelter of the bay, Rafferty and I sat on narrow bunks either side of the cabin and made steady inroads into his Bushmills. Rafferty reminisced about the days of sail and his wartime experiences in the Royal Navy. These had ended with his being picked up by the Germans after abandoning a sinking destroyer during the Battle of Jutland. "Two and a half years in a POW camp in Bavaria, sir, then home to find the IRA and the Black and Tans going at each other like fighting cocks, leaving the likes of me to play piggy-in-the-middle. Don't talk to me about the good old days." Even the carefree Desmond Rafferty, it seemed, had had his life altered by a war of other men's making. Was there anyone it had not touched? I wondered. Was there anyone not entitled to the revenge I had it in my power to wreak?

I lay back on the bunk and slipped irresistibly into a dream-laden sleep. Diana was waiting for me, warm and pliant, tempting and treacherous. But Klaus was also waiting. He sat up as I stooped over him in the road, grinned crazily and reached out to close his hands around my throat. And then came velvety oblivion, like a hood over a condemned man's face.

I woke in broad daylight, a pallid sun winking at me through the port-hole. The boat was apparently still at anchor, stirring only gently. The storm had passed. I propped myself up, aware of a leaden ache in my head and looked instinctively at my watch. It was half past eleven. I stared at the hands disbelievingly. Half past eleven in the morning! I had slept for more than fifteen hours. It was impossible. And yet it was true. As true as it was potentially disastrous.

"Good morning to you, sir," said Rafferty from the cabin doorway. "Strong tea to start the day?" He held out a chipped enamel mug.

"Why the devil didn't you wake me earlier?" I snapped, jumping to my feet.

"It would have been easier to wake the dead."

"You knew I had to be in Pwllheli by half past five."

"And so you were, sir, so you were." He set the mug down and shook his head. "I owe you an apology, though. Your whiskey last night. I slipped something into it to make you sleep like a log."

"What?"

"I bought an Evening Herald before we left Wicklow. There was a report in it of a shoot-out in Phoenix Park early yesterday morning. Three men killed. And a well-dressed fellow seen running away with a Gladstone bag in his hand."

Angry at my own stupidity as much as Rafferty's hang-dog air of mockery, I grabbed him by the collar of his oilskins and pushed him back against the door-post. "What have you done, you interfering bloody fool?"

"I've been an interfering bloody fool, as you say, sir. I reckoned there must be money in the bag. A falling-out among thieves. Something like that. So, I told you we had engine trouble, anchored in Aberdaron Bay and slipped you a Mickey Finn. Then I took a look in the bag. I'd planned to put you ashore at Abersoch while you were still drowsy and head home with a sight more than fifteen guineas to show for my trouble. But... my plans changed when I found out what you had."

"You've seen the documents?"

"Every last one, sir."

"And you realize what they are?"

"I've a fair idea, sir. It's only because of them I didn't drop you at Abersoch. They ... set me thinking."

"I have to get them to London. I have to make sure the world learns what they contain."

"Is that why you killed those fellows in Phoenix Park?"

"I didn't kill all of them. But one of those who died was Fabian Charnwood."

They're after you, then? They're hot on your trail?"

"What do you think?"

"I think you'll be needing these, sir." He reached into his pocket and pulled out five bullets. "I took them out of your gun in case you turned nasty." I let go of him and, with a crumpled smile, he dropped the bullets into my hand. "I don't exactly know what all this is about, but I can read and understand as well as the next man. It's the war, isn't it? You're after hanging all that dead meat round those grand people's necks."

"I am, yes."

"Then good luck to you."

"I'll need it, won't I, now you've delayed me?"

"You'll only be a few hours late reaching London."

"Yes. A few hours. When every second counts."

"I'm sorry, sir. But I wasn't to know, was I?"

"Get out of my way." I pushed past him onto the deck. The Leitrim Lassie was moored between two other boats of similar size in a neat enclosed harbour. Gulls were wheeling and shrieking overhead, with sunlight flickering on the water and warming the huddled house-fronts of Pwllheli. Ahead, silhouetted against the sky on an embankment bordering the harbour, I could see the statue of a soldier in helmet and battle-dress. Even tiny Pwllheli had its fallen to remember.

The railway station's just across the way, sir," said Rafferty. "I'll give you a hand up. You'll not be forgetting this, will you?" To my astonishment, I saw he was holding the bag. I grabbed it from him with a scowl, then opened it and began to leaf through the contents. "It's all there, sir. I promise."

"It had better be."

"Sure, what would I be wanting with it? Worse than carrying dynamite in your hip pocket."

"You think so?"

"I think it'll never see the light of day. But if it does .. . I'll be proud to have helped."

"Hindered, more like." Satisfied on the point, I closed the bag and looked straight at him. "You haven't asked for your fifteen guineas yet."

"I wasn't sure you'd think I'd earned it, sir."

"I don't reckon you have." But something in his eyes softened me. He could have dropped me at Abersoch while I was still insensible. He could have pushed me and the records of the Concentric Alliance overboard. He could even have handed me over to the police. Instead, he had done his best to make amends. "But have it anyway," I said, reaching for my wallet.

"You're a gentleman, sir. A real gentleman."

I might have been considerably less of a gentleman had I appreciated the dire consequences of Rafferty's intervention. But they did not dawn on me until I reached the railway station booking office.

"The next train's at twelve forty-five, sir," the clerk informed me. "For London, change at Barmouth and Ruabon."

"When will I arrive?"

"The connecting train for Ruabon is the four o'clock from Liverpool, due into Paddington at... a quarter to midnight."

I stared at him in stupefaction. "A quarter to midnight? That's ridiculous."

"Ridiculous or not, sir, it's the best the Great Western Railway can do for you at this time of the year. Do you want a ticket?"

"Yes," I replied levelly. "But tell me, where will I be at six o'clock?"

"Six o'clock? Let's see." He ran his thumb down a timetable column. "Approaching Shrewsbury, sir. You're due there at twelve minutes past."

Thank you so much," I said through gritted teeth.

"Not at all, sir. Is it to be a single or a return?"

"Single." I could not now hope to reach the Rose and Crown until after midnight. By then, Duggan would have given me up for lost. Somehow, I had to prevent that happening. Somehow, I had to speak to him before his patience ran out. "First class. To Shrewsbury."

"Shrewsbury, sir? Not London?"

"No. Not London. I've changed my mind."

A man in a hurry finds dawdling even more agonizing than standing still. So it was for me as ramshackle trains hauled by labouring locomotives took me slowly round the north-east corner of Cardigan Bay, then up across the Cambrian mountains and down the Dee Valley to Ruabon. There were precious few travelling the same route, so I was left alone in my compartment to chafe at the lack of progress and search through the bundle of newspapers I had bought at Pwllheli.

Reports of the shootings in Phoenix Park and descriptions of the man seen running away were what interested me. But there were none to be found. The British press evidently regarded gunfights in Dublin as commonplace. And for their insularity I was duly grateful. They were welcome to keep their blinkers on until I chose the moment to remove them. Meanwhile, the less attention paid to a lone wayfarer with a Gladstone bag the better.

Many times, none the less, as the train steamed and stuttered through the wastes of Merionethshire, I relived in my mind those fleeting moments of violence. I saw the gun once more in O'Reilly's hand, heard again the twin reports and watched anew as Charnwood toppled slowly to the ground. And I remembered also my dream of Klaus's eyes opening and his hands encircling my throat. I shuddered and looked nervously round to be sure I was still alone. As I always was except in my thoughts.

For there Diana's taunting smile of triumph could not be evaded. She had punished me as well as her father. I should have realized she could never be out-deceived. A truce with her was a pact with the Devil. She would never stop lying, never stop manoeuvring for her own advantage. She would never fail to be at least one step ahead. I fingered the letter for her Charnwood had entrusted to me and considered opening it. But something stopped me. Respect for what had turned out to be a dying man's last wish? Perhaps. Or perhaps it was the prospect of handing it to her one day with the seal unbroken, of taunting her in the only way I could.

But Diana, I told myself, no longer really mattered. My quarrel was with the Concentric Alliance. Mine and Max's and Felix'sand all our generation. There was something more than the desire to avenge them driving me on, of course. There was the realization that I knew too much to strike any kind of deal. Faraday and the people he served would kill me if they could. My only hope was to render killing me pointless by shouting Charnwood's secrets from the roof-tops. I was on the side of truth and justice because I had no alternative. They had become the key to my survival.

My survival also depended on George Duggan, the only other outsider who understood what the Concentric Alliance was all about. If I could deliver their records to him, he would know how best to broadcast them to the world. But first I had to contact him. Thanks to Rafferty and the Great Western Railway, that did not promise to be easy. Yet it was not impossible.

The London train left Ruabon at half past five and reached Shrewsbury forty minutes later. I got off, hurried out to the taxi rank and instructed a cabby to take me to the best hotel in town. This, according to him, was the Lion, an old coaching inn turned Trust House where my every want would be catered for.

My only want, in fact, was a room with a private telephone and the services of the hotel operator to put a call through to the Rose and Crown, Warwick Street, London. Within ten minutes, she had found the number and connected me. It was not yet a quarter to seven and I was confident Duggan would still be waiting for me.

"Rose n' Crown," answered a gruff male voice.

"Good evening. I wonder if I might speak to one of your customers."

That depends, dun nit Which one?"

"George Duggan."

"Never 'eard of 'im."

"I'm sure he's there. Would you mind asking? It's very important."

"I'll bet it is. "Old on." I heard him move away from the telephone and shout: "Mr. Duggan wanted on the blower! Mr. Duggan!" Then he came back. "No Duggan 'ere, mate."

There must be."

"And I'm telling you there ain't. I've got better things to do than "Ang on a minute." He moved away again. "You Duggan? Why didn't you say so sooner? There's the 'phone. Don't be all night. Mary Pickford promised to call me abaht now." He loosed a rasping laugh. As it died away, I heard the receiver being picked up. But only silence followed.

"Duggan?"

There was a pause, then a horribly familiar voice said: "Where are you, Horton?" It was Faraday; Faraday where he should not be, knowing what he should not know. "Why aren't you here? You told Duggan you would be."

"Where.. . Where is he?"

"In Alnwick, of course. Spending what we paid him on cheap rum and sour beer." It could not be true. Surely he would not have betrayed me. But how else could Faraday have learned of our appointment? "He did the sensible thing, Horton. Why don't you do the same? Come here now and meet me. Give me the records and you'll have nothing to fear. We could even discuss a price."

No. He was lying. My head was the only price they meant to pay. If I had reached the Rose and Crown on time, they would have been waiting for me with something far more conclusive than money. How could Duggan have done it? He had betrayed his own past as well as my future. He had sold his soul along with his secret. Unless.. . Had he been working for them from the start? Had he lied to me at every stage?

"Give it up, Horton. Give it up while you still have the chance. You were lucky in Dublin. You won't be so lucky again."

"Go to hell." I slammed the telephone down and pulled my hand away as if it were burning, as if Faraday's thoughts could trace me down the miles of cable to my hiding-place. I stood up, sweating in the chill of the room, and stared at my reflection in the mirror above the fire-place. Where was I to go now? Who was there left to turn to? "Damn you, Duggan," I murmured. "Damn you for a traitor and a coward."

I picked up the telephone again and told the operator I wanted to call the Queen's Head, Alnwick. That was where he would be. There, or in one of his other soaking-holes, drinking away any guilt he might feel for what he had done. So, if I could not accuse him to his face, at least I could shout the words in his ears. "How much did they pay you, Judas? How much did you turn out to be worth?"

For several minutes I stood there, rehearsing the bitter things I would say to him. Then the operator rang back. She had found the number and was putting me through.

"Queen's Head."

"Is George Duggan there?"