The Blood Upon the Rose (33 page)

There was silence in the room. A clock chimed loudly somewhere outside. Andrew said: ‘Are you saying that if I don't go on with this Collins business, you'll throw me to the wolves?’

Harrison coughed apologetically. ‘I wouldn’t put it quite as crudely as that, Major Butler, but yes, that is the general idea.’

‘You’re forgetting something. I have a document in my possession which states quite clearly that I will be paid £10,000 for the arrest of Michael Collins, dead or alive. It was signed by Sir Jonathan in the presence of yourself and Commissioner Radford. If I were on trial, I could produce that in court.’

‘That would, indeed, be very embarrassing. Sir Jonathan and I would say it was a forgery, of course, but we would rather not have to. But you see, Major Butler, even if it brought us down, it would scarcely do you any good. One glance at a document like that, and your guilt in the eyes of the jury would be established. And the penalty for murder is still hanging. Even for the murder of Sinn Feiners.’

Andrew looked incredulous. ‘So you are saying that the only way you will save me from hanging for the murder of three Sinn Feiners, is to carry on and murder some more. Is that it?’

‘Precisely, Major Butler. And one Sinn Feiner in particular.’

There was another silence. Sir Jonathan had been looking stern, but increasingly embarrassed throughout the previous conversation. When Andrew glanced at him, he cleared his throat and said: ‘And of course, when you do kill Collins, the reward will be paid in full. You have my word on that. It’s just that we can’t afford any backsliding now, you see.’

‘I see,’ Andrew said thoughtfully. ‘So much for the concept of honour.’

‘Yes, well.’ Sir Jonathan’s face, Andrew noticed curiously, was actually quite red. Clearly this attempt at blackmail wasn’t Sir Jonathan's idea, Andrew thought. But he’s going along with it, nevertheless. Now I know who’s running the show, anyway.

He turned back to the small, bug-eyed figure of Harrison. ‘And do I have your word that this RIC investigation goes no further, if I agree to carry on?’

‘Of course. We have no interest in harming you, only in defeating the enemy. It’s a war, you see, just a different kind of one. Everyone supports the troops when they’re fighting. But if they turn away, they get shot.’

‘My God.’ What do you know about fighting?
Andrew thought
. Or do they have wars under the stones, too, where the slugs are
?

Sir Jonathan interrupted, clearly still embarrassed. ‘Our only interest is in defeating these swine before they ruin the country completely. If Lloyd George would give us martial law, we wouldn’t need this sort of cloak-and-dagger stuff. But he won’t, so it’s up to us to fight the Shinners by their own methods, that’s all. I’m sure you see that, Andrew, don’t you?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Andrew softly. ‘I see it absolutely.’

‘Good. So you’ll do it?’

‘I’ll carry on, yes. But you can’t expect me to come up with a new plan, just like that.’

‘No, of course not. But you may want to carry on with the one Harrison put to you before? Resurrecting Count von Hessel?’

‘Perhaps. I’ll think about it. But no silly stories about him escaping at Dun Laoghaire. If he comes back, it’s from Germany. And that’ll take time.’

‘In that case it may be best that you drop out of sight for a few days,’ Sir Jonathan said. ‘I was thinking that before you came. We don't want you seen walking around Dublin if you’re supposed to have been deported, do we?’

‘They may already have seen me,’ said Andrew bitterly. Though on reflection he thought it unlikely; he had been out of the house in Nelson Street only three times since the raid on Brendan Road. Once to buy food, and twice to come here.

‘Let’s hope not. But the longer you stay, the greater the risk. And as Harrison says, it might be unwise for you to go back to Ardmore at the moment. Why not go down to my house in Galway for a few days? There are none of Collins' men there. You could relax, ride, breathe the sea air. Good shooting, too.’

Andrew did not particularly want to be beholden to Sir Jonathan for a home, but the prospect of staying alone in the house in Nelson Street, indoors most of the time to avoid a chance meeting with Daly, was beginning to pall. And Ardmore was just the contemplation of ruin, and now, it seemed, awkward interviews with the local RIC. At least, if Harrison knew he was in Galway, he couldn't pressure him for instant results.

‘All right,’ he said gracelessly. ‘Why not?’

Harrison left, but Sir Jonathan asked if Andrew would mind staying behind for half an hour. ‘I have some letters and bills to send to Ferguson, my estate manager at Killrath,’ he said. ‘And with the posts so unreliable as they are, I would be grateful if you could take them with you.’

‘By all means.’ Andrew settled down in a corner to smoke, when the door of Sir Jonathan’s study opened and Catherine looked in. She saw Andrew and hesitated, her hand on the doorknob. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Father. If you’re busy it can keep for another time.’

Andrew got to his feet - slowly, as though it was a thing he had just remembered to do, rather than an automatic courtesy. She looked pale, he thought, more tired than before, with dark smudges round her eyes that were not artificial at all. He said: ‘No, please don’t leave on my account. I was hoping to see you and pay my respects or whatever one does, after the other evening.’

‘Thank you.’

Sir Jonathan looked up. ‘Catherine, don’t go. I’m just writing a couple of letters for Major Butler to take to Killrath. Could you entertain him for half an hour or so while he waits?’

Catherine was not sure she wanted to be bothered with this. But then, what else was there? With Sean gone, everything seemed drab, wearisome. At least this man had brought a little colour to the other evening, for an hour or so. So she said: ‘Of course,’ took him to the drawing room downstairs, and ordered tea.

There was something incongruous about this man in a flowered armchair. He looked tense, ill at ease, angry. When the muscles of his jaw moved, the livid scar on his cheek writhed like a snake. Catherine had the impression he was far away in his own mind, unaware of her. Keneally brought tea and she poured it, feeling foolish and annoyed by the silences that fell between them. Being a society hostess was a role that bored her, and she particularly hated being forced to do it and then ignored.

‘Well,’ she said suddenly. ‘Have you made up your mind yet?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘About your half of the bet. As I remember, the other night you said I could have your ruined house, Ardmore, if I could shoot better than you.’

She was gratified to see that she had his full attention. The hard dark eyes focused on her coldly. He said: ‘As I remember it was the other way around. You decided you wanted it.’

‘Perhaps.’ She sipped her tea coolly. ‘I can't imagine it’s worth much now, anyway.’

Not to you perhaps, Andrew thought. Something about her eyes - dark, intense, determined - reminded him of the way Sir Jonathan had looked at him as they discussed their deal upstairs. It annoyed him. These people held all the cards, suddenly.

He said: ‘That house is my life, young lady. It would be stupid for me to bet about it unless you were ready to offer something equally valuable to you in return. Which you aren’t.’

She flushed. ‘Aren’t I? Try me.’

‘All right then.’ Andrew was annoyed now, but the situation amused him, too. At least, if he had to do what Sir Jonathan wanted, he could still take this high-and-mighty girl down a peg or two. He said: ‘Let’s pretend we're in a fairy tale. If you win, you get the ruins of Ardmore; if I win, you still get them.’

‘What?’

‘As a wife, dear girl. I need one, and you seem to be reasonably well brought up, and able to pour the tea without spilling it. I offer the house; you offer yourself. Then you get Ardmore whatever happens.’

Despite herself, Catherine flushed bright red. Then she laughed. The laugh sounded forced even to her. My bluff has been called, she thought.

‘What’s the matter? My face is so unsightly you wouldn’t even consider it, I suppose.’

‘Oh no.’ She put her teacup down and stood up, feeling the blush mercifully drain away. ‘Your scar is the most attractive thing about you, as far as I can see. It’s not very gentlemanly, though, to compare me to a ruin. I’ll get the pistol now.’

‘Now?’ Surely the stupid girl didn't mean it?

‘Why not? There’s a small walled garden behind the house. That’ll do.’

Stunned, he followed her out into the corridor. There was a locked cupboard round a corner, which she opened, and took out a Webley revolver. Deftly, she loaded six cartridges into it. ‘Three shots each. We’ll need something for the marks.’ She gave him the pistol, walked through to the kitchen, and came back with two sheets of paper, a pencil, some small nails, and a hammer.

The garden was about thirty feet long, surrounded by high walls, with a terrace, a small lawn, and some espaliered trees and rockeries around the edge. Catherine drew a thick pencilled cross in the middle of each sheet of paper, with a circle about two inches in diameter around the point where the lines met. Then she walked down the garden and nailed them to the branches of a tree. She walked back and looked at him with a slight, cool grin on her face, pushing a strand of her short black hair away from her face with a finger.

‘Will you shoot first or will I?’

Andrew burst out laughing. ‘All right, you’re mad, I admit it. Don’t worry, I won’t hold you to it against your will.’

The small, tight smile had not changed. ‘Then I don’t get the house.’

‘It’s only a ruin anyway. Go on, you shoot first.’

‘All right.’ She took the pistol from him, cocked it, and held up a finger for a moment to test the breeze. Then she lifted the gun slowly. He thought it might be too heavy for her but he saw it was not. She held it in one hand, her right arm straight out from her shoulder. He saw it was quite still, rock steady.

The three shots came very swiftly, in almost as many seconds. The sound in the little walled garden echoed deafeningly.

Andrew could see one shot near the centre of the cross. There was another towards the edge of the pencilled circle. From this distance he could not see the third at all.

She handed the revolver to him. It was light, he noticed, a smaller model than the one he had used in the war. It had been one of his pastimes, in the long, boring weeks in the billets and trenches, to set up makeshift targets - food tins, paper, dead mice and rats pinned to a door by their tails - and knock holes in them. Once he had drawn the face of a German officer and drilled holes in its eyes, nostrils, and teeth from ten yards.

He lifted the gun, sighted, and fired.

As the echoes rang in their ears, a door opened behind them and Sir Jonathan came out. ‘What the devil …?’

‘It’s all right, Father,’ Catherine said. ‘You asked me to entertain him so we’re having a shooting match.’

‘Good God, I thought we were being attacked!’

‘No such luck, I’m afraid.’ Andrew noticed with amusement that the Colonel had his own revolver holster unbuttoned, and his hand on the butt of the pistol inside.

Catherine and Andrew walked down to the end of the garden together. Andrew looked at Catherine's target first. He had thought her third shot had gone wide, but to his surprise he saw it had clipped the hole of the first, so that there was one single large hole within half an inch of the intersection of pencil lines in the middle of the paper. The third shot was about an inch away, to the upper left, just touching the circle she had drawn.

His own shots were grouped closer, in a cluster less than an inch wide straddling the intersection.

He held the two sheets of paper together. Their eyes met. Andrew said: ‘I win, I think, Mrs Butler.’

He was pleased to see that a slight flush had returned to her face. She said: ‘You’re a better shot than I thought. Well, when I’m a ruin like your house, you shall have me.’

Then she turned and walked back into the house.

As Sir Jonathan gave him the letters he said: ‘She's not used to being beaten, you know. Did you have a bet on it, or what?’

‘Nothing serious,’ Andrew said. ‘Just a game, that’s all.’

It was the end of the next day when Andrew saw Killrath.

All day, as the train wound its way steadily westwards, through Tullamore, Athlone, Ballinasloe, and on to the town of Galway itself, he had sat at the window of the first-class carriage, sunk in depression. This retreat to the west was a combination of all the things he most hated.

It was a mark of defeat, first of all. He had failed to find Collins, or kill him. Instead, he was now hunted himself.

He was angry, too. Very angry at Harrison, for the threat of blackmail. For all its clumsiness, Andrew was forced to accept it as a possibility. The little man was clearly ruthless in his own way, devoid of scruples. If he has to throw me before the courts, he will, Andrew thought. Probably his own job only hangs by a thread. If the Shinners' campaign goes on, and he can point to no successes against it, that thread will be cut; and then he'll drag me down into the mud with him. Certainly Sir Jonathan believed it was possible. He's got no love for the little slug, either.

For the hundredth time, Andrew searched for a better method of approaching Collins. But he had considered and rejected all of them before; they were as full of holes as a colander. Even if he had not been scarred, Daly had seen his face. They knew who he was: he was a German officer, Count von Hessel. Andrew hoped, fervently, that they still believed that. If they did, he still had a remote chance of success. A chance that would be totally dissipated if he were to turn up claiming to be someone else.

So Count von Hessel would have to re-establish contact. After all, von Hessel warned Daly of the approach of the police; he fought the police; he was arrested and deported. Von Hessel was a stubborn fellow: he would come back to Dublin and try again. There's no reason why Collins should think it was not true.

He hoped not, anyway. He had been through all this last night, sitting in his study in Nelson Street. What would a German count do, he had asked himself, if he were rash enough to come back a second time?