When Shadows Fall (26 page)

“It’s fine,” she assured him. “Perfect. So good night.”

He grinned. “Plenty room, eh? Room for two, I should imagine. Ah, well.” He rubbed his hands. “I must hit the hay myself. Until the morrow, then.”

When he left she locked the door and sat on the edge of the bed, pulling off her shoes and tights. Through the tiny porthole, the sea was impenetrably black but for the frothy line of the ship’s wake passing underneath the deck lights. Engines rumbled faintly below, deep in the bowels of the vessel. She closed down the window shutter, undressed, and climbed into bed.

It seemed only minutes later that the hall porter knocked and they were in England.

The mighty Thames was cluttered with barges and small craft, jostling for mooring berths. Captain Jackson took the
Freya Angelica
downriver to the loading docks and deposited Adam and Liam on the quay in the midst of a thunderous downpour. Hats clutched on their heads, they hurried up the road to the first dockside tavern where a fire blazed invitingly within. With a mug of tea and a steak and kidney pie each in front of them, Adam laid the map across his knees.

“We’re on the wrong end of the river, first of all. Hampstead is to the northwest, and it’s too far to walk from here. We’ll get a hackney. Collins can go hang.”

They told the driver that they were insurance salesmen. He waxed lyrical about the weather, and they tipped him generously when he dropped them on Finchley Road.

“How far from here?” Liam asked. “It’ll be nice to sleep in a proper bed. That old fishing tub stank like an abattoir.”

Adam consulted the map again. “Follow me.”

It was still raining, but ten minutes later they were outside a brown-bricked, semidetached house facing a football pitch. A woman with grey hair tied in a bun and a Cockney accent ushered them inside.

“You lot will be snuffling with colds by morning,” she fussed and made them remove their sodden coats and shoes in the hallway. “Go through to the sitting room. There’s a fire lit.”

The room smelt of pipe smoke. An old man with a beard rose from a rocking chair and gave a toothless smile. “Ah, lads, ye’re most welcome. Sit, sit.” His accent was soft and jaunty. The deep south of Kerry.

“You can call me Seanie,” he said, shaking their hands. “This is Mrs. O’Toole, my wife. And don’t be worrying about the accents of her. She’s of Killarney stock like myself. Moved to London with her parents when she was three.”

“I’m Adam, this is Liam,” Adam said. “We’re very grateful for your help.”

“Not at all.” Seanie waved him away. “Sure I’ve met Mick Collins from Clonakilty before. Only too happy we are to help out his friends.”

There was a network of sympathisers, both Irish and English, around London and other cities. They proved invaluable in helping men like Adam and Liam to stay underground, and the movement made sure to compensate them in return.

“You’ll have something to eat, lads?” Seanie asked.

Liam was about to reply in the affirmative when Mrs. O’Toole said, “They’ll freshen up first. There’s hot water and clean towels upstairs, boys. Afterwards you can join us in the dining room.”

They had been given a bedroom each, a pleasant surprise after the squalor of the boat. Water was heated off a gas stove and piped up to the bathroom, and once he was washed Adam changed into fresh slacks and shirt before balling his fisherman’s getup into the haversack.

A low arch led from the kitchen into the dining room, which was just big enough to accommodate a table, four chairs, and a sideboard laden with pictures of saints and popes. Above the sideboard a framed oil painting of Jesus Christ had been mounted on the wall.

“Something smells good,” Liam enthused.

From her modest facilities Mrs. O’Toole rolled out a spread to feed a battalion. Taking their plates she piled them high with cuts of ham and turkey, floury potato mash, and dollops of cabbage and drowned the lot in throat-scalding gravy. Seanie and Liam applied themselves to it like they were digging a mine. Adam ate as much as he could comfortably accommodate, but his appetite was sorely diminished by his mounting nerves. Mrs. O’Toole kept a reproving eye on him as he nudged the slivers of meat round his plate.

Eventually Seanie O’Toole sighed, sat back, and patted the round hillock of his belly. “We’ll have tea, missus,” he suggested, and as she padded off to the kitchen he leaned forward on the table, grinning gleefully. “Oh, I envy you two. ’Tis a merry dance you must be leading the peelers. So what are you up to over here? You can tell me.”

Adam exchanged a cautious glance with Liam. “I’m afraid we’re not permitted to divulge that information, Seanie. But let me say that your assistance in the matter is greatly appreciated.”

“Ye lucky devils.” Seanie’s eyes twinkled. “What I’d give to be a young man again. I haven’t been home in nearly forty years.
Ach
, there’s nothing for me there now.” His attention wandered a moment. Then he perked up again and said, “Well, you’re both more than welcome. Will you be staying long?”

“Not long. Not long.”

“Aye, I know. But it’s great to have you. You know, I never had any sons.” Again a wistful pause. He looked behind his shoulder. “Ahoy, Adam, reach into that sideboard behind you. There’s a decent malt inside. Will ye share a wee drop with me, lads?”

But before they could answer, Mrs. O’Toole returned with teacups and a milk jug. “You’ll both be up early tomorrow, boys. Best to bed after your tea, then.”

“Yes,” Adam agreed. “That would be for the best, ma’am.”

Seanie’s head lowered in disappointment.

Adam’s room was at the back of the house, his bed made up with a flower-patterned eiderdown and feather pillows. It was getting dark outside. He peered out across a meshwork of lanes and cropped lawns, garden gnomes and greenhouses, lit by streetlamps and glistening in the soft rain. He drew the curtains.

Night brought a black sleep.

It was still dark when Tara and James disembarked the ferry at Liverpool. There were bleary eyes and a few sore heads as they clambered onto the first-class carriages on the London train, and Tara found herself allotted into a compartment with James and a couple of overweight diplomatic aides. She was dozing off even before the train rumbled out of the station, and she didn’t wake until the first fledgling rays of dawn began to creep above the hills to the east.

“It’s good to be home,” James murmured, gazing through the window.

England sped by, the smoky sprawl of Lancashire, the green and forested East Midlands, the spires of Coventry City. Their carriage attendant wheeled up a breakfast of poached eggs and kippers with a pot of coffee, so that they were enlivened a little by the time they reached Tottenham. From here it was only a small onward journey to Victoria Station in the heart of London.

“No meetings until tomorrow, thank goodness,” James told her. “We’ll book into our hotel right away. How about a stroll before lunchtime, if the weather holds? Just the thing to work up an appetite. I must confess I’m dying to show you London.”

“Um, yes, Mr. Bryant.” Tara clasped her temples. “I think that coffee is making my headache worse. I shouldn’t have indulged in the wine last night.”

“Ho, ho. Fresh air is what you need. Not long now.”

When the train pulled into Victoria Station, she saw a black press of commuters crowding the platforms. “My goodness, it’s busy.”

“It always is. Come on, let’s be off before the rest of them. I’ll commandeer a porter for our bags.”

He rose and she went to follow him out of the compartment, but just then a troupe of stiff-backed men in army uniform passed in the corridor. James held back to allow them space.

“Major Dirk Ripley of the Cameron Highlanders,” he whispered to Tara, indicating a lean figure with a spiked moustache and cold eyes. “A tough bugger if ever there was one. Best let him and his chums off first.”

When the officers had passed, James nodded to her. “Let’s go, then. And welcome to
my
town!”

At the corner of Belgrave Square, Adam gave a newspaper boy a penny for one of the morning editions. He scanned the front page:

H
OME
O
FFICE
R
ECALLS
A
RMY AND
I
NTELLIGENCE
S
TAFF TO
L
ONDON
H
IGH-
L
EVEL
M
EETINGS
A
RRANGED TO
D
ISCUSS
I
RISH
S
ITUATION

The article speculated on whom was to attend the meetings and listed various recent atrocities in Ireland to boost the import of it all, with a particularly chilling portrait being painted of the IRA death squads who were “roaming the countryside with impunity.” Aside from that the page ran with an account of a meeting of the League of Nations in Switzerland, the arrest of several anarchists in Piccadilly, and the preparations of the England cricket team for their tour of Australia.

Adam rolled up the paper and tossed it in a waste bin.

It had begun to rain again. A rumble of thunder sounded in the sky. He stepped over a choked gutter and pulled his collar high round his neck, looking for Liam. The latter emerged from a tobacconist across the street.

“Gloomy old morning.” Liam was rolling a cigarette.

“Same to you,” Adam replied.

“At least the train station is near.” They had walked the route the previous day, and Liam drew on his cigarette with an air of casualness that irritated Adam.

“It’s near, but the train is due at ten. So I suggest you look sharp. If we miss him getting off, we’ll have lost him.” They had agreed to move there separately this morning so as to lessen any possible attention. “Remember our plan. If you’re closer, you shoot. If I’m closer, I shoot. Then we run. Understood?”

“Yep,” Liam nodded. “You’re sure we’ll recognise him, though? It would be a mean thing to get the wrong fellow.”

“We’ll recognise him all right. You couldn’t forget a face as ugly as that. Just shoot cleverly, though. I don’t want innocent people getting hurt.”

“Sure. I’ll see you there.”

“See you there. Let’s have the business over and done with.”

They parted company and headed into the busy streets, making south for Victoria Station.