When Shadows Fall (36 page)

“Aye. And so are we. You’ve done a good job with them, Tom, playing the tout. It was worth the loss of a few guns.” Collins looked at the list in his hands. “What was that other name you said?”

“Bryant. He mentioned a District Inspector James Bryant.”

“Ah yes, here he is. A source in the Castle gave me his name awhile back. Bryant’s another spook, sent direct from Scotland Yard. He’s notched up a few scores against us, too. And he’s got to go. All those spies have got to go.”

The list was now a hit list, an assassin’s who’s who of names painstakingly gathered by IRA intelligence and informants over the previous months. Landladies, typists, cleaning maids, supposed touts like Cullen—they had been noting little morsels of information here and there, faces, movements, activities, and addresses and diverting it all in Collins’s way.

The British agents were good. Very good, in fact, and Cullen was not wrong in pointing out that they were on the brink of finishing off the rebel leadership for good.

But they had underestimated Michael Collins.

Collins rose to his feet. “It’s going to get nasty like I said, Tom. These fellows—Arthurs, Bryant, Charles Dowling, all the others—I want them buried in one go. Arrange a meeting and let’s put a team together. Before they do the same to us.”

Cullen nodded. “Now you’re talking, Mick.”

A Sunday morning.

At dawn a creamery truck pulled up outside O’Shaughnessy’s grocery on Brunswick Street. The driver climbed out, growled to his boy, and the youngster opened the flap at the rear to fetch the urns. Manfully grasping them in his skinny arms, he wobbled round the side of O’Shaughnessy’s to the yard beyond and laid them out one by one.

“That’s fine now, Paudie,” said O’Shaughnessy as he emerged, a bent-backed man with a long beard. He nodded to the driver. “Well, Seamus. Are ye all good? Sure I can settle with you next week for the milk, if ye don’t mind. But that’s a grand tarpaulin cover over the truck you have there. Are you worried about the sun souring the milk or what?”

Seamus, the driver, ordered his son back on board. He looked at O’Shaughnessy and touched his lips in a gesture of silence. “Pay me whenever you can, Hugh.” He inclined his head towards the covered truck.

O’Shaughnessy’s eyes widened. He blessed himself.

“Good morning to you, Hugh,” Seamus said.

They drove on. Seamus made more stops. Eleven-year-old Paudie carried the milk urns into the backyards of shops and restaurants. It being a Sunday, they were all closed.

When they stopped again near Arbour Hill, backed into a quiet alleyway, several hands suddenly tore the tarpauli
n cover free. Men leapt from the truck, loading revolvers.

This time it was Seamus who blessed himself. “How many of you are about this business?” he asked the nearest man, a dark-eyed youth who was busily fastening his coat.

“Many, Seamus,” the man answered. “We’re all over the city. Take your boy home now. Trust me. The streets of Dublin will not be safe today.”

Adam was on a train, nearing Dublin. Having spent a fortnight drilling the recruits in the hills of West Cork, he was glad of a return to the relative civilisation of his home city.

A few recruits he’d weeded out early on. Too old, too young, too unfit. The rest weren’t Ireland’s finest either, but by the end of the two weeks they could shoulder their wooden rifles properly and even stage a mock ambush, learning how to use the natural cover of the terrain to conceal themselves.

Frustrating work, however.

He was relieved to see the outer suburbs of Dublin glide past the window. The early-morning train journey had been enlivened by the presence of several boisterous Tipperary football supporters, on their way to the capital to cheer on their county in a challenge match against Dublin. They were laughing and bragging and digging each other’s ribs, and Adam found himself becoming a Tipperary man by empathy, such was their infectious enthusiasm.

“And tell me,” one of them asked him in thick Tipp tongue, “where would a man take a decent sup of stout around Dublin? Sure I’ve never been up to the big smoke before. I’ve been to Cork—is it like Cork City?”

Adam scoffed. “It’s nothing like Cork City. Cork is the home of blackguards and boasters. Dublin is far more sincere and civilised.”

“That’s mighty!” The Tipperary man thumped Adam’s shoulder in bonhomie. “Will you watch the game with us? Sure and go on, we’ll have a great day out.”

Adam grinned. “I’d love to. But I’m afraid there’s somebody I must meet. Enjoy your football game.”

At the Shelbourne Hotel, James woke just before six. The sky outside his window was still black. As much as he tried, he wasn’t able to sleep again, unsettled by some strange premonition. After another hour, dull eastern rays began to herald the day’s commencement. Time to get up soon.

But it was only a Sunday, he reasoned. And thus he might be forgiven a few more stolen hours of slumber. So he lay back on the pillows.

Church bells clanged at nine o’clock.

Tara heard a knock on her door. She got out of bed and looked through the window. A figure waited outside. Her heart leaped.

In her rush to get downstairs, she forgot that she was naked, so she ran back up to the bedroom and scooped a nightgown from the floor. With her hands shaking with excitement, she went below and opened the door.

“Morning,” Adam smiled, flourishing two tickets in his hand. “Fancy going to a football match?”

There were bands of men on Gardiner Street, Grafton Street, and Upper Pembroke Street. In the soft mist they moved quietly, boots padding along deserted roads, the city their own for this fleeting time. Sunday morning and people would be stirring from sleep, too early yet for Mass, time enough for a bath and a cup of tea.

Time that was running out for some.

Units spread out, fanning across the urban maze, closing in on known addresses.

Alone in a flat on Parnell Square, Michael Collins was watching the clock.

Major Charles Dowling awoke in a bedroom at Number 28, Pembroke Street. He’d heard a loud thump somewhere. For a moment he blinked in sleep-stupor and listened again.

Two wicked thuds erupted from downstairs, the sounds of a door shattering. Dowling pounced from his bed. A woman screamed. He roared through the walls, “Price, Woodcock. Wake up! There’s somebody down there, damn it!”

He grabbed his revolver and stumbled out to the landing, hammering his fist on the bedroom doors. “Wake up, there’s somebody—”

There was a man at the foot of the stairs. Dowling, fumbling in panic, tried to prime his pistol.

A single shot rang out. Dowling was flung against a sideboard and slid to the floor. He gasped, hand clamping on the quick surge of blood that flowed from his chest, but his strength deserted him just as fast. Darkness came in. The last thing he heard was loud voices, stomping feet on the stairs, and a blistering crescendo of gunfire.

Tara poured out two cups of tea and sat at the table. “Football, you said?”

Adam sensed her doubts, and he smiled. “Oh, come on. The tickets were free, courtesy of some overexcited Tipperary man on the train.”

“Gaelic football, I presume? My father used to play it.”

“Did he now?” Adam raised an eyebrow. “You know, you’ve never told me much about your parents before. I can’t remember you even mention them. Are they well?”