When Shadows Fall (8 page)

“What is it? Chained to the desk, are you?”

“Not quite.”

“All right, then.” Philip grinned. “You behave yourself. Don’t do anyone I wouldn’t do.”

When his boss was gone, James put on his coat and took a moment to appraise himself in the mirror. Then, closing the door behind him, he went downstairs, found the door he wanted, and knocked once. Without waiting for an answer he strode in.

“Ah, here you are.” God, but she was even more beautiful than he had first realised—big blue eyes and light skin, neatly framed by silken blond hair that came just to her cheekbones. “I just thought I’d pay a little social call. You don’t mind?”

Tara stared at him in surprise. “Mister . . . ”

“Detective, actually. Bryant. But call me James.”

“Mister—er, Detective Bryant, I was just about to close the office. My supervisor has already gone home. Was there something urgent you needed?”

“There’s a delightful little place over on Leeson Street where they’re selling 1900 Bordeaux by the glass. Excellent vintage. You’ll join me? As they say, all work and no play.”

She didn’t answer but turned her eyes down to her paperwork. “I’m afraid I’m not in the mood for socialising right now, Detective Bryant, but if there’s anything you need in the stationery line, then I’ll be happy to oblige before I go home.”

“Oh, come now.” He perched himself on the edge of her desk. “You don’t have to drink the wine. How about a coffee? And I know for a fact that they do heavenly lemon soufflés.”

“I said no, Detective. Now if you really don’t need anything else . . . ”

She wasn’t warming to his overtures, he realised with some alarm, for they usually did. Indeed, she looked thoroughly miserable. “I say, I didn’t mean any offence. Just trying to be friendly. You look like you could do with a friend at the moment.”

She glanced at him. “What?”

“I mean, you don’t look so full of the joys of life. Anything I can help you with?”

She shook her head slowly. “You don’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“No. It’s personal, I don’t want to—”

“I can handle it. I’m a detective, my dear. I’ve got pretty big shoulders to cry upon.”

Brief encouragement showed in her eyes. “So you’re really a detective?”

“Are you in need of one?”

“I-I don’t know.”

He stood up. “Come on. Get your coat and close up this place. It’s only a five-minute walk. Let’s see if we can’t lift these burdens and put a smile back on that splendid face of yours.”

Perhaps it was the warmth of the tavern, the mellowing effect of its pastels and shades, or the blond perfection of the man sitting across from her, but Tara found herself doing what she would never normally do—pouring out her heart to a complete stranger. And it was surprisingly liberating. Since arriving in Dublin, she hadn’t breathed a word of her past to anyone. She had hidden it all far away, deep down inside. Tonight, for the first time ever, a painful weight was lifting.

James listened attentively, having dropped the ready quips and flirtatious smiles. Now his face mirrored his genuine concern. There was a glass of wine each in front of them, barely touched.

“An awful story.” He shook his head. “Truly awful. To have lost your entire family in one go—it doesn’t bear thinking of.”

She dabbed her eyes and took a sip from the glass. “One gets up. One goes on.”

“Yes. But there’s something you should probably know, Tara. This Mulligan fellow, the man you say murdered your family, well, he was involved in an incident last Friday night. So my sources report.”

“Oh?”

“He was found on a roadside with a serious gunshot wound. We don’t know who was behind it. He managed to survive, however.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I mean, I heard you speaking earlier. In the kitchen.”

“Oh dear, my apologies. I didn’t mean you to find out like that. His local henchmen looked after him that night and spirited him away, but we’ll smoke him out, I can assure you. And deal with him too.”

“Then I hope you’ll do a better job than I did,” she murmured.

“What’s that?”

“How is your aim with a gun, Detective? Mine is not so great.”

He frowned. “You have me on the back foot, I’m afraid. I don’t understand your meaning.”

“You were wrong to assume that it was a man who shot Larry Mulligan.”
Why am I telling a policeman this
, she thought in alarm. And yet the urge to was overwhelming. James was the first person she had ever felt ready to confide in.

He stared at her. After a long moment, her words hit home. “Oh. Good God. I see.”

She wiped her eyes again and forced a smile. “Aren’t you going to arrest me?”

“Am I—goodness. Arrest you—I—not quite. Though I’m a little shocked, I must admit. I
am
a policeman, after all.”

“And I’m a criminal.”

He sighed. “You’re a victim. I’ll say that much.”

“I’ll be a dead victim soon enough, once Mulligan is fit to come after me.”

“Certainly not.” James shook his head. “I wouldn’t let that happen. I’ll put a stop to old Larry’s gallop.”

“How?”

“Tara, there are dark elements at work on this island. They’ve reemerged out of the hills and bogs where they began, and Larry Mulligan is typical of the ilk. That’s why I’m here, and my colleagues.”

“The Larry Mulligans have always been here, Detective Bryant. I know my country.”

“And so do I. There are two Irelands. There is the loyal, industrious Ireland, and there is the shadowy, ill-bent Ireland. But we’re here to help. And we’ll defeat the Larry Mulligans, too. It’s a fact. Every last one of them will end up in gaol or facing down a firing squad.”

“I’m not looking to put men in front of firing squads, Detective. Certainly not my own countrymen. Only Mulligan, and anyone else who would make war on innocents.”

“The Irish rebels are all the same, Tara. They’ll destroy this country, drag it back down into the swamps of its own history. We’ve seen it all over the empire.” He paused to take a swallow of wine. “God, but I’m famished. Have you eaten?”

She realised she was starving. “No, not much. But I’ll cook when I’m home.”

“Well, if you’re interested, they do a delightful minestrone here, and their steak is probably the best in Dublin.”

The sound of it made the juices run in her mouth. She smiled. “Dear me, Detective, I think my rumbling tummy has just answered for itself.”

“Excellent.” He patted her hand in appreciation. “I’ll put the orders in, and then we can talk some more. And, Tara, I really do need to learn a little more about you and Mulligan. As I said, I want to help.”

Tara was relieved to find that her earlier disquiet was easing. “There is something, actually.”

“Yes?”

She hesitated. “Something I overheard when I was waiting for him outside the pub. They’re planning a raid. You should probably hear all about it.”

The packet ship steamed into Kingstown on a gentle tide. Ahead, Adam could see a seaside promenade and granite piers and a church steeple. The wind tousled his hair and he breathed in deeply. His first sight of Ireland in what seemed like a lifetime.

Union Jacks fluttered on strings of bunting arranged on the dock, for he wasn’t the only soldier returning home. Anxious parents and wives and excited children gathered quayside. Adam cared little.

Months of recovery in the hospital at Brighton had blighted his mind almost as badly as the war had done. The wards were forever stuffed to the brim with half-mad men, groaning in throes of physical and mental agony, the air rank with their sweat and soiled bedsheets, and no end to their cursing, fighting, and wailing. At night, just as he finally fell asleep, there would be a roar and he’d awake to see a figure charging down the ward, attacking an imaginary enemy as three or four nurses tried to pin him down. The youngster next to him would periodically jerk back and forth in his bed, arms working furiously, trying to pull loose a bayonet that he had jabbed in the chest of a German. His face white with panic, he used to plead with Adam, “Help me, please. I can’t get it out!” Adam would roll on his other side and shut his eyes, desperate for the release of oblivion.

They kept him for several months while his limbs mended and his sight returned to normal, and but for a few hidden scars, he could now lean on the ship’s rail and appear as though he’d never seen a gun in his life. It was a past worth turning his back on, and Dublin waited for him beyond the shoreline, calm and soft and familiar.

Courtesy of the British government he’d been given a civilian suit, a few months’ wages, and his medals, in acknowledgement of his services to the Crown. He was wearing the clothes now—white shirt and grey flannel jacket and trousers, black shoes grimy with deck water. The bundle of money was in his back pocket, a little lighter for having caroused his way round London for several weeks until they fixed him a passage home. And the medals . . .

He groped in his pocket and fished them out. The British War Medal, the Victory Medal, and the Silver War Badge, inscribed with
Georgivs V Britt : Omn : Rex Et Ind : Imp :
—George V, King of all the British Isles and Emperor of India. They’d proved useful trinkets in London when trying to impress fawning women or win a free drink, but that was also the past, and he had want of them no more. Turning to the rail, he hurled them high over the waves. Three separate splashes and they sank beneath the waters of Dublin Bay.

Once docked, the soldiers filed one by one off a gangplank and were embraced on the quay. Adam said goodbyes to a few, shook hands, clapped backs—sure, we’ll definitely meet up for a pint soon and all that. Then he strode alone up a set of stone steps, passed a bandstand on the pier, and headed for the village. He was thirsty, and a decent pint of stout might help him establish what on earth he was supposed to do now. Aye, and perhaps a second one to keep it company.

“Adam!”

He stopped and twisted round.

A man hurried over the boardwalk, pink-faced with exertion. He was middle-aged, tall and thin with finely crimped hair. When he reached Adam he doubled over and wheezed for breath. “Goodness, my lad. What a devil you were to find!”

Adam finally recognised him. “Quentin? Where the hell did you come from?”

The man straightened up, still panting, and smiled. “Come now, lad, you didn’t think I’d miss my stepson’s return from the war, did you?”

“But how did you know?”

“Oh, it wasn’t easy, I assure you,” Quentin chuckled. “I’ve had a contact in London the past few months, scouring the records for your name. We finally pinned you down to Brighton, and then after to London. I received a telegram only last week to say the War Office was putting you on a packet to Dublin on the seventeenth. And so here I am.” He erupted into another fit of coughing.

“Calm down there, Quentin.” Adam grinned and took his arm. “You’re all right? It’s good to see you.” He’d always liked his stepfather. An Englishman and a professor at Trinity College, Quentin Aubrey had married Adam’s mother ten years before.

“Your mother,” Quentin recovered his breath, “will want to see you. I was told to take the motorcar here and fetch you back to Dalkey.”

“Mother’s still giving the orders then, is she?” Adam smiled without enthusiasm. “Nothing’s changed.”

“Now, Adam, she loves you. She’s only seen you a handful of times in five years, and she misses her son.”

Adam glanced towards the dockside taverns a little farther on. He’d planned on returning home, of course, but . . . “It’s just that I wasn’t quite ready to go yet.”

Quentin saw the direction of his gaze, and he shook his head in alarm. “Oh, dear me, no! You know she wouldn’t like that. You must arrive home sober.”

“I wasn’t planning on getting drunk. Just a little something to rinse out the sea salt.”

“I promised I’d have you home by afternoon.” Quentin pouted unhappily.

“An hour, that’s all. I promise. Tell you what,” Adam clasped his shoulder, “I’ll even let you buy the war hero a drink.”