Betrayal (21 page)

‘Mrs. Fraser? Mrs. Mary Ellen Fraser?'

‘She's over here,' shouted someone.

Blakely gave her a generous smile, so kind and understanding she wanted to scream at him to get out of the house.

‘Mrs. Fraser?'

It was one of the waiters. ‘M'am, you're wanted on the telephone.'

‘But … but the line's been disconnected?'

‘Line's been reconnected, m'am. You can take the call in the colonel's study if you wish. I'll show you the way.'

It was 1.13 a.m. Mary hesitated. She wanted to shout, ‘There's a bomb in the house!'

The telephone was warm but the line was dead. Thoughts of Hamish came to her, she wishing he was holding her, but of course he wasn't anywhere near, and when she went into the breakfast nook, he was no longer there, nor in the conservatory.

There was now less than half a minute left. As she ran towards the music to warn everyone, she banged into one of the waiters, heard the telephone ringing again even as it was answered and her name being called out again.

There was a cardboard box tucked against the bottom of a radiator and under a chair in the foyer. Had she not come this way, she would never have seen it.

‘The telephone, Mrs. Fraser.'

The box was heavy. ‘It's all right,' she heard herself saying. ‘Just tell whomever it is that I've left for home.'

Seeing her letting herself out of the house, he called after her, ‘Mrs. Fraser, m'am, he says you're to put the cake in the boot of your motorcar, that it's a present for Caithleen O'Neill.'

The rain beat against the car, the sound of it hammering in her head. Nothing had happened. Somehow she had made it to the car and had driven some distance from the house, only to stop at the side of the road and wait, herself saying, ‘Hamish, forgive me. I did love you, my darling. You've been so good to me and I've been such a fool.'

The road ahead was lit up slightly by the headlamps. The wiper blades made their passes over the windscreen. Looking like the spun grey-blonde of an old woman's hair, the tall grasses along the verge had been beaten down.

Glancing at her watch, Mary leaned forward so that the faint glow from the dash would help, then switched on the overhead Hamish had yet to disconnect.

It was 1.57 a.m. and nothing had happened. Slowly, as in some horrible dream, she opened the box and took out the bundles, each of six sticks but there were no wires, no clock timer, no fuse, just the gelignite that was wrapped in stiffened, waxed brown paper, the bundles bound by electrician's black tape.

Nolan could so easily have blown them all to pieces. It was just a ‘present' for Caithleen and yet another lesson for herself.

When her head began to fiercely ache, she rolled down the side windscreen, drank in the fresh air, but still sat with the bundles on the seat beside her not knowing what she was going to do.

How had the second caller known she'd found the box? The man who had answered the telephone must have told him.

In spite of the smell, which was like no other, she tucked one of the bundles under the front seat, pushing it well back of the wiper rags and tools Hamish had there. Then she closed the lid of the box and, turning the car around, drove slowly back to the house, trying desperately to clear her head of the fumes and to think, not panic.

Jimmy was standing in the rain with a torch and for a moment she didn't know what to say to him, just wanted to run and wait for the bullet to hit her between the shoulders. He had that look about him.

‘Jimmy, I've found a bomb. I'm sorry I couldn't tell anyone about it, but the caller didn't give me much time. The only thing is, it didn't go off when it should have. There are no fuses, no wires, no timer. Just some sticks of explosive.'

‘Why you?'

‘Caithleen, I suppose. He did say it was a present for her.'

‘And you took it where?'

‘Down the road a piece.'

‘You stupid, stupid woman. You could have been blown to bits!'

That instant told her much. Jimmy wasn't just interested in her but desperately in love. She saw it in the anger not just at her but at himself, in the way he yanked the box from her, in the defeat as he held it, the hope she'd understand how he felt and why it was hurting him.

‘Say nothing of this,' he all but shouted, angered by her lack of response. ‘Let the colonel and his wife enjoy themselves. He'll know soon enough.'

‘Will you help me to get Hamish home when the time comes?'

Had it been a particle of yielding on her part? ‘Yes. Yes, of course, I'd be glad to.'

Had she crossed a watershed? wondered Mary, struck by the thought, for now she couldn't tell him of the sticks she'd hidden, could tell no one of them, certainly not Nolan. But … but Jimmy wouldn't want to make too much of the incident, not when he'd been in charge of security, so at least that was something. She'd best leave the side windscreen rolled down the half, though, as if she'd forgotten all about it.

The tea was hot and sweet, and she took it in the Bannermans' kitchen not knowing really how long she had been sitting here. The cooks had left plates of sandwiches. The major had set an egg salad in front of her. There were two oatmeal biscuits as well but she knew she mustn't eat a thing.

She was very frightened and vulnerable, thought Trant. Jimmy had been slack—damned bad form for a man as good as he was. She had had two telephone calls, she'd said, but neither of them had been before she'd begun to hunt for that bomb, and why in God's name had the IRA not chosen to set the bloody thing off? To simply place a dozen sticks of gelignite in a cardboard box and throw the fear of the Lord into them didn't really make much sense, but he would have to leave all that for now. She had clearly been through enough. ‘You ought, really, to get a medal for what you did. There are just a few questions I'd like to ask, but we can go over them another time.'

He set the favours on the table beside her sandwich, two brightly wrapped packages she couldn't have cared less about. Silly things, pathetic things, by the look she gave. ‘Haven't they found Hamish yet?' she asked.

‘Now just rest easy. The doctor will be found.'

Dead?
she seemed to silently ask, but then she ducked away to the cup and saucer in her lap. Wishing he could pursue things, Trant knew it wouldn't be right of him and that he would just have to wait.

Somehow Mary finished the tea. The two Wrens came in to put the kettles on, so the party must be winding down. ‘Major, what time is it?' she asked, knowing her voice must sound empty.

‘Just after zero three hundred hours. Why not let me have one of the men drive you home? The doctor can then pick up the car when he's feeling better.'

And not drunk, was that it? ‘I'm really all right, thanks. If I could just sit here quietly, I'd appreciate it.'

Jimmy and the major had kept the bomb to themselves. The Wrens looked as if they had had a smashing time. Both were bright-eyed, tussle-haired girls in their early twenties. After all, it was a young person's war and one had to take one's fun whenever the opportunity arose.

Trant went off to see about something and when one of the corporals who had been on sentry duty came to fetch her, she got up without a murmur. Jimmy would want her to see the condition he'd found Hamish in, but had Fay Darcy and the others hurt him or had he simply clutched that bottle by the neck as he'd stumbled blindly away to fall flat on his face among the cowpats?

Behind the topiary and the fishponds there were more of the rose arbours, and beyond them some walls, the kitchen gardens, the orchard and Mrs. Bannerman's potting shed.

Jimmy was waiting for them. There was another man with him, the two standing in the darkness beneath one of the trees.
Trant?
she wondered, the strong cider smell of the apples reminding her of their own orchard.

The corporal switched off his torch, Jimmy wanting it this way.

‘Mary, it's not what you think.'

Mary
! as if that sort of familiarity could ever have existed. ‘Captain, I don't understand? Look, I've had enough for one night. What the hell do you mean: It's not what I think?'

Someone swung the beam of a torch over the potting shed. The door had been broken open, the panes of glass in its top half having shattered. Splintered wood lay about the lock but nobody in creation ever bothered to lock up a potting shed. The door had been kicked in by the flat of someone's shoe.

‘He's dead,' said Allanby. ‘Mary, I'm so …'

‘Corporal Monaghan, see to Mrs. Fraser,' snapped Trant.

It
was
him. She felt the corporal grip her by an arm, threw him off and pushed past Jimmy, hitting the door with a shoulder as she stumbled inside, her voice rising … ‘Hamish? Darling, it's me. I … Oh God, no, Hamish! No!'

He was lying face down on the pebbly floor among the shattered remains of several flowerpots. A litter of earth, bulbs and baskets lay about him. His shoes were caked with mud and one of them had come off and was next to his head. The tweed trousers were wet through and yes, he still clutched a bottle by the neck. Gin on top of Scotch and wine. Gin!

Everything inside of her collapsed. There was blood on the back of Hamish's head and when she touched it, her fingers were not warmed but left cold and sticky. ‘Hamish … Hamish, what happened?' She had never seen him like this. Never!

Allanby took her by the shoulders to lift her away from the corpse but she threw him off and shrieked, ‘Leave me alone!'

Trant crouched to lay three fingers against the doctor's neck. They all could hear the snores as he looked up, first to herself and then to Jimmy.

‘I … Damn it, Major, I thought he was dead.'

He had hoped it true. Trant must have left them with a snort of disgust, for all Jimmy said was, ‘Come on, then. Let's take him home. Corporal Monaghan …'

‘SOR?'

Jimmy leapt. ‘God damn you, Corporal! Don't you dare SOR me again or I'll have you up on a charge. Now get this man into the backseat of his car and be quick about it! I'll take Mrs. Fraser in mine and follow you.'

There was no thought of bathing Hamish's head or of making him comfortable, just that of disgusting old drunk who, by the stench, had urinated in his trousers.

In the late afternoon of the following day pools of water gave mirror images to the branches and the tall grasses that had, last night along the road, looked so like an old woman's hair.

Mary hadn't slept. Hamish had a concussion—Dr. Connor had come out from Armagh; a few days in bed had been insisted on. Caithleen was looking after the patient, and if not the girl, then Mrs. Haney and Bridget, the house having gone to the medicinal quietude of a mortuary, the rain coming down so much, standing at the windows of her own bedroom or in any of the others—Hamish's most particularly—had done no good.

‘One of us has to apologize,' she had said after Dr. Connor had gone. ‘It might just as well be me.'

Hamish had shown no signs of wanting drink and that, too, hadn't been right, for an alcoholic is driven to swill it for days on end. ‘
Och
, lass,' he had said, ‘I feel so ashamed of m'self, I could gladly fit the noose and pull the drop lever.'

He'd been watching her for signs of sympathy; she'd answered tartly, ‘You behaved abominably. I ought to hate you for it.'

‘Take th' colonel's signpost back. I canna rest knowing I've stolen it.'

‘And six silver teaspoons. Would you have pawned them in Armagh on your next visit?' she had asked.

‘There's th' half-pound of pipe tobacco, too, and six Havanas, no matter th' shortages, lass,' he'd said, implying the colonel had a black-market source for both items. ‘Did you enjoy yourself?'

‘Some,' she had answered gruffly.

‘Lass, I've heard whispers of a bomb. Say it was na true.'

She had wished he'd not used that brogue. His head had been bandaged—he'd no memory of what had happened. A complete blank, he'd said. He had been sitting up in that acorn bed of his, two books open in his lap, several others lying about and the newspapers scattered. There'd been a well-fed fire in the grate, and Robbie looking sorrowfully up at her from under his hand.

‘There was a bomb. I gave it to Jimmy.'

‘Did you? That was good of you. I'm grateful. I dare say we all are.'

Mrs. Haney would have told him what had happened, and if not her, then Bridget. News travelled so fast. One couldn't keep a thing secret from the Irish. Not a thing. Not for long.

Suddenly she realized that she was sitting in the car at the side of the road opposite to where she had sat last night with that bomb, her mind going over everything. Trant would be bound to ask questions she'd have to answer. He'd be worried about the two telephone calls, would know that the lines had been down earlier and that she must have had a prior warning.

Try as she did, no answers would come and she started off again to turn in at the colonel's and face the music for Hamish. Just how she would unload everything she didn't know. The truth perhaps, but would Dotty Bannerman understand?

Of course not, though the colonel would have been told of the bomb and the woman ought rightly to be grateful.

The colonel's adjutant met her at the door, one look being enough. ‘What's happened?' she asked, handing him the lead sign on its ramrod post.

‘Colonel and Mrs. Bannerman's sons were both killed in action, Mrs. Fraser. Was there something …'

‘Killed? But I thought …'

‘A bloody awful mix-up, I'm afraid. Colonel tried to send off a cable of congratulations and got back the truth.'

The rain came down, she awakening to it. ‘I'm so sorry. Please tell them both how sorry Hamish and I am.'

‘Was there anything else?'