The Blood Upon the Rose (52 page)

In the morning he took a bowl of warm water and a towel down to Catherine. He lit the oil lamp and looked at her. She lay on the sofa, hunched underneath the blankets, her button boots neatly on the concrete floor in front of her. She sat up, cold, grumpy, miserable, and rubbed her chained ankle, which was red with cold.

This was not how he had wanted to treat her, but it was only for a day - she was tough enough to survive that. Anyway, she deserved it. He put the bowl of water on the floor, and asked: ‘Did you sleep well?’

‘That's a damn stupid question. Of course I didn't.’

‘I’m sorry about this. It’s not what I wanted to happen.’

Catherine glared at him. He had an odd, irritating smile on his face. The cold had made her ache all over, right through to her bones. She said: ‘I suppose it’s just an accident then. You chained me up and fired a gun at me by mistake.’

‘I had to. You’ll be free by tonight, perhaps sooner.’

‘Why not free me now?’

‘I’ve got an appointment to keep first. And besides, I care for you. I want to keep us both out of danger.’

She summoned up all her reserves of self-control. Despite his obvious madness, he had to be better company than stone walls. If she continued to insult him, he would just go away and leave her alone for hours and hours in the cold and the dark.

‘Look, Andrew,’ she said. ‘I think I deserve an explanation, don’t you?’ It sounded so reasonable, like a conversation over the supper table. But then look what those had led to, at Killrath. ‘Can’t you at least tell me why all this is happening’'

He sat down on the chest. ‘I could. But you won’t like it.’

‘Please. Please tell me.’

He nodded at the bowl. ‘The water's getting cold. Aren’t you going to wash?’

‘In a minute. Not in front of you.’

Silence. ‘Strange, isn’t it, that you can take all your clothes off in front of me one day, and be ashamed to wash when I’m here, the next.’

The remark frightened her, almost more than anything else that had happened so far. It was the cold, distant way he said it. And the thought that he had a gun, and controlled her food and water, and could force her to wash in front of him, do anything he wanted, if he were mad and determined enough.

She sat and watched him, and said nothing.

He said: ‘I thought we should be married. I still hope we will, when this is over. I shall at least be richer then.’

‘Why richer?’

‘Your father promised me £10,000 to kill Michael Collins.’

‘My father? You
are
mad.’

‘No.’ He was watching her closely. That spirit he so admired was still there, then, unbroken. He hoped, at the end of it, she would be impressed, even understand. ‘I’ve got a document, signed by him, upstairs in a safe. That’s why I’ve got to keep you here. Just until Collins is dead. Later today, I expect.’

‘But what in the world has that got to do with me, Andrew?’

‘You know things about me that might spoil it. About von Hessel, for instance.’

‘Only that you helped arrest him.’

Again that irritating, distant smile. ‘Not exactly. Let me tell you. As you say, you’ve a right to an explanation.’

He told her, simply and clearly, what had happened in Brendan Road, and what he planned to do today. He showed her his gun and the knife he had decided to strap inside his left sleeve, along his forearm so he could draw it swiftly. All the time he watched her, carefully, wondering about the effect his words would have. Searching for the slightest sign that she might care about him.

When he had finished there was a long silence.

She said: ‘You’re a murderer, then.’

‘Call it that if you like. A soldier would be nearer the truth.’

‘That’s what Sean said. They’re going to hang him.’

‘Michael Collins’ll probably do the same to me, if I get this wrong. The world is a cruel place, Catherine.’

‘And you think that if I got out of here, I’d go straight to someone in Sinn Fein and tell them, just so that you’d be killed?’

He nodded. He hadn’t frightened her, he saw. She was angry now, rather than afraid.

‘Well, you’re damn well right, Andrew Butler. I would!’

He stood up. What else could I expect, he thought. But afterwards, what will she say then? He went to the door.

‘That’s what I thought. You have your wash, and I’ll bring your breakfast. Then you can sit here and wish me luck for the rest of the day.’

Sir Jonathan telephoned Killrath at ten o’clock. He was sitting in his office at the Viceregal Lodge, looking out of the window at the deer in Phoenix Park. Some men were spreading hay from a cart under the trees, and the deer were coming out daintily to feed. It was a pleasant sight, which he had enjoyed on more than one morning when he had nothing better to do.

Today, he knew, Andrew would be arriving at the Lambert Hotel to make contact with Collins. Later today or tomorrow he would hear the news. Either a sensational victory, with the main enemy of the state dead in the streets; or Andrew facing a similar fate; or, all too probably, another frustrating failure. With Andrew, he thought, at least that was less likely than with most men.

Certainly the government needed a success, after yesterday’s fiasco at Mountjoy. He remembered the cries of the news vendors last night: ‘Read all about it! Sinn Feiner breaks out of Joy! Daring escape!’ This morning, as his chauffeur drove him in, he had seen a defiant perkiness in the faces on the pavement; he even thought he had heard a man on a street corner singing an instantly manufactured song -
The Ballad of Sean Brennan
, no less. That man Collins makes us all look fools, he thought. It’s insufferable.

God knew what Catherine would do, when she heard. She would read about it in the newspapers this morning. But perhaps, just perhaps, the week at Killrath with Andrew Butler had begun to have the desired effect, and she would not care any more about this wretch Brennan. Sir Jonathan hoped so, but he did not think it likely. He decided to try to speak to his daughter, if he could.

He picked up the telephone and asked the operator to connect him to Killrath House.

The Lambert Hotel still made Paddy Daly nervous. Not nervous because he was afraid of anything that might happen there, but nervous because he felt out of place. The old-fashioned gentility of it, the profusion of potted plants, the frail, overdressed old ladies and gentlemen made him feel clumsy, a big Mick with hobnailed boots who was likely to break something at any moment.

But perhaps that was the attraction of it from the German gunrunner's point of view. No one would think of looking for him here. It showed a sense of discretion which was vital if they were not to be detected, especially after the police had arrested him once.

If he
was
genuine, that is.

Paddy had his doubts about that. Dick Davis’s remarks about the ‘German plot’ had begun to prey on his mind. If I were in British intelligence, he thought, what would I do? I might try and tempt Michael Collins to a meeting, where he could be shot or arrested. Well, the meeting place was all right. He should be able to lead the German there without any detectives following. He knew most of the G men by sight, and over the past year he had become an expert at losing them in the city streets.

There was one other possibility that had occurred to him. Last time, at Brendan Road, he had let Hessel in to meet Collins with two automatic pistols in his bag. Daly had woken up sweating last night, as he realized that those pistols might not only have been loaded
but
intended for use.
He had not thought of that at the time, when he had failed to check. The German had been too convincing. But then he himself had been convincing the other morning, in Mountjoy Prison: he could have shot the governor if he had wanted.

This time, the German was going to meet Collins unarmed and well escorted. Daly had brought along one of his biggest men, Brendan O’Reardan, to make sure of that. The two of them waited uncomfortably in the foyer of the Lambert Hotel.

The manager, a little bald-headed man in half-moon glasses and a pepper-and-salt suit, was dealing with an enquiry from two ladies about a laundry bill. A grey-haired woman, his wife perhaps, emerged from the office behind the counter. She peered at Daly and O'Reardan doubtfully. ‘If it’s a delivery, the door is round the side,’ she said.

Daly took his cap off respectfully. ‘No, missus, we’ve come to see one of your guests. A Count von Hessel, it is.’

She reached past her husband for the registration book. ‘Ah yes. He arrived this morning. Wheatcroft will show you up.’

It was the same room as last time, Daly saw. Count von Hessel stood up as they were shown in. He had a newspaper in his hand, and was dressed, as before, in a well-cut, slightly crumpled English suit. He clicked his heels, bowed, and held out his hand.

‘Mr Daly, you are prompt.’

‘You said there was only today. This is one of my soldiers, Volunteer O’Reardan.’

Andrew bowed again. ‘Mr Collins received my letter?'’

‘He did that. He wants to meet you.’

‘Good. When, and where?’

‘Now. We'll take you.’

‘Right.’ Andrew went to the door and put on his coat.

Kee had been up until three in the morning. He had managed to persuade the military to mount a dozen raids on suspected addresses all over the city, and he had been out on two himself. The night had been full of bright lights, the roaring of engines in sleeping streets, soldiers hammering on doors with rifle butts, little clusters of surly, terrified individuals clinging to each other as their homes were ransacked, the arrests of young men, the banshee screams of their wives or mothers .. .

And no Sean Brennan.

Five of the young men were still waiting in police cells for interrogation. None of them appeared to be anything but minor hangers-on of Sinn Fein. One had had a revolver in his bedroom, one a Lee Enfield beneath the floorboards. All had had some kind of subversive literature. All had been sullen and defiant: all would involve Kee in a great deal of paperwork and interrogation over the next few days. None, he was almost sure, had a connection with anything as important as the murder of Bill Radford.

And if I’m not damned careful, Kee thought, half of them will bloody well escape in the next few days.

His rage against Davis still shook him. After a hurried breakfast, he went to Brunswick Street where he spent twenty minutes on the phone pleading with an army brigadier for an increase in the number of roadblocks and army patrols throughout the day. The soldier said his men were young and tired. Kee thought: Since when has that been an excuse? Two years ago they’d have been woken every dawn by an artillery barrage. He had arranged to have another hundred copies of Brennan's prison photograph printed and distributed by midday, and then wondered which addresses he could ask the army to search tonight.

The trouble was, he didn’t know. Their information just wasn’t good enough. The only people with decent information in this city were the damned Shinners.

He called for Foster, and stormed downstairs to the cells where Davis was kept.

Davis had spent a long, cold, lonely night. He had spent most of it hunched on the corner of his bed furthest from the door, his knees clasped to his chin, shivering. He had lived so long with success he had come to believe himself invincible. He could point the finger at one of his colleagues and the man would die; he could bring Michael Collins right into G Division HQ; he could plant false information that would send soldiers chasing wild geese all over the city. He could set men free from Mountjoy.

And now he had no power at all.

It was the suddenness of the collapse that had shocked him. No hint of suspicion, nothing - just immediate, total arrest. And the contempt in the eyes of Kee and Foster.

He wondered if Collins would try to get him out. They said Collins valued his men above anything - look at what he had done for Brennan. And last year he had travelled over to England to free de Valera from Lincoln Gaol, had spirited thirty over the walls of Mountjoy. But those men were Collins's colleagues in Sinn Fein, in the Volunteer movement itself. Davis had none of the companionship, the sense of working in a team, that they had. Now, even if they got him out, his use as a spy was ended. Would any of them risk their lives for a man they had hardly seen?

The cell door slammed open and Foster burst in. ‘On your feet, traitor!’ he yelled. ‘Stand to attention, damn you!’

When he got up too slowly, Foster wrenched him upright, and a uniformed man came in to snap the handcuffs on behind his back.

‘That’s better. Now, along this corridor - march!’

Davis knew the routine. He had used it himself. Deny your prisoner any chance of autonomy or self-respect, wake him up throughout the night so that he doesn't sleep, break him down with continued, ferocious questioning. He could resist it, he thought. But he had never seen young Foster quite so incensed.

In the interrogation room Kee sat, Davis stood. A uniformed man brought Kee a cup of tea. Kee sipped it, and stared at him.

‘You’re going to hang, Davis,’ Kee said.

‘Why? I haven't killed anyone!’

‘You killed Bill Radford. You put the finger on him.’

‘You can't prove that.’

‘I can. I’ve got a magnetic recording of Brennan saying it. And two witnesses who heard it - plus the prisoner he was speaking to. He’ll testify.’

‘They never said my name. I didn’t kill anyone.’

‘I didn’t kill anyone
, sir!
’ Foster bawled.

Davis glared at the younger officer in disgust, then lowered his eyes. ‘I didn’t kill anyone, sir.’

‘Oh yes, you did,’ Kee said. ‘You’re a nasty, stinking little Judas, Davis. How much did they pay you?’

‘They didn’t pay me anything, sir.’

‘Don’t say you did it for idealism. An independent Ireland for the bog-trotters, ruled by murder. Is that what you want?’

‘Sir.’

‘Listen to me, Davis.’ Kee stood up. He gripped Davis’s ear and jerked it suddenly upwards, so that his head was tilted sideways on his neck. ‘You’ll hang all right, boy, just like that, if I say so. And richly you’d deserve it. But it all depends on the charge, as you know. Now you’re not a stupid man, even if you are a Judas. You know what I want. I want the men who killed my friend Bill Radford, and I’m not going to leave this city until I’ve found them. There were two men in Harcourt Street that night. One of them was Sean Brennan, the man who you helped escape. So what I need is the name of the other man, and an address where I can I find him. You tell me that, and I’ll drop the murder charge and just put you away for the other things. Understand?’