The Delaney Woman (12 page)

Tom stood, pulled out his wallet and left several large bills on the table. “Shall we go?” he asked.

Kellie nodded. Head down, she preceded him out of the restaurant and turned toward the car park.

“She's sleeping,” Tom said conversationally, his hand under her arm. “She won't know we're there, but we'll see her.”

He opened the passenger door for her, closed it and climbed into the driver's seat.

“Where is your mother staying?” she asked.

“Near the Ormeau Road with her sister.” He pulled out into the flow of traffic.

The car park of the Royal Victoria Hospital was filled. “You go in,” Kellie said. “I'll find a spot and join you. If not, I'll wait at the front entrance.”

His eyebrows rose. “You're not coming in?”

“If I can manage it,” she said gently. “Go now. Spend some time with your daughter.”

He looked at her. Then he smiled. “I won't be long.”

“Take your time.”

She found a spot near the back of the car park away from the light. Turning off the engine, she leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes. Tom Whelan was a complicated man, thoughtful and reserved, obviously intelligent, even attractive in the lean, ropy, sharp-cheeked way of Irish men who were all planes and angles and ice-flecked blue eyes that took up the color of the sea around them.

At first she'd disregarded the core of him, her mind on what she was to do. But the frozen part of her had thawed and her natural curiosity had eventually prevailed. He was different, unpretentious, not motivated by material possessions. It was difficult to reconcile the man she knew with the reports in the news clippings. She wanted to ask him who the real Tom Whelan was and what had lured him to the dark side of the law, in his youth. She wanted to ask him if Austin Groves was nothing more than a man who'd ordered a set of pipes. But something held her back, something she couldn't quite put her finger on.

And there was more. In the asking she would have to reveal parts of herself. Self-disclosure was the price one paid for another's revelations. It would mean she was finished here. If she was sure of anything, it was that she wasn't ready to leave Banburren. And there was Heather to consider.

Heather
. Her feelings for the little girl defied description. They were frightening feelings, even dangerous ones, for a woman who'd given her heart away once already. Kellie knew she should pull back, protect herself from the inevitable hurt. And yet, it was impossible not to love such a child, a baby still, but with pockets of wisdom that made one believe in
old souls
and lives lived more than once.

The passenger door opened. Startled, she sat motionless while a man in a dark jacket climbed in beside her. “Dennis wants to see you.”

She wet her lips. “When?”

“Tonight at ten. I'll pick you up outside your room.”

Kellie nodded.

“Don't make me go in after you.”

“No,” she said, after he had climbed out of the car and disappeared into the night.

It seemed no more than a minute later when Tom knocked on the window. She opened the door. “How is she?”

“Sleeping soundly.” His eyes moved over her face. “You're tired. I'll drive.”

Kellie climbed out of the car without arguing and sat down in the passenger seat. “When will she come home?” she asked.

“Possibly the day after tomorrow.” He rubbed his day-old beard. “I haven't felt this gamy since Long Kesh.”

He spoke of his prison time easily, as if he were comfortable with it. “Were you on the hunger strikes?” she asked.

He grinned and her stomach tightened. “The strikes were in the eighties, Kellie. I'm not old enough for that.”

“How old are you?”

He appeared to consider her question. “What if we work something out?”

Instantly she was on the alert. “How do you mean?”

“For every question I answer, you'll answer one for me.”

“No.” Her response was instant, automatic.

“Why not? What do you have to lose? If you don't feel like answering, you don't have to ask the next question.”

Surely she could turn this to her advantage. “All right, then, you go first.”

“What's your middle name?”

She smiled. He was warming her up, starting out with the harmless questions. “Maureen.”

He nodded. “Your turn.”

“Where is your poetry published?”

“In obscure journals that no one reads.”

“Where specifically?”

“Not fair. Only one question at a time. It's my turn again.” He waited this time before forming the words. “Who was it that passed away?”

Because she was ready for it, it wasn't as bad as she'd expected it to be. She drew a deep breath. “They didn't
pass away
, Tom. My brother and nephew were murdered, nearly four months ago.”

He frowned. “I didn't realize it was so recent. Why—”

“It's my turn,” she said. The words came out unexpectedly from somewhere deep inside of her. “When did you know you were no longer in love with Claire?”

He was silent for a long time.

“You don't have to answer if you don't want to,” she reminded him. “Those are your rules.”

“It has nothing to do with what I want. I just can't remember. I don't think it happened all at once. It was gradual. I cared less and less until there was nothing left.”

“I see.”

They were nearly at the Stranmillis Guest House. He looked sideways at her. “Do you?”

“Is that your question?”

“No. I'd like to know if your coming to Banburren had to do with your brother's death.”

“It did.”

She saw his hands tighten on the wheel.

She looked away. Outside the guest house was a parked car, inconspicuous in its make and model, but the man seated inside was recognizable enough. Kellie's heart pounded. It was only nine o'clock. Would he stop her here in front of Tom, or would he wait until she was alone? There was no point in avoiding him. Sooner or later he would find a way.

S
he was nervous. He could see it in her refusal to meet his eyes and in the shaky, breathless tone of her voice. He thought back to when her mood had changed but couldn't pinpoint a moment. He knew she'd been comfortable in the restaurant but the hours before, when his mind was filled with Heather, when the terror of not knowing whether his child would live or die had consumed him completely, were a blur.

His child. His and Claire's
. Tom was ready to examine his feelings for his wife. At the time, when his daughter's life hung suspended, his rage was at a peak. Now? He turned the question over in his mind, thought of the person Heather was and decided that anger wasn't the emotion he should be feeling. Without Claire he wouldn't have Heather. Without her he wouldn't have had the pleasure of raising a child, the shared conversation and meals, walking her to school, buying her clothes, looking over her schoolwork or sharing a run with Lexi on country roads. He'd been given the privilege of experiencing everything that made a child a person, everything that Claire would never have. Claire was to be pitied. The rest of it— what he should do with a marriage that had long since run its course, he didn't know yet. Perhaps that would come later. He was sure of only one thing. It was long past time for him to face Claire again.

Meanwhile, there was Kellie and the worry in her eyes. Somewhere, in the last weeks, his feelings for her had grown. Where they were going he wasn't sure, but on the important issues he was clear. She loved his child and she had deep reserves of compassion. In her recent past she had suffered a life-altering trauma. The circumstances of her subsequent actions intrigued him to the extent that he spent a considerable portion of his morning hours thinking about the various possibilities for her flight from Oxford to Banburren.

He emptied his pockets on the nightstand, keeping her in his peripheral vision. They had never been confined to one room before. She seemed at odds, unable to settle in. He was feeling awkward himself. “Perhaps you'd like to go out for a magazine or a book?” he suggested.

She jumped at the escape. “I would. I'm not ready to sleep yet, not after the nap.”

He handed her the keys. “Take these, in case you need the car.”

“I think I'll walk. The shops are still open and we're close enough. I could use the exercise.”

Tom headed for the bathroom, relieved and at the same time disappointed that she was leaving. There was something about sharing a loo with a woman. It was deeply personal, the running of water, damp towels hung over the heater, jars and bottles, womanly things cluttering the basin, the flushing of a toilet, intimacies the two of them did not share.

It occurred to him for the first time that he would not have minded sharing such things, that after seven years of independence he felt the stirrings of need for a woman in his life. The part of him that he'd rigidly suppressed after consciously pushing Claire out of his heart and mind, the sexual flame that, at an earlier time, had been all he could think about when he had a beautiful young wife had, once again, in the presence of this new woman, slowly risen to the surface. Quite simply, he wanted her. Whoever she was and whatever she wanted from him he would be willing to put aside for an hour's pleasure, for that sweet slide into liquid heat, the satisfaction of pleasure given and gained, the momentary sensation, however fleeting, of belonging.

He leaned over the sink, stared at himself in the mirror and grimaced. He was not yet forty and he looked haggard as hell. Even at his best he had no right to a woman like Kellie, educated and lovely. Under normal circumstances they would never have met. Until Kate had married James, he had never even known a woman who'd gone beyond secondary school and there were few enough of those. The direction of his thoughts was absurd. He would be better served the sooner she left. And yet the very idea of it shook him. What was happening to him?

Head bent against the cold, Kellie walked briskly down the empty street, grateful that her escape was so easily accomplished. The car was gone but she had no doubt, now that she was alone, that her contact would find her.

Sure enough, a car she would not have recognized again pulled up beside her. The door opened. “Get in,” the driver ordered.

Kellie climbed in, adjusted the seat belt and stared straight ahead, saying nothing. Oddly enough she wasn't afraid for her life. It was easy enough to murder a person. If someone wanted her gone, she would be.

He drove quickly, competently, negotiating the jumble of one-way streets that was Belfast, crossing the Ormeau Road into the west side of the city. He turned down the Kashmir Road and stopped at a large gray structure set apart. A light glowed in the window. For the first time since his original command, the man spoke. “This won't be long.” Kellie followed him into a shabby sitting room. He took a position near the door.

A fire burned in the grate and a man approaching his middle years, blond and balding, smiled thinly and held out his hand.

Dennis McGarrety looked very much the same. She touched his fingers just long enough and then pulled her hand away. “Hello. It's been a very long time, Mr. McGarrety.”

“So, you do remember?”

“Of course.” She looked around. “Things don't change much here, do they?”

His smile hardened. “Not all of us have the benefit of a fancy English education.”

“Mine came from right here in Belfast. You know that, I'm sure.”

“How is your mother, Kellie?”

“I haven't spoken to my mother in some time. I would have thought you knew that as well.”

“She would want to see you.”

“What do you want with me? I left this place behind.”

He waved her to a chair with a floral print and high back. “Sit down. What do you take in your tea?”

Kellie sat. “Milk, please.”

He handed her a mug of milky tea. “If you'd left this behind, as you say, you wouldn't be here. We have no interest in making you uncomfortable.”

“Why am I here?”

McGarrety sat down and leaned forward. “We have certain loyalties, contracts that are necessary to keep.”

“Is Tom Whelan one of those contracts?”

“Tom left us long ago. We are interested in him for only one reason.”

“I don't understand.”

“We haven't brought you here to understand,” he said, a subtle reminder of who was in charge. “We ask the questions and if it is in our best interests to share information with you we will.”

Kellie heard the incredible words. Her mind leaped to the obvious conclusion and it terrified her. For the first time, the vulnerability of her position was glaringly evident. She wet her lips. “What do you want?”

“Go home, Kellie. Forget Tom Whelan and whatever it is that has brought you here.”

“You know perfectly well what brought me. Connor and his son are dead. I want to know why.”

“Do you really imagine you can find out on your own?”

“I don't know,” she replied honestly. “But I'm not giving up yet.”

“Not even if you endanger Tom Whelan and his child?”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Connor represented British Intelligence. Whelan spent his life resisting British occupation of his country.”

“That was long ago.”

“There are those with long memories. Go home, Kellie. Go back to England.”

Her throat was raw, on fire. She swallowed. Her mind reeled. She felt sick to her stomach. Everything was intensified; the nerve endings beneath her skin, the clock ticking on the wall, the moisture beading on the bridge of her nose, the pulsing blood in her throat. Dennis McGarrety was, at one time, the brigade leader of the Belfast Irish Republican Army, an organization so tightly run and so incestuous it was nearly impossible to infiltrate. Her father and brothers had trusted him, lived their lives by his dictums. It had destroyed them. Was Connor one of their victims? There was no other way but to ask. “Did you have my brother killed?”

He stared at her, a man aging too quickly, a man who would never retire quietly by the sea with his wife and his books and his grandchildren beside him. His end was foretold in destiny. “I know something about you, Kellie Delaney,” he said softly. “You're from a Nationalist family and you have our sympathies. You know that believing in something strongly requires personal sacrifice. Countries do not gain their independence if men and women will not risk everything they have. Connor gave his life for his country. He knew the risks. Content yourself with that”

“Are you saying my brother cooperated with you?” She was aghast. Connor Delaney an IRA sympathizer? “I don't believe it.”

“Connor Delaney was not IRA. He was removed because he stood in the way of a man who will change the course of history in Northern Ireland.”

Her eyes were wide, horror filled. “Tell me why you killed him.”

McGarrety didn't answer. His silence condemned him. Kellie's hands clenched.

One more question. She needed just one more question answered and then she would ask no more. “Was Tom Whelan involved in Connor's death?”

“No,” said McGarrety. “Go home before it's too late.”

Kellie's hands shook. She laced her fingers together. “Heather Whelan is ill. She needs me. I need more time.”

“Every day you stay endangers Tom Whelan and his daughter that much more. Don't lose sight of that.”

Tom was sleeping when she returned. Breathing a silent
thank you
, she tiptoed across the floor into the bathroom and closed the door. She didn't have the energy to lie, not tonight. Shedding her clothes, she pulled on a nightgown, splashed water on her face and brushed her teeth. Then she turned off the light and felt her way to the unoccupied single bed. Gratefully, she crawled beneath the covers and closed her eyes.

Two hours later she was still awake. Visions of her childhood faded in and out of her consciousness, her mother hanging the washing on lines attached to rusted supports; her brothers kicking a sorry-looking ball on a patch of insignificant grass, a park by the standards of West Belfast; vacant-eyed women wrapped in blankets smoking on the stairs; buildings with knocked-out windows; streets with broken pavement; the sick acrid smell of tear gas, pipe bombs and fear, always the fear that one's sleep would be interrupted by men breaking down the door and tearing apart the house.

There were other memories as well, all the more confusing because they weren't entirely negative. Her mother turning off the telly to help her study, waiting dinner because a bus was late, counting coppers from the jar to pay for music lessons, denying herself meat so that her children might have enough. Kellie felt the sting of remorse. Mary Delaney was a product of time and place. She couldn't help her circumstances. Somehow, before she left the city, she would find a way to see her mother.

Tom's voice pierced the darkness. “Kellie, are you awake?”

She considered feigning sleep and decided against it. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“It's been a difficult day.” She shifted to her side. “What about you?”

He was silent for a long time. Just when she thought he'd drifted off, he spoke. “That, too, but there's something else there as well.”

“What is it?”

“Something I haven't felt in a long time.”

She said nothing, waiting, knowing somehow what was coming, as if all the time in between had been a slow dance, complicated in its execution, but every step plotted and choreographed to this inevitable moment. She heard the rustle of the bedcovers as he left his bed, heard the whisper of his feet on the carpeted floor, felt the mattress give as he sat down beside her, saw his eyes in the dark move over her face. His hand cupped her cheek and she closed her eyes. Did she want this? Yes, she decided. She'd always wanted it, from the moment she began to live again.

What was it about the comfort of a man's hands on a woman's bare skin, of his mouth on the curve of her throat and the dip of her waist, the long, slow primal climb of desire from an idea in the back of her mind to the pit of her stomach, spreading until her entire body opened, stretched, pleaded for the feel of hard muscle, warm skin and the slick, turgid length of him between her thighs, separating the folds of skin, entering the most intimate part of her? In the end it always came to this.

Her arms separated and wrapped around him, urging him closer. Her hands slid down the leanness of his hips, cupping his backside, pulling him deep inside. She found his rhythm, matched his movements, felt the perspiration on his forehead, the curve of his back.

She wanted to see him, to see his face, to pierce the darkness. “Look at me,” she said. “Look at my face. Who are you making love to?”

Bracing himself on his arms, he looked down at her. “To you, Kellie. To Kellie Delaney of Andersonstown.” He moved faster, his thrusts deeper, harder.

She had to ask, to be sure. “Is it me that you want?”

He froze, arms outstretched, hair falling across his forehead, eyes narrowed, intense.

She waited, heart in her mouth.

“You're all I've ever wanted.”

“You don't know me.”

“I know you,” he said fiercely. “Make no mistake about that.”

Her hands tightened on his shoulders. “Don't stop,” she pleaded. “Please, don't stop.”

A small, triumphant sound left his throat. Lowering himself, he stretched out on top of the slender softness of her, giving what he'd thought was no longer possible for him.

He woke late the following morning, pleasantly sore and sated. She was gone. He kicked aside the sheets and walked into the bathroom. Her toothbrush and toiletries were still on the shelf along with a note. He read it and relaxed. She'd gone to pick up a few things she couldn't find in Banburren. He pulled aside the window curtain; saw the car parked on the street. She couldn't have gone far.