When Shadows Fall (11 page)

Bowen & Associates was a modest law firm but under Hunter Bowen’s careful stewardship it had acquired a distinguished reputation, built a list of faithful clients, and was on the panel of solicitors employed by Dublin Corporation, the local government authority for Dublin City. With an ever-increasing volume of work, Duncan had had to lease office space nearby to accommodate the four associates, while he, Allister, and a secretary named Lydia worked in Hunter Bowen’s original offices on Lower Baggot Street.

Adam was directed to start on the first Monday of the month. It was a short walk from his flat on Leeson Street, perhaps a tram ride in wet weather, but this morning the air was crisp and clear, and he took the opportunity to break in his new balmoral leather shoes. Duncan specified an eight o’clock start at the latest. It was currently quarter to, and so he savoured his last carefree walk before his brothers inducted him into their world of tracts and briefs and court dates and contracts.

At the corner of Fitzwilliam Street he almost collided with a pedestrian hurrying in the opposite direction. Adam was about to offer a few choice words when he was bumped again, this time by a woman. She was followed by a young couple, moving diligently with their heads down so that they didn’t even notice him. Several other people were crossing the street ahead.

Then he heard shouts.

From around the corner of the nearest building, male voices interposed crudely upon the morning’s peace. As he came closer he saw a military vehicle, a Crossley Tender, parked on the footpath. A squad of soldiers carrying Lee-Enfields converged around a wooden cart. The cart was harnessed to a single, unhappy donkey; the even unhappier driver, who was barefoot and looked about ten, stood with his hands thrust into his pockets, gazing up at the hostile faces of the soldiers. They had dumped the cart’s load of firewood upon the road.

“Bullshit!” A lanky, acne-scarred sergeant with a Welsh accent was the loudest in the group. He glared down on the driver and bared his teeth. “Think me softheaded, lad? Is that it? Eh?”

The boy adjusted the tweed cap on his head. “No, sir. I didn’t.”

The sergeant undid his holster and took out a revolver, pointing the muzzle at the boy’s head. “I’m running out of patience. Where are the rifles?”

“Honest, sir. I know nothing of it. I’d only be dropping this firewood to the factories, a shilling a bag it fetches.”

“I don’t give a poxed curse what it fetches, you little shit. You had rifles in this cart earlier. You were seen. Now where are they?”

The youngster’s lip quivered. His eyes went hopelessly to each face in turn.

“Ahoy, there.” Adam, following the exchange, sidled up. He spoke casually but masked his unease, the boy’s lost expression making him picture Timmy Hannigan. “A small misunderstanding, have we?” He smiled at the sergeant, who turned and stared murderously at him.

“What the hell? What the hell do you think you’re—”

“Relax,” Adam gestured for him to calm. “I’m a law man myself. Bowen and Associates. What have you got?”

The sergeant studied him a moment. He lowered his voice. “We had reports of illegal weapons in transit on Adelaide Road. This box matches the description of one of the vehicles involved.”

Adam cast his eyes over the sorry-looking cart and chortled. “This worm-ridden thing? You hardly think so, Sergeant. Look at that poor fellow, he hasn’t cut his toenails in about six months.”

“So?”

“So he doesn’t quite look the fit of a gunrunner, does he?”

“He looks like crafty IRA scum, that’s what he looks like. Hey!” The sergeant jerked his revolver at the boy. “Stop edging away, you swine, and start talking. I should hand you over to the peelers and let them knock the sauce out of you.”

“I haven’t done nothing.” There was desperation in the youngster’s eyes as he looked at Adam. “Please, can I not just be on my way?” The donkey snorted nervously in the commotion and the boy went to calm it.

“I said don’t move! How dare you turn your back on me, you—” The sergeant grabbed the youngster’s collar and yanked him back. The boy tripped and fell on the road.

“No need for that.” Adam frowned, but before he could intervene the sergeant swung the revolver like a club and cracked it across the boy’s skull.

“Filth! I’ll teach you,” he roared and would have gone further had Adam not suddenly grasped his wrist.

“I said that’s enough.” Adam maintained his hold, unable to resist the anger that came in a quick, hot flood. The more he looked, the more the boy reminded him of a younger Timmy.

The sergeant’s eyes widened with stunned indignation. Before he could get any words out, a dozen rifles snickered into readiness.

“Let him go, Paddy,” warned the nearest soldier, gesturing with his gun. “Now.”

Adam did as told and stepped back. The sergeant shook himself, shuddering with outrage. He holstered his pistol. “Private Hutton!”

“Sir.” A big, barrel-chested youth presented himself, a rifle clutched in his paws.

“Private Hutton, address this man, please.”

“Yes, sir.” Hutton advanced.

“Now, hold on.” Adam braced himself. “Can’t we just—”

Acting with a speed that belied his huge size, Hutton turned the rifle round and rammed the butt into Adam’s stomach. Adam doubled over, wheezing as a burst of agony ripped through his belly. Before he could straighten, Hutton drove his knee upwards and smashed it into his nose. Adam was flung back and fell heavily on the ground.

“How’d you like that, Paddy?” the sergeant hissed. “Stay on the deck, scum, if you’ve got any sense.”

Adam couldn’t get up even if he’d wanted to. His eyes swam with tears from the impact of the private’s knee, enough to blind him, and blood leaked from his nose into his mouth. He spluttered for air and tried to rise, but the pain in his stomach was a searing hot ball, as though his innards had been viciously twisted. He fell back again and gagged. They laughed.

“Back on the truck,” the sergeant bellowed, and one by one the soldiers clambered into the transport. “Grab the pup, let’s see what the coppers will make of him.”

Adam was left alone on the footpath. A few startled onlookers eventually offered assistance, and he groaned as he struggled to his feet. They’d take that boy some place and probably beat the tar out of him. The boy who looked like Timmy. Once again, Adam hadn’t been able to help.

“No problem, folks, I’m fine.” He gave them a weak smile. “Just young lads having fun.”

It took him some time to hobble as far as the office, and he was out of breath when he arrived. A young woman answered the door. Her hands flew to her mouth in horror; Duncan came rushing out at her shrieks.

“Lydia, what the devil is wrong with—Jesus Christ! Adam?” He gaped at the panting, bloodied figure in the doorway. “What the hell happened to you?”

Adam’s first day at Bowen & Associates proved to be something of a nonevent. Lydia the secretary was in tears at his appearance. Allister, fastidious as always, turned green in the cheeks and promptly disappeared.

“Perhaps, er,” Duncan mumbled in embarrassment, “you might be able to tidy yourself up a dash. Need a hanky?”

Adam peered down at his rumpled shirt. “Blood stains don’t shift with hankies, I’ve learned.”

“Er, yes. I understand. Well, let’s see if we can get you settled in.”

They had allotted Adam an office on the second floor, near Duncan’s own office. It usually served as a storeroom for files and boxes, but they managed to squeeze in a small teak desk.

“It will do you for now,” Duncan said. He wiped his brow from the effort of heaving the desk. “We’ll come up with a better solution in due course.”

Adam was just able to lower himself into the chair crammed between the desk and the wall. “A bit snug, isn’t it?”

“Quiet now, you’re lucky to have an office of your own. Allister’s isn’t that much bigger than this one, you know.”

“I’d imagine Allister doesn’t share his office with brooms and wash pails.”

“I’ve got some reading for you to do. To brush up and all that. It will give you an idea of what exactly we do here at Bowen’s. Tell me, do you remember much of what you learned at Trinity?”

“Loads of it,” Adam lied.

“Splendid. That’s a good start. You’ll pick up the rest on the job, and of course you’ll return to the curriculum once you’re ready.”

“Sounds ideal.”

By midmorning he was dozing, with a stack of legal volumes and case studies wobbling dangerously by his elbow. It was lunchtime when Duncan stuck his head in the door. He frowned.

“Oh, Christ. You’re a sorry state, Adam. Tell you what,” he checked his watch, “you should knock off early. Go home, get cleaned up. Tomorrow will be a fresh start.”

Adam was glad of the opportunity to escape the stuffy room. “Nice idea, brother. I’ll be off.” He levered himself out of the chair and reached for his coat.

“Oh, and Adam,” Duncan murmured as he left, “try to avoid street brawling with soldiers on your way to work in the morning.”

At home he stripped off his shirt and left it to soak in a tub of hot soapy water before heading back up along St. Stephen’s Green to sit awhile on a bench and watch Dublin flurry about. Two students from nearby Trinity College were debating with arrogant animation, wagging fingers at each other, fresh-cheeked young men looking barely above nineteen. As they squabbled over things like heuristics and contractarianism and liberal monarchies, an unshaven drunk asleep on the grass eventually sat up, spat, and roared at them, “That wasn’t Rousseau, you prissy little virgins! That was John Locke, seventeenth century!”

Chastened, they gathered up their books and hurried off.

By midafternoon Adam had the moody rumblings of an appetite building in his stomach, notwithstanding the pummel it had taken from the big private. He got up and strolled as far as Dawson Street, then took a turn into Duke Street, before stopping into Davy Byrne’s, the old haunt of James Joyce. Despite a modest facade, the pub had a pleasing interior, plenty of warmth and wood polish. He sat at the long bar and ordered a sandwich of mustard and tongue, washed down with a pint of Guinness. The last of the lunchtime trade was filtering out. Two dapper gentlemen in suits and scarves of peacock blue were smoking in a corner, on scotch and Apollinaris, while another two in salt-encrusted jerseys and stinking of brine sat at the bar, slurping out of bowls of giblet soup. At the far end a group of younger men lounged about a table, laughing, boasting, exchanging horse tips.

Adam had a second pint of Guinness. He found that his face no longer throbbed, and the food and stout settled nicely in his belly. He could have chased the beer with another, and easily so, but no. He had squandered far too many days in England through drunkenness.

“There you go, sir.” The landlord slid a glass of whiskey across to him. Adam stared at it.

“Did I order that? I was just about to leave.”

“’Tis all right, sir. ’Tis paid for.”

“Oh?” Adam turned his eyes warily up the bar. None met his.

“Lieutenant Bowen, sir?”

He heard his former title spoken and a hand clasped his shoulder. For an instant, the briefest instant, he saw crumbling trenches, cratered fields. He shut his eyes, opened them again, and turned in the stool.

A young man was grinning at him, nervously clutching a tartan cap. “Aha. I thought it was yourself I recognised. It’s me. Don’t you remember?”

Adam blinked. “Jesus, I do. Colum Rourke?”

“It is.” Rourke beamed through his freckled face. “Sure I saw you and I says I have to buy the lieutenant a drink.” Colum Rourke had been one of the privates under Adam’s command in France—the one who reported Timmy’s last desperate flight.

“Jesus, I do remember.” Adam laughed. “Damn it, good to see you, Rourke. You’re living about?”

“I am. Working in a bakery over on Sackville Street. So how are you, Lieutenant? Cripes, what happened to your face?”

“It’s fine. And no more ranks please, Rourke. I’m a civilian now.”

“Like us all. Glad to see you survived in the end. We never knew what happened to you after the scrap at Villers-Bretonneux.”

“They sent me back to Brighton. A messy business. Yes, I survived, but a messy business.”