A Winter of Spies (12 page)

‘GO OUT,' DA SAID
, ‘and open the back door a bit.'

Sarah did it without asking questions, but she couldn't help asking them in her mind. Was she letting someone out, or in?

When she opened the back door Sarah stood for a
moment
looking out into the dark garden. She thought she saw some movement, but it might just have been
something
blowing in the breeze. In a far-off yard a tomcat yowled. A church bell tolled the hour. Sarah shivered and went back into the kitchen. Everything there had been thrown about except the heavy table. Mrs Breen's basket lay on the floor, the food from it mashed into the ground by heavy boots.

When she looked at the mantelpiece Sarah almost cried out. She knew now where the bullet from the shot they'd heard had gone.

Ma's old clock was shattered. There was a hole in its face and the two hands were at mad angles. Springs and cogs and wheels spilled out in a tangled, broken heap. Sarah stared at it, overcome with thoughts too mixed up
to follow. Like the broken clockwork itself, they were too knotted up to unravel.

Da had taken the bottle of whiskey from the kitchen cupboard where it was kept. He uncorked it and poured half a tumbler full. That was a big drink. Da sat at the
table
. The night was cool, but there was sweat on his
forehead
. Sarah tore her eyes away from the gutted clock and sat opposite him. Da took a deep drink of the whiskey, then put the glass on the table.

‘Judas sold Jesus,' he said, ‘and that was a sin. But what if someone had sold Judas first? Would that have been a sin as well?'

Theology wasn't Sarah's strong point. ‘If it would,' she said, ‘then it would have been a smaller one.'

Da's grin had no humour. ‘I see it's not just Jimmy who's growing up,' he said. ‘That's an answer worthy of a priest.'

‘Should I shut the front door?' Sarah asked.

Da's shook his head wearily. ‘Don't bother,' he said.

‘What are we waiting for, Da?'

‘Not what,' Da said. ‘Who.'

He'd say no more. After a couple of minutes he didn't need to. Someone came running up the outside steps and pushed the front door open. There were footsteps in the hall. Rory Moore appeared in the doorway. He came across the room and stood at the table.

‘James!' he said. ‘I thought he might have shot you! Are you all right?'

‘I am. I told him what he wanted to know.'

‘Which was?'

‘Who killed Reed, and where to find him. A safe house on the canal.'

Sarah went cold. Her Da had just claimed to be an
informer
. He'd told Fowles the very thing she'd avoided telling Moore. Da had betrayed Hugh Byrne.

But then she had to think again. Simon Hughes had said that Hugh Byrne was in Wexford …

‘Thank God, James,' Moore said. ‘You've seen sense!'

Da growled at him. ‘Sense? He wrecked my home. He threatened to kill my wife and children. He nearly killed her brother. What was I supposed to do?'

Moore pulled up a chair that the Auxies had
overturned
. He set it upright and sat down.

‘Will you offer me a drink?' he asked, seeing the
whiskey
.

Da stood up silently and fetched another glass. He put it on the table in front of Moore. Then he sat and pushed the whiskey bottle over. Moore poured himself a drink. He hadn't even glanced at Sarah since coming in. His
narrowed
eyes were fixed on Da. Looking at the tanned face now, Sarah felt that Moore was trying to hide a
tremendous
excitement.

‘You must see that this is the only way,' Moore said. ‘You've done the right thing.'

‘It's only a question,' Da said, ‘of who kills me, really. When Collins finds out –'

‘No!' Moore interrupted. ‘I'll protect you – at least I'll try. But you've certainly ruined yourself with the rebels. What we must do now is persuade the authorities of your importance. Then they'll make it their business to see that you're safe. Why, you must know everything about
Collins's
organisation! You must know names, places … my God, man, you can put Collins himself on the spot! Apart from anything else that would be worth a lot of money, I know. You can make yourself a great asset, and don't think the authorities won't be suitably grateful!'

Sarah's stomach lurched as Moore spoke. She watched him grow more excited, his attempts to hide it
weakening
. He's almost drooling, she thought, at the prospect of having my Da as an informer. Then it hit her like a great weight. It's Collins he wants, she realised. That's what he's wanted all along. The Big Fellow.

As Moore spoke, Da's head was sinking lower and lower. His hand gripped tighter and tighter on the glass of whiskey. Suddenly the tumbler shattered.

Moore jumped in his seat. Sarah gave a little squeak of shock. Shards of glass and dribbles of whiskey covered the table. Da held up his hand. It was wet with spirits.
Blood began to flow from a dozen little cuts.

Da looked at his hand, then he looked at Moore.

‘You owe me your life,' he said.

Something in Da's voice alarmed Rory Moore. He stared at Da, then at the bleeding hand. At last he looked at Sarah. There was puzzlement and surprise in the look.

‘You owe me your life,' Da said again. ‘And this is how you pay the debt.' He didn't sound angry. Instead he sounded sadder than any human being Sarah had ever heard.

‘Sure you can't expect much from a desperate man,' a new voice said. It was a pleasant voice, with a Cork
accent
. Sarah and Moore both whirled to look. A tall man in a dark suit stood in the kitchen doorway. He held a
light-coloured
hat in his hand, and with the other hand he pushed his dark brown hair back from his broad
forehead
. The man was smiling. It was Michael Collins.

THE CHANGE THAT CAME OVER RORY MOORE
was very
sudden
. He froze in his chair. His face grew pale beneath his tan.

‘Mr Collins,' he said. ‘I've just been telling James here –'

Collins held a hand up to silence him. Moore stopped speaking.

Collins looked around the room. ‘Someone's been having quite a hooley here,' he said. He looked back at Moore, who was watching him the way a rabbit might watch a snake.

Moore's lips seemed to be dry. The tip of his tongue licked them. ‘Fowles was here,' he said to Collins, ‘with a lorryload of Auxiliaries.'

‘Ah yes,' Collins said. ‘The terrible Mr Fowles, who was recalled from Egypt for his excesses. I checked that, you know. I have my sources. But you guessed that much.'

‘You'll know his reputation then,' Moore began. ‘He …'

But again Collins cut him off. ‘Please,' Collins said. ‘Don't think me more stupid than I am.' He looked at Sarah and gave her a little smile. ‘Did you ever think,
Sarah,' he said, ‘that Fowles was very pale for a man who'd spent years in Egypt under a hot sun? Not like Mr Moore here, with his tanned skin.'

When he turned again to Moore his voice was harsh. ‘That man's name is Murray,' Collins said. ‘He was never in Egypt in his life. He's a police inspector from the
Midlands
that Dublin Castle brought here to do intelligence work. Fowles is the name that you had him use here – the same name you used yourself in Egypt.'

Moore seemed to relax a little. ‘He played the part well, though,' he said to Collins. ‘You must admit that. He should have been an actor.'

‘He was, in a way,' Collins said. He picked up the
bottle
of whiskey and absent-mindedly looked at the label, then put it back on the table. ‘You heard that James here was suspected of being a courier for me,' he said. ‘And you thought you might turn him to your advantage. Who'd suspect a man whose life he'd saved? A British
officer's
honour would never let him betray someone he owed his life to, would it now?'

Sarah's stomach felt suddenly hollow. She heard what Collins was implying. It was the point her own suspicions had been leading to, but it couldn't be true. Of all of the lies and betrayals she'd discovered, that would be the most truly monstrous. She looked at Da, but he hadn't looked up from the table since Collins had come in. Then
she looked over at Moore. No-one could be such a
monster
of deceit as Collins was suggesting. But Moore wasn't denying it.

‘You'd get close to James,' Collins said. ‘You'd use Fowles as a bogeyman to frighten him. You'd put
pressure
on his family. You'd stage a false raid. You'd beat his brother-in-law. You'd take him and break him and then, Mr Moore, you'd use him to put me on the spot. And after that? After I was captured or dead? What would happen to James then?'

‘I never thought that far ahead,' Moore said mildly.

‘Didn't you? I suppose it would be the usual – discard him, or even shoot him. My God, man, I've heard you speak of honour. I'm surprised the word didn't choke you.' His eyes glinted as he spoke. He looked very calm and very dangerous.

Moore shrugged. ‘I'm a servant of the Crown,' he said. ‘One does what is necessary.' He raised his glass and drained the whiskey from it. ‘I suppose,' he said casually, ‘that I'm a dead man.'

‘What do you think?' Collins said. ‘This is a war, and you are a spy.'

‘War?' Moore said scornfully. ‘You people don't know what war is! You ask James here – he's seen real war. This is a little local skirmish, a police action.'

‘Tell that,' Collins said, ‘to the maimed. Tell it to the
mothers who've watched your men kill their children.'

‘Don't our soldiers have mothers, then? Even Black and Tans have parents, Mr Collins.'

‘But we don't raid their homes in the middle of the night. We don't murder a father or a young brother
because
the man we want isn't there. We don't burn the roof over their heads.'

Moore was impatient. He shrugged. ‘Please,' he said. ‘What you're describing is the history of the human race. You know we could do far worse. It might be kinder in the long run if we did. Concentration camps worked well enough in South Africa.'

‘Unless you were imprisoned in one. But the world is watching you closely in Ireland, Mr Moore. And your masters are afraid of that. They don't want their deeds to be seen. That's a sure sign that those deeds are shameful.'

The word ‘shameful' seemed to sting Moore. ‘I had four brothers,' he said. ‘They all died in the Great War. Eight cousins – all gone the same way except one who's still in a madhouse. Dozens of friends. Hundreds of
acquaintances
. But we were army people, the officer class. The backbone of the empire. We did what needed to be done, and suffered what had to be suffered. And we didn't whinge. And do you know why? Because it was our place. That's what's happening with you Irish, Mr Collins, you and the Indians and the Egyptians and the
rest: you're forgetting your place.'

The very phrase made Sarah angry. Forgetting their place, indeed! But Michael Collins actually smiled.

‘On the contrary, Mr Moore,' he said. ‘I think, in a small way, we're starting to remember it.'

He gave a little call. Martin Ford and Simon Hughes came into the kitchen from the back room. Moore looked at them scornfully.

‘A fine army you have,' he said to Collins. ‘Murderers all.'

‘Murderers?' Collins said. ‘That always puzzles me, you know. Why is it murder when we do it, and not when you do it?'

Moore gave a contemptuous smile. ‘Because,' he said, ‘we are the law.'

‘And that makes it all right, does it? The betrayals, the killings, the burnings?'

‘Yes, Mr Collins, it does make it all right. We are
working
for the greater good.'

Sarah thought of young Annie O'Neill, shot in a
gateway
as she stood minding her own business.

‘What about Annie O'Neill?' she burst out in spite of herself. ‘How did her dying help the greater good?'

Moore looked at her as though seeing her for the first time. ‘Who?' he said.

And that was precisely the problem, Sarah realised.
The Annie O'Neills of this world meant nothing to a man like Moore. To himself he was the backbone of the
empire
, however low his actions. The Annie O'Neills – and the Sarah Conways too – were just dirt. Her own father was just dirt to the Rory Moores of the world. A piece of dirt might save your life, but that didn't mean that you owed it anything. It was something to be ignored, used or discarded as the occasion arose. It had nothing to do with being British or Irish or anything else. It had to do with people who could think of other people as dirt. And there were people like that everywhere.

‘Excuse me, gents,' Martin Ford said. ‘But it's time to go. I'll need your gun, Mr Moore.'

Moore looked at this other piece of dirt. ‘I don't carry a gun when I'm at home,' he said haughtily.

Martin Ford gave a little sigh. ‘You're not at home now, Mr Moore,' he said almost gently. ‘You're not at home at all.'

Moore stood up and looked at Michael Collins. ‘At least we'll get your man Byrne,' he said. ‘Or is poor young Fowles to be murdered too?'

‘Oh no,' Collins said. ‘That would be wasteful.' He gave a thin smile. ‘Hugh Byrne,' he said, ‘left the city this morning.'

‘Hugh?' Moore said. He stared at Da. ‘You told Fowles that his name was Christopher,' he said.

Collins looked towards the doorway through which the others had come. ‘Eddie?' he said.

The slim figure of the man Sarah knew as Fowles
appeared
in the doorway. He caught Sarah's eye. ‘Hello again,' he said.

If Sarah was shocked then Rory Moore was staggered. His calm disappeared. He seemed about to fall over, and caught the edge of the table to support himself. Michael Collins looked at him and smiled.

‘He's one of yours,' Moore whispered disbelievingly. ‘You knew from the start!'

‘He's one of mine,' Collins said. ‘And ye brought him up to Dublin to help your Intelligence Department.' He shook his head and gave a little laugh. ‘How you people hold on to an empire,' he said, ‘is a constant wonder to me.'

Moore recovered. He looked around the room, and his eyes were filled with disgust and hate. ‘Come on,' he snapped at Martin Ford. ‘Let's get this over with.'

Ford nodded to Simon. They led Moore out. He didn't look at anyone, or say any goodbyes. He'd entered the house in excitement; he left it as a bitter and a beaten man.

Fowles followed the other three out. He didn't look back. A motor car started up outside. In the kitchen there was silence. Da was still looking at the table and his hand
was still bleeding. He spoke for the first time.

‘If he'd only left us alone,' he said, ‘none of this would have happened.'

‘It wouldn't have happened to you,' Collins said. ‘But it would have happened to someone else. As for what's happening to Moore, that would have happened sooner or later anyway. Sooner, if that's any comfort to you.'

He poured a drink into Moore's empty glass and sipped it.

‘Fowles and Moore are going to raid the address you gave,' he said. ‘There'll be a shoot-out. Captain Moore will be fatally injured. Fowles will report to his superiors that the gunman, Christopher Byrne, got away. You'd discovered his whereabouts by accident. You're not
involved
with us, and you were glad to give information to save your skin. Moore wasn't reporting on this to his bosses. He wanted the glory of catching me himself. And the reward, of course.'

He drained the glass and put it on the table.

‘It's over, James,' he said.

At last Da raised his eyes from the table. He looked at Collins.

‘Is it, Mick?' he said. ‘There's more where he came from.'

‘He's not the first. No doubt he won't be the last. But we have plans for their Intelligence section.'

Sarah was shocked to see tears in Da's eyes. ‘I knew that man, Mick,' he said. ‘He was never a friend, but I knew him. I risked my life with him many a time, and aye, I risked my life for him that one time. We were in the trenches together. We watched our men die in ways that would make you sick just to hear about. I thought
something
better would come of that war. I thought men would be so disgusted by it that something better would have to come. But the dirt just gets dirtier, Mick, and the innocent gets hurted like they never did in the trenches. At least there it was soldier to soldier. Moore made me choose between him and my family. That's not a choice.'

‘No,' Collins said. ‘It's not. You did what he made you do, no more.'

‘Then why do I feel so dirty?'

Collins put his hat on. His face was very serious. ‘I've no answer to that, James,' he said. ‘Except to say that it speaks well of you. Do you think Moore would feel dirty after he'd destroyed you?'

‘No,' Da said. ‘I don't.' But he didn't sound like that made him feel any better.

Collins looked at them both. Da looked back down at the table.

‘Look after your father,' Collins said gently to Sarah. ‘He's a good man.' Then he turned and walked out.