A Winter of Spies (9 page)

THERE WEREN'T MANY PEOPLE IN HERBERT PARK
– mainly nurses or nannies wheeling prams and shepherding young children in warm winter clothes. By the duckpond a cross little girl had thrown her doll into the water and was demanding that her nurse get it back. The nurse, a distressed-looking young country girl, seemed baffled.

‘But Emily,' she said, ‘I can't reach it.'

‘Well, go in after it, then,' the little girl demanded. ‘Dolly is cold and wet.'

‘But you shouldn't have thrown her in then, should you?' the nurse asked.

‘That's my business,' the child said.

Sarah thought that Emily herself might benefit from a dip in the cold water. The child couldn't have been more than five or six, but she stood in front of her frightened nurse with the bullying self-confidence of a Black and Tan.

Then little Emily stamped her foot in fury. Sarah,
reminded
of her own foot-stamping moments, felt herself blushing.

They'd parked the car outside the gates of the park and gone in. Sarah was sorry they'd stopped driving. She was still glowing from her excitement, but the glow was
fading
. Hearing this malicious little girl didn't help.

Rory Moore had heard the child as well. He looked around, then crossed over to some trees growing by the path. He snapped a small bare branch from one of them, then went over to Emily and her nurse.

‘Forgive me, ladies,' he said. ‘I couldn't help
overhearing
. May I offer my assistance?'

Little Emily glared at the interruption, but her glare softened when she noticed his accent and saw the expensive-looking motoring clothes.

Moore was wearing knee-high leather boots. When his branch proved too short to reach the sodden doll he stepped carefully down into the pond. The water reached almost to the tops of his boots, but not quite.

‘That water gets deeper in the middle,' Sarah called to him. She'd seen a child fall in there once. Emily, hearing her accent, glared at her. Sarah glared back, then she stuck out her tongue. Little Emily's mouth dropped open, and her face went white. Sarah shook her fist at her. Emily, speechless, cringed back against her nurse, who was watching Moore admiringly and had noticed
nothing
.

Moore's branch snagged the doll's floating clothes and
he pulled it to him. When he held up the dripping toy, the nurse gave an embarrassed laugh.

‘See, Emily,' she said. ‘The nice man has pulled dolly out of the water.'

Little Emily had recovered enough to scowl. ‘I don't want her now,' she said. ‘She's all wet.'

Moore handed the streaming toy to the nurse, who stood holding it uncertainly. ‘Aren't you going to say “thank you”, Emily?' she tried.

Emily folded her little arms. ‘No,' she said.

Moore laughed, dismissing the nurse's blushing
apologies
. ‘Never mind,' he said. ‘She's just having a bad day.' He and Sarah left the nurse and child and walked on. Moore still carried the bare stick.

‘What a spoiled little cow that girl is,' Sarah said. ‘There's no satisfying her.'

‘What would you do with her?' Moore asked, laughing.

‘I'd give her a good kick up the rear end, is what I'd do.'

Moore laughed again. They walked on for a while, chatting. Moore asked about Mrs Breen, and about Sarah's family. He was interested to hear of Jimmy's
adventures
during the Rising.

‘It sounds to me,' he said, ‘as though your brother has inherited some of your father's courage.'

It was hard to think of your brother as brave. Sarah
knew that Jimmy really had shown courage during the Rising. He'd risked his life to get them food. Others, older and wiser than Jimmy, had been killed doing the same thing. But when you found yourself thinking of his
bravery
, and then you looked at him, all you saw was your big brother Jimmy who could be so annoying sometimes. Jimmy himself didn't like anyone saying that he'd been brave during the Rising.

‘I wasn't brave,' he'd say. ‘I was stupid. By the time I
realised
how dangerous it was, it was too late to turn back.'

‘Was Da really so brave?' Sarah asked Moore.

‘At the front sometimes,' Moore said, ‘it took bravery simply not to run away. Some of us thought of our duty to the empire – it was all that kept us there. But your father didn't even have that. All he wanted was to be home with his family. All he wanted was peace.' He looked sideways at Sarah.

‘Which is why I'm so surprised,' he said, ‘to find him in the wars again.'

‘So am I,' Sarah said. She told him how she'd been kept in ignorance about Da's work for Collins.

‘So what made him tell you in the end?' Moore asked casually. Sarah was going to tell him about her adventure with Simon Hughes's gun, but something about the way he was looking at her made her hesitate.

‘It was when I got suspicious of you,' she said instead.
‘He had to tell me then.'

Moore thought about this. It didn't really make sense, Sarah knew, but somehow she didn't like the idea of mentioning Simon and his friends.

‘Your father is mad to get mixed up in all this,' Moore said. ‘These men he mixes with are criminals! Killers!'

‘What does that make the Tans?' Sarah asked tartly.

Moore scowled. ‘If Collins and his cronies hadn't been assaulting the police,' he said, ‘then there would have been no need for the Black and Tans at all.'

‘They're not “assaulting the police”,' Sarah said. ‘They're fighting a war.'

Moore laughed scornfully. ‘A war?' he said. ‘Hiding
behind
hedges on country roads, taking potshots at soldiers and running away? Sneaking up on men in city alleys and shooting them? That's not war! That's anarchy!'

He led the way over to a park bench and sat down. Sarah sat beside him.

‘The British Empire,' Moore said, ‘is the greatest the world has ever known. Michael Collins can't defeat it with a handful of young thugs.'

‘They're not doing a bad job so far,' Sarah said.

‘So far the government hasn't exerted itself.'

‘The government hangs people, Mr Moore. Isn't that “exerting” itself?'

‘It hangs traitors and murderers, and long may it do so.
If I had my way I'd hang them all.'

Sarah thought of Kevin Barry, who'd been hanged only weeks ago. She thought of his thin, serious young face in the pictures that had started circulating even
before
the hanging. Crowds had gathered outside the jail to pray for him, kneeling in the street. People said the British had tortured him for information, but he hadn't broken.

‘Would you hang my Da, Mr Moore?' she asked softly.

Moore had been getting excited by his own words. He looked flustered by Sarah's question.

‘Your father is keeping very bad company,' he said. ‘He's in great danger. The way Fowles feels now, he'd shoot him out of hand.'

‘But Da had nothing to do with that detective getting shot! I'm sure it wasn't even done on orders!'

Moore looked at her very sharply. ‘You know about that shooting, don't you?' he said. ‘You know who did it.'

Sarah said nothing. She realised she'd said too much already.

Moore swore. ‘You really don't see how serious this is,' he said. ‘Fowles is a killer, and he's in the mood to kill someone now. We haven't been here long enough to know the enemies we're fighting. But Fowles does know that your father and uncle are under suspicion. He knows suspicious characters come and go in your house. He has a target for his malice, and it's right next
door to where he lives.'

Sarah felt cold listening to him. Was Da, after all, so
innocent
of all involvement? Oh, he'd had nothing to do with the death of Fowles's uncle, but surely the
information
he carried had led to other deaths.

‘Listen to me carefully, Sarah,' Moore said quietly. ‘When I got back to Ryans' on Sunday Fowles was sitting looking out the window. He had his pistol on the table in front of him. His pistol and a bottle of whiskey. It's a bad sign with Fowles when he drinks. It maddens him. I've seen him do terrible things when he's been drinking, things I wouldn't even repeat to you. That night I asked him why the gun was there. He said he was waiting. I asked what he was waiting for. Do you know what he told me? He said he was waiting to kill someone. I was afraid. I sat with him until we saw the two of you come back. When Fowles saw your father he reached for the pistol. I put my hand on his and stopped him from
picking
it up. “There's a child with him,” I said. It was all I could think of.'

Sarah pictured the scene, the two hands on the pistol. She thought of herself and Da coming home in the rain.

‘Do you know what Fowles said to that, Sarah?' Moore asked.

‘What?'

‘He looked up at me with those cold eyes of his.
“Cromwell had the right attitude to these people,” he said. “He told his soldiers to kill the children as well as the adults. Nits, he said, bred lice.”'

Sarah felt icy. She pictured the look on Fowles's face that night in Sackville Street. She imagined his eyes fixed on herself and Da.

‘Help me, Sarah,' Moore said. ‘Help your father. Tell me who shot Detective Reed.'

Sarah's mind churned. What was Hugh Byrne to her? Let him and Fowles settle this between them. They sounded like they were made for one another. She
pictured
her Da walking home from work some night – maybe tonight. She imagined a shot coming from a
window
, and a bright red fountain of blood spurting from her father's neck. She gritted her teeth.

‘I know nothing,' she said. ‘Nothing at all.'

Moore looked exasperated. ‘For your father's sake,' he pleaded.

‘I can't tell you,' Sarah said, ‘what I don't know.'

Moore still held the branch he'd used to rescue Emily's doll. He'd been idly twitching twigs off it as they talked. Now, angrily, he snapped the branch in two and threw it on the ground. In the distance little Emily herself could be seen stalking along, her nurse walking behind her with the wet doll still dripping in her hand. Moore
nodded
towards them.

‘Look,' he said. ‘That's Ireland: a spoiled child demanding what it can't have. There will be no
independent
Ireland, Sarah. There will only be lonely graves and scaffolds, and men dying by the sides of roads. I can't understand why a sensible man like your father can't see that. If he doesn't see sense, and soon, then one of those graves is going to be his. I'm trying to help him, but he has to help himself. And you have to help him too.'

‘I think I'd like to go home now,' Sarah said. Moore looked at her closely again for a while. Then he nodded.

MOORE DROPPED SARAH OFF IN FRONT OF HER GATE
, saying he had to go into town.

‘You'll think about what I said?' he asked her.

‘How can I help thinking about it?'

‘We have to help your father, Sarah, even if it's in spite of himself.'

Sarah stood halfway out of the motor car, with one foot on the path. ‘Are you asking me to betray my Da, Mr Moore?' she asked him coldly.

‘I'm asking you to help him – whatever that takes.'

Sarah closed the car door and walked up the path without saying goodbye. Behind her she heard the car leave. The drive home had had none of the thrill of the ride to the park. Sarah had kept picturing the scene in Ryans' last night, the two men's hands on Fowles's pistol. She stopped for a moment now and looked up at her neighbours' windows. Was there someone there now, watching? Someone with a pistol in his hand? But all she saw were blank lace curtains.

She knocked at her own door. No-one answered for a
while. Inside she could hear movement. There was something flustered about the sound. Someone was rushing around in there. Something was wrong.

When the door opened Sarah got a fresh surprise. Da was standing there. He ought to be in work still. He looked very serious.

‘Da?' she said, frightened. ‘What's wrong?'

‘Come in,' he said. ‘Quick.'

As she passed him he leaned out, looking up and down the street.

Ma came downstairs as Sarah stood puzzled in the hall. She was carrying a Gladstone bag.

‘Sarah!' she said. ‘What are you doing home from school?'

‘Miss Heffernan sent me home. She thought I was sick.'

‘And are you?'

‘Of course not. But I wasn't pretending or anything. I told her there was nothing wrong with me, honest.'

But Ma didn't seem interested. ‘Get upstairs,' she said. ‘Find a bag and pack a few days' clothes in it. We're going to stay with the Doyles.'

‘Ma, what's happened?'

Da had closed the door. He came over and put his hand on Sarah's shoulder. ‘Sal,' he said, ‘things don't look good. Keane's was raided last night, and this morning in work Mick was arrested.'

Sarah felt as though her blood had frozen. ‘Arrested?' she said. ‘But why? By who? Was there anyone caught in the raid?'

‘Mick was taken in for questioning by the Auxiliaries,' Da said. ‘They didn't give any reason. And no, there was no-one in Keane's except the family. They searched the place, but there's never anything kept there. The
important
thing now is that we have to expect a raid here. I want all of you out – all of you, understand?'

Sarah wanted to object, but something in Da's eyes stopped her. There was a side of Da you didn't argue with, and that side was in control now.

‘I've sent Ella to fetch Jimmy from work,' Da said. ‘I want you all ready to leave.'

‘James,' Ma said, ‘I was just thinking. There won't be room for all of us in Doyles'. Their house is full up as it is. They'll never fit all six of us in.'

‘Maybe Jimmy can stay here with me.'

‘With you?' Ma stared at him as though he were mad. ‘But sure you above all can't stay here,' she said. ‘It's you they'll be after.'

‘I can't just disappear, Lil,' Da said. ‘I have to go to work. And they can prove nothing against me.'

Ma put down the Gladstone bag.

‘Prove?' she said angrily. ‘How often have you said yourself that they can make up any proof they like?'

Sarah had been wondering whether to tell them about her conversation with Moore. ‘Da,' she said. ‘There's something you should know.'

She told them what Moore had said to her in Herbert Park. As she spoke Da's eyes narrowed. ‘My God,' he said. ‘He's trying to turn my own daughter into an
informer
. Are you sure you told him nothing?'

‘Sure. But I don't understand him. He said he'd protect you.'

Da shook his head uncertainly. ‘I don't know what to think,' he said. ‘He may want to protect me, but he's a British agent. He'll have his own ideas about what
protecting
me means.'

‘But my God, James,' Ma said, ‘you saved that man's life!'

‘And the man is a spy. A spy, Lily. Spies are not loyal to people; they can't afford to be.'

Lily Conway slumped back against the wall. She looked as if she were about to burst out crying.

‘I don't ask for much in this world,' she said. ‘I want my husband beside me, my children healthy, and a few bits of food on the table for all of them. It don't seem so very much to ask, it really don't.'

Da went over and put his arms around her. ‘Sure, you have all that, Lil,' he said.

Ma threw his arms off her. ‘Have I?' she asked furiously.
‘Have I, when them animals have my brother? When my daughter and husband have madmen pointing guns out of windows at them? When the Black and Tans might kick in that door any minute?'

She pointed furiously at the closed front door, and she spoke so intensely that for one second Sarah expected it to come crashing in. Don't get carried away, she told
herself
.

But just then, as if on cue, there was a thunderous knocking at the door. Sarah almost jumped out of her shoes.

‘Sacred heart of Jesus,' Ma said. ‘They're here.'

Da pushed her towards the parlour door. ‘Sarah,' he hissed, ‘open up.'

The knocking kept on.

‘But what if it's Tans?' Sarah said.

‘Then don't give them an excuse to kick the door down,' Da said. ‘Open it.'

Sarah went and stood in front of the closed front door. Someone was still pounding on it. She'd heard awful
stories
about raids. She imagined the front steps filled with rifle-bearing Tommies or Tans, just waiting to shoot someone. It didn't occur to her to worry about herself. It was Da's fate she feared for. She must open the door and be as nice as pie, just a sweet little girl trying to be helpful. And maybe, in spite of the furious knocking, it was only
Jimmy or Mr Breen or someone like that, not some thug in a uniform. Sarah rested her hand on the latch and breathed deeply. ‘It's just someone we know,' she told herself. She nearly believed it as she turned the knob.

Then she opened the door and looked out, almost whimpering in sudden terror, at a monstrous face above a dark uniform. Behind her, from the doorway of the
parlour
, she heard her Ma scream.