A Winter of Spies (10 page)

‘MICK!' MA SHRIEKED
. ‘Oh Mick! What have they done to you?'

Sarah had to shake her head and look again at the
figure
on the front step. It was indeed Mick, capless but still wearing his porter's uniform. Mick's face, though, was nearly unrecognisable. It was cut and bruised, smeared with blood, puffed out to nearly twice its normal size. Both eyes were swollen and blackening, and his hair was stiff with dried blood. The coat of his railway porter's
uniform
was torn open, with some of its buttons missing. He nursed one hand under the pit of the other arm.

‘It's not too bad,' he said. His voice was thick and hardly sounded like his own. You could barely make out the words.

Sarah stood frozen in the doorway until Da pulled her aside. He took hold of Mick's shoulders and led him in. Ma ran over and took her brother in her arms. She was crying.

‘Mind your blouse, Lil,' Mick said through his swollen lips. ‘I'm all bloody.'

It was only when Mick was inside that Sarah noticed Simon Hughes standing on the step. His face was hard, his eyes as cold as Hugh Byrne's had ever been. ‘It's not as bad as it looks,' he said to Da. ‘A bad beating, but no worse.'

Da nodded.

‘Your mate Moore rang Vaughan's hotel,' Simon said. ‘He told the porter there that Mick was being released from Beggar's Bush barracks and would need help. I drove down and found him in Haddington Road. Once they'd done with him the Auxies just threw him out in the street. Two coppers found him staggering along and were questioning him.'

‘How did you get him away from them?' Da asked.

Simon had both hands in the pockets of his overcoat. He drew out the right one and gave them a glimpse of his pistol. The sight of its dull metal surface made Sarah's stomach lurch. She'd handled that gun little more than a week ago, and been proud of it. Now the sight of it made her want to get sick.

‘Peter the Painter here,' Simon said, ‘has a way of
persuading
blokes to see reason.'

‘You drew it in broad daylight? Down by the army
barracks
?' Da sounded shocked.

Simon Hughes's face looked even colder. ‘I was in jail with Mick,' he said. ‘He's my chum. They broke his hand,
James. They didn't even ask him any questions. They just beat him. I'm surprised they didn't kill him. He wouldn't be the first.'

Sarah could hear the frustrated fury in Simon's voice.

‘You'd better go,' Da said. ‘Thanks for bringing him, but you'd better go. They might be watching us right now.'

‘It's us that's been doing the watching, James.'

Da looked dubiously up at the lace curtains in Ryans' windows. ‘There might still be someone there,' he said.

Simon Hughes followed his gaze. ‘Let them come out, so,' he said quietly. ‘Let them come out and finish this business now.'

Sarah had never seen Simon like this. He frightened her.

‘Have sense, man,' Da said. ‘That would spoil
everything
. A plan is a plan. Let me get the women and
children
out of here.'

Simon nodded. ‘There's a doctor on the way,' he said. ‘Mahon, from Ballsbridge. He's a friend of the Big
Fellow's
– very respectable.'

‘Good. Jimmy's on his way home. After he gets here I'm getting them all out.'

Simon nodded. He turned to go, and Da went to help Ma bring Mick up the stairs. Sarah stood looking after Simon Hughes. She called out to him. Simon turned, his
hands still in his coat pockets.

‘That call from Moore,' Sarah said. ‘When did he make it?'

‘Why?'

‘Because he just left me home in his car. I met him in Haddington Road nearly an hour ago, and I was with him all the time since.'

Moore had called Vaughan's hotel. The message had got to Simon, and he had had to find a car and drive to find Mick. Sarah realised that all of this couldn't have
happened
in the short time since Moore left her.

Simon looked coolly up at her from the path. ‘He called,' he said, ‘just over an hour ago. He gave a time for Mick's release.'

Sarah felt sick. Moore had known about this all the time, and had said nothing to her.

‘What were you doing with Moore for nearly an hour?' Simon asked.

‘He took me for a drive. We went to Herbert Park.'

‘And he said nothing?'

‘Not about Mick. But, Simon, he tried to get
information
out of me. To help Da in spite of himself, he said.'

‘What kind of information?'

‘He wanted to know who killed that detective, Reed.'

‘I don't suppose you told him, did you?'

Sarah let her glare answer that one. Even people who
scared her didn't get away with things like that.

‘When I met Moore,' she said, ‘he was driving up from Beggars' Bush. From the direction of the barracks.'

Simon thought about that. ‘He phoned from there,' he said. ‘Maybe while they were still beating Mick. A couple of the men who beat him wore hoods to hide their faces. Maybe Moore was one of them.'

Sarah thought of Moore's smooth hands on that
steering
wheel. Simon Hughes came back up the steps. He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. His face relaxed.

‘They won't get away with this, Sal,' he said. ‘And they won't hurt your Da.'

Sarah thought of Mick's terrible face. She thought of what Simon had said: that Mick had been lucky. She felt she was going to cry.

‘They have an army, Simon,' she said. ‘They have all the power. They make the law, then they break it
themselves
, and it don't matter because they own the police as well. And what are youse? A few young fellas with guns. How are you going to protect my Da – can you tell me that?'

Simon's hand fell from her shoulder. ‘Don't fret, Sal,' he said. ‘We have things in hand. Remember that day in the lanes when you took my gun?'

Sarah nodded. She could feel tears of sheer
helplessness
start to form in her eyes.

‘You were as brave as anyone I ever saw that day,' Simon said gently. ‘You didn't let me down. Don't let your Da down now.'

‘Where's Hugh Byrne, Simon? Did Collins get him out of town?' She almost wanted Simon to say no. She'd have felt safer.

‘Hugh's in Wexford,' Simon said. ‘Doing a job. But the rest of us are still here.'

Sarah nodded again. This new Simon was as unafraid as Byrne could ever be.

‘I've things to do now,' Simon said. ‘I'll see you later.'

He walked out to the car. Sarah shut the door behind him. Upstairs she could hear Da and Ma helping Mick to bed. Mick was groaning with the effort. On the lino of the stairs she saw drops of his blood. She went into the kitchen. It was silent but for the ticking of Ma's old clock. Sarah looked at the clock, and her clockwork image of history came back to her. Were all of them trapped, then, in its mechanism?

She thought of the stories Jimmy had told her about a game he'd played using this clock, back in the old days. Jimmy, at Sarah's age, had used the clock as a doorway to another world in his imagination. He'd sit and look at the stopped clock and daydream of adventures in that other world, where the problems of real life were far away. 
Real problems then had seemed as distant to him as they had to Sarah hardly an hour ago, when she'd sped along the roads in Moore's big car. She shivered now even thinking about Moore, wondering whether he'd had a part in Mick's beating. What was his game?

There was another knock on the front door, and Sarah shivered again. These days it seemed trouble was a knock on the door. Then she heard Jimmy's voice.

When I open this door, Sarah thought, I'm a different person. I'm the best and bravest daughter in the world. But as she went to let Jimmy in, she somehow didn't feel very brave. Instead she felt – as so often in the past few days – as if the world she knew had shifted away from her, the clockwork of history had moved her yet again, and she was nearly a stranger in her own life.

BY THE TIME DOCTOR MAHON CAME
Ma had cleaned Mick up and washed his wounds. But there was no disguising his swollen face, and even the doctor flinched when he saw it.

‘And this,' he kept muttering as he examined Mick, ‘is supposed to be law and order.'

He reported in the end that the damage wasn't as bad as it looked – which wasn't saying a lot, as it looked
awful
. There were several ribs broken, as well as three
fingers
of Mick's right hand, and he'd lost a few teeth. Otherwise it was mainly a matter of cuts and bruises.

‘A bad beating,' the doctor told Da, ‘and he'll be sore for days, but there's nothing that can't be fixed. I've taped up the ribs and the hand, and given him something that will make him sleep for a while. The main thing now is rest and quiet. Don't let him move far.'

Jimmy went up to see Mick when the doctor left. Mick tried to make some joke about his appearance, but he
wasn't able to form the words with his swollen lips. When Jimmy came out of the room, Sarah was shocked to see tears in his eyes. Jimmy wasn't a person who showed his emotions much. Instinctively Sarah took his arm and led him down the stairs into the kitchen.

Downstairs Ella was coming and going, filling bags. She was surprisingly calm. ‘She was like that in the Rising too,' Jimmy said. ‘She got things done. Some people are like that – they're terrified when danger is only a threat, but when it comes they're cool as cucumbers.'

Sarah told Jimmy about her meeting with Moore. ‘He knew all along about Mick,' she said. ‘Instead of warning me, he tried to get me to inform. I thought he was going to help us.'

‘Maybe he thinks he is helping,' Jimmy said, but that made no sense at all to Sarah.

‘It's all lies,' she said. ‘I feel like everything anyone tells me is all lies.'

‘That's the way that it works,' Jimmy said. ‘Wheels within wheels.'

They could hear Ma and Da's voices raised upstairs. The voices quietened, but they muttered sternly. Then Ma and Da came down, still arguing. Jimmy and Sarah heard their voices from the hall.

‘You heard the doctor,' Ma said. ‘Mick can't move far. And if he's not going far then I'm not going far either.'

‘Talk sense, woman,' Da said.

‘Sense? Is it sense you've been talking this past year? My house full of killers, my family in danger. How many more times are they to risk losing their father? And for what? For the sake of Ireland? For the sake of “honour”? Well curse Ireland and honour. It's precious little good we ever got from either.'

‘There's things that just have to be done, Lil,' Da said.

Ma snorted a laugh. ‘I've heard that one before,' she said. ‘Well, there's things I have to do too, James, and I'm as set on doing them as anyone.'

The children had heard Ma and Da argue before, but they'd never heard such bitterness in Ma's voice. Jimmy jumped up and went out into the hall.

‘Jimmy,' Da said, ‘get your stuff ready for Ringsend.'

There was a moment's silence, and then – Sarah could hardly believe her ears – Jimmy said: ‘No, Da.'

‘What?' Sarah had never heard her Da sound so shocked. She went out into the hall herself. The other three were just standing there. Ma and Da were both
staring
at Jimmy.

‘I said “No”,' Jimmy said. ‘We're in this together. We should face it together. Send Sarah away if you like.'

‘No!' Sarah said. She was horrified at Jimmy's
suggestion
. ‘We all stay or we all go, but I'm going nowhere on my own. This is my business too. I'm more involved
than you are, Jimmy.'

Da threw up his hands dramatically. ‘My God,' he said. ‘Can a man get no obedience in his own house?'

‘Since when,' Ma asked, ‘did you ever think you were the boss here?'

‘Aye,' Da said. ‘I suppose I knew better than that.
Listen
– what if I ask the Breens to take Mick in? He can make it down the steps, surely. Will youse all go down there if they'll take him?'

‘We can't risk bringing trouble on the Breens,' Ma said.

‘Mrs Breen would be glad to help,' Sarah said. ‘Even if it's only to best the Tans. You know how she hates them.'

Ma hesitated. She knew Sarah was right. And all of this arguing with her own family disturbed her. She was taken aback by the depth of her own anger, and
welcomed
the idea of some compromise.

‘Go down to the basement,' she told Sarah. ‘See if the Breens are home. Tell them James and myself will be down in a few minutes.'

Now Sarah was happy enough to do as she was told. If they tried to send her off to Ringsend, she wouldn't go without a fight, certainly not if neither Ma nor Jimmy went. But Breens' was different. In Breens' she'd be right there if anything happened. She'd know straight away what was going on.

It was as well for Sarah's peace of mind that she didn't
hear an exchange between Jimmy and Da that took place after she went out. Ma had gone upstairs to tell Ella about the new plan. Da was looking at Jimmy with something like respect. ‘You're growing up,' he said to his son.

‘I hope so,' Jimmy said. ‘Da?'

‘What?'

‘Why are you so anxious to get rid of us all?'

‘Are you mad? Because I think the Tans will be coming here.'

‘There's more. There's something you're not telling us. You can fool Sarah, but you can't fool me. You're only one man, Da; you can't protect us from everything.'

Da looked at him carefully. Jimmy had always been clever; he never took things at face value. He was
seventeen
now – boys younger than that were out fighting. But those other boys weren't his children.

‘I can try, Jimmy,' he said. ‘Right or wrong, at least I can try.'