Allegiance: A Dublin Novella (8 page)

“William,” she said, then stopped.

“Aye, lass?”

She looked up at him, hesitant. “If…if you
—
”

Adam came through the arch and walked between them, plucking his abandoned apple core off the barrel as he passed. “Mornin’, Mary,” he said, pinching her on the cheek, and grinned at them both before moving on.

Mary watched him go, his coins jingling in his pockets, David and Andy chattering behind him. She turned back to William, and her eyes had gone pale in the morning light.

“Look after him, William,” she said, and hurried up the stairs in their wake.

10.

February 16, 1922

The oil lamp burned low on the dresser, but William had long since stopped tracking the time. He sat on the floor with his legs curled beneath him, leaning on one elbow across the bed that served double duty as his writing desk. His briefcase lay open next to its hiding place, its contents spread across the red gingham quilt. The pencil in William’s hand was crimped with several rows of small, neat teeth marks; his head rested in his palm, forefinger twirling a strand of hair in a slow, constant loop as he tapped the pencil against his front teeth in concentration.

He had been revising his write-up for hours. No detail was left out, no matter how small – every scrap of information he had gathered over the past month arranged into one precise, well-ordered report, all his stolen knowledge laid out and notated until no gap or loophole remained. Considering the short span of time, it was without a doubt the best piece of work William had ever produced; and yet his pencil continued to move, long after the house had gone silent around him and the cold came creeping through the black square of the window.

It would be time soon to think of a good exit story.

Perhaps his sister could be ill – that was always a reliable option. His unknown situation could somehow be cleared back home, or even better, some new threat could arise which would demand his immediate return. Specifics were not necessary, really, only something that would grant him an honorable escape.

Of course, with the assignment being so far from Glasgow, William did have the option of simply disappearing. This was not an idea he fancied at all. As much as he had tried to steel himself against it, he had made the fundamental error of becoming too comfortable, both in his new environment and with the people in it. He would miss Gerald, and Mary, and even Andy and the other lads; it was an unfortunate mistake, but there was no help for it now. The best course of action would be to make the break as quick and clean as possible, and the sooner the better. If he got this report right, that break would come very soon indeed. William chewed his bottom lip, thinking, and scribbled a few more lines into the margin of his paper.

They were all mistaken – it was no crime to be anti-Treaty. Even if it were, that would be up to the Irish government to deal with, not William’s superiors. The Crown did not rule Ireland anymore; surely the MI5 only wanted to ensure there would be no more violence against innocent civilians. That was why William had been assigned here – because he knew what kind of toll pointless violence took.

He thought of the Director, well-tailored and sneering behind his polished desk. Christopher was merely an effete bastard, a bitter old Tory who didn’t appreciate being sent far from home to deal with someone else’s problem. William could relate to that last bit, at any rate.
Serve your country well, Young.
William sniffed. He was not interested in serving Lord Director Christopher, or the MI5, or anyone else for that matter – he only wanted to make things better and then go home to his family. Gerald would understand that, even if he could not forgive it.

He had all the evidence he needed to prove that Gerald and his group were not terrorists of any kind. These men were nothing more than a few poor workers doing minor munitions runs to feel like they were supporting their cause. One good raid would scare them out of their delusions of grandeur and put an end to their illegal activities once and for all. William had seen it many times. After the raid there would be no danger for the Sullivans or their folk, not if they cooperated and then stayed out of trouble. He doubted that would be the case for Kelly, but that was no great loss. No one else would be arrested unless they brought it upon themselves. And Adam wouldn’t be that stupid.

William frowned. Where had that come from? He put down his pencil and rubbed his grainy eyes. The late hour was clearly muddling his thinking. He should have been asleep hours ago. Sighing, he laid his head down on his outstretched arm and looked back across the pages he had written. The cramped writing blurred a little in his tired vision.

This whole assignment left a bad taste in his mouth. He was not usually so eager to explain away every detail. He had nothing to justify. When people supported violence, they got arrested. That was the law. That was justice. But William could remember another time, another group who faced justice because of information he had stolen from them. He had not acted fast enough, and when he closed his eyes he could still hear the sharp crackle of shots echoing in the street. Labor men, they’d been – communists, dissidents, all lined up along a wall and shot at sunrise in the same street they had attempted to take over. He could see it all so clearly: sunlight glinting off broken store windows, white smoke curling up from empty rifle barrels, dark blood congealing in pools on dirty cobblestones. The wind whistling through the barren streets, sheets of paper scattering across empty pavement, and somewhere Meg was crying again.

William knew he was dreaming, knew it from the vague and watery cast to the sun and the way his feet didn’t really move and yet he was going forward, through the lingering smoke, shading his eyes against the bitter light. Everyone was gone, nothing left but the whispering wind and the rattle of spent shells and the shapes lying still and crumpled in crooked angles against the wall, one for each rusty smear across the brick.
Too late,
he thought,
too late, sorry, I’m so sorry,
and all he wanted was to turn and run, run and run until his feet burnt off and crumbled away but he could not turn back, every step brought him closer, and every breath brought him the thick metallic stench of fresh death.

They lay together as if sleeping, backs bent around their bound hands and chests pushed up into the light, crimson stains smelling coppery in the air. White faces slack and peaceful, all of them, all but one – too late he saw brown hair ruffling beneath a crooked cap and he could not move, could not draw back from the empty glass of dead gray eyes. He fell to his knees; his fingers smeared red trails across one cold cheek, and the cap fell away and Adam stared at him with his unseeing eyes and his blood-stained mouth parted with the trace of a final, eternal grin.
No,
William thought,
no no please I didn’t want this, not this, not him, stop it stop it William wake up
—

Adam’s eyes snapped lucid just before his hand clamped around William’s wrist. He smiled, pale and bloody. “Hello, William,” he said, white lips cracked over pink teeth and William stumbled back in horror but could not pull free, and when he fell backward the bricks dissolved into black and Adam was standing, pulling him to his feet and spinning him to his back, pinning him to the shelves, bottles tinkling in their racks, no longer pale but flushed and sweating, and his mouth did not taste like blood but like dark sweet wine.

William jerked and flung himself from the bed. He looked around for a single wild moment, until the panic began to drain from his chest. He drew the back of a shaking hand across his mouth and listened for echoes in the silence – no, he had not screamed after all. He turned then and swept up all his notes and papers, crumpling them as he stuffed them into his briefcase and shoved it back into its hiding place. The bed creaked beneath his weight and he dropped his head into his hands, bracing his elbows on his knees until the tremors stopped. His erection pressed painfully into his stomach, hard and throbbing with his slowing heartbeat, and he knew better than to close his eyes. Sweat trickled between his shoulder blades. He needed air.

He stood abruptly and groped for his shoes. The nightmare had already begun to dissolve, fading in the chilly night air – everything but the feel of long fingers digging into his shoulders, a rough mouth hot against his own. William rubbed his face, and when he drew them back he almost thought he saw blood on their palms. His mouth went hard then, and he reached for his coat and blew out the lamp before slipping down the stairs without waking a soul. Yet another useful trick from his boarding school days.

He did not come back until morning.

11.

February 17, 1922

The black-haired girl was not in the office today. The receptionist behind the desk was blond, and thinner, with a perm as stiff and an expression as pungent as the smell of furniture polish permeating the front hall. She ignored William’s presence until the clock struck precisely ten; when the tenth chime finished she looked up and said, “You may go in now,” and then returned to her typing.

William tried his favorite tactic – a smile and a light “Thank you, love” – and was met with a blank stare and one slightly raised, severely plucked eyebrow. The smile disappeared, and it did not return during the entire twenty minutes William sat waiting in front of Lord Christopher’s mahogany desk.

The Director perused every page in the file before him, his spectacles propped on the bridge of his sharp nose. William looked at his own handwriting upside-down on the desk – all his notes, lists, even a handy diagram, plus the original briefing packet dotted with dates and filled-in margins. The Director read through every bit, page by methodical page, all without a single word; his face remained impassive while William’s back began to ache in the red velvet chair and he put his hands in his jacket pockets to prevent them from fidgeting.

The morning outside was overcast and frigid. Tiny, fragile snowflakes had begun to collect on the panes of the great bay windows. William wondered if the snow would stick this time or if it would just melt again, spreading into piles of muddy slush by mid-afternoon. Either way he’d be shoveling the front step tonight for sure, or one of the lads was bound to end up with a broken skull. He
—

“This is everything, I trust?”

William flinched, but the Director was still looking down at the papers, oblivious to his wandering thoughts. He cleared his throat. “Yes sir, it is.”

The Director tapped the papers into a stack and collected each stray paperclip. He pushed his spectacles into place with one forefinger.

“This would seem to be adequate,” he said.

William allowed his face to go stiff; Christopher wasn’t looking at him anyway. The past six weeks sat in a neat little pile on the blotter – his transplanted life, sleepless nights and careful days, an empty box of pencils and a photographic memory. Adequate.

“Thank you, sir,” he said.

Christopher picked through the top sheets a bit, looking back at the list of names. His gold pen remained untouched on the desk. The grandfather clock ticked endlessly in the corner, until finally William could bear the silence no longer.

“They’re not organized, sir. They know nothing of the larger movements, or even the names of the people they aid
– they won’t be able to lead you to any major factions. I don’t feel this avenue is productive enough to continue pursuing, if I may say, sir.”

He ran out of words, and the silence resumed. Christopher showed no sign of having heard a sound. He took a sip from his brandy snifter, slid the stack of papers neatly into their file, and the folder disappeared into the bottom desk drawer with a subtle
click.

“Continue surveillance as ordered and record any events you may witness. That will be all.”

William blinked twice. “Sir?”

The Director removed his spectacles and held them up to the light; he blew a bit of dust off one lens and began wiping it carefully with his handkerchief. “Was there some part of that sentence which was unclear to you?”