Betrayal (31 page)

‘Of course not. How could I?'

‘Then why did you let Mr. Morgan Davies follow you from that fancy hotel of yours?'

‘But … but no one followed me. I was certain of it!'

Her dismay was clear enough. ‘The point is, they're on to you. Oh they'll not tell you this and we'll play the game too, so long as it suits us, but Morgan Davies was not to be messed with, and you've made me do the messing.'

Forgetting the threat of lice, she went to sit in the chair. ‘Who was this Davies?'

All choked up, she was. ‘One of Eire's Secret Service who'll be pushing up the daffodils come spring. Now let us have it. You've a message for Mrs. Tulford.'

Had she served her purpose? wondered Mary. Would he kill her just as he'd killed this man Davies? Nolan did have someone inside Tralane—he must have. Once the deal with Berlin was on its way, she'd be of no more use, would have to be firm then, couldn't let fear get the better of her, would have to lie a little, too, and not show it. ‘The message is in code and I've had to memorize it. The German High Command at Tralane will ask for proof I've met with Mrs. Tulford and given her the message myself.'

‘Or else they'll rot in that castle? Come on, Mrs. Fraser, who the hell do you think I am?'

Instantly she got up and went back to lean against the wall by the door, getting ready to run. ‘Well?' he asked.

‘A man who's afraid and on the run. A man whose organization here is in a shambles and whose people in the North have just been cut to ribbons. You're in no position to argue, Kevin, and neither am I.'

And tough now, was she? Mary could see him thinking this, and yes, he must have appreciated her spirit, for he smiled in that distant way a man does who has had his fancy momentarily tickled.

She'd want a little something, decided O'Bannion. ‘It's a queer state we find ourselves in, now isn't it? We need the Nazis like we've never needed anyone for centuries, and they need us, yet think we're an undisciplined mob and totally ignorant of how to go about things, and we really don't give a damn what they think or stand for. Is it like it was with the Spaniards at Kinsale, I wonder?'

That battle with the English had taken place in 1601.

‘Mrs. Fraser, the Irish Secret Service and the British MI5 want Mrs. Tulford and her wireless very badly. They want Liam, too, and everything else they can get, myself as well, but Ursula is high up there on the agenda, otherwise they'd have had you in for a session and that husband of yours would have found you in the Garda's report of the day. Beaten—knocked about like you wouldn't believe—raped, they'd have that done too. Mugged, robbed, murdered and left to lie starko on the bank of the Grand Canal which has to be one of Dublin's rankest sewers no matter the quality of the residences it passes.'

As she blanched and swallowed tightly, O'Bannion let her have it. ‘You're an embarrassment to them. A traitor. Don't ever forget what I've just said, because that is exactly what they will do to you.'

He asked what had happened at Parker's farm and at Tralane, and in a halting voice, Mary told him as best she could, and he saw that the killings had upset her a good deal and that what he'd said about Trant and MI5 and the Irish Secret Service had rattled her all the more.

‘What will you do with the rest of the dynamite?' he asked, and she knew that she would have to answer.

‘Take it stick by stick into the house and hide it.'

‘They'll be watching for just such a thing.'

‘Not if I make dummy sticks out of bread dough and wrap them in heavy, greased brown paper to look like the real thing. I mustn't take all of it anyway. Some will have to be left on top so as to give the smell and hide what's happened to the rest. It's the plunger thing that worries me. That and the sacks of fuse and the blasting caps.'

She had thought about it well enough, she had, but was her spirit building with the knowledge—did he detect a newfound resilience, a toughness she, herself, was not yet aware of?

To lead her on a bit really wouldn't be fair of him, but he'd have to do just that. ‘Take only one coil of the black-powder fuse—that'll give Liam fifty feet. Take a packet of each type of blasting cap.'

‘How much of the wire?'

O'Bannion gave her a queer look, wondering perhaps how she had known so much or had such an interest, but fortunately he didn't question this, just lost himself in thought again.

‘The wire, yes. Two coils—no leave that. I'll tell Liam to find his own and the battery from a motorcar. Forget about the plunger. Just the dynamite. Paxo's no good.'

‘Paxo?'

She was that curious it was a puzzle. ‘Sodium chlorate and paraffin wax. It's highly volatile but not what we need for this job.'

‘Will you try to blow a hole in the castle walls and let them all escape?'

She'd been thinking about it, all right, had been going over and over it in that head of hers. ‘God willing, we'll do just that and don't you ever repeat it.'

He lost himself in thought again. At some point in the distant past he'd been wounded twice—once high up on the left part of the chest; and once, a long and ugly scar across the right arm, near the shoulder. The skin over both wounds was glazed and of a deep, dark bluish red.

O'Bannion glanced at his wristwatch. She was studying him, she was. He'd light the cigarette now, then, would let her look at him all she wanted. A pretty woman who would use that body of hers to escape—was that what she was thinking, or had she something else in mind?

‘They'll be watching that stable of yours, Mrs. Fraser, but did you think to warn Liam or Fay?'

‘How could I have? There wasn't time. They're still on the run for all I know.'

She was still afraid of him, thought O'Bannion, and this she couldn't have hidden. ‘Is it that you're hoping, as you must have at Parker's, that they had both been among the dead?'

She would never know where she stood with any of them, but would have to be convincing, mustn't waver, not now. ‘I want Erich out of Tralane, Kevin. I'm going to leave my husband and go to Germany—that's all I've got, isn't it, seeing as I'm carrying his child? Look, I know you think Erich's promise hollow, but Hamish isn't coming back. He knows I've deceived him because I've told him.'

‘Oh and does he now? Lies, is it? Lies upon lies? We've a traitor in our midst down here in the South, Mrs. Fraser. A man so trusted we worshipped him yet he sold us out for silver and the promise of a better life in America. That man has now been apprehended and will be put on trial—we're not like the Black and Tans. We do give them a fair hearing. He'll be court-martialled. Is it that you're wanting to witness the execution?'

‘All right, then yes. I did hope they'd have been killed at Parker's. Wouldn't you have felt the same had you been me?'

‘So you didn't warn them Jimmy Allanby would be keeping that stable of yours under surveillance?'

‘Like I've just said, I couldn't.'

He'd pick up his gun now and get to his feet, thought O'Bannion. He'd let her have it. ‘Take off your coat, woman.'

When she didn't, he shrieked it at her. Quivering, she laid it over the back of the chair, but would she strip if asked—was that all the guts she really had in spite of that newfound toughness? ‘Let's have the message. Let's not have any more of this damned business about your needing to see Ursula.'

Was he going to kill her? wondered Mary. Would she kneel and start to cry—beg him not to do it? Somehow she had to stop him. ‘I … I've only the two bullets I was given on the train.'

Two was it and more lies? ‘Let's see them, then.'

Mary turned away. She couldn't have him seeing her wedding ring and the key to the cedar chest that hung about her neck—if he found those, he would kill her. Again he shrieked, the noise of him and those of the tenement suddenly coming from everywhere only to die away to weeping.

Opening her jerkin, she unbuttoned the blouse only enough to awkwardly remove the bullets.

He took no interest in her predicament. He hefted the bullets, took two others out of that revolver of his and compared the weights.

Satisfied, he said, ‘Liam ought to have been more careful. You won't be needing these until you're back in the North.'

He wasn't going to kill her yet, but when he returned them, he forced her to look into the emptiness of his eyes, said only, ‘God, I hope you're not lying.'

Unbuttoning her blouse further, Mrs. Mary Ellen Fraser found the message right enough but made no attempt to dart away in fear for that life of hers. Instead, she looked steadily back at him.

It was now 2.10 a.m. ‘Put the bullets away,' he said, and as he watched her, ‘You lied to me.'

‘The message was too long. I … I was afraid I'd forget something or … or get muddled.'

As she swallowed under scrutiny, O'Bannion knew that if forced, she would yield readily enough, but what then would be her ultimate game? To set the dogs of lust among them? She could probably do that well enough should Liam take a notion to get free with her at Fay's prompting, but was there not something else? A death wish of her own? She had that look about her and he knew he was troubled by it.

‘Button up and I'll take you to Ursula.'

The drunks were settling down, and when she was shoved into the car, the slamming of its doors was overly loud in the fog. O'Bannion pushed her to the floor in the backseat and held her face-down as the car took off and they drove through the night for perhaps fifteen minutes, it was hard to tell, she trying to plot the route.

Let out some place—a lane, Mary thought—she was by then blindfolded and he had to lead her, his steps cautious, his grip telegraphing the anxiety he felt. He'd have drawn his gun, would shoot her if he had to.

But then they took some stairs—a short flight in at a tradesman's entrance, she thought. The landing was cramped. He removed the blindfold and whispered that she was to go on up to the fourth floor. ‘Ursula will be waiting. Pacing about like blazes probably. I'll just have a look around.'

Mrs. Tulford had left the back door unlocked but was nowhere in sight, not in the spotless kitchen, nor in the dining room with all its silver out on the sideboard. The flat was Edwardian. There were gorgeous oils, the portrait of a woman in a fabulous gown with a choker of exquisite pearls; one of a thoroughbred and three times winner of the Grand National, for the cups and ribbons were there to one side of the clock. Other paintings were of the hunt, of foxhounds on the run and grouse and pheasant on the wing. The carpets were Afghan—there were two rifles leaning against a far corner, a pith helmet much like the one Hamish had in his study …

The Tulford woman hadn't been pacing about at all. She'd been up on the roof stringing her wireless aerial.

‘Mrs. Fraser, you're late. Please write out the message for me at once.'

The woman was tall, thin, severe, iron-grey, blue-eyed behind wire-rimmed spectacles and when she saw the blouse being unbuttoned, scathing.

‘These people are fools. They send their men and women in without the least security or training and then don't wonder why they get apprehended or killed, only that there must be a traitor among them!'

Ursula Telford was in her sixties. The hair was pinned back in a bun whose severity matched the stern and unyielding manner of a
Kindermädchen
.
³

‘They let you people carry messages like that.
Ach
, you stupid, stupid girl. Did you think the British or the Irish Secret Service wouldn't strip you naked to find this?'

‘What does it mean?'

‘It does not matter to me and is of no consequence to you.'

‘But you must know?'

‘Why should I? It's simply a sequence of letters broken into groupings. If they had wanted me to know the contents they'd have written it in clear. This way is best and far more secure, though I still must re-encode it.'

Mary knew she would never get another chance to ask. ‘Does O'Bannion know how to transmit?'

‘Why do you ask such a thing?'

The suspicion had been instant. ‘No reason. I … I just wondered.'

‘Erich Kramer has asked it of you?'

‘Why, yes. Yes, he did. They're …' Mary glanced towards the back door. ‘Worried the IRA might …'

‘Kill me? Don't be silly. Without me, these people are nothing.'

Kevin O'Bannion would be on his way up the stairs. ‘What is it they want from Berlin, Mrs. Tulford? The Vice Admiral Huber asked me to find out.'

‘Money, what else? A million pounds sterling in one- and five-pound notes.' Again the Fraser woman glanced towards the door …

‘And guns?' asked Mary.

What a strange person you are, thought Ursula. So pretty and yet so foolish. ‘One hundred Luger pistols, ten thousand rounds of ammunition for those, a dozen MG42 machine-guns, forty Schmeissers and another one hundred thousand rounds. Incendiaries, mines and grenades, most of which I cannot possibly see them getting since a submarine has far too little room to spare when outward bound. Are you really in love with this Kramer?'

‘Very much. He's … he's going to take me with him.'

Was she really so gullible? ‘Then we'll be together and can get to know one another better. Now I must get back to the wireless. Tell Kevin there is some beer and other things in the kitchen.'

Kevin … ‘Whose place is this?'

‘That is not for you to know and you should not ask it.'

‘Has he been staying here with you?'

‘He comes and goes. I was lucky to get away from the White Horse, and lucky he was here in Dublin to help me.'

‘Then it's one of their safe houses?'

Such an interest could only mean trouble. Kevin would have to be warned of it. ‘As safe as anything of theirs can be in a country where everyone else learns only too quickly what they're up to. By himself, Kevin is … How should I say it? Special. But in trying to lead the others he'll be lost unless he's very careful. Their best men nearly always are. These people talk far too much. Now that is all, and you would be wise not to repeat what I've said.'