Betrayal (36 page)

‘Huber wants to know where the rendezvous is. He's insisting that you tell me.'

Ah, and was he now? ‘Tell him he'll know soon enough. Just say there's a meeting place he won't forget.'

Tucking her scarf back in, he chucked her under the chin, then said, ‘Remember we've means and ways if you spill it all to Trant.'

She jerked her head away. ‘I won't. I'm coming with you. I … I don't want to hang.'

So they'd put it to her right enough, the major and the colonel and she was smart enough to know they'd do it even if she did tell them everything. ‘Just keep that motorcar of yours in readiness.'

‘But … but they'll know it's my husband's?'

She was so tense, so wanting to have him say she'd be allowed to go with them. ‘It'll be dark. It'll be all right. We'll ditch the motor where they'll never find it.'

The car … Had Nolan lied to her? Unsettled by the thought, Mary leaned the bike against the arbour. The pony would still be out in the paddock. She could go into the stable to get the halter—that would be excuse enough should Jimmy and the men be watching, as they would be, but they'd not see her walk over to the car.

Nolan wasn't going to let her come with them. She had had that feeling ever since leaving him, had it now as she took the halter down.

Setting it on the bonnet, she crouched to peer beneath the car, located the drive shaft, transmission casing, brake cables and exhaust pipe, then the muffler at the back and the fuel line which ran from here to there.

Opening the bonnet, she ran her eyes uncertainly over the engine, didn't know the first thing about it, would be lost—entirely lost.

When she reached the pony, Mary slipped the halter on him but didn't cinch it too tightly. ‘We'll take the trap down to Lough Loughie,' she said, giving him a hug. ‘I need time to think things out. I wish, though, that Hamish was here to tell me what to do, but am glad he isn't.'

Nolan was going to kill her and she had the thought then that she knew exactly how he'd do it.

Hitching the pony to the trap hadn't been easy—memories of Orillia had had to be dredged, things she hadn't thought of in ages, things like the barn after a Sunday's dinner, the house asleep, and Frank Thomas. Frank who was to become a young lawyer, but who had been killed in North Africa just like the colonel's sons. Frank fondling her breasts and pushing her underwear down in spite of her objections, the blood pounding in her head, the door deliberately locked, she trying to get it open. Frank and herself in the backseat of a brand-new Chev that had been parked in that barn not far from where the horse had stood patiently in its stall, the new and the old side by side just as they were in Ireland. Would her last flash of thought be one of what had happened, of sex, or merely the smell of new upholstery?

She had been confused, uncertain—thinking all those things a girl would at such a time—but he had just wanted to have fun, had been handsome, well-to-do. ‘A lush,' some had said, ‘a rake'—small towns were always like that, and yes, she had ignored those whispers, had thought they might really have been in love.

He'd been with another girl in the boathouse at the Thomas cottage on Lake Couchiching when she'd found them like that, herself six months pregnant and coming home from Trinity College in Toronto to tell him they'd best get married.

She hadn't said a thing, hadn't stuck around, had gone off to Montreal, hadn't written, hadn't let anyone know, least of all Frank, had taught herself French, if Parisian French, and found a job teaching in a Catholic day school after Louise had been born. Louise … but then word had got out and the job had ended. An unmarried girl with a child was no example to anyone, and now here she was with another child, another horse—well, just a pony—and another car. A last ride, the turn of the ignition key? Was that how it was to be? Death in milliseconds at the hand of the Mad Bomber of London?

Louise had been three years old—long enough for them to have come to love each other entirely. ‘I betrayed her. I know I did. If I could make it right, I would.'

The light had almost gone as she rubbed the pony down. The rain had started up again and she could hear it on the roof.

Nolan wanted 250 feet of safety fuse. She would have to get it for him now. Four more coils, then, each of fifty feet. To the sack, she knew where the fuse was kept. Reaching for the wooden pitchfork William had left up in the loft, she dug it into the hay, would not go near the sacks yet, would do what she should first, lest someone come looking.

Pitching the hay down brought back its memories—laughing, exploring, doing all those things young girls will in barns and stables, but was life one round of things? Was it always like this before one's death? Being pregnant and unmarried had been the greatest of sins, never mind who the father, or that Frank had been no good and wouldn't have cared a damn had he known.

The coils of safety fuse came on fifty-foot spools, two to a packet and tightly wrapped in waxed brown paper to which white labels with black lettering had been attached. Jimmy would have made a tally of things but that would have been done right after she had told them of the cache, yet if he should check, what then? He'd discover what she'd done, would find that nearly all of the dynamite was missing.

Lies, lies and more of them. Threading a length of cord through each of the four coils, she tied them tightly around her waist beneath her overcoat, had reached the floor below, had just turned from the ladder when Jimmy stepped in out of the rain.

For a moment she clung to the ladder, and he caught sight of her, wondering what she'd been up to.

Without a word, Mary dug the pitchfork into the hay, was glad she had had the presence of mind to have thrown so much down. He let her fork it into the pony's stall and watched as she spread it around, and she knew then that he must think or know she had met with Nolan this morning, yet had waited until now to confront her.

Rainwater dripped from the camouflaged slicker he wore and from the glossy black peak of his cap.

‘What were you doing up in the loft?'

His voice made her start. Momentarily the pitchfork stopped, then she threw more hay into the stall. ‘Isn't it obvious?'

‘Mary, put that thing down and open your coat.'

‘Why should I?'

‘Because I ask it of you.'

‘Orders, Jimmy? Is that how it's to be?'

Leaning the pitchfork against the wall, she waited for him to say she'd met with Nolan, and when he didn't, said, ‘Am I to be strip-searched again, Captain? Does the thought excite you?'

The rain hammered on the roof, the pony tossed its tail. Allanby knew she was hiding something. ‘Just open your bloody coat.'

He was perhaps ten feet from her, would see the coils of fuse, would take her to Tralane. ‘I'm pregnant,' she said, giving him a fleeting smile that was, she knew, both cruel and introspective. ‘Erich's child, Jimmy. The bastard of a Nazi U-boat captain. It's … unfortunately it's beginning to show.'

She brushed hands down over her front, stood waiting for the storm that was in him, but it never came. ‘Does he know?' he asked.

Mary fingered the shaft of the pitchfork. ‘Of course he doesn't. Nor does Hamish, and I'd ask that if you really did once feel anything for me, you will keep it to yourself. Erich and I are finished. It … it could never have amounted to anything.'

‘Finished.' Allanby shook the rain from his cape before flinging it back over his shoulders. ‘Sodding country,' he said. ‘Bastard place. You know how much I hate it.' She had said the reverse about Kramer to the major and must have lied about it only being Bauer who'd been after her. Huber must have had to step in to save her. ‘Wait here while I have a look in the loft.'

With a start, Mary realized what she'd done. It took him an age to come back.

‘You're just saying you're pregnant.'

She shook her head. ‘I wish I wasn't, but am.'

Somehow the evening passed, somehow she pulled herself together. Jimmy was letting her sweat it out. He
must
know what she'd done; he was watching the house to see what she'd do.

Outside there was only darkness. Trant and the colonel would expect her to be at the castle tomorrow at 2.00 p.m. sharp. She would have to do exactly as they said, and while she was away they'd have the house searched. Jimmy'd find the rest of the dynamite, the fuse and blasting caps, the bomb she'd made. It would all have been for nothing.

Hamish hadn't understood her loneliness, how could he have? His bedroom was empty, the sheets like ice. When sleep wouldn't come, she did what she had never done before but had often, in her doubting moments, tried to find the courage.

He had a steamer trunk in the attic, a thing from that other war. Perhaps he'd oiled its leather countless times, but since finding her and coming to Ireland he'd put it up here out of the way.

The attic was all but empty—they'd not had time to collect the passing memories of a long and happily married life, nor had he brought much from the days with his first wife.

There were dormers—chances for Jimmy to catch a glimpse of light, if she was so foolish. The trunk was at the far end, near one of the chimneys—great stalwart things of brick these were. Mould clung to her fingers. The leather straps were stiff, the buckles tight.

Setting the torch she'd brought down on the floor, Mary struggled to turn the trunk so that when the lid was opened and left up, it would shield the light.

A strong smell of camphor came, the coarse feel of khaki. Under a sliver of light it all looked so neat and tidy. Hamish had belonged to one of the Highland regiments. His dress tartan, with dirk and sporran, were to her left, the uniforms to the right. He'd once owned a motorcycle and at first she thought the goggles that lay buried between the two must have come from that, but it was his gas mask.

Try as she did, she found it hard to imagine him as a young man in that other war. Far from bringing her closer to him, the contents put distance between them. It was something private, something from another life, and she but an intruder.

When she found photographs of the French girl he'd been in love with, that girl stared out of the past with accusation and a sense of being violated, of horror at what she was doing. Pretty, very French and not quite twenty by the look, with large dark, dusky eyes and the sharpness of feature the Midi-French so often have, the hair thick, dark and worn long just like her own.

Marie … her name had been Marie-Louise but was it meaningful or just coincidence that half her name should have been the same as that of the daughter she'd had to leave behind?

A portrait photograph revealed that the girl had had a lovely expression but had the eyes been just like her own? Had Hamish seen this girl in herself when they'd first met—had that been why he'd sought her out?

There was nothing to indicate why the two had parted. A handkerchief that had lost all trace of its scent, seemed the only bit of evidence, but his gun lay beneath it. Had he had it out for some reason—that bridge they'd had to cross on their way to find Caithleen?

It was a Webley service revolver and just like the one she'd taken into Tralane. There was a box of cartridges. Breaking the cylinder open, revealed that he'd not reloaded it, not since he'd had to shoot one of the enemy in a shell crater during that other war. Hamish had been finished with war then, had not even removed the spent cartridge or unloaded the rest, had simply hated what he'd had to do and himself.

Knowing this, Mary put the gun back exactly as found. It was now the night of Wednesday, 12 November. There were exactly six days left to the prison break and a further five to the rendezvous.

In the morning there was a letter from him. They'd had a good crossing. Caithleen was settling in. He had tried to book passage back but with the war, every avenue had been blocked which meant, of course, that he'd been prevented from returning.

At noon she left the house to watch the swans, and at 2.00 p.m. was at the castle. Trant was busy at his desk and didn't look up or offer a greeting of any kind. Unbuttoning her coat, Mary waited for him to speak but nothing came from him, not even when Dr. Connor was shown in, he nodding self-consciously and giving her the shallow grin of the deceitful.

They'd got to him then—Trant and Jimmy and the colonel. Connor had told them about the dynamite. He had that whipped, hangdog expression.

‘You've met with Nolan?' asked Trant suddenly, but still not bothering to look up.

Had he had enough of her lies? she wondered, glancing uncertainly at Dr. Connor. ‘The rendezvous …' she began, only to hesitate.

Still not looking up, Trant indicated that she was to continue. ‘There are to be no secrets from the doctor, Mrs. Fraser. He's in one everything, or didn't we inform you of this?'

Must she be forced to carry on?

‘Well?' he demanded.

‘Major, the rendezvous is … is to be on the night of the twenty-seventh of this month.' There, she'd got that much out.

‘So late?' he asked, looking up at her now in doubt.

She mustn't waver, mustn't give herself away—must play it out no matter what Dr. Connor had told them. ‘The break is scheduled for the night of the twenty-third at just past midnight. Twelve fifteen.'

Trant shoved the sketch he'd been perusing across the desk towards her. ‘Have a look at this and tell me where that tunnel is.'

‘Major, if I knew, I'd have told you already.'

‘Then take a guess.'

He ignored Dr. Connor. The sketch was a plan of the cellars. Passageways ran beneath the rampart walls to each of the towers. There was a dungeon beneath the cantling tower, then the brewhouse and the tunnel that had already been discovered. Beyond this tunnel, there were the kitchens and storerooms, a warren of passageways, some of which led to the chapel where she had met the High Command.