The Secret Chord: The Virtuosic Spy - Book 2 (37 page)

"I know I don't speak Irish, but wasn't that a sign for Dingle?" Kate twisted around to look behind them.

"
An Daingean
," Conor confirmed, feeling a warm fellowship with the ancestors who had invoked its name before him. He tossed his sunglasses into the center console and winked at her. "I'm taking the scenic route."

They coasted along the northern side of the peninsula where the North Atlantic sparkled under a brightening sky, and then turned inland, climbing bit by bit until the road suddenly shrank to a narrow track, carved out of the rock of the most spectacular mountain pass in the country. The route rolled forward in a winding, vertiginous loop, clinging to the side of moss-covered cliffs rising on their left. To the right, a majestic, glaciated landscape stretched into the distance, dotted everywhere with corrie lakes—dark, mirror-flat basins of icy water, reflecting the clouds above them with photographic intensity.

At the highest point on the pass, Conor pulled the car into a lay-by. Next to them, a slender waterfall spilled out over a tabletop arrangement of boulders, and in front the panoramic view spread out before them like a living postcard. As they stared together through the windshield he could sense Kate's speechless wonder, but when she slipped out for a closer look Conor didn't follow right away. He switched off the engine and sat back as she crossed to stand at the low rock wall lining the road. This moment was all he wanted—simply to watch her, to experience this place for the first time through her eyes. Eventually, he got out of the car and went to stand behind her, circling his arms around her waist. They were alone on the road, and the only sound came from the rain shower melody of the waterfall behind them.

"I'm not going to describe this very well." She took his arms and drew him closer. "The little bit of cloud out there above the lake seems alive, and I'm floating with it, even while I'm planted here, holding on to you and feeling the gravel under my shoes. I'm out there, and right here, part of everything. Such an odd sensation. I guess it must be jet-lag."

"It's not," he whispered. "It's Ireland."

T
HE
HOUSE
OFFERED
another opportunity for his heart to stumble and shake inside him, and Conor wondered why he hadn't prepared more carefully for the sentiment this homecoming would evoke. After passing through Dingle and the small village of Ventry—essentially an intersection with a post office and two pubs—he turned the car from the main road onto a smaller one, no more than a paved path. They climbed uphill, past acres of empty fields, then turned again to bump through a gate and along a short, muddy driveway to the farm itself. He parked behind the tractor shed, ensuring the car was hidden from sight, and on their way to the house they paused to gaze across the pasture at the view of Ventry Bay.

"So?" Conor asked. "Did I give an accurate description?"

Kate smiled. "Just like Lake Rembrandt, but with the ocean at one end. It's perfect."

He led her down a flight of stairs to the flagstone terrace at the back of the farmhouse, and with the key he'd used all his life, opened the Dutch-style door and let it swing inward. They stepped into the tiny kitchen, too small for a dining table but large enough for the enormous antique dish cupboard squeezed against one wall. Happy and surprised it was still there, Conor absently brushed his fingers over the shelf before the shock of realization floored him: everything was still there, looking exactly as it had on the day he'd left.
Fully habitable
, Frank had told him, and now he understood. MI6 wasn't using the place at all. They hadn't touched a thing.

Conor sniffed the air—cool and damp, but not as stale as he'd expected. They went through into the large, sunlit space where the McBride family had lived out its life—its eating and drinking and visits with friends, its naps by the soot-stained fireplace. Its fiddling and songs.

Receiving his vague nod and directions, Kate went upstairs to use the bathroom while he remained in place, lost in memories. When she returned, he noticed her spastic energy had run its course, and she was cold. She stood by the fireplace hugging herself, and gave a wide, shivering yawn.

"The central heating's turned off; I should probably get the boiler running again. Or, I could get a fire going if you like," Conor suggested.

"Wouldn't we be warmer in bed?" she asked sleepily.

"Without a doubt. Good idea. My room's up on the right."

The worn springs and faded patchwork quilt of his bed provided a sharp contrast to Kate's pillow-topped luxury, but she stripped and tumbled in as though she'd been waiting for it all her life. Conor wasted no time in following. Within a few minutes they had warmth enough to spare, and before long drifted off to sleep.

He woke later with a violent start—breathless, nerves sizzling, his head a jumble of spiking, incoherent static. He didn't know where he was, and for a paralyzing instant he didn't know who he was. After several deep breaths, Conor faced the more ordinary mystery of what time it was. He sat up, getting reacquainted with the room and its homely furnishings, while next to him Kate slept on, flat on her stomach. Her breathing was so light that he perched over her on one elbow, holding his own breath until he'd tracked a few cycles of her inaudible intake and release. He'd expected it to be surreal and maybe a little awkward having her here—in his home, in this bed—but he felt only a boneless sense of relief, as if something painfully wrenched out of joint had clicked back in place.

He found his watch resting on the pile of clothes on the floor. Three o'clock. They would leave in another hour to pick up Sedgwick. Pulling on his jeans, he left Kate to sleep a while longer and went to the bathroom. Out of habit, he twisted both faucets, but was astonished a minute later when the water got hot. Had he never turned off the bloody boiler, after all? Yes, he definitely had. His memories about everything on that last day were as vivid as a picture book.

Conor shut the water off and studied his reflection in the mirror, the old unmistakable tingle traveling up his spine. He stepped to the second floor landing and stopped, listening, then trotted down the stairs to survey the living room, this time with an eye for something other than nostalgia. He walked into the kitchen and heard what he hadn't earlier—the faint, gremlin buzz of the refrigerator. A natural, well-remembered sound that he shouldn't be hearing at all. He remembered unplugging it. He pulled the door open. A package of sausages sat on the top shelf, and a liter of milk on the door. He picked up the milk, confirmed it was fresh and closed the door, his gaze wandering along the counter to see what else he'd missed. Tucked into a corner by the stove he saw a small loaf of bread next to a red-capped jar of Bovril.

Bovril's your only man for puttin’ the life back into you
.

"Oh my God, are you joking me?" His hushed disbelief vanished in a shout as Conor wheeled away from the refrigerator. "Kate, wake up! We need to get out of here!"

As he raced through the doorway, headed for the stairs, a shape loomed on his left. Before he could react, he both heard and felt the excruciating crack on the back of his head, and then nothing more.

34

T
HERE
WAS
NO
ELECTRIC
JOLT
PROPELLING
HIM
AWAKE
this time; there was only a slow, relapsing climb from darkness into more darkness. His effort to interpret the ghostly light illuminating it finally brought him around. He lay on his side on the floor of the living room, with his hands tied behind his back. Slowly, Conor registered the pale blue gleam he'd taken for moonlight as the glow from a laptop sitting on the large oak dining table. The last moments of a fading daylight remained visible beyond the drawn curtains. Fighting a stomach-churning pain, he lifted his head and saw Kate, tied with a length of orange electrical cord into a straight-backed chair, arms pinned to her side. Beside her, relaxing against the table, her husband stared down at him, his face hidden in shadows.

Thinner but otherwise unchanged, he still looked like the broad-shouldered, rusty-haired man Conor had once considered more steadfast than his own flesh and blood. He thought he'd grown used to the idea that the nemesis he'd loathed as a stranger wore the face of a friend, but confronting it now filled him with helpless grief—until the figure bent toward him, and his mocking eyes became visible in the computer glow. There was no friend called Phillip Ryan in the room now, or any loving husband named Michael Fitzpatrick. There was only this murderer, Robert Durgan—the man who had played with all of their lives like a maniacal
púca,
the shapeshifting goblin of Irish folklore.

"Welcome back, Conor." His accent—expressed in the same bell-like tenor Conor remembered—had always been a bit of a muddle. "Like chickens home to roost aren't we, the pair of us?"

"Are you here since . . . ?" Conor fumbled for words, forcing his ability for speech to catch up with his thoughts. "Have you been living here all along, for fuck's sake?"
 

Durgan smirked at him. "What a hoot that would have been, right? But no, sure I only turned up early this morning. I've been floating around in a cabin cruiser on the Shannon River Estuary for the past month. I thought it would be nice to spend my last night in Ireland on—well, actual land. I got the motorbike out of storage, rode up to check the place out and leave some groceries, and went back to the harbor to collect a few things off the boat. Imagine my surprise when I came back—Jaysus, here's Conor McBride in his old bed, fast asleep with his legs wrapped around my beautiful wife." Turning to Kate, he bent to her ear and began singing softly.

"As I went home on Thursday night as drunk as drunk could be

I saw two boots beneath the bed where my old boots should be.

Well, I called me wife and I said to her: Will you kindly tell to me . . ."

He stroked the back of one finger along her cheek, and Kate squirmed in her chair, trying to avoid his touch.

"Stop. Shut up."

"Ah go on, darlin'. That's not how it goes." He pouted and caught her face in his hand, giving her chin a playful pinch.

"Get your hands off her." Trying to sit up, Conor strained against the cord wound around his wrists.
 

Durgan lifted himself from the table and casually laid a boot on his shoulder, pressing him back down to the floor. "Why? I've had me hands all over her from the minute I put the mallet to your head. Conjugal rights, mate. She didn't' complain."

With a quick jerk, Conor rolled away from the boot and swung his feet forward, bringing one of them up to land a hard kick on Durgan's thigh. Kate cried out as he stumbled back and tripped over one of the straight-backed chairs.

"Conor, don't. He's got a gun. And he's lying, anyway."

This time Conor managed to struggle up to a sitting position and then to his knees, examining her more closely. One cheek seemed red and swollen, and bruises had begun forming on her arms.

"I'm all right," she said, tears streaming down her face.

"Tell me," he begged. "Are you saying he—"

"I'm saying he didn't. He's still more interested in my money than anything else. We've been looking at bank accounts for the past hour. He's changed the passwords."

"Lucky break, her turning up here, since my own hard-earned money is unavailable. Lucky, but probably not a coincidence, no matter how much Kate wants me to think so. I'm hoping you can explain it all to me, Conor." Durgan righted the chair he'd toppled over, and with exaggerated care took Conor by the arm and lifted him into the seat before returning to lean against the table. "Did my friend Tony track you down on his own? Has the CIA decided they like you better than me? Nothing to say? Well, maybe this will help my wife chime in with something more sensible." Durgan strolled forward and struck Conor across the face, and then went on hitting him.

The blows themselves were endurable, but they rocked Conor from side to side and heightened the sickening pain at the back of his head. Closing his eyes only made the dizziness worse, and though he fought the growing nausea, breathing in shallow spurts, he eventually lost the battle. He twisted from the chair and heaved everything in his stomach onto his grandmother's hand-loomed rug.

He heard Kate screaming surrender and tried to tell her not to talk, but couldn't blame her when she didn't listen to him. He imagined he looked a pretty sorry sight, doubled over on the floor next to his own mess. She was terrified for him.

"She's not trained for this," he reminded himself, sorrowfully. "I never should have brought her." This was before Conor began paying attention to what Kate was saying—before he realized he had underestimated her again.

"U
NTIE
ME
FIRST
."

"Nice try. You're hardly in a position to make demands."

"It's not a demand." Kate sighed. "This cord is hurting me. You have a gun, and you've made sure he's not going to get up anytime soon." With effort, she kept her eyes on her captor and away from Conor, who lay motionless, his face to the floor. "You're not afraid of me, so why do you have to keep hurting me?"

"Oh, Michael, if you ever loved me . . ." He affected a whining falsetto that cracked into an unpleasant laugh. But then, he untied her.

Despite his pointed reference, she had not addressed him as Michael. She hadn't addressed him as anything. She didn't know what to call the monster that had appeared at the foot of Conor's bed like a ghost in a nightmare. The man she'd once loved now seemed a familiar stranger, but as she'd been reminded earlier, some things hadn't changed. There had always been a certain expression—one of tense, fearful hunger—that he'd never been able to hide when he needed something from her. A similar sort of tension stiffened his face now, an awareness of his vulnerability. He knew nothing, and his ignorance offered the only advantage she had.
 

If she told the story carefully, she and Conor might live long enough for help to arrive. Either the Garda would discover them on their evening rounds between the farmhouse and Durgan's house in Dingle, or Sedgwick would arrive. His flight had been scheduled to land a few minutes earlier, and it wouldn't take him long to suspect something.