Betrayal (25 page)

‘Robbie, go with her.'

‘Hamish, Erich burned that book in his stove.'

‘So Trant was telling me.'

‘When?'

‘Mary, why in God's name won't you tell me what's been going on? You're scared stiff. Even a daft old bugger like myself can see it.'

‘Because I can't. Because nothing's been going on. Because Trant is overly suspicious of everyone and kept me waiting far longer than he should have.'

‘Did you see Erich?'

‘He isn't allowed to come to the library.'

Fraser set the book aside. It was just after 7.00 p.m. so she must have been somewhere other than that damned prison for at least an hour and a half unless, of course, Trant had really kept her waiting that long, but he'd best say nothing of it. ‘Mary, the major has his worries. Apparently that bomb you found was only a small part of the five cases of gelignite that were taken from the Montrose Stone Quarry in the Mountains of the Mourne back of Kilkeel. God only knows why the place was left unguarded in a time of war, never mind the North of Ireland, but the IRA got away with sufficient fuse, blasting wire and caps to level a good portion of Tralane should they be so inclined.'

‘I think I'll go and have my supper.'

‘They even took one of the blasting machines—one of those plunger things that generates the electrical current needed to set off the blast.'

‘Do you want some tea? I think I'll make myself some.'

‘Jimmy Allanby was by. He's been out and about a good deal in the rough. He's been run off his feet.'

‘That'll be good for him. I'm sure he'll have enjoyed beating up the natives and tearing their places apart. Now do you want some tea or not?'

‘I do. Oh my, yes, but I do, lass.'

In the morning she went to see Parker. They had their chat about the cows and all, and only then did she timidly broach the subject that had brought her to him.

Parker waxed eloquent. ‘Ah sure, and you could burn that stuff in the grate, you could, missus, and it'd not give you the twinkle of the tiniest star. You needs the cap and fuse, you does, or the cap, the wire and the electrical battery or the blasting machine—the plunger. Down with the one and up with the other, as they says, or the catching of the match head beneath the nail of your thumb and the burning of a few feet of black-powder fuse held so close the one catches light the moment the other does. But now why would a girl like you be wanting to know a thing like that?'

‘Nolan left a bomb at the colonel's party.'

‘And did he now?'

Parker would have heard of it—the whole of County Armagh would have. He'd know about the theft from the quarry too, but one had to go carefully.

‘How many sticks was there now?' he asked, sucking on that fire of his while leaning on the handle of his pitchfork.

She wished he hadn't asked. ‘I didn't count them. A lot, I think.'

Parker pitched out another clump of manure from the pony's stall. ‘Twelve they was, missus, and there's the likes of Liam Nolan himself busting his britches to get a bomb inside the colonel's house but forgetting to wire the blessed thing up.'

He clucked his tongue, sucked on the fire and speared more manure, his life a round of cows, their milking and the pony cart to the stop out by the road to wait for the dairy's wagon to come along and take the milk away.

‘Captain Allanby was here, he was. A ginger man, missus. A man with vengeance in his heart, I be thinking, and purpose on his mind.'

‘He didn't search this place, did he?'

‘Now why would you be thinking the likes of that?'

‘I'm not. I only … No, of course not, Parker. Not you.'

‘And why not? Sure and it's as good a place as any to hide five cases of gelignite and some fuse and all, but the captain didn't search, missus. He has them dogs what's trained t' smell dynamite. All they got was manure.'

Dogs that had been trained—the shed at home! Oh damn, but she couldn't leave now, couldn't run from him, would just have to tough it out and take a chance things would be safe. ‘Parker, what exactly do you mean by cap and fuse or wire?'

He stabbed the pitchfork into the heap and wiped his hands on the seat of his trousers. ‘Well, it's been some time, missus. Was that dynamite sticky, do you think?'

‘Sticky? No, not at all.'

Then she'd had her hands on it well enough, she had. ‘And not leaking, thanks be t' God, otherwise you might have jarred it and we'd not be talking. Nitro doesn't like to be knocked about and that juice would have been nitro.'

A length of frayed halter rope served as the black-powder fuse, a bit of lead pipe no more than two hands long was the stick of gelignite, and a cigarette cadged from God knows whom for it had been ages in his pocket, was the blasting cap.

‘You must crimp the black-powder fuse into the cap, missus, using a set of pliers. Then the cap be inserted into the end of the dynamite like so, after first cutting off the length of fuse you needs.'

Some fuses burned at a foot a minute; others were faster, and still others much slower. One had always to check the rate of burning first.

‘You slits the other end of the fuse, missus. A good half-inch now, and no more, being careful not to spill the black powder out.'

Just like a trooper she was, attentive and all. ‘The match must be at its hottest, so if you're wise you'll break the head off one and tuck it into the end of the fuse.'

‘Which end?'

‘Why, the one you lights. T' other's in the dynamite, for God's sake, and stop makin' me so blessed nervous with all this talk!'

So the blasting cap went into the stick of dynamite, the fuse into the cap, and the head of a match into the other end of the fuse.

‘There'll be a spout of flame near two feet long when you lights it, missus, so don't be afraid. Just drop the
ould
soul and run like th' divil for cover.'

‘And the electrical method?'

O'Shane had the notion to tell her to buzz off home and come back another day, but she didn't look as though she'd leave. ‘Them electrical blasting caps are different. They has two wires sticking out of one end.'

‘So you make a hole in the end of the stick of gelignite, fit the cap in and then wire it up to the battery?'

Well now … ‘That you do, missus, that you do, but God help the poor sinner who has the stick in one hand and the battery in the other.'

‘How much electrical wire would you need?'

‘Enough to give you cover.'

‘Five hundred feet?'

‘And a wall or a house or a hill between you and them, but I doesn't know a thing of this, only what I's heard. I be but a poor farmer with a handful of cows.'

‘Good ones, too. Mary still producing well?'

Jesus save us! ‘As well as can be expected in these troubled times.'

‘Do the dogs really sniff out the dynamite?'

O'Shane reached for the pitchfork. He'd suck on his pipe and try not to look at her, for she'd a powerful interest, she had, but then it wasn't every day that a girl found a dozen sticks at a party. ‘Not if there's ripe manure about, missus, the riper th' better. Urine, too. A healthy good piss is always best even if you've the freshest to do your hiding.'

The faint but grateful smile she gave made him want to haul her aside and say,
Now listen here. Don't play where fools would play,
but he held his tongue, for she'd said, ‘Thanks, Parker. Thanks a million. I'll be seeing you soon,' as one would to a friend.

‘Lest you blows yourself up, or was you only asking for interest's sake?'

‘For interest. I … I was just curious, that's all. Ever since I found that bomb, I've been asking myself what it should have looked like.'

‘Bundles of six, with the primer in the middle.'

‘The primer?' she bleated.

And wasn't she that dismayed you'd think the bloody Bank of England had foreclosed or she had accidentally swallowed one of them cyanide pills the Nazis keep hidden in their back teeth! ‘The one stick that does it all, missus. The one with th' blasting cap.'

‘Oh.'

She rode away on that bicycle of hers looking as fresh as a Michaelmas daisy but grim and thinking things no daisy should ever have thought. ‘Manure,' he muttered. ‘Manure's the only thing lest one pisses on it, too, and the dogs catch the scent and find they have t' piss themselves and are distracted and wander off elsewhere.'

‘William, I need some manure for the roses.'

‘The gardener will look after that, m'am. 'Tis early yet to bed the roses.'

‘I can't wait for a gardener who never shows up. Just help me to fill this barrow and be quick about it.'

William was all of fifteen, a young man growing—spindly, sandy-haired, wild-eyed at times like this and ducking away to hide the truth. ‘Well, what is it?' she demanded. ‘Not more of your lies.'

‘No, m'am. I doesn't lie. I doesn't. Now I doesn't.'

‘All right, all right—good God, you've got me repeating myself!'

‘'Tis th' manure, missus. If you use this, you'll burn th' roses like they was in the fires of hell.'

‘But manure is manure, isn't it?'

‘No, missus. It has t' rot, it does. Th' doctor, he be putting it in three piles. This year's, last year's and th' year before that.'

The smell would have vanished by then but saying that she wanted to hide six sticks of gelignite would do no good. ‘Just show me, and we'll do it together.'

They carted six loads to the rose garden and banked the manure up against the brick wall on which the red ramblers grew. ‘Hamish loves these roses,' she said, working the spade in hard. ‘He even enjoys looking at the rose hips in winter.'

‘That he does, missus. That he does.'

It took them all of two hours and at the end of the digging and the heaving she was tired. Hamish and Robbie came out to see what they'd been up to. ‘That's a bit rich,' was all he said, he like the Abbot Gregor Mendel in his Augustinian herb garden. Slippers and steamer robe of brown camel hair with tassels at the ends of the purple cord and Robbie giving the manure a good working over for beetles and worms and things.

‘I'm trying, Hamish,' was all she could find to say, letting him think what he would.

Later, under cover of darkness, she buried the six sticks of dynamite next to the wall, using a Grant's shortbread tin she'd been saving up. The seal around the lid was carefully wrapped with electrician's black sticky tape to keep out any moisture. A last look under hand-blinkered torchlight seemed to satisfy, but the night was so silent, even the sound of her breath came easily now as the earth
and
ripe manure were softly spilled into the hole, but as she put the shovel away in the stables, there was a sound. ‘Who's there? I know you're there,' Mary heard herself bleat, but would they think she had reached for the shovel to protect herself?

Nolan's voice came first, caught as she was under their torchlight. ‘Mrs. Mary Fraser it is.' No laughter now, no teasing, not this time. Manure and earth on her boots, shovel still in hand …

Fay Darcy snorted, ‘Out and about at this hour and suspecting the worst, is it?'

‘What the hell do you people think you're doing by coming here like this?'

‘It's yourself who should be answering why you're out and about in your nightdress and gown,' said Fay.

‘I … I thought I heard someone.'

Fay switched off the torch and stepped closer. ‘Not us. Most likely that husband of yours. Hears a lot more then he should, he does. Goes about looking where he shouldn't.'

The colonel's party … ‘You didn't need to hit him so hard. He's got a concussion.'

‘Oh and has he?'

The Darcy woman was now so close, the sour odour of endless nights and days on the run was evident. Mary felt her robe being touched and leapt. ‘Where's Kevin?'

The Fraser woman was not even aware that Liam had removed himself and was watching out. ‘Kevin, is it? You'd be feeling safe with him, now would you, Mrs. Fraser? Safe as an angel in his arms.'

‘Look, it's crazy of you to have come here. If I hadn't been outside, what would you have done?'

The cord around her waist was now being fingered.

‘Gone inside, I suppose,' said Fay. ‘Liam's good at that sort of thing. Very quiet he is. Like a lady's slipper what falls on her lover's carpet.'

Had Nolan left them? ‘What do you want?'

The cord came undone and the robe fell open of its own accord.

‘Please don't touch me. I'll … I'll scream.'

‘You do and you'll be getting the lesson of your life. We want the girl. You've not been to Dublin like you said you would and can go in there right now and bring her out. Now, I'm saying!'

‘I can't. I won't. I refuse absolutely. She's suffered far too much.'

‘Liam?'

‘Fay, cut it out! You know what Kevin said. There's far too much at stake. It's not her fault Brenda was killed.'

‘My sister, Mrs. Fraser. Shot up and some and heaving her guts out in the road while the bastard Garda laid them into her just for the fun of it. Kevin's in the South, having a look into things, seeing as no one should have known Brenda and me was having a meeting. No one.'

The woman stepped away. The pony snorted nervously in its stall, and from somewhere in the inky darkness came a click and then another, the cylinder of a revolver. ‘Please, I … I didn't have anything to do with that. How could I? And as for taking Caithleen to Dublin …'

The sound wasn't that of a revolver. The Darcy woman was over by the car, and must be flicking a fingernail at it in the darkness. ‘Look, I haven't met with Erich's superior officers yet, have only set that up. There simply hasn't been enough time.'