When Shadows Fall (20 page)

“Why, I’m a high-ranking member of His Majesty’s administration, of course.”

Now he stopped walking altogether. “You are?”

She laughed. “You seem impressed. No, I’m merely a clerical assistant in the civil service. I work in the stationery office. Paper and pencils, that sort of thing.”

“Stationery? Ah. Wonderful.”

“I would hardly have thought so.”

“I mean, it’s wonderful that you have a steady job like that.” With his pulse settled he found his feet again. They continued walking, down Essex Quay and Wood Quay, the Liffey waters a swirling soup beside them. They passed the Guinness brewery on their left and carried on in the direction of Kilmainham. The distance was hardly noticed. There was an intimacy unspoken but of which they were both aware. It was broken only when they reached a junction between a parkland and a street of terraced housing.

“Oh.” Tara stopped. “So soon. I hadn’t even realised.”

“This is home?” Adam asked with some disappointment.

“Yes. I live on Wilton Row, around the next corner.”

“I’ll walk you there.”

“No, Adam.” She touched his arm. “No, I’ve imposed enough. You must get yourself home before you catch a cold.”

“You’ll be all right from here?”

“Certainly. I’m very grateful for your taking me home.”

“Sorry I couldn’t find you a hackney ride.”

Her eyes twinkled in the soft glow from the streetlamps. “That’s all right. I rather enjoyed myself.”

“Me too. Well, then.”

There was a silence. Adam bit his lip, knowing he’d like to say something more, but not fully sure what it should be. “Well, then,” he said again.

She watched him expectantly, as the rain continued to patter on top of her brolly. “You’re sure you don’t have far to go?”

“No. I mean, yes, I’m sure I don’t have far to go.”

She smiled and sighed. “Well, good night, Adam.”

“Good night.”

She abruptly turned and hurried into the rain. Then he called out, “Tara!”

She stopped, hesitated, and looked back.

“I . . . ” He glanced round awkwardly. “I hope you’ll let me know if you’re ever in need of a hackney again. Send word to Bowen and Associates and you’ll find me.”

Her mouth opened into laughter. A stray tress of hair had fallen onto her cheek, and even through the gloom of the night, Adam was stirred at the sight of such winsome perfection.

“I’d like to, Adam. Very much.”

And with that she moved on, disappearing around the corner into the sprawl of houses, and he was alone on the street.

Shaking the water from his suit, he headed home.

Rourke had given him an address and a time. On Monday evening, Adam left work just after six o’clock. Duncan was already gone and Allister was completing his nightly routine of tidying his files into orderly stacks and cleaning his desk with wood polish.

Adam walked as far as James Street and passed the back of the Guinness brewery, a heady scent of roasted hops upon the air. A “Closed” sign hung inside the glass panel of a door on the street corner. A broader sign above, barely legible through the grime, read
Bodley’s Newsagent & Tobacconist.
He peered through a side window. The interior sill was speckled with dead flies and a curtain of indeterminate colour screened the room beyond. He knocked on the pane.

For several moments nothing stirred, but then he detected the wavering light of a lantern through the door’s frosted glass, and somebody pulled back the bolt.

It was not the face he’d expected.

“Hello, young man.” An elderly woman, short and corpulent with a gummy smile, greeted him kindly. “Can I help you?”

“I, uh, I’m not sure,” Adam muttered. “My name is Bowen. I was given this address.”

“Ah. It’s my son you’ll be wanting, I suppose. Please come in.”

She ushered him into a dark, fusty room cluttered with old chests and boxes. The layer of dust coating the oak counter made it evident that the premises had not seen business in some time. The old woman stooped through a low doorway and Adam heard her say, “There’s a lad outside wants to see you.”

She turned back to him and smiled. “Would you like some tea, young man?”

“He doesn’t want tea,” said a gruff voice, and a man came out to the front, middle-aged and bespectacled, his moustache twitching like an addled schoolmaster. “Thank you, Mother, that will be all.” He cast a glance at Adam. “Yes?”

It was a dubious reception to say the least. Adam shrugged. “Maybe I’d like to buy a newspaper.”

“A comedian, are you? The sign said closed.”

“My name is Bowen. I was told you’d be expecting me.”

“Bowen.” The snuff-stained moustache screwed up. “No, doesn’t ring a bell. You must have the wrong address.”

“I don’t think so. This is the place. Colum Rourke gave it to me. You know him?”

“No, no, there must be a mistake.” The man pulled closed the door joining the two rooms. He put a finger to his lips. “That’s enough of that. My mother doesn’t know anything of these affairs. I’ll thank you to lower your voice.”

“Sorry, Mister . . . ?”

“Bodley. Didn’t you see the sign? Anyway, you’re not here to see me.” He removed his spectacles and began cleaning them with a piece of tartan cloth, and for several moments he didn’t speak again. Adam shuffled his feet impatiently.

“Er, Mr. Bodley, who exactly is it I
am
to meet?”

“I don’t know. Whomever they send. You’ll just have to wait.”

“How long?”

“As long as it takes, I’d imagine.”

It was around ten minutes later when there was a quick knock on the door. Bodley didn’t move to answer it but instead he said, “You can go now, Bowen. Walk to the end of the next street. There’s a pub called the
Wild Geese
. Go inside and take a seat in the billiards room. And wait.”

“What’s wrong with talking here?”

Bodley smiled thinly. “This is a newsagent, Bowen. Nothing more, nothing less. Now be on your way.”

The Wild Geese was a nondescript establishment in the middle of a shabby terrace near the hospital. Its single mullioned window was adorned with candles but the interior was a gloomy cavern. Men in rolled-up sleeves and braces lined the bar while the rest of the pub was empty. One or two heads swivelled in his direction, and a bartender who looked no more than sixteen nodded at him.

“Evening to you, sir.”

“Coffee, please,” Adam said. “And I’ll take it in the billiards room.”

Another few heads turned to look at him, and the youth grinned. “No problem at all, sir. Coming along promptly.”

It was cooler in the billiards room and comfortably distanced from the fug of tobacco smoke. A stag’s head glared from above a stone fireplace while ashtrays and stubs of cue chalk littered the mantle. The coffee was brought, and Adam was about to sip the cream from the top when a figure plonked down on the chair opposite him.

“Begod, that looks fancy. I’m on the tea myself. Bring a pot, Martin!” He bellowed the last instruction out to the bar.

Adam gazed at the newcomer, a tall, well-built man of about thirty with dark combed hair and a genial face. “I’m afraid I don’t know your name.”

“You wouldn’t, would you?” The stranger chuckled and tossed his trilby hat on the table. “Call me Mick. And you’re Bowen. Adam Bowen?” He thrust a hand out and Adam shook it. Long fingers closed in a powerful grip.

“That’s right. I was told to come here by that last fellow, Bodley.”

“Ah, good old Bodley,” Mick said. “Not an operations man, more administrative. Sorry about the peculiarities. We had to make sure you came alone.”

“I did.”

“I know. So, anyway, Adam, I understand you’re a member of the legal profession. How’s that going for you?”

Adam was taken off guard. “How did you know that? I didn’t mention it to Rourke.”

“Such little items are always of interest to me,” Mick said, tapping the side of his head. “I have a team of fellows who are rather clever at gathering facts. I like to know my friends. And my enemies.”

“Is that so?”

Mick grinned. “Relax, it’s nothing sinister. Your name appeared below a photograph in a society supplement. With the delightful Laide family. That charity ball looked like a lot of fun.”

Adam was discomfited by the cool efficiency that was clearly at work here. But this was, after all, the IRA—the very organisation that the whole worldly might of the British Empire could not overcome. Not for the first time, he wondered what on earth he was doing.

“And a soldier to boot,” Mick went on. “Rourke could tell me that himself.” There were lines of joviality around his eyes, but the eyes themselves were hard and sharp.

“I’ve left the service now,” Adam said.

“An ugly affair over there. Did you kill many men in France?”

“How many is many?”

“Oh, any amount is too many.” Mick peered into the bar. “How about that tea before Christmas, Martin?” When he faced Adam again, the smile had vanished. “So what is it you’re doing here?”

The question was abrupt, and Adam shifted on his seat. “Like I told Rourke, I don’t want to stand back and do nothing any longer. They deny us our rights, they deny us our freedom.”

“Who’s
they
?”

“The British, of course.”

“Yet you volunteered to go to war and serve under the same British, did you not? You took the king’s shilling.”

“I volunteered to fight Germans,” Adam pointed out, “and I did that to fight for the freedom of small nations. I’m only sorry I did it under a Union Jack.”

“What was your rank?”

“Lieutenant.”

“Good to know.” Mick rested a finger against his lip in thought. “Rourke says you soldiered well out there, and we’re in need of chaps with military experience. Can you train men?”

“I can.”

“I mean young fellows who’ve never held a rifle before. Fellows we plan to send into action against the cream of the British infantry. Can it be done?”

“We were all callow youths in our day.”

“Ach, that’s true.” Mick paused for the tea tray to be set down by the bartender. He mixed in some milk and took a thirsty slurp. “Mighty stuff. Well, Adam, I can sense that you might be a useful fellow to have around.”

“Why so?”

“Because I sense you’re more than just another scrapper. We’ve plenty of those. You’ve got a brain in that big
ceann
of yours, and it’s a mixture of both that will defeat the Brits. Ever since that Welsh plunderer Strongbow landed here in 1170 our history has been one long litany of useless enterprise and failed rebellion. We’ve been ruthless when we should have been clever. We’ve been clever when we should have been ruthless. Pikemen on the hills of Wexford, gunmen on the streets of Dublin, brave patriots in Kinsale and Mayo and elsewhere, full of ballads and rhetoric, scattered to the four winds by bullets and grapeshot.” He shook his head and swigged some tea. “Anyway, I’m not asking you to do anything for me, Adam, except this. Be there. If I need you. Be there.”

Adam nodded. “I will. I want this.”

“Well, you might hear from us some time.” Mick rose up and lifted his hat. “Or you might never hear from us again. I’ll go now. The bicycle’s outside, and I don’t want some urchin tearing away on it.”

Adam watched him as he left. His legs were long and his shoulders wide, a big fellow indeed.

Aha,
he suddenly realised.
That’s him.

Mick. Michael Collins. The man they called the Big Fellow. A glamour figure to the republican press, a notorious terrorist to the government, and the most wanted man in the British Isles.

Hunter Bowen would have had apoplexy. Adam could remember his father at home beneath the portrait of King George, damning the home rule agitators as rebel scum. If he’d been alive he would have damned Michael Collins in similar terms, and all those who threw their lot in with him. And yet to what end?

The age of old imperialists like Hunter Bowen was gone. Empires had caused the horrors of the War, and the British Empire had brought too many evils to Ireland. If the IRA aimed to remove it for good, then Adam wanted to help.

He felt a steel of purpose inside himself as he left the bar.