When Shadows Fall (21 page)

The weekend floated by, so it seemed to Tara. The memory of him was still with her, the handsome stranger who had come to her aid, and when she closed her eyes she could picture his sweet blue eyes and shy smile.

Even in her schoolgirlish distraction, however, she realised she would probably never see him again. He’d played the role of gentleman with a flourish but it must have been kindness only, the way any decent gentleman would see a lady safely home. And yet . . .

Perhaps it was hopeful imagination, but had there been something else in his last words that suggested otherwise? That perhaps he had an interest in more than her mere welfare?

Oh, listen to yourself.

It was fanciful stuff. A debonair young lawyer like Adam Bowen probably had a string of high society beauties at his beck and call. Why should he bother with some lowly civil servant?

She did, nevertheless, have the obsequious attentions of another male once she reached work on Monday morning.

“Tara.” James had the whipped look of a miscreant slinking in for supper. “Tara, where do I begin? I’m so sorry about Friday night. I was-well, I was sotted, wasn’t I? And it was inexcusable.” He’d brought flowers, white lilies, and he produced them awkwardly from behind his back. “You,
ahem
, you might need to put these in water fast.”

She regarded the flowers with a sniff of indifference. “Your social nights are your own business, James. I only ask that in future I not be made a part of them.”

“Tara, don’t make me feel more guilty than I already do,” he groaned. “It was the damned colonel’s fault, pouring that wretched brandy into me. I’m not much of a drinker, never have been. It went to my head before I realised it.” He sighed. “Friday night was a lapse in judgement, a shameful one. I’ll not repeat it.”

He looked so pitiful that she couldn’t help sympathising. Her face softened a little. “It’s not too serious, I suppose. But I was embarrassed, James, mortified in fact. You were like a different person.”

“I know. I really want to make it up to you.” He pushed the bunch of flowers across the desk. “Perhaps you’ll allow this token for a start?”

Reluctantly, she accepted them. “Well, they
are
pretty. Thank you. I’ll fetch the water.”

James brightened with relief. He followed her as she searched the office for a vase. “So where is the lovely Miss Murphy this morning? Busy charming paint off walls somewhere?”

“She’s in a meeting with the department head. She’ll be gone awhile.”

“More’s the pity. One other thing, Tara. That, er, that young chap you were with the other night?”

“James, I thought we might forget about Friday night.”

“Yes, of course, only I ought to thank him, hadn’t I? The doorman said he walked you to a cab. Probably best, in view of my regrettable state. Do you know who he is, perchance?”

“I don’t know much about him at all.”

“Hmm.” James’s face coloured. “He packs a rather powerful punch. And he broke the law, you know, by assaulting a police officer. I’m not a bitter man, but out of duty I shouldn’t let it go.”

“I told you, I don’t know who he is.” Adam had been a gentleman to her, and she had no intention of letting him be the subject of James’s petty vengeance.

“Well, if you ever come across him again, you be sure to let me know. Won’t you?”

“Of course I will.”

“Good.” James smiled thinly. “I should like to meet him again.”

When Tara left Dublin Castle that evening there was a high wind rattling the drainpipes on Dame Street. It had been a week since the incident with the mysterious car, and she’d had time to reflect on it. James was probably right—mistaken identity or somebody lost. Her fears were making her paranoid and she determined to confront them instead. After all, Larry Mulligan could not have any earthly idea of where she was.

So tonight, in spite of the falling temperatures, she would walk the two miles home. Eight hours in the musty stationery room had her relishing the thought of fresh air in any case. Commuter traffic puttered by, spewing exhaust fumes, but by the time she reached Kilmainham it was quieter. The sharpening wind had driven folk indoors to warm fires. It rose higher still and drowned the sounds of the night, whistling through garden gates and shaking the naked trees on James Street. She hurried her pace. On the road to Wilton Row, there wasn’t a soul about. She shivered inside her woollen coat. Dublin had fallen empty, as though unseen forces had cast some clever, malevolent spell.

He disliked the city.

Noisy, smoky, and polluted, and every second street adorned with some vulgar monument to British imperialism. Larry Mulligan was a creature of the woods and the hills, his only master the landscape, and Dublin City herself felt to him like some stagnant tub of decadence and materialism, slavishly following English tastes and ideals. The sooner he was back in Wicklow the better.

Summoned by Mick Collins on a logistics job, he’d used the opportunity to pursue a more personal matter and he’d been here over a week now, sleeping in a loft on Sackville Street where that infamous pirate Admiral Nelson posed arrogantly atop his column. Mulligan had waited and watched, watched and waited. The signal came finally from Colleen one wet night, outside the gates of Dublin Castle, and sure enough, there she was—Tara Reilly, the angel-faced spy and would-be assassin.

Ten dead men, he’d reminded himself, as he slipped the car into gear and followed. It would have been so easy there and then. A well-placed pistol shot and the bitch was dead.

But at the last moment he’d changed his mind. How far would he have escaped in the car, with military trucks on evening patrol in advance of the curfew? It would have been suicide, whatever the pleasure of seeing that whore splayed out in her own blood.

No, it was a job that had to be done properly—on foot. He had the instincts of a hunter, and he would stalk his prey more carefully this time. Dublin was an easy city to disappear into once you were on foot. And so tonight he moved quickly, unobtrusively, towards his target, a low hunched figure in the shadows.

She came out of the Castle gates while he waited in the lee of an elm tree. She spurned the cabs and began to walk instead, and he licked his lips in anticipation.

With his head down, he followed the trail.

Wilton Row was a winding stretch of prim Georgian housing with enough space in front for a small garden and a scattering of shrubbery. Gloomy light spilled from the windows Tara passed, smoke billowing from the chimneys. A larger garden at the corner of one of the avenues had a perimeter of Leyland Cypress hedging, its leaves glistening under the sheen of rain. That particular avenue, it seemed, wound back towards the city centre, and she wondered if it were a shortcut to work she might use in the future.

In the ethereal silence of the damp night, she heard feet.

She stopped. Nothing moved behind, nothing ahead. Was it something in the hedgerow? A bird, perhaps. Again she heard noises, only this time it wasn’t like footsteps, more like a rummaging somewhere close by.

A shape moved.

A dog.

She almost laughed with relief. Of course there was no one about—it was far too cold.
The dog came snuffling through the hedge from the garden; it gaped up at her, gave a confused whine, and then continued on its investigation of whatever new scents had trespassed upon its territory.

“
Bitch!
”

Without warning a heavy fist slammed into her back and she was knocked off her feet into the hedgerow, the foliage scrawling across her face.

“I’ve got you now, bitch!” His voice rasped into her ear as his hand clamped her mouth shut. “Shush now, and be a good little bitch for Larry.” With his other hand, he placed a gun to her temple.

Terror raged out of her in a deluge. Every nerve end in her body wanted to scream, but in his powerful hands she could barely breathe, much less cry out, and the more she struggled the harder he pressed his cruel weight down.

“Tara Reilly,” he hissed. “Didn’t think I’d find you, did you?” He forced his knee into the small of her back and then cocked the gun. “It was rude of you to shoot me like that, Tara. It hurt my feelings. But it was far worse to turn against your own people, to sell us out to the enemy. That was unforgivable, bitch. And it has only one punishment.”

“Please,” she gasped through his fingers, “don’t—”

“Say goodnight, Tara Reilly. You’ve earned your own fate.” He steadied the gun and braced himself.

Something growled and pounced from the hedgerow.

Roused by the commotion, the dog attacked to defend its territory and sunk its teeth into Mulligan’s ankle. He let out a roar. Pulling himself up, he kicked and tried to shake it free. “Get off me, you mangy bastard—”

Tara elbowed him in the groin, breaking his grip on her, and then rolled free of his reach. The dog was sent flying from Mulligan’s boot. It disappeared into the growth and then came out fighting again, snapping and snarling. Tara fled away up the footpath. She heard Mulligan give a heftier kick; there was a crack and a yelp and the dog made no more noise.

She ran on, half-blinded by the leaves in her eyes. A pistol shot cracked in the air and ricocheted off a gatepost.

“Get back here, bitch!”

Feet came pounding in her wake. She ducked left down an alley between the houses, towards the hospital, then left again. It was pitch black here and when she rounded the next corner, the sounds of pursuit receded. She risked a moment to regain her breath. He wouldn’t be far. She hoped the mismatched lanes might have thrown his trail.

The next street would take her through the hospital gates to safety. Mulligan would hardly be bold enough to follow in there with a gun. She took a deep breath, wiped the rain out of her face, and moved from the alley to commence a mad sprint.

Barely ten yards beyond, the unmistakeable shape of a male stepped across to block her path.

Leaving the
Wild Geese
, Adam found the streets strangely quiet. The rain had chilled the air as he walked along James Street behind the back roads of Kilmainham. All of a sudden, he realised where he was.

The memory of the place came rushing back—the houses, the hospital, the parkland. He’d been here with her only days before, on this very road, though with his attentions somewhat distracted then, he hadn’t entirely noted the environs.