When Shadows Fall (6 page)

“Larry.”

“Larry.”

“Joe, Thomas, how are ye, lads?” Mulligan gestured to the pot of tea and the whiskey. “Damp night out there.”

“’Tis, Larry.” Both poured themselves tea.

“Are you hungry, lads?”

“We had supper in Thomas’s mother’s place,” Joe said. He was dark haired and slight of build. “I might chance a wee drop of the strong stuff in a while, though.”

The other, Thomas, was taller, blond haired, with pearly white teeth that earned him the fawning of every girl in the parish. Both men had several days’ growth of beard.

“Seamus!” Mulligan called out, and when Hogan stuck his head in the door, Mulligan said, “Keep that door shut, Seamus.”

“I will, Larry.” Hogan dutifully disappeared.

A few moments of tea slurping passed around the quiet table. Then Mulligan coughed, spat, and pulled a ball of paper from his trouser pocket.

“Right, lads. I told you I’d only bring you here once we were good to go. And we are. This,” he unravelled the paper, “is a memo from Castleconway police barracks to Dublin Castle. I’ll summarise for ye, lads. The boys in Castleconway are complaining because they’ve been told to store arms for the county reserve, yet they’ve been allocated no extra funds for security. It seems Castleconway has become something of a treasure trove of guns and ammunitions, and what’s more,” he gave them a wink, “they’re mighty worried that the local IRA might learn of it.”

They stared at him. Then they smiled. “How’d you get your hands on that, Larry?” Joe asked.

“An informant in the Castle.”

Thomas whistled. “So we’re on?”

“Hanged if we’re not.” Mulligan
buttered himself a hunk of bread. “But it will have to be soon, before the stuff is moved. Can we get a full column ready within the week? That barracks is packed full of peelers, and we’ll want to get the better of them.”

That was a euphemism for “bloodbath.” They knew Mulligan too well.

“They’re all ready,” Thomas enthused. “They knew you had something planned. And we’ll pick our best.”

“Our own guns are safe, I hope,” Mulligan murmured.

Joe and Thomas grinned. Mulligan was the brigade commandant and personally controlled every last pistol and bullet himself.

“We need to score good here, boys. But listen now.” Mulligan leaned across the table and lowered his voice to a growl. “We need to send a message, too. All the way to London.”

“We’re bound to, Larry.”

“No. Stealing guns in the middle of the night is one thing. But we need to scare them. Scare the living fuck out of them. And that’s the message.”

“You’re wanting scalps, Larry?”

“Joe, my boy, I want to bury the lot of them in their own blood.” Mulligan drew his knife through the bread.

Joe shifted. “All of them? Most are Wicklow boys, Larry. Maybe just one or two—”

“All of them.” Mulligan licked his lips. “It’s the only thing London will understand. Bodies and bullet holes.”

The IRA had been born out of the remnants of the defeated Irish Volunteers who had instigated a rebellion against Britain in 1916. Mulligan was determined that the IRA should succeed where the Volunteers and countless other rebel movements down through the centuries had failed.

“Larry,” Thomas began uneasily, “Brian O’Hara is a constable in Castleconway. His mother lives next to my own parents. And isn’t Sergeant McSweeney’s brother the schoolmaster in Roundwood?”

“So?”

“So a rout like this won’t exactly win us friends, will it? We need our friends, Larry, especially amongst locals. It’s they who give us food and beds and shelter when the soldiers and coppers are on our heels.”

Mulligan smiled. “Aye, all that is true. But who is it that the locals turn to when the Brits and coppers have been through their houses, smashing up their furniture, hanging up their sons off barnyard beams? It’s us, by Christ.
Us
.”

Thomas exchanged a look with Joe but didn’t reply. Mulligan reached for the whiskey bottle and pulled the cork.

“Grand, then. Resolution passed, and meeting adjourned. Friday week. That’s the fourteenth, isn’t it?”

“’Tis, Larry.”

“Do the logistics, then, and have the lads in place.” Mulligan swallowed from the neck of the bottle and replaced the cork. He pushed back his chair, rose up and patted each of their shoulders. “Thomas, my coat’s in the bar, if you don’t mind. Joe, be a good boy and fetch my bicycle, will you?”

Many months ago, Tara had hidden the gun under the floorboards behind the teak dresser. The months of darkness had not dimmed its metallic lustre nor its sense of deadly portent. In her palm it felt heavy, reassuringly heavy, an instrument of the devil’s work that was to bring about godly justice. The marking down the barrel read,
IVER JOHNSON
’
S ARMS
&
CYCLE WORKS FITCHBURG MASS USA.

The .38 revolver had belonged to her father, given to him in lieu of cash by a bankrupt debtor, though he abhorred the thing and had never once turned it on man or animal. Instead he kept it tucked away with a box of Smith & Wesson cartridges in case it was ever needed on their remote Wicklow farm. He had schooled both herself and Denis in its use, yet despite their proficiency the gun ultimately remained redundant. Tragically, the one and only time when it could have served its purpose, no one had been able to reach it in time.

She placed the gun into her handbag and turned off the lamps.

It was Friday evening and beginning to drizzle outside. The motor omnibus for Wicklow would be stopping at the corner of her street in a few minutes, the last one today, and she didn’t want to miss it. What she had planned must wait no longer.

The journey was slow, the bus draughty. They bounced along rutted roads as the rain beat against the windows and the countryside passed invisible in the night. There was only a handful of other passengers, city commuters returning home, a mother with her two children, and a big-bellied man asleep across the backseats, stinking of whiskey.

After two hours of being jolted around their cramped seats, the last of the travellers got out at Ashton, a tiny village nestled in a vale beneath the Wicklow mountains. Here were a few houses in darkness, a store, and a tavern with lights showing in the windows.

“End of the line, miss.” The driver looked at Tara. “I’ll be heading back to Dublin now.”

It was still raining outside. She fluttered her eyelids hopefully. “It’s just another two miles. Would you mind so much? I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

“Hmm.” He pursed his lips and then grinned. “All right then, miss. ’Tis a bad night for sure. I’ll drop you up there.”

Ten minutes passed, and she almost missed the sign in the darkness:

LAKEVIEW BED
&
BREAKFAST

VACANCIES—ENQUIRE WITHIN

“Thank you. Here’s just fine.”

While the driver attempted to turn his bus on the narrow road, she trudged up a sunken driveway and muttered at the puddles that soaked her shoes. The thatched guesthouse, half swallowed by trees, was not the most welcoming sight in winter, but she needed a place to stay for as many nights as her task would take, and this was in an ideal location. It had new owners now, and they wouldn’t know her. That was for the best.

An elderly man eventually responded after she clanged the bell several times. He pushed back the spectacles on his nose and peered her up and down, baffled.

“A room for the night?” Tara asked impatiently.

“Mm?” He shook himself. “Oh, yes, yes. Come in, young lady, come in. I’m Mr. Kearney.” He showed her inside and led her to a small writing desk. “You must forgive me, we don’t get so many guests at this time of year. Nor this time of night, I might add. Are you alone?”

“I am.”

“A single room, then.” He opened a book and made a point of checking room numbers, though it was evident that the entire guesthouse was empty. “I have a nice one for you at the rear, grand views, lake on one side and mountains on the other. It’s one pound, five shillings a night. Would that be in order?”

“That sounds fine.”

“And how many nights?”

Tara hesitated. “I’m not sure yet.”
As long as it takes
. “Perhaps I might have a better idea tomorrow.”

“No problem at all, miss. Holidaying, are you?”

“Not quite.” She didn’t elaborate, and he took the hint.

“Let me show you to your room, miss.”

When she reemerged ten minutes later and asked to borrow a bicycle, he stared at her as though genuinely concerned that she had lost her wits.

“Miss Reilly, on a dirty night like this? It’s none of my business, but where on earth are you going? Might it not wait until the morning?”

“I have someone to visit,” she said. “It’s not far, and it won’t take long.”

He sighed, scratching his head. “Mrs. Kearney’s bicycle is in the shed. You may borrow it, of course, if you’re insistent on this.”

“I’d be very grateful.”

It was past nine o’clock when she set out, pedalling slowly, for the moon was hidden and the road pitted with holes. It was a short cycle, however. A short cycle to retribution.

Please God.

There was no way of knowing for sure that the killer would be there. It could prove a wasted journey, and tomorrow might be the same, and the night after. Yet this was certainly his stomping ground. She knew his movements from having grown up in the area—indeed everyone knew him, or knew of him. And if he didn’t show tonight, he nevertheless would at some stage.

So she had to be ready.

Lights showed ahead. Hogan’s Tavern was in the centre of the village, adjoining a grocery store. She pushed the bicycle off the road into a thicket of bushes and then opened her handbag. Her pulse quickened. The revolver gleamed for a moment in the light from the windows. She glanced up the road but nothing stirred. The only life in the village seemed to be ensconced inside that pub.

Moving around the gable wall, she peered into one window, then another. The tavern was loud with laughter, clinking glasses. A fire roared at the far end. Seamus Hogan was behind the bar, his big hands polishing glasses. Yet the man she sought was nowhere to be seen.

The sound of steps broke her thoughts. She turned to see a dog padding towards her, its ears lifting curiously. It sniffed her shoes and skirt and then wagged its tail. Tara caught sight of another light, across the yard from where the dog had emerged.

There was a backroom of some sorts, like a kitchen. Through the window she could make out three heads. The first two she didn’t recognise, and the third face she couldn’t see as his back was against her. She crept closer, careful to remain out of sight. Their voices could be heard now. She listened, her heart racing.

And within a few minutes she had heard all that she needed to.

I’ve found him.

Cradling the revolver against her chest, she slipped back into the shadows.

With a break in the clouds the moonlight shone down. Larry Mulligan wheeled his bicycle out onto the road and leaned it against his leg while he lit another Woodbine. There was muffled singsong from the bar.

For a full minute she watched him. Then she raised the gun and stepped out.

“What the—” He dropped the cigarette. “Jesus.”

“Larry Mulligan,” she said quietly. “I took a chance. I was hoping to find you here.”

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

“Oh, we haven’t met before. But you met my family once. Briefly.” After the police investigation led nowhere, it had been the local priest, a family friend, who had passed the information to her about Mulligan’s involvement.

His eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about, blondie? What are you after?”

She stepped closer, into the moonlight. “My name is Tara Reilly. And it’s you I’m after.”

“Is that so?” He grinned hesitantly. “I’m afraid the name doesn’t ring a bell. But I’m flattered, girl. You’re quite the pretty slip, aren’t you?” Then his smile slowly faded. Recognition dawned. “Hold up now. I have you placed. Reilly, indeed.” He took a cautious step back.

“And well you might place me. Did you know that we couldn’t give my brother an open coffin? His entire face had been blasted away. You remember his face though, don’t you?”