MacDermott looked at him and then poured himself a small glass of whisky with a shaky hand. He looked up. “Poteen, was it?”
Cashel finished a draught and put the glass down. “You know poteen is illegal.”
“Ah, I do. Yer entirely correct,” said MacDermott.
“You wanted to see me?”
“I did.”
Cashel put down the glass and MacDermott filled it without a word. There was an unspoken understanding that there would be no money changing hands at the moment.
Cashel felt much better. He waited for MacDermott to speak.
“After yer left last evening with Durkin,” the publican began, “another fella comes in. He was not a man of the village. And I know yer been askin’ about that, after Deirdre’s funeral, and wonderin’ about the fella that come down on the walkin’ trip from Derry—”
“A stranger then.”
“An American,” said MacDermott. “He was askin’ after his Lairdship.”
Cashel put down the glass slowly. “He was, was he?”
“Indeed,” said MacDermott, shrewdly measuring the interest he had stirred in Cashel. “Askin’ where his Lairdship was livin’ and all.”
“And you told him where the lord was?”
“I told him where Clare House was, I did,” said MacDermott. “But I said it was a late hour.”
Color seemed to come back into MacDermott’s gray face. “And I told him there was policemen from Dublin there.”
Cashel frowned. “You did.”
“I did.”
“And this American fella didn’t seem inclined t’visit Clare House?”
“No, sir. He did not. He took a room from me instead and had his whiskies and went to bed.”
Cashel nodded.
“He was askin’ after the funeral of poor Deirdre Monahan — God rest her soul among the angels — and he was askin’ after any strangers in the village—”
“Askin’ after strangers?”
“As you were, sur.”
“What did ye tell him, then?”
“Nothing for me. But Old Nap started up with his gob, and before yer knew it, he was tellin’ this American about you. And then about this young fella down from Derry.…”
“Damn.” Cashel pushed himself away from the bar. “And where is the American then?”
“In the back, sur. The best bedroom. Sleepin’ I would expect.”
“And you,” said Cashel. He smiled at MacDermott. “You’re off to Mass, is it?”
“I am. I was just now leavin’ when I sees y’ in the road.”
“All right then. Why don’t you go down to the church? I’ll just have a visit with the man.”
“Ah.” MacDermott seemed to hesitate for a moment and then he slipped into his black coat and pulled on the inevitable cloth cap. “I’ll just go down to the church, then.” He smiled hesitantly.
Cashel smiled in return. A policeman’s frosty smile without mirth.
The door closed.
The public house was still.
The leftover smell of beer and smoke in the bar was as dismal as a hangover. For a moment, Cashel waited and listened and heard nothing but the faint sound of his own breathing.
He reached into the pocket of his greatcoat. He carried a little silver-plated pistol. A friend once said it would not harm a mouse. Cashel knew better, because he had once used it to take a life.
As he held the silver object in his right hand, his hand seemed larger than the gun itself.
The floors creaked as he walked to the back of the public house. He stopped again and listened and heard nothing.
He tried the handle. As usual in these old pubs, the door had no lock. He pushed the door into the room.
The American sat up in the bed and looked at him. He was smiling. He held a large black gun in his hand.
For a moment, the two men stared at each other.
The American spoke first: “Come in. And close the door.”
Cashel entered the room. He held his gun aimed at the figure on the bed. The dull pain in his head returned; he should have been more careful.
The American said, “You don’t look like a man of the village.”
“Nor you.”
“I’m not. Are you from Londonderry, then?”
“Dublin,” snapped Cashel. “And I can tell you that we do not favor guests of the nation to carry guns about with them.”
“Only native sons, is that right? Like the IRA?”
Cashel grunted. “Like the police, is more like it.”
“Are you the police?”
Cashel did not answer.
“You would have identification,” said the man in the bed. “Throw it here. On the cover.”
It was absurd, but Cashel had no wish to rush the moment. The black barrel of the American’s gun had not wavered during the brief conversation.
“It’s in my trousers.”
“Carefully.”
Cashel removed the wallet and threw it on the cover. The American opened it and glanced down at the picture of Cashel — a grim, colorless, nondimensional Cashel — and the seal of the country affixed to an identity card. Slowly, the American placed his pistol down on the cover.
Cashel sighed. He realized he had been holding his breath. He still held the silver pistol. “And now that you’ve satisfied yerself, tell me who you are and why you have a gun in this country?”
“Sit down. I want to talk to you.”
“You’re a cool one, you are. Who are you?”
“It doesn’t matter about my name,” the man in the bed said. “But it’s Devereaux. Now sit down. We have to talk.”
In the end, Devereaux only told a few lies. He explained he was with the CIA; it was too hard to explain R Section to this Dublin policeman. He told, with almost the whole truth, why he had come down to Innisbally in the west of Ireland.
Devereaux did not tell Cashel about the two dead agents in Belfast because it wasn’t his business. And he did not tell him about Elizabeth or O’Neill. Nor did he speak about his meeting with Terry and about the fruitless day-long search for the man called “Cap’n Donovan.” Cashel would not want to know those things anyway; he was a simple policeman and he had been sent to Innisbally to find out about a murder that had taken place in Canada and to see if there had been an Irish connection.
So Devereaux said he had been sent to Innisbally for the same reason, to gather information for the CIA, because Lord Slough was an important man to both Ireland and America.
Devereaux showed Cashel the proper identification, including a plastic entry card of the type used by agents admitted to the CIA building in Langley, Virginia. It was part of the bag of tricks that Hanley had always insisted agents carry with them; Devereaux had never had recourse to it before.
But Cashel was not a fool and he was not impressed by mere cards. In the end, it was the information traded by Devereaux that finally made him accept him.
Devereaux said the agency was convinced the plot to murder Lord Slough was still on; that the attempt in Canada either was the first of a chain of attempts or was unrelated to the attempts that would follow.
And where had Mr. Devereaux learned all this?
But Devereaux could not tell him the truth; not the truth about the man called Terry and the torture Devereaux had used on him; nor could he tell this policeman why he had killed Terry after he had learned everything. Devereaux did not murder but eliminated. Those were details of the trade and they were of no special importance because they contained no information in themselves. The death of an IRA man in Belfast scarcely twelve hours before was not for trade. Terry, in his fear and agony, had even told Devereaux that a man had gone to kill O’Neill. But that was not information either. O’Neill had ceased to matter.
Devereaux was certain Terry had told him all he knew.
There was a man named Tatty and another named Donovan. They were part of the plan to get Lord Slough and the plan was yet to be fulfilled. He didn’t know about the attempt in Canada. Terry did not know when or where Tatty and his friends would act. Devereaux was finally convinced of that. There was no need to explain how Devereaux became convinced.