“Why not? What does she know? Perhaps he’ll meet her at the station. She will go.” He said the last as a declaration but there was a note of worry in it.
“I don’t know. I’m not… very good, that is… talking to her.” He blushed. “I think I’d like another whisky.” He got up.
Ruckles looked at him. “By all means.” Green was cracking up, he thought. He had read Green’s file. He knew about the Navy, and about Green’s psychological profile. He knew about Green’s drinking and his problems with women.
Green brought the glass back and sat down again.
They were silent for a moment.
“What will you do?” Green asked.
“Do? I won’t do anything. One of our other men, I suppose.”
“What will you do? You know what I mean.” Green looked at him.
Ruckles smiled. “We’ll get a plumber to stop the leak.”
Green paled.
“Eliminate a traitor. A traitor, Green.” Ruckles added.
“Eliminate. It doesn’t sound so bad when you say ‘eliminate.’ But you’ll kill her just the same.”
Ruckles looked at him. “It doesn’t affect you, Green.”
Green laughed a high shrill laugh. “It doesn’t affect me? I have to get her out of the house. It doesn’t affect me?”
Green felt trapped, panicked. It was as though he were in a submarine under tons and tons of water, pressed down by the water, surrounded by it, his every breath dependent on the thin supply of oxygen while the sea around probed at the vessel, looking for the way in. Green had never been on a submarine.
He took the bogus cable and placed it in the pocket of his Harris tweed jacket.
“This afternoon,” said Ruckles quietly.
It had to be done. It had to be seen through.
“This afternoon,” repeated Green. And then he finished the glass of whisky in front of him.
18
Lynch was a little man, scarcely five feet tall, wrapped in a dark jacket and a cloth cap, and his face peered out from beneath the bill of the cap with the expression of a startled rat. His eyes protruded unnaturally from their sockets and his nose took as many twists as a country highway.
Devereaux stood behind Cashel while the Dublin policeman questioned the little man.
Lynch owned the small filling station in the village and he remembered the red Fiat Bambino driven there by the fellow from Belfast on Friday very well.
Certainly he knew the fellow was from Belfast. Didn’t he know an Ulsterman’s way of speaking? The Ulstermen take the music out of the tongue; besides, when he, Lynch, had lapsed into Irish to describe the weather, the Ulsterman had looked at him curiously — he didn’t even know Irish! That was the fault of the education of the North — they didn’t require the Irish. Which was a great sadness, the little man said.
But Cashel persisted quietly. He wasn’t from Londonderry then? It was also in Ulster.
Derry, croaked the little man. Was this Dublin copper such a bloody sympathizer to the English that he would call ancient Derry by its hateful London name?
Not that, soothed Cashel, who apologized to a true patriot.
Mollified, Lynch went on: “I knew he was from Belfast by his way of talkin’.” And when Cashel looked disappointed by the answer, the little man added: “And by his motorcar insurance form.”
“His form?”
“It was a rental car.”
“Indeed,” said Cashel. “So we thought it would be.”
“Ah, but he left it and I needed t’see if he owned it.”
“And why?”
“Because of the damage.”
“Ah.”
“Me helper was there, moppin’ as he was, and he bumped the tool kit inter the bumper and gives it a scratch. So I looked inter the motorcar t’see if she was rented. It was that. So I gave it no thought because they’ll not hold him t’damages for it. He had the insurance y’see. Me conscience is clear.”
Cashel rubbed his finger alongside the edge of his mustache. “Would you know who was the rental agent then?”
“I would that,” said the little man. “Yer askin’ a lot of questions, then.”
Cashel waited.
“And him there what’s mute. A Sassenach?”
“An American.”
“An American, then? I thought he was English and keepin’ his gob shut because I’ve naught t’say t’the English.”
Cashel turned to Devereaux. He smiled. “Say hello to him then, Mr. Devereaux? T’show you’re not English.”
Devereaux managed a few words. Lynch brightened: “Ah, yer no Sassenach. I can tell right off. Yer might be Swedish, of course. They speak the language well too but they all sound like Americans. Not like the bloody Germans, who all sound like Englishmen.”
Cashel extended his hands and shrugged. “Indeed. I’m sure we’re happy to be havin’ this lesson in the ways of the world’s speech, but I wonder now if you’d mind tellin’ me the name of the rental company?”
And, after more business and detours in the conversation, Lynch produced a dirty slip of paper on which he had written down the name of the agency and the license number — he had done so in the event he had a change of heart concerning the scratch on the car. Or in case the agency brought up false accusations.
Outside again in the road, Cashel and Devereaux stood together, gulping in the cold, still air, as though both of them had somehow been through a great physical ordeal and surmounted it. They felt elated and tired and even full, like a gourmet after a great meal.
“We have a name now, Mr. Devereaux. And a place. D’you think it will meet with the names you have?”
“I’d count on it,” said Devereaux. “But when will they move?”
“We have enough now to warn Lord Slough,” said Cashel.
That was not the mission. The mission was to warn British Intelligence. Devereaux glanced at Cashel. “Perhaps.”
“There’s no ‘perhaps’ to it. We’ll go to Clare House now, after I check with the rental firm. We must warn the man.”
Devereaux nodded. There was no logical way to argue against this common-sense approach. He had known the risk of working with Cashel but he needed Cashel. They went to the car.
Faolin, of course, had rented the car; they learned that much from the rental agency in Belfast through the firm’s branch in Dublin. For the moment, Cashel had seen no need to work through the liaison man with the Belfast police.
They arrived at Clare House in the hills in early afternoon. Devereaux drove up slowly to the circular turnaround in front of the imposing brick house and both men got out slowly.
A young, coltish girl in gray twill slacks and dark blouse was in the hall when the two men were admitted. Brianna looked curiously for a moment at the American and then nodded to both of them in a formal way that seemed a little too grown-up for her.
“I’m Brianna Devon,” she said and extended her hand in a straightforward, English-schoolgirl way. “My father is engaged at the moment, I’m afraid.”
Cashel nodded and smiled uncertainly. He was never sure of his manners in dealing with people like Brianna. The rich were so casual in clothes and gestures and conversations and yet, beneath the ease of manner, Cashel always sensed something rigid and unyielding in their attitudes towards people like him.
He noticed Devereaux did not share his discomfort as they stood in the hall awkwardly.
In fact, Devereaux seemed to be appraising the girl, as if she were just another object to be studied, remembered, and filed away. Cashel looked at Brianna Devon again and was surprised to see her blush faintly beneath Devereaux’s gaze.
“I’m sorry,” said Cashel at last. “This is Mr. Devereaux. From the Canadian police.”
“Canada?” repeated Brianna Devon.
“Yes,” said Devereaux. He was surprised by Cashel’s introduction because they had not discussed it on the trip to Clare House. But the surprise was momentary; Devereaux was accustomed to invention. “Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Miss Devon. We are cooperating with the Irish authorities on the investigation. Of the attempt on your father’s life.”