“Yes, it was in the Dublin papers. And then just recently some of my own countrymen blew up the Nelson Pillar in O’Connell Street, of course.”
“I know. Anyway, after that happened — or after it didn’t happen, I mean — well, I was going to go to the Statue of Liberty, because for a while it looked as though it might not be there forever. But I didn’t. Did you have a subscription to the Dublin papers while you were in Africa?”
“Pardon me?”
“Well, you said the bomb scare was in the Dublin papers, but then you must have been in Tanzania at the time, mustn’t you? Did you have a subscription or did a relative just send you the papers now and then?”
“Oh,” he said. “Yes, that’s it. My cousin sent me parcels from time to time, things one couldn’t get where we were, and he’d use the papers as packing material. So I’d get to read them now and then. It kept me in touch after a fashion.”
“It must be strange to be away so long.”
“Yes.”
She lapsed into silence. When she got home, she thought, she would have to go to the Statue of Liberty. She really meant it this time. She would go just like all the tourists, and she would walk up the steps inside and everything. Could you still walk up the arm? She seemed to remember that those stairs had long been closed, but she wasn’t certain.
“Look at the view, Ellen.”
“Oh, it’s beautiful!”
“It is, isn’t it? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, coming to such a beautiful country without a camera?”
“Oh, but I’m no photographer. And I did have my tape recorder. Oh, I almost forgot. You’ll take care of my things, won’t you? The guitar and the suitcase and the tape recorder? I won’t need them in Berlin, I can borrow a guitar, but you’ll ship them to me in New York?”
“I’ll take care of everything.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful.” She looked out the window, then glanced at him again. “How did you know I didn’t bring a camera?”
“You told me.”
“I did?” She frowned, unable to remember. “When?”
“On the plane. You made light of it at the time. Don’t you remember?”
“It’s funny, but I don’t. I must have been chattering like a magpie that morning.”
“You were upset over what had happened the night before.”
“I must have been.”
“And that may explain why you’ve forgotten talking about the camera. Your mind was on the purse-snatching incident, and so you don’t remember what you’d said to me.”
“That must be it.” She sat for a few more moments in silence. Then she said, “I wonder what he’s doing right now.”
“Clare? Looking all over Dingle for you, I suspect.”
“Probably.”
“I didn’t see him last night. I looked for him but didn’t see him. I did see that Doctor Koenig, though. I wonder if he’s in with Clare. It would be a good cover for him, traveling with wife and children...”
Her mouth opened, then snapped shut quickly. She looked away. She knew with absolute certainty that she had never mentioned Dr. Robert Koenig to Father Farrell. She might have been mistaken about the camera, that was possible, but she had never once mentioned the Philadelphia psychiatrist to him.
Then...
A phrase leaped at her: “Extraordinary that a pagan culture could produce such a structure.” He had said that at Gallarus Oratory, when she told him the little stone building was about a thousand years old. But a pagan culture had not produced it — Ireland had been Christian for centuries when Gallarus Oratory was constructed. And an oratory was by definition a chapel, a place for meditation and prayer, and specifically Christian. A priest would certainly know that.
He was not a priest.
She struggled to remain calm. What else had he said? There was something else, something that had struck a wrong note at the time but that she had not paid much attention to. About the persecution of priests in Ireland, how they were hunted during the days of the Penal Laws, how their lot did not improve too much under Cromwell. But that was all backwards! The persecution of Catholics began in earnest under Cromwell, and the Penal Laws did not come into being until long afterward, until William of Orange had defeated James II at the Battle of the Boyne, until the Irish under Patrick Sarsfield had finally capitulated at Limerick in 1691. He had the whole thing completely backwards, and it was not the mistake any Irishman would make, and certainly not an Irish priest.
He was not a priest!
He was talking, something about the scenery. She couldn’t listen to his words. It came to her in a rush now. The very day after they had snatched her purse, Father Farrell had made contact with her. He had carefully managed to get the seat next to her on the plane. He had drawn her out, learned the full details of her itinerary in Ireland. And when there was the mistake about her luggage, he had managed to get his hands on her passport. All he had needed, really, was the luggage check — but he had specifically asked for her passport, and sent her off to the lunch counter while he removed the photo and inserted the scrap of microfilm and sealed the passport up again...
So it had been in her passport throughout her entire trip. That was why the long-faced man in Cork had made no attempt to snatch it. The work had already been done. They had only needed to keep her under surveillance, to make certain that she kept to her schedule and got to Berlin on time.
That was why Father Farrell had stayed out of sight in Dingle until after she discovered what was happening. Koenig could have told him — he must have overheard her talk with Sara Trevelyan and then passed the word to Farrell, who had come along to keep an eye on things. And then Farrell — she shouldn’t think of him as Father Farrell now, he was no more a priest than she was — Farrell had come out of hiding and revealed himself, posing as her savior while he got his spy game back on the track again.
And she had blamed David!
Of course he wanted her to keep away from the police. Of course he wanted her to go to Berlin as scheduled while he stayed behind to “take care of everything.” And the nonsense about substituting another piece of film for the original microfilm — that had been a neat bluff. She was certain that the original scrap of film was right back where it had been, underneath her passport photograph. And she would go to Berlin, just as he had planned in the first place, playing as blind a role in the game of espionage as ever.
And Sara Trevelyan — oh, God, she had sent him straight for the woman! “Did you talk with anyone else, child?” Of course he had to know; he had to find out just how many people he ought to kill. The poor woman! And David — had he done anything to David? Oh, God, she couldn’t stand it! She wanted to scream. Her nerves were stretched so taut that she thought they would snap any minute.
No. She had to be calm, had to stay relaxed. That was her only chance. If she could keep him from knowing that she had seen through him, then perhaps she could get out of it all right. He would take her to Shannon, and once there she would find some way to get away from him, some way to reach the Irish or American authorities on her own — once she managed that, she would be in the clear. They could arrest Farrell — and she wondered what his name really was — and she could turn over the microfilm and find David and...