He had found the animal at the side of a road two years ago, no more than a pup, its pelt clinging to its ribs, a waist so thin Lainé could encircle it with one hand. A month of nurture, and he had a healthy and devoted companion he called Hervé, a masculine name, even though the dog was a female. And one could not have wished for a more loyal and fearsome guardian.
Murtagh’s voice rose to the next couplet.
Lainé lifted a hand and said, “Quiet.”
Murtagh let his voice fall to a bubbling exhalation, stared at Lainé with confusion and mild hurt on his face.
“Listen,” Lainé said.
Hervé’s cries rose in ferocity. Her chain jangled as she lunged out there in the weakening light.
“What?” Murtagh asked.
Groix placed a hand on the Irishman’s wrist, squeezed, silenced him.
The dog’s barks melded into a furious stream of noise, the chain jerking and snapping.
Lainé turned his head, peered out the window over the sink. He saw the post to which Hervé was tethered. The chain stretched beyond his vision, somewhere to the side of the cottage. The post leaned under the strain.
“We have a visitor,” Lainé said.
He watched the chain tauten and drop, tauten and drop, threatening to uproot the post. Hervé’s voice seemed to crack under the strain of her panic, reaching up and up until Lainé was sure it could climb no higher.
Then the dog fell silent, and the chain sagged to the ground.
CHAPTER NINE
A full length mirror fronted the wardrobe in Ryan’s hotel room. He stood before it, his shoulders back, chest forward, stomach in. The grey cloth of the suit clung to his body, accentuated the masculine, flattered his frame. Even, dare he think it, made him appear handsome. Ryan smoothed the tie. The silk whispered on his fingertips. The cufflinks sparked like flints on his wrists.
He did not look like a shopkeeper’s son.
“You’ll do,” he said.
The Grand Hotel overlooked Malahide Estuary, north of Dublin, a broad wedding cake of a building, four storeys high, that had stood for more than a century. A receptionist directed Ryan to the function room. As he approached its doors, he heard a small swing band perform “How High the Moon.”
Waiters cleared away the remains of the meal that had recently been eaten by the guests. Some government affair, Ryan surmised, diplomats, judges, politicians. Men of power enjoying the spoils. They clustered in groups, girls and their suitors, elder men and their greying wives.
Couples danced, most of them stiff-backed, their bodies apart. A few showed less restraint.
For a moment, Ryan felt an imposter, an interloper. He didn’t belong here, amongst these people with their money and their good taste. His hand went to the silk of his tie. Its texture against his fingertips offered a sliver of reassurance.
“Are you lost?” a velvet voice asked.
Ryan turned, saw her. He opened his mouth, but words betrayed him, his tongue a tripwire. She stood with a young woman Ryan recognised as Charles Haughey’s secretary.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’re all charlatans here. Come on. I’ll let you get me a drink.”
She hooked her hand around his elbow, her forearm slender and bare, the skin of her wrist pale and freckled. In her heels, she stood only a few inches shorter than him, the length of her startling, the sleek line of her body drawing his eyes downwards. Deep red hair pinned up, eyes smoky green.
She gave her friend a smile and a wink as she guided Ryan away.
“Who are you with?” she asked.
Ryan gained control of his tongue. “I have to meet someone.”
“Who?”
“The minister.”
She led him deeper into the room’s currents. “Which minister? We have several.”
“The Minister for Justice.”
She smiled. “Charlie? I believe he’s holding court at the bar. Which is handy, seeing as you’re going to get me that drink.”
They walked together from the dimness of one room to the light of another. The music dulled, laughter and chatter swelled.
There was Haughey, perched on a high stool, surrounded by younger men, his face reddened with drink. He fixed Ryan with his hawk’s stare, winked, and continued his story.
“You should’ve seen the fucker,” he said, spittle arcing from his thin lips. “Galloping like his life depended on it. And it did, I’d have shot the bastard myself if he’d lost. Anyway, he’s coming charging up the straight, and wee Turley the jockey, he’s barely hanging on, he looks like he’s shitting himself. That other fucker, I forget his name, he’s looking back over his shoulder, sees my boy coming at him, I swear to God, he near fell off when he seen him.”
The young men laughed the laughter of the beholden.
Ryan felt warm air brush his ear, smelled lipstick. He shivered.
“I’ll have a G and T,” she said. “Lime. Never lemon.”
Ryan reached for his wallet.
Haughey called, “Hey, hey, hey, get your hand out of your pocket, big fella. It’s all taken care of.”
Ryan nodded his thanks and caught the barman’s attention. “Gin and tonic with lime and a half of Guinness.”
She let her fingers drop from his elbow to join with his, pulled his hand close to her, his knuckles brushing her hip. “Come on, a real drink.”
Heat bloomed on Ryan’s cheeks. He coughed. “Make that a brandy and ginger.”
“That’s more like it,” she said. Her fingers tightened on his before releasing them. She turned, leaned her back and elbows on the bar, the silken fabric of her dress telling tales.
The heat on Ryan’s cheeks spread to his neck.
She tilted her head, showing him the smooth place beneath her ear. “You haven’t asked my name.”
Ryan wondered for a moment if he should apologise. Instead, he put his hands in his pockets and feigned confidence. “All right. What’s your name?”
“Celia,” she said, letting the sibilant drip like honey, the vowels thick between her lips. “What’s yours?”
He told her as his assuredness flaked away like weathered paint.
“Well, Mr. Ryan, what business do you have with Charles J. Haughey?”
“Private business,” he said, his voice harder than he intended.
She arched a sculpted eyebrow. “I see.”
The sharp click of glass on marble, the shimmer of ice. Ryan handed Celia the gin and tonic. She held his stare as she sipped. Her tongue sought the glistening droplets on her lips.
Ryan swallowed the brandy’s burn, couldn’t meet her challenge. He might have seen the corner of her mouth curl in amusement as he looked away.
Haughey broke from his pack, the young men staring after him. He let his gaze crawl the length of Ryan’s form, shoe to collar. “McClelland take care of you all right?”
“Yes, Minister.” Ryan measured carefully the bow of his head, balancing deference and pride, the politician and the woman.
“Good.” Haughey nodded. “You’ll do all right. Won’t he, Miss Hume?”
Celia’s lips parted in a conspirator’s smile. “Yes he will,” she said.
Ryan couldn’t be sure whose conspiracy she sided with, only that he desired it to be his own.
“Come on,” Haughey said. “The colonel’s waiting.”
As the minister turned away, Celia’s finger snagged Ryan’s.
“Be careful,” she said, her smile lost.
Ryan followed Haughey to a darkened stairwell. The minister lit a cigarette as he walked, didn’t offer one to Ryan.
Mounting the steps, Haughey said, “Watch yourself with Skorzeny. He’s smart as a whip. Don’t be clever with him. Try it, and he’ll rip the shite out of you.”