She’d said her name was Celia.
Go or remain?
He stood locked in quandary until he remembered the cold empty room back at Buswells Hotel, and the warmth of her breath on his ear. Ryan followed the tide of music back to the function room. He lingered in the doorway, seeking her among the swells of dance and laughter.
There, taller than almost everyone, near the archway that led to the bar, listening with a polite expression as a pudgy man shouted above the music. Ryan kept her in his sight as he crossed the room. She saw him approach, held his gaze as he drew near, ignored the man who bellowed at her.
“I saved your drink for you,” she said, lifting the glass from the table beside her.
The man ceased shouting, went to admonish Ryan for the interruption, then thought better of it. The music swallowed up his curses as he walked away, head down.
“Thank you,” Ryan said, taking the glass from her, his skin tingling where her fingers brushed his. He pulled a chair out from the table and she sat down. He joined her.
“How was the Minister for Justice?” she asked.
“Loud,” Ryan said. “Coarse. Angry.”
She smiled. “Sounds like our Charlie. He’ll be Taoiseach one day, wait and see. Charles J. Haughey will lead this country. To what, I don’t know, but he’ll lead it. Some think he’s a great man.”
“And what do you think?”
As Ryan asked the question, Haughey entered the function room alongside Otto Skorzeny. All eyes turned in their direction. Haughey basked in it while Skorzeny remained impassive. Young men raced to the bar to fetch drinks for them.
Celia stared at the politician. “I think he’s a monster. He wouldn’t be the first to lead a nation. What did he whisk you away for? What devilish plans were you and he cooking up with the infamous Otto Skorzeny?”
“No plans,” Ryan said. “Nothing I can discuss.”
“I see,” she said. “How intriguing.”
Haughey and Skorzeny advanced through the room, shaking hands, slapping backs. The minister noticed Ryan, his comradely smile freezing on his lips.
Ryan did not look away until Celia tugged at his arm.
“Dance with me,” she said.
Dread and panic sucked the blood from his cheeks. “No, I don’t, I can’t, I mean I’m not a very good …”
Her fingertips skimmed his jowls. “Such a saggy face,” she said, her smile crooked. “Come on. I’ll drag you up if I have to.”
“Really, I’d embarrass us both.”
“Nonsense. Don’t make me beg.”
Celia grabbed Ryan’s hand and hauled. He got to his feet, allowed her to lead him to the dance floor. The band played a mid-tempo tune he did not recognise. She took his left hand in her right, raised it up, brought her body close to his. Her left hand climbed his shoulder, his right found the small of her back. He pressed his palm into the hollow there, felt the suggestion of her shape, the firm and the soft of her.
They danced.
She lent him her grace, her balance, allowed his clumsy feet to follow hers across the floor. The air between them seemed charged, like dark summer clouds, ready to flash and spark. He felt the pressure of her breasts against his torso, did not pull away. She turned within his arms, her hip grazing him. Blood flowed and warmed that part of him. He felt a heaviness there, weight and heat. She felt it also, he knew, they both did. Her lips parted, shining red and pink.
Ryan opened his mouth to speak, but her expression shifted as she watched something over his shoulder. He turned his head to see what had taken her from him.
A middle aged man spoke in Haughey’s ear, the minister’s face pale, his brow furrowed. Haughey turned to Skorzeny, repeated whatever he’d been told. Skorzeny’s face remained a mask of calm. Only his eyes moved, seeking Ryan out. The music dimmed in Ryan’s ears, his feet ceased their awkward shuffling.
“What’s the matter, do you think?” Celia asked.
Haughey marched to the dance floor.
“I don’t know,” Ryan said.
The minister took Ryan’s elbow, led him away from Celia. “Looks like you’ve got what you wanted,” Haughey said.
It took a moment for Ryan to understand that the politician did not mean his dancing partner. “What?” he asked.
“A witness.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ryan struggled to keep up with Skorzeny’s Mercedes-Benz 300SL as it coursed through the countryside. Its white body disappeared behind hedgerows and reappeared on crests, dazzling in the Vauxhall’s headlights. Ryan felt the tires of his own car skitter on the road surface, barely clinging to the bends while the Mercedes seemed to float ahead.
Skorzeny hardly slowed as they passed through Kildare town. Ryan heard the Mercedes roar above the sound of his own engine as it turned up the incline towards Dunmurry. As the town’s buildings gave way to farmland, Ryan finally lost sight of the other car. He accelerated, leaning forward, peering through the windscreen for any sign of the Austrian.
Haughey had stayed at the party, thought it best not to get too involved. Yes, Ryan had agreed, keep your distance from the blood.
The road rose for half a mile ahead. Trees and gates whipped by, branches reaching out to skiff and clang the Vauxhall’s doors and wing mirrors. The brow came rushing up, and Ryan’s stomach floated with him as the car lost contact with the tarmac.
Searing red lights filled his vision as the Vauxhall slammed down. He stamped on the brake pedal, his body thrown forward, jamming his foot down again and again. The car groaned and juddered as it slowed, the Mercedes only yards ahead.
Skorzeny pulled away, exhaust bellowing. His hand slipped out of the driver’s window, waving, come on, keep up. Ryan cursed as he brought the Vauxhall under control.
He kept the Mercedes within sight until it turned into a lane so narrow Ryan hadn’t seen its mouth in the hedgerow. The single track cut through fields for a mile or more, the pocked surface jarring Ryan’s spine until the lane ended at a gateway barely wide enough for Skorzeny’s car to slip through. Ryan followed and parked alongside the Mercedes as Skorzeny climbed out.
“Who taught you to drive?” the Austrian asked as Ryan walked around the Vauxhall. “Your mother? You’d have lost me if I hadn’t waited.”
Before Ryan could agree or argue, a thin man stepped out from the side of the cottage, an oil lamp hanging from his fingers.
“This way,” he said, his accent thick.
This was Lainé, Ryan thought, the Frenchman. Skorzeny went first, shook the man’s hand, old friends.
“Who is this?” Lainé asked.
“Lieutenant Ryan of the Directorate of Intelligence,” Skorzeny said. “He’s helping us get to the bottom of this. He’ll want to speak with you.”
Ryan approached, extended his hand. Lainé ignored it and pinched a hand-rolled cigarette between his lips. He held the lamp up, let the tobacco dip into the flame. It flared, revealing the hollows of his face, the sunken eyes.
“Come,” Lainé said.
They followed him to the rear of the cottage. Skorzeny paused inside the doorway. Ryan reached the threshold and saw why.
A dead man lay on the stone floor, flat on his back. One neat hole in his forehead, another in his knitted pullover, the wool tattered and scorched. A broken shotgun and two unspent shells lay beside him.
Muddy boot prints crisscrossed the floor, circled the body. Ryan noted the damp soil caked on the Frenchman’s boots. The dead man’s shoes were dirty but dry.
Lainé indicated the corpse. “This is Murtagh. They kill him first.”