I said, “We’re from America.”
“America?”
“We came all the way to see you.”
“Why?”
“Mrs. Healy, is it?” I asked, even though I knew it was. I knew all about her. I knew where she was born, how old she was, and how much her husband made. Which wasn’t much. They were a month behind on practically everything. Which I hoped was going to help.
“Yes, I’m Mrs. Healy,” the woman said.
“My name is John Pacino, and my colleague here is Harry Carter.”
“Good morning to you both.”
“You live in a very interesting house, Mrs. Healy.”
She looked blank, and then craned her neck out the door and stared up at her front wall. “Do I?”
“Interesting to us, anyway.”
“Why?”
“Can we tell you all about it?”
She said, “Would you like a wee cup of tea?”
“That would be lovely.”
So we trooped inside, first Carter, then me, feeling a kind of preliminary satisfaction, as if our lead-off hitter had gotten on base. Nothing guaranteed, but so far, so good. The air inside smelled of daily life and closed windows. A skilled analyst could have listed the ingredients from their last eight meals. All of which had been either boiled or fried, I guessed.
It wasn’t the kind of household where guests get deposited in the parlor to wait. We followed the woman to the kitchen, which had drying laundry suspended on a rack. She filled a kettle and lit the stove. She said, “Tell me what’s interesting about my house.”
Carter said, “There’s a writer we admire very much, name of Edmund Wall.”
“Here?”
“In America.”
“A writer?”
“A novelist. A very fine one.”
“I never heard of him. But then, I don’t read much.”
“Here,” Carter said, and he took the copies from his pocket and smoothed them on the counter. They were faked to look like Wikipedia pages. Which is trickier than people think. (Wikipedia prints different than it looks on the computer screen.)
Mrs. Healy asked, “Is he famous?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “Writers don’t really get famous. But he’s very well respected. Among people who like his sort of thing. There’s an appreciation society. That’s why we’re here. I’m the chairman and Mr. Carter is the general secretary.”
Mrs. Healy stiffened a little, as if she thought we were trying to sell her something. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to join. I don’t know him.”
I said, “That’s not the proposition we have for you.”
“Then what is?”
“Before you, the Robinsons lived here, am I right?”
“Yes,” she said.
“And before them, the Donnellys, and before them, the McLaughlins.”
The woman nodded. “They all got cancer. One after the other. People started to say this was an unlucky house.”
I looked concerned. “That didn’t bother you? When you bought it?”
“My faith has no room for superstition.”
Which was a circularity fit to make a person’s head explode. It struck me mute. Carter said, “And before the McLaughlins were the McCanns, and way back at the beginning were the McKennas.”
“Before my time,” the woman said, uninterested, and I felt the runner on first steal second. Scoring position.
I said, “Edmund Wall was born in this house.”
“Who?”
“Edmund Wall. The novelist. In America.”
“No one named Wall ever lived here.”
“His mother was a good friend of Mrs. McKenna. Right back at the beginning. She came to visit from America. She thought she had another month, but the baby came early.”
“When?”
“The 1960s.”
“In this house?”
“Upstairs in the bedroom. No time to get to the hospital.”
“A baby?”
“The future Edmund Wall.”
“I never heard about it. Mrs. McKenna has a sister. She never talks about it.”
Which felt like the runner getting checked back. I said, “You know Mrs. McKenna’s sister?”
“We have a wee chat from time to time. Sometimes I see her in the hairdresser’s.”
“It was fifty years ago. How’s her memory?”
“I should think a person would remember that kind of thing.”
Carter said, “Maybe it was hushed up. It’s possible Edmund’s mother wasn’t married.”
Mrs. Healy went pale. Impropriety. Scandal. In her house. Worse than cancer. “Why are you telling me this?”
I said, “The Edmund Wall Appreciation Society wants to buy your house.”
“Buy it?”
“For a museum. Well, like a living museum, really. Certainly people could visit, to see the birthplace, but we could keep his papers here too. It could be a research center.”
“Do people do that?”
“Do what? Research?”
“No, visit houses where writers were born.”
“All the time. Lots of writers’ houses are museums. Or tourist attractions. We could make a very generous offer. Edmund Wall has many passionate supporters in America.”
“How generous?”
“Best plan would be to pick out where you’d like to live next, and we’ll make sure you can. Within reason, of course. Maybe a new house. They’re building them all over.” Then I shut up, and let temptation work its magic. Mrs. Healy went quiet. Then she started to look around her kitchen. Chipped cabinets, sagging hinges, damp air.
The kettle started to whistle.
She said, “I’ll have to talk to my husband.”
Which felt like the runner sliding into third ahead of the throw. Safe. Ninety feet away. Nothing guaranteed, but so far, so good. In fact bloody good, as they say on those damp little islands. We were in high spirits on the way back in the Mercedes.
The problem was waiting for us in the Europa’s lobby. An Ulsterman, maybe fifty years old, in a cheap suit, with old nicks and scars on his hands and thickening around his eyes. A former field operative, no doubt, many years in the saddle, now moved to a desk because of his age. I was familiar with the type. It was like looking in a mirror.
He said, “Can I have a word?”
We went to the bar, which was dismal and empty ahead of the lunchtime rush. The guy introduced himself as a copper, from right there in Belfast, from a unit he didn’t specify, but which I guessed was Special Branch, which was the brass-knuckle wing of the old Royal Ulster Constabulary, now the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Like the FBI, with the gloves off. He said, “Would you mind telling me who you are and why you’re here?”
So Carter gave him the guff about Edmund Wall, and the appreciation society, and the birthplace, but what was good enough earlier in the morning didn’t sound so great in the cold light of midday. The guy checked things on his phone in real time as Carter talked, and then he said, “There are four things wrong with that story. There is no Edmund Wall, there is no appreciation society, the bank account you opened is at the branch nearest to Langley, which is CIA headquarters, and most of all, that house you’re talking about was once home to Gerald McCann, who was a notorious paramilitary in his day.”
Carter said nothing, and neither did I.
The guy continued, “Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, you know. They won’t allow unannounced activities on their own turf. So again, would you mind telling me who you are and why you’re here?”
I said, “You interested in a deal?”
“What kind?”
“You want to buy a friend in a high place?”
“How high?”
“Very high.”
“Where?”