Part 21 (1/2)

She sat down obediently.

He sat opposite her, leaning forward a little. 'Have you any idea who already?'

Her mind raced. How should she answer, how much of the truth reveal? Could he help at all if she lied to him?

'I have lots of ideas, but they don't make any sense,' she replied, prevaricating. 'I know who hated Victor, but I don't know who hated Cormac.'

A moment of humour touched his face, and then vanished. It looked like self-mockery.

'I don't expect you to know,' she said quietly. 'Or you would have warned him. But perhaps with hindsight you might understand something now. Talulla is Sean and Kate's daughter, brought up away from Dublin after her parents' deaths.' She saw instantly in his eyes that he had known that.

'She is, poor child,' he agreed.

'You didn't tell Victor that, did you?' It sounded more like an accusation than she had intended it to.

He looked down for a moment, then back up at her. 'No. I thought she had suffered enough over that.'

'Another one of your innocent casualties,' she observed, remembering what he had said during their carriage ride in the dark. Something in that had disturbed her, a resignation she could not share. All casualties still upset her; but then her country was not at war, not occupied by another people, half friend, half enemy.

'I don't make judgements as to who is innocent and who guilty, Mrs Pitt, just what is necessary, and only that when I have no choice.'

'Talulla was a child!'

'Children grow up.'

Did he know, or guess, whether Talulla had killed Cormac? She looked at him steadily, and found herself a little afraid. The intelligence in him was overwhelming, rich with understanding of terrible irony. And it was not himself he was mocking: it was her, and her naivety. She was quite certain of that now. He was a thought, a word ahead of her all the time. She had already said too much, and he knew perfectly well that she was sure Talulla had shot Cormac.

'Into what?' she said aloud. 'Into a woman who would shoot her uncle's head to pieces in order to be revenged on the man she thinks betrayed her mother?'

That surprised him, just for an instant.Then he covered it. 'Of course she thinks that,' he replied. 'She can hardly face thinking that Kate went with him willingly. In fact if he'd asked her, maybe she would have gone to England with him. Who knows?'

'Do you?' Charlotte said immediately.

'I?' His eyebrows rose. 'I have no idea.'

'Is that why Sean killed her, really?'

'Again, I have no idea.'

She did not know whether to believe him or not. He had been charming to her, generous with his time and excellent company, but behind the smiling facade he was a complete stranger. She had no idea what was going on in his thoughts, no certainty at all that it was not something alien, and unbearable.

'More incidental damage,' she said aloud. 'Kate, Sean, Talulla, now Cormac. Incidental to what, Mr McDaid? Ireland's freedom?'

'Could we have a better cause, Mrs Pitt?' he said gently. 'Surely Talulla can be understood for wanting that? Hasn't she paid enough?'

But it didn't make sense, not completely. Who had moved the money meant for Mulhare back into Narraway's account? Was that done simply in order to lure him to Ireland for this revenge? Why so elaborate? Wouldn't the kind of rage Talulla had be satisfied by killing Narraway herself? Why on earth make poor Cormac the sacrifice? Wasn't that complicated and in the end pretty pointless? If she wanted Narraway to suffer, she could have shot him so he would be disabled, mutilated, die slowly. There were plenty of possibilities.

This might well be part of the picture, but it certainly was not all of it.

And why now? There had to be a reason.

McDaid was still watching her, waiting.

'Yes, I imagine she has paid enough,' Charlotte answered his question. 'And Cormac? Hasn't he too?'

'Ah, yes . . . poor Cormac,' McDaid said softly. 'He loved Kate, you know. That's why he could never forgive Narraway. She cared for Cormac, but she would never have loved him . . . mostly I suppose, because he was Sean's brother. Cormac was the better man, I think. Maybe in the end, Kate thought so too.'

'That doesn't answer why Talulla shot him,' Charlotte pointed out.

'Oh, you're right. Of course it doesn't . . .'

'Another casualty of war?' she said with a touch of bitterness. 'Whose freedom do you fight for at such a cost? Is that not a weight of grief to carry for ever?'

His eyes flashed for a moment, then the anger was gone again. But it had been real.

'Cormac was guilty too,' he said grimly.

'Of what? Surviving?' she asked.

'Yes, but more than that. He didn't do much to save Sean. He barely tried. If he'd told the truth, Sean might have been a hero, not a man who murdered his wife in a jealous rage.'

'Perhaps to Cormac he was a man who murdered his wife in a jealous rage,' Charlotte pointed out. 'People react slowly sometimes when they are shattered with grief. It takes time for the numbness to wear off. Cormac might have been too shocked to do anything useful. What could it have been anyway? Didn't Sean himself tell the truth as to why he killed Kate?'

'He barely said anything,' McDaid admitted, this time looking down at the floor, not at her.

'Stunned too,' she said. 'But someone told Talulla that Cormac should have saved her father, and she believed them. Easier to think of your father as a hero betrayed, rather than a jealous man who killed his wife in a rage because she cuckolded him with his enemy, and an Englishman at that.'

McDaid looked at her with a momentary flare of anger. Then he masked it so completely she might almost have thought it was her imagination.

'It would seem so,' he agreed. 'But how do we prove any of that?'

She felt the coldness sweep over her. 'I don't know. I'm trying to think.'

'Be careful, Mrs Pitt,' he said gently. 'I would not like you to be a casualty of war as well.'

She managed to smile just as if she did not even imagine that his words could be as much a threat as a warning. She felt as if it were a mask on his face: transparent, ghostly. 'Thank you. I shall be careful, I promise, but it is kind of you to care.' She rose to her feet, very careful not to sway. 'Now I think I had better go back to my lodgings. It has been a . . . a terrible day.'

When she reached Molesworth Street again, Mrs Hogan came out to see her immediately. She looked awkward, her hands winding around each other, twisting her ap.r.o.n.

Charlotte addressed the subject before Mrs Hogan could search for the words.

'You have heard about Mr O'Neil,' she said gravely. 'A very terrible thing to have happened. I hope Mr Narraway will be able to help them. He has some experience in such tragedies. But I quite understand if you would prefer that I move out of your house in the meantime. I will have to find something, of course, until I get my pa.s.sage back home. I dare say it will take me a day or two. In the meantime I will pack my brother's belongings and put them in my own room, so you may let his rooms to whomsoever you wish. I believe we are paid for another couple of nights at least?' Please heaven within a couple of days she would be a great deal further on in her decisions, and at least one other person in Dublin would know for certain that Narraway was innocent.

Mrs Hogan was embarra.s.sed. The issue had been taken out of her hands and she did not know how to rescue it. As Charlotte had hoped, she settled for the compromise. 'Thank you, that would be most considerate, ma'am.'

'If you will be kind enough to lend me the keys, I'll do it straight away.' Charlotte held out her hand.

Reluctantly Mrs Hogan pa.s.sed them over.