Betrayal at Lisson Grove (Treason at Lisson Grove)

His expression softened. He smiled back at her, rueful and a little self-deprecating. “I did at the time. Seeing Cormac brings it back. But I’m cooler-headed now. There are better places to put one’s energy—causes less narrow.” She was aware of the color and whisper of fabric around them, silk against silk. They were surrounded by people in one of the most interesting capital cities in the world, come out to an evening at the theater. Some of them, at least, were also men and women who saw themselves living under a foreign oppression in their own land, and some of them at least were willing to kill and to die to throw it off. She looked just like them, cast of feature, tone of skin and hair, and yet she was not; she was different in heart and mind.

“What causes?” she asked with interest.

His smile widened, as if to brush it aside. “Social injustices, old-fashioned laws to reform,” he replied. “Greater equality. Exactly the same as, no doubt, you fight for at home. I hear there are some great women in London battling for all manner of things. Perhaps one day you will tell me about some of them?” He made it a question, as if he were interested enough to require an answer.

“Of course,” she said lightly, trying to master facts in her mind so she could answer sensibly, if the necessity arose.

He took her arm as people milled around her, returning to their seats, courteous, hospitable, full of dry wit and a passion for life. How easy, and dangerous, it would be for her to forget that she did not belong here.

NARRAWAY WAS UNCERTAIN WHAT Charlotte would learn at the theater. As he walked along Arran Quay, on the north bank of the Liffey, his head down into the warm, damp breeze off the water, he was afraid that she would discover a few things about him that he would very much rather she not know, but he knew no way to help that.

He smiled bitterly as he pictured her probing relentlessly for the facts behind the pain. Would she be disillusioned to hear his part in it all? Or was that his vanity, his own feelings—that she cared enough for him that disillusion was even possible, let alone something that would wound her?

He would never forget the days after Kate’s death. Worst was the morning they hanged Sean. The brutality and the grief of that had cast a chill over all the years since.

But he did not want Charlotte’s grief for him, particularly if it was based on a misconception of who he was.

He laughed at himself; it was just a faint sound, almost drowned by his quick footsteps along the stones of the quayside. Why, at this time in his life, did he care so much for the opinion of another man’s wife?

He forced his attention to where he was going, and why. If he did not learn who had diverted the money meant for Mulhare, anything else he learned about O’Neil was pointless. Someone in Lisson Grove had been involved. He blamed none of the Irish. They were fighting for their own cause, and at times he even sympathized with it. But the man in Special Branch who had done this had betrayed his own people, and that was different. He wanted to know who it was, and prove it. The damage he could cause would have no boundary. If he hated England enough to plan and execute a way of disgracing Narraway, then what else might he do? Was his real purpose to replace him? This whole business of Mulhare might be no more than a means to that end. But was it simply ambition, or was there another, darker purpose behind it as well?

Without realizing it he increased his pace, moving so softly he almost passed the alley he was looking for. He turned and fumbled in the dark. He had to feel his way along one of the walls. Third door. He knocked sharply, a quick rhythm.

He had brought Charlotte because he wanted to, but she had her own compelling reasons to be here. If he was right, that there was a traitor in Lisson Grove, then one of the first things that person would do would be to get rid of Pitt. If Pitt was fortunate, he would simply be dismissed. There were much worse possibilities.

The door opened. He was let into a small, extremely stuffy office piled high with ledgers, account books, and sheaves of loose papers. A striped cat had claimed itself a space in front of the hearth and did not stir when Narraway came in and took a seat on a chair opposite the cluttered desk.

O’Casey sat in the chair behind it, his bald head gleaming in the gaslight.

“Well?” Narraway asked, masking his eagerness as closely as he could.

O’Casey hesitated.

Narraway considered threatening him. He still had power, albeit illegal now. He drew in his breath. Then he looked at O’Casey’s face again and changed his mind. He had few enough friends; he could not afford to alienate any of them.

“So what is it you expect of me, then?” O’Casey asked, cocking his head a little to one side. “I’ll not help you, not more than I owe. For old times’ sake. And that’s little enough.”