Betrayal at Lisson Grove (Treason at Lisson Grove)

Tyrone’s voice was low and bitterly angry. “I don’t give a tinker’s curse who runs your wretched services, secret or open. It was my chance to get rid of Narraway. Whatever else Austwick is, he’s a fool by comparison.”

“You know him?” She seized the only part of what he was saying that seemed vulnerable, even momentarily.

There was a tiny sound behind her; just the brushing of a silk skirt against the doorjamb.

She turned around and saw Bridget Tyrone standing a yard from her. Suddenly she was horribly, physically afraid. She could scream her lungs out here and no one would hear her, no one would know … or care. It took all the strength she had to stand still, and command her voice to be level—or at least something like it.

It would be absurd to pretend Bridget had not overheard the conversation.

Charlotte was trapped, and she knew it. The fury in Bridget’s face was unmistakable. Just as Bridget moved forward, Charlotte did also. She had never before struck another woman. However, when she turned as if to say something to Tyrone and saw him also moving toward her, she swung back, her arm wide. She put all her weight behind it, catching Bridget on the side of the head just as she lunged forward.

Bridget toppled sideways, catching at the small table with books on it and sending it crashing, herself on top of it. She screamed, as much in rage as pain.

Tyrone was distracted, diving to help her. Charlotte ran past, out of the door and across the hall. She flung the front door open, hurtling out into the street without once looking behind her. She kept on running, both hands holding her skirts up so she did not trip. She reached the main crossroads before she was so out of breath she could go no farther.

She dropped her skirt out of shaking hands and started to walk along the dimly lit street with as much dignity as she could muster, keeping an eye to the roadway for carriage lights in the hope of getting one to take her home as soon as it could. She would prefer to be far away from the area.

When she saw an unoccupied cab, she gave the driver the Molesworth Street address before climbing in and settling back to try to arrange her thoughts.

The story was still incomplete: bits and pieces that only partially fit together. Talulla was Sean and Kate’s daughter. When had she known the truth of what had happened, or at least something like it? Perhaps more important, who had told her? Had it been with the intention that she should react violently? Did they know her well enough, and deliberately work on her loneliness, her sense of injustice and displacement, so that she could be provoked into murdering Cormac and blaming Narraway? To her it could be made to seem a just revenge for the destruction of her family. Sometimes rage is the easiest answer to unbearable pain. Charlotte had seen that too many times before, even been brushed by it herself long ago, at the time of Sarah’s death. It is instinctive to feel that someone must be made to pay.

Who could have used Talulla that way? And why? Was Cormac the intended victim? Or was he a victim of incidental damage, as Fiachra McDaid had said—one of the fallen in a war for a greater purpose—and Narraway the real victim? It would be a poetic justice if he were hanged for a murder he did not commit. Since Talulla believed Sean innocent of killing Kate, and Narraway guilty, for her that would be elegant, perfect.

But who prompted her to it, gave her the information and stoked her passions, all but guided her hand? And why? Obviously not Cormac. Not John Tyrone, because he seemed to know nothing about it, and Charlotte believed that. Bridget? Perhaps. Certainly she was involved. Her reaction to Charlotte that evening had been too immediate and too violent to spring from ignorance. In fact, looking back at it now, perhaps she had known more than Tyrone himself. Was Tyrone, at least in part, another victim of incidental damage? Someone to use, because he was vulnerable, more in love with his wife than she was with him, and because he was a banker and had the means?

She could no longer evade the answer—Fiachra McDaid. Perhaps he had nothing to do with the past at all, or any of the old tragedy, except to use it. And for him winning was all, the means and the casualties nothing.

How did getting Narraway out of Special Branch help the cause of Ireland, though? He would only be replaced. But perhaps that was it. Replaced with a traitor, bought and paid for. She was still working on this train of thought when she arrived at Mrs. Hogan’s door. She had promised Mrs. Hogan she would be gone by the next day. It would be very difficult to manage her own luggage and Narraway’s as well, and there were other practical considerations to be taken in mind, such as the shortage of money to remain much longer away from home. She had still her tickets to purchase, for the boat and for the train.