LITMIR.BIZ

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Christ’s sake,’ the red-haired boy said. ‘We didn’t mean no harm.’

      Binnie kicked him in the crutch, the boy sagged at the knees, turned and clutched at the bar with one hand to stop himself from falling. Binnie reversed his grip on the Browning, the butt rose and fell like a hammer on the back of that outstretched hand and I heard the bones crack. The boy gave a terrible groan and slipped to the floor, half-fainting, at the feet of his horrified companions.

      Binnie’s right foot swung back as if to finish him off with a kick in the side of the head and Norah Murphy called sharply, ‘That’s enough.’

      He stepped back instantly like a well-trained dog and stood watching, the Browning flat against his left thigh. Norah Murphy moved past me and went to join them and I noticed that she was carrying in her right hand a square, flat case which she placed on the bar.

      ‘Pick him up,’ she said.

      The injured boy’s companions did as they were told, holding him between them while she examined the hand. I poured myself another Jameson and joined the group as she opened the case. The most interesting item on display was a stethoscope and she rummaged around and finally produced a large triangular sling which she tied about the boy’s neck to support the injured hand.

      ‘Take him into Casualty at the Infirmary,’ she said. ‘He’ll need a plaster cast.’

      ‘And keep your mouth shut,’ Binnie put in.

      They went out on the run, the injured boy’s feet dragging between them. The door closed and there was only the silence.

      As Norah Murphy reached for the case I said, ‘Is that just a front or the real thing?’

      ‘Would Harvard Medical School be good enough for you?’ she demanded.

      ‘Fascinating,’ I said. ‘Our friend here breaks them up and you put them together again. That’s what I call teamwork.’

      She didn’t like that for she turned very pale and snapped the fastener of her case together angrily, but I think she had determined not to lose her temper.

      ‘All right, Major Vaughan,’ she said. ‘I don’t like you either. Shall we go?’

      She moved towards the door. I turned and placed my glass on the counter in front of the barman, who was standing there waiting for God knows what axe to fall.

      Binnie said, ‘You’ve seen nothing, heard nothing. All right?’

      There was no need to threaten and the poor wretch nodded dumbly, his lip trembling. And then, quite suddenly, he collapsed across the bar and started to cry.

      Binnie surprised me then by patting him on the shoulder and saying with astonishing gentleness, ‘Better times coming, Da. Just you see.’

      But if the barman believed that, then I was the only sane man in a world gone mad.

      It had started to rain and fog rolled in across the docks as we moved along the waterfront, Norah Murphy at my side, Binnie bringing up the rear rather obviously.

      Neither of them said a word until we were perhaps half way to our destination when Norah Murphy paused at the end of a mean street of terrace houses and turned to Binnie. ‘I’ve a patient I must see here. I promised to drop a prescription in this evening. Five minutes.’

      She ignored me and walked away down the street, pausing at the third or fourth door to knock briskly. She was admitted almost at once and Binnie and I moved into the shelter of an arched passageway between two houses. I offered him a cigarette which he refused. I lit one myself and leaned against the wall.

      After a while he said, ‘Your mother – what was her maiden name?’

      ‘Fitzgerald,’ I told him. ‘Nuala Fitzgerald.’

      He turned, his face a pale shadow in the darkness. ‘There was a man of the same name schoolmaster at Stradballa during the Troubles.’

      ‘Her elder brother,’ I said.

      He leaned closer as if trying to see my face. ‘You, a bloody Englishman, are the nephew of Michael Fitzgerald, the Schoolmaster of Stradballa?’

      ‘I suppose I must be. Why should that be so hard to take?’

      ‘But he was a great hero,’ Binnie said. ‘He commanded the Stradballa flying column. When the Tans came to take him, he was teaching at the school. Because of the children he went outside and shot it out in the open, one against fifteen, and got clean away.’

      ‘I know,’ I said. ‘A real hero of the revolution. All for the Cause only he never wanted it to end, Binnie, that was his trouble. Executed during the Civil War by the Free State Government. I always found that part of the story rather ironic myself, or had you forgotten that after they’d got rid of the English, the Irish set about knocking each other off with even greater enthusiasm?’

      I could not see the expression on his face, yet the tension in him was something tangible between us.

      I said, ‘Don’t try it, boy. As the Americans would say, you’re out of your league. Compared to me, you’re just a bloody amateur.’

      ‘Is that a fact now, Major?’ he said softly.

      ‘Another thing,’ I said. ‘Dr Murphy wouldn’t like it and we can’t have that now, can we?’

      She settled the matter for us by reappearing at that precise moment. She sensed that something was wrong at once and paused.

      ‘What is it?’

      ‘A slight difference of opinion, that’s all,’ I told her. ‘Binnie’s just discovered I’m related to a piece of grand old Irish history and it sticks in his throat – or didn’t you know?’

      ‘I knew,’ she said coldly.

      ‘I thought you would,’ I said. ‘The interesting thing is, why didn’t you tell him?’

      I didn’t give her a chance to reply and cut the whole business short by moving off into the fog briskly in the general direction of Lurgan Street.

      The hotel didn’t have a great deal to commend it, but then neither did Lurgan Street. A row of decaying terrace houses, a shop or two and a couple of pubs making as unattractive a sight as I have ever seen.

      The hotel itself was little more than a lodging-house of a type to be found near the docks of any large port, catering mainly for sailors or prostitutes in need of a room for an hour or two. It had been constructed by simply joining three terrace houses together and sticking a sign above the door of one of them.

      A merchant navy officer came out as we approached and clutched at the railings for support. A girl of eighteen or so in a black plastic mac emerged behind him, straightened his cap and got a hand under his elbow to help him down the steps.

      She looked us over without the slightest sense of shame and I smiled and nodded. ‘Good night, a colleen. God save the good work.’

      The laughter bubbled out of her. ‘God save you kindly.’

      They went off down the street together, the sailor breaking into a reasonably unprintable song and I shook my head. ‘Oh, the pity of it, a fine Catholic girl to come to that.’

      Binnie looked as if he would have liked to put a bullet into me, but Norah Murphy showed no reaction at all except to say, ‘Could we possibly get on with it, Major Vaughan? My time is limited.’

      We went up the steps and into the narrow hallway. There was a desk of sorts to one side at the bottom of the stairs and an old white-haired man in a faded alpaca jacket dozed behind it, his chin in one hand.

      There seemed little point in waking him and I led the way up to the first landing. Meyer had room seven at the end of the corridor and when I paused to knock, we could hear music clearly from inside, strangely plaintive,

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