Chapter XX

Away from the light steals home my heavy son,

And private in his chamber pens himself …

Black and portentous must this humour prove

Unless good counsel may the cause remove.

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“My dinner is ruined!” Terry grabbed a dishtowel, bunched it up in his hand, and threw it down on the floor, in a parody of the disgruntled housewife. “I slave over a hot stove all day and what thanks do I get? You waltz in at seven o’clock in the evening, Mol, and expect your dinner hot on the table, and me in a pretty frock smiling although my heart is breaking, and —”

“What did you make for me, sunshine?”

“Take-away from the local chipper.”

“Perfect.”

She went into her room and emerged a few minutes later, and headed for the take-out containers. “So where did you fly in from today? Rome, was it?”

“I took off from Fiumicino in the clear blue sky and flew into severe turbulence over France and then came in for landing at Heathrow in fog that was nearly black. As soon as my wheels touched the tarmac, the passengers broke into applause.”

“That was nice of them.”

“No, it wasn’t. I hate that. What did they think was going to happen? Did they think doing my job and getting the plane down onto terra firma was optional?”

“Good point. How about you, Brennan?”

“I worked at St. Andrew’s, then came back here and had a restful time until Terry blasted in, with his heart-stopping tales from the air.”

Or at least that was Brennan’s story for now. He could not recount his conversation with Lorna MacIntyre earlier that day, let alone tell Terry about the two-gun hijacking by the Special Branch detective, the revelation of Conn’s innocence, or the news that MI5 had the place bugged. Could not get into any of this, not with the place bugged and the spooks listening in.

“How about you, Molly?” Brennan asked, while making a signal that he hoped she would catch: Don’t say anything you don’t want recorded by the state’s security apparatus.

“I just … good chips.” She bent her head over the grub and put fork to mouth.

“You just what?” Terry asked.

“Hmm?”

“Today, you …”

“I don’t have to tell you two everything I do. And I certainly don’t want to know everything you get up to.” She gave Brennan the eye. She had not forgotten for a moment that, even over the plummy voice of the BBC presenter, their conversation might be overheard by unseen persons in unmarked quarters. They had to avoid controversial matters and act to the best of their ability as if nothing had changed. But what was controversial about Molly’s afternoon?

“After I scoff this down, I’ll join you for a pint if you two haven’t drained the pub dry over the last few weeks.”

“No, we left some for all those pissheads and alcos who seem to gravitate to the place.”

“Always thinking of others, Ter.”

When she had finished her fish and chips, they all left the flat.

“I’m not really going to the bar. I’d just like a bit of a walk in the fresh air. Fewer bugs out here.”

“Fewer than where?” Terry asked.

“My place.”

“Your place! If there was so much as a single ant in your flat, a poor little ant limping across the floor with two of his legs in little ant-sized casts, asking only for a wee grain of sugar and then he’d be gone, do you think Brennan would be staying there?”

So they filled him in on all the news.

“That sounds like a story I’d come up with after enjoying a few bottles at Janey Mack’s!”

“We know, we know,” said Brennan, and that was without a word about the dust-up between him and Chambers outside the safe house.

“But back to you, Molly,” he said. “How did your day go?”

“I took a little train trip out of town. Nice to get away from the city once in a while.”

“Where did you go?”

“Em, I went to Bath. It’s gorgeous. You should go there while you’re here, Brennan. It is architectural heaven, with magnificent neo-Classical buildings, everything beautifully laid out. And of course the Roman artifacts and the baths, and statues of the Roman emperors. You’d love it. Some place names for you from that area, too. Limpley Stoke, Dodleaze Wood, Slittems Wood, to name a few. And for you, Terry, the hanging loos.”

“The what?”

“You’d find them most entertaining, I’m sure. When the houses were first built of course nobody had indoor toilets. So, in later times, some of the owners erected little buildings or compartments attached to the outside walls of the houses. Suspended off the façade several storeys up. Hanging loos.”

“I never could have invented that, no matter how much drink I’d taken to fuel my imagination.”

“Well, I took a picture for you. Drove by it the first time without realizing what it was, but went back for the photo. When I get my film developed, I’ll send it to you. Amaze your friends! Anyway, that was my day. And since I’m not going drinking tonight, but you fellows probably are, I’ll head back home and leave you to it.”

“You could have told us that in the comfort of your home,” said Terry, “even with the spies taking notes. Unless a lady doesn’t engage in toilet talk in front of unseen strangers.”

Brennan looked at her. “You drove back to take the picture? I thought you took the train.”

“I did take the train. To get there, but then …”

Her eyes went from Brennan to Terry, and back to Brennan. Then she made a decision. To come clean. “I met John there.”

“John?” Brennan asked. “You don’t mean John Chambers.”

She nodded.

“You agreed to meet the man who not so long ago abducted us at gunpoint? Pulled a gun on us even after you and he had seemingly become friends?”

“Abducted us to make sure we went with him to a place of safety so he could tell us, without being overheard, that our cousin is innocent of murder. John explained why he felt he had to do it that way. So, as I was saying, we made this plan to go to Bath. He rang me at work, on a phone line he knew to be secure. I travelled to Bath on the train, and he arrived by car. We couldn’t be seen travelling together, him a detective and me a person of interest in his investigation!”

Earlier that day

John was waiting for her in his car when she got off the train in Bath. If he hadn’t waved to her, she might have passed by without recognizing him. Gone was the severe-looking business suit and the cold, professional demeanour. He was dressed in a grey and blue striped rugby shirt, and his hair was tousled, as if he had run his fingers through it after showering, and not bothered to comb it down for a day on the beat. The smile he gave her was nearly a grin, and he looked ten years younger than he did when carrying out the grim duties of his profession.

They leaned towards each other when she got into the car, then both backed away when they realized what they had been about to do.

“Well, then,” he said, looking a little embarrassed, “let’s get on with things. A little motor tour about the city to see what’s what, and then perhaps a stroll through the streets?”

“Sounds just right, John.”

“It’s, um, well, it’s good to see you, Molly, if I may say so.”

“You may.”

“Good to see you off-duty.”

“You look like a new man, just by being a hundred miles from your headquarters.”

“That must be it.”

He pulled away from the station and into Dorchester Street.

“This may be the most beautiful city in all of England,” Molly said as they passed along an elegant colonnaded street. “There’s a Jane Austen connection too, which adds even more lustre to the place.”

“Yes, she lived here for a spell and set two of her books here.”

“An Austen fan, are you?”

“Well, actually, I thought perhaps you were, so I looked it up before I came. Knew there was something, but I’d no idea what.”

“There you are, a wiser and better man already.”

“You’re a good influence on me, no matter what they might say about you back at HQ.”

“I can only hope that back at headquarters they have satisfied themselves I am a dead end as far as any investigation goes.”

“I hope so too.”

“You could put in a word for me.”

“But then I’d have no excuse to sit outside your flat and take tea with you.”

“Very well then. Keep me under suspicion.”

“But I’m not working your case right now. We’re on holiday. And I’ve brought some music, especially for this occasion.”

He reached down between the seats and brought out a cassette tape in a bright green cover. A band of four men and one woman, all dressed in various shades of green, raised pints of green-tinted beer in a toast to one another. They all had demented grins on their faces, and one man winked rakishly at the camera. The title of the album was Ireland O’Rama! John must have caught something in the expression on his passenger’s face, because he glanced at the cover, and said, “Well, all right, they look like a bunch of prats, but the music’s great. I’ve listened to it. All the good old Irish songs.”

She opened the abominable thing and inserted it into the player. As expected, the opening number was “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” John sang along with it, and his voice wasn’t half-bad, though she had to grit her teeth through the faux-Irish doggerel. “When Irish eyes are smiling, sure they’ll steal your heart away!”

It was the equivalent of asking for English music, meaning the William Byrd Mass for Four Voices, or “Wild Horses” by the Rolling Stones, and getting “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts.” She looked at her companion and only then saw the mischief in his eyes.

“Look in the glove box; the good one is in there. The chap in the music shop was an Irishman,” John told her. “He was appalled when I insisted on buying the O’Rama thing, until he caught on it was being done in jest. Then I asked him for authentic Irish music, and he showed me a tape by Planxty. I’ve never heard them, but I’m about to.”

She opened the box and found The Woman I Loved So Well. That was more like it. She put it in the slot and cranked up the brilliant modern-day traditional music of Planxty.

Soon after that they were out walking the streets, chatting easily while admiring the crescents and avenues, the Palladian-revival splendour, the buildings of golden Bath stone, luminous in the sun. They saw the sixteenth-century abbey, the fifteenth-century church of Saint Thomas à Becket, and the steamy first-century Roman baths. A tour guide explained that two hundred forty thousand gallons of hot water had been rising here from the Sacred Spring every day for thousands of years.

“I don’t know if it’s all that water, or just the time of day, but I’ve a bit of a thirst.”

“You’re not a man for the drink, I hope, John.”

“Perish the thought. A cup of tea, the occasional glass of sherry whilst wearing the old school tie, the very rare splash of gin at my club.”

“Splendid. Only what I would expect of an English gent. I must say I’m a little peckish, so let’s look for a place that serves food and drink.”

Ten minutes later they were facing each other across a table in the main lounge of the Star Inn, each of them with a pint of Draught Bass ale, a specialty of the house. The pub had been in business since 1760. Molly overheard one man call out to another upon arrival, “See you in a minute, Hopkins. I’ll be on death row.”

“John? Is there something I should know about this place?”

John shrugged. Molly was sufficiently curious to make inquiries of a young fellow who was clearing tables. He pointed to one of the other rooms. “Death row, that’s the bench in there. In the small bar.”

“I guess I should be grateful that you didn’t sit me down in there, Detective Sergeant.”

“Wouldn’t think of it. I intend to take you alive.”

She thought it wise not to respond, or to dwell on the images his words gave rise to in her imagination.

He raised his glass to her. “Cheers!”

“Sláinte!” she replied, and they both took a long, cool draught of their ale.

“I’d like to visit Ireland again,” he said. “The South, I mean. Not just Belfast this time.”

“Good idea, John.”

“Of course I’d want a trusty guide with me, so I wouldn’t go astray, say the wrong thing, and get myself in trouble!”

“Sure, you’d want to watch your words if you had a few bottles in one of the bars. That’s where you could take a page from the IRA handbook, the Green Book. It warns its members to avoid ‘drink-induced loose talk.’”

“Never thought I’d take the advice of that lot, but can’t argue with them there. So that’s what I’ll do. Visit Ireland, drink only moderately, and watch what I say.”

“You may as well stay home in that case!”

“True. I’d miss all the fun and they’d know I wasn’t a local boy anyway.”

“Safe to say you’d be spotted as a blow-in.”

“As long as they didn’t take me for a modern-day Cromwell, I’d be all right.”

“You’ll not want to utter that name anywhere in the Twenty-Six Counties.”

John took a swig of his beer and looked at her. “Don’t you think, Molly, that three and a half centuries is a long time to hold a grudge? I’m talking about Cromwell, and —” he held up his hand to ward off whatever she would almost certainly say “— I know what he did and I assure you that I don’t make light of the way he treated the Irish people. But don’t you think the passage of that much time makes revenge a bit, well, beside the point? Look at the situation in Belfast and Londonderry. Look at the marches the Orangemen hold every year in July. What are they marching for? To commemorate the Protestant victory over the Catholics at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. Don’t you regard them as, well …”

“Bigoted cranks.”

“Yes, quite. And doesn’t it go through your mind that they should get over the victory of William of Orange, get over it and move on, and stop marching through Catholic neighbourhoods crowing about it? And, if so, shouldn’t the same logic apply to the Republican side? Time to forget Cromwell and get on with other things?”

“The reason, John, that the idea of revenge for Cromwell hasn’t gone away is that the problem hasn’t gone away. They’re back again, Cromwell’s men. The British Army is once again on Irish soil. And many of them, I have to say, are not behaving like gentlemen.” She took a sip from her pint and went on. “And you raise the subject of the Orangemen. Let’s look at them and the rest of the Loyalists. Loyal to Britain, they’d be the first to tell you, not to Ireland. The campaign they have waged against Catholics and Nationalists cries out for revenge. Particularly when you consider that the Loyalists can often count on the collusion of the police and security forces. And, by the way, it’s an open secret that many of their killings have been planned, supported, and covered up by the intelligence services —” she paused and waited for a reaction but the police, as they say, remained tight-lipped “— all of that bolsters the argument in favour of continued action by Republicans.”

John gazed at her intently for a few seconds, then said, “I have to tell you, in all honesty, Molly, the Loyalists in Ulster make me cringe. Speaking as an Englishman, I’m telling you that, if I had my way, we’d be rid of those so-called Loyalists who are causing so much trouble. I’m not alone in thinking Britain would be better off if we had washed our hands of the whole lot of them in 1924, or whatever year it was. Signed the whole thing over and said Tally-ho, Ireland, good luck to you and goodbye. And sailed home. End of story. If only!”

“The Government of Ireland Act was in 1920, the treaty in 1921. I’m an historian, can’t help myself. But otherwise I’m in agreement with you: when the English pulled out of the South, they should have left the island of Ireland as one nation, instead of partitioning it. And should have gone home and forgotten all about us. Think of all the trouble, the money, the aggravation, you would have been spared. But you had an intransigent, irascible population in the North who were determined to stay British and wouldn’t let you go.”

“Am I hearing you correctly? You’re absolving us of responsibility?”

“No, sorry, you don’t get off that lightly. Because England is still propping up an illegitimate state, a state in which borders and voting districts were gerrymandered in order to keep the Loyalist-Unionists in power.”

“And that justifies all the terrorism that has been committed by the IRA?”

“Some acts can never be justified. You’ll not be hearing me apologize for terrorism, no matter who the perpetrator is.” She could not read the expression on the face of the man across from her. She drained her glass, and put it down. “Isn’t this where the matriarch of the family rises and says, ‘Now perhaps the gentlemen would like to retire to the library for brandy and cigars?’”

“This gentleman would like another pint. Would the lady care to join me?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

John got up and ordered two again. “I’ll have to stop after this one. It wouldn’t do to have me stopped by the police for driving whilst under the influence. You know what they’re like.”

“Impossible to reason with.” She shook her head. “Absolutely impossible.”

“You’re bearing up well, then, under the circumstances. Being in my company and all that.”

“I’ve been living in this country long enough, John, to have taken on some English characteristics. One of them, obviously, is keep calm and carry on.”

“Very sporting of you, Molly. Well done!”

“Thank you, Sergeant. You know, I have to admit I did not see the humorous side of your personality when we first met.”

“No? I can’t imagine what you mean.”

“But I suppose if you were seen to be friendly at all, you would be an object of suspicion in Special Branch.”

“Well, I’d like to think I can be civil to the people I question without being put under suspicion as a double agent.”

“Does your force really believe there is a traitor in its midst?”

“Not necessarily in our midst. Possibly in MI5, if there are any grounds for believing the rumour at all. Another possibility that has been raised is that there is someone in the Intelligence Corps, military intelligence, who is playing with the wrong stick. I don’t have to tell you that all this is strictly confidential. I should never have opened my mouth about it, but, well, I did. Whatever the case, I seriously doubt it could be anyone in Special Branch.”

“What, in our house?”

“Right.”

“Shakespeare.”

“Ah. I really must do more swotting if I have the good fortune to spend time with you again. I did the Austen research but never thought to consult the bard in preparation for our day together. Should have done. One can hardly spend a day in this country, in educated company, without a Shakespearean moment or two.”

“Don’t worry. If you do spend more time with me, you’ll soon see how ignorant and uninformed I am about anything other than history and literature.”

“Oh, I can’t quite see you as ignorant and uninformed. But —” his expression turned serious “— you may be a bit naive. No, that’s not the word I’m looking for. It’s insulting, and I don’t mean it that way. But you may not appreciate the pitfalls of the activities undertaken by some of the people near and dear to you. I’ve already told you that your cousin Conn is innocent of the murder of Detective Sergeant Heath. But he may not be innocent of other activities. He should watch his back, in prison and out of it. It’s a dangerous game he’s playing. And Conn Burke is not the only one. We, that is, Special Branch, are aware of numerous Republicans who are almost certainly plotting more mayhem here in England. It won’t go well for them if they are caught. That is, if they don’t piss off their own people first and get punished. Or worse.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I suppose because I wouldn’t want to see you suffer as a result of the actions of people you care about. And of course there is a benefit to me as well. A benefit to the police and to this country, if Conn Burke and other Republicans were to see the light and cease their activities against British targets.”

“Surely, you don’t think a word from me would cause any of the local Republicans to give up the struggle to which they are committed.”

He drank deeply of his pint, then put it down and said, “What I think is that we should take advantage of the fact that we are away from our workaday cares, and find more pleasant subjects to discuss.”

†

“So that’s what we did, lads,” she said to her brothers that evening as they walked along the street in Kilburn. “John told some entertaining stories, and some harrowing ones as well, about his early days as a copper. I told him about some of my students and colleagues, some of the oddballs around the university, no doubt reinforcing every stereotype he likely had about the eggheads who populate the halls of academe. And I recounted some tales from our childhood in Dublin, without giving up anything that might be of official interest to Special Branch.

“But here’s the thing. He insisted on buying our drinks and snacks, even though I offered, and he switched from pints to glasses of orange juice. But I’d swear there was more in the juice than vitamin C. Vodka or something. I didn’t lean over and stick my nose in his glass to find out, but things got a little heated later in the afternoon, and I think there was drink involved. Almost inevitably, John’s work came up again. There had been a bomb planted at one of the train stations just outside London the day before. Thank God and Mary and all the holy men and women, it was dismantled and rendered harmless.

†

“It’s likely that lot in Cricklewood again.”

“The ‘usual suspects’ by the sound of things, John?”

“We wouldn’t be doing our duty if we didn’t concentrate on the most likely suspects. Though I suppose we could engage in a public relations exercise, and question a broad section of the community, so nobody could accuse us of having preconceived notions. Or prejudices against any particular group or nationality. We could bring in a bunch of pensioners, round them up after chapel, and beat them about the head for appearances’ sake. And there’s a Swiss group in the country at the moment, doing some bird-watching. Might want to have them in and intern them without trial. Or a gaggle of schoolgirls. ‘Excuse me, Miss Smithers, but we believe some of these young ladies might have been involved in setting a bomb. Or they might not have. Hard to know, really.’ That would make us the most incompetent police force on the planet, but at least it wouldn’t show us as fixated on one ethnic group.”

The tone was jocular, but Molly sensed more than a trace of bitterness behind the humour.

“I don’t support bombings, John,” she felt compelled to say.

“I don’t for a minute think you do. But it’s not just bombs, is it? It’s arms smuggling and shootings and intimidation, and all the rest of it. This entire campaign, be it here in England or over in Ulster — no good can come of it, Molly. It’s been going on for twenty years now, and what has it accomplished?”

“You’re asking the wrong person, John.”

He leaned towards her then and spoke intently. “Molly, you don’t want your children mixed up in any of this stuff.”

Her children. Molly felt a chill go down her spine and out to the tips of her fingers. She had begun to think of John Chambers as a friend — even, she had to admit to herself, something more. Was she being naive after all? John was an agent of the state, the same state that had taken Molly herself out of her home in the middle of the night and locked her up in prison. On the flimsiest of excuses. Now, here was Special Branch Detective John Chambers talking about her children.

“You have a daughter who is dating the son of a war hero and brilliant intelligence officer, Boy Hathaway. And you have a son who is registered in a night course in auto mechanics but, as far as anyone can determine, he hasn’t attended a class in seven weeks.”

“You’ve been spying on my children!”

He gazed at her, unperturbed. “Of course we’ve been watching your children. We had you in the nick for suspected IRA activity. Your cousin is charged with the murder of one of our own. Your family in Ireland has a long history of … let’s be polite and call it Republican activism, stretching back to Fenian days. Are you really surprised that we checked out the rest of the clan?”

She felt a tremor in her left hand, something that frequently happened when she was upset. She had no idea why emotional turmoil was channelled into this kind of symptom, but there it was. She slid her hand back and gripped the edge of the table with it, hoping to steady it before Chambers could detect her weakness. But, as he said, she should not have been surprised at his words. Special Branch — the political police, as she thought of them — would not have been living up to their job description if they had not looked into all her relations and associates. What disturbed her every bit as much as the confirmation of what she should have known was the information he had imparted about Finbarr. Any time she had asked her son about the night course, he had rattled off a plausible answer. Often it was a snide remark about the idiocy of one of his fellow students, which, Finbarr no doubt knew, would sound more like him than a précis of the evening’s lesson. And the fact that he was spending this term at his father’s house made any irregularities in his habits that much harder to track. What was she to make of the situation now?

“Is this why you invited me on this outing, John? To interrogate me about my own children?”

“Am I interrogating you? Or am I once again giving you a warning, at considerable risk to my career? Like when I tipped my hand to you about your cousin’s innocence.” There was a steely edge to his voice, and Molly was convinced then that he had been ordering something else to fortify his orange juice.

“You know I am very, very grateful that you told me Conn is innocent of the murder. The police have the wrong idea entirely if —”

“Conn Burke has made a name for himself in the Provisional IRA — he has established his credentials, shall we say — to the point where he has some choice in his assignments. He can say no and hand off operations to someone else, at least when the orders are coming from someone over here. I don’t think he could blow off a command coming down from the top, but generally he is nobody’s errand boy. The same cannot be said of more junior personnel making their way up the ranks. Someone tells a young recruit to jump, the young recruit says, ‘How high and shall I kiss your arse on my way up, sir?’”

“Who do you mean by young recruits?” Molly could barely recognize her own voice, so timorous did she sound.

“Keep your eyes open, Molly. Ask questions.”

“Are you suggesting I have been lax as a parent? You know, that goes right to the heart of me, John.”

“I imagine it does. Children are a gift. I hope that doesn’t sound too mawkish. So if I had a son who was —”

“My God, you really do think I’m a bad mother!”

“Hear me out, won’t you?”

“Do you have children, John?”

The answer was a terse no.

The “no” was so loaded that Molly could not return to her own grievances without first asking him about his own. “Was that a … matter of choice, John, you and your wife having no children? Or …”

His left arm came up and made a slashing motion, cutting off her questions. If John’s answers about a cop’s life had seemed rehearsed that day when they first spoke in his car, this reaction was unpremeditated, instinctive. This was a no-go area.

She was about to apologize for being out of line with her questions, all of them well meant, though obviously unwelcome. But before she could begin, he was back to the matter of Finbarr.

“The last thing I want, Molly, is to turn up at your door some night and tell you your boy has been arrested. Or has suffered an even worse fate. So if you think he has been —”

“I can tell you, John, that I would know if he was up to something more than hero-worshipping a few hard men or striking a pose as a young rebel —”

“You know shite! You wouldn’t know if he was engaging in criminal or dangerous activities. Sure he’s not going to tell you that.” The detective’s voice was raised, and he was mimicking the Irish while he was at it. “It sounds to me as if the little bollocks is telling you he is one place, and he’s really someplace else. Do you even know what city he’s in from one day to the next? You might want to be looking a little closer.”

“John! What …”

Chambers got to his feet, drained the last of his drink, and walked out of the bar.

Molly stared after him. It was the first time she had seen any sign of a temper in Detective Sergeant Chambers. She didn’t know what was worse, the hints that Finbarr was implicated in something, or the implied criticism of her as a parent. But of course she knew what was worse: Finbarr’s well-being took precedence over her own sensitivities, without question. The Special Branch man’s mockery of her native speech was far down the line in importance.

She sat for a few minutes trying to calm down, planning a confrontation with Finbarr, trying again to calm herself. Then she rose, went to the loo, and freshened up. When she emerged from the Star Inn, she saw Chambers in a phone box. He was smoking a cigarette and blowing smoke out the open door of the box as he listened to whatever was being said at the other end of the line. It almost made her laugh, despite the tension she still felt after the conversation in the bar: here was a member of the Metropolitan Police, Special Branch, forced to use a public phone like any other member of the public. His private car was not equipped with a police radio or any of the other gear he would use in his daily work.

He was facing away from her, so she walked softly up to the call box and tried to catch what he was saying. It was not likely anything about her or her family — or so she hoped — but she could not fight down the temptation. She wished she had.

“Well, I don’t give a fuck. I don’t care what understanding you think you had with the family, DC Thompson. Your understanding — my understanding — was that we expected something in return. And we got zero, not a whispered word from any of them. Detain the lot of them. What? That’s their problem. We don’t run a child-minding service. And if they start crying about it, tell them, ‘Lassies, yew should never hae left Glasgow!’ Get it done.”

He slammed down the receiver and took a long drag of his cigarette, then threw it onto the pavement outside and crushed it with his foot. He looked up and saw her then. At least he had the grace to look embarrassed.

“Tough day at the office?” she asked him.

He merely shook his head. They walked in silence to his car, parked near the railway station. He unlocked it and opened the passenger door.

“I’ll go wait for my train,” she said.

“Get in, Molly.” When she made no reply, he said, “I’m sorry. Really, I am. I hope you’ll let me make it up to you sometime. The work has been taking a lot out of me, all of us on the force. I’m a little tense these days, but I shouldn’t make you bear the brunt of it. Especially after such a, well, such a pleasant day otherwise. A pleasant day in your company. Come inside for a minute.”

She got in, and he went around to the driver’s side.

She knew this would not go over well; still, she could not help but ask. “Are you all right to be driving, John?”

“I’m fine to drive, Molly.”

“Typical man!”

“I suppose. But I’m fine. And if some young traffic copper stops me, I’ll pull rank on the bastard. Jesus, Molly, I’m joking. I see I have a lot of fence-mending to do with you.”

He reached across and covered her right hand with his left. She started to pull away, but his grasp was firm. She kept her hand in John’s and waited for whatever he might say next. “There are some very dangerous individuals operating here in the U.K., Molly. If your son starts travelling that same road, he will find himself in a very dark and terrifying place.”

†

“So, boys,” Molly said now as she and her brothers turned back into her street in Kilburn, “I don’t know what to think anymore. John was his calm, controlled, kind-seeming self at the end. The John Chambers I think I’ve come to know. And he wouldn’t be warning me about these things unless he … well, unless he was concerned about me in some way.”

Terry said, “I’m wondering why he got so worked up when you asked him about kids. Most guys would say ‘It just never happened,’ or ‘We sure had a good time trying.’ Something like that. You sure touched a nerve there.”

“His reaction made me wonder,” Molly said, “whether he might have had a child and something happened. The child died or had an accident, or maybe was a victim of a crime, or … well, there’s no point in trying to speculate.”

“You’ll want to know him a bit better,” Terry said, “before you set up house together in Barkingside.”

“Barkingside?”

“Another interesting place name I saw today.”

“I don’t imagine we’ll be house-hunting any time soon. But …”

“But what?”

“I am fond of him. I just wish I could figure him out. He’s usually been kind, courteous, funny — and he did give us top secret information about our cousin. We mustn’t forget that. But on today’s outing I caught a glimpse of another side of him, and I wouldn’t want to cross it.”

“I wouldn’t want to be those poor Scots he ordered detained either!” Terry commented. “He didn’t show much mercy to them.”

Brennan asked himself, Will that be us at some point down the road?