Chapter XXVII

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

William Butler Yeats, “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death”

The day after the attempt on his cousin’s life, Brennan found it difficult to take seriously the petty annoyances and troubles that plagued his provisional parishioners at St. Andrew’s church. But he did his best to project the patience of a saint, and he put in a full day of work before returning to the flat in Kilburn. Molly was setting food out on the table when he walked in, and he didn’t even bother to change out of his collar and clerical suit before sitting down with Terry to a much-needed Irish supper of bacon and cabbage, spuds, and mushy peas.

“Conn’s coming over in a bit,” Molly said.

“Hope he doesn’t have a team of assassins trailing him this time.”

“If he does, Terry, you can take up a rifle and fight by his side again for old time’s sake.”

They heard a knock on the door just as they picked up their forks.

“Here he is now.”

Molly started to get up, but Terry said, “I’ll let him in. Can’t be too careful!”

Terry got up and pulled the door open and found himself facing not Conn Burke but Detective Sergeant John Chambers. Chambers was looking thin and rather pale, but well turned out in a navy sports jacket and a light blue shirt with the collar open.

“Is Molly at home?”

“Yes, she is,” Terry answered, “but before I let you see my sister I want your word that your intentions are honourable.”

Chambers laughed, a little uncomfortably, Brennan thought. Well, the man was in an awkward situation, to say the least.

And it dawned on Brennan then that Terry had never met the detective before. Terry had not been present at any of the encounters Brennan and Molly had had with Special Branch, though Special Branch had no doubt clocked Terry while carrying out surveillance on the family.

“Come in, John,” Brennan said. “She’s right here.”

“John!” said Molly. Her hands flew up to her hair, and she patted it into place, then laughed at herself. “It must be innate. Male comes to door. Female engages in worried-about-hair behaviour. Would you like to join us for supper? There’s plenty.”

“No, no, thank you, Molly.”

Brennan made the introductions. “John, this is our brother, Terry. Terry, Detective Sergeant John Chambers.”

The two shook hands. The Special Branch man looked tense; this was obvious enough that Terry refrained from making a little quip about the detective’s visit to Molly’s flat.

Chambers looked at Molly and said, “I have to speak to you. I’ll talk, and you people eat.”

“All right,” said Molly, “but if you change your mind about eating, I’ll fill a plate for you. In the meantime, have a seat and relax for a bit.”

They all sat down around the table.

“You didn’t get me into any trouble after I revealed to you that your cousin was innocent of the murder of Detective Sergeant Heath, so I’m taking my chances again. May I have your assurance that anything I tell you stays in this room?”

“Of course, John. And I think I speak for my brothers as well.”

“Absolutely,” Terry agreed.

“Not a word from here,” Brennan assured him. “And there’s nobody listening through the walls or the light fixtures.”

“I know.” His eyes flickered over to Molly. She must have told Chambers about the ham acting that led to the exterminators coming in and eradicating the bugs.

Nobody knew what to say, with the police officer at the table. Even Terry was subdued. They all knew the Special Branch detective must have something serious to report. They also knew Conn was expected any minute. Brennan couldn’t quite picture Conn Burke and Special Branch at the same table, unless it was in an interrogation room. But he put that out of his mind and listened to John Chambers.

“It goes without saying that I shouldn’t be saying anything. I don’t want to get myself in hot water, and I don’t want you to put yourselves in danger by acting on the information I give you here today. But you’ve all given me your word, so I’ll say no more about that.”

Chambers was on edge, and everyone else caught the mood. Molly kept her eyes on him as if he were a surgeon coming out of the operating room to speak to the family.

“We in Special Branch are aware of a network of Irish Republican subversives working undercover in this country.”

Brennan willed Terry not to make a wisecrack about the detective’s rather stilted delivery. They needed to hear what the man had to say.

“This conspiracy was born many years ago, decades ago, over there.” He jerked his head in the general direction of the west. “In Ireland. The plan was that these individuals would slip into England one by one, using false names and forged identity papers, and would establish outwardly respectable lives here so that, when it came time to act, they might avoid falling under suspicion. They are known to themselves, and now to us, as the Twelve Apostles, taking their inspiration from the assassination squad set up by Michael Collins during the Anglo-Irish War of 1919 to 1921.” The war of many names: the Anglo-Irish War, the War of Independence, the Tan War, the (Old) Troubles.

“That might resonate pleasantly in the ears of some Irish but, as you can imagine, it would strike fear into the English person who knows a bit of history but is trying to get on with his daily life in the here and now. These twelve foreign agents are not necessarily tasked with assassination and murder, though I think any of them would kill, and probably have done, if they thought it would serve their cause. The Twelve Apostles have various tasks, including gathering intelligence about political, military, or police moves that might pose a threat to the Provisional IRA members living and causing mayhem here in England. Some of the Apostles are members of the IRA; some are not. But there is considerable overlapping, and the two groups communicate with one another and help each other out. The number of Apostles is intended to remain at twelve. They are usually men but currently there are two women. Over the years, if one of the group had to get out of the country, or if he became incapacitated, or if he died, he was replaced by a new recruit.

“The Apostles’ biggest coup, so far, is to infiltrate the law enforcement and security apparatus of this country. I have to say that many of us — nearly all of us — at New Scotland Yard found it laughable when we first heard that claim. How could one of these Irish subversives get hired and start working on the inside without anyone catching on? But it’s happened.”

“Do you know who it is?” Terry could not resist asking.

“You’d be surprised what we know” was the detective’s response.

Brennan glanced at Molly, who had hardly touched her food. Nobody had.

“For instance, we know a great deal about your family. Starting way back when the Fenians were throwing bombs around here in England in the late 1800s. Did you know we were originally called the Special Irish Branch? We were established to deal with the Fenian threat and the dynamiters. There were Fenian Burkes then and there are Fenian Burkes now. Five generations. And rebels in the centuries before that, I have little doubt.”

Five generations. The youngest of the Burkes today. Brennan started to reach for his sister’s hand, as a gesture of comfort, but he stopped himself. He didn’t want to show any sign of weakness to Detective Sergeant Chambers, not that the man was unaware of the impact of his words.

“The members of this shadowy organization also help smuggle like-minded people into the country to do their dirty work and smuggle them out when it gets too hot for them here. And that’s what I’m coming to, after that long introductory spiel. I’m here to warn you about young Finbarr. Do not let him come back into this country.”

Molly let out a little cry and covered her mouth with her hand. Brennan was about to give Chambers a blast for upsetting the boy’s mother. But one look at Chambers showed that he was not getting any enjoyment out of this at all. There was no smugness, no triumphant glint in his eye, over the knowledge Special Branch had about the activities of Molly’s son. Chambers looked every bit as tense as Molly. There was no doubt that he cared very deeply about her.

“We know that Finbarr was recruited by a very dangerous individual called Kane. I believe everyone in the room met this Kane on at least one occasion.”

“Is Kane one of the Twelve Apostles?” Brennan asked.

Chambers greeted that with derision. “He was beyond the pale even for an assassination squad.”

“Was?” Brennan asked.

“Poor old Kane is no longer with us.”

“Is that right? And what happened to him, I’m asking myself.”

“Died of natural causes?” Terry inquired.

“In a sense, I suppose. He died of a condition known as lead behind the left ear. Almost always fatal. We had figured the IRA would get to Kane before we did; even they don’t need a loose cannon like him. And apparently that’s what happened. I hear there was a botched attempt at revenge ordered by one of Kane’s deputies. Turns out he sent his crew after the wrong man, an innocent man. But he was able to deflect the attempt on his life.”

He paused and looked around the table. Brennan wondered whether Special Branch knew that Brennan and his two siblings had been present for that attempt. He got the impression there was little that got by this detective.

“But my point here,” said Chambers, “is that Finbarr is believed to have carried out a couple of assignments in Belfast and here in England, on orders from Kane.”

“What kind of assignments, John?” Molly asked. Brennan hardly recognized her voice.

Chambers put up his hand, don’t ask. “Here is where I’m acting against my own interest. Because there’s nothing we in Special Branch like better than another arrest to bolster our statistics. But, to help a friend, I’m giving you a warning.”

The detective’s eyes were on Molly, and everyone at the table knew the word “friend” was an exercise in British understatement.

“The Apostles’ network got Finbarr out of England,” he said. “So far, I don’t think Garda Special Branch is aware of Finbarr’s presence in the Republic. What you don’t want is their Branch talking to our Branch about your son.”

Molly was trembling, and Chambers looked as if he wanted nothing more than to go around the table and hold her in his arms. The Special Branch man was taking an enormous risk revealing all this information to members of the “Fenian Burke” family. But he must have convinced himself that Brennan and Terry would do nothing that would make things any worse for Finbarr or Molly.

It was then that they heard the second knock at the door. Molly got to it this time but, if she had intended to impart some words of warning, Conn did not afford her the opportunity. He burst into the room full of talk about his wedding. “Tessie is of the view that I’ve been acting the maggot too long — getting myself arrested for murder, languishing in the Sasanachs’ dungeon, generally wasting time — so I’m trying to get back in her good graces by planning the most brilliant wedding ever to be —”

He stopped in his tracks, broke off in mid-sentence, and stared at the police officer sitting at his cousin’s table. The cop returned the stare. Brennan had never been in the wild but he could now visualize the moment when two fearsome animals came face to face, two alpha males, two natural enemies.

Who was going to break the silence first? It was Chambers. “You’re a free man, Mr. Burke. Congratulations.”

“No thanks to you lot.”

Brennan was sure everyone in the room except Conn had the same gut reaction to that. Here was the man who had gone way out on a limb to give them the nod about Conn’s innocence, and nobody could speak up and give him the credit that was owed him. The knowledge was too dangerous, the risk to the cop’s career too great.

“What are you doing in my cousin’s home?”

“Your cousin was kind enough to invite me in.”

“I didn’t ask you what Molly had done. I asked what you are doing here.”

“Conn!” Molly said. “Detective Chambers is here as my guest. He —”

“Haven’t you finished your work with us now, Chambers?”

The two men didn’t take their eyes off one another. “I have, yes. I’m finished with this.”

“I’ve got to go,” Conn announced. “There’s something I have to do.”

“Why don’t you take a break from doing things, Mr. Burke? Why not cease your activities, get married, and raise your children in peace?”

“Is that what you would do? Give up your own commitments? Retire from it all?”

“Yes. I would.”

“I’ve got to go.” And he was gone.

Chambers looked even more strained than he had when he arrived. Little wonder. But Conn’s attitude was only to be expected if, as Brennan suspected, his time as an IRA prisoner in Brixton was much more harsh than he had ever let on. Brennan knew he had been belted on more than one occasion. If he had suffered even more ill treatment in there … but he didn’t know, one way or the other.

Brennan tuned back in to the conversation, which Terry had brought around to where it had been before the interruption. “What are you going to do about the Twelve Apostles?” he asked Chambers.

“I can’t tell you that. But I can tell you this. They’re down to eleven now.”

“What happened?” Molly asked, in a voice that indicated she knew perfectly well what had happened to the twelfth man.

“Liam O’Brien!” Brennan said.

Chambers gave a curt nod and got up from the table. He went to the sitting room window, peered out, and then returned to his seat.

Brennan thought of Rory Óg O’Brien not wanting his name overheard, claiming to have been in Dublin when in fact he was in London, making calls to Liam’s home. Rory Óg was almost certainly another of the Apostles.

John Chambers looked at Molly’s plate. “Eat up, my dear.”

“I can’t.”

He smiled at her. “Ah but sure, you have to eat more than spuds and mushy peas, Máire.”

“That’s very good, Chambers. You’ve got the accent down pat,” Terry said. “Talking like that, you could pass for a true Irishman. Must be all the eavesdropping you’ve done in Kilburn and Cricklewood over the years. Why don’t you join us and have a drink. It will do you the world of good, and we won’t grass on you.”

“Wouldn’t say no. I’ve a throat on me, no question.”

“Máire?” their sister said. She was staring at Chambers.

“Of course he knows your real name, Mol,” Terry said. “He probably knows the full names and birth dates and pillow talk of every single member of our well-known Republican family.”

“I do, sure,” the Special Branch man said, still in an Irish voice. Terry got up and returned to the table with a bottle of whiskey and glasses. Chambers sat eyeing the bottle until Terry filled everyone’s glass.

The cop downed his in one go, and then went back to the window. He surveyed the street below, and Brennan felt a chill, wondering what he was waiting for. Would there be a squad of Special Branch police converging on them at a signal from Chambers? Should he grab his brother and sister and make a run for it? But where? The police would find them wherever they went. And why would the three of them be a target? It didn’t make sense. Brennan willed himself to stay calm and listen.

“Fuck,” Chambers said, joining them at the table once again, “you put the heart crossways in Declan that day, Brennan, you running all over the streets of Wexford town and busting in to the place, when you were supposed to be up at the ruined abbey with your ma and Máire here. But I’ll call you Molly, if you prefer it, pet.”

“How do you know all this, John?”

“He knows because he was there,” said Brennan, putting into words what his mind had just processed. “I’m sorry,” he said to Chambers, “I don’t know your name. I never did. Molly knows, though. Or she did, way back.”

Molly’s eyes were fixed on the policeman as if he were a ghost who had just materialized out of the mists. And, in a way, he was. “I knew there was something familiar about you,” she told him, “but I couldn’t place you. Not after so many years. So I thought you must have been following me as a Special Branch officer for years, and that’s where I saw you. But, no, it was Wexford town, and you’re a Delaney.”

“Kevin Barry Delaney.”

“My God!”

“I don’t have much time.” Tension was evident in his voice and posture.

“What do you mean?”

“So let me give you the story. Your grandfather Christy put the kibosh on a plot my father and others in Wexford were cooking up, a revival of the bombing campaign on English soil, this time to mark the three hundred years since the massacres committed by Cromwell in Wexford and Drogheda. The targets would be limited; they would be abbeys, churches, and other great buildings matched up with the kinds of places Cromwell and his men had destroyed in Ireland. And each attack would be billed as an act of revenge. That’s what was being debated at the meeting in the Cape Bar you stumbled into, thanks to young Brennan here running away from the abbey. I was there with my father. I was supposed to stay out of sight with my sisters, but we all emerged from the woodwork when your crowd showed up, babies and all. I remember you well, Molly. You, too, Brennan.

“Anyway, Christy Burke said Wexford’s bombing campaign was a bad idea. Pointless destruction — the murder of innocent buildings, as he put it — which would gain us nothing in the end. And the anti-Cromwell message would be lost because of all the monasteries destroyed the century before by Henry the Eighth! But he told the boys in Wexford he’d support them in something else. Whatever it was, it must never put civilians, women, or children at risk. The fact that the IRA began blowing up all kinds of non-military targets in England in 1973 was completely unrelated to the more modest Wexford plot.

“Christy asked my father and the others, ‘What worked before? What got the Brits out of the Twenty-Six Counties?’ And he talked about the accomplishments of Michael Collins when he was director of intelligence for the IRA during the War of Independence. Collins set up an assassination squad to put the eyes out of the British. In other words, to eliminate their spies. But more to the point for us was that he also had a network of spies and informers of his own, working in the police offices. He knew what was going to happen before it happened. Start thinking like that. Get a network of people in place who know what’s happening, and who can protect our lads as we bring the war home to the seat of the British Empire. Penetrate the police and the security organizations, if possible. Christy urged the boys in Wexford to take the long view. Get to work now setting up a squad, for the future.

“The planning began that very day. It was going to be my father’s role to start recruiting people to go undercover in England. We pulled up stakes and emigrated to Australia when I was still a child. We were fixed up with false papers, new names and histories. At first we were given the name Thornbury, but it was apparent immediately that me oul da, God rest him, would blow his cover the first time he pronounced it: T’arnbury. So we made it Chambers. Our story was that we were of English stock, living in Australia, and then moved to the mother country.

“But by the time we made all those moves, my father was too old to embark on a career as a police officer in England. So I stepped into the breach.”

“You’re the mole inside Special Branch!” Brennan exclaimed.

“The mole, the spy, the Apostle Kevin. I thought the most believable role for me to play was that of a striver, a fellow from a humble family trying to climb the ladder of society and class. Hence, the not-quite-there upper middle class accent. A common type in this country. Frightfully common, the toffs would say. I reasoned that if my betters were busy sneering at the class anxieties of a typically insecure Englishman, they would not suspect me as a bog Irish spy.”

Brennan recalled the condescending attitude displayed towards Chambers by Mawdsley — MI5 spook and brilliant character actor, Cedric Mawdsley — who had lured them from Molly’s flat to the great country house at Blythewich, so his colleagues could wire the flat for sound. Mawdsley was the very type that Chambers had pretended to emulate. Chambers had been utterly convincing in his role.

“You weren’t just faking it when you said you admired the Irish!” Molly exclaimed.

“I was pretending to pretend. Jolly good show, eh what?”

“Yes indeed.”

“How did you like my collection of bogus Irish music, Ireland O’Rama? I was afraid I might have gone over the top and blown it there. But it was great gas seeing the expression on your face.”

“No worries there. I fell for it and thought you were trying very hard to be open-minded! And then you produced Planxty, on the advice of the man in the record shop, or so you said.”

“I’ve always been a fan of Planxty. Had to bite my tongue so I wouldn’t sing along with every note. My real collection of music is at home, secreted away in ‘What to Listen for in Beethoven’ covers, the sort of thing a striver like me would be expected to have. At night I would sit in my car outside Hannigan’s, partly to play my role of Special Branch copper watching the shifty Irish, but mainly to listen to the craic. I’d roll my window down and listen to the music, wishing to God I was in there. I envied Conn, being able to get up there and tell his tales and get his laughs and sing his rebel songs. I longed to be able to do that myself. Conn and I went on a rip together in Glasgow once. One of the best nights of my life. I let my hair down that night. Took a huge risk.”

“You’re a friend of Conn!” Molly exclaimed.

“We’re friends and brothers in arms.”

“But when he was here just now, the way he spoke to you …”

“He didn’t know what was happening and didn’t want to blow my cover. He couldn’t let on that he knew who I really was, so he had to play a role.”

“We should call him, get him back here,” Terry said.

“He’ll be back,” Delaney said quietly, “but he’ll be too late.”

“What do you mean?” Molly asked.

He ignored her question, and returned to his role as a spy.

“What really had me terrified was spending time with you, Molly.” He fixed his eyes on her and was silent for a long time; it was as if he had forgotten everyone else in the room. “If ever I was going to blow my cover, it would have been with you. And that’s what nearly happened, on the trip to Bath. We got onto the subject of children and of course I could never have brought children into the world, because I’d never be able to tell them who their father was, who they really were. So that doomed my young marriage. Which means I’ve spent far too much time alone, brooding and looking into the bottom of a bottle. And then I met you, and I couldn’t tell you any of this even though we are both Irish patriots, and … fuck, I’m sorry, I don’t usually do all this whinging.”

“It’s hardly that,” Molly assured him. “I can’t imagine how you avoided a nervous breakdown.”

“I nearly had one the day we went to Bath! I was so tense and wound up when we were together in the bar, I forgot to keep up my English accent.”

“I just thought you were making fun of me.”

“Well, that’s what I hoped, that you’d think exactly that. So I staged that pantomime in the call box. I figured you’d come out eventually and when I saw your reflection in the glass I started blathering into the phone. There was nobody on the other end. Made myself out to be a merciless bastard, and pretended to mock a Scottish dialect. All so you wouldn’t catch on that I had let the mask slip. You know, the temptation was almost physical, to come clean and confess it all to you, so you would know I was not an oul bigot working against the Irish here in Sasana. So I doubled my efforts to be convincing. I thought the best way to do that was to play the role of someone who really did want to understand those confounding Irishmen.”

“You were utterly believable, John. Kevin. And I know everyone here would agree.”

It was brought back to him that there were others besides him and Molly in the flat. He looked at them all in turn. “Anyway, you can now fill in the rest of Conn’s story about the shooting of Richard Heath. The third person present at the murder scene, the man Conn would never have named, was me.”

This was met by a stunned silence.

“I was doing my bit for Wexford’s revenge, small token though it was. We had been waiting since 1949. Since 1649 really. The message was See what we could have done to your great abbey? But we’re better than that. Cromwell showed no such restraint. Maybe we won’t either, next time. We had the support and assistance of the England Department, but just barely.”

“England Department?” Brennan asked.

“The England Department of the IRA. They went along, largely thanks to Conn’s persuasive abilities, but they didn’t like such a big operation wasted, as they saw it, on a message other than ‘Brits out, united Ireland.’ They gave us a hand, though, good soldiers that they are. Anyway, one of the Twelve Apostles is an engineer. Works with the U.K. government to maintain the heritage properties. He’s also a man knowledgeable about explosives. And how to keep them from exploding. He had been putting this material in place, bit by bit and ingeniously hidden, over a period of several weeks. Conn’s role was to watch this man’s back while he did his work.”

Brennan formed an image of the engineer bent over his work in the corners of the great abbey, Conn watching from the shadows with his hand on the butt of a Browning Hi-Power pistol.

“Our man on the inside hoped to have everything ready on the twenty-fifth of April, Cromwell’s birthday, but there were some snags, so we weren’t sure. Conn and I agreed that I would drive into Elverton Street, and he would wait for me. If the operation was on, he would call in the warning to the Met to evacuate the abbey, then come to the corner of Elverton and Horseferry Road with a rolled-up newspaper in his hand. That would be my sign that it was on.

“Well, it was on, so Conn called in the warning. Then he came to our meeting spot. He didn’t expect to see me in Richard Heath’s car, but your cousin was able to spot two Special Branch men without any difficulty. What he didn’t know was that there was now another, very urgent, reason for making sure the bomb plot went ahead. Dickie Heath was going to die in the chaos, and it was going to look like an accident, or a fight with someone on the scene. Because Heath had found out about the Apostles. He didn’t know all the details yet, but he was on the trail. He had beaten the information out of Liam O’Brien. It was Heath who committed the murder in Essex County.”

“The Special Branch detective killed Liam O’Brien!” Molly exclaimed.

“That’s right.”

Brennan recalled Mairéad and Rory Óg O’Brien’s description of the brutality unleashed upon Liam.

Kevin Delaney continued his grim recital. “Heath knew it would look as though Liam had been killed because he was an informant. But what looked like a police informant was really one Irish undercover agent reporting to another for the cause. Liam posed as a tourist on his trips to Colchester but the only touristy thing about him was the camera he always carried. His task was to find abbeys and other church buildings equivalent to those destroyed by Cromwell’s army in Ireland, and plant hoax bombs in them, like the Westminster Abbey job. Problem was, so many of the buildings here in England had already suffered the same fate under the two Cromwells, Thomas and Oliver. Anyway, I used to go to Colchester to meet him, at St. John’s Abbey Gatehouse. If anyone asked questions, he would say he was with the Heritage Buildings Preservation Society. So that was our code. One of his other roles was as gardener to various political and military grandees. He gained a lot of useful information that way. Liam O’Brien lived and died an Irish patriot.

“Detective Sergeant Dickie Heath took Liam somewhere, maybe relaxed him with drink, got behind him and handcuffed or tied him up, and beat the information out of him, then dumped his body. I don’t know how much Liam said under duress. Torture, in other words. Heath took that young fellow apart with a claw hammer. I always thought Heath was a fucking psychopath. No doubt in my mind now. Not that he’s the only one to resort to such methods in this conflict. Very, very few people can hold up under such hideous pain. I’m not sure I … not sure I would. Whatever the case, Heath came back with information about me, which I detected right away. I didn’t let on I knew he was suspicious, but you can imagine the stress I was under. The double life was tearing me apart anyway. Medic tells me I have an ulcer. That’s the least of it.

“So, I arranged to ride with Heath in his car. Somehow in the midst of all this plotting and scheming, Conn had got wind of the bomb at the Cromwell statue. That was real. It would have been set off by a remote device, and Cromwell’s present-day admirers would have been blown to hell to join their hero.”

“This one wasn’t a hoax — it was going to blow up!” Terry exclaimed.

“That’s right, and it was going to take the Cromwell Association with it. But you know Conn. He refused to go along with that, even though I later heard that he said it would serve the fuckers right. But he was having none of it. So he comes flying at our car in Elverton Street, pulls his gun on us, and forces us to stop. He grabs the driver’s side door handle, yanks it open, and shouts across Heath at me. He wants the contact number and the code so he can call off the Cromwell bombing. Even under all the strain, Conn had the presence of mind to invent a cover story. He demanded that I give him the ‘notes’ I had promised him for the work with ‘Ollie,’ so Ollie wouldn’t go off and never talk again. In other words, he tried to make it sound as if he was a tout and wanted his money; otherwise his source, Ollie, would dry up. But I had no need of pretence at that time. Because Heath was not going to live to report any of this.

“I had a crisis of conscience at that point, at least about the bombing. I had never been party to an attack on a group of civilians — even Cromwellians — and I saw the light. So now I was desperate to stop the Cromwell explosion. I handed Conn the phone number and code.”

It was as if Brennan and his sister and brother had been made into statues themselves; there wasn’t a movement, wasn’t a sound, from any of them, as Delaney told his story.

“But Richard Heath wasn’t fooled, not with what he had put together about me. He realized that Conn and I were in cahoots. So Heath had to die immediately before he could radio any of this in. I said to Conn, ‘He knows everything.’ Heath went for the radio but Conn refused to shoot him. So I grabbed Conn’s gun and shot him. Had to. I was at war with him, just as he was at war with Liam O’Brien.”

Again, he had stunned everyone into silence.

“I wanted to let Conn know that Heath had tortured and killed O’Brien but there wasn’t time. Conn was off to the call box again to phone in the second warning.”

Terry finally found words. “And then you had to carry on in Special Branch as usual, after killing one of your own officers.”

“My own people, Terry, are the people of Ireland, and those in the North who are still not united with their countrymen. And I take care of my own. I sent you a coded warning, Molly, using the code Conn and I had, telling you to cancel the paint job on Cromwell. As for Conn, you can rest easy. He won’t be facing any charges in connection with the bomb plot. All Special Branch will find about Conn is a doctored file attesting to his innocence.”

“But,” Brennan said, “if you are under suspicion, they’re not going to trust anything you write in your files.”

“It’s not in my files. It’s in Dickie Heath’s files. I forged the notes in his name. The record is going to show that Detective Sergeant Richard Heath’s detective work found that Conn was innocent of the conspiracy, and Detective Sergeant John Chambers tried to cover that up to deflect attention away from his own treasonous activities. That way, it’s believable. Make sure Conn’s solicitor knows the file is there.”

“That saves Conn from a long term in prison, Kevin, but why in God’s name would you let yourself be implicated?”

“Because …” he cleared his throat and began again, “because they’re already on to me. Heath shared his suspicions with one or more of our senior men. I know they were just waiting to make their move.”

“And the reason they know Conn is innocent of Heath’s murder is …” Brennan began.

“They know I did it. I’ve been on the run since Conn was released.”

“Oh God, Kevin,” Molly whispered.

A few seconds passed and then Delaney got up again and went to the window. His eyes raked the area below. He turned and said to them, in a tone that was almost business-like, “There is also a report in Scotland Yard — a genuine report — showing that there was a ‘consistent mechanical defect’ in the explosives in the abbey; they could not have been detonated.”

The Burkes sat quietly for a few more moments trying to take it all in. Then Terry asked, “Do the police know Heath killed Liam O’Brien?”

“They do now. And I wanted to get that information to Conn, but I had no plausible excuse for visiting him in prison. Even if I had, it would have put him in danger, talking to a peeler. And it was hardly a message I could entrust to anybody else to deliver. So he didn’t have the full story about why Heath was killed.

“And the fate that befell Heath was kinder than the fate he bestowed on Liam O’Brien. Or the fate that awaits me if they manage to take me in. Our interrogators will not be gentle. And I cannot bear the thought that I might reveal the names of other patriots we’ve put in place over here. Give them up under torture. That’s what I’ll be facing if they take me … if they take me in.”

“It’s time for you to get out, John. Kevin. Get on a plane and —”

“There isn’t time, Molly.” His face was as white as alabaster. “Could I speak to you for a minute?”

“Of course. Would you like …” He nodded. Yes, he would like to speak privately.

She led him into her bedroom. Terry looked at Brennan and got up, ready to follow them into the room. Brennan shook his head. “She’ll be fine,” he said quietly.

A few minutes later they emerged, Kevin Delaney followed by Molly. She had something in her hand, a cassette tape. She was as pale as he was; they both looked haunted.

“Now, could I have a word with you, Brennan?”

“Certainly, Kevin.” He nodded towards the bedroom and they went inside. Window blinds shut out the early evening sun; the room was dim, and the two men stood awkwardly, face to face. What was Brennan going to hear now?

Delaney took a deep breath and said, “I didn’t want to tell Molly this. You can decide whether you think she should know. It’s about her son. This is how the whole fucking thing began to come apart for me. The Branch got on to the fact that somebody new was bringing in components for bombs here in London. They also suspected the same person had been involved in an insurance bombing in Belfast. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

“Insurance bombing?” Brennan thought he had heard something about bombs and insurance, but he just shook his head.

“Some of the boys in the IRA would take a fee or a kickback from business owners in return for blowing up their premises, so the business owners could make a claim through their insurance companies.”

“Mother of Christ!”

“I know, I know. Some of these businesses were barely hanging on, given the situation over there. All of a sudden, the solution comes in the form of a bomb and an insurance cheque. And money handed over to the IRA for the service. Call it fundraising, if you will.”

Fundraising. Was this what the lads in Dundalk meant about Finbarr’s activities? Was he learning at the feet of those who had blown up Tess’s father’s printing shop a few years back?

“Well, I heard about this,” Delaney said now, “and through other information I had, I concluded Finbarr was involved. I know he had slipped over to Belfast at least once. And he was playing a part in smuggling explosives into England. Maybe for the same scheme, maybe something else. I don’t know. So I arranged for Liam O’Brien to contact Finbarr, meet him, and get him over to the Republic to avoid arrest. Liam, God rest him, did his best. But he wanted to do it right. Making the contacts and the arrangements, getting some paperwork forged, all that took time, and there were some snags. Finbarr himself had the janglers and was not always cooperative with the plan. Anyway, poor Liam was murdered before he could get Finbarr out. Then Liam’s father, Rory Óg, took over the job. I thought I was going to die of high blood pressure waiting for the little bollocks to get the fuck out of England! I don’t know what will happen. But Richard Heath had been watching Liam O’Brien, and when this connection with Finbarr was made, this and a few other things led Heath to suspect me. He confirmed his suspicions, I know, when he extracted the information from O’Brien before killing him.”

“This all happened because you tried to save young Finbarr.”

“Sure, I’d do it for any promising young lad,” Delaney said with an effort at light-heartedness.

“You did it for Molly.”

“Take care of her, Brennan,” he said and returned to the living room.

Delaney walked over to Terry and shook his hand. He did the same with Brennan and said, “Pray for me, Father.”

Brennan would; if anyone was in need of prayer, it was Kevin Delaney. “The blessings of God on you, Kevin.”

Without another word, without looking at Molly, Delaney walked out.

Brennan and Terry regarded their sister in silence. Finally she spoke up. “He said he was sorry for tailing us, questioning us. I said not to worry, that he was doing his job. He laughed at that, and then we both did. He said it has been extremely difficult for him, living a lie, leading a secret life, doing some of the things he’s had to do. He has always been lonely but he said it was a life he chose. For the cause. He told me to look out for Conn. And … for Finbarr. He said he had fought down the temptation to confide in me when we were together, to spill the whole forty-year history. He gave me this.” She showed them a Planxty cassette, The Woman I Loved So Well. “He put his arms around me and said, ‘I loved you, Molly. I loved you.’”

“Loved you,” Brennan said, “past tense.”

“Yes,” she said. She was shaking. “As if it is impossible for us ever to be together. And of course it is. I would never make things even worse for him by —”

“No,” said Brennan. “Past tense as if he’s already dead.”

“Get him back him in here!” Terry exclaimed and crossed the room in two bounds. He yanked open the door, and they ran from the flat, down the stairs, and out to the street.

What they saw stopped them cold. Kevin Delaney was standing off to their left, at the edge of the narrow laneway between their building and the next. His hands were down by his sides. He was looking across the street, where there were three police cars with their doors open, and six men in bulletproof vests spanned out along the pavement. Six rifles were pointed at Delaney. The neighbouring buildings cast shadows over the cops; Delaney stood in the blaze of the sun.

Brennan wondered if he could ever bring himself to tell his sister that Delaney had risked arrest, imprisonment for life — even, as he suggested, torture — for her son. For her. The risk had become a reality. This was day one of his long descent into the abyss.

Before Brennan could think of anything to say in such a perilous situation, Delaney shouted, “Tiocfaidh ár Lá!” It was a Republican rallying cry: Our day will come! Then he raised his right hand and fired one shot from a revolver over the heads of the police. The line of officers instantly fired back. The volley of return fire was deafening. It blasted Kevin Delaney back six feet, and he landed face-up on the pavement of the laneway. Blood poured from the wounds in his neck and body.

It was then that the police spotted the three onlookers in the doorway of Molly’s building. Five of the six rifles were instantly trained on Brennan and his sister and brother. Brennan tore his eyes from the barrels of the guns and looked over at Delaney. Was he still alive? He needed an ambulance; he needed a priest.

Terry said in a low, calm voice, “Mol, Bren. Raise your hands, slowly.”

Brennan returned his gaze to the policeman directly across from him, then lifted his hands away from his body and up in the air. His brother and sister were doing the same.

Time had altered; everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. There was shouting from the police, but Brennan could not take in what they were saying. Two of the officers went to Delaney. Two came towards the building, and two stayed where they were, surveying the street and the rooftops. One of the cops frisked Brennan and then Terry. The cop looked at Molly, turned towards one of the police cars, and raised his hand. A female officer emerged and walked towards Molly, gave her a cursory pat-down, nodded, and returned to the car. None of the Burkes protested. Each one of them understood that, in these extreme circumstances — the police having seen the enemy agent emerging from Molly’s flat, the enemy agent firing a gun — Brennan, Molly, and Terry were lucky to be still standing.

But Brennan had only one objective now: to get to Delaney and comfort him, give him the last rites. Brennan looked to the lane and saw the officers crouched beside the fallen man. One appeared to be checking his injuries and searching him for further weaponry. He had already picked up the revolver from the street. He was talking. To Delaney? Interrogating him? The other cop was speaking urgently into a radio.

“Let me go to him,” Brennan implored the officer facing him. “Let him have the sacrament.”

The cop eyed his Roman collar and exchanged glances with his partner, but they had other priorities. Brennan was vaguely aware of Terry talking to the police in calm, measured tones. His experience in military and civilian aviation, in handling emergencies, stood him in good stead now. Stood them all in good stead. Brennan half-listened as his brother told the London police who the three of them were, that he was an airline pilot and former member of the U.S. Air Force; that, yes, Molly had been picked up but had been cleared of suspicion and that several other officers would verify this; that his brother was a priest; that their documents were all in order in the flat. That they had recently become acquainted with the Special Branch detective. That none of the three were members of the IRA or any other clandestine organization. Then there was talk about searching the flat, and two cops disappeared, presumably to do that.

But this was all happening at the edge of Brennan’s consciousness. It was agonizing for him to see Kevin Delaney lying still on the pavement, without the comfort of a loving hand, without the comfort of the final sacrament. And it was just as heart-scalding to see Molly standing there, tearful and stricken but unmoving.

Brennan heard a siren approaching. He resolved there and then to do his duty for Kevin Delaney. There was no time to wait for permission from the armed men who controlled the scene. He slowly raised his hands again and began walking to the laneway. Images came unbidden to his mind, images of the priests he had heard about in Belfast, shot to death by British soldiers as they, the priests, ministered to people lying wounded on the ground, people who had been shot by the soldiers minutes before. But Brennan kept on walking. He felt, rather than saw, someone fall into step beside him. He knew it was Molly.

Kevin Delaney lay in a pool of blood, gasping for breath. His eyes found Brennan and then Molly, and fastened on her with a look of desperation. Molly knelt on one side of him and Brennan on the other. Brother and sister exchanged glances, and Brennan spoke first. He took the dying man’s left hand in his and said, “Kevin, if you can, say an Act of Contrition with me. If you can …”

Delaney tried to speak, but all that came out was a rattling sound. His eyes locked on Brennan’s; it seemed he was beseeching him to … what? Absolve him? Brennan whispered the prayer. “O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee.” Brennan could not interpret the intense expression on Delaney’s face, though he had seen it many times before. What goes through a man’s mind in extremis? No one can know until the time arrives. But Brennan took it to be consent, desire for the sacrament. He made the sign of the cross over him and said, “Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”

Molly took Kevin’s right hand, leaned over, and spoke in his ear. Brennan could not hear her words and had no wish to. She bent forward and kissed his forehead.

Brennan could see the life fading from Kevin’s eyes. When it was clear that his life had left him, Brennan and Molly rose, slowly, and starting walking to her home.

Brennan looked around him. He thought he saw something move in the shadow between two buildings at the end of the laneway. A man emerged from the shadow, a gunman. It was Conn. He was staring straight ahead, at Delaney. He shoved the gun out of sight under his belt. He had arrived too late to do whatever he thought he might have done.

Brennan understood now what Conn and Delaney had been trying to do back in the flat: Delaney was telling Conn he was giving up the fight. Conn knew how it would have to end, and he wanted to prevent it. But it could not have been prevented. Conn never had a chance. He looked stricken. Bereft. He fell to his knees.

An ambulance came screaming into the street. And more police arrived. The forces of the Crown closed in on what remained of Kevin Barry Delaney.