| |
“What the hell happened?”
It was a question I had asked myself constantly over the last several years. I had been born into a world that had solemnly sworn never to enter into war again.
London was bombed.
Several times.
I had run away from pain and misfortune; hoping for a future of my own making to be built from the ground.
Instead, I staggered across the bloodied battlefields of Europe.
And then I wandered into an Irishman’s home along the English countryside. What peace came from that turbulent beginning. What newfound joy was put forth in years of hatred and darkness. The story had continued into tales of death and danger, and yet, I found no regret in the hours spent crouched behind overturned crates or the odd amount of grease pain smeared across my face.
But what was I to do now?
What the hell happened?
I placed yet another cup of tea before the product of several hours shouting down the telephone receiver and a few favours from the most elite of Keane’s ring of staunch acquaintances. I fear my mood was little improved when he arrived; a ferocious beast pent within a circus ring. Even so, I mustered enough social decorum not to pierce his chest with a fire poker.
Tempted though I was.
On the other hand, Keane would hardly have been pleased to find I had murdered his best man at our wedding.
“Fingal.” I had greeted, holding out a hand to welcome the large man. He had not crushed my fingers in his bear-like paw, but nor did he release it immediately afterward. Instead, he led me toward the sofa, positioned himself at my side, and spoke in the most quiet and gentle tones I had ever heard from the boisterous man.
“What the hell happened?”
An entire pot of tea later, the events of the past forty-eight hours had been explained in full. The boy. The woman. The woeful visit of Ross Cambell. Constable Bert Croley. The shattered window. The arrest. Keane.
All of it.
When I was finally able to fall back against the cushions, I felt none the better for the revelation, nor could I find comfort in the silent room. The unnatural circumstances were only magnified by Doctor O’Malley’s inability to say anything for excruciating periods of time. At last, I could stand it no longer.
“I did try to visit Keane this morning.” I assured him. “I waited at the station for several hours, but all the paperwork and formalities...the officer said I might see him tomorrow.”
Tomorrow seemed a great deal longer than a few hours of sleepless tossing.
An eternity even.
The enormous man at my side nodded solemnly and allowed his head to lull thoughtfully forward onto his chest. He was quite different from Keane. Extraordinarily different. Where my companion was an angular combination of height and wiry build, Fingal’s generous stature appeared lesser by the mass attached to his frame. He had been a boxer once—though I could not immediately remember why—and thereby developed a youthful regime that had covered his shoulders and arms with sturdy muscle.
Muscles which had, in his waning years and good cooking, thinned and softened at the edges.
By all accounts; however, his ear-splitting exuberance had remained much the same.
He had dark, straight hair, cut a bit too long for fashion, and cauliflower ears protruding recklessly from each side of his head. Instead of Keane’s considerable pallour, his face was ruddy and bore an ever constant shade of violet at the cheekbones. It was only in extreme anger that the vivid colour blanched to white.
As it indeed was at that very moment.
But no shouting shook the remaining decorations under the McCarthy name. No mighty fists pummelling the great sanctuary of knowledge, as other patients had seen fit to do. No curses. No damnation. No earth-cracking mayhem.
Only science.
God, how I hated it.
––––––––
THE POLICE STATION and magistrates’ court was a building of ancient, white stone strategically built a few miles from the raging cliffs. It was not difficult to commit every fading detail to memory, for the sole reason there was nothing extraordinary or outstanding to remember. The walls were not more than a monster’s gaping jaw; rows of rigid teeth with a tongue of dark gravel winding forward to the pit of its villainous throat. I held no doubt in the place’s importance in my life, though I could only vainly hope that its influence upon my fate might be a positive one.
Finglal glared at the door before bursting into the beast’s den; my much smaller frame not two steps behind. From there we were led by an egotistical, young officer past the main desk in the front hall and further into the beast’s stomach. Uniformed and suited men created the veins; pulsating as they travelled along their individual routes. Nary a soul veered from the anatomical network.
We were the only exception.
The constable created our path; winding between the bubbling arteries like the foreigners we were. A single staircase rose between floors and became the only punctuation separating painted stone and bleached tiles. The burning stench was almost medicinal.
We were eventually shoved into a room every inch as depressing as I had learned to expect. A table sat alone with three metal chairs; two smashed together on one side, while the outlier took precedence on the other. Perhaps the greatest—or, at the very least, most noticeable—change was that of the paint.
Though an improvement it was not.
Rather than dismal, crumbling white, the bricks had been burdened with a revolting shade of green. It was almost the colour of vomit; complete with chunks of plaster and the room smelling no better.
The officer stabbed his finger toward the pair of chairs.
“Wait here.” He ordered. “Don’t leave the room until the sergeant shows you where to go.”
“It’s like being held by the bleedin’ Nazis.” Fingal growled to the retreating back of the uniform before dropping heavily onto the nearest chair. The metal creaked and groaned beneath his weight. “Might as well try to make yourself comfortable. Knowing this lot, though, you might be better off standing.” So stand I did; holding my place for the better part of a century. In my time working with Keane, I had learned several valuable—if unusual—lessons. One of which was proven true that day.
If you are in a hurry, everyone else is on holiday.
And so it was that my legs had become infested by both needles and rigamortis when the sergeant did appear, and with the same ceaseless trembling as our last meeting. His helmet had, at least, disappeared from his person; leaving only a tattered notebook and splintered pencil to twirl between his hands.
“Sorry for the wait.” He apologised as he sat across from my friend, the doctor. “But there are a few matters which must be perfectly clear before I consider taking you through to the cell.”
“Consider? So we might not see him?” The officer shrunk away visibly, but his voice held to a slim thread of confidence.
“Certainly, you may see him, Miss, but Doctor O’Malley may not. Procedure, I’m afraid.” Fingal leaned forward with a grunt of metal; towering over the much smaller man.
“Even if I am his registered GP?”
“That is another matter, which may be discussed at a later date. Now, may we begin with the particulars of this case.” Sergeant Croley flipped through the notebook and stabbed a single page with the dull end of his pencil. “Professor Brendan Keane is being held as a suspected agent against His Majesty’s Government. A few nights ago, you found a young child in your home, is that correct, Miss?”
“Yes.”
“And did you know him?”
“The boy? No. We had never seen him before.” The officer stopped scratching at the yellowing page and glanced up at where I still stood.
“When you say ‘we’, are you quite certain your husband had no connection with him or his associates?”
“To the best of my knowledge, Keane knew as much about the boy as I did.”
“Which is?”
“For God’s sake, man!” Fingal exploded; fist slamming upon the metal table. “She already told you they’d never seen the lad before!”
“It’s procedure, Doctor O’Malley, and if you can’t control your temper, I will have to ask you to wait outside the building. Or hold you in a cell until you settle down.” The sergeant’s words were more a habit than a threat, but Fingal managed to stow any further outbursts behind the mighty arms crossed over his chest. The notebook was opened again.
I took a seat.
“Sergeant Croley, allow me to assure you neither I, nor Professor Keane, had seen the child before. We have also never made a habit of espionage, treason, or whatever else you may suspect. Keane served in His Majesty’s Royal Navy in the Great War, and I pitched in where I could for the most recent travesty. I am aware these should mean a great deal to an ex-army man, like yourself. Satisfied?” There was another bout of shuffling through the notebook before the uniformed officer leaned across the table; forearms propping his head a bit too close to my own.
“Were you also aware of your husband’s involvement with the IRA? Or his part in their war of independence.” Fingal stiffened at my shoulder.
I nodded.
“I knew he helped save a dozen school children from a hail of British bullets, as well as a talented young man who now has a rather extensive career in the arts.”
“He also killed at least two valuable British officers in the process. We have his file, and I am sorry to say it is not quite so clean as you may have been led to believe.” The sergeant revealed a crisp, manilla envelope and set it sharply before me. Keane’s name had been unceremoniously scratched across the front in great smatterings of black ink. His full name. No introduction. No title. Just his name.
Brendan Edward Keane.
As files go, his was not half so thick—nor as infamously pressing—as others.
But it existed.
Years—decades—that file had sat among everything from petty thieves to psychotic murderers. And what had Keane done? Given independence to a suffering nation? Protect innocent children from the brink of death? Lord knows he had seen more of war than a man ought to endure in a single lifetime upon this earth.
I pushed the envelope back toward the uniformed officer.
Unopened.
“I may be known for many things, Sergeant Croley, but being patient is not one of them; so, if we could conclude this little interrogation.”
“Yes, of course.” Our captor agreed rapidly. “Just allow me to...” A trembling hand flitted through the air towards the doorway; silently summoning the young constable who had first guided us to the very room we now endured. “Marcus, please show Miss Lawrence to cell number three.”
––––––––
IF THE POLICE CONSTABULARY had expected a woeful, weeping woman at the moment I reached the third metal door positioned on the left, they were sorely mistaken. I waited silently as a list of regulations were rambled monotonously, nodded when required, and stepped away from the cell entrance as a ring of keys was displayed. I was not unaccustomed to being alone; however, the bleak horizon of dirt streaked along whitewashed brick may hardly be seen as a sign of hope or assurance. Nor might the cursory shove of an impetuous constable’s hand be mistaken as welcoming.
“If there’s trouble, I will be outside.” He grunted.
If there was trouble.
Could they not see the greatest of troubles had already occurred? They had arrested an innocent man and struck fear into a child’s heart. Were they so blind? Or did they ignore their infection in the belief of a cure? Did they damn people to the gallows to appease a restless public?
I stepped forward into the dim cell and did my best not to wince as the metal door slammed shut behind me.
By the slackened droop of Keane’s head, he was already dead.
His impeccable posture, still stiff to a recognizable extent, lurched uncomfortably forward; the slimness of his frame all the more accentuated by his bare shirtsleeves. The heavy overcoat had disappeared, as had his necktie, waistcoat, and tweed jacket. His braces had been pushed off of his shoulders; instead dangling from his waist. Wild tangles of finger-combed hair and untucked shirt tales added to the dismal surroundings of the cramped cell. There was room for a cement bench lining the edges, but that was all. There was only one window. But no colour. No life.
Only death.
I cleared my throat as I leaned back against the locked door.
“I’ve seen worse hotel rooms.” It was a joke, or an excuse of humour for strength. In fact, I had seen no such show of humanity’s depressive nature so matching to that moment.
Keane’s voice, unnaturally low and gravely, ricocheted through the claustrophobic room without raising his head.
“Lawrence, I would prefer you to leave a few decibels outside.”
“I see.” I folded my arms into the warm pockets of my jacket. “Is this where you make some remark about your hearing being intact in spite of your age?”
“I fear my advancing years have nothing to do with the matter.” Where Keane’s speech was often careful and direct, the final words faded away with a long, raspy breath as his face was gradually peeled from his hands.
I had never been one for physical attrition.
I have never been able to understand it.
Society. Rules. Reculations. Barriers. Boxes.
Not any of it.
Certainly, there were aspects and features more pleasant than others, but I found no pleasure in avidly searching for societal approbations and throwing myself giddily upon them.
A waste of time.
Even so, I could not restrain a brief gasp as I met those ice-blue eyes, one enshadowed by a darkened bruise, and hesitantly trailed down the puffiness on the right side of his lips. Near the corner of his mouth, a thin sliver of blood remained; having already left several conspicuous splatters along his collar. By the constricting knot of his arms across his middle, I had suspected neither his lean torso, nor gentlemanly regions, had been spared from the attack.
I swung my eyes back up to the swollen red around his mouth.
“Christ. What happened to your face?”
“Come now, it must be obvious.” Keane retorted, gingerly fingering the misshapen outlines of his features. “A few young men with ready fists is all. No harm done, really.”
“But you have blood on your shirt.”
“And there was more on my waistcoat. If you honestly cared for my well being, you would stop pacing about like a rabid dog and sit down.” The last demand—thrown forward with a sudden abundance of power—dragged me to the bench and crammed me shoulder to shoulder with my companion. Keane winced slightly as his battered torso was jostled, but the lack of sufficient space rapidly became, if not tolerable, than grimly accepted.
“How did you sleep on this thing?”
“What thing, Lawrence? You must be more specific.”
“This bench.” I explained. “There isn’t enough room for your legs, is there? How could you use it as a bed?” I felt my companion adjust his position ever so slightly; pressing his back against the crumbling brick, rather than folding forward upon his bruises. A shoulder was also held more firmly to mine.
“For your information, I had no great difficulty in its poor excuse for a mattress for the sole reason I did not sleep.”
Ah.
I should have expected that.
“But they are feeding you, aren’t they? You do get breakfast and that?” A dry chuckle punctuated the dismal walls.
“It is not to Mrs. McCarthy’s standards, but yes, Lawrence, I am well taken care of.”
I rather thought the enormous splotches of black and blue around his eye warned otherwise, but Keane casually waved my thoughts away with the broad stroke of his hand.
“No, if you are quite finished inquiring about the luxuriousness of Hôtel Prison, I believe we ought to discuss more pressing matters. I have spoken to my solicitor, and really the case is quite good—”
“Theirs or ours?” Keane’s injured lip curled gently.
“Ours. The prosecutor hasn’t any true evidence. Over half of the witnesses are unreliable busibodies who ring the police twice a week on various frivolities.”
“I would hardly call this frivolous.”
“No, perhaps not.” He agreed. “Though I believe I shall be free of this place sooner than most. A shame really. Think of the research a man could do on the mental effects of incarceration. The results could be astronomical. An invaluable advance in the science of psychology.”
“Best left to those already sentenced to a few decades.” I added. Keane glanced down at me, but said nothing. There was; however, a slight glint to his bruised eyes that contradicted all hope and security pouring from his mouth.
Then it occurred to me.
The ones who spent years in that pit of hell were really the lucky ones; those strong souls who carried out their sentences to the full. The unlucky ones were carried away in sacks.
And should the trial not go in Keane’s favour...
I edged closer to his side on the painfully cramped bench.
“So, when is the review? They can’t keep you here long without more evidence, can they?” Keane’s hand brushed over my fingers briefly; uncurling them from a tightened fist I had no knowledge of creating.
“You realise, of course, the justice system here is different from that of the United States.”
“Not so different.” My hand clenched again, but the thin fingers lingering over my knuckles caused it to stretch open once more.
“Perhaps more than you would like to think.”
“That’s preposterous. All they do here for separation is run about in funny wigs that resemble an old woman in her curlers.” I was hardly serious. There was a great deal I had yet to understand of the British systems of law. And yet, I could not fathom a son to have become the complete opposite of his father.
Except Keane.
The very Keane who was forced to interrupt his soft chuckling to press a hand into his stomach and pitch forward with a sharp hiss. I instinctively clambered to my feet, but a second hand clamped onto my wrist; pulling me back onto the concrete slab.
“Are you alright? O’Malley is right outside if you—”
“Don’t fret, Lawrence. It doesn’t suit you. Just give me a moment to...” The harsh, raspy breath at my ear gradually steadied as Keane sat back once more against the wall. His right hand did not, I noticed, leave his stomach. “There. See? Perfectly well. Did you say Fingal was here? Good lord, what for?”
“To see you. He happened to be in London and I...I tried to show you his letter.”
But the police arrived, and...
The past seventy-eight hours had occurred with such severity, I was no longer certain what information had been shared and what had been stowed away to shelter from the impending storm.
“Anyway,” I continued boldly. “You really should see him if that pain keeps up. Is it in your chest, or—”
“I am not having a heart attack, if that is your concern. One of the young lads got a bit liberal with his fists and winded me is all. The smarting looks far worse than the pain, I assure you.”
“Really? Because, by your eye—”
“Lawrence.” I fell instantly silent; bowing my head as a reprimanded child. I could not understand it, my curiosity. I was creating a hypothesis, not on fact, but on work. The bruising—the beating—could be far less serious than I imagined.
For that is what I was doing.
Imagining.
I had watched people die on the streets, simply because they did not wish to bother a busy doctor with their perceived aches and sniffles. I had witnessed horrid, excruciation deaths one became too afraid to share. But these had occurred from idiocracy, and Keane had never shown such insufferable stupidity. If he was ill, he visited O’Malley. If it was serious, he saw a local man.
No, I was just imagining again.
All too soon the uniformed puppet on the other side of the door warned of only a few minutes left between us.
This time.
There was always a next time.
There had to be.
That is how people found hope, for it was all stored up in ‘next times’.
“Should I visit tomorrow?” Keane shook his head violently before stiffening under his injuries.
“You needn’t bother. There will be the prehearing.”
“Yes, but what about you? Do you need clothes or anything? Cigarettes? A razor?”
“I hardly think the young man outside would allow a hardened criminal a probable weapon.” He replied, running a hand over the dark shadow thickening across his jaw. “However, the odd inquiry never hurt. As for clothing, would you mind leaving a spare suit with the officers in the morning? For some reason, this one has taken on a rather unpleasant odour.”
Not unexpected considering most of the cells reeked of old urine and stale sweat.
“Anything else?”
“Cigarettes.”
“Your usual brand? Or would you like something cheap and offensive to annoy the guards? I think I could find a few cigars from that Baron client a few years back.” My companion grinned beneath the strained and swollen flesh stretched across his face as a key slipped into the cell door.
“‘I must have known there was but one whose look could quell Lord Marmion’.”
“Sir Walter Scott.” I replied before I was quickly removed from the white-washed walls and shoved out the door with Fingal just on my heels.
I was right, of course.
Scott had indeed been the author of those words.
However, it was not until I returned to the confines of Keane’s own study that the famous lines prior to my companion’s quotation returned in full force; famous and painfully overused.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive.