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СКАЧАТЬ the tiredness came to him. His head dropped gently to one side as he drifted into darkness.

      He came awake quickly from a dreamless sleep and lay staring at the ceiling. For a few moments he couldn’t remember where he was. Awareness came to him and he swung his feet to the floor and looked at his watch. It was almost noon. He cursed softly and stood up, and then he realized with surprise that his shoes had been taken off and were standing neatly at the side of the bed. He frowned in puzzlement and sat down again to put them on. His coat and hat had disappeared and he spent several moments looking for them before he went to the door and opened it cautiously. The house was quiet. He advanced along the passage and began to descend the back stairs.

      Faintly from the kitchen came sounds of music. For a moment he hesitated at the door and then he opened it and went in. The music came from a wireless on a shelf in the corner. The girl was standing at the gas cooker stirring something in a pan. She turned quickly and said, without smiling, ‘You’re awake.’

      Fallon nodded. ‘Why did you let me sleep?’

      She shrugged. ‘You looked as though you needed it.’ She moved across to the table and spooned stew on to a plate. ‘You’d better sit down and have this.’ She had changed into a tweed skirt and green, woollen jumper. Somehow she looked older, more sure of herself.

      Fallon sat down and said, ‘I’ll have to be quick. I’ve got an appointment at one o’clock.’

      As he ate, the girl sat on the opposite side of the table, a cup of tea in her hands, and watched him. After a while she said, ‘Stuart’s found me a buyer for the house. It won’t fetch much – it’s too run down for that – but it will be better than nothing.’ Fallon nodded and went on eating. For some strange reason he couldn’t think of anything to say. There was an air of tension in the air as if something was going to snap at any moment. Suddenly the girl leaned forward and said, ‘You’re here to get that fellow Rogan, aren’t you?’

      He paused, the spoon halfway to his mouth, and looked at her searchingly. ‘Who told you that?’

      She leaned back, satisfied. ‘I just put two and two together. It had to be something special to bring you back. I should have thought of it before.’

      ‘Did Stuart say anything?’ Fallon asked.

      She shook her head. ‘Nothing special. He mentioned Rogan in passing. Said they would be moving him to Belfast soon. I suddenly realized there must be a connection.’

      Fallon pushed the empty plate away from him. ‘That was nice,’ he said.

      She leaned across the table again and there was anger sparking in her eyes. ‘You damned fool. You’ll get yourself killed this time. And for what? For a cold-blooded murderer who deserves to hang.’

      He shook his head and shrugged. ‘Some people might say he was a soldier.’

      She laughed harshly. ‘Don’t talk rubbish. He’s a dirty little terrorist who shoots people in the back.’

      He didn’t try to answer her because he knew that she was more than half right. For a few moments he looked into her blazing, angry eyes and then he dropped his gaze and began to trace a pattern in the table cloth with the handle of his knife. ‘Rogan has a mother,’ he said. ‘She’s lost a husband and a son already. Both shot down fighting for the Cause. She wants him back. He’s all she has left.’

      Anne Murray gave a little moan and jumped up suddenly. ‘It’s always the women who suffer,’ she said. For a moment she stood with her head lowered and then she shook it slowly from side to side. ‘It won’t do,’ she said. ‘It’s not a good enough reason.’

      He got up from the table and took down his hat and coat from the rack where she had put them to dry. ‘I must go,’ he said.

      She moved slowly towards him and paused when their bodies were almost touching. There was iron in her voice when she spoke. ‘That woman isn’t the reason you came, is it?’ He made no reply and she raised her voice and said demandingly, ‘Is it?’

      For a moment there was a great silence as they stood close together staring into each other’s eyes, and then she swayed suddenly and he reached out to steady her. ‘A man ought to finish what he starts,’ he said.

      She nodded wearily. ‘Men!’ There was almost a loathing in her voice. ‘Men and their honour and their stupid games.’

      She came with him to the door. The rain was still falling steadily and remorselessly into the sodden ground. He belted his coat around him and pulled his hat down over his eyes. For a moment they stood together there on the top step and then a sob broke in her throat and she pushed him off the step, and said angrily, ‘Go on – go to your death, you fool.’

      The door slammed into place and for a moment he stood looking at it, and then he turned and walking down through the tangled garden, let himself out into the rain-swept square.

      3

      When Fallon reached the meeting place he found Murphy waiting for him. The boy was sitting behind the wheel of an old Austin reading a newspaper. Fallon walked quickly round to the other side of the car and opened the door. Murphy looked up, an expression of alarm on his face. He smiled with relief. ‘God help us, Mr Fallon. I thought you were the polis.’

      Suddenly Fallon felt desperately sorry for the boy. He wanted to tell him that this was how it would always be. That there was no romance and no adventure in it at all. That from now on he would live with fear. But he said none of these things. He looked into the boy’s eager, reckless young face and saw himself twenty years ago. He smiled and said, ‘Do you smoke?’ Murphy nodded and they lit cigarettes and sat back in comfort while the rain drummed on the roof.

      ‘Do you like the car?’ Murphy asked. Fallon nodded, and the boy went on. ‘I got it a bit cheaper, but I thought it would be less conspicuous. Did I do right?’

      Fallon laughed lightly. ‘You used your head,’ he said. ‘And that’s the only thing that keeps men like us out of the hands of the police.’

      Murphy flushed with pleasure. ‘Will you have a look at that stuff I was telling you about, Mr Fallon?’

      Fallon nodded and the boy took the car away from the kerb in a sudden burst of speed. ‘Steady on!’ Fallon told him. ‘No sense in being picked up for dangerous driving.’

      Murphy slowed down a little and they proceeded along the main street through light traffic at a steady pace. Fallon leaned back in his seat and tipped his hat down over his eyes. Until this moment he had given the problem of how he was to get Rogan off the train no immediate thought. He considered the business soberly. At first sight it was impossible. There would be at least four detectives with Rogan. They would be well armed and in a reserved compartment. Possibly even in a reserved coach. He shook his head. It looked bad and it was one of those tricky jobs which depended on circumstances and couldn’t be properly planned beforehand. The car braked to a halt and Murphy switched off the engine. ‘We’re here. Mr Fallon,’ he said.

      They were parked in a back street beside a high stone wall, and beyond the wall the tower of a church lifted into the sky. Fallon looked out in puzzlement. ‘Are you sure this is it?’ he said.

      The boy grinned. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Fallon. We’re at the right place. The safest place in the world.’ He produced a bunch of keys from his pocket and got СКАЧАТЬ