Chapter 6
“Come now, Verity. These are the conditions you agreed to,” Captain Bennett cajoled.
Actually, I hadn’t agreed to anything. I certainly hadn’t agreed to allow Bennett to address me by my given name.
But then he was attempting to play off the familiarity of our past association, both here in Dublin and in Holland during the war.
It was a tactic I would have tried, too, though it wasn’t working on me.
Not with the knowledge I held of their betrayal.
I continued to sit, arms crossed, glaring across the desk between us at him and his partner Lieutenant Ames.
I’d been taken to the same office where I’d met O the previous evening, but this time three chairs were positioned around the desk, two on one side and one on the other.
Bennett had a long face, narrow mouth, and the fair coloring of his Dutch mother.
Meanwhile, Ames, who I knew less well, possessed dark receding hair and a mustache, and spoke with an American accent.
“So, this silent act isn’t going to work,” Bennett continued when I made no response. “Not if you wish to return home to your husband.”
I wondered if he and Ames regretted their treatment of me and Sidney on the night they’d let the disguised phosgene cylinders we’d located in a garage on Hanover Street slip through our fingers. I wondered if they lamented their accusations and dismissal of our findings.
I thought it doubtful. Not after Maxwell had been able to secure the most recent days’ newspapers for me and I’d read the Castle’s response to various reporters’ questions about the incident after particulars had been leaked, almost certainly by Sidney and our friends.
There were details in the answers that only Bennett and Ames would have supplied in such a snide manner.
It was the same tone that the Castle had adopted in its initial replies to questions about the incident outside Mountjoy Jail and my arrest. Nothing to see here.
Nothing to see. But the newspapers weren’t having it, not even the more loyalist ones who usually reported precisely what the government wished them to.
Whether it was the power of my celebrity or Sidney and our friends pressing the matter, I was thankful for their persistence.
As I was thankful for Wick’s editor, Harrington.
Wick had, in fact, been detained. My chest had seized in dread at that news.
But this proved to be a terrific error on the Castle’s part because Harrington had been aware of my connection and recent communication with his reporter, and upon both our detainments, he’d been able to exploit that for all it was worth within the pages of the Irish Independent.
It did, indeed, look suspiciously like the government was attempting to conceal something from the public, and other newspapers had picked up the story, not only here in Dublin, but also London, Paris, New York, and elsewhere.
Now dozens of journalists were digging for the truth, and so the Castle had been forced to revise their statements.
This could not have come at a worse time for the British government.
There were reports, substantiated by numerous journalists, that the village of Tralee in County Kerry was essentially being held under siege by the Black and Tans.
The Tans were former soldiers recruited to bulk up the ranks of the withering Royal Irish Constabulary and were so called because of their hodgepodge uniform of pieces in the colors of Army khaki and dark green RIC.
They were the terror of the countryside and their lack of discipline notorious.
Reports were that, following several days of tit-for-tat violence and the shooting deaths of a number of RIC officers by IRA Volunteers, that the Black and Tans had taken over the town, burning parts of it to the ground, firing upon any residents who dared appear on the streets, ordering all businesses closed, and preventing food and drink from being delivered.
There was also outrage over the death of a young pregnant woman in County Galway.
She had merely been sitting on the wall in front of her home, cradling her older child, when a passing lorry filled with Auxiliaries had fired indiscriminately and shot her in the stomach.
She and her unborn child had not survived.
This was in addition to the usual crop of shootings and reprisals which seemed to pepper the newspapers every day.
I scrutinized Bennett and Ames, wondering if they cared about any of it. Or were they one of the bad lot spoiling it for all the others? Men who’d come here to revel in the violence and the chance to get back a bit of their own, heedless of who they hurt.
Bennett’s jaw ticked in irritation while Ames seemed to take my silence in stride. “Really, Verity,” Bennett tried again, his wheedling tone terser. “I thought we were friends.”
“We were never friends,” I judged it safe to reply.
His eyes lit as if he’d triumphed. It was so pathetic I almost smiled.
“Colleagues, then,” he amended. “Consider everything we faced together in Holland during the war.”
I arched a single eyebrow in disbelief. He’d spent his time in the neutral Netherlands safely behind a desk while I had braved the electrified fences at the border with Belgium, venturing in and out of the German-occupied territories, acting as a liaison for our local intelligence-gathering networks and undertaking various other risky missions.
And I’d done all this while striving to avoid Bennett’s presence because of his tendency to beat his gums in order to demonstrate how well-informed he was.
After all, we Brits weren’t the only ones operating inside Holland.
German Intelligence also had a strong presence.
Bennett’s time in the Netherlands and mine were nothing alike.
He leaned across the papers on the desk. “Come on, Ver. You know you can trust me.”
“Actually, I don’t,” I replied calmly.
Bennett frowned. “You don’t?”
“I don’t trust you.”
He straightened, sharing a look with Ames. His brow darkened with anger. “Now, see here …”
“You can continue to blather and bluster, but you’ll only be wasting your time and mine. I’m not saying another word unless it’s to someone I trust.”
Really, this was elementary intelligence-gathering.
If you wanted an informant or suspect to tell you anything, you had to convince them to trust you.
Without trust, anything you wheedled or threatened or beat out of them was unreliable, at best. People could be convinced to tell you anything if the pain you exerted was enough and you promised to make it stop.
All of these men knew this, and yet the intelligence room still existed.
In my more cynical moments, I began to believe this was because they didn’t care what the men they tortured confessed, so long as the prisoner admitted to something they could use to justify executing them.
Bennett began to rise to his feet, his hands balling into fists, but I refused to cower or look away.
Let him strike me. Let him leave a mark that everyone could see.
Captain Maxwell’s men were just outside the door, waiting to escort me back to my room.
I trusted them to report any violence used against me, and I intended to scream if they dared touch me.
This office wasn’t belowground, far from the prying eyes and ears of others who worked at the Castle. No, it was smack dab in the middle of the administrative heart. Someone would hear me. Several someones would hear me. I’d like to see them try to keep that quiet.
Perhaps realizing this, Ames reached up to grasp his partner’s arm, infusing some sense into him. Too bad.
Bennett collapsed back into his chair with an angry huff, and Ames picked up the carrot, attempting to persuade me that if I told them what they wanted to know then I could return to the home Sidney and I had rented on Upper Fitzwilliam Street, as soon as that evening.
It was a powerful inducement, but I knew better than to believe their promises. I would not be budged.
Captain Maxwell came to see me that evening after I’d finished my dinner. He brought me a blanket and a book—Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps, an adventure spy novel. I looked up at him in question.
Maxwell clasped his hands behind his back, looking uncomfortable. “It’s supposed to freeze tonight and I know this old castle can be quite drafty.”
I smiled at him fondly. That explained the blanket, then.
He frowned. “But I’ve been forbidden to bring you any more papers.” He nodded at the book. “The novel was O’s suggestion.”
I snorted, able to decipher what kind of message the snake was trying to send me. Not only was Buchan’s novel farfetched, but it featured traitors hiding in the midst of the British elite. I set the book aside. “I hope I didn’t get you into trouble.”
He brushed this aside. “Don’t worry about that.”
I waited, able to tell he had more to say, but he seemed to be having trouble finding the words. “What should I worry about?” I prodded.
“There’s a rumor going around the Castle.” He cleared his throat. “One that claims you are offering”—he shifted his feet again, his voice sounding strangled—“sexual favors in exchange for your release.”
I scowled, well able to imagine who had voiced such a spurious claim. It would be laughingly predictable if it weren’t so bloody infuriating.
“I don’t believe it. None of my men believe it,” he clarified. He harrumphed. “No one with sense would believe it. But … I thought you should know.”
I nodded. “Thank you for telling me. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say.”
“Yes.” He studied my face. My mouth was still curdled in disgust. “I’m sure Sidney won’t believe it either.”
“Oh, I know he won’t.” My husband knew me better than that. “But there are others who will. Others who will relish the notion and the fact it discredits me.” I shook my head angrily.