Chapter 18 #2
“Seems rather telling that Ardmore is showing an interest in what Gallagher knows,” I remarked as we hugged the line of the stone wall as a military lorry careened past. As usual, it was traveling too fast. Sidney took the brunt of the splatter from its tires without reacting, though the muddy water must have been ice-cold.
“Yes, and Ardmore will only dismiss it as intent to see that justice is obtained for his friend.”
I waited until we’d navigated a large puddle to voice my real concern. “It does make me consider Gallagher’s safety though.”
Sidney peered at me out of the corner of his eye. “You’re worried Ardmore might have him killed?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time he’s used such brutal methods to ensure the silence of a witness.”
He didn’t refute this. He couldn’t when the body count in Ardmore’s wake was already so alarming.
But he did express doubts. “I think if he intended to kill Gallagher, he would have already done it. It’s less suspicious to simply employ some of Gallagher’s cohorts to attempt to cast doubts on the lad’s assertions.
” He shook his head. “Another murder would only draw more attention to a matter that the-powers-that-be have already dismissed as IRA violence.”
I conceded this logic, recognizing that if Ardmore had feared us learning anything incriminating about him from Gallagher, he would already have ensured we never could.
“Then, is there any point in questioning any of Harlow’s friends or the potential witnesses to his murder?
Won’t Ardmore have already ensured they don’t know anything that might prove damning to him? ”
Sidney grunted, sharing my exasperation.
After a long moment of deliberation, he barked out an answer.
“Yes. Because no matter how much he might wish to appear so, Ardmore is not omnipotent. He’s got to foul up sometime.
One of Harlow’s friends could know something that Ardmore doesn’t realize.
After all, Ardmore was tupping Harlow’s wife.
I have to think at least one of his friends is leery of the man. ”
I arched my eyebrows. “‘Tupping?’”
He glanced at me and shrugged. “It’s a word some of the Highlanders used. It’s crude and to the point.”
“Literally.”
Sidney squeezed my arm where it was tucked against his side. “Come on.” He urged me to move quicker as a tram lumbered to a stop just ahead of us. “Let’s see if Bentnick has finished his decryption, and if Smith made any other mentions of Ryde’s father.”
He hadn’t. At least none that mentioned the late Earl of Ryde by name.
Which left Max as frustrated at his father as he was before.
I had to believe that somehow we’d missed a clue somewhere, or Ardmore had beaten us to it.
For surely the late Lord Ryde wouldn’t have sent his son on such a wildgoose chase with no hope of recovering the alleged proof at the end of it.
That would be nonsensical. Though I did wish he hadn’t resorted to such extreme and outlandish methods.
Whatever the truth, the results were disheartening.
I was also disheartened by the fact that with the completion of the decryption and the first fortnight of November drawing to a close, it was time for George to return to England.
On his last day, the two of us took a stroll through the relative safety of the streets surrounding Fitzwilliam Square, which stood just around the corner from our town house.
I said the “relative safety” because nowhere in Dublin was truly safe anymore.
Not when a skirmish between the Crown Forces and the rebels could break out at any moment.
Just the day before, a few blocks away, an eight-year-old little girl had been killed when British soldiers in a military lorry had fired shots at a group of people standing in Charlemont Place. The girl’s six-year-old friend had also been gravely wounded.
One never grew entirely accustomed to the violence, despite how often it occurred, but when it resulted in the death and injury of children, it was enough to make one sick.
Max and George, who back in England had not been impacted by daily reports of such outrages, were particularly appalled and horrified.
And the fact that it had been British soldiers who opened fire, seemingly unprovoked, unsettled them.
Back in England, the murders perpetuated by the republicans were granted far more print space than those caused by the Crown Forces, which were almost always downplayed and ascribed to the fault of the rebels in some way.