She sat forward, peering out as the carriage careered down the street, swung round the corner and then set off again at what felt like a gallop. She was tossed around, bruised and without any sense of where she was, for what felt like ages, but was probably no more than fifteen minutes at most. Then finally they lurched to a stop outside the house where she had been the previous evening.
She stepped out, taking a moment to find her balance after the hectic ride. She paid him more than he had asked for, and then an extra shilling.
‘Thank you,’ she said. Then she walked up the same path she had trodden in the evening light such a short time ago. Somehow, at midday, the path looked longer, the bushes more crowding in, the trees overhead cut out more of the sky.
She had not reached the front door when she heard the dog barking. It was an angry, frightening sound, with a note of hysteria to it, as if the animal were out of control. It had certainly not been like that yesterday evening. It had been calm, resting its head on O’Neil’s feet and barely noticing her.
She was surprised Cormac did not come to see what the fuss was. He could not possibly be unaware of the noise.
She touched the door with her fingers and it opened.
Narraway was standing in the hall. He swung round as the light spread across the floor. For a moment he was startled, then he regained his presence of mind.
‘I should have known,’ he said grimly. ‘Wait here.’
The dog was now throwing itself at whatever barrier it was that held it in check. Its barking was high in its throat, as if it would rip someone to shreds the moment it could reach them.
Charlotte would not leave Narraway alone. She stepped inside and looked for the umbrella stand she had noticed yesterday. She saw it, picked out a sharp-ferruled black umbrella and held it as if it were a swordstick.
The barking was reaching a climax.
Ahead of her Narraway went to the sitting-room door, to the right of where the dog was hurling itself at another door, snarling in a high, singing tone as if it scented prey close at last.
Narraway opened the sitting-room door, then stopped motionless. Charlotte could see over his shoulder that Cormac O’Neil was lying on the floor on his back, a pool of blood spreading on the polished wood around what was left of his head.
Charlotte gulped, trying to stop herself from being sick. Yesterday evening he had been alive, angry, weeping with passion and grief. Now there was nothing left but empty flesh lying waiting to be found by people who might or might not even care about him.
Narraway went over and bent down, touching the skin of Cormac’s face with his fingers.
‘He’s still warm,’ he said, turning back to look at Charlotte. He had to raise his voice above the noise of the dog. ‘We must call the police.’
He had barely finished speaking when there was a bang of the front door swinging open again and hitting the wall, and then footsteps.
There was no time to wonder who it was. A woman screamed with a short, shrill sound, and then seemed to choke. Charlotte swivelled round to stare at Talulla Lawless. She was ashen-faced, her hand to her mouth, black eyes staring wildly past Charlotte and Narraway to the figure of Cormac on the floor.
Behind her a policeman tried to catch his breath as a wave of horror overtook him.
Talulla glared at Narraway. ‘I warned him,’ she gasped. ‘I knew you’d kill him, after yesterday. But he wouldn’t listen. I told him! I told him!’ Her voice was getting higher and higher and her body was shaking.
The policeman regained control of himself and stepped forward, looking at Charlotte, then at Narraway. ‘What happened here?’ he asked.
‘He murdered my uncle, can’t you see that?’ Talulla shouted at him. ‘Listen to the dog, dammit! For God’s sake, don’t let him out, he’ll tear that murderer apart! That’s what brought me here. I heard him, poor creature.’
‘He was dead when we got here!’ Charlotte shouted back at her. ‘We don’t know what happened any more than you do!’
Narraway stepped forward to the policeman. ‘I came in first,’ he said to the policeman. ‘Mrs Pitt waited outside. She has nothing to do with this. She never met Mr O’Neil until very recently. I’ve known him for twenty years. Please allow her to leave.’
Talulla thrust out her hand, finger pointing. ‘There’s the gun! Look, its lying right there on the floor. He hasn’t even had time to take it away.’
‘Of course he hasn’t,’ Charlotte retorted. ‘We only just got here! If you ask the-’
‘Charlotte, be quiet,’ Narraway said with such force that she stopped speaking. He faced the policeman. ‘I came into the house first. Please allow Mrs Pitt to leave. As I said before, she had no acquaintance with Mr O’Neil, beyond a casual introduction. I have known him for years. We have an old enmity, which has finally caught up with us. Is that not true, Miss Lawless?’
‘Yes!’ she said vehemently. ‘The dog just started to bark. I can hear it from my house. I live only a few yards away, over there. If there’d been anybody else, he’d have raised this row before. Ask anyone.’
The policeman looked at Cormac on the floor, at Narraway, and the blood on his shoes, then at Charlotte, white-faced by the door. The dog was still barking and trying to break down the barrier that held it in check.
‘Sir, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to come with me. It’ll be best for you if you don’t give me any trouble.’
‘I have no intention of giving you trouble,’ Narraway told him. ‘None of this is your fault. Will you permit me to make certain that Mrs Pitt has sufficient funds to pay a cab driver? She has had a very ugly shock.’
The policeman looked confused. ‘She was with you, sir,’ he pointed out.
‘No,’ Narraway corrected him. ‘She came after me. She was not here when I arrived. I went in and O’Neil and I quarrelled. He attacked me, and I had no choice but to defend myself.’
‘You came deliberately to kill him,’ Talulla accused him. ‘He showed you for the liar and the cheat you are. He got you dismissed from your position and you wanted your revenge. You came here and shot him.’ She looked at Charlotte. ‘Can you deny that?’
‘Yes, I can,’ Charlotte responded heatedly. ‘I did arrive after Mr Narraway was already here, but only seconds behind him. He had not gone further than the hallway. The sitting-room door was closed. We discovered Mr O’Neil’s body at the same moment.’
‘Liar!’ Talulla shouted. ‘You’re his mistress. You’d say anything.’
Charlotte gasped.
A look at once of humour and pain flickered in Narraway’s eyes. He turned to the policeman. ‘That is not true. Please allow her to go. If you can find the cabby who brought her, he will affirm that Mrs Pitt arrived after I did, and he must have seen her come into the house. O’Neil was shot, as you observe. Ask the driver if he heard the shot.’
The policeman nodded. ‘You’re right, sir. Don’t take the lady down with you.’ He turned to Talulla. ‘And if you’d go back home, ma’am, I’ll take care o’ this. An’ you, ma’am,’ he looked at Charlotte, ‘you’d better go an’ find a cab back to your lodgings. But don’t leave Dublin, if you please. We’ll be wishing to talk to you. Where are you staying?’
‘Number seven, Molesworth Street.’
‘Thank you, ma’am. That’ll be all. Now don’t stop me doing my duty, or it’ll be the worse for you.’
Charlotte could do nothing but watch helplessly as another policeman arrived. Narraway was manacled and led away, to Talulla’s intense delight.
Charlotte walked back down the pathway and along the road, dazed and alone.
Chapter Eight
Pitt ceased to struggle. At first, in the heat of the moment, there was no point. He was in the grasp of two burly constables, both convinced they had apprehended a violent lunatic who had just hurled two men, possibly strangers to him, off a fast-moving train.