She followed him to the front door, and when he had opened it and let himself out, she stood there on the step, puzzled and sad, perhaps wondering how they had been reduced to so little.
‘Michael?’
He turned around and looked at her, expectant.
She smiled, her face softening. ‘Come back tomorrow morning. You can see James then.’
The Queen Anne mansion rose up out of the mist. Knox approached it from higher ground to the east, having to cross a bog and then the river, close to the place where they had found the body. He’d wandered aimlessly for most of the day and now it was almost dusk. The pale sun had dropped below the Galtee mountains and the temperature had fallen but Knox hardly noticed. He followed the path of the stream, the water black and empty, aware that anyone looking out of the front windows would see him. But he wasn’t con-cerned about that. Staring at the stately house, he wondered where his mother and Moore had lain together, where he’d been conceived — perhaps in the pantry next to the pots and pans, Moore’s trousers around his ankles.
The fields to his left were barren and marshy, the wind blowing from the east, icy and insistent, carrying with it the voices of those who had fought and died; the fourteen who’d ransacked a barracks in Ballack at the end of the Napoleonic war and who’d been punished for their insurrection, the O’Dwyers of Kilnamanagh and their faithful who’d held out for days against Cromwell’s Ironsides.
The famine dead. The fallen. Ghosts.
Knox entered the house through the poor door and made his way up the stairs. The house felt cold and empty but he knew Moore would be there. It was dusk, which meant he would be dressing for dinner. Knox knew the man’s routine as well as his own — his family life had been determined by it. He’d always wondered why his mother had been allowed to live away from the house when the other servants, maids and kitchen-hands, lived in quarters in a nearby annexe. Now he knew why she had been granted special privileges. And wasn’t it true that she’d asked Moore to put in a good word for him with the constabulary? What Moore had given, he’d also taken away. Knox’s whole life had been shaped by the whims of this one man. His father. Knox found this notion repugnant.
Moore’s bedroom was at the back of the house: Knox had ceased to think of him as Lord Cornwallis. Without knocking, he entered and found the man half undressed, sitting in front of a looking glass. A fire crackled in the grate. Moore saw Knox’s reflection in the mirror and turned around.
‘What’s the meaning of this, boy?’ His expression was indignant but Knox could see he was worried.
‘I’ve just come from visiting my mother.’ Knox held the aristocrat’s stare. ‘She told me the truth about my parentage.’ He approached the dresser where the older man was sitting.
‘What’s all this about, boy? You’re talking a load of damned nonsense. Barging in here like this. I’ll have you whipped if you’re not careful.’
Undeterred, Knox said, ‘My mother was a fine-looking woman. She still is, in fact. It’s no wonder she caught your eye.’
In that instant he could see that Moore knew. The bluster left him and he was quiet. Knox thought about the times he’d been cowed by Moore’s rank and status, the things he hadn’t said.
‘You may have lain with my mother but you’ll never be my father, at least not in the proper sense of the word.’ As he said this, Knox thought about the man he’d always looked to as his father and wondered what this new revelation made him.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about…’
Moore had turned around and Knox slapped him once across the cheek. He saw the shock register on the aristocrat’s face, the fact that a man of Knox’s status had insulted him in such a manner.
‘You sired another child with my mother. His name is John Johns. He was brought up by your gatekeeper. But none of this is a surprise to you, is it?’
Moore sought to recover lost ground. ‘You’ll go to prison for this. The scaffold even. Don’t think I wouldn’t do it. Even if you are …’
‘Even if I am…?’
‘What is it you want, boy? Some money perhaps, to get yourself back on your feet? All right, I’ll let you wet your beak.’
‘Money? You think I’d touch your money? Tainted with the blood of all those people you’ve allowed to die?’
‘What poppycock…’
Knox had heard enough. He grabbed the old man’s throat, pressed his fingers into the wrinkly flesh, and began to squeeze. It felt good, better than he had expected. ‘Say it,’ he hissed.
It was hard to let go, to stop. Eventually he did. Moore was spluttering, his face the colour of beetroot. ‘Say what, you fool?’
‘How many times did you fuck my mother? Twice? More?’
‘What do you want me to say, boy? That I loved your mother? Well, I did. There. I was young, she was beautiful, but poor, a servant. There was no way we could have made a life together. But what’s done is done. I looked out for you, didn’t I? I got you your position and Johns a commission in the army.’
Knox stood there, hardly able to fathom the self-justification coming from the man’s mouth. ‘You evicted my family from our home. My son caught a fever and nearly died. And I’m supposed to feel grateful?’
Moore didn’t have an answer. Perhaps for the first time, Knox saw something resembling contrition in the man’s face. His voice was suddenly quiet. ‘I was hurt, boy, hurt that you’d gone behind my back. I thought you of all people would obey me…’
‘Because I’m your son?’
Moore wouldn’t look at him.
‘I want only what you took from me; nothing more, nothing less.’ Knox waited. ‘I want my position back at the constabulary — a promotion to head constable — and I want you to rebuild my cottage, the one you had Brittas tear down.’
Moore straightened up, all his indignation gone. ‘And you’ll keep your mouth shut?’
Knox nodded, but he still didn’t know whether he’d abide by any agreement they reached. ‘The man who was killed, the police detective from London…’
‘What about him?’
‘Why did he come here?’
‘Something had happened in Wales. I don’t know what. Johns didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask. Johns came here begging for money — said there was a policeman looking for him. He said he wouldn’t come back, that he had a debt to settle in Lisvarrinane, and after that, he promised to disappear for good.’
‘When you laid eyes on the body for the first time, you were taken aback. Someone said your eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.’
‘Johns came back to see me that night. He told me what had happened; that there had been a struggle — that he’d stabbed and killed this man, a police detective from London. But he didn’t say where the struggle had taken place. I was shocked when I heard how close the body was, when I saw it with my own eyes.’
Knox stared down at the old man’s rheumy eyes and hairless, oval head and tried to see something of himself in his face.
‘So when the body was eventually discovered, you decided to ask for me, demand that I take charge of the investigation, to make sure nothing ever came to light about your link with the murderer.’
The old man nodded. There was nothing else to say. It was just as he had supposed. Moore had hand-picked him for the task because he knew that Knox and his family were beholden to him.
For what he’d done, for his callousness, his indifference to the suffering of others, Moore deserved to die, but Knox wasn’t a murderer, didn’t want that on his conscience as well. And he needed what Moore could give him: his former position and his home.
As he left, again using the poor door, he wondered where his mother was, whether she was working in the kitchens. And he wondered whether he would ever see her again.
Knox walked from Dundrum to Clonoulty; his mind was clearer now that he had stood up to the aristocrat and watched him cave in, his father who wasn’t his father. With each step, he felt a sense of perspective return. James was alive and that was all that mattered. Martha still loved him and he loved her. She would forgive him for abandoning her. He knew she would; she had a good heart. They would rebuild their lives and there would be nothing more that Moore could do to harm them.