“I don’t know. Who were they?”
“They showed me photographs. The children.” Her free hand went to her belly, clutched at the flesh over her womb. “The dead children. The bones. Their dead eyes. Their mouths open. Flies on their lips.”
“You didn’t do that to them,” Ryan said. He stepped around the table. “Like you said, you didn’t know. Please, put the gun down.”
“Will God forgive me?”
“I don’t know. Catherine, please, put the gun down. Talk to me. We can work something out. You can run, get out of the country.”
She asked again, her voice firm and final. “Will God forgive me?”
Ryan lowered his hands. “Yes. He will.”
Catherine Beauchamp smiled. She opened her mouth wide, brought the pistol up, put the muzzle between her teeth and closed her eyes.
Ryan said, “No,” but it was done before he could take a single step.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Célestin Lainé had enjoyed the Penfolds Grange Shiraz so much the night before that he had crept down to the cellar in search of a second bottle. He had descended the wooden steps, feeling the chill of the damp air crawl beneath his clothing, and gasped as his feet touched the concrete floor. Row after row of bottles from all over the world, some shining, some dusted with age. He had wandered between the racks, his tongue squirming behind his teeth, anticipating the delights ahead. It took several minutes to find the second Shiraz.
Now, in daylight, his brain seemed to grind against the inside of his skull. Of course, the only answer was more wine. He returned to the cellar hoping to find another Penfolds Grange, but there was none. Instead, he settled for an Italian white. It might have benefited from an hour on ice, but it was more than tolerable.
He wandered the grounds of Martinstown House, the uncorked bottle in one hand, the other holding his jacket closed. Skorzeny’s homestead was certainly impressive. Lainé had never been one for ostentation, displays of wealth — he’d never had the money — but still he had to admire the house with its sprawling wings, its arched windows, the gardens it nestled in. He stood back, surveyed the property.
Yes, Skorzeny had done well. Perhaps if Lainé had possessed a similar ambition, he could have attained such wealth. But then he’d only have spent it on drink.
He took a slug from the bottle. The wine cloyed at his throat, treacly sweet.
One of Skorzeny’s guards ambled past, patrolling the grounds, no attempt to conceal the Kalashnikov automatic rifle. Lainé nodded. The guard grunted some reply in German. A group of five men, refugees from East Germany who had been smuggled into Ireland, shared two rooms in one of the outbuildings.
Hakon Foss trudged across the front of the house, dressed in mud-caked overalls, a watering can in his hand. Lainé waved. Foss waved back.
The Norwegian knelt by one of the planters that lined up along the wall, spring flowers bursting like fireworks from the compost. Foss began plucking weeds from amongst them, dropping the scraps on the gravel beside him.
Lainé crossed the path.
Foss looked up from his work. “Hallo,” he said.
Lainé smiled. “You work hard?”
The Norwegian shrugged. “Not hard. I do this work two days ago. The Colonel, he calls, says come, do this work some more. What for?”
Lainé extended the bottle towards him. Foss smiled, took the wine from Lainé’s hand, and drank. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He handed the bottle back and wiped his mouth.
“You don’t want this work?” Lainé asked. “You don’t want the money?”
Foss returned his stubby fingers to the compost. “Oh, yes, I want work. I want money. Always I want money.”
Lainé raised the bottle to his lips, swallowed. “To have money is good.”
Foss laughed, shrugged, nodded. “Yes. Yes. Money is good. And to eat. And a place for sleeping. Money is good for these things.”
Lainé smiled, patted Foss’s back, and said goodbye. He strolled away from the house, out of the gardens, towards the outbuildings. Chickens roamed and pecked at the earth. He nudged them aside with the toe of his boot.
He found Tiernan in an open barn, fussing over a roiling mass of fur, cursing. The red-faced man looked up as Lainé entered.
“How’re ya,” he said, giving a deferential nod.
One of Tiernan’s collies, a bitch, lay in a bundle of blankets. Half a dozen pups wrestled and ran around her, hemmed in by a makeshift pen of wooden boards.
“How old?” Lainé asked.
“Seven weeks,” Tiernan said. “Some stray fucker got to her. Six bloody mongrels, no use to anyone. I should’ve drowned the wee bastards by now, but I didn’t have the heart. They’re just about weaned now, so there’s no avoiding it. It’ll be the sack and the river for them as soon as I gather the nerve to do it.”
The old man reached out a hand, all sinew and knuckles, and scratched one of the pups behind the ear. It batted at his bony fingers with its paws, nipped his hard skin with needle teeth. Its siblings joined in the game.
“I will take one,” Lainé said. He hunkered down, placed the bottle by his side, looked from one pup to the next. All but one of them mobbed Tiernan’s hand, a black and brown male, smaller than the others. Lainé dipped his fingers towards it. The pup hesitated, sniffed at his skin, then its tiny tongue lapped at him.
“This one,” he said.
“All right, so,” Tiernan said. “But don’t let the missus see it in the house. She’ll have a blue fit.”
Tiernan’s wife served as Skorzeny’s housekeeper. A German woman, stout and fierce, she had come to Ireland before the war and married the Irishman. She had already scolded Lainé for walking mud into the house.
“I will hide it from her,” Lainé said.
He reached down, plucked the pup from the pen, and thanked Tiernan. It squirmed in his hands. He tucked it under his arm, took the wine in his free hand, and set off towards the house.
When he entered through the kitchen, Mrs. Tiernan stood arguing with the chef who had arrived that morning from the Horcher restaurant in Madrid, Skorzeny’s favourite eatery in Europe. The Spaniard had been flown over to prepare the feast for the following evening. Half a dozen pheasants lay in two rows on the kitchen table. Evidently Mrs. Tiernan and the chef disagreed on how best to prepare the birds, each speaking in their own language, miming their points with their hands, their voices rising.
Lainé slipped past unnoticed.
He made his way to the stairs, was half way up when a voice called, “Célestin.”
Lainé stopped, turned, saw Skorzeny.
“Yes?”
“What have you got there?”
“A pup,” Lainé said. He held the mite up, its little legs thrashing at the air.
“Don’t let Frau Tiernan find it in your room.”
“I won’t.”
Skorzeny pointed. “And that?”
Lainé’s fingers tightened on the bottle of wine. “I was thirsty.”
“No more,” Skorzeny said. “I want to begin questioning Hakon Foss tonight. You must be sober. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Lainé went to his room, placed the wine on the bedside locker and the puppy on the bed. It explored the blanket, sniffing, whimpering. Lainé rolled it on its back, scratched its belly. It boxed his hand with its paws.
Alongside the puppy, on the bed, sat a worn leather satchel, not unlike the kind of bag a doctor might carry. It contained no medicines, no pills, only tools. Sharp things. Jagged things.