The Great Wide Open by Douglas Kennedy

Author:Douglas Kennedy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House

19

THE NEXT MORNING a black unmarked police car pulled up in front of our building on Pearse Street. Two men in bad suits came out and knocked on the door. Sean answered it. They showed him their official ID and explained that they had a few questions they wanted to pose. I overheard all this because Sean had knocked on my door just a half-hour beforehand, asking if I might like to join him for breakfast. Ciaran had already left for one of his early-morning classes. I was sitting in my rocking chair, drinking coffee, stopping myself from lighting up a cigarette, reading Dryden in advance of a lecture that afternoon by Professor Brown, and trying to keep my mind off the events of last night. I could only begin to imagine what Carly was telling the Special Branch and the Embassy people.

All these thoughts and fears were swirling around my head as I found myself unable to concentrate on Alexander’s Feast and kept expecting an authoritarian knock to come on the door.

When it arrived I almost jumped out of my chair. Hearing that it was Sean didn’t lessen my worry, as I was certain he was going to castigate me for ratting Carly out to the authorities.

But Sean was contrition itself. When I opened the door he immediately touched my shoulder and said:

‘Sorry about last night. I was just a little unnerved by the cops bursting in like that and carting Megan off to what I hope is the nearest fucking dungeon.’

‘Sean, I did not make that call to the police.’

That’s when I motioned him inside and said how she’d been seen with the Maoist brigade in Trinity, and how Ciaran and I happened upon her in that pub surrounded by a group of men ‘whom Ciaran knew to be Republican hard men’.

‘Did he say who exactly they were?’ said Sean.

‘No, he just knew them by reputation, nothing more.’

‘You sure about that now?’

‘Absolutely sure of that,’ I said, noting how, like Desmond, Sean got very edgy when anything Republican got mixed into the conversation.

‘Don’t you or your man ever tell anyone that you saw your woman with those fellas,’ whispered Sean. ‘It never happened. I’m saying this to you for your own protection … and for mine.’

‘Agreed.’

Sean seemed relieved. ‘We’ll say no more about it. Except: what you told me last night is too bloody true. I am so relieved to have that harpy out of my life. Now then, if you haven’t had breakfast I can do a fry-up downstairs. Would you be on for that?’

But following him downstairs all preparations for breakfast were interrupted with the arrival of the Special Branch. Peering out the window and seeing the men getting out of the unmarked car, he shooed me away before answering the door. I hurried back to my bedsit, turning around on the next landing to watch the two Special Branch men enter the house, then closed my door. I only opened it again when I heard the front door slam shut.

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