The Virtuosic Spy 01 - Deceptive Cadence by Kathryn Guare

Author:Kathryn Guare
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Thrillers & Suspense, International Mystery & Crime, Thriller & Suspense, Literary Fiction, Suspense, Thrillers, British & Irish, Espionage, Literature & Fiction
Published: 2014-01-13T23:00:00+00:00

22

CONOR GAPED AROUND THE ROOM, HARDLY ABLE TO CREDIT THE evidence of his eyes. One minute he had been in the cacophonous center of a Bandra shopping district, the street teeming with homeward-bound workers, begging children, and a continuous flow of honking, fuming traffic. The next minute, he had stepped through a door and was transported home.

The interior of Durgan’s Irish Pub was so authentic, so uncannily evocative of bars he’d known from Dingle to Dublin, that the overall effect was one of momentary dizziness. It was as if the needle of an internal compass had been twisted to a familiar but unexpected setting.

“It’s unbelievable. It even smells like Ireland.” He closed his eyes and breathed in an aroma both sweet and acrid.

“That’ll be the peat fire.” Thomas cocked his head at the massive fieldstone fireplace anchored at one end of the room. “It’s mad altogether, really. It’ll be thirty-three centigrade and the air-con cranked full blast, but there’s always the peat fire going.”

“How did you find this?” Conor asked.

His brother’s eyes slid from him evasively. He turned away toward the bar—a long, handsome specimen of dark, polished wood featuring an array of long-handled taps advertising Guinness, Smithwick’s, and Murphy’s. He pointed Conor to an empty area of the room.

“Let’s have a drink first. Get yourself a seat in the corner there, and I’ll bring it over.”

Conor made his way to the table Thomas had indicated, taking time to browse among the photos lining the walls. They were a stock collection of the most famous, most frequently photographed Irish landscapes, but he lingered over them affectionately, as if absorbing images from a family album.

He paused at the fireplace and had to agree the great expanse of fieldstone was a bit overdone, a bit too “Bunratty Folk Park,” but the homely little bricks of peat in their various misshapen sizes still produced a twinge of nostalgia. He wondered what logistical hurdles were involved in importing genuine Irish turf into India.

When he reached the corner table, he pulled one of the chairs back, throwing a casual glance at the photo centered over it . . . and froze. It was another landscape, a very familiar one, but not famous. It was a particular view of Ventry Harbor off the coast of the Dingle peninsula. He would have known the harbor anyway, but this angle he particularly recognized because it was a vista that could only be seen from the upper pasture of the McBride family farm.

Staring at the photograph, a flash of intuition pulsed through him, and when Thomas arrived carrying a bottle of Jameson’s and two whiskey glasses, he spun around with an accusatory glare.

“You’re Durgan, aren’t you?” He couldn’t decide whether the concept was appalling or hilarious. “You own this bloody bar, don’t you?”

Thomas set the bottle and glasses down on the table with a heavy sigh. “I’m not Durgan, and if we’re to be completely accurate, the European Union owns this bloody bar.”

“The European—oh, mother of God, take me now.

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