the Savage Day - Simon Vaughn 02 (v5) by Jack Higgins Read Free Book Online Page B

you just watch it, Binnie, or you might get some of the same. Who's your friend?'
    'None of your affair.'
    'And what if I decide to make it mine?'
    'Don't mind me,' I put in.
    For the first time Lucas lost some of that iron composure of his. He stared at me in astonishment. 'A bloody Englishman, is it?'
    'Or as much an Irishman as de Valera,' I said. 'It depends on your point of view.'
    'He's here on business for the Small Man,' Binnie said. 'For Cork himself, so keep your nose out of it.'
    They confronted each other for another tense moment, then the old lady slipped in between them without a word and placed a pot of tea in the centre of the table. Lucas turned away angrily and I sat down against the wall and lit a cigarette. I offered Binnie one, but he refused. The old lady brought us a cup of tea each then moved to the others.
    'She doesn't have much to say for herself,' I observed.
    'She wouldn't,' Binnie replied. 'Being dumb as well as blind.'
    He stared into space, something close to pain in his eyes, thinking of that child whose hand he had held, I suspect.
    I said, 'Remember what you were saying about my uncle coming out of the schoolhouse so the children wouldn't be harmed, to shoot it out with the Tans like a man?'
    He turned to me with a frown. 'So what?'
    I said gently, 'Times have changed, haven't they, Binnie?'
    He stood up, walked over to the other side of the room and sat down with his back to me.
    I suppose it must have been all of two hours before there was a knock at the door. They all had a gun out on the instant, including Binnie, and waited while the old lady went to the door. Norah Murphy came into the kitchen. She paused, her eyes narrowing as she recognized Lucas, then she placed her case on the table.
    'I'd love a cup of tea, Ma,' she said in Irish as Mrs Kelly followed her in.
    She was as crisp and incisive as she had been at our first meeting. It was as if nothing had happened in between at all and yet the skirts of her trenchcoat were stained with blood. I wondered if anything would ever really touch her.
    Binnie said, 'What happened?'
    'I helped out till the ambulances arrived.'
    'How many were killed?' Lucas demanded.
    'Five,' she said and turned to me. 'I'll have that cigarette now, Major.'
    'And soldiers?' Young Riley leaned on the table with both hands, his eyes wilder than ever. 'How many soldiers?'
    Norah Murphy turned from the match I held for her and blew out a long column of smoke.
    'And who might you be?' she enquired.
    'Dennis Riley, ma'am,' he said in a low voice.
    'Well then, Dennis Riley, you really will have to put in some practice before your next free show. The score this time was a mother and her two children and a couple of eighteen-year-olds who'd just got engaged. No soldiers, I'm afraid.'
    Riley collapsed into a chair and Binnie said quietly, 'The little girl - she died, then?'
    'I'm afraid so.'
    He turned to Lucas and Riley and the look on his face was the same look I had seen in the pub earlier when he had confronted the hooligans.
    'Women and kids now, is it?' He kicked the table over, the Browning was in his hand by a kind of magic. 'You bloody bastards, here's for the two of you.'
    Norah Murphy had his arm up as he fired, a bullet ploughing through the ceiling. She slapped him across the cheek. He turned, a strange, dazed look on his face, and she grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him as one might shake a recalcitrant child.
    'What's done is done, Binnie. Quarrelling like this amongst ourselves won't help now.'
    Lucas stood with his back against the wall, the Schmeisser ready, no more than a hairs-breadth away from cutting loose with it. Riley scrabbled on the floor at his feet for the Webley which he had lost when the table went over.
    'Better to move on from here,' Norah Murphy said. 'All of us and the sooner the better. Someone might have heard that shot.' She turned to Mrs Kelly. 'I'm sorry, Ma.'
    The old woman smiled and touched her face. I said, 'How are we