Part 2
It had gone as well as he could've reasonably expected, Steele thought to himself.
A deliberate understatement. Actually it had gone damn well. Under ordinary circumstances, he'd have given himself a well-deserved tip of the hat and gone off to celebrate.
Ah, but these weren't ordinary circumstances, were they.
One official each from the American and British embassies had been waiting for him and Marissa in Niall Donegal's cramped office upon their arrival in Dublin. The men weren't the ambassadors themselves—Marissa's powers of persuasion, though good, were not, apparently, that good—but subordinates high enough in the hierarchy to have genuine power.
Power they hadn't hesitated to wield. Steele's private stereotype of diplomats as indecisive, conciliatory types had shattered into smithereens as Secretaries Spaulding and Peterborough took events into their own hands. Within an hour Kemodov, who'd been held with Fitch in another office during the meeting, had been accepted as a defector to the United States; arrangements finalized for his departure that evening for Maryland, courtesy of the U.S. Air Force; his death reported to the Soviets. Fitch, meanwhile, would travel under military escort to London in the guise of Britain's newest civilian hero, Daniel Chalmers.
This last had been Peterborough's idea. As Steele's recitation of the events surrounding Fitch's capture drew to a close, Peterborough had looked thoughtful. "It seems to me this man, Chalmers, was most instrumental in unmasking our mole, even more so than the American agent—what was his name?"
"Antony Roselli," replied Steele.
"Roselli, yes. One might go so far as to conclude that Sterling Fitch would still be at large were it not for Chalmers."
Caution signals were flashing in Steele's head. Unsure where Peterborough was headed with this, he said slowly, "I think it's fair to say that if Daniel hadn't persevered in his pursuit of Comrade Kemodov, Fitch would never have been lured from the safety of London."
"Agreed," said Peterborough. "And such perseverance ought to be rewarded. A public funeral. Full military honors."
Surprise as potent as a punch in the gut had robbed Steele of breath. Then he'd drawn a deep one and asked, "But…you'll have sent him to Moscow, won't you? In Kemodov's place?"
"I'm afraid that can't be helped. But there's no reason why we shouldn't honor him posthumously for his service, never mind that he's not actually present. And I think it fitting that Fitch should take the place, so to speak, of the man who caught him, at least while en route to London."
A major facet of Steele's plan had changed without his input. He hardly noticed. Peterborough's words were hammering home a truth that hadn't occurred to him until now.
'Actually present'. Daniel wouldn't actually be present, should Peterborough's superiors agree that a military funeral would, indeed, be a proper show of gratitude for the neutralization of Fitch.
Of course he wouldn't. His body was to be the decoy that would allow Kemodov to slip off to the United States.
But once his body had arrived in Moscow…what would happen then?
One thing was certain. The Soviets weren't sending him back.
He would never know where Daniel's body was laid to rest.
The realization had transfixed him so thoroughly that he lost his place in the conversation. He had to force himself to concentrate on Secretary Spaulding, who was explaining how Kemodov's transfer to Andrews Air Force Base would play out. The entrance of a uniformed aide interrupted them. "Sir? Checkpoint A reports that the Soviets are on the move. Dmytrk and Leschova."
Spaulding checked his watch. "E.T.A.?"
"They've just left the embassy, sir."
"Thanks, Lieutenant Dwyer." Spaulding had turned to Steele and Marissa. "It's better if you aren't here when Kemodov's colleagues arrive, so we'll have to cut the meeting short. No reason to tempt them to put you under surveillance again."
Rising with Spaulding and Peterborough, Steele and Marissa had exchanged a startled glance. "Excuse me, but did you just say the Soviets have been watching us?" asked Marissa.
"The castle, yes," Spaulding replied. "Ever since Kemodov turned up missing. In fact, we can't be sure they haven't tapped your phone lines. It might be good to give us an alternate means for getting in touch with you. Don't you think so, Peterborough?"
"Quite right."
"I'm flying to London tomorrow. I'd be happy relay a message to Mr. Steele if you contact me there," volunteered Marissa.
Once phone numbers were exchanged, Spaulding had moved to usher them out. But Steele had hesitated. "Perhaps we ought to wait here, since we're being watched."
Spaulding laughed. "You'll be fine, trust me. My men have the whole street covered."
"Your men?" Steele's brow quirked into a frown. "But I didn't see any-"
"You wouldn't have. U.S. Army Intelligence, Mr. Steele, the best damn men in the world for covert work. Switch identities and blend in right under your nose, and you'll never see them. But I assure you, they'll see you. You're perfectly safe."
Spaulding had told the truth; Steele and Marissa returned to the waiting Rolls without incident. As Terence sprang out to open the rear door for Marissa, Steele had said to her, "There's really no need for you to hurry back to London. You're welcome to stay at the castle a bit longer, if you'd like."
"Isn't that a rash invitation from a man on his honeymoon? Sweet of you to offer, but I couldn't possibly."
"It's good-bye, then. Thanks for everything you've done." And he'd taken her hand and shaken it.
"You're not coming back to the castle?"
"I've some things to take care of. I'll hire a car for the drive home. Terence, you'll be taking Miss Peters back alone, okay?"
But Marissa wasn't quite ready to be dismissed. "Since it is good-bye, Mr. Steele, let me ask you a question." At his silent assent, she went on, " 'Like father, like son'. Did I really hear your wife say that today? And does it mean what I think it does?"
Long practice had taught Steele not to betray information even by the flicker of an eyelash when he didn't want to. What did they know about Marissa Peters, anyway? Beyond the fact that she'd proven an enormous help this afternoon, nothing. She was an enigma, and probably an untrustworthy one, if the kind of feminine company Daniel had always kept was a yardstick to go by. Safer to pretend ignorance.
"Ah, I expect you misunderstood Mrs. Steele. Daniel and I are—were—like father and son to one another. That's probably what she intended to say."
The glint in Marissa's eyes told him he hadn't fooled her for a second. "That must be it. Well, good-bye, Mr. Steele. It's been…interesting, to say the least."
Now, watching the limo glide off down the street, he thought again how well things had gone. Daniel would've been proud of him.
Though what the hell difference did that make, really? Daniel was dead.
Steele began to walk.
The first order of business was to try and hire a car, if he could find a garage open at this hour. He was aware that part of him was hoping he wouldn't. Then he'd have a legitimate excuse for booking a room and staying the night.
He had lied to Marissa, of course. There were no errands to do, nothing pressing that required his presence in Dublin.
Nowhere to go except back to the castle, with its painful echoes of the ugly words he'd hurled at his father. Nothing to do but apologize to Laura, whom he'd wounded just as flagrantly.
As it happened, he stumbled across an elderly Morris coupe for hire within a few blocks of where he'd parted from Marissa. But once in the driver's seat he wavered as to his destination. A pub, perhaps? Lights, a crowd, voices and laughter, clouds of tobacco smoke, music? Enough alcohol to anesthetize him, at least for tonight?
But he'd never been that sort. Memories of the sodden, violent men who'd populated his childhood had seen to it. Drink was reserved for celebration and romance. He'd have to seek forgetfulness elsewhere.
He ended up at the cinema.
Top Gun, Crocodile Dundee, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, American pictures that had been new four months ago. Those he avoided scrupulously. A sign advertising a John Ford revival was what drew him in. Ford and Wayne, son and great-grandson of Eire. It didn't matter that the theater was shabby and more than slightly grubby around the edges. He'd known its like before. Suddenly he was ten years old again, just as shabby and grubby, buying, with the shillings he managed to scavenge from Cousin Madge Gallagher's alms box, a few hours of blissful refuge from the back of Madge's red, work-roughened hand, from Padraig Gallagher's belt strap, the sole of Padraig's hobnailed boot.
And there was the respite he craved, at least for a while, in watching the story of the Ringo Kid unfold. The true hero of Stagecoach, to Steele's mind. The heart of gold beneath the lawless exterior; the renegade tamed by a woman's love. The underlying implication that everyone is redeemable, even a gunslinger with blood on his hands. Had he ever applied it in later years to himself and Daniel? He had to confess that he had.
But the first half hour of The Searchers shattered the mood. The mature Wayne as Ethan Edwards, battered, solitary warrior, returning from America's Civil War to the embrace of his family, only to have them murdered by the Comanches. Steele knew what was coming, that it would end with lonely Ethan barred from domesticity again, the final frame capturing Wayne in the doorway, looking in at the happy reunion from outside, before the door shut on him with finality.
So abruptly did Steele rise that he upset his box of popcorn, kernels flying everywhere.
It didn't have to happen to him. He didn't have to be that man. Even with Daniel gone, he didn't have to be. Even though the circle of those he trusted was reduced irrevocably by one, the person who'd known the most about him, but loved him anyway…
Nothing but the need to prove it to himself could've sent him fleeing back to Glen Creagh as swiftly as he did.
The castle was mostly dark as he braked for the turn into its gates. But he saw dim light glowing through the windows of what he knew to be the master bedroom. And Mikeline was there at the door to welcome him in, unburden him of his trench coat and direct him upstairs. "Your ladyship's waiting up for you, your lordship."
It had to be well past midnight. "She is?" Steele said.
"She is, indeed, no matter how late you came in. Her very words, sir."
"Thank you. You're turning in for the night yourself?"
"That I am, your lordship."
"Good night to you, then. And thank you."
The source of the glow he'd spied from outside turned out to be a fire in the master bedroom's fireplace, the one that dominated the sitting area to the right of the door. It still burnt brightly enough to show him that Laura hadn't quite attained her goal of waiting up for him. But she'd made a credible attempt. For she was asleep in her pajamas on the chaise in front of the fire, blanket over her, book in hand. She'd probably been there for hours. The tightness in his chest seemed to ease a little as he recognized the fact.
Her dressing gown was puddled on the floor near the chaise. He thought he was perfectly noiseless in bending to retrieve it, but Laura stirred and sat up. "Mr. Steele?"
He turned to see her brushing her hair out of her eyes. "Hi," he said softly. "I didn't mean to wake you."
"It's okay. I was waiting for you, anyway."
"So Mikeline told me."
He'd have taken a chair across from her except that she drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. It was a tacit invitation to join her on the chaise, one he couldn't refuse.
"How'd it go this afternoon?" she asked.
"Like the proverbial clockwork." He proceeded to relate all that had transpired in Donegal's office. "One unforeseen development, though. In their estimation Daniel was the one most responsible for nabbing Fitch. They're thinking about citing him for heroism."
He expected her to launch a heated defense of Roselli, who had, after all, played the more vital role, but she all she said was, "Oh, my. And that means-?"
"A military funeral in London. Burial with full honors. Peterborough—the English secretary—wasn't entirely certain. But he thought it likely."
"How do you feel about that?"
"It's more than I'll be able to give him, isn't it?"
"I know." She gazed at him somberly. "I was thinking that when Donegal's took him away, how it was almost like the funeral procession he was never going to have."
"I wasn't. Never even crossed my mind. Bloody idiot that I am." He was silent for a moment, a question he hadn't dared to pose to anyone else trembling now at the tip of his tongue. "What do you suppose they'll do with him when they find he's not Kemodov?"
"The Soviets?"
He nodded.
Her voice was very gentle as she replied. "They're not all monsters, Mr. Steele. Remember Ivan Strelnikov? They'll treat Daniel with respect."
"And bury him somewhere in Russia."
This time it was her turn to nod.
"But I'll never know exactly where," he said.
"No."
"I can't do a blasted thing to mark his grave. And I'll never be able to visit him." His throat was beginning to close up; his next words came out in a whisper. "Ah, damn." And he dropped his lashes quickly, before Laura could see the tears that were stinging beneath his eyelids.
It was then that she did something unprecedented in all their years together. Rising to her knees beside him, she took her head in her hands, drew it down to her breast, and cradled him.
Stunned, he rested motionless against her, arms hanging at his sides. Then they went around her, hard. His breath shuddered in and out. He didn't speak. Neither did Laura. But he felt her kiss the top of his head and her hand come up to stroke his hair.
It took some time to stop his eyes from burning, but at last he straightened and put her away from him a little. There had been a shift in the emotional landscape during those moments in her embrace. A breach repaired? A bridge rebuilt? He searched for a description for it and came up empty.
It prompted him to try and make amends to her for his earlier harshness. "Laura…what I said before, about you and Daniel. I'm sorry. I know you never wished him dead."
"It's okay. I knew you didn't mean it."
He didn't want to move any farther from her, resisted the idea of letting her go. She'd picked up his mood in that respect, it seemed, for she said, "Do you want us to be together tonight?"
"Do you?"
"I'm asking you."
He hesitated. These were deep waters they were approaching, and he felt himself seizing up, like a diver afraid to plunge from the diving board. Not for the first time, he cursed the inability to express himself that always dogged him when he most wanted to be honest with her. Even now he was grappling with the urge to give his glibness free rein and deflect her with a light-hearted quip. Spin it all into some kind of 1930's screwball comedy. Degrade it to a bedroom farce.
To run away, in a word.
What stopped him was the recollection of why he'd sped back to the castle in the first place—that, and the way she had reached for him just now. Spontaneous, generous, she'd made the first move, when she might very well have spurned him, or even escalated the hostilities.
Didn't he owe it to her at least to try and meet her halfway?
So he took a deep breath, and with it a stab at overcoming that cursed constriction of his tongue.
"I-don't know. I want you, Laura. My God, I do. But it doesn't feel right somehow." Another pause. "I can't believe I said that."
"Is it because of Daniel?"
"In part. Not the way you might think."
"I was thinking it might help you forget everything, at least for a while."
"It would. And that's exactly why it doesn't feel right. If only we hadn't been interrupted yesterday…or if we'd managed it in London, or Los Angeles, the way we planned…"
Her head was tilted at the angle that meant she was listening intently. "It would've been all right to make love now?"
"I think so. Yes."
"Why?"
"Because it wouldn't be our first time together. We'd have had it already. And it would've been about us—you—the way it ought to be. And I'd have proved to you how much I-"
It was then he realized what he was on the verge of blurting out. He stammered to a halt.
Here it was. His opportunity to take the plunge, to dive.
Could he profess his love to her at last? Could he make the admission to Laura that he never had to Daniel, the one his father had died without hearing?
Say it, damn you, he admonished himself. Say it.
"-how very much you mean to me," he finished.
His voice fell away into silence. Chastened by his want of courage, he gazed at her. He'd failed. Again. He knew what he deserved for it: Laura dressing him down in the most blistering language she had at her disposal before storming off to bed.
But she made no move to leave him. "I think I understand," she said. "It's like the night after the Enterprow Foundation blew up my house. Only in reverse."
"Exactly. I don't want it to be merely for comfort, our first time, you giving, me taking. That's what it would be tonight."
"Then you're right. We should wait."
His shoulders slumped. Whether it was from relief that she wasn't angry or disappointment at the idea of another night wasted, he couldn't tell. Possibly it was a little of both.
She must've noticed, because she took one of his hands in both of hers and stroked it. "Don't worry, Mr. Steele. We'll get there eventually."
"Will we?"
"We will." Leaning forward, she kissed him. "As long as you promise to let me know when you're ready."
"You'll be the first, I assure you." There was the slightest hint of dry humor in his reply.
They got to their feet. "I'll take the couch tonight," he said.
"Kind of a tight fit for you, wouldn't you say? Take the bed. I'll be fine."
"Don't be ridiculous, Laura. You're forgetting I can drop off anywhere. You, on the other hand, would be frozen stiff by morning if you slept here. Go on."
By the time he'd washed and changed into his pajamas, she'd prepared a nest for him on the chaise and tucked herself into the graceful old four-poster. The dying embers shed enough light so that he could see her gaze on him as he exited the bathroom.
He stopped and turned to her. "Good night."
A rustle of the bedclothes, her near-silent, unhurried footfalls across the stone floor, and then she had her arms around him. On tiptoe she softly kissed his mouth. "Sleep well, Mr. Steele."
He'd more or less resigned himself to the ordeal of a wakeful night in which the events of the past twenty-four hours played endlessly in his head. There he was pleasantly surprised. Minutes after had he punched down the fresh pillows Laura had collected for him and folded his body under the blankets, he was fast asleep.
Grief, Steele was beginning to discover, didn't always seethe at a high emotional pitch, but came in waves that waxed and waned in intensity.
Take the next morning, for example. Thoughts of Daniel were still weighing heavily on him when he awakened, but he felt considerably better equipped to cope with them. He hadn't realized how much the manic tempo of the past week had exhausted him. Forty-eight hours with no sleep except the kip he'd had on the plane from Los Angeles to London and again on the ferry from Liverpool to Dublin hadn't helped matters, either.
The Dublin paper was full of the news of Roselli's capture by the Glen Creagh police. Sipping a cup of tea in the dining room, Steele read the account. Apparently the real story hadn't yet been released to the press; it could be that Secretary Peterborough or Secretary Spaulding was trying to keep it under wraps. In the meantime, the hero of the hour was undoubtedly Glen Creagh's Captain Rourke. The reporter had also allotted a line or two of praise for the current lord of Ashford Castle and the assistance he'd provided to the local constabulary. All highly flattering, really. Steele wondered what Laura thought of it.
He would've asked, but no one seemed to know where she was. She'd preceded him downstairs by a couple of hours and had long since breakfasted. He checked the obvious places—the library, the downstairs sitting room with the television, their bedroom—but had no luck. It looked as if a more thorough search of the castle was in order. Unless—
It was hard to suppress them, the suspicions that oozed to the surface. Perhaps she'd seen the paper, after all, and it had brought Roselli's plight home to her. Perhaps she'd prevailed on Terence to drive her into Glen Creagh. Perhaps at this very moment she was at the jail, commiserating with Antony, comforting him with that captivating softness she could summon up when it suited her, assuring him his vindication was coming soon.
He was halfway out the door to the garage to interrogate the chauffeur when he bumped into his missing wife. Pink cheeks and ruffled hair were clues that she'd spent some time outdoors. So were her clothes: casual shoes and pants, the heaviest sweater she'd packed, and a tweed sport coat much too large for her. His, actually.
It was so different from the picture he'd painted in his imagination that he was rocked momentarily off balance. "Ah, Mrs. Steele. Touring our holdings?"
"I thought it was about time. It's a little nippy this morning, or else I would've stayed out longer."
"Life in a cold climate. I approve your choice of tailor."
"I didn't think you'd mind. Do you?"
"Of course not. I've told you before, you do my wardrobe more than proud." He opened the newspaper. "Seen this, have you?"
"No, what is it?"
He handed it over and watched her narrowly for any hint of sympathy for Roselli while she scanned the article. Not only did her expression not alter by a hair, all she said was, "It'll be interesting to watch this reporter eat humble pie when word gets out who the real traitor is."
"All in a day's work for him, I'd imagine. Did you notice the mention of Ashford Castle? Big of Captain Rourke to include us."
"Credit where credit is due, Mr. Steele." Now her face did change, softening perceptibly as she looked up at him. "How'd you sleep?"
"Well enough. You?"
"Fine." She touched his hand. "Come upstairs with me while I change. There's some things we need to talk about."
It turned out that the subject on her mind was Daniel. "Is there anyone you should call? His friends? Did he have any other family?"
Unable to sit still, he'd been pacing up and down their bedroom, but her question froze him in place. "Other family?"
"Besides you," she said gently.
He stared back at her, eyes wide. It was the first time he'd thought of his relationship to Daniel in those terms, as a single link in a larger connection. But of course that's what it was. Grandparents he most certainly had; perhaps there were aunts or uncles or cousins, as well. As much a part of him-and he of them-as his Irish connection, those unknown Chalmers relations.
If they existed at all. Try as he might, he couldn't recall Daniel ever speaking of his family. Nor had he, Steele, ever stumbled across any evidence in the form of photographs or personal mementos. The flats they'd shared during his last years of boyhood had been remarkably barren in that respect. Daniel, the consummate professional, had adhered faithfully to the dictum that a conman never leaves behind a signpost pointing to his past.
He told Laura so.
"His friends, then. And his lawyer will need to know."
If Daniel had a solicitor, he'd never mentioned his name. Steele nodded anyway. "All right."
"And Mikeline was asking about his things."
"What about them?"
"His room's just the way he left it. Mikeline won't let the maids touch it until you say so. But he thought it might be easier if one of them packed up his clothes for you."
"Pack? What for?"
"That's up to you. Give them away, take them with us when we go home, whatever you decide. I guess I'm assuming you want to stay a little longer?"
"Absolutely I do. We're still on honeymoon, if we can call it that."
"The honeymoon's just beginning, remember?" she said, with a flash of her dimple. "Then there's his apartment. I'm not sure what the laws are in England, if you're allowed access or not before his will is read. If he's named you his next of kin, it might not matter anyway. But you should probably go over and close it up as soon as you can."
"All right." Where had Daniel been living since Steele's last visit to him four years ago? Steele realized for the first time that he hadn't the faintest idea.
"You'll probably want to have the utilities shut off right away, get his mail re-routed, that kind of thing. You can do that from here. Or, better yet, ask Mildred. She's dying of boredom, and it would give her something to do."
She went on suggesting and recommending, but he had stopped listening. It wasn't by choice, however. The turmoil of his thoughts was manifesting itself physically as a buzzing in his ears, drowning out her voice.
Daniel had been his best friend. His best friend in the world, he'd have called Daniel, apart from Laura. Yet he was clueless about the basic facts of Daniel's past, his current living arrangements, or what his last wishes might have been.
Had the wall of secrecy between them been that high? Or the trust between them so lacking? As recently as two days ago, Steele would've said no. They'd shared so much over the years, he'd have said: a home, their work, a history of exploits so highly colored and full of derring-do that he'd have scoffed at them as exaggeration if related to him by someone else.
It hit him like a blast of icy air. Had he ever known Daniel at all? It seemed not. The man who had hidden successfully behind aliases for at least twenty years of his life had hidden with equal success from his son.
Hands clenched into fists, Steele swung towards the window and stared out.
"…put up some kind of memorial for him," Laura was saying. "In a cemetery in London, if we can pull it off. We'll have to find a way to get permission from the authorities. You know England best of all of us, Mr. Steele. What would you suggest?"
She wasn't being insensitive on purpose, he told himself. She was only trying to help. She was doing what she would've done, were she in his shoes. He recognized it because he'd seen the way she handled grief, throwing herself into her work with a kind of barely contained fury, refusing to allow herself a moment to think. He could hardly blame her for forgetting that he reacted to pain differently than she.
"Mr. Steele?" she said.
He sucked in a ragged gulp of air. "Laura, no more. Please. Just…no more."
There was a silence during which he felt rather than saw her eyes upon him. "Are you okay?" she said.
When he didn't reply, she approached him at the window. "Mr. Steele?"
"I can't," he said. "It's too much right now. Don't ask me to make decisions about a monument, or his flat, or—or anything. Let me get used to his being gone."
"Okay."
A few minutes went by. She tucked a hand through the crook of his elbow, a gesture he recalled from the day before. Only this time he laid his other hand over hers and kept it there.
It was with Laura's hand in his that they entered the room that had been Daniel's a few hours later.
He couldn't have explained what had changed his mind about sorting out Daniel's things. Laura didn't ask him to. She hadn't made a big deal about it when he asked her to help, either, so it surprised him when she hung back a little on the threshold. In her eyes he read a diffidence that was wholly out of character for her. "Sure you want me here?" she said.
"I'm sure." And he squeezed her hand as he had earlier, partly to reassure her, partly to fortify himself for the task ahead of him.
Mikeline was as good as his word; nothing had been touched as far as Steele could tell. Daniel's partially packed suitcase sat on the trunk at the foot of the bed. There were his toiletries on top of the bureau on the right and the decanter of port wine on a tray beside them.
Then Steele saw his mistake. One detail had changed. The crystal goblets he'd filled with port—a draught for him, a draught for Daniel-had been removed.
The memory of the toast that hadn't been drunk and the question that hadn't been answered was so powerful it made him stagger.
In an unconscious imitation of their system for dividing leg work, she staked out one half of the room, he the other. For a while they worked without speaking. It was just as well, for he couldn't have trusted his voice. Emptying the bureau drawers of Daniel's shirts, sweaters and socks, he was shaken by images so vivid that he had to steel himself against them. Every piece of clothing, even the simplest, seemed to call up a glimpse into his and Daniel's common past. So this was what it was like, tidying up the loose ends after a death, he thought. He felt his chest start to tighten again.
At one point he looked over to see Laura quietly filling a paper sack with various plastic containers. He stared. Pill bottles? Yes, that's what they were. As many as ten of them, by his count.
Before he was fully aware of what he was doing, he was across the room and snatching them up. "Captotril," he read aloud from the labels. "Lanoxin. Hydrodiuril." He met Laura's eyes. "He was taking all these?"
"The two of you didn't talk about it? He'd been sick for a while. That's why he came here. That chief of security business was just a cover. He knew he didn't have much time left, and he wanted to see you again."
"What was it he had?"
"Heart disease…congestive heart failure. They wanted to do a transplant, a valve, but he refused. He didn't like the odds they were giving. It wasn't a good bet, he said."
The tone of disapproval with which she usually talked about his father was missing, probably because she was trying to spare his feelings as much as she could. Too late, and not her fault; the knowledge that here was one more secret Daniel had kept from him was already rankling. But it wasn't quite as painful a blow as the others had been. He was getting used to them. No doubt in another day or so he'd be completely oblivious.
Before long he'd cleared out the rest of the clothing and was closing and locking the suitcases. Laura had already finished, and handed him a box she was holding on her lap. "I thought you might want to go through this yourself."
It was a handsome leather case that Steele recognized as Daniel's travel valet. He sat down next to her on the bed and opened it. Its contents, the dress watch, the studs, the tie bars, were as familiar to him as if they were his own.
There was something else that made him draw his breath in sharply. "I didn't realize he still had these."
"What are they?"
"The first gift I ever gave him." And he picked up the pair of plain gold cuff links and placed them on her palm.
"I have a feeling there's a story behind them. Care to share?"
"Not much to tell. Bought them with the first money I earned. I must've been about fifteen."
She raised a faintly skeptical eyebrow. " 'Earned'?"
"In a manner of speaking. I definitely didn't steal it. He used to wear them all the time, but I haven't seen them in years." Gently he ran the ball of his thumb over the cuff links as he returned them to their tray. "Ah, Laura. You should've seen him back then. There he'd be, ready for an evening out, dinner jacket perfectly pressed, flower in his buttonhole, silk scarf draped at just the right angle…He might've been Errol Flynn or Robert Taylor stepped down from the movie screen. You'd have been impressed."
"Like father, like son?" she suggested.
"Only after he'd drilled it into me. But him? He came by it naturally."
Laying the box aside, he stared absently at the wall opposite him, engulfed again in a vision of his past. "I don't know where I'd be if it weren't for him, Laura. Dead in the gutter years ago, or locked up for life. He was more than Henry Gondorf to my Johnny Hooker. He saved me from the streets."
"I know. He told me the story when he was here that time—a little of it, anyway."
"He did?"
"He said he'd found you picking pockets in London. 'Hustling for a quid', is how he put it. And he decided to take you under his wing and teach you his trade." The wry note was back in her voice.
"A bit of an understatement. Then again, he never did like to have it pointed out to him, the good he'd done me."
"The good he'd done-?" she echoed. She threw him a skeptical look. "We are talking about Daniel, aren't we?"
Steele sat very still. Filling him was an urgent need to do what he hadn't before, to lay the whole story before her, unembellished, even the areas in which the truth was painful to him, or, worse, might lower her estimation of him. Would she push him away if he were honest with her about the past? He'd always feared the answer was yes. But he was discovering a greater fear: that of concealment, of mutual misperception, of allowing opportunities to talk slip through his fingers until it was too late.
So he turned his head and met her gaze straight on. "Yes, Daniel. I want to tell you about him…I want you to—know who he was. If you could listen for a while…"
And he began to talk.
They all poured out, the things he'd never told anyone else. The misery of his childhood in Ireland. The beatings, the verbal cruelty. The unremitting scorn of neighbors and school mates because he was a bastard child. The way he'd been passed between aunts and cousins, the Shaws and the Doyles, the Gallaghers and O'Biernes, and back again, carelessly, capriciously, as if he were a not-too-favorite mongrel puppy. His trip on the ferry to Liverpool with Bob O'Bierne, bolting in desperation from the man's heavy fist into the anonymity of the largest city he'd ever seen. Making his solitary way to London. Scrounging for scraps from rubbish bins, sometimes doing without food altogether for a day or two at a time. Sleeping in doorways and abandoned buildings. The hunger, the cold, the loneliness, the fear of being caught or killed that had constantly gnawed him.
And the good years, the ones with Daniel. Their first coincidental meeting, the interest Daniel had evinced in him from the start. His transition from the street to Daniel's flat, which to his mind had been as luxurious as a palace, with its central heat and running water and a bed of his very own in which to sleep. The nourishing food and clean clothes. The good-humored lessons in grooming, manners and deportment, and, later, the initiation into Daniel's business, where the boy who called himself Harry had excelled and thrived. The bond that had formed between them as they negotiated the realities of the life they'd chosen-the uncertain income, the ever-present dangers of detection and capture which dictated frequent changes of domicile, sometimes with barely a day's notice.
And, always, Daniel himself, a gentleman through and through in his behavior and bearing, who nevertheless appeared more comfortable on the shady side of the street than in the prosperous, educated circles in which he by rights should have moved.
It was hard! Steele couldn't believe how hard it was to share the secrets he'd held so closely for so long. He, the quintessential silver-tongued Irishman, the spellbinding storyteller, heard himself speaking in fits and starts, groping for words, lapsing into hot-faced silences. Frequently he had to look away from Laura when excess emotion overwhelmed him. Once he came close to breaking down in tears. Thank the good Lord, he was able to check them at the very last minute, before they actually fell.
But his temporary inarticulateness appeared to make no difference to Laura. Her attention on him never faltered. Nor did she recoil—not once-at anything he said. Her voice in the few questions she posed was warm; in her eyes he saw only deep affection. And he drank it in like a thirsty man.
By the time he had done, they were stretched out on their sides facing each other, heads propped on their elbows. The angle of the sunlight slanting through the window betokened late afternoon, and Steele glanced up in disbelief. "I didn't realize it had gotten so late."
They rose to their feet. A sudden wave of embarrassment had overtaken Steele, the price to be paid, he suspected, for his uncharacteristic soul-baring. To hide it he picked up the suitcases in which they'd packed Daniel's clothing. "It'll be best to donate these, I think. I know just the man who can use them. In fact, I'll take them to him now."
It was an unspoken relief that she didn't ask where he was going or how long he'd be gone. Instead she gestured toward the travel valet. "What about this?"
"The jewelry I'll keep. Would you mind-?"
With the box in her arms she accompanied him down the hall. Her presence beside him was like a balm, soothing the sharpest edges of his grief.
"Laura," he said abruptly. "How long since we've been out to dinner, just the two of us?"
"Mm, good question. Before the Joan Grey case?"
More than two months ago. That sounded about right. "What would you say to a jaunt to Dublin when I get back? Eh? Dinner for two? Somewhere quiet?"
"Sounds wonderful. Sure you're up for it?"
"I wouldn't have suggested it if I wasn't. We'll leave around half past six, okay?"
Just before they went their separate ways, she halted him with a hand on his arm. "What I said the other night."
"About?"
"Daniel. I was right. I have misjudged him all these years. He is—was—a very fine man."
Dropping the bags freed his hands so that he could take her face between them and stroke her cheek. "Thank you."
She responded with a wordless smile that lingered in his mind's eye all the way to Glen Creagh.
At Saints Timothy and Titus Church he asked what he presumed to be a parishioner to point the way to Father Armagh's office. The priest, a burly man with a head of rough mahogany curls, would've looked much more at home on a construction crew than he did in his clericals. But his smile of greeting was warm, and he came around his desk with hand outstretched, ready to grasp Steele's in welcome.
Steele never gave him the chance. "For your next jumble sale, Father," he said, thrusting Daniel's suitcases towards him. And before Armagh could open his mouth to thank him, he had slipped away towards the sanctuary.
Once inside, he spent a few minutes exploring. It was as bare of expensive ornaments as one might expect, this little church that served the impoverished villages of Glen Creagh, Glen Kerry and Glen Caron. But what it lacked in decoration, it made up for in piety; there was no shortage of shrines, replete with candles, set into niches along the wall. At the largest of them all, he found what he what he was looking for.
He crossed himself and awkwardly went down on his knees before the statue of the Blessed Virgin. The words of the Our Father, though seldom used these days, came readily to his remembrance. With bowed head he prayed them under his breath, and added a Hail Mary for good measure. Then he rose, slid a fiver into the donations box, and approached the little altar.
And there, for the first time in his life, lit a candle for his father.
TO BE CONTINUED
