Cry of the Hunter

Fallon shrugged. ‘I don’t like being followed. Who are you, anyway?’

The boy picked up his cap. ‘Will you look at that?’ he said. ‘Brand new last Monday and ruined.’ He attempted to wipe mud from the cap with his sleeve, and finally cursed and replaced it on his head. ‘Murphy is the name, Mr Fallon,’ he said. ‘Johnny Murphy. I was waiting for you at the station, but I had to be sure it was you.’

‘And how were you sure?’ Fallon asked.

‘Oh, it was the beard, I think. I was told to look out for a man with a beard.’ Here the boy laughed suddenly. ‘To tell you the truth, Mr Fallon, I couldn’t believe it was you. Hell, I thought you’d look different somehow.’

Fallon smiled briefly. ‘People always do. It’s a valuable asset in this game.’ He took out a cigarette and lit it with difficulty in the rain. ‘How did you know I was coming?’ he said.

‘That was easy,’ Murphy told him. ‘The Supervisor of the night shift in the telephone exchange at Carlington is a friend. He takes messages from the other side and passes them on.’

Fallon swore suddenly. ‘I told Doolan I didn’t want any help,’ he said. ‘This job’s difficult enough without bringing kids into it.’

Murphy shrugged and said lightly, ‘I may be a kid, but I’m all there is, Mr Fallon. The polis made a clean sweep yesterday. Lucky for me I hadn’t actually joined the Organization. They didn’t have a line on me.’

A vague feeling of alarm moved inside Fallon and suddenly he was afraid. The boy looked into his face steadily, the light smile firmly fixed on his mouth. After a few moments of silence Fallon relaxed and laughed. ‘It’s a proper bloody mess from the sound of it.’

Murphy nodded. ‘What can you expect? They’ve got Rogan and they don’t intend to lose him again. If ever there was a man they wanted to hang it’s him.’

Something in the tone of the boy’s voice made Fallon look at him sharply. ‘You don’t like Rogan much, do you?’

The smile on the boy’s face slipped a little. He forced it back into place. ‘He’s the Chief in Ulster and that’s enough for me.’

For a moment Fallon gazed searchingly at him and then he smiled and said, ‘Come on. We can’t stay here any longer. The workmen will be arriving at any minute.’

They moved away through the heavy rain, down towards the main street, and Fallon thought about the situation. It didn’t look good. In fact, it couldn’t have been worse. ‘Have they moved extra police in?’ he said.

The boy shook his head. ‘Not that I’ve noticed,’ he said. ‘Some detectives from Belfast arrived last night. They’ll be Rogan’s escort.’

‘How many?’ Fallon asked.

Murphy frowned. ‘Four, I think, but there may be more. I can’t be sure.’

Fallon nodded slowly. ‘No, four would be about right. If they intend to do this thing quietly they won’t want a six-foot peeler at every carriage window advertising the fact.’

They turned into the main road and Murphy said, ‘I don’t see how you can get him out, Mr Fallon.’

Fallon laughed shortly. ‘Neither do I at the moment,’ he said. ‘Still, I’ve got all day to think of something.’ He smiled suddenly at Murphy and said, ‘Perhaps it’s a good thing you followed me after all.’ The boy’s face split into a wide grin and Fallon continued, ‘Whatever happens I’m going to need a car.’ He took out his wallet and extracted ten pounds. He handed the money to Murphy and said, ‘Can you hire one all right?’

The boy nodded. ‘Dead easy. Will you be needing anything else?’

‘Such as?’ Fallon said.

‘Oh, explosives or arms. There’s a load of stuff the polis didn’t get to. It’s in a safe place.’

Fallon nodded slowly. ‘I’ll have a look at it later,’ he said. ‘For the time being all I want you to do is get the car and have it ready and waiting.’ He thought for a moment and added, ‘You can get me a ticket for the train as well. I don’t want to hang round that station too much.’

‘A ticket to Belfast?’ Murphy said.

Fallon shook his head. ‘No, somewhere along the line.’ He laughed. ‘No sense in wasting money.’ He looked out into the rain and up to the sky. ‘Looks as if this lot’s with us for the day.’ He turned suddenly and clapped the boy on the shoulder. ‘I’ll meet you here at one o’clock.’

An expression of surprise showed on Murphy’s face. ‘But what will you do till then, Mr Fallon? It won’t be safe for you on the streets.’

Fallon smiled. ‘I’m going to visit an old friend.’ His face hardened and he moved close to the boy and said, ‘Don’t try to follow me. This is someone I don’t want to be involved with the Organization. Do you understand?’

The smile disappeared from the boy’s face and he sobered up immediately. ‘Anything you say, Mr Fallon.’ He smiled again. ‘One o’clock then. I won’t be late.’ He plunged into the rain and walked quickly away up the street.

For several minutes Fallon stood in the doorway watching until the boy had disappeared from sight and then he pulled up his collar and ventured into the rain himself.

He turned into a side street that took him away from the centre of the town. He twisted and turned through the back streets until he was completely satisfied that he was not being followed. Finally he came out into a quiet square that was surrounded on each side by terraces of tall, narrow Georgian houses. In one corner of the square there was a high wall in which was set an old, heavy timbered gate from which green paint peeled in long strips. He opened the gate and went inside.

He found himself in a walled garden. The place was a wilderness of sprawling weeds and grass grew unchecked across the path. Before him, through the rain, the brown bulk of an old house lifted to the leaden sky. He frowned in puzzlement as he surveyed the scene of desolation and then he slowly walked up the path to the door and jerked on the ancient bell-pull.

The sound jangled faintly in the hidden depths of the house and the echo was from another world. There was utter silence and after a few minutes he tried again. After a while he heard steps approaching the door. There was the sound of bolts being withdrawn and the door opened slightly.

A young woman looked out at him. She was wearing an old camel-hair dressing gown and there was sleep in her eyes. ‘What is it?’ she said.

‘Is Professor Murray at home?’ Fallon asked her. A peculiar expression appeared on her face at once. He hastened to explain. ‘I know it’s early, but I’m just passing through and I promised to look him up. I’m an old student of his.’

For a moment the girl gazed fixedly at him and then she stepped back and opened the door wide. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said.

The door closed leaving the hall in semi-darkness. The air smelt musty and faintly unpleasant and as Fallon stumbled after her, he realized there was no carpet on the floor. She opened a door at the end of the passage and led the way into an old, stone-flagged kitchen. The room was warm and friendly and he took off his hat and unbuttoned his wet coat. ‘This is better,’ he said.

‘Take your coat off,’ the girl told him. She went to a gas cooker in the corner and put a light under the kettle. Where the old-fashioned range had once stood there was now a modern coke-burning stove. She knelt down in front of it and began to clear ashes from the grate.

Fallon said, ‘Is the Professor still in bed?’

She stood up and faced him. ‘He died a few weeks ago,’ she said. There was no change of expression on her face when she added, ‘I’m his daughter – Anne.’

Fallon walked over to the window and stood staring out into the tangled garden and the rain. Behind him the girl busied herself at the cooker. After a while he turned round and said, ‘He was the finest man I ever knew.’

There was ash on her hands from the grate. When she pushed back a loose tendril of her fair hair she smudged her forehead. ‘He thought quite a bit about you, too, Mr Fallon.’ She turned to the sink and rinsed her hands under the tap.

Fallon sat down in a chair by the table. ‘How did you know who I was?’ he asked.

‘That scar,’ she said. ‘You staggered into my father’s flat in Belfast one night about ten years ago with your face laid open to the bone. He stitched it for you because you couldn’t go to a doctor.’ She turned towards him, a towel in her hand, and examined the scar. ‘He didn’t make a very good job of it, did he?’

‘Good enough,’ Fallon said. ‘It kept me out of the hands of the police.’

She nodded. ‘You and Philip Stuart were students together at Queen’s before the war, weren’t you?’

Fallon started in surprise. ‘You know Phil Stuart?’

She smiled slightly as she put cups on the table. ‘He drops in now and then. He only lives a couple of streets away. He’s the County Inspector here, you know.’

Fallon slumped back in his chair with an audible sigh. ‘No, I didn’t know.’

As she poured tea out she went on, ‘My father used to say he found it rather ironical that Stuart joined the Constabulary and you the other lot. He once told me that in you two he could see the whole history of Ireland.’