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willing to help a German U-boat captain.’
    Was he the leader after all?
    Nolan frugally pinched his cigarette between thumb and forefinger as he drew on it, cupping the hand over the glowing end to protect it from rain and wind out of habit perhaps or from the darkness here out of common sense but was it not also a sign of someone who had spent time in prison? she wondered, glancing quickly from one to the other of them.
    The Darcy woman still hadn’t moved from behind her.
    â€˜We’re waiting,’ said Nolan softly. ‘We can’t wait much longer.’
    â€˜I … I think I’m pregnant—carrying his child.’ It was to Nolan that she’d chosen to say this.
    â€˜Another mistake?’ asked the Darcy woman with a sharp snicker.
    Mary refused to answer.
    Kevin O’Bannion noted the pride. She was like a queen of old at the end of a battle that had been lost. ‘Will you betray us?’ he asked suddenly, and she found then that he, too, had a look that could not be avoided.
    â€˜I don’t want to hurt my husband. He doesn’t know about the …’
    â€˜The baby,’ breathed Fay with just the right amount of excitement and wickedness.
    â€˜The baby, yes. I …’
    â€˜You’ve been cheating on your husband, have you?’ taunted the woman. ‘Answer me!’ she shouted.
    â€˜Yes. Yes, I’ve been … been cheating on him.’
    â€˜Then she’ll do as we ask,’ sighed Nolan, ‘or the husband will be told of it and there’ll be more than one body to bury.’
    They’d kill Hamish, not just herself and the child.
    O’Bannion took her by the hand and, wrenching the palm upwards, pressed the cold, gun metal of his revolver into it. ‘You’ll carry this into Tralane, Mrs. Fraser, and you’ll pass it on to your friend as a token of our interest. You can tell him he’ll get cartridges enough when we’re satisfied.’
    â€˜The castle’s closed and off limits,’ she blurted, tearing her gaze from that thing only to see him squinting at her all the more.
    Then he said, ‘That business will soon pass, though we can’t wait long. Liam, here, must get away. Germany would suit him fine. Tell your friend we’ll pry him loose of Tralane and get him out of Eire for a price. Tell him, too, that we’ve been in wireless contact with his people and that they’ve asked us to give him this.’
    â€˜The gun?’ she blurted. Wireless contact … Was Mrs. Tulford of the White Horse Inn a German spy?
    â€˜No, this,’ said O’Bannion, handing her a small, torn slip of paper. ‘Latitude north, sixty-five degrees, thirty-two minutes, eighteen seconds; west longitude, seventeen degrees, twenty-four minutes, nine seconds. That’s where they’ve said his U-boat is supposed to have gone down. U-121, 1 Mrs. Fraser. You can tell him that, too. No doubt your friend has something he desperately has to tell his people in Berlin. No doubt he hasn’t let you in on the fact that he’s the one who’s been chosen to escape. He’s used you, and I’m wondering if that submarine of his really did go down or if the British didn’t capture it and his codes and encoding-and-decoding machine?’
    O’Bannion saw the sickness come into her eyes, but the moment soon passed. Not only could she get a grip on herself if needed but she’d figured things out for herself and had seen glimpses of truth in what he’d just said.
    The Germans would have to know if U-121 had been taken and not scuttled off the Orkneys as had been reported in the press of last January. They’d have to know if the British were not now reading the German navy’s coded transmissions.
    â€˜He wants to escape. I know he does,’ she said emptily, ‘but he hasn’t said this to me.’
    Her eyes were downcast, she trying to fight back the tears.