Cry of the Hunter - Jack Higgins [12]
Anne Murray gave a little moan and jumped up suddenly. ‘It’s always the women who suffer,’ she said. For a moment she stood with her head lowered and then she shook it slowly from side to side. ‘It won’t do,’ she said. ‘It’s not a good enough reason.’
He got up from the table and took down his hat and coat from the rack where she had put them to dry. ‘I must go,’ he said.
She moved slowly towards him and paused when their bodies were almost touching. There was iron in her voice when she spoke. ‘That woman isn’t the reason you came, is it?’ He made no reply and she raised her voice and said demandingly, ‘Is it?’
For a moment there was a great silence as they stood close together staring into each other’s eyes, and then she swayed suddenly and he reached out to steady her. ‘A man ought to finish what he starts,’ he said.
She nodded wearily. ‘Men!’ There was almost a loathing in her voice. ‘Men and their honour and their stupid games.’
She came with him to the door. The rain was still falling steadily and remorselessly into the sodden ground. He belted his coat around him and pulled his hat down over his eyes. For a moment they stood together there on the top step and then a sob broke in her throat and she pushed him off the step, and said angrily, ‘Go on – go to your death, you fool.’
The door slammed into place and for a moment he stood looking at it, and then he turned and walking down through the tangled garden, let himself out into the rain-swept square.
CHAPTER THREE
WHEN Fallon reached the meeting place he found Murphy waiting for him. The boy was sitting behind the wheel of an old Austin reading a newspaper. Fallon walked quickly round to the other side of the car and opened the door. Murphy looked up, an expression of alarm on his face. He smiled with relief. ‘God help us, Mr. Fallon. I thought you were the polis.’
Suddenly Fallon felt desperately sorry for the boy. He wanted to tell him that this was how it would always be. That there was no romance and no adventure in it at all. That from now on he would live with fear. But he said none of these things. He looked into the boy’s eager, reckless young face and saw himself twenty years ago. He smiled and said, ‘Do you smoke?’ Murphy nodded and they lit cigarettes and sat back in comfort while the rain drummed on the roof.
‘Do you like the car?’ Murphy asked. Fallon nodded, and the boy went on. ‘I got it a bit cheaper, but I thought it would be less conspicuous. Did I do right?’
Fallon laughed lightly. ‘You used your head,’ he said. ‘And that’s the only thing that keeps men like us out of the hands of the police.’
Murphy flushed with pleasure. ‘Will you have a look at that stuff I was telling you about, Mr. Fallon?’
Fallon nodded and the boy took the car away from the kerb in a sudden burst of speed. ‘Steady on!’ Fallon told him. ‘No sense in being picked up for dangerous driving.’
Murphy slowed down a little and they proceeded along the main street through light traffic at a steady pace. Fallon leaned back in his seat and tipped his hat down over his eyes. Until this moment he had given the problem of how he was to get Rogan off the train no immediate thought. He considered the business soberly. At first sight it was impossible. There would be at least four detectives with Rogan. They would be well armed and in a reserved compartment. Possibly even in a reserved coach. He shook his head. It looked bad and it was one of those tricky jobs which depended on circumstances and couldn’t be properly planned beforehand. The car braked to a halt and Murphy switched off the engine. ‘We’re here. Mr. Fallon,’ he said.
They were parked in a back street beside a high stone wall, and beyond the wall the tower of a church lifted into the sky. Fallon looked out in puzzlement. ‘Are you sure this is it?’ he said.
The boy grinned. ‘Don’t worry, Mr. Fallon. We’re at the right place. The safest place in the world.’ He produced a bunch of keys from his pocket and got out of the car. There was a solid-looking