Cry of the Hunter - Jack Higgins [26]
His eyes narrowed. ‘Who says he did that?’
She shrugged. ‘That’s how I heard it from Inspector Stuart. The one who was wounded told him. Rogan had them with their hands up. He told them to turn round and then shot them. The one who survived had his spine severed. He’ll be in a wheelchair for life.’
He took the cigarette from his mouth and stubbed it carefully into the ashtray. ‘All of a sudden everything tastes bad,’ he said.
She shook her head impatiently and reached across and laid a hand on his sleeve. ‘For God’s sake, Martin, why did you get mixed up in this thing? Why?’
He stood up and moved a few paces away from the table. ‘You asked me that yesterday,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t give you a proper answer then and I can’t now. One of the old leaders came to see me. He asked me to do this job and I laughed in his face, but then he produced Rogan’s mother. She was a sort of trump card. He knew I wouldn’t be able to turn her down.’
‘I told you she wasn’t a good enough reason,’ Anne said.
He lifted his shoulders helplessly. ‘I wish you could have seen her. Old and beaten down – and blind, as if enough hadn’t happened to her. All she has left to hang on to is her son. I couldn’t turn her down.’
‘You mean you didn’t have enough guts.’
He walked a few nervous paces and slammed a fist into the palm of his hand. ‘All right. I didn’t have enough guts. Have it any way you like.’ He turned and looked at her despairingly for a moment and then he sat down and took one of her hands and gripped it strongly. ‘Perhaps I was only looking for an excuse,’ he said. ‘I gave it all up because I wasn’t convinced I was doing the right thing any more. I thought the Organization and everything it stood for was rotten. That’s why I turned O’Hara down, and yet I gave in too quickly when the woman begged me to help her. Perhaps I was only looking for a good excuse.’
She nodded and there was something like understanding in her voice. ‘There was something missing – something you couldn’t find in that cottage. Did you think you’d find it back across the border.’
He frowned and sighed with exasperation and stood up again. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’ He smiled sadly and moved across to the window and stared out into the driving rain and the night. When he spoke again it was slowly and from the very depths of his being. ‘I lived by force for too many years. Action and passion – they’re funny things. Rather like drugs. When you’ve once tasted them anything else seems rather tame.’
She stood up wearily and began to clear the table. ‘It’s not enough,’ she said. ‘It never is enough. There must be something that can fill the hole in you.’
He turned from the window and smiled wistfully. ‘I’ve looked for it for nearly five years,’ he said. ‘I thought I could be a great writer, but I’m only a third-rate hack. Then I tried the bottle, but that never solves anything.’
She looked across the length of the room at him. There was a terrible finality in her voice as she said, ‘Whatever happens you’ll have to find it soon. Without it you’ll destroy yourself.’
He laughed sharply. ‘Perhaps that’s what I really want to do. Perhaps I really do want to be another martyr to the cause.’
A sob broke in her throat and she lifted a hand against her mouth and turned away. He crossed the room in three quick paces and pulled her close within his arms. For a few moments she sobbed bitterly, her head turned into his coat, and then she pulled herself away and forced a smile. ‘There, you should be satisfied. You’ve made me make a fool of myself.’
He shook his head and said quietly, ‘You could never be that.’
For a moment she smiled up at him and then she put a hand against his chest and pushed him away from her. ‘Go on with you,’ she said softly. ‘Go to bed.’ For a moment he stood there gazing at her searchingly and then he turned to the door. As he opened it she said sharply in something like her normal voice, ‘You’re in the room two doors past mine. Careful you don’t make any mistakes if you’re up during the night.’
A tiny smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.