Treason at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [41]
“Of course,” he nodded. “A subject that engages most of us, from time to time. All you need to know of the political background is that Ireland, as always, was agitating for Home Rule. Various British prime ministers had attempted to put it through Parliament, and it proved their heartbreak, and for some their downfall. This is the time of the spectacular rise of Charles Stewart Parnell. He was to become leader of the Home Rule Party in ’77.”
“I remember that name,” she agreed.
“Naturally, but this was long before the scandal that ruined him.”
“Did he have anything to do with what happened with the O’Neil family?”
“Nothing at all, at least not directly. But the fire and hope of a new leader was in the air, and Irish independence at last, and everything was different because of it.” He looked out the window at the passing countryside, and she knew he was seeing another time and place.
“But we had to prevent it?” she assumed.
“I suppose it came to that, yes. We saw it as the necessity to keep the peace. Things change all the time, but how its done must be controlled. There is no point in leaving a trail of death behind you in order merely to exchange one form of tyranny for another.”
“You don’t have to justify it to me,” she told him. “I am aware enough of the feeling. I only wish to understand something of the O’Neil family, and why one of them should hate you personally so much that twenty years later you believe he would stoop to manufacturing evidence that you committed a crime. What sort of a man was he then? Why has he waited so long to do this?”
Narraway turned his head away from the sunlight coming through the carriage window. He spoke reluctantly. “Cormac? He was a good-looking man, very strong, quick to laugh, and quick to anger—but it was usually only on the surface, and gone before he would dwell on it. But he was intensely loyal, to Ireland above all, then to his family. He and his brother Sean were very close.” He smiled. “Quarreled like Kilkenny cats, as they say, but let anyone else step in and they’d turn on them like furies.”
“How old was he then?” she asked.
“Close to forty,” he replied without hesitation.
She wondered if he knew that from records, or if he had been close enough to Cormac O’Neil that such things were open between them. She had the increasing feeling that this was far more than a Special Branch operation. There was deep, many-layered personal emotion as well, and Narraway would only ever tell her what he had to.
“Were they from an old family?” she pursued. “Where did they live, and how?”
He looked out the window again. “Cormac had land to the south of Dublin—Slane. Interesting place. Old family? Aren’t we all supposed to go back to Adam?”
“He doesn’t seem to have bequeathed the heritage to us equally,” she answered.
“I’m sorry. Am I being evasive?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Cormac had enough means not to have to work more than in an occasional overseeing capacity. He and Sean between them owned a brewery as well. I daresay you know the waters of the Liffey River are famous for their softness. You can make ale anywhere, but nothing else has quite the flavor of that made with Liffey water. But you want to know what they were like.”
“Yes,” she answered. “Don’t you need me to seek him out? Because if he hates you as deeply as you think, he will tell you nothing that could help.”
The light vanished from his face. “If it’s Cormac, he’s thought this out very carefully. He must have known all about Mulhare and the whole operation: the money, the reason for paying it as I did, and how any interference would cost Mulhare his life.”
“And he must also have been able to persuade someone in Lisson Grove to help him,” she pointed out.
He winced. “Yes. I’ve thought about that a lot.” Now his face was very somber indeed. “I’ve been piecing together all I know: Mulhare’s connections;