Brotherhood of the Tomb Read Online Free PDF Page A

the beach. Bewildered, he ran after her, but she pushed him off. He could hear her crying.
    He walked behind her until she tired. Her sobbing had grown softer. Behind them, their footprints were already being eaten by the encroaching waves. Finally she stopped and let him put his arm round her shoulders.
    ‘What is it, darling? I didn’t mean to upset you.’
    She turned a tear-stained face to him.
    ‘Please, Patrick. Never ask me about this again. Promise me. Swear you will never mention it.’
    ‘I only ...’
    ‘Swear!’
    He did as she asked and she seemed to grow calmer at once. She put her arms round his neck and kissed him on the forehead.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to be angry with you. Don’t ask me to explain. It has nothing to do with us. Nothing.’
    For a long time afterwards, he thought the pendant must have been the gift of another man, a lover left behind in Italy; though she had sworn to him that there had been no one serious before him, and he had believed her. The pendant tormented him from time to time in the years to come. But he never asked her about it again.
    The Living
    FOUR
    And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon.
    Exodus 12:29
    Dalkey, Co. Dublin January, 1992
    Three in the morning. The darkness inexplicably charged, the silence heavy and drugged. There would be another storm. It lay in his bones, like electricity, moving in a slow current. Outside, the cold chattered briskly, saying things he did not want to hear.
    Light fell on light: across his desk, a tiny pool of yellow shining on ancient paper; through the window, a street lamp etching shadows out of the dim room. He could hear the sea in the distance, the tide coming in, small waves taking possession of the land. Or a single wave, repeating and repeating ceaselessly, until there was no more land, only water.
    He had chosen the house for its view. It looked straight out onto Dublin Bay, and all last summer he had watched the sea perform its endless, slow ballet, as though it danced for him and him alone. Now, in mid-winter, he was no longer sure he had chosen wisely. The sound of waves made him restless, filling him with a terrible loneliness and a sense of foreboding. It was at moments such as this that he wondered if he had done the right thing in coming back to Ireland.
    He rubbed his eyes. The crabbed and faded script was a strain to read, even with the help of a magnifying glass. Yellow light and ochre paper blurred. Fragmented letters ran across the page like frightened ants.
    ‘C’mon, Patrick. You hadn’t killed him, somebody else would’ve had to do it.’
    Voices snagged at him, like branches sharp with thorns. The past was still angry and unforgiving.
    ‘He was coming in. He’d had enough. There was a signal: Damascus station intercepted it. Why wasn’t I told?’
    ‘There was a slip-up. It happens. You know it happens. What’s it matter? Wasn’t like he didn’t have it coming. Somebody would have done it sooner or later. Not you, then somebody else.’
    In the distance, waves possessed the shore.
    He stood and went to the window. At forty-two, Patrick Canavan possessed very little. He paid rent on a house overlooking the Irish Sea: what little there was of his CIA pension took care of that. No wife, no children, no memories he could share with friends, no friends to share them with.
    He opened the window all the way, pushing the sash up hard. Out of the night, out of the padded and frozen darkness, the sounds of the world rose up to him in waves: the stark lapping of water on stone, a train in the distance, loud on frosted rails, a ship’s horn, the bell on a rocking buoy.
    Far out on the abandoned waters of the bay, he saw lights: ships coming in from the dark sea, from France and Spain and Italy, headed for Dun Laoghaire or