Northern Spy by Berry, Flynn (free ebooks for android .TXT) 📕

I spend a while talking with Damian about cooking. He’s tall and handsome, rocking his weight back on his heels, leaning forward to hear me when the crowd becomes too loud. He seems completely at ease, despite having participated in a felony robbery last week.

When Aoife and Sean enter the room, we break our conversations to cheer. They start to circulate among the guests, and the crowd at the bar grows louder. One of our neighbors from our estate, Michael, appears at my shoulder. “Tessa Daly, how are you keeping yourself? Still at the BBC?”

“I am.”

“How can you do it?” he asks, and I’m aware of Seamus turning to listen.

“You can’t change it unless you’re in it.”

“Sure, sure, but tell me this—where’s your boss from?” asks Michael.

“He’s English.”

“And his boss? Is he English?”

“She’s from Manchester.”

Michael nods gravely. “They’ll let you work for them, but you’ll never run the gaff.”

Another of our neighbors walks past and says, “Hiya, Michael.” He holds up his hand. “Gerry.”

“Where do you get your news, Michael?” I ask.

“Al Jazeera,” he says. Behind him, Seamus smiles into his glass. “Serious, love. I can’t be doing with the shite in the news here.”

After Michael makes his way to the bar, Seamus comes to stand with me. He says, “Is Finn here?”

My chest tightens. He knows my son’s name. “No, he’s with his father.”

Tom is away for work this weekend. I shouldn’t have lied, but I don’t want Seamus to know that my baby is home alone with a babysitter.

“It’s for the best,” says Seamus. “He shouldn’t have to see this.”

I can’t tell if he’s serious. The crowd is already getting leathered, and we’re only in the first hour, we haven’t even started on the bottles of wine and prosecco with dinner. Aoife told the bartenders not to serve shots, so guests are ordering vodka, up, in a rocks glass.

White balloons nudge against the ceiling, their long strings dangling an inch above the floor. Niall and Marian are ordering drinks, Damian is behind us talking to a woman in a dress with black feathers on its shoulders. As she laughs, the feathers move a little. I’m aware of Cillian Burke behind me, like he’s a magnet and the back of my skull is covered in iron shavings, all of them standing on end.

“How old is Finn?” asks Seamus.

“Ten months. Do you want children?” I ask, so we’ll stop talking about mine, my son, my heart.

“Not given the crisis we’re in.”

“In Ireland?”

“With the climate,” he says drily.

“Oh. Because you’re worried about what they’d suffer, or because you don’t want to add to overpopulation?”

“The second,” he says. “You can never predict what your children might suffer.”

I try to ignore that. It wasn’t directed at me.

“Which population models have you seen?” I ask, and we talk about demographics as Marian, Niall, and Damian drift back over. I still feel shaky. Seamus knows my son’s name, his age. I try to stop myself from thinking that means something, that I’ve failed to protect him.

Niall messes with one of the balloons, fidgeting with its string. “Don’t tie that around your neck,” says Marian. “Idiot.”

As we move into the banquet room, Seamus falls into step beside me. “Marian told me what you said to the police.”

My shoulder blades draw together. Here it is, finally. Here’s the accusation. I feel myself harden, preparing to deny it.

“About her being pregnant,” he says, and the knot in my stomach loosens. “That was clever. Fair play to you.”

We’re seated at separate tables for the dinner. I slide into my chair and take a sip of ice water. Under the tablecloth, my legs are shaking. My mother sits down across from me, and our eyes catch. She knows, I realize. Marian has told her. She’s aware of this situation, that I’m an informer, at an IRA wedding.

I don’t understand. She’s my mam, she should be making any excuse to get me out of this hotel.

Around us, the others talk and pour wine. My mam must see the hurt in my face. Her own expression is blank, but when she reaches for her glass, she misjudges, jolting red wine onto the tablecloth. “Slow down, love,” says her brother, laughing. “You’ll never make it to ‘Rock the Boat’ at this rate.”

My mam says, “Get away with you,” as she spreads her napkin over the stain. Her hands are trembling.

The waiters offer us bread rolls, and a choice of the chicken Kiev or the salmon. I seem to have forgotten how to use silverware. I keep jabbing myself with the fork tines, biting the inside of my cheek. My mouth tastes like iron.

During the dinner, Aoife sits in the center of the high table, between the two families. I wonder if she understands what she has gotten herself into, marrying into Cillian’s family.

When a waiter appears near the high table with a microphone, Marian glances at me. “Do you need the toilets?” she asks, and we slip out of our seats before the toasts begin. A few people are at the bar, and we walk past them, around the corner and down a hallway.

Marian pushes open a door and we step into a small room with wood paneling, flocked wallpaper, and a mounted stag’s head. From a shelf behind the bar, she takes down a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses and sets them on the counter. I press my ear to the door to listen for footsteps.

Something has happened to my eyes, making the light smear at the corners of my vision. Marian takes the listening device from inside her bra and uses a penknife to wedge it under the glass eye of the stag’s head. She presses the eye back in place with a small tube of glue, the kind meant for applying fake eyelashes.

“Marian,” I say, as she adds another drop of glue. She steps away to meet me at the bar, and I pour tequila into the glasses, too quickly, spilling some onto the bar. I