Free Tyringham Park by Rosemary McLoughlin Page A

He’s
twenty-five.” Waldron made a surreptitious move to choose a green pencil and lick it. “Allergic to horses, unfortunately. Imagine never being able to ride.”
    “Why are we wasting our time talking about him?” she asked.
    Waldron bridled. “Just making conversation. You brought it up.” He was stabbing the paper with the pencil. “So what is it you think I can do that you haven’t already
done?”
    “I want you to use your contacts in the army and fisheries and Civil Service –” Waldron’s chest expanded and the medals rose two inches.
    “– to force them to show you shipping and ferry records. I want you to find out if a middle-aged woman and a young child left Irish shores on the 7th of July or thereabouts. If they
went over to the mainland or wherever else.”
    “That’s quite a list.”
    “I’m sure a man as powerful and influential as you will have no trouble dealing with it.”
    Waldron was pleased with the compliment. “I’ll certainly pull out all the stops. Everything else over there still the same?”
    “More or less. We’re quiet enough but there have been rumblings since that uprising in Dublin last year. Did you hear much about that over here?”
    For the first time since they’d sat down he looked straight at her and smiled. “Hear much about it, did you say? Hear much about it?” He turned to an imaginary audience, both
arms raised as if acknowledging applause, then back to her, pausing for greater impact. “The papers were full of it for weeks, but my name wasn’t mentioned which was jolly annoying as I
had a pivotal part to play.” He paused again to make sure she was listening. “I was one of the advisors who recommended the ringleaders be shot.”
    Edwina sat stony-faced and was not applauding.
    He leaned back in his chair. “I haven’t given my life to the service of the Empire for nothing. Troublemakers like that have to be shown who’s boss early on in the piece. And
they were shown. In no uncertain terms.” He emphasised his words with three sharp stabs of his pencil, breaking the lead. “A lesson to the rest. Never fails.”
    Edwina stood up, dropping her handbag on the floor. “Does anyone in Ireland know you were involved?”
    “Can’t say, actually.” Waldron stood, straightened his jacket and came round to the other side of the desk to pick up the handbag and help her with her coat. “But
don’t see why not. Never made any secret of it. Proud of it, in fact.”
    She moved away from him on the pretext of looking at the large piece of paper on his desktop and was surprised to see on it, not doodles, but a fully realised drawing of a battle scene featuring
horses with stylised twirls for manes and tails, soldiers on horseback complete with helmets, chin-straps, red coats, black boots and spurs, canons and mountains in the distance, and a tangle of
bodies on the ground.
    “What’s this?”
    “The Crimean War. My favourite subject.”
    “May I have it?”
    “Of course. Always giving them away.” He smiled as he signed it on the bottom right-hand corner. “Getting quite a name for myself.” He rolled up the sheet and gave it to
her. “About your Teresa Whatshername. I’ll set the wheels in motion straight away even though I’m up to my eyes. Pity you didn’t tell me earlier.” He opened the door
for her.
    Thatcher, standing to attention outside the door, saluted.
    “Thatcher will see you back to my quarters, old thing,” said Waldron.
    As he escorted them out, Edwina half-turned her head to say something to her husband but stopped when she saw a look pass between him and the young soldier. Could she be mistaken, or had she
seen Waldron actually wink at him?

12
    Edwina suspected that Waldron made no effort to trace Teresa Kelly. She could picture him, whiskey in hand, one elbow anchored on a mantelpiece in the mess, holding forth to
his subordinates about the insignificant concerns that filled the pretty little heads of women,