Free Cry of the Hunter by Jack Higgins Page B

‘I’ve got a meal for you downstairs.’ He nodded to his two companions and followed her out of the room.
    It was warm in the kitchen. He sat down at the table and she spooned stew into a plate and set it before him. ‘That smells good,’ he said.
    She laughed lightly. ‘It’s all I can make. I’m not very domestic, I’m afraid.’
    He swallowed a mouthful of the warm food and shook his head. ‘It’s fine. Believe me, after what I’ve been through tonight, anything would be welcome.’
    She smiled. ‘That’s rather a two-edged compliment, isn’t it?’
    He spread his hands in a gesture of humility. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way at all.’
    He suddenly realized how hungry he really was and got down to the serious business of getting the food inside him. She watched him quietly for several minutes, not speaking, and when he had finished, brought him a cup of tea. As she poured milk into the cup she said, ‘And how many dead men have you left behind you?’
    He shook his head. ‘Not a one, thank God. Did you expect that I would?’
    She frowned and stirred her tea absently. ‘No, it would be more true to say that I was afraid you would.’ He stared at her in surprise, not understanding, and she explained. ‘What do you do when a policeman starts shooting at you? Don’t you shoot back?’
    He grinned. ‘Personally I always run like hell.’
    She sighed and nodded her head. ‘But one day you will have to shoot back and that’s what I’m afraid of.’
    Fallon took out his cigarettes and offered her one. ‘I hate the shooting side of it,’ he said, as he held a match for her. ‘Killing a policeman proves absolutely nothing, except perhaps that you’re a good shot.’
    ‘And what if you shoot them in the back at point blank range like Rogan did?’ she said. ‘What does that prove?’
    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