Allegiance: A Dublin Novella by Heather Domin Page B

much to preach about without his target audience.” She grinned pertly at the boys as they laughed.
    “Lord help us, I don’t know where I got such a saucy minx for a daughter,” said Gerald. “Do you run upstairs where you belong and see about some lunch. We’re finished here, anyway, so there’s naught else for you to hear.”
    They all stood, chairs scraping on the concrete floor, and began to file out of the cramped little room. William stepped back against the wall to let them pass; Daniel nodded politely, Kelly ignored him entirely. David and Andy were searching for the cigarettes in David’s jacket. William followed them toward the brighter light of the storeroom. On the other side of the doorway, Mary touched his sleeve.
    “William,” she said, then stopped.
    “Aye, lass?”
    She looked up at him, hesitant. “If…if you
—
”
    Adam came through the arch and walked between them, plucking his abandoned apple core off the barrel as he passed. “Mornin’, Mary,” he said, pinching her on the cheek, and grinned at them both before moving on.
    Mary watched him go, his coins jingling in his pockets, David and Andy chattering behind him. She turned back to William, and her eyes had gone pale in the morning light.
    “Look after him, William,” she said, and hurried up the stairs in their wake.
     
     
     
    10.
    February 16, 1922
     
    The oil lamp burned low on the dresser, but William had long since stopped tracking the time. He sat on the floor with his legs curled beneath him, leaning on one elbow across the bed that served double duty as his writing desk. His briefcase lay open next to its hiding place, its contents spread across the red gingham quilt. The pencil in William’s hand was crimped with several rows of small, neat teeth marks; his head rested in his palm, forefinger twirling a strand of hair in a slow, constant loop as he tapped the pencil against his front teeth in concentration.
    He had been revising his write-up for hours. No detail was left out, no matter how small – every scrap of information he had gathered over the past month arranged into one precise, well-ordered report, all his stolen knowledge laid out and notated until no gap or loophole remained. Considering the short span of time, it was without a doubt the best piece of work William had ever produced; and yet his pencil continued to move, long after the house had gone silent around him and the cold came creeping through the black square of the window.
    It would be time soon to think of a good exit story.
    Perhaps his sister could be ill – that was always a reliable option. His unknown situation could somehow be cleared back home, or even better, some new threat could arise which would demand his immediate return. Specifics were not necessary, really, only something that would grant him an honorable escape.
    Of course, with the assignment being so far from Glasgow, William did have the option of simply disappearing. This was not an idea he fancied at all. As much as he had tried to steel himself against it, he had made the fundamental error of becoming too comfortable, both in his new environment and with the people in it. He would miss Gerald, and Mary, and even Andy and the other lads; it was an unfortunate mistake, but there was no help for it now. The best course of action would be to make the break as quick and clean as possible, and the sooner the better. If he got this report right, that break would come very soon indeed. William chewed his bottom lip, thinking, and scribbled a few more lines into the margin of his paper.
    They were all mistaken – it was no crime to be anti-Treaty. Even if it were, that would be up to the Irish government to deal with, not William’s superiors. The Crown did not rule Ireland anymore; surely the MI5 only wanted to ensure there would be no more violence against innocent civilians. That was why William had been assigned here – because he knew what kind of toll pointless violence