Blackest of Lies by Bill Aitken Page A

thing, Commissioner.”
    “What’s that?”
    “This Colonel Farmer must be a willing volunteer.”
    “Rubbish.  He is a serving officer and we have the direct orders of the PM to ...”
    “Totally irrelevant.  If he has to have any chance of preserving the illusion of Lord Kitchener’s continued existence, he must be comfortable in the role.  The alternative is immediate disclosure and we will end up in worse trouble than we are in now, if that is possible.”
    “You're right, of course.” said Thompson, nodding.  “Hubert, it’s all down to you.  You know the man.  Will he do it?”
    “I don’t know.  All I can do is to ask him.”
    “Right you are.  Well, I think that settles that, Kell.”  He grabbed frantically at his handkerchief and sneezed loudly.  “Apologies.  Let’s get Hubert packed off to Outer Hampstead, or wherever, while we read the Riot Act to the domestic staff.  In fact, it might not be such a bad idea to keep them here until this Colonel Farmer looks the part.  The IRB thing applies to them, too.  They would find it a bit difficult to run off to the newspapers shouting about His Lordship’s death when he’s walking about, apparently, large as life.”  He looked around.  “Well, I’m feeling a lot happier now that we have something to work towards.” He levered himself out of the armchair and walked over to the brandy decanter. 
    “Who’s for a drink?”
    **********
    In a shabby, darkened room on the top floor of a run-down Dublin tenement, MacNeill leaned back in a rickety chair.  He hated the foul-smelling dump but it was safe.  It was the rats that bothered him – that mediaeval aura of death and disease their very name conjured up.  It made his skin crawl but, as usual, he had to push personal matters to the back of his mind – he had business to attend to.  As Brigade Intelligence Officer, it was his job to mastermind the death of Britain’s ‘most honoured military hero’, the architect of the war.  He smiled at how he was about to wipe that damn-your-eyes look off those bloody stupid posters.  Britain needs you .  ‘Aye’, he thought, ‘but Ireland doesn’t need you , you old bugger.’  He took a deep drag of his cigarette and exhaled slowly.
    He tilted his head further back into the shadow of one corner of the room and looked listlessly over at the other two men.  Academics – he despised them.  They could thump tables with the best of them about a free Ireland while they passed the port around but ask them to hold a gun to a man’s head and blow his brains out and they’d wet themselves.  He sneered at them from the darkness while still acknowledging the sad fact that he needed them.  They were his wordsmiths, his voices to the outside world, his political arm.
    “Well then, Padhraig, how are you going to release the news?”
    Padhraig Chesney thought carefully before answering.  The presence of the Grim Reaper quite so near at hand unsettled him.  He cleared his throat nervously before answering, “I don’t think we should leap into print as soon as we hear Sean’s done the business.”
    “Why?”
    “Well, we can catch them twice if we time it right.”
    “How?”
    He looked around the room for support and, finding none, licked his lips with a pale, flickering tongue.  “Once Kitchener is dead, the British Government will have to find some way of announcing the fact.  From the trouble we’ve already made about the Harp business, not to mention Easter Monday, it’s going to be fairly obvious that we did it.  But the Brits will never be able to admit that to the public so they’ll try to concoct all sorts of fairy stories to explain away the real truth.”
    “And that’s when we make our move?”
    “That’s when we make our move.  Not only will we hit the headlines with a blow by blow account of the execution, but we’ll also show Asquith up for the liar he is.  When we announce Kitchener’s death, it’ll be the