No Enemy but Time by Evelyn Anthony

Kells itself was shuttered till the afternoon. She drove past the great Celtic cross, so ancient that its age was only speculation, down the main street, past the gates of the Marquis of Headfort’s magnificent estate, now sold to foreigners with money, made the final turn to Cloncarrig.
    His voice on that last telephone call came back to her, made only a few days before he disappeared. She knew it so well, and though time and distance had separated them, it made her heart beat double.
    â€˜Claire, I wanted you to know … they’ve murdered poor old Donny. Killed him in cold blood. I’m finished with them. I wanted you to know,’ he said again. And she had answered, ‘Oh, thank God. Thank God! But can you do that – can you break off just like that?’
    â€˜I can and I have,’ he said.
    â€˜Come over here,’ she begged him. ‘You can’t stay in Ireland if you’ve fallen out with them … please, darling Frank, come here to me.’
    She heard the mocking laugh, but it was bitter.
    â€˜I don’t think Neil would be exactly overjoyed to see me. Don’t you worry about me. I’ve friends who’ll pull strings. Nobody will dare touch me. And anyway, if I need to hole up till things are fixed, we know where I can go. Remember old Reynard?’ And then, dismissing himself, he asked if she were well and happy, and she lied and said she was. ‘God bless you then,’ was his goodbye, before the line went clear.
    Her marriage had ended the night when she told Neil Fraser she was going back to Ireland to look for her brother.
    She drove the car slowly, looking for the turning she remembered off the road. It was still there, a gap where a gate should have been, leading on to a rutted farm track. A low drystone wall surrounded the place, but it was crumbling and all along the edge the nettles triumphed. She drove in and bumped along, skirting the worst pot-holes, heading for a clump of beech trees where the car would be hidden from the road. Broad green fields surrounded her, with distant woods bounding the horizon. She stopped, looked round and saw the emptiness of Ireland. Rooks cawed and swooped high in the trees. She took the revolver, the bullets and her coat to wrap them in, and began to walk towards the woods. Beyond the woods lay a valley and in the valley a lake, where the ruins of a fine Georgian house were reflected on a clear day. And beyond that, past a gentle rise, she would find her brother if he were still alive.
    The helicopter took off from South Wales an hour after the Special Branch had spoken to Major Michael Harvey. It was an army chopper, but operated under a commercial flying company. Before noon it landed at the heliport and a car was waiting to speed its passenger to London.
    He was not at all what Brownlow expected when they came face to face. He was a slight man, a little above average height, but by no means a prime physical specimen. He wore shabby corduroys and a jacket and looked thoroughly nondescript. He could have been anything except an army officer in the most sensitive intelligence branch, renowned for undercover operations in Northern Ireland.
    â€˜You haven’t wasted any time,’ Brownlow said, as they shook hands.
    â€˜You said it was urgent. I thought so too.’ Harvey sat opposite to him and refused a cigarette. He was a very still sort of man.
    â€˜It’s a bloody mess,’ Brownlow declared. ‘If Fraser hadn’t mucked about when he got back and found she’d gone, we might have caught her before the boat sailed.’
    â€˜I suppose he wanted to be sure,’ Major Harvey suggested. ‘But it’s a pity.’
    â€˜You know them socially, I believe.’
    â€˜Yes. I’ve stayed with them several times. Had some days shooting with him. They’re a nice couple.’
    â€˜How come he knows about you? I thought you people kept top security at all