‘Do as he says,’ Rogan told her.
She reached for the automatic with her left hand and threw it across awkwardly. Morgan grabbed for it, missed, and the gun skidded across the floor and came to rest under the table.
She took an involuntary step forward and he shook his head. ‘Leave it.’
Rogan lowered his hands. ‘What happens now?’
‘I’m going to take a little boat trip, just me and the old man here like he arranged with Soames.’
Hannah sucked in her breath sharply.
Rogan turned and looked down at Colum O’More, a frown on his face. ‘What’s he talking about?’
The skin of the old man’s face tightened across the cheekbones and his eyes were dark holes as he glared at Morgan. ‘He’s trying to make trouble, can’t you see that?’
‘You must be losing your touch, Rogan,’ Morgan
jeered. ‘The old bastard’s been stringing you along from the beginning. He didn’t want funds for his blasted Organization. He wanted a stake for his old age. He used you, Rogan, and Soames found out about it.’
‘Is it true?’ Rogan said calmly.
O’More looked down at the floor and Morgan laughed again. ‘Is it true, the man says. That’s why we were supposed to cut you out back at the farm. We were all going to meet here tomorrow and divvy up if things hadn’t gone sour.’
O’More looked up sharply. ‘I knew nothing of that, Sean, nothing about any plans concerning you. Soames found out, it’s true, and threatened to tell you unless 1 tut him in. But that’s as far as it went.’
‘Funds for the Organization, you said.”
‘I’d have seen you all right, lad.’
‘A high price to pay for my good name.’ Rogan tapped his chest. ‘I am Sean Rogan, a soldier of the Irish Republican Army and no thief.’
‘To hell with the Irish Republican Army.’ The old man slammed his stick hard against the floor. ‘Forty years, Sean Rogan. Forty years I’ve given to the Organization. Twenty of those I’ve served in gaol on both sides of the water and what have I got to show for it?’ He coughed harshly, struggling for breath, and pulled at his collar. ‘Old and broken, my lungs rotting. By God, I’ll pass the time left to me in comfort or know the reason why.’
Rogan shook his head and there was something close to compassion on his face. ‘It won’t work, Colum. That kind of thing never does.’
‘Don’t let him kid you, old man,’ Morgan said.
He took a clasp knife from his pocket, opened the blade with his teeth and slashed through the cord binding the neck of one of the bags. He dropped the knife on the table, put a hand inside and pulled out a packet of notes.
He threw it at Rogan who grabbed it instinctively.
‘How much is that, Rogan? Five hundred, a thousand?’ He patted the bag. ‘Lots more in here, big man, and you’re going to carry them down to the boat for me.’
Rogan examined the bundle of notes in his hand and a slow smile spread across his face. ‘If the rest are like these there wouldn’t be much point.’ He dropped the bundle into O’More’s lap. ‘What do you think, Colum?’
Colum O’More pulled out several pound notes and held them up to the light. His eyes widened. ‘Holy Mother of God, they’re perforated, every last one of them.’
He passed one to Hannah who held it to the light, then looked at Rogan, surprise on her face. ‘What does it mean?’
‘They were talking about it in the prison a month or two back,’ he said. ‘A trick some of the banks are using now if they’re shipping old notes in quantity for repulp-ing. They run them through an electronic machine that perforates each one with a code number in large letters as you can see.’
‘Making them useless?’
‘As legal tender. That’s the general idea.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
Morgan upended the mailbag on the table, scattering packets to the floor. He examined one feverishly and then another and another. When he turned, his face was very white.