Established as a sort after writer who was also highly regarded by critics, Monsarrat’s career eventually concluded with his epic ‘The Master Mariner’, a novel on seafaring life from Napoleonic times to the present.

Well known for his concise story telling and tense narrative, he became one of the most successful novelists of the twentieth century, whose rich and varied collection bears the hallmarks of a truly gifted master of his craft.

‘A professional who gives us our money’s worth. The entertainment value is high’- Daily Telegraph

Dedication

For C A, Mrs and Jean

with love and thanks

Author’s Note

The Story of Esther Costello is the story of a monstrous fraud in philanthropy. It is wholly fictional, and its characters portray no ‘real life’ persons, either alive or dead. In particular, it does not reflect in the slightest upon those many exemplary individuals and organizations rendering aid to the handicapped. If the book has any moral for the charitable, that moral is: ‘Give to those you know’.

Prologue

In the late spring of 1916, after the bloody and abortive Easter Rising in Dublin, four men on the run from the police and the military reached the outskirts of a small village called Cloncraig, in the county of Wexford in southern Ireland. One of the men was an undoubted murderer; for the rest, that distinction was still to come. They were all members of Sinn Fein; they had had a fearful time getting out of Dublin after the fighting, with the police on their heels and few friends to trust; they all carried arms, and four hand grenades apiece, and (between them) two hundred pounds of gunpowder stolen from a fireworks firm near Kingstown.

They had clung possessively to the explosive throughout a fortnight’s hue-and-cry which had chased them farther and farther south; it was the tool of their trade, their cherished treasure, as a full wallet is to another man, or her fresh beauty to a young girl. It was never to be surrendered. But the weight of it was heavy and had hampered and nearly ruined them many times; now, after fourteen days’ close pursuit, their weariness was desperate, and their pace a deadly mockery of their hopes.

Presently, as they stumbled down the road in the dusk, a figure rose beside them, melting out of the shadows like a ghost. The party of four stopped dead, their hands clutching their guns.

The stranger called softly: “Is it you?”

“Is it who?” said the leader, who was the murderer.

“Sinn Fein,” said the stranger, as a man gives a password.

“Sinn Fein for ever.”

“Up the rebels,” said the stranger, and then: “You can’t stop, boys. There’s police all around.”

“God damn them all!” said one of the party. “English hirelings, every one.”

“You can’t stop,” repeated the stranger. “You’ll have to break for the coast – and fast, too.”

“We need rest,” said the leader. In the darkness, he bent his aching legs to ease them. “We’ve been on the move for a fortnight.”