The City of Shadows

10. Red Cow Lane

The next morning Stefan Gillespie took the train to Carlow Town. It was a journey to a familiar place; the nearest big town to Baltinglass. Until Naas, the railway followed the route he took going home, but where the line branched away towards the Wicklow Mountains, he carried on now to Kildare Town and the flat plain of the Curragh and down into the neat pastureland of County Carlow. He fixed his mind on the day’s work, but it wasn’t easy. It was one thing to tell himself he expected nothing from Hannah after the night they’d spent together; it was another to believe it.

Her mood had been very different that morning. The questions about Susan’s murder had come faster than his answers. Why was he holding things back? Why was he trawling the streets of Dublin when he should be on the boat to England by now, across the Channel, and on a train to Danzig? Wasn’t it the priest he needed to question about Susan above everything else? And he knew it was. He also knew why nobody, from the Garda Commissioner down, would be rushing to buy his train ticket. He was investigating the deaths of a woman and a man that a lot of people, his superiors among them, would rather had lain undiscovered on the mountainside at Kilmashogue. Then, quite abruptly, the questions had stopped. She had to go. She walked across to him and kissed him. She rested her head on his shoulder. It was an expression of support, and something more, of tenderness. And then the room was very empty. She was gone.

As Stefan looked out from the train at the green fields of Carlow, Hannah Rosen was making tea in Brian Field’s kitchen, steeling herself for a long day talking to all the people who would come through his door. But in her head there was another conversation going on. Lying in Stefan’s bed that morning, before he woke up, listening to the sounds of Dublin outside, she knew how much this was still her city. The ease she felt with Stefan, even in the face of her best friend’s death, went deeper than she wanted to admit. She could never tell Benny what she was feeling, and not only because of what had happened between her and Stefan. He would be hurt by that, but he would understand. What he wouldn’t understand were her thoughts as she listened to Dublin, rattling and clattering and cursing beyond the window of the scruffy room in Nassau Street. The creation of Israel drove Benny Jacobson with a relentless passion that left no space for sentimental attachments to the past. And she was full of those attachments now. That was the betrayal he wouldn’t forgive. This was still where she belonged. Her head had made a decision about what her life should be; her heart had not.

Stefan went straight from Carlow Station to the Garda barracks in Tullow Street to pay his respects to Superintendent Flynn, who wanted to be remembered to his father and seemed in quite the mood to settle down for a chat about country policing and metropolitan crime. That is until he got the whiff of unnatural practices in his nostrils and found his presence elsewhere was more urgently required than anticipated. Stefan would want to talk to the parents, of course. Wouldn’t it be best if he got on with it? He knew the town like the back of his hand — there was no need for the superintendent’s officers to get involved, was there? Stefan just smiled. No, there wasn’t.

He walked the length of Tullow Street and turned into Dublin Street at the bottom. The tobacconist’s was on the left. He remembered it, but when he walked inside the memory was much stronger. The smell of the place, a comfortable smell of sweetness and smoke reminded him of his grandfather. He had bought Christmas presents for him there, a half ounce of tobacco, some pipe cleaners. But the moment Mr Walsh showed him through the shop into the living room behind it, the warmth was gone. There was only empty space, somehow not quite filled by the table and the two wooden chairs, the two-seater settee and the armchair, and the heavy mahogany sideboard that was too big for the room. It was a dark room and although the day was cold, there was no fire in the grate. There was a photograph of a wedding on the mantelpiece — Mr and Mrs Walsh’s — and on either side of it were oval framed photographs of two couples who must have been Vincent’s grandparents. Above the fireplace too was a black-framed picture of the Sacred Heart. ‘Blessed be the home in which my heart is exposed.’

Somehow it felt less like a home than the shop had. That was where they spoke to people. Stefan could feel that when Mr and Mrs Walsh walked back through the door from the tobacconist’s there weren’t many words. No one ever said much in this room. He learned that Vincent had been their only child, yet there was no photograph; when he asked for one they looked at each other uncertainly, as if they weren’t sure where to find such a thing. Mrs Walsh made no move. A slight nod of her head gave her husband permission to act.

He went to the sideboard and opened a door, with the key that was in the lock. The lock was stiff; the door was rarely opened. He took out a biscuit tin with a picture of the Rock of Cashel on the lid. He opened it carefully and looked through the contents, hunched over the sideboard. He produced a small cardboard frame with a photograph in it; R amp; F Beard, Photographers, Tullow Street, Carlow. It was a picture of a young man of sixteen or seventeen. He wore a dark suit jacket, a white collar that was too big for him, and a striped tie. He wasn’t smiling. There was a similar photograph of Stefan on the wall in the kitchen at Kilranelagh. He had gone to the photographer’s shop in Tullow Street the summer before he started at Trinity College; his mother wanted a photograph of him in the dark suit that looked so much like Vincent Walsh’s. He had sat in the same chair, in front of the same stained sheet in Mr Beard’s studio. Mr Beard would have said the same things and made the same jokes. Stefan promised he would return the photograph as soon as he could. Mr and Mrs Walsh didn’t reply.

His questions were answered with as few words as were needed. They had not seen their son for over three years. He had left home to work in Dublin in the summer of 1930. He had come home twice. The last time had been Christmas, 1931. He went back to Dublin that Stephen’s Day and it was the last contact they’d had with him. There was nothing to find out here. They could have understood nothing of their son’s life. They knew just enough to ensure it was never spoken about. Stefan could almost feel, through the years between, the long silence that final Christmas must have been for all three of them. As he walked from the shop out into the street, it was as if the ghost of that Stephen’s Day past, when Vincent Walsh had left his home for the last time, still hovered in the tobacconist’s doorway. Whatever the shop had meant to Vincent then, once it must have held the sounds and scents and images of a childhood that wasn’t always silent and empty and cold.

They hadn’t asked about his body. Stefan didn’t have to explain that there was nothing for them to see or identify, nothing he would want a mother and father to look at. He told them they would be able to make funeral arrangements before long, perhaps in January. They nodded. They would do what they needed to do. There would be no wake. There would be no line of customers and friends and neighbours and family to follow the coffin the few hundred yards along Dublin Street, past the pillared court house into College Street, past the seminary; or to sit with it in the Cathedral of the Assumption overnight. The Mass for the Dead would be spoken to a handful of people. Vincent Walsh would be buried with as much shame as sorrow. Afterwards, his mother and father would sit in the room behind the shop and say nothing. They had mourned for their son long before his death.

Dessie MacMahon was a lot more comfortable in Carolan’s Bar than he had been at the Gate Theatre. Apart from the fact that Billy Donnelly didn’t need to be asked to put two hot whiskeys in front of him and Sergeant Gillespie, you knew who was who in here, and more to the point, who was what. Any man you found drinking in Carolan’s was queer and that kind of clarity seemed to Dessie to be only proper. Besides which, you could treat them like queers. A bit of craic was fine. Didn’t some of them have a way of making you split your sides sometimes? But up at the Gate you needed to watch yourself. You couldn’t know who was queer and who wasn’t and nobody seemed the least bit bothered about it. That couldn’t be right. However, as Stefan questioned Billy Donnelly, the publican was less forthcoming about Vincent Walsh than he was with the drinks. He took the news that Vincent’s body had been found with hardly a change in his sour expression. Maybe his eyes closed for just a moment, but it was hard not to feel that this didn’t come as news at all.

‘He was living here?’ said Stefan.

‘He worked for me. He’d a room upstairs.’

‘How long?’

‘Maybe a year.’

‘You knew him well then.’

Billy looked across the bar at the last of his departing customers. It was barely one o’clock and the pub never did do much daytime trade, but the presence of two detectives was enough to frighten off what there was.

‘You’re costing me money. Are you stopping long?’

‘Tell me about the night of the Eucharistic Mass,’ continued Stefan. It was not a question Billy expected, and if the news of Vincent’s death hadn’t seemed to surprise him very much, those words clearly did. He frowned.

‘You’d quite a night of it, I hear.’

‘I’m not with you, Sergeant.’

‘There was a gang of Blueshirts here, beating the shite out of you.’

‘Is that right?’

‘Was there a reason for that?’

‘Sure, why would they need a reason?’ It was the kind of answer Billy Donnelly would have given at any other time, and at any other time he would have laughed. He smiled, but his voice spoke wariness and caution.

‘It was just you and Vincent Walsh, Billy?’

‘If you say so, Mr Gillespie. It’s a long time ago.’

‘Vincent got away from them?’

Billy didn’t reply. He’d picked up a glass and a towel earlier and had been drying the same glass for some time, unaware that he was doing it.

‘Did he?’ insisted Stefan.

‘If I’d had the legs on me I’d have done the same.’

‘So when did he come back?’

The publican stopped drying the glass.

Stefan could see he was trying to work out an answer.

‘He was worried about you. That’s what I’m told. He was on his way back here by two in the morning.’

‘I didn’t see him.’

‘You didn’t see him come in?’

‘He never came in. I didn’t see him again.’

‘What about his things?’

‘He’d a few clothes, a few books.’

‘You’ve still got those?’

‘What do you think this is, the left-luggage office? I kept hold of his things for a while, but when I saw he wasn’t coming back I got rid of it all.’

‘Did you get the letter he sent you?’ Stefan was watching him closely.

‘What letter?’

The response was quick, controlled; perhaps he was anticipating the questions now. But neither Stefan nor Dessie had any doubt that Billy Donnelly knew all about the letter, and that it had arrived. However, they could get nothing more out him now. There was no letter. He knew nothing about any letter. Yet the letter mattered and Stefan knew it. Vincent Walsh’s words still rang in his head. ‘They won’t look in the same place twice.’ If Vincent had died that night they were some of the last words he ever spoke. They couldn’t be explained, but they certainly couldn’t be cast aside.

As the two detectives left, Billy Donnelly could feel the sweat, cold on his back where it had been hot only seconds before. As he went to pour himself a drink, Dessie MacMahon reappeared at the door. He had remembered something.

‘Weren’t you in the Joy for a stretch last year?’

‘Six fucking months.’

‘What for?’

‘What’s it to you?’

Dessie grinned. He had a memory for these small things. ‘Attempting to procure an act of gross indecency at a urinal in Upper Hatch Street, but as it happened the feller was a guard, wasn’t that the story, Billy?’

Two fingers ushered Dessie out. Billy stood in the empty bar. He hadn’t forgotten Vincent. He never would. The drink was the first of many.

Inspector Donaldson had been reading Stefan Gillespie’s report for almost ten minutes. It wasn’t a long report. It deliberately avoided any facts that could be avoided and it made no attempt at theories or opinions. It described the discovery of the two bodies and the bare details of Wayland-Smith’s examination. Vincent Walsh and Susan Field had been identified, and although the circumstances of their deaths could not be determined, there could be no question but that the deaths were indeed suspicious. Something like two years separated the two events. Nothing linked them except the place of burial and the State Pathologist’s opinion that damage to both skulls could have been caused by a captive bolt pistol. Donaldson had already pencilled in the word ‘speculative’ above the word ‘opinion’. There was considerable information about the probable movements of both Vincent Walsh and Susan Field close to the time of their disappearance. The inspector had crossed out the word ‘probable’ and replaced it with ‘possible’. He turned the pages of the report over several times more, not because there was anything else to read, but because he didn’t want to have the conversation he knew had to come next. Nothing was going to make this trouble go away.

‘The man Walsh,’ he said, finally looking up. ‘How reliable do you think these people are? Purcell, I mean, and the publican, Donnelly?’

‘I’d say Purcell is telling the truth. Billy Donnelly knows more.’

‘I know Donnelly. The other one’s a queer too, I presume?’

‘Purcell doesn’t have any reason to lie.’ Stefan knew exactly what Inspector Donaldson meant. You couldn’t believe anything a queer said.

‘Lying is a way of life with these people. At any event there doesn’t seem to be anywhere else to go. The man disappeared. He hasn’t seen him since. Or are you suggesting Donnelly was involved in the death somehow?’

‘Like I say, I think he’s got more to tell us.’

‘And if he hasn’t?’

‘Sir, four men attacked the pub the night Walsh disappeared.’

‘Oh, yes, the Blueshirts.’ Donaldson smiled. He didn’t believe it.

‘I’ve no reason to doubt that,’ Stefan continued. ‘Your man Purcell could see Vincent Walsh had been beaten up. And what the hell has Billy Donnelly got to gain from a story like that, two years down the road?’

The inspector sniffed. The Blueshirts, under the leadership of Eoin O’Duffy, the first Garda Commissioner and almost the first man President de Valera sacked on taking office in 1932, had been banned a year ago. They had threatened to march on Dublin in the same way Mussolini’s Blackshirts marched on Rome. After the ban the sale of blue shirts had declined rapidly, and the movement had faded away. But there were plenty of Gardai whose sympathies lay with O’Duffy and the march that never was, and James Donaldson had been one of them, however quiet he kept about that now.

‘Cat fights are common enough in the queer fraternity I’d say. The man wouldn’t want to be pointing his finger at friends, even after all this time.’

‘I think I need to take the Blueshirts seriously, sir.’

‘I don’t know where you’ll find any Blueshirts now, but you might want to remember that the majority of them were ex-soldiers who served this country well, whatever the views of the current regime. I would be careful about stirring up the past, and on the back of what’s probably a pack of lies.’

‘Susan Field.’ Stefan wouldn’t let Donaldson avoid this any longer.

‘We’ve been here already, Sergeant. I’m well aware that it comes back to Keller.’

‘I can’t question Keller. I don’t know where he is. I did speak to Sheila Hogan, his nurse. But that was after Jimmy Lynch had had a go and put her in the Mater.’

Donaldson ignored the last remark.

‘Didn’t she say she’d never seen the woman?’

‘That doesn’t mean a bloody thing. There was a foetus.’

‘I know that Gillespie. Obviously you’ve established the woman was pregnant.’

‘She wrote a letter that said she was having an abortion!’

‘Yes, there are questions to ask, Sergeant, I do accept that. And I will pass a request up the line for the German police to try to locate Herr Keller.’

Stefan looked at his tight-lipped superior and shook his head.

‘He was driven to Dun Laoghaire by the head of the Nazi Party here. With friends like that, not to mention our own Special Branch, I don’t think we’ll hear much back. That leaves us with one witness — Father Byrne.’

Inspector Donaldson might sideline the references to Adolf Mahr and Special Branch, but Byrne was another matter. However much he wanted to ignore it he knew he couldn’t. And so he had already tackled the problem.

‘I understand that and I have spoken to Monsignor Fitzpatrick.’

Stefan was surprised. The smile on Donaldson’s face was troubling.

‘You should have asked me before speaking to him yourself.’

‘I wanted to find out where Byrne was. It was the shortest route.’

‘That wasn’t a decision for you to make, Gillespie.’

‘It was a simple question, sir.’

‘It was a series of scandalous allegations against a priest!’

‘I have good reason to believe Francis Byrne was the man Susan Field was having an affair with, that he was the father of her child and, according to her letters, that he was the man who arranged for her abortion with Hugo Keller. He also paid for it. That makes him one of the last people to see Miss Field alive. And he left the country within a few days of her disappearing.’

It was more troubling that the inspector seemed untroubled by this.

‘As I said, I have spoken to Monsignor Fitzpatrick.’

‘So when do I get to question your man Byrne?’

‘Everything you’ve said about Father Byrne is speculation.’

‘I don’t think so, sir.’

James Donaldson frowned. It was there again, ‘sir’, as a kind of insult.

‘The woman never even mentions his name in these letters.’

‘Come on, how many priests did she know at UCD?’

Donaldson’s tight lips grew even tighter.

‘She was pregnant, Sergeant. Sadly we know that was true. As for the rest, a woman in that sort of trouble might come up with any kind of story. Shame does strange things, particularly to women. She may not even have known who the father of the child was. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman has fantasised about a good man being the father of an illegitimate child. Monsignor Fitzpatrick has no doubt about Father Byrne’s integrity. He is a fine man and a fine priest. He knows him. The man lived in his house!’

Stefan stared at the inspector. He had already heard this. Hadn’t another policeman said the same thing to Susan’s father? But he doubted it could have been said with such conviction. He struggled to keep the word ‘bollocks’ in his mouth, but there wasn’t another word that would do.

‘I didn’t pick the questions, sir. I just need to ask them. And the man I need to ask is Father Byrne, sir. He’s the only witness there is now.’

‘I understand. That’s exactly what I’ve said to the monsignor.’

‘Does than mean Father Byrne is coming back to Ireland?’

‘Not in the foreseeable future.’

‘Then shouldn’t I be going to him in Danzig?’

‘I hardly think we’ll be sending you to the Baltic, Sergeant Gillespie.’ Donaldson laughed. Reluctant as he had been to enter into this, it was done. It hadn’t been so hard after all. Detective sergeants could be controlled.

‘Monsignor Fitzpatrick will speak to Father Byrne. He can telephone him if necessary. I suggest you draw up a list of questions and we can send them straight off. If the letter is sent via London the air mail system will have it in Danzig in less than twenty-four hours. Let’s deal with this speculation head on, Sergeant. Let’s get it out of the way and clear the air.’

It was not often that real determination showed in Inspector Donaldson’s face, but Stefan recognised it when he saw it. There would be no argument. If the inspector had, even for a second, wondered about the relationship between Father Francis Byrne and Susan Field, Monsignor Fitzpatrick had demonstrated, with infectious infallibility, that there really was nothing to wonder about. The list of written questions was an empty gesture. It meant that the investigation had already reached a dead end.

There was a mug of tea waiting on Stefan’s desk when he returned. Dessie MacMahon didn’t have to be in Donaldson’s office to work out what was happening. The inspector knew there was a priest in it now all right; he was as agitated as hell. Hadn’t he been to Mass twice that day already? But it wasn’t the first thing Dessie said when Stefan returned.

‘She was in to see you.’

Stefan ignored the smile that went with it; Dessie didn’t miss a thing.

‘When?’

‘An hour ago maybe. She waited a bit, then she had to go.’

For once Stefan was glad Hannah hadn’t stayed. Everything she might have anticipated about the way Francis Byrne was going to be treated had just happened. If anything it was worse. Not only had Donaldson decided that Susan Field never did have an affair with the priest, the man would be questioned by post. Stefan had two bodies, two murders, and nowhere to go. He reached across the desk for a file. It wasn’t there. He had been looking at it when the summons from Inspector Donaldson came. He looked round, puzzled, then saw some sheets of paper on the floor. He bent and picked them up. As he put them back he peered at the desk again. Things were not where he had left them. His desk was the exact opposite of the tip that was Dessie’s. He knew where everything was; except now it wasn’t, not quite.

‘Here’s an odd thing, Sarge.’ Dessie leant back. ‘Billy Donnelly.’

‘What about him?’

‘Six months for getting his cock out in a jacks.’

‘You said. That’s not so odd, is it?’

Stefan was still looking down, frowning.

‘Have you been looking for something over here, Dessie?’

‘You think I don’t know better than that?’

‘Why are these papers all over the floor? Everything’s in the wrong — ’ He smiled; it was simple enough. ‘Did you leave Hannah here on her own?’

‘I’ve got the report on Billy.’ Dessie got up, ignoring Stefan’s question. ‘Here. “The defendant approached the detective and said, isn’t that a fine big one. It’ll give you the horn.” Jesus wept!’ He was laughing.

‘She’s gone through everything.’

‘You know who it was, Sarge?’ Dessie still wasn’t listening.

‘Who what was?’

‘The detective in the jacks.’

‘What do I care who was in the bloody jacks?’

‘It was Jimmy Lynch, keeping the Free State’s toilets safe.’

It was about as far from Special Branch work as you could get.

Billy Donnelly wasn’t feeling great. He could take his drink but he’d drunk himself senseless through most of that afternoon. He couldn’t remember what he’d said to his barman when they opened the pub, but Derek Blaney had walked out and said he wasn’t coming back. He would, but he’d leave it a couple of days to make his point. The dreary, familiar campery in the bar that night had made Billy want to take the lot of them by the scruff of the neck and kick the shite out of them till they said something, anything different. He felt he’d been listening to the same empty conversations all his life and what lay ahead was just the same thing, over and over, night after night after night. And he was right. But he had drunk himself into a stupor and out the other side now. He was sober and wished he wasn’t. The knock on the door was the last thing he needed, but he had no anger left to hurl at the unwanted visitor. He opened the door. Stefan Gillespie stood there.

Billy didn’t bother to protest. He hadn’t got the energy. He walked back to the bar and sat down. He left Stefan to close the door as he came in.

‘I thought we were done.’

‘I didn’t.’ Stefan sat down opposite him.

‘Tell me about the letter.’

‘There wasn’t a letter.’

‘Tell me about Jimmy Lynch then.’

‘He’s a gobshite, the same kind of gobshite you are.’

‘He put you inside.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Eighteen months hard labour. You were out in six.’

‘I was lucky.’

‘No one’s that lucky. Jimmy put you in there and Jimmy got you out.’

‘That what he said?’

‘What did he want?’

‘I thought he was just doing his job, locking up queers.’

‘Then maybe I should take a leaf out of Jimmy’s book. I’ll put in a report that you approached me in a public urinal. I’ll have Dessie MacMahon back me up on it. It’ll be the usual thing, gross indecency. It’ll be your third time.’

Billy didn’t answer. He was remembering those six months.

‘Three years at least, maybe more with the wrong judge.’

Stefan waited for it to sink in.

‘That’s hard labour too. You’re not getting any younger.’

‘You’re not Jimmy Lynch, Mr Gillespie.’

‘I won’t break your arms first if that’s what you mean. But I will put you away if I have to.’

‘What the hell does it matter to you? Vincent’s dead, isn’t he?’

‘What was in the letter Vincent sent you?’

There was nowhere for Billy Donnelly to go; he had to talk now.

He sat back, remembering that night.

‘All right the Blueshirts didn’t just turn up. They wanted Vincent.’

‘I’d worked that out.’

‘There was a feller he’d been with. He’d written Vincent some letters. The sort of things people write and wish to God they never had. Vincent was mad about him. From up the arse to true fucking love! Jesus! He wasn’t just anybody, this feller, either. I don’t know what happened but he wanted the letters back. The Blueshirts came to get them. All Vincent had to do was hand them over, but he couldn’t see it was your man who sent the bastards in the first place. He thought he was protecting the feller, hiding his fecking billiedoos. So he ran. He stuck the letters in a bloody envelope and sent them to me! They wouldn’t look in the same place twice! That’s what he wrote.’

‘So did he come back here that night?’

‘No. The letters came, a couple of days later, but he never did.’

‘Where are they now?’

Billy Donnelly still didn’t want to say it.

‘You know, don’t you, Billy?’

‘I gave them to Sergeant Lynch. I don’t know how he found out they were here, but he did. I’d kept them. I did think Vincent would come back. I should have just put them on the fire, but I couldn’t. They didn’t mean a thing to the man who wrote them but they meant everything to him. Jimmy Lynch turned up about a year later, asking about Vincent, about the letters. It didn’t matter what I said; he knew. So he put me away. I took six months of it. For what? Vincent was dead all that time. But then, I still thought he — ’

‘Was Jimmy Lynch there that night, with the Blueshirts?’

‘No, he was fucking IRA before he was a Broy Harrier, wasn’t he? I don’t know who they were.’

‘What about the man who wrote the letters?’

‘There wasn’t a name. All I know is what Vincent told me. He was some sort of teacher, not a school teacher … it was the university. And the bastard was a priest.’

The train from Baltinglass arrived at Kingsbridge just after ten the next morning. It was barely a week till Christmas now. Tom had come to Dublin with his grandmother and grandfather and Stefan had a day off. It was a day to gaze at the windows of the shops in Grafton Street and O’Connell Street, to look at Christmas trees and Christmas lights, to buy the small presents they would put round the tree in the sitting room at Kilranelagh. A day to eat dinner in the restaurant in Clery’s and have tea at Bewley’s Cafe. And there would be a long time to spend looking in one window in particular, just to the left of the clock outside Clery’s, where the tricycle still sat, surrounded by glitter and tinsel, toy soldiers and dolls, tin drums and teddy bears.

Stefan and Tom were in Bewley’s when Dessie MacMahon found them that afternoon. Pretending they had something else to do, David and Helena were out Christmas shopping for Tom and Stefan; Tom and his father had been Christmas shopping for them too. It had involved another slow walk past Clery’s window, and a last look at the tricycle, which Tom had, with impressive resolution, persuaded himself Santy might not be able to bring all the way to Baltinglass. Dessie came over to the table with a cup and saucer and sat down. He poured himself some tea from the pot. It was thick, black and tepid, but nothing was undrinkable with enough sugar in it.

‘She’s been on the phone. That’s three times today.’

He eyed the coconut macaroon in the middle of the table.

‘You can have it if you want it, Dessie,’ said Tom.

‘Well, if it’s going begging.’ He didn’t wait to be asked twice.

‘I think she’s a bit pissed off with you. Jesus, that tea’s disgusting!’

‘I can’t do anything now, Dessie. I’ll phone her later.’

‘Well, she’s at the synagogue in Adelaide Road with Mr Field. Funeral arrangements and all that. That’s where she was going anyway.’

He got out a cigarette and lit it.

‘She was on about seeing you.’

The grin on Dessie’s face was irritating Stefan now.

‘Did she have something to say?’

‘I should think that one’s always got something to say.’ He winked at Tom. Tom laughed, though he hadn’t got any idea what he was laughing at.

Stefan hadn’t thought about Hannah all day, but now she was in his head. He wanted to see her, and he wanted to see her as himself, not as Detective Sergeant Gillespie. This was who he was, sitting here with his son. The rest was only what he did. They still knew almost nothing about each other. And he was sure she must want to see him too. That’s why she kept phoning. There were two hours before he had to meet his mother and father at Kingsbridge Station. He looked at the bill on the plate beside him and fished in his pocket for some shillings and a half crown. When he got up to leave with Tom, Dessie stayed where he was. He called over the waitress.

‘Can you freshen this pot up, darling? It’s stewed to buggery.’

The tram to Adelaide Road was another part of Tom’s day in Dublin; sitting upstairs, looking at the streets and the people, was its own entertainment. As they walked past the terraced houses to the synagogue it started to rain. Hannah was waiting on the steps of the big red and white brick building.

‘This is Tom. Tom, this is Hannah.’

‘Hello.’ Tom looked slightly sheepish; he wasn’t used to new people.

Hannah smiled, sensing his awkwardness.

‘It’s lovely to meet you, Tom. Are you having a good day?’

‘Yes. We’ve been to Clery’s.’

‘Looking at toys? Well, you would be just now, wouldn’t you?’

Tom’s expression was very serious. ‘Were you at Clery’s at all?’

‘Yes, lots. I can’t remember the last time though.’

‘Did you ever see the bike?’

‘I don’t think I did, no.’

‘It’s in the window, right by the clock. It’s a tricycle.’

‘Will I have a look next time I’m up there?’

Tom thought she should. She glanced at Stefan and winked. She already knew about the tricycle. Her eyes seemed very bright as Stefan looked at her. Tom’s nervousness had suddenly gone and he was smiling. He liked her. The rain was falling harder now. Hannah took Tom’s hand.

‘Come on, you’ll both be soaked,’ she laughed. ‘We all will!’

She hurried up the steps with Tom. Stefan followed, running. The rain was beating down. As they entered, he instinctively reached to take his hat off. Hannah touched his arm, smiling, pushing it back on his head.

‘It’s the other way round. Just leave it on!’

Tom looked at the dark interior. It was full of unfamiliar things, but it was enough like a church to feel familiar all the same. It smelt like one too.

‘Is it a church, Daddy?’

‘Yes, a Jewish church.’

Tom watched as several children walked past, wet from the rain.

‘I’m sorry, I forgot you were having the day off.’ Hannah spoke more quietly. ‘I hope I didn’t mess it up. You should have ignored me!’

‘It’s fine.’ He felt she seemed slightly more awkward now. Perhaps it was just being in the synagogue, perhaps it was the sense that they were still somehow standing on the bridge between what was personal and what was professional in their relationship. More children hurried past them. Tom was looking at the dark interior more closely now, the rows of pews and the high gallery above, but his eyes kept coming back to the children, his own age and older, now closely packed in front of the Torah Ark, by a branched candelabrum, laughing as the elderly rabbi told then the Hanukkah story.

‘You can go and listen,’ said Hannah gently.

Tom looked up at Stefan doubtfully.

‘Come on.’ She took his hand again and walked him towards the other children. Stefan followed. He could see Tom’s doubts had already gone.

‘This is Hanukkah,’ she continued. ‘It’s about a bad, bad king and the people who kicked him out and sent him packing. We light candles to remember that.’ She caught the rabbi’s eye, and pushed Tom gently forward.

‘And what’s your name?’ asked the rabbi.

Tom looked back at his father for reassurance. Stefan nodded.

‘It’s Tom, Father.’

The other children giggled. Tom didn’t understand why, but it felt welcoming and good-humoured enough, so he just smiled back at them.

‘All right, Tom. First the battle, then the miracle. Well, if God’s going to take the trouble to give us a miracle he expects us to put some work in too. That’s the battle. I think it’s fair, don’t you? Now, we have a wicked king, a very wicked king, more wicked than you could ever imagine. Antiochus was his name.’ The others hissed and booed. ‘And we have a hero, Judah the Maccabee, fighting the evil king, to save Jerusalem. He was a brave man and his soldiers were brave, but there were only a few of them, and at first Antiochus chased them all into the hills with his great army.’

‘Like Michael Dwyer and Sam MacAllister,’ said Tom. ‘They hid in the mountains behind our farm, when they were fighting the redcoats.’

‘Yes, it was just like that, Tom. And like Michael Dwyer, Judah and his men had no weapons, no food, no shelter. In Jerusalem the wicked king’s soldiers were eating the people out of house and home and putting up statues of the Greek gods in the Temple of the Lord.’ More hisses and boos; Tom joined in. ‘Everyone thought the war was over and Antiochus had won!’

Hannah and Stefan had walked a little way back towards the doors.

‘He’s like you,’ she said quietly.

‘Is that a good thing?’

‘I wouldn’t say it’s so bad.’

They were silent for several seconds. She seemed reluctant to speak.

‘You wanted to talk to me, Hannah?’

‘I wanted to know if there was any more news?’

‘There’s nothing new.’ The question had been surprisingly vague. It was the same question she asked every day. After three phone calls he had assumed she had something to tell him. And he wasn’t really sure she had forgotten about his day off. He knew there was something else going on.

‘I know you’re still not telling me everything, Stefan. I’m trying to understand that, but I’m also waiting for more. I think you owe me more.’

He was surprised, almost hurt. It sounded like she was using the fact that they had slept together as a lever. But as he looked into her deep eyes, the honesty and the openness told him instantly that she wasn’t. It was simply that she believed he owed her the truth, whatever that meant. And the part of him that wasn’t a policeman said she was right. But there was still something else, something different about her unfamiliar awkwardness.

‘Is something wrong?’ he asked, trying to read her face.

‘The thing is, I have to go. That’s why I needed to talk to you.’

She tried to throw the words away, as if they weren’t that important, but her face told a different story. She didn’t like what she was saying.

‘Go where?’

‘I have to leave Ireland.’

It was the last thing he expected to hear. There was no reason why Hannah shouldn’t leave Ireland, but it was out of step with everything that had happened since they met. All her attention had been on Susan Field.

‘You mean you’re going back to Palestine?’

‘Eventually, yes. I need to go to England. I have some work to do.’

It felt like a brush-off. She was only telling him part of it. He realised he hadn’t ever asked what she did. And she hadn’t told him. He realised how little he knew about her again. He knew about the death of her friend. He knew something about her childhood, from Susan’s letters and an hour in a pub. He knew there was a man in Palestine, Benny; a farm where they grew oranges. It wasn’t much. Perhaps she’d never intended him to know much.

‘Back to the oranges?’ he smiled, trying to make a joke of it.

‘What?’

‘Doesn’t your fiance grow oranges?’

She moved closer to him. This wasn’t easy for her. She wanted to tell him that he mattered to her. She wanted him to understand that there were reasons she had to go. But she couldn’t explain the reasons. Not now.

‘I’m sorry. I was never going to be home very long.’

‘I wish I’d known that.’

The sound of laughing children filled the synagogue.

He knew she had more to say. And he knew she wouldn’t say it.

‘I want to know what happens, Stefan.’

‘Yes, naturally. If you tell me where you are — ’

‘If you find anything, my father will be able to contact me.’

Now she wouldn’t even give him an address.

‘I’m not going because I want to, Stefan.’

‘When do you go?’

She took a moment to answer.

‘The day after tomorrow.’

‘And that’s that?’

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Could we see each other tonight?’

He took a deep breath and nodded; he was still surprised.

‘Thank you,’ she said, taking his hand.

He looked at her, not at all sure what to make of her behaviour, then all of a sudden he was conscious of the time and the train and his mother and father waiting at Kingsbridge Station. There wasn’t time to say any more.

‘I’ve got to get Tom to the station. My parents will be there.’

‘I’ll be at Neary’s tonight, Stefan.’ She let go of his hand.

They walked back towards the children, now gathered tightly round the menorah. The rabbi held the lighted shammus candle that sat between the eight others, four on each side, as he said the blessing. The Hebrew words were as unfamiliar to Stefan as to Tom, though Stefan had heard similar words spoken over Susan Field’s body. For Tom they were no less impenetrable than the Latin he heard at Mass; he happily assumed it was the same language he heard every Sunday. As the rabbi spoke he translated the words for Tom. ‘Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu.’ Blessed are you, Lord God. ‘Melekh ha’olam.’ King of the universe. ‘She’asah nisim la’avoteinu bayamim haheim baziman hazeh. Amein.’ Who wrought miracles for our fathers at this season long ago. Amen. He gave the shammus to the youngest children in turn, then to Tom, guiding his hand to the fifth candle; the others would remain unlit today. As the rabbi took the shammus and put it in the centre of the menorah, Tom crossed himself and bowed his head. The other children giggled good-naturedly again; he didn’t notice. Stefan rested his hand on his son’s shoulder. He knew who Tom’s silent prayer was for.

Hannah and Stefan sat in Neary’s again that night. It was only the second time they had been together like this. He knew it would be the last time too. She didn’t want to talk about leaving Ireland, or about where she was going, and he didn’t ask her. They were both conscious that there were things they weren’t saying and couldn’t say. Then quite unexpectedly, she asked him about Maeve. He was surprised that it made things easier. He told Hannah about the camping trip in the mountains and the night by the lakes at Glendalough. How he woke in the morning to find he was in the tent on his own with his two-year-old son. He knew what Maeve was doing. She was swimming in the lake. They had swum together the evening before. But when he went outside he couldn’t see her. It was midday before the body was found. He would never know whether it was the cold of the water, or cramp, or whether she had just swum too far. She had drowned. It was as sudden and as meaningless as that. He told the story of Maeve’s death well. He had told it too many times not to. Sometimes, even now, it felt as if it was a story, someone else’s story. He was barely aware that for most of the evening he spoke and she didn’t; she was more relaxed when she was listening. Several times she did begin to tell him something about Palestine and her failings as an orange grower, but then she laughed and stopped abruptly, as if she had thought better of it. She seemed to need to keep Ireland and Palestine apart. Neither of them wanted to talk about the future either, even about the next day. But it didn’t matter; what mattered was that they were together tonight. That was all they had now. When they left the pub, she put her arm through his. And he didn’t ask her if she was going home.

The next day Stefan Gillespie sat in the upstairs drawing room of a flat-fronted Georgian house at thirty-two Fitzwilliam Place. He hadn’t forgotten the conversation with Lieutenant Cavendish on the train to Baltinglass. He hadn’t forgotten that Dessie MacMahon watched Cavendish and another man searching Hugo Keller’s house two days after the abortionist left Ireland, or that Dessie had followed them to Fitzwilliam Place. Now that he had hit a dead end with Frances Byrne it was time to see what he could get out of the Military Intelligence operation no one else knew about, not even Dessie. The interest G2 had in Hugo Keller made sense from what Cavendish had told him, but Detective Sergeant Jimmy Lynch was something else, and it was Jimmy Lynch he kept bumping into in one way or another in this investigation. Lynch didn’t only connect to Keller, now he connected to Vincent Walsh.

A fire blazed in the grate and there was a Christmas tree in the window, hung with what were unmistakably the home-made decorations of young children. When Lieutenant Cavendish brought in a tray of tea, Stefan heard children’s voices and the pit-a-pat of feet running up to the next floor. Neither Cavendish nor the older man was in uniform. They had seemed only slightly surprised to find him on the doorstep. Cavendish did ask how he had found them but Stefan didn’t reply. It felt like a good idea to suggest it was something cleverer than Dessie MacMahon following them from Merrion Square. He had assumed he would find a military office; instead he was in Captain Gearoid de Paor’s home. It reminded him of what he had already worked out about the G2 operation; whatever it was, it wasn’t officially sanctioned. That was his leverage. The lieutenant sprawled on a horsehair sofa that hadn’t seen much horsehair in a long time. Stefan shifted uncomfortably in an armchair with a broken spring. The older man, de Paor, sat by the fire with a cigarette that he didn’t seem to smoke; he was tall and dark, with a neatly trimmed moustache. He had been writing Christmas cards as Stefan walked into the room. He listened to what the detective told him as if he couldn’t quite understand what it had to do with him, but the amiable smile didn’t fool Stefan. He watched the man’s eyes; they were less amiable. If there was anything useful to be found, it would be extracted and filed.

‘Intriguing stuff, but I’m not sure what we can offer you, Sergeant.’

‘You can tell me more about Hugo Keller, sir.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘I wouldn’t mind starting with where he is.’

‘We can’t do any better than you there. Germany’s as far as we’ve got. He’s of no real interest to us now he’s out of the country anyway.’

‘If Susan Field didn’t come out of his clinic alive, that’s murder.’

‘I suppose it would be.’

‘You don’t seem very bothered, Captain.’

‘If he’s responsible for the woman’s death then he should pay the price. Whether he is or not, I haven’t got the faintest idea. That’s your show. Two bodies makes it all rather more complicated of course. Not much of a connection between the man and the woman from what you’re saying. But when all’s said and done, it’s got nothing to do with Military Intelligence.’

‘Maybe not, but it’s got something to do with Special Branch.’

The two officers looked at him. Cavendish stopped sprawling.

‘Detective Sergeant Lynch went to considerable trouble to get hold of some letters that belonged to Vincent Walsh,’ continued Stefan. ‘Jimmy was happy to perjure himself and put a friend of Walsh’s in Mountjoy in the process. That was more than a year after Walsh disappeared. Now he’s turning Dublin upside down for Keller’s memoirs, or whatever it is he keeps in his little book. I assume that’s why you two were searching Merrion Square. Jimmy’s not so dumb he wouldn’t have found it if it was there by the way. I keep bumping into Jimmy, that’s the thing. I don’t know why.’

‘I can’t help you there,’ smiled de Paor.

‘No one’s helping me very much anywhere. As far as my inspector’s concerned, exactly the opposite. So I have to help myself.’

‘That’s admirable, Sergeant. I still don’t see — ’

‘I’d like to find Hugo Keller.’

‘Easier said than done now, I imagine.’

‘So what’s in it, Captain? The book.’ Stefan wasn’t going to let go.

De Paor lit another cigarette that he wouldn’t smoke. He looked across at Lieutenant Cavendish, who shrugged. The captain said nothing.

‘Look, Keller’s door is where my investigation into Susan Field’s death stops,’ continued Stefan. ‘It’s a dead end. But it’s a very busy one. It’s got Special Branch pulling Keller out of a Garda cell and dumping a woman they don’t know at a Magdalene Laundry. It’s got the director of the National Museum driving Dublin’s favourite abortionist to Dun Laoghaire after a Nazi shindig at the Shelbourne. It’s got detectives beating up all sorts of people, including other detectives. And it’s got Military Intelligence breaking into crime scenes and following Special Branch men all round Dublin, not to mention me. Now whatever Jimmy Lynch is up to, you don’t really expect me to believe you’ve got orders to spy on Special Branch, do you? I think you’re doing it off your own bat. Or have I got it all wrong?’

The captain threw his cigarette into the fire and stood up.

‘Do you think there’s going to be a war, Sergeant?’

‘Are we expecting the English back?’

‘In Europe, I mean.’

‘Not according to Herr Hitler. Isn’t that the last thing he wants?’

‘Your family’s German, Mr Gillespie.’

Stefan was surprised. It was clear they had checked up on him.

‘It’s always useful to know who people are, Sergeant.’

‘I see. Well, my grandmother was German.’

‘You follow these things?’

‘Up to a point, Captain.’

‘So is it the last thing Herr Hitler wants?’

‘I’d say that depends who he’s talking to,’ smiled Stefan.

Cavendish laughed. ‘Spot on!’

‘And what do you think about the Nazis?’ continued the captain. Stefan was conscious he was the one who was being asked questions now. ‘Do you have an opinion?’

‘My mother still gets Christmas cards from her cousins. For the last two years they’ve come with swastikas on them. She doesn’t put them up. I’m not looking for Hugo Keller because he’s a Nazi. That’s his business.’

‘Everywhere there are Germans, there’s a Nazi Party,’ said de Paor, now turning to look out towards the street. ‘We’ve got our own here, as you know, run by Herr Doktor Adolf Mahr, when he’s not doing a thoroughly admirable job on the archaeology front, as director of the National Museum. You were at their Weinachsfest bash, of course, at the Shelbourne.’

‘I didn’t get an invitation though.’

‘Maybe next year.’

‘I’m not sure I couldn’t find something better to do.’

‘Everyone likes the flags and the uniforms, don’t they, Mr Gillespie? We’ve a bit of a soft spot for all that ourselves, trench coats and Sam Browne belts. But there’s a little bit more to it as far as the Nazi Party is concerned. Every German who’s living in Ireland, working, studying, is expected to belong to the Party. Choice is not an option. There’s the Hitler Youth too, just like the Boy Scouts they say, lots of hiking and cooking sausages on an open fire. But you don’t join the Party for the craic. I’m not so sure the craic would be that good. There are jobs to be done. You have to earn your keep.’

‘And what was Keller, the Party abortionist?’ asked Stefan.

‘When you take away the cultural evenings and the women’s baking circle, it’s all about information. The first thing is information about Germans in Ireland. If they’re not in the Party, why aren’t they in the Party? If they’re against the Party, who are they, who do they spend their time with, who are their friends, what family have they got back in the fatherland? Then there’s all the stuff about us. Who’s who? Who thinks Adolf Hitler is the cat’s pyjamas? Who thinks he’s a loudmouthed gobshite? Who thinks the new Germany’s heaven on earth? Who thinks it’s the road to hell? Who wants the government closer to Germany? Who wants to keep quiet ties across the channel? Where are the socialists and communists? If the time came, who’d plant the bombs below while they dropped them from the sky?’

‘You mean O’Duffy and his Blueshirts? They’re finished surely?’

‘Kaput as our friends would have it. No, the Blueshirts are old hat. They never counted for much anyway, did they? It’s the IRA that’s cosying up to the Nazis now. De Valera may have forgotten that England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity, but they certainly haven’t. Dev may have dumped the IRA but some of the friends he left behind have got their eyes on the war no one thinks will happen. Mahr’s probably got a longer list of those fellers than we have. Not that you’d want to be heard saying it in polite society.’

‘So you’re spying on the spies,’ said Stefan.

‘I’m sure Herr Mahr would be shocked, genuinely shocked, to hear you use the word spy. I’ve had dinner with him several times. He’s a man with a great love for Ireland. And a real admiration for Dev too. They all think there’s something coming down the road though, any Nazi you speak to, and by the time the brandy bottle’s been round the table a few times you get a whiff of it. And somewhere what’s coming means England getting its just deserts. Mahr is doing what he’s meant to do, collecting information and sending it home. And I’m sure he feels he has got the interests of both Germany and his newly adopted home at heart.’

‘And Keller was a part of all this?’

‘Keller’s a different kettle of fish, Sergeant. I doubt he’s any more of a Nazi than he needs to be. Information is a business for him. He’s earned a good living here providing certain services the state prohibits. Along the way he’s collected a lot of information, about all sorts of people who’ve availed of those services. Abortion’s the main thing, but there are others, from the simple provision of contraceptive devices to treating sexual diseases you might be reluctant to refer to your own doctor. Herr Keller didn’t come cheap, so a lot of the people he dealt with matter. But that’s not all. A lot of people owed him favours. Blackmail breeds blackmail and what you can’t get that way you can pay for. There’s a market for everything.’

‘So he was selling information to Special Branch too?’

‘Let’s just say there was some you-scratch-my-back in play.’

‘It’s all a bit beyond Jimmy Lynch, isn’t it, Captain de Paor?’

‘I’m sure it is. You need to get the tail and the dog in the right order of wagging however. Keller wasn’t working for Lynch, Lynch was working for Keller.’

‘And no one in Special Branch knows?’

It was Cavendish who shook his head and answered.

‘I’m sure Keller fed him enough information to keep it all sweet. So if anyone asked Lynch about Keller he could say he was his pet informant.’

Stefan took this in. It raised a lot more questions about Jimmy Lynch.

‘So how far would he have gone to protect Hugo Keller?’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time he’s buried someone in the mountains,’ continued the lieutenant. ‘He pulled the trigger in the execution of two RIC men in Cork in 1920. During the Civil War, he shot a Free State soldier outside Portlaoise. Those are the ones for publication. Part of Detective Sergeant Lynch’s proud war record. But there are others. There was a lad outside Mullingar, who was supposed to have told the police about an IRA ambush; that was mistaken identity. And a seventy-year-old farmer in Kildare who had a row with him in a pub. I don’t think he says much about those two now. They just disappeared. The bodies were never found.’

Stefan shrugged. ‘So if something did go wrong in Keller’s clinic?’

Cavendish finished the thought in his head about Susan Field.

‘Well, he wouldn’t do better than DS Lynch to get rid of a body.’

As he walked down the steps to Fitzwilliam Place Stefan was no nearer finding Hugo Keller. And if he did find him, somewhere in Germany, no one was going to send him back to Ireland to answer any questions; certainly not the German police. But if Keller wasn’t in Ireland someone was, someone who had been working for Hugo Keller as a paid informant, and someone who also knew about the letters Vincent Walsh was carrying the night he died. There didn’t seem to be any connection between Keller and Vincent Walsh, but there was a connection between Jimmy Lynch and Keller, and between Jimmy Lynch and Walsh. If the investigation into Susan Field’s death stopped at the door to Hugo Keller’s clinic, the next door along led straight into Garda Special Branch at Dublin Castle. However, it wasn’t much more promising than the first. If no one would let him speak to a priest, what were the chances of investigating a detective in Special Branch for corruption and maybe murder? The Branch was a law unto itself within the Gardai. It was full of ex-IRA men now, whose methods reflected that, and whose strongest loyalties were to each other. You took your life in your hands taking on men like that. There was plenty of room out there in the Dublin Mountains.