A June of Ordinary Murders (13 page)

Swallow pointed an index finger to the frontal lobe above his own left eye.

‘Just here. You can see them in the photographs, round as a sixpence. They're entry wounds from a medium-calibre bullet. Dr Lafeyre recovered them. They're .38 calibre and I'll have possession of the two slugs. He found traces of cordite powder suggesting the use of low-propellant ammunition such as might be used for target practice. That would accord with the fact that the bullets didn't exit the victims' heads.'

A murmur ran around the group. Pencils flew across notebook pages.

‘These murders were premeditated and planned. This wasn't a case of someone being beaten to death with a weapon of opportunity. Everything that could assist in identification of the woman was removed. It seems likely that the mutilation of the eyes and face was a further effort to prevent or delay identification as well.

‘That's the essence of it. We've no witnesses that I know of. We‘ve got nothing to indicate a motive. We don't know why they were killed or even who they are. So it's going to be a steep, uphill climb, I'm afraid,'

He turned to Stephen Doolan. ‘Will you take up from there, Stephen?'

Doolan stood, taking a large notepad in his hand.

‘The bodies were reported to the police station at Chapelizod by a park-keeper. We organised ground searches at the scene. They came up with nothing of immediate significance. We have a few buttons and matchsticks. We located a set of wheel-tracks and some hoof-marks where a carriage appears to have come off the dirt track leading from Chesterfield Avenue. We took casts and measurements.'

Doolan nodded to a middle-aged constable across the room. ‘Would you tell us about the wheel-tracks, Matt?'

Constable Matt Culliton was one of the DMP's specialist officers who supervised the city's carriages and hired cars. He read from his notebook.

‘The ground was too dry to take any impression of depth from the carriage, but I have a measurement of the wheel span at 6 feet and 6 inches. So it was a big vehicle, like a brougham or a clarence. It wouldn't have been a side-car or a Ringsend Car.

‘The hoof-marks show just one horse drawing the vehicle, so it would have been moving fairly slowly. You wouldn't get much of a gallop even out of a strong animal drawing that kind of weight on its own.'

‘Thanks, Matt. Maybe that narrows it a bit.' Doolan turned a page on his notepad.

‘The house-to-house inquiries got under way fairly quickly. In some places we were out of DMP jurisdiction, so we had RIC men accompany us. We did every cottage and farmhouse between the Chapelizod Gate and the village in one direction, and every building between Chapelizod Gate and the Strawberry Beds in the other direction.

‘Mostly people hadn't heard the news at all. Nobody had information on any unusual activity. Nobody reported strangers passing through. Nobody heard any shots. That might be because of the low-propellant charge making less of a bang than conventional ammunition. We wanted any sightings of people with bloodied clothing, or people looking to change their clothing, that kind of thing.

‘So apart from the wheel-marks and hoof-marks, the inquiries on the scene haven't yielded anything,' he said. ‘We're putting on night patrols and rising patrols starting at 5 a.m. with the RIC. They'll stop and question everyone moving in the area. It's possible that some night workers or early risers might have seen something that could be useful.'

A glum silence hung across the room. There were no fish of any significance in the investigation net.

Swallow nodded to Pat Mossop.

‘Will you go through Dr Lafeyre's report for us please, Pat?'

Mossop detailed the injuries to the faces of the dead woman and child and Lafeyre's comments on the contents of the woman's stomach. He described the lividity marks on the underside of the bodies by which Lafeyre had confirmed Swallow's original conclusion that they had been killed at the copse of trees and that the bodies had not been moved after death.

He repeated Lafeyre's conclusions about the weapon that had fired the fatal shots, then he briefly set out the details of the dead boy.

When he had finished, the silence again enveloped the room.

‘Well, it's not great. But there's enough to get started on,' said Stephen Doolan, getting to his feet. ‘Tell us what you want done now.'

‘There are a few obvious things.' Swallow said. ‘There isn't anybody on the missing persons list that's an immediate match, but we should have all divisions checking boarding-houses and hotels for guests who haven't returned. They came in from Wales so we have to assume they were somewhere around Dublin for a time. There were no personal effects left with the woman's body, so it's possible something unusual might turn up in one of the pawn shops, maybe a watch or a ring or some jewellery.'

His mind went back momentarily to the scene by the Chapelizod Gate and the two bodies stripped of anything that might help to give them names or identities. It added a particular dimension of obscenity, almost as if the victims had been left naked.

‘Extend the house-to-house inquiries to the streets around the main park gate leading to the city as well. We've checked the exit through the Chapelizod Gate, but the carriage could have come in through any of the gates to the park.'

He gestured to Matt Culliton, the constable who had measured the carriage-tracks.

‘Go across to Hutton's, the coach-makers in the Coombe, and see if you can get a precise match for that wheel span. They might be able to tell you a bit more about the make, weight and shape of the carriage we're looking for.

‘We'll get a general request out to all stations, including the RIC, to see what can be got out of local informants. As you know, any scrap of information, no matter how insignificant, comes back to the Book Man.'

Swallow saw Mossop's narrow shoulders droop.

The mood was gloomy. Pat Mossop was an incurable optimist. Swallow knew that when the cheery Belfast man lost heart it was a serious sign. He thought for a moment about telling the conference of Lafeyre's proposed experiment in constructing a face on the dead woman's skull, but on balance he decided against it. It would raise hopes unreasonably. Harry Lafeyre might believe in Professor Hiss and his techniques, but with the fates running hard against him, Swallow was not going to allow himself to fall victim to reckless optimism.

NINE

By the time Lafeyre had completed taking the dead woman's facial casts, the second day-shift of the Dublin Metropolitan Police were well into their tour of duty. It would stretch from 2 p.m. until 10 o'clock in the evening.

With no investigative leads worth talking about, Swallow tried to take some comfort from the fact that the not inconsiderable resources of the city's police system were now focused on the murders at the Chapelizod Gate.

Singly or in pairs, constables and sergeants worked their beats or manned their fixed posts. Every officer had the details of what was now being described as a dead woman and boy. Across the city, under the hot June sun, ladies and maids, cab drivers and tram conductors, pawnbrokers and porters, holiday-makers and visitors to the city were quizzed.

Had anyone's attention fallen, for any reason, on an adult with a child? Did anyone know, perhaps, of a father or mother and child now missing from home? Was there any suspicious activity that might be linked to the brutality that had been discovered at the Chapelizod Gate of the Phoenix Park?

At the mail-packet pier at Kingstown, the G-Division detectives who monitored each sailing began the questioning of crew members who had worked the crossings from Holyhead in recent days. In the shipping company's office, behind the pier, a sergeant sat beside a senior clerk who had started ploughing though the receipt books in order to establish the date when the tickets found in the murder victim's shoe had been used.

Late in the evening, as he sat at his desk at Exchange Court, it struck Swallow that with Harriet's examinations over he still had no opportunity to find out how she had fared. She would wonder why he had not come to the training college on the previous afternoon, as arranged. On the other hand, he knew she would not be alarmed. She had become accustomed to the unpredictability of her brother's work.

Almost at the same moment, he remembered that they had an arrangement to meet on Sunday evening at the Royal Hibernian Academy.

Harriet was planning to travel into the city to attend the opening of an exhibition of new works by the artist Stella Purcell. It was one of dozens of events timed to coincide with the run up to the Jubilee.

Swallow was looking forward to the exhibition. Miss Purcell's portraits were highly regarded. He also hoped the occasion might provide an opportunity to learn a little more about his younger sister's friends and the company she was keeping.

He calculated that if he pushed hard on the investigation he would be in the clear to keep the rendezvous at the Academy. Otherwise, it was a question of sending an early cancellation telegram to Harriet at the training college. But it was important to talk to her. He worked through the afternoon, reviewing Pat Mossop's notes in the murder book and turning over every detail of Harry Lafeyre's post-mortem reports.

Some time after 8 o'clock, with Exchange Court virtually empty of personnel, the duty constable at the ABC telegraph room brought him a message. It originated from the sergeant who had been sent to the mail-packet office to oversee the checking of the victim's tickets.

The tickets had been tracked by number. They were issued at the sales office at Holyhead on the previous Wednesday. The time of issue was estimated at half an hour before the departure of the Kingstown mail packet at 9 a.m. And it was 15 minutes after the arrival of the morning train from Liverpool via Chester. The timings made it likely, although not certain, that the woman and child had travelled from Chester, and possibly from Liverpool.

At least it narrowed the immediate field of survey, Swallow reflected. They had a particular train and a particular mail-packet crossing on which to concentrate in the search for possible witnesses.

‘Ensure officers questioning crews have this information,' he telegraphed in response. ‘Seeking reports of either man or woman, aged about 25 to 30, and boy, 8 to 9 years. Details also to British Railway Police for circulation to railway staff, ticket inspectors, porters etc. on lines to Holyhead.'

He left his desk shortly after 9 o'clock and stepped out into Exchange Court. The heat of the day caused the alley to stink even more than usual and there was no stirring in the rank evening air. The oppressive atmosphere did little to raise his spirits as he set off to pay his respects to the dead.

TEN

Swallow had grappled with the question of attending Ces Downes's wake as he worked through the afternoon at Exchange Court.

In keeping with Dublin tradition, the dead woman would be laid out at her house in Francis Street. There would be a bedside vigil until the corpse would be brought to the church or taken directly for burial. Since the city authorities did not allow the cemeteries to operate on Sundays it would be Monday before the mortal remains of Cecilia Downes would be put in the earth.

Part of his brain told him to stay away. It would be a gathering at which drink would flow freely. Every significant criminal in the city would make it his business to be seen there. There would be tensions and bad temper, and perhaps worse.

The other part of his reasoning told Swallow that with so many of the city's criminals gathered together, Pisspot Ces Downes's wake would be a likely place to pick up whatever whispers might be going about in connection with the murders at the Chapelizod Gate. On balance, there was possibly more to be gained than risked in going to pay his respects.

There was also the fact that he had known the dead woman over most of his 20 years as a crime detective. It was not as if there was any affection or respect in the relationship, but the principles governing attendance at Irish funerals did not take account of such considerations. Even a slight acquaintance with the deceased generated an obligation to put in an appearance.

He walked past Christ Church into High Street and Cornmarket and then turned into Francis Street. Crossing the junction with Swift's Alley he could hear raised voices drifting up the street from where groups of mourners had spilled out from the house onto the pavement. As he drew nearer, a wave of tobacco smoke, sweat and alcohol came up at him on the clammy evening air.

From the moment that her death had been announced, the superintendent of the A district had assigned a pair of men to watch Ces Downes's house from a discreet distance. Swallow saw the short capes and the blackened night badges of the two constables in a shop doorway across the street.

He anticipated the noisy chorus of recognition as he drew closer to the drinking mourners. In the evening dusk he could make out that there were perhaps 30 people on the street, gathered in small groups.

‘Ah sure, Sergeant Swallow, is it yerself?'

‘Good man, Joe, ye've come to do the right thing by poor oul' Ces.'

‘G'wan inside there, Misther Swalla'… and get yourself a drink for the night that's in it.'

There was hardly one of them that he could not name. These were not the decent hard-working people he knew across the Dublin Liberties who struggled hard to make a living and to raise their families well. These were not the tradesmen, the shopkeepers, the brewers, the weavers, the tram workers, the cabmen, the stokers, the stall-keepers or the general labourers who underpinned the economy of the city.

These were brutalised, cunning and dangerous criminals. He detested them all. They were knife men, robbers, prostitutes, house breakers, pimps, receivers, burglars and petty thieves – the detritus of the city's slums. Some of them had done jail time on his evidence. He recognised hard men who had come at him in the past with fists and, in one instance, with a stiletto. Swallow's baton strike was faster. The man never fully recovered the use of his right hand.