A June of Ordinary Murders (22 page)

One of the coffins was proportioned to take the body of an adult. The other was made for a child. The men laid them together on the trestle and then lifted them to the side of an open grave that had already accommodated six other burials during the morning.

They looped ropes around the coffins and lowered them into the ground on top of those put down earlier in the day. The plain-clothes policeman did not descend from the side-car. When the coffins had disappeared from sight and the ropes had been retrieved, he leaned down and thrust a sheet of paper and a pencil at the foreman labourer who signed it without a word.

The police driver wheeled his car and started back along the route by which he had come. The driver of the closed cart resumed his seat and followed.

Later in the morning, an old priest with an altar boy came to the open grave and sprinkled holy water onto the coffins. He prayed, as he did every morning, for the souls of the deceased, whose names he did not know and whose passing was not of significance to the world.

SEVENTEEN

Officers Martin Collins and Eddie Shanahan started their investigations into Sunday night's violence with the Mecklenburgh Street attack on Vinny Cussen's muscleman, Tommy ‘Tiger' McKnight.

Had Detective Inspector ‘Duck' Boyle not stood on his dignity and assigned the experienced Detective Tony Swann to the gangland attacks, things might have worked out differently. Had it been Swann who went to the Meath Hospital to take the statement from Tommy McKnight, lying in the casualty ward with multiple broken bones and a fractured skull, it is possible that a more circumspect course of police action might have followed. But since the inexperienced Shanahan and Collins were out of their territory and out of their depth, they did as good policemen should do. They acted on their initiative.

It was a serious mistake, if one easily made by novices.

At about the time that Swallow and Lafeyre were examining the woman's body at Portobello, Shanahan and Collins arrived at the Meath Hospital, untroubled in their certainty that even if they found him conscious, the victim would assure them that he had fallen down stairs or been kicked by a horse. But when they were led to his bedside by the heavy-set nurse in charge of the ward, they were greeted by the sight of McKnight, bloodied and bandaged, his split lips framing a jagged array of dental fragments.

‘We've had to fill this fellow with laudanum.' The nurse's tone was unsympathetic. ‘He was drunk, of course, when he got here. I don't know what happened to him but it seems there was a fight. He was in pain. Nobody in the place could get a moment's peace with him shouting and bawling all night.'

Suddenly, McKnight began to moan loudly. He tried to join his bruised hands together as in prayer, but he failed the test of coordination so that his arms fell crossways over his chest like an Egyptian mummy.

‘Jesus, I'm in agony,' he muttered.

The nurse thrust her face aggressively up to the bandaged and bloodied head.

‘Ah, give over your moaning and groaning. You're not too bad. If you'll do what you're told you'll be fine when the wounds heal up.'

Then, striking a fractionally softer tone, she added, ‘I'll give you something to knock out the discomfort for a bit now. And there's two young gentlemen here to talk to you.'

He moaned again.

The nurse spooned a dose of laudanum into a cup and put it to his broken lips. He swallowed without resistance.

‘That should keep him calm for a while,' she said flatly. ‘Don't stay with him too long. I've got work to do.'

She left the two policemen at the bedside. It took a minute or two for the drug to take effect. McKnight gradually relaxed against the pillow. He smiled at Collins.

‘Yer … very good to be here wid me … Father…' McKnight's eyes focused on Collins who, despite the heat of the day, was wearing a dark suit that might easily cause him to be mistaken for a clergyman.

Shanahan stifled his mirth. Collins was a Presbyterian without any knowledge of Roman Catholic confession. Collins saw the joke too, but glanced around furtively, sensing opportunity. An elderly patient in the next bed was asleep. The nurse was nowhere to be seen.

‘Eh … Yes, my son,' Collins muttered quietly, ‘… tell me what crimes you have committed. But first tell me who inflicted these injuries on you.' He indicated to Shanahan to have his notebook and pencil ready.

‘It was Charlie Vanucchi and his lads, Father,' the victim whispered urgently. ‘There was a few o' them. But it was Vanucchi who did the damage to me.'

‘And … ah … why were these men … I mean, are they known to you?'

‘The Vanucchi crowd are tryin' to take over everythin', Father … with Ces Downes gone … We caught two o' them across in Rutland Street last night and we done them over. Then Vanucchi and the others … just landed on me in Mecklenburgh Street, an' me goin' home, mindin' me own business.'

‘You're sure that's who it was?' Collins whispered. ‘Charlie Vanucchi?'

‘As sure as me own name, Father.'

Shanahan scribbled in his notebook.

‘Eh … Father … I need yer blessin'.' McKnight's voice struggled to achieve a tone of urgency. ‘I need th' abs … absolution…'

Collins waved his right hand up and down in a haphazard imitation of a blessing. ‘I … ah … bless thee and forgive thee…'

McKnight cocked his head and grinned stupidly at Shanahan. Shanahan nodded enthusiastically and stuck the notepad in front of McKnight while thrusting a pencil in his hand.

‘Sign there, like a good man,' he said softly.

‘Whas' it for?' McKnight asked.

‘Ah, it's just a form for the hospital.'

‘I can't write … never learned how.'

‘Well, just make an “X”.'

McKnight scrawled two intersecting lines with Shanahan's pencil, then he uttered a deep, terrible groan. There was a great exhalation of breath and his head fell forward, the jaw dropping open onto his chest.

‘Nurse!' Shanahan called. ‘Nurse, come quickly. Something's happened.'

The heavy-set nurse came running. She raised McKnight's head and checked the pupils of the open eyes between thumb and forefinger. Then she took his pulse. She turned to the two G-men, shaking her head.

‘He's dead. Oh dear God, I didn't expect this. It must have been heart failure … or a thrombosis. Wait here. I'll have to get the doctor.'

Had Collins and Shanahan, even at this stage, chosen to return to Exchange Court to take instructions or to seek advice, it is possible that the emerging debacle might have been avoided. But Shanahan believed he saw potential in the situation that had now presented itself. He drew Collins to one side.

‘Listen, do you realise we've just solved a murder? McKnight is dead and he's given us a signed statement. What we have here is what's called a dying declaration. And it identifies Charlie Vanucchi as his killer.'

Collins was inclined to be doubtful, but he too saw the possibilities in what had just unfolded. This was possibly a situation that a clever policeman could turn to his career advantage.

‘I don't know much about a dying declaration. How does it work?'

‘I'm not a bloody lawyer,' Shanahan responded, ‘but I know that it's admissible as evidence. You don't have to have the witness there in the box. Well, you can't, him being dead. But you can report what you heard him say and that's acceptable as evidence in court.'

He checked his pocket-watch. ‘Ces Downes's funeral is well over. They'll all be back drinking now, pouring out their grief. It's only a question of finding where they are.'

Collins figured that what Shanahan said made sense. Charlie Vanucchi would be a big fish to land. He could almost certainly be picked up at one or other of his drinking haunts in the Liberties in the aftermath of the funeral. They would have him in the cells at Exchange Court and charged by early afternoon and, with luck, lodged in the Bridewell by 5 o'clock.

Shanahan and Collins, with a significant feat of crime detection to their credit, would have a lengthy evening ahead for reflection in some suitably cool public house. In the longer term there would be commendations for good police work. There might even be something coming their way from the Commissioner's reward fund. The possibilities were considerable.

‘Let's start with Lawless's in the Coombe,' Shanahan suggested enthusiastically, making for the door.

They reckoned it the most likely location to find their suspect in the aftermath of the funeral. They were right.

What they did not think to reckon with was the presence, also in Lawless's, of upwards of twenty members of Charlie Vanucchi's gang who had decided to extend their grieving by alternating between two or three hostelries in the Coombe and Francis Street.

While the sense of mourning for Ces Downes was at least partly genuine, Charlie Vanucchi was also using the occasion to gather his loyalists for a show of force against his rival, Vinny Cussen. Vanucchi was planning to waste no time in establishing his credentials as the heir to Ces Downes's criminal network.

Nor did Collins and Shanahan reckon with the attendance in Lawless's also of up to a dozen of the Vanucchi faction's womenfolk, who had assembled partly in support of their men and partly to express their sense of loss at Ces's passing. Above all else they were present to benefit from the drink which was certain to flow on an occasion which combined the pain of bereavement with the exciting prospect of new business enterprises.

It took Shanahan and Collins little more than a quarter of an hour's brisk walking from the Meath Hospital to reach the Coombe. By the time they reached Lawless's they were perspiring in the day's heat, but the urgency of their mission was such that they did not hesitate or reconsider their proposed course of action.

They had pushed their way through the swing doors of the public house and were several paces into the saloon bar before they realised that something was seriously amiss. Instead of the early afternoon quiet, with a few regulars at the bar and, hopefully, their quarry at a table in the snug, the place was filled with a hubbub of conversation and a thick fog of tobacco smoke. Hoots of derision and angry curses fuelled by the abundance of alcohol began to rise from around the bar as the newcomers were recognised for what they were.

‘Bobbies. What're they doin' here?'

‘Bastards. No shaggin' manners. No respect for the dead.'

A young woman rose unsteadily from a table and stepped forward to spit on the sawdust floor in front of Collins.

‘G'wan, get outta here, the pair o' yiz. Yer not wanted … and ye should know it.'

Shanahan took a step backwards towards the door, but Collins saw that half a dozen men behind them had moved to block any line of retreat. Whatever Collins lacked in an instinct for danger was partly compensated for with courage and nerve.

‘Steady,' he told his colleague quietly, ‘there's only one way out of this now.'

Slowly, he opened his jacket. He drew it back with his left hand, revealing the Webley Bulldog revolver. He brought his right hand across his chest until his fingers brushed the metal butt.

‘We've no business with any of you here except Charlie Vanucchi,' he called loudly across the room.

There was a murmur of anger as Vanucchi rose from the wooden chair on which he had been seated by the back wall of the saloon. By now Shanahan had followed Collins's lead and the steel of his Webley jutted forward under the lapel of his coat.

‘Right, Charlie,' Collins said in what he hoped was a tone of authority, ‘we'll go outside for a chat.'

Charlie Vanucchi roared with laughter.

‘We will in my arse, Son. I'm here with friends on this very solemn and sad afternoon. We've just buried our dear friend and benefactor, Ces Downes, as you well know. So just fuck off outta' here with yer mate while you have the use o' yer fuckin' legs.'

Collins's right hand fastened on his gun. He moved forward.

The young policeman had taken just one step when the pint bottle hit his head, hurled from somewhere to his left. He staggered momentarily, trying to recover his balance when a heavy, wooden chair slammed into his back, propelling him forward. As he fell, a woman's leg shot out to trip him, bringing him violently down on the sawdust floor.

Now Shanahan's revolver was out.

In the corner of his eye he saw a youth lunging forward from the bar, a bottle raised in his right hand. He swung the gun backward and brought it hard across the young man's face. There was a sharp crack as the weapon connected with his cheek-bone.

Somebody kicked fiercely from behind at Shanahan's leg. He swung again, bringing the heavy revolver down hard on a shin-bone. A woman's face appeared before him, her hands reaching for his throat. He punched her squarely between the eyes and she fell, cursing. The room was in a roaring fury.

Shanahan saw Collins try to rise to his feet. Half a dozen men piled onto him, bringing him down again amid flying fists and boots. In spite of the blows raining in on him, Collins kept his grip on his revolver. Then Shanahan saw a man reach for the gun through the tangle of arms and legs.

Shanahan raised his own Webley towards the ceiling and fired twice.

The reports were like artillery rounds in the confined space. The concussion hit every eardrum across the room. Two clouds of white cordite swirled out over the heads of the crowd as plaster and laths began to shower from the ceiling where the slugs had penetrated. As the echoes of the shots died down there was an eerie silence.

Collins rose from the melee on the floor, his Webley still in his hand. He pushed his way to where Shanahan stood, wielding his gun across the room in an arc.

‘Hands in the air … hands in the air … every bloody one of you! I swear I'll fuckin' plug the first one that makes another move!'