A June of Ordinary Murders (43 page)

THIRTY-FIVE

The modest prosperity of the town of Maryborough was founded upon its location at the intersection of the main roads connecting Dublin with the cities of Cork and Limerick.

Lying 50 miles west of Dublin in the flat midland countryside, its central location also made it an important stop for the Great Southern and Western Railway Company. On any given day, thanks to the organisational genius of the company, it was now possible to take any one of up to a dozen trains from the King's Bridge terminus in Dublin to Maryborough and to return before midnight.

Swallow's plan was to take the 10 o'clock morning train from the city, arriving at Maryborough at 11.20. From there they would hire a car and driver to take them to Greenhills House.

Lafeyre was still uncomfortable about having abandoned the planned outing to Bray. Lily's reaction to the change of plan had not been positive. But a picnic lunch in the countryside was compensation of a sort, he reasoned. He knew the area around Maryborough from childhood. If the good weather held up they would picnic on the Heath, a scenic stretch of common land which they would have to cross on their way to the orphanage.

Swallow reckoned they should aim to arrive at Greenhills House at about 1 o'clock, by which time staff and inmates might have had their lunch. Hopefully, whoever would be in charge would be sufficiently impressed by his purported authority to enable him to examine the orphanage records.

They would be back at Maryborough in time to catch the last train to Dublin. He knew the mission to Greenhills was something of a wild shot, but he had a sense that if he could learn about Sarah Hannin's early life it would answer at least some questions. One maxim he had always followed was that when somebody put up obstacles to seemingly harmless information it was invariably worth a policeman's time to get around them.

Swallow and Maria rose before 8 o'clock. In spite of having partaken liberally of Lafeyre's hospitality the night before, along with the brandy he had shared with Charlie Vanucchi, he felt refreshed and alert. His dream of Harriet and James O'Donnell quickly faded.

The clear morning sky indicated another hot day. He washed, shaved and dressed in a light suit whose comfortable fit concealed the Webley Bulldog in its shoulder-holster. Maria went downstairs and helped Carrie the housekeeper to prepare the picnic basket.

Shortly before 9 o'clock, Lafeyre and Lily arrived to collect them in the brougham. The streets were quiet. Shops and offices were not yet busy. By the time the party reached King's Bridge, though, the day was warming.

The railway terminus was quiet too. Swallow bought first-class return tickets to Maryborough while Lafeyre, Lily and Maria waited by the platform. Beyond the ticket-barrier, the engine hissed and rumbled as the driver and engineer went through their checks.

Coming from the ticket office, Swallow's eye caught a shadow moving behind the pillars at the entrance to the terminus. He had an impression of a tall man with a Derby-style hat. Then he was gone from sight.

The train to Maryborough would have stops at Naas, Kildare town and Portarlington. They took the first-class carriage at the front and settled down on the leather banquettes, Lafeyre carefully placing the picnic basket on the seat beside him. On the stroke of 10 o'clock, the train shuddered and started to move out of the sheds into the morning sunlight.

In spite of the serious purpose of their journey, Swallow began to feel a boyish sense of outing. His spirits lifted as the train picked up speed, taking them out beyond the drabness of the city.

The countryside was busy. Farm workers were scything the summer grass or piling it with pitchforks into high-sided carts. Before Kildare, the open plain of the Curragh was a green carpet. They saw a string of racehorses at exercise, loping along in the distance like miniatures from a child's toy-box.

Swallow strained to see how far his eyes could bring him towards Newcroft. His mother would be at her day's work in the business by now. The thought disquieted him. Very soon he would have to square up to the issue of how much longer she could run the place on her own.

‘The Hill of Allen,' he told his companions, pointing northward through the window to a low, wooded rise in the flat landscape.

‘Not much of a hill, is it?' Maria observed. Her mood had scarcely improved since the previous evening.

‘It's the best we can manage around here,' he answered testily. ‘Kildare is for flat racing, not mountain climbing.'

‘Flat racing and army manoeuvres,' interjected Lafeyre. ‘Sometimes they have up to 6,000 men at the Curragh Camp over there.'

Swallow laughed. ‘A lot of those fellows helped to fund my medical studies. Some nights the whole camp was drinking their pay in our public house.'

Maria smiled and seemed to relax a little. Lily continued to fasten her artist's eyes to the window, taking in the colours and the detail of the landscape. They might have been any foursome making an excursion to the country.

They left the firm fields of County Kildare and passed into Queen's County. Fenced paddocks and wide meadows began to give way to rushy fields. A little farther, even these semi-arable acres began to yield to bog. Tracts of flat land, yellow with furze, stretched away to left and right. A few substantial farmhouses appeared here and there, but for the most part the dwellings visible from the train were poor cottages.

It required a leap of the imagination, Swallow reflected, to appreciate that these peaceful-looking acres were often a battleground in the cover of night. Police and military faced off against tenants and labourers, organised and encouraged by the Land Leaguers to show their collective strength. Dark deeds were done in fields and country lanes like these between nightfall and sunrise.

Somewhere after Portarlington, the last stop before Maryborough, Lafeyre turned to Swallow.

‘You'd better talk us through this. What exactly are we supposed to be doing when we get to Greenhills? I've got a rough idea of what you're doing, but I think the ladies need to know too.'

Swallow saw Maria stiffen slightly. ‘It's simple enough,' he said, attempting to sound nonchalant. ‘The guardian at Greenhills is expecting a visit from the Board of Educational Charities. So, I'll have to carry myself off as an inspector. I can bluff my way through that role, I think.'

He smiled. ‘Harry, you'll have to be my assistant. So, you'll stay quiet and just say “yes” and “no” as seems appropriate when I speak.'

‘And what in heaven's name are you trying to find out by impersonating a Board of Education … whatever it's called?' Maria blurted.

‘I think the woman we took from the canal on Monday was raised in Greenhills,' he said, ‘but nobody is willing to give us any information about her. If we can find out her background it might throw some light on why she was murdered.'

Lily turned away from her landscape-gazing. ‘How d'you think you're going to get this information? Are you going to question this guardian?'

‘I'm more interested in the records there. Orphanages generally keep good ones,' Swallow said. ‘So, if Sarah Hannin was raised there, or if she spent time there, that should be in the registers. And what do inspectors do if they don't inspect the registers?'

‘Can I ask what role my sister and I are to play in this charade?' Maria asked pointedly.

‘I've been thinking a lot about that,' Swallow said with exaggerated seriousness. ‘I've decided that you are to play the role of two ladies of charitable disposition,' he grinned.

‘You're travelling around the country with the inspector and his assistant to see some of the more deserving institutions that provide for the needs of orphaned children. You might be considering making an endowment. That way, I'm sure whoever we meet will be more than anxious to accommodate us.'

Lafeyre shook his head in mock disbelief. ‘You made the wrong choice of career after medical school, Joe. You could have made it as a great stage actor.'

Maria was not in a mood to make light of things.

‘If I had known that I was being brought along to masquerade as a “lady of charitable disposition”, as you put it, I wouldn't be here. If I had a day to spare from business I'd be relaxing at home or visiting my friends or taking the air by the sea. I think you've been less than frank, and very unfair with us.'

Swallow winced.

‘Look, I'm sorry. I didn't intend it to work out this way. Why can't we just treat it as a bit of a jaunt, like we planned? I'll be in and out of this place in half an hour.'

Maria raised her eyes in despair. ‘I don't think you give us much choice, Joe. I'm sure Lily feels the same. We're not in this of our own volition.'

They were at Maryborough on schedule. The station was quiet. Fewer than half a dozen passengers alighted, with perhaps an equal number joining the train as it continued towards its final destination of Cork.

Swallow called a porter who took the picnic basket down from the carriage. In response to Swallow's query he said he could find a car to take them to Greenhills House and back in time to catch an evening train to Dublin.

‘It bein' that little bit late in the mornin', Sir, there wouldn't be as much call for the drivers as you'd have with passengers comin' off the early trains,' the man scratched his chin thoughtfully.

‘But there's Pat Bracken who's just 100 yards down the road from the station. If yourself and the ladies and gentleman would take a seat in the waiting room, sure I'll have him up here in a few minutes.'

Soon they heard the clip-clop of a horse-drawn car on the cobbles outside the station. Swallow stepped out to the forecourt to see the porter jumping down from a well-maintained trap, drawn by a single pony and driven by a plump man in his fifties, still buttoning his jacket. He had a battered bowler hat perched on the back of his head and a bushy grey beard. He drew the trap to a stop.

The porter took up the lunch box. The others followed him to the car.

‘Pat was sittin' at home, Sir, like I said. He'll see you out to Greenhills House now in the best of time. You'll be back then for the up-train later on?'

Swallow tipped him and confirmed that they would return in time to catch the last Dublin train.

‘What's your charge to bring us out to Greenhills House and back here for the last train?' he asked Bracken. ‘There'll be a couple of hours of waiting in between.'

The driver looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Would you think seven shillings might be reasonable, Sir? There's a good distance between here and Greenhills.'

‘That seems fair enough,' Swallow said, even though he thought it a bit on the high side. ‘We'll be on our way.'

Bracken settled them into the trap, helping the women first to negotiate the metal step and making sure that they were sitting comfortably. They clattered out of the station, making for the open countryside past rows of dilapidated cabins and groups of dirty children who stood to watch the car on the rutted road.

Swallow glanced back as they left the station yard. There was the now-familiar shadow with the Derby hat. He seemed to have emerged to watch their departure. Then he stepped back again into the station.

It had to be one of Kelly's agents, Swallow reasoned. On the positive side, if their surveillance was intended to be covert they were not very expert at it. And whatever about the city streets, it would be impossible for anyone to follow them across the countryside without being detected.

Bracken was a considerate driver. He kept the pony at a steady pace, slowing where he knew the road to be particularly uneven or bumpy. Lafeyre and Lily sat to one side of the trap with Swallow and Maria on the other while the driver sat forward. He held the reins lightly in one hand while he filled his pipe with the other.

‘Do ye know this countryside at all, Sir? He asked Lafeyre.

Lafeyre smiled but ignored the implicit invitation to give an account of himself.

Swallow answered for him. ‘I've a reasonable knowledge of the area. I know more or less the direction we're travelling but I can't say I'd find my way on my own.'

The driver chuckled in his beard. ‘Indeed, Sir, it's wild enough out here. There's hardly a signpost to lead ye to any town or village. Have ye heard of the Great Heath, Sir?'

Swallow knew it was notorious in bygone days as a hunting ground for vagabonds, robbers and those on the run from the forces of the law.

‘I've heard of it,' he ventured.

‘We'll cut alongside the Heath and then turn north,' he gestured with the pipe. ‘The stone road ends there and we'll have to take a little boreen – that's what we call a back road here – for about 2 miles up to Greenhills House. It's a tight road, but with the day grand and dry, thank God, there won't be any difficulty.'

‘You're the best judge of that,' Swallow responded.

Bracken took a series of puffs from his pipe. ‘And what would be the nature of yer business at Greenhills House, gintlemin, if ye don't mind me curiosity?'

‘Not at all,' Swallow responded, winking broadly at the others, ‘We're calling on behalf of the Board of Educational Charities. Have you heard about the work done by the board?'

‘Well, I can't rightly say that I have, Sir,' Bracken answered after a moment's reflection. ‘But I wouldn't doubt that it's important.'

‘We're in a poor part o' the countryside now, ladies and gintlemin,' he called over his shoulder, deftly changing the subject. ‘Ye'll see only a few ruined houses here. These places suffered terrible hard in the famine years.'

Lafeyre knew many such townlands where his grandfather had dispensed medical care among long-vanished communities. Mossy foundation walls were the only lingering traces of the families that starved, succumbed to disease or fled to the emigrant ships 40 years ago.