A June of Ordinary Murders (48 page)

‘Did the Fitzpatricks – old Mr Fitzpatrick, as you call him – know about your past? Did they know about York?' Mossop asked.

‘Not at first. There were some reports in the newspapers. I think old Mr Fitzpatrick came across them and he worked it out himself. But they weren't the kind of people who'd be out to judge you. You know wha' I mean? If I did me work and did it well, that was all they worried about.'

‘And you continued in service for their son after the older Fitzpatricks died?' Swallow asked.

McDaniel nodded.

‘Yes, I've been here … since I … since I left the army behind me. I was taken on as a groom. About a year after I started, there was an old butler here whose health failed. He had to be paid off and I was offered the job.'

He looked from Swallow to Mossop and back again. ‘I was never in any more trouble. You won't find anything against me.'

A clock struck somewhere in the house.

‘How did you know about … wha' happened back in York?' McDaniel asked when the chiming had stopped.

‘Murder doesn't just fade away,' Swallow said. ‘There are records. And there are witnesses. You can be sure that there'll be enough people at your trial who'll remember what happened.'

McDaniel ran his fingers through his thin, grey hair. Then he covered his eyes. The backs of his hands were veined and mottled.

‘It was all a long time ago. I'm not young. I don't think they're going to hang me a' this time o' my life, will they?'

‘I wouldn't count on that,' Swallow said coldly. ‘They executed a man of 82 a while back in Bristol. But if you can help us in regard to the deaths that we're investigating here we might be able to leave the Provost Marshal's office out of this.'

He paused. ‘I don't see any great profit in hauling in an army deserter after all those years. We've got bigger fish to fry. But, by God, you'd better give us the whole story or you'll be in handcuffs and on your way to the Glasshouse by nightfall.'

McDaniel's face contorted in stress. He extended the thin, bony fingers again to cover his eyes as if to block out the reality around him.

Swallow slammed the table.

‘I‘m damned sure you know who killed the woman and the child. They visited this house 24 hours before they were murdered. Now stop playing games and tell me the fucking truth. Because if you don't you'll be swinging on a rope in York barracks within the month.'

McDaniel took his hands from eyes. ‘Do you know what you're askin' o' me?' His tone was pleading.

‘We're not fools, McDaniel,' Swallow said, injecting a momentary softening into his tone. ‘But I don't think you're a fool either. You'd better co-operate with us now.'

There was no sound in the humid dining hall other than a wasp buzzing noisily around the window.

‘If I talk, I'll tell you everything you need to know,' McDaniel said after an interval. ‘But will you swear I can walk away from this business and that I won't have you comin' after me?'

‘I think that would be a fair bargain,' Swallow said. ‘I don't give a toss what you did back in York. But I've got three murders to solve here in Dublin, and if you don't give me every scrap of information you have about them, I'll shorten whatever is left of your unhappy life.'

He turned to Mossop. ‘What do you say, Pat?'

‘I'm with you, Boss,' Mossop replied. ‘Go on,' he gestured to McDaniel.

‘But like Sergeant Swallow says, it'd better be the real thing. Half a story isn't any use to us at this stage.'

FORTY

McDaniel seemed to have regained a degree of composure. Swallow wondered if he had found some relief in the realisation that he had no choice now in what he had to do.

The butler had joined his hands, locking the fingers. He might have been about to say grace or set out the day's duties to the servants.

‘I'm beyond makin' a start at something else,' he said. ‘I have a few pounds saved from my wages and that'll have to keep me going. It's no'a lot, but I'll take my chances as long as I don't have to face back to the army.'

‘I've given you my word.' Swallow said. ‘What happened in York won't be opened up if you're completely straight with me. But there's to be no holding back, is that clear?'

McDaniel nodded.

‘When I came here first, young Master Thomas, as I called him then, was sowin' his wild oats. He was always after the female servants. Old Mr and Mrs Fitzpatrick knew he was liable to be foolish. It became part of my job to keep an eye on that sort of thing and to let them know if … if there were any issues to be dealt with.'

He looked past Swallow towards the window as if reaching for details buried in memory.

‘It was different when this new housemaid, Cecilia, came along. Not greatly beautiful but she had a very strong personality. Young Master Thomas fell for her. The mother and father – old Mr and Mrs Fitzpatrick – didn't especially take any notice of it. Until one day he told the old pair that Cecilia was pregnant and he was goin' to set up house wi' her.'

So far, what McDaniel had told them tallied with what Swallow had learned from the records at Greenhills House.

Pat Mossop interjected. ‘You're saying that Ces Downes and Thomas Fitzpatrick set up house together?'

‘That's it,' McDaniel said. ‘He leased a house over near Charlemont Street. The pretence first was that Cecilia was a housekeeper. Then she started callin' herself ‘Mrs Fitzpatrick.' Could you believe that? The child was born, a wee girl. That would have been Louise. A year later there was a little boy born too.'

‘What happened to the children?' Mossop asked.

‘They were sent away. Then young Master Thomas wanted to come back here. He said the house at Charlemont Street wasn't suitable.'

He drank more water. Swallow watched his hands holding the glass. They were steady.

‘Cecilia saw herself as bein' in a special position. She fought wi' everyone. She started to steal, or maybe I should say she started stealin' again. Finally, old Mr and Mrs Fitzpatrick convinced Master Thomas that the relationship had been a mistake. The passion had cooled. She was paid off and then she was gone.'

‘And that was that,' Mossop said. ‘It was all neatly tied up. Did the other servants at the house know anything about this?'

‘It was kept from them as much as possible,' McDaniel said. ‘It wasn't easy. There was another child before all this, born to Cecilia Downes here in the servants' quarters.'

Swallow started. His examination of the registers at Greenhills had disclosed the births of just two children.

‘A third child? Thomas Fitzpatrick – Master Thomas – was he the father of this third child too?'

‘I'm sure that was so,' McDaniel said. ‘Cecilia managed to hide the fact that she was expectin' until close to the very end. Nobody spoke about it afterwards. I remember that she was back at work around the house the next day.'

Swallow paused. Mossop's notes in the murder book were running behind McDaniel's narrative.

‘I know about two children. They were Louise, later known as Louise Thomas, and John Michael,' Swallow said. ‘What happened to the third?'

McDaniel let his gaze go to the window again. ‘She said it died, that it was stillborn. But I know it wasn't. To this day I don't know if it was a boy or a girl. I heard it cryin' for a while. But we never saw it.'

He turned back to Mossop. ‘I know that Master Thomas put the baby out there … in the garden.' He pointed towards the window.

The air in the room was stifling. Mossop crossed to the window and hauled the sash down as far as he could in an attempt to increase the circulation. It made no difference other than causing the G-man to perspire further with the effort.

Then McDaniel began to sob, gently at first, but within a few moments breaking into open tears.

‘Did Sarah Hannin know when she came to work here that Thomas Fitzpatrick was the father of her friend Louise at the orphanage?' Swallow asked.

McDaniel blew into his handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

‘I don't know. It's a good question, Sergeant Swallow. I suppose you're thinkin' that if she did know, it might in some way explain what happened to her.'

Swallow smiled icily. ‘And yours is a good answer, McDaniel. If you knew that she was aware of all this, it could give you a motive for wanting to silence her.'

McDaniel shook his head. ‘I never asked her. And I'm telling you again, I never harmed her in any way.'

‘But you knew that she came from Greenhills orphanage and that she'd been there at the same time as Louise,' Swallow persisted.

‘Yes. But it wasn't somethin' ever spoken of.'

‘So, when were these two children sent down to the orphanage?' Mossop asked.

‘I don't ever remember them being here in the house. They sent Cecilia out to some place in Wicklow for the births. It's my belief they went from there to the orphanage.'

‘So, go on,' Mossop prompted McDaniel, ‘what happened to Louise after she left the orphanage?'

‘I think Master Thomas always kept a bit of a flame goin' for Cecilia. After she go' her settlement she went back to her own people and her own class. But Master Thomas would send her money and often she'd write looking for help on various things.'

McDaniel paused.

‘I've … I've … seen some of the letters on his desk. She wrote well. She even came back to the house here once in a while. And he always had an eye out for the children while they were in the orphanage.'

‘And the little boy, what happened to him?' Swallow asked.

‘It's my understandin' that he died. That's what Master Thomas told me once. I don't know when or where or how it happened.'

‘How much did Louise know about all of this as she grew up in the orphanage?' Mossop queried.

‘I don't think she knew much. I went wi' Master Thomas down there two or three times. He didn't abandon the children completely, you know. He'd go down to see them, maybe once a year. I know he paid the Guardian there, a fellow called Pomeroy, to make sure the children got good medical care, extra food, that kind of thing. He isn't a hard-hearted man.'

Lafeyre was on the mark, Swallow reflected silently, in his speculation that the guardian of Greenhills had known how to exploit Thomas Fitzpatrick's responsibilities.

‘So she didn't know he was her father?' Mossop asked.

‘I don't think so in the early years. But I'm sure as time went on she began to work things out. I think the children believed he was a kind visitor. That's how Sarah Hannin ended up workin' here.'

‘I don't understand,' Swallow said.

‘She was Louise's wee friend at the orphanage. When Master Thomas would visit, they'd always be together. And when the time came for them to leave, Louise went across to England and Master Thomas offered to take Sarah into service here.'

‘What do you think Louise and her child were doing in Dublin last week?' Swallow asked.

McDaniel shook his head.

‘I've told you already, I can only guess. Her mother was dyin' after a life o' crime, as I heard it. The Fitzpatricks were right about her. She had a bad streak. She just reverted to type.'

‘So, I ask you again, do you know what Louise and the boy were doing back in Dublin?'

‘How would I know? Maybe she came to see her dyin' mother.'

‘Maybe she wanted to see her father too. We know she was at this house on the Wednesday evening before she was murdered.'

‘I wasn't here. So if she came here, I didn't see her, like I told you.'

‘But Sarah Hannin saw her.'

‘I don't know that. Sarah told me she wanted the evenin' off to meet someone. I couldn't spare her. But if one of the staff wants to have a visitor call in during their meal break, I'm generally willin' to allow it.'

There was a sharp rap on the door. Stephen Doolan put his head in to say that the search of the house had been completed.

It afforded a natural break in the questioning. Swallow and Mossop needed time to consider what they had learned.

‘We're going to stop there for a while, McDaniel,' Swallow told the butler. ‘Rest yourself for a bit. But you're not to leave the room. Detective Mossop and I have to consult for a while with the other officers.'

They left him staring at the green walls.

FORTY-ONE

An hour later they resumed the questioning of James McDaniel in the small, claustrophobic room that was the servants' dining space at 106 Merrion Square.

Stephen Doolan's men had searched the bedroom on the top storey of the house that Sarah Hannin had shared with the other maid. They located some personal belongings including some letters from other former residents at Greenhills, but there was nothing that offered any information about the dead girl's family or background.

They had found nothing that might have been a murder weapon. There were no bloodstains or signs of recent or unusual cleaning or scrubbing. If Sarah Hannin had died in the house, any clues to what might have happened had been thoroughly eradicated.

With the house secure, Detectives Feore and Swift questioned the housemaid. Collins and Shanahan interrogated the cook and the groom.

Swallow conferred in the kitchen with the G-men.

‘The housemaid is only a kid,' Mick Feore said. ‘She's intelligent. She liked poor Sarah and she's very upset. She wants to be helpful but she knows nothing.'

‘It's the same with the other two,' Shanahan nodded. ‘I wouldn't describe them as friendly, but I don't think they have anything useful to tell us.'

Swallow and Mossop sought the fresher air in the garden at the back of the house. It was still warm but it felt healthier after the greasy odours of the basement.