Peeler (16 page)

Reilly nodded. ‘And if it’s himself?’

‘What?’

‘Mr Casey.’

‘Tell him I’ll pay double the going. He’s done enough for us already, the poor bastard.’

‘Nothing poor about an undertaker these days, Sar’nt.’

***

After he’d seen the Costelloes off with the coffin roped down in the back of the cart, Keane returned to the office. He sat down at Daly’s desk but waited for O’Keefe to speak.

‘Right, Keane,’ O’Keefe said, looking up from the interview notes he was re-reading for the third time. ‘If you were in charge, what would you do next?’

Keane thought for a moment. ‘I’d go to Cork, I think, and interview her friend at Barton’s. That’s what I’d do first. If anyone knows about any fellas she might have been seeing, it’d be the girlfriend, aye. Then I’d search her digs and interview the landlord.’

‘Go on.’

‘I’d also get on to “I” division in Dublin Castle as well, soon as I could, and see if the Raid Bureau have anything on a Seamus something with a scar on his face. That’s assuming it was his real name.’

O’Keefe nodded and said, ‘And assuming the scary lads in the Castle are able to tap up suspect files on Christian name only. Lot of Volunteers go by “Seamus” I imagine.’

Keane’s eyes flared and O’Keefe smiled. Every copper had the odd eureka moment. There were few feelings that matched it. ‘But,’ Keane said, leaning forward now, ‘what if they’re able to cross-reference rebel files by area and then pull all the Seamuses from Cork city and West Cork. Then, if they could add the scar, we could show any photographs they come up with to the Costelloe woman. She might put a finger to one of them.’

‘Good man, Keane.’

‘Will I put it on the wire?’

‘Do that. And then shift yourself into mufti.’

‘Sergeant?’

‘Civvies, Keane. And bring a sidearm and spare cartridges. Never know what you might come across in the big city.’

O’Keefe’s plans to take Keane and make a quiet run into Cork to question the flatmate, stopping into Tuckey Street barracks on the way back, were disrupted when he entered the yard and found that the barracks’ only functioning car – a dented Ford Tourer with steel plates riveted to the inside of the door panels as makeshift armouring – had been requisitioned earlier that morning by the DI and his batman, Senior. Keane looked devastated and, as if to raise his spirits, threw some ju-jubes into his mouth.

The barracks was due delivery of two more Fords, one a half-car with armour and an open back, as well as another Crossley, but these had been held up in Dublin because of striking dock workers who had refused to unload ships carrying provisions for the Crown forces in Ireland. O’Keefe thought of Daly’s petitions to the police trade union and wondered, if he joined, would he have to strike in sympathy with the dockers. Stranger things had happened. Would continue to happen, he reckoned.

With a pang of bitterness, he noticed the DI’s personal car, a gleaming black Daimler, sitting unused in the yard. Typical, he thought. Didn’t want to risk bullet holes in his own lovely motor. He walked to the sheds and pulled open a large steel door on runners. There was a smell of grease, motor oil and cigarettes. The barracks mechanic had the bonnet up on the Crossley that had taken the bullet in the grill; the guts of its engine were laid out on a tarpaulin on the floor. Seeing O’Keefe, the mechanic said, ‘Don’t even fuckin’ ask, Sergeant. No offence.’

None taken. One man could only do so much. The mechanic went back to work and O’Keefe shut the door without uttering a syllable. He returned to Keane, who was standing on the rain-slick cobbles, chewing sweets. Mist hung in the air, amplifying the cold.

‘We could wait for one of the patrols to come back and lift us in as far as Bandon or Crossbarry,’ Keane said.

‘It would take too long. Sure, we could be stuck all day in either place with no guarantee of getting back, even if we did make it to Cork.’

Aware of Tom Reilly coming through the gate, busily packing his pipe with tobacco, O’Keefe called over to him. ‘Tom, did the DI say where he was taking the Ford?’

The man took his time lighting his pipe, then looked up. ‘Sure, why would that puffed-up cunt tell me a thing like that?’

Reilly had a point. It had been a stupid question and O’Keefe himself was no different from the majority of constables in his resentment of the cadet system and the generally Protestant officers from ascendancy families who benefited from it. Still, Reilly was living in the barracks on the goodwill of the DI.

‘There’s no need for that, Tom.’

Reilly continued walking towards the barracks, pulling on his pipe as if he hadn’t heard.

‘In need of a car, Sergeant?’

Mathew-Pare was standing in the doorway of his billet. His own Ford, moisture beading on its black polish, sat idle in front of the cottage.

‘I was going to take the barracks motor but …’

‘But some puffed-up cunt beat you to it?’

O’Keefe shot an angry look at Reilly’s back. ‘Looks like it,’ he said.

The Englishman smiled, motioning with his head at the Ford. ‘Hop aboard, gentlemen.’

O’Keefe hadn’t intended bringing Mathew-Pare, never mind his two heavies, but a journey of any kind through the countryside could be dodgy. Even if some local Volunteer mob didn’t know you were a Peeler, the IRA had taken to requisitioning cars for the cause. O’Keefe supposed it couldn’t hurt to have them along.

***

Just past noon, the secretary to the general manager of Barton and Sons
’
Tractor Works on Marina Quay met them in reception, a wood-panelled room with a fire in the grate and framed agricultural scenes on the walls. O’Keefe was aware from the newspapers that Barton and Sons’ had suffered a slump with the end of the war, the demand for tractors dropping off significantly. Indeed, Fordsons – a much larger factory further down the quay – was winding down its production of tractors to focus on producing Model Ts for Ford. This shift had led to Bartons taking almost sole control of Irish tractor manufacturing and so, despite the drop off, they were doing well enough filling the demand that Fordsons had left them. O’Keefe had read something about contracts to make parts for Ford cars as well, but he knew little enough about it. He didn’t imagine it would matter.

The secretary, a thin, angular woman in her forties wearing a tweed skirt and jacket, led them down a hallway that ran to the side of the shop floor and up some stairs to the accounts and general manager’s offices. She stopped outside an office marked General Manager and knocked on the clouded glass window. The hallway had a bird’s eye view of the factory floor below and they watched as the shiny red shells of Barton and Sons’ famous tractors were craned onto steel chassis. Further down the line, blue sparks showered the floor as other workers spot-welded joins. The noise was constant but purposeful. A job in the Barton and Sons’ plant was coveted in Cork. Few places of work in the city paid better.

After a moment, a voice called, ‘Come in!’

The secretary gave them a nervous smile as she opened the door. ‘Mr Barton,’ she said, ‘it’s the police. They’re here to interview one of the girls. I thought it best if they spoke with you first. Sergeant O’Keefe and Detective Sergeant Mathew-Pare.’

O’Keefe watched through the open door as Barton cleared away what appeared to be a deck of cards from his blotting pad and stood up. ‘Of course, Miriam. Of course. Gentlemen, please …’

O’Keefe and Mathew-Pare entered and Barton came around his desk, hand extended. Keane and Starkson waited on the landing outside the office. The big man, Eakins, had waited outside with the car.

‘Thank you for seeing us, Mr Barton,’ O’Keefe began.

‘Please, call me Richard. Around this place, my father is Mr Barton. Now, what is it I can do for you, gentlemen?’

‘We don’t really need talk to you, sir. We’re looking to speak to one of your typists, a Miss Anne Duffy.’

Barton indicated a velvet upholstered sofa. ‘Please, Sergeants, have a seat. I’ll get the girl you’re looking for now.’ The plant manager paused at the doorway, a smile playing around his lips, his thick, dark eyebrows raised. ‘She’s not in any kind of trouble is she, Sergeant?’

O’Keefe realised that Barton might not have even known Deirdre was missing. ‘Mr Barton, one of your employees has been murdered. Another typist, Anne Duffy’s friend, Deirdre Costelloe. Were you aware of the fact?’

The smile faded. ‘No … no. My God. What happened to her?’

‘Would you send for Anne Duffy, please?’

The manager paused as if he wanted to ask something further and then thought better of it and left the office. A moment later he returned. ‘My secretary is fetching the girl, Sergeant.’

O’Keefe thanked him, then asked, ‘Did Miss Costelloe get on with everybody here at work, Mr Barton?’

‘As far as I know. I don’t personally supervise the employees, Sergeant, as you’d well imagine. But from what Miriam – my secretary – has said in the past, I’d say she was a popular girl. Pleasant, hard working …’

Barton was a big man in his early thirties, going soft around the middle, with dark, oiled hair and thick eyebrows. He wore an expensively cut suit of grey wool-silk mix. His mouth was tweaked at its edges with a smile. O’Keefe put the smile down to the general nervousness people felt around police and the detached, grateful discomfort people felt when tragedies struck close by but, blessedly, not close enough to do damage.

‘Competent,’ Barton continued, ‘quite a pleasant young thing from what little I saw of her. I was surprised when Miriam told me she hadn’t come to work last week.’

In his diary, O’Keefe wrote:
Good worker, regular attendance.
‘Did she, as far as you know, go around with any of the fellas from your factory, Mr Barton?’

Before he could answer, the typist was ushered into the office. Barton arranged a chair in front of the sofa. He hovered behind it as if reluctant to leave the young woman alone with the policemen. O’Keefe indicated the door with a nod. Barton opened his mouth, but then smiled again and left the office.

The girl didn’t sit down right away. ‘Is this about Deirdre?’

‘Yes,’ O’Keefe said. ‘I’m afraid it is.’

‘She’s not in any trouble, is she?’

‘Why don’t you have a seat, Miss Duffy. I’m Sergeant O’Keefe and this is Detective Sergeant Mathew-Pare.’

She acknowledged both men with her eyes and sat down. O’Keefe couldn’t think of a way to soften what he had to say. ‘Miss Duffy, I’m sorry to inform you that Miss Costelloe is dead. She – ’

‘Dead?’ Anne Duffy blessed herself instinctively. ‘But how? How did she …’

‘I’m sorry you had to hear of it this way, Anne.’

O’Keefe called her by her first name. He didn’t sense any resentment of the police and wanted to establish a bond with the girl, knowing that if she saw him as someone whom she could trust, she would be less likely to withhold information for political or moral reasons.

‘Now, Anne, what I’m going to tell you will be hard to hear. I want you to know that. I also want you to understand how sorry I am. Mr and Mrs Costelloe told me you two had been friends since you were young girls.’

Anne Duffy wiped her eyes with a handkerchief pulled from the sleeve of her dress. The blue wool suited her, O’Keefe thought, highlighting her pale skin, flushed cheeks and blonde hair. She was short and plump, however. Nothing like as pretty as her friend. O’Keefe wondered if Anne had envied Deirdre. The young woman sniffed and swallowed her tears, nodding.

‘Deirdre was murdered, Anne. She was killed by someone, and my job is to find out who did it.’

She wasn’t looking at O’Keefe or Mathew-Pare. Her gaze was focused on things far outside the confines of the stuffy office. ‘The bastard,’ she said.

‘Sorry?’

‘That bastard.’ She looked up at O’Keefe. ‘It was that bastard, Shay Connors. I know it was!’

O’Keefe chanced his arm. ‘
Seamus
Connors?’

The girl nodded.

‘He was after her no end.’ Tears began to run down the girl’s cheeks. ‘He was a bad one, Sergeant.’

‘How was he a bad one?’

She looked at him and almost smiled. ‘Sure you should know him well. Heaven knows he’s shot enough of you.’

He circled the name on the page several times and noted the new information.

‘And why do you think this Seamus Connors killed her, Anne? Why would he do a thing like that to Deirdre?’

‘You really don’t know him, do you Sergeant?’

‘No, Anne. Tell me what he’s like.’

‘He’s evil is what he’s like. Though he thinks he’s God’s and Ireland’s own man in Cork. There’s a pure black soul in him, never mind the raw knees and his Rosary beads worn down to nubs.’ She was crying now, her voice breaking with the effort not to sob. ‘I told her she’d regret stepping out with the likes of him, but she wouldn’t listen. Deirdre, she liked that kind of a fella …’

‘The religious kind?’ Mathew-Pare asked, his voice gentle. The girl shook her head.

‘What kind, Anne?’ O’Keefe asked.

She wiped away her tears and looked into O’Keefe’s eyes. ‘The dangerous kind.’

Barton’s secretary returned with tea and they sipped in silence for a moment. Mathew-Pare surprised O’Keefe by recommencing the questioning.

‘Miss Duffy, did you share rooms with Miss Costelloe?’ His voice was as bland as his face. A half-smile – a futile attempt at warmth – played on his lips.

‘Yes, we do …’ the tears came again and the girl placed her cup back on the tray, ‘did.’

Mathew-Pare nodded and confirmed the address. She again began to weep and he waited for the girl to compose herself. ‘And were you not concerned when she didn’t come home for several days? Surely you must have been worried?’

Anne Duffy looked up at him. ‘Of course I was worried, especially when she didn’t come to work. She’d never missed work before. But it wasn’t like it was the first time.’ She hesitated and O’Keefe sensed she was worried about damaging her friend’s reputation.

‘Wasn’t the first time she’d stayed away from your lodg-ings?’ Mathew-Pare prodded, in a light, non-judgemental tone. O’Keefe conceded the man was doing a fine job. He was an experienced interviewer; that much at least was clear.