Peeler (40 page)

***

The stone slabs of the yard shone wet and slick. Thick grey clouds dredged the sky, menacing further rain. The Major and Colonel were on their knees in the centre of the yard, a grim-faced Volunteer standing behind them holding a boxy Mauser pistol in his right hand. Tears cut a clean path through the smeared blood on the Major’s face. The Colonel stared straight ahead, his face red with rage or fear or both. Chickens pecked the ground at the periphery of the yard.

O’Keefe watched as young Farrell walked over to the kneeling men and took a folded sheet of paper from his tweed jacket. It was a jacket cut for a larger man.

Farrell cleared his throat. ‘You have been found guilty of the crime of treason against the people of Ireland. You have been found guilty of the crimes of murder and conspiracy to commit murder by a court sanctioned by the democratically elected provisional government of the Irish republic. The penalty for these crimes is death.’

He folded the paper neatly, tucked it into his jacket and walked back into the house.

The man with the Mauser stepped forward and put a bullet in the back of the Major’s head. Then the Colonel’s. The shots echoed off the walls of the cowsheds. Chickens stopped their pecking, ruffled their feathers and then resumed.

Brennan turned to O’Keefe. ‘If you ever consider working for us, Sergeant O’Keefe, we need good men for when the republic comes. Men like yourself.’

‘You make it sound like a train due in, the republic.’

‘Can’t you hear it coming?’

O’Keefe shrugged.

Brennan held out his hand. ‘You’ll get that out then.’ He nodded at the briefcase at O’Keefe’s feet, indicating the copies of the signed confessions and the evidence.

O’Keefe shook hands with the IRA man. ‘Yes, I can do that much.’

‘You’re a fine policeman, Sergeant. It’s been a long time since I’ve said that.’

‘Funny how things work.’

‘Strange bedfellows, boy.’ Brennan turned to go. ‘Enjoy your stay in Burleigh House, courtesy of the Irish Republican Army.’

***

Brennan should have known better.

Darkness descended and Mrs Gannon retreated to her rooms, leaving O’Keefe and Finch in front of the drawing room fire with more sandwiches and a fresh pot of tea. Finch had liberated the bottle of whiskey – overlooked by the departing flying column – from the Major’s desk and he poured healthy measures into four tea cups. Two Volunteers, resentful at having been left to guard the Peeler and the Tan, decided to make the best of things and got stuck into the whiskey. Two hours of newspapers passed from one man to another, shared cigarettes – at first refused and then accepted grudgingly by the Volunteers – and strong drink had the desired effect.

Finch gave O’Keefe a signal. O’Keefe gestured back for him to go soft. There had been enough killing.

‘Game of cards, lads?’ Finch asked, standing. ‘There’s a deck I saw over on the table.’

He stood and strolled leisurely across the room, retrieved the pack of cards and doubled back behind the wing chairs where the Volunteers were lounging, senses dulled by the fire and the whiskey. He picked up one of the two rifles left on the floor and rested the barrel on the capped head of the Volunteer closest to the fire. ‘Dear oh dear, lads. Not up to regs that, leaving loaded rifles down round the place.’

It occurred to O’Keefe that the two Volunteers might suffer for their lapse. Finch trussed them to their chairs, using their belts and braces as bindings. The Hispano-Suiza was still parked outside on the drive and Finch was grinning like a child at Christmas as he hand-cranked the engine to life.

‘Mind if I drive, Sergeant?’

‘Once you mind the ditches, Finch.’

It was after ten – under a half-moon in clearing skies – when they braked the Hispano-Suiza at the barracks.

Constable Barrett opened the steel gate and Finch played the lord – ‘Very good chap, thank you, thank you there, my good chap.’ He parked in the space next to the DI’s Daimler and killed the choke. The silence was heavy after the purr of the engine.

He turned to O’Keefe. ‘What’s it gonna be, Sergeant?’

‘I’m going to arrest him.’

‘Would you not be better giving what you ’ave to your pal, Connolly? Let him and his head con pull him.’

It was the most reasonable thing to do but something told O’Keefe he might not get another chance at this. The sound of that rumbling train in the distance.
When, not if …

Finch waited, then said, ‘Or we could just go in and …’

‘Only if he shoots first, Finch.’

***

Mathew-Pare and Senior were in the DI’s office when O’Keefe entered.

‘Ah, the man who never knocks,’ Mathew-Pare said.

O’Keefe strode to the front of the desk where Masterson sat. He didn’t bother with any preliminaries. He said, ‘You were there, you bastard. You knew what that animal did to her. You weren’t even one of them, one of their regimental pals. And you let them away with it. As if that young girl didn’t deserve any better.’

‘What in God’s name are you on about, O’Keefe?’ Masterson stood, his face reddening. ‘Senior, arrest this man.’

Mathew-Pare, observed the confrontation as if he were only mildly interested.

Senior hesitated.

O’Keefe caught the batman’s reluctance. He turned to Senior, keeping his voice low, steady. ‘Sit down, Senior. Or I’ll take you down with him.’

‘You have no evidence on which to base these wild accusations, O’Keefe. None. Have you?’ Senior asked the question but for once he didn’t sound so sure of the answer. ‘A man with known republican connections? Accusing a distinguished inspector of what exactly?’

Mathew-Pare intervened. The smooth voice of mode-ration. ‘Sergeant O’Keefe, you know you’re finished with this, don’t you? This case is closed. No court-martial judge in the Empire would touch it. Not that you haven’t done fine work. You could have a long career ahead of you.’

O’Keefe ignored him. ‘You’re not listening to me, Masterson. I’ve evidence against you and you are coming with me.’

‘I’m sorry you feel that way, Sergeant O’Keefe.’ Mathew-Pare again, cool, composed. ‘You’ll be a genuine loss to the Crown.’

O’Keefe turned to him. ‘You may fuck the Crown. This is an Irish problem, Mathew-Pare. You’ve no part – ’

Mathew-Pare held the small automatic pistol low, his gun hand resting on his crossed leg. He raised it now, drawing a bead on O’Keefe’s heart. ‘Not only an Irish problem, I’m afraid. I’m sorry, Sergeant.’

‘Sorry for what?’

The DI spoke, appearing emboldened with the appearance of Mathew-Pare’s gun. ‘Take him down to the cells, Mathew-Pare. Insubordination, disobeying a direct order. Senior, draft the – ’

‘There are signed statements, signed confessions,’ O’Keefe said. ‘Barton told me the whole story. About your pal Prentice and how you used Barton’s man to clean up the mess he’d made with Deirdre Costelloe. And I’d wager Senior was there with you when the screaming started. Amn’t I right, Senior? How’d it feel, finding out what Barton’s monkey had done to the girl?’

Senior’s eyes sought the ground.

‘You’ll have to hand over these statements, Sergeant; along with your files and any physical evidence,’ Mathew-Pare said.

It was O’Keefe’s turn to smile. ‘You think I’d be fool enough to hold them myself?’

Masterson turned to Mathew-Pare. ‘He’s bluffing, isn’t he? He doesn’t have a thing.’

Mathew-Pare gave a lazy shrug. ‘We’ll find out soon enough if he is.’ To O’Keefe he said, ‘Shall we go now, Sergeant?’

‘For a bit of a chat with you and your heavy boys, Mathew-Pare? Or are you going to shoot me? With how many other men in the barracks as witnesses?’

‘I rather hope it won’t come to that.’

O’Keefe raised his voice. ‘What do you think, Finch? Jim? You think the
Detective
here will shoot me?’

The office door opened and Daly and Finch entered. Mathew-Pare held the automatic on O’Keefe, his face unmoved by the intrusion. Finch and Daly raised their own guns.

Masterson’s face washed a paler shade of grey. ‘This is outrageous.
Mutinous
. Put those guns down now or you’ll be charged. Expelled from service, Sergeant Daly. Constable …’ He couldn’t remember Finch’s name.

‘Finch, sir. John Raymond Finch, number 155369, sir.’ He turned his Webley on the DI.

And just then, the lower wall of the barracks exploded.

There were shouts and the anguished screaming of a man in pain. Heavy footsteps on the stairs. The crack of gunfire, from inside and outside the barracks.

Finch and Daly held their guns steady on the DI and Mathew-Pare, while Mathew-Pare held his on O’Keefe, eyes never wavering from their targets, despite the chaos below them. The DI moved slowly from his desk and lifted the telephone receiver from the box on the wall.

‘It’s dead.’ His voice was weak and dry. ‘The wireless. We can use the wireless.’

O’Keefe turned on his heel and walked out of the office. ‘We’re being raided, lads. We can shoot each other later.’

He heard Finch and Daly on the stairs behind him as the barracks fell into darkness.

***

Mathew-Pare found Starkson and Eakins waiting for him in the cottage. They had laid out their arms and were smoking.

‘Gentlemen, it’s time for us to scarper. Bandon will see the flares and Tommy will be here
toot-sweet
. We’ll make a run into Cork then.’ He took up a sheaf of papers from his desk and fed them into the fire. ‘Eakins, pack up the motor. Anything you can’t shoot or wear, burn it. Starksey, take care of our remaining problems, would you?’

***

Much of the front wall of the barracks had been blown in, taking part of the main steel door and most of the reception room with it.

Constable Declan Morris had been on orderly duty in reception when the charge had gone off – O’Keefe assumed it was a barrack mine, leaned up against the wall from the outside and detonated by a long line fuse – and now two men had him by the arms, ducking low themselves and dragging him down the main hallway. Bullets whizzed by and pocked the plaster of the inside walls, coming from the outside through the gaping hole. Morris’ legs left a bloody wake behind him on the wooden floor.

The electric lights, having survived the initial blast, flickered and then went out, casting the barracks into darkness. For a moment O’Keefe froze, halfway to the bottom of the stairs. A wave of heat washed over his face and his memory was wrenched back to the
River Clyde
, the blood in the water and the savage hailstorm of bullets. The chaos. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to obliterate the images. He knew he had to move. He heard Daly’s voice on the steps above him; it sounded tinny and distant. ‘What are we doing, Seán? Is it down or up we’re going?’

O’Keefe opened his eyes and saw his brother. He was there on the stairs with him, the same panic on his face as was there in the moments before they stepped out of the steel hull of the
Clyde
and into ten thousand Turkish machine-gun rounds. O’Keefe closed his eyes again and when he opened them, Peter was gone. Finch grabbed his arm.

‘We have to make it down, Sergeant, before the smoke clears.’ Bullets splintered the steps below them, the sporadic impacts felt through the soles of their boots. ‘You all right, mate?’

‘Grand, Finch. Grand. Let’s go.’

Finch leapt down the five remaining steps and swung left, passing the gaping front door, feeling the whizz of bullets pass his head as he threw himself into the day-room across the hallway from reception. He took up position behind the door and began firing his Webley out into the night, using the muzzle flashes of IRA rifles to guide his aim.

Daly headed for the back stairs and the lower ground-floor armoury. He passed a group of constables at the back of the hallway, taking cover behind the stairs. Heading down the steps, he met several others on their way up. They had lit paraffin lamps and had begun passing Enfields to the men waiting above.

O’Keefe felt a bullet nip the sleeve of his jacket under his arm as he rounded the bottom of the stairs, the smoke from the initial mine blast clearing, the Volunteers outside better able to see into the barracks’ exposed innards. He made it to the cover of the back stairs behind Daly. Pounding up the lower ground-floor stairs were Barrett and Taylor, two of the Tans, both of them carrying lamps. O’Keefe stopped them. ‘Has anybody manned the Lewis in the attic?’

Bullets slapped the wall across from them with deliberate regularity. They were under the front stairs and out of the line of fire but all of them flinched at the striking rounds. The shoulders of the Tans’ uniforms were dusted white with plaster in the lamp-light.

‘Get up there and start shooting. And set off the flares. With any luck, Bandon or Macroom will see them and give us a dig out.’

The two Tans headed for the main stairs without answering, Barrett saluting out of instinct. O’Keefe heard their boots beating the steps. The smell of smoke hit him. Burning wood and paper, over the acrid scent of cordite. Fire.
Jesus
. He jumped across the open hallway and ducked into the day-room from where Finch was firing. From this cover, he looked across the main hallway into reception and could see nothing but smoke and a faint orange glow. There was no way to put out the fire until the raiders had stopped shooting and O’Keefe wondered how well armed they were, how much ammunition they had. He thought of the column at Burleigh House and suddenly realised that they must be the attacking party. It was why Brennan had wanted him kept at Burleigh House for the night. The republican train was rolling into Ballycarleton barracks. He rapidly assessed the flying column in his mind. They were well-armed, well-trained, well-motivated. And now they had come to collect one of their own and punish one of his.

O’Keefe shouted to Finch, ‘I’m going down to the cells.’

Finch knew why. ‘Don’t you give them that Connors bastard.’ He fired two more rounds from his Webley into the darkness. ‘And get me a rifle, Sergeant.’

O’Keefe ran back to cover under the main stairs calling for an Enfield. He slid it down the hall, staying under cover. A box of .303 rounds in charger clips followed. Finch gingerly reached an arm out of the day-room and retrieved them.