Peeler (42 page)

Through his boots O’Keefe could feel the heat of the fire below and smoke was making lazy spirals up between the floorboards. It was time to leave. ‘Let’s go lads. Abandon ship. This place is going to burn. Grab the lads on the machine-gun from the attic and use the back window where the ladder is to get out.’

Next he went through into the DI’s private room and opened the shutters onto the barracks yard. As he did, Keane set the ladder against the window frame. O’Keefe wondered suddenly where the DI had got to. He pushed the thought from his mind. Heading halfway back down the stairs, O’Keefe shouted to Finch and Moran to evacuate. He waited for their responses and the sound of their bootsteps making for the rear door of the barracks before he went back upstairs.

‘Let’s go, Jim.’ Daly was the last one in the room.

‘You hear that?’

‘What?’ They were both silent. At first all O’Keefe could hear was the crackling flames below. Then he noticed that the firing from outside had stopped. And in its absence he could hear the distant chug of lorry engines and the whine of armoured cars.

‘The cavalry. Took their fucking time about it.’

Daly said, ‘If they’d left it any later, we might have had to abandon barracks.’

O’Keefe coughed smoke. ‘Get yer arse out that window.’

The men stood in the barracks yard and watched the barracks burn. It was too far gone to save, even if the fire brigade could have been persuaded to fight the blaze. Firemen had been warned off aiding the Peelers, the same as everybody else.

Another barracks burning, O’Keefe thought. Eyes and ears of the Crown, blinded, deafened. Fair enough. The men had fought well. The opposition had been determined, well-trained. Fair enough. He walked over to Finch and Daly.

‘Has anyone seen Mathew-Pare or Masterson?’

Constable Moran stood behind them. ‘Left about ten minutes ago. Just before you got out. Soon as the army lads showed, they flew out of here in the spooks’ Ford motor.’

Spooks
, O’Keefe thought. Was he the only one who had met Mathew-Pare and his men who hadn’t immediately known they were agents? Maybe he
was
as thick as Masterson must have assumed when he’d assigned the case to him.

‘You’re sure the DI was with them?’ he asked Moran.

‘He was. And that prick – sorry, Sergeant. And Constable Senior.’

Finch said, ‘We should’ve shot the bastards.’

***

Soldiers patrolled the streets around the town, but the flying column was long gone. Night gave way to a milky dawn, the barracks still burning, rounds of ammunition popping off in the armoury, the occasional dampened blast of a Mills bomb. The roof collapsed just before eight o’clock and they moved out to the square in front of the barracks to watch it burn, as did the people of Ballycarleton. None of the people cheered when the roof went down, though there were wry smiles exchanged between men of a certain age. They had heard about the burning of the poultry farm and the three houses in Rathleigh.

O’Keefe saw Liam Farrell standing on his own in front of McNulty’s public house on the far side of the square. He made his way over to him.

‘Mr Farrell.’

‘Sergeant.’

‘Connors is dead. I tried to move him from the barracks but he bashed me in the ribs. He was shot trying to open the gate is my guess.’

‘I heard. Still, not an altogether unsuccessful raid.’ He gestured toward the burning barracks.

‘Not from your perspective, no.’

‘And from yours?’

O’Keefe shrugged. ‘The DI is gone. Went off with the two Castle spooks and his batman. I won’t get him now. My files and the murder book were inside. ’ He took out a crushed box of Players and held it out to Farrell.

Farrell took one and accepted a light. Exhaling smoke, he asked, ‘And how long ago did they leave?’

O’Keefe held the match to his own cigarette. ‘An hour or so. I reckon they’ll make their way to Cork and then on to Dublin.’

Farrell nodded, staring out at the flames. ‘And what kind of car was it?’

‘Ford Tourer.’

‘Four men you say?’

‘Two shades, the DI and his man.’

‘Where’s the other spy?’

‘Dead.’

The young man nodded and crushed his cigarette under his heel. ‘I’ll be going so, Sergeant. Must use the telephone.’

It was O’Keefe’s turn to nod. ‘I hope the lines are clear.’

‘They will be. We’ve good people working them.’ He smiled at O’Keefe and walked away.

O’Keefe smoked his cigarette and watched Ballycarleton barracks burn. Daly came over to him, pipe in hand. His face was black with soot and gunpowder, his tunic riddled with tiny burnholes. He was hatless and his hair stood on end.

O’Keefe said, ‘You saved your pipe and plug anyway.’

‘First things first. A man has his priorities.’

‘I wonder where they’ll post you now. Back to Cork?’

Daly shrugged. ‘Long as they keep paying the wages, I couldn’t give two fucks. We’re due a raise y’know, so don’t you think about jacking the job in now. A
pensionable
raise, mind.’

‘Somehow, I don’t think I’ll be collecting any kind of pension at all.’

Around his pipe stem, Daly said, ‘At all, at all? Never mind. I’ll stand you a drink, Seán, if you’re short –’

‘… at my funeral.’

‘Sure, you’ll outlive me by years yet, you jammy bastard.’