The City of Shadows (21 page)

‘He put you inside.'

‘That's right.'

‘Eighteen months hard labour. You were out in six.'

‘I was lucky.'

‘No one's that lucky. Jimmy put you in there and Jimmy got you out.'

‘That what he said?'

‘What did he want?'

‘I thought he was just doing his job, locking up queers.'

‘Then maybe I should take a leaf out of Jimmy's book. I'll put in a report that you approached me in a public urinal. I'll have Dessie MacMahon back me up on it. It'll be the usual thing, gross indecency. It'll be your third time.'

Billy didn't answer. He was remembering those six months.

‘Three years at least, maybe more with the wrong judge.'

Stefan waited for it to sink in.

‘That's hard labour too. You're not getting any younger.'

‘You're not Jimmy Lynch, Mr Gillespie.'

‘I won't break your arms first if that's what you mean. But I will put you away if I have to.'

‘What the hell does it matter to you? Vincent's dead, isn't he?'

‘What was in the letter Vincent sent you?'

There was nowhere for Billy Donnelly to go; he had to talk now.

He sat back, remembering that night.

‘All right the Blueshirts didn't just turn up. They wanted Vincent.'

‘I'd worked that out.'

‘There was a feller he'd been with. He'd written Vincent some letters. The sort of things people write and wish to God they never had. Vincent was mad about him. From up the arse to true fucking love! Jesus! He wasn't just anybody, this feller, either. I don't know what happened but he wanted the letters back. The Blueshirts came to get them. All Vincent had to do was hand them over, but he couldn't see it was your man who sent the bastards in the first place. He thought he was protecting the feller, hiding his fecking billiedoos. So he ran. He stuck the letters in a bloody envelope and sent them to me! They wouldn't look in the same place twice! That's what he wrote.'

‘So did he come back here that night?'

‘No. The letters came, a couple of days later, but he never did.'

‘Where are they now?'

Billy Donnelly still didn't want to say it.

‘You know, don't you, Billy?'

‘I gave them to Sergeant Lynch. I don't know how he found out they were here, but he did. I'd kept them. I did think Vincent would come back. I should have just put them on the fire, but I couldn't. They didn't mean a thing to the man who wrote them but they meant everything to him. Jimmy Lynch turned up about a year later, asking about Vincent, about the letters. It didn't matter what I said; he knew. So he put me away. I took six months of it. For what? Vincent was dead all that time. But then, I still thought he –'

‘Was Jimmy Lynch there that night, with the Blueshirts?'

‘No, he was fucking IRA before he was a Broy Harrier, wasn't he? I don't know who they were.'

‘What about the man who wrote the letters?'

‘There wasn't a name. All I know is what Vincent told me. He was some sort of teacher, not a school teacher … it was the university. And the bastard was a priest.'

The train from Baltinglass arrived at Kingsbridge just after ten the next morning. It was barely a week till Christmas now. Tom had come to Dublin with his grandmother and grandfather and Stefan had a day off. It was a day to gaze at the windows of the shops in Grafton Street and O'Connell Street, to look at Christmas trees and Christmas lights, to buy the small presents they would put round the tree in the sitting room at Kilranelagh. A day to eat dinner in the restaurant in Clery's and have tea at Bewley's Café. And there would be a long time to spend looking in one window in particular, just to the left of the clock outside Clery's, where the tricycle still sat, surrounded by glitter and tinsel, toy soldiers and dolls, tin drums and teddy bears.

Stefan and Tom were in Bewley's when Dessie MacMahon found them that afternoon. Pretending they had something else to do, David and Helena were out Christmas shopping for Tom and Stefan; Tom and his father had been Christmas shopping for them too. It had involved another slow walk past Clery's window, and a last look at the tricycle, which Tom had, with impressive resolution, persuaded himself Santy might not be able to bring all the way to Baltinglass. Dessie came over to the table with a cup and saucer and sat down. He poured himself some tea from the pot. It was thick, black and tepid, but nothing was undrinkable with enough sugar in it.

‘
She's
been on the phone. That's three times today.'

He eyed the coconut macaroon in the middle of the table.

‘You can have it if you want it, Dessie,' said Tom.

‘Well, if it's going begging.' He didn't wait to be asked twice.

‘I think she's a bit pissed off with you. Jesus, that tea's disgusting!'

‘I can't do anything now, Dessie. I'll phone her later.'

‘Well, she's at the synagogue in Adelaide Road with Mr Field. Funeral arrangements and all that. That's where she was going anyway.'

He got out a cigarette and lit it.

‘She was on about seeing you.'

The grin on Dessie's face was irritating Stefan now.

‘Did she have something to say?'

‘I should think that one's always got something to say.' He winked at Tom. Tom laughed, though he hadn't got any idea what he was laughing at.

Stefan hadn't thought about Hannah all day, but now she was in his head. He wanted to see her, and he wanted to see her as himself, not as Detective Sergeant Gillespie. This was who he was, sitting here with his son. The rest was only what he did. They still knew almost nothing about each other. And he was sure she must want to see him too. That's why she kept phoning. There were two hours before he had to meet his mother and father at Kingsbridge Station. He looked at the bill on the plate beside him and fished in his pocket for some shillings and a half crown. When he got up to leave with Tom, Dessie stayed where he was. He called over the waitress.

‘Can you freshen this pot up, darling? It's stewed to buggery.'

The tram to Adelaide Road was another part of Tom's day in Dublin; sitting upstairs, looking at the streets and the people, was its own entertainment. As they walked past the terraced houses to the synagogue it started to rain. Hannah was waiting on the steps of the big red and white brick building.

‘This is Tom. Tom, this is Hannah.'

‘Hello.' Tom looked slightly sheepish; he wasn't used to new people.

Hannah smiled, sensing his awkwardness.

‘It's lovely to meet you, Tom. Are you having a good day?'

‘Yes. We've been to Clery's.'

‘Looking at toys? Well, you would be just now, wouldn't you?'

Tom's expression was very serious. ‘Were you at Clery's at all?'

‘Yes, lots. I can't remember the last time though.'

‘Did you ever see the bike?'

‘I don't think I did, no.'

‘It's in the window, right by the clock. It's a tricycle.'

‘Will I have a look next time I'm up there?'

Tom thought she should. She glanced at Stefan and winked. She already knew about the tricycle. Her eyes seemed very bright as Stefan looked at her. Tom's nervousness had suddenly gone and he was smiling. He liked her. The rain was falling harder now. Hannah took Tom's hand.

‘Come on, you'll both be soaked,' she laughed. ‘We all will!'

She hurried up the steps with Tom. Stefan followed, running. The rain was beating down. As they entered, he instinctively reached to take his hat off. Hannah touched his arm, smiling, pushing it back on his head.

‘It's the other way round. Just leave it on!'

Tom looked at the dark interior. It was full of unfamiliar things, but it was enough like a church to feel familiar all the same. It smelt like one too.

‘Is it a church, Daddy?'

‘Yes, a Jewish church.'

Tom watched as several children walked past, wet from the rain.

‘I'm sorry, I forgot you were having the day off.' Hannah spoke more quietly. ‘I hope I didn't mess it up. You should have ignored me!'

‘It's fine.' He felt she seemed slightly more awkward now. Perhaps it was just being in the synagogue, perhaps it was the sense that they were still somehow standing on the bridge between what was personal and what was professional in their relationship. More children hurried past them. Tom was looking at the dark interior more closely now, the rows of pews and the high gallery above, but his eyes kept coming back to the children, his own age and older, now closely packed in front of the Torah Ark, by a branched candelabrum, laughing as the elderly rabbi told then the Hanukkah story.

‘You can go and listen,' said Hannah gently.

Tom looked up at Stefan doubtfully.

‘Come on.' She took his hand again and walked him towards the other children. Stefan followed. He could see Tom's doubts had already gone.

‘This is Hanukkah,' she continued. ‘It's about a bad, bad king and the people who kicked him out and sent him packing. We light candles to remember that.' She caught the rabbi's eye, and pushed Tom gently forward.

‘And what's your name?' asked the rabbi.

Tom looked back at his father for reassurance. Stefan nodded.

‘It's Tom, Father.'

The other children giggled. Tom didn't understand why, but it felt welcoming and good-humoured enough, so he just smiled back at them.

‘All right, Tom. First the battle, then the miracle. Well, if God's going to take the trouble to give us a miracle he expects us to put some work in too. That's the battle. I think it's fair, don't you? Now, we have a wicked king, a very wicked king, more wicked than you could ever imagine. Antiochus was his name.' The others hissed and booed. ‘And we have a hero, Judah the Maccabee, fighting the evil king, to save Jerusalem. He was a brave man and his soldiers were brave, but there were only a few of them, and at first Antiochus chased them all into the hills with his great army.'

‘Like Michael Dwyer and Sam MacAllister,' said Tom. ‘They hid in the mountains behind our farm, when they were fighting the redcoats.'

‘Yes, it was just like that, Tom. And like Michael Dwyer, Judah and his men had no weapons, no food, no shelter. In Jerusalem the wicked king's soldiers were eating the people out of house and home and putting up statues of the Greek gods in the Temple of the Lord.' More hisses and boos; Tom joined in. ‘Everyone thought the war was over and Antiochus had won!'

Hannah and Stefan had walked a little way back towards the doors.

‘He's like you,' she said quietly.

‘Is that a good thing?'

‘I wouldn't say it's so bad.'

They were silent for several seconds. She seemed reluctant to speak.

‘You wanted to talk to me, Hannah?'

‘I wanted to know if there was any more news?'

‘There's nothing new.' The question had been surprisingly vague. It was the same question she asked every day. After three phone calls he had assumed she had something to tell him. And he wasn't really sure she had forgotten about his day off. He knew there was something else going on.

‘I know you're still not telling me everything, Stefan. I'm trying to understand that, but I'm also waiting for more. I think you owe me more.'

He was surprised, almost hurt. It sounded like she was using the fact that they had slept together as a lever. But as he looked into her deep eyes, the honesty and the openness told him instantly that she wasn't. It was simply that she believed he owed her the truth, whatever that meant. And the part of him that wasn't a policeman said she was right. But there was still something else, something different about her unfamiliar awkwardness.

‘Is something wrong?' he asked, trying to read her face.

‘The thing is, I have to go. That's why I needed to talk to you.'

She tried to throw the words away, as if they weren't that important, but her face told a different story. She didn't like what she was saying.

‘Go where?'

‘I have to leave Ireland.'

It was the last thing he expected to hear. There was no reason why Hannah shouldn't leave Ireland, but it was out of step with everything that had happened since they met. All her attention had been on Susan Field.

‘You mean you're going back to Palestine?'

‘Eventually, yes. I need to go to England. I have some work to do.'

It felt like a brush-off. She was only telling him part of it. He realised he hadn't ever asked what she did. And she hadn't told him. He realised how little he knew about her again. He knew about the death of her friend. He knew something about her childhood, from Susan's letters and an hour in a pub. He knew there was a man in Palestine, Benny; a farm where they grew oranges. It wasn't much. Perhaps she'd never intended him to know much.

‘Back to the oranges?' he smiled, trying to make a joke of it.

‘What?'

‘Doesn't your fiancé grow oranges?'

She moved closer to him. This wasn't easy for her. She wanted to tell him that he mattered to her. She wanted him to understand that there were reasons she had to go. But she couldn't explain the reasons. Not now.

‘I'm sorry. I was never going to be home very long.'

‘I wish I'd known that.'

The sound of laughing children filled the synagogue.

He knew she had more to say. And he knew she wouldn't say it.

‘I want to know what happens, Stefan.'

‘Yes, naturally. If you tell me where you are –'

‘If you find anything, my father will be able to contact me.'

Now she wouldn't even give him an address.

‘I'm not going because I want to, Stefan.'

‘When do you go?'