The City of Shadows (46 page)

‘Last night, Jimmy. He was trying to kill me at the time.'

‘He goes at it after a few –' Lynch laughed, but he didn't like this.

Stefan took the captive bolt pistol from his pocket and put it on the table. Lynch looked at it. He knew what it was, but that was all he knew.

‘You've pigs to kill down on the farm then,' he grinned.

‘Remember Susan Field?' continued Stefan, watching the detective closely. ‘You took over the investigation into her death, last time we talked. I hear you didn't get far. The State Pathologist thought she'd been shot in the head with a captive bolt pistol. You said you didn't. But that's the gun. You might remember Vincent Walsh. He was buried in a little plot next to Susan's on Kilmashogue. You'd know him best for the letters Monsignor Robert Fitzpatrick wrote to him, the ones you sold to Hugo Keller. Wayland-Smith said he'd been shot in the head with a captive bolt pistol too. And that's the gun that shot them both.'

‘What makes you think that?' Lynch was choosing his words carefully now. He didn't understand and he didn't know where this was going. But if he was thrown by the mention of the letters it didn't show.

‘Seán Óg tried to put a hole in my head with it last night.'

Detective Sergeant Lynch was not often surprised; he prided himself on being too well informed for that. But he was certainly surprised now.

‘I see. So what are you going to do, Stevie?' he asked.

‘I don't have any witnesses, that's the trouble.'

‘If that's true then all you've got is a gun from a slaughterhouse.' Lynch spoke slowly. He didn't know why Stefan was showing him a weaker hand.

‘You'll have to do something, Jimmy. It's pushing it, even for Special Branch. You've got a guard who's murdered two people. It could have been three. What are you going to do, leave him where he is until the next time?'

Lynch's lips tightened. There was conviction in Stefan's words. He couldn't just dismiss them.

‘He did kill them, Jimmy.'

‘You know that?'

‘I know it.'

‘Let's say he did. Do you know why?'

‘Not really. I don't know why he'd be covering up buggery and abortion, but that's all I've got now. Till yesterday I thought you did it.'

‘Thanks.'

‘Because of Hugo Keller. He was doing the abortion.'

‘But not the buggering.'

‘No.' He had to admire Lynch for his expressionless face. He had thrown Keller into the conversation again to see what response he got. It was nothing, almost nothing. But Keller was the Special Branch sergeant's weakness. How much did Stefan really know and how much was bluff?

‘How did you know about Fitzpatrick's letters, Jimmy?'

‘Is it letters or murder, what are you on now?'

As bluffs go, it wasn't one of Jimmy Lynch's best. Stefan smiled and ignored it.

‘You found out from Seán Óg somehow, that's what I think. Wouldn't that be it?'

The detective didn't answer, but it was answer enough.

‘When Broy brought you into Special Branch, Seán was already a guard. I'd forgotten that. He wasn't an obvious candidate for the Broy Harriers, was he? He was a pro-Treaty, Fine Gael man. You got him in.'

‘We took different sides in the Civil War. So? Aren't we meant to put all that behind us now? Besides, we went through a lot together before that, fighting the Tans.'

‘Camaraderie, that's nice to see, Jimmy. Was he ever a Blueshirt?'

‘If he was he'd keep pretty quiet about it now.'

‘I heard he went on a Garda pilgrimage with General O'Duffy.'

‘A lot of guards did that. It's how you got promoted then.'

‘Well, if any of them try to kill me I'll add them to the list. In the meantime, if you looked at the back of Seánie's wardrobe I'd be interested to see what colour the shirts are, because I'd say he was there when that gang of Blueshirts went to Billy Donnelly's to get the letters, Monsignor Fitzpatrick's dirty letters. And when they didn't get them, someone sent him back to kill poor old Vinnie, to keep him quiet. What do you think, Sergeant?'

Lynch held Stefan's gaze but he was uneasy now. ‘You'd have to ask Garda Moran, not me.'

‘Come on, he told you about the letters. He must have done. And you worked out who might have them. Maybe you're not such a bad detective after all, when you put your mind to it. You traced them back to Billy Donnelly, and you put him in the Joy until he delivered them.'

‘I thought this was about Seán Óg trying to kill you.'

‘I'm short on evidence, I told you.'

‘So?'

‘I've got a lot more on you than I have on him. I've talked to your friend Keller.'

‘Yes? Where is the old bastard now?' He made it sound like he wanted to send a postcard and all he needed was his change of address.

‘He's not easy to get hold of,' replied Stefan. Again Hugo Keller alive somewhere was more useful than he was dead in Danzig. ‘But I've got chapter and verse on what you sold him down the years. I've seen the book. Remember that book you wanted so much? I know why now. He kept very meticulous notes. I even know how much he paid you. I know which bits he passed on to our esteemed director of the National Museum and the Nazi Party na hÉireann too, and which ones he kept for a little private blackmail.'

Detective Sergeant Lynch's body tensed. He'd just run out of banter. This was all too close to home.

‘That's a lot of bollocks.'

Stefan smiled. If all Jimmy Lynch could do was bluster, he had him.

‘Right. And when I take it all to the Commissioner, it'll be your bollocks.'

*

The green door between Coyne's cycle repair shop and Verecchia's ice cream parlour in Dorset Street opened straight on to a flight of stairs. It led to a flat on the second floor of 47a that was a Special Branch safe house. Seán Óg Moran knew it well enough. He had a key. Sometimes he'd met an informant there with Jimmy. Sometimes there was a man his sergeant wanted questioned, who had to be kept there till he coughed up. Sometimes there was an informant who needed to lie low. There might even be an IRA man on the double-cross who had to hole up. He didn't ask too much. Jimmy never liked that. And it was Jimmy who'd got him his job. He owed a lot to Jimmy. If his sergeant wanted him to know something, well, he'd tell him.

Seán Óg's ribs were hurting like hell. The doctor had bound him up but there wasn't much else he could do. He had to take it easy; it would take time. He wasn't worried about Stefan Gillespie. No one had seen him. What was the word of a guard already on suspension against a Special Branch man's anyway? Special Branch looked after their own. He might have to come up with some explanation. He'd just say Gillespie had a grudge against him. They bumped into each other and got into a fight. That's as much as he'd need. Jimmy didn't have any time for the Protestant gobshite either. Seán Óg had been drinking steadily since the previous night. It was partly pain and partly because he didn't know what else to do when things went wrong.

As he walked into the bare kitchen there was only a lamp on. Jimmy Lynch was sitting at the table. There was a bottle of Powers and several glasses. The room smelt as it always did – of stale air, cigarette smoke and greasy newspaper from the chipper. He didn't notice Stefan Gillespie at first.

‘Jesus this rib's giving me some gyp.'

‘We've got a problem, haven't we, Seánie?'

Moran saw Stefan, sitting in an armchair. ‘What's he doing here?'

‘Sit down.'

The big guard did as he was told. Lynch pushed a glass at him.

‘What's he said?' Seán Óg reached for the bottle and a glass.

‘This is yours, I think,' said Stefan as he got up and joined them at the table. He put the Accles and Shelvoke captive bolt pistol down in front of Moran.

The guard turned to Lynch uncertainly, then smiled.

‘We got in a fight, that's all, Jimmy. We can work it out.'

‘You think so?' There was nothing warm in the reply.

‘Who's going to believe him?' Seán spoke as if Stefan wasn't there.

‘Me. I believe him. You were going to fucking kill him.'

Moran was puzzled. He didn't expect Jimmy to talk to him like that.

‘And then there's two people with holes in their heads that you buried out in the mountains at Kilmashogue. The little queer and the woman you picked up from Hugo Keller's clinic. Why, Seán? What did they do to you?'

‘We can put it right. We always did. In the old days.'

‘This isn't a fucking Tan or some RIC informant! It's not a war!'

‘That's not true, Jimmy. There's more than one kind of war.'

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘There's the war against God.'

Lynch stared at him. It came from nowhere. It meant nothing to him. But Stefan already knew where it came from. It was shorthand, but he had heard it before. Seán Moran looked at Stefan directly for the first time. He spoke softly now, as if he was explaining something entirely reasonable.

‘I'm sorry, Mr Gillespie, but what you tried to do to the monsignor, you couldn't be allowed to do that. Why couldn't you leave him alone? He's been chosen and you're trying to hurt him. If you understood the danger –'

Lynch was staring at them as if they had suddenly started talking to each other in another language. Stefan nodded as the big guard spoke.

‘I do understand, Seán. I've heard the monsignor speak.'

‘Then you know –'

‘Well, I know what he believes.'

‘I'm sorry. I wasn't meant to kill you then.' He smiled at Stefan, as if the thing had been resolved now. If Stefan knew about that, he must believe too. He must be all right.

‘What the hell are you two on about?' interrupted Lynch.

‘It's not so different from the Tans and the English, Jimmy.' Seán Óg turned towards his friend again. ‘It's just the same. You remember what you told me when we shot those fellers in the war? Jesus, I still wake up sometimes and I hear that lad in Finglas, screaming for his mother when you put the gun to his head. You don't choose them, you said. You don't want to kill them. You do it because there's something bigger, too big to let feelings get in the way. It was Ireland then, but this is the whole world. Jews and communists, plotting to destroy God's Church. The monsignor's the one fighting the evil at work in the world, you see, the evil even the Church can't see.'

He was articulate in a way that was unlike him. He spoke with calm assurance. He knew about this and, detective sergeant or not, Lynch didn't.

‘Am I the only one here thinks he's in a madhouse?' asked Jimmy.

‘I'm sure you can make Detective Sergeant Lynch understand, Seán.'

Stefan's eyes fixed on Lynch, telling him to shut his mouth and let Seán Óg talk. And the big guard did. Whether it was the familiarity of the safe house or the alcohol he'd been drinking all day, Garda Moran seemed to feel Sergeant Gillespie understood what had happened now. He was talking in a way he had never talked before. He'd thought about all this. He wanted other people to know. He had been carrying it for a long time. He didn't kill easily and now that it was in the open he had to explain it. Detective Sergeant Lynch wasn't in a madhouse but he was closer to a confessional than he knew.

‘The queer lad was going to blackmail Monsignor Fitzpatrick. We had to protect him.'

‘And what about Susan Field?' said Stefan.

‘I didn't like it, but she was going to die anyway.'

Lynch reached for the Powers. Seán Óg pushed his glass across.

‘Fill her up, Jimmy.'

‘If you'd got her to the hospital –' Stefan felt he was close.

‘It could have all come out then. And that wasn't right. It would have got in the way of the fight. Besides, after what she did to Father Byrne –'

‘What was that?'

‘She took him away,' said the big guard, shaking his head. ‘Away from the light, Sergeant Gillespie. Away from the Mystical Body of Christ. That's where the struggle is. And Father Byrne betrayed it. It broke Monsignor Fitzpatrick's heart. But she did it, the woman. Sister Brigid said it was the sin that could never be forgiven. That's in the Bible. The woman knew what she was doing to him, you see, because she was a Jew, don't forget that. I did what I could though. I took her to the nuns, but they couldn't help her. It was too late. The abortion was piling sin on sin, you could see it in her body. That's why she was bleeding so much. There wasn't another way. I had to do it. And Sister Brigid said she would have died anyway. She knew.'

It was very silent. Jimmy Lynch just stared at his old friend. But now Stefan knew. He knew why it had all meant nothing to Robert Fitzpatrick.

‘And was it Sister Brigid told you to kill Vincent Walsh?'

Moran nodded as if to say, why wouldn't she? He drained his glass of whiskey and reached out to pour one more.

‘I hadn't seen her for years you know. When I was in the industrial school in Clontarf the monsignor was the parish priest. She kept house for him, just the way she does now. My best friend was Enda Dunne then. We'd go and do the garden for them. I don't say we did much really, probably made more mess than anything, but she'd give us a few coppers, and they'd a big orchard at the back. We could take what we wanted. And sometimes we'd stay over. She'd read to us, stories like. She was the only one ever read a story to me. It was a little room at the top of the house. The best bed I ever slept in. If I'm home there's never a night I don't read to my kids. You know what's daft? They can read better than me. They pretend they can't but they show me up.' He laughed but as he spoke the words he said them with pride.