The Death of an Irish Tradition (5 page)

He reached up and closed the wide old window. It shrieked in its track and the pane rattled as it hit the sill. Suddenly the office was very quiet.

He opened the cubicle door and said, “Bernie—when you’ve got a moment.” And while McKeon was finishing up whatever he was doing, McGarr moved through the worn wooden desks of the outer office to the cabinet, where he found the Bechel-Gore file. Back at his desk he opened the thick manila folder.

“Chief?” McKeon asked.

Without glancing up, McGarr said, “Two things, Bernie.” He reached out and touched the package he’d picked up at R. T. E. “Take this package over to McAnulty in Kilmainham. It’s a video tape and I’m interested in any and all closeup shots of the sallow, older man in the cloth cap. He keeps the crowd back as Bechel-Gore begins to fall.” McGarr heard McKeon move and he raised his eyes.

The sergeant’s smile at the prospect of being given an outside assignment diminished somewhat. “We on that again?”

“I don’t see why not. He’s a citizen, like anyone else.”

McKeon eased his hands into his pants pockets and looked away.

“And I want every available closeup, I don’t care if they’ve got to do dozens. I want to see everything of the man
and
his donkey. And see if they can do something with the resolution. Sharp shots, get me? And while you’re out there I want you to take a good look at the man yourself. Understood?

“Then I want you to tell McAnulty that there’s a whistle on the sound track of the tape. It’s short and sharp, probably a high pitch. It’s there and don’t let him put you off. I want to hear it.” McAnulty was a painstaking professional when he wanted to be, but there was no percentage in the matter, no publicity, no recognition, and the man was jealous of his prerogatives.

“Now, two—” McGarr motioned to the door and McKeon turned to close it.

McGarr noted the accordion folds behind the knees of the sergeant’s pants, the collar of his shirt which was a bit rumpled, and the greenish tie, some dark plaid design, that he wore summer and winter. McKeon wasn’t slovenly, by any means, only unconcerned with the niceties of dress. Life was too short and those details too inessential to warrant more than a token obeisance—yes, he had a suit, a tie, and a shirt. And yes, he wore them to work. And considering the ease of manner of the short, plump man, the way he could insinuate himself into any conversation or group of people, McGarr judged he was perfect for the task he was about to set him.

“—Ballsbridge, the Horse Show. I want you to go out to the R. D. S. offices. You know where they are—just to the left of the main entrance off the Merrion Road.

“You’re a—” McGarr pushed himself back in the chair and clasped his hands behind his head, “—donkey hobbyist. Or, you’d like to be.”

McKeon smiled and sat on the edge of the desk.

“I’m serious, now. Anything and everything about the beasts gives you a rise.”

“Jack ass me how I knew,” McKeon mumbled in a rush, “I’d get to play ‘Don Key O. D.’ for my debut.”

McGarr only closed his eyes. “You’ve come into a bit of money and you’re now wanting another animal. You’re wondering if you can purchase a catalogue. They’ll have them there, that’s certain, but I want you to see if they’ve got old issues for, say, five years back. If not, they’ll have them in their library, which is just across the hall. See if you can get in there. Copy the lists of donkey exhibitors for those years. If you have to become a member, do it—we’ll reimburse you out of petty cash.

“And you want to know where the donkeys are stabled and can you amble over there and chat up the owners? Would they mind that? Repeat that you’re a buyer. They won’t mind a bit. And who’s a good man to talk to? The resident expert, ass it were.” McGarr opened one eye to see if McKeon had caught it.

He had.

“Now—who we’re looking for is a certain older fellow, name J. J. Keegan. He’s the one on the video tape you’ll be seeing. Pounds to pence he won’t be using his real name. Small, dark, sallow skin. Cloth cap, dark suit, about sixty-five, maybe seventy. Galway. Leenane. Could be—” it occurred to McGarr, “—a native Irish speaker. Got the picture?”

“Well—it’s not very sharp.”

McGarr knew what McKeon meant: Keegan fit the description of thousands of older Irishmen and he wondered just how much the grainy picture on the R. T. E. transmission could help them. “Let’s see what McAnulty can come up with.

“Anyhow, today just let whatever donkey exhibitors that have arrived get used to seeing you around and bring back the catalogues.

“If you do run onto him, make conversation but don’t force things. I imagine we’ve got some time, but keep an eye on him.”

“That’s all?” McKeon stood.

“I guess so.”

“Can I ask—?”

“The Bechel-Gore thing, and maybe something else too.”

McKeon only lowered his eyes and turned to the door.

Once again McGarr was reminded of the Anglo-Irishman’s reputation.

After studying the contents of the manila folder for a while, McGarr wrote out a list of questions that he asked Greaves to take to O’Shaughnessy. They were for M. E. Murray and probably pointless, but McGarr wanted every avenue covered.

He checked his watch. Just 10:15.

He left for Ballsbridge.

WARD HAD DIRECTED
Mairead Kehlen Caughey into the dayroom, where the furniture was somewhat more comfortable than in the other rooms of the Detective Bureau. He had positioned two chairs fairly close to the windows, which he had opened.

“Bit of a breeze here,” he said, noting how she eased herself into the chair, the wide skirt of her black dress rustling, the straight line of her back just meeting the old oak.

No wasted movement there. Feminine, to be sure, but the slightly distracted manner—which probably had more to do with her recent loss—made her seem as though only by a conscious act of will was she maintaining contact with the persons and things around her. And she seemed to be listening or watching for or trying to feel any change so she might correct the imbalance.

Ward tried not to bend too close to her when he said, “I’ll see about some tea.”

“Oh, please don’t put yourself to any bother.” Her head—the soft flow of her black hair—quivered slightly, but it was plain she could feel him there near her ear and she moved back, closer to him.

A flirt, he wondered? He didn’t think so. “No trouble.” He straightened up and made for the door. “None at all.”

Already O’Shaughnessy had carried a chair to the farthest corner of the room. His hat still on, he had a newspaper in front of his face. He’d stay like that, seemingly disinterested in the entire proceeding. It was their way, once one of them had established a rapport with an interviewee.

A Ban Gharda was sitting at a table in back of the two chairs, a stenographic typewriter in front of her.

When Ward returned, the girl was staring out the window, over the slate rooftops of the Bank of Ireland and Trinity College down at the end of Dame Street, and she didn’t turn to him when he sat.

Ward only crossed his legs and clasped his hands over his knee. He followed her gaze to the clear patch of sky that was the lightest blue.

The clouds had begun to break now, almost in two, parting one half from the other so that sunlight slanted through the gap in pinkish shafts that struck north of the city, making the promontory of Howth Head and the golf links on North Bull Island seem very green indeed.

After a while he said, “It must be hard.”

She tilted her head slightly, as if listening for something else. “Have you ever lost a…parent, Hugh?” Again the measured words, the slightly absent tone.

“Both of them.”

“I’m so sorry. It must have been difficult for you.”

“At first.”

“How old were you?”

“Fifteen.”

“How did they die?”

“Smash up.”

“Brothers and sisters?”

“All older.”

“Who raised you?”

“One of my brothers, although I really didn’t need much raising.”

She turned to him. “But—fifteen?”

She had a little spot, like a mole but smaller, up from the right corner of her mouth, on her upper lip, which was a bit protrusive. It seemed to tremble.

Ward’s eyes followed the line of her long, straight nose to her black and now tear-filled eyes. Under the wide brim of the hat her face was shadowed and again he was taken by the quality of her skin. It was very white but not translucent, like that of so many other fair-skinned people, and it contrasted sharply with the mellow tan on the skin of her neck.

Ward remembered the questions, the ones he’d found in McGarr’s preliminary report, but they could wait until he had established the proper mood.

O’Shaughnessy turned a page of the newspaper and shifted his body away from them.

The stenographer’s hands were poised on the keys of the machine, and she stared straight ahead at the wall, as though in her own world.

“I knew what I wanted to do,” Ward went on. “I had to carry on. I figured my parents would have wanted it that way…would have wanted me to be as good as I could at what I had chosen.”

She looked away from him, and her nostrils—thin and of that same clear, white texture—flared and her head quivered. “Being a policeman.” The voice had little relation to the emotion that was expressed on her face.

“That’s right. In the way that your mother would have wanted you to go on with being a pianist. I understand that you’re going to study in London in the fall.”

“Perhaps.” She opened a small black purse and removed a handkerchief.

Ward wondered how long she had had the dress. It seemed new in style, made of some lustrous material he couldn’t place, and it was not the usual sort of black evening dress that the women of his acquaintance had in their wardrobes. He couldn’t guess the occasion on which she might wear such a thing, except for a funeral or while in mourning, and certainly she couldn’t have bought it so early on Saturday morning. And the way she was built—tall and thin but full—he guessed her clothes had to be fitted to her. Even her feet, which were long, were remarkably thin in black patent-leather pumps.

“It wasn’t your idea, I gather—to study in London.”

She shook her head and blotted the far corner of each eye. “It was Mammy’s.”

“Why? Aren’t the piano teachers in Dublin—”

She shook her head. “London or Paris or New York.”

“You’re that advanced.”

She closed her eyes.

“Who was your teacher here?”

“Oh—I’ve had many. Father Menahan is my teacher presently.”

“The priest…last night?”

She nodded slightly.

“Is he a good teacher?”

“The best I’ve had. He’s very good in theory. He was a fine pianist and a composer and taught in university, before it was decided that he should do some parish work.

“In a way he was my first teacher and my…only real teacher. The others were…interim, when we were away.”

Ward didn’t understand. “You mean, you’ve been to university?”

“No, no—I don’t think I’ll ever go to university. I’m not…bookish.” She looked up again, into the clouds. “I’m an artist, or at least I will be soon.”

She turned to Ward. “Father John, you see, is from home. He was teaching at the university there when I was a child.”

“Galway?”

She blinked.

“And you came here to Dublin and Ballsbridge when the father was transferred here?”

“In a way.” Still she did not take her eyes from his. “We’d been abroad for a time.”

Ward cocked his head.

“In Rome and then London.”

“Studying?”

“Yes, I guess so.” She hesitated. “You’re—very kind, do you know that?”

“Scholarship? Grants? Rome and London are expensive places.”

“No, nothing like that. I’ve won some prizes, but Mother—” she looked away and sighed, “—said she didn’t care for other people’s money, that there were always strings attached, that we had enough of our own. Father John was good enough, and then he never charged.”

“Until now.”

Her brow knitted, the lines longitudinal and soft as though she was unused to frowning.

“I mean, until now when it was decided that you should go to London.”

She held out her hands and looked down at them—long tapered fingers ending in neatly shaped nails and clear lacquer. “Yes, Mammy—I mean, Mother—didn’t think I was growing any longer, that I needed new direction, needed to learn some of the more difficult modern music. She was right, of course, but—”

“The Royal Conservatory?”

“Yes.”

“You sat for the prize?”

She nodded.

“And won?”

She nodded again and averted her head.

“That carries a stipend, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Did your mother plan to go with you?”

“Certainly.”

“How did you feel about that?”

She turned back to Ward. “Mammy was all I had. And she I. Of course I wanted her with me.”

“There’s nobody else? Back in Leenane?”

“It’s not Leenane exactly. Oh—I suppose there’s Uncle Joseph somewhere. But we haven’t…hadn’t heard from him in years. He liked to…drink, you see. Especially after he lost the farm.”

Ward only waited. “Debts,” she explained. “And the others—we lost touch. There weren’t many anyhow. Some in the States, Australia. I once stayed at a cousin’s house when I played in Montreal.” A short pause. “Would there be tea now?”

“It’s coming. Any moment now.”

Ward then put his hands together, fingertips to fingertips. He turned to her. “Please realize, Mairead—may I call you that?” It was a gesture and a question that he had learned from McGarr.

“Of course. Certainly.”

“—that this is an official inquiry. The next few questions are necessary, as hard as they may be. I’m only doing my job. Did your mother work?”

“No.”

“How did she support you?”

The girl looked down at her small, shiny purse. “I don’t exactly know, but I suppose I must find out. She never spoke of it, even when I was being…extravagant.”

“But yours is a lovely flat—the piano, the automobile. A Daimler, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know, I think so. But that’s Uncle Joseph’s, or so Mam—Mother said. And the piano was a present.”

“May I ask from whom?”

“Father John.”

“He must think highly of your abilities.”

“I believe he does.”

“Does he play himself?”

“As I said, not much anymore, because of his…duties.”

Ward paused, collecting his thoughts, not wanting to blurt out the question that had been forming in his mind for the last few moments.

O’Shaughnessy had lowered the newspaper.

The stenographer still was staring off in front of her, at nothing and at the wall, her fingers on the keys.

Down in Dame Street the jackhammer had begun again.

“Did he ever play your piano? The Bechstein.”

Her brow wrinkled again, and once more he was struck by the long furrows. But then—she was only eighteen, he reminded himself. Only eighteen.

“Well, when he was giving me a lesson, of course. But I don’t understand the purpose….”

“All pro forma. Strictly pro forma. I just want to know if, say, he ever came to practice for himself. Such a marvelous instrument, and his being a pianist himself, as you said. We found his fingerprints on the keys, and it’s just a question that must be asked.”

She looked down at Ward’s hands, as though trying to determine who or what he was or could mean to her. “Yes, he did.”

“Often?”

“Not often for a…performer, but yes, often enough, I suppose. That’s how Mammy came to decide, you see.”

Ward only waited.

“Being there all day she had listened to both of us and—” Her voice trailed off.

“She decided you were better than he?”

She turned to Ward. “But it was unfair, really. Mammy wasn’t one who could judge.”

“But she decided.”

“Yes.”

“How did the father feel about your going to London?”

“Well, at first he was against it. He’s been my teacher for so long. But then Mammy convinced him it was best.”

“Did Father John come and go as he pleased?”

She nodded.

“And he had a key to your flat?”

She glanced up at his face. “Are you intimating—?”

“No. Certainly not. Not a thing, Mairead. Please understand me—the question would have to be put sooner or later. Every job has its difficult moments and I’m trying to make this as easy as possible. Can you understand that?”

She turned her head and looked down at her leg, which she had crossed toward Ward. “I understand,” she said in a small voice. “Yes—he has a key. He’s like one of the family.” She turned to Ward. “The only one. Now.”

“And not Mister Murray?”

She turned her head to him. “Sean? No—certainly not.”

The door to the dayroom opened. It was Greaves with a tea tray on which there was a lemon.

Ward started to stand up, but O’Shaughnessy stayed him, signaling Greaves to place it on the table.

“Now, yesterday—tell me everything that happened.”

“But I did last night.”

“Just one more time, please—it’s all according to procedure.”

The stenographer’s machine made a light clicking sound that was only audible when the street noise ceased for a moment.

“I’d had a hard day Thursday. I’d practiced until ten, then Sean took me out for a bite.”

“Where?”

“Neary’s.”

It was one of the most famous pubs in Dublin. The Gaiety Theatre was directly behind it and at that time of night the old premises was filled with actors and other theater people and—Ward remembered the forceful way she had used the word, as though unsure of herself—artists. And stylish young people too. The downstairs bar, which old wood made dark, was usually crowded with them, especially on a Friday night.

“And so Mammy let me sleep.”

“’Til?”

“Morning. Eleven or so. I had some coffee. She made me brunch, but I couldn’t eat a thing. I felt, well—I hadn’t really been sleeping because of the heat, but somehow I had managed—and I felt—” one of her hands, the left one, crimped into a tight knot, the knuckles white, “—I felt like…Satie, and the piano—” She turned to Ward and her eyes were suddenly different, no longer soft and deep but hard and bright. “I don’t imagine that you or anybody can know what it means to me—rich, pure sound, a
big
sound without being big, and—” She drew in a breath and let it out, her chest rising so that Ward’s eyes fell on the long, sloping line of her breasts, the gentle curve of the tendons in her neck, shadowed between. “I played until Sean arrived to go shopping. Poulenc, Honegger, Auric, even Milhaud.

“Seldom one has a day…” and then her eyes suddenly glassed and she looked away. “I mean, please understand me. My mother died. She was…murdered, I know, but earlier—” Her left hand reached out and clamped on Ward’s arm, the nails digging into his skin even through the material of his suit. It was as though she had become transfixed but for seconds only—one or two, several, a few.

“And then you went shopping,” Ward said gently.

Quietly O’Shaughnessy rose from his seat and approached the table. He poured two cups of tea. He sliced the lemon and placed a wedge on one of the saucers, then carried the tray and a chair over to them.

There he glanced at Mairead Kehlen Caughey, but she didn’t see him. Her black eyes were glazed and she was staring out the window.

He straightened up and returned to his newspaper, but the tall Garda superintendent was puzzled. Perhaps the young woman’s…vagueness was the result of her mother’s death and the manner in which she had died or merely an instance of her “artistic” personality, but O’Shaughnessy didn’t think so. He sensed something else there, something that they were missing.