Whatever Happenened to Molly Bloom? (17 page)

‘Lyons?’

‘I’m here.’

‘Tarpey?’

‘I thought we was bein’ fed first.’

‘No, Mr Tarpey, you’re not being fed,’ said Gandy. ‘You’re here to view the crime scene and you’ve only yourselves to blame. Gregory? Mathew Gregory?’

‘Sah.’ Gregory answered with a sarcastic salute that added fuel to the sergeant’s smouldering temper. ‘Where do you wish me to put meself?’

‘Over there, out of my way,’ snarled Gandy. ‘MacDougall?’ Answer came there none. ‘MacDougall? Where the devil’s MacDougall?’

Any sort of street theatre inevitably drew a crowd and the arrival of a police van outside the Blooms’ house was no exception. Twenty or so citizens heard the whiskered sergeant shout, ‘MacDougall, you bugger, will you answer your bloody name?’

Johnny MacDougall, a meek little chap, had toddled off to find a place to empty his bladder. He appeared, unabashed, from the steps that led down to the Blooms’ cellar door still fumbling with the buttons of his fly.

‘Now did I hear you callin’, Sergeant?’

Gandy’s nostrils flared. He bit his lip and in a menacing tone enquired, ‘Are you John MacDougall?’

‘The same.’

‘Then, Mr MacDougall,’ the sergeant seethed, ‘will you kindly get your arse over there before I kick it for you?’

‘All in order, Sergeant Gandy?’ Tom Machin breached the ring of spectators in the nick of time. ‘No trouble, I trust?’

‘Winding up the roll call, sir,’ Sergeant Gandy replied while behind his back the jury smartly reassembled itself into three groups of five without any help from the constables.

‘Good, very good,’ Tom Machin said. ‘Now if you’ll just unlock the door, Sergeant, we’ll get on with it.’

‘I ha’n’t got a key, sir.’ The sergeant patted his pockets with big red-knuckled hands. ‘Haven’t you?’

‘No, I have not.’

‘You must have, sir.’

‘I tell you I haven’t.’

Quick to sense confusion, the jury muttered and shuffled.

Foreman Conway asked, ‘Is there a problem, officer?’

‘No, damn you, there’s no problem,’ Sergeant Gandy shouted and, tossing jurymen right and left, surged up to Bloom’s front door and, grabbing the handle in both fists, wrenched and tore at it with all his might. Then, sheepish and breathless, he looked round.

‘It’s locked, Mr Machin.’

‘I know it’s locked, Sergeant,’ the Inspector said.

Mr Conway said, ‘I do hope we’re not going to be kept waiting out here in the cold while you sort this out.’

‘Didn’t you retrieve the key from Miss Bloom?’ said Machin.

‘Miss Bloom?’ Gandy said. ‘She’s got it, has she? What the hell is she doing with our key?’

‘It’s her house,’ Machin patiently explained.

‘Are there no other doors? There must be other doors,’ Mr Conway put in.

‘There are, but they’re both secured,’ Tom Machin said.

‘Well,’ said Mr Conway, very reasonably, ‘if we’re going to be kept out here for long might I suggest we repair somewhere for something to drink. At the city’s expense, of course?’

‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ said Gandy

Stepping back, he aimed his boot at the door and struck it a massive blow with his heel. The draught plate rattled, the door panel cracked and the crowd on the pavement cheered.

Thoroughly incensed now, the mainstay of the DMP’s tug-of-war team was not about to be defeated by a bloody door. He let out a lion’s roar and drove his boot directly into the lock which resisted the first blow and the second but yielded, with a squeal of metal against wood, to the third.

The door of the house of death swung slowly open.

‘There!’ Gandy said and, grabbing Mr Conway by the shoulder, yanked him into the hallway. ‘Happy now?’

Whatever had passed between Mr Bloom and his one and only had brought no fresh tears. The young woman was stiff and steely when she emerged from the clerk’s office and with barely a nod to Mr Sullivan hurried off to join her friends from Mullingar who, it seemed, had not deserted her in favour of refreshment after all.

On the table in the clerk’s office was a little brown teapot, milk jug, sugar basin and two cups and saucers. There was also an oval plate of tinned-salmon sandwiches cut into dainty triangles. Bloom was smoking a cigarette he’d scrounged from the court officer but hadn’t touched either the tea or the sandwiches.

Sullivan drew out a chair, seated himself and filled two cups from the little pot. ‘Better eat something, Bloom. We’ve a long afternoon ahead, I fear.’

Bloom looked up. ‘Where’s Kinsella?’

‘He has business of his own to attend to,’ Sullivan said. ‘You’re stuck with me, Leopold. Have a sandwich, do.’

Bloom pinched the cigarette between finger and thumb and blew smoke. ‘I know what Kinsella’s game is. He wants me to plead guilty to manslaughter and sweep me under the carpet. He doesn’t think I’m important enough to bother with.’

‘There, Mr Bloom, you’re wrong. If anyone wants your case swept up and brushed aside it’s Coroner Slater. May I have one of your sandwiches?’

Bloom nodded, watched the lawyer bite into the soft white bread and saw, greedily, the moist pink salmon flesh squeeze out at the corners. He took a last puff on the cigarette, dabbed it into the ashtray and reached for the sandwich plate.

Sullivan said, ‘Inspector Kinsella wants your case held over. If you agree, he’ll press Slater to adjourn the hearing for a week or so to give him time to prove your innocence.’

Bloom tongued bread into his cheek. ‘If I am innocent.’

‘Aren’t you?’ Neville Sullivan said, then hastily added, ‘No, no, don’t answer that.’

Bloom swallowed, smiled. ‘Is it more difficult to defend a man who may be innocent than a man you know to be guilty?’

‘In coroner’s court, no,’ Neville Sullivan said. ‘In front of assize judges it’s nigh impossible.’

‘And why might that be?’

‘Because we’ll be up against seasoned Crown prosecutors who’ll strip our witnesses bare in cross examination and fetch in witnesses of their own to swear that you and your wife were at loggerheads over her pregnancy.’

‘What if I were to tell you, Mr Sullivan, that I didn’t know Molly was pregnant?’

‘I find that just as hard to believe as will a jury.’

Bloom sipped tea and reached for another sandwich.

‘I assume Boylan will make an appearance in the witness box at some stage,’ he said. ‘Knowing Blazes, he’ll manage to convince the jury he begged Molly to divorce me and let him make an honest woman out of her. Love’s eternal flame. Sentiment always wins the day in the end.’

‘I haven’t spoken with Hugh Boylan yet, so I can’t predict what he’ll say or do. He isn’t on Slater’s witness list, though that doesn’t mean he can’t be called if you think it would help.’

‘Help who? Help me? Fat chance of that,’ Bloom said. ‘Blazes Boylan never helps anyone but himself. He’s taken Molly from me and now he’s after Milly.’

‘He’s far too old for Milly.’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ Bloom said. ‘Boylan’s motto: a man’s only as old as his penis. Anyway, he’s only thirty-five or -six and that’s not old these days.’

‘Well, I can’t apply for a court order to prevent Boylan from consorting with your daughter without evidence he means to harm her. Am I to take it that Boylan was your wife’s … I mean to say, that he and your wife had an intimate relationship?’

‘I thought you were aware of it,’ Bloom said. ‘God knows, Boylan’s not shy when it comes to bragging about his conquests.’ Another sandwich went to his mouth. He paused, then said, ‘Whichever way he tells his story he’ll be the hero and I’ll be the cucky, a poor impotent Jew man who couldn’t satisfy his wife.’

‘Kinsella thinks you’re protecting someone?’

‘Oh, I am,’ Bloom said.

‘May I, as your lawyer, ask who that might be?’

‘Molly,’ Bloom said. ‘I’m protecting Molly.’

‘Her reputation, you mean?’

‘She had the swagger and the voice and that was well enough for most folk.’ Bloom put down the half-eaten sandwich and rubbed the tip of his nose with his thumb. ‘The best I can do for Molly now is leave her with that.’

‘What about your daughter?’

‘What about her?’

‘Aren’t you concerned about her future?’

‘I’ll see Milly right whatever happens.’ Bloom picked up the half-eaten sandwich and brought it to his lips then, as if his appetite had suddenly deserted him, dropped it back on to the plate. ‘If Slater calls an adjournment will he let Molly be buried?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Neville Sullivan nodded. ‘He’ll issue an Order for Burial at the end of the session. Have you given any thought to funeral arrangements?’

‘She’ll be buried at Glasnevin,’ Bloom said. ‘Rudy’s there waiting for his mama in our plot out towards Finglas.’ Bloom rubbed his nose again. ‘I’ve told Milly what I want done and’ – he shrugged – ‘Boylan may as well make himself useful. We’ll all be buried there in time, all of us together, turning to dust together. Can you get me out for the funeral?’

‘If you insist I’ll press for a parole. But Kinsella thinks, and I agree with him, that the ends of justice will be better served if you agree to remain in custody.’

‘The ends of justice being what?’

‘Your unconditional release.’

‘What if I don’t agree?’

‘Then Slater will send your case up for trial at the April assizes whatever verdict the jury reaches today. It may appear to you like a false promise but Kinsella’s on to something.’

‘What?’ said Bloom, warily.

‘He won’t say. I’ll be ready to wave a writ for
habeas corpus
if there’s any undue delay. You, meanwhile, will spend an unpleasant week in Kilmainham.’

‘And the alternative is what? Admitting to manslaughter?’

‘No, the alternative is a trial before High Court judges under a new warrant. Both strategies involve risk, Leopold. I won’t deny it.’

‘What do
you
think I should do?’

‘If you agree to let Slater call an adjournment and don’t insist on bail then your statement to the police will be read out to the court and I’ll refuse to let you be questioned by jury or coroner, which I’m fully entitled to do. The police will appeal for more time to advance their enquiries, other witnesses, such as they are, will be bound over and the inquiry will be suspended.’

‘And Boylan won’t be called?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure Boylan won’t be called?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘In that case,’ Bloom said, ‘let Kinsella have his way.’

The jurors returned to the courthouse at 1.48 pm, not much enlightened by their tour of the house of death and grumbling because they hadn’t been fed. The coroner, who had been fed, placated them by announcing that he intended to detain them only long enough to read a statement by Leopold Bloom followed by a request from Superintendent Driscoll of Rotunda Division that his officers be granted more time to gather evidence, after which he, the coroner, would formally bind over witnesses and jurors to appear in seven days’ time, instruct Mr Rice to proclaim an adjournment and send the jurors home. There being no dissent from the jurors, proceedings closed at twenty-eight minutes after two o’clock, and the courthouse emptied.

By ten to three Dr Slater was seated in his office filling out the Order for Burial while his clerk gathered depositions and recognizances to file for safekeeping. Having said farewell to Milly Bloom, Harry Coghlan and Michael Paterson were sitting down to afternoon tea in the lounge of the Belleville before catching a train back to Mullingar. Inspector Kinsella was on his way to Lower Castle Yard to log the day’s events and Tom Machin was organising transport to convey Bloom to Kilmainham jail to sample the austere life that awaited him if his gamble went horribly wrong.

FIFTEEN

T
here was nothing remotely sensual in the care Maude Boylan devoted to dusting the plump curves of the two near-naked nymphs who guarded the staircase. According to Daphne, the figures, representing Prudence and Chastity, were fashioned from finest translucent alabaster and had been painted over with dark green paint only to preserve them from Dublin’s abrasive fogs. In Maude’s view, however, they were naught but a couple of chubby adolescents slathered with thick green paint to disguise the fact that they were cheap plaster casts left over from the days when the house had belonged to a demented tea-broker who, according to local legend, had been found hanging from a hook in his bedroom with
the
most enormous erection and a blissful smile on his face.

In memory of, if not respect for, the dear dead demented, Maude polished off her daily round by flicking each protuberant buttock with her feather before, chuckling to herself, she lugged bucket, mop and duster along the passageway to the kitchen to get down to the really serious business of scrubbing floors, sinks and lavatory pans.

What brother Hughie made of the statues the sisters never inquired. It hadn’t escaped their notice, though, that some of the girls Hughie had smuggled into his room in his shaping years had borne more than a passing resemblance to the pair in the hall and, if young Milly Bloom was anything to go by, his tastes hadn’t changed much.

‘She’s a child, Maude, a mere child.’

‘That,’ Maude said, ‘she’s not.’

‘Fifteen,’ said Daphne, ‘is not a woman.’

‘Mother was married at fifteen,’ Maude reminded her.

‘No,’ said Daphne, ‘Mother was pregnant at fifteen and married at sixteen before she knew which end was up.’

‘Well,’ said Maude, rinsing her mop at the sink, ‘I doubt if Hughie has marriage on his mind. He’s resisted so far and I see no reason to suppose if he ever does decide to take the plunge it’ll be to a penniless waif.’

‘Is she penniless?’

‘Of course she is,’ said Maude. ‘She’s Bloom’s daughter and when did Bloom ever have two farthings to rub together?’

Daphne paused in the act of dicing carrots. ‘Hughie wouldn’t marry a Jew, would he?’

‘The girl isn’t a Jew. Her mother wasn’t a Jew and Leo converted years ago. In any case, if Hughie’s mind is made up then it wouldn’t matter if the girl were a Hottentot.’

‘I’m thinking of the bloodline,’ said Daphne.

‘The bloodline!’ Maude scoffed. ‘What bloodline? We’re mongrels, my dear. If Papa hadn’t invested his horse profits in the Friendly Society we’d all be in the workhouse by now.’