Women of Courage (105 page)

The longer he sat here, the more chance there was of Brennan coming out before help arrived. Davis decided not to wake Kee. The man deserved a rest. He would go out in a moment and find one of his other colleagues, and they would walk to Merrion Square, that was it, so that there was every chance they would arrive too late. Finish the cigarette first.

But what if Foster arrests him anyway? With a jolt, Davis remembered how keen young Foster was, and how unusually fit and strong. He was a wing three-quarter in the DMP rugby team. If he got hold of Brennan before the lad could draw a gun, there was every chance he would bring him in on his own.

There was a phone in a little tobacconist’s round the corner in King Street which Davis used for emergencies. He stubbed out his cigarette and stood up, meaning to put on his coat and go there. He could ring Daly and perhaps some boys of the Dublin Squad could get to Merrion Square in time to deal with Foster. Yes, that was it. Then with luck, they would get rid of another dangerous policeman at the same time. Disaster would turn to triumph. I’ll do that, he thought.

With his coat half on, he hesitated. Every minute counted now. The office was still half-empty. Why not ring from here? He would never normally do it, but this was an emergency. In case anyone overheard, he could speak to Daly as though he was confirming the details with Foster. They would understand, at the other end. He had a second, compelling vision of the athletic, bulky figure of young Foster striding back to Merrion Square, and Sean Brennan, even now, coming out of a door in front of him.

Davis took out his pocket book, checked the number, and began to dial. As he reached the third digit he turned round to check that he was still alone.

He wasn’t.

Kee was standing in the doorway looking at him.

Their eyes met. Davis felt the blood drain from his face. He put the phone down carefully.
How long has he been there?
he thought
. How much did he hear?
And then: Come on, Dick, for God’s sake get a grip - the man can’t read your mind.

Kee said: ‘What was that about Brennan?’

‘Sorry, sir?’ He didn’t hear it all, Davis thought. Come on, Dick, stall - there must be some way out of this.

‘You were talking about Brennan on the phone a couple of minutes ago. It woke me up. Come on, Dick, spit it out!’ Kee had just woken from the first half-hour’s sleep he had had in two days; his head hurt, and his mouth felt like the inside of an ashtray. He was not in the mood to be messed about. ‘You were talking about him on the phone - who to?’

The shock was too great for Davis. He searched for a lie but his brain wouldn’t work. Despairingly, he said: ‘Foster, sir.’

‘Why? Has he found him?’

‘Yes, sir. At least he thinks he has. In Merrion Square.’

‘Then what the hell are you waiting for? Come on, grab your coat! Is there a car downstairs?’

As Sean walked down the steps it was still light. There were bushes and grass in front of him and he walked along a path between them, aiming for the far side of the square.

He thought: I did it. She’s lovely but she can’t touch me now. I kissed her and it meant nothing: I’m free.

A man in a top hat walked past, glanced at Sean disapprovingly, and made for one of the big houses on the north side. Sean thought: Don’t patronize me, slob. I’ve been in one of your big houses and fucked one of your posh neighbours’ daughters naked in a slum and I could do it again if I wanted but I don’t. And don’t call the police because I can kill them too.

He felt as though he was walking on air.

A man stepped out from behind a tree and seized his arm. Sean tugged away but someone else seized his other arm and forced it up his back. Sean struggled, and the three of them lurched sideways across the path. Then he felt something hard and cold under his ear and a voice said: ‘Stay still or I’ll blow your brains out!’

Sean stopped struggling. The voice said: ‘Kneel!’

One man kicked him in the back of the legs and he was forced down on his knees. His wrists were cuffed together behind his back. Hands searched his pockets rapidly and pulled out the Parabellum. He was jerked to his feet. ‘Walk!’

There seemed to be at least three of them. One on each side with an arm linked through his. A third behind with a pistol.

Sean looked wildly from side to side but he could see no escape. They were walking very quickly and when he tried to drag his feet the man behind kicked him, hard. ‘Move, laddie ! Fast!’

On the north side of the square there was a car waiting. Two of the men got in the back with Sean in the middle, and the third one drove.

Sean asked: ‘Where are we going?’

‘To Britannia’s dungeons, boy,’ said the man on his left. ‘Say goodbye to the sunlight.’

Sean looked at the man for the first time. The shock jerked him upright. He recognized him. It was the man who Collins had spoken to in Brendan Road; the man who had identified Radford for them. A vast wave of relief surged through him.

‘But you’re …’ he began.

The man punched him in the mouth. ‘Shut it,’ he growled. ‘From now on, you speak when you’re spoken to. Understood?’

Sean gaped, and said nothing.

24. Father and Daughter

A
NOTHER TWO words from the boy, Davis thought, and I’d have been on the way to the hangman with him. He sat staring rigidly ahead, all the way to Brunswick Street. No one said anything.

Kee marched Sean straight past the desk sergeant and down to the cells. In the interrogation room he thrust him into a chair, his hands still fastened behind him. There was one other chair and a table in the room. There was nothing else. No bed. A door. Four walls. A small barred window high in the wall.

Sean’s face was white. I expect mine is too, Davis thought. So far, Kee and Foster didn’t seem to have noticed.

Kee sat down in the other chair.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘First things first. Your name?’

Sean said nothing. Kee slapped him across the face.

‘Your name, boy. What is it?’

‘Sean.’

‘Sean what?’

‘Brennan.’

‘Address?’

No answer. Kee grabbed him by the collar, dragging his face forward across the table. With his arms behind him, Sean couldn’t protect himself.

Sean gave the address of the tenement.

‘That’s not true. You’ve left it. Where do you live now?’

Sean spat in Kee’s face.

Kee roared. He dragged the boy to his feet, knocking over the table, and punched him in the stomach. All the air went out of Sean in a loud gasp. He doubled up and fell forward, banging his head on the floor. He lay there, hunched in a foetal position, hands pinioned behind his back. Kee wiped his face, and sat down.

‘All right, Brennan,’ Kee said. ‘Let’s start again.’

Ten minutes later they had an address, which Kee was far from convinced was correct, an admission that Sean was ‘a soldier of the Republic’ and very little else. Kee was feeling tired and disgusted with himself. Once again his anger and frustration had got the better of him, and he had been led into behaviour he regretted. He did not, as a rule, beat up his prisoners; indeed, he instructed young constables strictly against it. Now he had broken his own rules, and got precious little for it.

It was because of the shock of Radford’s death. These bastards bring out the worst in us all, he thought.

He got up, jerked his head to his colleagues, and went outside. They went upstairs to his office.

‘We’ll raid that address,’ he said. ‘Wait till later tonight, when the devils are likely to be at home. We’ll want a full platoon of soldiers - do it properly, seal the house back and front. No more cock-ups this time. See to it, Davis, will you?’

‘Sir.’

‘In the meantime, we’ll charge Brennan with illegal possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life, and attempted murder of Lord French. That should put him away for a long time.’ He sighed. ‘And we’ll bring in the girl. Maybe she can tell us what he can’t.’

Catherine had been sitting at her desk for two hours trying to read one of her medical textbooks, but the words made no sense. She had read the same page four times, and had no idea what it was about. Human beings were made up of all these bits and pieces, she thought; bone and muscle and sinew and nerve, but there is no way of understanding why they act as they do. I love him, but he doesn’t love me. He’s just in love with killing and his idea of himself as a soldier of the Republic. He wants me to be submissive and chaste and to wait for him until he chooses to come back and to feel guilty because I’m rich. I’m not like that, Sean!

She seized the book by its spine and flung it across the room. It hit the edge of the ottoman and flopped to the floor, lying open at an expensive, coloured picture of a naked man, which could be opened out, layer by layer, to display the various organs within. The top layer had been ripped by the throw.

She picked it up, slammed it shut, and stuffed it into a bookcase.

He doesn’t know me at all, she thought. He doesn’t want to know me. That gun he showed me meant more to him than I ever did. He thinks I’ll worship him because he made a hole in a policeman’s face. He’s a fool. Of course the cause is vital but it’s not everything, we shouldn’t have to deny everything else because of it. What sort of a country will it be if you have to forget about love to fight for it?

It’s not that. He’s not denying love. He never felt it.

She slumped down on the ottoman with her head in her hands and thought: I wish I had someone to talk to. What would my mother have said? Would she have understood me now?

Someone knocked at the door. She straightened up, and dabbed at her face with a handkerchief. ‘Yes?’

Keneally came in. ‘Two gentlemen to see you, madam. They say they are detectives.’

‘Oh.’ She felt faint, as though a hand had squeezed her heart. ‘Not here, Keneally. Ask them to wait in the downstairs drawing room, will you.’

‘Very good, madam.’ The old butler hesitated, a look of puzzled concern on his face. ‘One is the same man, I think, who came here some weeks ago.’

‘I see. Thank you.’ Now there was no doubt. It was Sean they were after. She remembered the odd, twisted smile on his face as he had shown her the gun. But that didn’t matter now. However foul the murder had been, however much it had damaged Sean, she had to protect him. She sat at her dressing table, blotted away the signs of tears, dabbed on powder, shook her hair and combed it carefully. She mustn’t look perturbed. Short dark hair, pretty innocent face, simple elegant turquoise dress. It would do. She gave herself a firm, tight smile, stood up, and took a deep breath. Training. No emotions in front of the servants, no scenes in public. It was only for Sean that she had divested herself of that invisible armour.

She went calmly downstairs and into the drawing room.

The same burly, middle-aged detective was there, with his coat on and his hat in his hand. By the window was a very tall, well-built young man in his early twenties. Catherine had a vague feeling she had seen him once or twice in the street.

‘Good afternoon, gentlemen. Can I help you?’

‘Yes, miss.’ Kee took a card from his wallet and held it out for her to look at. ‘Detective Inspector Kee. We’ve met before. And this is DC Foster. We’d like you to accompany us to police HQ in Brunswick Street.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

Kee repeated himself. ‘We’ve a young man there we’d like you to identify for us.’

‘Oh my God.’ Her left hand gripped the back of an armchair for support. Then she realized they were watching her and forced herself to be calm. ‘Is he alive?’

‘Oh yes, miss. He’s just under arrest. We’ve a car outside.’

‘But … how long is this likely to take? My father will be home soon.’ Catherine thought perhaps her father would be able to protect her, then immediately realized that his presence would make things worse. Much worse.

‘I really can’t say, miss. But it is rather urgent. So if you could fetch a coat.’ He advanced on her in a way that suggested he might take her arm if she refused.

She resented it. ‘You’re not arresting me, I take it?’

‘No, miss. I’ve no reason to do that at the moment. But I am investigating some very serious crimes.’

‘Then I can give you an hour. No more.’ She went out into the hall, got a coat, and left a message with Keneally to tell her father when she would be back.

Foster drove. Kee sat beside her in the back. He said nothing. He wanted to shock her first, with the sight of Sean.

She
was
shocked.

They had taken the handcuffs off him. They had also taken away his tie, belt and shoelaces, so he had to clutch at his trousers when he stood up. There was a bruise on his right cheek, and his normally smooth hair was ruffled and untidy.

The cell was small - eight feet by five, perhaps - and there was nothing in it but a narrow bed, a table, and a chamberpot. The walls were stone, and there was a small barred window high up over the bed. Sean stood up and looked at her.

She whispered: ‘Hello, Sean.’ She forgot how his rejection had hurt her. She wanted to fling her arms around him, kiss his bruised cheek, smooth his ruffled hair. But not in front of these men. They had a purpose in bringing her here; it was important to defy them.

Sean said: ‘Who is this?’

Her heart stopped.
Not here Sean not now please not again!
But Sean went on, remorselessly, looking her straight in the eye: ‘I don’t know her. What do you bring her in here for? This isn’t a women’s prison - or a zoo, is it, for posh girls to come and gape at? Get her out of here!’

Foster said: ‘You came out of her house, Brennan. I saw you. You fucked her in a tenement, as well. A filthy stinking tenement off Amiens Street, with an open drain in the back yard.’

‘Shut your mouth!’ Sean leapt forward and tried to grab Foster’s throat. But Kee caught him by the right arm, Foster by the left, and they slammed him back against the wall. Catherine burst into tears.

Kee shouted: ‘This is Sean Brennan, isn’t it, young woman? Do you agree?’

Catherine nodded, hopelessly. ‘Yes, yes. Let him go!’