A Hunt in Winter

by Conor Brady

  ‘Service à la russe. It’s the Russian way of serving dinner, with each course put up in succession. It’s generally used in restaurants across Europe now. In the older way, service à la française, the French way, all the dishes would be served together.’

  Swallow saw Mossop struggling to get the narrative down in his notebook. Nor would he be able to grapple with Werner’s French. It hardly mattered.

  ‘How long was she working here?’

  ‘I would say about a year.’

  ‘Your employment records should be able to tell us precisely.’

  Werner shrugged. ‘We do not keep records for casual workers. Our sommeliers, our chefs and our professional waiters, yes, but not for what is, as I have said, casual labour.’

  ‘So there is no record of her working here?’

  ‘I don’t imagine so.’

  ‘Not even in the wages book?’

  ‘She’d have been paid out of petty cash. I paid her myself.’

  ‘Did you pay her on Friday?’

  ‘As well as I can remember, yes, I would have.’

  ‘Was she a good worker?’

  Werner hesitated for a moment. ‘She was . . . diligent, never late for work. She was respectful. But she was clumsy. We had breakages, spillages . . . more than the average I would say.’

  ‘But you kept her on?’

  Werner smiled. ‘I am, I think, a kind man. Ask any of the employees, they will say so too. But in fact I had decided to terminate her work here. Her attitude had become, shall I say, resentful, übelnehmerisch? And she had learned the basics of kitchen work. It was time for her to move on.’

  ‘Did she have any particular friends on the staff here? Or any enemies?’ Swallow asked. ‘Can you think of any reason why anybody would wish to harm her?’

  ‘No,’ Werner shook his head. ‘She did not . . . how do you say . . . socialise. The employees will go to the public houses if we close a little early sometimes, but not her. And I have no reason to think she had any enemies here.’

  ‘Who would have been the last person to see her leave here last night, Mr Werner?’ Swallow asked.

  Werner grimaced. ‘I believe it would have been me, Inspector. I recall now that I paid the girl her wages and I saw her leave through the kitchen doorway. I remember thinking to myself that she would be cold going home, walking out to Rathmines, since she had no coat, just a light shawl.’

  ‘That was thoughtful of you,’ Swallow said. ‘She was fortunate to have encountered that sort of kindness in you. And you have a good memory for detail,’ he added.

  ‘Thank you, Inspector.’

  Swallow stood. He was tired, and he could see that Mossop was wilting too.

  ‘I’m not sure that it will be necessary to speak further this evening, Mr Werner. I understand that you’re busy with many things to attend to here. We can call back at a more convenient time. And we will need to interview other employees. You’ve been very helpful with your information. It’s getting late. Detective Sergeant Mossop and I have reports to write up and we’d best be going.’

  Werner spread his hands in a gesture to indicate a willingness to assist.

  ‘I am very happy to assist, Inspector. If there is anything further I can help on, please let me know. It is important that you should catch whoever is responsible for this . . . Verbrechen . . . this dreadful crime.’

  They walked the couple of hundred yards along South Great George’s Street to the Castle Lane. The streets were quiet now and the pavements were sparkling with the night frost.

  ‘What did you think?’ Swallow asked.

  Mossop wrinkled his brow in concentration. ‘A smooth operator, boss. But maybe not as open as he wants to appear. He claimed to know nothing of her family or background, yet he knew she had to walk home to Rathmines.’

  ‘Fair point,’ Swallow acknowledged. ‘He put on a big show of wanting to be helpful, but every question we asked was simply deflected.’

  They were at the junction of Dame Street and South Great George’s Street.

  ‘Go on home, Pat. Get a night’s rest and we’ll resume in the morning. We’ve done what we can for the day.’

  He turned into Dame Street to make his way home to Maria.

  Chapter 9

  By the time Swallow reached Grant’s it was closing time. The walk from Exchange Court through the wintry air was invigorating, but it also made him realise he was hungry. He had eaten nothing since he had taken the steak and kidney pie in the early afternoon.

  The additional beat men on street patrol that Boyle had promised were visible. Two stood under the shadowy bulk of Christ Church. Another was at old St Audoen’s on High Street, his blackened night helmet barely discernible in the darkness. A sergeant and a constable stood half-hidden in a shop doorway at the junction of Francis Street and Thomas Street. In theory at least, Swallow reckoned, the streets should be safer.

  Tom, the head barman at Grant’s, was dousing the last of the oil lamps around the bar as the laggard clients of the night shuffled out for home. His expression was sympathetic when Swallow walked in. He knew that Maria had expected him to be there from the end of his shift at six o’clock.

  ‘Bloody cold out there, sir.’

  ‘It is that, Tom. Busy night?’

  ‘Much the usual, sir. Brisk, but nothin’ unmanageable. I think people are savin’ up whatever few bob they have for Christmas. Mrs Walsh is gone up. She’s fairly tired what with bein’ off listenin’ to that fella Davitt and his friends all afternoon down at the Mansion House. You’ve had a busy day yourself I’d say with that business out at Rathmines.’

  Swallow consciously evidenced no surprise at how Maria had spent her afternoon.

  ‘I have, Tom. A busy day. And not much to show for it.’

  Maria’s parlour, above the bar, was their private retreat after closing time. When he climbed the stairs, she was in her usual easy chair by the turf fire. A small supper table, set for one, stood to the side of the fireplace. ‘I heard you coming up,’ she smiled. Swallow could see that she was indeed tired. She gestured to the table.

  ‘You’re not too late for supper. When I read in the Evening Mail about the murder I guessed you wouldn’t be home until late, so I had Carrie put some Irish stew in a hot box.’

  The stew was good. Chunks of tender mutton with carrots and parsley for flavour. Maria’s cook and housekeeper, Carrie, knew Swallow’s preferences. There was a bowl of boiled floury potatoes too. He crossed to the sideboard and poured himself a bottle of Guinness’s stout.

  ‘Would you like something? A glass of port wine?’

  She shook her head. ‘No thanks. I’m very tired. I doubt I’d rise tomorrow morning if I took anything at this hour.’

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be here,’ he said. ‘You probably heard about the murder out at Rathmines. This is a bad one. A young girl’s head battered in. No clues or witnesses.’

  ‘Dreadful. The newspaper said it might be connected with these murders in London.’

  ‘No. Not at all, for God’s sake. That’s just the journalists trying to sensationalise things.’

  He sounded irritated, and regretted it instantly.

  ‘What I mean is that it’s an easy line for a lazy reporter to peddle. Linking it in with these London murders is absolute nonsense. This is a respectable girl. Good family in poor circumstances.’

  ‘That’s some comfort, I suppose,’ she said quietly. ‘Do you know what happened to her?’

  ‘What, yes, but not why,’ he answered. ‘She was attacked just a few yards from her home. It might have been for any reason. We’ll find out in time.’

  ‘How terrible,’ Maria said. ‘May the Lord have mercy on her.’

  He forked a mouthful of mutton and washed it down with the porter.

  ‘Tom tells me you were off at the Mansion House rally to hear Davitt. I didn’t know you were planning to do that.’

  ‘I wasn’t. Harriet insisted I should go. And I thought you
might want me to keep an eye on her anyway. She gets carried away on these issues.’

  That was certainly true of his young sister, he knew.

  ‘Did Davitt say anything significant?’ he asked unnecessarily. In the morning, at Exchange Court, he would read the G-men’s report of the meeting.

  ‘Mostly the usual things one reads about in the newspapers. You know I don’t have a lot of interest. But he’s a very powerful speaker. He seemed to be very upset about the authorities’ attempts to undermine Mr Parnell.’

  Swallow’s mind flashed back to the set of protection logs that he had earlier secreted away in Harry Lafeyre’s room in the Lower Castle Yard.

  ‘He’s not wrong,’ he said. ‘They’re out to do him down. A terrible mistake, I think. If Parnell falls, what comes behind him will be more violent and ugly than anything we’ve seen so far. In one way that would suit Davitt. But I think he understands that Parnell could secure the bigger prize—Home Rule for Ireland.’

  She was silent for a long moment.

  ‘Is it not time to get out of it, Joe? All this intrigue and politics and danger. I have a good business here, but it needs a man’s hand in it too. You and I could build it into a really prosperous enterprise.’

  She sounded weary.

  ‘You know I don’t reject the idea, Maria. We’ve talked about this.’

  ‘I do. We’ve talked before, of course. But things have changed.’

  She looked him fully and deliberately in the eyes.

  ‘I’m pregnant. I’m expecting our child.’

  Sunday November 4th, 1888

  Chapter 10

  Swallow had fixed the crime conference for ten o’clock. That gave tired G-men and their uniformed colleagues a chance to have a lie-in at home or to get to an early Mass, or service, depending on their inclinations and their confessional affiliations. But when he arrived at Exchange Court five minutes before the hour, every man was present. Pat Mossop and Mick Feore were cross-checking details in the murder book. Johnny Vizzard and Stephen Doolan were examining the plaster cast of the boot recovered from the field beside Blackberry Lane. A dozen G-men and a few of Doolan’s constables sat around on forms and chairs.

  Swallow took a chair at the top of the parade room. The policemen fell silent.

  ‘Any developments?’

  Stephen Doolan tapped the reports from the telegraph room on his desk.

  ‘The night was quiet. We had double beats out, as you know. No suspicious activity beyond a couple of fellows found with crowbars outside a shop in Stoneybatter. The cold probably kept the anti-social elements indoors.’

  Swallow gestured to the plaster cast taken in the mud at Blackberry Lane.

  ‘What do you make of the shoe?’

  Doolan held the cast up and turned it.

  ‘Size nine. Adult. Almost certainly male. Smooth sole without any hobnails. Not a working man’s or a farmer’s boot. Not an army boot either.’

  ‘Any gaps in the alibis from the neighbours?’

  Feore glanced up from the murder book.

  ‘Nothing from the neighbours, but we found a hole in young Dan Flannery’s story.’

  There was a murmur of interest around the room.

  ‘The brother?’

  ‘Yes. He said in his statement that he worked in Coyle’s of Rathmines until after midnight, stacking crates in the cellar and bringing fresh stock upstairs to the bar. Then he turned up at the station in Rathmines at two o’clock in the morning to say his sister hadn’t come home.’

  He turned a page in the murder book.

  ‘But Constable Caviston checked with Tom Coyle, the publican. He says it was earlier, more like half past eleven, when Dan left. Coyle’s senior barman says the same thing. Coyle says that young Dan took off fast as soon as he started calling last drinks. He says he’d been doing that for the past few nights. Coyle had ticked him off and he offered to come in earlier the next day to get the stocks right.’

  Another murmur passed around the room.

  ‘We’d better have a few words with young Dan then,’ Swallow said. ‘There might be an innocent explanation for it, but there’s a discrepancy of half an hour between what he’s telling us about his movements and what his boss is saying. He could easily have been at Blackberry Lane at the time of the attack.’

  ‘Will we go out or have him brought in?’ Mossop asked. ‘They’ve still got the girl laid out in the house. Whatever the story, it wouldn’t be decent to have a squad of bobbies descend on a household in mourning.’

  Swallow nodded.

  ‘You’re right. Just go out to the house on your own and tell him to come in here with you. Don’t bring any uniformed men with you. We’ll not arrest him unless he makes us. Tell him he’s coming in to help with inquiries, but put a couple of men along the Rathmines Road in case he tries to make a run for it. Bring him in here for, say, one o’clock. I’ll do the interview with you. In the meantime, I’ll go across and bring Chief Mallon up to date.’

  ‘What do I say to the mother?’

  ‘As little as possible. There’s no need to have her upset any more than she is. Just tell her that he’s going to help us put some information together.’

  When the conference broke up, Swallow retreated to his office. It was John Mallon’s custom with his family on Sunday mornings to attend ten o’clock Mass in the Church of Saint Nicholas of Myra on Francis Street. He would not be at his house until eleven o’clock. Swallow was glad of a little time on his own to reflect on last night’s conversation with Maria.

  ‘You’re sure about what you’ve told me?’ he had asked her when she had given him her news.

  He knew the question was unnecessary, but it was his policeman’s instinct to want corroboration.

  ‘Yes. Dr Morrow up on Meath Street confirmed it this afternoon. I’m more than a month past my menstruation. He wants me to see a specialist at the Rotunda Lying-In Hospital. But I know it myself, Joe. I can sense the change in my body. And I’m nowhere near the change of life.’

  ‘Morrow’s a very good doctor, I believe. Why would he want a specialist? Is there a problem? Some complication?’

  ‘No. Nothing that he could find. I’m very healthy. But I won’t be a very young mother. He says this man is very skilled and I should be seen by him . . . just as an extra precaution.’

  They had spoken in the past about marriage and children. He could envisage marriage, but children had been no more than a theoretical consideration. Maria had said she would want a boy and a girl. They had even talked about children’s’ names. But it was all in the abstract. This was a conversation he had never seriously thought to have.

  She laughed lightly.

  ‘I’m thirty-five. Dr Morrow says I’m fine and all seems normal. But it’s early days. He’s not too concerned about my age, he says, even though it’s not common for a first child.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  He fumbled for words, reckoning he might be slightly in shock.

  ‘I never imagined . . . never thought . . . of course I should have.’

  He laughed.

  ‘These things happen, don’t they? So we’ll have to make arrangements, won’t we?’

  ‘Arrangements?’

  ‘Yes. I mean . . . we’ll have to get married. Straight away. Put a respectable face on it all.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’ she asked.

  He thought he saw relief in her eyes. Perhaps she thought he would suggest getting rid of the pregnancy. There were people who could do that for her. Perhaps she feared he would deny the child. When he saw tears in her eyes he could not be sure if they indicated relief or disappointment at the lack of emotion in his response.

  ‘Look, I know I’m not handling this very well, Maria. It’s just a bit of a shock to me too. When you get to my age . . . of course this is very good for us. It’s the right thing for you and f
or me. A little one will change our lives very much for the better.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m certain.’

  He got to his feet and opened another bottle of Guinness. Now he understood why Maria had refused her customary glass of port wine earlier. He began to feel better. There were too many uncertainties in his life and in Maria’s. And he had held off on making decisions for too long.

  He walked across to her chair and knelt beside her, placing his right hand over hers.

  ‘Maria Walsh, I know I’m not the greatest catch in Dublin. I’m the wrong side of forty. I’m twenty years a “polisman” and I’ve just made it to detective inspector. But I’ll be loyal and true to you and our child. Would you do me the honour of agreeing to marry me?’

  He grinned.

  ‘And sure, isn’t there a grand pension for us to look forward to when I finish my service?’

  Her face darkened slightly.

  ‘You mean you wouldn’t want to come into the business with me? Full time? Equal partners? Like we spoke of before?’

  He sighed.

  ‘I know we did. But that was before I got the promotion. I can’t just abandon my responsibilities with things the way they are. There’s serious crime to be dealt with. You know, this murder. And now I’m told by Mallon that the English are out to destroy Parnell whatever way they can. Besides, you’re more than well able to manage the business here.’

  ‘How could I do it with a child to rear?’

  ‘We’ll get help. A nurse to mind the child and maybe an extra man in the bar. You’ve been saying that Tom needs more help there. He’s getting on too.’

  It was not what she wanted to hear, he knew. He tried to change tack.

  ‘Look, we don’t have to decide on this now, do we? What I need to do is to go down to Friar Lawrence tomorrow and make arrangements for the marriage. Are you happy to have the wedding at Merchants’ Quay?’

  She nodded and smiled.

  ‘So can I take it that you’re accepting my proposal?’

  ‘Yes, of course I’ll marry you, Joe. And Merchants’ Quay would be perfect. A small wedding would be nice.’