Women of Courage

by Tim Vicary

  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

  ANOTHER 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!’

  ‘And you’re his mistress, aren’t you? You go to see him and he makes love to you.’

  ‘That’s none of your business!’

  ‘But it’s true, isn’t it?’ Kee caught Sean by the hair and pulled his head back, so that she couldn’t avoid staring him in the face. ‘Look at him. It’s true, isn’t it - this is your lover!’

  ‘So what if he is? That’s not a crime, is it? Let him go, I tell you!’

  She tried to tear Kee’s hands away from Sean’s arm. Kee let go of Sean’s hair with his left hand and tried to brush her away, but she held on, wrestling with him and trying to scratch his face. Sean struggled to get free, and the four of them lurched back and forth in the confined space. Then Foster got hold of both of Sean’s arms, and Kee bundled Catherine out of the door.

  ‘You bully!’ she said. ‘Torturer! You’ve torn my coat!’

  Foster came out of the cell. Kee took Catherine’s arm, and half led, half dragged her along the corridor. ‘Come on, this way. Allan, get one of the secretaries down here, will you. I think it’s time you answered a few questions, young lady.’

  He took her up a flight of stairs, and into a slightly larger interview room. A few minutes later Foster reappeared with one of the young lady typists. He brought in a chair for her and she sat by the door. Kee sat opposite Catherine at the table.

  ‘What’s she here for?’ Catherine asked.

  ‘Regulations. So you don’t go out saying we molested you.’

  ‘You already have. You tore my coat.’ Catherine stood up and showed the typist where her fur collar had been ripped loose along the seam. ‘See that? This man did it.’ The typist, a woman in her late twenties, looked embarrassed.

  Kee waited until Catherine sat down again. He said: ‘All right. We know you’ve been seeing him, and we know where. You went to the tenement off Amiens Street, you went to the Gaelic League in Parnell Square with him, and he came to your house. We know all that. What we don’t know is, why?’

  Catherine took a deep breath, considering her answer. I must get hold of myself, she thought, I must recover my poise. I need it now; whatever Sean has done, whatever he feels about me, these men are enemies of the state. They’re doing all this deliberately, to unsettle me.

  She said: ‘That’s none of your business.’

  ‘Perhaps you don’t know what he’s done. Did you know he had an automatic pistol in his pocket when he came to see you today?’

  ‘Yes. He showed it to me.’

  ‘And did he tell you what he used it for?’

  ‘He needs it to protect the country against foreign policemen, I believe.’

  ‘So you agree he’s a murderer?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘The only thing a gun can do, young lady, is kill people. I would have thought a medical student would know that. So if he uses the gun against policemen, that means he kills them.’

  And as he kills people, it changes him, she thought. It twists that beautiful smile and takes him away from me. But it doesn’t matter now, that’s the price we both have to pay for freedom.

  She looked Kee straight in the eye and said: ‘There’s a war in this country. Only last week, every city in the land voted for Sinn Fein, but the British soldiers still don’t go home. People get killed in wars.’

  ‘Who has Sean Brennan killed?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Listen, young lady. You don’t deny that you are in love with this young man, do you? Or that you have gone so far as to … take off your clothes and go to bed with him. Do you?’

  Kee found it actually hard to say the words. She seemed so young, so … slender and childish in her body still. But as a young bride in a white dress, he realized, she would be celebrated in every society newspaper in the country.

  She said: ‘I’m proud of it.’ And I wish he loved me, she thought. Without that it’s all wasted. Involuntarily, her eyes filled with tears. She ignored them.

  Kee said: ‘In that case, I find it impossible to believe that he didn’t tell you who he killed. He did tell you, didn’t he?’

  ‘No.’

  Kee sighed. ‘All right, we’ll take it slowly, then. You remember the assassination attempt at Ashtown Cross
. Sean Brennan was there, wasn’t he? You looked out of the window and saw him.’

  If I don’t get control of this I’ll convict Sean out my own mouth, Catherine thought. Whatever he’s done I couldn’t live with that. These people are my enemies, anyway. She pushed back her chair and stood up. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector,’ she said. ‘I agreed to give you an hour and that time’s up. As far as I can understand I’m not under arrest so I’m going home now. Excuse me.’

  She stepped towards the door.

  Kee stood up to bar her way.

  The door opened and Sir Jonathan came in.

  Catherine gasped. She hadn’t known you could feel panic and elation at the same time.

  Sir Jonathan said: ‘Would someone tell me just what the devil is going on?’

  Kee was incensed. He suggested to Sir Jonathan that they talk in another room, but Catherine said: ‘No! He’s going to talk to you about me, Father, and I want to hear what he says. He’s a brute and a bully. Look, he’s torn my coat.’

  Sir Jonathan glared at Kee. ‘Is this true?’

  ‘I really think, sir, it would be better …’

  ‘Listen to me, man. My daughter is a lady, and should be treated as such. Any allegations you have to make you can make in front of us both, as she says. But first of all I want to know why she was brought here without my knowledge. Well?’

  This is intolerable, Kee thought. This is a police investigation and an army colonel thinks he can just barge in here and throw his weight about. But the trouble was, Sir Jonathan was very well placed in Dublin Castle.

  Kee swallowed his bile and said: ‘She agreed to come, sir.’

  ‘That doesn’t answer the question. If you have any charges against my daughter I ought to be the first to know, damn you!’

  ‘There are no charges, sir. She was just helping us with identification and answering some questions.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. Is that why you tore her coat?’

  ‘I’m sorry about that, sir. She got upset and tried to scratch my face.’