Jean Grainger Box Set: So Much Owed, Shadow of a Century, Under Heaven's Shining Stars

by Jean Grainger

  The spring turned into summer, and Liam was deep in study for his first year exams. He had not managed to get home since Christmas. Hugo suspected the dean of trying to put some distance between the young seminarian and the high profile case, but he could be wrong. Liam seemed sure it wasn’t the case, but every time he asked for a weekend off there was some reason invented as to why it was impossible. They kept in touch by letter, seminarians weren’t encouraged to use the telephone except in emergencies, and in a way, Hugo preferred it. They were able to be more honest in letters somehow. Patrick asked them not to leave him out, to keep him in the group and not have private communications. They were taken aback when he first said it, but when he described the sheer bloody awfulness of prison life, any distractions were welcome, and the long hours of boredom was a perfect breeding ground for paranoia and imaginings. So each letter they wrote went to the other two as well. The weekly letters kept them all connected and for Hugo it allowed him to live who he was, even just for the few minutes it took to read it. They didn’t ever say anything about his sexuality in the letters for fear of their being intercepted, but just to know that Liam and Patrick knew and accepted him was enough.

  Because he was the one engaging the legal team, it was through him that any progress was reported so he also wrote to Mrs Tobin who filled Helen in and, of course, Father Aquinas.

  ‘There was a telephone call for you when you were out, sir,’ Patterson informed him as he came in the door from the stables. ‘A Mr Fenton, the private secretary to Mr d’Alton. He left a number for you to contact him upon your return. It is written down on the pad beside the telephone.’

  ‘Thank you, Patterson.’ Hugo was pensive. Maybe a date had been set.

  ‘Good afternoon, Hugo FitzHenry here, Earl of Drummond,’ he introduced himself. Normally, he didn’t bother with his title, but it was expected when dealing with that irritating man.

  ‘Ah your lordship, yes. Mr d’Alton asked me to contact you to make you aware that a date has been set for the trial on the twenty-fourth of November. He will arrive in Cork on the evening of the twenty-third and will be staying at the Intercontinental Hotel and taking chambers in a legal practice in Washington Street. These expenses will be billed directly to your lordship.’

  Hugo glowered once more at the audacity of the man.

  ‘Fine,’ he replied through gritted teeth. He was defiantly being told rather than being asked, which irked him. He didn’t care about the money; it was the offhand attitude of d’Alton that annoyed him.

  ‘Mr d’Alton will meet with his client the evening before the trial and brief him on the proceedings for the following day, but he will not be available to anyone else prior to the event under any circumstances. Should you wish to communicate to him in any way, please do so in writing through me, and I will see that he gets it.’

  ‘Considering it is me who is hiring d’Alton to provide the best defence money can buy for my friend, I should think he would talk to me.’ Hugo couldn’t help himself.

  ‘Precisely the reason he is not in a position to, your Lordship. He will be providing expert defence; therefore, he needs to remain focused on the trial without any interruptions. Thank you for telephoning, your Lordship, if there’s nothing else?’

  Hugo was being dismissed. While he was uncomfortable with the sycophantic way some people behaved around him, he wasn’t used to being dismissed out of hand like that.

  ‘No, that’s all,’ he managed to reply.

  ‘Very well then, goodbye.’ And the line went dead.

  The trial began and after several requests, Liam had managed to get a few days off to attend the court. Hugo had promoted the head stable lad to temporary manager and employed four new workers for the estate with Tom keeping a close eye. He was out of the wheelchair but needed two sticks and got tired easily. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best Hugo could organise. He needed to be in Cork.

  Mrs Tobin sat tensely beside Liam. Helen’s sister offered to take care of the girls during the trial. She had little ones of her own. They often visited with Helen so Connie and Anna were happy to go and play with them. Liam knew his mother was dreading having to endure the details of her dear friend’s death gone over in such detail for the whole world to hear. The papers were full of nothing else, and she tried her best to protect Connie and Anna from it. Kathleen Lynch had been a quiet person, a country girl, but she met and married the charming and good-looking Joe Lynch against her parents’ wishes, and they disowned her because of it. When things went wrong as they did within weeks of the wedding, she had nobody to turn to. Her family would have told her that she had made her bed and now she may lie in it. One sister, Kit, did keep in contact with Kathleen, unbeknownst to her family, but she died of cancer when Patrick was small.

  People around Chapel Street were not unkind, but they gave the Lynch family a wide berth over the years because of Joe’s behaviour. Mrs Tobin was her only friend. Kathleen had given her good advice around that time of the business with Seán and that hussy next door, she had told her lift her head and look everyone straight in the eye. She did nothing wrong and neither did her husband, and people behaved towards you the way you let them. It was great advice.

  They discussed often what Kathleen should do, usually after one of Joe’s outbursts. Even with her deeply held Catholicism, Mary Tobin firmly advocated that her friend should leave her husband, but the other woman’s faith was deep, and in her mind, the rules were the rules. In later years, Joe would go missing for protracted periods, and a peace would descend on the Lynch family for a while. But, like a bad penny, he kept turning up. Mary prayed for forgiveness for the thoughts she had, wishing when they pulled a body from the river, which was not uncommon, that it would be that of Joe Lynch. It seemed to be a cruel twist in the tale, that poor Patrick would spend his life in jail for what he did.

  D’Alton had flown into Cork again, to yet another flurry of excitement. He was staying in the luxurious Intercontinental Hotel on the banks of the south channel of the River Lee. Liam had never even been inside it, but he heard it was supposed to be out of this world. The barrister had accepted Hugo’s apology for his anger at the bail hearing, so thankfully, was still on the case, but he was as sanctimonious and patronising as ever, according to Hugo. In his letters, Hugo regularly ranted about how much d’Alton’s attitude rubbed him up the wrong way. Liam got a pang of sadness reading them, wishing he could see Patrick’s face and hear him tease Hugo about how he was used to being treated like the Lord of the Manor yet he couldn’t take it when someone had the audacity to challenge him. That banter went on between them all the time in the carefree days before this nightmare took over their every waking thought. Liam wondered if it would ever be the same again.

  D’Alton went to see Patrick the night he flew in, and neither Liam nor Hugo knew what went on. Funnily enough though, Patrick’s impression of his barrister was in total contrast to Hugo’s. In his letters, Patrick always spoke of him in glowing tones, but perhaps it was because he wanted Hugo to know how grateful he was and to complain about the superior attitude of the cripplingly expensive legal services would have seemed unappreciative.

  Patrick had written a brief note last night saying that he was doing all right and was nervous but hopeful, thanks to Mr d’Alton. One of the prison officers lived up the street so he had delivered the note to Liam.

  The trial seemed to take ages to get going, and the courtroom was packed to capacity. The press gathered in even greater numbers than they had before, but Liam also recognised several lads they had gone to school with, neighbours and friends, in the public gallery. Sure, some of the interest was ghoulish but, mostly, people just wanted to support Patrick.

  The testimonies of various down and outs and petty criminals, including the red-haired man, seemed interminable. They went on for two days, and the judge was constantly threatening to clear the court if the noise level wasn’t reduced. Liam and Hugo found the whole experience fru
strating. True to his word, d’Alton swept in and out of the court, communicating with nobody but his secretary Archibald Fenton. The accounts of what happened that night varied wildly, with tramp after tramp giving evidence, most if not all of which was decimated by d’Alton. Discrediting alcoholic tramps and petty criminals was beneath him, it didn’t even challenge him, so he exuded an air of boredom. He could be observed examining his perfectly manicured nails or focusing on the elaborate carvings on the ceiling of the courtroom while the witnesses gave their evidence, often with colourful graphics, only to ask one or two pointed questions to totally bamboozle the tramp in question, much to the delight of the gathered crowd. If it wasn’t so serious, it would be very entertaining. D’Alton was a showman all right. He was popular with the crowd and Patrick’s story was everywhere. The whole city was behind him.

  The last witness for the prosecution took the stand. He was dressed in a garish blue suit that was several sizes too small, stretched across the vast expanse of his back. His red hair was long and dirty-looking and his beard unkempt. His face, puffy through years of alcohol abuse, revealed some scars and when he spoke, it was obvious he was missing several teeth.

  ‘So, Mr...’ d’Alton checked his notes, ‘O’Mahony.’ Liam detected a smirk in the barrister’s voice at the use of the title to describe the dodgy-looking man in the witness box.

  ‘Let me be clear, you run an establishment as a licensed premise that seems to be without a name or indeed a valid public house licence on the outskirts of Cork city.’ He cast a glance at the jury, making them complicit in the exposure of this man as a petty crook.

  ‘Well, it’s not exactly a pub,’ the red-haired man began.

  ‘No, indeed, though you do sell alcohol at this location, do you not?’ D’Alton’s blue eyes were innocent.

  ‘Well, yeah like, but only to friends...’ O’Mahony muttered.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr O’Mahony, you sell alcohol to your friends in a pub that’s not actually a pub. A fact that will no doubt be of considerable interest to the Gardaí and Inland Revenue in due course. Now, let us return to the night in question. You say that you saw the defendant attack the deceased outside the premises.’

  ‘Yeah, he bate him up and kicked him when he was down...’ O’Mahony was just warming to his theme when d’Alton interrupted him again.

  ‘And you saw this yourself?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I’m tellin’ ya,’ the man growled impatiently.

  ‘And what did you do?’ d’Alton asked calmly.

  ‘Wha?’

  D’Alton spoke slowly as if to a particularly dim child, causing a slight ripple of laughter in the court.

  ‘Do, Mr O’Mahony, what did you do when you saw your friend Joe Lynch being attacked? What action did your take?’

  ‘I done nuttin’,’ he protested, fear that he was to be blamed in some way creeping in.

  ‘You done nothing.’ D’Alton’s plumy tones highlighted the grammatical error, again causing a chuckle. Liam could see the man on the stand growing murderous in his rage at being the butt of these jokes and naked hatred shone from his bloodshot eyes. D’Alton was totally unfazed and carried on.

  ‘So, you want this court to believe that your dear friend and associate of many years duration was being allegedly battered to death in front of your very eyes, Mr O’Mahony, and you tell us here today that “you done nothing”. Is that correct?’

  ‘I was far away like, in the pub, well in my place, so I couldn’t get out to him like,’ O’Mahony was backtracking.

  ‘But I thought this alleged incident took place immediately outside, where according to your earlier statement, you saw everything. Do we take it then, you are saying, let me be very clear so I understand you, Mr O’Mahony, that you were too far away to intercede in any way to defend Mr Lynch from his alleged attacker?’

  Liam watched the man try to figure out the best answer. D’Alton was like a snake, weaving O’Mahony’s own lies tighter and tighter around him. It was mesmerising.

  ‘Dat’s right, I couldn’t a done nuttin cause I was inside and...’

  ‘Come now, Mr O’Mahony, you are seriously asking this court to believe that you were near enough to see the alleged event unfold, and near enough to identify my client as the perpetrator of this alleged attack, but too far away to do anything about it?’ D’Alton’s voice had changed from mocking and superior to whip-like precision.

  ‘He was outside like, and I was inside, an’ I heard him, roaring like...’

  ‘So you were not outside the pub that’s not a pub at all now? Is that what you are telling the court? Because either you were there and did nothing, stood idly by while a man was beaten to death, or even was complicit in some way with the assault, or you were not there and therefore cannot identify my client as the perpetrator. Which is it to be, Mr O’Mahony?’ D’Alton never took his eyes from O’Mahony, daring him to admit either story. Liam was fascinated, whatever O’Mahony said he was going to come out badly. Sensing he was about to be put into the picture in a damaging light, O’Mahony made a decision.

  ‘I wasn’t there,’ O’Mahony muttered.

  ‘Please repeat what you just said so the jury can hear you, Mr O’Mahony,’ d’Alton asked politely.

  ‘I wasn’t there. I was inside minding my own business. They all saw me, I never left the bar...’ He gestured to the collection of down and outs sitting together on a bench.

  ‘Well, if they are your alibis, Mr O’Mahony, I’m sure you have nothing to worry about.’ D’Alton smirked at the public gallery to a ripple of laughter. ‘No further questions, your honour.’

  To the fascination of the crowd, the barrister managed to infuse his last statement with utter contempt for the witness. The clerk indicated to the huge man that he should stand down. As he walked past d’Alton, he stopped and gave him a threatening stare, at which the barrister gave the slightest of smiles.

  The crowd settled in for the juiciest part of the tale as Patrick took the stand. The excitement and anticipation at what he might say was palpable in the room. Liam’s mother squeezed his hand as they tried to project their love at him across the courtroom.

  The prosecution began by ham-fistedly trying to make Patrick admit that he hated his father and wanted to kill him. The young junior counsel was cocky and clearly resented the star status of d’Alton and so was showing off and posturing for the press.

  Patrick seemed calm and answered truthfully but without detail. Liam thought he came across very well, humble and respectful, but spoke clearly and confidently. D’Alton must have schooled him before he took the stand. Once it was the defence’s turn to cross examine, the barrister was gentle.

  He asked him about his childhood, about how Joe treated the family, about his mother’s murder. He spoke about Connie and Anna and the impact Joe Lynch’s violence and drinking had on the family. He talked about Patrick’s relationship with his mother and sisters and how he took care of the family as soon as he was able. Patrick was shown to be a wonderful young man, and he was returned to the dock.

  Father Aquinas was called as a character witness and spoke in such glowing terms about a boy who despite all the odds got a scholarship to St Bart’s, excelled there as a student and sportsman and had a successful career ahead of him. His employer Jim O’Neill described a hard-working, honest young man, who as far as he was concerned wouldn’t hurt a fly. D.I. McMahon described the events of the night as explained to him by Patrick but went on to add that he knew Patrick well through his dealings with the family after Mrs Lynch’s death and was very impressed by his integrity. He also managed to slip in that the deceased was well known to the Gardaí. The prosecution objected on the grounds that it was irrelevant, and the judge instructed that it be removed from the records, but it didn’t matter, it was said.

  As the detective left the stand, he passed them by and smiled and nodded briefly. He had done his best for Patrick despite being a witness for the sta
te.

  Through the witnesses, d’Alton painted a picture of a sweet boy, who had turned into an admirable young man, all against the backdrop of a violent and abusive father. He skimmed over the events of the night in question, only saying that when this boy witnessed his father laughing at the brutal way he killed his wife, he could no longer contain the anger he justifiably felt. He asked the jury, ‘Would not each of us do the same?’

  Patrick came out whiter than white. The prosecution were making their closing arguments; the crux of the case being that Patrick did murder Joe Lynch and that’s all there was to it. The barrister for the state seemed a bit disorganised despite the swagger, clearly intimidated by the presence of d’Alton, though trying to hide it. They were clearly regretting the decision to push for a murder conviction as it became evident with each passing minute that d’Alton was wiping the floor with them.

  The judge called for a half-hour recess before the closing arguments were heard. Some of the crowd gratefully filed out of the courtroom, others staying put for fear of losing their seats. Liam needed some air, and Hugo needed a cigarette so they all trooped out. A slight sleety drizzle added to the already gloomy, cold day. As Father Aquinas raised his huge black umbrella, they all huddled underneath it. It looked like it was going well for Patrick except, as Hugo pointed out most succinctly, he did actually do it.

  ‘That was so nice of Inspector Mc Mullan, wasn’t it?’ Liam’s mother said.

  ‘I know,’ Helen agreed. ‘I bet that will really help, I hope it will, anyway.’