A wooden fence separated the garden from the field. He began to pull himself up and over. As he paused to take a deep breath, one leg on either side, he could see a woman, bright red hair cut short, sitting at a table, a mug and a newspaper in front of her. A black cat asleep on her knee.
He dropped down, stifling a cry as his ankle twisted beneath him. He crouched for a moment and looked around. He could hear the sound of a radio coming from the house. The lunchtime news. He stood up slowly. And heard a voice shouting.
‘Who the fuck are you? What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’
He turned around. A young man was standing a few yards away, a large shovel in his hand. Wearing shorts, stripped to the waist, barefoot. Muscled, his skin tanned. Shoulder-length black hair, parted in the middle and tucked back behind each ear. Heavy black eyebrows, deep-set brown eyes.
The conservatory door opened. The cat ran out and behind him came the red-haired woman. Barefoot too, jeans rolled up to the knees and a loose white T-shirt. A cigarette in her hand, long nails painted red like her hair. She put up her hand as the young man advanced towards McLoughlin, shaking the shovel so McLoughlin backed away, treading carefully, conscious of the pain in his ankle.
‘Sorry, sorry.’ McLoughlin stopped. ‘I wasn’t sure if this was right place. I’m looking for Theresa Ryan.’ He turned towards the woman, ‘Would that be you?’
‘And who might you be?’ Her accent was northern.
‘I’m Michael McLoughlin. You might know the name.’
They sat in the conservatory. It was hot. McLoughlin was sweating. The young man, Padraig, served coffee, brought water too. Theresa, McLoughlin noticed, was extremely thin. Her cheekbones cut through her face. The skin on her neck was stretched tight. Tendons, knotted, so McLoughlin could barely bring himself to look. Her arms were like twigs, the flesh loose around the bones. Her hands and feet were constantly on the move, fiddling, twitching, her fingers nicotine stained. Deep grooves around her mouth, dark circles under her eyes.
No one spoke. McLoughlin sipped his coffee, added milk from a small white jug.
‘You’ve a nice set up here.’ He looked around. Bright pink geraniums grew in terracotta pots and there was a vine twining up in one corner. Passion flowers, purple and cream, peeped through the glossy green foliage. ‘You’ve been here for a while?’
She shrugged. Pulled a wad of tobacco from the plastic pouch on the table, and began to fashion a cigarette. ‘The old cottage was Eamon’s mother’s house. She died when he was in prison, left it to him. I couldn’t afford to do much with it, but when Eamon came out…’ She licked the edges of the paper and rolled it expertly. She put it to her lips. McLoughlin picked up the box of matches. He struck one and held it out. She angled the cigarette into the flame and sucked hard. The paper turned red and caught. She opened her mouth and let out the smoke in a long grey plume. McLoughlin recognised the smell.
‘Did you get compensation?’ Golden Virginia. He’d smoked it once himself.
She shrugged again, narrowing her eyes against the smoke and picking small strands of tobacco from her bottom lip. ‘There’s a fund, for prisoners’ families. Our friends in the New World if you know what I mean.’
He knew what she meant.
‘Eamon was very sick when he was released. We didn’t think he’d live for more than a few months, but in fact,’ she drew on the cigarette, ‘his cancer went into some kind of remission and we had a good few years together. Long enough for him to see Padraig growing up.’
‘Treatment, these days,’ McLoughlin fiddled with a teaspoon, ‘it’s great really. I heard a doctor on the radio the other day. He was saying that cancer will become a chronic illness. People will live with it, rather than dying from it. A bit like diabetes or I suppose HIV.’
‘Well,’ her mouth turned down, ‘it wasn’t quite like that for Eamon, but…’ her voice trailed away. There was an uneasy silence. She put her cigarette down on an ashtray. McLoughlin noticed. It was emblazoned with a shamrock and a Celtic cross. Again the silence.
‘Look,’ she raised her eyes. They were green, speckled with yellowish flecks. They reminded him of the markings on a trout. Freshly caught from a river. ‘Get on with it. What do you want?’
He sipped his coffee, then put the mug down on the table.
‘You know who I am.’
She nodded.
‘Your husband’s statement, the one he gave to Bishop Hegarty.’
‘Ah,’ she shifted on her seat, ‘that. I was wondering when it would surface.’
‘I was surprised,’ he looked over her head. A couple of magpies had landed on the grass. One of them had found a worm. Pulling it out, inch by inch.
‘I was surprised,’ he repeated the words, ‘that your husband wrote it all down. Why did he do that?’
She shrugged and looked away. The cigarette had gone out. She took it from her mouth and scrutinised it. ‘He wanted to put the record straight. He wanted to say what he had done, what he had seen. He wanted people to know why he did the things he did.’ She fiddled with the cigarette, then put it back in her mouth. She picked up the box of matches. Then began to cough. She put the cigarette down. She picked up the glass of water and drank from it.
‘And you,’ McLoughlin watched her. Sweat beaded on her forehead. ‘You are the Mac he refers to, aren’t you?’
She picked up the cigarette again, and placed it again between her lips. She lifted the box of matches. McLoughlin took it from her. He pulled out a match. He struck it and leaned forward. Again the end of the cigarette in the flame. Again she sucked hard so the tip glowed red. She took it from her mouth, and blew out the smoke.
‘Mac, ay, that’s me. When I was at school there were two other Theresas in my class. So I was called Mac. It stuck for years, but I never liked it.’ She tapped the cigarette on the edge of the ash tray.
‘So you were there, that day outside the post office. You saw who killed my father.’ His heart had begun to pound.
‘I did,’ she looked away. ‘I did for sure.’
‘So?’
She said nothing for a moment. She looked down at the floor. She moved her feet. When she spoke her voice was so low he had to lean forward to catch her words.
‘Blood on the ground, so much blood.’ She looked up and closed her eyes, the lids shutting over those speckles of gold. ‘I left as quickly as I could. I got away. I heard the screech of the car as Jim Reynolds drove off. I heard the shouts and screams. I heard Eamon shouting. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I got away as quickly as I could. Got the bus back into town. Got the train to Belfast. Got out of there. Knew what I had to do.’ She opened her eyes. She gestured to her son. He got up, walked through the door into the kitchen. McLoughlin could hear cupboards opening and closing.
‘But you saw James Reynolds kill my father?’ He wanted to hear her say it.
‘I saw James Reynolds kill the guard. I saw him do it.’ Her son was by her side. There was a glass in his hand. A colourless liquid. She took it from him. She took a deep swallow. And coughed. She put the glass on the table. She looked down again.
‘And what do you feel about it? Do you feel the same as your husband?’ McLoughlin leaned closer. Her cheeks were beginning to colour up. The alcohol was doing its job. She nodded.
‘I do. It was an unnecessary killing. Eamon and Conor could have got away in the car with Jimmy. They could have got away with the money. Instead,’ she picked up the glass and took another swallow, ‘instead the guard died, Eamon and Conor went to prison. But Jimmy Reynolds, well…’ she smiled, a tight bitter grimace.
‘You didn’t like him?’
‘Jimmy, like Jimmy?’ She shook her head. ‘I didn’t trust him. Different from us. His family, they had money. Big house on the south side of Dublin somewhere. He’d gone to a private s
chool.’ She paused, lifted the glass and drank. ‘The one thing you knew about Jimmy. He’d always do OK. He’d always be looked after. One way or another. Plenty of people keeping an eye on Jimmy.’
‘And the money? I always wondered what happened to the money.’ McLoughlin leaned back in his chair.
‘Whatever happened to the money?’ She crossed her legs. Her shoulders had relaxed. She lifted her hand to push back her hair. He could see scars running vertically down her arm.
‘So, what I want to know,’ McLoughlin took a deep breath. He could feel his mother at his shoulder. ‘I want to know, would you?’
‘Would I go to the gardaí? Would I make a statement? Is that what you want to know?’ She picked up the glass. ‘I would, surely. I would.’ She drained the glass, and held it out to her son. ‘Same again, Padraig, same again.’ He got up. His bare feet slapped on the tiled floor. Again the sounds from the kitchen next door.
‘But tell me this,’ McLoughlin leaned forward. He could smell lavender on a gentle breeze from outside. ‘Why would you do that? Why would you betray your, what will I call him, your comrade?’
‘Now,’ she paused, ‘that’s a good question.’ Her son appeared, the glass in his hand. And another large glass of what looked like orange juice. She touched him gently on the leg. She smiled and for a moment McLoughlin could see. The young woman, her expression warm and loving, her eyes bright with affection, her mouth generous. ‘Padraig, the man’s asking a question. An important question. Why don’t you answer him? You’re the next generation. Your generation are the ones who have to live in the world we created.’ She took the glass from him and took a sip, this time a small sip. She put the glass down on the table and drank some juice. She wiped her mouth with a tissue pulled from her jeans pocket.
Padraig sat down beside her. He put his arm around her thin shoulders. He pulled her head towards him and kissed her. She rested on his chest
‘My mammy is a brave woman. She grew up in a society which was unjust, prejudiced. Bigoted. Full of hate. For her and her kind. Because of their religion, their beliefs.’ He paused and sipped some juice, his lips fitting over the lipstick smear on the tall glass. He continued. ‘Those people were a majority. But it was an artificial majority. Created when our land was divided. So my mammy and my daddy rose up against those people, to fight for their rights, for their beliefs, for their culture and their language.’
Theresa sat up straight. She took his hand, turned it over and kissed his palm.
‘Many people died,’ his voice was strong, ‘many of their friends died. They suffered. They starved themselves to death for their beliefs. My mam, she suffered. She went to prison. She starved. She was force-fed. She wouldn’t give in because she believed.’ He paused. He looked down at the floor. His bare feet shuffled on the tiles.
‘Yes,’ Theresa lifted her head, and reached for her glass, ‘I suffered. But I believed. Terrible things were done. On all sides. People were killed, blown apart, a sacrifice to make life better for our children.’ She ran her hand over Padraig’s glossy black hair. ‘We believed. Our violence, our acts weren’t gratuitous. We had to do them.’ She sipped from the juice glass. ‘And then, and then what happened, son? Tell the man what happened.’
‘We were betrayed, we were sold out.’ He picked up her cigarette from the ashtray.
‘Yes, we were sold out. Our birthright sold for what the Bible calls a mess of potage.’ She pulled out a match and struck it, then held the flame to the cigarette end. He sucked on it, narrowing his eyes against the smoke. ‘A few baubles were flung to us. A bit of power here, a bit of power there. But what did it add up to?’ Theresa picked up the glass and drank. ‘Not what we fought for, not what we died for.’ She banged the glass on the table. ‘And not what we killed for.’
Silence, suddenly. Even the birds outside were quiet.
‘So,’ she stood up, ‘so, Mr McLoughlin. You ask me why I will betray my comrade, James Reynolds. A simple answer to your question. Because he and those like him betrayed me, my husband, my son and all we stood for.’ She moved towards the door. ‘And I realise what it would mean for me. The confession I would make would cost me.’
‘You could go to prison.’
She nodded. ‘I’ve been before. It’s not the worst in the world. And it would cost them more. Now,’ she took his arm. ‘My garden, you’d like to see my garden, wouldn’t you?’
He left the house through the high wooden gate. As it slid open onto the road he turned and looked back. She was standing amongst the vegetables. For a moment, as she turned away, she had the look of a scarecrow, rags hanging on a broomstick. A straw hat on her head. And the black cat rubbing itself against her long bony legs.
The drive home. The evening sun turning the fields of wheat and barley to burnished yellow. Every now and then, as the road rose he could see the sea. A dark Mediterranean blue. Not a hint of the usual grey or green.
She’d walked him through the vegetable garden. Bending down from time to time to pull up a weed. A tall spire of rosebay willowherb, or an occasional buttercup or dandelion, trying to sneak in under the cover of a courgette plant. She left the nettles though.
‘Have to leave the nettles,’ she said, ‘otherwise we’ll have no butterflies. Their eggs, you know, the Peacock and the Red Admiral and the Tortoiseshell, they all lay their eggs on the nettles. So,’ she smiled at him as she brushed her hand over the leaves, and winced, ‘we have to have some little bit of pain, don’t we?’
She’d taken him to the wigwams of peas and beans. The peapods were full.
‘Here,’ she pointed, ‘have a few. They’re gorgeous.’ He split them down the centre line. The peas lay, almost identical, plump and sweet. He tipped them into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed and looked around. The tall, dark conifers to the front and side of the property. The wooden fence at the back.
‘You know you should do something about that,’ he jerked his head towards it. ‘If I could get in.’
She smiled at him. ‘You’re right. But we don’t frighten easily. And besides we can’t hide. Everyone knows us. Everyone knows who we are.’ She leaned down and pulled off a couple of courgettes, smooth and green. ‘Here, take these home with you. They’re lovely when they’re so small.’
She bent down and dug in the soil, a trowel in her hand.
‘Eamon made this garden.’ She held up the spade, a pile of earth balanced on it. ‘When he came home from prison this was his salvation. He worked on it every year until he was too weak. Got manure from the farmer next door and we went to the beach after every storm. Seaweed, slimy, I didn’t like it, but Eamon, he said it was the best. Said most of Ireland was made of seaweed.’ She stood up. Her face was pale. ‘I saw the news the other day. The bodies in the bogs. They’re digging them up. At last.’ She wiped her hands on her jeans. Smears of soil, clinging to her fingers.
She’d told him before he left. She’d speak to whoever he wanted. She was clear about it. The time had come, she said.
‘And your son? Does he agree?’
She nodded. ‘He agrees. He wants it over. It will be over.’
He sat back in his seat. He turned on the radio. The news headlines. ‘A man has been arrested in connection with the murder of retired Supreme Court Judge John Hegarty. He can be held initially for twenty-four hours, then he must be either charged, released or the gardaí must apply to the courts for an extension of his detention. It is believed that the man is in his mid thirties and is known to the gardaí. He’s a member of a high-profile gangland family based in the west of the city.’
So, McLoughlin stretched, makes sense. One of the O’Learys. He wondered. Firstly, which one? Secondly, could she make it stick? He pulled his phone from his jeans pocket. He found Min’s number. Straight to voicemail. ‘Hey, Min, well done. I just heard the news. Give me a call if you have a minute.�
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Light was beginning to fade from the sky. He’d be home soon. Tomorrow he’d get back onto Tom Donnelly, drag him away from his golf, insist that he visit Theresa Ryan. Insist that he take a statement from her. Insist that he follow it up.
‘What do you think Mammy?’ he could see his mother’s face in the windscreen. ‘Are you happy now?’
She smiled at him.
‘Well done, son, well done.’
Samuel held the photographs in his left hand. He dealt them out, slowly, carefully. He placed them in two rows, five in each row. Then he sat back and looked at them.
He had found them tucked away, hidden in the oven, in the old stove in the judge’s basement. The judge had paid him to look after things. To do little jobs around the place. Just checking, making sure that everything was in order, the way the judge liked it. He had noticed when he went into the basement that the oven door was closed. It hadn’t been closed before, he was sure about that. So he opened it up, put his hand in, found something surprising. Took it home with him.
The first time he had seen the photographs had been in Mr Smith’s flat. Mr Smith had sat down on the sofa and picked up a magnifying glass.
‘I knew it was you. I’ve looked at the photos so many times over the years and then when I saw you going into your flat. I knew,’ he waved the magnifying glass in Samuel’s direction, ‘just something about you, I mean for God’s sake you don’t look like that dapper chappy in the pictures, do you?’
Samuel didn’t reply. He couldn’t deny it.
‘So was that a coincidence or what?’ Mr Smith twirled the magnifying glass around by its handle. ‘You showing up here? Bet the judge got a bit of a fright.’
The Therapy House Page 26
