The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising

by Dermot McEvoy

  “What’s bothering you?” Róisín asked when we were alone.

  “You know what’s bothering me,” says I.

  “Blood.”

  “The late Detective Blood.”

  Róisín came over and sat down next to me on the sofa. “You were doing your duty.”

  “Duty?”

  “To your country—and your father.”

  “It was terrible,” I told Róisín, and she took my hand. “I hope I never have to do that kind of thing again.”

  There was an awful quiet for well over a minute before she finally said, “I hope you won’t let Mick down.”

  I exhaled mightily and then got up and went over to stoke the fire. Róisín stuck her head into the bedroom and told the kiddies to go to sleep. When she came over to me, she had a pony of whiskey in her hand for me. “Drink this,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because it might loosen you up.”

  “Why?”

  “So I can take advantage of you, you thickheaded Jackeen!”

  With that, she gave a great laugh. “The children!” I said. She took my hand and put it on her breast. “Róisín,” I protested, as we sat down on the sofa. I suddenly realized that me arse was down, but me willie was up.

  “It’s about time you knew a little more about me,” she said. “Not a lot more, mind you, but a little more.”

  I thought I heard giggling from Róisín’s bedroom, as if the children knew what was happening and were mocking me. But my throbbing willie made me ignore the phantom jeers. I’m beginning to learn about women, I thought. I shut me gob and did as I was told.

  Sunday morning, I stuck me head into Róisín’s bedroom. She was still fast asleep between two wide-awake children. “Hush,” I whispered. “Let Róisín sleep.”

  “How do you expect me to sleep with all these noisy kids around me?” she barked and started tickling them in a furious manner. The screams—for once—were screams of pure joy.

  “It’s time for mass,” Mary said, and I told them to get dressed. As they were getting ready, I looked at Róisín, and she gave me a look that indicated she had no intention of going to any mass. As we were getting ready to head out to St. Kevin’s in Harrington Street, the kids asked her why she wasn’t going with us.

  “Someone has to cook your breakfast,” she said. “Now, scoot!” As she let us out the door, she said, “Don’t forget to say a prayer for me!” Róisín is full of surprises.

  St. Kevin’s was where I was baptized and where I went to mass every Sunday. It’s a grand old church on the edge of my dead parents’ neighborhood. The two children were very attentive, especially Mary. They knew all the responses, and when communion was given out, Mary devoutly received. “You?” I said, pointing at Dickie. He shook his head “no,” and I realized that he hadn’t made his First Holy Communion yet.

  “You?” he pointed.

  I shook my head. “Not today,” I said, and I was happy when Dickie didn’t persist.

  We landed back at Róisín’s, and the smell of rashers, sausages, black and white pudding, fried tomatoes, fried eggs, and beautiful bread and butter overwhelmed us. Róisín poured tea for us all, and we chatted away. Suddenly, Mary asked, “Eoin, what do you do for a living?” Mary had succeeded in gaining our undivided attention.

  “I work for an insurance company,” I replied, barely lying.

  “Who wants to know?” asked Róisín, getting right to the interrogation.

  “Oh, the sisters at school,” said Mary. “They were just curious.” I bet they were.

  We spent the rest of the day walking along the Grand Canal and playing in St. Stephen’s Green, just like we had on that Easter Monday nearly four years ago. We watched children sailing boats in the pond and that, too, brought back memories of the day that changed all our lives. Soon, it was time to head back to their orphanages. Departing was such sorrow, none of it sweet, for me and Dickie. Once again he got all teary-eyed, and I promised him that Róisín and I would see him soon again.

  “Why doesn’t Frank visit me?”

  It was the first mention of Frank all weekend, strangely enough, and I told Dickie that Frank was away on holidays.

  “Where?” asked Dickie.

  “In the mountains,” I replied, without lying.

  I met Róisín back at her flat in Walworth Street. “I thought it went well,” she said.

  “Dickie finally asked about Frank. I told him Frank was taking a mountain retreat.” Róisín laughed. “I wonder why they didn’t ask about him before.”

  “They don’t want to get attached to someone who will desert them, like your parents did.”

  “Desert?”

  “You know what I mean,” said Róisín. “They are afraid to love someone who will leave them forever. Children are fragile.”

  “So unlike adults, like you and me.”

  “We’re barely adults ourselves,” said Róisín, and there was more truth to the statement than she realized. I wanted to go out and see if the Sunday papers from Britain had arrived. “You’re going nowhere,” she said. “Come with me.” She brought me to her bedroom and announced, “I think you have earned the right to sleep in my bed with me.”

  “Róisín!”

  “You will be chaste,” she said seriously, “as I will.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “We will wear night garments. There will be no tomfoolery,” she said sternly. “Do we have an agreement?”

  “No tomfoolery?”

  “No tomfoolery.”

  And, true to her word, there wasn’t, but it was nice to have someone to embrace during the long Dublin winter night.

  79

  “Need any more guns?” Mulcahy asked Collins.

  “Does a religious fanatic collect rosaries?” replied Collins.

  “What kind of a fookin’ question is that? We never have enough guns.”

  “Well, there’s a fellow over from England looking for you. He says he has some guns for us.”

  “Sounds too good to be true,” said Collins. “Where did this good fellow come from?”

  “Artie O’Brien sent him to us,” said Mulcahy, speaking of the Sinn Féin leader in London. “Do you want to meet him?”

  “Why not? What do we have to lose?” Mulcahy gave Collins a look, which drew a laugh out of the Big Fellow. “Don’t worry, Dick, I’ll be careful.” Mulcahy was still apprehensive about the whole thing. “Look,” said Collins, “the only person I have consistently supplying me with guns is Bob Briscoe. If Bob wasn’t doing business in Germany, we’d have no guns at all. Set up the meeting with this fellow. What’s his name?”

  “John Jameson.”

  “You’re jokin’,” said Collins. Mulcahy’s face was made of stone. “You’re not jokin’, are you?” Mulcahy shook his head. “What’s his background?”

  “He’s making out that he’s some sort of labor organizer, maybe even a communist or a revolutionary,” said Mulcahy. He paused. “If you can believe that.”

  “And he just dropped into our laps,” said Collins. “How convenient.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “Set it up for tomorrow at the Home Farm produce shop in Camden Street,” said Collins. “Get Tobin to come along.”

  “Bad idea. I don’t think our two intelligence directors should be in the same room with this stranger.”

  “You’re right,” conceded Collins. “Tell Eoin I want him there.”

  “Why Eoin?”

  “Because Eoin has the ‘sniff,’” said Collins.

  “The ‘sniff’?”

  “He can smell the enemy.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  John Jameson showed up in the Camden Street grocery and introduced himself to the young clerk behind the counter. Eoin Kavanagh wiped his hands on his apron and directed the Englishman to the back room, where Collins and Mulcahy were waiting for him.

  “Mr. Jameson,” said Collins.

&n
bsp; “And you must be the bold Michael Collins,” replied Jameson. He shook hands with the two men, and Collins offered him a cup of tea. “This is so exciting,” the Englishman proclaimed, dropping three spoons of sugar into his tea.

  “Exciting?” asked Collins.

  “One hears such exciting things about you in London,” said Jameson.

  “Really?” said Collins.

  “Like what?” queried Mulcahy.

  “Oh, the general stuff,” said Jameson. “You know, how you’ve turned Camden Street into a hellhole for the British.”

  Collins remained quiet as he scratched the beginnings of a new mustache. Kitty didn’t like facial hair, and now she was back in Longford, so Collins thought he’d try out the hairy lip. Eoin came into the room, feigning work. “Excuse me,” he said. He went to the back on a phantom search, then surveyed the earnest Jameson, who was animatedly telling all how important the great Collins was.

  Mulcahy cut to the chase. “The guns?”

  “I can get you what you need,” replied Jameson.

  “We need revolvers,” said Collins. “Heavy caliber. We also need rifles for the army. Can you help us?”

  “I can do that,” said Jameson. “But it’ll cost money.”

  “We have the money,” said Collins.

  “Let me see what I can get my hands on,” said Jameson.

  “That’s grand,” said Collins. “Can I ask you something?”

  “More tay?” interrupted Eoin, as he brought a fresh pot over to the table. All three men declined, and Eoin looked Jameson right in the eye. “You sure?”

  “I am,” said Jameson. “Thank you. You were saying, General Collins?”

  Collins was taken aback; seldom was his rank referred to, if it wasn’t Eoin jeering him.

  “Yes,” said Collins, “my question is simple—why do you want to help us?”

  “Because I hate the British,” said Jameson. “How’s that for a starter?”

  “And how does that manifest itself?”

  “I have been trying to organize the police in London and Manchester,” replied Jameson. “I have been trying to foment strikes where I can. I believe in the people, not the capitalists.”

  “Good for you,” said Mulcahy, and Collins almost smiled.

  “Alright,” said Collins, “see what you can dig up for us.”

  “I will,” said Jameson, with enthusiasm. “But how will I get in touch with you?”

  “We’ll get in touch with you,” Mulcahy replied. “Where are you staying?”

  “The Gresham Hotel.”

  “Fine.”

  “But I may have to travel back to Britain to pull this off,” Jameson protested. “How will I get in touch with the General when I return to Dublin?”

  “Don’t worry,” Mulcahy reassured him, “we’ll come to you.”

  “You got the city covered,” laughed Jameson, “don’t you?”

  “Like a tight sheet,” Mulcahy replied, with a small smile.

  Jameson stood up from the table and shook the hands of Collins and Mulcahy. He turned and walked through the shop, nodding at the young clerk, and exited into Camden Street. Eoin immediately went into the back room. “How did it go?” he asked.

  Collins shrugged. “What do you think, Eoin?” asked Mulcahy.

  “Mister Whiskey stinks.”

  Collins laughed and nodded. “When you get back to Crow Street, tell Tobin to start tagging him. First thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Pretty bad?” asked Mulcahy.

  “I don’t believe in philanthropic revolutionaries sent on angel wings from England who only want to help poor, ould Ireland,” replied Collins. “Do you?”

  80

  Every G-man was called to Dublin Castle to meet their new boss, Deputy Commissioner of Police Derek Gough-Coxe. Boynton bumped into Broy, who had walked over from Brunswick Street, as they headed towards a small auditorium. “I see you’re here for the coronation,” teased Boynton, which elicited a quiet smile from Broy. For security reasons, they seated themselves on opposite sides of the room. They did not want to be known to their fellow officers as friends.

  Boynton observed that there were now around thirty-five G-men on active duty. That number had been going down over the last few months, with the help of Collins’s threatening letters and selected harassments and killings. There was a small hum in the room, which went silent as Gough-Coxe approached the podium.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” he began. “My name is Derek Gough-Coxe, and I have been sent to Dublin by the Prime Minister to reorganize the G-division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police.” There were a few claps, but a full round of applause did not materialize. “We are at a crossroads in Ireland, and here in Dublin in particular. He who controls Dublin, controls Ireland.” He paused for effect. “From here on out, the G-division will control Dublin, not a bunch of ragtag Fenian murderers. And murder is where we’ll start. We are going to find the murderer of Detective Sergeant Sebastian Blood, who was killed in cold blood in Aungier Street last month.”

  Boynton gave a small grunt as he shifted in his chair and re-crossed his legs. Gough-Coxe’s use of “in cold blood” was beginning to make him boil.

  “Who murdered Detective Blood?” Gough-Coxe asked rhetorically. “We don’t know who pulled the trigger, but we do know who ordered the assassination. One Michael Collins, Minister for Finance for the so-called Dáil Eireann. We will apprehend both Collins and his gunmen. I have read Collins’s file, and it is a beauty. There was only one piece of valuable information missing—his photograph. Apparently, the combined Secret Services of the British Empire have been unable to come up with a single photograph of the most wanted man in Ireland.”

  Broy, the man responsible for the missing photograph, fixed his eyes on the floor before him. Gough-Coxe moved from behind the podium and began walking up and down. “I spoke with Detective Blood when I was last here in Dublin. At that time, he told me he was working on a connection between Collins and the man who owned the barber-shop where he was killed. That man’s name was Joseph Kavanagh, who expired himself just before Christmas. How will we find out about Joseph Kavanagh? Detective Blood believed that his son—named Eoin—worked for Collins. He saw both of them in a film soliciting funds for their National Loan. Unfortunately, copies of this movie have disappeared.” Gough-Coxe laughed. “Believe you me, gentlemen, the National Loan is item number two on my to-do list, but we must decipher Detective Blood’s Kavanagh riddle first. How will we do this?” The response was silence. “Gentlemen, let’s go backwards. Who was Joseph Kavanagh?” Boynton’s arm shot into the air. “Yes, detective, please identify yourself, if you would.”

  “My name is Detective Constable Brendan Boynton, and I was Sebastian’s partner. Our desks were side-by-side.”

  “What do you know about this character, Kavanagh?”

  “We know very little,” replied Boynton.

  “And why is that?”

  “Because Sebastian didn’t share his information. He thought he was on to something big and, perhaps, wanted to keep the information to himself for security reasons.”

  “Gentlemen,” said Gough-Coxe, “this nonsense will stop. All information will be indexed and shared from this moment on. If I lose an agent, I don’t want to lose his information. We shall pursue Collins from where Detective Blood left off. As I said before, by going backwards.” Gough-Coxe went back behind the podium. “We’ll start at that barbershop in Aungier Street. And Detective Boynton, being Detective Blood’s professional next-of-kin, will pick up the investigation where it ended—with Blood’s death. You will report directly to me, and I expect results.” And with that, the new Deputy Commissioner of Police left the stage without speaking another word.

  On his way back to his desk, Boynton bumped into Broy again. “You’re in for it now,” laughed Broy, “but Mick will love you to death for it.” Boynton nodded, suddenly wondering how being loved to death by Michael Collins would feel, which forced a smile.
Either way, he knew he was fucked.

  81

  Jameson had Crow Street flummoxed. He was nowhere to be found in their carefully indexed cards. Boynton and Broy could find out nothing about him, either. They finally got Artie O’Brien over in London on the telephone, but he knew nothing more about Jameson other than “he wanted to help.”

  “There’s not a trace of this fellow,” Eoin told Liam Tobin.

  “Maybe he’s been out trolling in the Empire,” replied Tobin.

  “Maybe he’s legitimate.”

  “You think?”

  “No, I don’t,” replied Eoin. “Maybe we’ll know more when the tag-team reports back.”

  “We’d better, or we’re putting Mick and the rest of us in jeopardy.”

  Suddenly, the door opened, and Vinny Byrne burst in. “Grab your guns, lads. Mick sent me for you.”

  “Vin,” said Tobin, “what’s up?”

  “One of Mick’s touts told him that Johnny French is at Trinity College, and he will be leaving via Suffolk Street shortly. Mick has sent an SOS out for all available Squad men in the area.”

  “Where’s Mick?” asked Tobin.

  “I just left him at the Wicklow Hotel. He said he’ll meet us in front of Hogan’s public house in Suffolk Street. Come on!”

  Eoin grabbed Detective Blood’s Webley out of his desk drawer and shoved it in his jacket pocket. He followed Tobin and Vinny out the door. They crossed Dame Street and ran up the alley that led to the Stag’s Head. They then ran along Dame Lane, parallel to Dame Street, which was usually deserted, to give them cover. At Trinity Lane, they shot up towards St. Andrew’s Church of Ireland and crossed the road to where Collins, Daly, Dan Breen, and Joe Leonard were waiting for them. They stepped down into narrow Church Lane, and Collins briefed them quickly.

  “One of my informers has sent word that French is at a conference at Trinity College, and he’ll be making his way back to the Castle through here momentarily. Let’s spread out. He may try to go down Dame Lane and right into the Castle side gate. He’d want to avoid Dame Street because of the traffic.” Collins checked his pocket watch. It was half-eleven. “This time,” he admonished “let’s get the shite.”