The Death of a Joyce Scholar

by Bartholomew Gill

  “And what about your daughter?” McGarr turned his head toward Hiliary Flood, who was standing just inside the doorway with David Holderness, chatting with a number of people who had turned to them readily as they entered.

  “I’m afraid she’s daft on yer mahn,” Flood said, meaning Holderness, his accent suddenly unmistakably Dublin in tone and inflection. “And Kevin was a one-man roadblock for David. He would have gotten nowhere at Trinity with Kinch in his way.”

  “Why? What had Holderness ever done to Coyle?” McGarr continued to watch Hiliary Flood and David Holderness, who now seemed very much the center of attention. A brace of lights had flashed on, and a camera crew from RTE were filming them as they moved into the room, nodding and smiling, accepting a hand here and there. They made a handsome couple, tall and thin, and Holderness surely enjoyed the natural command that McGarr had envied in the others of his class earlier.

  “I don’t know, though I’ve thought about it, and often. David was like Kevin’s Achilles’ heel, the one thing in his tenure at Trinity that seemed arbitrary and even wrong, since by any standard apart from Kinch’s, David’s work is more than simply competent.”

  “Something personal, like Catty?”

  Flood considered that for a moment, and even turned toward Catty, who was now speaking to a group of musicians who were just about to begin to play. “I don’t think so. Kinch’s extramarital involvements were wholly recreational and at his convenience. I think it was more a matter of”—Flood’s eyes returned to McGarr—“class and style. Analogies are often inaccurate or obtuse, but Kinch’s approach to literature and life was indeed Joycean. It was inclusive and encyclopedic and sometimes even rough and banal, though studiously so. Like Beckett’s, David’s is exclusive, elegant, and nearly minimalist in viewpoint. Each considered the other’s position a dead end. Kinch, though, held power over David, and he used it.”

  “Could Holderness have murdered him?”

  “You’re asking for an opinion?”

  McGarr nodded.

  “I certainly hope not.” Again Flood’s eyes had moved to his daughter and Holderness.

  “Why didn’t you tell us that where Coyle was murdered was called ‘murderer’s ground’ in Ulysses?”

  “Well—I thought of it, certainly. But I considered it a mere coincidence and not very important, the book being fiction and—”

  “Who of the people we’ve just mentioned would have known that Samuel Beckett had once been stabbed in the chest just as Coyle was?”

  With what appeared to be definite surprise, Flood’s head went back. “I never thought of that. I knew, mind, but it didn’t occur to me to put the two together.”

  “Even though you read the proofs of Phon/Antiphon, when, six months, a year ago?”

  “But I didn’t. After his thesis, Kinch never let anybody go over his work. He even managed to arrange his book contracts that nobody—editor, copy editor—could change a word.” Flood thought for a moment “I suppose anybody well acquainted with Beckett and his work. It’s not something generally known.”

  “Who would have had access to copies of Phon/Antiphon before Coyle was killed?”

  Flood hunched his shoulders. “You’ll have to ask Catty. While Kinch was alive, she put an absolute lid on the book. At his insistence. He didn’t want a single copy leaked to a reviewer or the press until”—Flood waved a hand at the crowd—“in theory, today. The publication date. For all his”—Flood searched for a term—“informality, Kinch was a consummate tactician who understood how to both arouse interest and discourage any possibility of a negative early word blunting the thrust of the book. He used to say there’s no accounting for taste or ignorance, to which I always added jealousy, spite, and prejudice.”

  “I’ll ask you one final time—how do you think that knife came to be found under the seat of your Fiat?”

  Flood looked down at the full drink in his hand. “I have no idea.”

  “Your wife here tonight?”

  Flood shook his head. “She and Catty…and when Maura drinks—”

  “Ever get back?” McGarr said, turning toward the musicians.

  “Back where?”

  “Burlington, Iowa. Your hometown.”

  Flood reached for McGarr’s sleeve.

  “Bloke from the Boston Globe told me. Said he’d like to do a feature, you know, fellow American making good in Ireland and that class of thing. Wouldn’t be surprised if he turns up here.”

  Flood’s eyes darted to the door.

  “Rabbi Viner sends you his best, but wonders if you’ve not been avoiding him.”

  Catty Doyle tried to duck McGarr. She kept moving through the crowd ahead of him. When he finally caught up with her in a group of people, she spoke first. “Gina—this is Chief Superintendent McGarr. You’ve probably read of him in the papers. And this is—” With the last introduction she broke away, slipping back into the crowd, and when McGarr finally worked himself free, Mary Sittonn placed herself stolidly in his way.

  “Mary!” McGarr said. “How pleasant to see you. And in a dress.” He reached out his hand, which she hesitated taking, but when she did, he applied pressure. “Let’s make this meeting as brief as we can. Tell me quick exactly when you got Catty home on the night of the murder.” He squeezed harder, then a bit more.

  Sittonn returned the grip for a few moments, but then snapped her head down at their hands. “You’re hurting me.”

  “Thanks for the acknowledgment. When?”

  “Early, you miserable suck.” Again she tried to return the pressure, the flesh of her upper arm quaking. The dress was black and rather formal and heavy for summer; McGarr imagined it was one of a kind. For her.

  And when she again relented, McGarr only put more into it. “The hour. As close to the second as you can remember. If you swing at me, I’ll knock you on your arse. That’s a promise.”

  Through her teeth she said, “When I pulled away from the curb, I rolled down the window to make sure nobody was coming and I heard church bells ringing in the hour. One, exactly.”

  Still McGarr didn’t release her hand. He thought of how she and Katie Coyle had crossed Dublin in her horse-drawn cart to retrieve Coyle’s corpse. “Goodness—you have a car? A Fiat perhaps?”

  “It’s a Jag, left to me by my father, and very special. It doesn’t carry stiffs, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Only Cattys. By the way, where is the vixen?” he asked, turning Sittonn so he could move by her. “Ah, I see her now.”

  She was standing near a dais that supported stacks of Coyle’s books. Behind was an immense, brilliantly-lit blowup of Coyle standing on the Ha’penny Bridge with the Liffey and quayside Dublin in the background. Around Catty were a group of media people. One was applying makeup to Katie Coyle’s face. When the technician turned to Catty, she raised a hand in horror.

  “Always ready for any occasion,” McGarr remarked, then, to Mary Sittonn, “I do thank you, Mary. You’ve been most helpful.” Thrusting his arm forward, he moved Sittonn away from him and plunged into the crowd that was gathering before the dais.

  “Can’t we deal with this later?” Catty asked, glancing down nervously to straighten her dress. “Don’t you think the mike is too high?” she asked somebody over McGarr’s shoulder. “I don’t want to have to toy with it.”

  “Nor me with you, though I will.”

  She glanced at him, her light blue eyes icy.

  “I’ll take you out of here right now,” McGarr threatened.

  “Ready, Catty?” a technician asked. “We really must hurry if we’re to make the evening news. They’ll want to edit to make the clip fit the time slot.”

  She started to turn from McGarr when his hand fell to her wrist. “Try me.”

  “But why? What d’you want from me? I’ve told you everything from the start.”

  “Mary Sittonn says she dropped you off at one. How long was it before Holderness arrived?”

  Her nostrils, thin and d
elicately fluted, flared. “Can’t this wait?” she demanded, loud enough to turn the heads of most near them.

  McGarr kept hold of the wrist.

  “Catty?” the same voice asked.

  “Need some help?” someone else asked, and McGarr turned to the speaker, then back to Catty Doyle.

  “I don’t know, really. I’m not a clock watcher, especially at that hour of night. Not long, I’d imagine. I know I had to”—she lowered her voice, turned her body back toward McGarr and glanced at the others—“bathe and change. Half an hour. A little more. Why? I hope you don’t think I or”—lower still—“David—”

  “Why not?” said McGarr. “Think of the cachet. One of your writers murdering another over you, or at least you could make it appear that way.”

  The blue eyes blinked. “I hope you know what you’re doing. A loose, scurrilous remark like that could ruin me, and I swear to you that if it did, I’d have you in court for a decade, win or lose, and I wouldn’t.” She was angry now; color had seeped into her pale cheeks and her temple was pulsing.

  She then seemed to pause and collect herself before she said, “It was half-one exactly when David got to my house. I remember, because he asked me what Fergus Flood could possibly be doing in the neighborhood at that hour. I was in my bedroom, waiting for him.” Defiant eyes clashed with McGarr’s. “I turned to the clock by the bed. David said he’d missed all but the last bus to Phibsborough and walked from there. He said he’d seen the car, the little Fiat, heading up the Finglas Road.”

  “Catty—spare us, please,” implored one of the film crew.

  “I said, maybe it’s Hiliary. No—he’d seen Flood clearly on the driver’s side, and there was another figure in the car. I thought nothing more of it or”—she waved a hand in a dismissive manner—“anything else for I don’t know how long, until Kinch began barking, which woke me up. We then heard some noise out in the back garden, near Kinch’s house and the back gate. It sounded like knocking. David said he’d go down and find out what it was, or at least quiet Kinch so the neighbors wouldn’t complain. He’s good like that, David.” Her eyes rose to the crowd beyond the lights, as though looking for Holderness. “Attentive. Sober.”

  “Well, Christ—let’s pack up and beat it.”

  “No, please. I won’t be a moment.” She glared at McGarr. “Where was I?”

  “Holderness. Down at the back gate.”

  “He returned, saying it was just some punks out in the alley. He had Kinch with him so he wouldn’t bark anymore. Punk singular, I thought to myself. The mysterious fellow who lives over the wall.”

  “How long was Holderness gone?”

  She shook her head. Her dark hair shimmered in the strong light. “I dozed off until he returned. And afterward I fell asleep for good. I was exhausted.”

  McGarr didn’t doubt.

  “What time did you get up?”

  “Really now—as I first told you, rather late for a working day.”

  “And Holderness?”

  “David was gone by then. He knows that I prefer to awake alone.”

  “Don’t like to be reminded?”

  “Something like that.”

  “How would he have gotten back home?”

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him. Taxi. Or hoofed it. He doesn’t drive, and he’s a great walker. Incredibly fit.”

  He would have to be to walk to Bray, which was at least a dozen miles distant from Glasnevin. More likely he would have walked down to O’Connell Street and gotten a cab or taken the first bus or train to Bray, if, say, he’d left the Bengal Terrace house at five or so. “Where was the dog, when you got up?”

  She had to think. One of the camera crews had actually begun to pack up its gear. “In his house in the garden. David must have let him out when he left.”

  By the back door, though McGarr couldn’t be sure of that.

  To the crew, she said, “Hang on a moment. I’ll be right with you.”

  “Tell me about the knives in your kitchen, and I’ll let you go. How many days was it before your filleting knife reappeared?”

  Her eyes widened. “Wasn’t that the most curious thing? How’d you know?”

  McGarr waited.

  “I don’t know, really. I can remember missing it a day or two after Kevin—I mean, Kevin’s death. I’d bought a ton of food for Katie, what with the kids and all, and thought I’d prepare something that she could just pop in the oven. But when I turned for the filleting knife to bone out a roast, it was gone. I looked everywhere, but—” She shook her head. “David found it that evening. I must have dropped it, and Kinch must have carried it out the open door into the back garden. David said he found it in front of the dog house. The handle has a few tooth marks on it. David wants to get me a better set.”

  “Do you see that much of Holderness?”

  “Not really. Like most men, he’s really pretty much of a bore. Always going on about himself and his project, which is not without merit, mind, but…and then with the death and the book launching, I think I’ve seen him just that once.”

  “When he found the knife?”

  She nodded.

  “What about Kevin Coyle? What were your impressions of him?”

  “Kevin? Kevin had genius, and he was amusing. You never knew what he’d come out with. And then, when he put his thoughts on paper…” With a hand she indicated the milling crowd.

  McGarr took a step toward the crew, which was preparing to leave. “Kinch—did you name him?”

  She shook her head as she turned toward the dais. “David did. He gave him to me. It’s what Mulligan called Dedalus in Ulysses.”

  And Flood called Coyle. The name of a dog, according to Holderness, who knew his Joyce but whose area of specialization was Beckett.

  “Can’t you see that I’m trying to listen?” Hiliary Flood complained as Catty Doyle’s voice—introducing Coyle’s widow—barely filled the large, packed room.

  “And you’ll hear more if you answer the question,” said McGarr, speaking into her ear. “Between Bloomsday evening and my arriving at your house the day you drove out to yer mahn’s digs in Bray, did you use the Fiat at all?” Holderness was standing on the other side of her.

  She nodded, her eyes still on Catty.

  “When?”

  She turned to him. “Every day.”

  McGarr smiled.

  “David is my lover, as you know, and I’m to help Catty with the books.”

  “Really? Are you that friendly with her?”

  The girl’s eyes strayed to Holderness. “I wouldn’t say that. I work for Catty. University is expensive, and I don’t expect my father to foot the entire cost.”

  “And how long have you been working for her?”

  “On this project? Six weeks now.”

  “Daily?”

  “Nearly—university is closed. It’s summer holiday now, as you may have noticed.”

  “Do you drive in?”

  “I used to.” Before her car was confiscated, she meant. She moved off.

  Standing on the other side of Holderness was an even taller man with a long, pleasant face; McGarr recognized Seamus Donaghy, a successful, if unscrupulous, barrister.

  “Planning a legal action?” McGarr asked as he moved toward the door.

  The lenses of Holderness’s eyeglasses flashed as he turned his head away toward the stage.

  “Paranoid, McGarr?” Donaghy declaimed jocularly in the voice he was known for before the bar. His hands were clasped behind his back, his head slightly raised. “Or have you been further invading privacies. Here. As well as there.”

  “Directly. Count on it.”

  From the dais Katie Coyle was saying, “…enjoy the crack. I’m plannin’ to meself. After all the slaving he did on the book, Kevin would’ve wanted it like this.”

  Noreen met McGarr at the door. “I hope you’re not leaving.”

  “Where can I meet you?”

  “Nowhere. I mean, you
don’t expect me to go on without you.”

  It was a leading question, and McGarr glanced down at the glass in her hand, which he righted. “No, you can come with me.” He took her arm.

  “Where?”

  “A little drive out to Glasnevin.”

  “I can’t. There’s the cocktails after and dinner at Whites.”

  “I’ll hazard she won’t miss you at all,” said McGarr. And then, it would look so much less unusual for a man and woman to be entering Catty’s De Courcy Square residence from the street than it would a lone man from the rear.

  It was nearly tea time in the working-class neighborhood when McGarr pulled up before Catty Doyle’s door.

  “This is where Catty lives?” Noreen asked.

  “Well, she owns the house. No mortgage. And I don’t see how it differs all that much from your own, m’lady, apart from size.”

  “You don’t? Then you’ve not an eye in your head. It’s so meager.”

  “But consider the advantages. It’s quiet, I’d say, once neighbor’s kids are put to bed. And private, especially in the wee hours of the morning when everybody else is sleeping.”

  McGarr opened the door for Noreen and helped her out of the low car.

  The skies were still leaden and turbulent, and what with the sudden change in temperature, it felt more like fall than high summer.

  “But how…?” Noreen asked him.

  “Allow me,” McGarr replied, opening the wrought-iron gate and stepping toward the lace curtain that blinded the window in the front door.

  There he pushed the bell several times. From deep within the house, most probably from the back garden, they heard Kinch’s faint bark. Unobtrusively McGarr raised the pick on his key chain, which had not left his hand, and worked the lock briefly until the bolt slid over. He stepped over the threshold, saying in a loud voice, “Ah, Catty—how are ya this evening. Ah, grim. Yes. Desperate change. It feels more like October than July.” And to Noreen, “Say something. Sound like Catty.”

  She looked blank. “Like what?”