The City in Darkness

by Michael Russell

  ‘I’m sure you know as much as I do at this stage, Terry.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. Chances are I’d already know more.’

  ‘You’ll appreciate we have a lot to do, Terry.’

  ‘Good luck, Colonel.’ Gregory looked at his watch. ‘Brigadier Brennan must be waiting at the Department of Defence with the General Staff. A long night. Start with the parcel. A joke always breaks the ice.’

  As the colonel’s car door shut the superintendent walked on.

  ‘I’ll drop you home, Stefan,’ said Dessie. ‘I’ve got to get the car.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I could do with the air, Dessie.’

  For a moment Stefan stood still as the truck containing the Magazine Fort garrison pulled away, followed by Colonel Rowe. Gregory was turning his car, blasting the horn at a group of soldiers standing aimlessly about.

  ‘Your boss is right.’

  Stefan turned to see Geróid de Paor beside him.

  ‘Who needs an inside job when you can ring the doorbell?’

  ‘So what did they get out?’

  ‘Mostly ammunition, over a million rounds. And it is most of our reserve. It was ammunition they were after, especially .45-calibre for their Thompsons. They’ve plenty of Tommies hidden away but not much ammo. Does that tally with what you’ve heard at Dublin Castle?’

  ‘I’m not on the IRA side of things, but it makes sense.’

  Stefan was as noncommittal as he could be.

  ‘This took some organizing,’ continued de Paor, ‘and not a whisper.’

  Stefan didn’t reply. He had heard more than a whisper.

  ‘Hundreds of IRA men. Getting the trucks, getting them in and out, dumps for more ordnance than they’ve ever seen. And some of their best people locked up in England. Look at the three you found – a fifteen year old! How did they keep it so tight? They’re all over the place since Stephen Hayes took over from Seán Russell. It should have leaked like a sieve. But no excuses. It was our farce. Maybe when Terry Gregory’s had his fill of rubbing that in we might all consider what went wrong. Your end as well as ours.’

  ‘I’m sure there’ll be a time for that, Geróid.’

  ‘I’m not trying to pump you, Stefan.’ De Paor laughed.

  Stefan gave some sort of smile, but what puzzled the commandant wasn’t unreasonable, nor were the questions he asked. Perhaps there was an explanation for Superintendent Gregory’s behaviour. The more people ridiculed the army’s incompetence, the more that was the issue, and the less likely anyone was to ask how the biggest IRA operation in decades had been planned with such meticulous secrecy. Geróid de Paor could have no suspicion about what Stefan knew, but he sensed the Intelligence officer, in the guise of thinking aloud, was fishing. He knew something smelt. Perhaps his instincts told him that the smell might be coming from somewhere in the Branch.

  When Stefan arrived at the flat the lights were out. He could smell Kate’s perfume. He turned on a lamp and looked into the bedroom. Her steady breathing told him she was asleep. There was nothing left of the night they had planned together. If her anger had subsided his own mood was darker. He didn’t want to explain what had happened at the Magazine Fort; some of what he would say would be a lie. It was a grubby fact. It wasn’t much of an aphrodisiac. If he woke her, he would sink deeper into deceit. He closed the bedroom door. He poured a whiskey.

  He pulled open the curtains and looked out at the night, at the River Liffey, at Grattan Bridge, at the colonnaded dome of the Four Courts. Like everywhere in Dublin the Four Courts had another story to tell. It was where the Civil War started. Where the leaders of the new Free State used British artillery against men they had fought beside all their lives. In the bombardment and the fire that followed the building was almost destroyed. It took ten years to rebuild, but cement didn’t disguise where the bullets and the shrapnel hit in the summer of 1922. Stefan drained the glass. The Four Courts had been rebuilt, but the battle wasn’t over. And you still had to pick a side. He didn’t really want another drink but he poured one anyway. For now, it was easier than sleep.

  6

  The Clarence

  When Stefan reached Dublin Castle the next morning an armoured car sat where Dame Street met Palace Street, guarding the approach. The Gardaí at the gate carried rifles. It was early, just before six, but passers-by had stopped to discuss the night’s events with the soldiers and Guards. The story was greeted with a mixture of surprise and amusement that was already its hallmark. Gall is always an admired quality in Ireland; directed at the establishment it rarely misses. And since the raid had been carried out without casualties, even the soldiers on the streets found it hard not to hand it to the Boys. But the good humour was a backhanded compliment for the IRA. In most countries the theft of the army’s entire reserve of ammunition by an organization that aimed to replace the existing government would have led to the expectation of civil war. It was a measure of the relationship between Ireland and the IRA that no one expected anything to happen. Armed insurrection may have been on the agenda of Éamon de Valera and his cabinet that morning, but embarrassment came higher up the list.

  Stefan hadn’t wanted to wake Kate that morning but he couldn’t leave without speaking to her. It didn’t start well. It wasn’t that he had drunk very much, but he was drinking regularly, in a way that he never had before. It was a habit that echoed what Kate liked less and less about the job he was doing. But the Magazine Fort raid was enough to push it away. As she realized what he was saying, and grasped the full extent of it, as well as the absurdity of the way it had all happened, some laughter was inevitable.

  She put his uneasiness down to the argument at the Gate and did her best to put that aside. It had been accepted at the theatre that Roly Poly might come into conflict with the state’s show of neutrality; the weeping and gnashing of teeth disappeared quickly. Micheál Mac Liammóir made a point of talking to her in the pub. He couldn’t keep her on in her job but he assured her she had not lost friends. As for Detective Inspector Gillespie, he said rumour had it the Abbey’s management was furious that Ireland’s national theatre had not been given its own Special Branch detective too. Kate was aware that the smile Stefan gave in response to this didn’t go as deep as she hoped.

  Superintendent Gregory was a different man that morning. The indulgent amusement of his Magazine Fort visit was gone. There was a sense of eagerness that Stefan felt as he entered the detectives’ room. The full complement of Special Branch men stood around maps on blackboards and easels, or sat on desks talking fast and loud, some even, a rare occurrence, scribbling down notes. On one wall, beside the photographs of the most wanted IRA leaders, were lists of dozens more, with known haunts, details of friends, family, home, work addresses. It was a new day. And at the centre of it, holding several conversations at once, was a new Terry Gregory, looking as if he hadn’t slept, which was true, yet newly energized.

  Dessie MacMahon ran his finger down a list of IRA men as Stefan came in. He looked up, grinning, an unusual activity at six in the morning.

  ‘Jesus, I don’t know where the boss got his information but there’s no shortage of it. He’s right on this. So some bugger’s talking somewhere.’

  Gregory stepped into the centre of the room. The noise stopped.

  ‘Right, lads. You’ll be working in teams with the army and the Military Police. There’s a blockade round the Pale since the early hours. Road blocks, patrols, armoured cars. There are spotter planes out. It’s unlikely what was stolen got further than County Dublin, Kildare, Meath. It certainly won’t go any further. Whatever the Boys planned in the way of dumps, the size of the haul hasn’t made it easy. And they used all their surprises up last night. The IRA demonstrated they can put on a show. We can put on a better one. And ours is going to run a lot longer than theirs.’

  Stefan Gillespie caught the wink that was directed at him.

  ‘First job is recovering what they took. Easy and methodical’s the game, and no one
’s going to get in the way now. You might remember when the Dáil brought in the Emergency Powers Act, people didn’t like it. Our friend Mr Cosgrove criticized the government for asking for a blank cheque. It was decent of him to stand up for the Boys when they’d shoot him as soon as look at him, but there’ll be no more of that shite. The Dáil will amend the Act to plug the holes, without a squeak. Mr Cosgrove and the bleeding hearts have an idea where some of the rounds may end up.’

  There was laughter. Stefan watched Gregory. The boss was enjoying this. Another shift of mood that didn’t relate to the conversation with the IRA Quartermaster. What the politicians in Leinster House were doing didn’t interest many detectives, but Gregory wasn’t really talking to them. He was talking to himself, and it went far deeper than stolen ordnance.

  ‘I’m off to HQ to see the commissioner. Ned wants no cock-ups. Shorthand for if anyone’s feeling frisky the only fellers who need dead IRA heroes are the Boys themselves. And that’s straight from Dev. You won’t be thanked. The success of this operation will be down to Special Branch. We know where to look. As for the army, whatever about the Phoenix Park farce, we’re working with them. So no shooting, and keep off the subject of parcels. If they don’t know what they’re doing, let’s show them we do.’

  The day that followed was long. Stefan took charge of a group of Special Branch detectives, including Dessie MacMahon, and left for the barracks at Islandbridge where they picked up two truckloads of soldiers and drove west and south towards Kildare. Stefan made the journey in an army staff car; the lieutenant who sat in the back with him said little. They looked at the maps of the area they would be searching, but even though the lieutenant seemed to know the area beyond the Curragh and Newbridge better than Stefan, it was clear all the information to direct the search came on the lists he had brought from Dublin Castle. The officer’s silence said he didn’t much like it, yet there was no argument about who was in charge.

  Between the ring of roadblocks closing off the city itself and an outer ring that sealed off the adjacent rural counties, the countryside had been divided into small areas that were broken up by more roadblocks, more Guards and more soldiers while they were searched. It was going to be done in a way that was, as Terry Gregory had said, easy and methodical.

  Stefan Gillespie and his men were searching around Rathangan, on the Kildare–Offaly border, working out along the River Slate. Beyond the town, farm buildings were the focus, but every wood had to be swept, every ivy-clad ruin, every field and ditch, every quarry, the grounds of churches, chapels and schools, even graveyards. Every car, every cart, every pedestrian was stopped. It was a lot of work and it was productive.

  As darkness closed in Stefan had found two arms’ stashes and one major dump; 15,000 rounds of ammunition, 20 Lee-Enfield rifles and a dozen Thompson machine guns. The intelligence from Terry Gregory gave the search a direction Stefan quickly learned to trust. There were places as the day progressed where he moved his men on, and places where the information made him send them back to check they hadn’t missed something. Even Special Branch men who dealt with the IRA and its informers all the time were surprised how easy it was. And the lieutenant who had started the day off with stiff-lipped sourness now expected another discovery round every corner. It was like clockwork. And by the end of the day Stefan was sure of one thing: the intelligence that came with the maps hadn’t been put together in a couple of hours that morning. He already had the same level of detail for the next day’s search in Kilcullen and Narraghmore. Nothing was haphazard. It felt like it had been planned for a long time.

  When he returned to Dublin Castle detectives were already heading home, mud-, peat-, and dung-spattered from the day. They were all tired, but there was a sense of satisfaction, even camaraderie, that Stefan felt too. There was a cheerful competitiveness he couldn’t help joining in with as he walked into the Police Yard, with Special Branch men all round him throwing out claims of how many thousand rounds they’d found and how.

  ‘Mick Calloway’s opened a book on it. There’ll be the pot and a couple of bottles of whiskey for whoever finds most by Christmas Day.’

  ‘And where are we, Dessie?’ said Stefan.

  ‘Thirty to one outsiders.’

  ‘That’s a bit rich. I thought we did all right!’

  ‘We’re stuck with an inspector who knows fuck all about the IRA.’

  ‘Thanks very much!’

  ‘Now if we were looking for subversive plays, we’d be odds on.’

  When they entered the detectives’ room from the Police Yard, Stefan was laughing. It had been hard not to take some pride in the operation. The sense from the army and the uniformed Guards that ‘Whatever you think of these Special Branch lads, they know what they’re doing’ was strong. Special Branch wasn’t much liked, even within the Gardaí. They were seen less as a weapon against the IRA’s gunmen than as barely distinguishable from them. Stefan still carried that dislike. As he looked through the glass window into Gregory’s office, watching the superintendent and his senior detectives drinking beer, talking and laughing over each other, he felt a little less comfortable with the fact that he was sharing the same feelings.

  He caught his boss’s eye suddenly. The superintendent raised his glass and smiled. Stefan was still no wiser as to what Terry Gregory’s connection to the IRA Quartermaster meant. It had looked like betrayal but he wasn’t convinced. Was Gregory giving information or getting information? Was he playing both sides? He had a reputation for guarding himself against all eventualities and not caring who he screwed in the process. Stefan had known that before he came into the Branch. But whatever the game was, he had already compromised himself; the decision to say nothing, do nothing, hadn’t let him step away from anything; it had drawn him more deeply in.

  ‘Your girl was in earlier, Stevie. There’s a note for you,’

  The words came from a detective on his way out. Stefan picked up a scribbled note from Kate. As he read it he felt a shift that took him out of the detectives’ room, back to what he told himself was the real world. If the night before, looking out over the Quays, he had been uneasy with the idea that there were places in his head he needed to shut off from one another, today he was happy just to close the door and walk into another, brighter room.

  Stefan crossed O’Connell Bridge and half-ran and half-walked to Clerys. There were two days till Christmas; the shops were open late. All along the first-floor windows of the department store there was a line of Christmas trees and coloured lights; below them windows were full of toys, clothes, gifts. There was an ordinariness about the crowded pavements and the good-natured jostling through the doors that was more than ordinary at Christmas. In a corner of Stefan’s head it would always remind him of how it should have been and wasn’t; of his son in Baltinglass with his grandparents and less and less time to see him; of Maeve who wasn’t there and never could be. They weren’t unhappy reflections; they were simply there. To enjoy Christmas without them would have been to diminish what it meant. Not that he knew what it meant now; he hadn’t since he was little more than a child. But it was still about a better place to be; it touched at the heart of the things that still mattered and at the things he sometimes forgot.

  As he raced up the escalators to the café he remembered what he had pushed from his mind all day. Two days till Christmas. All leave had been cancelled. For the Dublin men it would only take the daylight hours of Christmas Day away. For him and for Tom it would take away Christmas. He should have been going home on Christmas Eve, bringing Kate with him. It had been planned by Tom, who at eight was a great planner-ahead. There had never been a Christmas since Maeve’s death that father and son had been apart. It had become important when Tom was three and four and Stefan was a detective in Dublin, but even after his return to West Wicklow Tom had never lost the sense that Christmas must be inviolable for them.

  Kate was still in the café, starting to pack up her bags to go.

  ‘Can we have so
me more tea, please?’ She caught the waitress’s eye, then grinned at Stefan. ‘So, have you saved the nation? I hope so. It’s been chaos in town all day. Anyway, it looks like it’s taken it out of you so.’

  ‘I’ve just run all the way from the Castle!’

  ‘Oh, so you didn’t save the nation?’

  ‘Well, I should have it all sewn up soon.’

  ‘Good, I thought you probably wouldn’t make it, so I decided I’d better get some presents anyway. You haven’t done anything, have you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t go as far as that.’

  ‘Of course you haven’t.’ She pulled two carrier bags on to the table. ‘This covers most things I think. Some bath salts and scent for your mam.’

  Stefan looked; his response wasn’t enthusiastic.

  ‘You don’t like bath salts or you don’t like these bath salts?’

  ‘It’s not what I’d buy her.’

  ‘Handkerchiefs?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’d guess you’d buy her some handkerchiefs normally?’

  ‘No, that’s what Pa usually gets her.’

  ‘Take it from me, Stefan Gillespie, treating your mother as if she’s a woman, not just a mother, won’t go amiss. You should probably pass that on to your father too. She’ll have a drawer full of those handkerchiefs.’

  He laughed; she did have.

  ‘And your dad wanted a new lighter.’

  She took out a box that contained a square, chrome Colibri.

  ‘That’s not bad.’

  ‘Does that mean it’s all right?’

  ‘It’s not the same as the one he had before.’

  ‘You mean the one the cow trod on? Perhaps you could stick it under a cow’s hoof over Christmas, and flatten it out. If you want to change it . . .’