The City in Darkness

by Michael Russell

  He leant across the table and kissed her. ‘He’ll love it. Ah, tea!’

  The waitress put down the pot and another cup and saucer.

  ‘And I got this for Tom, and a few bits and pieces besides.’

  She took out a box of Meccano. Stefan sighed.

  ‘For God’s sake, what’s the matter now? He likes making things.’

  ‘And he’s great at it. The trouble is he expects me to be as well.’

  ‘You really do look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge.’

  ‘Several, backwards and forwards. Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen, Kate.’ He was serious now. ‘Leave’s been cancelled. There’s every chance we’ll be out after this fecking ordnance on Christmas Day.’

  For a moment they said nothing. Kate shrugged.

  ‘I’m going back to Dún Laoghaire tonight. I can go to Mass with Mam and Dad Christmas Eve morning. They’re not happy me being in Baltinglass Christmas Day. And can we say that without the usual aside – the one where you say they wouldn’t mind me being there so much if you weren’t coming back with me afterwards?’

  ‘Kate, you don’t have to go down if I can’t get home . . .’

  ‘I want to. It might take Tom’s mind off you not being there. I don’t know him well, but I’m sure Christmas without you will be – quite hard.’

  Stefan looked at her. He wished she wasn’t going back to Dún Laoghaire; he wished they could finish what they were doing and go to the flat now. He took her hand.

  ‘I’m sorry about last night.’

  ‘It’s okay. I guess we had enough on our plate without the IRA.’

  ‘Stefan!’

  He looked up at a tall man in an overcoat, slightly awkward about the moment of intimacy he knew he had just interrupted. It was the second time Stefan had seen Commandant Geróid de Paor in twenty-four hours.

  ‘Christmas shopping?’

  ‘I haven’t had much time for it today. Kate has been.’

  There was no reason the commandant shouldn’t be doing some late shopping in Clerys a couple of days before Christmas, but given the day it had been, it seemed odd he didn’t have more important things to do.

  ‘Sorry, this is Kate O’Donnell. Kate, Commandant de Paor.’

  ‘We have met, Stefan, remember? The Commandant was one of the officers who interrogated my sister when I brought her back from America.’

  She stood up and shook de Paor’s hand; he smiled.

  ‘I hope she’s put all that behind her. Is she somewhere in England?’

  ‘That’s right, somewhere,’ said Kate more coldly. ‘But I’ll leave you two to it. I assume you’re out scouring the bogs as well, Mr de Paor.’

  ‘No, I’m happy to let Stefan and his colleagues do all that. After last night I’m keeping my head down. If I was walking along O’Connell Street in uniform, I’d be in serious danger of being mobbed by small boys asking me if they could deliver a parcel! I suppose he’s told you about the—’

  ‘The parcel? Yes, it’s not exactly a state secret.’

  ‘Well, at least we now have a plan if the Germans or the English come knocking on our door with a parcel to deliver – we won’t answer it!’

  Kate gathered up her bags.

  ‘Stefan, if I don’t run, I’ll miss the train. Phone me in Dún Laoghaire. Whatever happens I will be getting the Baltinglass train on Christmas Eve.’

  She kissed Stefan and left.

  ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt, Stefan.’

  ‘No? I thought you did.’

  ‘Well, I did follow you from the Castle,’ de Paor laughed. ‘Saw you over the road. I was looking for you. You took some keeping up with too.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘Call it a Christmas drink.’

  ‘No pumping intended then?’

  ‘All right, I could see you were uneasy last night, at the fort.’

  ‘Is that surprising, Geróid?’

  ‘I’m uneasy too.’ De Paor spoke more quietly. ‘I think two people in our line of work who are uneasy should have a conversation. I’ve trusted you in the past. You’ve trusted me. We might not be friends, but we once had a friend in common. He trusted you too. I’d like you to listen to something. It doesn’t amount to much. Probably nothing. Will you listen?’

  As Stefan and de Paor crossed O’Connell Bridge for the Quays, the G2 man said how pleased everyone was with the search for the arms, though ‘everyone’ meant the government and the newspapers. The army wasn’t so much pleased as relieved. There would be changes at the top. Michael Brennan, the Chief of Staff, would go. That would make the papers feel that firm action had been taken. He interspersed confidential asides with idle remarks about the weather and Christmas. He had a good memory. When he said his ten-year-old daughter was hoping for more snow he asked about Stefan’s eight-year-old son as if they chatted about their families regularly. It led naturally to a memory of the first time they had met, six Christmases ago in de Paor’s house in Fitzwilliam Square. The last time they had seen each other had been at a memorial service in Rathfarnham, three months ago, for the third man who was with them at Fitzwilliam Square, de Paor’s colleague, John Cavendish, who had died in New York for no reason except that old hatreds still twisted Irish hearts and minds. That was their bond.

  ‘I thought we’d try the Clarence. It’s handy enough for you.’

  They were walking past Paddy Geary’s tobacconist’s.

  ‘Do you know every Special Branch man’s address, Geróid?’

  ‘Not all, no. But some addresses are more useful than others.’

  The Clarence, only a few years ago a crumbling, rat-infested Georgian house calling itself a hotel, had a brand new building. With its bright limestone, its classical pillars, and a touch of art deco unusual in any Dublin buildings other than cinemas, it was a beacon of modernity between the still crumbling, rat-infested Georgian houses on either side. When Stefan rented some rooms a few doors along his landlord had said if there was one building without rats, he was in it. The noises at night were less reassuring, as was the rat Paddy Geary’s cat had dropped at his door.

  The octagonal cocktail bar of the Clarence was clamorous with the expectation of Christmas, but the waiter found them a table away from the crowd around the bar. He seemed disappointed the cocktail menu was unopened and the two men ordered beer. But it was a cocktail bar in which the barman wasn’t often stretched beyond a port and lemon or a Martini.

  ‘I don’t warm to cocktail bars either,’ said de Paor. ‘But we’re almost guaranteed not to see a Garda Síochána man, let alone Special Branch.’

  ‘Is that important?’

  ‘You must decide for yourself.’

  ‘So no objection to me telling Gregory we had a drink?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘You said you weren’t pumping me last night, but if you want to pump me tonight, I’d say you’ll be disappointed, whatever it’s about.’

  ‘I’m not a great one for pumping. Let’s call it thinking aloud.’

  Stefan shrugged and sipped his beer.

  ‘I’m looking into the Magazine Fort raid, which won’t surprise you. After all, military regulations do require an inquiry into any loss over £5.’

  ‘You’re just over then,’ said Stefan.

  ‘There will be a court martial, but I’ve yet to see any indication it was an inside job as far as the army’s concerned. It might be easier to deal with it if it was. The IRA had plenty of information about the layout, and they knew what was there, but that’s not so hard. As far as the garrison goes, I don’t think the routine’s changed from when the British were there.’

  ‘Perhaps it should have done.’

  ‘But you’re the fellers with the gen on the IRA. Look at the way you’ve picked up our ordnance left right and centre. No complaints there. If there’s a consolation, it’s that the Boys’ security’s worse than the army’s. But it’s the speed that’s impressive. We could be
forgiven for thinking you had a fair inkling where the ammunition and guns were going to end up.’

  ‘They were never going to get it very far, were they?’

  ‘I think they got some of it further. Into the North.’

  ‘I haven’t heard that,’ said Stefan.

  ‘A whisper. From the RUC.’

  ‘I don’t get the whispers, Geróid.’

  ‘Someone does. You lads have got some instincts when it comes to where to look.’

  ‘Well, if you look in enough places—’

  ‘But another thing that surprised me – arrests.’

  ‘What arrests?’

  ‘That’s the question. The Dáil’s pushed through legislation for you to arrest anyone, for anything, but Garda cells aren’t exactly bursting at the seams.’

  ‘Don’t you want your ammo back first?’

  ‘There were four senior IRA men in town last night. The Chief of Staff, Hayes, Jack McNeela, who’s doing most of the planning as Hayes can’t wipe his arse without someone to tell him how, McCallister, the Quartermaster, and Charlie McGlade, who’s reorganized the Boys in Ulster and is dangerously close to knowing what he’s doing. It was Charlie who got one lorryload of guns over the border. McCallister’s already gone, but not much further than Kildare. And Hayes and McNeela didn’t leave Dublin till late this afternoon.’

  ‘For a man who doesn’t know much about the IRA, that’s not bad.’

  ‘If I knew they were there, you’re not telling me you didn’t.’

  ‘In three months at Dublin Castle, I haven’t been near the IRA. You’ll have an idea what I’ve been doing. Spying on anyone in the British forces. That’s the sum total of what I know right now. If you want a list of Óglaigh na hÉireann soldiers in the British Army, then I’m your man.’

  De Paor smiled at the flash of anger, but the anger was as much about Stefan’s discomfort as it was about the job he was doing. The mention of the IRA Quartermaster in particular was unsettling. The events of the day had relegated most of that to the back of his mind but they hadn’t erased it.

  ‘I get the lists too,’ said de Paor

  ‘If you’ve got a question about what’s going on in Special Branch, ask Terry Gregory. I doubt he’ll be amused that you’re interrogating me.’

  ‘Will you tell him I am?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Quite right. But we’re working on this together, aren’t we? No orders we shouldn’t speak to each other. I know Terry’s a cautious man, but what’s there to be cautious about in friends reflecting on the day’s work? Isn’t there a war on, well, an Emergency anyway, and aren’t we all in it?’

  ‘I think we’d better leave it at that, Geróid.’

  ‘The word I have, Stefan, is only a whisper, funnily enough from the RUC again. The word they have is that the IRA have a man in Special Branch.’

  ‘Half the Branch are ex-IRA. It wouldn’t be the first time.’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t, but it would be a dangerous game now.’

  ‘Isn’t it always a dangerous game?’

  ‘It would be someone up the ladder, not your Constable Kelly.’

  ‘You can’t have it both ways. We’re on the way to recovering virtually everything that was stolen from the Magazine Fort for you.’

  ‘But not everything. Maybe we’ll get back so much no one will care what’s still out there. Meanwhile, no one noticed Stephen Hayes and the three musketeers having a fish supper in Cook’s in Dorset Street.’

  Stefan said nothing. Even the idlest evasion was a lie again.

  ‘However, I gather arrests will start after Christmas. We’re setting up military tribunals in the New Year to deal with it. There’ll be plenty of room for the Boys in the Curragh. Just a pity you could have had half their General Staff last night.’

  ‘I’m not the man to discuss this with, Geróid.’

  ‘No, probably not. I wanted to pass it by you, though.’

  ‘Pass what by, for God’s sake?’

  He checked himself, but de Paor could see his discomfort.

  ‘I cast my bread upon the waters, Inspector, it’s the best I can do.’

  ‘Well, have a good Christmas.’ Stefan stood up; he’d had enough.

  ‘You too. I hope you get away. And if ever you feel uneasy about anything again, and there’s no one you can talk to, you know where I am. It’s not a one-way street. I may have information that’s useful to you. Sometimes it might suit me to drop it into Special Branch without your elders and betters knowing the source. That wouldn’t do you any harm.’

  ‘You think I’m that easily used?’

  ‘We’re all being used, and we’re all users. Only the results matter. And I think you’ve got too good a nose for this job not to do it properly.’

  Stefan turned and walked out, through the hotel lobby to Wellington Quay. Shoppers and Christmas revellers still filled the street. He was sober enough, he had only one drink, but he was trembling a little as he took out his key to open the door to the flat. Paddy Geary was in the doorway to his tobacconist’s shop, fat and red-faced as usual, but slightly the worse for wear tonight, and cheerfully offering the season’s greetings to passers-by, whether he knew them or not. Stefan hadn’t seen him there.

  ‘Will you come in, Inspector? I’ve a bottle open.’

  ‘I’ll leave it, Paddy, thanks. It’s been a long day.’

  ‘Youse are giving the Boys the run-around now I’d say!’ Paddy chuckled. ‘Still, they gave youse the run-around first, fair play to them!’

  Stefan slammed the street door behind him. He walked up the stairs without bothering to turn on the light. Something scurried across the landing in front of him. There was a high-pitched squeal. He turned on the light to unlock the door to his flat. Paddy Geary’s fat tabby was staring up at him from the bottom of the next flight of stairs, a young rat still wriggling in its mouth. The cat didn’t take its eyes off him, but it closed its teeth tighter and there was a faint crunch. The rat stopped wriggling.

  7

  Kilranelagh Graveyard

  Stefan sat at a typewriter in the detectives’ room, transferring lists of ordnance from notebook pages skewered on spikes. Two other detectives did the same. At intervals the door from the Police Yard opened; detectives came in and put more tallies on the spikes. Cars came and went. He heard the doors open and close, the voices outside. There was still laughter, but the good humour of the previous day was wearing thin as men came in from Kildare and Meath and County Dublin, fresh from the army convoys bringing weapons and ammunition back to Islandbridge. The job was tiring and repetitive; satisfaction in showing Special Branch could do it was still there, but now it was clear it would carry on all through Christmas and into the New Year – no one had the enthusiasm Terry Gregory still showed.

  Stefan had been told to stay at the Castle and get on top of the paperwork that was piling up. No one knew why Superintendent Gregory wanted it recorded in such detail. The army was checking everything. They had inherited from the British a passion for double-entry bookkeeping and chit-issuing second to none; in the event of a German invasion their paperwork would run rings round the Wehrmacht. Nevertheless, the superintendent insisted on his own records; he didn’t trust what others put down. In a man who often found it convenient to throw away statements from suspects and witnesses, and write what he felt was a more accurate reflection of events on their behalf, such attention to detail was unusual. But he wanted it done. He wanted the Special Branch’s role to be crystal clear.

  The few detectives who could do something that approximated typing had been pulled in to collate the tallies and pile them in the in-tray in Gregory’s office. Stefan sat back and looked through the glass at his boss. The conversation with de Paor was in his head in a way it wouldn’t have been if he was out searching the countryside. If recent events had left him confused about Gregory and the IRA Quartermaster, what the G2 man told him had compounded it. Yet that morning the superintendent ent
husiastically announced changes to the Emergency Powers Act that meant they had free rein to arrest anyone they thought was an IRA member. And if they had no reason to believe a man was in the IRA, but didn’t like the look of him, that would do just as well now. It got the laugh Gregory intended but it was true. He said they would start picking up the IRA men and their fellow travellers soon, in days not weeks. But Stefan had to wonder. Soon was still a delay. The IRA knew what was coming; senior men would disappear; the people they picked up would be the foot soldiers.

  ‘I know it’s boring, Inspector. It’s a fuck sight warmer than Kildare.’

  Superintendent Gregory was walking towards him.

  ‘I’d still rather be outside, sir.’

  ‘We’ll never get the farm boy out of you, will we?’

  ‘I did tell you I wanted to stay in Baltinglass.’

  Gregory looked at him, half smiling; a questioning look.

  ‘You’ve got a lad down there, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You’d better piss off. If you don’t go now, there won’t be a train.’

  Stefan didn’t waste time. He took his coat, called his goodbyes and left. There was no reason Gregory should single him out for leave. He was unpredictable as always. It did go through his mind that he might want him out of the way. He hadn’t lost the feeling that the superintendent suspected him of knowing something. But heading up to Kingsbridge Station the streets were busy with the noise of Christmas. All that could wait for another day.

  Darkness was creeping into the scruffy graveyard that sprawled along the side of Kilranelagh Hill. It was a place of tumbled, cracked headstones and tufted grass, bordered by leafless trees, skeleton-like against the grey sky. Now, in the dusk, there were pockets of white between the gravestones, but the snow that had swept the hilltops two days earlier had almost gone. It was an uneasy place in the dark. Strangers would have seen only a disused cemetery, unkempt and abandoned, but it wasn’t abandoned for those whose families lay here. They liked its isolation, as they liked the ancient stones that rose over the headstones, marking it as a place where the dead and the living had met long centuries before Christianity came to Ireland.