The City of Shadows

by Michael Russell

  ‘And is that why you’re up here as Mrs Donahue?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. Wasn’t Jimmy working for Keller?’

  ‘He was working for himself.’

  ‘And when Hugo went, he wanted the book – for himself.’

  She said nothing again. The habit of silence was an old one.

  ‘So what’s in this book, Sheila?’

  ‘Nothing that matters now.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It was his insurance policy. That’s what he called it. If anything went wrong. He put everything down in it. What he knew, what he sold, what he kept for himself. It was what he kept for himself that mattered most. He said it was his ticket to stay in Ireland. There were so many people he knew about, important people. He’d had enough. He just wanted to come up here and forget it all. When he went back to Germany he didn’t know they’d force him to keep working for them. It was only to lie low, till he came home again.’

  ‘You make blackmail sound like the Vincent de Paul, Sheila. It would have been a little nest egg too, to dip into when the winters were hard.’

  ‘You’re probably right. Maybe he’d never really have stopped.’

  ‘Is it here then?’

  She didn’t respond.

  ‘It’s no use to you now.’

  ‘And what use is it to you?’

  ‘I don’t know yet, but if it’s not me isn’t it Jimmy, sooner or later?’

  ‘People are stupid, you know that?’ She spoke the words bitterly. ‘They do stupid things. They steal and lie and cheat and fuck. That’s all they do. That’s all they are. Why shouldn’t someone get something out of it? If it hadn’t been him it would have been someone else. Didn’t they deserve it anyway, most of them? He always said when he got to the pearly gates they wouldn’t let him in, but he’d find a way. He’d just keep his eyes open and sooner or later he’d have something on God himself!’ She shook her head and looked up at the mountains again. There were no tears.

  ‘You’ve kept it for him long enough. He’s not coming for it now.’

  He couldn’t pretend to feel much for Hugo Keller, but he understood what loss was; and somewhere in those last words Sheila Hogan sensed that. She touched the final letter she had written to Hugo Keller, a letter he had never read. Stefan Gillespie had brought with him the last breath of the man she loved, and she was oddly grateful that he had. She had waited. She had believed, as Keller had believed, that he would come back here and find her. And now he wouldn’t. She got up and walked to the vegetable garden. There was a spade sticking into a bed where she had been earthing up potatoes. She pulled it out and went across to an apple tree by the stone wall. It was full of white blossom. She pushed the spade hard into the ground and started to dig.

  He stopped at the ford across the Avonbeg and sat by the river. He opened the Jacob’s biscuit tin Sheila Hogan had dug up under the apple tree; there was a picture of a goldfinch feeding on yellow gorse flowers. It was a small, dark green notebook. The handwriting was tiny and meticulous. It filled every lined page though it took no notice of the lines. At first he thought it was in some kind of code but it was no more than a truncated shorthand of abbreviations and numbers. The abbreviations were names, sometimes addresses. The numbers were dates, sometimes sums of money. Sometimes there was a page of notes following a name, but they were written in the same shorthand, missing out vowels, often stopping a word half way through. Sometimes there were lists of dozens of names on a page, with no more than an address and a series of letters after them that classified them in some way. Keller’s shorthand was German of course. It had an elliptical quality that would make it tedious to decipher, but it wouldn’t be so hard.

  At the back of the book, in a small cardboard wallet, there were several pieces of folded paper. The first was a letter. He knew the woman’s name Hugo Keller had written at the top, even in its shortened form, and the name underneath it. She was the wife of a government minister and he was a senior diplomat. There was little more than the address of a hotel in London, but there didn’t need to be any more. The next sheet of paper was a list of names. There were politicians, businessmen, senior clerics, several senior Garda officers. There was no explanation but at the end of the list was the name Becky Cooper and the sum of money Keller had paid her. Stefan knew her name well enough; she ran a brothel in Dublin. By two of the names there were abbreviations and dates. The word ‘Syph.’ wasn’t hard to expand on. Keller had treated two of the men on Becky’s list for syphilis. Next there were four letters folded together. ‘My Dearest Vincent.’ He had found them.

  They weren’t long, but they were filled with vivid, almost unstoppable sexual desire, interspersed with strangely banal details about work. The third letter ended with an expression of growing excitement about the upcoming Eucharistic Congress. ‘Only a month away and there is so much to do! It’s wonderful! Your Loving Friend, Robert.’ There had been little to connect the two bodies on the mountainside at Kilmashogue. There was the earth in which their bones were buried. There was the single hole from a captive bolt pistol in each of their skulls. And there was Detective Sergeant Jimmy Lynch, who sold these letters to Hugo Keller and drove the car that collected Susan Field from Keller’s clinic. That made Lynch the only link between Vincent Walsh and Susan Field. Now there was something else. Monsignor Robert Fitzpatrick had been Vincent’s lover. He was also the man who had sent Jimmy Lynch to twenty-five Merrion Square to take Susan Field away. Fitzpatrick was someone else the Special Branch sergeant worked for. That day in Earlsfort Terrace, when Stefan had questioned the monsignor, the priest had shown only bitterness and resentment towards Francis Byrne, the follower and protégé who had abandoned him. But it seemed like he wasn’t so bitter or resentful that he couldn’t find an abortionist for the young priest in his hour of need and a bent garda sergeant to sort the mess out for him afterwards.

  *

  Stefan met Dessie MacMahon in Neary’s in Chatham Street the next day. It wasn’t long after opening. Dessie sat in the corner by the back door that led out to the Gaiety Theatre, wreathed in smoke. The only other people in there were actors coming and going for rehearsal. The two policemen hadn’t seen each other in three months but Dessie asked no questions. If there was something Stefan wanted to tell him he would tell him. This was business, and it was serious business. That was clear enough from the phone call.

  ‘How’s it going, Dessie?’

  ‘Ah, you know how it is yourself.’

  ‘Detective Sergeant McGuinness?’

  ‘He’s no trouble.’ It wasn’t a compliment.

  ‘Inspector Donaldson?’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t like the fact that Charlie McGuinness takes a drink, but once the Angelus bell rings and he goes to Mass and Charlie’s off to the pub, we’ve a nice quiet station so. All in all he likes that bit well enough.’

  ‘What’s happened about the bodies at Kilmashogue?’

  ‘I told you, we’ve a nice quiet station now.’

  ‘I was in Danzig,’ said Stefan quietly.

  Dessie nodded as if that was about as interesting as a trip to Clontarf.

  ‘I saw the priest there, Francis Byrne. I saw Hugo Keller too.’

  ‘Still in touch with your woman, then?’ reflected Dessie, unsurprised.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And I thought you were milking cows.’

  ‘You can only milk so many. They’re both dead, Byrne and Keller.’

  Detective Garda MacMahon finally raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Danzig’s not a place you’d go on holiday from what the papers say.’

  ‘It isn’t,’ replied Stefan. ‘But nothing new this end? You haven’t heard Jimmy Lynch has got to the bottom of it so?’

  ‘If he has he’s kept it to himself,’ said Dessie.

  ‘He wouldn’t have to look far. I think he killed Vincent Walsh and Susan Field. And if he didn’t kill them he made dammed sure they were dead.’
/>
  ‘Jesus!’ Dessie looked round. No one was listening. ‘What the feck for?’

  ‘At the moment I’d say it was for Monsignor Robert Fitzpatrick.’ He took Keller’s small notebook from his pocket. He opened it and handed one of Fitzpatrick’s letters to Vincent Walsh across the table.

  Dessie’s eyes widened as he read.

  ‘I need you to watch my back,’ said Stefan simply.

  ‘They won’t let you do anything with this.’

  ‘That depends what I can put together before anyone notices me. I’ve got a bit of time. Fitzpatrick won’t go running to the Commissioner, not with what I know about him, but he’s quite likely to go running to Jimmy Lynch. And Jimmy might take matters into his own hands. I need to know where he is.’

  ‘You want me to follow a Special Branch sergeant?’

  ‘No, I couldn’t ask you to do that,’ said Stefan, laughing.

  ‘No, you couldn’t.’ Dessie took out an unopened pack of Sweet Afton. ‘That could get me into some real shite!’

  *

  When Sister Brigid opened the door of the house in Earlsfort Terrace she knew she recognised Stefan Gillespie. She wasn’t quite sure where she’d seen him, but so many people came to her brother’s meetings nowadays. They were so full that she couldn’t expect to remember half the people.

  ‘Hello, Sister, I was hoping to talk to the monsignor.’

  ‘He’s not here just now, can I help at all?’

  ‘Are you expecting him back? It is important.’

  ‘He won’t be long,’ she smiled. ‘Well, you can wait if you like.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Come in and have a cup of tea.’

  He followed her into the hall and down the stairs to the basement, into a kitchen that was dark and old-fashioned but scrupulously neat. There was the smell of baking and a kettle was already steaming on the black range.

  ‘I get so little time to bake now. There’s so much work. But this afternoon I thought, blow it! I haven’t baked a scone in a month and Robert loves scones. Well, I tell him he loves them but I’m the one who does really. You need someone to make cakes for though. There’s no pleasure just making them for yourself. If you wait till they cool you can have one as well.’ She poured hot water into the teapot as she talked and while it was standing she opened the oven door and took out a tray of fruit scones. She put them out on a rack, one by one, in tidy rows. When she had finished she looked pleased with the results. She went to the teapot and poured a cup out. ‘Help yourself to milk and sugar, it’s on the table. I didn’t ask your name?’

  ‘It’s Gillespie. Detective Sergeant Gillespie.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I do remember you, Sergeant.’ Then she frowned. ‘It was before Christmas, wasn’t it? Robert was really very upset. He didn’t tell me what you were discussing with him, but I know he didn’t like it. Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked you in. I don’t know if the monsignor would want –’

  ‘I need to see him. It isn’t something that can wait.’

  ‘When you were here before, it was about Francis, Father Byrne, I do remember that. You wanted to know where he was. But he’s dead now. We heard last week.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He drowned.’ She shook her head. ‘We hoped he would come back.’

  There was something about the way she spoke that suggested more intensity than just a train across Europe and a Holyhead boat.

  ‘Come back?’

  ‘He lost his way.’ She smiled sadly and crossed herself. ‘But where he is now, he will never lose his way again. When we ask forgiveness, we are forgiven.’ She turned her head. Stefan could see that she was close to tears.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sister.’

  ‘Francis meant a lot to both of us. He lived in this house for many years. He was very special to my brother. He always felt that Francis would be beside him in his work and that one day, when the time came, it would be Francis who carried it on. When he turned away from everything Robert had taught him –’ She started to re-arrange the scones on the rack. ‘I don’t know why you’re here, Mr Gillespie. I don’t know what you can have to say.’

  Stefan looked round as the door opened behind him. The monsignor was there. And there was no question that he remembered exactly who Stefan was.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Stefan stood up slowly, his eyes fixed on the priest.

  ‘I need to talk to you, Monsignor.’

  Robert Fitzpatrick’s face showed a mixture of anger and indignation, but Stefan saw uncertainty too, somewhere behind all that.

  ‘I don’t believe we have anything to talk about, Sergeant.’

  ‘Perhaps we could go upstairs. There are still questions –’

  The monsignor was more agitated now. He walked forward.

  ‘He’s dead! Don’t you know Father Byrne is dead?’

  Brigid stepped forward and took her brother’s hand. He was immediately calmer.

  ‘I did tell him. I’m sorry, Robert. I didn’t know who he was.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Brigid. I think you can get out, Sergeant.’

  But Stefan had no intention of getting out. His eyes hadn’t left Robert Fitzpatrick’s since he turned to see him in the kitchen. He had all the cards he needed.

  ‘I do know he’s dead, Monsignor. I saw him in Danzig. I was with Bishop O’Rourke, at the undertakers, after they pulled his body out of the river.’

  The priest and the nun stared at him. Fitzpatrick frowned as if he couldn’t relate these ideas: the garda sergeant, Danzig, Francis Byrne. Brigid closed her eyes and bowed her head. As she looked up her lips were moving silently; her fingers were clasping the beads on the rosary at her waist.

  They stood in Fitzpatrick’s study. It was a room at the back of the house, behind the office and the bookshop. It looked out on a small, high-walled garden. There was a flowering cherry, full of white and pink blossom. The priest stood with his back to the window. He didn’t ask Stefan to sit down.

  ‘As I understand it you were suspended from the Gardaí earlier this year. I don’t know whether you’ve been re-instated, but if you have, the best thing you can do is walk out of this house now, or I’ll make damned sure you’re kicked out completely. Don’t think I haven’t got the ability to do it either.’ The threat was cautious and considered. He was trying to weigh Stefan up as he spoke. He didn’t know what to make of him. The idea that the policeman he had been in Danzig, talking to Francis Byrne, was still as startling as it was unexpected.

  ‘Let’s forget the lies about Father Byrne, shall we? He did have an affair with Susan Field. He did pay for an abortion for her at Hugo Keller’s clinic. You not only knew Keller, you put Francis Byrne in touch with him. I’m not asking you, I’m telling you what I know. And when the abortion went wrong and Susan had to be taken to hospital, you sent someone to sort it all out.’

  ‘Is that what Francis said?’

  There was quiet calculation in the priest’s eyes. This conversation meant nothing after all. These were just words, and the man they were talking about was dead.

  ‘It’s also what Mr Keller said,’ replied Stefan. Fitzpatrick couldn’t know Keller was dead. He had no links to what had happened in Danzig.

  ‘Mr Keller is still in Germany?’ The monsignor was less sure now.

  ‘He’s in Danzig at the moment,’ said Stefan. That much was true.

  ‘And he’ll be coming back to testify to all this?’ smiled the priest. If Keller wasn’t in Ireland it didn’t matter.

  ‘You don’t deny you knew Hugo Keller, Monsignor.’

  ‘He was a friend, at least an acquaintance, of Adolf Mahr’s, the director of the National Museum. I’m sure I met him a few times, at dinners or receptions. I have close ties with the German community, especially the German Catholic community. If what you say about his involvement in abortions is true I am deeply shocked. We can’t always know where the bad apples are in a barrel. As far as Father Byrne is concerned I
was satisfied with the answers he gave to your questions in December. It was my impression your senior officers were too. Unsubstantiated and scurrilous allegations about a priest who died tragically won’t endear you to anybody.’

  The monsignor was used to being believed. He had no reason to think that lying would change that. This policeman knew a lot, but in the end it counted for nothing, not against his word. The man wasn’t important enough to matter. He was a problem though and he would have to be dealt with. Stefan could feel the confidence growing in the eyes that now fixed his. He had caught the priest off guard, but it hadn’t taken him long to regain his composure. Fitzpatrick already thought it was over. However, it wasn’t.

  ‘The guard you sent didn’t take Susan Field to hospital,’ continued Stefan, ignoring the denials he had just heard. ‘He took her to the Convent of the Good Shepherd. They couldn’t do anything. She’d already lost too much blood. I’m not sure what happened next. Either she died or the guard killed her. And if he didn’t actually kill her, he went to some lengths to make sure she was dead. I don’t know what his instructions were, but I know you sent him.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about. This means nothing to me, nothing.’

  He spoke quietly. It wasn’t so much about confidence now. Stefan’s words troubled him in some way, but it wasn’t the right way. He still felt he was untouchable, but there was something else. He looked puzzled. The indignation was gone and it was hard to read what was in his face now.

  ‘I don’t think my superior officers are going to be satisfied with what Father Byrne told us in his letter,’ said Stefan, ‘however much they want to be. You wrote most of it for him anyway. But that’s only the beginning. There was another body next to Miss Field’s. You’ll remember him.’

  Monsignor Fitzpatrick looked confused. ‘What other body?’

  ‘The one you longed to feel throbbing next to yours – Vincent Walsh’s. That’s what it said in your letter, didn’t it? I’ve seen them, the letters. Obviously Vincent’s body won’t have been throbbing next to anyone else’s for a long time now. Not since someone shot him in the head with a captive bolt pistol, which is, oddly, what happened to Susan Field as well.’