By the time Inspector Donaldson heard that Detective Sergeant Gillespie was in the building, every trace of mat-erial relating to the deaths of Vincent Walsh and Susan Field that hadn’t been taken by Jimmy Lynch the previous year had been packed into cardboard boxes to be carried out of Pearse Street Garda station by Stefan Gillespie and Dessie MacMahon. There was a car from Garda HQ parked by the entrance. A uniformed guard took the boxes and packed them into the boot. As he slammed the boot shut and walked to the driver’s seat, Inspector Donaldson appeared, flustered and red-faced.
‘What are you doing here, Gillespie?’
‘Orders, sir.’
‘What’s he taken, MacMahon? He’s taken something!’
‘Files, sir.’ Dessie took out a Sweet Afton and put it between his lips. This seemed promising.
‘What files?’
‘Detective Sergeant Gillespie told me not to say.’
‘You’re still under suspension, Gillespie! You can’t walk into my station and – I’ll have you kicked so far the Commissioner –’
The back door of the car swung open.
‘Jesus, Stefan, what are we waiting for now? Get in!’
The inspector stared. Then he snapped to attention and saluted.
‘Sir!’
Stefan got into the car and shut the door. As the car drove off Inspector Donaldson was still saluting. Dessie was lighting his cigarette.
‘Drop the sergeant at Annie O’Neill’s in Westland Row.’
The Commissioner’s driver nodded. Broy leant back into his seat.
‘That’s the lid on it as far as you’re concerned, Gillespie.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And no more fecking freelancing.’
‘No, sir.’
‘I was never a by guess and by God sort of detective. Neither are you. So the holes in your story don’t tell me what a clever feller you are, they tell me you’re keeping something to yourself. You’ll have your own reasons.’
Ned Broy’s face was impassive; his words were matter-of-fact. But Stefan had every cause to believe that despite the Commissioner’s disregard for guesswork, he was pretty good at it. He had guessed more than he said.
‘I don’t know what you mean, sir.’
‘You wouldn’t. But whatever you intend to do with what you’ve got hold of now, just make sure none of it finds its way back to me. I won’t save you twice.’
*
The next morning Stefan Gillespie met Lieutenant John Cavendish upstairs in Bewley’s. Cavendish was in uniform. Where his stock-in-trade before had been that he didn’t really know what he was doing, now he was more businesslike. Stefan pushed the Jacob’s biscuit tin across the table. He had to do something with it. He had been tempted to throw Keller’s book into the fire. But it was more important than he wanted it to be. It had to go somewhere.
‘You’ll want this.’
Cavendish opened the tin and took out the notebook. He nodded.
‘Where did you get it?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Stefan didn’t know whether Eddie McMurrough was still driving his tractor up past the Avonbeg ford to Sheila Hogan’s cottage, but he thought he probably was. Wicklow farmers were persistent. There was no reason why she shouldn’t be left alone to find some kind of life.
‘What did you make of it, Sergeant?’
‘Some of it you could get from Thom’s Directory. Like a list of Jews in Clanbrassil Street. Some of it you couldn’t. Like which ones have got real money and which ones have got friends in Fianna Fáil. You could move on to the Dáil members Keller treated for syphilis, and people in government who wouldn’t squeak too loudly if the IRA found a way to get rid of Dev. I haven’t memorised it all if that’s what you’re worried about. But it’s in a simple enough shorthand. Anybody with decent German could read it.’
‘Does it identify Keller’s informants?’
‘A lot of them probably. He’s very thorough.’
There was nothing more to say. He knew what they really wanted. It wasn’t about what Hugo Keller might have passed on to Adolf Mahr in the way of information; it was about where the information came from. It would be a list, another list of people. People who could be trusted and people who couldn’t. And one day it might be about who was arrested and who wasn’t. The smell of all that had been in his nostrils too long. He’d had enough of it.
‘You’ve got what you want,’ said Stefan.
‘Is Miss Rosen going back to Palestine?’ Cavendish asked.
Stefan was surprised. ‘Why would that interest you?’
‘It doesn’t, but it interests you I imagine. I don’t know if she’s finished what she’s doing for the Haganah, but I’m reliably informed she’ll be lucky to get through London without British Intelligence putting a tail on her. When she gets to Palestine it’s unlikely she won’t be arrested and questioned by the Mandate Police. Not the Gestapo, but well worth her knowing.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘I talk to all sorts of people.’
‘Does that include British Special Branch?’
‘Please, Sergeant, you’ve got to draw the line somewhere. But don’t think they’re beyond exchanging information with German Intelligence, or the Gestapo if it suits them. Obviously she’s drawn attention to herself.’
‘I’ll tell her. Thank you.’ He smiled, remembering that first day in Pearse Street. ‘I’ve questioned her myself. I’d say good luck to whatever colonial hack draws that straw.’
As he stood up to leave, Cavendish frowned.
‘What did you make of the Nazis?’
‘Make of them?’
‘In their natural habitat.’
‘They didn’t surprise me, Lieutenant, if that’s what you mean.’
‘That’s what’s surprising, the fact that there’s nothing surprising about them. They tell you who they are. They tell you what they want. They tell you what they’re going to do. And when they do it, everyone’s surprised.’
Not everything in Hugo Keller’s notebook was in the biscuit tin Stefan had handed over to Military Intelligence. As he walked up Grafton Street and on to Stephen’s Green, he was heading for Robert Fitzpatrick’s house in Earlsfort Terrace. The letters the monsignor had written to Vincent Walsh were still in his pocket. He arrived as the bookshop opened. An elderly man told him that Monsignor Fitzpatrick was at Mass at the University Church and, though Stefan didn’t ask, he also told him that Sister Brigid had been taken ill. The man seemed very worried, because the illness had come on so suddenly and he didn’t even know where they’d taken her to be treated. Sister Brigid’s abrupt illness didn’t come as any great surprise to Stefan.
He left the house and walked back to Stephen’s Green and the University Church. The Mass had ended now and he passed the last Mass-goers as he moved through the atrium of the long, narrow building. Angelic figures directed him into the blaze of marble and glass that was the nave, each one holding a scroll. ‘Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Domine Deus Sabaoth.’ Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Hosts. Above the altar, in a half dome of blue and gold and red, the Natural World paid homage to God’s creation. At its centre sat Our Lady Seat of Reason. Robert Fitzpatrick knelt at the altar rail. His head was raised up to the Virgin above him, though his eyes were tightly closed. Stefan sat in a pew at the back of the church and waited for him. After a few minutes the monsignor rose from his knees and bowed his head. He crossed himself and turned to leave, but as he walked forward he saw Stefan Gillespie get up and step into the aisle in front of him, blocking his way.
23. Westland Row
‘I don’t think we have any more reason to speak to each other, Sergeant.’
‘I think we have, Monsignor.’
‘That’s not my understanding. You certainly have no business here.’
‘It won’t involve anything God doesn’t know already.’
‘My sister has done nothing. It’s a lie.’
‘You think so? She told Seán Moran to
get your letters from Vincent Walsh. When his Blueshirt pals buggered it up she sent him back to shut the poor bastard up for good. And when you told her to send a taxi car for Father Byrne, to bring Susan Field to hospital, she sent Seán instead, to clean up the mess. You do know why Vincent wouldn’t let go of the letters? He’d got the wrong end of the stick. He actually thought he was protecting you, Monsignor.’
It was difficult to read what was going on in Robert Fitzpatrick’s head. For some seconds he simply stared at Stefan. His face was white. There was something almost ferocious in his eyes; it could have been rage or despair. Then, quite abruptly, it was gone, and there was nothing. It was as if a light had been switched off. His face relaxed into a look of calm, bland disdain.
‘There really is no more to say, Sergeant Gillespie.’
‘I don’t care what you tell yourself, Monsignor. I don’t care what you believe. I’m not here for that.’
‘Then why are you here?’
‘Because I need your help.’
‘And what makes you think I’d want to help you?’
‘I’m sure you will. They can put a lid on a lot, but not on me. I haven’t finished with you.’
‘You disgust me!’
Robert Fitzpatrick stepped past Stefan. He gave him a look of withering contempt. Stefan grabbed him. He turned the priest round and held him by the lapels of his jacket, pulling him close and gazing angrily into his eyes.
‘You need to talk to me. You really do, I promise you.’
He let him go. Fitzpatrick didn’t move.
‘Do you know who Father Anthony Carey is?’
The priest was puzzled. The name meant nothing immediately.
‘He’s a curate in Baltinglass, but that’s not it; he’s in your Association of Catholic Strength. I think he’s a man you would probably know, Monsignor.’
Fitzpatrick answered warily, slowly, but he answered.
‘Yes, yes, I think I know who you mean. But I don’t understand –’
‘Your Church is trying to take my son away from me, because of him. And he’s your man, isn’t he?’ Stefan explained what had happened. He didn’t need to go into detail. It all made sense to Robert Fitzpatrick. In fact there was nothing about it that seemed in the least bit unreasonable to him. The contact he had had with Stefan Gillespie now gave him every reason to believe that Father Carey had been doing what any decent priest should have done.
‘This isn’t any business of mine.’
‘You can make it your business.’
‘Why should I? Why would you imagine I’d even consider it?’
He would have said more, but he stopped. Stefan was smiling.
‘Because I’ve got the letters you wrote to Vincent Walsh.’
Fitzpatrick froze. He had thought there was nothing to this other than more unpleasantness, but the letters were different. Whatever the detective knew about their content, he still believed they had disappeared along with Hugo Keller. It hadn’t occurred to him that they were in the hands of this man who had done so much damage and caused so much pain. But the priest’s sense of who he was, his sense of his fundamental invulnerability, was still there.
‘Are you trying to blackmail me?’
‘Yes, I am. I’m glad you understand that, Monsignor.’
‘I see. And what are you going to do with these letters?’
He had found a smile, a half-smile, from somewhere. He was still stronger than this policeman. He had too many friends. No one would listen.
‘I’m going to do more than Herr Keller, I promise. I know a man who knows a man in London who’s in the market for that sort of thing. Journalist might not be the right word for it. He works for the News of the World. Nobody would ever publish anything in Ireland, of course not, but it’s still quite a story; buggery, abortion, unexplained deaths. And who knows what they’d come up with? Maybe they’d find some other fellers out there who remembered you. What would you do, sue? It would be some case. And they’re not so delicate with priests at the Old Bailey. One way or another you’d be finished in the Church. And I’d forget any plans you might have about sainthood.’
It really was blackmail, plain and simple. And there was nothing Robert Fitzpatrick could do about it. Blackmail is only ever as effective as the blackmailer’s determination to carry through his threat. The monsignor only had to look into Stefan Gillispie’s eyes to see that he meant every word he said.
‘I’m done speaking for the dead, Monsignor Fitzpatrick. Now I’m speaking for myself. You will help me or I’ll make it my only purpose in life to destroy you.’
*
An end was needed to the whole affair, but it was difficult for the Garda Commissioner and the Minister of Justice to find one. Among the few people who knew the story there were already different versions. Even Stefan’s version had its versions. There was the version for Ned Broy, the version for Dessie, the version for Susan’s father, the version for Hannah. The version he gave her was close enough to the truth, but didn’t contain everything. What the Commissioner told the Minister and what the Minister told anyone else was something else again. There were certain things that could be done. Sister Brigid Fitzpatrick took a sudden decision to spend the rest of her days behind the impenetrable walls of a contemplative order of Carmelite nuns in County Limerick. She would never leave. She understood what had to be done although she would never feel any need for her daily prayers to be prayers of penitence. She would shut her life off from the world for the same reason she told Seán Óg Moran to kill: to protect her brother and allow him to fight the mystical war that would save mankind.
Monsignor Robert Fitzpatrick, who had done nothing of course, would continue to proclaim the conspiracies of Jews and communists, and there were many who heard him sympathetically within the Church. His ideas were, after all, not wrong in themselves; they simply needed to be voiced less stridently. Not everyone could warm to Adolf Hitler, and there were certainly some unpleasant aspects to Nazism; but the real enemy was still red, not red and black; the hammer and sickle not the swastika. And with democracy on its last legs, something had to bring order to the chaos of secularism and immorality it would leave in its wake. The Nazis came down on their opponents hard, no doubt about that, but these were hard times. And if Adolf Hitler did keep talking about eradicating Jews, why would anyone want to take all that bluster literally? The man was a politician after all. The Church didn’t have to like Herr Hitler to know that for now the future was with him. There was a longer game for the church to play than any Thousand Year Reich fantasies. It wasn’t as if Robert Fitzpatrick didn’t understand that. He spoke with the voice of the age. And somebody had to. Among the carpenter’s tools were axes and hammers as well as fine chisels; now was the time of the axe and hammer.
Nevertheless, whatever version of the story Ned Broy and the Garda Chaplain told Archbishop Edward Byrne, at the archbishop’s palace in Drumcondra, it was felt that Monsignor Robert Fitzpatrick would benefit from several years away from Ireland, researching his book on the Mystical Body of Christ at the Gregorian University in Rome. The need for all this new research came upon him almost as rapidly as his sister’s illness on her.
*
The day after Stefan Gillespie’s conversation with Robert Fitzpatrick in the University Church, he saw Hannah Rosen for the last time. They both knew it would be the last time and neither of them wanted to spend an evening talking about that, or worse trying to pretend there was something else to talk about. Instead they sat in the darkness at the Gate Theatre and let other people speak. It didn’t matter what the play was. It happened to be The Taming of the Shrew. It had the benefit of being long, but although it carried no special resonance for them, nothing that was about love felt easy. They would both have preferred an unhappy ending. However, they needed to be together and the Gate was a place to be that made silence something they could share. As they left the bar after the performance Micheál Mac Liammóir was heading towards it, out of costu
me now but with traces of make-up still on his face. He recognised Stefan and stopped, smiling.
‘The thin detective! And how’s the fat one?’
‘He’s not a great one for the theatre, Mr Mac Liammóir.’
‘Did we scare him off?’
‘There’s not much that scares Dessie.’
‘But it can be done.’
Stefan laughed. ‘This is Miss Rosen. Hannah, Mr Mac Liammóir.’
‘A pleasure, my dear.’ He took her hand. He turned back to Stefan, lowering his voice. ‘Did you ever find out anything about the boy, Vincent?’
‘We didn’t.’ It was an official lie. He didn’t like it any more for that.
Mac Liammóir looked at him harder. It was difficult not to feel he knew more, or at least that he already suspected there was more to know.
‘Well, we saw him off, just after Christmas. Eric Purcell was going down to Carlow to the funeral. I don’t know how he cudgelled the details out the mammy but he did, and in the end a few of us decided to take the train as well, chums from the theatre and other assorted reprobates. I’d always wanted the chance to sing the song, so I did, on the train. “Up with halberd, out with sword, on we’ll go for by the Lord, Feach MacHugh has given word! Follow me down to Carlow!” I’m not entirely sure Carlow has recovered yet.’ He spoke more softly. ‘If his mother and father didn’t know him, I hope they knew there were people who cared about him, and loved him, it was a lonely end.’
When they left the Gate and walked down O’Connell Street towards the river it wasn’t a journey they enjoyed, but they still didn’t want it to stop. What Hannah knew about Susan’s murder now was nearly as much as she could know. She seemed almost less angry than Stefan about the wall the state had already built around Monsignor Robert Fitzpatrick and Hugo Keller and Father Francis Byrne and Vincent Walsh and Brigid Fitzpatrick, and Susan Field too. She knew there was no further to go. There wasn’t the resolution public justice should have brought, but she could do no more to repay the debt she owed to her childhood friend, except for one thing. She could live. For the moment she was thinking about the other dead body on Kilmashogue, the man she knew nothing about, who had died in the same way her friend had, for the same reasons, for nothing at all it seemed to her.
The City of Shadows Page 37
