To Keep a Bird Singing

by Kevin Doyle

  ‘Nasty?’

  Noelie shrugged. ‘I don’t know what he meant. He wouldn’t say much more but the name Brain Boru popped up. Cronin said stay away from anything to do with that name or things could get bad.’

  Keogh didn’t say anything.

  Hannah spoke. ‘Have you ever heard any mention of this Brian Boru figure?’

  Keogh hesitated. ‘Look, anything do with informers is unsavoury. You have to ask yourself what sort of person informs. It’ll be messy is what I’m saying.’

  Hannah nodded. Noelie spoke. ‘Could you give me a name, just something? We won’t say it was you, but someone, anyone we could talk to.’

  Keogh excused himself. He fetched binoculars and returned to near where they were sitting. He studied the view.

  ‘I’m an anorak about ships,’ he said. ‘It’s why I live here.’

  A massive cargo ship was approaching Cork harbour at Roche’s Point. It was stacked high with containers. Noelie shook his head in dismay while looking at Hannah.

  ‘Calm down,’ she whispered.

  Eventually Keogh retook his seat and looked at them both. Noelie wondered if he had forgotten why they were there.

  ‘What do you know about Sugrue?’ Keogh asked.

  ‘Not much. Lynch implied he was tapped, a bit mad like, but then he would, I guess.’

  ‘It’s not entirely untrue. I came across him a few times. Followed his story a little. He was a maverick in the gardaí and that interested me. But this is separate entirely to your query.’

  ‘Go on anyway,’ said Hannah.

  ‘In the early eighties, Soviet ships used to come into Cork’s upper port area. Bringing coal mainly. Other items too, mind.’ He laughed. ‘Including the best of vodka for the local Communist Party men. Anyway Sugrue was in a group that boarded one of these Soviet merchant ships one afternoon. This must’ve been about 1980 or that. Him and a few acolytes occupied the deck and proceeded to celebrate Mass, the Tridentine version if memory serves me right. I think he was a follower of Lefebvre but don’t quote me on that. Hardcore anyway. It nearly caused an international incident when it emerged that Sugrue was a serving garda. He was banging on about this stuff to do with the Third Secret of Fatima and all of that. Totally cracked. Didn’t go down well with the Soviets at all. That was how I first came across him. I was certain he was off to Tory Island to count sheep after that, but all he got was a rap on the knuckles. Clearly he was connected.’

  Noelie couldn’t see how this was relevant. Pointedly he repeated his request, ‘Is there someone I could go to, in Sinn Féin or in the Provos? Hannah said you know your way around them. I need to talk to someone and I need to do it right away. Could you put in a word for me?’

  Keogh chewed his lower lip.

  ‘It would be a big help,’ added Hannah.

  ‘Anyone connected to Sinn Féin will clam up the moment you start asking about the past, especially if it’s to do with informers. Like I said, no one wants to go there. It’s messy and, to be absolutely mercenary about it, there are no votes in it either. The opposite in fact. These days with Sinn Féin, votes are the only thing that matters. Next general election there’s even a possibility that they’ll make it into government in the South. That would be a massive step for them. Remember ten years ago they were outlaws.’ He paused. ‘Even if I was to ask on your behalf, I’d get the same reply.’

  ‘Someone disenchanted then? There must plenty of them, given the sell-out.’

  Keogh looked taken aback. ‘You think Sinn Féin sold out?’

  ‘Last time I checked, there were still British troops up in the North.’

  Keogh smiled. ‘Old school.’

  ‘I guess, but that’s for another day now.’

  ‘Look, anyone not toeing the party line is going to be well outside the fold. When you’re on the outside with Sinn Féin, you may as well exist in another universe.’

  Noelie looked away. The laden cargo ship was just entering the narrow mouth of the harbour. He managed to catch Hannah’s eye. He felt that they weren’t going to get much further with Keogh. In any case their host was panning the horizon with his binoculars again. He put them down.

  ‘I know it’s not what you want to hear, Noelie, but you’ll get nowhere going to Sinn Féin. I’m only saying it so that you don’t waste your time. I’ve been cultivating my sources for years. They’re like a family with dark secrets. They close ranks totally when challenged. If you go around shooting off your mouth about an informer, you’ll hit a brick wall before you’ve even finished your question. If I was to give you any advice it would be to go about your enquiry discreetly.’

  ‘Except I don’t have time for that.’

  Keogh shrugged. He said he was sorry that he couldn’t be of more help. They got up in unison and Noelie listened as Hannah and the retired journalist bantered about the old days. He could see they got on well.

  At the door they shook hands. ‘Come and see me any time, Noelie, if you think I can be of any further help. I mean that and I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more this time.’

  Outside, Noelie and Hannah stood for a moment. Sunset was approaching. It was a beautiful setting and the sea air was refreshing.

  ‘There’s a path down to the cove over a bit. Do you mind if I take a look?’ he asked.

  Noelie remembered Church Bay as a rocky cove. It was still the same. There wasn’t a grain of sand anywhere. He crossed the stony foreshore and went to the water’s edge. Rocky ledges ran out on each side. Hannah stood nearby. They listened to the sound of the waves breaking. ‘Got the slightest impression he knew more than he was saying,’ she finally said.

  Noelie looked at her and nodded. ‘When you mentioned Brian Boru.’

  ‘Exactly. He knew the name but he wasn’t saying how or why.’

  13

  Hannah dropped Noelie back to Martin’s; the plan was that Noelie would crash there for the night. She advised him to get some sleep. In the morning, she’d go with him to his sister’s and they’d help with the search. Martin said he’d like to come as well. He was on flexi hours and could go into work later.

  As soon as Hannah left, Noelie called Ellen. She had a bit of news.

  ‘They’ve been through Shane’s mobile phone records. It seems as if his phone was switched off near Turner’s Cross around 3 p.m. In the morning, at first light, the search will focus on that area.’ Noelie said he’d be there.

  He had one last idea. He drove back across town and up Cathedral Road. Passing the Dalton house he considered calling in but decided against it. At the junction with Knocknaheeny, he drove into a black pall of smoke drifting across the road from a nearby bonfire. Noelie slowed to a halt; he could barely see ahead. Somewhere in the distance a lively singsong was in progress. It was a city tradition to host community fires on St John’s Eve. Hundreds of bonfires, big and small, were being held around the county. When the smoke finally lifted, Noelie drove on.

  Ardcullen estate was a triangle of houses off Augustine’s Drive, almost at the very top of Cork’s northside. It looked bleak and deserted. If there had been a local bonfire in the area it was long over with. Number 27 was on the back row. Years before when Noelie had last visited, he had found the house easily because of all the Celtic FC paraphernalia in the windows. That had since been dispensed with. There were no lights on but Noelie rang the bell anyway. On the second attempt he heard a door opening inside. A hall light came on and then a porch light. It took Goggin a few seconds to recognise his visitor.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘Noelie Sullivan.’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  Goggin hesitated and looked at his watch; it was nearly 11 p.m. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Need to ask you something.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Now.’

  Goggin moved aside to let Noelie pass. The two of them went back as far as 1981 when they spent an evening together in a cell in Bridewell Garda Station in Cork after a particularly spirited anti-H-Block
protest in the city. They were about the same age but while in the cell they also discovered that they had gone to the same school. It was a tenuous link but for some reason it mattered to them both. A while later Noelie helped Goggin find a good lawyer after Goggin was beaten up in the back of a garda squad car; different occasion, same cause. Goggin won a few grand in compensation for the assault and Noelie wasn’t forgotten.

  That was a long time ago. Eventually Noelie left for New York and spent the best part of thirteen years in the States. On his return in the late nineties, he made an effort to get involved in politics again. A campaign against the privatisation of bin collections was underway. Through that he met Goggin again. He tried to renew their friendship but too much had changed.

  By the turn of the millennium the electoral wing of the IRA, Sinn Féin, was busy cultivating a moderate, peaceful image. Goggin was now a party member and he seemed to be at the forefront of these efforts. He no longer wanted to debate any issue. The Good Friday Agreement, in particular, was off the agenda. Noelie found his old associate to be very defensive, as if he was now in charge of some holy canon that proclaimed that Sinn Féin and the IRA had only ever wanted peace on earth. Noelie knew that that wasn’t quite the truth.

  They went into a small sitting room with an enormous flat-screen TV against one wall. Goggin didn’t sit but Noelie did anyway. He didn’t know how to begin.

  ‘So?’

  ‘I need to talk to someone high up in the Provos. Here in Cork. Tonight.’

  Goggin’s face broke into a smile. ‘Are you on something?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘Serious back, Noelie. Like, what the fuck? The Provos? What Provos? Haven’t you heard? They disbanded. The Provos don’t exist any more.’

  As if to prove the point, Noelie noticed a stack of leaflets in the corner of the room. They showed the iconic Sinn Féin logo – an F plaitted through an S – printed on a background of the Irish national colours of green, white and gold. It was like the material was there to prove that Goggin was telling the truth and of course, in a way, he was. But Noelie was desperate.

  ‘My nephew’s gone missing. Happened yesterday.’ He hesitated. ‘I found this material about a supposed grass inside Sinn Féin. Have you ever heard of Jim Dalton?’

  Goggin’s face lost its bemused appearance. Noelie continued anyway. ‘It seems like the cops may have set Dalton up, way back.’

  Noelie’s host waved his hands wildly. ‘Not interested.’

  ‘Just listen.’

  ‘I know the Daltons, they’re trouble. I don’t want to know any more.’

  ‘Just give me a name then, someone I could go to.’

  Goggin went to the sitting room door and held it wide open. He looked pissed off. ‘Bye.’

  Noelie knew that this had always been a possible outcome but he remained sitting. Goggin rattled the door handle.

  ‘I said get out.’

  Noelie left without another word. Outside on the path, he heard the door slam shut behind him. Immediately he smelled burning rubber in the night air. Walking to his car he also heard something unusual. It was loud and it came from high up in the sky. Eventually he saw a projection of light, as straight as a laser beam, being directed downwards over the centre of the city. It was a helicopter and he guessed it was positioned over the Lee. Could it be search and rescue checking along the river’s course, looking for Shane?

  He sat in his car and put his head on the steering wheel.

  The Lonely Woods of Upton

  14

  There were wreaths along the mound of earth and on each side: from Shane’s mother and father, from his aunts on his father’s side, from his cousins, from Noelie, from his school class, from the school itself, from his father’s work colleagues. And many more besides. Shane’s band had sent one in the shape of an electric guitar – it was Noelie’s favourite. Carnations and lilies entwined on a body and a fender expertly shaped from green reeds. A CD of their release, By The Cage, was glued to the makeshift guitar’s fingerboard. Alongside it was a grainy picture of Shane playing at The Old Oak. Lots of signatures were scribbled on the photo, which had been laminated and would outlive the wreaths and flowers that were already withering in the warm July weather.

  Shane was found at low tide in the Lee’s north channel. Some years earlier a riverside walk had been put in place on the grounds of the old Irish Distillers’ site. The land was now the university’s but the public had access to the route and it had become popular. A tree branch bowed like a fishing rod under a heavy catch caught a walker’s eye. She took a closer look and realised that something large was snared on the branch – half in, half out of the dark water. This was in the late afternoon, on the day after Bonfire Night, and of course Shane’s disappearance had been in the news by then. The walker recognised the hoodie showing a bicyclist doing a midair turn – an image associated with the band Bombay Bicycle Club. A female detective, Byrne, broke the news to the family.

  The subsequent investigation focused on Shane’s last known movements. He was at a friend’s house until around 1 p.m. on the day he disappeared. He sent and received a series of text messages as he walked into Cork city centre. Analysis of this phone traffic indicated that Shane had stayed around the city centre area for about an hour. His final message at 2.32 p.m. – a text of no consequence about a YouTube video – was relayed by a phone mast on Capwell Road, a kilometre and a half from the city centre and about half a kilometre from Noelie’s flat. Following this Shane appeared to move further away from the city centre. The final communication from his phone, as it signed off the network, was picked up by a beacon adjacent to Cork City FC’s football pitch at Turner’s Cross – a location almost in the heart of Cork’s southside suburbs.

  Noelie knew he was under suspicion courtesy of his brother-in-law, and Detective Byrne confirmed as much. Within an hour of the identification of the body, she took Noelie aside and informed him that Shane’s disappearance and death would be fully investigated. She would need to see his flat as a priority; he could cooperate or she could get a warrant. Noelie decided to cooperate. He told Detective Byrne in detail about his involvement in the Jim Dalton affair, about his arrest in relation to the assault on Ajax Dineen and everything else that had happened in between. He also told her where he had been hiding during the critical time that Shane vanished. Later, analysis of CCTV footage from the rail station and the tunnel confirmed Noelie’s account.

  Those couple of days, a fortnight ago now, were still a haze for Noelie. Eventually he told Ellen more about the trouble he had got into: why he had gone to her house early on the morning of the day of Shane’s disappearance, about the records and about Don Cronin’s goons. As a result his sister had hardly spoken to him afterwards. Hannah had come to the rescue, accompanying Noelie to the funeral Mass and the burial.

  In time, other developments had helped shift the focus away from Noelie. The post-mortem revealed that Shane’s cause of death was drowning. No drugs or alcohol were found in his blood. Nor were there any signs on the body of violence or physical trauma. The report noted the presence of abrasions on Shane’s fingertips. These were consistent with attempting to maintain a grip on concrete or on quayside walls.

  Another factor that helped to clear Noelie was where Shane was found. The majority of river suicides in the city took place downstream of where Shane was discovered, at the bridges and quaysides around the centre of the town or in the docklands. What was Shane doing so far upriver? It was possible that he had fallen in downstream and had been carried upriver with an incoming tide but this was thought to be unlikely. A possible explanation was that he had entered the river upstream of where he was found. This led Detective Byrne to ‘Bumhole’, an area of waste ground beside the city’s skateboard park. Bumhole was a gathering place for youngsters of Shane’s age and it was rumoured to be a location for drugs and teenage sex. One scenario was that Shane had gone there before he vanished. Byrne hadn’t confirmed
this but it was plausible. Had something happened to Shane when he was at Bumhole?

  A significant factor too – in particular for Noelie – was the time of Shane’s death. A time bracket was the best that could be done – it was eventually calculated that Shane had been in water for at least forty-eight hours. Given that the time lapse between the final communication from Shane’s phone and the discovery of his body was seventy-three hours, this meant that Shane had died when Noelie was hiding in the train tunnel.

  Prior to Shane’s disappearance, there were only two groups of people who knew about Noelie’s recovery of the record collection: Inspector Lynch and his associates in Branch, and Don Cronin and his crew. In the immediate aftermath of Shane’s disappearance Noelie had spoken directly to both men: he felt sure neither was involved. Cronin was the most likely of the two to have had both motive and means, yet in Noelie’s last encounter with him he had come across as someone who was parting company with the entire matter of the lock-ups. The only thing Noelie was unsure about was Cronin’s reference to ‘that crowd’. He took some small comfort in the fact that Shane’s drowning had probably happened before he went to the Daltons – he had been nervous that his revelations had somehow resulted in Shane’s death.

  Ellen had latched on to other theories, including the idea that there was a girl or girlfriend involved. As it turned out there was a young woman close to the band. Noelie tracked her down to the Camden Palace, an indie arts venue in the centre of Cork. Anaïs had a beanstalk physique, a sunflower tattooed on the side of her neck and was totally out of Shane’s league. She was in her twenties whereas Shane’s lot were all teenagers. Fancied themselves, of course, but she had seen through that. She confirmed that the idea of her fronting Shane’s band had come up once. She emphasised ‘once’ and implied to Noelie that one of them – Shane possibly? – was into her a bit too much for his own good and that this might have been behind the band’s offer. But in any case, on her say so, the plan went nowhere. She also informed him that the boys did more drugs than was good for them, given their ages. That had come as a surprise to Noelie.