A Hunt in Winter

by Conor Brady

  ‘Sometimes people throw their chances away too, Dan,’ Swallow said. ‘You’ve a chance to help Alice in the only way you can now. That’s by telling us anything you know about who might have harmed her. You can start by telling us about this Father Cavendish.’

  Flannery frowned.

  ‘He wasn’t like a priest should be to her, if you ask me. When she started working with me mam, cleanin’ the church, he started takin’ her aside for private conversations. I saw them once sittin’ on a bench in the church grounds. An hour later when I passed by again they were still there. I asked her later what they were talkin’ about and she said Father Cavendish was tellin’ her he could help her to get on in life. I think he might have fixed her up with the job in the New Vienna. He lives well does Father Cavendish. Fancy restaurants wouldn’t be any novelty to him.’

  ‘That isn’t anything to be upset about. Priests have powerful connections,’ Swallow said. ‘Maybe he was being genuinely helpful.’

  Flannery shook his head.

  ‘Then he started buyin’ her books. He bought a few books about cookery for her. But then he’d have novels, and he’d ask her to read these out loud for him in the parlour at the parochial house. He said it was to help her improve her speakin’ manner.’

  ‘Seems fair enough,’ Mossop observed. ‘Your sister was an ambitious girl.’

  Flannery shook his head again.

  ‘No. He told her he wanted to work on her voice projection. He told her she had to loosen her clothin’. He had to put his hands on her, holdin’ in her stomach, pressin’ her back and all that. But it was just an excuse. She knew it was wrong and made him stop. That’s when she told me about it.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Swallow asked.

  ‘I told her that what was happenin’ was displeasing to God. I told her to stop the visits and to warn him that she’d complain to the monsignor, Feehan, if there was any more of it. It seemed to work for a while. Then a couple of weeks ago he started turnin’ up on the Rathmines Road at night when she’d be comin’ home from work.’

  ‘So what would happen on those occasions?’

  ‘He’d just be there, usually around the bridge, and he’d walk with her to the top of the laneway. She said he told her he was protectin’ her.’

  ‘But you suspected his motives?’ Swallow said. ‘You went out to intercept him?’

  ‘Yes. She said that he was going on about the evils of sin, the importance for a girl to maintain purity and so on. She didn’t need that guidance. She was a good girl from a good home. He was usin’ her to get his own bad thoughts out into words.’

  ‘But you never actually spoke to him or met him about all this? Not even on Friday night?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what do you think happened to Alice? Who killed her?’

  ‘I won’t point a finger,’ Flannery raised his voice and brought his hands crashing down on the tabletop, ‘but you must be blind if you can’t see it! Or is it that the police are afraid to take on a priest?’

  ‘No,’ Swallow said. ‘The police will do their duty. But we need something more than assertion. We need evidence.’

  ‘Well, you have my information for a start. And I’ll stand over it.’

  ‘That’s a start,’ Swallow told him, ‘but we’ll need a formal statement. But I have other questions.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘The medical examiner found a mark, perhaps a burn or a scald, on her left side. He estimated that it might be a year old, maybe two. Do you know how she got that?’

  Flannery nodded.

  ‘She tried to lift a kettle o’ hot soup or hot water off the fire at the New Vienna, where she worked. It spilled over her. She took herself down to the infirmary to have it tended to.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Sometime after Christmas last. Maybe January.’

  Flannery turned to look at the wall-clock.

  ‘I think I should be gettin’ home now. Me mother needs me there with Alice bein’ waked an’ all the neighbours in.’

  Swallow stood.

  ‘I understand that. You’re free to go home, Dan. Sergeant Mossop and I will be going to see Father Cavendish very shortly.’

  ‘He’ll deny everythin’,’ Flannery said wearily. ‘Don’t believe him.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Swallow said, keeping what he hoped was a neutral tone. ‘There’s just one thing more. Can you let me see the soles of your shoes? I’d like you to take them off.’

  Flannery leaned down and unlaced the shoes. They were polished, but cracked and patched on the uppers. The soles were smooth and without any pattern.

  ‘Are they what you’d wear to work, Dan?’ Swallow asked.

  Flannery’s laugh was bitter.

  ‘I only have the wan pair o’ shoes.’

  Swallow handed the shoes back to him.

  ‘And they’re not a bad pair at all, Dan, even though they’ve seen a lot of service. Size nine. Would I be right?’

  Monday November 5th, 1888

  Chapter 13

  Winter tightened its grip on the city. The morning was cold but dry with a white frost on the footpaths and the cobbles as Swallow made his way to the Castle. He was at Mallon’s office in the Lower Yard just before half past nine. Jack Burton, the chief’s clerk, had a feeble turf fire starting in the grate in the outer office.

  ‘It’ll build up nicely now in half an hour,’ Burton told Swallow apologetically. ‘When you come back from your meeting above you’ll get a good warming out of it.’

  A few minutes later John Mallon emerged from his inner office. By this hour, Swallow knew, the chief of detectives would have gone through the night’s crime reports from around the city, noting any significant occurrences, mentally storing details and adding instructions to the file margins for action during the day.

  It was a minute’s walk to the office of the assistant under-secretary for security in the Georgian block across from the Bedford Tower in the Upper Yard. Its windows looked directly out at the statue of Lady Justice, complete with weighing scales and a sword, which topped the pediment of the Castle’s Cork Hill gate. Cynical Dubliners were wont to make derogatory comments about the fact that the statue’s back was turned to the city so that only the denizens of the Castle could look upon her face.

  The assistant under-secretary’s office, as befitted his rank, was spacious, comfortably carpeted and well-appointed with impressive furniture. A set of vivid watercolours depicting scenes of Indian wildlife, tigers and elephants, adorned the walls, evoking Smith Berry’s earlier career as a security specialist in the colonies. Two coal fires burned cheerily, one at either side of the room.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Mallon, Mr Swallow. Please sit down.’

  Smith Berry’s tone was polite, but as icy as the morning outside. Swallow knew him slightly. He had been at conferences where the assistant under-secretary spoke of the challenges and responsibilities facing the Irish police forces. Swallow was familiar with the man who sat at the apex of the security network that controlled, or sought to control, Ireland, and their paths had crossed before.

  He was probably fifty, Swallow reckoned, about the same age as Mallon. He looked fit and trim and was clean-shaven, with greying hair carefully brushed back in two wings above his ears. His spare frame seemed to fit perfectly into the morning suit and starched white shirt that were the prescribed mode of dress for very senior officials in the Upper Yard. He might have been born into it, Swallow thought. Now he sat grim-faced behind his desk, flanked on one side by Major Kelly, on the other by Waters, the former RIC man.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Mallon said. ‘Good morning to you.’

  He nodded an acknowledgment to Kelly and Waters.

  There was a long, awkward silence. The only sound in the room was the ticking of a glass-domed Ormolu clock over the carved mantle.

  ‘Well?’ Smith Berry eventually released the syllable.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Don’t “Sir” me
, Mr Mallon.’ Smith Berry’s voice was, if anything, icier than his earlier greeting. ‘You know why I asked you to be here.’

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean, Mr Smith Berry.’ Mallon sounded earnest. ‘Why did you want to see me?’

  ‘You know very well indeed why I wanted you. On Friday I asked that you furnish this office with certain records from G-Division. I expected them on my desk on Saturday. It is a very short distance from Exchange Court to here. At the very least I had expected to have them delivered to me this morning.’

  Mallon raised his hands in a gesture of comprehension.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Mr Smith Berry. I hadn’t appreciated the absolute urgency of the matter. In fact, I requested Detective Inspector Swallow to locate the logs after we spoke on Friday. Regrettably, he hasn’t yet been able to do so.’

  Smith Berry arched backwards in his chair, his jaw dropping as if to convey incredulity.

  ‘Mr Mallon . . . this is . . . unacceptable.’

  Kelly angrily slapped the tabletop in front of him.

  ‘I might have known. Are you telling us you can’t locate the basic daily records that every police office in the kingdom is obliged to keep and maintain?’

  ‘It’s not that, Major Kelly,’ Swallow said in a tone that he hoped was not too respectful. ‘You wouldn’t be aware, but there’s been a lot of change recently at the detective office. I’ve just taken over from former Inspector Boyle who’s gone on promotion to E-Division. There’s a vast amount of paperwork, as you might expect, at Exchange Court. It’s just a question of going through it all.’

  ‘How long?’ Smith Berry asked wearily.

  Swallow shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know, sir. We’ve got a particularly unpleasant murder on our hands, plus all the usual tasks. It’s not easy to find men to give time to the job.’

  Kelly’s pitched laugh was furious.

  ‘Sweet Jesus Christ, do you take us for fools? I’ve got to give it to you for nerve, Swallow. You’re asking us to believe that basic records of the section you’re supposed to run have gone missing, and you don’t regard it as sufficiently urgent to put a couple of men on the job of locating them?’

  Mallon intervened before Swallow could reply.

  ‘Major Kelly, we are practical people in G-Division. We place a higher value on action and inquiry than on maintaining paperwork. I could keep a very neat office if I held all my men indoors shifting files, but I believe we’d solve very few crimes and glean very little intelligence from the streets. It isn’t always possible to keep track of every scrap of paper that passes through a busy crime office. Keeping records may be your priority; it isn’t necessarily mine.’

  ‘No, it’s clear than running an efficient office isn’t a priority for you, Mr Mallon,’ Kelly hissed. ‘You seem to think you can dictate your own priorities and set aside the requirements of your superiors.’

  ‘That isn’t so,’ Mallon said calmly, ‘and I very much resent what you are suggesting. G-Division does its work and discharges its duties. If you feel we have not done so, I’ll bear in mind what you have to say. But my line of report is to my superior, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir David Harrel, in the first instance.’

  ‘I hope you’ll be able to answer to Sir David very quickly as to who murdered that unfortunate girl in Rathmines on Friday night,’ Kelly sneered. ‘I foolishly thought you’d have made an arrest by now.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Smith Berry snorted. ‘Let’s end this charade. Mallon, you know the government wants all the information it can get on Parnell. You’re the people, G-Division, who should have that. So let me be blunt: if you haven’t got it, you are in dereliction. And if you have it, and you refuse to pass it to me, you’re lending your support to the subversion of lawful authority. So make up your mind.’

  Swallow saw Mallon tense himself.

  ‘Sir, it’s not my function to engage in political issues. But as I understand it, the objective of the government is to bring down Mr Parnell. I feel it incumbent upon me however to tell you that, in my informed opinion, if he falls, the space left vacant will be filled by some very dangerous people.’

  ‘You’re right on one thing at least, Mr Mallon,’ Smith Berry snapped. ‘It is not your place to question the objectives of Her Majesty’s government. Nor indeed is it mine. But since you have opened up a political discussion, let me offer you another perspective, one that goes beyond a policeman’s short-term objective of keeping law and order.’

  He paused to draw breath, as if about to embark on some marathon task or break vital confidences.

  ‘Mr Mallon, if Parnell has his way, if he succeeds in securing what he calls “Home Rule” for Ireland, the unity of the kingdom will be ended. This great United Kingdom, which has built the most powerful empire that the world has known, will be sundered. If Ireland is lost, what territories will be next? India? Africa? Hong Kong? The Antipodes? A civilisation and an order that spans the globe will be threatened with decline and fall. That, Mr Mallon, is the threat of Parnellism, not whether a few landlords’ houses get burned down in Galway or Roscommon.’

  Mallon was silent.

  ‘That’s a viewpoint, sir,’ he said after a pause. ‘All I can tell you is that if Parnell is displaced, people will die here in Ireland. And preventing that is my responsibility, not saving the empire.’

  Smith Berry sat back and extended his arms as if to illustrate a point.

  ‘And there’s the difference between your task and mine, Detective Chief Superintendent. So, can we go back to the instant matter?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘Lord Salisbury and his colleagues in cabinet, our superiors, know Parnell for a man of double standards and dishonesty, and they are within their rights, indeed they are doing their duty, in exposing it. The details of his private life testify to his dishonesty and double standards. And the records of the men under your command constitute firm evidence of it.’

  ‘I doubt they do, sir,’ Mallon answered. ‘They may record certain events and details. However, I know Mr Parnell. I know him very well, and I believe him to be a man of honour. But this is beside the point. I do not know where the protection logs are.’

  Swallow kept his gaze fixed on the wall behind Smith Berry, trying not to think of the volumes stacked in the space behind the storage cupboard in Harry Lafeyre’s office.

  Waters spoke for the first time.

  ‘As I told you when last we met, I have a great deal of respect for you and your colleagues, Mr Mallon, and for the work you do.’

  His tone was conciliatory.

  ‘Having had responsibility for busy police offices in my time, I can sympathise on the problem of tracking paperwork and files. I hope that your present . . . ah . . . difficulties in that respect can be overcome very quickly. But I doubt if Captain Willie O’Shea would agree with you in your estimate of Mr Parnell as an honourable man. He certainly isn’t very honourable insofar as his relationship with Captain O’Shea’s wife is concerned.’

  ‘Whatever the facts of that relationship, Mr Waters, it appears to be an arrangement that suits everyone, including Captain O’Shea,’ Mallon countered. ‘And I suggest that it suits us too. As I have said, in my view Mr Parnell stands as a bulwark between us and chaos. And his domestic situation, vulnerable as it appears to be, may actually serve to prevent him becoming too powerful. I’m not totally insensitive to the wider political issues of which Mr Smith Berry has spoken.’

  ‘Absolute tosh,’ Kelly interjected. ‘You’re out of your depth, Mallon. Stick to your backstreet informers and cultivate your touts. You simply don’t understand that Parnell is a greater threat to the system than any Fenians or dynamiters.’

  Swallow silently acknowledged that Kelly was probably right about Parnell. G-Division, the police forces and if necessary the army could keep violence in check. It was not nearly so certain that the Salisbury government could hold the line at Westminster. If there was a threat to the unity of the kingdom, and by extensio
n to the empire, it was political rather than military.

  Smith Berry was growing impatient. ‘So, Detective Inspector Swallow, how long do you estimate it will be before you have your man for the Rathmines murder? Might we then expect some attention to be given to the priorities of the government that pays your salary?’

  ‘With respect, sir, the government does not pay my salary. It is raised in taxes and rates from the householders and the businesses of this city,’ Swallow answered calmly. ‘They’re entitled to the protection of the police that they pay for. I’m doing what I can to put order on the paperwork at Exchange Court, but it won’t be done in a day.’

  Smith Berry seemed unable to find words. The colour drained from his face. Out of the corner of his eye Swallow saw John Mallon take a sharp intake of breath.

  To respond in these terms to the assistant under-secretary for security was probably somewhere between insolence and mutiny, he knew. But the facts were on his side. Unlike the paramilitary RIC that policed the country outside of Dublin, and which was funded directly from the exchequer, the Dublin police system was funded primarily by the city ratepayers.

  Smith Berry pushed his chair back and came to his feet.

  ‘Please leave my office, both of you,’ he said coldly. ‘The under-secretary will hear of this. So will Commissioner Harrel. I don’t believe that in almost thirty years of Crown service I’ve ever encountered such wilful obstruction of superior authority. When word of this reaches the cabinet in London, as it will, you will be lucky to retain your posts.’

  Mallon was equally cold.

  ‘Mr Smith Berry, Detective Inspector Swallow and I are doing our duty to the best of our abilities. We have both taken an oath to preserve Her Majesty’s peace in Ireland. Irishmen do not make that solemn undertaking lightly, and we are obliged to honour it. I don’t especially worry who you report to about what has transpired here today, and if it displeases important people at Westminster that cannot be helped, although it is to be regretted. But I would ask you please to bear in mind that I myself am not without influence in the highest political circles.’ He paused. ‘And in the press.’