In the Dark River

by Conor Brady

  Swallow tasted his Tullamore.

  ‘Probably. And that’ll be followed by chaos, with an open field for the bomber, the assassin and the gunman.’

  Dunlop laughed.

  ‘You’re very lyrical this evening, Swallow. That’s the sort of stuff I’m supposed to say … or write.’

  ‘I’m not wrong,’ Swallow said quietly.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Dunlop answered, after a moment.

  He signalled to the barman to repeat the orders on the table.

  ‘Is there any way this can be averted?’ Swallow asked.

  Dunlop shrugged.

  ‘The real problem is that if I don’t co-operate with them and publish the story, they’ll simply go elsewhere. There’s half a dozen newspapers around the city that would be more than willing to run with it. They’d prefer it in The Irish Times because it’s the most reliable and influential. They know enough to know that. They said so. But The Mail or The Journal or The Express would serve their purposes almost as well.’

  The barman placed two more whiskies on the table, deftly lifting the empty glasses with his other hand.

  That made sense, Swallow reckoned. Once a sensational matter like this moved into the public domain it would be taken up instantly in every publication across the Kingdom. He had experience of the press in full, collective pursuit of a victim or victims, when the Invincibles were arrested for the murders of Cavendish and Burke. Whatever restraint they might exercise individually, they abandoned totally when operating in a pack.

  ‘If it can’t be prevented, could it be delayed perhaps?’ he asked.

  Dunlop sipped his Bushmills again.

  ‘A little perhaps, but not for very long. What have you in mind, Swallow?’ he asked eventually.

  Swallow reached for his whiskey.

  ‘Where did you leave matters with these two fellows?’

  ‘I told them I’d need time to brief my editor, Mr Scott, and get his agreement to publish. I explained that Scott is utterly punctilious and thorough. He won’t be rushed into anything and certainly not into something of this magnitude. Polson seemed to understand that and to accept it. So, he said they’d call by my office again to get an answer. They might even be there as we speak.’

  ‘Then it’s best if you pretend to go along with them. Tell them you think The Irish Times will publish the story and they’re to give you every scrap of documentation or other evidence that they have. Let’s at least see how much they know and what they’re trying to peddle. How long do you think you can stall them? What sort of interval could there be between you getting the paperwork and going to press?’

  ‘Maybe a couple of days. I can tell them we’ll need to verify and check the facts. We’ll have to decide if we want to put questions to O’Shea ourselves and indeed to Mr Parnell, and we’ll need to engage the newspaper’s legal advisors. But that’s about it. Where’s the possible advantage in delay?’

  ‘I don’t know, frankly. But I’d like to discuss this with Chief Mallon. He’s close to Parnell and he has a great deal of influence in political and governmental quarters. Tell me, do you think Mr Parnell is aware of what Captain O’Shea says he’s going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know that.’

  ‘If nothing else, Mallon will be able to give him advance notice of what’s coming up. And if Parnell is alerted, he might even be able to persuade Captain O’Shea not to go ahead with the divorce. Parnell and Mrs O’Shea probably managed to buy him off in the past when he was able to benefit from her aunt’s wealth.’

  Dunlop drained his whiskey and looked ruefully into the bottom of the glass.

  ‘It’ll be a day of sorrow and grief for Ireland if this goes ahead.’

  He stood from the table to leave.

  ‘One of the reporters back at the office told me earlier you had Essex Street cordoned off and that you were down in the Poddle with a squad of bobbies, looking for something. We’ve got a report about it in tomorrow’s editions. What was all that about?’

  Swallow drained his own glass and stood as well.

  ‘I suppose it was about sorrow and grief, too. It comes in varying shapes and guises, as we both know, Mr Dunlop.’

  He realised he had hardly thought about Maria all day.

  Chapter 8

  John Mallon’s house faced across the Lower Yard to Francis Johnston’s architectural triumph, the Chapel Royal, where monarchs and their representatives came on Sundays and other special occasions to pay reverence to the Almighty who, so it was understood, had anointed them for their high places. Swallow sometimes marvelled at the reassuring simplicity of this arrangement. He served the Commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. The commissioner served the government. The government served the Queen. The Queen served God.

  Darkness was settling over the Lower Yard when he came back to the Castle through the Palace Street gate. The gas lamps were lit and the constable on duty had fastened on his night cape to counter the damp evening air coming up from the river. In the Yard, the last of the setting sun was throwing fantastic shadows from Johnston’s spires and buttresses across the ground, giving it the appearance of a crazy chess-board. He remembered that under the cobbles on which he was walking, the dark Poddle to which he had descended earlier in the day was flowing to its rendezvous with the Liffey. Somewhere he had read that the ground here was so soggy and porous that Johnston had used a wooden frame to build his beautiful chapel in order to lessen the weight on its foundations.

  John Mallon answered the door to Swallow’s pull on the bell-cord and led him into the small parlour at the front of the house where he always conducted official business. If the Mallon family had the privilege of a spacious home, paid for and maintained by the Crown, the price the family paid was the daily intrusion of their privacy by Mallon’s various underlings, reporting, seeking advice or instruction or sometimes with documents to be signed.

  Mallon’s wife dealt with these undoubted inconveniences by maintaining the family’s domestic locus in a second, somewhat larger, parlour at the end of the ground floor corridor. Swallow had never been in there, but when he visited he could sometimes hear children’s voices, laughter and the sounds of crockery being used.

  ‘You’ll take something?’ Mallon’s greeting for Swallow was always the same out of office hours.

  So was the answer.

  ‘If you’re having one yourself, Chief.’

  Mallon poured two measures of Bushmills from the bottle on the sideboard. He handed one to Swallow and gestured to a water jug on the table.

  ‘Help yourself.’

  They sat. The Bushmills was strong to Swallow’s taste and he always half-filled Mallon’s tumbler glasses to mitigate its peaty tang. He would have been content to go without it, having already taken two drinks with Dunlop at the Palace, but it would have seemed ungracious.

  ‘You didn’t tell me about the attack on a Queen’s Counsel earlier,’ Mallon said a little sharply, dropping himself into his customary armchair.

  Swallow was momentarily at a loss.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Sir John McCartan and his wife. The Templeogue Hill robbery. I’ve received a minute from the commissioner directing us to throw everything we have at it. I gather there’s one coming from the Lord Mayor too.’

  Swallow groaned silently. It was unlike Mossop to leave him short on important detail. But in fairness to him he had made it clear that the initial report that came in from the crime scene was brief and preliminary.

  ‘I didn’t make the connection, Chief. I’m sorry. I just had the family name. I know Sir John McCartan, of course. He’s cross-examined me a couple of times in court.’

  ‘Not only a QC, but a member of the Corporation too. And the chairman of the Dublin and Leinster Bank. As if that wasn’t enough, his wife is invalided. She’s been a recluse for years. She’s had to be attended this morning by various medical men to try to calm her panic.’

  He read from what Swallow took to be the com
missioner’s note.

  ‘Prominent citizen, leading legal and business figure, etcetera, etcetera, nobody safe in their beds. Threatened with a gun and beaten with some sort of a club or bar. Where were the police? Why isn’t there anyone in custody? Dastardly outrage. I don’t have to spell it out.’

  ‘No, Chief. I can imagine there’ll be a fair stink over it. But we’re stretched now with the body in the Poddle and all the protection details. I’ve just warned the lads at the conference that we can’t wait around until someone gets killed in one of these robberies. I’ve put Shanahan and Keogh full time on them and they can get all the support they need from the divisions. We’re taking all the usual steps. There’s nothing in from the informants and we’ve been watching the Downes and the Vanucchi and the Cussen gangs. I think we’ve to consider that there might be some new operators at work, so I’ve ordered a check on all the hotels and lodging houses to see if we have any out-of-town criminal types.’

  Mallon sipped his whiskey.

  ‘I know you’ve a lot on your plate, but there’s a lot of potential trouble around. Not least this problem with the O’Shea divorce and Mr Parnell. But we’ll need to show cause on this one. The Commissioner has ordered the night beats to be doubled in the E-division. There’s men being drafted in for the ten o’clock shift tonight. I think you’d best go out to the McCartan house yourself and see the great man and his lady. Expression of concern. Reassurance. No stone being left unturned. You know the line.’

  Swallow groaned inwardly. He had a full work schedule and a distressed wife.

  ‘Fair enough, Chief. I’ll get out there this evening or tomorrow at the latest.’

  Mallon nodded.

  ‘And what’s the story with the body in the Poddle? I’ve been through Mossop’s report.’

  ‘There’s not a lot to report, Chief. It’s early days. Dr Lafeyre says it’s a female, around thirty years maybe. There’s nothing to identify the remains. If it wasn’t for the ligature around the neck we could put it down as some sort of misadventure but I don’t think we can ignore it.’

  ‘I agree,’ Mallon said. ‘Although I’d prefer not to. At all events that fool Boyle has told the newspapers that it’s murder and that he’s in charge of the investigation. But true to form, we know that if it isn’t cleared up , he’ll shift responsibility back to us.’

  ‘We’ll try not to let that happen, Chief. Like I said, it’s early days.’

  Mallon sighed.

  ‘Yeah, I know that. So, to other business. Have you done any thinking about the Willie O’Shea problem?’

  ‘I have, Chief. I’ve just come from talking to Andrew Dunlop. The story with Captain O’Shea is serious. He’s briefed his solicitors. Dunlop says the fellows from the Upper Yard have him more or less persuaded to go ahead with the divorce. But here’s an interesting thing, Dunlop knows Reggie Polson from Madrid when he was sent out by The Irish Times to interview Pigott. Polson, or whatever his real name is, was there for the secret service. He tells Dunlop he was in the army with O’Shea and knows him well. But O’Shea seems to be dithering a bit. He seems to think he might still have a chance of getting hold of some of his wife’s aunt’s money. So they want The Irish Times to report that he’s briefed his lawyers. They’re passing all the details to Dunlop, probably tonight. They reckon if The Irish Times publishes the story that’ll get him across the line.

  Mallon frowned.

  ‘Will The Irish Times run with the report?’

  ‘Dunlop’s been clever. He’s played along, telling them he needs some evidence, documents or whatever. Then he’ll need to clear it with his editor, Scott. He can slow things up, maybe for a couple of days, he’s agreed to do so as much as he can. But, as he says, if The Irish Times doesn’t publish the story, they’ll simply bring it to another newspaper that won’t bother to wait for corroboration. At best, we can delay things for a bit.’

  ‘Does Mr Parnell know about O’Shea’s intentions?’

  ‘We don’t know for certain. But Dunlop thinks not.’

  ‘I suppose it’s possible that he could still persuade O’Shea to stay his hand,’ Mallon said. ‘O’Shea has always been overawed by him. Maybe he could offer him some inducement to leave well enough alone. Like money, for example.’

  Swallow nodded.

  ‘From what we know of O’Shea, throwing money at him might work. Do you think Mr Parnell could pay him off, so to speak?’

  Mallon drew his pocket watch and checked the hour.

  ‘I don’t know. But in my experience of politics and police work, money is usually the surest way of getting the result you want. Now, Parnell is due at Westminster tomorrow night. He’s crossing from Kingstown on the morning mail packet. If we move fast, we’ll catch him before he retires for the night. I’ll message ahead.’

  Swallow knew it was Parnell’s habit invariably to overnight at the Salthill Hotel, close by Kingstown Harbour, before travelling to London. It was the favoured location for members of the Irish Party at Westminster, being a little away from the bustle of the harbour itself. Two G-men were routinely assigned to protection duty there. He had allocated the protection details for the week and he knew that Mick Feore and Johnny Vizzard were rostered for the job.

  ‘Get the telegraph room to notify the night sergeant at Kingstown. He’s to send a constable on the double to the G-men at the Salthill. Whoever is there on duty needs to tell Mr Parnell that I’m on my way to meet him and that it’s urgent. We’ll be there at eleven o’clock.’

  Five minutes later, they were in a closed police car, drawn by a matching pair of black horses, with a rough-rider constable, hastily summoned from a card game in the Castle stables, at the reins. A skilled rough-rider, usually a man with cavalry experience, could coax his horses to a sustained speed of perhaps fifteen miles an hour through city streets. Travelling in darkness would slow the pace but they would be in Kingstown before the last of the summer evening light would have faded. It would have been more convenient and even perhaps faster to take one of the trams that connected the city centre to Kingstown and the village of Dalkey beyond, but the last service back to the city departed at half-past ten.

  They swung out of the Palace Street gate and along Dame Street, passing the Bank of Ireland and Trinity College. The college windows blazed with lights. Swallow surmised there was some event taking place, probably a splendid dinner. Trinity had the reputation of doing fine banquets. He imagined the fellows drinking and dining heartily at laden tables and realised he had eaten nothing but an apple since breakfast. Now he suddenly felt ravenous. He might have done better, he told himself, to have found some solid sustenance rather than the three whiskies he had consumed.

  They followed the coast road, through the fishing village of Ringsend, leaving the darkening bay to their left and travelling parallel to the railway that connected Kingstown and the Mail Boat Pier to Westland Row terminus. Soon they were in open country. High walls with impressive gates at intervals marked the boundaries of the wealthy estates, stretching down towards the sea from their owners’ mansions on the higher ground to the south. Montrose, Mount Merrion, Frescati. At Blackrock, the falling darkness was briefly challenged by the glow of gas lamps, recently installed along the village street. Once through Blackrock it was open country again with more modest villas perched here and there on the cliffs above the shoreline.

  Soon the hotel, imposing and bulking on the Dunleary promontory, was in sight. Elegant terraces, lining the road past Seapoint, signalled to them that they were in the affluent suburbs of Kingstown. The driver swung the car through pillared gates, across the gravelled forecourt and reined the horses to a halt at the granite steps leading to the hotel’s main entrance.

  Feore and Vizzard were in the shadows by the doorway, stepping forward as Mallon and Swallow ascended the steps.

  ‘Good evening, Sir.’ Feore was the senior man. ‘Mr Parnell has your message and he’s expecting you. He’s upstairs in his suite. If you’ll follow me,
Sir.’

  He led them across the carpeted lobby and signalled to a boy, dressed in a green uniform, standing by a baized door. The boy pulled the door open to reveal what looked to Swallow like a narrow metal cage. He had heard or read somewhere that the Salthill had installed one of the first elevators, or human lifts, invented by Mr Otis in America. No other hotel in Ireland or England, it was said, could boast of this modern convenience. It shuddered and swayed a little as it ascended to the hotel’s top floor. The sensation of being lifted against the force of gravity was novel but not unpleasant. When the machine stopped, the boy drew back the metal gate and they stepped out into the corridor.

  Feore pointed wordlessly to a door opposite.

  ‘You can go back down, Men,’ Mallon told the two detectives. ‘Mr Swallow and I could be here for a while.’

  The door was opened almost immediately in response to Mallon’s knock. Swallow recognised TD Sullivan, formerly Lord Mayor of Dublin and one of Parnell’s senior lieutenants at the Westminster parliament. He greeted Mallon.

  ‘Mr Mallon. A pleasure to see you, as always. The Chief is inside.’

  Swallow knew that Mallon had visited Parnell here at the Salthill Hotel before on more than one occasion. Now he led the way into a comfortably furnished sitting room, with high windows facing out towards the sea. Sullivan did not attempt to follow.

  Parnell, wearing a dark blue dressing gown, rose from an armchair by the window and reached out in a handshake to the man who had once arrested him and conveyed him to Kilmainham Jail on government instructions. That was eight years previously. He had gone cheerfully and without resistance. Both of them had known that the arrest, rather than disabling his campaign for tenants’ rights, would serve better than anything else to strengthen his leadership.

  ‘What brings you out at this late hour, Mr Mallon? It must be important.’

  He gestured to a long settee.

  ‘Please, Gentlemen. Take a seat.’