The Mathematical Bridge

by Jim Kelly

  ‘Yes. He went by the name O’Leary, a Patrick, but it’ll be an alias. A big man, a navvy, but even by their standards a workhorse.’

  ‘Sounds like a Music Hall Paddy then. Thick in the arm, thick in the head. Is there nothing to set him apart from the crowd? It’s a small community. We might know him here, you know.’

  She took a hairpin from a pocket and expertly corralled some strands of hair that had fallen from the red crown.

  ‘He liked poetry. There was book beside his bed, in Gaelic I think, but I’m no expert.’

  She looked through Brooke for a second, her left hand shuffling the coloured copper bands that crowded her right arm between the wrist and the elbow.

  ‘You’d be surprised how many can still use the old tongue, Inspector. Even here, in the Upper Town.’

  Brooke thought of the carefully executed slogan on the base of Newton’s mast. What had Dr Phipps said? An educated hand.

  ‘But can they write it?’ asked Brooke.

  There was a clatter of cups from the main body of the church and Aitken jumped to her feet. ‘That’s a very rare skill,’ she conceded. ‘I’d better go. Father Ward’s a menace with the urn.’

  Alone, Brooke could feel the presence of the church and the school, pressing down, pressing in. The priest and the housekeeper, the head teacher and his wife, emitted a distinct tension, a brittle wariness. He’d felt it that first morning when he’d answered Ward’s call and had set it aside as the understandable reaction to the loss of the child in their care. But there was something else, something watchful. The priest’s file, delivered from the diocesan office in Norwich, had been blameless. Brooke had checked with the Spinning House on the Walshes and Aitken – all Irish citizens, and all duly registered with the authorities and issued with appropriate ID cards. What was he missing?

  The phone rang. The duty sergeant reported that the house on Honey Hill had been searched from the basement upwards, revealing no more clues to the shadowy identity of the butchered Patrick O’Leary. The pathologist, Dr Comfort, was at the scene. Snow had begun to fall steadily after Brooke’s brief glimpse of the fleeing killer – for that had to be their working hypothesis, given Comfort’s tentative statement that the time of death was less than an hour before the discovery of the body. Brooke had thrown a cordon around the Upper Town, aided in part by the telltale carpet of snow. The radio cars, placed at strategic points, had reported nothing – literally nothing, not a single moving human being, let alone a vehicle, but they would keep watch until dawn.

  The contents of O’Leary’s suitcase were being re-examined by Edison at a trestle table set up in the nave. The dead man’s pockets had given up little more: a wallet with a single five-pound note, about ten shillings in loose change, a handkerchief and a very small piece of the mysterious waxy material Brooke had discovered in the attic. The wardrobe door in the room had been blocked by O’Leary’s shattered head. Its contents would only be retrieved when the body was moved, a grisly task left to the pathologist and his men, at hand to haul the Irishman away to the morgue. O’Leary’s fellow tenants were all being interviewed, but the initial consensus was that he spoke to no one and that nothing had been heard from the attic during the preceding week. What little detail could be gleaned characterised O’Leary as a cliché: the hard-drinking, hard-working navvy, although one woman did say he’d once mentioned a family back in Ireland to whom he sent money.

  Brooke, rising stiffly from the desk, went out into the church and found the priest, alone, sitting quietly in a pew.

  ‘Thank you for letting us use the church,’ said Brooke. ‘I take it no one knows this man by name – Patrick O’Leary?’

  Ward shook his head. ‘I said a prayer for him, but I’m struggling to find it in my heart to mean a word of it. A bomber, you say, and there’s no doubt?’

  ‘Not much. I think one of his comrades feared he was about to fall into our hands. So he silenced him. And I think he took something with him.’

  Brooke produced the yellow teardrop of wax.

  The priest took it, testing the scent, but shook his head. ‘A chemical, for the explosives?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘A wicked man, amongst wicked men. They want to unite Ireland, Inspector, when half its people are paupers.’

  Brooke wondered then about Ward’s background. He’d mentioned Ampleforth – the stately Catholic public school on the high moors of Yorkshire, and Oxford. The accent certainly dripped class and money, but perhaps he’d seen enough of the world to inspire genuine sympathy for the plight of Ireland.

  ‘I think I’d start with the poor, wouldn’t you?’ he asked. ‘Solve their problems. Then move on to grand designs. It’s the worst folly. Although I understand the need they have, even the poor love their country. It’s all they’ve got. You can’t take that away.’ The priest licked his lips as if he’d said too much. ‘Did this man kill Sean?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s a working hypothesis. No more. We have no evidence the murder and the bomb are connected. However, the circumstantial evidence is strong. And the description fits that of the man who handed out flags to the children, who read their labels – and the eyewitness account from Newton’s factory.’

  Aitken joined them and took an empty cup from beside the priest.

  ‘Sean’s mother, you’ve told her the boy’s dead?’ she asked. ‘Joe said you’d asked him to view the body, to identify the child, and that there was no doubt. He cried to tell me.’ She shook her head. ‘He won’t forget that sight, I’m sure.’

  ‘There’s no picture of this man from Honey Hill?’ asked Ward.

  Brooke told Edison to retrieve the framed picture they’d taken from O’Leary’s room from the evidence bag. The priest and the housekeeper, touching side by side, studied the young face between the boxing gloves, but shook their heads.

  Brooke produced a cigarette, but remembered where he was, slipping it behind his ear. ‘Mrs Flynn is coming up at the weekend for the formal identification,’ he said. ‘She may want to see the church, to meet you all. It’s going to be a difficult visit I’m afraid.’

  ‘Poor woman,’ said Aitken clutching her elbows. She looked to the priest for comfort and he lay his arm, stiffly, across her shoulders.

  Brooke eased his neck back until the bones cracked, studying the plain wooden roof. ‘Of a Sunday, Father, what size is the congregation?’

  Ward looked at his hands as if he needed the digits to compute the number. ‘At Easter, Christmas, St Alban’s day itself – three hundred, maybe more. Of a Sunday, perhaps half that. There are familiar faces of course, but transients too, following work, following family.’

  ‘And soldiers,’ offered Aitken. ‘We see them once, twice, and then they’re gone.’

  Brooke nodded. ‘This Sunday, the Epiphany, I’d like to take names, see if we can find a link with O’Leary, with his confederates. We’ll need to check registrations too – for those who are Irish citizens. We need to find out if this man was known to anyone in the community. Maybe he made friends, or saw people outside the church: the pub, the shop. Please – both of you – keep this to yourself until the day.’

  Ward nodded. ‘If you really want to catch everyone at one time, in one place, I’d try the school tomorrow evening. There’s an Epiphany play. It’s the highlight of the season, if I say so myself. It starts at six. There’s more tea. Everyone comes. It will finish at seven promptly, so your men can come then.’

  Brooke nodded, making a note.

  Dr Comfort arrived with two constables weighed down with the contents of O’Leary’s wardrobe, which they began to lay out on the tables.

  Comfort didn’t shed his coat. ‘Brooke,’ he said, with a curt nod of acknowledgement. ‘Autopsy tomorrow I think. I’ll advise of the time. For now, what can I say? You saw the man’s head. It was beaten to a pulp. There are no other wounds, and no signs of any medical condition except the usual attrition associated with hard labour. The skin – and the surface arteri
es – and the eyes, suggest heavy drinking.’

  Brooke nodded. ‘A cigarette outside?’

  They stood together in the porch, watching the snow fall, smoking in silent communion for a minute. The pathologist’s car, a polished grey Rover, stood in the playground.

  ‘Deliberate, certainly,’ said Comfort eventually, as if answering an interior question. ‘The face, that is. It’s been obliterated, there’s no other word for it, Brooke.’

  ‘Yes – a clear intent to obscure identity,’ he agreed. ‘We have a name, but it won’t be his. My guess would be that the killer knew we had his picture somewhere, on file at the Yard, perhaps? On a wanted poster? The rogue’s gallery of IRA men is impressive. He’ll be on it. This way we’re in the dark – at least for a few hours. The confusion buys them time. Let’s hope they don’t use it to plant another bomb.’

  Comfort briskly rearranged a heavy scarf at his neck. ‘Frankly, the injuries tell us more about the killer, don’t you think? To do that, Brooke – to disassemble a man’s head with a weapon – requires strength, and a disregard for humanity on a wider scale. And this is the man, perhaps, who despatches a child in a sack in the river. What a monster, Brooke.’

  Back inside they examined the items taken from O’Leary’s digs: two more threadbare suits, linen shirts, socks, pants, two pairs of boots and a fine woollen overcoat, almost new. Inside the breast pocket lay a Catholic missal, a book for following the responses and prayers and readings of the Mass.

  There was no sign of a wallet. But the missal contained a single bookmark, and as was the custom, it carried the image of a saint: in this case St Alban. The image was brightly coloured, with gilded letters, and showed the wealthy Alban sheltering a priest in his house from pagan Roman soldiers. The back carried the name Father John Ward, and the address of the presbytery and telephone number.

  The message read:

  Go forth in the name of the Lord

  An inscription had been added in a confident hand:

  Colm – God will remember your good deeds

  It was signed by the priest.

  Ward had to retrieve reading glasses from the office to study the inscription.

  ‘Good heavens,’ he said. ‘It’s Colm, Colm Hendrie. This terrible man O’Leary was really gentle Colm?’ He looked around the church, saw Aitken and beckoned her over. ‘Marie. Look at this.’

  Again, shoulder to shoulder, they studied the words and letters as if memorising the Rosetta Stone.

  ‘I can’t believe it, Father. The man was a saint, and so meek. Hardly a word, unless you spoke to him.’

  Between them they composed a succinct biography. Hendrie had been a parishioner for a year, had attended the eleven o’clock Mass each Sunday and special feast days. His obvious strength and practical skills had been utilised during the several months when there had been no caretaker, until the arrival of young Joe Smith. He’d fixed the boiler, rewired the school office and fixed leaking drainpipes.

  Ward held the picture of the youngster in boxing gloves: ‘You can see the likeness now, of course. But this must have been taken forty years ago.’

  ‘The children loved him,’ said Aitken. ‘He painted the hopscotch out for them and put up the netball post.’

  ‘Family?’ asked Brooke.

  ‘I think he said he was a widower, but he sent money home, I know, for his children.’

  Ward seemed close to tears. ‘Colm – a wonderful name. I asked him what it meant. It’s for the dove. A sign of peace. And now look at his sins.’ He shook his head. ‘Where will it end?’

  Brooke was holding the missal when the photograph fell out.

  A passport-sized shot of a woman: faded, foxed, with an odd rosy tint added to the cheeks. She’d been set on a high-backed wooden chair against a Gothic background of a ruined abbey. Brooke held the picture out to the priest and the housekeeper, but they shook their heads. Brooke was not surprised, because he knew who she was, and he doubted she’d ever been as far as Cambridge. On Saturday that would be rectified, for it was Mary Flynn, the mother of the murdered child.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Brooke stopped on Silver Street Bridge and looked down at the river, the ice now a single sheet of dull steel, the ducks in a row, in midstream, equidistant from the hazards of either bank: foxes, otters and rats. Beyond the open meadows which led to the Upper Town rose the central tower of the university library, a silhouette against the stars, a brutal landmark just a few years old, which always reminded Brooke of the podium at the Maifeld, where Hitler ranted to an audience of a million Berliners, faces upturned in the firelight of torches. The sudden weight of this image, and the thought of Luke camped out on the border, combined with the memory of Hendrie’s shattered head, inspired a stab of despair.

  He lit a Black Russian, studying the geometrical miracle, just downstream, that was the Mathematical Bridge. The hunt for Colm Hendrie’s killer would be in full swing at the Spinning House, but he felt he’d earned himself a few moments of silent contemplation. He was sure now that he was engaged in attempting to solve one crime with two victims – so far. Hendrie had died with a picture of Mary Flynn in his treasured missal. It was the first link beyond circumstance and chance, although it asked more questions than it answered. If the boy was the target, why have a picture of his mother, not the five-year-old himself? The man giving out flags by ‘The Homecoming’ – surely the giant Hendrie – had been handicapped by not knowing which one of the children was the young Sean Flynn.

  The heart of the mystery was the Flynn family itself, and Brooke was determined to unravel it. He’d return to London with Edison at the first opportunity and observe the house, then get both parents in for questioning, separately, and the belligerent brother. The genteel middle-class aspirations of that cold front room hid a darker tale. Today, they’d focus on Hendrie’s brutal murder. Tomorrow they’d return to Shepherd’s Bush.

  Brooke, smoking, watched as dawn began to insinuate itself into the eastern sky, revealing a hoar frost which had turned the riverbank trees white, the water meadows crisp. When the sun rose it would catch the balls of mistletoe in the bare trees, chandeliers of ice, and the river would smoke, clouds of condensation rising in the sunbeams. Revitalised by this prospect of the hour to come, Brooke walked on briskly towards the Spinning House, at the last minute cutting into Market Hill, enticed by the prospect of crisply fried bacon.

  ‘Well well, you’ve just missed your friends,’ said Rose, automatically griddling some bacon. ‘Young Jo was here, with a mysterious young man. She hid him over there in the shadows,’ she added, nodding towards the distant row of market stalls. ‘What’s the big secret?’

  Brooke shrugged, resetting his hat. For the first time he wondered if Jo’s penchant for living dangerously had returned. Was the new man married? Why hide his face from the benign Rose?

  A bus rolled into the square and disgorged a crowd of grey shopworkers: Brooke couldn’t decide if it was just the war, or winter, but suddenly colour seemed to be draining out of the world. Rose delivered his sandwich, the bacon protruding between two healthy slices of buttered bread.

  She came round with a cup of tea of her own and joined him by the brazier. ‘My last break before the rush,’ she said.

  When she’d finished her brew, she swilled the tea out of her cup and began to examine the leaves. It was a familiar performance, and Brooke put a brave face on being impressed, although he privately despised fortune telling. But Rose was a believer in her own gifts as well as local superstitions.

  ‘Well?’ asked Brooke despite himself, setting his empty mug on the counter. ‘I must go, Rose. If you’ve occult news to impart, make it quick.’

  It was pretty much the usual mumbo-jumbo. She saw whispering lips and a house of lies, a year of arrivals. There was a great circle, made of iron, issuing its last breath.

  And finally, a letter arriving, or possibly a telegram.

  She looked at Brooke, who’d taken off his glasses to
massage the bridge of his nose. ‘But not to worry, Brooke. It’s good news. When it comes, expect to be blessed.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Brooke’s orders had ensured that by the time he reached the Spinning House ‘the balloon had gone up’, to quote the desk sergeant: the force’s six radio cars were parked in the rear yard, the garage crowded with special constables drafted in to search the Upper Town, while Sergeant Edison was briefing all ranks in the mess room. The Honey Hill murder was every officer’s number one priority. Door-to-door enquiries were planned for the rookery and the neighbouring streets. The dead man’s workmates were to be individually interviewed at their current site – roadworks on the old A10, just north of the city boundary.

  Finally, there was a note requiring Brooke’s immediate presence in the top office. He found Chief Inspector Carnegie-Brown on the phone to Scotland Yard. When she’d finished she showed Brooke a cable from the Home Office demanding details of the Fenian murder. She asked Brooke to sit while she outlined the Borough’s priorities: to prevent a second bomb attack, to apprehend the members of the IRA cell, to bring to justice the killers of Sean Flynn. If he needed assistance, the County force had been ordered directly by the Home Secretary to make manpower available. If he needed bureaucratic support, she made it clear he was to use her personal secretary.

  ‘By the by,’ she added. ‘Any news on PC Collins?’

  ‘Nothing. The house is certainly empty, and the family’s relatives can’t help. We’re looking, but he may have gone AWOL. If he encountered the killer then we’d have to fear the worst, but we’ve no evidence for that presumption. And no body. So I think we must assume he has gone to ground.’

  She dismissed him with a nod. Brooke promised swift results and melted away. The building echoed with frenzied activity. Edison, reporting to Brooke’s office, made it clear all the necessary orders had been given and that operations were underway. Madingley Hall was sending down a liaison officer to discuss what was termed ‘the wider situation’ – presumably a reference to the possible existence of a second bomb. For half an hour they discussed the plan to interview and check the registrations of St Alban’s regular parishioners at the Epiphany play. A squad of uniformed officers was to be on hand at the Great Bridge at six that evening.