Strafford gave an account of his meeting with Rosemary Lawless.
‘Ah, yes,’ the Colonel said, frowning. ‘That can’t have been easy.’
‘She told me about her father. Did you know who he was?’
‘JJ Lawless? Oh yes, I knew.’
‘Did Father Lawless ever speak of him?’
The Colonel’s frown deepened.
‘No, he didn’t, and I thought it best to do the same. That man was a ruthless killer, a murderer in a Sam Browne belt, and he didn’t change, for all that he presented himself as a champion of law and order when the fighting was done with. You know he accused a man of being an informer and had him shot, all in order to get hold of his house? A thorough bad lot, no doubt about it. Round here, of course, he’s a hero, you can’t say a word against him. I had great respect for Father Tom for defying him the way he did. To be honest, though, I think the man was wasted as a priest.’
‘His sister would agree with you.’
‘Oh, yes? Well, she’s right, and she would know. Still, he made the best of it. Everybody spoke well of him – he was great friends with the vicar at St Mary’s, you know.’ He shook his head, frowning at the steaming mug on the table. ‘I still can’t believe he’s dead.’ He looked up. ‘Made any progress on tracking down the killer? I hear there’s a gang of tinkers camping over at Murrintown – maybe you should haul in a few of them for questioning.’
‘I’m afraid that would be a waste of time,’ Strafford said. ‘It wasn’t tinkers who killed Father Lawless.’
‘Well, somebody did!’
Strafford said nothing. He couldn’t but admire Osborne’s tenacity in insisting, against all indications to the contrary, that the murderer was someone from outside who had broken into the house without forcing a lock or smashing a pane of glass.
Strafford had finished the omelette – it had left a layer of fatty scum on the roof of his mouth – and now he wiped his fingers on a napkin and stood up. He thanked Mrs Duffy, who pretended not to hear. She was still cross with him. He wondered if she had guessed where he had been when she called him, and what he had been doing? Servants knew everything that went on in a house, upstairs and down, as he was well aware. Mrs Duffy, he had no doubt, would be a dedicated listener at keyholes.
‘You off?’ the Colonel said to him.
‘Yes. I’m going to the Garda station in Ballyglass. They may have heard from Sergeant Jenkins, or had reports of his whereabouts. He has to be somewhere.’
‘If he gets back while you’re gone, I’ll have him phone the barracks to let you know,’ the Colonel said. He walked with Strafford to the front door, and pressed him to borrow an overcoat – ‘That thing of yours is no good in this weather’ – and a pair of gloves and a cap with ear flaps. He put a hand on his shoulder, just as Archbishop McQuaid had done. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said cheerily, ‘your fellow will turn up.’
Strafford nodded. He wasn’t sure which he found harder to take, Osborne the ramrod-straight, no-nonsense officer and decorated veteran of Dunkirk, or this other version of himself that he was putting on now, the decent sort, bluff and avuncular, the kind of chap you could depend on in a tight corner.
He accepted the coat and the gloves, but declined the cap with the ear flaps. There were limits, and a deerstalker hat was well beyond them.
It wasn’t snowing yet, but soon it would be. Strafford drove past Enniscorthy again, and came out on the Wexford road at Camolin. Cattle stood about the snowy fields, looking baffled and lost. He supposed they didn’t know what to make of their green world turned suddenly white. Or did they even notice? Hadn’t he read somewhere that cows are colour-blind?
The barracks in Ballyglass had once been a town house, granite-built, four-square and dourly imposing. A merchant would have lived here, or a successful solicitor. Strafford could see him, a fat fellow in gaiters and a frock coat and a stock, his wife a cheerful frump, his son a rake, his daughters chafing at the narrowness of small-town life yet fearful of the wider world. Gone, that world, all gone. Even Roslea House had electric light, his father having at last relented when his sight began to fail and he could no longer read the Irish Times by candlelight.
He parked in the yard at the side of the barracks and went in by the open front door. There was the familiar yet mysterious smell of house dust and pencil shavings and scorched paper. It was the smell, he suspected, of every police station in the country – perhaps even in the world.
The Guard at the duty desk was a tall, skinny pinhead with bulging fish eyes and no chin. He looked about eighteen but must have been older. He gave Strafford a wary stare, recognising authority and resenting it. Strafford identified himself, showing his badge.
‘Sergeant Radford, is he about?’ he asked.
‘He’s at home with the ’flu,’ the Guard replied curtly. It was clear he wasn’t going to kowtow to some hotshot down from Dublin, with his cashmere coat – borrowed from Colonel Osborne, in fact – and his fancy accent.
Strafford looked at him for a moment in silence.
‘You don’t use titles down here, at all?’
‘He has the ’flu, Detective Inspector.’
‘So I hear. Very bad, is he? In the bed, hot-water bottle and hot lemonade, wife at his bedside mopping his burning brow?’
‘All I know is, he’s sick. His missus phoned in this morning to say he won’t be in.’
‘How long has he been sick?’
The Guard shrugged. ‘A week. Ten days.’
‘Which is it, Guard, ten days, or a week?’
‘Friday week was the last time he was in.’
‘Was he at work that day, or did he just happen to drop by to say hello and collect his wages?’
‘He was at work.’
‘Good. And you are—?’
‘Stenson.’
‘Heard anything of my colleague, Sergeant Jenkins?’
‘Who?’
‘Jenkins, Sergeant Jenkins. We’re out at Ballyglass, where, as you may know, there was a killing yesterday.’
‘Why would I hear from him?’
‘He hasn’t been seen since this morning. I thought he might have called in.’
But if he had come here, how had he travelled? Strafford wondered. He might have hitched a lift. Somehow he couldn’t see Jenkins compromising his dignity by standing at the side of the road with his thumb stuck out. Jenkins too had his inviolable limits.
The Guard stood and gazed at him without expression. A clock high on the wall behind him ticked. Strafford wondered what Chief Superintendent Hackett would do in the face of such a blatant display of dumb insolence.
He sighed, and looked about. Assorted notices were thumbtacked to a green baize board. A stencilled poster advertised a Christmas raffle – BUMPER PRIZES! BUY A BOOK OF TICKETS NOW! – and there were ragwort alerts, and something to do with rabies. Always the same notices, always the same green baize board. His was a narrow world. He pictured himself once more in wig and gown and celluloid stock, with a bundle of briefs under his arm and a lady solicitor trotting at his heels. Was everyone haunted by a self that had never been? He knew in his heart he wouldn’t be any more content as a barrister than he was as a detective, so why did he keep toying with the thought of being that impossible other, the one his father had wanted him to be? Do all sons, he wondered, defy all fathers? He was thinking of the priest and JJ Lawless, the man who shot people in the face.
‘Get Sergeant Radford on the phone for me, will you?’
‘Why?’
Strafford took a deep breath.
‘How would you like a transfer, Garda Stenson?’ he enquired pleasantly. ‘North Donegal, say, or the Beara Peninsula? It could be arranged, I’d only have to give the Commissioner a tinkle.’
The Guard, his mouth tightening into a knot at one corner, picked up the receiver and pressed a green button on the side of the phone. Strafford heard a click at the other end of the line, and then, indistinctly, a woman’s voice.
&nb
sp; The Guard said, ‘Hello, Mrs Radford. Will you tell the boss there’s a detective here from Dublin wants to talk to him.’ Again the woman’s voice, and the Guard put his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘She says to tell you he’s in the bed, with the ’flu.’ He grinned.
‘Tell her I’ll be round there shortly.’
‘He says to say he’ll be round there shortly.’
There was a pause, then a man’s voice, hoarse and rasping, came on the line. Garda Stenson listened to him for a moment. ‘Right, Sarge,’ he said, and hung up the receiver. ‘He says to wait.’
Strafford waited, sitting on a wooden bench under the green baize noticeboard. Garda Stenson went back to his ledger, glancing up now and then with studied indifference. Time passed. An elderly woman in a headscarf came in to complain that her neighbour’s greyhound had been worrying her hens again. Garda Stenson opened another ledger and wrote in it. The woman looked at Strafford and smiled timidly.
‘Right, missus,’ Stenson said perfunctorily, ‘I’ve noted that.’ He shut the ledger. The woman left. ‘That’s the third time this month,’ Stenson said to Strafford. ‘There’s no greyhound.’
‘A widow, is she?’ Strafford asked.
Stenson eyed him suspiciously. ‘How did you know?’
‘They get lonely.’
After ten minutes, a car pulled into the yard. A door opened and was slammed shut. Plodding footsteps approached.
Sergeant Radford was a heavy-set, slack-jowled man in his middle forties. He had three or four days’ growth of beard. The bristles were rust-coloured, and glistened at the tips. His uniform looked too small for him, and the tunic bulged where it was buttoned, showing the edge of a blue-and-white striped pyjama jacket. He had a congested look. His forehead was flushed and his cheeks were sunken, and there were livid pouches under his eyes. Maybe he did have the ’flu, Strafford thought. After all, even drunks fall ill sometimes. Strafford caught a whiff of his breath. It smelled of Polo Mints and, more faintly, of whiskey.
‘Sorry, what was the name again?’ he asked, and coughed heavily. He glanced here and there at nothing in particular. The Guard at the desk he ignored. Strafford guessed there was no love lost between the two men.
‘I’m Strafford. Detective Inspector.’
‘Didn’t they tell you I was sick?’
‘I have a man missing.’
‘What do you mean, missing?’
‘I sent him to Ballyglass House this morning to take statements from the Osborne family. You do know about the killing there?’
Radford ignored the sarcasm.
‘What’s his name, your fellow?’
‘Jenkins. Detective Sergeant Jenkins.’
‘What happened?’
‘He arrived there, spoke to the cook, then at some point he left the house, and we haven’t seen or heard from him since.’
There were beads of sweat on Radford’s forehead, and his eyes looked as if they ached. He needed a drink.
‘What do you want me to do about it?’ he asked.
‘You could organise a search.’
‘A search?’ Radford stared at him. ‘In this murk?’
Strafford calmly returned his stare.
‘I’ve told you, the man is missing,’ he said. He looked up at the windows and the louring sky beyond the wire-meshed panes. ‘I’m concerned about him, in this weather. He’s not the type to go off without letting me know. I want him found. How many men have you got here?’
Radford looked at Garda Stenson, who said, ‘Five, including me.’
‘That’s not much good.’ Strafford sighed. ‘What about the Fire Brigade? The St John Ambulance Brigade – can you call them out?’
‘You think he’s outside? That makes no sense.’
‘He hasn’t got a car.’
Now it was Radford’s turn to look up doubtfully at the windows and the leaden sky. ‘Surely he’d have taken shelter somewhere.’
‘Maybe so. But I’m worried he may have injured himself – taken a fall, or something. He’d have got to a phone before now, to let me know his whereabouts.’
‘Come up to the office,’ Radford said, and he pushed past him, lifted the counter flap and set off with weary tread up the narrow wooden staircase.
Strafford turned to Stenson.
‘Get the men in,’ he said, ‘as many of them as you can find. Tell them they’ll be outside, so they’ll need weather gear.’
‘Am I taking orders from you now?’
‘Yes. I don’t see anyone more senior around, do you?’
Radford had stopped at the top of the stairs to listen to this exchange. Now, without a word, he tramped on upwards. The desk man’s face was flushed with anger.
‘And get on to the Fire Brigade and the St John Ambulance people,’ Strafford said, ‘and anyone else you can think of.’
‘What about the Boy Scouts?’ This with a sour smirk.
‘Good idea,’ Strafford said, and turned away.
He followed Radford up the stairs.
‘And why not the Girl Guides?’ growled Garda Stenson, below.
In Radford’s office there was a film of ice on the inside of the window.
‘Bloody heating’s gone again,’ he said. ‘Everything is going to hell. First the priest gets himself killed, and now you’ve lost this Stafford fellow.’
‘Jenkins,’ Strafford said, ‘Detective Sergeant Jenkins. I’m Strafford – Strafford with an r. Do you know my boss, Chief Superintendent Hackett?’
‘In Pearse Street? I’ve heard of him. What was that murder case he didn’t solve? – somebody called Costigan, found in the Phoenix Park with his neck broken, right?’
Strafford pulled up a chair and sat down in front of the desk. ‘There’s something about this entire business I really don’t understand – maybe you can enlighten me.’
‘What is it?’
‘A parish priest gets stabbed in the neck, and castrated too, for good measure, yet no one seems all that concerned about it. There can’t be that many murders round these parts, can there? I mean, you’d think the place would be agog.’
Radford’s attention had strayed, and his eyes were vacant. He took a packet of Player’s from the breast pocket of his tunic and lit one. On the first lungful of smoke he began to cough so violently that he had to double over, jerking up a knee and squeezing his eyes shut and clinging on to the desk with one hand. ‘Jesus!’ he gasped at last, throwing himself back on the chair and giving himself a shake. ‘These things will be the death of me.’ He sucked air into his lungs and shook himself again. ‘Sorry, what were you asking me?’
‘Doesn’t matter. I hear he was very popular, your Father Lawless.’
Radford took another drag at his cigarette, bracing himself, but this time no cough came.
‘He was popular, all right, in certain quarters,’ he said.
‘But not in others?’
Radford vaguely eyed the muddle of papers on his desk.
‘Let me put it this way,’ he said. ‘He was never going to die among his own, that fella.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just what I say. Too fond of his fancy friends. He’d have done better to look after his parishioners, instead of hobnobbing with the Prods. Anyway.’ He waved a hand, dismissing the topic of Father Lawless’s popularity, or lack of it. ‘Give me a description of your man – what’s his name again?’
‘Jenkins,’ Strafford said patiently, suppressing his growing sense of irritation. ‘Detective Sergeant Ambrose Jenkins.’
‘Ambrose?’
‘Known as Ambie. Twenty-five, twenty-six. Average height, brown hair, blue eyes, or grey, maybe, I’m not sure.’ He wondered if he should mention the distinctive shape of Jenkins’s head. It was a distinguishing feature, after all. ‘Brown overcoat, black shoes—’
He stopped, and looked up yet again at the high window, blank with sky. It had come to him, with a certainty for which there was no accounting, that Ambie Jenkins was dead.
<
br /> 22
The search party assembled on the lawn in front of Ballyglass House. They were an ill-assorted bunch, as Strafford saw with a sinking heart. There were three Guards, in capes and wearing balaclava helmets under their peaked caps, and along with them half a dozen members of the Fire Brigade, in oilskins and helmets, three or four pimply youths from the St John Ambulance Brigade, a Scoutmaster from Wexford going by the unfortunate name of Higginbottom, and a solitary Boy Scout, a hulking fellow with a bronchial cough, who was immediately sent home for fear he would get pneumonia. A dozen or so civilian volunteers had turned up, ghoulishly cheerful types. They were farmers and farmhands, a retired bus driver, a grocer’s assistant and a Corporation labourer. And somebody’s mother, very fat, in wellingtons and a man’s cloth cap.
There was a festive air to the occasion. The men stood clustered in groups, smoking cigarettes and cracking jokes. Colonel Osborne had contributed three bottles of Algerian wine, which Mrs Duffy had made into a punch, with cloves and strips of orange peel and slices of apple, and which she carried out in a metal tea urn and set down on an upturned wooden crate at the foot of the front steps. Kathleen the scullery maid distributed an assortment of glasses, mugs, teacups and even a couple of jam jars. Colonel Osborne, in an army greatcoat and leather leggings, stood with Strafford on the top step outside the front door and surveyed the scene with some bemusement.
‘It’s like the morning of a hunt,’ Osborne said. ‘They could be drinking stirrup cups.’
The sky was clouded but the air was clear, although now and then a solitary flake of snow fluttered down uncertainly, like a drunken butterfly. On the drive were parked two Garda cars, an ambulance, a tractor, an earth mover and a jeep.
Lettie came back from Wexford with her stepmother’s prescription. She offered to join the search, but her father forbade it – ‘For goodness’ sake, you could catch your death of cold, a slip of a thing like you!’ – and she stamped off into the house, swearing under her breath.
The last of the punch had been drunk and the search was about to start when Sergeant Radford turned up, in his own car, a rattly old Wolseley with a fender missing. He wore a sheepskin coat and a woollen hat pulled down over his ears. His cheeks and nose were blotchy and bright-veined, his eyes watery in a nest of wrinkles. He was a sick man, lost in grief. His son was not three months dead. He greeted Strafford with a nod, and pointedly ignored the Colonel.
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