The Death of an Irish Tradition

by Bartholomew Gill

  “A couple of months ago.”

  “He say why?”

  “Something about wanting to correct his style in the saddle. Caught me by surprise—didn’t think a character like him would have a sense of humor.”

  Already McGarr was out in the hall of the modern building, moving quickly toward the door. “Shall I wait for the tape or do you want to send it to me?”

  “Wait, wait. Jesus! I’ll get it for you myself.”

  Moments later, McGarr was pushing through the glass doors that opened on the parking lot, Flynn right behind him.

  A gust of wind, hot and wet, struck them. On the eastern horizon a bank of clouds, a storm front, had passed in front of the sun and shone like hot, burnished silver. The light in the parking lot was yellow and filmy. In a way, McGarr wished it would rain.

  “So you believe all his nonsense about the horse being spooked?”

  “I always did.”

  “Point is—can you prove it?”

  McGarr only canted his head. The whole thing—having again seen Keegan’s face in the photo at the apartment of his murdered sister—could be a mere coincidence, but he didn’t think so.

  “Still—it hasn’t stopped him much.”

  “Who?”

  “Bechel-Gore.”

  McGarr placed the canister on the passenger seat of the Cooper and straightened up. The rear of the small car was filled with hat-boxes. “How do you mean?”

  “He’s got a horse in the internationals this year.”

  “For Ireland?”

  Flynn nodded.

  “Isn’t that a switch?”

  “It could be, but then again the horse is Kestral.”

  McGarr turned to Flynn. “Is he cracked?”

  “Maybe, but surely his rider is.”

  Once more McGarr only stared at Flynn.

  “His wife, Grainne.” He tapped his forehead. “She’s beautiful, there’s no denying that, but a sad case.”

  McGarr blinked. “But can she ride the horse?”

  “So it would seem. She’s been winning with the mare right along. Came away with the whole bit at the Royal Windsor—puissance and the time trials. Don’t you read the papers, Inspector, or—” he eyed him, “—watch the news on TV?

  “Will you keep me in the picture?”

  “About what?”

  “You’re onto something here, I can tell.”

  “How?” McGarr turned the switch and the small, powerful engine of the Cooper sprang to life.

  “You tell me what you’re doing here the morning after a murder, messing about with a case that’s at least a year old.”

  McGarr sighed and slid the shift into first. “You should have been a detective, Dermot.”

  “I hope you’ll remember that when I get the sack.”

  McGarr waved and let out the clutch.

  Ward didn’t see McGarr pull the Cooper around the lemon-yellow convertible that was stopped at the guardhouse, waiting for a parking pass to be issued. He was concentrating on the car and the girl in the front seat.

  There was another car behind the MG, a long black limousine with an official plate, a Mercedes.

  “T. D.?” O’Shaughnessy asked. He was farther back in the shadows of the entry door, leaning against the cool wall.

  The light in the courtyard, the first of two that the buildings of Dublin Castle formed, was hazy and blue, and Ward had to squint.

  He nodded. “Cigarette?”

  O’Shaughnessy only looked down at the package of Disc Bleus. “When d’you take that up?”

  Ward shrugged. Nicely, he thought, the fat white cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, the jacket over his shoulders.

  “And that suit.” O’Shaughnessy glanced up and away, over the slate roofs of the buildings.

  “What about the suit?”

  O’Shaughnessy, whether in uniform or civilian clothes, was always nattily attired, but as in everything else his taste was conservative. He only shook his head.

  “Well?” Ward demanded, taking in the other man’s light-gray homburg and two-button suit made of—was it linen?—the darker gray tie and the black, woven-leather shoes.

  The limousine pulled up to the entry. The chauffeur got out to open the rear door.

  “Murray,” said O’Shaughnessy, squaring his shoulders and clasping his hands behind his back.

  “No, no—what about the suit, Liam? I’m interested.”

  Out of the corner of his eye Ward saw the Caughey girl getting out of the little car, and he turned his attention to her: thin legs, white and birdlike, a black-gloved hand on the yellow enamel, then a flounced hat, black as well. She was taller than Murray but taller than Ward too, and her gait was rangy and…was it athletic? Yes. She used her shoulders, twisting them a bit forward with each step. And her face was masked, it seemed, in the first movement of a smile, as though she had practiced the expression in a mirror and decided it was best and would get her through the day. But she hadn’t been able to conceal the crying. Her eyes were ringed and she looked tired.

  “Well—since you asked—it isn’t fit for a pimp, much less for a policeman. And if you’ve got hair on your chest…” O’Shaughnessy was staring down at the Mercedes, the door of which was open. Inside a fat, older man with a florid complexion and a bulbous nose was speaking into a telephone, haranguing whoever it was on the other end. His hair was a mass of silver waves that flowed to curls at the back of his head. He was wearing a pin-striped suit. “…that’s your business,” O’Shaughnessy continued, “and should be kept to yourself.”

  “Well, I’ll be…” Ward exhaled a puff of blue smoke.

  McGarr had appeared in the entryway.

  “…flogged. Where the hell have you been all your life, Liam—Galway?” O’Shaughnessy was in fact from Galway. “Times have changed.”

  “They have?”

  McGarr stood there, regarding them, a thin package under his arm.

  Ward didn’t see O’Shaughnessy wink to McGarr as the tall man turned to him. “You mean—dirt is in? You’ve got egg on your lapel, Inspector.”

  When Ward glanced down, O’Shaughnessy snatched the cigarette from his mouth and crushed it out on the stone floor. He then placed his massive hands on Ward’s shoulders and turned him around, pulling the jacket off. “Now stick your arms in this and keep your mouth shut. Be yourself. She’ll like you a lot more for it.”

  He turned Ward back around and reached for the lowest open button on the shirt, which he fastened. He then put his hand inside the jacket and pulled out the packet of cigarettes. “Smoking is a dirty habit. Once you start it you can’t stop, and there’s no satisfying the devil in your throat. Ask him.” He meant McGarr, to whom he handed the smokes.

  “But you smoke yourself.”

  “And I wish I didn’t.” O’Shaughnessy stepped past him, out into the sunlight of the entry.

  “Jesus, I should’ve joined the army,” he said to McGarr, who was laughing. “Or the priesthood.”

  “Are you a solicitor or a politician this morning?” O’Shaughnessy asked Murray from the doorway.

  McGarr, who had begun to climb the first flight of stairs to his offices on the second floor, turned and saw Murray slide his bulk out of the limousine. Suddenly Murray’s face was suffused with his most practiced smile. “A solicitor and a friend…Liam, isn’t it?”

  “It is, it is that, sir. Representing?” O’Shaughnessy took the portly man’s hand in his own and steered him to the side, as the girl and the younger Murray entered the building.

  “My son. I thought I’d just come along for the ride.” He began to chuckle. “Miss Caughey doesn’t believe she requires counsel,” he said in an undertone. “Poor girl.”

  O’Shaughnessy tipped his hat to her. “Then you won’t mind waiting down here, I trust.”

  Ward opened a door and O’Shaughnessy ushered father and son into a room.

  “You—” Murray Sr. glanced at the long, battered table and the sev
eral hard-back chairs, “—you won’t be long?”

  The tall Garda superintendent shook his head. “We’ll try to hurry. For you, sir. But it could be a while.” He closed the door.

  McGarr smiled and continued up the second flight of stairs, from the landing to the offices.

  He heard Ward saying, “Do you smoke? You may smoke if you like. Tea, coffee. I’d like to offer you something stronger but it’s prohibited, of course.”

  “Tea. I’d love a cup of tea. With lemon.”

  McGarr shook his head. They’d have to send somebody out for a lemon.

  “Of course. We’ll get somebody right on it.”

  “I was hoping you’d be here,” she said in a strange nearly disembodied voice, her words measured, her tone soft and musical. “Yesterday you were so kind and understanding. I thank you, Inspector…. It’s curious but I can’t remember your last name. Isn’t that strange? Hugh is your first, is that not so? My father’s name, but that’s not why I remembered it.”

  McGarr leaned over the rail. He saw Ward turn his face to hers and peer into those large black eyes.

  “Ward. Hughie Ward. My people are from the West, like yours.”

  O’Shaughnessy had looked away. At the crack in the wall that followed the stairs to the landing.

  McGarr did not sit at the desk in his cubicle, only placed the boxed canister of video tape to the right and then skimmed the sheaf of memos that Ban Gharda Bresnahan, McKeon’s new assistant, had placed there for him.

  Only three sets of prints had been found in the house: the victim’s, the daughter’s, and some others around the piano that belonged to a male. The victim’s larynx had indeed been damaged. Neither theft nor forcible entry had been noted, although both front and back doors had always been kept locked and the old woman had been a cautious sort. And finally no Garda official, uniformed or otherwise, could be placed at the scene of the crime or even in the immediate neighborhood at about a quarter past four, the estimated time of the murder.

  McGarr turned and stepped to the window, which he opened. Somewhere down in Dame Street a jackhammer was blatting away at concrete, and he could see men up in the girders of a new office building, slapping red-hot rivets into sockets and flattening them home with pneumatic tamps. Higher still, through the orange structure of the tall building, McGarr could see a patch of azure sky, covered only by a thin veil of cirrus clouds. Muggy summer weather with neither sun nor rain, just a damp, hot, nettling flux, but—he glanced up once again—a hope, a promise of relief.

  What did he know about the Caughey murder? Little, as yet. But the murderer had been known to the victim, that much was plain. She had either let him in or he’d had a key. And the murderer had been strong—no, no; that was wrong: the murderer had had strong hands. McGarr remembered the rug he had examined and the swirls in the nap where her feet had come to rest. And her odd, slumped position in the chair—no attempt had been made to arrange her in it—made it plain that the killer had strangled her right in front of the old Morris chair and had then eased her down into the cushions.

  And then there was the business of the report of a policeman having stopped by, just at the time of the murder. Tony Brady, the little boy. That would have to be checked into.

  What else? The victim’s brother, James Joseph Keegan, had been present at the scene of the crippling of Sir Roger Bechel-Gore. Keegan, so his niece had said, was from Leenane, the very area of barren but beautiful hills in which Bechel-Gore had chosen to raise his horses, having bought large holdings there in…McGarr couldn’t remember; it was just something else he’d have to find out.

  And what did all that mean? Nothing really. It could all be mere coincidence, but he didn’t think so, having just viewed the TV tape for the sixth time. Bechel-Gore was not the sort of man who was mistaken about anything. He was bluff, peremptory, but accurate. He wondered if he was vindictive and revengeful too, and why he had paid to have R. T. E. make him a copy of the tape.

  McGarr needed to know more—about the victim especially, but also about Keegan. Maybe he could kill two—no, not kill—solve two cases at once. Maybe the crippling and the death were related.

  He reached up and closed the wide old window. It shrieked in its track and the pane rattled as it hit the sill. Suddenly the office was very quiet.

  He opened the cubicle door and said, “Bernie—when you’ve got a moment.” And while McKeon was finishing up whatever he was doing, McGarr moved through the worn wooden desks of the outer office to the cabinet, where he found the Bechel-Gore file. Back at his desk he opened the thick manila folder.

  “Chief?” McKeon asked.

  Without glancing up, McGarr said, “Two things, Bernie.” He reached out and touched the package he’d picked up at R. T. E. “Take this package over to McAnulty in Kilmainham. It’s a video tape and I’m interested in any and all closeup shots of the sallow, older man in the cloth cap. He keeps the crowd back as Bechel-Gore begins to fall.” McGarr heard McKeon move and he raised his eyes.

  The sergeant’s smile at the prospect of being given an outside assignment diminished somewhat. “We on that again?”

  “I don’t see why not. He’s a citizen, like anyone else.”

  McKeon eased his hands into his pants pockets and looked away.

  “And I want every available closeup, I don’t care if they’ve got to do dozens. I want to see everything of the man and his donkey. And see if they can do something with the resolution. Sharp shots, get me? And while you’re out there I want you to take a good look at the man yourself. Understood?

  “Then I want you to tell McAnulty that there’s a whistle on the sound track of the tape. It’s short and sharp, probably a high pitch. It’s there and don’t let him put you off. I want to hear it.” McAnulty was a painstaking professional when he wanted to be, but there was no percentage in the matter, no publicity, no recognition, and the man was jealous of his prerogatives.

  “Now, two—” McGarr motioned to the door and McKeon turned to close it.

  McGarr noted the accordion folds behind the knees of the sergeant’s pants, the collar of his shirt which was a bit rumpled, and the greenish tie, some dark plaid design, that he wore summer and winter. McKeon wasn’t slovenly, by any means, only unconcerned with the niceties of dress. Life was too short and those details too inessential to warrant more than a token obeisance—yes, he had a suit, a tie, and a shirt. And yes, he wore them to work. And considering the ease of manner of the short, plump man, the way he could insinuate himself into any conversation or group of people, McGarr judged he was perfect for the task he was about to set him.

  “—Ballsbridge, the Horse Show. I want you to go out to the R. D. S. offices. You know where they are—just to the left of the main entrance off the Merrion Road.

  “You’re a—” McGarr pushed himself back in the chair and clasped his hands behind his head, “—donkey hobbyist. Or, you’d like to be.”

  McKeon smiled and sat on the edge of the desk.

  “I’m serious, now. Anything and everything about the beasts gives you a rise.”

  “Jack ass me how I knew,” McKeon mumbled in a rush, “I’d get to play ‘Don Key O. D.’ for my debut.”

  McGarr only closed his eyes. “You’ve come into a bit of money and you’re now wanting another animal. You’re wondering if you can purchase a catalogue. They’ll have them there, that’s certain, but I want you to see if they’ve got old issues for, say, five years back. If not, they’ll have them in their library, which is just across the hall. See if you can get in there. Copy the lists of donkey exhibitors for those years. If you have to become a member, do it—we’ll reimburse you out of petty cash.

  “And you want to know where the donkeys are stabled and can you amble over there and chat up the owners? Would they mind that? Repeat that you’re a buyer. They won’t mind a bit. And who’s a good man to talk to? The resident expert, ass it were.” McGarr opened one eye to see if McKeon had caught it.

  He h
ad.

  “Now—who we’re looking for is a certain older fellow, name J. J. Keegan. He’s the one on the video tape you’ll be seeing. Pounds to pence he won’t be using his real name. Small, dark, sallow skin. Cloth cap, dark suit, about sixty-five, maybe seventy. Galway. Leenane. Could be—” it occurred to McGarr, “—a native Irish speaker. Got the picture?”

  “Well—it’s not very sharp.”

  McGarr knew what McKeon meant: Keegan fit the description of thousands of older Irishmen and he wondered just how much the grainy picture on the R. T. E. transmission could help them. “Let’s see what McAnulty can come up with.

  “Anyhow, today just let whatever donkey exhibitors that have arrived get used to seeing you around and bring back the catalogues.

  “If you do run onto him, make conversation but don’t force things. I imagine we’ve got some time, but keep an eye on him.”

  “That’s all?” McKeon stood.

  “I guess so.”

  “Can I ask—?”

  “The Bechel-Gore thing, and maybe something else too.”

  McKeon only lowered his eyes and turned to the door.

  Once again McGarr was reminded of the Anglo-Irishman’s reputation.

  After studying the contents of the manila folder for a while, McGarr wrote out a list of questions that he asked Greaves to take to O’Shaughnessy. They were for M. E. Murray and probably pointless, but McGarr wanted every avenue covered.

  He checked his watch. Just 10:15.

  He left for Ballsbridge.

  THREE

  Artistry, Caution, a Falsehood Hung, Mother and Daughter—Anonymity Undone

  WARD HAD DIRECTED Mairead Kehlen Caughey into the dayroom, where the furniture was somewhat more comfortable than in the other rooms of the Detective Bureau. He had positioned two chairs fairly close to the windows, which he had opened.

  “Bit of a breeze here,” he said, noting how she eased herself into the chair, the wide skirt of her black dress rustling, the straight line of her back just meeting the old oak.

  No wasted movement there. Feminine, to be sure, but the slightly distracted manner—which probably had more to do with her recent loss—made her seem as though only by a conscious act of will was she maintaining contact with the persons and things around her. And she seemed to be listening or watching for or trying to feel any change so she might correct the imbalance.