The Death of an Irish Tradition

by Bartholomew Gill

  “Are you aware of the real antecedents of Mairead Kehlen Caughey?”

  “What?” Murray turned to McGarr. “What’s he talking about?”

  McGarr only kept his eyes on the cigar, listening closely to Murray’s tone. He didn’t know the man well enough, but if asked he would have bet he was lying and had been for the last several minutes.

  “Now then,” said O’Shaughnessy, his tone somewhat didactic, teacherly, implying that he had in fact caught the man lying, “this ‘operation’ here, all that I can see down there in the yard—is it going well?”

  “You have eyes, man. Everybody’s busy enough, aren’t they?”

  “I’ve been led to believe you’re nearly bankrupt, over your head in debt. The Ulster Bank called in a ninety-day note last Friday and you were unable to meet it.”

  “Then you’ve been misled. I’ve never been overly fond of the Ulster Bank. They’ve just had a change in upper management and one of my—shall I say?—adversaries has come to the fore. He called in that note.”

  There was a pause.

  McGarr asked, “Did you cover it, Mick?”

  The eyes, bloodshot and rheumy, shied. “It’s being done now. The horse sales at the Show ought to cover it easily.”

  The Show again, McGarr thought. “Do you have many…adversaries, Mick?”

  “Of course.” He heaved himself up from the chair. “Every man in public life does. You yourself—you’ve got that character on the Times on your arse, and I’ve got my—” he glanced toward the window, “—O’Shaughnessys and Maloneys,” the name of a competing building materials firm, “and—”

  “Your Bechel-Gores,” said O’Shaughnessy.

  “Yes, but the difference is, Superintendent, that Sir Roger Bloody Bechel-Gore is a worthy adversary.” He was sweating profusely now.

  “Really, Peter, I’m up to my neck in work here, and can we—”

  “Just a moment or two more, Mick. We could have asked you and Sean down to the Castle for this, rather than waiting until after the Show.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “Yes.”

  Murray was relieved. “I appreciate that.”

  “I thought you would.” McGarr stood. “But tell me about your I. R. A. connections. Your Mercedes showroom—how many on the payroll there?”

  “Ah, now Peter, if I can’t give a break to some fellows—”

  “How many?”

  Murray thought for a moment. “Four—but I’m a silent partner there.”

  “Don’t cod me, Mick. You’re not a silent partner anywhere.

  “How many here?”

  “A good number.”

  “Ten, twenty?”

  “Twenty some, I’d say, though it could be more.”

  “What about Jack B. Frayne of Armagh? Ever employ him?”

  “Never heard of him until I read his name in this morning’s papers.”

  McGarr offered his hand. “I hope, Mick, this is all I’ll have to be asking you for a while.”

  “I don’t know why you have.”

  McGarr waited until the eyes moved toward him and then he fixed them with his own. “Because I don’t believe your son has a violent nature—drugs or no drugs—and because the death of Margaret Kathleen Keegan Caughey, the raid on Keegan’s place in Drogheda, and the sniping incident at Bechel-Gore’s place in Galway are connected in some way that seems beyond Sean’s…purview, at least as I understand things at the moment.

  “And by saying this, at least one of us—” he glanced at O’Shaughnessy, “—thinks I’m putting you on notice, so don’t expect any further concessions from me.”

  “Then you’re not going to lay a charge against Sean? I mean, you yourself.”

  Was there a note of disappointment in the question? McGarr searched the man’s rough, formerly handsome features—the short, wide nose now veined, the slack jowls, the silver waves that flowed to curls at the back of his head—but he couldn’t tell.

  “No. Not yet anyway. I’ll keep you informed.”

  “Well—that’s grand of you.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  A door opened and a secretary said, “Begging your pardon, Mister Murray, but Commissioner Farrell is on the line for Chief Inspector McGarr. There’s been some sort of tragedy. It’s urgent.”

  But McGarr didn’t turn to her. Murray’s seeming ambivalence toward his son intrigued him.

  “Get Sean the most competent criminal solicitor I can.”

  “And who would that be?”

  “Handelmann. He’s new to my firm.”

  “The I. R. A. lawyer?”

  “He’s done a bit of that, but we’ve covered that ground, I think. He’s good, but he’s poor. He wants to change that and I’m giving him the chance.”

  McGarr went in to the phone.

  There had been a time when Bechel-Gore had enjoyed his wife’s childishness, the contrast between her striking and womanly appearance and the delight she took in a world that was a continuing mystery to her. But not now, not with all that was facing him. What was now required was competence and good sense and not a little bit of luck, if they were to get through the crisis.

  “Would you look at that, Roger,” she said, as Paddy, the driver, pulled the Bentley up before the marquee of the Shelbourne Hotel on St. Stephen’s Green. “What are they, tinkers?”

  A group of students or, he supposed, “troubadours” with beards and unkempt hair and guitars and penny whistles was camped on the sidewalk near the large, fashionable hotel. A uniformed guard was watching the singers from afar, making sure they didn’t disturb the hotel’s guests.

  “I don’t think so, dear,” he said evenly. “When was the last time you heard tinkers making music?”

  “There’re some fine musicians who are tinkers, though I can’t remember their names.”

  Musical—Bechel-Gore thought—like the girl, who certainly hadn’t gotten her talent from him. But he missed grasping his wife’s arm when she opened the door and stepped out. She made straight for the music, reaching into her purse for a banknote. Was it blue? It was.

  “My God! Stop her, Paddy, will you?”

  Bechel-Gore watched in a sort of fascination, noting the contrast between her well-turned-out elegance—she was dressed in the yellow silk suit he had ordered for her in London the year before, the white streaks in her black hair making it look more perfect; the long muscles in her legs and arms well-toned and hale—and the flaccid and unkempt and sickly-looking rabble on the sidewalk. Then he saw the priest, Menahan, waiting under the canopy of the hotel.

  “No, Paddy! Get me out of here!” He was still in the back seat, the collapsible wheelchair at his feet.

  But with the music and the street noise of cars passing around the Green he wasn’t heard.

  She stopped in front of them, one foot forward, poised, the ten-pound note in her hand, and, although the music was raucous—some war chant, she imagined, with tambourines, bodhrans, the click of spoons, and the wail of bagpipes—she surveyed them calmly, her black eyes working over each one of them, noting the long ringlets of dirty hair, the scraggly mustaches on the men, the shirts of plaid flannel on the women that concealed their breasts and made them seem like boys who’d never grown up.

  And she waited for the music to stop, the driver in his gray suit and cap at her arm.

  But Bechel-Gore had his eyes on Menahan, and when the priest stepped out of the shadows and began to walk toward her, he hesitated for a moment, then slid his legs out of the car and used the door to help himself stand.

  “What are you going to buy with this money?” she asked the first player, an older fellow with graying hair like her own, but curly and oiled.

  “Whis-ky,” he said through bottom teeth that were bad and discolored.

  “Why whisky?”

  Paddy had taken her arm now, but she knew he’d not lead her away.

  “Because it makes me feel good.”

  She blinked, the
n looked at the others. “It always makes me ill.” She dropped the note into the tambourine that the player held out, and a shout went up from the others.

  Somebody stepped in front of her. A priest.

  “Do you remember me, Grainne?”

  “Get out of here,” Paddy said, the pressure on her arm suddenly firm.

  “I’m John Menahan from the next farm, Bill and Moira’s boy.”

  “Johnny?” she asked, her voice rising oddly, trying to connect the stout man in front of her with the dim recollection of the little boy who’d been full of fun and mischief and who had played with her as a child.

  “Yes, Grainne. Johnny.”

  “Get out of it now, Father, or I’ll—”

  “Easy, son. Easy!” said the player on the sidewalk. “Don’t disturb the lady when she’s got philanthropy on her mind.”

  Bechel-Gore let go of the door, hoping his legs would carry him after the long ride in the car.

  Paddy tried to pull her away, but the silk of the sleeve was glossy and slick and she slipped her arm free.

  “Maggie Kate is dead, Grainne. She died Friday. She’s being waked just across the Green there. At O’Brien’s. I know she’d like to see you.”

  “You bastard!” Bechel-Gore shouted, hobbling toward them. “Stop him, Paddy!”

  The player stood. He was tall and rangy.

  The driver reached for her again, but the player, thrusting out the palm of his hand, struck him in the chest and knocked him back.

  “And the child is there too. I know you’d like to see her. It’s remarkable how much Mairead Kehlen resembles you.”

  “Child?” she asked, looking away and cocking her head, like a bird listening to the sound of a familiar call. “Mairead Kehlen?” Just the name alone brought up such bitter, painful memories. “Maggie Kate?”

  “But Roger told me—” She turned to look at the car and saw her husband walking toward her. She felt suddenly weak and faint and confused.

  “Yes,” Menahan said in a soft voice, almost a whisper. “She was murdered, Maggie Kate was. Last Friday. And Mairead Kehlen—”

  Again the driver launched himself at the priest, but this time the guard restrained him.

  “I’m the lady’s husband, guard, and I want to get her into the hotel.” Bechel-Gore’s voice was commanding, certain of the prerogatives that went with the Bentley, his tweeds and long face, the chauffeur, the Shelbourne, and the ten-pound note.

  “O’Brien’s?” she asked the priest. “O’Brien’s what?”

  “Funeral—”

  But Bechel-Gore had her by the arm, and he and Paddy led her toward the canopy, where hotel personnel assisted them.

  In the lobby one of the managers moved toward them. “Sir Roger—good to see you. And Lady Bechel-Gore.” Then his smile fell. She appeared dazed or stunned or—. He turned to Bechel-Gore. “And walking. My word, sir, that is good news.”

  Bechel-Gore only nodded and pushed by him. But he stopped short.

  Sitting there was Keegan himself, another man in the chair next to him. Keegan had one hand under his coat. Their eyes met and Keegan smiled, his eyes hard.

  Bechel-Gore moved Grainne toward the desk and the elevator. “I’ll register later. Have it brought up to me.”

  McKeon, who was sitting by Keegan, also had a hand concealed—in the side pocket of his jacket. “Know him?”

  Keegan said nothing.

  “That’s Sir Roger Bloody Bore,” said McKeon, reaching for a cigarette. “Horses.

  “How about that drink you promised me?”

  They went into the bar.

  McGarr didn’t arrive at his father’s flat until nearly midnight, and he didn’t bother to switch on the hall lights on his climb to the fifth floor. The circuit was attached to a timer and only as a child had he been able to sprint up the flights of long, narrow stairs and make the door before they went out. And anyhow, the climb in the dark was rather reassuring—that in spite of events which he seemed powerless to control, other things (the daily, homely details of Dublin) were in place:

  The smell of a hot iron on wet clothes on the Birmingham landing and the bawl of a baby beyond; cabbage and fish stew, with the inevitable two cases of empties after the weekend where Missus Magowan, who was a fishmonger with a cart, and her sister still lived; a telly and flute music out of the third floor, a family who was new by ten years or so and not known to McGarr; silence at Keatings, since he was a bachelor and a barman and would be closing up now; and at last the smell of white burley pipe tobacco that had always been a part of his house but had grown stronger over the many years—nearly twenty now—since McGarr’s mother had passed away.

  And another smell, something cooking and good.

  And laughter, a woman’s voice—Noreen. He could hear his father too—high and weak now with age—as he related some story in the sing-song pattern of his native Monaghan, his voice wandering up at the end of a breath, no matter the sense.

  McGarr paused before stepping in, wanting to resolve at least some of the questions that he’d been mulling over since leaving the Castle ten minutes before.

  —Frayne: a killer for hire, first by the I. R. A. and then by somebody else. The affair at the kip on Eccles Street was only Frayne breaking away from the I. R. A. connection, but the bloodiness of it all, especially the thirteen slugs that had been pumped into the barman, who had been unarmed, made McGarr realize that he was dealing with a psychotic. The man liked to kill and he was skilled at it. McGarr had found the hair dye, the Clery’s packet, the sales slip. They now had his description, and he hoped that would help, but Frayne was well-armed and whoever was employing him had money to burn.

  —Bechel-Gore: the gun alone was a connection. He’d gotten three Skorpions from a Czechoslovakian army general as a present, or so he had said, after a big sale of horses to that country. McGarr’s staff hadn’t been able to reach the general, but the consulate in Prague was working on it. Why three? Why not two or four or a half dozen? Or five or ten, if the gift was going to be in multiples? And Bechel-Gore certainly had motive enough for the attack on Keegan and the murder of his sister. Would he have the I. R. A. connection? Could he have developed it early in life, say, when he was a student at Trinity? And all the horse sales to the foreign jumping teams, the British army stint he’d done, the studiously wrought Horse Ascendency demeanor, the “great house” and the Bentley, were they only a blind—? No. It was too elaborate for the I. R. A., who fought more like a tribe than an army and whose organization had never been known for its precise and long-range planning. But, Bechel-Gore had been in Dublin the day of the murder and he had motive and was duplicitous—the legs spoke for that, perhaps so did the story about receiving Keegan’s records in the mail as well. And the cigars. McGarr had thought he’d had something when Murray had admitted that the cigars he smoked were produced by Blodgett & Zinn, but Bechel-Gore was on the list, as was Fergus Farrell, the Commissioner of Police.

  —Sean Murray: McGarr had enough to lay a charge against him. They had him under surveillance, and for his own sake he should have been picked up that morning. He’d since pawned an expensive camera—his own—for next to nothing, tried to have a spat with the girl, Mairead, in the lounge bar at Neary’s, then exchanged what money was left for a small packet from an unsavory character well known to the vice squad. Could the murder of the old woman and everything else be unrelated? McGarr didn’t think so.

  —Murray, the father: he had motive. His businesses were not as sound as he made them out to be. Ulster Bank had had no vendetta against him; the loan he’d taken had simply fallen due. He had entered the bloodstock business when he was overextended, and for the first several years he met with little success. He had I. R. A. connections of sorts, or at least he’d been good to them. The cigar. The knowledge that a horse fed green apples would kill itself would be his too. But mostly McGarr thought of the interview in Murray’s offices that morning, and the bathetic tone of voice when talking abo
ut his son. It had been like—McGarr thought of the television on Mrs. Brady’s kitchen table—a soap opera, almost as though he’d been wishing the murder on his son. And the trembling, the bloodshot eyes, the boozy sweat. And it occurred to McGarr then that they still did not know M. E. Murray’s blood type.

  —Keegan: he was a victim too, but certainly he’d had the connections to have employed Frayne, and the money, given the information in the files McGarr had gotten at Bechel-Gore’s. And he too had knowledge of horses, evidently in depth, since he’d passed himself off as a veterinarian for more than a decade. There were those who swore by him, the Drogheda barracks superintendent had said. And then the incident at the Shelbourne. McKeon had reported that Keegan had planned on being there at that hour, as if he’d known in advance Bechel-Gore’s activities.

  —Menahan: he wasn’t at the rectory and hadn’t been for two days and nights. He’d visited Murray twice since, however, and had been “hired” by him before. And why had he accosted the unfortunate Grainne Bechel-Gore like that? McGarr was an optimist, and it was difficult for him to conceive of a purely evil person or act—the web of circumstance, personal history, and causation being a complex weave—but that had been evil and cruel. But, then again, was Bechel-Gore’s having kept the knowledge of her child from Grainne all those years any less so? No, but it hadn’t been…violent in intent. Menahan’s act was as much an assault as if he had struck her.

  —The girl: McGarr didn’t know what to think of her yet. She, like her mother, was an enigma, and he wondered how wise it had been to have detailed Ward to her. McGarr had watched her training out at the Show Ground only several hours before, and she was deceivingly strong—hands, arms, legs—and would have been able to have—. No. He didn’t think so. He didn’t want to think so. What motive could she have had? And how could she have affected the connection with Frayne? Would she have had the kind of money to pay him?

  He didn’t know and he was tired.

  He opened the door, and the pleasant warmth of the turf briquettes that his father kept burning in the stove winter and summer greeted him along with the aroma of coddle, a sausage-and-bacon stew that was peculiar to Dublin and best late at night like this.