by Rhys Bowen
“They’re a lot of sissies,” James agreed. “We can lick ‘em easy. Can’t we, Mai?”
“Well, I want you going to school, young man,” Seamus said. “Your mother would want you going to school.” He paused, looking down at his son with tenderness. “But I suppose you can take a few days to settle in first. Better to wait until we see where we’ll be living.”
Nuala and Seamus left soon after, Finbar slept undisturbed in the corner, and the boys wanted to take young Seamus out to show him the neighborhood. Seamus insisted on taking Bridie with him, although she wanted to stay with me.
“You need to learn your way around, Bridie,” he said. “Come on, you can’t be a baby all your life.”
I had to agree with that. She had come to a tough world. The sooner she adapted to it the better. So they went. I was left alone in the cold, dark apartment with Finbar snoring in the corner. A few more days and then I would find myself a job and a place to live. I looked around the place and wondered if I should attempt to clean it up. It could certainly use it, but would Nuala take it as an insult? Leave well alone, I told myself.
By mid-morning the children weren’t back, but Finbar had awakened. I decided to go out. It might take me a while to find my way down to the gardens at the southern tip of Manhattan where I had planned to meet Michael at noon. The sky was leaden and a light snow was falling as I came out onto Cherry Street. There was a layer of slush underfoot, mixing with the debris that littered all the streets. People hurried past, bundled against the cold. A few mangy dogs scrounged in the gutters. A horse’s breath came out like steam from an engine as he trotted past pulling a large cart piled high with barrels. I tried to follow the river down to the tip of New York City and came upon a great bridge, so high and wide that it took my breath away. My, but they knew how to build things in this place. It was a strange contrast to see the towering sweep of the bridge above the dingy, dirty, squalid alleyways beneath it. I pressed on. My hands were icy now inside my cotton gloves and my face felt raw with the bleak wind. It was never as cold as this in my part of Ireland. I was already wearing my spare camisole and two pairs of drawers and they definitely weren’t enough. When I earned money, I’d have to invest in warmer clothes. I glanced at the storefronts as I went past. What sort of job would I be likely to find? I knew how to keep a house clean and feed hungry males, but that was all—apart from reading Shakespeare and writing Latin, as I’d told the inspector. But a lot of use Shakespeare was. Education was only a benefit to ladies of leisure, and it didn’t look as if I’d be one of those for a while.
I heard a clock striking twelve just as I came to the little park at the tip of Manhattan. Ahead of me was an expanse of gray water with a clear view of Ellis Island and Lady Liberty. I quickened my pace, scanning the pathways eagerly to see if Michael had arrived ahead of me. But he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. The area of dying grass and skeleton trees was deserted, apart from a couple of seagulls, perched on a low wall. I hadn’t realized how very anxious I was to see him again. He was my one lifeline in a city of strangers. Maybe we could make plans together. I wished there was some way we could find a place to share. I’d have welcomed his company. Of course, it wouldn’t be seemly to share a room . . . unless we pretended to be brother and sister, of course. Maybe I’d suggest it to him and see how he took it.
It was bitter cold out there, with the winds coming straight across the wild gray waters of the harbor. Every time I turned into the wind, it took my breath away. I stamped my feet to keep the life going in them. Hurry up, Michael, I commanded silently. Twelve fifteen. Twelve twenty. He wasn’t going to come. I felt a wave of disappointment flood through me. I had been relying so much on seeing him again. Perhaps seeing me again didn’t mean as much to him. Perhaps he’d found himself a job right away this morning and was already up there, hammering away on one of the new skyscrapers. My chances of meeting him again in this city of a million people were very slim.
Cold and dejected, I turned away. All the way along South Street I kept looking back, just in case he’d come late. But the park remained deserted until it was lost from view. The cold was cutting through me like a knife. I decided to move away from the river and out of the wind. When I finally reached Cherry Street I was dreaming of a hot cup of tea and warming my hands over that kerosene stove. As I approached the building a dark form stepped out of the shadows.
“Mrs. O’Connor?”
I turned to see two men in blue uniforms standing behind me.
“Mrs. Kathleen O’Connor?” His face was expressionless. “We were on our way to find you. We must ask you to accompany us to police headquarters. Captain Sullivan would like to speak to you.”
I noticed then that there was a black paddy wagon, pulled by two horses, waiting a little way down the street. As they led me to it, I was conscious of lace curtains moving, eyes watching me.
Twelve
One good thing to be said of police headquarters—it was warm. The warm air enveloped me as the police officer opened the door and ushered me inside. I was glad because I was one big shiver by now. I couldn’t tell whether it was from being out in the cold so long or because I was scared. A little of both, I suppose.
“This way, please.”
One of the policemen led me up a flight of linoleum-covered stairs and along a hallway lined with glass-fronted cubicles. At least he had said please to me, which must mean I wasn’t under arrest yet.
“In here.” A door was opened and I was ushered inside. “Mrs. O’Connor for you, sir.”
Did those alarming blue eyes light up as I went in? Or was it the delight of a spider when a fly blunders into its den?
“Ah, Mrs. O’Connor. I’m so glad we found you with no trouble. Do sit down.” Daniel Sullivan was in his shirtsleeves. He wasn’t wearing a tie and his collar was open. Definitely a striking man.
“Mrs. O’Connor. Remember when we spoke yesterday, I suggested how much simpler it would be if you told us everything you knew?” A very long pause. “We’ve been in touch with Scotland Yard and with Dublin and some interesting facts have come to light. Very interesting facts . . . You weren’t quite straight with us before, were you, Mrs. O’Connor?”
My heart was racing. They had discovered my true identity. Would they be obliged to ship me home to be hanged in England or would they try me here? Did they hang people in America, or hadn’t I heard something about an electric chair? I had no alternative but to keep up the bluff as long as I could.
“But I did tell you everything. I told you I had never met O’Malley before we sailed from Liverpool. I told you that we had an unpleasant encounter on the boat. After we left the boat I never saw him again and that is God’s truth. I’m prepared to swear to it on the Bible if you like.”
I stared defiantly, right at those blue eyes. Sullivan reached for a sheaf of papers and studied them for a moment. The warrant for my arrest. It had to be.
“Several things have come to light, Mrs. O’Connor,” he said. He was enjoying this. The spider closing in for the kill, then. “We went through O’Malley’s baggage. Very interesting—there was nothing on his person, nothing in his trunk to identify him. No photos of loved ones, no letters, nothing personal in any way. Another mystery—you remember the boots. Good quality, London shoemaker? The clothing in his trunk was good quality, too. Some of it bore a laundry mark which we are now checking. And there was a bag containing gold sovereigns. O’Malley was not a poor man, which makes me wonder why he chose to travel steerage among the poor. Any ideas, Mrs. O’Connor?”
“None at all, sir. As I said, I didn’t know him.”
“Ah. Well, something else came to light in his trunk. It was hidden in the lining. A couple of newspaper articles. You can read, can’t you?”
This time I had no desire to give him the same sarcastic reply. I took them when he handed them to me. The first was from the Times, London, Oct 1889. PLUMBRIDCE NINE HANGED AT BELFAST GOAL. “The nine young Irishmen responsible for the savage
murder of land agent Henry Parkinson were hanged at six o’clock yesterday morning in the courtyard of Belfast Jail. They were found guilty at the Belfast assizes last month of willfully beating Mr. Parkinson with such force that he later died from his wounds. Mr. Parkinson was attempting to carry out his duty and evict the tenants of a cottage on the land of Major James Astburn, squire of county Derry . . .”
I could sense Daniel Sullivan looking at me. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. I turned to the second newspaper article. It was from the Flaming Brand, Unofficial Voice of the Fenians. “Today nine patriots died, murdered by the English for trying to protect one of their own. When Major Astburn of Stratford Hall, county Derry decided to raise the rents on his property, many of his tenants were unable to pay. This was followed by a spate of evictions. Nine young men of the village of Plum-bridge took it upon themselves to prevent Major Astburn’s agent, a hired bully brought in from England, by the name of Henry Parkinson, from carrying out his orders. On his way to a cottage occupied for generations by the O’Meara family, Parkinson was waylaid under cover of darkness. When he attempted resistance and drew his gun on the young men, they set upon him, beat him and left him on the roadside.
“There were no witnesses to this scene, the weather being inclement and the hour late. Mr. Parkinson did not live to tell his tale and his assailants belonged to a secret society, sworn to silence. They would have remained anonymous had they not been betrayed by one of their own. A tenth man was there that night, a man who claimed to have no part in the killings. He melted away into the darkness, made his escape over the sea, and turned in the names of his friends. Whereupon they were immediately arrested, tried, and sentenced to death. They died not knowing that they had been betrayed by one of their own.”
Sullivan was looking at me inquiringly again. “Was the man O’Malley?” I asked.
“You tell me, Mrs. O’Connor.”
“But I told you, I never met—”
He produced another sheet of paper. “This message just came by telegraph from London. The names of the Plumbridge Nine. Shall I read them to you, Mrs. O’Connor? Brendan Sheehey, Thomas Larkin, Liam McCluskey—”
Then, of course, it hit me. I felt the blood rush into my face. I had heard this story before, told to me by Kathleen O’Connor as we sat beside her dying fire. ‘My brother Liam, only eighteen years old.’ Kathleen O’Connor’s brother had been one of the Plumbridge Nine.
“Your maiden name was McCluskey, was it not?”
Tell him now, a voice inside me was yelling. Tell him the truth. It can’t be any worse than what will face you here.
“Yes, sir.”
“And your family did come from the town of Plumbridge, in county Derry?”
“Yes, they did.”
“And I’d be right in guessing that Liam McCluskey was your brother, then?”
Kathleen’s brother, not mine! I stared down at my hands. A chillblain was beginning on one of my red and raw fingers.
“Interesting fellow, O’Malley,” Captain Sullivan said. “It’s obviously an assumed name, of course. Scotland Yard had never heard of him. Nobody in Dublin could place him. So who was Mr. O’Malley really? Can you supply me with his real name? Save us all a lot of work. Of course, we’ll find out soon enough. That bootmaker will be tracked down, the laundry marks will be identified, and then we’ll know. But it would help if you told us now, wouldn’t it?”
“I really don’t know, Captain. I swear I do not know Mr. O’Malley. I had no reason to kill him. Besides, you yourself said that I wouldn’t have the strength to cut his throat as violently as it had been cut.”
“As I told you before, Mrs. O’Connor, I don’t see you as the murderer, but the accomplice and maybe the brains behind it?” I glanced up to see him watching me closely. “Shall I tell you what I think happened that night on Ellis Island? I’m not sure if this whole thing was planned on Irish soil. Maybe you had been following O’Malley for years, seeking vengeance, waiting to strike. Maybe it was just a lucky coincidence. You boarded the Majestic and couldn’t believe your eyes when you recognized your fellow passenger, now calling himself O’Malley.”
“In which case, why didn’t I get rid of him on board? We were allowed up on deck for an hour most days. One well-placed shove and he’d be overboard. Why wait until we got to America, to a place that was heavily guarded, with people around us everywhere?”
“Maybe he was on his guard all the time on the ship. You never had a chance to find him alone and unprotected. I think you realized it would be your last chance to kill O’Malley before he got away onto a vast continent and vanished. It was a huge risk, but you had to take it. One of you slipped into the kitchens and stole a large meat cutting knife—one is missing, by the way. Then you kept watch outside the men’s dormitory while your accomplice slipped inside and with one daring stroke killed O’Malley in his sleep. Can you tell me anything to make me change my story, Mrs. O’Connor?”
“Only that it’s a pack of lies,” I said. I was tired of being meek and mild. If I had to go, I’d go fighting. “And who is this accomplice supposed to be, I’d like to know? The guard I saw in the men’s dormitory?”
Captain Sullivan nodded to the policeman who was standing outside the door. I looked up as footsteps came down the hall and then I gasped. Michael Larkin was being escorted in between two burly policemen, his face as white as the shirt he was wearing, his innocent eyes as large as saucers. He looked at me and recoiled in horror.
“Are you going to claim that you didn’t know this young man, either, Mrs. O’Connor?”
“We met on the boat,” I said. “Michael was very helpful with the children.”
“And you never met in your hometown? Never once saw each other in church?”
“I moved away, years ago, to live with an aunt.” The words just came out. Lie upon lie. I was surely destined for hell the way I was going.
“And you never saw this lady before you got on the boat?” He turned to Michael.
“No, sir, I never did.”
“And you never worked out that your next of kin were involved in the same famous trial? You never sat on the same court benches, waiting for the verdict? Never stood outside Belfast Jail, waiting for the final, terrible moment together? I find that hard to believe.”
“I was not present at any of the events you speak of.” I stared back, challenging him.
He leaned back in his chair and looked at me. “I’m curious. You don’t sound the same. I’m no expert on Irish dialects, but you don’t speak in the same way. Why is that?”
“I told you, I lived with an aunt over on the west coast when I was young.”
“One of you is going to crack in the end,” Sullivan said. “I wouldn’t like to guess which of you, at this stage. It’s not very pleasant in the Tombs, is it, Larkin? Perhaps when Mrs. O’Connor has had a taste of what it’s like down there, with the prostitutes and the pickpockets and the scum of New York City—when her little children are starting to cry for their mother . . .”
“Stop it,” Michael shouted. “She had nothing to do with it. I swear she had nothing to do with it at all.”
“And I’m sure Michael had nothing to do with it, either,” I said. “He’s not a violent type. He’s a kind, gentle person. And where was the blood on his clothing, if he’d just slit a man’s throat?”
The alarming eyes fastened on me. “But there was blood on his clothing, Mrs. O’Connor. There were spatters of blood on his jacket and his handkerchief was soaked in blood.” He swiveled his chair to look at Michael. “I’ve got the right man, trust me. What better motive than vengeance for the death of a father? Isn’t that what all the great tragedies are about? I’ll take it to court and I’ll make it stick. My only dilemma is you, Mrs. O’Connor. Were you in on this or not?”
“I told you, she wasn’t,” Michael shouted. “Now let her go.”
Sullivan got to his feet. “The man says to let you go,” he said. “You’re a wom
an with small children, so I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, for now. But I’ve got more evidence coming in from Britain all the time. And I’ll be watching you. So don’t think you’re off the hook, Mrs. O’Connor. You’re not.”
I got to my feet, too. “You’re making a big mistake, Captain Sullivan. When you find out O’Malley’s true name, and his background, then you’ll know that neither of us had any reason to kill him.”
“I hope, for your sakes, that will be true, Mrs. O’Connor.”
“And in the meantime you’ve got a violent killer running around loose in New York City and you’re doing nothing to find him.”
As I swept down the hall with all the dignity I could muster, Michael reached out to grab my arm. “Kathleen, you will help me, won’t you? You’re the only person who believes in me. You’re all I’ve got.”
“I’ll help you, Michael. I promise.”
“You’re the only one who can save us both. If they ship us back to Ireland, we’ll hang.”
The policemen pushed him past me and down another stairway. His voice echoed up the tiled stairwell long after he had vanished from my sight. I stumbled down the front stairs and out onto the street. I had just promised a man that I would do the impossible.
Thirteen
I came out into the late afternoon hubbub that was New York. People everywhere, all of them in a hurry, all wrapped and bundled like mummies against the snow that was still falling. I struck out in what I thought was the direction of the East River.
What have you done? I asked myself. How could I have volunteered to take responsibility for a man’s life? How could I possibly prove he was innocent? The answer came immediately: by finding the one who is guilty. I would have to produce someone who had a better reason for wanting O’Malley dead—and I had no idea how I could do that. The English police might be able to find the details on O’Malley’s background, but I never could. I’d just have to start with what I knew.