England's Janissary

  CHAPTER 20

  Longford Town

  FLYNN HAD BEEN unnaturally impressed at how easily Willson had accepted the news of his transfer to special duties. ‘Sergeant already and the ink not dry on your enlistment forms? God save Ireland, what has become of the constabulary?’ Willson had joked.

  ‘Well, now, I’ll miss you, Kevin, my boy, for you’ve the makings of a decent copper about you,’ O’Neill had said, barely able to hide his disappointment that Flynn was going. ‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ he added quietly. Flynn knew that he’d miss Willson with his puffing and panting and O’Neill’s sardonic wit, but without Kathleen, Drumlish held few attractions for him. Maybe, if he played his cards right, he’d get a transfer to the relative safety of the depot in Dublin. Until then he was stuck with Kelleher and his harebrained scheme to make contact with the IRA leadership and all the cloak and dagger sneaking about.

  Longford town centre was busy despite the Troubles and as Flynn leant at the corner of Richmond and Main Street, watching the shadows lengthen, he forced himself to gaze once more at his tatty copy of the Irish Times for the umpteenth time and realized that he had long stopped even pretending to read it. There were too many long words and even the crossword was beyond him. Kathleen was good at crosswords, he thought, as his mind drifted to more pleasant distractions.

  ‘Stay focused,’ he muttered to himself as he scanned the shoppers for any signs of anything suspicious, although he wasn’t really that sure what suspicious behaviour looked like in the first place, especially as he’d received no real training in detective work. It felt really strange to be in civvies again after so long. He’d got used to uniforms of one sort or other and sometimes it almost felt like he’d never been out of one since he was eighteen. It made him even more conscious than usual of the dead weight of his .38 Webley revolver in the bottom of his overcoat pocket. ‘Wouldn’t it be good if policemen didn’t have to carry guns?’ he’d once said to Willson.

  ‘Aye, there was a time,’ the sergeant had replied dolefully. ‘I guess you’ve heard I’m off to Liverpool then? At least there are no guns there,’ the sergeant had said. ‘Let’s hope not, eh?’ Flynn had added. ‘Aye, let’s hope not,’ Willson had agreed. It would be a few weeks yet before he left.

  From his vantage point Flynn could see Kelleher and Kitty strolling arm in arm down Main Street, chatting and looking casually into shop windows like an intimate couple. He could see them laughing and rolled his eyes. ‘Are you sure that this is a good idea?’ he’d asked Kelleher about his meetings with Kitty. ‘Where is all this going?’ Flynn persisted.

  ‘Slowly slowly catchy monkey,’ Kelleher had replied in good spirits but Flynn didn’t really have a clue what he was on about.

  ‘You know, sir,’ he’d said to Kelleher, ‘I haven’t really been trained for this cloak and dagger malarkey.’

  Kelleher had just looked at him and said, ‘Just stay calm and keep your wits about you. It’s a bit like going on a trench raid. Piece of cake really.’

  Sounds like Boy’s Own bollocks to me, Flynn had thought and now he was beginning to regret volunteering to work with Kelleher. Never volunteer for anything, Flynn rued. Didn’t the army teach you anything?

  He shivered as a cold wind picked up and with a quick flick of his wrist snapped the collar of his coat up against the chill before tucking the newspaper under his arm. Then, as casually as possible, he relocated to a shop doorway some fifty feet away whilst further down the street two constables walked through the crowd, scanning the shoppers suspiciously as they approached him. One of them even looked directly at Flynn but without a glimmer of recognition. Thank God for that, Flynn thought. The last thing he needed was to be recognized by some local policeman. He felt conspicuous enough as it was.

  ‘Is that the bastard?’ Fitzgerald asked Maguire as they watched Flynn move from his street corner observation post.

  ‘Aye, that’s the beggar,’ Maguire replied quietly.

  ‘Shall I cap him now?’ Fitzgerald asked, without emotion. Maguire shook his head. Further down the street Maguire could see Paddy Doyle following Kelleher and Kitty and he was worried that McNamara was out there somewhere, well out of sight. He was the wild card and Maguire hoped that he wouldn’t do something stupid, like gunning down Flynn in the street.

  ‘You seen Mick anywhere?’ Maguire asked Fitzgerald.

  ‘Eunan’s with him – he’ll make sure he doesn’t do nothing stupid,’ Fitzgerald said as he glanced up and down the street.

  ‘Yous in the Rah, mister?’ Flynn suddenly looked round to find a flea-bitten, barefoot urchin of about ten years of age standing beside him. ‘Yous in the Rah, mister?’ he pestered again, meaning the IRA. It never ceased to amaze him how the street kids seemed to be able to sniff out suspicious characters like a bloodhound.

  ‘Piss off!’ Flynn hissed, shoving the boy to one side.

  ‘Yous a peeler then, mister?’

  ‘Piss off!’ Flynn repeated.

  ‘So, mister,’ the boy persisted, oblivious of Flynn’s remarks. ‘Yous after yer man over there then?’ Flynn assumed that he meant Kelleher and cursed silently. Was it that obvious? But then it dawned on him that assumption was the mother of all cock-ups and he realized the boy was looking somewhere else. It was then that Flynn saw him, a young man, pretending to look in a shop window a few yards behind Kelleher, his right hand firmly in his trenchcoat pocket. Flynn cursed himself for being shown up by a ten-year-old. ‘Anyone else?’ Flynn asked. The boy grinned, a grubby gap-toothed grin.

  ‘It’ll cost yer, mister,’ he said and Flynn flicked a shiny silver sixpence in the boy’s direction. He was quick and caught it easily in his grubby paw before nodding off in another direction. Flynn looked around at a tall blond man standing on his own, about thirty yards back. ‘Now, be a good fella and piss off!’ Flynn hissed, and the boy darted away into the crowd.

  ‘Shit!’ hissed Maguire. ‘That little brat has fingered Doyle.’ Fitzgerald went to move but Maguire caught his arm. ‘Wait,’ he ordered.

  Fitzgerald looked up and noticed Flynn looking at him, so he quickly turned to look in the shop window. ‘Me and you are going to have words, you little beggar,’ Fitzgerald muttered, making a mental note to speak to the boy.

  Flynn was worried and blood pounded in his ears, reminding him of the sea breaking on the shore. He felt incredibly conspicuous and vulnerable and felt a sudden urge to run after the two uniformed policemen and tell them everything. He fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette, grazing his knuckles on his pistol.

  ‘Can I get you a light?’ Flynn jumped.

  A man stood next to him, casually gazing off down the street, looking at nothing in particular. Flynn cursed himself for letting someone creep up on him like that and allowing the boy to distract him. It was a schoolboy error. Maybe the boy had done it deliberately? He tried to stay calm and looked down at the man who was lean and dark, a few inches shorter than Flynn and about ten years older. His flat cap was pulled very low over his eyes – his cold, hard, empty eyes – and the collar of his worn trenchcoat was flipped up against the elements. The man smiled at Flynn with an utter lack of warmth, dripping insincerity, showing his teeth like a circling shark.

  The man struck a match against a matchbox and held the flaring piece of wood up in his cupped hands for Flynn, who leant forward, placing the tip of his cigarette into the flame and drew in. It was then that he noticed, as the man shook out the match and tossed it away, that there was something wrong with his left hand – the thumb was missing. Probably a war wound from the man’s age. There were plenty of men about with bits missing after all.

  ‘Thanks,’ Flynn said.

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ Maguire replied, completing the ritual, and for a moment there was silence. ‘You be careful now,’ he said with a smile whilst patting Flynn on the arm before melting expertly into the crowd. Flynn stood still, the smouldering cigarette hanging from his lips as he tried to work out whether what had
happened was something or nothing.

  ‘Where have I heard that voice before?’ he thought and he racked his brains trying to remember whether he had met anyone with a missing thumb. Then the penny dropped, dropped like a stone. The man he had shot in February outside the barracks, the bloody thumb in the dirt. He shuddered and then panic gripped him as he desperately scanned the crowd. He could no longer see the two men the boy had pointed out. Galvanized into action, he sped off down the street, barging his way noisily through the crowd until he saw Kelleher and Kitty ahead of him, strolling along, oblivious. He skidded to a halt behind them.

  ‘Yes?’ said Kelleher, with obvious irritation, giving Flynn a hostile look.

  Maguire finally met up with Doyle and Fitzgerald on the corner of Great Water Street and climbed into the black Austin Tourer that was waiting for them there. ‘Any sign of Mick and Eunan?’ Maguire asked but Fitzgerald shook his head and, much to his irritation, after ten minutes there was still no sign of them. Two policemen strolled around the corner and headed in their direction.

  ‘All right, let’s be off then,’ Maguire said and without a word the driver pulled away as Doyle slumped back in his seat and muttered, ‘I don’t know why we don’t just shoot the bastards and be done with it?’

  Maguire gave Doyle a sidelong glance. ‘Because, Pat, m’boy, the boss, he don’t want it yet. That, m’boy, is why.’

  ‘Jesus, Joe, I nearly had a heart attack when I saw you give that peeler a light!’ Doyle spluttered and Maguire flashed him a toothy smile. ‘Why did you have to go and talk to him?’ Doyle asked.

  ‘Because I was after getting a good look at the fella, just so I know what he looks like. After all, I wouldn’t want to be shooting the wrong man!’ Maguire laughed. It was a hollow laugh, like a man making an effort to laugh at a joke that wasn’t really funny. Fitzgerald laughed too. Doyle nodded again and shifted in his seat as the car bumped over a pothole, wondering whether it was all just talk or whether Maguire really was that cold about killing.

  ‘I really wish that we would just get on with this bloody business and take the bastards out. Isn’t that where all this is leading anyway?’ Doyle asked, without really expecting an answer.

  ‘Arra, you’re probably not wrong, Pat, but it’s up to yer man MacEoin, not us, when we do it. Orders is orders and we have ours, so we do, isn’t that so, Brendan,’ Maguire said, glancing sidelong at Fitzgerald.

  ‘That’s what soldiers do, Pat, what they are told, and until we get told otherwise we just keep an eye on those two fellas. There’ll be time enough for killing, so there will. There is always time for killing.’

  Maguire snorted.

  ‘Well?’ Kelleher repeated imperiously and Flynn looked nervously at Kitty.

  ‘This place is crawling with Shinners,’ Flynn said, noticing Kitty shoot him a dirty look when he said Shinner.

  ‘Of course it is,’ Kelleher said, unsurprised. ‘I’d’ve expected nothing less,’ he added. Kitty interrupted the two men.

  ‘My lift is here,’ she said. Kelleher looked surprised as she pointed at an Austin Tourer parked at the end of the street. Four men were sitting in it.

  ‘I thought you were taking the bus?’ Kelleher asked.

  ‘My brother arranged a lift,’ Kitty said. Flynn looked at the car and straight into Maguire’s eyes. Maguire smiled and nodded.

  ‘That’s the bastard!’ Flynn hissed but Kitty ignored him and turned to Kelleher.

  ‘Until next time,’ she said and walked off across the street whilst Kelleher watched her retreating backside closely.

  ‘Who’s the bastard in the motor?’ Kelleher asked as the car pulled away.

  ‘Those men were IRA – they were following us!’ Flynn said.

  ‘Of course they are,’ Kelleher said. ‘I’d have been surprised if they hadn’t. That’s why you tag along, to keep an eye on me. After all, it’s not like I’m trying to hide the fact that I’m trying to make contact with the local republicans.’

  ‘That’s all well and good, sir, but I’m sure that one of the little shites had the nerve to come up and talk to me,’ Flynn replied.

  Kelleher looked at him and shrugged. ‘Well, what makes you think that it was one of the other side, eh?’

  Flynn’s brow furrowed as he thought about his response. ‘Because, sir, he was sitting in that bloody car!’ Flynn shuddered at the memory. ‘He was an evil-looking bastard. His eyes were empty; you’d know the type, sir. There were loads in the trenches: blank, cold, almost beyond caring.’

  ‘Just a few,’ Kelleher replied with a smile. ‘Always found them useful in a fight, but bloody scary to be around otherwise.’ Flynn shrugged and the two men turned and started walking back towards the Auxiliary barracks.

  ‘He was one of the men who attacked Drumlish barracks last January,’ Flynn said to Kelleher.

  ‘How do you know?’ Kelleher asked.

  ‘Because he’d lost his thumb,’ Flynn replied.

  ‘And?’ Kelleher interrupted, intrigued.

  ‘And when the IRA attacked the barracks last February we found a thumb out on the street after they buggered off in the morning. And I have got an awful feeling that I have just met the man whose thumb it was, the man I shot.’

  ‘You know, Sergeant, I really didn’t take you for the windy type. That’s why I recruited you, because you’ve shown that you have some guts, so please don’t tell me that your nerves are going?’ he said deliberately, pricking Flynn’s pride.

  ‘No, I’m fine, sir, I just think we need to be careful,’ Flynn said. ‘I don’t trust that flaming Kiernan woman.’

  ‘Anyway, Miss Kiernan tells me that the rebels are willing to meet with me next week …’ Flynn looked intently at the young DI as he spoke, suddenly listening intently to his every word. ‘She has arranged for me to meet the local IRA’s top man in her family’s hotel in Granard.’

  ‘And you trust her?’ he spluttered incredulously.

  ‘I don’t see why not….’

  ‘With all respect, sir, she’s a Shinner too, so how do you know that it isn’t a trap, a set-up?’

  ‘Because, Sergeant, I think that I’ve seen enough of Miss Kiernan to know whether she’s spinning me a line or not.’

  Flynn almost spoke but stopped himself; after all, he knew it was useless to argue the toss with the DI when he got an idea in his head. He’d also spent long enough in the army and the RIC to learn when to speak and when to shut up and now was definitely a time to shut up. He had come across similar situations in the army, when some officer had decided to do something that seemed more like a slow-motion train crash in the making rather than a cunning plan, but he also knew that for the moment he had little choice but to go along with it.

  ‘So who will you be meeting, sir?’ Flynn asked.

  ‘She couldn’t say …’ Wouldn’t, more like, Flynn thought. ‘But she said they would be prepared to deal with me.’

  The words rang crashing alarm bells in Flynn’s head. ‘So, sir, will we be getting the boys from M Company to provide back-up?’

  ‘Good God, no,’ Kelleher said, ‘they’ll only frighten them off. No, we keep this under our hats for the time being.’ Flynn had had an awful feeling that Kelleher was going to say that.

  ‘The local lads from Granard barracks then, sir? Head Constable Carroll’s a good man. Surely if we get him on board it won’t raise any suspicions?’ Kelleher shook his head again.

  ‘No. Definitely not, the local plods are scared witless of the local IRA, especially since that oaf of a sergeant managed to shoot himself, and it really wouldn’t surprise me if they managed to bollocks it up. No, we can do without them as well, for the time being.’

  ‘So, sir,’ Flynn began, with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, ‘who will be providing back-up then?’

  Kelleher stopped, looked at him and smiled. ‘You will, old chap, you will! I think as things stand, we won’t need anyone else.’

  Flynn suddenly felt very
sick as he stuffed his hands deep into his overcoat pockets.

  ‘You know, sir, I had an awful feeling that you were going to say that.’ It was then that he felt the matchbox in his pocket.

  Behind them, two shapes hugged the shadows, hanging back as they followed the two policemen. ‘We should be getting back,’ Hegarty said but McNamara simply gave him a look filled with hatred and resentment.

  ‘Not yet. I want to know where these bastards are going,’ McNamara said before following them down the street.

  CHAPTER 21

  Parnell Square, Dublin

  MICHAEL COLLINS STOOD wreathed in cigarette smoke looking down at the street below and the quiet of another lazy Dublin Sunday morning. ‘You know, Emmet, it was on a Sunday just like this that we followed Paddy Pearse to the GPO back in sixteen, full of bullshit and bluster, ready to die for the republic,’ he said wistfully, without turning around.

  ‘I know, I read all about it in The Times and a right bunch of eejits I thought you were too!’

  Collins laughed as he turned around. ‘I’d forgot, Emmet, my boy, that you were one of them, back then – an officer and a gentleman in the English king’s army!’

  Emmet Dalton smiled and sipped his tea. ‘I’d rather I thought I was being sensible at the time. But Christ, was my old man fuming when he saw I’d taken the king’s shilling, so he was. “My son, a redcoat!” he ranted. A marriage of convenience, pure and simple. I like to think that I was fighting for the rights of small nations like ours. I didn’t have a problem fighting for Ireland with the British, as long as they played fair by us, and now I have no difficulty fighting for Ireland against them. I’d’ve been happy if they’d kept their promises but …’