The Irish Inheritance: A Jayne Sinclair Genealogical Mystery

by M J Lee

  But for Michael it meant everything. Finally, here was their chance to follow in the footsteps of Wolfe Tone and the United Irishman. He patted his left-hand jacket pocket. The book given to him last year by Fitz nestled there snugly. He always carried it with him, a reminder of why they were fighting. He looked across at Fitz. His perpetual smirk and air of insouciance were gone, replaced by an obvious pride in what they were doing.

  The marched up Sackville Street, arms swinging and rifles held tightly against their shoulders. Up ahead of them on the left, the GPO stood solidly against the skyline, its replica Grecian facade dominating the buildings around it.

  A shock of pride surged through Michael's body. This was what they were fighting for. This was why they had drilled and marched and polished all these months.

  They turned left into Prince's Street and waited. They could see armed men at the windows, but the doors remained closed.

  Eamon Bulfin banged on the door with his fist. A muffled shout came from inside. Michael couldn't hear what was being said, but Eamon suddenly became animated.

  'Form a line across the street. The Lancers are coming,' he shouted.

  They raced into position across Prince's Street as they had practised so many times at the old Mill in Rathfarnham. Fitz was on Michael's right and the rest of the men had spread out across the width of the road, their rifles all pointing menacingly forward.

  The order came. 'Fix Bayonets.' This time it was shouted by Boland.

  Neither Michael nor Fitz had bayonets so they just stood there. Around them, they could hear the rasp of steel as some of the men pulled the long knives from their scabbards, followed by the clicks and fumbling as they fixed them at the end of their rifles.

  Finally, all was quiet again and the men just waited in the street.

  Eamon Bulfin walked around behind them, shouting in his high-pitched voice. 'The Brits are sending in the Lancers, lads. Let's give them some Irish steel.'

  Michael looked across at Fitz. His jaw was set tight and he had planted his feet firmly on the ground, one in front of the other, rifle pointing forward ready to open fire.

  Was this it? Was this what they had been practising and marching and drilling for all these years?

  Fitz raised his rifle to his shoulder. Michael followed him, the Mauser heavy in his arms. Would he be able to fire it? To see another human being in the sights and pull the trigger? Well, in the next few minutes he would find out.

  Michael looked out past the end of the rifle into Sackville Street but couldn't see any Lancers. A group of men, women and children were watching from the side of the road, like spectators at a GAA match.

  Then from above a rifle shot. The sharp crack of a Lee Enfield, followed by others, the deeper booms of the Howth Mausers and the taps of revolvers. A volley of shots from the roof of the GPO.

  He heard the sound of hooves echoing on the hard tarmac of the road.

  A riderless horse raced past, its eyes wild with fear. A young man ran out from the crowd of spectators to stop it. The horse, startled by the sudden movement, sheered away from him until he grabbed the bridle.

  Michael noticed blood on the horse's flank, red against the white of the sheepskin blanket. He wondered if it was a man's blood or that of the horse. Another man joined the youth holding onto the reins, gentling the horse until it calmed down.

  A cheer came from the roof of the GPO.

  'Stand down men, the attack has been repulsed.' This was shouted by Boland.

  Another cheer came from the Rathfarnham men. Then silence. The whole street quiet as if the Lancers and their charge had never existed. An eerie silence. Michael waited for someone to say something. Nobody did. It was as if they had all realised at the same time, that this was real. It wasn't an exercise any more. This was a fight for Ireland.

  'Smash the windows. We're going in.'

  Michael wondered why the men inside didn't simply open the doors facing Prince's Street to let them in, but it didn't matter. Two men stepped forward and smashed the windows with the butt of their rifles. The noise shattered the quiet on the street. Suddenly the crowd was shouting. Michael tried to hear what they were saying. It seemed to be two women who were shouting loudest.

  'Go home to your mammies.'

  'Shame on you with our men fighting in France.'

  The shouts were taken up by others in the crowd.

  'Why aren't you lot in France?'

  'Join up.'

  'You feckers should be fighting in feckin' France, not on the streets of Dublin.'

  The men ignored them. Boland and Bulfin climbed through the broken window into the ground floor of the GPO where they were greeted by Padraig Pearse and James Connelly. Willie Pearse, the commander of their company and Padraig's brother, stood off to one side.

  'Good to have you with us, Bulfin,' said Connelly.

  'Sorry we're late, sir.'

  'E company is always late,' sniffed Willie.

  'It's a long way from Rathfarnham, sir.'

  'Well, better late than never,' smiled Connolly through his moustache, 'we're glad you're here.'

  'Can you open the doors to let the rest of the men in?'

  Willie Pearse coughed. 'We can't find the key. Just climb in, will you?'

  The rest of the men lined up to climb through the windows. One or two cut themselves on the edges of the broken glass. The man in front of Michael was being extra careful to avoid touching the sharp edges. He levered himself up onto the ledge but, as he did so, his rifle fell off his shoulder and the butt struck the ground. A loud shot echoed through the street and into the GPO.

  Some men ducked. A few threw themselves down to the ground. Others simply stood there.

  The man in front of Michael turned back towards him. 'I've been shot,' he whispered, before falling forwards into the GPO.

  Immediately, men rushed forward.

  Connolly shouted. 'Get the doctor for this man.'

  Michael stood there, looking through the broken window into the GPO. The man lay on the ground with a dark river of blood seeping through his trousers and running out onto the wooden floor. Men surrounded him. A doctor, dressed in a British Army uniform rushed forward, pushing his way through the onlookers.

  'Take him down to the clinic in the sorting office,' he commanded.

  Three men rushed forward. Two took his legs and the other took his head, following the doctor.

  Throughout all this the man remained quiet, the wild look in his eyes reminding Michael of the horse running through the street just minutes before.

  He felt a shove in his back, Fitz was standing right behind him.

  'Well, are you going to be standing there for the rest of your life, Michael Dowling, or are we going to join this Revolution?'

  Chapter Sixteen

  Manchester. November 12, 2015.

  David Turner had followed her to a small shop in Cheetham Hill, Herbert Levy and Sons. What could she want with arms and militaria? No matter. It was not his place to ask such questions. He had instructions and would carry them out to the letter until he received new ones. A good soldier he was. Or he should say, a good ex-soldier. And, like many others in his line of business, he came out of the Army with a degree in killing and not much else. Working for some poxy security firm with a bunch of trigger-happy Americans didn't appeal, neither did swapping one uniform for another by going into the police.

  He decided to work for himself and loved it immediately, quickly gaining a reputation for being able to sort out problems with the minimum of fuss.

  A bad debt? The money has been sent, thank you.

  A cheating husband? Warning delivered with just a hint of the violence the man could expect unless he reformed his ways and withdraw his wayward willy. Coitus Interruptus, he always liked to joke.

  A business partner with his hand in the till?

  How many fingers would you like him to lose?

  His reputation had grown and now he could be more choosy about the sort of cl
ients he worked with, only accepting those who would pay his inflated fees. No more discounts. No more favours. No more mate’s rates.

  He checked his computer. The information on this assignment had arrived in his mailbox as instructed, with 'Office Move' as the title. An address and a photo of the target with precise instructions for a watching brief through the day, followed by a sharp warning in the evening. The time and form of the warning to be decided by him.

  He had already scoped out the home of the target. An easy place to find in the suburbs of Manchester. An even easier place to watch sitting in his van marked A&E Electrical.

  Anybody walking past would see him filling in a few forms on the front seat, having just completed a job. Or eating his lunch on his break. Or simply waiting for a homeowner to return so that he could start a job. Either way, he was covered. He even had a business card to give out in case anybody wanted one. Unfortunately, if they rang the 1-800 number, the phone would be answered by the madam of one of his favourite brothels. So it goes. You had to have a little fun on this job.

  People tended to accept the presence of minor tradespeople. Plumbers, electricians, nothing too official, and nothing with the word contractor on it. He'd made that mistake once. Within half an hour, five people had come up to him in his car complaining about the noise from his building work. Work that had never started and was never going to start. So it goes.

  She was coming out of the shop now. Nothing in her hands and looking the same as before. But moving quickly, as if she were in a hurry. He followed her as she accelerated down Cheetham Hill Road. She was driving fast, he would have to speed up to make sure he didn't lose her. He didn't like breaking the speed limit on jobs. Some keen copper in a car, out to make a point, could pull him over and he would lose the target.

  She was putting her foot down. I wonder what happened in the shop to make her so agitated. Looks like she was heading home, though, back to Didsbury, just following the same route she took coming here, but in reverse.

  He loved how predictable most people were. Always using the same password on multiple accounts made getting into their online life so easy. And don't talk to him about how easy it was to get into an answering machine. Hadn't the News of the World and the other papers been blagging phones for years. Not that he could do all that stuff himself, of course. But there were people who could and they could be bought as easily as shopping at Tesco.

  Numpties. That's what he called the great unwashed, law-abiding, Daily Mail-reading, wife-swapping, wine-soaked, once-a-week-on-a-Sunday-shagging, doll's-house-living lot of them.

  You've got to love their stupidity. They kept him in work and money and fast cars. But, above all, they kept him happy, every last single stupid one of them.

  This one was no different, even if she was an ex-copper. He would carry on following her. And the warning would come this evening. Nothing too subtle. Warnings needed to be in your face. No matter if she went to the police. It just meant she understood she was being threatened.

  And there was nobody better at delivering a threat than him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Didsbury, Manchester. November 16, 2015.

  She put the key in the door, opened it slightly and listened for any sound.

  Silence. Paul wasn't at home.

  A few letters were lying on the floor in the hall; bills, bills and a few more bills for good measure. Nothing important, they could all wait until hell froze over.

  She hurried to the kitchen and switched on the Mac. After the visit to the newly studious Herbert Levy, she had a hunch and was desperate to see if it would lead her to the mysterious MD. He had said the badges were given to members of the Irish Volunteers before the Rising.

  Her homepage flashed on the screen and she typed in the words 'Participants in the 1916 Easter Rising' into Google.

  Lots of hits. Good. She scanned the list. Wikipedia was at the top, followed by a genealogical site. She checked that. It gave 1599 participants in the Rising.

  Good. Very good. The odds were narrowing considerably.

  She scanned the rest of the results. Lots of information about the participants, particularly the leaders. Halfway down a link to a Military Archives site. The Irish Army had digitised its archives and had a whole section on the Easter Rising. They gave the number of participants in the rising as 2577. Even better.

  She clicked on the alphabetic list at that site, reading the names of all those who had taken part in an uprising nearly 100 years before. This was a genealogist's gold mine. A sense of excitement rose in her. She knew she was finally getting somewhere.

  Four people with the initials MD. She was sure her man was one of the four. But how to know which one he was? She checked the website. It had interviews with many of the participants. Apparently, the Irish government had decided to record oral histories of the Rising and the War of Independence that followed it, for their records in the 1950s.

  Why? Nobody else was doing anything like that at that time. The British government certainly weren't, preferring to bury the errors and mass murder of places like Ypres, the Somme and Passchendaele in the mud of Flanders.

  All her training and her years as a genealogist, told her she was close. Inside one of these testimonies was the identity of MD, she knew it, but it would take time. She would have to go through them one by one, looking for clues to help her. Did she know enough to work it out?

  Time to call her client and let him know her progress. She forced herself to breathe deeply three or four times. Compose yourself. Do not communicate your excitement to him. We mustn't get his hopes up, not yet. Remember you have nothing concrete yet, just a few possibilities.

  She picked up the phone and dialled the number she had been given. Richard Hughes answered after the first two rings.

  'I'd like to speak to your uncle, Richard.'

  'You have good news to report, Ms Sinclair?'

  'Not yet. But there are a couple of good leads. This is more of an update.' She kept her voice level and calm.

  'I'll get him.'

  After a few seconds a deep, melodious voice came through her phone. 'Mrs Sinclair, good to hear from you. I hope you've found the identity of my father.'

  Manage his expectations. Don't get his hopes up. 'Nothing concrete so far, Mr Hughes, but I have uncovered a few leads that will benefit from further exploration.'

  'For instance?' The voice was flat, deflated. She sensed a disappointment in the tone.

  'Well, the book you carried with you across the Atlantic was published in 1914 in Dublin...'

  'I could have told you that, Mrs Sinclair, it's on the inside cover.'

  She carried on. 'It was purchased by the library of the University College Dublin in that year. I believe it could have been stolen from there in 1915. Stolen by DF and given to MD.' She was making a huge leap now, but all her instincts told her she was right.

  'Better, but it still takes us no nearer to finding out who MD or DF were.'

  'True. I intend to check the graduate and alumni records of UCD. They may help us solve the puzzle.'

  'Or they may not.'

  'Also true. I discovered one other thing of use. In your picture, you are a wearing a bronze badge on your lapel.'

  'You noticed that? I wondered what it was.'

  'Do you still have it?'

  'I don't think so. I'm sure it's of no importance. Probably some Christmas gift I'd been given. Or something from the church or orphanage.'

  'Actually, it wasn't anything like that, Mr Hughes. It was a cap badge from the Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers. These badges were only given out to members just before the Easter Rising of 1916.' Despite her best efforts, excitement was creeping into her voice.

  'The Easter Rising, you say? I was wearing a badge from the Easter Rising?'

  'That's correct, Mr Hughes. Or at least you were wearing an Irish Volunteers' badge of the period. We can't be certain the man who owned it took part in the Rising.' Manage his expectatio
ns, she told herself. 'Who gave the badge to you, Mr Hughes?'

  There was silence on the other end of the phone. Eventually, the old man answered. 'I don't know, Mrs Sinclair, I just don't know. As I told you, I don't remember anything from this period, it's a complete blank.'

  She could hear the old voice becoming more and more exasperated.

  'Why would I have something like that, Mrs Sinclair?'

  'That's what I don't know, Mr Hughes. But I'm certain it is significant. What's more, I checked with the military archives. There were four men with the initials MD who took part in the Rising.'

  'My father could be one of those men?'

  She hadn't managed this well. She could feel his anticipation and expectation rising. 'I don't know, Mr Hughes. I don't want to get your hopes up...'

  'You must go to Dublin, Mrs Sinclair. Find out the truth.'

  'I don't know if that is necessary, Mr Hughes, most of the military archive records have been digitised...'

  'Most but not all, am I correct?'

  'Yes, there are always records that they haven't got round to scanning yet or ones they've missed.'

  'Plus you need to check at UCD as well?'

  'True. They haven't put any graduate records online.'

  'So what are you waiting for? I don't have to remind you that you have just six days left to make your report. And I will pick up all the costs. Money is no object, Mrs Sinclair. '

  'I'll book a flight to Dublin tomorrow.'

  'Good. I was sure you'd see it my way, Mrs Sinclair.'

  Jayne felt resentful at the prodding of this man, it was time to bring him down to earth. 'I may find nothing, Mr Hughes.'

  'Oh, I have confidence in you, even if you don't trust yourself. You've made more progress in two days than my worthless nephew made in six months. Report back when you get to Dublin, Mrs Sinclair.'