by M J Lee
'Ah, now the shelling's started it's all much of a muchness. You takes your chances whichever way you goes. My advice to you is go home.'
With that, the man with the ginger beard walked away towards the Four Courts. As he did so, there was an explosion over at the south-east corner of the building. Smoke drifted lazily up to the sky and flames darted out from the windows.
'But if I were you, I wouldn't go that way.' The man pointed at the fire. 'The Brits have the range.'
Michael looked down Church Street. It was now empty of civilians, the woman and her children had vanished. In the distance, he could see another barricade up at the corner of Mary Street, next to the old church.
Michael began to walk that way, keeping in to the side of the Four Courts, opposite to the direction from which the shells were being fired. He wondered if he could take the man's advice and go back to St Enda's and Rathfarnham, but dismissed the idea as soon as it occurred to him. He had a job to do. Go back to the GPO and report to Connolly what Heuston had told him. Nothing else mattered now. Nothing else could matter.
He turned right and went down behind the back of the Four Courts, passing the men mounting the barricade. None of them paid him any notice, staring out down the road down towards Smithfield.
The streets were eerily quiet now, the people having rushed to the safety of their homes as soon as the shelling had started. He could still hear the crump of the shells and the occasional explosion as they found their targets. There seemed to be more guns firing now, or, at least, he could hear the sound of more guns.
The sky had darkened but was not completely dark. Instead, a red glow burned and brightened in front of him. In the air, he could smell burning and the sharp tang of cordite, like the days after Bonfire Night. Guy Fawkes should have blown up Parliament and the lot of them in it. Now, that would be a day worth celebrating.
He crossed Greek Street, keeping close to the shops and houses on the right. Here and there, windows had been broken to enable people to get to the treasures inside. His feet crunched on the broken glass that lay strewn across the pavement.
The dark form of a man stepped out in front of him. Michael reached for the revolver in his jacket, gripping its handle and wrapping his finger around the trigger.
The man just stood there in front of him, not moving an inch.
Michael called out to him. 'Who are you? What do you want?' Desperately, he tried to keep the nervousness from his voice.
At the sound of his question, the man melted back into the darkness from which he had come. Michael shook his head. Had anyone been there or had he imagined it all? He stared into the space where the shape had been. Nothing. Get a grip on yourself, Michael Dowling.
He walked on down Mary Street, past the market on his right, its usual hustle and bustle replaced by the stillness of a morgue. Up ahead he could see flames shooting out from the top floors of a house. The upper corner was missing where a shell has struck it. Three men were trying to fight the flames with nothing more than buckets of water. As Michael edged past, he glanced across at a pile of bricks and plaster and wood that had fallen from the house. In the middle of the debris, something small and limp hung between two wooden laths.
He stepped closer to it, tripping over the edge of the pavement as he did. In the flickering light of the flames, the shape became clearer, more obvious. Four little fingers pointed upwards towards the sky.
He took one more step closer and followed the fingers down past a palm and across the dust-covered skin of a child's arm lying against a lump of white plaster. The arm seemed to appear and disappear, one minute illuminated and the next blending in with all the debris from the building.
Michael looked up to where the face should have been.
There was nothing.
Up above his head, a shock of red and orange flame roared like a dragon, shooting up to the sky.
In the fierce light, he saw it.
A young girl's face, no more than three years old, staring out from beneath the pile of plaster, eyes dead to the world, dead to life.
One of the firemen shouted across at him, 'Oy, you, get away from there. Do you not hear me? The whole lot is going to come down.'
He backed away from the pile of rubble, but his eyes were drawn back to the small hand. It was holding a ribbon. A pink silk ribbon. He could see the tiny nails against the fabric, half-formed, ungrown, unbitten.
The flames shot up towards the sky once more, accompanied by the sound of roaring, like a monster unleashed from the earth.
Michael backed away from the fire, his eyes fixed on the little girl. Her dead body forming and unforming in front of his eyes as the flames burned fiercely with an orange glow. The flames of hell here on earth.
His back hit a brick wall on the far side of the street. He tried to move further backwards, trying to get away from the horror, but the wall wouldn't let him.
The child was still there, though, her hand still clutching the pink ribbon.
The firemen had unrolled a hose from their truck and began to pump water onto the flames, but it just seemed to enrage them as they burned brighter, shooting higher into the sky.
A fireman pushed him down the road, away from the burning house. 'Get away, why don't you? This lot'll come down any second.'
He stumbled away towards the GPO, not looking behind him. Up ahead and to his right, more fires were turning the sky red and orange.
Red sky at night, shepherd's delight. The words from his youth came into his head. But there were no shepherds in Dublin, not anymore.
The image of the child's hand clutching the pink ribbon stayed with Michael Dowling for the following days. And, the more he thought about it, the less he could remember. Was the ribbon really pink? Or were the reds of the flames colouring the image. Was the child really dead? If he had dug beneath the debris would the child be still alive? Could he have saved the child?
These questions haunted him as he staggered back into the GPO, and was welcomed back by his comrades. Somehow, he composed himself and reported what he had seen to General Connolly.
'The Brits have started shelling the city. We haven't heard anything from Sean Heuston since you saw him. I'm thinking the Mendicity has been captured.'
Michael thought about the two young men, guarding the barricade and wondered what had become of them.
The General coughed. 'Go and get yourself something to eat. You look like you've seen a ghost.'
He found Fitz down in the basement where the canteen had been set up. He was talking to Bridget.
'Welcome back, Michael Dowling. And how did you enjoy your little jaunt around the bright lights of our city?'
There was no answer from Michael.
Fitz saw the terrible tiredness in his eyes. 'You must be hungry. Get yourself some of Bridget's delicious stew and you can tell me what you saw.'
Bridget ladled out a large helping of brown sludge into a mess tin. They sat down at one of the tables that had been made from upturned crates.
'People are dying, Fitz.'
'What do you expect, Michael, we're at war.'
Michael took a spoonful of stew. As he put it in his mouth, he realised he hadn't eaten anything that day. 'Children are dying, Fitz,' he eventually mumbled.
Fitz rubbed his nose and looked at him with his ice blue eyes. His voice softened, gone was the playful tone, the smirk at life and the world. In its place was a new anger. An anger Michael had never seen or heard before from Fitz. 'Children have always died, Michael. Whether it was from lack of food or lack of shoes. From TB or measles. From poverty and injustice and cruelty. Remember the famine. A third of our people were dying of starvation and we were still exporting grain and cattle to England. At least now, they are dying for something.'
'A free Ireland?'
'Yes, a free Ireland. So we can decide our futures for ourselves, and not let any bastard Englishman dictate our lives.' Fitz put his large hand on Michael's arm. 'You need to sleep. Put your head dow
n in the corner over there. Bridget will look after you.'
Michael stood up quickly, 'I've got duty on the roof...'
Fitz's heavy hand forced him down again. 'There's plenty of men up there. You take a rest. I'll wake you if you're needed.'
Michael nodded his head slowly. A terrible weariness had come over him. Tiredness that seeped into his bones infesting his heart and soul.
'You'll wake me up.'
'I will. And so will Bridget.' Fitz smiled across at the woman behind her table. 'Ah, but it breaks my heart that the first thing you will see when you wake up tomorrow morning is her lovely face. That pleasure should be mine and mine alone.'
For the first time in a long time, Michael smiled.
Chapter Nineteen
Dublin. November 17, 2015.
The flight on Aer Lingus was uneventful. Only the pilot's lovely brogue as they prepared to take off reminded her that she was on her way to Ireland.
Manchester Airport had been a scrum. Despite making vast profits over the years. She had taken a cab to the terminal and the fun had begun. There were long queues to check in and even longer queues to go through the security checks. Young children, tattooed men, old wives in peasant blouses off to seek some winter sun, crowded in long lines, waiting to go through the scanners.
The security people were friendly enough in that bluff Northern manner. 'This way, love. Take off your shoes and belt, please.' But the whole process reminded her of the film she had once seen of the old Chicago stockyards, with long lines of cows waiting to be slaughtered. She knew it had to be done, modern life and modern terrorists made it indispensable, but there had to be a better way of going about it.
The stewardess offered her tea or coffee. She chose the latter as the least worse of two evils. Paul had been shocked when the brick came through the window. He had insisted on calling the police at Didsbury Station. After half an hour a young uniform came round with a PCSO. The detectives were either too stretched or too lazy to bother. She could have given somebody a call but she knew there was no point.
The young uniform, he can't have been more than a year on the job, asked a few questions;
Any rows with the neighbours?
Any disagreements at work?
Anything stolen?
He directed most of his questions at Paul as the man of the house. Sexism was still alive and well and living in Manchester. She didn't bother to tell him she was an ex-copper. Somebody might twig it later, but better to leave this young one in a state of ignorance.
Why had somebody put a brick through her window? She thought back to her cases. Had anybody just come out of prison and wanted to level the scores. She had nicked a few tearaways in her time, but most were confirmed thieves who thought a stretch inside just a cost of doing business. She couldn't remember anybody with a grudge against her. And why now? Why would someone throw a brick through her window right now?
What did the message say? Leave it alone. What was 'it'? Her investigation into the family of John Hughes? But she had barely started, only making a few phone calls and visiting Herbert Levy. Ever since she had started on the case, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched. An annoying sensation. That morning she had looked over her shoulder a few times as she walked through the airport, but saw nobody. Perhaps, she was jumpier than usual after the events at her home but the feeling was there. Was somebody watching her?
She sipped her coffee. It tasted bitter and sour at the same time. How airlines managed to screw up the easiest drink on earth to make was beyond her. She placed the plastic coffee cup on the tray in front of her. She couldn't drink any more of that dish water.
The brick must have been aimed at her, Paul had no enemies she knew of. He wasn't the type to make enemies or friends. It was a warning and not a very subtle one. Why did somebody not want her to investigate this case? Was it the Irish angle? Or the fact that it concerned the IRA or, at least, a forerunner of the IRA? How had anybody known?
Then she thought back to the phone calls to Ireland. Had the librarian talked to someone? Or was it Herbert Levy? Had the old fence been pissed off with her visit?
The more she dwelt on it, the clearer the message became and the angrier it made her. How dare somebody throw a brick through her window. When she found him, and it was a him, she would break both his arms and shove the brick down his throat. How dare he invade her home?
But who was he? That was the question. And why did he do it?
Despite herself, she drank another mouthful of coffee and immediately wished she hadn't. She put the cup down and breathed out. 'Calm yourself, Jayne. Calm yourself,' she said out loud.
The young man sitting next to her looked across. 'Don't worry, I sometimes get nervous during flights too.'
She smiled back at him as sweetly as she could. 'Thank you,' she managed to mumble, when she really wanted to shout out, 'I've just had a brick put through my kitchen window. I'm not nervous, I'm furious and I could kill someone right now!'
'I do this flight every week. It's as safe as the Bank of Ireland.'
Jayne was just about to remind him that a few years ago the Bank of Ireland had nearly gone bust, but she thought better of it and smiled instead. He went back to staring out of the window.
She wanted to drink some more of the dish water masquerading as coffee, but couldn't face it. It was lucky that Paul hadn't made the connection to her new case. Neither did the young uniform. He went off back to the station to file his report. Paul called in a glazier to do a temporary fix, muttering about the unnecessary cost and worried about what his boss would think.
She would have to handle both of them when she got back to Manchester. Eventually, the detectives would get off their fat arses and come to pay her a visit, particularly when her name flagged up on their computers. While, Paul would worry at it like a sheepdog until it eventually occurred to him to ask her what she was working on.
It took his mind off her trip to Dublin though, thank God for that. She couldn't face another row.
The pilot's soft lilt came over the loudspeaker again. 'Well, no sooner than we're in the air than we're on the way down. Dublin in twenty minutes. Cabin crew prepare for landing.'
A quick hop across the pond that was the Irish Sea. Funny that such a small separation between two small islands had produced such radically different cultures. She had noticed the Special Branch man was checking all the passengers on the flight. He didn't see her, but she knew he was one of the spooks, remembered him from a course they had both been on.
Funny, after nearly twenty years of peace in Northern Ireland, they were still checking the passengers. Somebody had to do it, she thought. Cushy number down at the airport. She would have hated it, though. She preferred the thrill of the chase, working the streets, having cases of your own. She hated these bureaucratic jobs; watching flights or ferries, making notes in a file, clocking in and out.
The plane bumped down on the runway in Dublin. The pilot's voice came over the tannoy once again, 'We have just landed at the most beautiful city in the world. For those Irish returning home, we wish you a fond welcome. And for those visiting for the first time, have a great craic.'
She was here. Would she be able to find John Hughes' father?
Chapter Nineteen
Dublin. November 17, 2015.
She checked into the Woodham Hotel. The room overlooked O'Connell Street and could probably do with a refurbishment but she didn't care. She wasn't here to relax and be pampered. She was here to work.
The Central Office of UCD, now called NUI, was located at 49, Merrion Square. She left her bag in her room, grabbed her laptop and briefcase and stepped out onto the bustling street.
A long line of taxis waited on the street in front of her. Should she take one? No, better to walk and get a feel for the city. According to her map, the address couldn't be more than a mile away across the river.
She turned left and walked down the broad street towards the river and the st
atue of O’Connell himself at the end. Pedestrians jostled for a right of way, buses blew their horns, car brakes squealed. It was like the centre of any other city on earth. The buildings on the opposite side of the road were a particularly ugly utilitarian mixture of brick and cheap concrete.
Just like the centre of Manchester before the IRA blew it up, she laughed to herself. There were till some people who thought the City Council had paid the IRA to put a van full of explosives next to the Arndale Centre to get government money for regeneration. It was Manchester's version of a conspiracy theory.
After three hundred yards of nondescript restaurants, tourist shops, emporia selling green costumes and t-shirts with leprechauns, she passed the statue of Daniel O'Connell lording it over the street that bore his name and crossed the dark green sludge that was the Liffey. The modern buildings disappeared and a new Dublin opened up. Or rather, a Georgian Dublin, altogether more elegant and refined. It was like one of those people with a broad Manchester accent whose voice changed when they answered the phone. Hyacinth Bucket becoming Hyacinth Boukay.
She turned left beneath a large portico and the world had changed yet again, another face of Dublin. Trinity College her map said, a place of beauty and quiet in the midst of the chaos. God, she hated the crap that copywriters and their clients insisted on spewing out. But the blurb was right in one respect. It was beautiful.
Her pace slowed and, for a moment she forgot her search and her client and her husband, just drinking in the November sun, feeling the bite of a cold breeze on her face, closing her eyes, imagining herself back here in 1915.
She smelt coal smoke in the air, heard the clang of the trams as they crossed over the points, traced the clop-clop of a Shire horse as it delivered a wagon load of beer, heard the calls of the newspaper boys as they shouted of battles and death and destruction far away in France.
What was that? She twisted her head to feel the whispers on the wind. Whispers of a rising, of freedom, of insurrection. She opened her eyes. They didn't often come, these 'moments' as she liked to call them. But ever since she had been a child, they had visited her at the strangest times, usually brought on by a place, smell or a person. It was like the past had come alive and she was surrounded by it. She was still herself of course, and still aware, but she was no longer in her own time but transported back to another, long dead.