So Pat sought to relieve his guilt by shifting more soil than all the knackers put together. And while the men laboured Maeve O'Flynn made endless trips from the farmhouse, carrying mugs of tea. She paused occasionally to share a word with one of the men. Few noticed that she ended each visit standing next to Sean - few that is except for Maureen, and Maureen noticed everything. She had refused to go home. Instead she spent her time collecting wild flowers from the hedgerows and watching Farmer O'Flynn's wife. Twice she asked Mrs O'Flynn about her husband, only for Mrs O'Flynn to answer - "Oh sure now, won't he survive," as if it was of no consequence. The girl and the woman exchanged glances, each instinctively aware of the other's hostility. Maureen's heart sank as she glimpsed the curvaceous figure beneath the top coat, and when the woman placed a possessive hand on Sean's shoulder Maureen positively cringed - "What right has she to touch him like that? Sure there's not an ounce of decency in the whole of her body." Whereas Maeve O'Flynn was much more composed. She confronted the thin, white-faced girl and noted the gawky, undeveloped figure. "A child," she thought dismissively, "what could a child teach a young bull like Sean Connors."
As for Sean, he was numb. First the shock of finding Mrs O'Flynn in Brigid's kitchen, then the frantic race to Palmerstown to discover this awful slaughter. His heart ached for Molly. He grieved over Charlie and the others. Never again would Merlin splash everyone on a Sunday. Never again would Molly give him a friendly nuzzle, never ... he pushed the memories aside, knowing they would reduce him to tears. Instead he concentrated on digging the grave. The pit was three feet wide now, and twice as long. Sean tried to calculate how large it needed to be, but he closed his mind to thoughts of the mutilated bodies. He hurled another spadeful of earth upwards, and caught a glimpse of Maureen across the meadow. The trip to America would have to wait now. They would need to write to Uncle Rory. Sean bent his back and swore he would send Maureen away to the sun one day. He promised himself that. He would raise the money somehow. He paused to catch his breath. Sweat chilled his bare chest, and as he glanced down he saw the smear of dried soap on his belt. He trembled as he remembered the scene in the kitchen, him clinging to Mrs O'Flynn as she washed him down. "Me kissing her an' holding her body like that, an' her soaping me all over, then her hands at the top of my legs ..." He had clung to her fiercely. "Mrs O'Flynn," he had gasped into her hair, "you'll send me blind if you do that." But she had chuckled deep in her throat and held him tighter than ever.
They buried the animals and covered the pit. Maureen spread posies of wild flowers over the broken earth, and fell to her knees to say a short prayer. Sean choked up, stifling his tears, while next to him Michael sniffed loudly. The knackers looked on with sad, stern faces. After which it was time to bid Mrs O'Flynn goodbye. "Now don't forget," she told him as they parted, "you're to come and see me any time, Mr Connors, any time at all."
The following weeks were full of pain for Sean. He was moody and truculent, and kept a hair trigger on his temper. A wrong word creased his face into a frown, while an indifferent response, or worse - a jesting humorous one - would start a fight. Baiting Sean Connors became a favourite sport along the Quays among young men aged eighteen and upwards, few younger had a taste for it. Sean responded to a taunt like a salmon rising to a fly. Time and again he was carried back to Brigid's beaten half senseless. But the hammering had no more effect than Brigid's pleas to stay out of trouble - the next day he would be in another fight. Winning seemed not to matter. The stronger the opponent the more Sean relished the battle. Brigid and Tomas - even Pat Connors himself - were in despair, fearing Sean would get himself killed. And then, suddenly, the violence in Sean seemed to burn itself out. It had lasted a month. By which time Sean had fought half the Quays, but even those who thrashed him without mercy had no desire for another confrontation. So Sean was left alone.
Time passed slowly then. The loss of the donkey business left a gaping void in Sean's life. Even the prospect of starting work as a copy-boy on the Gazette failed to excite him. How could it? He and Michael had generated an income of seven pounds a week from a part-time venture - the Gazette would pay ten shillings for Sean's full-time efforts. The discrepancy looked enormous. He was grateful to his father for getting him the job, but he viewed the meagre financial rewards with misgiving - and the prospect of being called "boy" after being addressed as "Mr Connors" really got under his skin. That hurt - once he stopped mourning his beloved animals. He had seemed set to make his way in the world. Now he was starting from scratch.
But eventually his thoughts acquired purpose again. He brooded less and his spirits revived from his crushing loss. The experience had shaken him, but he had learned from it, even if defining what was not easy. Then it came to him. He tingled with excitement as he grasped the meaning of his lesson. He wanted to tell somebody, but stopped himself. Only one person would understand. His father - and Sean wasn't quite ready for that. So, some six weeks after burying his donkeys, Sean bought a small notebook and made his first entry.
"The rules of Sean Connors," he wrote boldly. Then he set the pencil aside and thought, not because he was at a loss but from an anxiety to be precise. A rule might be drawn from a specific experience, but it should cover every eventuality when set down on paper - otherwise it would never serve for the future. For the hundredth time he asked himself how he could have saved his donkeys. Never once did he blame his father. The donkeys had been his responsibility, not his father's. It was his fault, he was to blame - and Sean was determined to do better in future. Thus he thought long and hard before writing that first rule into his book. "Rule One," he wrote. "Assets must be protected at all times."
He was proud of the word asset. Mr Caffety had used it once when Sean and Michael were in his shop.
"What's asset mean, Mr Caffety?" Sean had asked without hesitation.
Mr Caffety had frowned and scratched his head. "Sure, you're a boy for questions. Well, an asset is a ... well a thing you own in business. Like this shop an' everything. I own it. It belongs to me. They're my assets."
Sean had looked at the assembled merchandise with new eyes - pots and pans, buckets and mops - things he had known all his life, without realising they were assets.
But protecting Mr Caffety's assets was easy, Sean reflected when composing his rules. Caffety's shop was boarded up every night, and Mr Caffety lived upstairs and never went out. Protecting living assets like donkeys was a lot harder. And even if he had lived over the stables like Mr Caffety above his shop, Sean was honest enough to wonder if he could have saved his animals from the IRA that night. The whole matter needed careful thinking about. Which led to the second rule. Only deal in protectable assets. Sean stumbled over the word protectable - spelling it three different ways and even wondering if the word existed - but it expressed what he felt so he printed the version which looked right. Then he hid the book away, delighting in the surprise he would give his father. For Sean still looked forward to that day when his father would teach him the rules. Now he had rules of his own, and the secret knowledge of that filled him with pride.
But not all of Sean's time was spent formulating his rules ... two other matters occupied his mind. The first was Mrs O'Flynn. He would never forget her taking his hands in hers and cupping them over her breasts. He remembered her silky smooth skin and the way her nipples had hardened under his fingers. But most vividly he remembered her hands on his body ... the teasing explorations, the rhythmic stroking ... and that wild, pulsating moment when he had clung to her with all of his strength. He never thought of that without breaking into a sweat. The miracle was he hadn't gone blind. He tested his eyesight every day, peering across the Liffey to read hoardings across the water, relieved to see even the smallest letters as clearly as ever.
He dreamt of going to Palmerstown ... but what would he say to Farmer O'Flynn? They had no business to discuss, not now. Besides, Sean wondered if he could face the man again, after doing that with his wife. But he longed to see her. He curse
d his frustrations aloud. One thing was clear - he had to get some assets again. If Maureen was to see America, and if he was ever to renew his exciting friendship with Mrs O'Flynn, he just had to have assets. But how? How when the Gazette would pay him only ten shillings a week?
So time passed slowly. Sean composed his rules and daydreamed of Mrs O'Flynn - but another matter occupied his thoughts at least part of the time: the need to find the men who had murdered his donkeys. The Garda were getting nowhere. People were afraid to talk. An IRA warning meant what it said, lay off if you value your life. And Sean had been told to lay off ... by his father, by Brigid and Tomas, by Father Murphy and just about everyone. But he persevered discreetly, helped by the knackers, now reduced to pushing their own carts through the streets of Dublin. Not that anything came to light - not a face, nor a description - not even the tiniest clue. In fact Sean was no closer to identifying the killers than when he started. But his father was.
Pat Connors had ordered his son to stay out of it, but he felt no such concern for himself. He pulled the city apart. Past favours were called in. He recruited an army of allies, including Duffy's Blueshirts. He persuaded newspaper friends to pass on any likely snippets of information. And he went further. Pat taunted the IRA from every public platform in Dublin. "Who are these brave men?" he roared, "whose love of Ireland is so great that they embark upon such heroic deeds? Don't they deserve a medal? After all, it takes guts to creep out at dead of night, armed to the back teeth, ready for battle. And what a battle. Killing donkeys! That's real courage. Come forward I say, don't skulk in the shadows. Won't we be after building you a statue, alongside the likes of Parnell himself."
Brigid went wild. She had devoted thirteen years of her life to resisting Pat's influence over Sean. She almost died during those awful weeks when the boy dragged himself home all battered and bruised. When Sean was out of earshot she railed furiously at Pat - "Isn't it enough harm you've done him already? Let it rest before it brings misery down on the lot of us."
Pat could not let it rest. He spent every waking hour brooding about it ... and nine weeks later he had a name ... followed by another the very next day. The information came from informers, but Pat thought no less of it for that. The feeling grew that he was on to something. Both men were known to be sympathetic to the IRA, and both lived just outside Palmerstown. Not only that but the Garda had considered the men as possible suspects in the murder of Padraic Riddell, whose funeral Pat had attended the day the donkeys were killed. The more Pat checked, the more convinced he became. By the end of a week he was sure the men were involved - so on the Friday evening he caught the tram up to Palmerstown, where he supped a pint at the Deadman's Inn.
Most of the bar recognised him. Pat's bulky figure was too well known to pass unnoticed. Some even guessed why he was there. Conversation dropped to a whisper when the two men arrived. Not that Pat seemed to notice. He propped up the counter, talking to the landlord, while watching the men in the mirror as they advanced to the counter. The man nearest Pat froze in his tracks - but the landlord was already pulling their beers so it was too late to withdraw. They took their glasses off to a corner, where they whispered and tried not to look at Pat who turned to stare at them. That was all he did - just stare. Stared over the rim of his glass, or while he wiped his lips with the back of his hand. But Pat knew they were the men, and they knew he knew. Guilt sweated from every pore in their faces. They sloshed their pints down and scuttled off almost at once.
Pat ordered another Guinness while casting an eye at the other occupants. More than two men had been involved in the donkey killing, and Pat wanted the lot. Meanwhile he was satisfied to have put the fear of God into two of them. He guessed that even as he stood there the word was being spread.
When his glass was empty Pat grasped his blackthorn stick firmly and crossed to the door. He stood outside for a moment, adjusting his eyes to the darkness, while listening with grim amusement to the hubbub of talk which had broken out in his wake. Then, when he was satisfied that the men were not waiting in ambush, Pat walked slowly back to the Quays. But not to Ammet Street. He had calls to make first.
Tim Finnegan invited him in. Tim had been a colleague in Mick Collins' Squad when they had been the scourge of Dublin Castle. Tim was an old friend and always ready to help.
After which Pat went to Brigid's place to change the arrangements for the following day. For the first time in months he would be unable to meet his son at their regular time. Instead he left word that he would expect Sean at seven in the evening - and then Pat went home to Ammet Street.
He pulled the bed away from the wall, then dropped to his knees to slide a section out from the skirting board. Plunging his arm into the gap he withdrew a heavy object, wrapped in oilskin. He took it to the table. The Smith and Wesson revolver gleamed blue in the light...
Saturday morning was crisp and fine. A breeze blew up the estuary to drench the Quays in the scent of the sea. Gulls wheeled and dipped across a colourless sky high above the Liffey. Sean Connors leant on the parapet by the Ha'penny Bridge, idly watching men load casks of Guinness aboard the barge which would carry them down to the big ships at the mouth of the river.
"Were you thinking of throwing yourself in, Mr Connors?" asked a soft voice.
He jumped, and swung round to meet the amused look in her eyes. It was the first time he had seen Maeve O'Flynn dressed up for town. Her smart coat and jaunty hat seemed the height of elegance to him.
Her mouth dimpled into a smile. "Sure, aren't you a disappointment, with me forever hoping you'd be along to see me."
Her teeth were the whitest he had ever seen. He felt overcome - how could he explain that he had started out for Palmerstown nine times in as many weeks, only to turn back on every occasion.
"Did you not want to see me again?" she asked.
He blushed. The quick amusement in her eyes heightened his confusion. "It was not that at all, Mrs O'Flynn."
"You've been too busy then?"
Not even that. How could he explain that he spent most of his spare time walking the Quays, just looking and thinking. He kept his eyes and ears open for clues about who killed his donkeys, but that was just the half of it. The rest was spent watching people earn a living - scratch a living in most cases, while shrewd gombeen men made deals in the warmth of a dockside pub. Goods moved in and out of the Quays all day, assets Sean reminded himself, assets which men wheeled and dealed into fortunes. He tried to calculate profit margins and turnovers ... while all the rime dreaming of when he would have assets of his own again. But how could he explain that to Mrs O'Flynn? Instead he mumbled an enquiry about her husband.
"Oh him," she tossed her head. "Haven't I just put him on the train for Cork. Isn't he away 'til Monday and there's me with enough jobs in the yard to wear out an army."
Maeve O'Flynn's easy words masked her excitement. Secretly she was delighted. She had thought often of Sean - almost every day - and her mind had been full of him as she walked back from the station ... racking her brains for an excuse to call on him. It would mean facing Maureen again, not to mention her mother ... and Maeve's instincts warned her to tread warily. But her husband's absence provided an opportunity too good to miss ... and here Sean was, worshipping her with those big blue eyes, standing there with his tongue hanging out. God, he must have grown another yard already, and weren't his shoulders broader than ever? The boy was a threat to the womanhood of Ireland. Why even a nun would quake at the sight of him. And him so unaware of the trembling he could bring to a poor girl's limbs.
She rested a hand on his arm. "You'll be as busy as ever I suppose? A strong man like you would clear my yard in no time at all. Whereas for me ..." she trailed the words off into a silent acceptance of her inadequacies.
But Sean saw no inadequacy and he conveyed his willingness to help in one fumbling sentence.
She squeezed his arm. "Oh, you're an angel. Will you come up this afternoon then?" Her face fell. "Sure, I'm forgettin
g - isn't it Saturdays that you see your Da?"
Sean shook his head, explaining excitedly that he was not expected at Ammet Street until seven, so this Saturday was perfect.
"Well isn't that grand. Could you come at two? And after the jobs won't we have tea together, just as we used to."
Pat Connors was less than a hundred yards from the Ha'penny Bridge when his son and Mrs O'Flynn were making their arrangements. Not that Pat knew - and even if he had his mind was so full of other things that he was unlikely to have paid attention. For Pat had received a third name from his anonymous source and was discussing this latest news with Tim Finnegan in Mulligan's Bar. They sat in a corner and argued in whispers.
"Will you listen or won't you?" Tim demanded. "I tell you this changes everything. You'll be a fool to go through with it now."
Pat's plan was simple. They would waylay the two men in Palmerstown. Using a borrowed car which Tim would drive, they would arrive at the farm where the men worked as labourers and invite them for a ride. The revolver beneath Pat's jacket would make the invitation irresistible. After which ... well, Pat had conducted interrogations in Kerry. Within an hour he would have the name of every man involved in killing the donkeys.
Tim squirmed. "Will you let me explain? Didn't I promise to help? But this changes things. The best help I can give you now is to make you see sense."
"You said you'd drive, that's all. Won't I do the rest."
"Didn't I think it was just a couple of louts last night. We'd knock the shit out of them. But now Riordan's involved. Riordan himself! You're lucky to be alive, the way you've been shooting your mouth off at meetings. You know that -"
"Ach, I remember Riordan from the old days. All mouth -" .
"Will I say it again. If Riordan's involved he'll have word from those two thunderheads by now - but there'll be no shaking in his boots with Riordan. If he thinks you are pinning anything on him he'll not wait for you -"
Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1 Page 89