by Jacqui Rose
‘So why did the IRA lie about it?’
‘You’d need to look at Commandant Purcell’s baptism certificate.’
‘What?’
‘When we were at the Glenmalure Inn, the only one of us he knew was Gerry. But Father Boland was no stranger. Ned Broy knew the Purcells. He’d been a friend of Eddie’s father. Paddy Boland was Eddie’s godfather.’
‘And the priest set it all up?’
‘Yes. So it looked like it was me that did the work, me the IRA didn’t like poking around to start with, and then Gerry Riordan and me making the contact. I don’t know what he told Eddie Purcell to get him to come up with a fecking execution “certificate”, maybe just whether it was Sarah or Michael who killed Donal, your man probably had it coming. I don’t know.’
‘But why did he do it at all?’
‘For the same reason Michael Burke confessed. He did if for Sarah.’
‘That’s not an explanation, is it Pa?’
‘Your mother told me why. She’d known for years. Never a word!’
‘Some things you don’t say.’ Helena shrugged her shoulders.
‘So come on Ma, why?’
‘I’ve told your father, but that’s it. No more. That’s the end.’
‘It’s like the seal of the confessional,’ David grinned. ‘Break that and you’re only risking the fires of eternal damnation. But cross your mother–’
*
Misereatur mei omnipotens Deus. May Almighty God have mercy upon me, and remit unto me all my sins. Patrick Boland looked at the bare, sharp hills beyond the lake, so different from the soft hills of his home; for a moment he thought that if he could not be close to God in the next life, he had been close to him here, on the shores of the lake where Jesus had walked and prayed and found his disciples. Whatever he now faced, he had done what he had for a love he had never been able to show. He still believed it had been his only choice. He had never told himself it was an accident, or pretended that it was rage that made him pull the triggers. In the end he had fired the gun because it was the only thing he could do, for the daughter who would never know that he was her father. It was the only way to give her back her life. Liberet me ab omni malo. May he deliver me from all evil and lead me unto life eternal. He felt the sun on his face for a moment; his last prayer. Then Father Boland moved to the side of the boat and slipped into the water.
Read on for an exclusive extract of Michael’s new novel,
City Of Strangers
Mrs Leticia Harris, aged 53, who resided at 14 Herbert Place, Dublin, disappeared sometime after 6 pm on Monday, 9th March. The following morning her car was discovered at premises in Corbawn Lane, leading from Shankill to the sea. There were numerous bloodstains inside the car, and the police later in the day found a bloodstained hatchet in a shed adjoining her house, and also bloodstains on the flower borders in the garden. A suitcase containing bloodstained clothing was taken by the police from a house in Lower Baggot Street. The police theory is that Mrs Ball was murdered in her own home and the body taken away in her car. Mrs Ball is the wife of Dr Cecil Wingfield Harris, 81 Pembroke Road, Dublin.
The Irish Times
1. PALLAS STRAND
West Cork, November 1922
The storm did not come suddenly. All day the wind from the Atlantic had blown hard and cold and fast against Pallas Strand. The grey sky sped past overhead, heavy, thick, turbulent. The noise was unceasing, humming and roaring, loud and soft, and loud and soft again, but always there, along with the beat of the sea crashing endlessly against the white curve of sand. The farm lay back from the sea, behind a scattering of tufted dunes and a row of wasted trees, bent and twisted from long years of bowing and creaking before the wind, yet somehow always strong enough to stand. Indoors and out the blast of the wind battering the farmyard and the buildings had been constant, but still the rain hadn’t come. The boy was in the yard, leaning into the wind to stand, scattering leftovers from a bucket to the ruffled and bad-tempered hens. He was nine; it had been his birthday only a week ago. He shouted and laughed as the puppy that had been his birthday present danced around him, darting and leaping behind, in front, through his legs, trying to snatch the bacon rinds before the hens could get them. His father was in the barn, milking the three cows. His mother was in the kitchen, peeling potatoes. He didn’t hear the two vehicles driving along the track from the main road. The wind was blowing the sound away from him. It was only as the dog turned sharply from the scraps and started to bark that he saw them.
He knew them well enough. The long, sleek Crossley Tourer came first, with its top open even in the wind, and its battered leather seats. He loved the car and its white-walled tyres, despite the men inside it. The other one was different; a Rolls Royce armoured car with its squat turret on the back and its .303 Vickers machine gun sticking out through the letter-box sights. As the dog zigzagged angrily round the wheels of the Crossley, snapping and snarling, wearing at it like a flock of sheep, three uniformed men got out. The boy knew them too. It wasn’t the first time they’d driven into the farmyard at Pallas Strand. There was a young lieutenant and two great-coated Free State soldiers. The lieutenant smiled; the boy didn’t smile back. No one got out of the armoured car; its turret moved in a slow, grating arc as the machine gun scanned the yard. The puppy kept up a furious yapping, now round the feet of the intruders, but the only notice anyone took was a kick that sent him flying across the muddy yard. When he came back for more, he was just ignored. The boy turned to find his father standing behind him. There was another man next to him, the boy’s uncle. Where his father was calm and steady, he could see the fear in his uncle’s eyes. His mother was there now too, standing in the doorway to the house, wiping her hands dry with her apron. The lieutenant stepped towards his father.
‘You’ve heard what happened on the Kenmare road?’
‘I heard something.’
‘So where were you yesterday?’
‘I was here. Where else would I be?’
‘You were seen in Kenmare the day before, with Ted Sullivan.’
‘Who says?’
‘I do.’ The boy’s father shrugged.
‘There’s a sergeant dead from a mine, at Derrylough,’ said the officer.
‘That’s what I heard too.’
‘The road was clear on Tuesday.’
‘I wouldn’t know, Lieutenant. That’ll be your business.’
‘Ted Sullivan would know, I’d say.’
‘That’d be his business then. You’d need to ask him so.’
‘Maybe you’d know where he is then?’
‘Well, he wouldn’t always be an easy man to find.’
‘Unless you were an IRA man.’
‘There are a lot of IRA men in West Cork. You’d know yourself.’
The lieutenant didn’t reply. It was a familiar conversation, empty, circular, quietly insolent; all his questions would go unanswered. But he knew that. He turned to one of the soldiers and nodded. The man walked forward and slammed the butt of his rifle into the farmer’s stomach. As he collapsed to the ground the boy stepped between his father and the soldier, saying nothing, but glaring hatred and defiance. The soldier laughed. The boy’s mother ran forward across the yard, but her husband was already struggling to his feet. He looked at her sharply and shook his head. She stopped immediately, as if she was obeying an order. The boy turned to his father. The noise of the wind rose and blasted. The man smiled, despite his pain, and put his hand on his son’s head, ruffling his hair. The lieutenant had a cigarette in his mouth now. He hunched over his hands, trying to get his lighter to catch. After a moment he straightened up, drawing on the smoke.
‘Let’s see what you’ve got to say at the barracks.’
The soldier who had knocked the boy’s father down took his arm and dragged him towards the Crossley Tourer. The other soldier covered him with his rifle. The turret of the armoured car creaked slowly as the machine gun swept round the farmyard once more. The bo
y watched as his father was pushed into the back seat of the car. Neither his mother nor his uncle moved. They had seen it before; it was always the same. His father would come back, beaten and bruised, but he would come back. The soldiers got into the car; one soldier next to the boy’s father, the other in the driver’s seat, the young officer next to him. Then the Crossley Tourer and the armoured car swept round in a circle in the farmyard, through the mud and the dung, and drove up the track towards the road to Castleberehaven, the dog chasing behind, still barking and snapping.
The woman walked forward. She took her son’s hand and smiled reassuringly. It would be all right. These were the things they had lived with, they had always lived with. Even at nine years old he was meant to understand that. The men who had taken his father away were traitors; traitors were to be treated with contempt, not fear. Then his mother turned to his uncle, his face white, his fists clenched tight at his side. The fear was gone; now his face was full of anger. The boy had once asked his mother why his father seemed to have no fear and his uncle, sometimes, had to try to hide his shaking hands. ‘A man can only give what he has,’ she told him. ‘If he gives it all, no one can ask more than that.’ She was very calm now. None of it was new to them. Three years ago it had been the Black and Tans; now the men in uniform were Irish, but the same sort of shite. Rage was to be nurtured, as it had been for centuries. There would always be a time to use it.
‘You take the bike and go up to Horan’s. They’ll get a message to Brigadier Sullivan. He’d better know. And we’ll finish milking the cows.’
The woman and the boy went to the barn. For a moment she put her arm round him and squeezed. Now he smiled. Yes, it would be all right.
They waited all that night, wife and brother and son. The rain had finally come just before dark, beating in from the sea, and the wind began to drop. As night fell another car pulled into the farmyard. The IRA Brigadier said the man was where they expected him to be, in the police barracks in Castleberehaven, on the other side of the peninsula. The Crossley Tourer had been seen driving in through the gates around four o’clock. The IRA had someone inside the barracks; when the man was released they’d have the information immediately. He would be collected and brought home. The Free Staters had pulled in a number of volunteers that afternoon; it was the usual game; most of the men were already home. They only had to wait.
When the boy went up to bed there was no sense of anxiety in the house. The rain was falling outside, but the storm was quiet. Lying in his bedroom under the eaves, listening to the rain falling comfortably on the roof, he drifted off to sleep thinking not that his father was in any danger, but of the days when he would hold a rifle in his hand and fight the fight his family fought now. But when he woke abruptly in the early hours of the morning, he knew something was wrong. The rain still fell, but the house wasn’t comfortable any more. He could hear voices downstairs; his mother’s, his uncle’s, and others, a woman, several men. He could make out no words, but the voices were no longer the assured tones of the Brigadier O’Haloran. There was anxiety; he knew what that was. The voices grew louder and then someone said something to quieten them; but the quiet wasn’t really quiet; it was a series of harsh, adult whispers that only intensified the anxiety. He got out of bed and crept across the room. He knew where each creaking floorboard creaked most; he stepped slowly and carefully. At the door he turned the knob and opened it just a crack. The lamps were still burning downstairs. He didn’t know the time, but he knew these were the early hours of the morning. The voices were still unclear. He tried to pick out a meaning, but the broken words and overlapping phrases that came up the stairs wouldn’t fit together. ‘Five fucking hours ago – they drove him out, he was in the car – it was ten o’clock – no, the ones at Ardgroom were from Kenmare – Gerry Curran didn’t even pick up a gun – they pulled him out of bed – they already knew where the guns were buried – so where is he now?’
The voices stopped. People were moving downstairs. The door into the farmyard opened. The boy tiptoed to the window. He pulled back the curtain and looked out. Two men were walking across the farmyard. They carried rifles. His uncle followed, a few steps behind; he stopped and turned back to the house. His mother was there now, standing in the rain. His uncle stepped back. He put his arm round her and pulled her too him. It was the same gesture of reassurance his mother had given him as they walked to the barn to milk the cows, but everything about the way his mother stood, unmoving, unaware of the rain falling on her, said that she wasn’t reassured. His uncle picked up the bicycle that lay on the ground by the door. He got on it and rode away. Ahead of him the two other men were on bicycles too, their rifles slung over their backs, their hats pulled down on their heads. The three of them rode out of the farmyard and within seconds the rain and the darkness had swallowed them. The light from the open door still shone on his mother as she watched them go. The boy watched her from the bedroom window. It seemed a long time before she turned away from the darkness and walked back into the house. The door shut. She did not come upstairs.
The boy let the curtain fall back across the window. He stood in the dark room. He could hear no sound from the kitchen below, but somehow he knew that his mother was standing, just as he was, and that she was crying, just as he was. He could feel the tears now. He understood nothing, except that there were reasons for tears, and reasons to be afraid. He walked to his bed and knelt. He crossed himself and clasped his hands together, closing his eyes tightly. ‘Holy Mary, be a mother to me. May the Blessed Virgin Mary, St Joseph, and all the saints in heaven pray for us to the Lord, that we may be preserved this night from sin and evil. Good Angel, that God has appointed my guardian, watch over my father and protect him from harm.’
The rain had stopped very suddenly, just before dawn. The sun had been up for over an hour when the boy woke. He wasn’t in his bed. He was sprawled across it where he had finally fallen asleep in the middle of the prayers he had repeated over and over again. He got up and walked to the window to pull back the curtains. The sun was low in the sky, but the morning was clear and bright already. Outside he could hear the sound of the cows in the barn, waiting to be fed and milked. The cockerel called across the farmyard. The only other noise was the sound of gulls, flocking overhead. The house was silent. It was a moment before the anxiety of the previous night pushed the morning aside, and he remembered.
He ran to the door and downstairs. There was no one in the kitchen. The door to the farmyard was open. The door to the sitting room was open too, but there was no one there. He ran back upstairs and burst into his mother and father’s bedroom. It was empty; the bed had not been slept in. He knocked on the door to his uncle’s room across the landing, then opened it; it was empty too and the bed was still made. He raced down the stairs again. He put his raincoat on over his pyjamas and pulled on his boots.
The farmyard was as empty as the house. The hens pecked about around the door to the barn; inside the cows were lowing impatiently. He stood outside and looked around him. It was as if everyone he loved had simply disappeared; for a moment it was bewildering rather than frightening. But he knew the emptiness around him meant that the darkness of the night before had not really been swept away by the dawn. He looked up at the sky. The noise of the gulls was very loud. A great crowd of them was rising and falling on the currents of air over the sea beyond the dunes, tightly bunched, angry somehow. Now it seemed the only sound there was, and he ran towards it, through the farmyard, past the haystacks, on to the track through the dune field, up on to the tussocky dunes. He stopped, looking out at Pallas Strand and the sea, and the crowd of people, away at the far end of the beach, where the gulls were flocking and diving and screeching overhead.
He ran towards the crowd. There were a lot of people, twenty-five, thirty, standing in a loose group. Some had walked away, silently, towards the sea. Some stood with their head bowed in prayer. Some were simply staring down at the sand. No one seemed to see him coming towards
them. As he reached the crowd and pushed between the onlookers, even the people he brushed past didn’t seem to notice him. His father’s head and shoulders rose out of the sand of Pallas Strand. He had been buried up to his chest; his hands were by his side, somewhere beneath the sand. His head was facing out towards the sea. And where his eyes had been there were two pits of black and red puss.
The boy stared, not really able to understand what he was looking at. It wasn’t real; it wasn’t a real thing at all. And the first thing that came into his head wasn’t real. It was the face of the vampire he had seen at the cinema in Castleberehaven, when he had crept in at the back with Danny Mullins during Nosferatu, a month ago; they had watched in open-mouthed awe, for all of five minutes, before they were yanked out by the ears. But the thought was gone almost as soon as it came. He knew what he was looking at, of course he knew. And then it was gone. His uncle’s coat dropped over the head and covered it, and suddenly, as if a still photograph had sprung to life, everyone saw him. His mother turned and walked towards him. He didn’t see her; he was still staring down at the sand and the coat that covered his father’s head. She pulled him to her, standing between him and his father’s body, folding him in her arms before she pulled him away. He didn’t resist as she put her arm round his shoulder and led him back towards the farm.
He didn’t even try to look back. He would never see his father’s dead face again; but in reality he would always see it. He would always see the red-black holes where his father’s eyes had been before the gulls had pecked them out. The flock was still wheeling overhead as he walked silently along the strand with his mother, the gulls screaming and baying for the feast they had been driven away from. No one would let him look at his father again. On the day of the removal, when the coffin rested all day in the farm’s best room and people walked for miles around to drink tea and shake his hand and his mother’s hand and his uncle’s hand, the coffin was shut.