‘I made a mistake,’ she said.
‘I don’t understand. What kind of mistake?’
‘I made a mistake when I was checking up on the Dohertys’ genealogy.’
‘And?’ said Jimmy O’Reilly. It was obvious that he was beginning to sense that Katie was playing him along and he was growing irritated. ‘What exactly are you trying to tell me?’
‘Bobby Quilty wasn’t related to the Dohertys. There was a Niall Quilty who served with Captain Frank Busteed, that’s true – but he was shot by the British when he was only seventeen and he never got married and he never had a daughter. I mixed him up with somebody else.’
Jimmy O’Reilly stared at Katie as if she were a doctor who had just told him she had failed to diagnose the lump on his neck and he had less than six weeks to live.
‘You mixed him up with somebody else?’
‘Yes... silly mistake. I was working very late and I was tired. But the only person I told about Bobby Quilty being related to the Dohertys was you.’
‘You gave me that family tree,’ said Jimmy O’Reilly.
‘Yes, I did, but it was erroneous. So I know how you came to believe that Bobby Quilty and the Dohertys were related. What I can’t understand is how Bobby Quilty came to believe it, too.’
‘I have no idea. It must have been a coincidence.’
‘A coincidence?’
Jimmy O’Reilly suddenly grew angry. ‘I’ve just told you – I have no idea! Maybe he had some other grievance against the Crothers! What are you trying to say here, Katie? Come on, spit it out! Are you accusing me of passing confidential information to Bobby Quilty?’
‘Yes.’
‘Give me one reason why I should have done. Go on!’
Katie stood up. ‘I can give you several thousand reasons why, Assistant Commissioner, and all of them are euros. You were constantly borrowing money from Bobby Quilty to settle your boyfriend’s gambling debts. Bobby Quilty had you in his pocket and so did James Elvin. In fact, James Elvin still does. He would only have to tell the media why you’ve been going easy on Bobby Quilty’s cigarette-smuggling and you’d be finished.’
Jimmy O’Reilly looked at her with his eyes narrowed, then he walked over to the window. He watched the rain trickling down it for a while and then he said, ‘What do you expect me to do now?’
‘Nothing,’ said Katie. ‘I’m not the commissioner and I’m not the Garda Ombudsman. Well – there’s one thing you could do, and that’s to refuse to give James Elvin any more money. He might go to the media, but that’s a risk you’ll just have to take.’
Still watching the raindrops, Jimmy O’Reilly said, ‘You’re a witch, do you know that, Katie? Right from the beginning I said you were a witch, but nobody would listen. They were all too keen at Phoenix Park to be politically correct and show that the Garda were moving with the times.’
He turned around and said, ‘You’ve done something, haven’t you? You’ve pulled some fecking evil trick. I don’t know what you’ve done or how you’ve done it, but I swear to God that I’ll find out one day and I’ll see you burned at the stake, like the witch that you are.’
Without saying anything else, he walked out of her office, leaving the door open behind him.
Katie sat down again. She was trembling slightly, but that was mostly from tiredness and the delayed shock from what she had been through the day before. She had dreamed about Ger last night, with his glutinous black plastic tears and the flames dancing out of his face. She had dreamed about Alan, too, and in her dream about Alan he had lifted his head from the kitchen floor in Felt Street and said, ‘You don’t love me, do you? So why did you make me love you?’
As soon as he had uttered those words, he vomited a huge gout of bright red blood and it splashed all over the floor.
*
It was almost lunchtime when Detective Ó Doibhilin came in to see her. She had heard nothing more from Assistant Commissioner O’Reilly, and when she had walked along to Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin’s office to talk about a new gang of Romanian pimps who had opened up an internet page called Magic Massage, she had looked down into the car park and saw that his car had gone.
Detective Ó Doibhilin was holding up a plastic folder. ‘Do you have a moment, ma’am? I’ve heard this morning from that Bracewaite fellow in Manchester – you know, the historian who was trying to see if he could find out more about Lieutenant Seabrook and Radha Langtry.’
‘What’s he come up with?’ asked Katie.
‘A letter. It’s only the one letter, but I think it’s shattering, do you know what I mean, like?’
He came over to her desk, set the folder down in front of her, and opened it. Inside, there were the scanned copies of two sheets of notepaper. They were handwritten, in a strong, well-formed hand, the kind of copperplate script that was taught in schools in late Victorian times.
It was headed ‘Ballincollig Barracks, February 23rd’.
My dearest Jane,
I understand how much pain I have caused you by my infidelity, and I beg your forgiveness. I can plead only that the horrors of the Front and the unnatural stress of fighting against the Fenians led me to seek solace in another’s arms; and for this I have no excuse whatsoever, except to admit my own weakness.
Now, however, a tragedy has occurred and you are the sole person to whom I can express my grief – a grief which is compounded by the way in which I have betrayed you. I have to tell someone about the terrible events of the past three weeks or I will surely go mad. I cannot confide in Lt. Col. Evans for that would inevitably lead to my being cashiered.
The young woman with whom I was involved was Mrs Radha Langtry, whose husband Stephen was a member of the Irish Republican Army. She had learned from her husband that an ambush of our regular Friday patrol from Macroom to Cork had been planned, at a place called Godfrey’s Cross. He had informed her because she daily went to work that way, to Leemount House, the home of Mrs Mary Lindsay, and he cautioned her to take another route.
Radha did not want me to be harmed, and that is why she told me, but of course I had no choice but to warn Lt. Col. Evans of the intended ambush. However, she also warned her employer Mrs Lindsay, because Mrs Lindsay was due to drive through Godfrey’s Cross that day to take her car to the barracks here in Ballincollig for military inspection. (It is a new regulation because of the number of cars that have been commandeered recently by the IRA.)
Mrs Lindsay told the local priest, Father Ned Shinnick, about the ambush, and he warned the IRA command that their intended attack was no longer a secret. Unfortunately he was known to have nationalist sympathies and they refused to believe him.
The consequence of this was disastrous. You may have seen in the newspapers that the IRA party were surprised and outflanked and eight of them were captured. They are being held in Victoria Barracks in Cork, court-martialled, and found guilty, and may very well be shot.
Because she is such a staunch nationalist, the IRA blamed Mrs Lindsay for this catastrophy [sic] and have abducted both her and her chauffeur. I have to assume that under great duress Mrs Lindsay informed her captors that it was Radha who had warned her about the ambush.
I attempted to contact Radha, but without success. Eventually I was informed by the local priest in Blarney, Father Thomas, that the Langtry family had decided on the spur of the moment to emigrate to America. I found this difficult to believe, since Radha had never mentioned that she and her husband had any such intention.
The priest saw that I was greatly distressed and took some pity on me. He told me in the utmost confidence that the Langtrys had not, in fact, emigrated, but that the local IRA commander had ordered that they be punished for informing the British about the ambush. Their friends and relatives would believe that they had gone to America because letters would be regularly sent home here to Ireland by IRA sympathisers in New York.
I tried to persuade Father Thomas to tell me what the Langtrys’ punishment might have been, but h
e refused to say any more. Although of course I am not a Roman Catholic he granted me absolution but of what possible use was that?
I am trying to cling to the belief that the Langtrys may have been forced to move to another part of Ireland, but in my heart of hearts, my dearest Jane, I know they have not. I know that they have been shot, and their bodies buried somewhere in the mountains, or in a peat bog, and that they will never be discovered. What has become of their two children I cannot guess.
You will hate me for this, Jane, but I always loved you and I love you still, in spite of my treachery. I am riven with grief, and I have been weeping so bitterly that I have to pretend to my men that I have an eye infection.
You will probably burn this letter and forget that you ever knew me, but I had to share my agony with somebody, and also tell how it really came about that the IRA ambush was foiled.
If I had not had a relationship with Radha, our own soldiers would have been killed; but since I did, eight Irishmen will almost certainly be executed, and Radha is surely dead, too. How can there be a God, if these were the only alternatives which He gave me?
I am crying now, my dearest dearest, as I write this to you. I am so sorry for what I have done, and the pain is unbearable. Give my fondest love to Kitty and James.
Yours, Gerald.
Katie read the letter again and then sat back. ‘Mother of God. Where did this historian of yours find this? I mean, like, it sheds entirely new light on the Dripsey ambush. It looks like poor Mrs Lindsay and her chauffeur, they weren’t to blame at all.’
‘He found it in the files in the family solicitors’ office,’ said Detective Ó Doibhilin. ‘He says there’s some other correspondence from the time that shows that all of the Seabrook family were aware of it, but didn’t want to shame Gerald’s name, especially since he was killed only a few weeks later. They preferred Jane Seabrook to be the grieving widow of a military hero, rather than the abandoned wife of a love rat who got himself tangled up with the IRA.’
‘I’ll have to talk to Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin about this,’ said Katie. ‘Maybe this is something that needs to be filed and forgotten. As if enough innocent people haven’t lost their lives because Lieutenant Seabrook “sought solace in another’s arms”.’
‘I’ll leave it with you, then,’ said Detective Ó Doibhilin.
‘Thanks, Michael. You’ve done some incredible work on this. I’ll make sure you get a commendation for it.’
Detective Ó Doibhilin left her office and she picked up the letter and read it yet again. Love, she thought, what disasters it can lead to. If Lieutenant Seabrook hadn’t fallen in love with Radha, the Doherty family would still be alive – and if she hadn’t loved both John and Kyna, Bobby Quilty wouldn’t have taken them hostage, with all of the fatalities that had followed, especially Alan’s.
Her phone warbled. It was Detective O’Donovan.
‘Patrick! What’s the story?’
‘We’ve just had a message from the PSNI. There was a serious house fire yesterday up at a village called Forkhill, near Newry. Not only a fire, a series of major explosions. They reckon the house contained an arms dump for an IRA splinter group, although they’re not naming any names yet, except for one.’
‘Go on. Was it somebody we know?’
‘Only Ger Carmody, burnt to a cinder. They believe it was, anyway, because his car was outside and they found what was left of his hat.’
‘Ger Carmody? What was he doing up in South Armagh?’
‘Search me. But what a day, ma’am, wouldn’t you say? What a result! Bobby Quilty and Ger Carmody both going off to meet their Maker within hours of each other. You didn’t say a prayer to St Bonaventura by any chance?’
‘Why St Bonaventura?’
‘He’s the patron saint of bowel disorders. If you’ll excuse my language, my auld feller used to say that he takes care of all the shits.’
Forty-six
The following morning she drove to Cork University Hospital before she went into the station. It had rained heavily during the night but now the clouds had cleared and it was sunny and humid.
She had pressed the button for the lift when her iPhone played ‘Buile Mo Chroi’.
A distant voice said, ‘Is that Detective Superintendent Maguire?’
‘It is, yes. Who is this?’
‘Inspector Wallace from the Crime Operations Unit in Belfast.’
‘Oh, yes, inspector? How can I help?’
‘I’m a friend of Alan Harte. I was the one who passed him your bulletin about your two missing persons. Have you heard about Alan?’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s dead, I’m sorry to say. You obviously know about that bomb in Belfast, the one that killed Bobby Quilty and six other individuals. Well, Alan was one of those six individuals.’
‘Oh, God. That’s tragic.’
‘I know. I’m sorry to give you such bad news. He told me that he was in contact with you. After I told him about the bulletin and he realized you were after Bobby Quilty – well, he was itching to talk to you. He couldn’t wait.’
‘Yes, he came down to Cork to see me,’ said Katie. ‘We exchanged information about Quilty, but that was about all we could do. Quilty was never an easy man to corner, as you know.’
‘We’re still going over the house where it happened, and we will be for several days yet,’ said Inspector Wallace. ‘One of the things that has us really puzzled, though, is that Bobby Quilty was shot and fatally wounded before the bomb went off. We thought at first that Alan might have shot him, but there’s no sign at all of the gun he might have used. One of the other individuals had a weapon, but it wasn’t the same calibre as the gun that killed Quilty, and it had only been fired once, while Quilty was shot three times.’
‘Maybe somebody else came into the house and shot him but left before the bomb went off.’
‘Well, it’s possible. But I’d like to know who had more of a motive for shooting Bobby Quilty than Alan.’
‘Yes – he told me about Quilty setting him up with all those drugs,’ said Katie.
There was a long pause, and then Inspector Wallace said, ‘Drugs? What drugs?’
Katie was confused. ‘Alan told me that Quilty planted heroin in his house so that he would be suspected of drug-dealing, and that’s why he had to resign from the PSNI.’
‘I don’t know why he should have told you that,’ said Inspector Wallace. ‘Maybe he didn’t want to tell you the real reason.’
‘You mean it wasn’t true? He resigned because of something else?’
‘He resigned because he simply couldn’t handle the job any more. He was right on the verge of having a breakdown. He couldn’t think of anything else but killing Bobby Quilty. He probably didn’t tell you because you would have thought that he was obsessed and unstable and you wouldn’t have cooperated with him.’
‘So why was he so determined to kill Quilty?’ asked Katie.
‘He was building a good case against Quilty for drug-smuggling. Quilty knew that he had some sound evidence, and even a couple of witnesses, and was getting quite close to arresting him. So Quilty sent him a message that if he didn’t lay off, his family would all be shot, one by one, starting with his wife.’
‘I thought that he and his wife were divorced.’
‘Are you joking? They were totally inseparable, those two. He would have run stark-naked down the Falls Road if she had asked him to. But Alan called Quilty’s bluff and went on gathering evidence against him, and one day Alison was coming out of Wyse Byse and a fellow walked up to her and shot her in the head.’
Katie didn’t know what to say. All of a sudden, everything about Alan and his behaviour made sense. And now she knew who the woman was in the framed picture on Alan’s bookshelf.
‘Detective Superintendent Maguire?’ said Inspector Wallace.
‘Oh, sorry. What? That – that just took me by surprise.’
‘I wondered if you wanted to attend
Alan’s funeral. I don’t have a date yet, of course, but I can let you know when I do.’
‘Yes, please do. And thank you for calling me.’
Another pause, and then he said, ‘I haven’t upset you, have I?’
*
She took the lift up to the Acute Medical Unit. At the nurses’ station she was met by Staff Nurse Abara, a small, dark, quietly spoken woman with huge brown eyes. Katie had met her several times before and had always thought that she would have taken holy orders if she hadn’t trained as a nurse.
Nurse Abara led her along the corridor to the room where John was being treated.
‘He is sleeping now,’ she said. ‘We have given him a massive dose of antibiotics and in the meantime we are considering the various options for treatment.’
She opened the door and they went inside. John was lying on his back, with his eyes closed. He was wearing an oxygen mask and was attached to two intravenous drips. Underneath the mask his face was so pale that he looked as if he were wearing white foundation. There was a hump under the lower half of his blanket where a cage protected his feet and calves.
Katie approached the bed and stood and watched him breathing. He was so deeply asleep that she could tell he wasn’t going to wake up.
‘So, what are the options?’ she asked.
‘Dr O’Connell can tell you all about them in greater detail when he comes in later. But John’s feet and his legs up to his knees are gangrenous and he will require some very radical treatment. One option is debridement, where all the gangrenous flesh is surgically cut away. There is also maggot therapy, which can be very successful in cases of gangrene.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard of that. I didn’t know you did it here.’
‘Yes, we breed tiny bacteria-free maggots in the laboratory. We bandage them firmly to the gangrenous flesh and they eat it. The wonderful thing about maggots is that they don’t touch the healthy flesh, and they also give off substances that kill bacteria and promote healing.’
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