Red Herring

by Jonothan Cullinane

  “Of course not.” Mrs Philpott squeezed Caitlin’s hand. “I’ve made up a bed on the couch in the living room.”

  Caitlin smiled and put down her glass. “I may go there now. I’m feeling very tired all of a sudden.”

  “Get Miss O’Carolan a clean towel from the hall cupboard, John,” said Mrs Philpott. “I’ll bring you a washing bowl in the morning, dear, and a cup of tea.”

  Molloy led Caitlin from the kitchen. As they walked down the hallway the grandfather clock struck. Caitlin jumped. “Oh, gosh,” she said, taking his arm. “That gave me a fright.”

  “It’s ten o’clock,” he said. “Been a big day.”

  A door opened and Miss Perkins put her head out. She was wearing rollers in her hair and there was cream on her face. “Everything all right?”

  “Good as gold,” said Molloy. “Oh. Miss Perkins, this is a friend of mine, Miss O’Carolan.”

  “How do you do,” said Miss Perkins.

  “Hello,” said Caitlin.

  Miss Perkins looked impassively at Molloy. “Good night,” she said, closing her door.

  Caitlin unwrapped the towel from her head and lay on the couch. She pulled up the blankets.

  “Why did they want to shoot you?” she said, shivering.

  “I don’t think they did. Sunny Day said, ‘Watch out, he’s got a gun.’ He was referring to O’Flynn, not me. I’m pretty sure shooting me was O’Flynn’s plan, not theirs.”

  “What’s their plan?” she said.

  “I’ll work it out.” He kissed her damp hair. “Get a good night’s sleep,” he said. “It’ll be clearer in the morning.”

  He returned to the kitchen.

  “Everything all right?” said Mrs Philpott.

  “Out like a light.”

  “I heard someone talking in the hallway,” said Mrs Philpott.

  “That was Miss Perkins.”

  “Was she upset?”

  “Why would she be?”

  “At seeing you with Miss O’Carolan?”

  Molloy looked at her.

  “I know where babies come from, John,” said Mrs Philpott. She leaned forward and pushed the damper in an inch or so.

  “Miss O’Carolan can look after herself, don’t worry.”

  “It’s Miss Perkins I’m worried about, poor soul,” said Mrs Philpott.

  They sat in silence. He picked up the whisky bottle. “May I?”

  “Of course.”

  Molloy splashed some into his glass.

  “How’s your shin?” she said.

  “It’ll be all right.”

  “Are you in trouble, dear?”

  He sipped. “Dorothy, if I told you someone tried to kill me tonight, what would you say?”

  “Kill you?” She reached for the whisky bottle and poured some into her cocoa mug. “Oh, dear.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  The Prime Minister, Sid Holland, stood in front of the bathroom mirror in his room at the Grand Hotel, wearing baggy underpants, black socks and a white shirt, his suit on a hanger behind the door, a tiny nodule of dried blood beneath one nostril where he had nicked himself with his cutthroat.

  “The Government is alive to the danger that besets us,” he said, shaking his finger at an imaginary audience on the edge of its seat. “And is determined to ensure that our enemy does not succeed.”

  He ran a blue tie under the collar of his shirt.

  “We . . .” he began, flipping the tie’s wide end over the narrow end and back underneath. “We, um . . .” He put on his reading glasses and looked at the sheet of paper balanced on the basin. “We are at war,” he said. “Of course.” He brought the wide end back over in front of the narrow end, making a loop. He cleared his throat. “We are at war. There is an enemy within which is just as unscrupulous, poisonous, treacherous and unyielding as the enemy without.”

  He pulled the wide end up and through the loop and brought it down in front. “He works night and day,” he continued. “He never lets up.” Holland paused. He unscrewed a pen from the inside pocket of his suit coat, scratched out “lets” and replaced it with “gives”. He gently tugged on the narrow end of the tie. “He works night and day. He never gives up.” He slid the knot up towards his throat. “Our enemy gnaws away at the very vitals of our economy, just as the codling moth enters and gnaws away at the innards of an apple while everything on the outside looks shiny and rosy.”

  He looked at his reflection in the mirror and liked what he saw. Resolve. Determination. Leadership. Tie just so, a good, solid four-in-hand, unlike the Windsor favoured by some of the newer chaps in Cabinet, the Holyoakes and the Eyres. He didn’t much care for the Windsor. There was something of the motor trade about it, Sid thought.

  “We should be under way in five minutes, sir, if you wouldn’t mind,” said the bodyguard, from outside the door.

  “Right you are,” said Holland, picking up a hairbrush.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Lofty turned off State Highway 1 and drove up Patutohe Road West for five miles. He’d had the Plymouth up to seventy on the Great South Road and hardly even noticed. Those Yanks sure knew about motorcars.

  There was a map spread out on the passenger seat and he had a quick look. There should be a turn-off coming up on the left. There was. No name, just a milk-run number nailed to a power pole. The road became gravel. Cows watched him blankly from a paddock. Out to his right he caught a quick glimpse of railway tracks. He came up a rise. The road went down the hill and under a bridge, veered left and disappeared round a corner. He tapped the brake and pulled off to the side, gradually slowing to a halt, keeping an eye on a steep ditch. He hated to think what Sunny would do to him if he pranged the car. Let alone Mr Walsh.

  He turned off the engine and got out. The only sounds were the ticking of the manifold, and from somewhere in the distance, a sheep. Or sheep. Lofty had grown up in Freemans Bay. He checked his watch. The Limited, the only scheduled train between ten o’clock and five, was not due for at least two hours. The Limited was occasionally on time, but never early. He closed the door, opened the boot and took out a wooden beer crate containing gelignite, detonators and a rope, and walked delicately down the road to the bridge, the crate held out in front of him.

  He climbed up the bank and onto the tracks, being careful not to look down because he was afraid of heights. Halfway across he stopped and put the crate on the gravel next to the line. He took out the rope and wrapped it loosely round a section of track between two sleepers, then placed half a dozen sticks of gelignite under the coils. Holding the bundle in place with one hand, he gently tightened the rope until it was secure, and tied it off. There were two lengths of fuse in case one went out. He squeezed the ends of both into the detonator, as O’Flynn had shown him, and walking backwards, fed them out along the line. He studied the set-up, checking in particular that the fuses were still connected. Everything seemed in order.

  He struck a match and lit the first fuse and then the second. They fizzed and sparked and began to move slowly along the tracks towards the bundle. He had twelve minutes before the thing went off, according to O’Flynn, but he also felt that the Irishman didn’t like him that much.

  He scrambled down the bank to the road and ran to the Plymouth. You drongo! he suddenly thought. What if she doesn’t start? But she did. He made a sweeping three-point turn and drove back up the hill. He stopped at the crest and got out, leaving the engine running this time, handbrake on, and waited. O’Flynn had doctored the gelly so that it would do no serious damage, but still, Lofty was curious.

  The charge went off with a soft poof followed by an echoing crack and the clang of stones hitting the tracks and landing on the road below the bridge. The small amount of smoke and dust quickly dissipated. You’d barely call it an explosion but it would cause a hell of a stink.

  He drove to Waiuku, made an anonymous call to the police from a phone box, read a short statement that Mr Walsh had written claiming responsibility for the bo
mbing in the name of something called the Huntly Miners’ Soviet, and then dropped into the Kentish Hotel for a jug.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Frank O’Flynn, wearing a boiler suit and carrying a canvas toolbag which contained a number of items including, as would be expected, saws, hammers, a plumb line and a measuring tape, but also rope, pliers, a torch, a knife, a box of matches, a clock, a paraffin lamp wrapped in a jersey, an auger, a two-inch masonry bit, a piece of chalk, several detonators, and twenty sticks of gelignite, strode into the foyer of the Auckland Town Hall. He passed, without pausing, policemen, NZBS technicians, government officials, uniformed ushers, excited members of the National Party, and young girls with wooden trays slung around their necks selling sweets and orange cordial and Eskimo Pies, and went through a door next to the Gentlemen’s toilets marked BASEMENT. NO ADMITTANCE.

  Behind the door the elegance of the Town Hall foyer gave way to the building’s damp, utilitarian underbelly. There was a circular metal stairwell. He took out his torch, pointed the beam into the gloom, and began his descent.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Mrs Philpott came into the kitchen. She was wearing a pink suit and hat and white gloves.

  “Good morning, everybody,” she said, like Aunt Daisy. “Good morning, good morning, everybody.” She smiled at Caitlin. “Did you sleep well, dear?”

  “Very well, thank you,” said Caitlin. “I feel so much better.”

  “You’re dolled up today, Mrs Philpott,” said Molloy, observing the old formalities. “Going to a wedding?”

  The landlady took out a tram timetable from a kitchen drawer. “I’m going to the Town Hall,” she said. “To hear the Prime Minister make an address. They say he’s going to give the wharfies what for at long last and I want to be there to hear history made.”

  “Aren’t you on the wharfies’ side, Mrs Philpott?” said Caitlin, unable to help herself.

  “I’m most certainly not!” said Mrs Philpott. “They’re practically starving at Home and there’s all this mutton just sitting there on the wharves because—”

  Molloy put down his cup with a bang. “No you’re not,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon?” said Mrs Philpott.

  “You’re not going anywhere near the Town Hall today, Mrs Philpott.”

  “Oh is that so?” said Mrs Philpott. “Well—”

  “What did O’Flynn do in Ireland?” said Molloy to Caitlin, talking over Mrs Philpott.

  “What?” said Caitlin, uncertain. “For a living, you mean?”

  “He was in the IRA. He was a bomb maker.”

  “Yes,” said Caitlin. “I’m not sure—”

  “What did he do?” Molloy was standing now. “In 1938?”

  “Um. Um. He tried to blow up the Earl of Galway.”

  “How?” said Molloy.

  “How?” said Caitlin, confused. “With a bomb.”

  “What are you two talking about?” said Mrs Philpott.

  “Where?” said Molloy, banging the table.

  “Where?” said Caitlin. “In th—” Her eyes widened and her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God.”

  “Now, young lady, there’s no call—” said Mrs Philpott.

  “With a bomb,” said Molloy, as though Mrs Philpott wasn’t there. “In the Cork Town Hall.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Molloy backed his car out of the garage at speed, almost hitting a postman who swore at him, reckless driving being a constant danger in the swift completion of a postie’s appointed rounds to this very day, and reached over to open the door for Caitlin.

  “Have you got anything with you that says you’re on the Star?” he said, skidding out onto Williamson Avenue.

  “Not with me,” said Caitlin. “It’s in my purse at the bottom of the Lighter Basin. Why?”

  “Have a look in the glovebox.”

  Caitlin poked around and found a school notebook and a fairly new 2 HB pencil. “These’ll do.”

  Molloy pointed to the leather grip on the floor by her feet. “There’s a camera in that bag. Do you reckon I could pass for a newspaperman if I followed you around? Wisecracking newshound and stolid shutterbug?”

  She looked at him. “They tend to be tubbier.”

  “Nobody will be looking at me.”

  She opened the bag and took out the Voigtländer. “Where’d you get this?”

  “Italy,” said Molloy, checking the mirror.

  “Italy was good to you, wasn’t it?” she said, one hand gripping the door handle as Molloy overtook a tram.

  “Bits of it weren’t bad. Wouldn’t want to live there though.”

  They double-parked at the bottom of Greys Avenue and ran down to Queen Street. There was a crowd in front of the Town Hall, filling the footpath. Buses from Helensville and Papakura and Thames and Whangarei were parked across the road, and cars crawled in both directions.

  “Seriously,” said Caitlin, after a moment, looking at the vehicles, the crowd, the police, her voice tightening. “Do you have a plan?”

  “Look, it’s probably better if you stay here,” said Molloy. “This could get hairy.”

  “Not on your life, buster,” she said, straightening her shoulders. “You would have been finished last night if I hadn’t turned up.”

  “Too true.” He squeezed her hand. “Come on. As a cobber of mine, John Newton, always says, momentum is everything.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  O’Flynn thought of Oscar Guttman’s 1892 text, Blasting: A Handbook for the Use of Engineers and Others Engaged in Mining, Tunnelling, Quarrying, Etc., in religious terms, and he was not a religious man, nor was he an engineer, or one engaged in mining, tunnelling or quarrying. He fell into the broader category of Etc. and Guttman was his muse.

  To blow up a masonry foundation the amount of gelignite needed is calculated, per Guttman, by using the formula L = 0.1 d², where L is the charge in pounds, and d is the thickness in feet. So the destruction of a section of foundation wall two feet thick and twelve feet long requires 0.4 lb charges of gelignite in holes drilled four feet apart. O’Flynn had got the formula wrong in Cork. The bomb he planted in the basement of the Town Hall failed to collapse the building, despite doing considerable damage. The IRA’s Director of Chemicals, Seamus O’Donovan, had given him a real bollocking.

  He got out the paraffin lamp and the matches and put the lamp on a ledge. He pumped the primer. He raised the glass bowl and lit the flame, and when it took he lowered the glass and wound the wick back to a working height. He switched off his torch and put it in the toolbag. He measured the wall in four-foot lengths and marked each with a chalk cross. He wound up the tape measure and put it and the chalk back in the toolbox. For a man who in many ways led a chaotic life, O’Flynn was well organised when it mattered. He got out the auger, tightened the bit, lit a cigarette, and began drilling.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Sid Holland stood to loud applause, took his speech from his breast pocket, and walked to the lectern, his brogues squeaking on the wooden stage. The Town Hall was full. He unfolded his notes. The clapping died away, the only sounds a distant cough and the clacking of the prime ministerial reading glasses.

  Sid loved moments like this. He felt like a conductor in one of the great concert halls of Europe, crowned heads and commoners alike poised for the tap of his baton. He cleared his throat to check the correct distance from the microphone, and began.

  “Your Worship. Lady Allum.” He inclined his head, fractionally and reluctantly, in the direction of Sir John Allum, the Mayor of Auckland, who looked, with his bristly moustache and Cheshire cat grin, exactly like the Minhinnick cartoon. He acknowledged the other dignitaries sitting in a row beside, but slightly behind, the mayoral presence. “Borough chairmen. Members of the Auckland City Council. Distinguished guests.”

  He turned to face the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen. The Government is alive to the danger that besets us, and is determined to ensure that our enemy does not succeed.�
��

  He paused. “We are at war.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  Molloy and Caitlin ran into the foyer of the Town Hall. A cleaner was sweeping cigarette butts and lolly wrappers off the floor.

  “Auckland Star,” said Molloy, indicating his camera. “Where’s the basement entrance?”

  The door was unlocked, the stairwell pitch black.

  “Should have brought a torch,” he said.

  “Would a lighter be any good?” said Caitlin.

  “Let’s give it a try.”

  Caitlin opened her handbag and passed her lighter to Molloy. He flicked it on. It was better than nothing, but not much better.

  “Hold onto the handrail and stay close,” said Molloy.

  They descended in silence, straining to hear, the atmosphere getting colder and damper with each step. The stairway gave out onto a corridor, with an uneven floor and rough brick walls, at the end of which weak yellow light spilled. They could hear the clinking of tools.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  O’Flynn tamped the last of the gelly into the holes, set the detonators and uncoiled the fuses. He looked at his watch. That big eejit Lofty should have set off the diversion on the Patutohe bridge by now, he thought, and the coppers would be all over it like a madwoman’s shite. Unless Lofty had got lost, which was possible. Likely, even. Walsh’s concern, not his.

  Time for me to get lost too, he thought. The boat sailed for Sydney in two hours. Then where? South Africa? Mexico? The Orient maybe? He had a pal up that way. Siam, was it? Malaya? Rubber plantations. Growing tea. Native women of rare beauty who worshipped Europeans and would do anything for them. Somewhere a quid went a long way, anyway, and white men got away with murder.

  He set the timer for fifteen minutes, then unbuttoned his boiler suit and dropped it on the ground. He was wearing grey trousers and a brown leather jacket. He’d watch the explosion from across the road. Noise and a bit of smoke, that’s all. What the Director of Chemicals liked to call a “billy-do”.