The Death of Love

by Bartholomew Gill

  “No!” McGarr had been filmed collaring the man; now he would let the press witness why. “This is your only chance to tell me the truth. Otherwise it’s a charge and Dublin. Think of your law practice. And your family.” He waited until Coyne blinked before releasing his hold on the overcoat. He stepped back.

  Coyne straightened up and turned around to face McGarr and, over McGarr’s shoulder, several score of the country’s press. In the doorway others had turned their attention from the funeral to him. From the church McGarr could hear the voice of the priest on the pulpit asking if the vestibule doors could be closed.

  Said Coyne, “I didn’t think much of it at the time. Mossie said it was a kind of joke, and he’d pay me for my time and all.” Coyne’s eyes rose to McGarr, pleading for him to understand. “It was only later that I realized it might be connected to—”

  “Paddy Power’s murder,” McGarr prompted.

  Coyne nodded.

  “Why didn’t you come forward?”

  On his scrawny neck Coyne’s head swirled. “It wasn’t like Mossie or I were part of the murder itself. It was just…an opportunity. For Mossie.”

  McGarr waited.

  “Look—it was early Saturday evening. I was in my office.” His eyes flickered down into the laneway to the building on the corner. “I was about to go home to my dinner when Mossie knocked. He wanted to use my copy machine, which he sometimes did. When I first settled here in Sneem, Mossie got me clients, he provided my family free medical attention, he helped us out every way he could. Without him I would have gone under.” And might still, the expression on Coyne’s haggard face said. “Anyway, I let him in, switched on the machine, and we waited, talking, while the thing warmed up.

  “Maybe a minute later, we heard a knock on the door—just one, like a thump—and when I opened it, there the cards were in a plastic sack from the chemist across the street.”

  “Go on.” McGarr said.

  “But there was nobody in the hall. I thought it strange and had no idea what the sack contained, but Mossie took one look and knew from the handwriting what they were. He went right to my desk and began spreading them out. The phone rang, and it was my wife, telling…asking me to come home to my supper. Mossie wondered if he could stay in the office, and would I mind if he used the copy machine. I filled it with paper, set the counter, and left. Much later—nine, say—I went out for a pint, and when I drove by, I saw the light still on in the office and Mossie’s old Land Rover parked out front.

  “Next day, Sunday, I got down here to the office early so I could do some work before Mass. I saw that Mossie had used all of the paper in the copy machine and half of the box that remained. He’d left some money—a hundred pounds—which was needed, let me tell you.” Coyne’s eyes glanced off McGarr’s and swept the journalists; he sighed. “And since I can’t afford any office help, I launched into my paper work for the week—the typing and filing.

  “Maybe around nine, Mossie arrived. He said he had something ‘unusual but harmless’ to ask of me. He put two hundred-pound notes on my desk and told me what he wanted. ‘A kind of joke,’ he called it. He said I was to put on his greatcoat and hat and deliver the sack of note cards to the Waterville Lake Hotel, using the car he had outside. He laid the keys on the desk, and I could see they weren’t for his old Land Rover that I’d used a couple of times to haul feed.

  “When I got to the hotel, I was to say as little as possible. He even provided me with a printed note. ‘Just hand the note to the desk clerk and leave.’ He showed me that too. It said the sack was to be delivered to Nell Power, which seemed aboveboard and easy enough. The tricky part, though, was in coming back.”

  Coyne shook his head. “I don’t know why I agreed to it. At that point, you know, Paddy Power was still alive. It wasn’t until a day later that he was discovered. And—” Coyne passed a hand across his upper lip, which was sweating. “Mossie wanted me to keep an eye out for some locals, who were either out working in their fields or traveling along the road on a bicycle or cart. At that point I was to put on that thing.” Coyne pointed to the wig. “You know, up under the hat. I was to stop the car in plain view, get out, and change out of the coat and hat. Then, without taking the wig off, he wanted me to get back in and drive away, making sure they got a good look at the car.

  “I thought that would be the hard part, but, it being Saturday and people on the road—” He shook his head. “I had the choice of dozens. I chose two men I’d never seen before.”

  “Didn’t you ask Gladden why?”

  Coyne nodded. “He said he didn’t know who had dropped the sack off at my office, but he knew it had been intended for him and why. It was political dynamite and implicated O’Duffy in a whole bunch of matters that had never before surfaced. He was going to make the most of it, and what I would be doing for him was both insurance and would ‘promote controversy,’ was what he said.”

  “Insurance?”

  “That what was contained in the note cards would see the light of day. At one time, it seems, Power had been kind of a rake, and the wife hated him ‘for all the best reasons,’ Mossie said. Were Power to deny that Mossie’s copy of the cards was his, she would be certain to come forward. ‘She’s a woman of passion who has been scorned,’ he said. ‘All the more so when she gets a look at these cards.’”

  “But why set Gretta Osbourne up?”

  “The Audi and the disguise were the only way we could think of getting Nell the copy quickly without incriminating ourselves in the theft. The gorsoon outfit was Mossie’s idea. He said, if Power reported the cards stolen and the police were called in, they’d discover that a country man in a costume like his own had dropped them off. Without a doubt they’d drag him in for an identification, but the desk clerk, who knew him, would swear he wasn’t the one. ‘But we’ll get the headline,’ said Mossie, ‘and that’s all I’ll need. One session with the note cards and the Dublin press.’”

  With proof of his allegations, McGarr thought. “But why did Gladden have such a sketchy knowledge of what the cards contained?”

  “I don’t think he ever had time to read them. He spent most of Saturday night copying them. Then on Sunday he had Paddy Power drop in on him up in his mountain farm, and later he attended Power’s reception at Parknasilla. As I understand from local gossip, he was then called away on a medical emergency.”

  “Of what sort?”

  Coyne’s eyes shied. “He didn’t tell me exactly, but I don’t think he got to sleep on Sunday night either. Even though he still looks strong, he’s a man of certain age. He probably never had time to go through them thoroughly.”

  McGarr thought of how glassy Gladden’s eyes had looked on Tuesday morning. “Did he tell you why he decided to turn against Paddy Power?” His lifelong friend.

  “I think it had to do with two things. I was still in the office when Mossie came upon the section of the cards that dealt with himself. ‘No,’ he kept complaining. ‘That’s not me at all.’ And, ‘You have me on the wrong foot altogether, Paddy.’ He was like a man in a rage. He was getting up every few minutes and marching from one room to the other. Finally he just picked that stack up and chucked them in the fire.

  “The second thing came just as I was going out the door. ‘Jesus—’” Coyne glanced up at the church and did not repeat the rest of the imprecation, “‘Power’s worse than O’Duffy and his tribe. D’ye know what he wants to do with the debt? Give the country away for it, and that bastard O’Duffy will reject every word of his proposal and then quietly do just that. It’s perfect for him and his crowd. They hold as much debt—more,’ he shouted, ‘than the foreigners. They’re the worst kind of people to have in a society. Jackals. They’ll eat as much as their bellies can hold, then spit up and take another meal.’

  “Did you see how he was on the bridge yesterday when the proposal was mentioned? He was so…livid he could no longer speak. He’s like a man possessed, and I have no idea what you can expect from him nex
t.”

  “Is that how you got the eye?”

  Coyne nodded. “Yesterday, after the bridge. I drove around, trying to find him. When I didn’t, I went all the way up to his farm. I wanted to tell him that I’d had enough of the ruse and was going to look you up—” Coyne’s eyes scanned McGarr’s impassive face. “Honestly, it’s what I said. What I intended. But I no sooner got it out of my mouth, when I found myself on my back with the cross hairs of his target rifle right here.” Coyne pointed to bridge of his nose between his eyes. “He said he’d shoot me and everybody in my family, were I to divulge a word. And look at me.” When McGarr, who was now lost in his own thoughts did not, Coyne shook his sleeve. “I believe him.”

  McGarr thought for a moment. Jackals. Where had he seen or heard that word in the recent past? He looked away, down into the square where the blue and olive-drab security forces had gathered.

  “Where is he now?”

  Coyne shook his head. “I have no idea. I thought for sure he’d be here today.” He too now looked into the square.

  McGarr nodded. From the church behind them he was hearing an organ playing the Missa Solemnis, which, he assumed, announced the end of the funeral mass. Still, none of the crowd immediately in back of him had moved. The last thing he needed was to create another scene, especially with the personages in attendance. Taking Coyne’s arm, he led him out through the journalists, a few of whom were torn between whom to follow. Questions were shouted, which McGarr ignored.

  “Am I under arrest?” Coyne asked. “Because, if I’m not, I’d like to get home and—”

  “Quiet,” McGarr said. He was trying to think where he had come upon the word “jackals.” While arguing with Frost over Power’s corpse on Monday, Gladden had said, “You and your bloated sow of an Eire Bank. You and O’Duffy and your pack of slavish jackals are thieves, every last one of you. You stole the wealth of this country and its future right out from under the nose of the poor, hardworking common man, and you’ll do anything, even commit murder, to keep it in your grip.”

  But somebody else had also mentioned the word. Jackals. McGarr looked back and saw Nell Power, Shane Frost, and Power’s children in the doorway with Sean Dermot O’Duffy, Harney, Quinn, and Farrell immediately behind them.

  “I mean, if he’s seen us together—”

  The note cards. Paddy Power had written:

  Target practice, he’s told me, for the dogs that summer people leave when returning to the city. Jackals, he calls them. The wily and strong have survived to reproduce, preying on Mossie’s sheep.

  McGarr then thought of the targets he had discovered with the target rifle inside the back door of Gladden’s mountain retreat. Below the picture of the first, which pictured a sheep, somebody—evidently Gladden himself—had written “Sean” in ornate Gaelic script. McGarr now wondered if the other targets were titled “Dermot” and “O’Duffy.”

  McGarr turned to Coyne. “You know Gladden. Do you think he killed Power?”

  Coyne was now plainly distressed and wanted to get away from McGarr. “You don’t know how many times I’ve asked myself that. You know, has Mossie involved me in murder? But”—he looked away, wildly now, his eyes scanning the small section of green that they now could see—“I don’t think so. Mossie is a moody man, and you can tell from his moods what he’s about. On Sunday when he put the proposition to me about the note cards and car and so forth, he was upbeat. It was an opportunity, is all, I think. Like I said. For him to make political hay of the thing.

  “But his frame of mind crumbled entirely when you discovered his photocopies of the note cards and then rounded up the originals. And finally there was his debacle on the bridge, which I advised him against wholeheartedly. I pleaded, I begged, him not to stand up in public with no proof, which was just what he had done a few years back with results so disastrous that he was still under a cloud.

  “But, like I said, he was possessed by Power’s ‘murder,’ he kept calling it, and his having lost the note cards. And you—Jesus—he did say he’d murder you himself.”

  “But was that rhetoric or do you think he could kill? Wantonly.”

  Now funeral-goers were streaming past them toward the bridge where O’Duffy would speak.

  “In the two years I’ve known him, I’ve seen him decline so much that I’m really not sure. First he quit his seat, then gave up his medical office, and finally moved out of town to that jakes of a place in the mountains. And the way he goes round. Him a medical man.” Again he shook his head.

  “What about him and the IRA?”

  “I know nothing about that,” Coyne said, too fast.

  “How long has he been taking care of their wounded? Is that what he was doing Sunday night?”

  Coyne nodded. “I don’t know exactly. Years, I’d say. Two, Three.”

  If the faction Gladden was aiding had been involved in the recent spate of terrorism in the North, then certainly Gladden—the medical man who had taken an oath to further human life—had to know he was serving death as well.

  “Can I go home now?”

  McGarr scanned the crowd and picked out Shane Frost standing with Nell Power and her family. Also standing by the bridge were Bresnahan, Rory O’Suilleabhain, and some older people who could only be their parents.

  McGarr scanned the church, the village green, the security forces, the narrow bridge where O’Duffy, Harney, and Quinn could now be seen. There microphones on stanchions bristled like a patch of metallic cattails framed by the black boxes of public-address speakers. The sky beyond was leaden, and a cold wind had sprung up. It would rain soon or snow.

  But no Gladden that McGarr could see from where they were standing.

  The security forces would have swept the village, looking for arms and snipers, people who should not be there. But, what about somebody who, say, had surfaced after their sweep and while everybody else had been in church? He would have been stopped and his identification checked. But a doctor and former T.D., who was known to hail from Sneem and was sure to put up a bit of a stink were he to be kept from the proceeding, would be let through. He might be followed and watched, but he would be allowed to pass.

  Also O’Duffy, who was most certainly a master of debate, might have instructed them not to hinder Gladden in any way. A final, terminal squelch would put Gladden out of the political picture for keeps.

  “Does Gladden still have a house here in the village?”

  Coyne shook his head.

  “What about your office? He have a key?”

  Again a head shake. “But he knows where the key is.”

  “Yesterday—was he there?”

  “Last night. He rang me up to ask if he could use the typewriter and phone. He said he had something important to write, several people to call.”

  “Always leaving a bit of money,” McGarr prompted.

  “It pays the rent, most months.”

  “Come on.” McGarr pointed to the building on the corner where Coyne had said his office was.

  “But I can’t. I really must get home.”

  “What about the matter of theft?”

  “I didn’t steal anything.”

  “You just admitted to me that Gladden recognized the note cards as Power’s. Instead of returning them, you knowingly delivered copies of them to somebody else. Certainly, Counselor, you must have known that was wrong.”

  As they reached the top of the stairs leading to Coyne’s office, McGarr heard O’Duffy’s amplified voice from the bridge saying, “Paddy was the true architect of the economic renaissance of present-day Ireland, and we can never thank him enough. Other countries, such as Namibia, Honduras, and Portugal, owe him a similar debt of gratitude for the services he rendered them while with various international banks and…”

  Coals were still glowing in the hearth of Coyne’s office, and the room was warm, in spite of the cold wind that was fluttering hems and causing people to turn their shoulders to the blast, when McGarr peered out th
e windows toward the bridge. There, O’Duffy was positioned before the microphones, his voice—amplified through the speakers—coming to them plainly as McGarr made a quick survey of the room. Wide flakes of swirling snow shot by the glass.

  “Did you start a fire this morning?”

  Coyne shook his head, his eyes surveying the room warily.

  Which meant Gladden had spent the night there.

  O’Duffy was saying, “…and so that Paddy Power’s death from whatever cause, which, I trust, will soon be determined, will not have been in vain, we in government have decided to explore the possibility of implementing at least part of the proposal that Paddy put forward at the conference of bankers held here in Parknasilla this week. Internationalizing unproductive Irish assets while retiring Irish debt is an idea that only somebody with the genius of Paddy Power could have created, and an idea whose time has come. Maintaining Irish control, of course.”

  It was Frost’s prediction right down to the way it was being offered to the Irish people—as Power’s idea but changed even to its wording.

  O’Duffy went on, “Along the line of Ireland becoming more international in outlook and trade, I’d also like to announce that Mr. Shane Frost, chairman of Eire Bank, has applied for and been granted permission to sell that concern, which is privately held, to the Nomura Bank of Kyoto, Japan, for an unspecified sum.”

  That was fast. When exactly had Frost applied to the government? Yesterday by phone?

  “Eire Bank, as you know, was founded by Paddy Power, and his family and heirs have agreed to accept the Nomura offer for the assets that they hold in the bank.

  “I would like to close my remarks by stating that, in spite of what you may have read or heard regarding the manner of Paddy’s death, there still has been no determination in that regard. As far as we know to date, Paddy died of the natural cause of heart failure perhaps brought on by his having mistaken the medicines he was taking. Paddy had a long history of heart trouble. The investigation is continuing under the direction of Chief Superintendent McGarr, one of our senior-most police officials, who enjoys the complete confidence of both the Garda Siochana and this government. His final report will be made public in its entirety.”