‘Why did she push you away?’ Murphy asked gently.
‘You know why.’
‘But it’s so obvious that you still love her.’
‘Does that bother you?’
‘Of course not. Jesus, I feel guilty enough as it is.’
‘Look,’ he said, ‘last night was last night, and for what it’s worth I don’t regret a minute of it.’
‘Neither do I.’
‘No one’s being punished here, Keira: the two things aren’t related.’
She nodded then and, taking his hand, she offered a smile of encouragement. ‘We will find her,’ she said.
Quinn peered through the windscreen. ‘The necklace is significant,’ he said.
‘Unless it did just come off in the struggle,’ Murphy said, lifting her shoulders. ‘I mean, that’s more than possible, isn’t it?’
‘Yes it is, of course it is. But I don’t think that’s what happened. It’s significant, Keira, and if Maggs is in London, then there has to be someone else out there it means something to.’
Monday 1st September 5.30 pm
Leaving the square, Frank Maguire drove south on Camden Street, passing Jocky O’Connell’s bar, where Quinn and Doyle used to wind up on a Thursday night. No doubt the Doyler still did, but Quinn had a career to take care of, and to that end he’d curtailed his drinking.
Doyle had never cared about a career: he said it as he saw it, and he knew that no matter what he did, after thirty-two years, no one in Phoenix Park would do anything about it. The judge had called for an inquiry after the Maggs debacle, but so far no one had seen any paperwork. The whole affair would die quietly, as it always did, and Doyle would go on being Doyle until he retired back to Kerry.
Maguire had been in the job almost thirty years himself, and he knew it was sergeants like Doyle who really ran things. In a way, Maguire envied him. For him, the career climb had been everything; he’d laid foundations for each rung religiously; from the golf and the lodge to the work he did for charity. Since childhood, he’d had a burning desire to advance as far as he could. That’s partly why he’d married an investment banker; it’s why they’d never had children; and it’s why they lived in Donnybrook when really they couldn’t afford it. Donnybrook. It was funny to think that as recently as a hundred years ago, that had been the place you went if you wanted a fight on Saturday night; now it was about as affluent a Dublin suburb as you could get.
Maguire had managed to avoid the media scrum that was gathered in force now outside the Bureau. Not only was he fielding questions from TV and the newspapers, he also had the deputy commissioner on his back – who in turn had the commissioner on his back, who had the minister for justice breathing down his neck. Their combined weight was heavy, and on top of that Maguire had other things to think about.
On the south side of the canal, he made a left and trundled along under the gaze of the old Georgian houses until he found a space near Charlemont Lock. He was not far from where the statue of the poet Patrick Kavanagh sat on a bench seeking inspiration from the water. Thinking about him now, the words of a verse were in Maguire’s mind suddenly:
Winter encloses me.
I am fenced,
The light, the laugh, the dance,
Against.
A few lines, something Maguire remembered from his school days; words that right now captured everything he was feeling. In all his years as a police officer, he could not remember a day such as this.
Crossing the road, he entered a four-storey Georgian house that had long since been converted into apartments. The top one belonged to his little brother, who was at Quinn’s place right now looking after his kids.
Inside, he picked up Patrick’s mail and climbed the stairs to the flat. It wasn’t much, but on Paddy’s wages he couldn’t afford much. It was more of a studio really, although the bedroom was separate. The flat overlooked the canal, however, and when the trees were in leaf you couldn’t see the trolleys and plastic bottles and other bits of rubbish that littered the water. Right now, though, Maguire wasn’t interested in the canal. Kavanagh’s words haunted him; there on the mantelpiece was the photograph his brother insisted on keeping. Maguire peered at her; those sallow features; the way her hair lay lank and plaited, greasy across one shoulder.
*
His brother didn’t have a name.
He was already three months old and they’d been back in the grubby tenement for weeks. Frank’s mother told him that the midwife was on her way and he was in a panic about getting the place tidy.
She issued orders from where she sat, smoke lifting in a spiral from her cigarette. The skin seemed to hang from her face; there were greying sacks of it beneath her eyes; she never wore any makeup.
‘Will you get the place cleaned up, Frank? Come on, you can get the dishes in the sink and wash down that surface.’
The kitchen formed part of the living room, and as he hunted under the sink for a cloth, she was still in the chair. It was how he always saw her. She didn’t move from that seat, even when the baby cried.
He was crying now as Frank took a cloth to the spillages on the worktop: baked beans and HP sauce, egg ground into the draining board. He’d made his mother an egg the other day when she was too drunk to eat anything but had demanded it anyway. When he brought it to her, it was rock solid and she’d hurled it at him.
‘Come on, Frank,’ she cajoled. ‘She’ll be here in a minute, and if this place isn’t as clean as a new pin you know what’s going to happen. The school, Frankie: where the priests are in charge and you have to work till you fall over.’ She leered at him, still cupping the glass she’d hide, as she always did, when somebody came to visit. At the last minute she’d wash it up, then rifle in her handbag for chewing gum, even though it did nothing to mask the sickly-sweet stench that clung to her breath.
Cloth in hand, Frank turned to her. ‘Mam,’ he said. ‘She’s going to ask about the baby.’
‘What?’
‘The midwife, she’s going to ask about the baby.’
‘What about the baby?’ She sounded even more irritable. One last swallow, and she handed him the glass.
‘Mam,’ he said again. ‘The midwife, she’s going to want to know about the baby.’
‘For Christ’s sake, what about the bloody baby?’ She turned on him now. ‘He’s clean, isn’t he?’
‘No, he’s not. I can smell his nappy.’
‘Then change him, for pity’s sake. He’s your brother, boy. It’s your job to change him.’
He opened his mouth and she glared at him.
‘Don’t you dare talk back to me; one brat in the house is bad enough. Get him changed, will you? Go on, unless you want the midwife to take you both away.’
‘But Mam,’ he stammered, ‘she’s going to ask, isn’t she?’
‘Ask what, for heaven’s sake?’
‘What we called him. She’ll want to know his name.’
She stared at him for a moment. Then she stared at the baby lying soiled still in the second-hand Moses basket they’d got at the charity shop.
‘He needs a name,’ Frank insisted.
‘Well, why don’t you think of something, then, instead of just yapping about it? And while you’re about it, change his bloody nappy.’
Frank lifted his baby brother from the basket and took him into the bathroom, where water dripped and lime scale gathered around the plughole of the sink. He laid him on the mat, took off the rubber pants and grabbed an almost-dry nappy where it hung over the radiator. He was worried now after what his mother had said and, working too quickly, he pricked his thumb on the safety pin.
The midwife was a baby-catcher. That’s the picture his mother painted, and if she remembered to tell him about a visit the day before, his dreams would be plagued by images of industrial schools where priests wandered never-ending corridors and far in the distance children were crying.
He cleaned his brother’s mess, washed his arse and refastened a
new nappy as best he could, then carried the boy through to the living room. His mother was back in the chair, her glass clean and put away, and she was chewing gum.
‘I’ve thought of a name,’ he told her. ‘What about Patrick Pearse? We could call him Patrick, couldn’t we? I mean, Patrick is the Saint of Ireland, and Pearse was … well I don’t remember, but my teacher told me something about him, I know he did.’
‘What’re you prattling about?’
‘Patrick, Mam: we could call my brother Patrick.’
She didn’t look up; she was staring into space, hands buckled like claws across her lap.
‘Mammy?’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ she muttered. ‘Call him what you like, boy, I couldn’t give a shit.’
Monday 1st September 6 pm
Doyle parked outside Liberty Hall, which, at sixteen storeys – one for each of the martyrs shot during the Easter Rising – was the tallest building in Dublin. Few remembered this detail, and perhaps fewer still even cared, but Doyle was fifty years old and history, particularly Irish history, had been his subject ever since he’d been spellbound by James O’Donohue, his old schoolteacher back in County Kerry.
One of those who’d been executed was James Connolly, who stood truculent as a prizefighter, his feet apart and his chin high, as defiant cast in bronze as he had been in life. Ironically, the Brits had shot him sitting down because he was already wounded in the ankle after the siege at the old post office. The statue had been erected on the eightieth anniversary of his death, and Doyle had been one of those at its unveiling.
He was a dinosaur and he knew it, but there were a few still like him. He went his own way, always had, and though his family had been staunchly republican, it hadn’t stopped him joining the police force. He’d had more enemies in the IRA than just about any other detective, yet towards the end of the Troubles there was rumour that his eldest brother, Cahal, had been on the Army Council. Those days were long gone now, though, and Cahal was in America.
Back in 1974, when Doyle was only two years into the job, he’d been walking the beat in Talbot Street when three bombs went off; one right in front of him. Thirty people were killed that day; the Ulster Volunteer Force from the north took responsibility, but the closer the Garda looked, the more the evidence pointed to British Intelligence.
Nodding deferentially to Connolly, Doyle left the car and walked to the quay. The rain had started again, worrying the surface of the Liffey. It had been a summer of nothing but rain. A burly-looking skinhead was on the deck of Finucane’s boat. Doyle didn’t know him, and the man clearly didn’t know him either, because he looked down with a snarl on his face like a rabid pit-bull terrier.
‘Get over yourself, would you?’ Doyle said as he climbed aboard. ‘Jesus, I’d eat two of you before my breakfast. Run along and tell Johnny the Doyler wants a word.’
The younger man’s hands were fists now, and for a moment Doyle thought he might actually hit him.
He laughed in his throat but his expression was cold. ‘I’ve little time, lad. Do as you’re told before I toss you in for the trout.’
‘Dessie!’ Like a gunshot the word was fired from the stairs below the wheelhouse. Looking beyond the skinhead, Doyle saw Finucane watching them. ‘Let him past, will you?’
Finucane was no more than five feet six in his socks. He was red-faced and rotund; his pate was completely bereft of hair, and the monk’s crown that partially encircled it was shaved close to a bristle: at fifty-two or thereabouts, he’d been a gangster as long as Doyle had been a cop. The salon was both spacious and luxurious, with leather sofas and a massive high-definition TV. The picture was frozen on a rerun of last year’s All-Ireland football semi-final; Doyle paused in front of the screen.
‘Do you not know what happened, Johnny? Kerry beat you Dub bastards 1-15, then hammered Cork in the final.’ Picking up the remote, he switched the TV off, and turning to where Finucane hovered at the bar, he nodded to the bottles on the shelves. ‘I’ll take a large Jimmy with a splash of port; you can hold back on the ice.’
Finucane poured the drink and handed it to him. Doyle raised the glass and swallowed, then looked the old northside gangster in the eye.
‘How’s your cousin, Johnny?’
Finucane gave a short, cold laugh and, moving to a leather recliner, sat down and tipped the seat back. ‘The last time I clapped eyes on her was when she was on the TV with your man outside the Four Courts. Made a right fuckin’ plank of yourself that day, didn’t you? Letting a maggot off the hook. Always were too handy with the paws, though, even for an old bog-warrior’.
Doyle curled his lip. ‘Are you starting, Johnny?’
‘The fuck I am, Doyler. I’ve a game to watch, so what is it you’re wanting?’
‘I want to know who’s been so stupid as to abduct a guard’s wife.’
Finucane lifted his shoulders. ‘Right now, I haven’t the faintest.’
‘Bad fuckin’ business, and bad for business, if you know what I mean. Every car stopped, every van. Every business premises searched from Cork as far as the border.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘So what’s the word?’
‘There is no word: this is no one that matters – not as far as we’re concerned. Maybe it’s the little gobshite you whacked coming back to haunt you. After all, she’s your niece, isn’t she?’
Doyle considered him coldly. ‘I’d like to think it was, Johnny – so I could squash the fucker for good this time. But he’s in London shacked up with your second cousin.’
‘We might be related, but she’s only my cousin’s daughter, and I’ve said bugger-the-fuck-all to him in years, Doyler.’
‘Well, somebody knows what’s going on, and what you don’t know you need to find out. When this is over, we’ll not be particular about who we’re cleaning up. That means you, Johnny; it means McGeady, Minty …’
Finucane looked sour. ‘And the pirate queen?’
‘Do us a favour, would you?’ Doyle gave a half-smile. ‘She’s always had a thing for Moss Quinn, but it wouldn’t stretch to doing away with his wife, now. Besides, she knows we like her pirating from Alexei Bris.’
‘She’s still selling the skag, man. What’s the fuckin’ difference?’
‘She’s not selling it in Ireland, clogger. That’s the fuckin’ difference.’
Finucane sat up straighter. ‘That Russian scrote knows it’s her – which means sooner or later there’s going to be blood spilled, and there can only be one winner.’ Getting up, he crossed to the bar.
‘We can talk about the battle lines another time,’ Doyle said. ‘The clock is ticking, Johnny – and I mean literally. As you pointed out, this is my brother’s babby we’re talking about. Someone knows what’s happened, and they know why. If she’s not found, then me and Quinn are going to blame people like you, and God knows every copper in the country will be behind us.’
Finucane didn’t say anything.
‘I’ll leave it to you then, will I? I’m taking it you’re still the man when we’re talking north of the river.’
Still Finucane didn’t reply.
‘I want my niece alive and well and the fucker’s head on a platter. Am I making myself plain enough for you, Johnny?’
‘You know, Doyler,’ Finucane said quietly, ‘you push it for an old feller. One of these days you’ll be finished with the guards, and one dark night when you’re done supping in some scabby bar in the back of beyond in bog land.’
Doyle patted the grips of the .38 he carried at his hip. ‘Johnny,’ he said, ‘any time you think I’m old enough, you just come a-calling.’
Monday 1st September 6.30 pm
Laura Quinn watched Nickelodeon with her sister, though her mind was as far from the cartoon as it could be. Her dad was still out, and though the teachers had tried to keep it from them, she knew that her mother had been taken away by someone. Her Nan had been on the phone from Kerry. Grandad and Nana Quinn had been on
the phone as well, and they told her to tell her dad they were coming home from their holiday early. She told them that her Uncle Paddy was looking after them while their dad went down to Blackrock; people said her mam might be at Blackrock beach. She hoped so.
She cast a short glance at Uncle Paddy, sitting at the table in the dining end of the living room. He had the evening newspaper spread out and was hunched on his elbows with his fists at his cheeks. Laura crossed to the bay window and stood with her head pressed to the glass staring at the empty space where her mother’s car would normally be. Some of the kids at school had found out what had happened, and during the afternoon she and Jess had been asked loads of questions. People told her that her mam’s car had been found in the cemetery where Danny was buried.
Looking round again, she saw Uncle Paddy watching her. He smiled. ‘Are you OK, Laura?’
Laura shrugged.
Jess looked up, as uninterested in the cartoon as her sister.
‘What would you like for your tea?’
‘I’m not hungry,’ Laura said.
‘Me neither.’ Jess drew her knees up to her chin.
Folding away the paper, Uncle Paddy came over. ‘Look, girls,’ he said, ‘I know you’re worried, but I know your mam, and she’ll be all right.’
‘But someone took her.’ Laura sounded panicky. ‘Someone abducted her.’
‘That’s what they call it,’ Jess piped up. ‘I heard it at school.’
Gently, Uncle Paddy stroked her hair. ‘It is what they call it, yes; and there are some wicked people in the world; but your mam is strong, and every guard in the country is looking for her. Not just every guard, but every person, Jessie. They’ll find her, and it’ll be soon, I promise. She’ll be back here in a jiffy and everything will be all right.’
The Gathering of Souls Page 9