The City in Darkness

by Michael Russell

  Everyone was busy, but no one was talking.

  He walked back to where St Kevin’s Road stopped and a track climbed higher up the valley through the trees. There was an almost festive air about a gang of men tramping along it. The Missing Postman had gripped not only Wicklow but Ireland itself; on the third day it was edging out the IRA arms’ raid on the radio and the newspapers. Now, beyond the treeline, past the ruined cottages of the miners who once worked lead there, past the crumbling mine buildings and the carcases of steam engines and pumps, past the sterile spoil heaps, hundreds of people were scouring the hills. Stefan didn’t know much about Byrne, but from what he had heard mountain climbing in the dark seemed unlikely, drunk or not.

  Stefan looked back up the Miners’ Road then stopped, seeing a man on horseback, riding through the trees towards him. He recognized Alex Sinclair straightaway, even though they hadn’t seen one another for many years. As the tall, fair-haired man, a little older than Stefan, came level with him, he reined in the horse. Men walking past touched their caps.

  ‘Someone said you were about. It’s a long time, Stefan.’

  ‘It is. So they’ve got you out looking too?’

  ‘I thought I’d better put in my six-penn’orth. Everyone else is.’

  ‘It’s thorough, certainly.’

  ‘Is that a lack of conviction, Inspector Gillespie?’

  ‘I don’t how far they think the man got, but his bicycle was half a mile down the road, whatever that means. They’re working out from there, which sounds like sense. But up here, if you don’t find anything, you keep going, anywhere. And it’s a lot of anywhere. Did you know him, Alex?’

  ‘I’ve discussed the weather and the price of stamps. But I’m never here these days. I’ve been in England for years. I’m with the RAF now.’

  Stefan knew. He had not seen Alex Sinclair in seven years but it was only a month since he read his name on a list at Dublin Castle: Alexander Sinclair, Mullacor House, Glendalough, Flying Officer in the RAF, 43 Squadron. It was a list he had put at the bottom of a file. Not that it mattered much. There were degrees even in the treacherous activities Stefan was rooting out. Not everyone warranted the same attention when it came to the British forces. The Sinclairs owned a lot of land. They possessed healthy nationalist credentials too, since Alex’s grandfather abandoned his Anglo-Irish connections abruptly in 1884, but they still had close ties to England. There was a great uncle who was a Royal Artillery colonel, though he lived south of Dublin, outside Naas. He belonged to the side of the family without nationalist credentials; he still wouldn’t be on any Special Branch lists.

  Alex Sinclair got down from the horse. They shook hands.

  ‘So are you still in Baltinglass? That was the last I heard.’

  ‘No, I’m working in Dublin now.’

  ‘And here to put in your six-penn’orth too then.’

  ‘To stick my oar in as far as Bray CID are concerned.’

  ‘Oh, it’s like that, is it?’

  Alex took the mare’s bridle; they walked in the shadow of the trees.

  ‘So do the Guards have any idea what happened to Billy Byrne?’

  ‘The short answer is no,’ said Stefan.

  ‘The long answer is presumably not for my ears.’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s for anybody’s so far.’

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ said Sinclair, looking at another gang of eager searchers heading past them to the Miners’ Road and the hills, ‘if he’s dead then he’s got a lot more friends now than he had when he was alive.’

  Stefan nodded; he had already heard that.

  ‘I hope life’s been kinder to you, Stefan, over the years.’

  ‘Kind enough.’

  ‘What about your lad? I’m sorry, I should know his name.’

  ‘Tom’s grand. He’s eight now. Still at the farm with my parents. It’s not the way I’d want it to be, but it’s how it has to be. It works, sort of.’

  ‘You’ve not married again?’

  ‘Well, let’s say it hasn’t happened yet.’

  Alex registered the hint of a smile. ‘Does that mean it’s going to?’

  ‘It’s . . .’

  ‘It’s not my business!’ laughed Alex.

  ‘I only meant,’ Stefan smiled, ‘if I knew what was happening, I might have an answer. I don’t even know if . . . with the times we’re in . . .’

  They walked on again, the horse following behind.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Alex suddenly, ‘I joined up. I’m in it!’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Three months. ASAP. I’ve been flying for five years, you know. I had to get something out of that! I got my wings. Now I’m actually paid to sit in one of the fastest crates you can fly. They even started a war for me!’

  ‘I’m glad something makes it worth fighting, Alex.’

  Stefan smiled. Alex Sinclair looked more serious.

  ‘I think the English know why they’re fighting, most of them. At least they’ve got a better idea why they are than we have why we’re not.’

  Stefan didn’t answer. Sometimes he felt that too.

  ‘Isn’t one of your parents German? Have I got that right?’

  ‘My mother’s family.’

  ‘So your loyalties are torn.’

  ‘No, my loyalty is here. Someone has to guard our neutrality.’

  Stefan gave a slightly ambiguous smile, as if what he was saying wasn’t serious at all. It was hard to make it sound convincing at the best of times, especially to someone he sensed would not want to be convinced.

  ‘You believe all that, Stefan?

  ‘I believe we haven’t got a choice.’

  A look of impatience passed over Sinclair’s face.

  ‘I don’t think there’s a choice either. You have to be in it.’

  ‘If it was that easy—’

  ‘Nothing that matters is easy. My grandfather converted to Catholicism because he was a nationalist. He didn’t care about the Church, but you have to show people who you are. It cost him every friend he had. People he’d known since school wouldn’t talk to him. And my grandmother never forgave him. He never doubted he did the right thing. A country needs to show what it is too. What do we show, skulking behind England’s skirts to see who comes out on top? God forbid we choose the wrong side!’

  ‘Is that what they think in the officers’ mess?’

  ‘Surprisingly not. The English are more generous than I am.’

  ‘What would happen if British troops came back to Ireland? Would a war in Ireland help England, or anyone? The side we’ve picked is our own.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Alex, laughing. ‘Maybe we should be grateful there’s somewhere a postman disappears and a nation holds its breath. Grand to hear such passion for doing nothing. Dear old Ireland!’

  As they walked on they heard the sound of a plane.

  ‘I doubt they’ll spot a postman’s uniform from up there.’

  ‘It’ll be to do with the IRA raid,’ said Stefan. ‘I’m sure you know. We’ve had planes out since before Christmas. Two crises at once. The Magazine Fort and the postman! But you’re still right. They won’t spot a box of .45 calibre cartridges either. I think it’s what’s called reassurance.’

  Sinclair shook his head. ‘It’s what I do every day, planes. I love them. I still can’t say I find them reassuring. I was coming out of the Café Royal, before I left, and I heard one. I could tell it was some old transport nag, somewhere over Regent’s Street. I’m flying a Hurricane. The noise is always there. I don’t notice it. But that day I wondered what it would sound like when there are hundreds of them, of bombers. The way it must have been in Warsaw, and all over the place now. That’s the way it has to be.’

  ‘And you think that’s what’s on its way?’

  ‘Isn’t that what war is now, Stefan? The funny thing is, it’s all quite cheerful over there. England I mean, London. I was living there before it started but I don’t
think I ever enjoyed it so much as now. Maybe it’s because I’m flying. Maybe it’s just how you have to be, in the middle of it all. Like flying. No before, no after, only now. You know you’re alive.’

  They had reached the metalled road. The Special Branch car was parked there. Alex Sinclair stopped and climbed back on to the mare.

  ‘I’ll be back to England in a few days, so come up to the house!’

  Stefan nodded. ‘I’ll try.’

  He wouldn’t go. Alex probably wouldn’t expect him to. They knew one another because of Maeve. The only long conversation they ever had was in the aftermath of her death. It was a conversation that mattered to Stefan because it was a step towards finding his way back to himself, when he had almost lost any sense of who he was. It was that exchange that connected them and only that. When they ran out of words about the postman and the war there would be a silence in which Stefan would not want to restart a conversation that had ended seven years earlier. Even worse would be polite chitchat with Mrs Sinclair, a woman he had met only twice, at his wedding and Maeve’s funeral. He disliked her both times. To make him notice he disliked her as his wife was being buried was a considerable achievement. There was also the prospect of Alex’s older brother, Stuart. For three years after Maeve’s death he had written to Stefan, from Glendalough and from the Central Mental Asylum, to say not only that Maeve was an angel in heaven but that he was in communication with her. Through the blessed intercession of St Anthony he had even seen her.

  Alex would understand all that. He was saying what he felt he had to.

  ‘How is your brother?’ Stefan asked the question in the same vein. He said it because Maeve would have wanted him to. She had cared about Stuart.

  ‘Still getting himself into trouble. Just for Christmas he managed to have himself knocked down by a car in Aughrim, but apart from that—’

  ‘He’s not hurt?’

  ‘I think the car came off worse. He’s up and down. He’s home now but he’s in and out of hospital. Nothing changes. My mother needs to get him away sometimes. She sends him off and believes some new treatment will make him normal. Then she feels guilty and brings him back home.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m not sure he doesn’t come out of the bin worse than he goes in. But I don’t have to live with him. Sometimes I’m not sure they didn’t do things better a hundred years ago. If we simply locked Stuart in the attic . . .’

  It sounded like a flippant laugh, but Stefan knew enough to understand the pain behind those words, a pain that was simply an ordinary part of Alex Sinclair’s life.

  ‘You will come up and see us, though. And argue! I’m sure you’re precisely the feller to persuade me neutrality is a grand thing altogether!’

  Alex grinned to show that he didn’t think that at all, and rode off.

  Stefan watched him as he walked to the car. He smiled. The past wasn’t easy to escape here but he needed to push it away again. On the way to the Upper Lake he had passed the post office in Glendalough. William Byrne had lived there. All he knew about the Missing Postman was that he was last seen drunk on Christmas Eve in Laragh and that nobody liked him much. Since he was stuck here, like it or not, he had better know more.

  10

  St Kevin’s Road

  The post office lay to the right of St Kevin’s Road as Stefan drove out of Glendalough, the smaller of the two towns in the Vale of Glendalough. It sat below the road where the valley sloped towards the river. At the barely legible ‘Oifig an Phoist’ sign he turned down a track to a low stone building that looked like a farmhouse because it was. A dozen hens and a bad-tempered Muscovy duck scattered across the yard. The green door of the post office opened. A uniformed Guard emerged, his jacket off, his sleeves rolled; he was finishing eating. He looked at the man getting out of the car. He didn’t know him but he had to be a detective.

  Stefan smiled amiably.

  ‘I’d like a look round. Don’t let me interrupt you at your dinner.’

  ‘Mrs Casson was after having a bite, sir . . .’ ‘Sir’ seemed a safe bet.

  ‘Mrs Casson is still the postmistress, is she?’

  The Guard looked puzzled; why wouldn’t she be?

  Stefan walked into the dark room that was the post office. It was a long, narrow room with a heavy mahogany counter at one end. There was a wall of pigeonholes, empty except for a few letters. A black chest of drawers was piled with the dusty papers and forms that were a post office’s stock-in-trade. Faded posters on the walls advertised the Great Southern Railway and the Irish Army; ‘Oglaigh na hÉireann – Join the Volunteers’. A fire burned in a small grate. At a round table were the Guard’s meal and a glass of Guinness. The man stood awkwardly, pulling on his uniform tunic.

  ‘Is it the bike you wanted to see, sir, Billy Byrne’s bike? They found it up the road, past Glendalough, heading up towards the Seven Churches.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ve seen bicycles before.’

  This lack of interest in the GPO bicycle was puzzling. A photograph of it, in situ on St Kevin’s Road, was in that morning’s Irish Independent.

  ‘The fingerprint men were here yesterday. If you haven’t seen it—’

  Mrs Casson, the postmistress was suddenly, noiselessly, behind the counter. She was in her sixties and, like all women with government jobs, a spinster. Had she married she would have lost the position she had held for thirty years. She knew Stefan was a policeman; he didn’t look like a man who would own a car. There had been a string of them in and out of her post office, to no purpose she could fathom. People had to be seen to do their jobs, but they irritated her. There was nothing she could tell them.

  ‘Detective Inspector Gillespie, Mrs Casson. Down from Dublin.’

  Mrs Casson peered out through thick glasses, unimpressed.

  ‘How are you, Mrs Casson?’

  ‘Do I know you?’ she asked.

  ‘I was here, years ago. My wife was Maeve Joyce. You’ll remember her. She used to stay with her cousins. Her uncle was the doctor in Laragh.’

  ‘Yes, I remember. There are no Joyces here now.’

  ‘No. They’d moved away, even before Maeve and I . . .’

  He stopped. It was the idle conversation you might have in any country post office, but he could see she had no interest. Perhaps it was no time for idle chat. Billy Byrne had worked for her; he lived in rooms there.

  ‘I’d like to see Mr Byrne’s rooms.’

  ‘Garda Boyle has the key. To the right outside, the door at the end.’

  Stefan looked round. The Guard reached into his pocket for the key.

  ‘Will you want me with you, Inspector?’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it. Don’t let your dinner get cold.’

  Stefan walked out. The Guard took his jacket off again and resumed his meal. Mrs Casson was looking thoughtfully at the space Stefan had occupied. She walked through the door behind the counter. She closed it firmly. She went to the small switchboard and picked up the telephone.

  At the top of a flight of unlit stone stairs a door led into a big room. The room was well furnished. A chesterfield, a leather armchair, a round oak table, a mahogany desk that was not old and had not been cheap. Against one wall was a small iron range, next to a kitchen cabinet and a basin. Stefan stood at the desk, priming the pressure pump of a brass Tilley lamp. He lit it and took in the tidy, comfortable space. He walked to an inner door and peered in at a bedroom containing a single bed and a wardrobe.

  Back in the living room he looked at the shelf above the range. There were several photographs, old and stiff, the products of a studio; parents and grandparents. There was a sepia photo of three children. William Byrne was forty-five, but there was enough resemblance between one of the children and a newer portrait of a man in a postman’s uniform to identify him and suggest he had brother and sister somewhere. There was another picture of Byrne in uniform, with five other men. It was crumpled and stained, but it was the only photo in a silver g
ilt frame. The uniform was curious. It was military but Stefan didn’t recognize it. The men wore caps that perched on their heads and had a fold in the middle. He didn’t know the word for them but he had seen them. They were nothing the Irish Army wore and the uniforms were not British. It was no species of IRA uniform. In black and white the colour of the tunics could have been any kind of grey-green khaki. At the centre was an officer; lapelled jacket, shirt and tie, Sam Brown belt, riding boots. One of the men was Byrne. The picture was taken outside; the background was sky and rock. It didn’t look like Ireland.

  Stefan knelt at a low bookshelf. A lot of newspapers, mostly local, a few books. He recognized Zane Gray’s Riders of the Purple Sage; he had read it as a boy. There was a Missal, a Pocket Oxford Dictionary and a battered grey paperback, Dent’s First Spanish Phrasebook. He looked back at the mantelpiece and the men in uniform. It was Spain. He had seen the caps in newsreels of the Spanish Civil War. He guessed the uniforms were those of the Irishmen who went to fight for Franco with General Eoin O’Duffy. He knew little about it except that the expedition had been a disaster. The silver gilt frame suggested the Missing Postman thought otherwise. He already seemed a more interesting postman than the man who drank too much and wasn’t liked for no reason anyone could think of.

  On the desk was a walnut Marconi radio. It was very new; like the furniture it had cost good money. He looked down at several copies of the Wicklow People and the Christmas Eve edition of the Irish Times. There was also, more surprisingly, a copy of Iris Ofigiúil, the Irish State Gazette. It wasn’t something Stefan often read, but every Garda station received it. It made obscure reading for a country postman, mostly listing state legislation and appointments. Byrne’s copy was open at bankruptcies and court cases.

  Stefan turned to the drawers; more newspapers, including more copies of the State Gazette. As he leafed through the papers he saw that items had been ringed; deaths, marriages, bankruptcies, court convictions, addresses. Not everything ringed related to Wicklow, but much did; he assumed it all carried local connections. In the middle drawer were some Manila files; some contained receipts, including furniture and the radio; others held newspaper cuttings and scribbled notes. There was a chequebook in William Byrne’s name; an account at the Bank of Ireland in Rathdrum.