The Death of an Irish Lass

by Bartholomew Gill

  Hanly looked bleak now. If the Garda had Dineen that meant that Hanly would be held responsible for exposing the whole district I.R.A. contingent. That meant Hanly was a marked man. They’d get him sooner or later; they always did. “Whichever of them it was, it meant trouble for Schwerr, which was all right by me. But I knew I had to get out of there too.

  “I switched off the ignition and the lights. I got out and started over the wall, trying to be careful, just in case it was Schwerr who’d fired the shot. I couldn’t see a thing. It was thick there and wet and I must have slipped. What else I told you, including the bank, that’s the God’s honest truth; I swear it, so help me, Super. I woke up in her lap, and I’ll tell you this—it’s Schwerr. It’s got to be. He’s big and strong enough to be carrying her and me around. Why wasn’t his car there in the morning? There was nobody else there either. It’s got to be him. Dineen and the others are only protecting him because—”

  “He’s got a future,” said McGarr. “And you’re headed straight for the gallows. Tell me about the bottle of Canadian Club you spoke of before. You lied to me about that, too. You didn’t get that in Lahinch. We’ve checked.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Hanly said, much too quickly. His brow was just slightly too furrowed in mock insouciance. “Ennis. I think—yes, Ennis. I must have bought it in Ennis.”

  “Where in Ennis?”

  “Don’t know. Couldn’t remember. Some joint or other.”

  “Ennis was where you got the call from Dineen, wasn’t it?”

  Hanly nodded.

  “You didn’t stop there to buy yourself any bottle of Canadian Club before getting out after Schwerr. That thought never passed your mind. You were too totally consumed with getting something on Schwerr. You just hopped in your car and took off.” McGarr was winging it, but he felt sure he had hit on what had happened.

  O’Shaughnessy stepped toward McGarr. “You probably haven’t had a chance to see this yet, Peter.” He took an investigation report from the back of the notebook and handed it to McGarr. It was blank.

  Before McGarr could finish pretending to read it, Hanly began speaking. “Jesus—what a jam I’m in. I’ll be hung if I don’t tell and shot if I do. Has Dineen told you about Fleming?”

  McGarr didn’t look up from the blank report.

  O’Shaughnessy was writing again.

  McAnulty was still sitting in the corner, watching everything closely.

  “He’s a doctor fellow here in Lahinch. He’s helped us out a lot. Schwerr stopped in to see him before reaching the town. I knew he would. It was all part of the schedule. I knew Schwerr’s next two stops in Lahinch. And I knew he’d finally wind up in Griffin’s. I had some time, so I popped into Fleming’s, like I was just passing through. He’s a good man, the doc. He’s always got the warm welcome out and a jug and whatnot.”

  “And that night he just happened to have a big bottle of Canadian Club?” McGarr asked.

  “Why not? I paid him a thousand fecking pounds for services rendered. He said he’d gotten the bottle from May Quirk, if you really want to know. She’d gotten it going through the duty-free shop at Shannon when she flew over.”

  That seemed reasonable to McGarr, who remembered the bottle on the sideboard in Quirks’ house. If O’Connor could be believed, there was no enmity between Fleming and the murdered woman. Fleming was just a dour young man. “How long did you stay there?”

  “Enough for a bit of a drink.”

  “And talk?”

  “We’re neither of us deaf mutes, you know.” Hanly seemed to be feeling somewhat cocky again.

  “You told him what you were doing there right after Schwerr?”

  “I did not. I know my job.”

  “You talked about Schwerr?”

  “Had to. The doctor mentioned his just having been there.”

  “And you?”

  “I acted surprised, of course. Said I was sorry to have missed him.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “The doc asked me for a lift into town. Said he had left his car there. Turns out he’d left it right there at Griffin’s, so I had to beg off going in with him for a drink. Instead, I drove on up to the last bar and parked my machine down the alley, out of sight.”

  “How many drinks did you have in there?”

  “One too many. I’d just ordered the last when I saw the lights of Schwerr’s Mercedes whip by. I had to belt it back. It finished me. Then I was having some trouble with the barman. Hicks, you know. They don’t like nobody who might know more than them.”

  “And they could tell you did?” McGarr asked.

  Hanly didn’t say anything.

  So McGarr added, “As I can. I found the bottle top from a quart of Canadian Club in a pasture a couple of hundred yards from the murder scene and right on the edge of the cliffs. I bet you know how that got there.”

  Hanly looked up and blinked. “I don’t; honest, Super. I’ve told you everything I know. I just said that about them bunch of shit-heels in the bar because it was plain they was prejudiced against city people like me. Not a donkey and a hundred quid between them.”

  “Nor a Jaguar XJ12L,” said McGarr.

  “No, nor that, neither. Which I worked for and hard.”

  McGarr turned and started for the door. “No, nor a Jaguar XJ12L, neither,” he said, mocking Hanly’s thick Dublin accent, “with scratch marks down the side that were made with the pitchfork that murdered May Quirk and not caused by backing into any rock wall.” McGarr stopped at the door. “Let me tell you this, Mr. Hanly. You’ve got yourself in a pickle. I want you to keep thinking about all the little details you’ve misremembered, mistaken, or misconceived. As far as I’m concerned, we can hold you now on the Offenses Against the State Act. Indefinitely.”

  “How?” Hanly shouted. “I wasn’t packing a shooter, like Schwerr. I wasn’t carrying explosives or ammunition, nor did I have any plans for anything like that.”

  “No. But you were carrying the money that was going to be used for all of those things.”

  “I never said that. That money was from me dances and such. You won’t be able to prove it. I’ll sue you for false arrest and”—he looked up at O’Shaughnessy—“harassment and torture.”

  “By your own admission.”

  “What admission?”

  “That you paid Fleming for services rendered. What services? When was the last time you needed a thousand pounds’ worth of medical attention?”

  Hanly’s eyes darted wildly around the room. “That was a mistake. I just said it because it was what you wanted to hear, and after your man here kept badgering me all day and all night and all day again. You won’t be able to make it stick.”

  McGarr was in the doorway now.

  Hanly shouted at him, “And you’ll have to arrest Fleming, too. People around here won’t stand for that. They’ll let us both off.”

  When McGarr turned his back, Hanly added, “And I’ve told you everything I know, anyways. What in Christ’s name haven’t I told you? I want to know. McGarr? Superintendent?”

  “Enough,” said McGarr. “You haven’t told me enough.” He was in the main room now.

  “Like what?” Hanly shouted.

  “I’ll leave that up to you to decide. Names of your contacts would be a good beginning, and then a full description of your finance activities for the I.R.A. Like the stuff you gave May Quirk and Rory O’Connor. Only in greater detail again.”

  Hanly roared, “Well, let me tell you this then, McGarr. You can’t push me around. I’ve got friends. Political friends. And I’ve got money. I want a solicitor!” He was standing now.

  O’Shaughnessy put his hand on Hanly’s chest and shoved him back into the chair. “You had friends, and all the money in the world won’t help you now.”

  McAnulty left the room.

  McGarr had his hand on the doorknob. “What’s your solicitor’s name? I’ll call him for you. Maybe he can explain why it’s best for you to te
ll me everything.” McGarr knew that none of the solicitors who sympathized with the I.R.A. would care to represent him now, and Hanly probably didn’t know any other lawyers.

  “Could you call one for me, please?” Hanly asked McGarr in a meek tone of voice. “You know—somebody you’ve worked with before and trust. Somebody good. I don’t care what it costs.”

  McGarr said, “I don’t run a legal assistance bureau,” and closed the door. He could hear O’Shaughnessy saying, “What time of day was it when you arrived at Dr. Fleming’s house? Where is that, anyhow? I’ve got a map here and you can point it out to me.”

  Noreen had just arrived at the barracks, saying they’d better hurry if they were to meet Paddy Sugrue’s plane at Shannon later that afternoon and still manage to drop McAnulty off at Kilbaha. For this they got the loan of O’Malley’s personal automobile, a new Triumph Toledo that didn’t have a speck of dust on it, inside or out.

  NINE

  Just Like That

  NOREEN DROVE. The fair weather was holding, and they clipped down the Clare Peninsula with the ease that a Sunday noon in a country as devoutly Catholic as Ireland allowed. Only at churches in Milltown, Malbay, Quilty, Kilkee, Carrigaholt, and, finally, Kilbaha did she have to slip the Triumph into lower gears. Otherwise, she let the new car hum, and they made the thirty-five or so miles in nearly as few minutes.

  The Atlantic was on their right and, whenever the car climbed a promontory, McGarr caught a glimpse of the ocean swells rolling gray and bluish like the belly of a salmon in the full sunlight. In the valleys where the land eased gently into the sea myriads of bright tents had been pitched. Almost all the cars near them were foreign. With Ireland’s entrance into the Common Market, Europe’s middle and lower classes had discovered the pure water and clean air of her beaches and rivers, and the West country was fast becoming a playground.

  None of this bothered McGarr at all, as long as his countrymen were not swept into the pursuit of the tourist trade to the exclusion of all other considerations and made of the stark, treeless scarp of shale a Brighton or Bray or Coney Island or La Spezia. The outlanders were flocking here now just because most of the land remained as it had always been—barren, windy, and wild, long undulating ridges rising from plateaus to occasional flat-topped hills and dropping down toward the sea again. Atlantic Ireland: even the hawthorn hedges seemed to have given up their unequal struggle against the blasts off the water, to be replaced by gorse and then, like hands raised and imploring the elements to be gentle, walls built of single flagstones set on edge. In the lee of these McGarr could see a few lean sheep huddling, even on this, one of the finest days of the year. It was their only protection from the salt spray of high tide.

  Glancing in the side mirror, McGarr noticed a black Mini with Northern plates. The car had been following them from Lahinch, hanging back whenever Noreen had to slow down. There were two men in it.

  After a while, McAnulty said, “It’s Hanly. It’s got to be. I know I shouldn’t be jumping to conclusions with our investigation only a couple of days old, but there’s something sneaky about him. Something devious.” McAnulty was bunched into a corner of the back seat of the Triumph, looking out at the passing landscape, smoking a cigarette with great concentration. His black, bushy eyebrows were knitted together. His small, dark eyes were squinting, but focusing on nothing. “How many times have we lifted him before, Peter?”

  “Only a couple, a long time ago.”

  “Really? I could have sworn he was acting. Just like playing a part, he was. Like he knew you were going to try to scare him, so he decided to go along with you and act scared. And that bit about you getting him a solicitor. I didn’t buy that at all. And he’s got the motive, all right. He’s the sort of man who’d be lost without his job.”

  Noreen glanced at McGarr and smiled slightly. McAnulty was also a man who would be lost without his job. It was obvious he was reading his own personality into Hanly’s motive.

  Said McGarr, “You’re right about jumping to conclusions so early in the investigation, Tom. This is one case where we’re not lacking for suspects. But I credit your intuition—I don’t think we’ve gotten the total story from Hanly yet.”

  “Who’s this Dr. Fleming?”

  “A young doctor in Lahinch,” said McGarr.

  “He bears watching,” said McAnulty. “Or a little warning, as well. It’s one thing to sympathize with the I.R.A., quite another to be in the thick of the comings and goings.” He paused for a while. “Where was he when May Quirk got jabbed?”

  “Don’t rightly know,” said McGarr. “As far as I’ve been able to learn so far, his night looks like this: he saw Schwerr, then Hanly, and got a sizable payment from him for past services to the I.R.A. Hanly then drove him into Lahinch and he either had a drink first, then treated May Quirk’s uncle Daniel for gout, or vice versa. Then he got called to a farmhouse near the murder scene and treated Schwerr for the bullet wound. We can’t pinpoint exactly what time she was stabbed, but if it’s shortly before or after Schwerr got shot, then he’d have to have had a jet to have done it himself.”

  “If she got stabbed before Schwerr got shot, then Schwerr must be the prime suspect himself, somebody else having shot him,” Noreen concluded.

  McAnulty was shaking his head. “It’s very hard to pinpoint that time, since she may have taken a long time to die. Also, Schwerr himself has said he passed out before Fleming tended to him, so—” Again McAnulty began taking short draws on his cigarette. He was filling the interior of the car with smoke. “What about Fleming? What could be his motive?”

  “He disliked May Quirk.”

  “He did? That seems odd for a man his age. I didn’t think she knew a soul who didn’t love her in one way or another. The whole town seemed to worship who she was and what she’d become. I’ve done some asking myself along these lines, you see.”

  McGarr looked out the side window, then rolled it down to clear the smoke from the compartment of the auto. They were nearing the western edge of Loop Head.

  Here beyond Kilkee the landscape was utterly barren. The thatched roofs of the cottages they were passing had to be secured by ropes that then were tied to pegs set in stone walls that surrounded the houses.

  “Well, first off, he said she sympathized with the I.R.A., and that bothered him. But he was just trying to throw me off his own involvement with them, I guess. Yet he made no bones about his feelings toward her: she had opted for New York and modern ways, he had chosen to return and work with his people here. Her choice was easy, his hard. Her salary, position, notoriety supported her decision, whereas Fleming had no societal support for his except his own opinion that he was performing a service for his own people here and the occasional accolade from a grateful family or a local newspaper.

  “But that doesn’t strike me as enough to cause such a man to murder, and surely not in that manner.”

  McAnulty said, “But he knew Hanly was following Schwerr, probably learned from Hanly that Schwerr was going to meet May Quirk at the bar. He was there near the murder scene to work on Schwerr. He had a car. And he was not without the sort of motive that to a man of his intellect may be very important. Also, have you read my report yet?”

  McGarr shook his head. He had the report in his lap.

  “There was a third set of fresh tire tracks at the murder scene. One tire, the right front, was worn so smooth the cord was showing. That’ll make the auto very easy to identify. I gave the information to your man Ward. I think he’s got some Gardai running it down now.”

  McGarr also had Ward checking over May Quirk’s files and personal effects at the farmhouse. He was looking for her notes on the finances of the I.R.A. McGarr doubted he would find them, since he was beginning to suspect that in part she had been killed for that information. He believed that somewhere along the line she had gotten purchase on facts that would have proved extremely compromising to whoever had killed her. “Big car?”

  “No. Something smal
l. From the axle width, I’d say it was a Renault or a Japanese car.”

  “A Datsun?”

  “Or a Toyota or Mazda. Honda or Mini would be too small.” McAnulty thought for another minute. “Of course, many of the older English cars would match too. Is the doctor married?”

  “No.”

  “Does he have a girl?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I bet he doesn’t,” McAnulty said quickly.

  Noreen laughed. “What makes you say that?”

  “A solitary, lonely, young, handsome-in-his-own-way, and brilliant doctor who’s returned from great opportunity in America to minister to his people is confronted by the woman who would have made an ideal match for him had she chosen to stay. But instead she’s not only chosen the bigger world but has also reappeared to taunt him with her dark good looks and city ways, her money, her success, her worldliness. And by that I mean Schwerr and O’Connor. And then there’s the I.R.A., an organization that he’s befriended at times. Her purpose in coming back isn’t totally selfless. She’s here to do an exposé of the most vital aspect of that cabal.”

  Now McGarr was laughing too. “First it was Hanly, now it’s Fleming, next it’ll be O’Connor.”

  They were close to Kilbaha now. Across the slate blue expanse of the mouth of the Shannon, McGarr could see the rugged coastline of Kerry Head and Brandon Mountain in the far distance. But closer lay the sheer sea stack of Dermot and Grania’s Rocks that the rolling waves clapped against and sent up spumes of foamy brine, which the stiff breeze held for whole seconds before spewing back into the sea. And then, off to the right, he saw the Bridge of Ross, two arches of—he remembered from a short course in geology he had taken in Christian Brothers’ school and barely passed—Namurian rock through which the sea was boiling.

  “O’Connor,” McAnulty was saying, “O’Connor. I bet him and her were close at one time.”