by Anne Emery
Like MacAllan, Brennan said to himself, on the run in Scotland.
“I asked him to keep an eye out for this fucker.” He stabbed at the photo again. “Nothing for two years, but my man in Glasgow sent word last month that a fellow he believes to be MacAllan recently left Scotland to come home to Belfast. So I’ve got someone taking a look around east Belfast and the Shankill and the other Loyalist areas, to see if he spots our quarry.”
“And if our quarry is in sight?”
“I’ll take him to law. Or I hope to. I’ve passed all this information to a person who is well known to me back home in Dublin, a member of the main opposition party in Leinster House, a man not afraid to raise dust. Or hackles. You can see a dirty cloud descend over his head any time the Dublin and Monaghan bombings are mentioned. With the Dublin government now involved in the peace process here in the Six Counties, I’m hoping he will apply pressure to get MacAllan charged with the murders. If that happens, MacAllan will attempt to get a deal for himself almost certainly, by grassing on his fellow bombers — informing on those who are still alive. So we may see some of them arrested and put on trial. Twenty-one years after the fact.”
“Should go smoothly, given the history so far.”
Chapter VII
Monty
On the following Monday, Monty hooked off work to go on a road trip to Dublin with Brennan and Ronan Burke. They had taken him into a little office Ronan had set up in his house and filled him in on a plan they had relating to four car bomb attacks back in 1974, in Dublin and Monaghan. Ronan wound up by saying, “You can see why this is so, well, hush-hush. Although I have done nothing wrong, and intend to follow the path of law and order, this could blow up in all our faces — pardon the expression — if word got around.”
“Word never gets around from this confessor,” Father Burke assured him.
“No, I’ve never taken you for a talker, Brennan.”
“You have nothing to fear from me either, Ronan,” Monty said. “We’ll file it under solicitor-client privilege.”
“Good man.”
The Burkes had arranged to meet a politician by the name of Dinny Cagney in Dublin. Ronan was hoping that Cagney would use his connections to get the matter on the agenda once again. Ronan intimated that he did not want to be hampered by the presence of his bodyguards for the trip, so there was a bit of a to-do about the best way to travel. To Monty, the solution was simple: they would take Monty’s leased car — leased from Burke Transport, southern division — and he would be the wheelman. They were staying overnight, which meant there would be plenty of time for a visit with Maura and the kids. So Monty pulled up in front of Ronan’s house in the middle of the morning and waited while Ronan had a word with his security detail. One of the men opened the trunk of the security car, drew out a sports bag, and handed it to Ronan. Ronan walked to Monty’s Renault and said, “Could you open the boot for me there, Monty?”
“Sure.” He didn’t ask what Ronan was putting in there, just waited until he climbed into the rear seat behind Monty, and Brennan got into the front, and then they headed off. Monty noticed from time to time when he looked in his rear-view mirror that Ronan was angling himself to look in it, too. Well, it was not beyond the realm of possibility that someone was watching Ronan Burke’s movements and might pull in behind. The annals of this country were filled with accounts of people who had come to grief after letting down their guard.
“Thank you, Monty, for your services today.”
“My pleasure, Ronan. Nobody has to twist my arm to get me to Dublin, and I love to drive. So just tell me where we’re going, and I’ll go there.”
“Our destination is Leinster House, right in the city centre, where we’ll be meeting Dinny Cagney.”
Brennan said, “Yer man is a Teachta Dála, Ronan, so you may as well acknowledge the existence of the Dáil.”
That went over Monty’s head until Brennan explained. “As you may be aware, Monty, the Dáil is the Irish parliament.”
“That much I know.”
“This fellow’s name is Montague Michael Collins, Ronan, and yet, sad to say, he needs instruction from time to time in the history and institutions of the land of his Collins forebears.”
“And Father Burke here never lets me forget it, Ronan.”
“Correct. And your lesson today is that Dinny Cagney is a member of parliament. The Dáil. Are you with me so far?”
“Yes, Father.”
“And the parliament sits in Leinster House in Dublin. Some people close to our hearts, members of the Republican movement, refuse to use the word Dáil.”
“Because they can’t make out whether it sounds like Doyle or Dall?”
“Em, no, that’s not the reason. The reason is that they do not acknowledge any parliament that came into being after the Second Dáil of 1921, elected by the people of the entire island. All parliaments after that have been partitionist constructs in a partitionist state. Amn’t I right, Ronan?”
“You are infallible, Father.”
“I won’t go into the splits in the movement that arose in relation to this, Montague. Don’t want to burden you any further with the weight of history.”
“I shall be content to take instruction where and when you see fit to offer it, Father.”
“Good man.”
The road to Dublin took them past gently sloping pastures of brilliant green, marked off by hedges and stone walls. Ronan offered a commentary on the towns they saw as they drew close to the border with the South.
Newry. “Troubles there.”
“That would hardly make it unique, I guess, Ronan.”
“Indeed not. As a lawyer, you may want to see the courthouse there sometime. If you can find it.”
“Small and out of the way?”
“No. Big and right in the city centre. But surrounded by high walls; you’d walk all the way around it and not know what was in there. Lovely city, though.”
Then, south of the border, Dundalk. “Lots of fellas on the run there.”
“On the run from?”
“The British Army, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, you name it.”
“IRA fellas.”
“You didn’t hear it from me.”
Drogheda. “Beautiful, isn’t it? The River Boyne, the towers, the church spires.”
“But,” said Monty, knowing the catch here, “thousands of people in the city were massacred by Cromwell.”
“There you go, Brennan. Monty knows what’s what.”
A few minutes later, when Monty looked in the rear-view mirror at Ronan to make a comment about the scenery, he saw him raise his right hand and make the sign of the cross. A glance to the side showed Father Burke doing the same. Monty realized that he had been hearing bells for the last few seconds and that they were coming from the radio. He remembered then that RTE, the Irish broadcaster, played the Angelus bells every day at noon and six o’clock in the evening. Ronan seemed to be lost in reflection, so Monty did not interrupt the mood.
* * *
When they arrived in Dublin, Ronan said, “Now I’m going to give you directions to the Gravedigger’s. We’ll pay our respects there. And you lads can enjoy a pint whilst I sit there with my tongue hanging out.”
Monty wasn’t sure what the connections were there, but he followed Ronan’s directions to the Glasnevin area of Dublin and found a parking spot. Ronan said he wanted to visit the grave of a young woman he used to go with, a woman who died in the Talbot Street bombing at the age of twenty-three and was now lying in Glasnevin Cemetery. Brennan said he would do the same for his childhood friend. Monty followed them into the graveyard but, not wanting to intrude on their privacy, he spent his time reading the inscriptions on the monuments to such luminaries as Michael Collins, Eamon de Valera, the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, and the man who had described himself, memorably, as “
a drinker with a writing problem,” Brendan Behan.
When the others rejoined him, they walked to the pub next door, which was identified on the sign as Kavanagh’s but was known to one and all as the Gravedigger’s. It was a classic Dublin pub with lots of dark wood and sparkling bottles, and the barman poured a lovely, creamy pint. Monty availed himself of a glass, as did Brennan. Ronan had a soft drink and rolled his eyes as he put it to his lips. The appointment with the politician was not until mid-afternoon, so they lingered in the pub, savouring their refreshments and chatting with the locals.
“There’s a wealth of lore surrounding this place,” Ronan said. “Fellows digging the graves used to order their drinks by knocking on the wall between here and the graveyard. The barmen would know what to pour by the sound of the different knocks. Whiskey, porter, whatever they signalled. The barmen would take the drinks out to the gravediggers.”
“And there’s a ghost!” This came from an elderly woman on her way out of the bar. “He’s been seen on more than one occasion and described in the very same way by people who didn’t even know each other. They say he wears a butterfly collar and a waistcoat with a watch chain. Keep your eyes open, lads!”
When Monty caught sight of Leinster House, formerly the palace of James FitzGerald, the Duke of Leinster, and now the seat of the Irish parliament, Monty wished he himself was wearing a waistcoat and butterfly collar. The splendid neoclassical building made him feel small and grubby in his jeans and shirt with no tie. They had found a parking spot in a short street called Ely Place, just off Baggot Street Lower, and walked to the great building on Kildare Street.
“Remind you of the White House?” Brennan asked.
“You’re right. It does.”
“No coincidence there. The White House was designed by an Irishman. And this was the inspiration.”
It was just as grand inside, with its elaborate mouldings and chandeliers, and Monty took it all in as they waited for Ronan’s friend to appear. Dinny Cagney, Monty was told, belonged not to the governing party but to the opposition, Fianna Fáil. He looked less like a politician than did his friend Ronan. Cagney had unruly red hair, a youthful freckled face, and an expression that seemed to say he found the world endlessly amusing.
The two men greeted each other in Irish, and everyone was introduced. Cagney led them to a private office where they could have their talk. When everyone was seated, Ronan said, “You know why I’m here, Dinny.”
“Yes, for an episode in our history I remember all too well.” He turned to Brennan and Monty. “I was in Cork that day on business. Started out on the trip back home to Dublin and met up with a garda. He asked me where I was going, and I said Dublin. The garda said to me, ‘Don’t go. They’ve blown the fuck out of it.’ I could not believe my eyes when I saw what had happened here. And I know we all feel the same way.”
“We do, go deimhin,” Ronan said. “I gave you the statement of the witness.”
“Who says he saw this MacAllan in one of the bomb cars that day.”
“Yes. So I want him added to the long list of ‘known’ suspects. With a difference. This time I want something done about it.”
“We both do.”
“Now, you told me you’d be talking to one of your contacts in the Garda Síochána. And now that MacAllan has apparently surfaced again, I hope you’ll be raising holy hell in the . . . the Dáil, so this atrocity will be back in the public and political sphere where it should have been all along.”
“You don’t have to tell me, Ronan. I’m with you all the way. In fact, I’m ahead of you.”
Ronan’s face lit up. “Is that so?”
Cagney raised a warning hand. “You’ll not be happy when you hear what I’ve discovered.”
“And what is that?”
“I gave Sullivan — he’s my contact in the Gardaí — I gave him the name of the suspect. And he looked into it and found out that Brody MacAllan is on record as being out of the country on the day of the bombing. And has the papers to prove it.”
Ronan looked as if the sky had fallen on him, and all belonging to him.
“I know, Ronan, I know. Your witness had the best of intentions. I don’t doubt it for a minute. But he was obviously mistaken.”
“Liam is sure of what he saw, Dinny. And once I had the name, I did some research in Belfast and found a colour photo of Brody MacAllan playing a lambeg drum back in the day. I trimmed the picture to get just his face and I put together a handful of photographs of other faces, all in colour. That’s when I played the part of a peeler and showed the pack of photos to Liam. He picked MacAllan out. Didn’t hesitate.”
“But, Ronan, the garda I had looking into it, he was there on the seventeenth of May, immediately after it happened. It was Sullivan’s first month on the job with the Gardaí. He saw the bodies. Mangled, limbs blown off. Little children . . . He wants to fucking bury the bastards who did this. All those suspects the guards identified to the authorities in the North, in the expectation that they’d track them down and arrest them. Nothing was done. And it wasn’t just the North, was it? The authorities up there, and the Brits, did pass on some information — early on — and it was not followed up here in the South. The government of the day was unaccountably lax about this slaughter of its citizens. And the Gardaí failed to pursue the leads they had. So now we have several of the perpetrators still alive and well north of the border, and the police and security forces up there turning a blind eye. Well, we all know about the ‘close working relationship’ between some of the Loyalist paramilitaries and the forces of law and order! So anything we do will likely be blocked by the authorities in Belfast all over again. History has a way of repeating itself here, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” Ronan conceded. “But with everybody trying to look good for the cameras during these peace talks, I’m thinking maybe somebody in Belfast might nudge the police in the direction of doing the right thing. ‘We are always open to looking at new evidence’ — some sort of face-saving line like that.”
“Wouldn’t want to bet the farm on the goodwill of that crowd in the Six Counties, Ronan. But, anyway, MacAllan wasn’t here. He was over in America. He flew out of Belfast on May the eleventh, flew back on the eighteenth, and landed in Belfast the morning of the nineteenth.”
“Who provided this information to Sullivan?”
“He saw the documents himself.”
* * *
That was as good a time as any for Brennan and Monty to take their leave. They knew Ronan had other things to discuss at his meeting with Dinny Cagney, so they agreed to meet an hour later at the School of Economics. Monty didn’t know where that was, presumably at Trinity College, just a short walk to the north of them. More architectural splendour. But Brennan headed in the opposite direction and took a left. They walked along Merrion Row, which became Baggot Street, and they stopped in front of Doheny & Nesbitt’s pub. Brennan went in and Monty followed. He looked around him and admired yet another classic old Dublin drinking establishment. Monty figured a second pint would not put his driving skills in jeopardy, so he and Brennan got their drinks and sat at one of the tables. Brennan, not being constrained by concerns about the legal or neurological effects of alcohol that day, consumed a couple more pints as they enjoyed a leisurely conversation. After they’d been there awhile, Monty looked at his watch. It had been well over an hour since they’d left Ronan at Leinster House. “We’d better get over to the School of Economics. Don’t want Ronan to think we’ve abandoned him.”
“No need to remove ourselves, Monty. This is the School of Economics.”
“Eh?”
“This place is known as the Doheny & Nesbitt School of Economics, after the kinds of conversations heard in here. It’s a hangout for government people and journalists.”
“Makes sense.”
“Makes perfect sense. And a perfect way to ease into an
evening in Dublin.” He drained his latest pint and went for another.
A few minutes later, Ronan walked in, nodded in their direction, and went to the bar. And ordered a pint of Guinness. Brennan halted the lifting of his own glass when he saw what his cousin had done. Ronan Burke’s drinking had lost him his wife and children in the past. He had been off the stuff for years. Long, long years, Monty imagined they were. Ronan Burke’s lips touching the dark, forbidden nectar of the Guinness would be like the feet of Gaius Julius Caesar touching the waters of the Rubicon. Monty could see the tension in Brennan as he watched his cousin with his glass. But he didn’t say a word when Ronan arrived at the table. Brennan no doubt figured he was the last man on earth who should preach to another about the drink. Ronan lifted the glass to his lips, held it there, inhaled the rich aroma, released a sigh of longing, and put the glass down without so much as a flick of his tongue at its contents. He passed the pint to Brennan without a word. Then he got up and went to the bar and returned with something pale and fizzy. He took a sip, made a face, and spoke of the events of the day. “The fact remains that my witness saw Brody MacAllan heading south in one of the cars used in the Dublin bombings. The other cars were spotted and remembered, too.”
“What makes your witness so sure it was MacAllan?” Brennan asked.