A June of Ordinary Murders (27 page)

Boyle groaned.

‘Jesus Christ, three murders in two bloody days. And you haven't a touch of a clue or a decent line of inquiry on the first two yet. You'll be lookin' at bein' reverted to uniform, Swalla,' d'ye know that?'

‘I've made some progress on this case,' Swallow replied. ‘I have her identified. She was a housemaid called Sarah Hannin. I'm going to have to get a warrant to search the house where she worked and to question the people who knew her there.'

‘Well you won't get it this evenin', Swalla,' Boyle snorted. ‘Chief Superintendent Mallon's gone to an official reception at the Chief Secretary's lodge in honour o' the Queen's Jubilee.'

He paused as if to emphasise the solemnity of mentioning the monarch.

‘I'm not goin' to have him bothered at this hour. Even if he cleared it tonight ye'd have to find a magistrate or a Justice of the Peace to countersign it, and with the Jubilee holiday tomorrow you wan't get any of those gentlemen waitin' about. You'll have to leave it until tomorrow or even the day after.'

Swallow fought down his frustration.

Boyle would learn from the newspapers, if nowhere else, that the dead woman worked at the home of Alderman Thomas Fitzpatrick, but he was in no hurry to tell him. If the inspector knew of a connection to any figure of influence he would insist on taking charge of the inquiry himself. Given Boyle's near total lack of investigative skills, any likelihood of solving the crime would recede.

‘I'm planning two conferences for Wednesday, Inspector. We'll meet to review the Chapelizod Gate case and we'll have to put a second team to work on this death,' he said. ‘I'll make out the paperwork on the warrant this evening. Will you move it to the Chief Superintendent's office as soon as you can?'

‘I will,' Boyle answered, affecting an air of preoccupation. ‘But I'm a busy man. Tomorrow will be a day out of the ordinary with all the celebrations around the city. I say again, I think it'll be the day after tomorrow before you get any progress.'

Resigned to a delay, Swallow decided to write up a preliminary report. He hammered out three copies on the typewriter, passing one to Mick Feore for the murder book. The second copy would go to the night sergeant in the detective office and, in turn, to Chief Superintendent Mallon in the morning. The third copy was his.

Mick Feore had already received a briefing from the search parties along the canal. The parties had collected an assortment of detritus, hardly any of which, Swallow suspected, would prove to be relevant. The trawl had yielded a dozen assorted buttons and hooks, a rusty knife, some fragments of newspapers and half a dozen assorted shoes and boots in various stages of decomposition.

Swallow reminded himself that he had a rendezvous with Harriet for White's coffee shop at 8 o'clock

‘Sorry it's late. Put it in the book and go home and get some rest,' he told Feore, handing him the report.

‘We'll meet in the morning and we'll celebrate the Jubilee,' he quipped.

He walked from Exchange Court to Westmoreland Street. The streets seemed quieter than usual for the hour of the evening.

Swallow reckoned that many of the office-workers and business people who might normally linger in town had opted to make for the coastal suburbs or the municipal parks in order to catch the evening sunshine. Some businesses had allowed their employees to finish work early, adding some free time to the Jubilee holiday of the following day.

White's was rich with the aroma of coffee beans. Sharp Arabicas contested with milder Ethiopian blends. The scent of the robust varieties from Brazil and Ceylon dominated. White's offered teas and chocolate too. The chocolate was served steaming hot in winter and chilled in the summer. Swallow could smell its sweetness, mingling with the coffee, on the evening air.

He took a booth with a view on to the street and ordered a pot of Chinese tea from the waitress.

Harriet was on time. She saw Swallow as she stepped in from the street and made straight for his table. A sharp observer would readily pick them out as brother and sister. They had the same dark brown hair, although his temples were now showing grey. They had the same dark eyes under prominent eyebrows and the same pale complexion. They had the Swallow family nose, with slightly flared nostrils.

She looked strained. Her normally ready smile was missing. That might be a good sign, he thought. Perhaps in the aftermath of the incident at the Academy she had begun to recognise that she was moving into perilous waters. Ordinarily he would have words of solicitude and comfort for his younger sister in any distress, but he knew he had to stifle them on this occasion. The business in hand could hardly be more serious.

She ordered a Brazil coffee from the waitress. ‘You said you wanted to see me. Is it important?'

She was testing him. The question was a challenge. When her coffee came to the table, she sipped it looking over his shoulder through the window, pretending to be interested in what was happening in the street outside.

Swallow was patient at first. ‘You know you could be in very serious trouble?'

‘Really? Why would that be?'

He sighed. ‘I don't have to spell it out. It's because you were part of – or at least were in the company of – a gang that came armed with a deadly weapon to attack a senior official from the Castle along with a leading member of the City Corporation. You're lucky not to be in Kilmainham Jail this evening. You're getting into something that's a great deal more dangerous than you seem to understand. Is that clear enough?'

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Maybe you're the one who doesn't understand what's going on, Joe.'

She clattered her coffee cup on its saucer and glared at him across the table.

‘Our country is being subjected to England's will. We're expected to give loyalty to a foreign Queen while her agents drive our people from their farms to starve in the fields or take the emigration ships to America. All over the country this summer there are people being turned out of their houses while your colleagues in the Royal Irish Constabulary stand guard for the eviction agents.'

She waved towards the window.

‘What do you see? You see flags and emblems to celebrate half a century of this Queen's rule. Well, it might have been a good half century in England, but for this country it's been famine, starvation and disease. It's been half a century of evictions and clearances and of emigration for those lucky enough to get out. What has Ireland got to celebrate?'

She spread her hands across the table for emphasis.

‘We have to break the connection with England and we have to protest against opportunist politicians who try to fool the Irish people. That's why we were at the Academy. It's well known that Thomas Fitzpatrick is being put up as a puppet to make a show of welcome for this Queen's grandson. We can't be silent.'

Swallow seized on her word.

‘“We”? Do you realise who the hell “we” actually are? The people you were with – the so-called “Hibernian Brothers”? Do you know that most of them are on file at G Division in the Castle as people who are violent and dangerous? Do you know the penalties for possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life? Do you realise that a court of law would see you and your friends as being just as guilty as the man with the gun in his pocket?'

She was silent for a moment. ‘That's absurd.'

‘That's the law.'

He saw her hesitate. ‘I didn't know he brought that Prussian revolver with him,' she said quietly.

‘“That Prussian revolver”?' Jesus, Harriet, what do you know about revolvers, Prussian or any other kind? What would you know about the difference between a Prussian revolver and … and … that teapot?'

‘I know enough,' she said quietly.

She was more deeply involved than he had imagined. There were perhaps half a dozen clandestine organisations around the city, some on the fringes of the Land League and the Plan of Campaign, others with their own schemes to overthrow the British Empire's rule in Ireland. Their memberships varied from a handful of people to hundreds, in some cases.

The Invincibles who had murdered Cavendish and Burke were only one of a number of self-appointed avengers of Ireland's ancient wrongs. There was an unknowable proliferation of splinter groups.

Membership often overlapped between the various groups, making it difficult for G Division to achieve accurate estimates of numbers. It was said that the full complement of some of the minor groups could be carried on a bicycle. The active numbers of the mainstream Irish Republican Brotherhood – the Fenians – on the other hand, were to be reckoned in many hundreds, including quite a few with military experience in America.

‘You know I can only protect you to a certain extent,' he said after a pause. ‘If you don't get out of whatever it is you're involved in, you'll end up spending a very long time in prison when you should be doing what you set out to do, learning how to be a teacher and building a life for yourself.'

She drained her coffee cup and looked around for the waitress.

‘You know I'm not a person who would support unnecessary violence, Joe.'

She looked him earnestly. ‘But men like Fitzpatrick have to be confronted. He's making himself rich by exporting Irish farmers' cattle and produce to Britain for her armies. He pretends to be an Irish nationalist, but in reality he's protected by Dublin Castle.'

The waitress came to the table. Harriet ordered a second Brazil coffee.

Swallow's impatience was rising.

‘Christ, Harriet. Who's filling your head with this … this … bullshit? It may be true, Fitzpatrick may be an opportunist. Maybe the authorities are using him to put up a front of loyalty to this bloody Prince Albert. But you don't have to get yourself into this kind of trouble to show your patriotic mettle.'

His teacup was empty.

‘All right, maybe Fitzpatrick is making money too, selling cattle to the army. What about it? Leave it to the politicians, to Parnell and Davitt and Healy and all the others. They seem to me to be doing a fairly good job in throwing bricks. It doesn't concern people like you. For God's sake, women aren't supposed to be involved in politics. They're not even supposed to vote.'

Her face was scarlet with anger.

‘Well it should concern people like me – and you,' she shot back. ‘I've held back from saying anything about your job as a policeman or what you do in the G Division. But I don't imagine you can be very proud of it. You're telling me I can be a teacher. That's fine. But if I say to you that you might have been a doctor and that you could have worked saving lives you'd not like to be reminded of that, I think. You're a good man, Joe, but you're supporting a system that's rotten and that keeps your own people in subjection and ignorance and poverty.'

She paused in her onslaught as the waitress put the fresh coffee on the table. As soon as the girl moved away she started again.

‘And as for women, let me tell you that the women of Ireland are going to make changes. I'm going to be one of those women that stand up for Ireland and for themselves. And if you say women shouldn't be in politics, then what about this damned Queen you're working for? What could be more political than presiding over the British Empire?'

Swallow was relieved to see the waitress coming back.

‘Would you like another pot of tea, Sir? That one must have gone cold by now.'

He nodded to the girl. ‘Yes, thank you.'

Harriet added milk to her coffee. Swallow knew he had to avoid getting angry. However much it might inflame him, and whatever she had to say, this conversation was not about him or what Harriet thought of him. It was not about the job he did now or about the doctor that he might have been. The conversation was not about the life of Detective Sergeant Joe Swallow. It was not about the British Empire or Ireland's wrongs. It was about his sister, about her life, about saving her from the pit of disaster towards which she was headed and which she did not even see in front of her.

His instincts told him there was more to Harriet's attitude than some awakening of political awareness. There was a great deal of passion and an insufficiency of logic in her tirade. He followed a hunch.

‘Did O'Donnell get you into this?'

‘James?'

‘I'm not aware of any other O'Donnell that you know.'

She lowered her eyes and sipped at her coffee. He could see that her rage was passing. He guessed that in spite of their tense exchanges she wanted to talk about James O'Donnell.

‘He's highly intelligent and he's very well read. People look to him as a thinker and a leader. I think if you talked to him you'd be impressed by his arguments.'

He knew he was on the right track. ‘How long have you known him?'

‘I've known him for about six months or so.'

‘So where did you meet him?'

‘There was a public meeting in Kingstown. We all went down there from the college. He was on the platform along with Mr Davitt and Mr Parnell. He didn't actually deliver an address. He introduced other speakers. Later, one of the lecturers from the Royal College introduced us.'

Harriet looked past him again, appearing to focus on the street beyond the window. Swallow sat back from the table. He knew that she was waiting for his reaction. For all their differences, he knew that her older brother's opinion was important to her. It had always been so since her childhood.

‘Do you … have feelings for him?' he asked, when the silence had run its course.

‘Yes, I do,' she said quietly.

In his mind's eye, he saw O'Donnell from the evening before, leering at him, half-drunkenly.

There was nothing to be gained from pulling his punches. It was best to be frank with his young sister, although he knew that her initial reaction, at any rate, would be defensive.