A June of Ordinary Murders (47 page)

Mallon's face was creased in strain. ‘What's the best thing to do? It might be safest just to take them in now and decide what to do with them when the royal visit is over?'

‘The problem with that, Chief, is that we don't know how many others there may be in the gang. I'd suggest it would be better to put a full-scale surveillance on them and try to catch them red-handed, along with whoever else might be involved.'

‘There are risks in that,' Mallon mused. ‘But you're probably right. If we lift these three now we could simply alert any others and give them the time to put together another plan.'

Mallon stood. ‘Leave it with me. I'll be across in my office directly after I've had my breakfast and I'll arrange to have the three of them shadowed. We'll keep on their tails and pounce when the moment is right. Tell me, is O'Donnell sufficiently valuable to us to have him … shall we say … make good his escape? Or would that simply raise suspicions that he's been working for us?'

Swallow thought for a moment. ‘I'd say it's best to bring him in with the other two when the arrests are made. I'll find a way of springing him that won't arouse any suspicions among his own crowd.'

He was conscious that he was delivering a full-blown lie about his intentions for James O'Donnell.

‘That's how it'll be then,' Mallon said, moving towards the door. ‘This is work well done, Swallow, damned well done.'

Swallow reflected how little either the Chapelizod Gate murders or the Sarah Hannin case obtruded into John Mallon's priorities when a security issue presented itself. And if either man's mind had run to Thomas Fitzpatrick's scheduled absence from his house at Merrion Square in the afternoon, neither one of them mentioned it.

*   *   *

At noon, Swallow and his squad set off from Marlborough Street in two open cars. The four constables that Stephen Doolan had recruited were perspiring in their buttoned-up tunics. The G-men would have shed their own jackets were it not for the bulky revolvers in their shoulder-holsters underneath.

Cab men had gathered into the shade of a sycamore that overhung the railings at the corner of Merrion Square.

One driver was dousing his animal with cool water from the stone trough at the head of the cab stand. Swallow could see through the trees that some of the nurses from the houses around the square had already taken their young charges out of the sun's glare into the shadows of the beech and oak that sheltered the lawns.

Doolan sent two of his constables to the mews laneway behind the Fitzpatrick house. He posted another to the tradesman's entrance where a flight of steps went from street level to the basement.

Swallow and Mossop climbed the steps to the hall door for the second time in six days. Stephen Doolan came behind in uniform. Swallow pulled on the bell cord. Children's laughter floated across from the gardens, but he could hear the bell ringing faintly somewhere inside the house.

McDonald opened the door almost immediately. Swallow stepped past him into the hallway and brandished Lafeyre's warrant under his nose.

‘Detective Sergeant Swallow, G Division,' he said unnecessarily.

‘I have a warrant to search these premises for evidence in relation to the murders of Sarah Hannin, Louise Thomas and Richard Thomas, a child. This warrant also states that I may detain and question any or all persons found within these premises in relation to the deaths of Sarah Hannin, Louise Thomas and Richard Thomas. Do you understand?'

McDonald moved as if to block the G-men. ‘Mr Fitzpatrick … won't permit this. You can't come in here like this.'

Swallow folded the warrant into his pocket. ‘I'm afraid you're mistaken. And I'll discuss that with Mr Fitzpatrick in due course, if he wishes. In the meantime, the officers with me will start their search of the house. Please tell me who else is here now.'

For a moment it seemed as if McDonald would refuse to answer.

Then he stepped back. ‘I am in cha … charge of the house. There's … ju … just some other servants here now.'

Swallow snapped. ‘Who are they?'

‘There's the cook … downstairs, the groom in the coach-house and there's Joan the housemaid. The coachman is gone wi' Mr Fitzpatrick.'

Pat Mossop scribbled the details in his notebook.

‘Please assemble them immediately,' Swallow instructed. He turned to Mossop.

‘Get their full names and the usual details including their home places. And you can call in the others now.'

Mossop waved from the open hall door. Feore, Collins and Shanahan, who had been waiting in the open car across the street, sprinted up the steps and into the house.

Swallow posted Shanahan inside the front door.

‘Nobody leaves and nobody enters without my permission. If necessary draw your revolver to prevent anyone entering the house or interrupting our search,' he said.

‘You cover the back along with Collins,' he told Mick Feore. ‘Nobody moves in or out through the mews.'

He took the granite back stairs with Mossop to the basement where McDonald had assembled the servants.

They were young. The groom and the housemaid looked scarcely 20. The cook was perhaps 25 or 26. McDonald, standing beside the little group, could have passed for their father.

A cloying odour of cooking pervaded the basement air. Swallow crossed the stone-flagged kitchen to stand by an open window where he hoped the smell might be diluted.

‘I apologise for having to disturb you from whatever you may have been doing. I'm Detective Sergeant Swallow of the G Division and I'm investigating the death of Sarah Hannin, as well as the deaths of Louise Thomas and her son, Richard, who were murdered at the Chapelizod Gate of the Phoenix Park 10 days ago.

‘I'm going to require each of you to answer some questions from the officers I've brought with me. I have a warrant that gives me authority to search this house and to question any persons here in connection with these deaths.'

He tried to read the servants' faces. He saw nervousness, which was to be expected, but nothing more. The cook glanced sideways at McDonald as if seeking his opinion.

‘You have to answer all of the officers' questions truthfully and fully,' Swallow said sternly. ‘If you do that you'll have nothing to fear. If you don't do so, I will arrest you and bring you before the courts for obstructing the course of justice. Is this clear?'

There was a murmur of acknowledgment.

‘You will have to remain in the house until we've finished. There's a policeman at the front door and at the back door to make sure of that. Now, the first thing I need is for someone to show Sergeant Doolan here the accommodation occupied by Sarah Hannin and any belongings of hers that there may be here. Which of you can do that?'

‘I can do that, Sir, if you please,' the young housemaid offered with an alacrity that brought a reproving glance from McDonald. ‘She and me shared a room up at the top of the house.'

‘Good,' Swallow said supportively. He recognised her as the young woman who had wept at Sarah Hannin's burial. ‘What's your name?'

‘I'm Joan, Sir.'

Doolan and a constable started for the stairs with the housemaid. The other constables and G-men began their search of the house and the outbuildings.

‘Now, Mr McDonald,' Swallow turned to the butler. ‘Could you find us some quiet place where you can talk to Detective Mossop and myself without being disturbed or overheard?'

THIRTY-NINE

McDonald led them to a dim, rectangular room off the kitchen. He drew three straight-backed chairs around a long, pine table.

There was a patina of oily green on the walls. The floorboards were scrubbed bare, but the room was suffused with the same smells of grease and food as the outer kitchen. Swallow surmised it was the servants' dining space.

McDonald sat, placing himself at the head of the table. He looked angrily at Swallow.

‘Ye may have some sort of warrant, Sergeant. But by the time this is over you'll be a sorry man, believe ye me.'

The tone was threatening, with the Lowlands accent coming through.

Swallow took the opposite chair. If it was McDonald's tactic to try to provoke him he would not respond. Mossop sat, opened his book and placed it on the table.

‘McDonald, I want to ask you some questions about what happened in this house on Wednesday June 15th when Mrs Louise Thomas came here with her young son, Richard,' Swallow said.

McDonald looked stonily ahead.

‘I don't think I can be o' any help to you there, Sergeant.'

Swallow rephrased the question.

‘A woman and a young boy came to this house on that evening. They matched the descriptions of the woman and boy subsequently found murdered at the Chapelizod Gate of the Phoenix Park. No doubt you read about those crimes in the newspapers or heard about them. Now, I want you to tell me about the woman and the boy who came here.'

‘If they came here, I didna' see them.'

‘So you're saying they might have been here?' Mossop said testily.

McDonald scowled at Mossop as if irritated by the Book Man's intervention.

‘I don't know if you realise the situation that you're in,' Swallow snapped.

‘I warned the others. If I don't get full answers to my questions I'll have them charged with failing to co-operate with the police. The same applies to you.'

McDonald shrugged. Swallow decided to play what he hoped would be his shock card.

‘I'm warning you for the last time that I won't be put off by any word games and I won't accept a refusal to answer my questions. I expect your fullest co-operation, Mr McDonald – or should I say, Corporal McDaniel.'

Swallow had never known a sentence to elicit anything as dramatic as the reaction of the elderly man sitting opposite him. His fists crashed on the pine boards so forcefully that Swallow felt the table legs quiver. The colour drained from his face. His lower lip began to tremble.

‘You should understand, McDaniel,' Swallow said coldly, ‘that we have your records. I know your history.'

He paused to let it sink in.

‘All I have to do is send a telegram and you'll be back at York Barracks the day after tomorrow facing a charge of murdering the officer you served as orderly.'

The butler's face was grey. He raised a hand.

‘Wait … wait a moment … stop please. You're … on the wrong track, Swallow. If you think that anyone here at this house had anything to do wi' the death of Sarah Hannin or anyone else … you're mistaken.'

The tone of defiance had gone. Swallow felt a surge of retributive pleasure.

‘You'll find it hard to convince me of that, McDaniel. And you'll find it hard to convince me that you haven't anything to do with the deaths of Louise Thomas and her son. We know that she was the daughter of your employer, Thomas Fitzpatrick.'

He paused again to let McDaniel consider the implications.

‘We also know that you're a man who has killed in the past. If you could kill that young officer in York you could kill two women and a child here in Dublin.'

This was the point, he knew, at which a denial, if there was to be one, would come.

Beads of perspiration broke out on the butler's forehead. He drew a handkerchief from his suit pocket. Pat Mossop put down his pencil and got to his feet.

‘I'll see if I can get you some water from the kitchen.'

‘Stay where you are, Pat,' Swallow commanded. ‘Corporal McDaniel won't die of thirst before he tells us what he knows.'

Mossop silently resumed his seat and took up his pencil again.

The butler mopped his perspiration. Then he twisted the handkerchief between his fingers.

‘Ye know who I am. I won' deny that my name is McDaniel,' he said finally. ‘But I'm tellin' you again, nobody here had anything to do with the deaths of any woman or the wee child.'

His throat dried.

Swallow nodded to Mossop. ‘You can get that water now, Pat. Corporal McDaniel has stopped pretending that he's somebody else.'

Mossop returned from the kitchen a few moments later with a jug and three tumblers. He poured a full glass for McDaniel, who drank half of it down in one gulp.

The Vartry water was cool. Swallow drained the glass that Mossop had put before him and poured himself another.

The sound of heavy boots on the stairs above signalled the progress of Stephen Doolan and the others as they continued their search of the house.

McDaniel drank again. In spite of himself, Swallow felt a twinge of sympathy for him. The butler spread his hands, palms upward, as if pleading. After a few moments he found his voice again.

‘There isn't any way you'd understand wha' happened in York. It wasn't like they said at the time … but I knew I wouldn't be believed,' he said hoarsely.

‘I expect you know what they do in the army to people like me. They'd have made me out to be a … a monster, and then they'd hang me.'

Swallow remained silent.

‘There was a … misunderstanding,' McDaniel resumed. ‘He said I was insubordinate. He struck me on the face. I hit him back and he fell down. I think he struck his head on the floor. When I saw he wasn't movin' I took my chance before they could put me in the Glasshouse. I made a run for it. Anyone would do the same in that position…'

‘If he struck you first it was provocation,' Mossop said. ‘You'd very likely have got off with manslaughter.'

McDaniel laughed bitterly.

‘You haven't had any experience of army justice. I'd have been condemned just for crossin' the line between ranks, steppin' out of my class. A … friendship between two officers would be a problem. But between an officer and an enlisted man, that'd be worse than treason.'

His mopped his forehead again.

‘I got away on a packet crossing from Liverpool. For a long time after I came here, I used to fear that I'd be caught. But I kept my head down. I'd been trained to look after officers … gentlemen. So, I answered some of the advertisements in the newspapers and I was able to go into service with old Mr Fitzpatrick and Mrs Fitzpatrick. That was the father and mother of Alderman Fitzpatrick.'