Peeler (31 page)

Mathew-Pare shifted in his chair.

The gunman’s voice was quiet but firm, as if he were addressing the wall of the room instead of the men inside it. ‘I loved Deirdre.’

‘What was that, Seamus?’ O’Keefe asked.

‘I said I loved her.’

‘Then why did you kill her? Why did you do those things to her, man?’

Connors looked at O’Keefe. ‘I never hurt a hair on that girl’s head. Never in my life, so help me God.’

‘Only God can help you if you did, Seamus.’

‘God will judge me for the things I did do, but I would never have hurt Deirdre.’

He took a Player from the packet. Mathew-Pare leaned over and lit it for him.

Connors’ eyes were intense. As a policeman, O’Keefe was used to being lied to, but if this was lying, it was one of the most convincing performances he had ever seen.

‘So you loved her. Do you know why she left you, Seamus?’

‘Because I no longer amused her. I loved her and she loved …’ he searched for a word, ‘life.’ It sounded lame and broken, and as Connors swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, he appeared to O’Keefe like any young, grief-stricken lad might. For a moment it was difficult to believe he was the assassin he was said to be.

‘And she found it, with this new chap she’d been courting?’

‘I never got a chance to ask her.’ Connors pulled hard on the cigarette.

‘Did you know the fella she’d taken up with, Seamus?’

‘I know of him. I’m told he’s a right hand at the cards for a Montenotte man.’ He exhaled a column of smoke.

‘What’s his name?’ The question sounded too eager. O’Keefe glanced over at Mathew-Pare, knowing the Englishman wouldn’t have made the same mistake.

‘That’d be telling now, wouldn’t it?’ Connors said. ‘Aiding and abetting the Crown.’

‘His name, Seamus. We want to talk to him.’

‘If he hurt Deirdre, I’ll take care of him.’

‘So you don’t know that he did?’ O’Keefe said. ‘And you’re not exactly in a position to find out either way.’

Connors shrugged. ‘Didn’t have the time to get him on his own. Away from that boy of his.’

‘What boy?’

Connors laughed. ‘You lot think I’m a wrong ’un? You’ve no idea – that fella.’

‘What fella, Seamus? Who are you talking about?’

Connors shook his head and sucked on the cigarette. O’Keefe took a cigarette for himself and accepted a light from Mathew-Pare. He began again.

‘So you’d never have hurt Deirdre?’

Connors stubbed out the cigarette, ignoring O’Keefe as if his question was addressed to someone else.

‘What about Judith Mackey? How do you explain what you were carrying when you were arrested trying to force entry into her house?’

Smiling at O’Keefe, or maybe at the memory, Connors said, ‘I was a medical student, Sergeant. I was on my way home from a dissection. That set of tools cost four quid. I could hardly have left them at the college.’

‘So you took them to Judith Mackey’s house and tried to force your way in?’

‘I was drunk, Sergeant. I drank back then. I was young.’

‘You smell of drink now.’

‘Wouldn’t you, if the situation was reversed? If the woman you loved had been murdered?’

‘How do I know you haven’t been on a skite for the last week? That you didn’t start drinking again and kill Deirdre?’

‘I wasn’t on a skite. I’ve been teetotal for two years. Since Judith had me up. I’d lost the run of it, drink. Lost the run of myself.’

O’Keefe leaned across the table to get closer to the man, willing Connors to confide in him. ‘How do I know you didn’t kill Deirdre Costelloe?’

Leaning in to meet him halfway, Connors put a hand on O’Keefe’s forearm. ‘Because when she was killed, I was up in Dublin, killing his lot,’ he nodded towards Mathew-Pare, ‘in their beds. And since then I’ve been down in Kilmichael, sending Auxie dogs off to meet the Devil. Sure, even if I’d wanted to kill Deirdre, I’d never have found the time.’

‘I think,’ Mathew-Pare said, speaking for the first time, his voice as pleasant as if he were suggesting they break for tea, ‘that we should wind things up here, unless Mr Connors wants to tell us anything more about his activities in Dublin and Kilmichael. Mr Connors?’

Connors smiled at Mathew-Pare. ‘I’ve said all I’m saying to any man, English or Irish spy. Consider yourselves privileged men.’

Mathew-Pare rose and said, ‘There’s more privileged men coming. They’ll listen and you’ll talk. They’ll love to hear your story, Mr Connors.’

***

‘Sergeant!’

O’Keefe bolted upright, unsure of where he was. After a moment, he realised his right hand was gripping Constable Finch’s throat. Finch had a grip on O’Keefe’s wrist. It was dark, the only light in the small room coming through the open door to the office.

‘Sergeant, it’s me – Finch.’

O’Keefe rubbed sleep from his eyes, his heart pounding in his chest and a cold sweat of fear on his back. He could see his breath in the dim light.

‘What is it, Finch? What time is it?’

‘It’s after four. Only I think you need to get up and come with us, Sergeant.’

‘Come where?’

Finch hesitated. ‘You’re needed, Sergeant. Right quick.’ He paused again and O’Keefe realised he still had his hand on the man’s throat. Gently, Finch removed the hand from his neck. O’Keefe looked at it as if it were something strange and wild. ‘Sergeant Daly told me to rouse you. We’ve a problem with Keane.’

‘Keane? Where is he?’

Finch took O’Keefe’s civilian clothes, along with his shoulder holster and gun, from the wardrobe and handed them to him.

‘Sergeant Daly has the car running. Says you need to ’op it, mate.’

***

Daly drove with the lights on, racing over the crushed stone roads, risking ambush or accident. Through breaks in the cloud, the half-moon turned the dusting of frost on the stone walls silver. O’Keefe pulled his trenchcoat tightly around him.

‘Who has he with him, Jim?’ O’Keefe asked, riding up front beside Daly. Finch was in the back, a wool cap pulled low over his ears, his uniform overcoat belted tight against the cold, an Enfield carbine across his lap.

Daly shouted over the engine noise and creak of the Ford’s springs. ‘Bunch of Essex lads from the camp. They lost two of theirs last week. One to a sniper, one kidnapped, presumed dead. Keane met them drinking in the hotel.’

Jesus, O’Keefe thought. Drunken, angry soldiers from the Essex Regiment – reputed to be the worst regiment in Ireland for the abuse of prisoners – and young Keane.

Finch leaned over the seat. ‘They took one of the Essex’s Crossleys. Got one of the more sober lads to drive, I ’eard.’

As they crested a hill on the Crossbarry road and levelled out, they could see Mulaney’s burning. Daly swung the car up the long drive. A small scrum of people stood in the yard, helpless against the intensity of the flames. There was a sickening stench of roasting flesh and scorched feathers in the night air; a peaty smell of burning thatch from the roof of the cottage office.

One of the men in the group walked over to them as Daly braked the car. As he neared them, O’Keefe recognised the younger Mulaney, his face black with soot. There were women and children in the group, and it occurred to O’Keefe that the cottage which served as the farm’s office was also the Mulaney family home. He could see a woman holding a baby, small children clinging to the coat she was wearing over her nightclothes. In the firelight he could see the sheen of tears streaking the woman’s face.

He got out of the car. ‘Mr Mulaney …’

‘You’re too late, Sergeant. They’re long gone.’

‘Where’d they go? Have you any idea?’

‘I expect the family of the boy you shot will have more to grieve about before the night is out.’ He snorted and rage flashed in his eyes. ‘All the while we worried about the boyos in the hills burning us out and in the end it was you lot. Drunk as fucking lords.’

His words were overcome by a wrenching sound as the corrugated roof of the shed nearest the cottage, glowing red from the heat, collapsed inwards on row after row of pens and cages, the wooden walls imploding in an eruption of sparks and flames and smoke, the fire raging brighter for an instant, illuminating all around them and emanating a fleeting surge of warmth. Flames danced in reflection on the black body of the Ford. Mulaney watched with O’Keefe as the shed collapsed. Then he turned and walked back to his family. There was nothing more to say about anything. There just weren’t the words. Silently O’Keefe got back into the car and Daly drove off.

The village of Rathleigh was a small collection of houses off the Crossbarry road, two miles from the poultry farm. They could see the light of burning houses as they approached, the road dipping to the village on the banks of the Bandon. A Crossley Tender was parked at an angle across the road and Daly pulled up behind it. Two small labourer’s cottages were burning, one on either side of the muddy thoroughfare, a hundred yards or so down from each other.

The three of them got out of the car, O’Keefe unsnapping the holster under his left arm as he walked, Daly beside him carrying a hurley, the blade resting over his right shoulder, Finch following with his carbine. They rounded the Crossley.

There appeared to be seven soldiers. O’Keefe counted three holding rifles. Lined up in the road was a large family, still in nightclothes, like the Mulaneys. There were several women and children, and an elderly couple. A scatter of their belongings lay in a forlorn and broken trail from the front of the burning cottage to where they stood.

One soldier was using his rifle to hold back a young boy who was trying to get at the burning house. The soldier was laughing, digging the butt of his gun into the boy’s ribs. An-other soldier staggered out of a low-built, thatched pub, his arms full of stout bottles. He made it halfway to a huddle of three laughing soldiers before he dropped the bottles and fell on his arse, sitting in the mud and beer and broken glass.

‘There’s the lad,’ Daly said.

Keane leaned against the front of a cottage opposite one of the burning houses. His face glowed orange in the firelight and he stared at the flames as if they were the most beautiful things he had ever seen. A bottle hung from his hand.

O’Keefe started towards him. ‘Constable Keane.’

A young Essex Private stepped in front of him. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are, mate?’

Without stopping, O’Keefe drove his boot up into the soldier’s groin and the man doubled over with a yelp of pain. One of the other Essexes saw it and started shouting. A rifle was raised but O’Keefe ignored it and kept walking. Behind him he heard Finch’s voice and the warning to lower arms.

Keane turned as O’Keefe neared him. ‘We got the fucking Shinner bastards, Sergeant.’ His words were slurred, eyes glassy. His lip was still swollen from the fight he’d had with the farm worker earlier, before the ambush, before all this, O’Keefe thought, rage, sadness and shame warring within him. He watched as Keane took a swig from the bottle and O’Keefe could smell the scent of whiskey. Fuel for many a burning, many a killing.

‘Are you armed, Keane?’ O’Keefe stopped in front of him. His words seemed to take a moment to register with the constable.

Keane patted at his hip and pulled back his overcoat. It was a long, yellow-tan army trenchcoat and under it, O’Keefe noticed, he wore his uniform. Stepping closer to him, O’Keefe reached into Keane’s coat and removed his sidearm from its belt holster. A Colt automatic. He sniffed the barrel and was relieved to smell that it hadn’t been fired recently.

‘Put the bottle down and come with me.’

Keane smiled. ‘We’ve one more house, Sergeant. The simple boy’s house. Lads are only just trying to get the mother out of it now.’

O’Keefe lashed out and felt Keane’s nose snap under his knuckles. Keane dropped the bottle and held his face in his hands, blood streaming through his fingers. Stepping behind him, O’Keefe wrenched one of Keane’s hands back and clipped a handcuff onto it. Pulled the other hand back and did the same.

Keane started laughing and then the laughter turned to sobs, the blood running down into his mouth, the young man sniffing and spitting in the mud as O’Keefe guided him to the Ford. Shoving the young constable forward, O’Keefe watched Daly knock the rifle from one of the soldiers with a whack of his hurl. Finch loaded the rest of the Essexes onto the Crossley at rifle point.

Once he had him in the car, O’Keefe said to Keane. ‘Michael Keane, I am placing you under arrest for the wilful destruction of property by means of arson …’

Keane shouted at O’Keefe through bloody teeth, ‘You fuck yourself, Sergeant! Fuck yourself and fuck this whole war and fuck these people! These filthy, fucking murdering people!’ The tears rolled down his face and he lowered his head to the seat in front of him.

These people
, O’Keefe thought. Your people, Keane. My people
.

***

When the war came, he joined up. He went with the others from the abattoir where he worked. He had no friends there but would follow the lads. Watch what they did. Mimic their actions and rough talk, and laugh when they laughed. He was tolerated, though his awkward ways and ill-timed bursts of laughter would be met sometimes with uneasy stares and odd comments. Couldn’t fault his work though. The lad was a machine. Would do your work for you if you let him.

In the eighteen months that he had worked in the abattoir, his forearms had grown thick and ropey with muscle and he was at home on the killing floor, swinging the spiked mallet, the cattle in their boxes dropping to their knees, dead before they hit the ground.

They went to the town square to see Kitchener’s man in their work clothes, bloody aprons thrown over their shoulders. They would be joining a local regiment; a fighting regiment with a long, illustrious history. The young lad wondered, as the army doctor shone a light inside his mouth, was this his father’s regiment? He had no one to ask now. His mother was gone too.

His hand shook a little as he scratched his signature on the papers they gave him. Thinking of his mother. How she’d had it coming, the bitch. She should never have sold his laying hens. She should never have fucking done that.