Peeler (32 page)

The Daly house was in an area of Cork called the Barracka, due to its nearness to the main British army barracks in the city. It was a district where many policemen had settled over the years and, despite several shootings in the surrounding streets, no Peeler had yet been killed and it remained a relatively safe place for them to live. Retired Peelers and ex-British army lived there in numbers, as did teachers, carpenters, tradesmen and their families, sharing lanes with several notorious brothels that had served the barracks for years. Children played on the cobbles, warring with gangs from other streets, playing Volunteers against the Tans, the younger lads stuck being Tans and always having to die.

O’Keefe was on two days official furlough, as ordered by the DI. He sat in the Daly kitchen sipping warm, sweet tea, watching Jim’s wife Muireann roll out pastry for an apple tart, talking now and again of things her five children had done; about things that she knew would take his mind off work, off the girl found on the hillside. Muireann was a rare woman in that Daly told her almost everything that went on in his work. She told Jim she wouldn’t have it any other way and Muireann Daly, the sweetest, kindest woman a man could meet, would have her way or so help you God.

O’Keefe had seen this side of her himself when she had visited him each day in the Army Hospital. There was a time when he was refusing her visits, refusing to eat the food she brought. All he had wanted was to be left alone, to live in his memories, as if the longer he looked at the horror of V Beach and the two weeks of fighting that followed, the more he might see some sense in it, come to some conclusion.

Muireann Daly had made him stop. Bullied him back into daily life. She couldn’t make the memories go away, but she had got him over the worst of the days as he recovered. Forcing a baby, her youngest, Paul – now three years old – into his arms. Telling him to smile at the child, or did O’Keefe want him to grow up a sour auld sod like his father? And O’Keefe had forced himself to smile at the infant and, though it took weeks, she never stopped coming and, after some time, little Paul would smile at O’Keefe and hold his fat-ringed arms out to him, wanting to be held, so that O’Keefe couldn’t refuse him. And then she made him eat.

O’Keefe smiled at the memory and his stomach growled at the thought of a home-cooked meal. Muireann heard it and smiled. ‘Your belly sounds like a Crossley Tender, Seán. You’d think they never feed you boys in barracks.’

‘They feed us. Fatten us for the slaughter, more like.’ He instantly regretted saying it. Muireann must worry about Jim. That was only natural.

Before he could apologise, the eldest Daly child – Mary, eight years old, blonde like her mother – came into the kitchen. ‘There’s someone outside to see Uncle Seán, Mammy. He says he’s a good pal of yours, Uncle Seán. And look,’ she said, holding open her palm to O’Keefe. ‘He gave me these coppers and told me to buy myself a bottle of lemonade!’

O’Keefe stood. ‘I know who he is, Mary. Another Jackeen who’s free with his money.’

‘That money’s going in the poor box, is where it’s going, girl.’

‘Sergeant Connolly would be fierce disappointed if you made her give it over, Muireann. He thinks the young of the country grow strong on lemonade. Thinks if we all drank more of it, there’d be Home Rule in no time.’

The Crimes Special man was waiting for O’Keefe at the gate, passing a scuffed and lopsided football back and forth with Thomas Daly, aged five.

‘You Cork lads,’ Connolly said to the boy, ‘never could kick a ball for shite. Here …’ beckoning the boy over, ‘take this like a good lad, and buy yourself …’ He dug into his pocket for more coins, ‘… buy all your brothers and sisters a bottle of lemonade, there.’

The boy’s face exploded into a smile. ‘Thank you, sir! Thanks a million!’

‘And don’t let me hear you spent it all on yerself now.’ Mock serious, he mussed the boy’s hair as he passed.

‘A fine litter,’ Connolly said. ‘Surely they can’t be Daly’s.’

‘He claims them, anyway.’

‘Mysteries of life, Seán. Mysteries of life. Like the one brings me out here.’

‘How’d you find me?’

‘Jingled up the barracks and Daly himself told me.’

Connolly offered O’Keefe a Sweet Afton and a light.

Exhaling smoke, O’Keefe said, ‘Mysteries, Connolly. What are you on about that you had to come interrupt the first hot meal I’ve had in a week?’

‘Wouldn’t have done it, my friend, if I didn’t think you might be interested.’

‘Tell me.’

The Crimes Special man smoked and watched for a moment as a woman across the road swept the footpath the length of her fence, stopping at the end of her property on each side, exactly. ‘Heard you picked up Connors. Fair play to you.’

‘We did. Daly and a couple of lads … the chap you met, English fella and his boys. Lifted him at the girl’s funeral.’

‘He give himself up for it?’ He looked at O’Keefe now, as if the answer was somehow important to him.

‘He didn’t, no. He said he was shooting for Collins up in Dublin that weekend. Said he had a hand in the jump at Kilmichael as well. But swore blind he never touched the girl.’

Connolly shook his head and chuckled, as if at some private joke. ‘The cheeky fucker. Did he give himself up for the Smyth shooting? I could claim that if he did. Be Head Con in a week for that one.’

‘Sorry.’

Connolly smiled. ‘So he was in your nick since when?’

‘Yesterday morning … afternoon, really.’

‘Well, young Seánín, the reason I ask is this.’ He put up his hand as if O’Keefe had been about to protest his point. ‘Now, I know the case is closed, shut and out of business, because you’ve pinched your killer and thank you very much.
And
I know you’ll tell me to bugger off home and don’t be filling your mind with notions, but …’ He smiled and took a long drag on his cigarette.

‘But what?’

‘But we found a body. On my patch – in a laneway off Patrick Street. Four o’clock this morning. Just got word back a couple of hours ago on the cause of death. Care to guess?’

‘Jesus, Connolly, you’d talk the arse off a cart horse and leave it none the wiser.’

‘Icepick in the brain. Up through the number one vertebra. Single stroke. Professional job, I’d wager.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Him too. Just like your girl there, only one difference.’

‘What’s that?’ O’Keefe dropped the cigarette on the footpath and ground it out with his boot.

‘It’s not a girl.’

Connolly took a manila file from inside the expensive leather case he had resting at his feet and handed it to O’Keefe. ‘Post-mortem’s not finished yet, still working it now, I’d say. But cause of death is plain enough to see. Extensive bruising around the entry wound. The point of the weapon fairly rammed into the fella’s head. Stuck him only once. Doc told me that, barring any surprises in the autopsy, single stab wound with a long, thin pointed object would be pronounced the cause of death. Just like your victim’s. Said death would have been pretty instant and, in his learned opinion, it was a professional who did it. Said to look for an ex-soldier, fella with trench-fighting experience.’

‘He said that unbidden?’

‘Never opened me mouth.’

O’Keefe sighed and looked across the street at the Daly boys once again kicking their football on the cobbles. The woman had gone in from her sweeping. The air was cool and damp and the sun struggled to light the earth through the haze of low cloud. He checked his watch. It was nearly half-past two, two hours or so until darkness; two hours until it wasn’t safe to roam the streets of Cork investigating a crime that had already been officially solved. Two hours until the trigger-happy troops of the Crown and the flat-capped gunmen of the IRA staged their nightly theatre of malice. O’Keefe told himself, I can leave this. Nothing will be different. Nothing will change if I just do nothing.

‘This could all be just a grand coincidence, Seán. You know that, don’t you? I debated whether or not I should even bring it to you.’

‘No,’ O’Keefe said, ‘I was never one for coincidences.’

‘Nor I, but sometimes coincidence is handier than the truth.’

‘Handier but still not the truth.’ O’Keefe exhaled a long breath. ‘I owe you one, Lorcan. Any leads on it? Any suspects?’

Connolly smiled. ‘You think I’m gonna dig the ditch for yis Ballycarleton lads, yis’ve another thing coming.’

‘So you’ve nothing.’

‘Not a thing. Fella’s a salesman, agricultural machinery. William McKenna. Malloy’s Agricultural Wares, South-Western Sales and Representation. Some grand title means he sells ploughs and troughs and those fucking things.’ He motioned something fluttery with his hands. ‘I know bollix about farming. He was staying at the Central for the past week. Interviewed the staff, it’s in there.’ He pointed to the file. ‘Seems he was in a card game last night. Interviewed one of the lads playing. Private game, big stakes. The chap we talked to burned his pile and left early. Said our dead man could play some cards, he could.’

‘Card game?’

‘I know what you’re thinking, Seán, but it might mean sweet damn all. Coincidence and all that.’ He flicked his cigarette onto the road.

‘You get the names of the other players?’

‘In the file.’ Connolly jabbed the file with his finger. ‘McKenna’s wallet was gone, Seán. You should know that from the off. Could be a robbery, the whole thing. No label round the fella’s neck either. Found in the lane behind the hotel. Whores are known to work it. Their ponces as well. Some of those lads are handy with a knife.’

O’Keefe closed the file. ‘Handy with a fish knife in a dark laneway is one thing. Killing some chap in an instant with one blow? Not many whoremongers I know’d be up to it.’

‘Your ball, Seán, it’s up to you to shoot or pass. I wouldn’t touch it with a drover’s stick meself, but I know you ambitious career types. All boot and no bullshit.’

O’Keefe smiled at Connolly, though it was the last thing he felt like doing. ‘That’s me all over. You’ve a real grip on a man’s character.’

‘It comes with the job, my friend.’

O’Keefe laughed. ‘Why are you back on the cobbles anyway, Connolly? Aren’t you supposed to be minding Mr Sutton’s tavern? I thought you had two weeks.’

Connolly removed his trilby and smoothed his hair. ‘Ah jaysus, man. I jacked that in days ago. Liver might as well have taken a bullet. I can feel the scars on the poxy thing. Four days of minding Sutton’s arse and a man needs a week in the spa in Baden-Baden. You want a bash at it, Seán? When this thing’s done? I could swing it for you.’

Replacing his hat, the Crimes Special man winked and touched his nose.

‘I’ll think about it. You might not want to know me when this is over,’ said O’Keefe.

‘I might not want to know you now, but I know a man with steel bollocks when I see one. And the brave ones, they’re the most fun to wind up and set loose.’

‘I owe you.’

‘Sure, you find the bastard who killed that girl and maybe pin him with Janey Plunkett, we’ll call it quits.’

***

An old woman was waiting in McGowan’s library. Farrell shut the door behind him.

‘I’m Liam Farrell. You’ve been wanting to see me?’

The old woman looked up at him from her chair by the fire. ‘I have. You’re here now, so.’

Farrell saw a tea tray on the low table next to her. ‘Can I get you something more?’

‘No, no, I’m drowned in tea already. A lovely girl, working here for you and Mr McGowan.’

‘She is that, Mrs …’

‘Gannon.’

‘Mrs Gannon. You know, surely, that Mr McGowan is the solicitor, I’m only temporary here.’

‘It’s not the law I’m come to talk about. My boy told me to come see you, Mr Farrell. Said you were the one I’d want to be telling.’

‘Do I know your boy, Mrs Gannon?’

‘No, and you don’t need to be knowing him, only that I was to come to you. That you were the one to see about the poor girl.’

‘Girl?’

The woman pulled her black shawl tighter around her shoulders. ‘The young girl found dead up on the Drumdoolin hills.’

Farrell pulled his chair closer to the fire, his attention focused on the woman. ‘You’ve come to the right person,’ he said. ‘What can you tell me, Mrs Gannon?’

‘Only that she was in the house where I labour. A guest of the Major. Last week it was.’

‘A guest?’

‘You could call her that, I suppose.’ She hesitated. ‘There were … other guests that night but you’d remember her.’

‘Where do you work, Mrs Gannon? It’s very important.’

‘Burleigh House. Sure, what other man in these parts does be called the Major?’

‘And why is it only now you’re coming to us with this information?’

‘Sure, I didn’t know a thing about it until the Sergeant came to the house. Didn’t he drop his case and pictures about the place.’ She looked into the fire. ‘Her picture fell out. I knew her from the picture, God rest her.’

Farrell leaned forward. ‘Tell me about her. About what she was doing at the Major’s house.’

The old woman nodded. ‘The Major, you see. He has his friends in. Officers, gentlemen. Men from his days in the army. To play cards. And to …’ She frowned and Farrell waited for her to go on. ‘I don’t like to say, Mr Farrell, but it’s a disgrace, the carry on. And here, I found this in one of the bedrooms when I done my cleaning, some days after.’

She rummaged in the folds of her skirts and came out with a small object that she reached across and placed in Farrell’s hand. It was a single pearl earring. ‘The poor girl. She was wearing pearl earrings. I saw them on her when she arrived. She wasn’t like the other girls that came.’

When the old woman had finished her story and he’d seen her out, Farrell shrugged on his coat and left McGowan’s. He needed to contact his superiors and organise for a visit to be paid to Major Burleigh.

***

The mist-blurred sun was slipping behind the houses across the road by the time O’Keefe stepped out of the Daly house. He had maybe an hour of daylight left at best. A further four hours until curfew, when the streets would be unsafe for walking, let alone riding the Triumph. He wheeled the bike up to the front of the house and left it there. Walking would be dangerous, but if a pack of Auxies or IRA was waiting around some corner, he reckoned his chances were better if he heard them first. Taking out his revolver, he checked he had a full load of six rounds and shoved it back into the holster.