The City of Strangers (25 page)

‘You know we couldn’t get hold of the broad yesterday?’

Stefan looked up.

‘Kate O’Donnell.’

‘Is she coming in?’ asked Stefan. This was more interesting.

‘Oh, yes. Eventually!’ grinned the detective.

‘What does that mean?’

‘You thought she was up to something with Cavendish, right?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Don’t kid me! Anyway, fuck that. She was up to something all right!’

He looked across the room and chuckled. Several detectives were grouping around Inspector Twomey and the uniformed captain, Aaron Phelan, Michael’s brother, who had just come out of the inspector’s office with him.

‘She’s got to be some piece of work,’ continued Michael.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘If Mr Carroll ever gets hold of her –’

Inspector Twomey walked forward, into the middle of the room.

‘Listen to me, men! We’ve got a missing persons –’

There was an irreverent groan from the detectives still at their desks.

‘It’s not just any missing person. It’s a serious matter. It concerns Mr Carroll. You all know he’s a friend of this department, and always has been. Some of us are privileged to call him a personal friend. So there will be officers who know that his wife has been sick for a while, for quite a while. There’s no good playing around under the circumstances. She’s been in a hospital in Long Island, and basically she’s under lock and key. She’s had the kind of problems we wouldn’t wish on anyone in our families, and it’s a hard thing for Mr Carroll. But the truth is Mrs Carroll is a danger to herself and to other people. Yesterday night, two other people got her out of the hospital where she was being cared for, I guess in the mistaken belief that they were helping her. One of those people was her sister, Miss Kate O’Donnell. She’s an Irishwoman, working at the World’s Fair. The other person involved was a Harlem Negro called Jimmy Palmer, a trumpeter.’

There was a buzz of conversation round the room; there were several sniggers and not a few raised eyebrows. It was already an odd story, and the presence of a black man made it odder. And if some officers knew a bit more about Niamh Carroll’s story, they also knew a bit about Palmer.

‘We don’t know where they are,’ said Twomey, ‘but we need to find them. As I’ve said, Mrs Carroll is unpredictable, and she could be dangerous. According to Mr Carroll she’s hysterical and she could do anything. I don’t know what the fuck her sister thinks she’s doing, but Palmer is dangerous too. We know he was probably supplying Mrs Carroll with drugs in the past. He’s got connections with all sorts in Harlem, pushers, pimps, racketeers. I don’t know what they’re trying to do, or where they’re trying to get. I’ll maybe know a bit more when I’ve talked to the Nassau County Police Chief –’

There were more groans, and this time a ripple of laughter.

‘We won’t be leaving it to the Nassau County hicks, that’s for sure,’ smiled Twomey, ‘but I’m being polite to Abram Skidmore. I doubt they’re still on Long Island anyway. They dumped the taxi they used in Queens. I’m not leaving it to Harlem either. Some of you need to get uptown and find out what you can about Jimmy Palmer. Someone’s got to know what he’s doing and where the fuck he’s doing it. Get off everything else and get on to this. Captain Phelan’s going to coordinate with Missing Persons and uniforms.’

Inspector Twomey walked back into his office. Aaron Phelan was spreading a map of New York City out on a desk. Half a dozen detectives were standing round him. Others were grabbing their coats and heading out.

‘Probably a good job she wasn’t biting, Stefan. You could be in some shit now if she had,’ laughed Michael Phelan. ‘She springs someone from the crazy house, with a fucking nigger in tow. What the hell’s that about?’

The officer at the next desk was pulling on his jacket. He grinned.

‘That’s what they always said about Mrs Carroll.’

‘What?’ asked Sergeant Phelan.

‘Well, it’s a risky business marrying a woman half your age, but I don’t imagine Mr Carroll knew what he’d bought himself when he got her.’

‘Crazy you mean?’

‘She might well be crazy, but that’s not what she’s locked up for.’

The officer took his gun from his desk drawer and put it in its holster.

‘She liked fucking niggers too much,’ he smirked, shaking his head. ‘That’s what I heard in Harlem. And if Inspector Twomey wants to know what it’s got to do with Jimmy Palmer, he’s the nigger she was fucking.’

As the detective turned round, still finding it all funny, Aaron Phelan was standing in front of him. He hadn’t noticed that his words had stopped the conversation at the desk across the room, or that Captain Phelan had left his map. The captain grabbed the officer by his jacket and propelled him several yards, slamming him hard up against a window that looked down on Centre Street. Aaron Phelan’s face was inches from the detective’s now.

‘You see the window behind you, Eddie? You see it, don’t you?’

As the detective could hardly breathe, he could only nod.

‘If I hear any more filth like that coming out of your mouth, I’ll push you straight through it. You got that, Eddie? Straight – fucking – through it!’

Captain Phelan let go. He turned back to the other detectives in the now silent room. He walked back to the desk where he had spread out the map.

‘Respect, gentlemen,’ he smiled. ‘Mental health is a sensitive issue.’

The silence was broken.

They all returned to their work, grinning.

‘I’ll have to get on this too, Stefan,’ said Michael Phelan.

‘OK. There’s not a lot more we’re going to do anyway, is there?’

Stefan fixed his gaze on the NYPD sergeant as he took the sheet of paper out of the typewriter. He put it into an envelope, and then got up and put on his jacket. He slipped the envelope into his pocket and shrugged.

‘I’m just going down to the cells to tell my prisoner we’ll be here a few more days. Not that I’ll be adding much to this report at the end of it though. Anyway, it looks like you’ve all got something to do now that’s more important than finding out what happened to Captain Cavendish. Why don’t I leave the greatest police force in the world to get on with that?’

*

Stefan met Consul General Leo McCauley in Central Park, at the gate to Center Drive. Now they were walking by the pond. Behind them, across 59
^th
Street, was the Hampshire House. The consul general was uneasy about a lot of things. The fact that Captain John Cavendish had been keeping an eye on IRA activity in New York wasn’t something he didn’t know about, but he knew about it in a way that he kept at some distance from his diplomatic role. The ambassador in Washington may have known more about it, but not much more. The Irish diplomatic corps didn’t carry the baggage of military attachés, let alone intelligence officers dressed up with other titles and fictitious roles. Ireland took the business of diplomacy seriously, and as a country that proclaimed its neutrality in the face of what was happening in Europe at every opportunity, it had no intention of playing the games the great powers played. It was the embassy’s job to know what was going on diplomatically and to represent Ireland’s interests, nothing more.

The fact that New York, along with other American cities, was a refuge and support for people who didn’t recognise the legitimacy of the Irish state and wanted to replace it with their own vision of Ireland, by force of arms if necessary, was a fact of life that was mostly to be ignored rather than challenged. It was the business of Irish diplomats to ignore it, at least publicly. It had been John Cavendish’s job to collect information, but at a distance from the work of the diplomats. Leo McCauley wasn’t easy that that hard-won distance might have been bridged by what had happened. Cavendish’s death was distressing in itself, but it was unpleasant, even unfortunate, if it drew attention to things that nobody cared to have attention drawn to.

The consul general was more inclined to accept the version of events coming out of NYPD Headquarters than Stefan Gillespie had expected. But it wasn’t hard to understand that whatever Leo McCauley knew about John Cavendish, however upset he was personally, like others in New York he rather hoped the captain’s death was simply the tragic accident that it appeared to be.

‘I think you’re overstating the case, Sergeant,’ said the consul.

‘I just feel they don’t want to look.’

‘You’re assuming there’s something to look for.’

‘Isn’t that what we’re supposed to assume until we know there isn’t?’

‘There are questions, I realise that. Seán Russell’s presence –’

‘I doubt the IRA chief of staff goes around pushing people off buildings personally these days, but you know an IRA courier was killed.’

‘I don’t know that. All I know is that an Irish seaman died.’

‘I’m just telling you what John Cavendish said, sir.’

‘I can’t go anywhere with this,’ said McCauley. ‘I am by no means convinced the NYPD aren’t entirely right in their conclusions, and if there is more to it, I don’t see how we begin to suggest that without announcing that at some level Ireland is involved in activities that are not going to endear us to anybody. Captain Cavendish was collecting information that I’m sure he believed was important to the state, but if any sense of that gets out I know exactly what Dominic Carroll and Clan na Gael, and every other Irish organisation in America will do with it. I’ll have Irish-American senators and congressmen breaking down my door to demand why we’re spying on patriotic Irishmen, including American citizens, in America. You’ve only been here a few days but as you’ve spent that time with the NYPD you know this city supports the IRA more cheerfully than it supports the Irish state!’

‘So I might as well be on the plane with Mr Harris,’ said Stefan.

The consul general walked on in silence for a moment. He didn’t relish his involvement in this, but he couldn’t ignore the thing completely.

‘You’ve no idea where this material is – these IRA messages?’

Stefan Gillespie shook his head.

McCauley walked on for a moment.

‘I think we ought to at least try to find them, Sergeant. As far as John knew you were going home yesterday. He wanted to give you an envelope?’

‘He said he’d drive me out to the World’s Fair. I read that as him saying he’d give it to me the following morning, after St Patrick’s Day.’

‘Well, if we assume he didn’t have the stuff with him at the Hampshire House,’ continued the consul general, ‘then it was either at his apartment, or in his office at Flushing Meadows. You’d best try and find it.’

Stefan’s surprise showed. It was an abrupt turnaround.

‘You’re a policeman, aren’t you? Presumably you know a lot more about searching than I do. And you have a perfectly good reason to be in his apartment and his office. I’m asking you to look through his possessions, before they’re packed up, to see if there is anything of a personal nature that you feel should be taken back to his wife and his children. It’s a job that somebody has to do anyway, of course, because I’m very sure there will be.’

Stefan said nothing. He looked up at the Hampshire House. There would have been telegrams now; back and forth across the Atlantic. Mrs Cavendish would know of course. He wondered how old the children were.

‘Inspector Twomey sent the contents of his pockets to the consulate,’ said Leo McCauley, taking a small envelope from his coat. ‘These are the keys to his apartment in Brooklyn. The address is on it. I can arrange for someone to be at the Irish Pavilion to let you into his office. After the Fair closes I think. There’s no point drawing more attention to this than we need.’

Stefan walked through the park, parallel with 59
^th
Street, heading for the 7
^th
Avenue gate. As he stepped on to the West Drive he caught a glimpse of a man behind him, quite close. He recognised the brown suit and the round features. It was the man John Cavendish had pointed out to him in Dominic Carroll’s apartment, hovering attentively behind the German consul. He didn’t have the name for a moment, but it came; Katzmann, the man from the German Tourist Office who was really an Abwehr agent. Herr Katzmann smiled, speeding up, and Stefan stopped. It was obvious the man was going to speak to him; it was equally obvious that this meeting, with someone he didn’t know, and who could have no reason to know him, was hardly a coincidence. As for the consul general’s desire to meet where nobody would observe them, Stefan had no doubt at all that Katzmann had been watching.

‘Mr Gillespie, Sergeant Gillespie,’ smiled the German, raising his hat.

Stefan said nothing, but he nodded in return.

‘You don’t know me of course, but I saw you in the park and I recognised you from Mr Carroll’s party. I wanted to express my condolences, over the death of Captain Cavendish. It was most unfortunate.’

‘It was,’ said Stefan quietly. And indeed it was, as people kept telling him; variations on the word ‘unfortunate’ seemed to be the first words on almost everybody’s lips when it came to describing John Cavendish’s death.

‘I happened to see you talking to the captain that evening.’

‘Did you?’ Stefan replied.

‘Of course.’

It didn’t explain how Katzmann knew who he was, why he remembered him so clearly, why he had been watching him in Central Park.

‘You’re an Irish policeman I understand.’

‘That’s right.’

Stefan offered no more. It was for the German to offer an explanation. But it was already certain that the Abwehr man must know something of his watching-brief on John Cavendish’s death; it wasn’t difficult information to get, but he had spoken to somebody. It was also obvious that the German agent had been following him. He didn’t know how long, but whether it was from the Hampshire House, Police Headquarters, or his hotel, he had been followed to Central Park. Now Katzmann had decided to reveal himself.

‘Did you work with Captain Cavendish?’

‘No. I didn’t know him.’

There was a broad, unbelieving smile on Herr Katzmann’s face.

‘I’m being very rude, Sergeant. I should introduce myself.’