The Death of an Irish Lass (6 page)

When he returned, he realized McGarr had meant Dr. Fleming. “Oh—he’s a fine doctor. Wonderful training. They say he’s not just a G. P. but a surgeon, too. They offered him a fine post in Galway City and one in the States, too. Minneapolis, wherever the hell that is.”

“As a man?” McGarr asked.

“A loner. His father wasn’t much different, though, but hard workers, the both of them. The doctor was quite a scholar, too. A Gaelic language whiz, and mathematics and history and whatnot. They say some big foundation paid for all his years in New York.”

“He struck me as a hard man. No sympathy for anybody who wants something different from him.”

“Ach. We’ve all got to pick and choose. And everybody’s glad he chose to come back. Sure, the sawbones we had before him knew the anatomy of a porter bottle
and little else. And he’s not as fussy as he’d let on, Fleming isn’t. When the vet died he subbed at that too, and I’ll tell you something—he was better at animals than the new boy. There’s some farmers who refuse to go to anybody else when they’ve got big animal trouble. For operations, there’s nobody like him. He’s got small, fast hands and a good mind, too. Nerves of steel.”

McGarr got into the Cooper and called the Lahinch barracks. Much to his surprise, his wife answered. “Everybody else is busy.”

“They are, are they?” O’Malley was embarrassed. “We’ll soon see just how busy, we will.”

McGarr assumed O’Malley’s notion of retiring had left him.

Noreen went on. “Hughie says you should meet him at Griffin’s. It’s across from—”

“I have Superintendent O’Malley with me now,” said McGarr. “We’ll find it.” He wanted her to know of O’Malley’s presence so she wouldn’t make any observations about the barracks or the town.

“He says he’s having a drink with a fella by the name of O’Connor, who was with May Quirk last night.”

McGarr and O’Malley swapped glances. “Rory O’Connor?”

“He didn’t say. But he added that the fellow either doesn’t know or pretends not to know about the woman. He says rumors are flying thick and fast, but nobody’s certain of anything. He imagined you’d want to talk to him immediately.”

“I’m on my way. Meet me there too.” McGarr threw the Cooper into first and pointed it toward Lahinch.

GRIFFIN’S BAR
had leaded glass windows and snugs. In one sat Noreen, Hughie Ward, and a young man with a shock of thick black hair swept across his forehead. The snug door was open. The barman was bending to place a tray of drinks in front of them.

McGarr waited for the barman to complete his task. He then asked for a small Jameson. “The old stuff.” He meant the twelve-year-old whiskey. He was tired of Canadian Club, as good as it was; somehow it just wasn’t his drink. It was too light and didn’t have enough taste for slow, steady drinking, which over the years had become McGarr’s method of imbibing. He well knew the practice had become a habit for him, but he never allowed himself to get out of the way and he had the experience necessary to avoid hangovers. And for the connoisseur, which he undoubtedly was, alcohol in all its forms was such a pleasant habit. He stubbed his cigarette out before entering the snug, however. That habit bothered him, mostly because, he
decided then, it spoiled the taste of anything with alcohol in it.

“Peter McGarr.” He offered his hand to Rory O’Connor, sat, and gave his wife a peck on the cheek.

Noreen was a diminutive woman with delicate facial features and a body the beauty of which relied upon proportion, not size. A tight nest of copper curls and a fresh complexion made her seem doll-like, perhaps the creation of a master craftsman who knew what would please the eye without being obvious. What was more, Noreen, like most Irish women, had a delicacy of manner. One glance at her and you knew she was polite, well meaning, and a person you could trust. Also, she was brighter than McGarr (which he admitted only to himself, of course), and she was twenty-one years younger than he. That fact he never forgot. Her passion was art history. His had long been women, especially those who had possessed one or another of Noreen’s features and qualities. When he had met her, it had been as though some higher power had wanted to reward McGarr for having been dutiful. It had been in the Dawson Art Gallery, which her family owned. McGarr had gone there for some technical information on the theft of several prints from Lord Iveagh’s mansion in Kildare. He had tried to kiss the young woman in the slide room to the rear of the shop. She had slapped his face and threatened to call the commissioner. That had been three years ago.

“This man,” McGarr said, meaning Inspector Hughie Ward, “is a policeman. Has he told you that?”

O’Connor shook his head.

“I didn’t think he was a braggart.” McGarr was feeling good again, after having been somewhat depressed by the events of the day. Noreen always had that effect
on him and what was more, she knew it, which galled him. That was a power over him, albeit a benign power, but nonetheless a threat of sorts. “And this hussy is my wife.”

“
Your
wife? I thought—” O’Connor smiled. “Would you care for a drink, Mr. McGarr?”

“No thank you, Rory.” McGarr then forced his own features to become serious. “I’ve already ordered one, and I have some bad news for you.”

“Is it about May?”

McGarr nodded, watching the young man’s features closely.

“People have been talking.”

In spite of what McGarr had heard about Rory O’Connor’s wildness, the big man seemed very gentle indeed. Like his contemporary, Dr. Fleming, he had the blackest of eyes, but his were large and soft. His skin was dark too, but clear. He was wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt with a black alligator on the pocket. The alligator’s mouth was open and red, which made the teeth seem very white. Americans were a curious people, McGarr thought.

The barman set his whiskey in front of him.

“She’s dead.”

O’Connor blinked. He began shaking his head slightly. “What’s that?” He placed his hands on his knees. His brow furrowed.

“Somebody murdered May Quirk last night. In a pasture near the Cliffs of Moher.”

A large hand sprang from below the table and grabbed McGarr. Another hand swept across the table and struck the side of Hughie Ward’s head, knocking him into the wall of the snug. “This had better be the sickest joke you’ve ever told, pal,” a very American voice said.

McGarr was now raised off his seat.

Noreen rushed out of the snug.

“This won’t help her, O’Connor,” said McGarr.

McGarr saw the fist forming and the arm cock. It then lashed out at him. At the last moment he moved his head and the blow glanced off his jaw. The fist struck the padding of the snug cushions.

O’Connor dropped McGarr, picked up the table, and tossed it out the open snug door. The table was made of metal and cascaded across the stone floor, slamming into the brass rail of the bar. The glasses had crashed to the floor.

The barman had come running. O’Connor grabbed the man’s face in his palm and shoved it into the wall of the snug. He then stood. He was one of the biggest men McGarr had ever seen.

The crowd that had formed outside the snug made an aisle for him. He walked up the aisle to the bar and grasped the edge of it until his fingers whitened. His body began to fold until one of his knees hit the brass rail. Then the other. His neck was bending too, until his forehead touched the bar. It was as though he was praying. But he sobbed. It sounded like the cough of a cow.

Slowly he got up.

There was not one sound in the bar.

He turned. His face was streaming with tears. With the back of his hand he wiped them off his jaw. He then started back toward the booth, where McGarr and Ward still sat.

He said, “Whiskey,” in a big hoarse voice and closed the door very softly behind him.

Standing in front of the door, with his hands crossed over his chest, he said, “Everything. If you lie to me
I’ll kill you, so help me God.
Where
on the Cliffs of Moher?”

“The other side of the cut from O’Brien’s Folly,” McGarr said. He wasn’t about to get into a fistfight with that man. His teeth were getting old, but most of them were his own and he valued them.

“How?”

“Pitchfork. Upper chest. One jab.”

O’Connor’s eyes closed. “No!” he shouted.

The people outside the door began mumbling.

McGarr heard somebody run out of the barroom.

O’Connor turned and drove his fist through the veneer of the snug wall. He pulled it out and struck a second time.

Hughie Ward sprang to his feet and punched O’Connor in the belly with everything he had. Ward, like McGarr, was a small man, but he had been a boxer and could hit.

O’Connor turned his head slowly and looked at Ward, who hit him again, this time lower.

O’Connor didn’t move.

Ward hit him again.

Still nothing.

The snug door swung open and Noreen stepped in, holding a 9mm Walther in both hands.

O’Connor had begun to crumble now.

Even so, Noreen had to reach up to put the gun against the side of his head. “If you don’t sit on the floor, I’ll pull the trigger.” Her voice was flat, businesslike.

McGarr imagined O’Connor had little choice. He melted onto the floor.

McGarr took the gun from Noreen. The safety was on. He stuck it under his belt and sat.

The bartender was standing in the door with a bottle of whiskey in one hand, a trayful of glasses in the other. He was an older man with silver temples and a pink pate. His eyes were wide with fright, his complexion blanched.

Noreen took the tray from him and shut the snug door. She held it while McGarr poured three glasses and then showed the bottle to O’Connor, who took it and drank long. He was gasping when he finished.

“One more time,” said McGarr, who then took the bottle from him.

The three of them sat and stared down at O’Connor, who was still on the floor.

McGarr said, “You were with her last night.”

O’Connor nodded. He reached out his hand.

McGarr handed him the bottle.

“She was pregnant.”

O’Connor looked up at him.

“Yours?”

O’Connor turned the bottle over and poured the whiskey onto the floor.

“Buck up,” said McGarr. “That’s no way for a man to behave. You’re acting like a child. Be strong.”

O’Connor waited for the bottle to empty, then with a flick of the wrist tossed it at McGarr, who caught it. He said, “I’ve got something to do. I don’t think you’re going to shoot me.” Then he looked at Ward. “Touch me again and I’ll break you in half.”

Slowly he stood. His legs were quaking. He opened the door and started through the crowd toward the street.

McGarr got out of his seat, reaching for his wallet at the same time. He began following O’Connor until he got to the bartender, whom he handed a ten-quid
note. “You Griffin?” McGarr didn’t take his eyes off O’Connor.

The old man nodded.

“On last night?”

Again he nodded.

“O’Connor in here?”

“Which one?”

“That one, of course,” said Ward, at McGarr’s elbow.

“Yes.”

“Did he follow May Quirk when she left?”

“No.” The old man paused. “Not that he didn’t want to. She left with a German fellow in a big red Mercedes. Tall man like himself. Blond. A Viking if I ever saw one. Some of the boys thought he scared the lad.”

McGarr doubted that. O’Connor wasn’t the sort to be frightened by anybody. He heard a car starting outside.

“They talked it over for a while, him and her. And then she left with the kraut. He had another pint and left. What’s this about May Quirk?”

On the way out the door, McGarr said, “She’s dead. Murdered. Anybody who knows anything about her last night should tell Dan O’Malley about it.”

Noreen was already behind the wheel of the Cooper with the engine running. O’Connor’s car was just moving out of the square. McGarr could tell from the plates it was a Shannon rent-a-car. It was a red four-door Datsun and no match for the Cooper on any highway, much less the winding road toward the Cliffs of Moher.

It was twilight now, which in Ireland during summer meant a long gloaming when the sun seemed to catch on the very edge of the horizon and melt slowly toward darkness. And the road from Lahinch to the Cliffs of Moher put the Cooper’s nose right into the banks of salmon clouds over the ocean to the west. It was as
though they could sail off the precipice into the mauve medium between sea and sky and journey to the pink land in the distance, McGarr thought. There life would be different—no contention, murders, punches to the jaw, no need to hang back like this so that O’Connor wouldn’t quite know if he was being followed. When they approached the scene of May Quirk’s murder, McGarr had Noreen run closer to the Datsun, but O’Connor didn’t even turn his head toward the collection of some half-dozen vans and the glare of blinding kleig lights that had been maneuvered to the edges of the cliff in three different spots and were now trained on the sea below.

McAnulty had spared nothing on this project, and he was getting what he wanted. McGarr saw a van from Radio Telefis Eireann and the cars of reporters with the press passes on their visors lowered. McGarr only hoped that the Technical Bureau would come up with a pitchfork. It was important for the country to know that their police force was still capable of a thorough job, in spite of the chaos in the North, and that every murder was being investigated conscientiously.

Call signals now blatted out of the Cooper’s police radio. It was Bernie McKeon in Dublin, the signal doubtless having been relayed through a transmitter here in the West. His voice was loud and clear. “Got a line on Hanly. Definite I.R.A. connections. Everybody knows him but nobody wants to talk about what he does for them. It’s not the official I.R.A., neither. His brother Dick is a district Provo commander, Newry. It seems that Hanly’s mother’s people are from there. He grew up in Dublin until his father died. That was in 1950, which would have made him—let’s see—fourteen or fifteen, you know, just young enough for him to
get mixed up with all them muckers. At about age twenty, the family moved back to Dublin. That’s when he first got into the dance hall racket, first as a bouncer out at the Royal in Bray. Eventually, he managed to weasel himself a cut of that pie, and from there on he set up his own spots in Dublin—Fifty-One King Court, then on the Howth Road, and then a spot in Baggot Street when the disco thing took over. The last one is the only one he keeps open now. They say that stuff is really the rage overseas, and the manager of the place claims they’re currently operating at a loss, waiting to see if disco dancing will catch on here again.

“However, it seems our friend Hanly has the Midas touch. Along with dance halls, he began begging, borrowing, mortgaging, and cadging every spare quid he could, and around 1966 began buying pubs out in all the country resorts—Salthill, Killarney, Ballydehob, Kinsale, even here in Bray on the waterfront. If you consider the inflation and whatnot, he’s loaded. But I can’t find out, first where he managed to get his hands on all that money at a time when money was tighter than the belly button of a nun, and that’s lintproof—.” He waited for a reaction.

Hughie Ward moaned.

Noreen shook her head.

McGarr flinched and looked up the road. They were beyond the cliffs now, dropping down through a valley where the rock formation which is Clare eased its gray bulk into the sea. There the beach was heaped with boulders and faults that challenged the heavy swells of the Atlantic.

“And second, what he does with his enormous income.”

“He lives well,” said Ward. “Big car, good clothes, lots of liquid refreshment.”

“If he tried to spend the money he makes in a year on such things he’d have to have a different car for every week and be changing his clothes on the hour.”

“So?” McGarr asked.

“So I’ve been putting the thing together in my own mind. And I’m only guessing, remember. I think the I.R.A. financed him right from the start. He’s their front. Back in ’66 they had their contributions, even though it was a quiet time for them. They’re not all gunmen, you know, and perhaps during that calm period they began to provide themselves with a mechanism that would insure a continuing flow of money and—what’s more—a way to justify the cashing of foreign currency without arousing the suspicion of the government. Hanly’s dance hall and pub schemes in holiday and resort areas was a natural. I don’t have any facts to prove this, of course, and I’m not likely to get them, either.”