The Eloquence of the Dead (27 page)

‘You can't prove that.'

‘We'll trace the owners easily enough, or some of them. They'll have reported them as lost or missing. They'll recognise their own property.'

Rowan shuffled his feet.

‘There might have been a case where a gent let his wallet fall out of his pocket and I picked it up.'

Feore laughed. ‘Indeed there might have been. When you're a front door porter you probably see a fair few opportunities like that.'

Rowan was silent.

‘You weren't truthful about where you were at the time the woman was last seen,' Feore said tersely. ‘You told us you were never on the first floor that afternoon. But we have a witness who says differently, and we have another witness who says you were absent from the hall door where you should have been.'

‘I'm sure ye have.' Rowan's tone was bitter. ‘There's always plenty a' witnesses when youse are tryin' to put some fella away. I wasn't near the first floor. I never touched the woman. I never even saw her. I admit I wasn't on the door when I should've been. The reason was I went down the road to Hayden's public house for a couple of shorts.'

He turned to look at Barry.

‘Ye might as well know I done it often enough. You'll have me out of the place anyway. You had me standin' at that fuckin' door ten, maybe twelve hours a day with the bloody wind comin' in offa the river, cuttin' through me. A couple o' drinks was the only thing to keep me warm.'

Mossop looked up from his notebook.

‘There'll be witnesses down at Hayden's who'll back up your story?'

‘Yeah, g'wan down and ask the head barman there. He knows me well.'

They kept him in the manager's office while a constable was despatched to Hayden's, a couple of hundred yards along the quay. When he returned, he put his head around the office door and beckoned to Feore. The G-man returned to the room a few minutes later. He sat in front of Rowan.

‘I'm afraid you're in trouble now, Jimmy. The head man down in Hayden's says he hasn't seen you there in a month. How do you explain that?'

Jimmy shrugged.

‘I don't know.'

‘Well, you'd better do a bit of thinking about it because you're going to Mountjoy on remand for theft. In the meantime, you've become a suspect for the disappearance of Phoebe Pollock.'

 

FORTY-FOUR

‘The Tower of London? You're lockin' me in the facking Tower o' London?' Teddy Shaftoe was unsure whether to be flattered or frightened.

The two detectives from Special Irish Branch who met the mail-boat train at Euston had a set of papers from Bow Street Magistrates' Court. The documents detailed Teddy's fictitious sentence of fourteen days' imprisonment for drunkenness at Charing Cross Road.

Swallow had plenty of experience of cooked-up charge sheets, but a ready-made order for imprisonment was impressive, even by the standards of Dublin perjury.

‘If we put him in Wandsworth or Brixton he'll be back among his pals,' one of the Yard men told Swallow. ‘Our guv'nor pulled a few strings and got him a nice little place where you can talk to him without anyone ear-wigging.'

Teddy quickly started to feel better on home ground. He had stopped complaining about the injuries he had suffered at the hands of Vanucchi's gang. Now he peered through the windows of the police hansom, calling out familiar landmarks, mainly licensed premises, as they made their way through the darkened streets of Clerkenwell and Houndsditch.

‘Oi, there's the White Feathers. Great fackin' public 'ouse, that. An' there's the Crown. Solid lads and lively ladies in there, I promise.' He giggled with happiness.

The senior Scotland Yard man was a detective sergeant called Montgomery. He introduced his colleague as Detective Constable Bright. Bright had a soft, regional English accent that Swallow could not place.

Teddy had gone for Mallon's deal, but with conditions. He wanted a pound in cash so he could drink at the bar on the packet from Kingstown to Holyhead. And while he accepted that he would be handcuffed to Swallow for the train journey to London, he wanted the handcuffs off at sea.

‘I mean, Mr Swallow, wha' would be the point of me tryin' to escape out on the fackin 'igh seas? What am I goin' to do? Jump in the fackin' briney? An' I'm not goin' to be a threat, what with you 'avin' that bloody big shooter. An' if the facking ship 'its a rock an' sinks, a man's got to 'ave a chance to swim for it, ain't 'e?'

Teddy drank steadily across the Irish Sea. Pints of brown ale, alternating with whiskies. Swallow handcuffed Teddy's wrist to his own as the mail packet started to dock at the Admiralty Pier at Holyhead. It was hardly necessary since his prisoner was semi-comatose with alcohol. He stayed that way for nearly all of the seven hour train journey to London.

The arrangements for Teddy's accommodation at the Tower of London were far from intolerable. A senior warder with two fox terriers at his heels showed them to a spacious room in St Thomas's Tower. It was fitted with a bed, a table and two chairs. A small coal fire burned in a grate.

‘Gets a bit damp if we don't keep up the fire. But there's a nice view of Father Thames in the mornin' there,' the warder quipped. The salty, sulphurous smell of the river was strong, seeping through the thick stone walls.

With Teddy installed in St Thomas's Tower, the Yard men took Swallow to the lodgings they had chosen for him off Farringdon Road. A sign proclaimed it as Frost's Hotel, but it was a boarding house. While the detectives waited in the hallway, the eponymous proprietor-cum-manageress, Mrs Frost, showed him to his room. It was a good deal smaller than Teddy Shaftoe's in the Tower, but it was comfortable, warm and clean.

‘And we 'ave a bathroom, Mr Swallow,' Mrs Frost told him proudly. ‘Just put in this year. Very modern, I am. If you want to use it, let me know and the maids will fill the 'ot water for you from downstairs. Lots of p'lice lads stay 'ere when they 'ave official business in London,' Mrs Frost said. ‘But you're the first we've seen from Dublin. My mother was from Belfast, as a matter o' fact.'

Swallow surmised that Mrs Frost was probably a police widow. A photograph on the landing, showing a platoon of helmeted constables in front of a station somewhere, reinforced his assumption.

The Yard men took him to a nearby public house. It reminded him a little of Grant's, only noisier. They found an empty booth.

Montgomery ordered whiskies. Irish for himself and Swallow and a House of Commons Scotch for Bright.

‘God speed the plough, as we say in Donegal.' Montgomery raised his glass.

‘Donegal?' Swallow said. ‘You don't sound like a man from Donegal.'

‘Two generations out of it. My grandfather came to London, took up policing and never went back.' He grinned. ‘But it sounds more interesting than saying I'm from Hackney.' He sipped at his whiskey. ‘Then my old man became a copper too. Lots of Irish in the job.'

Swallow understood. Men who would shun the police in the land of their birth were often happy to wear the Queen's blue serge on the streets of England or Scotland. Bright shook his head. He looked confused.

‘But that's a bloody English sayin', Sarge – this “God speed the plough.” We 'ad it in Devon when I were a lad growin' up.'

Montgomery sighed. ‘It means the same thing wherever it's from. It means good luck for the job in hand.'

Swallow felt that Bright did not seem to get the point.

‘Now, here's the ground rules, as I've been briefed by Sir Edward Jenkinson, our guv'nor,' Montgomery said. ‘You've got access to Shaftoe at the Tower any time you like, night or day. You can question him all you want. If he's cheeky and needs a clip on the ear, that's a matter for yourself. But he's not to be marked. Am I clear?'

Swallow nodded.

‘As I understand it,' Montgomery resumed, ‘you've a deal with Shaftoe. He's got the name of someone engaged in some sort of fiddle over the land transfers in Ireland. Once you're satisfied that you've got what you need from him, we turn him loose. Is that right?'

‘Yes. And if he feeds me bullshit, I've a warrant to bring him back to Dublin to face half a dozen charges that'll put him out of circulation for a long time.'

‘That could easily tempt me,' Montgomery said. ‘Shaftoe's one of the worst. He'd as soon knife you as buy you a drink. The lads in the H-Division down at the East End will tell you that.'

He raised a hand.

‘Don't worry. I know you're playing for higher stakes here. If the price of that is to see Teddy Shaftoe on the streets again, then so be it. It won't be too long before CID will have him in again anyway. When will you start with him?'

‘Tomorrow morning. I'd plan to be at the Tower by 9 o'clock.'

‘Fine. I'll be at Frost's at 8.30. We can take the underground railway to Mark Lane. It's close to the Tower. I gather you're going down to Dymchurch to take a statement from Lady Gessel as well?'

‘I think that'll be after I've made some progress with Shaftoe. We'll need a statement from her if we bring charges.'

‘I know she's connected to Sir Richard Gessel. He's one of the big men at Downing Street. Very close to the PM, I understand.'

‘They're distantly related. But I don't think he's got anything to tell us about this business. They share a name going back a few generations. That's all.'

Montgomery grimaced. ‘That's a relief. The less a copper has to do with the political types the better. Anyway, if you're going to Dymchurch one of us will travel down with you. It's about an hour by train out of Victoria.'

Bright signalled to the barman for a fresh round of whiskies.

When the drinks had been served, Montgomery raised an index finger.

‘The one thing Sir Edward insists upon is that we know everything you hear from Shaftoe. So Jack here, or myself, will be there when you question him. He won't see us or hear us. There's a listening hole up in the wall in his cell.'

He laughed. ‘It's probably there since old King Henry was locking up his wives. But it works so that a man in the room above can hear every word.'

‘That's fine with me,' Swallow said. ‘We'd do the same if you were in Dublin.'

‘And,' Montgomery added, ‘any police action as a result of information you get will be taken by us. It's our patch.'

‘I can't see that anything else would be practical,' Swallow said. ‘But I'll need to be on the inside track. It's no good to me if you simply run off with the investigation, leaving me no wiser.'

‘I'd be sympathetic to that,' Montgomery said. ‘But I can't give a promise on it. At the end of the day, our guv'nor is the Home Secretary; yours is the Chief Secretary for Ireland. If they disagree on something, we've got to do what our man tells us.'

The argument was unwinnable, Swallow knew. And it was probably unnecessary.

It was his round.

 

FORTY-FIVE

The effectiveness of Robert Peel's Irish policing system derived from three organisational imperatives: strong central control, a rigid chain of command and uniformity in procedures and processes.

These very strengths, however, also sponsored the system's significant weaknesses. While information and instructions could move efficiently, if slowly, up and down the chain, they did not travel laterally. Thus, information gleaned by a policeman in one sub-district might take several days before it reached his colleagues in adjoining sub-districts, even though their barracks might be within marching distance of each other.

Important intelligence went up and down the full length of the command chain, through the offices at district and county level and thence to headquarters in the Lower Yard at Dublin Castle. Then it would be notified downward along a similar chain until it reached the men in the small barracks and posts around the country.

If the intelligence was destined for transmission between the Constabulary and the Metropolitan Police, the process was even more tortuous.

Once received at Constabulary Headquarters in the Lower Castle Yard, and considered at the appropriate level of authority, it would be conveyed manually to the headquarters of the DMP across the Yard.

In normal office hours, it might go directly to the office of the Commissioner. Outside of office hours or, in the case of ‘special' intelligence relating to subversive crime, it might go to the office of the Chief Superintendent of G-Division.

Sergeant Devenney's information on the possible location of the Clinton family was transmitted from the Trim Post Office late on Friday morning. Then, after dinner hour, it moved through the offices of both the District Inspector and the County Inspector at Navan.

In the County Inspector's office, a clerk decided to leave the telegram for transmission to Dublin until the late afternoon. Then he would take it to the Post Office along with the rest of the official mail. Thus, when the telegram reached Constabulary Headquarters in Dublin, the clerical staff in the DMP Commissioner's offices across the Yard had finished their day's work and were gone.

The duty officer at the Constabulary Office knew that, in these circumstances, intelligence should go the office of the Chief Superintendent of G-Division or, indeed, to his house in the Lower Yard. But because of a temporary shortage of the special blue file covers that carried correspondence relating to intelligence, the duty officer had placed the telegram in a buff-coloured file of the type used to carry routine administrative information.

The messenger deposited it in the letter-box on the door of Commissioner's clerk.

There it remained overnight, setting at naught the urgency with which the diligent Sergeant Devenney had pursued his investigations and transmitted his valuable information.