Whatever Happenened to Molly Bloom? (11 page)

Patrick Mullen was no uneducated lout from the bogs, however. He had trained at the Inner Temple and had been for several terms Chairman of the Dublin Quarter Assizes. The hearing over which he presided early that Friday morning was, for all intents and purposes, conducted on model lines in obedience to every statute on the books and all the latest amendments that came over from Westminster by the boatload.

Inferior men might incline against a defendant on grounds of race or creed or even an inability to soar over a five-bar gate in pursuit of a fox. But the prejudice that Patrick Mullen harboured was nothing if not original: namely that the accused had robbed Dublin of a musical star, which, even for a nut like Mullen, was pushing it more than somewhat. When all was said and done, Marion Bloom had been no better than a half-decent soprano whose popular appeal had relied as much on her heaving bosom as the timbre of her voice; yet so obsessed with music-making, in all its multifarious forms, was old short-sighted Paddy, that Bloom’s goose was cooked before he even stepped through the courtroom door.

Bloom had chosen to defend himself, or, rather, not defend himself, by sleepwalking through the proceedings. The police, on the other hand, were keenly represented by Crown solicitor, Fergus Menton, a young turk from an old-established firm who nursed a grudge against Bloom on behalf of his uncle, John Henry Menton, who, in a time long gone, had been defeated, on the bowling green of all places, by said Leopold Bloom, an insult that had not been forgotten and would never be forgiven.

Patrick Mullen was only too well aware that the onus of proof in any felony lay on the prosecution: if the evidence did not make the guilt of the defendant clear beyond reasonable doubt then the defendant must be discharged. Fortunately for the magistrate’s personal prejudices a number of irregularities were already attached to the case, irregularities that would validate his inclination not to dismiss Bloom but to throw him, as it were, to the wolves. Not least of these trifles was the fact that the warrant had been signed by the coroner. Mullen was confident that, if the worst came to the worst, he could emulate Pontius Pilate, bind Bloom over to be held without bail and let cocky Dr Slater advance the charge at the inquest.

The hearing began with the Crown solicitor reading the charge. This was followed by testimony from a DMP inspector, a hairy-faced sergeant and a young constable. In the absence of a legal adviser, Mr Bloom was permitted to make a short statement. Bloom’s statement was so resigned and defeatist that Patrick Mullen felt almost sorry for the chap who, if he’d slaughtered some tone deaf citizen who couldn’t tell an A sharp from an E flat, would have received the benefit of magisterial misgiving and walked away free.

As it was, Patrick Mullen elected to bind the defendant over until the findings of the coroner’s inquiry became known and recommended that until then Mr Bloom be kept in a holding cell in Store Street and not banged up in Kilmainham or, God help him, the Mountjoy. For this compassionate gesture bare-headed Mr Bloom, kneading his hat in his hands, thanked his lordship before being led out into a corridor where, true to his word, Inspector Kinsella had brought Milly to meet him.

On seeing her father metaphorically in chains Milly burst into tears. Moved by his daughter’s distress, Bloom did likewise. He clasped Milly to his breast and hugged her. When Sergeant Gandy stepped in to separate the sobbing couple Kinsella caught him by the sleeve and drew him off down the length of the corridor to allow Bloom and his offspring a few moments to grieve in private.

At the far end of the corridor, where a heavy double door opened out into the street, Blazes Boylan chatted to Tom Machin, while outside on the courthouse steps a noisy crowd of reporters fought to catch a glimpse of Bloom and be first to offer a bribe to Blazes to give them access to the girl.

Kinsella watched the Blooms, father and daughter, from the corner of his eye. He didn’t quite know what he expected to see, what odd little telltale might be revealed in the meeting.

As a father himself he felt sorry for the girl, and for Bloom too, yet there was a flinty bit in his heart – or was it his head? – that protected his objectivity. He had dealt with weeping women and pulverised children too often in the past, with men who could ornament their plight so convincingly that you would stake your life on their innocence if it hadn’t been for the blood on their hands. He knew well enough that the guilty could easily appear innocent and the innocent guilty and that guilt itself was a two-faced god.

It did not escape his notice that just as they parted Bloom slipped something into his daughter’s hand and that she whispered something into her father’s ear. Then came the telltale: a flick of Milly Bloom’s head, a turnaround glance to see if the stealthy exchange between herself and her father had been noticed.

‘Take him out the back way, Sergeant Gandy,’ Kinsella said.

‘What about the gurl, sir?’ Gandy asked.

‘No, leave the girl to me.’

He watched, coldly now, as Bloom was wrenched away from his child and, slouch-shouldered and splay-footed, hastened off down the length of the corridor that connected the courts to a door in the rear of the building where a prison van was waiting to convey the prisoner safely back to Store Street.

Milly came towards him, a handkerchief held to her nose. Her fingers were closed not only around the corner of the handkerchief but around whatever it was that Leopold Bloom had given her. Her cheeks were wet, the tears undoubtedly genuine, but she was just too young, too lacking in cunning to hide her unease.

Kinsella glanced down the corridor. Machin had gone. Blazes Boylan was standing with feet apart, head raised, like a stag catching the scent of a stalker on the wind, not alarmed yet, not even anxious, but alert.

‘Miss Bloom?’ With three neat steps of which his dancing daughters would have approved, Jim Kinsella put himself directly in the girl’s path. ‘May I see what you have in your hand?’

Saying nothing, she held up her left hand and opened it.

‘The other hand, please,’ Kinsella said.

He watched her fingers close, thumb pinching the corner of the handkerchief as she took it from her nose, her pinkie, ring and index fingers curled into her palm.

‘It’s just a handkerchief.’ She held it dangling like a stinking fish, before him. ‘It’s not … not awfully clean.’

‘That doesn’t matter.’

She slid her gaze from Kinsella to Boylan who, hesitantly, had begun to move down the corridor towards them. Then, left with no option, she dropped the handkerchief into the inspector’s hand. Her hand, the right hand, edged towards the pocket of her short red overcoat. Kinsella caught her arm below the elbow.

‘Take your paws off me,’ she squealed.

Indignation cut no ice with Jim Kinsella. He could hear Boylan’s heels on the marble, clattering. He snared her wrist and, quite gently, rotated it. Her fingers flared to expose the object that for some reason she’d tried to hide.

‘It’s a key,’ Milly Bloom said. ‘Just a key.’

‘A key to what?’

‘Our house,’ the girl said, tossing her curls. ‘Papli gave it to me so I can get in. He needs a clean shirt and collars. Stockings and drawers. His black tie, too. You can’t stop me fetching his things.’

‘No,’ Kinsella said, slowly. ‘No, I can’t, but …’

‘I’ll go with her,’ said Boylan, a little breathlessly. ‘I’ll make sure she doesn’t see anything she shouldn’t. The house hasn’t been sealed by the coroner, has it?’

Kinsella had no idea if Slater had had No 7 Eccles Street sealed after Marion Bloom’s body had been removed, though he rather doubted it.

‘Send a copper with us, if you like,’ Boylan said. ‘Inspector Machin has no objection. It’s his responsibility, after all.’

‘When do you intend to make the visit?’ Kinsella asked.

‘More or less at once,’ Blazes answered. ‘All right, sweetheart?’

‘Yes,’ said Milly. ‘Do let’s get it over with.’

‘Are you sure you’re ready for this, Miss Bloom?’ said Kinsella.

‘As ready as I’ll ever be,’ said Milly.

Kinsella wasn’t in the least surprised to find Assistant Commissioner Archibald Harrison Murphy O’Byrne, CB, CBE, MVO, occupying the only padded chair in Superintendent Smout’s office on the half landing off the stair in Lower Castle Yard. The office was cramped at the best of times but with Rotunda Division’s Superintendent Driscoll and Inspector Tom Machin also present it was all Kinsella could do to squeeze through the door and find a corner in which to stretch out his legs.

The Assistant Commissioner, Driscoll and Machin were smoking cigarettes and Smout had his pipe going full blast. The atmosphere in the office was as thick as a November fog. Jim’s eyes immediately began to water, a minor inconvenience that didn’t deter him from accepting one of the Turkish cigarettes that Archibald Harrison Murphy O’Byrne, who liked to pretend he was just one of the boys, offered him from a scrolled silver case.

‘Passed the buck, did he?’ the Assistant Commissioner said. ‘I can’t say I’m surprised. Between thee and me, gentlemen – and let it go no further – a certain stipendiary magistrate is all too good at that. He has little or no patience with the pace of the work of detection. Your predecessor, Smout, the revered John Mallon, was never done reminding our magistrate friends that the four essentials for a policeman are truthfulness, sobriety, punctuality and extreme caution as to what you tell your superiors.’

Although they had heard the old chestnut many a time before, the officers laughed dutifully.

‘Now, Kinsella, where are we?’

Jim Kinsella wafted smoke from his face. He was not deceived by the Assistant Commissioner’s affability, nor did he suppose himself to be on a par with the great John Mallon when it came to low down and dirty detective work. That said, he
had
solved a dozen tricky cases from the Murder File without the aid of informers and had a reputation for spotting leads so slender that they were invisible to the more myopic members of the constabulary.

He said, ‘If it isn’t murder, sir, then it is, as it stands, manslaughter. If he shifts his position a little towards the truth, the suspect, Bloom, could claim he lost his temper with his wife and struck her down on a violent impulse. Candidly, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to prove otherwise.’

‘But,’ Machin put in, ‘Bloom admits to no such thing, sir.’

‘I’ve read his statement,’ the Assistant Commissioner said. ‘He’s a queer fellow all round, is our Mr Bloom. Do you agree, Kinsella?’

‘I do, sir,’ Jim Kinsella said, ‘but he’s not, in my opinion, aberrant or perverse. Far from it. I think he’s very sharp and logical, and, with due respect, may be playing us for fools.’

‘And if he is?’ said Superintendent Driscoll.

‘Then he’s guilty of murder, not manslaughter,’ Kinsella said.

‘His version of events being that his wife was murdered by an intruder in the quarter hour it took him to shop,’ said Mr O’Byrne. ‘Have you uncovered anything to indicate another party was involved, apart, that is, from the wife’s lover, what’s his name?’

‘Boylan,’ Kinsella said.

‘I take it this Boylan person
was
the woman’s lover?’

‘He freely admits it, sir,’ Kinsella said. ‘He’s proud of it, in fact. I’m rather hoping that pride might be his downfall.’

‘His downfall?’ The Assistant Commissioner raised a bushy eyebrow. ‘Do you mark Boylan as a suspect?’

‘Too soon to say that, sir.’

‘Then you must apply yourself, Inspector,’ the Assistant Commissioner said. ‘I don’t suppose I need remind you that it may be neither Bloom nor Boylan and that someone as yet unknown to us is skipping about Dublin laughing up his sleeve.’

‘Can I take, sir,’ Superintendent Smout put in, ‘that you wish G Division to continue with the investigation?’

‘Quite definitely,’ Mr O’Byrne said. ‘The death of a woman may not threaten the security of the nation but it is, nonetheless, murder, and murder, last time I looked, is a crime and bringing criminals to book is your business, is it not?’

He ground out his cigarette in the ashtray on Smout’s desk and got briskly to his feet. He was a portly man, slab-cheeked and jowly, but had long ago learned how to balance on the tightrope between ceremony and effectiveness.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I’ll leave you to it. Do keep me up to the minute on your progress. The Commissioner is less than enthusiastic about receiving his information from the
Journal
or the
Star.
Inspector Kinsella, a word with you before I go, if I may.’ And before any of his officers could leap to open the door for him, Mr O’Byrne opened it himself and ushered Kinsella out before him and down the short flight of steps on to the pavement.

‘Now, tell me, Inspector,’ said Mr O’Byrne, ‘
is
Bloom a Jew?’

‘Jewish by blood but a convert to Protestantism.’

‘I see. And the woman, the victim, was she a Jew too?’

‘What she was isn’t entirely clear,’ Kinsella frowned. ‘Is there a point to your question, Mr O’Byrne?’

‘I wonder how aware you are of the mutual estrangement between Jews and Irishmen. The Jews, it’s said, understand the Irish but little and the Irish understand the Jews even less. Bloom has the misfortune to be both. Tread carefully, Kinsella, please. I doubt if the Castle will appreciate criticism from the Anglo-Jewish press who, without doubt, will be following the case closely.’ He slapped his folded gloves lightly against Kinsella’s chest. ‘Mark you, the Castle doesn’t appreciate criticism from
any
quarter if it can be avoided. You will be at the inquest, won’t you? Monday at eleven at the new building in Store Street, I believe?’

‘That’s correct,’ said Kinsella.

‘I do hope Bloom isn’t sent for trial, though I fear Slater will do his best to see that he is,’ the Assistant Commissioner said. ‘What a dilemma it will put us in if Bloom’s found guilty of murder.’ He grunted ruefully. ‘I mean, if he’s one part Jew and two parts Irish which part do we hang first?’ Another friendly tap with the folded gloves. ‘Do your level best to see it doesn’t come to that, Inspector. Do try to save Bloom from himself.’