Women of Courage (106 page)

‘And you’re his mistress, aren’t you? You go to see him and he makes love to you.’

‘That’s none of your business!’

‘But it’s true, isn’t it?’ Kee caught Sean by the hair and pulled his head back, so that she couldn’t avoid staring him in the face. ‘Look at him. It’s true, isn’t it - this is your lover!’

‘So what if he is? That’s not a crime, is it? Let him go, I tell you!’

She tried to tear Kee’s hands away from Sean’s arm. Kee let go of Sean’s hair with his left hand and tried to brush her away, but she held on, wrestling with him and trying to scratch his face. Sean struggled to get free, and the four of them lurched back and forth in the confined space. Then Foster got hold of both of Sean’s arms, and Kee bundled Catherine out of the door.

‘You bully!’ she said. ‘Torturer! You’ve torn my coat!’

Foster came out of the cell. Kee took Catherine’s arm, and half led, half dragged her along the corridor. ‘Come on, this way. Allan, get one of the secretaries down here, will you. I think it’s time you answered a few questions, young lady.’

He took her up a flight of stairs, and into a slightly larger interview room. A few minutes later Foster reappeared with one of the young lady typists. He brought in a chair for her and she sat by the door. Kee sat opposite Catherine at the table.

‘What’s she here for?’ Catherine asked.

‘Regulations. So you don’t go out saying we molested you.’

‘You already have. You tore my coat.’ Catherine stood up and showed the typist where her fur collar had been ripped loose along the seam. ‘See that? This man did it.’ The typist, a woman in her late twenties, looked embarrassed.

Kee waited until Catherine sat down again. He said: ‘All right. We know you’ve been seeing him, and we know where. You went to the tenement off Amiens Street, you went to the Gaelic League in Parnell Square with him, and he came to your house. We know all that. What we don’t know is, why?’

Catherine took a deep breath, considering her answer. I must get hold of myself, she thought, I must recover my poise. I need it now; whatever Sean has done, whatever he feels about me, these men are enemies of the state. They’re doing all this deliberately, to unsettle me.

She said: ‘That’s none of your business.’

‘Perhaps you don’t know what he’s done. Did you know he had an automatic pistol in his pocket when he came to see you today?’

‘Yes. He showed it to me.’

‘And did he tell you what he used it for?’

‘He needs it to protect the country against foreign policemen, I believe.’

‘So you agree he’s a murderer?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘The only thing a gun can do, young lady, is kill people. I would have thought a medical student would know that. So if he uses the gun against policemen, that means he kills them.’

And as he kills people, it changes him, she thought. It twists that beautiful smile and takes him away from me. But it doesn’t matter now, that’s the price we both have to pay for freedom.

She looked Kee straight in the eye and said: ‘There’s a war in this country. Only last week, every city in the land voted for Sinn Fein, but the British soldiers still don’t go home. People get killed in wars.’

‘Who has Sean Brennan killed?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Listen, young lady. You don’t deny that you are in love with this young man, do you? Or that you have gone so far as to … take off your clothes and go to bed with him. Do you?’

Kee found it actually hard to say the words. She seemed so young, so … slender and childish in her body still. But as a young bride in a white dress, he realized, she would be celebrated in every society newspaper in the country.

She said: ‘I’m proud of it.’
And I wish he loved me,
she thought.
Without that it’s all wasted
. Involuntarily, her eyes filled with tears. She ignored them.

Kee said: ‘In that case, I find it impossible to believe that he didn’t tell you who he killed. He did tell you, didn’t he?’

‘No.’

Kee sighed. ‘All right, we’ll take it slowly, then. You remember the assassination attempt at Ashtown Cross. Sean Brennan was there, wasn’t he? You looked out of the window and saw him.’

If I don’t get control of this I’ll convict Sean out my own mouth, Catherine thought. Whatever he’s done I couldn’t live with that. These people are my enemies, anyway. She pushed back her chair and stood up. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector,’ she said. ‘I agreed to give you an hour and that time’s up. As far as I can understand I’m not under arrest so I’m going home now. Excuse me.’

She stepped towards the door.

Kee stood up to bar her way.

The door opened and Sir Jonathan came in.

Catherine gasped. She hadn’t known you could feel panic and elation at the same time.

Sir Jonathan said: ‘Would someone tell me just what the devil is going on?’

Kee was incensed. He suggested to Sir Jonathan that they talk in another room, but Catherine said: ‘No! He’s going to talk to you about me, Father, and I want to hear what he says. He’s a brute and a bully. Look, he’s torn my coat.’

Sir Jonathan glared at Kee. ‘Is this true?’

‘I really think, sir, it would be better …’

‘Listen to me, man. My daughter is a lady, and should be treated as such. Any allegations you have to make you can make in front of us both, as she says. But first of all I want to know why she was brought here without my knowledge. Well?’

This is intolerable, Kee thought. This is a police investigation and an army colonel thinks he can just barge in here and throw his weight about. But the trouble was, Sir Jonathan was very well placed in Dublin Castle.

Kee swallowed his bile and said: ‘She agreed to come, sir.’

‘That doesn’t answer the question. If you have any charges against my daughter I ought to be the first to know, damn you!’

‘There are no charges, sir. She was just helping us with identification and answering some questions.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. Is that why you tore her coat?’

‘I’m sorry about that, sir. She got upset and tried to scratch my face.’

Sir Jonathan looked round him, trying to assess the situation. He noticed the embarrassed typist on her chair and realized she must be a female chaperone. Behind Kee was a big, young, stolid-looking detective, standing motionless like a sentry. Kee himself was holding his emotions in, but obviously angry; whether with Catherine or himself, Sir Jonathan was not quite sure. Catherine appeared to have been crying; but there was a sharp, defiant light in her moist eyes, which Sir Jonathan recognized, together with her straight back and slightly lifted chin, as the signal for a major argument. It also, probably, meant that she was guilty of something dreadful.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Tell me from the beginning.’

The bald facts of the story that Kee told him hit Sir Jonathan like a series of blows in the stomach. Throughout it he stood quite still, rigid almost, like a man on parade. He watched Catherine’s face and saw that the story was true; and a sense of vast desolation and weariness seeped through him. His right leg trembled, and for a moment he thought he would have to sit down; but that would be too humiliating. He stood stiffly, and anger began to flood through him and give him strength.

He confronted Kee first. ‘You have known this for over three weeks, and never told me?’

‘Suspected, sir. We weren’t sure until a couple of days ago, and we only arrested the young man this afternoon.’

‘That’s not the point. You have had spies following my daughter for over three weeks, while all these alleged events took place, and yet you never saw fit to inform me, her father.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. But my duty is to catch Sinn Feiners, which is what I’ve done.’

Kee felt some sympathy for the man. He imagined how appalled he himself would feel in a similar situation. But it would never arise, he thought. Not with my children. Never.

Sir Jonathan turned to Catherine. Her very silence so far was an admission of guilt. ‘It’s all true, then, I take it?’

She said: ‘I love him. I’ve nothing to be ashamed of. He’s a brave man and an Irish hero.’

No one spoke, and it seemed to Catherine that the words echoed unnaturally loud in the little room, mocking her. Do I believe a single word of that now? she wondered. But if I don’t, there is nothing left. I’ll go mad, like Mother.

And I believed we were coming closer, Sir Jonathan thought. It’s all there in that face: the defiance, the illogical hatred of England with which Maeve used to confront me. But Catherine has a stubborn strength of will that Maeve never had. The determination behind those dark, haunted eyes - that’s mine, not Maeve’s.

He said: ‘We won’t discuss that here. Inspector, she has identified the young man, you said. Do you have any more questions for her now?’

‘Yes, sir. It’s my belief that Brennan must have told her something of his plans, and who he tried to kill.’

‘Did he?’ Sir Jonathan asked Catherine.

‘No. He wouldn’t be so foolish. Anyway, I don’t intend to answer any more questions. I was about to leave when you came in, Father. Unless I am under arrest, that is what I shall do.’ She looked at them, and then made a step towards the door.

‘Catherine!’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘The Assistant Commissioner was murdered the other night. Shot down in cold blood in the street. Would your Sean Brennan have had anything to do with that?’

‘I really couldn’t say, Father.’

‘Could you love a man who had done that? Shot an unarmed man in the street like a coward?’

Her eyes filled with tears. She didn’t answer. After a pause she took another couple of steps towards the door. Her father grabbed her arm and turned her to face him.

‘Did he do it, girl? Did this Brennan kill Radford?’

‘No!’

For a moment the two of them stared into each other’s eyes, defiantly. Sir Jonathan let go of her arm. She put her hand on the door handle, but Foster’s hand closed over hers.

‘Am I under arrest?’

Kee shook his head. Foster took his hand away, and Catherine walked out into the corridor, alone.

Davis had been busy. He had contacted the Royal Barracks in Benburb Street and arranged for a platoon of soldiers to be ready for a search operation under the direction of Detective Inspector Kee later that evening. They had asked him for the address but he had said that for security reasons the Detective Inspector would only tell them that when he arrived to take charge. The major on the other end of the line had been a little huffy, but Davis had been adamant. There were too many security leaks these days, he said. Procedure must be followed strictly.

Then he had walked around the corner into the small newsagent’s shop in King Street. There was a phone in the back office which Davis was free to use any time. He dialled one of the numbers which Paddy Daly had given him. A woman’s voice answered.

‘Hello. Clancy’s Joiners and Decorators.’

‘Good afternoon. Is Mr Daly there, please?’

‘Just a moment. Who shall I say is calling?’

‘Mr Hanover. It’s about a new job I need a price for.’

There was a pause. The line crackled. A man’s voice came on the line. ‘Paddy Daly here.’

‘Oh, hello, Patrick, this is George Hanover.’ They had settled on the name of the English king as a code word long ago, to show that the message was about a raid. Clancy’s office, at the other end of the line, had a notice outside saying that all kinds of household decorations were undertaken. Davis tried to make all his calls sound like those of a customer placing an order.

‘Yes, Mr Hanover, sir. What can we do for you?’

‘There’s a house in Phibsborough I’d like you to look at: 47 Berkeley Street.’ That was the address Sean had given Kee. Davis was worried that there were probably other Sinn Feiners living there who Kee would arrest when it was raided. Files, too, perhaps; arms. ‘Could you go there today and give me a quotation?’

‘Today is it? We’re a bit pushed. What sort of time?’

‘My friends will be visiting the place in the evening. If you could have checked it out before then I would be most grateful.’

Daly caught the urgency in his voice. ‘Right sir, we’ll do that for you. Is it every room you want seeing to?’

‘Every room. And Paddy, there’s another thing. I’ve got a young friend of yours staying with me. He’s likely to be with us for a few days, I should think.’

There was a sharp intake of breath at the other end. Then Daly said: ‘Who would that be, then?’

There was no code for this sort of message. Davis said: ‘Brennan, Sean Brennan.’’

‘Holy Mary Mother of God.’ Davis imagined the distress at the other end. When he had recovered, Daly said: ‘Well, give the poor lad my blessing. We’ll try to arrange a visit as soon as we can. Would you be able to get round for a chat some time?’

‘I’ll do that,’ Davis said. ‘Can’t give you a time now, though. We’re very busy here.’

‘Sure you will be. Oh, one more thing, Mr Hanover.’

‘Yes?’

‘Our friend that’s visiting you. Brennan. He doesn’t live in Berkeley Street, you know. It’s another place entirely. Tell him his place’ll be empty by this evening, too, will you?’

David heaved a sigh of relief. The address Sean had given Kee was a false one, anyway.

‘I’ll do that, Patrick.’ He hung up, left a few coins by the phone, and walked back through the newsagent’s into the street. If he had time, he thought, he might be able to see Sean before Kee had finished interrogating the girl.

Catherine stood with her father in the downstairs drawing room. Like the dining room, in which she had made her bargain with him all those months ago, it had once been used as a ward for wounded soldiers. Then it had been dirty, carpetless, defaced by the blood, graffiti and despair of those who had used it as a hospital. Now the carpets were thick and soft, the walls were repapered in crimson and cream, the portraits gazed down again with their ponderous gloom. There was a harp and a piano in the corner, and a bright fire blazed in the grate.

Sir Jonathan stood with one hand on the mantelpiece and glared at her. He was still in uniform. The firelight gleamed on his polished leather belt and riding boots, and lit the little coloured flashes of medal ribbons. His back was straight and his face was hard with anger, but Catherine had the sense that underneath it all he was tired, tired to death as she was.