what I could out of her.’
‘I know. That’s why she was in the Mater Hospital.’
‘That will do!’ snapped the inspector.
‘Is there some reason you’ve decided to help us with this now, Jimmy?’
Lynch said nothing to Stefan; he didn’t need to give explanations.
‘I think we’ll concentrate on the case please, Gillespie.’ Donaldson glared at his sergeant. ‘I haven’t been idle on this myself. Mr Keller has questions to answer. We didn’t know that before, neither did Sergeant Lynch. If we had he wouldn’t have been allowed to leave the country of course. We have good reason to believe he is somewhere in Germany.’
‘Since he was driven to the mail boat by our local Nazi chief, Herr Mahr, after Detective Sergeant Lynch dropped him at the Shelbourne for a Weihnachtsfest do, I’d say it’s not a bad guess. Are we all agreed on that?’
‘Let me make something clear, Sergeant. There are a number of reasons why this case is being handed over to Special Branch — ’
Lynch just watched, smiling confidently.
‘Like hell it is!’
‘Shut up, Gillespie!’
James Donaldson’s fist thumped on the desk.
‘Enquiries about Hugo Keller’s whereabouts will obviously have to be directed to the German police. That’s not a job for us. It isn’t our business to ask exactly why Mr Keller had a relationship with Special Branch in the first place, but we have to accept that in their area of activity, which is the security of the state after all, they encounter their own share of unsavoury informants, in the same way you do as a detective. That doesn’t alter the fact that this man Keller is responsible for the death of a young woman and, naturally, every effort will be made to find him and bring him to justice.’
‘My arse!’ proclaimed Stefan.
Jimmy Lynch laughed. Inspector Donaldson didn’t.
‘Enough! You’ll hand any information you have to Sergeant Lynch.’
‘That’s one down, sir. What about Vincent Walsh?’
‘Don’t waste your time, Stevie.’ Lynch stretched back in his chair.
‘Is that a Special Branch case too, Jimmy?’
‘No, I’m just saying the boy had been up there a long time.’
‘You knew him then?’
‘Poofs aren’t my speciality.’
‘No?’
Stefan looked at the Special Branch man for a long moment. There was no point arguing with Inspector Donaldson now. There was no point even starting on the way the inspector had pushed aside the need to question Francis Byrne. And there was no point letting Detective Sergeant Lynch know what Billy Donnelly had told him about Vincent Walsh’s letters. If Lynch thought it was all done and dusted, it was better to let him think it. Stefan needed to know what it meant; then he might have something to use.
‘The discovery of these two bodies so close to each other seems to be a coincidence. There’s nothing to connect them.’ Inspector Donaldson put his hands together on his desk; he had dealt with it. However much he disliked Special Branch, Lynch would take it away. That would be that.
But Stefan wasn’t done.
‘Except that they were both shot in the head by a captive bolt pistol.’
James Donaldson nodded complacently; he wasn’t unprepared.
‘It’s an imaginative theory on Doctor Wayland-Smith’s part. I know he likes to play the detective, but I understand that what’s actually there is simply damage to the skulls, along with all sorts of damage to other bones, all exacerbated by the landslip. I think he’s rather cooled off on the idea.’
As Stefan walked back to his office, Jimmy Lynch caught up with him.
‘I’ve never liked you much, Stevie, but you’ve surprised me.’
‘What’s the matter now?’
‘I tell you, I’ve a list of priests I’d like to knock the crap out of, that’s as long as your arm. I never quite had the balls. Could you do a few for me?’
‘Good news travels fast.’
‘Donald Duck doesn’t know yet?’
‘No, but I’m sure he will.’
‘Me too, Stevie, me too.’
Lynch carried on downstairs, whistling cheerfully. Stefan watched the swagger as he went. If he was really looking at a murderer he was looking at one who was being paid by An Garda Siochana to cover up his own crimes.
Stefan walked slowly back into the detectives’ office to find Dessie MacMahon looking more forlorn than when he’d left him half an hour ago.
‘You’re wanted at Garda HQ. It’s the Commissioner.’
They turned to see a slightly wild-eyed Inspector Donaldson standing in the doorway. Only minutes ago, Stefan had left him congratulating himself on getting rid of an uncomfortable case and bringing his detectives under control. The call from the Garda Commissioner had come only seconds later. The news about Stefan’s Christmas had reached him at last.
‘You ignorant, fucking, Protestant bollocks, Gillespie!’
Through the windows of the Garda Commissioner’s office Stefan could see the bare winter trees of the Phoenix Park. Across the desk in front of him sat the Commissioner, Ned Broy, turning the pages of a slim file of letters. His round face was deceptively benign; the severely cropped hair and the small, piercing eyes told more. They didn’t really know each other. Broy had been head of the Detective Branch when Stefan joined in 1932. Not long afterwards he had moved into the top job when the new president, Eamon de Valera, had sacked General Eoin O’Duffy, the hostile commissioner he had inherited from the previous government. In response O’Duffy put his Blueshirts on the streets and threatened to march on Dublin. No one was quite sure what the Gardai would do if it came to a coup. Ned Broy’s answer was to draft scores of ex-IRA men into Special Branch. They were immediately dubbed the Broy Harriers after a pack of Wicklow foxhounds. Their job was to take on the Blueshirts if they had to, but no one had any doubt they would take on their new comrades in the Garda Siochana if it came to the crunch. It didn’t. That was history now, but in Ireland history never quite goes away. Stefan was reflecting on the conversation at Pearse Street. Jimmy Lynch was one of the Broy Harriers. He was Ned Broy’s man.
There was a knock on the door. An elderly priest came in. Father Michael McCauley was the Garda chaplain. Broy gestured to him to sit.
‘You’ll know Father McCauley, Sergeant?’
‘Not really, sir.’
‘I’m here to pray for you, Sergeant.’ The priest gave a wry smile.
‘You know you broke this curate’s nose?’ said the Commissioner.
‘I didn’t know, sir.’
‘I have that from his bishop. I have quite a lot from his bishop.’
‘I’ve got no excuse, sir.’
‘I wouldn’t say that. I got your father into the station at Baltinglass this morning. I spoke to him on the telephone. I knew him in the DMP.’
Stefan looked at Broy with considerable surprise. He was unaware of any past connection between his father and the Commissioner, but when his father left the Dublin Metropolitan Police, before the War of Independence, Ned Broy had been both a detective and an IRA spy. David Gillespie had always said he resigned because he wouldn’t take sides. But it was true that he had never elaborated on his choice; maybe it hadn’t been a choice at all. It had never occurred to Stefan that it might have been because of what he knew.
‘It was a long time ago, but I have reason to remember him.’ The past hung over them for a moment. It was all the Commissioner was going to say. ‘The point is I know what it was about.’
