considered. He was trying to weigh Stefan up as he spoke. He didn’t know what to make of him. The idea that the policeman he had been in Danzig, talking to Francis Byrne, was still as startling as it was unexpected.
‘Let’s forget the lies about Father Byrne, shall we? He did have an affair with Susan Field. He did pay for an abortion for her at Hugo Keller’s clinic. You not only knew Keller, you put Francis Byrne in touch with him. I’m not asking you, I’m telling you what I know. And when the abortion went wrong and Susan had to be taken to hospital, you sent someone to sort it all out.’
‘Is that what Francis said?’
There was quiet calculation in the priest’s eyes. This conversation meant nothing after all. These were just words, and the man they were talking about was dead.
‘It’s also what Mr Keller said,’ replied Stefan. Fitzpatrick couldn’t know Keller was dead. He had no links to what had happened in Danzig.
‘Mr Keller is still in Germany?’ The monsignor was less sure now.
‘He’s in Danzig at the moment,’ said Stefan. That much was true.
‘And he’ll be coming back to testify to all this?’ smiled the priest. If Keller wasn’t in Ireland it didn’t matter.
‘You don’t deny you knew Hugo Keller, Monsignor.’
‘He was a friend, at least an acquaintance, of Adolf Mahr’s, the director of the National Museum. I’m sure I met him a few times, at dinners or receptions. I have close ties with the German community, especially the German Catholic community. If what you say about his involvement in abortions is true I am deeply shocked. We can’t always know where the bad apples are in a barrel. As far as Father Byrne is concerned I was satisfied with the answers he gave to your questions in December. It was my impression your senior officers were too. Unsubstantiated and scurrilous allegations about a priest who died tragically won’t endear you to anybody.’
The monsignor was used to being believed. He had no reason to think that lying would change that. This policeman knew a lot, but in the end it counted for nothing, not against his word. The man wasn’t important enough to matter. He was a problem though and he would have to be dealt with. Stefan could feel the confidence growing in the eyes that now fixed his. He had caught the priest off guard, but it hadn’t taken him long to regain his composure. Fitzpatrick already thought it was over. However, it wasn’t.
‘The guard you sent didn’t take Susan Field to hospital,’ continued Stefan, ignoring the denials he had just heard. ‘He took her to the Convent of the Good Shepherd. They couldn’t do anything. She’d already lost too much blood. I’m not sure what happened next. Either she died or the guard killed her. And if he didn’t actually kill her, he went to some lengths to make sure she was dead. I don’t know what his instructions were, but I know you sent him.’
‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about. This means nothing to me, nothing.’
He spoke quietly. It wasn’t so much about confidence now. Stefan’s words troubled him in some way, but it wasn’t the right way. He still felt he was untouchable, but there was something else. He looked puzzled. The indignation was gone and it was hard to read what was in his face now.
‘I don’t think my superior officers are going to be satisfied with what Father Byrne told us in his letter,’ said Stefan, ‘however much they want to be. You wrote most of it for him anyway. But that’s only the beginning. There was another body next to Miss Field’s. You’ll remember him.’
Monsignor Fitzpatrick looked confused. ‘What other body?’
‘The one you longed to feel throbbing next to yours — Vincent Walsh’s. That’s what it said in your letter, didn’t it? I’ve seen them, the letters. Obviously Vincent’s body won’t have been throbbing next to anyone else’s for a long time now. Not since someone shot him in the head with a captive bolt pistol, which is, oddly, what happened to Susan Field as well.’
The priest stared blankly.
‘Vincent.’
It was all he said but he made no pretence that he didn’t know who Stefan was talking about. He moved towards the desk, very slowly. He stood for a moment, leaning on it. He repeated the name quietly. ‘Vincent.’ It was barely a whisper. He seemed unaware that Stefan was still there. He sank into the chair. Stefan hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t this. And it wasn’t right. He couldn’t believe that the man in front of him knew anything at all about Vincent Walsh’s death. But there was still Detective Sergeant Lynch; Lynch and the love letters, Lynch and Keller, Lynch and the car that came for Susan Field.
‘Tell me about Jimmy Lynch, Monsignor.’
‘What?’ Robert Fitzpatrick looked up again.
‘Detective Sergeant Lynch.’
‘I don’t know any Detective Sergeant Lynch.’ Fitzpatrick was a beaten man. It was hard for Stefan to believe he was dragging this lie out of himself, but it couldn’t be the truth.
‘You sent him to help Father Byrne. You sent him to get Susan Field.’
‘I didn’t send anyone,’ he said. ‘When Francis called, he said he needed a car. I told him we’d see to it. So we sent a taxi, just a taxi. I don’t know anything about a guard.’
They were automatic words, like automatic writing. He was somewhere else, and the fact that he was somewhere else testified to the truth of the words. And suddenly Stefan was looking at another face. It was the face of Hugo Keller, dying in the kitchen of the house in Eschenweg. Keller talked about the guard driving the car, the guard who took Susan Field away, the guard the monsignor sent. He didn’t know who that guard was — Hugo Keller, the man who knew everything about everybody. But Jimmy Lynch had been selling him information for years. He was bought and paid for. Stefan had been so fixed on the one connection he had that linked Vincent Walsh and Susan Field that Hugo Keller’s nameless guard had automatically become Detective Sergeant Lynch. But now, suddenly, it wasn’t him at all.
As Stefan came out into the hall of Fitzpatrick’s house again, Sister Brigid was climbing the stairs from the kitchen, carrying a tray with a cup of tea and a plate of scones and jam. She pursed her lips disapprovingly at him.
‘I’m sure you’ve upset him again.’
‘Yes.’ He didn’t feel like apologising, but he did. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Did Francis look peaceful when you saw him, Mr Gillespie?’
There wasn’t any point telling her he looked the way people do when they’ve been beaten to death, and that peacefulness isn’t really in it.
‘He looked peaceful enough, Sister.’
‘I think in a way he has come back to us.’ She smiled sadly and walked to the door into the study. She knocked. There was no answer. As Stefan stepped out into Earlsfort Terrace, Brigid opened the door. Monsignor Robert Fitzpatrick was sobbing, his head buried in his hands on the desk. She put down the tea and the scones and folded her brother in her arms.
The man who followed Stefan Gillespie from Earlsfort Terrace across into Stephen’s Green would not make the mistake of being seen. He wasn’t good at everything he did, but he was good at that. He could keep his distance; he had the instincts that told him when to disappear; he could always see his man again in a crowd. It didn’t much matter if he lost him anyway, he wouldn’t be difficult to find. If not today tomorrow, but today would be best, before he made more trouble. It was still early. It wouldn’t be dark till after nine, but when night came he’d know where Sergeant Gillespie was. That would be the time to do it.
22. Dorset Street
Twenty-four hours earlier Stefan had known who killed Vincent Walsh and Susan Field. If Detective Sergeant Jimmy Lynch could be bought by Hugo Keller to collect information, he could be bought by Robert Fitzpatrick to clean up after him. A priest with such a high profile, who was in the habit of having sex with men like Vincent Walsh and writing them letters describing it, was always going to need help with his dirty laundry. The image of the moral crusader didn’t sit very well with arranging abortions for priestly proteges who got themselves into trouble either. That’s how Stefan had put it all together. The only question had been how far Lynch was following Fitzpatrick’s instructions and how far he’d been, in the way of the Nazis the monsignor saw as the Church’s salvation, working
