and I hear that lad in Finglas, screaming for his mother when you put the gun to his head. You don’t choose them, you said. You don’t want to kill them. You do it because there’s something bigger, too big to let feelings get in the way. It was Ireland then, but this is the whole world. Jews and communists, plotting to destroy God’s Church. The monsignor’s the one fighting the evil at work in the world, you see, the evil even the Church can’t see.’
He was articulate in a way that was unlike him. He spoke with calm assurance. He knew about this and, detective sergeant or not, Lynch didn’t.
‘Am I the only one here thinks he’s in a madhouse?’ asked Jimmy.
‘I’m sure you can make Detective Sergeant Lynch understand, Sean.’
Stefan’s eyes fixed on Lynch, telling him to shut his mouth and let Sean Og talk. And the big guard did. Whether it was the familiarity of the safe house or the alcohol he’d been drinking all day, Garda Moran seemed to feel Sergeant Gillespie understood what had happened now. He was talking in a way he had never talked before. He’d thought about all this. He wanted other people to know. He had been carrying it for a long time. He didn’t kill easily and now that it was in the open he had to explain it. Detective Sergeant Lynch wasn’t in a madhouse but he was closer to a confessional than he knew.
‘The queer lad was going to blackmail Monsignor Fitzpatrick. We had to protect him.’
‘And what about Susan Field?’ said Stefan.
‘I didn’t like it, but she was going to die anyway.’
Lynch reached for the Powers. Sean Og pushed his glass across.
‘Fill her up, Jimmy.’
‘If you’d got her to the hospital — ’ Stefan felt he was close.
‘It could have all come out then. And that wasn’t right. It would have got in the way of the fight. Besides, after what she did to Father Byrne — ’
‘What was that?’
‘She took him away,’ said the big guard, shaking his head. ‘Away from the light, Sergeant Gillespie. Away from the Mystical Body of Christ. That’s where the struggle is. And Father Byrne betrayed it. It broke Monsignor Fitzpatrick’s heart. But she did it, the woman. Sister Brigid said it was the sin that could never be forgiven. That’s in the Bible. The woman knew what she was doing to him, you see, because she was a Jew, don’t forget that. I did what I could though. I took her to the nuns, but they couldn’t help her. It was too late. The abortion was piling sin on sin, you could see it in her body. That’s why she was bleeding so much. There wasn’t another way. I had to do it. And Sister Brigid said she would have died anyway. She knew.’
It was very silent. Jimmy Lynch just stared at his old friend. But now Stefan knew. He knew why it had all meant nothing to Robert Fitzpatrick.
‘And was it Sister Brigid told you to kill Vincent Walsh?’
Moran nodded as if to say, why wouldn’t she? He drained his glass of whiskey and reached out to pour one more.
‘I hadn’t seen her for years you know. When I was in the industrial school in Clontarf the monsignor was the parish priest. She kept house for him, just the way she does now. My best friend was Enda Dunne then. We’d go and do the garden for them. I don’t say we did much really, probably made more mess than anything, but she’d give us a few coppers, and they’d a big orchard at the back. We could take what we wanted. And sometimes we’d stay over. She’d read to us, stories like. She was the only one ever read a story to me. It was a little room at the top of the house. The best bed I ever slept in. If I’m home there’s never a night I don’t read to my kids. You know what’s daft? They can read better than me. They pretend they can’t but they show me up.’ He laughed but as he spoke the words he said them with pride.
‘You’ve known Sister Brigid a long time then, Sean?’ said Stefan.
‘We lost touch during the fighting. I think she guessed I was in the IRA, and she didn’t approve. So, I don’t know, about five years ago I saw the monsignor saying Mass at the Pro-Cathedral one Sunday, and there she was. She knew me straight away. I was a just a guard then, uniforms. That was before you turned up and got me into Special Branch, Jimmy. We go back a long way too, don’t we? Sister Brigid said I should come and hear the monsignor at Earlsfort Terrace. I tell you, I never knew what was going on in the world. It frightened the life out of me. I wouldn’t understand it all of course. She says one day Robert, that’s the monsignor, one day he’ll be a saint. But if you could vote for saints, I tell you she’s the one I’d vote for.’
He stopped as if, having said what he had to say, it was over. He got up, smiling at Stefan like an old friend, even as he winced with pain. ‘One to remember you by, Sarge.’ He winked at Jimmy Lynch and then he left.
They said nothing for a long moment, listening to Sean Og Moran’s feet going down the stairs. The door slammed as he walked out to Dorset Street. Lynch poured the last of the whiskey from the bottle. He passed a glass to Stefan.
‘Jesus Christ.’
Stefan could only nod in agreement.
Detective Sergeant Gillespie did most of the talking. Jimmy Lynch said very little. That was partly because he knew very little and partly because he was terrified of what Stefan was going to say about him. He knew Hugo Keller was dead now, but he felt as if his ghost was going to manifest itself at any moment in the Garda Commissioner’s office and point the finger at him. He had nothing to worry about in the end. Stefan stuck to the matter in hand, the murders of Vincent Walsh and Susan Field and the murderer, Garda Sean Og Moran. There were things Stefan didn’t want to say in front of Detective Sergeant Lynch, and Lynch knew that, but it didn’t mean they wouldn’t be said eventually. He still didn’t know how much Keller had told Stefan. Meanwhile the Garda Commissioner, who had spent most of the time standing at the window of his office looking at the trees of the Phoenix Park, was well aware of the gaps in Sergeant Gillespie’s story. He wasn’t sure he wanted more than he was getting. He might be happy to leave it at that. A guard killing on the instructions of a nun who happened to be the sister of one of the country’s most prominent churchmen was more than enough to be going on with.
‘I want every file you’ve got on this, both of you. Whatever notes there are, whatever paperwork, either at Pearse Street or Dublin Castle, I want it here. I want no copies left for anyone else to find. You tell no one.’
Ned Broy dismissed Jimmy Lynch first, though the Special Branch man seemed reluctant to go. It wasn’t that he’d discovered a sudden liking for Stefan Gillespie but just now he didn’t want to be separated from him, at least not when that meant leaving him on his own with the Commissioner.
‘Get it done, Lynch!’
The door shut and a worried Detective Sergeant Lynch departed.
‘I’ll have to talk to the Minister of Justice. I’m not setting out to cover this up, but I know the first thing he’ll say, “Why the fuck did you have to tell me?” I’ll be frank, Sergeant, I don’t know what we’ll do. Whatever you’re not telling me is probably best left alone. I don’t need to know any more about Sergeant Lynch. The information from Mr Keller didn’t only go one way.’
‘I thought Jimmy was working for him.’
‘He was. So he knows who’s who. That makes him useful.’
‘I wouldn’t trust him further than I could throw him myself.’
‘I can throw him a long way, and he’ll find that out.’ Broy smiled. ‘But you can always do something with a man who’d sell his best friends for a few quid. If you know you can’t trust a man, at least you know something.’
By the time Inspector Donaldson heard that Detective Sergeant Gillespie was in the building, every trace of mat-erial relating to the deaths of Vincent Walsh and Susan Field that hadn’t been taken by Jimmy Lynch the previous year had been packed into cardboard boxes to be carried out of Pearse Street Garda station by Stefan Gillespie and Dessie MacMahon. There was a car from Garda HQ parked by the entrance. A uniformed guard took the boxes and packed them into the boot. As he slammed the boot shut and walked to the driver’s seat, Inspector Donaldson appeared, flustered and red-faced.
‘What are you doing here, Gillespie?’
‘Orders, sir.’
‘What’s he taken, MacMahon? He’s taken something!’
‘Files, sir.’ Dessie took out a Sweet Afton and put it between his lips. This seemed promising.
‘What files?’
‘Detective Sergeant Gillespie told me not to say.’
