Special Branch dumped a body on his desk and told him to have it in court on a drunk and disorderly the next morning he’d only stand up and salute. Did Hugo Keller say anything?’
‘No, but I reckon the cute hoor looked happy enough.’
‘And not exactly surprised. He never expected to stay locked up.’
The thought hadn’t occurred to Dessie before, but Stefan was right.
‘What about the woman?’
‘She did say something, when she was going out the door. “I told Sergeant Gillespie I wanted to see what happened next.” Are we the only ones not in on this, Sarge? The Branch? What the fuck is going on here?’
Stefan didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but he’d find out.
Inspector James Donaldson was a small, precise man who wore thick-lensed glasses that made his eyes look disconcertingly bigger than they were. He disliked disorder. He also disliked detectives. Quite apart from the fact that they were rude, ill-disciplined, sloppy, generally drank too much, and had the ability to turn the word ‘sir’ into an insult, they were the ones who were guaranteed to bring disorder into his police station. They thrived on the chaos he hated. And there were times when Stefan Gillespie or Dessie MacMahon knocked on his door that he had to resist an overwhelming urge to turn the key in the lock and pretend he wasn’t there. Normally Inspector Donaldson sought refuge from the disorder that went with being a policeman in his faith. He attended Mass every day at the Pro-Cathedral at eleven o’clock, and when he returned to Pearse Street Garda station, with the incense still in his nostrils, he had just enough spiritual calm to get him through the rest of the day. But the events of this particular day meant that he had little calm left. If it wasn’t enough to have his own detectives treating him like an eejit he now had detectives walking in off the street, pulling criminals out of his cells and telling him, in front of his own men, that if he didn’t like it he could stick his bald head up his arse. And they were from Special Branch too. Those fellers were a law unto themselves. They were supposed to protect the state from the people who wanted to destroy it. That was mostly the IRA of course, but these days you were hard pressed to tell whether a Special Branch man had worked with Michael Collins and his crowd bumping off British agents during the War of Independence, or with the anti-Treaty IRA bumping off Free State soldiers and policemen during the Civil War. What was guaranteed was that they’d done their share of bumping off somewhere along the line. They were thieves set to catch thieves after all. You didn’t want to cross them. They did what they liked.
The raid on Hugo Keller’s abortion clinic had been a rare thing at Pearse Street, an operation instigated by Inspector Donaldson himself. He was the one who had gathered the first intelligence. Well almost. The facts had been presented to him at a Knights of St Columbanus meeting, and as treasurer he had no choice but to act. It never occurred to him that there was a reason the so-called Doctor Keller could operate with apparent disregard for the laws of the land, among the real doctors and consultants in Merrion Square. A blind eye was being turned at a much higher level than James Donaldson. Now, for his pains, he had not only been humiliated by a Special Branch sergeant, his own CID sergeant was standing in front of him, berating him because Special Branch had just walked off with the prisoners.
‘Why didn’t you kick the bastards out?’
‘I wasn’t in a position to, Sergeant,’ replied Donaldson defensively.
‘We hadn’t even put a case together. You were the one who pushed for this. You ordered the raid. Then you let Keller waltz out of here.’
‘It’s not in our hands any more. Special Branch will deal with it.’
‘How is inducing miscarriages anything to do with Special Branch?’
‘That’s not my business. Or yours.’
‘Keller knew.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The expression on his face. When we walked into the surgery. When he sat in the cell and didn’t say anything. When he phoned his solicitor. Who didn’t bother to turn up. I’ll bet he made the call to Special Branch though.’
‘It’s clear there are other issues here, Sergeant. Quite possibly issues of state security. We can’t expect Special Branch to reveal that sort of thing.’
‘That sort of thing my arse, sir.’ There it was, that ‘sir’.
‘That’s enough, Gillespie. I’m not happy about this either. They were extremely heavy handed. I don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s done.’
‘And what about the woman?’
‘They took her too. There’s no more to say.’ Donaldson wanted Gillespie to get out now. He had had enough. But Stefan wouldn’t let go.
‘I don’t know what was up with that one. There was something. And it didn’t have anything to do with being in Keller’s clinic for an abortion.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. Leave it alone!’
Stefan had no idea what he was talking about either. He was angry about what had happened for all sorts of reasons. Somewhere it wasn’t much more than territorial. He’d been pissed on and he didn’t like it. He knew how Special Branch detectives loved to throw their weight around. But why was he so wound up? It was Donaldson who had insisted on the raid. Now it was someone else’s problem. What did it matter? It was the woman. She mattered. He didn’t know why, but she was still there, still in his head.
The telephone on Inspector Donaldson’s desk rang. He picked it up.
‘What does she want? What? All right, I’ll talk to her.’ The inspector put on a smile as he waited a moment. ‘Hello, Reverend Mother, how are — ’
The cheerful greeting was cut off abruptly, and it was clear that what he was listening to was a tirade. He tried to speak several times but the words barely escaped from his mouth before they were cut off. ‘She was here — ’ ‘The case is no longer — ’ ‘I gave no instructions — ’ ‘I didn’t know — ’
Stefan turned away. It was probably the right time to make his exit.
‘Stay here!’ Donaldson hissed after him.
He stopped and turned back to the desk. The inspector glared.
‘I’ll send Detective Sergeant Gillespie across right now!’ He slammed down the phone. It wasn’t over yet. It was always the damned detectives.
‘That was the Mother Superior at the Convent of the Good Shepherd. This woman, the one having the — the one at Merrion Square.’ Abortion was not a word Donaldson found easy to say. ‘Those bollockses from Special Branch dumped her over there. Now the Reverend Mother is blaming me for it. Well, why wouldn’t she? The only name the woman knows is yours. So it all comes back here, straight back on to my desk as usual, Gillespie!’
‘What did they take her there for?’ said Stefan, puzzled.
‘The woman’s pregnant, isn’t she? And I assume she’s not married!’
‘How do I know, she didn’t even give us a name!’
‘It doesn’t matter. It’s not our business any more.’ Donaldson changed tack abruptly. He was about to give every good reason why the woman should have gone to the convent. Wasn’t it where the police took women like that? ‘I don’t know what’s wrong, but the Reverend Mother wants her out of the place. She’s beside herself. And she thinks I’m responsible. You brought the woman in here, Sergeant. You go and sort this bloody mess out!’
3. Harold’s Cross
The Convent of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd lay south of the Grand Canal in Harold’s Cross Road, behind high walls. As Stefan Gillespie drove in through the black gates, two nuns closed and bolted them shut, then disappeared into the night. The house was Georgian. Once it stood in its own park; an avenue of fifty chestnut trees lined the drive. The park was gone now. The trees came down; roads and houses had spread out where the lawns and shrubberies had been; and when the nuns came, the walls went up. Low brick buildings, almost windowless, extended out from the old house to the back and sides now, shutting it in. But the great windows still filled the front, looking out over the cobbles to the gates. They were all dark now. The only light came from the front door where another nun waited for Stefan.
As he walked towards her, the small, neat woman looked at him accusingly. ‘Reverend Mother is waiting for
