The Death of an Irish Politician Page 11

  “Then nobody has really ever spoken to the man. He’s a loner. They’ve heard him speak, mind you, ordering a drink or saying hello or when he’s sloshed. Then he recites hours of verse in Gaelic or extemporaneous free verse in English that is often mistaken for babbling and with some justification. But nobody really knows him. This whole thing amazes me. I’ll never sleep again.” Sinclair, an insomniac, was unable to put his job aside.

  McGarr thought for a moment. He had never known a heavy drinker, like Driver, to keep a neat apartment. Things got tossed about when a person was drunk. Drawers were left open, clothes got misplaced, food tins were left on the kitchen table, if the person thought of eating at all. “My bet is that somebody paid him to disappear and then went round to his digs and cleaned house. But, if he’s got ‘the failing’”—McGarr meant the man’s obvious penchant for alcohol—“he’ll eventually crave the company of kindred souls. Dropping out of sight for him probably means merely staying off the job and away from McDaid’s. Where would a bloke like him go if he went on a toot?”

  “Neary’s, Molloy’s, the bars around the theatres and the colleges. Any place where actors and writers hang out.”

  “He may be in disguise, however, given the greasepaint in that kit. But the one thing he can’t disguise is his height, Paul. If he’s the same man as the one at the bar in Glendalough, he’s a giant and as thin as a rail.

  “Also, tomorrow very early, I want you to roust out this Dalton fellow and, if he isn’t utterly candid with you, collar him.”

  “What charge?”

  “Suspicion.”

  “Suspicion of what?” The government, in particular Minister for Justice Horrigan, wanted the Garda Soichana to soft-pedal that charge. It had been much abused in the past when dealing with the IRA.

  “Suspicion of trying to frame a chief inspector. I don’t know. Suspicion of failing to pay his rates. Make something up, but find out how he fits into this thing. Every bit of it is too regular. It’s a setup.”

  McGarr put down the phone, then picked it up again and began dialing.

  “Who are you calling now?”

  “Horrigan.”

  “This late?” It was a quarter to one.

  “I hope he’s sound asleep,” said McGarr. All McGarr had as proof that the Bombing Report had been stolen was Horrigan’s word, the word of a man whose wife had been involved in an attempted murder, a man who in the past had proved to be as ruthless and as personally ambitious as anybody in Irish politics. Horrigan wouldn’t be acting out of character to have dreamed up the theft of the report and dropped several dozen clues pointing to McGarr, just to have something on him in case the chief inspector planned to lodge charges against his wife.

  Horrigan wasn’t in his office or at the Shelbourne, but out in Naas. “Yes, Peter.” He had been waiting right by the phone.

  McGarr tried to make his voice sound perfectly official and correct, as if the investigation were right on target but proceeding slowly. “Just my final report of the night, Mr. Minister. I thought perhaps you’d be waiting for me to call.”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “We’re close to forming some conclusions about the theft of the report. Driver did the actual stealing, but we have developed a whole avenue of investigation that won’t come into focus until tomorrow.” McGarr didn’t want Horrigan to think he was putting him on and not telling him that they had found certain of the leads he had left. But, then again, he didn’t want to alarm the man. Somehow, Horrigan had to plant some incriminating evidence on McGarr himself, say, for instance, the report or a copy of it. This, then, another branch of the police, perhaps Internal Security, would be told where and how to find. McGarr’s idea was to catch Horrigan or one of his minions in the act of setting this last aspect of the trap. “I’ll keep in touch.”

  “Thank you very much for your consideration, Peter. How’s my wife?”

  “Innocent, I believe. But I must prove it, since we’ve developed enough circumstantial evidence that a prosecutor not partial to David Horrigan’s politics might make a very good case against her.”

  “What charge?”

  “Complicity to commit murder.”

  “A felony,” Horrigan mused.

  “And then there are other details that might prove embarrassing. I’m currently standing in Horace Hubbard’s study. That’s one of the buildings which Cobh Condominia Limited doesn’t exactly own on paper.” McGarr wanted to see if Horrigan would recognize the name.

  “I don’t understand. Hubbard I know. What’s this other thing?”

  “It’s not important. Your wife paid Hubbard’s rates, which had been in arrears.”

  “Oh.”

  “One other thing strikes me, sir. Why is it you called me about the matter we discussed yesterday and not Internal Security? It really is a matter for them.”

  “Well”—Horrigan paused—“I suspected Leona was involved somehow with Ovens and his misfortune, which you were handling, and also I don’t know if you’re aware of the part Internal Security played in the investigation of my involvement in the Bantry Bay oil farm many years ago.”

  “I was in France at the time.”

  “Suffice it to say, once bitten twice shy.”

  “Until tomorrow then, sir.”

  “Thank you again, Peter.”

  When McGarr replaced the receiver, O’Shaughnessy opined, “The bastard!”

  “Right on the button, Liam. How are you feeling?”

  “Wide awake and hot as Hades. Somebody ought to plug the son—”

  “Would you do me a personal favor and drive out to Naas? I want you to shadow that guy. If he has people working for him, call the department and get some help. We’ll see if we can make him move tomorrow. If we can just catch him when he tries to put the stuff on me.”

  O’Shaughnessy said, “But doesn’t he realize that Sinclair and I and Ward and McKeon and maybe some others know all about this investigation?”

  “He’s counting either on your loyalty to me, in case I buckle and consent to quash the Ovens investigation in return for his overlooking my theft of the Bombing Report, or, if I don’t, your natural desire to take my position. If I go, then everybody on this investigation team will be bumped up a notch in the department hierarchy.”

  “There’s no humanity in that kind of thinking.”

  McGarr shook his head. “Plenty of his kind.”

  “You’ll never find Driver. Horrigan is too rich and powerful for that. He’ll buy him off or have him killed. I’ll lay forty years in this racket on the line that says Horrigan would murder Driver himself to cover every eventuality. No passions or vices has that man—not booze, not women, not horses, gambling, not even tobacco. Just power. And you’re just a pawn to keep his name out of the papers.”

  McGarr shook his head and slipped the piece of paper in his pocket. “I’m not sure you’re right, Liam. There’s something more here. It’s not just his political career.”

  In a state of deep thought that made him oblivious to the driving wind and rain, McGarr left Hubbard’s Fitzwilliam Square premises and walked back toward the office.

  McGarr was confused. On the basis of circumstantial evidence alone, McGarr had enough on Hubbard to secure an indictment of attempted murder: Hubbard’s fingerprints were on the winch handle; he had a grudge against Ovens both because of Ovens’ relationship with Leona Horrigan and Ovens’ superior sailing skills; if Martin could be believed, Hubbard was alone with Ovens at the time of the attack. Why, then, if the incident were so clear-cut, would Horrigan try to influence the investigation of a man who was his wife’s lover? Was he as much in the dark as McGarr himself, or was it really Leona Horrigan who had attacked the sailor? After all, Hubbard was a big man, and three blows from him with an object as sharp and heavy as the winch handle would inflict wounds more grievous than those Ovens had sustained. But maybe not, given the doctor’s description of the injury. No matter who was responsible for the initial crime, however
, McGarr still had to deal with what he suspected was Horrigan’s ploy to compromise the effectiveness of his investigation. That had to be his first order of business.

  Passing through the gate to the Castle, McGarr decided he would try to reason with Hubbard. Intellectuals weren’t often cowed by histrionics. Staring at Ovens staring at him had probably softened up Hubbard enough anyhow.

  McGarr didn’t pause to take off his hat or coat. He walked straight into the day room, and, facing Ovens, said, “Look at me.” The tone of his voice brooked no denial. “Goddammit, I said look at me!” Slowly, Ovens’ eyes moved to him. “You don’t seem to care who clubbed you, nobody else seems to care about you, but one very powerful man in this government cares so much about stopping the investigation that he’s trying to put me in jail. Did he”—McGarr pointed at Hubbard—” club you with that winch handle? I think he did and we’ve got enough evidence right now to prove it.”

  Ovens merely raised the cigarette to his lips and drew on it.

  “Tell him!” Hubbard bellowed and the Gardai stuffed him back into his seat.

  “Well, if he won’t, why don’t you?” McGarr demanded of Hubbard.

  “Because I don’t know how it happened, as I told you in the very beginning. One of those other two did it, or somebody whom one of the others won’t say they saw. Or maybe, as I, neither of them saw who did it.”

  “Could it have been Horrigan himself?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I really don’t know the man. And nobody could have left the dock without being seen.”

  “Martin?”

  “Could be. I don’t know any more about it than you.”

  McGarr’s temper suddenly squalled. “Then who in the name of hell did club him! It wasn’t an accident, you know. He got hit, fell on the deck, then somebody rolled him over the side. Look at this.” McGarr palmed McKeon’s photo enlargement off the table and slapped it onto Hubbard’s knee. McGarr then removed his hat and coat. He smoothed the hair along the sides of his head, touched Noreen’s shoulder as he went to the small table, where he opened two beers. In a mild voice, he said, “All right.” He handed a beer to Hubbard, saying, “It isn’t Japanese, but you’ll like it.” He put his hand in his pocket, walked to the window, and looked out.

  He remembered Horrigan’s statement about their both being from Swift’s Dublin. The old dean of St. Patrick had seen the world as it is. He had employed irony to purge illusion. Many, and Horrigan was one, had mistaken his stance for misanthropy. Hubbard, McGarr then decided, might respond to the truth. “Let me tell you what I’ve got here, ah—what can I call you?”

  “Hubbard. Mister Hubbard.” He wasn’t going to give McGarr an inch.

  “How’s the beer?”

  “Wet.”

  “You’re in trouble. A magistrate would indict you tomorrow. Your fingerprints are on the winch handle. How did they get there?”

  “I took it out of Lea’s hand.”

  “Why aren’t her prints on it? What was she doing with it?”

  “Gloves. I don’t know how she came to have hold of it, but she didn’t hit him. Did she, Ovens?” Hubbard demanded of the Yank. When Ovens didn’t reply, he added, “You’d think he’d at least exculpate her for all she’s done for him.”

  McGarr, glancing at Ovens, thought he detected a wry glimmer in the man’s eyes. “Where are the gloves?”

  “Burnt them. I wanted to burn the shoes and dress too.”

  “Why?”

  “So Leona wouldn’t get involved and have Horrigan meddling in her affairs.”

  “You mean the ones in the North, the gunrunning, the rocket launchers and antipersonnel weaponry?”

  “Precisely. He’d then have to do something, you know. And given the excuse, he’d go after Leona with vengeance. The man is vindictive and cruel.”

  “Where’s the dress?”

  “Horrigan’s Shelbourne suite. I thought that would be the safest place to hide it. In her rush to get in and out without the maid seeing her, Leona forgot about the shoes.”

  Noreen’s ballpoint pen darted over the surface of Slattery’s shorthand notebook.

  “That’s a crime.”

  “You’re not interested in that.” Hubbard was still uncomfortable under Ovens’ gaze.

  McGarr motioned to Ward, who wheeled the man out of the room. “You were in love with Leona Horrigan at one time?”

  “Am in love with Leona Horrigan.” He stared directly at McGarr when saying this as though it were a statement he dared the detective to challenge.

  Here, McGarr thought, was a man who for all his breeding and brains was unworldly. He probably actively encouraged Leona Horrigan to hurt him. That’s what Ovens was to Hubbard, the person whose relationship with Leona Horrigan inflicted upon Hubbard the exquisite agony he desired.

  “Were you jealous of Bobby Ovens?”

  “I am terribly jealous of Bobby Ovens.”

  “Would you kill him?”

  “If I thought it would solve Lea’s fascination for cretins such as he.”

  McGarr furrowed his brow.

  “She thinks he’s sensitive. I know he’s obtuse. Anyhow—”

  McGarr still didn’t say anything, so Hubbard completed his thought. “—in this day and age monogamy is passé. We all are attracted to several members of the opposite sex.”

  “Is Leona Horrigan a loose woman?”

  Hubbard flushed. “How do you mean, ‘loose’?”

  “An easy lay. Maybe even a nymphomaniac.”

  “If you please, Inspector! Such drivel! That term is anachronistic—Freud at his worst, unable to conceal his own shabby Viennese morality. Some people have sexual drives which differ from the norm.”

  “And Leona Horrigan’s differ?”

  “The herd mind establishes norms.”

  McGarr handed Hubbard a sheaf of papers. “This report says you’re a fairy.”

  Hubbard placed the report on the table without looking at it. “The British Army. I joined the Paras as a spy. They never suspected me—Anglo-Irish, family has a long history of military service, public school, Trinity. I served three years with a spotless record. They grew suspicious when my brother was blown up laying a mine at Crumlin Road Prison gate. I fled. Their only possible recourse was to sully my record. I can assure you my sexual preferences are profoundly heterosexual.”

  “What do you make of this?” McGarr handed him the chart he had taken from the top of Hubbard’s desk.

  After scanning the sheet of oak tag he said, “Nothing. I recognize some of those names but not Dalton or Murphy, assuming the latter isn’t one of the countless Murphys that I, as any Irishman, would know.”

  “Who’s Muldoon?”

  “A Provo contact and C/O Fourth District, Belfast. That’s common knowledge. The address is that of a safehouse.”

  “Did you have an occasion to jot my home phone number down on a slip of paper by your phone at any time in the recent past?”

  Hubbard was genuinely surprised. “Your phone number? At your home? With all due respect, Inspector, that’s not likely.”

  McGarr showed him the slip of paper. “I took this from the top of your desk. Can you tell me something about the other numbers?”

  Hubbard studied the many numbers for a few seconds. “No. Nothing. What’s this anyhow? Have you decided to plant evidence on me now that you know I wasn’t involved in the other thing?” He had grown wary again. Thick brown eyebrows hooded his eyes.

  McGarr took the piece of paper back. “Another beer?”

  “If I can’t leave this place.” Hubbard began kneading the skin around the end of the cast on his forearm as if it were beginning to bother him.

  “Have a beer first.” There was no chance that Hubbard would be let go without a thorough grilling in which he would be asked to repeat the information he had given in his formal statement to McKeon on Saturday morning. Discrepancies would be thrown in his face, he would be asked if he had loved his mother.
McGarr still considered him the prime suspect in the attempted murder of Ovens.

  The phone was ringing in McGarr’s cubicle.

  Noreen was getting Hubbard another bottle of Harp.

  Spud Murphy was on the line and corroborated Hubbard’s information about Muldoon.

  McGarr swiveled his chair so that he talked into a corner. With his hand cupped around the speaker of the phone his voice was no longer audible in the office, although Murphy could hear him well enough. McGarr only hoped a bored Castle switchboard operator wasn’t on the line. “If, perchance, something happens to me here in Dublin, can you make me disappear?” McGarr would never consent to sitting back and letting Horrigan hang this phony charge on him. And only if McGarr were free could he prove Horrigan had fabricated the Bombing Report theft.

  “Really? Not here. The place is too small, if you know what I mean. Let me think. What’s happening there? If you’ve decided to come over to us, it would be better for our organization to have you stay where you are. We haven’t had a man in the Castle since Jim Crofton got picked up trying to smuggle that German agent out of the country during the war. What a coup to have you there and working with us!” The fisherman was beside himself with the prospect.

  “I really don’t think I’ll have the choice. I can’t explain the situation now.” McGarr was thinking about the recent change in the government. It had happened through a fiat of obscure back-benchers in the Fianna Fail party. Like Horrigan, most either were known to be opportunists or were relatively new to elective office. Three of them had assumed ministerial portfolios. Certain of the papers had tried to explain the phenomenon by saying Dev.’s old boys were over the hill and it was time for them to step aside, but De Valera’s own paper, the Press, had said what was troubling McGarr: men like Horrigan had not paid their political dues, had no proven track records to show the people, and had yet to be “constitutionalized,” by which the paper meant to convey the idea that none had shown he would adhere to the rule of law in a crisis. “Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I think I might have to run to ground. Tomorrow.”