The Death of a Joyce Scholar Page 15

  McGarr jerked the first boy to his feet and drove a fist deep into his stomach—once, twice. He hit him again and again, driving him back into the door. He was taller and wider than McGarr, and he loosed a single wild punch that passed over McGarr’s head and exposed an ear.

  It was there McGarr struck him, loading all the force of his body into his left hand. The blow spun the boy around and, like something wet flung against the door, he began to ooze down the paneling, until McGarr stayed him.

  The kidneys were next. McGarr would have to lead them through a gauntlet of journalists, and the less obviously pummelled they looked, the better.

  “The Beretta,” McGarr asked before his punch stapled the sagging boy to the door. “The one you took from the man in the brown suit. Where is it?” If they had had it, they would have used it, he was sure.

  “Fook yourself, asshole,” one of the girls shouted, and the point of O’Shaughnessy’s polished brogue flashed. She cried out. It flashed again, more quickly, and she groaned.

  “Where?” McGarr let the boy sink to his knees before his own foot came up and caught him in the arse, launching him into the door. And it was then that the anger he had been feeling earlier, and the pain—in his back, where he had been struck with the stick, in his shoulder and the side of his face, where he had struck the wall, in his knee, where he had fallen with the weight of two bodies—welled up. “Where?”

  “Ah, for chrissake, he don’t know. It wasn’t him, it was Jammer.”

  “Jammer, who?”

  “Just fookin’ Jammer, is all.”

  McGarr’s foot lashed out, and the boy howled as he again lunged forward into the door. “And your Jammer has the gun?”

  “He gave us the stick when he got the gun.”

  “Where did he get the stick?”

  McGarr moved to kick the boy again, but he swung around and held up a hand. “In Glasnevin. On the Finglas Road. Near the cemetery.” His forehead was swollen and raw. His nose was bleeding. His tongue darted out to wipe the blood off his upper lip.

  “You were with him?”

  His eyes moved away.

  “Don’t say nuttin’, Bang,” one of the girls warned. “Not on Jammer.”

  Said O’Shaughnessy, “One more word—”

  “With him when?” he asked when McGarr leaned toward him. He touched a fist to his swelling forehead. The back of his hand was wrapped in a kind of fingerless, black, leather glove, studded with silver spikes.

  “The park first. With that stick.”

  “Fook if I knew he’d do it. Fook if I even knew the cop was there.”

  “Tout! Stoolie!” one of the girls hissed, and O’Shaughnessy touched her up with his toe.

  “Well—you know yourselves how Jammer is,” the boy pleaded with the others. “Never know what he’s up to. What he’ll get you into.”

  Not from the way it had been reported: the two others had dropped down when the stick had rounded on Ward. They had known he was there and had waited to reach a deserted part of the park before striking. But McGarr let it pass. The truth would come out later, when they were charged. “Like three nights earlier, when you got the stick, the boater, and that blazer,” he said, pointing to the girl in the striped jacket that was too big for her. She had pushed the sleeves up on her biceps; the collar was raised.

  “No, Jesus, I swear. None of us was with him. Jammer was alone, goin’ home. He’s got a little spot there in one of the outbuildings, right over the high wall in the graveyard itself. Abandoned, it is. Or forgotten. And don’t nobody visit him there, apart from Sweets.” He meant the girl in the jacket. “The bloke was jarred. Couldn’t walk, only speak. Some car’d just dropped him off, and he says to Jammer, he says, ‘They’re yours—the stick and the jacket—if you can just get me to my back door.’ He told us that, di’n’ he?” Bang implored the others. Then, “He can be like that, Jammer.” There was a pause before he added, “Considerate.”

  McGarr thought of how Ward might describe Jammer. He also thought of the gangs of roving urchins who had infested the city in the last few years, and wondered if in the future there would be only two classes, the haves and the have-nots. Or, rather, the lawmakers, who possessed things, and the lawbreakers, who appropriated whatever they could. And all with the Irish Revolution that was to end all that only seventy years old.

  He thought of Coyle and asked himself if—practicing Dubliner and Joyce scholar that he was—the Trinity professor would have voluntarily surrendered the stick and blazer. Perhaps only if he felt threatened, as a kind of bribe. The hat, which was authentic, was another matter, but Jammer had gotten that as well. “Then he was alive, the man with the boater?”

  “Oh, aye. So said Jammer.” Bang’s accent was from the North, and his eyes searched McGarr’s face. “Why?”

  “Don’t you read the papers?”

  One of the girls piped her contempt, “Bang? He don’t read nothin’. Not a street sign. Not even the names of shops. Can’t.”

  “And yourself, now?” O’Shaughnessy inquired of the girl. “Why would we be asking?”

  None of them knew, and McGarr tried to imagine what their lives were like on a daily basis. An odyssey, and doubtless lifelong. A trek from pillar to post, with the future as sustaining as the immemorable past.

  “What time was all that?”

  Bang hunched his shoulders. “We met him about two, and he had only just come by them things. We were headed to the cemetery ourselves, though not his place, like I said. Fair night and all.”

  “Where exactly did you meet him?”

  “The botanic gardens. It joins the cemetery there by the lane.”

  Then it had been roughly two hours and a half between Coyle’s having left the pub in Foley Street and having arrived in the lane behind Catty Doyle’s house in De Courcy Square. During that time he had phoned Maura Flood and asked for her to meet him at the Drumcondra Inn.

  How long would he have waited for her? McGarr would have to find out. Could Coyle himself have driven the Fiat to the lane? By all reports Coyle was well beyond it, and his wife had said that he didn’t drive and hated automobiles. It had been long enough for Mary Sittonn to have delivered Catty back home after their “date,” and before Catty’s assignation with David Holderness.

  And certainly long enough for Fergus Flood to have driven out to his Foxrock address and, not finding his “prowling” wife and daughter at home, to have returned to the city to search for them “at the usual venues.” Which may have included the Drumcondra Inn. They’d have to check. But it was from in front of that hotel that the Fiat had disappeared, only to appear briefly in a lane at the rear of Bengal Terrace where the body was discovered, and finally to be returned to the Flood driveway with the murder weapon under the front seat.

  And then Flood would most likely have had a key for the Fiat.

  If what Bang had said about Jammer could be believed. And Bang hadn’t himself murdered Coyle for the boater, the stick, and the jacket. Why? As the final “and all” of their fair night?

  “We?” McGarr asked.

  “Mick, me, and…” His head moved toward the girls. “Jammer, he come along.”

  McGarr considered the numbers: three boys, two girls; and he tried to guess what all and how long that might take. “Did you come back through the lane?”

  Bang nodded.

  “How long after?”

  One of the girls spoke up. “Half-three,” she said through a wet smile. “That’s Jammer, that is.” Which answered one question.

  “Did you notice the man again?”

  “He was there, all right. Never made it in. Jammer points to him, says, ‘Old woman must’ve put him out. Busted his fuckin’ glasses,’ says Jammer. He was propped against the cemetery wall, looking up at the sky. Smiling like. We left him be.”

  “Did he have the hat on then?” O’Shaughnessy asked.

  Bang shook his head. “Jammer had it from the start. From when we met him in the bone yard. M
ade the girls wear it, you know, while we were partyin’, like.” His eyes flickered up at the girls and he attempted a thin, prurient smile.

  “So, where’s Jammer and the gun?”

  Bang hunched his shoulders, then held up a palm so McGarr wouldn’t begin abusing him again. “God’s trut’. Honest. He—”

  “Moves around, don’t he, Sweets?” the other girl said. “Likes a bit’ a this an’ that. Mainly that, I’d say.”

  Sweets went for her, and O’Shaughnessy had to separate them.

  Bang used the disruption to say in a low voice to McGarr, “The cemetery—he would’ve stayed away, after what happened in the park. The cop and the stick and all. But it’s been days now, and Jammer, he’s different, he is. Likes bein’ alone. Private, like.”

  O’Shaughnessy had by then restored order.

  “Right,” said McGarr, reaching out to rap on the main door of the church. “All up.” He rapped again, harder, and they heard keys jingle beyond the heavy oak panels.

  “Where we going?” the loud girl asked.

  O’Shaughnessy pulled her to her feet. He explained, “Three parts, like the Trinity, which you so much revere. Delousing. Then an examination—physical—at no cost to you. And finally an interview to ascertain if the truth could possibly reside in any statement you might utter.”

  Outside the church, the Fourth Estate was waiting, cameras raised. They shouted questions about both the incident and the earlier handling of their colleague. But McGarr said nothing, only ordered one of the Guards to remain with the boater, the stick, and the blazer until the press quit the area. There was no percentage in putting Jammer on notice.

  THIRTEEN

  WHEN PROFESSOR FERGUS FLOOD complained that he was being made to repeat the story of his night of the sixteenth for the umpteenth time, Detective Sergeant McKeon said, “Then make it the humpteenth. The Super Chief has just joined us.”

  Flood sighed and looked behind him at McGarr, who had just entered the room, and allowed—truly for the umpteenth time—that he really should have a solicitor present, only to be told once again that such was possible, he need only to make a phone call. They would wait.

  “Ah, no—sure, it wouldn’t change anything, would it?” he said, sounding more like a Dublin navvy than a professor at Trinity College.

  McKeon hunched his large, soft shoulders. “You tell us.”

  “I hope you don’t think I’ve been lying to you.”

  It was hot in the small interrogation room, and Flood’s white shirt was blotched with sweat. He was a man who needed to shave often, and his heavy face was now patterned with shadow. As though in search of an ally, his dark eyes turned to McGarr, who was standing off to one side. In spite of the heat, his bow tie was still tight to his throat.

  Daintily almost, he touched it with a large hand, before laughing to himself with evident resignation. “I must be losing me sense of humor. Which won’t do, will it? Where to begin?”

  “From your leaving the pub in Foley Street, Professor.”

  He nodded. “I said my good-byes to Kinch, to those of my clients who were still there, and to McGarrity himself, the publican, and left.”

  “How was he then?”

  “Who?”

  “Coyle, of course.”

  “Locked, as I’ve said.” It was an older Dublin expression for drunk, one that McGarr’s father had sometimes used, and it seemed odd coming from somebody like Flood. But then, what little they knew of Flood was odd, from his mixed professions, his marriage and family, to his story and the Fiat 500 and where it had been and what it contained.

  “Weren’t you worried about leaving him in that condition?”

  Flood’s slight cough was a laugh. “You didn’t know Kinch. There was no reasoning with him in that condition, and I could tell he hadn’t finished for the night.”

  “And so you went home. How, please, Professor?”

  “In my automobile, which I had parked in college.”

  “Trinity?”

  Flood nodded.

  “You walked from Foley Street to which gate of Trinity College?”

  “The Pearse Street gate, as I’ve said, which is the closest. I knocked and the guard, recognizing me, let me in. I’d parked where I usually do, in front of the English department. I got directly in the car, drove to the back gate, and then on to Foxrock.”

  “How long did all that take?”

  Flood’s shoulders rose then fell. “What did we say earlier? Ten or fifteen minutes to walk from Foley Street to the car. Then twenty for the drive out to Foxrock. Throw in another five for the lateness of the hour and how tired I was.”

  “And when you got home…?”

  “I fully intended to go straight to bed, but when I discovered that my wife wasn’t there, I went to look for her.”

  “Without checking to see if she had taken the Fiat.”

  “I knew it wouldn’t be there. My daughter had gone out to the ciney, and I never thought to check.”

  “How would your wife, then, have gone out herself?”

  “Taxi. Bus. Somebody might have picked her up.”

  “Like Kevin Coyle?”

  Flood inclined his head. His eyes flashed at McKeon. “Kinch did not drive.”

  “Then you’re suggesting your wife had other lovers?”

  “I knew only of Kinch.”

  “So—in the Rover you drove out to ‘different venues,’ as you termed it. You visited Jury’s Hotel, the Burlington, Sachs, and the Drumcondra Inn.”

  Flood’s head went back just slightly, but enough. Yet he said, “No—I didn’t go all the way out there. I stayed here on the south side of town. After Sachs I came home, and there she was.”

  “Then, since you didn’t visit the Drumcondra Inn, you wouldn’t have bumped into Kevin Coyle, who was waiting for your wife, or your daughter, who was on the prowl for David Holderness. Or into your Fiat, half up on the footpath in front of the hotel.”

  “No, certainly not. As I’ve just told you, I went back home after Sachs.”

  “What time was that?”

  “However long it takes to drive to those places and look round.”

  “An hour? Two?”

  “Perhaps two.”

  “Which would have put your time of rearrival in Foxrock at two-fifteen.”

  “I didn’t check the clock, but it seems reasonable.”

  “You checked that your wife was in her room. Or, rather, that the door to her bedroom was closed.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t check to see if that Fiat was in under the car port, there at the side of the garage? Or if your daughter was in her room? Or the clock?”

  Flood shook his head. “I was exhausted. Destroyed.” Again the working-class touch.

  “Do you have your keys with you now?”

  “Which keys do you mean?”

  “Your personal keys. Any keys. Keys, man—do you have any in your pockets?”

  Flood’s head turned to McGarr, then back to McKeon. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s perfectly plain,” said McGarr. “The sergeant would like to see your key ring.” McGarr reached into his own pocket and pulled out the keys to his Cooper, the Castle office, and the several that served his house in Rathmines and his wife’s business in Dawson Street.

  Color had risen suddenly to Flood’s skin, and the dots of sweat on his forehead had begun to merge and track down his face. Slowly he produced his keys, which McKeon allowed to remain untouched on the table between them.

  With a pencil he indicated one. “The Rover?” he asked.

  Flood nodded.

  “The Fiat, I presume?” That key had a large letter F on its side.

  Again.

  “And these others…?”

  “College, the office, home.”

  “Had you these keys or some others with you on Bloomsday evening?”

  Flood said nothing. His gaze was fixed on the keys.

  McKeon waited for
Flood’s eyes to rise to his. “May I ask you, Professor—how is it that your Rover was ticketed at three-oh-five A.M. in Drumcondra for illegal overnight parking?”

  Flood said nothing.

  “How is it that Rex Cathcart, the hotelier there, saw you walk into the bar and look ’round and then walk out to the desk, where you asked if your wife was staying there?”

  Still nothing.

  “How is it that Cathcart, worried that you might make a scene, followed you to the steps of the hotel where Coyle was waiting for a taxi. He was drunk, had tired of waiting for your wife, and he had asked a barman to phone up for a lift.”

  Flood’s eyes shifted to the grimy window. Now, in late afternoon, it was splashing a hot, milky light across the dayroom floor. The blat of a fly on a pane was languid and desultory.

  “Question—did you offer him a lift home?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “To take him out of harm’s way. As you said, you could tell he wasn’t ‘finished’ for the evening, and better that he finish with Catty Doyle than one of the family Flood. After all, your daughter was still inside. She—like your wife, like you yourself by your own admission—very much admired Coyle. And he was in such great form that night. Your words.”

  “Then why would I have taken the Fiat and not the Rover? Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

  “Part punishment, part cure. She had no key to the Rover, which in any case was parked a block distant. She would have to get herself home as best she could. And without the Fiat there was no lift for Coyle.

  “Tell me, where did you get the knife?”

  Flood sighed, then reached into his suit coat, which was hanging over the back of a nearby chair. From his billfold he drew a small card which he placed on the table between them. On it was the name of a solicitor. “Would you ring that number, please? I believe it’s time for me to speak to this man.”

  Off a fingernail McKeon flicked the card back into Flood’s lap. “Ring him yourself, Professor. Around here liars do their own bidding.”