The Death of a Joyce Scholar Read online

  But he soon understood how the theft of the eiderdown had been accomplished. A section of the glass-enclosed space had been sectioned off by a curtain, behind which McGarr found a three-piece tweed suit, a Burberry’s storm coat and matching fedora, a long umbrella with a heavy straight handle that was meant to fit in a golf bag and, when opened, would shield both caddy and player. In a kind of hat box he discovered a human-hair wig, cut long and sweeping in back and slightly graying on the temples. In all, it was a disguise to make Jammer look like a young, monied blood up from the country for a touch of town.

  With such cunning, McGarr wondered why Jammer associated with the others, the three McGarr had rousted from the St. Michan’s. He also wondered at his age and background; it was one thing to don the garb of respectability, something again to affect the manner. From appearances, however, Jammer’s future was not on the streets. He was too altogether neat and contained and—was it?—tasteful for petty theft. Embezzlement, bank fraud, or some clean scam would be more to the taste of someone dressed in the natty costume that McGarr held in his hands. It was probably only a matter of time or daring. With care McGarr rearranged the wig in its box, let the curtain fall back in place.

  And it was in turning back into the room that something struck McGarr’s eye. Four pots hung from a rack above the cooker, scaled according to size with their lids over the pegs. Various cooking implements hung on another rack, accompanied by a set of cooking knives in an extended rosewood sheath. McGarr moved toward them.

  Brass rivets held their rosewood handles in place; apart from age and use, they appeared no different from the murder weapon that had been found under the seat of Flood’s Fiat 500. A stamp at the heel of the chef’s knife certified that they had been made by Everdur in Gottingen. The set gleamed in the dim light but was incomplete: the filleting knife was missing.

  Suddenly McGarr remembered where else he had seen such knives in exactly the same rosewood sheath—in Catty Doyle’s neat kitchen, but there a full set. Coincidence? Perhaps.

  Or could Jammer have murdered Coyle? Why? What motive would he have had? Could he have known Coyle? Without Jammer or Coyle, it would be impossible to know.

  But, say, if Jammer had murdered Coyle, why hadn’t he dispensed with the other knives? He was smart; economy aside, wouldn’t he have packed up and fled a site so close to the murder scene? It was just over the wall. And why then would he have given away Coyle’s blazer and ashplant stick, which could link him to the murder?

  Nowhere in the enclosure could McGarr find a newspaper, magazine, or book. There was a radio, but contained in a large, portable sound system—a boom box, they called it—with a generous supply of audio tapes, again arranged neatly in a plastic credenza designed for that purpose. McGarr flicked it on: the machine was set to play a tape of a Dublin pop group that McGarr had often heard on his car radio. The volume was low, scarcely audible. McGarr rewound the tape and switched off the unit.

  A hideout, a bare-bones safe house. McGarr wondered if Jammer enjoyed some understanding with the cemetery personnel. He couldn’t imagine their not knowing he was here.

  He felt like waiting, but he suspected the boy would by now have questioned why Ward for no ostensible reason had gone after him, which was probably why he had not returned to pick up his things.

  And then with the gun, used to full effect in what comprised Dublin’s underworld, Jammer could have practically anything he wanted.

  Which was?

  Hard to tell. Nowhere had McGarr seen any evidence of drugs, and the order of the place implied an asceticism and sense of discipline that rather denied the possibility. Also, the way he had dealt with Ward revealed a certain alertness and daring.

  Scanning the room to make sure nothing looked disturbed, McGarr noted that Jammer had even washed two cardboard coasters, the sort that were used in pubs to blot the bottoms of pint glasses. Moving closer, he bent his head to read the logo on the one facing him:

  MCGARRITY’S LOUNGE BAR

  BOOZE, BOOKS, BEER

  and

  BLARNEY

  BLOOMSDAY

  (with Prof. Kevin “Kinch” Coyle

  reading from Ulysses)

  16th June

  AN ANNUAL BASH

  Could Jammer have been in attendance? Could he have followed Coyle to the Drumcondra Inn and then Flood and Coyle in the Fiat 500 back to his own turf? Or were the coasters merely two more things that Jammer had taken from—or had been given by—Coyle?

  Should he interview the cemetery personnel and risk a tip-off? No—that could come later, if Jammer didn’t turn up.

  And then McGarr had staff to dispatch—support and relief for Sinclaire in the attic apartment—and an artist to interview Bang and the two girls. He needed a mock-up of Jammer’s face, and Ward to corroborate the rendering, now that they knew Jammer could and had changed his M.O. They would circulate the picture among all uniformed Gardai in the city center, advising them not to ignore well-dressed young men. McGarr himself would accompany the rendering to McGarrity’s.

  It was a busy, commercial bar with tall, tin ceilings and a Victorian motif that appeared original but had been corrupted by details that reminded McGarr of bars in New York. Here was a row of fluted sconces over dim light bulbs, there small, shaded lamps on tables that had been wedged into every available space. Plants sprouted from pots hung on walls, set in corners and balanced on the ends of the bar.

  From somewhere music issued forth, and each of the waitresses, who now at noon were preparing for the lunch crowd, wore a single rose in the frilly bodice of her black-and-white, peasant-girl’s uniform, and a little round white button with chartreuse print.

  One button said, YOUR QUICHE IS MY COMMAND, another, SEAL IT WITH A QUICHE, and a third, Q.MA.

  Explained McGarrity, “It’s the literary touch. You know, in Ulysses one of the characters advises Bloom to K.M.A.”

  Kiss my arse, McGarr’s memory of the night’s reading readily supplied.

  “We’ve just dipped it in batter and baked it a bit. Hate the stuff myself. You read the book?”

  McGarr blinked. Which book? McGarr was rather tired of books.

  “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche, which I subscribe to myself. But women like it, and men like women. And men like to drink, ’specially on Fridays, which are paydays. To round it all off—not all Irish eat fish, and eggs are cheap.” His blue eyes flickered down on McGarr.

  McGarrity was a tall, thin man who was evidently prematurely gray and who, just as evidently, had an eye for the ladies, especially those who worked for him. While he spoke, he kept all in plain view. He handed back McGarr’s Garda name card. “Missing something?” he asked in such a way that McGarr was unsure if he meant McGarr’s lack of height or hair or the three letters that differentiated their names. The button on his own breast said, QUICHE OFF, JACQUES.

  “The international touch,” McGarrity now explained. “We get a lot of foreigners in here, and I thought I’d tell ’em a thing or two. From the heart.”

  He also seemed to know what McGarr was thinking. He reached down and took the police artist’s rendering of Jammer from his hands. “Hobby of yours? Curious, I don’t see a resemblance. Artists, you know, usually can’t resist the temptation to draw or paint or even write themselves into their creations. But here”—McGarrity placed a hand over the spiked hair of the drawing, so that Jammer seemed as bald as McGarr—“there’s no likeness whatsoever, either to you or to anybody else I’ve ever seen, but him.”

  McGarrity lifted his eyes to a client seated at the far corner of the bar. “Trinity fellow. Comes in here off and on. Perrier. Ballygowan Spring Water. He’ll eat the odd slice of quiche from time to time, right out in the open where even other men can see him. I’ll have to get him a button.”

  David Allan George Holderness had a double in front of him. A tall pint glass was filled with ice, sparkling water, and a squeeze of lime. On the bar were two bottles of Perrier.

  McGarr s
lid onto the seat next to him and ordered a coffee. “Come here much?”

  “Now and then, but you know that.” His eyes lighted on McGarrity, who had stepped around the bar to get McGarr his coffee.

  “Here four nights ago?”

  “Actually, I thought of it, knowing how ‘Kinch’ would be inform, as they say.”

  There was a derisive note in that, and McGarr asked, “And you would have enjoyed the show?”

  “As much as anybody could enjoy the antics of a sot, but for other reasons. May I be candid?”

  McGarr tried to penetrate the glare of the wire-rim spectacles, but could see only the tall, frosted-glass front window and the POWER’S sign reflected in it. Holderness was wearing a stylish pearl-gray jacket with a thin, raised collar, wide shoulders, and black satin lapels. His thin blond hair sprayed from the top of his head but had been slicked back along the sides, where it appeared darker. If anything, his tan had increased in a day, and made his perfect-looking teeth seem very white indeed.

  “At his best, ‘Kinch’ was a practicing Byronic hero—either ‘seething’ or brooding with romantic angst that undergraduates and other pedestrian minds considered literary. At his worst, he was just another loud, boorish, bullying, Behanesque, Irish drunk of the sort that gives the country and—much worse for us—the literature of the country a bad name. Again, among those who don’t know much about us or our literature. I’m sure you know the type.”

  Unfortunately McGarr did. Every “literary” pub, of which the city had several, had its resident, unkempt, boisterous, porter-cadging bard or troubadour who took pains to convey the impression that he could live by the word or the note but certainly more agreeably by the pint, should you spring for its cost. “And watching Coyle in that condition gave you pleasure?”

  “Because it exposed his sensibility.”

  McGarr waited.

  “Which was corrupt and passé.”

  Sensibility. McGarr wondered if somebody would murder for sensibility. He couldn’t be sure of that either, but he imagined that, seeing Coyle in his cups in some way made Holderness, who was abstemious, feel superior to the man who had blocked his path in university and who was admired by at least two of his women friends—Catty Coyle and Hiliary Flood, judging from what the latter had said when McGarr had spoken to her in Bray.

  Could sensibility extend to women? And what exactly was Holderness’s approach to women? He had seemed so cold and distant and even contemptuous of Hiliary Flood on the day before. “Catty tells us she had a date before your—what did you call it?—your late-night ‘arrangement’ with her on the night Coyle was murdered.”

  “You mean with Mary Sittonn?”

  Said McGarr in a thoughtful tone, “Ever notice the little tattoo on her arm? Around here?” McGarr poked Holderness’s arm to see how he’d react.

  Offended. He looked down as though to say, That’s far enough.

  “You know, the cat with the smile and the long, curly tongue. Could you take your glasses off for a moment. I’d like to see the color of your eyes.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your glasses. Your eyes. I was wondering if they were the same color as Catty’s. You know, the eyes of the tattoo on Mary’s biceps?”

  Holderness lowered his head, as though having to consider the request before he complied. “Is it an official request, Superintendent? Is this some sort of lineup?”

  “Get out—we’re only sharing a drink. Don’t you ever loosen up?” McGarr waited until Holderness eased the wire bows from his ears. “It’s just that your appeal to two beautiful young women, like Hiliary Flood and Ms. Coyle, is lost on me. I thought maybe I was missing something.”

  With the glasses in his hand, Holderness blinked and squinted myopically. Apart from a certain fullness of the face, and perhaps the length of his nose, his resemblance to the police mock-up was really quite remarkable.

  “Nope. It can’t be your eyes. They do nothing for me. And then they’re the wrong color—too light. Maybe I should see your tongue.”

  Holderness smiled and fitted the bows back over his ears. “It could be you misunderstand Mary and Catty, or at least Catty. By that I mean it’s possible to support aspects of a movement without embracing every plank. Not a few Irish women endorse the social and political aims of the Gay Alliance without themselves being lesbian.”

  “And you think that’s what Catty was doing with Mary Sittonn from nine to twelve or so Bloomsday evening? Supporting common social and political aims?”

  “I didn’t say that. I said, it’s possible that one may support those aims. Whatever Catty and Mary were doing is none of my concern. Nor yours, really.”

  Perhaps, but Holderness’s tone had changed, and McGarr saw an opening. “You mean, it wouldn’t bother you if Catty cared for women more than men?”

  “As I hope I’ve just implied, I don’t think she does, though if she does, I really don’t see how that’s any of my business.”

  “Or if she cares for Mary more than you?”

  His smirk seemed to say that he knew that wasn’t true.

  “Or if she cared for Kinch more than you?”

  Holderness’s nostrils flared, and the same thin, defensive smile that McGarr had seen in Bray appeared on his lips. “If you’re attempting to establish what is known as a love relationship between Catty and me, I think you’ll be disappointed.”

  “Then what would you call your relationship? I know you have a word for it. She’s your—”

  “Witness?”

  “That’s it. Your witness. I don’t know”—McGarr tasted the coffee, which had gone cold—“it all sounds so sterile. You know, ‘Great crack last night. I made love to my witness.’ No, no—you probably wouldn’t say that either. What would you say? ‘Last night I had sex with my witness, after she finished with her girlfriend or girl witness.’ Or would it be her other witness?”

  Holderness’s tight smile had sagged, but he nodded.

  “Would you consider a wee adjective to particularize the evening’s proceedings? How about ‘best witness,’ as in ‘Catty is me best witness.’ It’d be something like best girl, with no aspersion implied.”

  When Holderness still said nothing, McGarr went on, “Well—is she better or worse than, say, Hiliary Flood? Or do they both excite the same level of intensity? Or is that another word that should be allowed to fall into disuse?” Yet again he waited, then said, “Has anybody ever told you that you’re a stunning conversationalist? Catty, at least, had her preferences in regard to men. Know what she said about you?”

  Holderness’s head swung to him. McGarr now had his full attention.

  “One of my staff overheard her say, ‘Ach, sure—he’s just a boy. An enormously talented boy with a bright future in front of him, but still a boy.’”

  Said Holderness, “Would that Catty could judge. It’s flattering, surely, but wrong on both counts. I’m nearly thirty, and an impartial person would say that my future is nothing but dim, or undecided.”

  Thanks to Kevin Coyle, now deceased. “About Professor Coyle, she says, ‘There was only one Kevin, wasn’t there. For all his faults.’”

  “Well put. I couldn’t have said that better myself.”

  McGarr felt his own nostrils dilate. He did not care for the arrogance of the young man beside him. Holderness missed no opportunity to flaunt—what was it? His intelligence. Or could it be?—what had happened (or what he had done?) to Kevin Coyle. “Fergus Flood has an opinion of you as well.”

  “What is this, Superintendent—David Holderness assessment day? Or are you just trying to draw me out?”

  “He said that if Kevin Coyle had been a kind of modern-day James Joyce, then you were like Beckett without Beckett’s taste, intelligence, wit, or—”

  “Sympathy for the human condition,” Holderness completed evenly. “Yes—I’ve heard that before. In fact, I’d be tired of it, were it not so wrong-headed. Beckett had—has—no concern for the ‘human condition’ in
the way that phrase is usually meant. If anything, he has contempt for the human condition, but even that is saying too much. What he has is a basic understanding of the human condition that is so well-reasoned, accurate, and flawless that it makes him the greater thinker, writer, and artist than Joyce by far.

  “Shall I continue?”

  McGarr glanced down at his coffee and wished he had ordered something more suited to the condition he now realized he was in, inhuman as it was.

  “Are you married?”

  McGarr nodded.

  “For how long?”

  “Nine years.”

  “Do you still love your wife?”

  He nodded again.

  “As much as you did when you first decided that you should marry?”

  McGarr had to think about that.

  “Or do you, you know, love the remembrance of having loved her, and all the rest now is merely the comfortable familiarity of knowing the other person will be there as your witness or confessor or partner or companion or, more likely, all of that? Am I right?”

  McGarr inclined his head. Asking himself if he loved his wife wasn’t something he often did. Noreen was his wife, which went beyond mere love. And then, he wouldn’t have married her if he hadn’t loved her.

  But Holderness was more interested in his argument. “What does love mean? What is love? Love has been the subject of the novel, which in Italian is called romanzo and in French roman, since its development as a literary form. If not, you know, an actual love story, which some women still love to read”—Holderness allowed a smile to flicker across his lips—“then novels in recent times have been about the failure of love or the absence of love or perhaps the impossibility of the Victorian ideal of love, which one could make a case is central to Joyce’s Ulysses. Are you still with me, Chief Superintendent?”