The Death of an Irish Tradition Read online

  McGarr opened the back door and stepped down the stairs to the dustbins in the latticed compound near the side of the house. He dumped the contents of the bins onto the concrete and went through the trash, only to come up with nothing and have to replace it all, bit by bit.

  It was well past noon before McGarr trudged back up the stairs and closed the door to preserve the cool, rarefied atmosphere that the air conditioner was now straining to maintain.

  He washed his hands at the kitchen sink, then dried them on a towel in the bathroom and noted the contents of the medicine cabinet. It was a good Irish object—aspirin, corn plasters, a mild laxative, and some eyedrops. But clean as a whistle—toothbrushes in a holder except for one that he assumed was the daughter’s.

  In another cabinet, though, he found a range of soaps and shampoos, bath oils, body oils, cold creams, cleansing creams, hand creams, creams for dry skin, night creams, conditioning creams, cream rinses, and even a talc that looked in McGarr’s palm just like fresh cream. All the daughter’s. And to think, he said to himself, spilling a handful into the water of the toilet bowl, she drinks skim milk. He wondered if she was allergic to cream, the real stuff.

  And prescription drugs. Codeine, ergotamine, dihydroergotamine. Ergotamine tartrate—lots of that. Valium, Librium, phenobarbitol. And reserpine and phenothiazine. In all, quite a wallop. The substances had been purchased at a variety of chemists’ shops in Dublin and abroad, but he noticed also that none had been much used, apart from the ergotamine tartrate. In the bottle of Librium that the label said contained thirty-six tablets, thirty-two remained. In others only one or two tablets had been taken.

  He replaced everything, opened the sliding glass doors of the shower and noted the massage nozzle on the shower head, wishing he had one himself for those difficult mornings-after that sometimes plagued him. He then examined the toilet bowl and even lifted off the top of the tank to peer into the dark water there. Nothing still.

  Scented toilet paper and a bidet, of all things. In Ireland. He shook his head once more.

  McGarr then raised the frosted glass window and looked down across the backyards toward the garage. The vans were no longer there but had moved to either end of the laneway, except for one which was bulky and windowless. Only one man was inside the garage. He was working under the hood by the light of several brilliant portable lamps. He wore an asbestos suit and mask and a flak jacket. Gillis, McGarr thought. He didn’t work much, but he could have it. And it was taking some time. Whoever had rigged it had had some experience.

  He lowered the window and returned to the kitchen and the glass of Medoc. He poured himself a bit more. McGarr needed to think and time was running out. He didn’t know how long Ward would keep the girl at the Castle. It was perfectly within the law for him to be in the apartment, but he preferred to form his conclusions alone. And the privacy of the evacuated neighborhood was now near total.

  He carried the bottle and glass into the old woman’s bedroom and sat in the rocker near the small hearth. It was cool here too, and at least the comfort was not mechanized and…precise. That was it. The old woman had been precise in everything—careful, attentive, and reasoned about the details of the house, almost to a fault. Why? He had never seen anything like it. No—again he thought of evidence—proof of her having lived here, Margaret Kathleen Caughey herself, the person who must have had some attachment to the world other than her daughter.

  But where was her husband? Which one of the photos on the piano was of him?

  Proof. Evidence. Had she been trying to cover up something? What was it the girl had said last night? “They’re either dead or we lost track of them.” Emigrated. Perhaps, but in a big Irish family from the West somebody eventually returned home, sooner or later, to brag about his success, or to remember what was past and feel sad, or just to feel the soil under his feet again. And those people looked up their relatives. It was upon returning that they felt most—again McGarr thought of the word—tribal.

  And what was it that had so bothered him the night before? Something had been out of place. The Morris chair itself, the sole concession to the old woman’s comfort in the chic apartment, other than the room in which he was presently sitting. Otherwise everything was neat and clean and—.

  McGarr stood. The bread, the dough that had risen up over the pans and spilled. And the corpse, the old woman herself. What was out of place about her? Or…missing from her person? Her outstanding characteristic—no, no, no; not characteristic, her passion—was neatness, cleanliness, a careful, attentive, reasoned approach to the details of her house and herself. The bread. Would she have made bread, a messy chore with sticky dough and flour and oiling or greasing pans, without an apron on? No. But she would have taken it off if the visitor had been somebody other than a delivery boy or the postman.

  The postman. He had asked the woman downstairs if the man who had been seen leaving the flat could have been the postman. No. He had come an hour before, perhaps about the time she was kneading the dough. Perhaps.

  Had McGarr yet examined an apron? No—he had passed them by. They were hanging on the back of the pantry door.

  It was there that he found the evidence, the one piece of proof of who she was that Margaret Kathleen Caughey had not had time to destroy.

  A letter, brief and pointed. But it was enough and from Drogheda. From Dr. Malachy T. Matthews, McGarr was willing to bet.

  Sis,

  Get out. He’s onto me.

  Jimmy-Joe

  McGarr searched the entire apartment for a telephone to call the Castle, but he remembered the girl saying there was none.

  Studied anonymity and to a purpose, he was convinced of it.

  FOUR

  Strokes, Voices, A Squelch and a Laugh. Priest, Parishioner, A Sot and an Ass

  THE MAN WHO WAS standing in the middle of the large garage had glanced up at them, then back down at the work on the slope of the small porter’s desk in front of him. Too quickly, too disinterested. He was O’Shaughnessy’s man.

  The Garda superintendent had had his driver pull the Cortina up in front of the doors of the service bay, which was open. Now he got out and approached the man slowly, noting the many automobiles with hoods raised or on lifts, red metal cases of tools on dollies near them, snakes of rubber hoses for pneumatic tools and air guns, and the sweet fresh oil and raw gas smell that he’d always associated with mechanical exactitude, a knowledge that he’d found elusive and therefore respected. And Mercedes, all the cars were Mercedes.

  The other workers were sitting in a clatch on some tires, munching sandwiches and drinking tea from thermoses. Silently they watched O’Shaughnessy move toward the desk, the whites of their eyes bright in the begrimed or permanently sallow complexions of mechanics, their once light-blue coveralls now a dirty gray.

  O’Shaughnessy waited by the man’s side, watching him add up a column of figures on a bill of particulars. There were three copies underneath. He was small but square, and his face looked cropped, his nose beaklike and sharp. “Sir?”

  “Your name, please?”

  His eyes quavered toward the police car. “And yours?”

  “O’Shaughnessy, Liam. Superintendent, Garda Soichana.”

  “How do I know that?”

  O’Shaughnessy had been looking directly at the man, but now his eyes concentrated on him—the quick, nervous squint of the eyes, the way he shifted his weight from foot to foot and tapped the ballpoint pen on the top of the desk. His wedding ring glinted on a grease-smeared finger, and it bore a single and small, clear stone. “I want your name.”

  “Doyle, Nick. Service Manager, Ballsbridge Motors,” he said, affecting O’Shaughnessy’s tone and inflection.

  O’Shaughnessy picked up the receiver of the telephone on the desk. “How do I get an outside line?”

  “Try climbing a pole.” The man scratched at the corner of one eye, trying to look coy, his eyes moving toward the men who were watching him.

  But
a dial tone came on and O’Shaughnessy dialed the Castle.

  Ban Gharda Bresnahan answered. “Doyle, Nick,” he said and then cupped a hand over the mouthpiece. “Address?”

  The man sighed. “Five Uppercross Road, Dolphin’s Barn.”

  O’Shaughnessy repeated the address. “I’ll wait.”

  He only stared at the man, whose mood was changing perceptibly. A kind of resignation—a firming of the jaw, a slight wrinkling of the brow, which was freckled like his face and neck, the eyes that looked out the open doors at the Garda patrol car and seemed to glaze, having seen trouble before. O’Shaughnessy guessed, having been acquainted with the trance that was necessary to get a man through hours or days or years of contention.

  The salient details came back quickly, thanks to the computer. He’d been jailed twice for I. R. A. activities, once in connection with a bombing. As a youth he’d been detained a number of times, charged once with aggravated assault and convicted. He was married, the father of six.

  “I want a complete rundown on him. Begin a new file. Have it in the dayroom by five. A stenographer. Greaves and Delaney. And call in another team to spell them. I’ll check in on Monday.”

  O’Shaughnessy replaced the phone in its yoke.

  Now it was Doyle’s turn to be quiet. He was no longer glancing at the other men. And he mumbled something.

  “I didn’t hear that.”

  “I said—” his eyes met O’Shaughnessy’s for a moment, “—just because a fellow’s done a stroke in the shovel—”

  “Two strokes. Two long strokes. Long for a man with a wife and six children and a—” O’Shaughnessy let his eyes survey the large garage, “—a good job.

  “I’d like to see the service chit on Sean Murray’s MG.”

  “I don’t have it.” Not, whose car? Or, what day? Or, an MG? No—Doyle had a record, and Murray had gone to work on him. Why? And how?

  “Where is it?”

  “The office.”

  “Who worked on the car?”

  “I did.”

  “Brakes?” O’Shaughnessy caught Doyle’s eyes and held them.

  “No—clutch.”

  “What was wrong with it?”

  “An adjustment.”

  “Difficult job?”

  Doyle looked away and his shoulders seemed to say, hard enough.

  “Where’d you work on it?”

  Doyle paused. He seemed to be pondering something, weighing possibilities. His jaw firmed again and he turned to O’Shaughnessy. “In Phoenix Park, right in front of the Taoseaich’s palace.”

  “Suit yourself.” O’Shaughnessy knew it was senseless to question him further, there.

  Of the other men, two said they had seen Doyle working on the MG during the midafternoon. The car did not leave the garage until half four or thereabouts. O’Shaughnessy took their names, and went into the dealer’s office.

  There the young sales manager, O’Reilly by name, went through the service slips of the day before and found the Murray bill. £12, 30p., and paid in full.

  “What’s the problem? Mister Murray’s one of our best customers.”

  “Did you see the car?”

  “No.” O’Reilly was tall and slim, with an easy flow of speech. He spoke with his hands in his pockets, informal, as though making a sale didn’t really matter to him.

  They were standing by the side of a long, cream-colored car with light brown seats that gave off the rich and mellow reek of tanning fluid and leather dressing. And other odors came to O’Shaughnessy—new tires and new material and all the recently manufactured components that comprised the exquisite machines in the showroom—and formed a mix that was unmistakable and communicated power, quality, luxury, and great expense; and in a way the Garda superintendent felt uncomfortable there. Bright sunlight through the windows made the shiny lacquer gleam, and outside on the street other cars were passing in fiery blurs.

  “Did you see the son?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know the son?”

  “Yes, I think so. Really, what’s this all about? Mister Murray—”

  “Did you see him yesterday?”

  “Well—no, but—”

  “Isn’t it unusual for this garage to be servicing an MG?”

  “Yes and no. After all, Mister Murray—”

  “Had you ever serviced it before?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t say. I manage the overall operation, but service—”

  “Were you here in the showroom yesterday afternoon?”

  “Yes, from time to time.”

  “Did you see Sean Murray here?”

  O’Reilly paused. A hand came out of a pocket. “A sort of short young fellow with long hair and…a kind of crook in his nose?”

  O’Shaughnessy nodded.

  “Yes—I saw him.”

  “What was he doing?”

  “Ah—” now both hands were out of the pockets, “—poking about. Looking at the cars.”

  “You spoke to him?”

  “Ah—” with a finger he stroked his brow, “—not actually.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well—the price of this convertible is sixteen thousand pounds and most fellows his age just don’t have that sort of money to chuck about. I can’t talk to everybody.”

  “Do you have a place to sit down?”

  O’Reilly pointed to a window beyond the cars. There were several chairs and a couch of modern design clustered around a glass cocktail table. On it were some magazines.

  O’Shaughnessy walked him toward it. “And you saw him sitting here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Reading one of those magazines?”

  “Yes. He was, now that you mention it.”

  The magazines were indeed about automobiles, Mercedes automobiles.

  “I don’t know the lad myself, personally, but he does bear a certain resemblance to the father. I’m sure it was him.”

  Another liar, O’Shaughnessy thought, although he could be wrong.

  “Much trade yesterday?” O’Shaughnessy asked as the other man went through the stack of yellow service chits.

  “Holidays. Get the car serviced before buzzing down to the country. That class of thing. It’s always a busy time for the boys in the garage.”

  “Your service manager, Doyle. Are you aware that he has a prison record?”

  O’Reilly straightened up, handing a sheet of flimsy copy paper to the superintendent. “Really now—if we can’t forget a man’s past, a man who’s suffered enough, as I understand it…”

  “How so?”

  O’Reilly’s hand went back in his pockets, deep. “I consider that his business.”

  Two hours’ labor, 2:30 to 4:30, at 6 pounds per hour, 30 pence tax.

  O’Shaughnessy asked if he might take the afternoon’s slips with him.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” said the woman at the desk, “but as you can see I need them for billing purposes.”

  “And we’d have to know what all of this is about,” O’Reilly added.

  “Then you’re going to force me to get a court order for them?”

  O’Reilly glanced away. He cocked his head to one side. A man in his thirties, his dark hair was just beginning to gray. He had a round face with a long sloping nose and a prominent chin. “Let’s say that for the present I’d just like to think the whole thing over.”

  After phoning Murray, O’Shaughnessy thought. And the call would go through post haste.

  “Have you no children yourself?” the woman asked McGarr.

  “None. No—” McGarr reached up and with two knuckles plucked at the child’s cheek, “—nippers.” He looked fondly at the little boy who was sitting on his knee and bounced him a bit. With his right hand he reached for the teacup on the table, which was covered with an assortment of biscuits, breads, jams, and a box of sweets—bonbons and creams mostly.

  The kitchen was startlingly modern, all porcelain and chrome appliances with stark white wal
ls that the sliding glass doors to the terrace and back garden made brilliant. On a counter a portable television was showing a soap opera beamed in from a commercial British station, and at the beginning of the viewing hour a replica—rather, the model—of the kitchen had appeared in most of the advertisements for home-care products. Now the volume was turned low.

  McGarr had gained access to the Brady household by dropping the fact that it had been he who had discovered the bomb in the Caughey car.

  “A bomb and not just a scare, was it?” she had asked.

  “Aye, a bomb, Missus Brady. And wired to the clutch. Didn’t I almost step on it myself.” McGarr had then touched his brow.

  “Why, you look…famished. Parched. Amn’t I right, Inspector?”

  “Chief Inspector,” McGarr corrected, knowing it would matter to her.

  The other neighbors who had been led to safety several streets away had only just been returning, and they had stared inquiringly at the Brady doorway and the many hatboxes that McGarr had stacked in it.

  “Would you care to see my papers?”

  “Ah, no, no—come in, sir. Out of the sun. It’s blazing today.”

  And in the Brady flat, too, McGarr had found the welcome relief of air conditioning. Brady himself was a manager at the Philips Electrologica data processing firm. “We got a big mark-off on the machine,” which she pronounced mashsheen, “but I needn’t tell you the current is expensive. It’s only on days like this—

  “But they’re Belgians, you know. Philips. And they make my Tommy work awfully hard. He says we can afford it. Still, it’s only on days like this—

  “It’s about the poor old woman that you’ve come.” She had scurried around the kitchen, readying the table, filling a pot with water, taking this and that from the metal cabinets around the kitchen.

  “Tony, you little brigand, put that down.”

  She was from the country and her mind was quicker than her tongue. She was again wearing the cardigan and the gray woolen dress that he had seen her in the night before, and the pink fluffy booties that looked like two dust mops on her thin legs.