The City of Strangers. Michael Russell

he was pursuing, that had disappeared from Paddy Kelly’s farm on Spynans Hill in February. Christy Hannity had bought them from Paddy at a farm sale and swore blind the old man had put them back on to the mountain while he was in the pub. It wasn’t the first time Paddy Kelly had played this trick and got away with it. All he had to say now was that mountain sheep had their own ways and Christy was too drunk to remember what he’d done with them.

      And there were two days wasted on James MacDonald who had assaulted the Water Bailiff, Cathal Patterson, after refusing to give up a salmon found in his possession by the Slaney. He claimed the salmon was a trout, which he had since eaten. As for the Water Bailiff’s nose, didn’t he break it himself, tripping over a dead cat as he was walking out of Sheridan’s Bar?

      It was hard to push the past out of the way altogether as Stefan walked from Kingsbridge Station through the Phoenix Park to the long, low stone building that was part eighteenth-century army barracks and part Irish country house. Nothing very much had happened in the last four years; most of what had, had happened to his son. He had no problem with that; it was why he had left CID, why he had left Dublin, why he went home. But the thought of how easily and how completely he had left behind the job he had always wanted, since the day he joined the Gardaí, had never struck him as starkly before as it did in the few moments he spent waiting outside Ned Broy’s office.

      It hadn’t only been about Tom of course. He had also left because it suited everybody, the Garda Commissioner included. He had been involved in investigating two murders that in the end nobody wanted investigated too publicly. There had been justice of a kind, finally, but it had been a rough justice that the Irish state didn’t want to know about.

      For a time it had been easiest for Detective Sergeant Gillespie to become plain Sergeant Gillespie in a country police station. No one had really meant him to stay there so long. He hadn’t intended that himself. It just happened, because that was what was best for Tom. Now, as Stefan sat in Ned Broy’s office again, he could feel an awkwardness in the Garda Commissioner. Sergeant Gillespie’s submerging in a backwater had not been what he had intended either.

      Whatever was urgent, the Commissioner’s opening words weren’t.

      ‘So, how’s West Wicklow?’

      ‘Quiet enough, sir.’

      ‘You’re keeping Gerry Riordan in check, I hope.’

      ‘Well, mostly he does what he’s told.’

      The Commissioner smiled. There was a moment’s silence.

      ‘You’ve been there a long time.’

      ‘Four years doesn’t seem so long. Time goes fast enough.’

      ‘Bollocks, you’re not old enough to say that yet.’

      Stefan laughed. They were only words, but the Commissioner was looking at him quizzically now, remembering what had happened before.

      ‘Your father’s well? And your lad?’

      The Commissioner had a good memory at least.

      ‘We’re all grand.’

      ‘And you’re happy down the country?’

      ‘Happy enough, sir.’ Stefan was aware that the polite remarks, whatever was about to follow, meant nothing to Broy, but it was the first time anyone had asked him such a direct question about his job, and by extension his life. The answer he gave was the answer any Irishman would give to such a question; an answer that could mean anything from despair to exultation, and everything in between. He was aware that he was avoiding a direct answer, not for the Garda Commissioner’s sake, but for his own.

      ‘A woman is missing.’

      Broy suddenly stood up and moved slowly towards the window that looked out on to the Phoenix Park. The trees were still bare. Spring wasn’t far away now, but it still felt like winter.

      ‘There is every reason to believe she’s dead, and that she was killed.’ He turned back from the window. ‘The fact that she’s missing is the only thing that’s been in the newspapers so far. We can keep it like that for a little longer. And it’s helpful that we do, for various reasons. She is a Mrs Leticia Harris, with a house in Herbert Place.’

      ‘I think I did read something about it, sir.’

      ‘The evidence from the house, along with Mrs Harris’s car,’ continued the Commissioner, ‘indicates that she was the object of a very brutal attack in her home. Her car, however, was found in the grounds of a house close to Shankill, by the sea in Corbawn Lane. It’s clear she had been in the car, or her body had. At the moment we believe she was killed at the house in Herbert Place, or at least that she was dead by the time she reached Corbawn Lane, where the body was probably taken from the car and thrown into the sea. What the tides have done with her is anybody’s guess at this point.’

      It was odd, but Stefan could feel his heart racing slightly. It was an unfamiliar feeling. It was excitement. It was four years since he had worked as a detective, but the instincts that had made him good at his job were still there. He felt as if a light had just been switched on inside his head.

      ‘Mrs Harris has a son. Owen. He’s twenty-one years old. I don’t think we know enough about him to understand what kind of man he is, but we know his relationship with his mother was very difficult, in all sorts of ways. Some of those ways had to do with money. Mrs Harris has lived apart from her husband for a considerable time, over ten years in fact. He’s a doctor, of some note, with a practice in Pembroke Road. From what Doctor Harris has told detectives, I think you’d describe the relationship between mother and son as highly strung, which is a polite way of saying they were a bloody peculiar pair. Superintendent Gregory at Dublin Castle is in charge, but it’s a big operation, involving detectives from several stations, as well as Special Branch. The short version is that we believe Owen Harris murdered his mother and dumped her in the sea.’

      ‘And where is he now?’ asked Stefan. The Commissioner’s tone of voice told him that wherever he was he certainly wasn’t in Garda custody.

      ‘New York.’

      ‘That was quick work.’

      ‘He left from Cobh two days after his mother disappeared.’

      ‘So is he in custody? In New York?’

      ‘No, but we know where he is.’

      The Commissioner sat back down again, his lips pursed. It was more to do with irritation than anything else. Stefan could already sense this case was about more than a suspected murderer. Broy opened a file on his desk.

      ‘Mr Harris is at the Markwell Hotel, which is somewhere near Times Square – 220 West 49^th Street to be exact. It’s felt there’s no need for his arrest or extradition.’

      Stefan was aware this was a slightly odd way of putting it, as if it wasn’t entirely the Commissioner’s decision.

      ‘He’s agreed to come back to Ireland voluntarily to be interviewed, as soon as possible, as soon as practical. That’s why you’re here, Sergeant.’

      This may have been the most interesting conversation Stefan Gillespie had had in a police station since he went to Baltinglass as station sergeant, but so far its purpose was as clear as mud. He looked at Broy blankly.

      ‘The business of bringing this man Harris back from New York is a delicate one. It’s all going to cause a stir when it comes out here, and the powers that be would rather it didn’t do the same thing in New York. Since he’s agreed to return, as I say, simply so that we can talk to him, the decision has been made not to involve the police in New York. Mr McCauley, the consul, has seen him, and there is a feeling that his mental state is – well, I think unpredictable is the word he used.’

      Stefan nodded, as if this clarified things.

      ‘Mr Harris is in New York with the Gate Theatre. He’s some sort of stage manager. They’re on a tour and they’re about to open on Broadway.’