The City of Strangers. Michael Russell

Stefan nodded, he wasn’t sure that handing the thing over to Special Branch was the answer to that; kid gloves weren’t their speciality.

      ‘You fly to New York the day after tomorrow.’

      Stefan was surprised; he had assumed he would be going by boat.

      ‘You’ll know the flying boat service has just started operating from Foynes. I won’t tell you what it’ll cost, but somebody seems to think the wrong headlines will cost more. It will get you to New York in less than twenty-four hours. You’ll be there two days and then straight back. A boat’s going to take more than a fortnight. Right now the kid gloves are yours, Stefan. I don’t need to tell you Terry Gregory thinks this is shite. He may be right, but I’m doing it the way I’ve been asked, softly-softly. My office will make all the arrangements. There’s a detective here to fill you in. He’ll take you to see the superintendent.’ Ned Broy laughed. ‘Don’t expect much of a reception.’

      As he left the Garda Commissioner’s office Stefan was surprised to see that the detective waiting for him was not the surly, jumped-up bollocks from Special Branch he was expecting, but the large and familiar figure of Dessie MacMahon, once his partner in the detectives’ office at Pearse Street Garda station. Dessie and Stefan had kept in touch over the years, but it was still a while since the two men had seen each other.

      ‘How’s it going, Sarge?’ grinned Dessie.

      ‘You tell me, Sergeant,’ Stefan answered. ‘It is sergeant now?’

      ‘Well, if you sit on your arse long enough –’

      ‘So what’s this got to do with you?’

      ‘They’re stuck with me. I was the first detective into Herbert Place. The maid called Pearse Street when she went into the house and saw the state of Mrs Harris’s bedroom, the blood that is. So I’m working out of Dublin Castle for the time being. But everybody’s getting a look in on this one, I tell you. I don’t know why. Superintendent Gregory decided the son killed the old lady the day they found her car at Shankill. But you still can’t move for inspectors and superintendents and chief superintendents. We’ve got Inspector O’Sullivan and Superintendent Dunlevy from Dún Laoghaire, Chief Superintendent Reynolds from Headquarters, Superintendent Clarke from Bray, not to mention Special Branch calling the shots at the Castle.’

      ‘You know I’ve got to bring Harris back from New York?’

      ‘I’ve to take you to see Superintendent Gregory,’ nodded Dessie. ‘You know you’ll be getting more of a bollocking than a briefing from him?’

      Stefan smiled. ‘Let’s get on with it so.’

      ‘He’s busy at the moment. He’ll be out at Corbawn Lane later.’

      ‘Corbawn Lane where –’

      ‘Where Mrs Harris’s car was. It’s where he dumped her in the sea.’

      ‘So what do we do now?’

      ‘The only instructions I’ve got are that you’re a fucking messenger boy and that’s how you’re to be treated. You’re not a fucking detective. You’re not part of the fucking investigation. Nobody’s to tell you anything about anything, or give you even a sniff of the job. You’ll be bollocked when the super’s got the time. Apart from that, Mr Gregory didn’t tell me to welcome you aboard, but I’m sure if he wasn’t so busy he would have.’

      They walked out of Garda Headquarters.

      ‘I tell you what I’d like to do?’ Stefan gave Dessie a wry smile. It was a long time since he’d been this close to a murder. ‘Have a look at Herbert Place. That’s where she was killed? So if you were the first one in there –’

      ‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’

      ‘Yes, so it’ll be more than your job’s worth. Is that right?’

      Detective Sergeant MacMahon grinned.

      ‘With a bit of luck.’

      *

      ‘Blood.’

      As Detective Sergeant Dessie MacMahon started to climb the stairs of the big Georgian terrace in Herbert Place he pointed at the fifth tread, without stopping. Sergeant Stefan Gillespie did stop, bending to look down at the dark, densely patterned stair carpet; red, black, yellow, thistle-like flowers endlessly repeated. Only the chalk marks showed him where to look; a small brown stain stood out against yellow and red.

      ‘Blood.’

      Dessie pointed at two of the uprights on the grey-painted banister. It was a long time since they had been painted. Again only traces of chalk made the smears of brown that could have been almost anything, or even nothing at all, immediately visible.

      ‘Blood.’

      As he carried on Dessie’s left hand gestured at a chalk circle beside two crooked picture frames. They had been recently knocked askew; an oval, ebonised frame enclosing a sepia photograph of a heavily bearded man in a frock coat; a chipped, gilt square of plasterwork surrounding a sampler that was a map of Ireland with the counties outlined in green thread. Between them another streak of something brown marked the muddy swirls of the embossed wallpaper. Where the frames had moved they revealed that once the indeterminate colour of the wallpaper had been a startling emerald green. There was little wallpaper to be seen however.

      The staircase wall, like the walls of the hall and the landing above it, was lined with pictures, maps, photographs; paintings of dogs and horses; faded prints of flowers; maps of Ireland, Britain, India, the Mediterranean. The mostly Victorian men and women who gazed out of the heaviest frames, with a mixture of confidence and disapproval, looked old whatever age they were. It was all heavy, dark, as if the images and colours lining the walls had faded into a uniform smog.

      Dessie stopped as the staircase turned to the right, on to the landing, where the repeated pattern of the carpet stretched left and right along the corridor, between the gloomy, embossed walls and the grey-painted doors. It was lighter here though. A window gave on to Herbert Place below. Dessie was slightly breathless. A larger, elliptical chalk circle spread out on to the landing from the top stair; the bloodstains were clearer here.

      ‘She must have been carried out the bedroom. But the body was put down here a moment. There’s more blood on the walls up there, and on the pictures.’ Dessie gestured to the left, along the corridor, where several more prints and photographs hung at odd angles. ‘Either he put her down or he dropped her.’

      Stefan looked. Dessie walked on past two closed doors.

      The third door was open. Through it was a big bedroom as cluttered and claustrophobic as the hall and the landing. There were clear signs of a struggle: smashed ornaments, pictures knocked off the walls, a broken chair, a table on its side, sheets and blankets pulled across the big bed on to the floor. But where the smell in the hallway and on the landing was of polish and dust and years of airlessness, the smell here was of smoke and burnt wood; not strong but acrid and sharp.

      Dessie took out a packet of Sweet Afton and lit a cigarette. Stefan walked into the centre of the room. There were two small rugs, though it was clear the rest of the floor had been covered until recently too. The floorboards were grimy with age but they had only been varnished at the edges of the room. A carpet must have covered the area in front of the bed, though it wasn’t there now. Close to the bottom of the bed the floorboards were blacker than elsewhere, charred. Stefan looked at the black patch and bent down. He rubbed something that was like charcoal on to his fingers.

      ‘Just in time, I’d say.’

      Dessie nodded. ‘When the maid came in there was an electric fire on. It must have been going full pelt for a couple of days. The boards were starting to burn underneath. If she hadn’t come back when she did the place would have gone up so. She threw a bucket of water over it.’ He laughed and drew in some more smoke. ‘She fused the whole house, but it did the trick.’

      ‘So do you think