The City of Strangers. Michael Russell

Dessie had said.

      ‘And how many detectives are there on this?’

      ‘They’re looking for the body, Sarge.’ Dessie laughed again. He was still calling Stefan ‘Sarge’, though he was now a sergeant himself; old habits. He was enjoying this conversation; old habits, old times. ‘Nobody’s got any doubt about what happened. I don’t know whether Owen Harris really thinks he’s coming home for a chat, but I’d say he could be coming back for the long drop. As for the Sweepstake business, it’s nothing to do with anything, I’ve been told. I’m not saying they’ve got it wrong, but no one wants to know any more. If he was here he must have been here with the body.’

      Stefan nodded. Maybe there were other things to find out. Maybe for some reason there were things to find out that nobody really wanted to look into. But there were enough facts to make it hard to see beyond Owen Harris killing his mother and dumping her body out here.

      He looked at the sea for a moment. He knew the smell of all this now. There were people who mattered in it. There were lids to be kept on things. There was a show to put on at New York’s World’s Fair that was far more important than a squalid and brutal murder in Ireland. There were reputations riding on it. There were newspaper headlines that Ireland’s hard-earned money had bought. Now there was the country’s Hospitals’ Sweepstake too; it brought in money the country didn’t have, to pay for hospitals it desperately needed, money from all over the world; it was money that would dry up in the face of newspaper headlines about laziness, incompetence, fraud. Stefan could see now why the investigation was in the hands of the Special Branch.

      There was a crime to solve that seemed to have an easy, ready solution. But it had to be solved in a way that meant it was contained and controlled. Special Branch was there to make sure there was no spillage. He was a part of the politics now.

      The Garda Commissioner was sending him to New York because he could bring Harris back to Ireland with the lid firmly on; without giving him the slightest idea he might be coming home to hang.

      ‘Enjoying yourself, Sergeant Gillespie?’

      Stefan turned at the sound of a voice behind him. Introductions were unnecessary. Superintendent Gregory knew who he was, that was clear.

      ‘It’ll be a treat for you, coming all the way to Dublin on the train.’

      Terry Gregory was in his mid-fifties, his face round and red in the way that marked out detectives who spent more time in the pub than the office. He wore a black overcoat that was too small for him, a brown trilby that was too big. The smile on his face was temporary; it would change to a sneer shortly. But the smile, like the imminent sneer, advertised displeasure.

      Behind him stood two detectives in belted raincoats and hats, like leftovers from an IRA demob sale. They were there because Special Branch superintendents never travelled alone. It would not be their job to speak.

      ‘So, you’ve been specially asked for by Mr Mac Liammóir?’

      ‘It seems that way, sir.’

      ‘Close to him are you?’

      ‘I’ve met him.’

      ‘You’d be well advised to guard your backs with this one, lads.’

      The two detectives laughed; that was one of their jobs.

      ‘Still, you’re down in Wicklow with the mountainy men and the sheep shaggers, so maybe you’ll be just the man to take our Mr Harris in hand. So what’s it about, Sergeant Gillespie? That’s what I’d like to know. What are you doing here, and why the fuck is Ned Broy sending you to New York? You’re only a culchie station sergeant who couldn’t make it as a detective.’

      ‘I’m here because I’ve been told to be here, sir.’

      ‘And I’ve told Ned Broy what I think about it.’

      ‘He did say something about that.’

      ‘I see, you think you’re a clever fucker as well, do you?’

      Stefan said nothing. Gregory turned to Dessie.

      ‘And what the hell are you doing?’

      ‘Nothing, sir,’ replied Detective Sergeant MacMahon.

      ‘No, nothing is what I told you to do, Dessie, but what you’ve been doing is taking our farmer’s boy on a scene-of-crime tour, as if he’s got something to do with this investigation.’

      He swung round to Stefan again; any trace of a smile was gone now.

      ‘I don’t like people interfering with what I do. I don’t care if they come from Garda HQ or the Taoiseach’s office, it pisses me off. Now they’re coming from the poofs’ paradise at the fucking Gate Theatre. I’m stuck with you because Ned Broy hasn’t got the balls to tell the politicians where to put it. So this is what you do, Stevie boy. You get the plane, you look out the window with your eyes agog, and you go to New York. You get back on the plane with Harris and sit next to him until you get off at Foynes next week. I’ll be there, and when you’ve handed him over to me, you get the next train back to Baltinglass. In between you don’t ask him anything, you don’t talk about what happened, about Mrs Harris’s death, about how he killed her, what he did with the body, where he went, who he saw, who he spoke to. You do nothing that could fuck this up. You’re the courier and he’s the parcel. Is that clear enough?’

      ‘I’d say so. But what do I do about him talking to me?’

      Superintendent Gregory had given Sergeant Gillespie his orders. He wasn’t asking to have a conversation about it. ‘You tell him to shut up too.’

      ‘What about the Gate?’ asked Stefan quietly but insistently.

      ‘Would you like me to write it down, Sergeant?’

      ‘He’s got friends there. He’s been with them since the day after the murder. He’s been shut in a hotel room with some of them since he agreed to come back to Ireland. Wouldn’t you want to know what he’s been saying?’

      ‘I’m sorry, Stevie, I didn’t realise Ned told you to take over.’

      ‘It’s a simple question, sir.’ Stefan allowed his irritation to show.

      Terry Gregory walked forward until he was only inches from him. For the first time he spoke very quietly. The whiskey was strong on his breath.

      ‘You might not have much of a job down there, Sergeant, but if you screw this up, you’ll be sitting on an island off the Atlantic till the day you draw your pension. Nobody wants to know what you think. Now fuck off.’

      He spun round and strode rapidly across the grass. The Special Branch detectives followed him. There was only the sound of the sea breaking slowly, rhythmically on the rocks below. Dessie MacMahon too started back towards the house.

      Stefan was still for a moment. It was a peaceful place. The thought of what had happened barely a week ago seemed to collide in his mind with the image of a small boy playing in the garden, running down to the sea. He looked at the boarded-up French windows and remembered a photograph on the bloodstained wall at Herbert Place. He had barely noticed it, yet it had stayed in his head; a boy, freckled, in shorts and a white shirt and sandals, smiling by the same big windows, wide open then, pulling a wooden cart full of sand.

      Stefan heard the buzz of the plane, searching for any signs of Leticia Harris’s body. He turned and walked on after Dessie.

      *

      It was just starting to get dark as Stefan Gillespie walked through the fields on the western side of the farm at Kilranelagh, across the Moat Field towards the woods that abruptly fell down the steep escarpment on the far side of the townland. The sheep were thick-coated and filthy with the winter’s rain; the grass was bare and poached, still waiting for the spring flush to show. He noted a ewe hobbling painfully, another down on her knees trying to find some grass worth eating. He had meant to help his father with the foot rot at the weekend; he wouldn’t be here.