A June of Ordinary Murders (29 page)

‘Please, Mister, I don't want to get into trouble. I can't tell you anythin'. Let me go now please.'

He lifted her empty glass and sniffed. It was a rough, almost raw gin, imported from England and probably mixed with illegal spirit – poteen.

‘I'll get you another one of these, Hetty. All I want to do is talk to you for a few minutes. Nobody needs to know.' He rose and checked that the door of the snug was shut, then he went to the hatch. He rapped hard on the counter and indicated a refill to the barman.

‘And a Tullamore for myself,' he added hopefully, recognising that in these premises ordering any branded spirit was a pointless exercise. Virtually everything crossing the counter was a cheap English import or bootleg whiskey from the Wicklow hills or the midlands.

She took the drink that Swallow had bought and gulped half of it down. She ran her hand through her greasy, dark hair, finding just enough courage in the gin to leer faintly in his face.

‘Right, thanks for the drink. Now, I'm goin' back to me work, you've no right to keep me here.'

At that moment the snug door opened behind Swallow. He turned to see a heavily built man of perhaps 30 years with a thin, black moustache. He wore a dark jacket, a brocaded waistcoat and a bowler hat. His eyes ran from Hetty to Swallow, then they swivelled back to Hetty. Without a word, he stepped backward through the door of the snug and fled.

Swallow knew him. It took a moment to bring the man's name out of memory. Tony Hopkins was a small-time robber, and he was a fence; a receiver of stolen property. Whatever servants and pickpockets could steal, Tony Hopkins could sell on at a profit. Swallow knew he had come to meet Hetty in the snug. He had recognised the G-man and taken off.

‘So you're working for Tony Hopkins?' Swallow looked disapprovingly at Hetty Connors. ‘You're not just an amateur, are you?'

‘It isn't that,' she said with a hint of coyness. ‘Tony an' me … we're sweet on each other, as you might say.'

Swallow groaned silently to himself. There was no point, he knew, in telling Hetty Connors that nothing but grief would lie ahead in any relationship with the likes of Tony Hopkins.

The girl had shrunk back into the wooden banquette, the almost-empty glass clutched in one hand. Swallow reached across the table and wrenched the bag from the other. He opened the cord at its neck and emptied the contents onto the table.

Four pennies, a large, iron key, a gapped, whalebone comb and a small, gold-topped, propelling lead pencil, fashioned from tortoiseshell.

Swallow put his notebook onto the table and opened it at a blank page. He took the top from the tortoiseshell pencil and handed the pencil to the girl.

‘Write your name there, Hetty.'

She sat silently, staring at the floor.

‘Just your name, Hetty. Go ahead.'

‘No, why should I?'

‘Because I'm a policeman and I'm ordering you to do it. If you don't, I'll arrest you for obstruction and land you in jail.'

‘I can't. You know I can't.'

Swallow snapped the cover back on the pencil.

‘I didn't think you had much use for a gold pencil yourself. You can't write. You're a thief, Hetty. How long have you been at it then, sneaking valuables from patients in the hospital? It could be a pencil tonight, maybe a bit of money another time? How much would you get from your fancy-man there with the fine moustache for that pencil? Half a crown maybe?'

The girl began to tremble. She reached for the glass and finished the remainder of her drink. It seemed as if she wanted to say something but no sound came out.

Swallow thrust his right hand to the back of his belt and found his handcuffs. He clanked the steel manacles on the tabletop in front of Hetty Connors, then he got to his feet.

‘Right, we'll go across now to the hospital and we'll see who you lifted this from. Then we'll see what else is missing over the last few weeks or months. I imagine they'll remember that a lot of things have gone missing. Then it'll be the Bridewell for you tonight, court tomorrow and the women's prison for a couple of years.'

Hetty burst into tears. They flooded down her scarred face as she buried her head in her hands.

‘Don't do that, I'll put it back…' she blubbed. ‘I swear it was th'only time I done anythin' like it. I'll tell you anythin' I can about Sarah and wha' happened to her. Just let me off this once. An' I swear it'll never happen again.'

It was an absolute lie, Swallow knew. God alone knew how much the girl had purloined at the hospital. Clearly her
modus operandi
was to meet her fence in the public house, hand over whatever she had collected and then get whatever few shillings he would offer. But it was a small matter compared to the business of murder.

‘Well, you'd best start talking then, Hetty. You can start by telling me about who might have killed her and why.'

‘I swear I don't know.' She rubbed her eyes, reddening the rims even more. ‘All I know is that when we worked together at Fitzpatrick's she was a strange one, always holdin' herself out t' be better 'n the rest of us. She always was goin' on about how she'd come into her own, wha'ever that meant. But I liked her … we stayed friends.'

‘How did you get to work at Fitzpatrick's, Hetty? It must have been hard enough to get to work in a fine house like that?'

She shrugged. ‘They're not that particular about workin' in the kitchen. It was Sarah got me the start.'

She giggled. ‘In truth, it was Sarah writ me a reference for Mr McDonald, sayin' I'd been workin' in a house in Meath. She wasn't a girl who was too bright … too smart like … but she was educated to read an' write ye know.'

Swallow rose, went to the hatch and rapped again for service. The barman silently poured the order a second time. Swallow put a florin on the filthy counter and waited for his change. When the gin and the whiskey came up he passed the girl her glass and sat down again.

‘Tell me about her, Hetty. Had she a man-friend? What did you know about her?'

Hetty gulped from her glass. The third gin was beginning to show its effects. Her head lolled a little sideways and she began to giggle quietly.

‘What? A man-friend with Sarah? Aw … I don' know … I don' think so. She used to be jealous of me because I had Tony. I'd ask her had she any wan special but she wouldn't tell me anythin' like tha'. But who was she anyway? Sure, no more ‘n the rest of us. Wasn't she raised a bastard child in an orphanage?'

She waved her glass unsteadily in Swallow's face.

‘Raised a bastard and not too smart … but always pretendin' she was somethin' better,' she repeated. ‘But sure, who'd blame her? Not me, I wouldn't.'

Swallow sensed that he was getting somewhere.

‘Do you know where she was raised, Hetty?'

‘Oh, some place in the arse end of the bog. Queen's County, she used to call it, no less, when she was bein' all hoity-toity wi' me and th' other servants in the kitchen.'

‘Can you remember the name of the place?'

‘Somethin' like “Green House,” or “Green…” green somethin'… tha's all I know.'

It meant nothing to Swallow. ‘When did you last see Sarah alive?'

She hesitated. ‘It was one o' them fine evenin's. We'd just meet an' talk, you know, up by the canal. Sometimes one of us would have a bit o' bread and we'd feed the birds there by the water.'

‘You didn't see her on Sunday?'

‘No. Defni'ly not Sunday, I was workin' at the hospital.'

Swallow changed tack.

‘What do you know about Mr McDonald, the butler at Fitzpatrick's, Hetty?'

‘
Misther
McDonald? Tha's … an ould bastard is … McDonald…' Her voice trailed. The three poisonous gins had all but reduced her to incoherence.

‘You didn't get on well with him, I think.'

She looked past Swallow towards the filthy windows of the public house as if trying to recall something important.

‘I'll tell you wan thing about … Mister McDonald – he's not Mister
McDonald
at all. His name is … McDaniel. Sarah told me she was cleanin' his room one day an' she found his army pay-book with his real name on it. He caught her lookin' at it. The language and the curses outta him were all over the house.'

‘Do you know anything more about him? Where's he from? How long has he been working there?'

‘All I know is he's a right oul' bastard … to me and to the rest of the staff. He thinks he's still … still in the bloody army.'

‘He was a soldier?'

‘In one o' them Scottish regiments … or somethin'… bastards. I've heard some of the other servants say so.'

Swallow jotted the details in his book. He stood up. He handed the gold-topped pencil to the girl.

‘Okay, Hetty. You go home now. I don't think you're in much fit state to go to work. But when you next go to the hospital, this pencil goes right back to where you took it from. If you touch one more piece of property there I'll have you in Kilmainham, like I said. You understand that?'

She nodded, and got to her feet uncertainly. She moved past him to the door. Without a word, she exited the snug on unsteady feet. Swallow sat quietly and finished the rest of his drink.

He drained what had been passed to him for Tullamore and left the public house. There was still no breeze, and the air that came up from the river into the narrow lanes and streets of Temple Bar was heavy. He started back towards the Castle.

He checked at the telegraph office, but no messages had been sent through from England. Perhaps, he thought, it was unreasonably optimistic to expect anything given that it was a holiday.

He walked down to Delaney's public house in Parliament Street and ordered cold herring and potato and a glass of ale. The G-men had the city under control, and he reckoned he was under no time pressure to return to his squad on Sackville Street.

When he finished his food he bought a quarter bottle of cheap Tipperary Colleen whiskey from the barman and put it inside his coat pocket. He decided it was time to visit James O'Donnell.

TWENTY-THREE

Swallow signed himself into the cells area in the Lower Yard, scarcely disturbing the G-man dozing at the entrance. He dropped his revolver into a drawer on the duty officer's desk and checked the custody book to see where he would find Horan and O'Donnell.

Horan's cell was next to the entrance. Through the Judas hole he could see that the prisoner was asleep on his bunk. O'Donnell's cell was at the other end of the building. That way no communication would be possible between the two suspects.

When he peered into the second cell, Swallow could see that O'Donnell was sitting upright on his bunk, his head in his hands, staring at the stone-flagged floor.

He opened the cell door and stepped inside.

A gas mantle projected a thin pool of light onto the floor. In spite of the heat of the June days, the place was freezing. The brick walls of the cell, set hard on the rock foundations of the Castle, glistened with damp. An enamel plate and an upturned mug at the end of the bunk indicated that the prisoner had been given something that passed for a meal.

O'Donnell looked up. Swallow was used to seeing the effects of incarceration on people who had been accustomed to their freedom. Anger and defiance gave way to anxiety and agitation, then came withdrawal and depression. Reflexes began to slow, and the capacity to measure time diminished. Isolation, cold and hunger accelerated the processes.

But he had rarely seen so rapid a deterioration. In less than 48 hours, James O'Donnell had changed from a seemingly confident, healthy-looking young man, albeit under the influence of alcohol, to a huddled, shivering wreck. His hands gripped the edge of his bunk. The knuckles gleamed white against the grey blanket. His knees were trembling. Despite the cold, O'Donnell seemed to be perspiring. His forehead and cheeks were damp. There were traces of either dry vomit or food at the corners of his mouth.

‘Good evening, Mr O'Donnell,' Swallow said formally, trying not to display his surprise at what he saw.

He recognised the condition from his own drinking days. O'Donnell was showing classic symptoms of alcohol withdrawal;
delirium tremens,
the ‘DTs.'

He took the Tipperary Colleen from his pocket, thumbed the cork and offered the bottle to O'Donnell.

‘Here,' he said gruffly, ‘get some of that inside you. You'll feel better.'

Without looking at Swallow, O'Donnell put the whiskey to his lips and took two fast mouthfuls, then a third. He handed the bottle back, giving out a deep exhalation that set off a shudder along his whole body.

He raised a hand slowly, recognising Swallow. ‘It's you,' he muttered. ‘Can you get me out of … this bloody place.'

Swallow looked around the cell, feigning surprise.

‘Oh, I don't know, Mr O'Donnell. It's nice and cool in here after the heat outside and all the noise and fuss over the Jubilee. It's quiet and private. And it's better than Kilmainham where they'd have you wearing your fingers out stitching door mats. I'd relax and make the most of it, if I were you.'

O'Donnell put his head in hands again. Swallow could see that the whiskey was being absorbed into his bloodstream. The trembling in his knees had stopped, and the running perspiration was drying.

‘You can't afford to mock me, Swallow. If I'm to be charged you know that your sister is going to come into the frame. Are you willing to see her in prison too?'

Swallow attempted to sound unconcerned.

‘My sister has to look after herself. She should have thought about the implications of getting involved with people like yourself and Horan. In any event, she's only a support player. Whereas you and Horan are what might be called principal actors.'