A June of Ordinary Murders (52 page)

‘So what happened, Mr Sweeney?' Mossop asked, his pencil poised over his notebook.

‘It hasn't been easy for me, living in denial. Can you imagine if you had to live an artificial life? My father provided for me eventually, when his conscience eventually caught up with him. He saw that I was educated. His influence got me a job in the
Telegraph.
Because of who he is I was able to get introductions to important people. That helped me to be a successful journalist.'

He paused. ‘Some people would say I was lucky. But it's hard when you can't be who you are. And it's hard when you realise that you're a bastard – the unwanted offspring of a relationship that shouldn't ever have happened between a weak man and a bad woman.'

‘Go on,' Swallow said impatiently, ‘we know enough of the family history. I want to know what happened last Thursday when you went to Chapelizod Gate.'

‘You think you know the family history, Sergeant? Well, maybe you know the facts. But you don't know what I had to endure. I spent 12 years along with my sister in a damned hole called Greenhills House. Can you imagine the misery and the loneliness and the cold and the hunger?'

He brought a fist down angrily on the arm of his chair.

‘I don't just mean hunger in your stomach. I mean the hunger of isolation and the lack of any love or affection, under the charge of a so-called guardian. And then, at the end of it all, I had to accept that I had been flung in there, locked away for the years of childhood, because it didn't suit my mother and father to raise the children they had brought into the world.'

Swallow had a momentary recollection of the smells of damp and stale vegetables at Greenhills House. He saw the angry, florid face of the guardian, Richard Pomeroy. Then his mind switched to the image of the dead child inside the Chapelizod Gate, its hands clasped in death, side by side with its murdered mother. Any incipient pity for Simon Sweeney quickly died.

‘It's not a justification for murder,' Mossop said. ‘Your sister wasn't to blame for what your parents did, much less her innocent child.'

‘My sister was like her mother – my mother. She inherited her low ways and her low standards. I won't defend my father but at least he tried to see his son well provided for. My mother was content to see her daughter work as a skivvy in England. And her daughter didn't seem to want any better for herself.'

‘I've told you I don't want to hear any more family history,' Swallow said impatiently. ‘I've asked you to tell us what happened at Chapelizod Gate.'

‘It … it wasn't what I intended. I had lunch with my father that day at his club. We do that maybe once every couple of weeks. He gives me an insight into what is happening among the nationalist politicians, and I can make arrangements to secure column space in the newspaper for his speeches.'

He laughed bitterly. ‘Anybody looking at us together would have seen a prominent public figure dining with a journalist from an influential newspaper. It was very strange, very bizarre. When we would meet it was as if I was dining with two different people at once. At one moment I was talking to a man who had revealed himself as my father. And in the next snatch of conversation he was a politician.

‘On that day he told me that my sister, Louise, was in Dublin. He said she wanted money and that if she didn't get it she would reveal everything about him and about the Fitzpatrick family. She would find some newspaper or gossip sheet to write it all. Louise knew that would destroy him and that he'd be shamed out of public life.'

‘He told me that McDonald was to meet her at the Chapelizod Gate and bring her to a hotel on Thursday evening. He asked me if I would come to meet her. I think he saw brother and sister embracing and reconciling, that kind of thing. I didn't want to argue with him so I said I would be there.'

‘What was the necessity to meet her at the Chapelizod Gate?' Mossop asked.

‘She didn't want anyone to know where she was staying. My mother was close to death but she sent the message to have Louise met at a safe place. It seems that she was in fear of her life because she thought my mother's criminal gang would kill her. So, I went up there. I took the tram to Islandbridge and then walked to the Phoenix Park. All I wanted to do was frighten her, to silence her and to tell her to get to hell out of Dublin and Ireland. That's why I took the gun.'

‘So, what happened to make you do what you did?' Swallow asked.

‘I was puzzled because I saw a man and a child. Then I recognised her in spite of the man's clothing. But I hadn't expected to see the child with her. Fitzpatrick never told me that she had brought the boy across from England. At first she didn't know me. We hadn't met since we left the orphanage. But when she realised it was me she flew into a rage and started to abuse me.'

Sweeney swallowed nervously. Swallow could see stress building.

‘She swore at me. She said I had got all the privileges and that she had got nothing. Then suddenly she took a knife from somewhere and went for me. So I stepped back and I took out the gun. The boy began to scream. She went to stab me with the knife and I moved away but she kept on coming at me. So fired one shot at her. Then the child screamed again and ran over to her. I fired a second shot and it hit him. I didn't mean to.'

‘When they didn't move I realised they were both dead. I knew that if they weren't identified I'd have a better chance of escape. So I took anything that might identify her. She had a ring so I took it off. There was a bundle of clothes and a bag with some women's things wrapped up in a parcel. And … I … I … used her own knife on their faces so it would be a bit more difficult for anyone to recognise them.'

‘I was only there about 10 minutes or so. It was starting to get dark and I saw the clarence coming across from Chesterfield Avenue. So, I slipped in behind the copse and then out of the park through the Chapelizod Gate. I walked to Islandbridge and dropped the knife in the river along with the parcel and her things.'

He looked at Swallow. ‘Now, I've told you all you need to know, Mr Swallow. But I didn't set out to murder anyone. Louise attacked me without provocation.'

He laughed bitterly. ‘My only regret is that I won't be able to write the report on this for the newspaper.'

‘No,' Swallow said. ‘You won't. And if you were to write what you have just told me it would be a tissue of lies. Louise and Richard were shot at point-blank range, executed deliberately. The powder burns on their skin show that the gun was practically touching them when you fired the shots. You think you can put up a story of self-defence or provocation to a court? It won't work. You'll be convicted of wilful murder – twice.'

Sweeney's face had frozen as in shock.

‘I'm telling you the truth. But if … if that's the evidence that you're going to give, they won't believe me. They'll hang me.'

‘You can tell your story in court, Mr Sweeney,' Swallow said reasonably. ‘And I imagine that your father won't see you left without the best legal representation he can afford. Although I think he'll need a few pounds for his own defence as well.'

He stood. ‘Would you please stand and put your hands together to enable Detective Mossop to handcuff you. I'm taking you now the detective office at Exchange Court where I will formally charge you with the murders of Louise Thomas and Richard Thomas.'

‘The handcuffs won't be necessary, Sergeant,' Sweeney said. ‘I'll go along voluntarily.'

‘It's actually a bit late for that. You're under arrest and that doesn't give you any choice. Put your hands together, please.'

Sweeney stood and put his hands out. Mossop snapped the handcuffs on his wrists.

They went down the two flights of stairs to the street. A police sidecar with flickering oil lanterns stood waiting by the kerb.

Mossop stood to one side of the car door. ‘I'll help you up there, Mr Sweeney.'

Sweeney stepped forward. Then his handcuffed fists swept up and took the G-man full in the throat. Mossop gagged as he went down on the pavement beside the car. Sweeney's hands grabbed under the detective's jacket, finding the butt of his revolver. He swung around, the gun gripped between his manacled hands.

‘Tell your men to stay back, Swallow. I'll shoot them. Don't doubt me.' Swallow heard the click as he cocked the hammer.

‘Don't be mad, Sweeney!' Swallow called. ‘Where do you think you're going to get to?'

Sweeney glanced along the street. As he did so, Mossop's right hand shot out, grasping his lower leg.

Sweeney screamed. ‘Let go, back off!'

The manacled hands came down, lashing the gun barrel across Mossop's face. Swallow heard it connecting. But Mossop held on, squirming sideways to get a better grip on his quarry.

‘I warned you!' Sweeney shouted again. He pointed the gun at Mossop's chest and fired. The shot boomed across the street, echoing off the darkened house-fronts. The impact of the bullet propelled Mossop backward to the pavement again, his grip broken, blood spurting from his upper chest.

Sweeney moved back, half running, half stumbling, past the car. Swallow and a constable knelt simultaneously and leaned over Mossop. His eyes were wide in shock.

‘The bastard … with my own fucking gun … I had him…'

‘Get him into that car and around to the Jervis Street infirmary,' Swallow ordered the constable. ‘Move now. Get them to stop that bleeding.'

Sweeney had crossed the quay. He ran towards the Ha'penny Bridge, the pedestrian walkway connecting across the river. Once on the other side, Swallow knew, he would easily lose himself in the alleys and courts of Temple Bar.

At the sound of the shot, Mick Feore had sprinted from his post in Strand Street. Rounding the corner to Ormond Quay he saw the handcuffed Sweeney running to the bridge. He pounded across the street and threw himself forward, taking one of the fugitive's legs in a half-tackle.

Swallow saw Sweeney stumble. The gun flew from his hands and clattered to the street. Sweeney kicked out with his free leg. His shoe connected with Feore's jaw, sending him backward against the quay wall. Now he had a clear path. Swallow started to run, but he was still 50 yards from the northern end of the bridge when Sweeney was halfway across.

Sweeney halted. He looked back and then forward again. Two patrolling constables in night-capes had appeared at the other end of the bridge, blocking off his line of escape. If they were anything less than alert he might surprise them and barge his way past. But the likelihood, he knew, was that they would see him running in handcuffs and seize him.

As Swallow ran he saw Simon Sweeney hoist himself onto a cast-iron lamp standard and step out over the guard rail. The two constables broke into a run. They were seconds from him, night capes flying behind them, as he plunged feet first into the dark, fast-flowing Liffey.

Swallow, Feore and the uniformed officers scanned the water until their eyes were aching. The others strained out across the granite parapets on both sides of the river, eyes sweeping over and back across the currents, but Sweeney did not come to the surface.

FORTY-FOUR

The heatwave broke on the 10th day. The skies over the city started to show trails of grey cloud that darkened during the morning. At noon, a breeze stirred from the west and the temperatures dropped. It stayed dry but the air was softer, indicating that the rain was not far away.

At 4 p.m., His Royal Highness, Prince Albert Victor, the eldest grandson of Queen Victoria, stepped ashore at Kingstown Harbour, accompanied by his younger brother, Prince George.

Two military bands took turns to play on the pier. People lined the promenade in sufficient numbers to please the official welcoming committee. The chairman of the Harbour Commissioners made a speech. The royal visitor smiled and nodded and waved before moving towards the special train that would convey him and his party to the centre of Dublin.

Among the crowd on the promenade, detectives from the G Division watched Patrick O'Reilly and Edward Locke, two young men known to them as members of Dublin's criminal underworld and associates of the organisation calling itself the Hibernian Brothers. Other G-men watched a somewhat older man known to them as James O'Donnell, also a member of the Hibernian Brothers, and listed in police files as unpredictable and dangerous.

Earlier in the day, the officers had noted O'Reilly, Locke and O'Donnell drinking together at a public house on Westland Row in the city centre. Later they travelled out of the city by tram, dismounting for further ‘refreshments,' as the G-men recorded it, at another public house near Booterstown. From there, two hours later, they took a second tram to Kingstown and visited a bar on Marine Road, close to the harbour.

When they emerged, shortly after 3.30 p.m., it was noted that O'Donnell was unsteady on his feet. The three walked to the promenade, joining the crowds of onlookers above the railway platform where the prince would take the train for the city.

At this point, the subjects separated. Two officers watched O'Donnell as he started to move through the crowd, apparently leaving his companions.

The heavier of the two G-men closed with him, seized his left arm and drove it hard up his back as he clicked the handcuffs around the wrist. For good measure, he drove a hard right fist into the prisoner's solar plexus, causing him to gag as his knees went from under him.

When the prince turned to wave before stepping into the train, the other G-men saw O'Reilly and Locke move forward in the crowd. Within seconds they were on them, the first officers pinioning their arms while others plunged their hands into the men's pockets to fasten on the Colt Navy revolvers that they were carrying.

A woman cried out at the commotion. A top-hatted gentleman looked cross and called out, ‘what the devil…?'