The Blood Dimmed Tide (20 page)

Yeats appeared and looked with confusion at our grim faces. A foaming wave washed against our feet and the sides of the barrel, sloshing the water within. The corpse moved gently, not living human movement, more like that of a huge dying fish, floundering within the creaking barrel. The head sank beneath the water. Under Grimes’ instructions, the policemen pulled the collars of the corpse’s uniform, so that the face was clear again, chin tilted upwards, standing drunkenly to attention, froth bubbling from the gaping mouth, the defeated, wide-open eyes looking too small for the bloated face.

Grimes inspected the floating body, squinting as if he might see some lingering essence, some spirit escaping from the captain’s remains. He straightened up again, and his face went dark with suspicion.

‘Captain Oates has been murdered,’ he announced.

Not just killed or drowned, like Rosemary O’Grady, I thought.

‘He was a good man, a loyal servant to the Crown,’ fumed the Inspector. He stared at the sea, his eyes blazing with anger.

Yeats said nothing. His eyes widened at the sight of the barrel being emptied, and Oates’ body, loose-limbed, heaving onto the sand, the uniform bloated like an air bladder. Yeats’ body sagged, his knees crumpled and he fell sideways.

‘Someone get a doctor,’ I said urgently as I rushed to the poet’s aid. ‘He was suffering from concussion earlier.’

An hour later, a doctor arrived with a hearse pulled by a pair of horses for the body of Captain Oates. Yeats was just stirring back to consciousness, and promptly fainted again at the sight of his transport. The doctor checked his vital signs and organised a stretcher to lift him into the hearse along with the corpse. It was just as well that Yeats remained unconscious as they set off on the journey back to Sligo.

‘The coward has gone, and now I am left with the fool,’ said Grimes approaching me with an air of menace. ‘I want you to accompany me to Sligo Barracks, Mr Adams, while Ireland’s poet laureate recovers from his fainting fit.’ He smiled thinly at my reluctant reaction. ‘Don’t be alarmed, it’s just an informal visit. You’re not under arrest.’

‘If I’m not under arrest then why should I go there?’

He shrugged. ‘I thought you might be interested in meeting the ghost of Miss O’Grady.’

20

Ten of Pentacles

SLIGO Barracks and gaol were less a building and more a sprawling block of darkness contained within high walls protected by a barrier of rotating spikes. Opaque leaded windows, no larger than household bibles, ensured that little light penetrated the depths within. A group of women were holding a protest with placards at the gates when the Inspector and I pulled up. They had travelled from evening Mass to shout out the names of loved ones beneath the greasy railings. As we passed, they made the sign of the cross.

‘Be gone, ye unbaptised heathens,’ roared Grimes.

He led me through a series of iron doors which slammed behind us with a heavy clang. We passed a row of cell doors that must have opened into spaces no larger than coffins. The place reminded me of a dingy public bathhouse. A poster on the walls illustrated the difference between a dozen different types of human parasite. A fire hose lay coiled in the corner, and water gleamed in the cracks of the stone floor. I tried to affect the attitude of a welfare committee member inspecting the prison conditions.

‘It must be difficult running a prison during a time of great unrest,’ I said, in a foolish attempt to fill the cold void of the corridor.

‘Influenza helps,’ he replied gruffly. ‘Last winter’s epidemic cleared out more than half the cells. Of course, we filled them again within a month.’

A guard checked me for concealed weapons and removed my notebook and pen. He stopped just short of inspecting my head for lice. Grimes fiddled with some keys hanging from a chain, barely suppressing a cruel smile.

‘Are you prepared to make contact with the dead, Mr Adams?’ he asked. He appeared to enjoy the look of uncertainty that flashed across my features. ‘You’ll soon see that our newest prisoner is a little different from the usual thugs and hooligans we apprehend.’

A tray containing an untouched bowl of congealed porridge and a mug of thin tea sat by the door. ‘She is refusing to eat. I believe the tactic is called a hunger strike. But then starving oneself shouldn’t be too difficult for someone who is supposed to be dead.’ He swung back the grille with a heavy clunk. ‘Let me introduce you to the ghost of Rosemary O’Grady.’

For a moment, I was mesmerised by the sight of the young woman sitting serenely in a corner of the cell. She was dressed in a long black cape with a hood. Her appearance had changed since the last time I had seen her. There was a white pallor to her cheeks and dark petals of sleeplessness lay beneath her eyes, an effect produced, I realised, by heavy make-up. It was Clarissa Carty dressed up as a stage ghost.

‘Who is she?’ I enquired, afraid to take my eyes off her in case my alarm betrayed me. It occurred to me that the Inspector might already know we were acquainted.

‘A Daughter of Erin.’

‘Why have you arrested her?’

‘Because we believe she is behind the murders of Rosemary O’Grady and Captain Oates.’ He watched me closely. ‘Don’t you recognise her?’

‘Not at all.’

‘She was the fiancée of Richard Denver. She says the two of you are friends.’

We both stared at her without speaking.

‘Look,’ said Grimes. ‘Look at the way she is smiling.’

She was motionless, staring at the dank wall before her, smiling as though she approved of everything that was happening to her.

‘Does she know we’re watching her?’

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘She wants us to see her smiling. She wants us to believe that she is afraid of nothing.’

‘What evidence do you have against her?’

‘We found her with a magic lantern, a device used by charlatans to conjure up the images of ghosts. She confessed to haunting Oates to drive him out of his wits and divert suspicion.’

‘That’s plausible, but why would she kill him, or Miss O’Grady, in the first place?’

‘Jealousy. The two of them were competing for the attention of Captain Oates.’

‘But Captain Oates was the enemy.’

‘And Miss O’Grady was the prettier. These women think solely in terms of violence and murder. Her thwarted desire to be loved by Oates was transformed into a desire for revenge.’

Grimes beckoned me away from the cell door and led me down the dank corridor into a small room that had a haggard, functional look, ready for any purpose its inhabitants saw fit to pursue. I felt unsure of myself. If this were an interview room, I expected something a little more formal, a desk, a flag, a portrait of the King. I wondered what previous unfortunates had been brought through the same door, and what fate had befallen them within those four blank walls. Someone banged on a door in the next room; the noise was raucous, like that of many fists. A shiver crept up my spine.

The Inspector removed his cap. ‘This is one of our guest rooms,’ he said with a smile that was not at all welcoming. ‘Our visitors seldom complain about the lack of furnishing.’

In spite of the room’s dank cold, he was perspiring along his forehead. Trickles of sweat curled along his thick sideburns. A pair of fists kept doggedly pummelling the other side of the wall. So far, all I had seen from the Irish Constabulary was normal police work, or at least nothing that necessitated direct medical intervention. However, that was about to change dramatically.

Grimes stared at me closely, as though he badly wanted something I had, but didn’t know how to ask for it.

‘As an Englishman, do you swear to stand against the Irish insurrection and the leprosy of Roman Catholicism?’

‘Your oath is phrased a little too strongly for my liking.’

Grime’s face darkened like a dying lamp. He drew out a baton with a flourish and swung it into my left side, just below my ribs. I slumped against the wall, in gasping acknowledgement of his brute strength.

‘This is not the time to play the pedant, Mr Adams.’

The knocking on the wall stopped and the room went quiet. Grimes stood above me, staring at me attentively. The lack of noise made everything seem far away, like it was a game, or a play I was watching, as though he were only pretending to torture me.

He hauled me to my feet.

‘It’s time to drop the fairy-tale act, Mr Adams. Miss Carty has admitted to everything. There were never any ghosts.’ Another blow landed on my ribs.

‘What have I done to deserve this?’ I wheezed.

Grimes snorted in derision. ‘We know of your secret alliance with Maud Gonne and her bloodthirsty rebels. Who knows how deep your betrayal of your country goes?’

‘What do you mean by betrayal?’ I now felt well and truly trapped within the maw of Sligo prison.

‘I believe your purpose here is to sow confusion and disrupt the work of the police and His Majesty’s Crown forces. With all these daft rumours flying around about spirits and diabolical possessions, your ploy was to distract us from something much more sinister.’ He strode back and forth. ‘I want you to tell me about the German plot.’

‘What German plot?’ I stared at him blankly, wondering who was the one indulging in fairy stories.

‘Where is Madame Gonne, the provocateur and spy?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What part does Mr Yeats play in this treacherous fabrication?’

‘None.’

He lost his temper and yelled in my ear, ‘You’re a spy, Mr Adams.’ His hands flexed around his baton. ‘Who are you? What is your role here?’ He poked the baton into my ribs.

‘I’m a secretary to the Order of the Golden Dawn.’ I grimaced against the pain.

He pushed me forcibly to the floor, as though he were about to club a dog.

‘I’m an Englishman, not a spy,’ I complained. ‘I don’t belong to any violent organisations and I’m not plotting with the rebels.’ I breathed in tightly. ‘I have a right to be questioned in a fair and appropriate manner.’

‘Fair and appropriate’s alright in England. But we’re far from England now. Don’t you know it’s not only ghosts that have a habit of disappearing in this part of the world?’

I braced myself but the unexpected rustle of a newspaper behind us interrupted the Inspector’s line of direct questioning. I turned and saw Marley rise from a bench in the shadows by the door, and walk casually towards us. He had been watching the entire interrogation.

‘That’s enough, Inspector,’ he said and ordered him to leave the room. Grimes pulled his cap low over his sweating forehead and slammed the door behind.

Marley smiled at me, it seemed, without malice or cruelty.

‘I want you to confide in me, Mr Adams. Tell me about this trouble you’ve got yourself into.’

I sensed that he and Grimes were playing a game, and that his gentler approach was part of a carefully orchestrated plan to break my mental defences.

‘If you and Mr Yeats had any common sense you would see how your so-called supernatural investigations seem to everyone else. The self-indulgent antics of two morbid schoolboys. If these weren’t such dangerous times, they’d be the stuff of comedy.’

‘Our investigation is guided by the instructions in Rosemary’s letter. Our object is to move beyond the surface of things.’

‘You’re still intent on searching for this ghost even though Clarissa Carty was obviously behind the hauntings.’

‘If anything, I’m more curious than ever.’

‘I’m beginning to suspect you and Mr Yeats are the fanatics, not the Daughters of Erin.’

‘Two people have been murdered,’ I declared. ‘Surely, we can’t allow evil to triumph. Even if it is on one small remote beach. It will go on to contaminate the rest of the country.’

‘These things are best left in the hands of the police, who are convinced they have arrested the perpetrator.’ His tone remained mellow. ‘Why do you ignore my warnings and keep returning to Blind Sound?’

‘When someone dies there is a theory that for a short while their spirit lingers in that place.’

‘Rosemary’s murder allows you to prove a theory?’

‘And in so doing find out how she died.’

‘Assuming you make contact with the right ghost.’

He stared at me for a while. Neither of us spoke.

‘I’m still wondering what to do with you,’ he said eventually. ‘I’ve listened to your self-justifications, and I’ve heard what Grimes thinks of your involvement with the Daughters of Erin. Who do you think I should put my faith in?’ He began pacing the room. ‘I didn’t get to be where I am today by believing in the excuses of suspects,’ he warned me.

For a moment, I felt overwhelmed by the sensation that the room was retreating deeper and deeper into the corridors of the prison. Taking me further and further from freedom and the normal rules of a civilised society.

Marley watched me with his sceptical eyes, without blinking. I could see that he was indeed a loyal servant to the machine of the Crown forces, unwavering in his cold devotion, standing by while fellow Irishmen were flung into the grinding teeth of the same machine.

‘Rosemary’s ghost brought you to this gaol,’ he said. ‘Now that you know there was no ghost, what you do from now on is entirely your own responsibility. Will you allow yourself to be deluded and tricked like Captain Oates, or will you turn back from this dangerous precipice?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I’ll be honest,’ he sighed. ‘I don’t care. But I can tell you there is no mystery to be uncovered at Blind Sound. I want you to consider your actions very carefully. I want you to think of what’s best for a man with Mr Yeats’ reputation, to keep going forward, or turn back.’

‘Surely, that’s up to Mr Yeats?’

‘Of course, but the point is Mr Yeats does not always know when to turn back. Like every Irishman he’s haunted by his own ghosts.’

‘Really? What ghosts are haunting you?’

He never answered my question. To demonstrate that he was in control, he led me briskly out of the room and back down the corridor. However, something told me that not even he was fully in command of what was happening.

I told him that I had heard rumours of a Republican spy within the British forces in Sligo. He showed little sign of surprise at my claims.

‘Do you have any names?, he asked.

‘None whatsoever. I only know that the source is highly placed.’

‘That is indeed very interesting, Mr Adams.’

However, he seemed unconcerned, which suggested to me that he wasn’t the informant.

‘It would be a good idea for you to mention this to Inspector Grimes,’ added Marley, and then he left me at the prison gates.

‘That was your final warning, Mr Adams,’ he shouted after me.

A cold sea breeze swept through the town, scattering the abandoned placards of the women protesters. A silvery moon caught glinting reflections in the wet cobbles as I crisscrossed the empty streets hoping to find some breathing space for my confused thoughts.

The jealousy of a love rival seemed too simple an explanation for Rosemary’s death. Nor did it explain why her body was washed ashore in a coffin. I wondered had Clarissa been acting alone in her plot to haunt Oates, or had she the support of the Daughters of Erin and Maud Gonne? Ghostly tricks usually required the efforts of more than one person. Were they part of a political campaign to frighten Oates out of his wits and render him so powerless he could be manipulated like a puppet? A feeling of unease welled within me. There was something about the picture I could not see clearly. My head burning with questions, I left the grim coldness of Sligo gaol behind and headed straight for Yeats’ hotel.