The Blood Upon the Rose (37 page)

Sir Jonathan glared at Kee. ‘Is this true?’

‘I really think, sir, it would be better …’

‘Listen to me, man. My daughter is a lady, and should be treated as such. Any allegations you have to make you can make in front of us both, as she says. But first of all I want to know why she was brought here without my knowledge. Well?’

This is intolerable, Kee thought. This is a police investigation and an army colonel thinks he can just barge in here and throw his weight about. But the trouble was, Sir Jonathan was very well placed in Dublin Castle.

Kee swallowed his bile and said: ‘She agreed to come, sir.’

‘That doesn't answer the question. If you have any charges against my daughter I ought to be the first to know, damn you!’

‘There are no charges, sir. She was just helping us with identification and answering some questions.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. Is that why you tore her coat?’

‘I’m sorry about that, sir. She got upset and tried to scratch my face.’

Sir Jonathan looked round him, trying to assess the situation. He noticed the embarrassed typist on her chair and realized she must be a female chaperone. Behind Kee was a big, young, stolid-looking detective, standing motionless like a sentry. Kee himself was holding his emotions in, but obviously angry; whether with Catherine or himself, Sir Jonathan was not quite sure. Catherine appeared to have been crying; but there was a sharp, defiant light in her moist eyes, which Sir Jonathan recognized, together with her straight back and slightly lifted chin, as the signal for a major argument. It also, probably, meant that she was guilty of something dreadful.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Tell me from the beginning.’

The bald facts of the story that Kee told him hit Sir Jonathan like a series of blows in the stomach. Throughout it he stood quite still, rigid almost, like a man on parade. He watched Catherine's face and saw that the story was true; and a sense of vast desolation and weariness seeped through him. His right leg trembled, and for a moment he thought he would have to sit down; but that would be too humiliating. He stood stiffly, and anger began to flood through him and give him strength.

He confronted Kee first. ‘You have known this for over three weeks, and never told me?’

‘Suspected, sir. We weren’t sure until a couple of days ago, and we only arrested the young man this afternoon.’

‘That’s not the point. You have had spies following my daughter for over three weeks, while all these alleged events took place, and yet you never saw fit to inform me, her father.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. But my duty is to catch Sinn Feiners, which is what I’ve done.’

Kee felt some sympathy for the man. He imagined how appalled he himself would feel in a similar situation. But it would never arise, he thought. Not with my children. Never.

Sir Jonathan turned to Catherine. Her very silence so far was an admission of guilt. ‘It’s all true, then, I take it?’

She said: ‘I love him. I’ve nothing to be ashamed of. He’s a brave man and an Irish hero.’

No one spoke, and it seemed to Catherine that the words echoed unnaturally loud in the little room, mocking her. Do I believe a single word of that now? she wondered. But if I don’t, there is nothing left. I’ll go mad, like Mother.

And I believed we were coming closer, Sir Jonathan thought. It’s all there in that face: the defiance, the illogical hatred of England with which Maeve used to confront me. But Catherine has a stubborn strength of will that Maeve never had. The determination behind those dark, haunted eyes - that's mine, not Maeve's.

He said: ‘We won’t discuss that here. Inspector, she has identified the young man, you said. Do you have any more questions for her now?’

‘Yes, sir. It’s my belief that Brennan must have told her something of his plans, and who he tried to kill.’

‘Did he?’ Sir Jonathan asked Catherine.

‘No. He wouldn’t be so foolish. Anyway, I don't intend to answer any more questions. I was about to leave when you came in, Father. Unless I am under arrest, that is what I shall do.’ She looked at them, and then made a step towards the door.

‘Catherine!’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘The Assistant Commissioner was murdered the other night. Shot down in cold blood in the street. Would your Sean Brennan have had anything to do with that?’

‘I really couldn’t say, Father.’

‘Could you love a man who had done that? Shot an unarmed man in the street like a coward?’

Her eyes filled with tears. She didn’t answer. After a pause she took another couple of steps towards the door. Her father grabbed her arm and turned her to face him.

‘Did he do it, girl? Did this Brennan kill Radford?’

‘No!’

For a moment the two of them stared into each other's eyes, defiantly. Sir Jonathan let go of her arm. She put her hand on the door handle, but Foster's hand closed over hers.

‘Am I under arrest?’

Kee shook his head. Foster took his hand away, and Catherine walked out into the corridor, alone.

Davis had been busy. He had contacted the Royal Barracks in Benburb Street and arranged for a platoon of soldiers to be ready for a search operation under the direction of Detective Inspector Kee later that evening. They had asked him for the address but he had said that for security reasons the Detective Inspector would only tell them that when he arrived to take charge. The major on the other end of the line had been a little huffy, but Davis had been adamant. There were too many security leaks these days, he said. Procedure must be followed strictly.

Then he had walked around the corner into the small newsagent’s shop in King Street. There was a phone in the back office which Davis was free to use any time. He dialled one of the numbers which Paddy Daly had given him. A woman’s voice answered.

‘Hello. Clancy’s Joiners and Decorators.’

‘Good afternoon. Is Mr Daly there, please?’

‘Just a moment. Who shall I say is calling?’

‘Mr Hanover. It’s about a new job I need a price for.’

There was a pause. The line crackled. A man’s voice came on the line. ‘Paddy Daly here.’

‘Oh, hello, Patrick, this is George Hanover.’ They had settled on the name of the English king as a code word long ago, to show that the message was about a raid. Clancy’s office, at the other end of the line, had a notice outside saying that all kinds of household decorations were undertaken. Davis tried to make all his calls sound like those of a customer placing an order.

‘Yes, Mr Hanover, sir. What can we do for you?’

‘There’s a house in Phibsborough I’d like you to look at: 47 Berkeley Street.’ That was the address Sean had given Kee. Davis was worried that there were probably other Sinn Feiners living there who Kee would arrest when it was raided. Files, too, perhaps; arms. ‘Could you go there today and give me a quotation?’

‘Today is it? We’re a bit pushed. What sort of time?’

‘My friends will be visiting the place in the evening. If you could have checked it out before then I would be most grateful.’

Daly caught the urgency in his voice. ‘Right sir, we’ll do that for you. Is it every room you want seeing to?’

‘Every room. And Paddy, there’s another thing. I’ve got a young friend of yours staying with me. He’s likely to be with us for a few days, I should think.’

There was a sharp intake of breath at the other end. Then Daly said: ‘Who would that be, then?’

There was no code for this sort of message. Davis said: ‘Brennan, Sean Brennan.'’

‘Holy Mary Mother of God.’ Davis imagined the distress at the other end. When he had recovered, Daly said: ‘Well, give the poor lad my blessing. We’ll try to arrange a visit as soon as we can. Would you be able to get round for a chat some time?’

‘I’ll do that,’ Davis said. Can’t give you a time now, though. We’re very busy here.’

‘Sure you will be. Oh, one more thing, Mr Hanover.’

‘Yes?’

‘Our friend that’s visiting you. Brennan. He doesn’t live in Berkeley Street, you know. It’s another place entirely. Tell him his place’ll be empty by this evening, too, will you?’

David heaved a sigh of relief. The address Sean had given Kee was a false one, anyway.

‘I’ll do that, Patrick.’ He hung up, left a few coins by the phone, and walked back through the newsagent’s into the street. If he had time, he thought, he might be able to see Sean before Kee had finished interrogating the girl.

Catherine stood with her father in the downstairs drawing room. Like the dining room, in which she had made her bargain with him all those months ago, it had once been used as a ward for wounded soldiers. Then it had been dirty, carpetless, defaced by the blood, graffiti and despair of those who had used it as a hospital. Now the carpets were thick and soft, the walls were repapered in crimson and cream, the portraits gazed down again with their ponderous gloom. There was a harp and a piano in the corner, and a bright fire blazed in the grate.

Sir Jonathan stood with one hand on the mantelpiece and glared at her. He was still in uniform. The firelight gleamed on his polished leather belt and riding boots, and lit the little coloured flashes of medal ribbons. His back was straight and his face was hard with anger, but Catherine had the sense that underneath it all he was tired, tired to death as she was.

She sat as far away from him as she could, on a music stool in the corner by the harp. She had deliberately not lit the lamp, so she was half in shadow.

‘You were my last child,’ Sir Jonathan was saying. ‘You have defied me enough times before but this time we made a bargain which I thought you would keep. I did not marry Sarah Maidment, I have made everything over to you in my will, and now I find that all this time you have been going behind my back, like a … street girl, it seems. Sleeping with a murderer.’

‘He’s not a murderer, Father, he’s a soldier. He fights for his country like you did. And Richard and John, too. They killed Germans, didn’t they? Wasn’t that murder as well?’

That hurt. When she saw his pain she wished she had not said it. But she was in too much despair to think clearly.

‘If you think that, Catherine, you must be as mad as your mother was,’ he said quietly. ‘Your two brothers were fighting in uniform in the most terrible war the world has ever seen. They gave their lives for king and country. You cannot compare them for a moment with swine who skulk around in back streets in plain clothes, and dash out like cowards to shoot men in the back.’

‘Sean’s not a coward.’

‘Of course he is, they all are. Cowardly murderers who stab us all in the back, like Pearse and his rabble did in ‘16. No better than Whiteboys who cut off the tails of cattle. If he wasn't a coward he’d have joined up to fight for his country.’

‘Father, this
is
his country. That’s what he's fighting for - they all are.’

‘And you think Ireland will be a better place when it’s ruled by a bunch of murderers, do you? Is that what you think?’

‘I think it already is run by murderers.’

She had thought that at that point he would end the conversation entirely, and perhaps throw her out into the street, to take her chance with such of Sean's colleagues as she could find. She had thought of that possibility on the way home, and wondered if she should go to Parnell Square and throw herself on the mercy of whoever she could find. But she had her pride still. Only Sean, in the movement, had really accepted her. Once. Without him there seemed no point. There was a terrible loneliness in leaving the only home she had, with nowhere to go. So she had come back here, more out of inertia than anything else.

She felt enormously tired now. The day had been too full of shocks: the discovery of what Sean had done, his rejection of her, his arrest, and now this. Despite it all she bore her father no ill will: he had even tried to protect her, in his way. It was just that he was so utterly, hopelessly wrong.

To her surprise he flushed, as if embarrassed at the last point. ‘If he did kill someone he'll be hanged, you know.’

‘That’s what I mean.’

To his surprise she did not cry at the thought of Sean hanging. She swept her hands idly, irritatingly across the strings of the harp, then stilled the sound with her arm. She stared at him out of the shadows, still clasping the instrument, which he knew she had never learnt to play. Her arms, in the sleeveless turquoise dress, were bare, and the line of her neck and shoulders was quite slender and beautiful. Her small, delicate face, framed by the short dark hair, watched him so seriously; pale, intent, determined. He thought she would make a marvellous portrait, just like that, if any artist could capture it. A portrait of what, exactly? Of a new type of young woman that I can't understand or control at all, it seems.

How did I get a daughter like this? She had that look on her as a child of four or five, I remember. And she would scream and kick the house down if she didn't get what she wanted then, too.

But, by God, she can't have what she wants this time.

He said: ‘I take it the story the police told me was true.’

‘The details were true. They missed out the fact that it was all done in love. I don’t expect policemen can understand that.’

‘No one could understand a girl like you falling in love with a murderer.’

‘He’s not - Father, you don’t know he is a murderer.’

Sir Jonathan said nothing. He moved away from the fire, and stood looking down at her. The firelight flickered on her smooth, defiant face. He felt an immeasurable sense of desolation.

He said: ‘
You
know, though. Don't you, Cathy?’

She turned her eyes away.

He walked to a cabinet in the corner and poured himself a whiskey. For a while neither of them spoke. Sir Jonathan was glad the room was dark. If his daughter was crying he didn’t want to see. He hoped she was. It would be some small sign of decency, of shared human values.

But I have sinned, too, he thought. I must have done, to have all this inflicted on me. I betrayed her mother, and that was done for love. The boys understood that but this child never forgave me. Now she is all I have left. And she has betrayed me. Perhaps that is my punishment.