The Blood Upon the Rose (7 page)

‘Can I offer you coffee, Inspector?’

‘No, thank you, miss. I've had my breakfast. I've come to ask you some questions about the shooting the other day.’

‘Yes? I doubt if I can help very much. It was all a bit of a blur, I'm afraid.’

‘Nonetheless, we think we've got some idea who did it. You're a student at University College, I understand.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘I’ve been checking the lists there. You're registered as a first-year medical student.’

A feather of fear brushed the soft hairs on the nape of her neck, as though the man's boots had blundered over her grave. Or Sean's. She gazed at him coldly, noticing for the first time the intelligence of the eyes in the solid, square, working man's face.

‘That's right.’ She sipped her coffee, to give herself time. ‘I don't quite see …’

He held out a photograph. ‘Do you know this fellow?’

It was Sean, of course. She should have known. A fresh-faced, proud smile, collar, tie, very neat slicked-down hair; a photo that might have been taken on prize day at school. This detective was a Belfast man, an outsider - how could he have got hold of Sean's photo so quickly? Her coffee cup rattled in the saucer as she put it down. Kee noted the reaction with interest.

‘Yes, I ... may do.’

‘How do you know him?’

‘Oh, he's just another student at the faculty, I think. I've seen him there in lectures. I don't know him very well.’

‘Did you see him on Friday? At Ashtown Gate?’

‘No.’ A vehement shake of the head.
I'm not Judas, you know
. ‘What sort of chap is he, this Simon Brennan?’

‘Sean. It's . . .
Sean
Brennan, not Simon.’ Catherine spoke more slowly, as she saw it had been a trick, and the hairs rose again along her spine.
Have I betrayed him already?

Kee said: ‘Yes. Sorry. Sean, then.’

‘I don't know. I told you. I don't know him very well.’

‘Well enough to know his name.’

She sighed. This man must be dismissed before he uncovered more secrets. She made her voice frigid, like that of her mother bored by some tedious tenant. ‘Yes, well, that doesn't mean much, does it? Look, Inspector, I don't want to seem rude, but it's not very likely that a medical student would be throwing Mills bombs at the Viceroy, is it? We've got too much reading to do, for a start.’

‘I agree it's not likely, miss, but I regret to say we've quite a lot of evidence to show that it happens. Not everyone behaves as they should, these days.’ He picked the photograph up, as though to put it back in his pocket. Then he changed his mind, and held it between his fingers on his lap, facing her, so that she had to see it or look away. ‘It must have been quite an upsetting experience for you, being in the car. You might easily have been killed. We're very interested to talk to this young lad, you understand. Would you … be likely to be seeing him again?’

She blushed. There was no disguising it. She could feel the warm flush spreading up from her neck, round behind her ears and into her cheeks and forehead, in a way that it had not done for years. In a hopeless attempt to hide it, she stood up and walked to the door.

‘I really couldn't say, Inspector. Certainly not before next term, anyway. It's the vacation now, you know.’

‘Yes.’ Kee stood up too, intrigued. But he did not immediately accept her implied invitation to leave. ‘And of course you don't meet him at any other time?’

‘No, I do not. As I say, I hardly know him.’

‘Fair enough.’ Kee folded the photograph and notebook into his pocket. ‘I’m sorry to trouble you, miss. It must be an unpleasant memory. But if you do think of anything more, you'll give me a ring, won't you? Here's my card.’

She took it, and showed him out.

Now isn't that interesting, Kee thought as he walked away. Nothing is what it seems in this godforsaken city. Here's a young woman with more money than a hundred decent families, her father a personal friend of the Viceroy, no less; and she gets shot at and nearly murdered in his lordship's car by a band of bloodthirsty hooligans. Does she show fear? No - that's breeding for you, perhaps; they're used to being sniped at from childhood. Does she show anger, or a desire to know why we haven't caught the devils? No, not a word. Does she show shock when I show her the photograph? Yes - but she's not shocked as she ought to be, because such a nice young man could be suspected of such a thing. Oh no. She was shocked because I knew about him, that's all. She was quite prepared to believe he might have done it.

He thought about the blush. It had been quite charming, quite overwhelming, quite damning. At the very least it meant that she entertained strong feelings for the young man. Of course, the feelings might all be on one side - he might know nothing about them. But on the other hand, she might already be quite involved with him. They were both young, after all, and good-looking, on the same university course. Such things happen all the time.

But if so, young lady, Kee asked himself, why did you not show anger at the thought that he might have been one of the murder gang? Or is that the sort of behaviour you expect from your suitors? Even when you yourself are in the car?

So what happens now, he wondered. Clearly, he was not going to be very popular if he told Sir Jonathan that his own daughter might be involved with one of the suspects. Equally clearly, it would be sensible to put a watch on this young lady, to see where she went in the next day or so, and who she met.

His main problem was to put himself in the mind of a young female Catholic Anglo-Irish aristocrat, who was apparently consorting with militant republicans. For Kee, a middle-aged Protestant Belfast docker's son, that was a little hard to do.

When Kee had gone, Catherine leaned with her back against the solid front door, feeling that dreadful telltale blush slowly fade. The butler came into the hall and looked at her questioningly. She came to, and shook her head.

‘It's all right, Keneally,’ she said. ‘I showed him out myself. It was the police asking about the shooting.’

‘Yes, Miss Catherine. Have they caught anyone?’

‘No. Not so far as I know.’ She walked past him, up the main stairs, which one of the maids was brushing busily. It was hard to know from Keneally's tone what he thought. Would he be glad if some of the Volunteers had been caught - and hanged? For they would surely be hanged, if they were caught and convicted of this. She did not know. As for what he would think if he knew that his young mistress was in love with one of them … well, butlers were paid to be discreet. That would be a test for him, wouldn't it?

Nevertheless, it was not something she wanted her servants to think about. They were all much older than her, and could hardly be expected to approve of a thing like that. She climbed the great staircase under its ornate plaster ceilings to the first floor, and continued up a slightly less grand one to her own rooms. She shut herself in her sitting room to think.

It was a large, comfortable, untidy room. When she had moved back into the house she had chosen it as a retreat, and that was what it still was. The servants were allowed in only to light the fires, and when she specifically asked them. There were two desks on either side of the window, one cluttered with the accounts and papers for running the house, the other with her essays and lecture notes. In between the two was a long green window seat, which was what she had chosen the room for. She could sit here in the sunshine, and read, or gaze out over the little park in the square and remember what it had been like before the war. For this was the room in which she had slept - or stayed awake, entranced - in those magical times of her childhood.

For the rest, there were several glass-fronted bookcases, some lemon-coloured armchairs, an ottoman, and a number of pictures of lakes, beaches, horses and mountains in Galway, to remind her of Killrath, her other home.

But now, she hurried to the window seat, to see if the detective was still in the square.

He had gone, but the confusion he had left behind him remained.

Sean's act - the bullets through the car window, the blood, the headlong flight through Phoenix Park - had been heroic, romantic, exhilarating. She had felt no fear at all then. But the policeman in her own breakfast room this morning, his big hand holding Sean's photo on his knee, made her feel sick inside. This was no game now, it was real. If her republicanism was anything more than fine words, she had to help Sean now - protect him from those big hands that had held his photo so casually.

She had to see Sean, that was clear. As soon as possible. But how? She did not even know his address; and anyway, if the detective had taken the photograph from his flat, Sean could not be staying there any more. If he went there and was caught, he would be in prison.

Perhaps he was already in prison! The thought made her gasp, like a blow. The Inspector hadn't actually said they were still looking for him, had he? Perhaps they had already caught him and he was refusing to talk. The thought of Sean, alone in some stone cell, made her shudder. She wrapped a shawl round her shoulders, and strode up and down thinking back frantically over the interview. No, surely he had said the police were anxious to talk to him, something like that? Sean must still be free then.

Who would know him, to give him a message? Professor O'Connor perhaps, the people from the Gaelic League in Parnell Square. But the classes were closed for Christmas. And anyway, what would she say? The police are after you, they've got your photo, please be careful. That was silly, he must know all that already. Perhaps not about the photo, but all the rest. And then - she remembered her blush - that Inspector was no fool. He might be waiting for her to go to Sean, have her followed, so that she would lead the police to him.

In that case, she must not see him at all.

But the thought of it was so painful, she dug her fingers into the velvet cushions of the window seat in frustration. She wanted to see him, more than anything else. Not because of the police visit, that just made it more urgent. She wanted to see him for herself.

Kee sat together with Radford and Detective Sergeant Davis in DMP headquarters in Brunswick Street.

They were in Radford's office. It was a drab, functional room with a desk, several filing cabinets, and a solid table that was cluttered with papers, dirty teacups, and ashtrays. It was eight o'clock in the evening. The single window, which was slightly open to let out the smoke, looked down on the street two storeys below. The occasional sound of cars, and the clip of hurrying feet or hooves, formed a background to their discussion.

‘So that's it, then, Tom, is it?’ Radford asked. 'The grocer gave the lad a room and a job, let him take time off whenever he chose, and never asked any questions?’

‘That's what he says.’

‘And his other tenant was a model university student, only pausing from his studies to help old ladies cross the road.’

‘That's the boy.’

Radford sighed. ‘Well, I suppose we could intern him on well-founded suspicion of lying through his teeth, and earn ourselves another half-dozen newspaper articles about police insensitivity. But there's another lead, you say.’

‘Yes. The girl. Catherine O'Connell-Gort.’ Kee pronounced the surname with exaggerated precision, as though it offended him in some way. He got out his notebook, and went carefully through the details of his interview with her. ‘She's one possible lead to the boy, Brennan. If she is involved with him in some way, she may lead us to him. I think we should put a watch on her.’

Radford paced up and down, considering the idea. ‘It’s promising, but there are difficulties. First, the boy, Brennan. We can't prove he was at Ashtown, or even that he's a Shinner. All we know is that he shared lodgings with Martin Savage, who definitely was there, and that he had a clip of German cartridges in his sock drawer. Well, that might not convince a jury, but it should be enough to intern him for a while, if that's what we want to do. Then there's the girl. If anyone ever had the perfect alibi, for God's sake, she has. She was sitting there, squashed up between her father and Johnny French, when the bullets started flying through the window! You're not saying she planned it?’

‘No, sir, of course not. I just think she's fond of Brennan.’

‘And you base this theory upon a blush?’

‘Well, not entirely, sir. Her whole demeanour, more like.’

Radford stopped pacing and sat on his desk. ‘I don't know about your experience of the female mind, Tom, but I would have thought the young lady's ardour - if it ever existed - might have received a rather rapid douche of cold water if she really saw her young Lochinvar chucking a Mills bomb at her head, as you say.’

Davis laughed. Kee said: ‘She may not have seen him. She may just have believed it was possible he was involved. In which case she might run off in desperation to ask him if it was true.’

Radford considered this. ‘Possibly. In which case Sod's Law tells us she's with him now, while we're discussing it. But then there's another thing. Her daddy, as you know, is a fairly important man in Dublin Castle, and in the country generally. Have you thought what I'm going to say to him about this, if she complains she's being followed everywhere by big men in raincoats?’

Kee sighed. ‘We stick to the grocer, then.’

‘That's about it, unless you've got any more ideas.’ Neither of them had. ‘Right, then, I'm going to get a bite to eat. Dick, can you type this up, as usual?’

‘Sir.’ Davis gathered his notes together, and took them into his office. Kee took his coat off the stand by the door. As he was leaving, Radford touched his arm. He pushed the door softly to.

‘Sorry about that, Tom,’ he said quietly. ‘It wasn't such a daft idea as I said. But there are other things we can do. Come on back to the hotel. I'll buy you a drink.’

In his office down the corridor, Davis had also closed his door. He sat down at his desk, in front of the big Imperial typewriter. He was a good typist for a policeman, and a meticulous keeper of records. He arranged his notes carefully on the left of the machine, and took paper, carbons and flimsies from the drawers on the right. He arranged these neatly. A top copy for the Assistant Commissioner, Radford; then a carbon; a second copy for the main files kept in this room; then a second carbon; a third copy for Military Intelligence in Dublin Castle.