The Convictions of John Delahunt (20 page)

I knelt beside the hearth once more. It occurred to me that the crime scene was rather a mess. But what could I say, Cooney was an amateur killer. I thought of the tinker waking to news that the victim of his robbery had been found murdered. Perhaps he would doubt himself, and think that he’d cut the boy’s throat after all.

The heat from the embers made my nose run. I patted my coat pocket and a creeping awareness made my heart sink.

My handkerchief was still wrapped around Domenico’s knuckles.

It was just an old rag so it couldn’t incriminate me; but it undermined everything. Its presence made it clear that more than one person had been with the boy in the stable-lane. Nobody would believe that Cooney mugged someone, paused to dress his wounds and then killed him. Nor could Domenico have tied the cloth himself. It proved that the robbery and the murder happened at different times.

If Cooney was going to be cleared then the information I had was worthless. I went to stand by the window. The street was empty. The light in Angelo’s room had gone out.

As I retraced my steps to the laneway, I scolded myself for being so foolhardy. The Church of St Francis Xavier loomed in the distance. Surely it was better to forget the whole scheme – let Angelo move away and life return to normal. At that hour, all the windows on Gardiner Street were darkened. I heard a carriage on the other side of Mountjoy Square, but no one else walked on the street. Once or twice I slowed and considered turning back, but I had become fixated. If I could just take back the rag, then everything might still work out.

I stepped beneath the archway at the entrance of the lane, and saw a coach parked in the middle of the tunnel. Two horses faced towards the rear of the passage, standing patiently. In the gloom, I could make out the coachman kneeling over the body in the gutter. He must have heard my step, for his chin came up sharply and he looked towards me. Before he could speak I called out, ‘What’s going on here?’

A head poked out from the window of the carriage and looked back. It was an old woman, her gloved fingers clasped on top of the carriage door. The coachman spoke calmly. ‘There’s a dead boy here. He’s been murdered.’ He stood up, went to his seat at the front of the coach, and returned with a lantern.

It was too late to turn on my heels so I came forward. The coachman waited for me with the light held aloft. He wore a dark blue cape and a stovepipe hat. He had a thick black beard and glowered as I came near. I made a point of not looking directly at him, but rather down at the prostrate figure of Domenico, still hidden in the shadows.

‘How do you know it’s murder?’

The coachman lowered the lantern. Domenico lay face down with his head bent slightly towards the light. His hair had fallen across his brow, and dust from the brick was still visible. The light showed the results of Cooney’s punches: patches of deep violet and red against his pallid grey skin. His lids were open, but the eyes didn’t reflect the light. Only a small part of his neck was visible above his collar, where the corner of a ragged gash peeked out.

Domenico’s head rested in a pool of blood, the nose bent and slightly submerged. His tongue extruded between parted lips into the blood puddle, as if he was about to lap. His arms extended out before him, the injured hand nearest the wall. I glanced at the soiled bandage.

I brought my palm up to my mouth and shook my head. There was a faint metallic smell on my fingers. ‘Who would do such a thing?’

The frail, wrinkled woman in the carriage wore a heavy lappet over her grey hair, and fox fur over her shoulders. She gave the impression of being slightly drunk. She said, ‘It’s just ghastly. Charles, I’m beginning to get cold.’

It was easy to see why the reports subsequently referred to Domenico as the Italian boy. He was as tall as me, and only a few years my junior. But lying there, he seemed so slight.

The coachman bent back up. ‘I’ll have to bring Lady Findlater home. I’ll wake the stable-boy and send him to Store Street.’

‘Don’t bother. I’ll go and fetch the police. Which house number are you?’

He pointed out into the stable-lane and said number nine, the one with the red gate. He would come back out once the lady was safely inside.

I nodded, and immediately set off on my supposed errand. The coachman climbed back into his seat, but then paused and called back to me. ‘What’s your name?’

I said, ‘Devereaux,’ and continued on.

He flicked the reins and they moved away with a rattle. When the carriage had gone about twenty yards, I doubled back, bent over Domenico and took hold of his cold hand. I pulled the tied handkerchief away like I was peeling off a glove. The blood and grime had frozen into the cloth and it was stiff, as if it had been over-starched. I stuffed it into my pocket. When I was back on the street, I considered tossing it into the gutter, or over the railing into Mountjoy Park. But having risked so much to retrieve it, I wanted to leave no trace.

Once more I had to creep through my own chamber. The fire had ebbed further. Only a few red lines glowed through the dark ashes. I threw the cloth in and used a poker to stir the embers. It seemed as if it wasn’t going to take. I was about to fetch the matches, but then a bloody edge blackened and smoked. A small flame appeared in one corner, licked along a crease, and the fabric curled up as it was engulfed. I felt an odd sense of relief and held my hands against the brief flare.

‘What are you doing?’

I looked over my shoulder towards Helen. Her head was raised from the pillow and she squinted at me through sleepfilled eyes. The flame cast odd shadows into the room.

‘It’s just a used rag.’ I shifted over to block her view of the hearth. ‘Go back to sleep.’

The inside of the police carriage was cramped and poorly lit. A gaslight burned at the head of the cabin, casting a blue glow over the occupants, and the pre-dawn sky showed as dark violet against the barred windows. Iron bands girded the timber slats, with two metal benches attached on either side. Five of us sat in silence as we trundled through the early morning streets.

An Irish Constabulary sergeant with streaks of grey in his tawny moustache sat on my right. Three of his colleagues faced us on the bench opposite. They were younger and clean-shaven and our shoulders moved in unison to the gentle rocking. There was hardly any space between our legs. At one point the carriage made a sharp turn left, and I slipped forward in my seat, causing my knee to brush against one of the constables. The young man instinctively pulled his leg away, as if the contact was unseemly.

Like the others, he was dressed in a black uniform, his jacket closed over by a brown leather belt about the waist, and a row of shiny buttons, about the size of sovereigns, fastened up to and beneath his chin. His spiked helmet had a short peak over the brow. The constabulary insignia showed on the front: a harp on a red background beneath a crown.

The policemen sat upright, with their fists resting on their knees and a truncheon held in one hand. None of them spoke. I had attempted a few pleasantries with the sergeant, but he only gave gruff, one-word answers. The man closest to the rear of the carriage faced forward like the others, but he would occasionally turn his head quickly to look at me, as if he thought I was whispering his name.

It was cold again, and the chill made me fidget and squirm, continually gather my coat under my chin, or fold my hands beneath my arms. I was suffering a bout of flu, though Helen said it was just a cold. My raking coughs elicited disapproving looks from the others. The constable in the middle kept his face turned away from me, as if that could prevent contagion in the tight enclosure.

I felt an unmistakable tickling build up behind my nose. ‘Could any of you gentlemen lend me—’

My request was cut short by a series of sneezes, which I directed against the front wall of the carriage on my left. As soon as one finished I felt the approach of the next. Afterwards my nose and mouth were covered in mucus, which I did my best to snuffle and siphon away. I was loath to use the cuff of my coat, so I sat there making unpleasant snorts and throaty gurgles.

The sergeant’s fist closed tight over his truncheon until his knuckles turned white. After another minute of my spluttering he reached into a side pocket.

‘Perhaps you’d care to use my handkerchief.’

I took the proffered cloth. ‘Thank you.’ I unfolded it. ‘I appear to have mislaid my own.’

The handkerchief was quite clean, with the initials ‘F.X.’ embroidered in one corner.

‘What does the X stand for?’

He remained silent.

I draped it over my nose and blew, folded the cloth once and blew again. I dabbed at my nostrils, then handed it back to the sergeant.

‘Keep it.’

Houses had become sparse, replaced by trees and tall hedgerows. After several minutes, the driver rapped on the roof of the carriage while we were still in motion.

The sergeant straightened. ‘Right, lads. We’re close.’

Subtle changes came over the faces of the three constables. Jawlines became more prominent; lips pursed; eyes focused. The man on the far side looked at me again.

We came to a halt. Another knock on the roof and the sergeant removed the latch on the door in the rear of the car. He gave it a nudge and it swung outwards silently. The three constables rose from the bench, their heads bent beneath the carriage ceiling, and filed out of the back. He then turned to me. ‘Remain close and keep quiet.’

I followed him out. In the gloaming, I could see the extent of the convoy. Three other police carriages had pulled up beside a ditch, and a dozen men had assembled on the road. Their commander, the head constable, had a full grey beard and a helmet with a flat top. He walked along the line, a lantern in one hand and a bundle of unlit torches in the crook of his elbow. Every second man took a torch. When he got to the end of the line he lit a firebrand, and a young constable rotated the head of his torch in the small flame until the pitch-soaked rag caught and blazed with a steady light. He held the flame out to the next man in line, and each torch was lit in a relay, until the company stood in brightness. A word from the head constable and they formed a column, two abreast. Those in front carried a thick iron battering ram. The sergeant that had accompanied me took me to stand at the rear.

Hushed orders were spoken and the company set off at a fast march. They took care to tread softly, and their boots sounded a muffled rhythm on the uneven surface. We walked for a few hundred yards along the rural road, the fields on both sides bounded by ditches. After a bend we came to a gap in the hedgerow spanned by a crudely built gate about eight feet tall, made from an assortment of planks and beams constructed against poles wedged into the earth on either side. The makeshift barrier was rickety and leaned out over the road. A padlocked chain looped through the slats to hold it shut. Beyond that lay the tinkers’ camp.

The head constable held up his hand and we stopped. He motioned to the men carrying the battering ram to come forward. When they reached the gate they paused and awaited his order. Their commander looked back over the troop. He held his truncheon up and said, ‘Ready.’

The constable just in front of me rotated his neck. The spike on his helmet described a circle.

The commander nodded once and said, ‘Now.’

The two men took the battering ram back and swung it forward, as though they were throwing a drunk on to the street. It connected with the padlock, and burst through with little resistance. The chain broke with a snap, and pieces of wood split and fell away. That was the signal for the men to rush ahead; the sides of the gates were trampled underfoot rather than thrust apart. One of the men roared an indistinct cry, and the others – as if waiting for his prompt – let forth bellows of their own.

It struck me that it must take a certain confidence to be the first to let out such a bawl. I’d be reluctant to cry out first, lest I was the only one to do so. They continued their shouting as they swarmed into the clearing.

The itinerants had set up camp in a field about a hundred yards wide. It was bounded by the roadside ditch, a smaller scrub-lined gully that ran along a stream and, at the far end, a brick wall. There were five dwellings in the camp. Two of them were unhitched gypsy wagons, with their distinctive vaulted roofs. The other three were tumbledown hovels constructed from loose timbers and thatch, arranged in a rough circle. The space in between was littered with debris, rusting pike heads and plough blades. Cold campfires were dotted about: some had raked ashes and half-burnt timber; others were just rings of stones around scorched patches of earth. Four lean horses, tethered at the rear of the site, shied at the noise and blazing torches of the raiders.

Pairs of policemen split off and went towards each dwelling. I stayed back with the sergeant beside the demolished gate. The head constable stood alone in the clearing and surveyed the operation. By the time the first of the constabulary began to kick in doors, yells were coming from inside the houses.

The back window of a wagon opened and a couple of children, only about eight or nine years of age, tumbled out. One of the constables kicked in the door at the front, and both he and his comrade pressed into the cabin with loud shouts. The light from their torch emerged from the opened window as a flicker of darting shadows. A woman’s scream was cut short. A man attempted to follow his children out of the window. He emerged up to his waist, before arms with black sleeves closed over his neck and shoulders and dragged him back in. His sons were looking up as he disappeared. The older one took his brother by the sleeve and they ran barefoot to the side of the camp, where they disappeared through a gap in the frost-covered hedge.

The occupants in some of the other homes were more subdued. Two constables were already hauling a man from the door of one of the hovels. He stumbled as they pulled him along, and couldn’t regain his footing, so his knees dragged along the ground, ripping holes in his nightclothes. His wife stood in the doorway, holding a small child who buried its head in her neck. Another peeked out from behind her legs. She screeched at the policemen as they took her husband towards the centre of the clearing.