The Convictions of John Delahunt (21 page)

Cooney emerged from the door of one of the other makeshift houses. He walked without a struggle between two constables, one of whom still held a blazing torch. Cooney either slept in his normal clothes or he had taken the time to don his coat and shoes. His wife also appeared in the door, but she wasn’t distraught to see him taken away.

They brought him to stand in the centre of the clearing with the others: five grizzled men in various states of undress, corralled together with their heads bowed.

Some of the policemen turned to force the wailing women and children back into their dwellings. The constables roared into their faces, using most foul language, with their truncheons raised. One of the women refused to move and a policeman shoved her so she fell backwards on to the dirt. Her husband moved from the clearing to go to her aid, but he was set upon by the constabulary. They dragged him aside and beat him with their sticks about the head and legs. After a few moments the head constable ordered them to stop, and the subdued man was brought back to the others. He could no longer stand, so he sat on the ground amidst his fellows. Cooney bent down to help him, but the commander barked at him to stay where he was.

A quiet settled over the camp. The field was on high ground and faced east. In the distance, the sun crested the hill of Howth, and the first rays filtered through wispy clouds to show trees in silhouette on the horizon. Long shadows cast by undulating hills and crooked hedgerows stretched over the landscape. The hoar frost in the camp was shown as a dusty white, except for a multitude of dark spots and a criss-cross of tracks from footsteps and dragged bodies.

The tinkers shivered in the middle, surrounded by the constabulary in their black uniforms standing in a broad circle. The head constable looked back at the sergeant who stood beside me by the gate. He swung his arm and called out, ‘Bring forward Delahunt.’

Two weeks before the raid, on the morning following Domenico’s death, I had awoken in Grenville Street feeling ill. I raised my head to check the room. There was no sign of Helen. The clock on our mantel hadn’t worked for several weeks, but judging by the light streaming past the shutters, it was mid-morning. If she had gone to the markets, then she probably already knew the boy was dead. She hadn’t set the fire before leaving, but no trace of the handkerchief remained.

My whole head felt congested. There was a burning in my throat and I shivered despite the weight of the covers. I was still in my clothes, and lifted my arms to check if there were stains on my cuffs. My shoes lay some distance apart at the side of the bed. I couldn’t help the situation by getting up, so I remained covered up and tried to stay warm.

My heart quickened when I heard Helen’s key scrape in the door. I turned away, dug my head into the pillows and pulled the blankets higher. She bustled inside and placed a basket on the table. Then she called out, ‘John.’

She knew.

I heard the soft sounds of her hat and scarf being hung on the hook. She called my name again.

Rather than pretend to be asleep, I spoke into the pillow. ‘What is it?’

Her knee came on to my side of the bed and she pulled at my shoulder with both hands.

I squinted my eyes as if caught in a glare, then turned over to face her. ‘What?’ I lifted my head from the pillow. ‘Have you heard back from a publisher?’

She shook her head, and blurted out that one of the Italian boys had been murdered in a laneway.

I frowned and looked towards the window for a few seconds. ‘One of the lads across the street?’

She nodded. Everyone in the area was speaking of it. They found him in a stable-lane early that morning. Her eyes had widened and her breathing became shallow. ‘Someone cut his throat with a razor blade.’

I couldn’t help but glance at her. Then I shook my head and raised myself on to my elbows. ‘I can’t believe it.’ Platitudes can be useful in moments of drama. ‘Which one was it? Angelo?’

She shook her head. It was the smaller one. ‘Angelo has been arrested.’

I tried to keep my head still as I digested this news. Helen continued, ‘John, we were speaking to them both just last night.’

I pulled back the covers, pushed past Helen to go and stand by the window, and looked across to the Italians’ garret. I’m not sure what I expected to see. It looked no different.

Helen said, ‘There’s a rumour that they were arguing in the pub not long before it closed.’

This wasn’t part of the plan. ‘I was still there when they were quarrelling.’ I was silent for a moment as if trying to recall. ‘But it didn’t seem to be about anything serious. Angelo left early and Domenico stayed in the pub on his own.’

Helen asked what were they arguing about and I said it was all in Italian. She said, ‘Maybe Angelo waited for him to come out.’

I couldn’t let Angelo take the blame. Cooney was the one who attacked the boy and left him for dead.

Helen asked what time did I leave Kavanagh’s? I wanted to check her face to see if there was a hint of suspicion, but I kept looking out of the window.

‘A while before closing time. Domenico was still there.’ I snuffled for effect. ‘I could feel myself getting a chill so came home.’ I turned towards her. ‘I woke you when I threw my handkerchief in the fire.’

She nodded, her eyes focused in the middle distance. ‘Yes, I remember.’

We stayed in the room and discussed our interaction with the two boys from the previous night. We agreed Domenico was a charming character and it was a great shame. We also agreed that we weren’t so impressed by Angelo, but he gave no hint that he could be a killer. I said perhaps if we had stayed talking to them for longer the whole thing might have been avoided.

As it happened, the police released Angelo from custody the same day. His landlady provided him with an alibi. Soon enough he was seen walking again in Grenville Street, with shoulders hunched and his thin beard unkempt. His neighbours stopped and looked at him as he passed. Old women pointed. Children taunted him; in sing-song rhymes they told him his friend was dead.

Reports in the newspapers began to appear.
The Freeman’s Journal
had only a paragraph in the middle pages, but the
Evening Post
splashed the word ‘Murder’ on its front page. We bought all the editions over the coming week. The journalists made Domenico out to be some kind of stray orphan, an Italian waif who wandered the streets of Dublin. The descriptions of his injuries at the inquest were recounted word for word, and the papers revelled in their gory, clinical detail. Helen read them out to me one morning over breakfast.

They speculated about the boy’s origins and the whereabouts of the killer. Most reports mentioned that Domenico’s wallet had been stolen – I assumed Angelo had reported that fact to the police – but they indulged in more fanciful conjecture as to the real motive for the attack. One paper bragged of a covert ‘source’ who recounted a fantastic tale of a hired killer, sent from Italy to hunt down the young man because of an illicit love affair in his native Sicily.

Then the tone of the coverage shifted. Editorials began to criticize the authorities for their incompetence in finding the culprit. Sub-headlines would declare that the police were ‘Baffled’, ‘Stumped’ or ‘Confounded’. A cartoon appeared in one edition that showed a policeman wearing a blindfold and groping in a dark alley. A body was hunched over in the gutter behind him in a pool of blood. A figure in silhouette stood in the entrance of the lane. He wore a stovepipe hat cocked to one side. His cloak was drawn across his face and he gripped a blade in the same hand, pointing downwards. The caption beneath said, ‘Blind man’s buff’. I studied the figure for several seconds. It didn’t look anything like me.

Printed bills began to appear on lamp-posts and street corners offering a reward of forty pounds for information that led to the capture of the killer of Domenico Garlibardo. It was the first time I saw his surname. Denizens of Grenville Street stopped and examined every particular of the notice. Word had spread that the boy was still in the pub at closing time on the night he was killed. People began to wonder who else had been present. Kavanagh knew, of course, but like all good barmen he remained silent. What use was forty pounds to him, the takings of a month or two, if he lost the trust of his customers?

All the while, I dithered about coming forward. My illness was an excuse to remain in bed for the first week. Part of me hoped that Cooney would be arrested anyway. I was even willing to miss out on the reward money, if the incident could just be forgotten. But as soon as I thought such things I berated myself. Why else had I done it except for the money?

No, I’d have to make a report eventually. I could keep it vague, just that I saw the boy being followed by Cooney after they left the pub, and let the authorities figure it out from there. But still I was cautious. To march into the Castle and report a crime I had committed myself: that could surely have unintended and unfortunate consequences.

Ten days after the killing, I felt well enough to venture outside, and began to go on errands for Helen. Life in our part of the city had returned to normal. Perhaps I only imagined the lingering glances that passers-by seemed to throw in my direction. The grubby flag in Angelo’s window had disappeared.

One afternoon, someone left a sealed note for me beneath the door. My initials were printed on the front, and by the stationery I knew it came from the Castle. Sibthorpe wrote that the Department was coming under pressure because of the Italian’s murder. It had happened in my area so I should listen out for any rumours, and report anything I heard. I balled up the letter and threw it on the fire.

Helen looked up from her desk. ‘What was it?’

‘Nothing. Just Sibthorpe asking me to keep an ear out.’

I sat by the window and observed the garret across the street. The landlord had rented it out to new tenants, a middle-aged couple, who moved about, arranging their belongings. Below, a man with a bag slung over his shoulder approached a lamppost and pasted on a notice, covering an old bill with one freshly printed.

I donned my coat and went down to have a look. The new poster declared that the reward for information regarding the murder of the Italian Boy – even the official notice began to use the name – had been increased from forty to sixty pounds. I studied each word. My fingers worried the corner of the still wet poster until it came away, and I peeled the entire sheet from the street lamp. I waved it in the air for a moment, to allow the excess paste to dry, then folded it once, placed it in my coat pocket, and set off towards Fownes Street.

Farrell’s office was lit by an oil-lamp which sat upon a filing cabinet; his desk its usual clutter of folders and loose sheets. I had to wait while the archivist was busy in the stacks. He soon entered, with his shirtsleeves rolled up despite the cold weather, and his glasses perched on his head.

He said, ‘Delahunt,’ in greeting as he walked towards his chair. Once seated he regarded me. ‘You look terrible. What have you got for us?’

I reached into my pocket and withdrew the poster. Its folded sides had stuck together, but the notice was still clear. I laid it on Farrell’s desk.

He only had to glance at it. ‘You’ve heard something?’

I had seen something. On the night of the murder itself.

Farrell frowned. ‘You mean you’re a witness?’

I nodded.

‘Why the hell haven’t you come forward?’

‘I’ve been waiting for the reward money to increase.’ I smiled at him as if to say I knew he’d understand.

He wasn’t amused. ‘Delahunt, the Department has been frantic about this one. The press has been awful. I’ll have to tell Sibthorpe straight away.’ He picked up a pen. ‘Just tell me what you saw.’

I narrated the statement I’d practised in my head on the way over. Farrell quickly took down the details. He placed the document into a folder, then said, ‘Come with me.’

On the ground floor, the sentry lifted his head at the sound of our footsteps. Farrell told him that I was to remain in the building until word came from the Castle. The guard nodded and pointed to a chair beneath the stairs, while Farrell left by the front door.

The statement had caused more of a stir than I’d expected. I sat in the chair and looked at the sentry. He read from a newspaper laid flat on the desktop, and I wondered what he would do if I attempted to make off. Surely he was forbidden to abandon the premises and leave the archive unguarded? The desk was about twenty feet away; the front door another fifteen feet beyond that. I counted how many strides it would require. But there was no way I could get past the desk before he’d have time to react. And even if I did get away, what then? The Castle knew where I lived.

As the time dragged, my uneasiness turned into irritation. Once again, I was waiting on another’s pleasure, sitting beneath the steps like a scolded child. I began to tap my heel against the wooden floor; the guard glanced up at the noise. I remember Helen once asked me to fetch a fresh nib from a shop while she worked at her desk. When I returned, shaking snow from my coat, she smiled at me and said I was very biddable, then bent her head again to her work. She meant it kindly, but I was stung.

After half an hour the door opened and the head of a boy poked through. He wore a plaid coat and a red flat cap. He looked down the hall and said, ‘Delahunt is to come with me.’

The guard must have known the lad, for he gestured for me to go without glancing from his newspaper. The boy led me into Dame Street and towards the Castle, but instead of turning left into the grounds we continued on. I followed him into a narrow alley called Crane Lane, where litter was scattered about on the cobbles. The boy had a key, which he used to unlock a side door. We climbed an unlit staircase which emerged on to a small landing with a single door. He knocked on it, and a voice inside called out to enter. The boy turned without a word and disappeared back down the stairs.

I pushed the door open to reveal a small office. A fire burned in a hearth on the left. The wood-panelled walls had no decoration except for a small crucifix. The desk stood between two tall sash windows which looked out over Dame Street, and more particularly across at the grubby façade of City Hall with its green copper dome. A ladder went over the curved roof in short, segmented pieces, and a worker perched on one of the rungs. He was scouring a section of the corroded metal surface with a yard-brush.