The Death of a Joyce Scholar (13 page)

McGarr waited for a response, but the young woman only lowered her head so that her long tresses obscured her face. “Then you drove to the hotel in Drumcondra?”

She nodded.

“In the Fiat Five hundred?”

Again.

“Mr. Holderness was not there?”

“I don’t know. By that time it was last call. He wasn’t in the bar or any of the public rooms. Cathcart bought me a drink in what I thought was a kind of holding action, and I
waited for another half hour or so until the barmen got the others out. And then I left.”

“In the Fiat Five hundred?”

She looked away and seemed to come to a decision before answering. “No. When I got outside, it was gone. I assumed the police had taken it, since I had parked it”—her eyes flickered toward McGarr—“illegally, right there on the Swords Road in front of the hotel. There’s always a taxi around there at that time of night, and I took one home.”

McGarr thought for a moment. Fergus Flood, her father, had admitted venturing out in search of his wife. Could he have looked for her at the Drumcondra Inn? He had not mentioned the hotel specifically. “Did you see your father at the Drumcondra Inn?”

She did not seem surprised by the question. She shook her head.

“Or your mother?”

She lowered her head. “No.”

“Was the car there when you got home? The Fiat.”

Nor that question either. “No, it wasn’t.”

“You looked for it.”

She nodded.

“You thought your father might have fetched it.”

“He understands nothing about women. He can be such a bore.”

Thought McGarr: nothing boring about knowing that both your wife and teenage daughter are frequenting the same hotel for much the same purpose. He wondered if mother and daughter had ever run into each other, if they shared “intimacies,” as it were. “And the next morning?”

Again she tried to avoid McGarr’s eyes.

“It was there.”

McGarr turned to Holderness. “And you? Where were you then? After midnight.”

“I was…engaged, I must admit.”

The girl’s head rose to Holderness.

McGarr waited.

The smile was still on the man’s face, but behind the silvery surface of his glasses his eyes glittered with what seemed like playful malice.

“With whom?”

His head turned to Hiliary Flood. “Catty Doyle.”

“
Engaged
?”

Holderness actually laughed. “Surely you don’t mean me to answer that, sir. In present company.”

“The venue,” said McGarr, but the derision in his voice was lost on Holderness and the girl, who were still staring at each other.

“Her place.”

“In De Courcy Square?” Near the Prospect cemetery, where Kevin Coyle’s corpse was discovered, he did not add. “What hours? When until when?”

“Well, I’m presently completing a book, and I worked on that until eleven or so. Since I don’t drink—though I understand some do—I decided that on that of all nights it was best to leave here, rather than find myself beset by humors and demands that I judged I’d find distressing. In the particular.”

But not as particularly dispensed by Catty Doyle, one could only conclude.

“You got there?”

“Say, midnight or thereabouts.”

“And you found Catty home.”

“As arranged.”

“And you remained.”

“Until my interest flagged.”

“Which was?”

“In a matter of the heart, Mr. McGarr, I heed no clock.
Say, four or five. Catty was—how shall I put it—insistent that I stay, but one needs his sleep.”

“And by what door did you leave?”

“Does it matter? The front, of course. Ms. Sittonn may be a large and truculent woman, but she is most definitely a woman. I fear her not.”

“And you suspected that she might be waiting outside?”

“As I said, in spite of her appearance, she’s a woman.”

“Which means?”

“In this setting”—the smile grew somewhat fuller and the glasses flashed—“a kind of huntress, wouldn’t you say?”

Considering mother and daughter Flood, Mary Sittonn, and perhaps even Catty Doyle, McGarr could hardly disagree. Of course, a case could be made that Fergus Flood, Kevin Coyle, and Holderness himself had been on the prowl as well, but McGarr found Holderness’s characterization of women unusual and interesting, especially in regard to what he had said earlier about there being no victims. “And you therefore are the hunted?”

“As luck sometimes has it.”

“By which you mean their willing victim.”

“Now
that
I didn’t say. I mean the hunt in the sense of a search: one person for another who might through some imperfect means of communication, confirm her existence.”

McGarr assumed they were getting back to Beckett again. He summoned up from his uncooperative memory the plays that Noreen had dragged him to. “Then there’re two persons in a relationship?”

“I would think there would have to be.”

“One dominant—”

“The observed,” Holderness cut in.

“—and the other—”

“The observer.”

“But isn’t it more aggressive than that? I’m thinking of
the characters in
Waiting for Godot.
One had a whip and a gun, I seem to remember, and kept the other in traces.”

“Theatrics,” said Holderness. “Mere posturing. One could make a case for Lucky enjoying the better—because less angst-ridden—part of the bargain. And later in his novels, Beckett refines that position. To know Beckett one must, in particular, read his novels.”

The “novels of incompetence”? Not likely. The term was still sitting in McGarr’s mind like a kind of—how had Flood explained it?—black hole. He hadn’t caught word one of what Flood had said.

He stood. “Where’s your phone?”

“Out in the hall.”

As McGarr dialed his Castle office and waited, he heard Hiliary Flood say, “Catty Doyle—how could you, David? She is so…used.”

“As well she should be. Another point to consider is that we need each other. She’s my editor and collaborator.”

“As she was Kevin’s. In his turn,” the girl said tearfully. “You should mind yourself.”

McGarr explained the situation to McKeon and asked him to send several somebodies out to pick up Holderness and Hiliary Flood, the Tech Squad for the Fiat 500 and what he supposed was the murder weapon.

“For sure, this time?”

“What d’ya mean,
this
time?”

“The car. The murder weapon. We’re only after having phoned them and—”

“Not us,” said McGarr, and when McKeon objected, he repeated the advisory. “Must have been a mix-up. Theirs.”

“What is this—disinformation?”

McGarr wished it were that simple. “Anything from anybody else?” He meant his staff.

“Not a peep, but it’s only half-four.”

And nearly seven by the time McGarr got back to his house in Belgrave Square. There he found Noreen in his study, in his favorite chair, reading
Phon/Antiphon
by Kevin Coyle.

“So?” he asked.

“It’s really quite good. And different. It’s as though he pretends to be Joyce—critic, scholar, writer, practicing pedant, rampant genius—examining what was written in his time and since. Defending his reputation, so to speak. He’s utterly scathing on the modernists.”

“Like Samuel Beckett and the ‘novel of incompetence’?”

Noreen lowered the book. “You’ve read it?”

“The ‘novel of incompetence’ or Samuel Beckett?”

“They’re one in the same. No, this.” She shook the volume at him.

“Oh, sure. Between meetings and interviews I gave it a peek. I found it revealing, like a still point in a turning circle.”

“That’s Elliot, but it reminds me. You’re to call Bernie. Hughie Ward got mugged or something and’ll be off the Coyle case for a while.”

McGarr made straight for the telephone in the kitchen. “Is he all right?”

“Bernie said something about his refusing to enter the hospital, so I suppose—”

Said McKeon when he answered the phone, “Sure, some little gurrier. A punk with Joyce’s hat on his head, the one Coyle was wearing, and the ashplant stick in his hands. Whipped around without warning and smacked him. His wrist is broke, and there’s some question about the hearing in his left ear, but he refused a bed. Said he couldn’t find the fecker and murder him in hospital. I ordered him off the case and put him on sick leave. He lost his weapon, though, the
Beretta. I thought it best to wait before putting out the word.”

McGarr thought about their earlier blunder. Now this. No—he would not be made fun of twice in one day. It was a chance he was taking, but they would recover the weapon and the punk who took it themselves.

“We’ll wait.”

“I thought you’d say that. I’ve put everybody available on it. Liam called just to check in, and he’ll be returning from Galway sometime tonight.” He meant Detective Superintendent O’Shaughnessy, who was McGarr’s second-in-command and as knowledgeable about Dublin and its netherworld as any tout or lout.

McKeon then reported what Bresnahan had discovered: the roomful of Kevin Coyle volumes that she had come upon in Mary Sittonn’s Coombe antique shop.

“But murder for a couple hundred quid?”

“Try a thousand, and we’ve seen it for a fiver. And them three with their bent and all.”

“And you don’t know the half of it.” McGarr told McKeon about the Bloomsday evening adventures of David Holderness and the family Flood: “Mother got a call from Coyle, her hubby’s colleague, to meet her at the Drumcondra Inn, where Rex Cathcart—do you know him…?”

“Aye—a fop, a toper, a blithering ejit when in his cups, and an innocent man.”

McGarr waited.

Said McKeon, “Not three of the two-dozen swivers who frequent his bordello pay him more than lip service. With Rex a soft word carries far.”

“David Holderness was also on his cuff, and, although Flood’s wife never got there, the daughter, Hiliary, washed up around closing. In the Fiat.”

“Puddin’ proof of adultery as a family tradition.”

“Daughter claims she had a drink in the bar with Cathcart in what she believed was a ‘holding action.’ And when she got back outside, the Fiat was gone. She says she took a taxi back to Foxrock, which we should check on. Next morning the Fiat was back in the garage, today with what I think is the murder weapon under the seat. No forced entry. No sign of having been tampered with.”

“How times change. What thief from the old school would ever have thought of returning a car to its garage unscathed. And the care the driver must have taken, jockeying the thing between pillar and post out near the Glasnevin Cemetery. No harm, no foul. And more to the point, no police report.”

“But Holderness was out there too.”

“In Glasnevin?”

“More particularly, in Catty Doyle’s house.”

“Near Bingo Terrace? What hours? Mary Sittonn in her steamy statement right here in me hot little hand claims to have been cuddling Catty at least until midnight.”

McGarr’s head went back. “Two dates, one night?”

“Well—at least a frig and a date.”

“Holderness says he left around four or five.”

“The wee-wee hours, but light by then.”

“Have we canvassed everybody in the neighborhood?”

“All but a young couple who left that morning on holiday. Who knows, they might have risen early for a jump on the highway.”

“Am I hearing right?”

“It wasn’t clear where they were headed, but we’ll put a man on them. You know what they say about three.”

McGarr waited.

“Butter then chew.”

“Which is one way to
manage
—it’s French—a twat.”

McKeon hung up.

Before taking the phone from his ear, McGarr heard a second click, and before he could reach the fridge and its icy contents, Noreen appeared in the kitchen doorway.

“What language was that?”

“Pol-leesh.”

“Then I’ll troublé you for a preprandial translation.”

There was the light threat of no dinner in that. Before raising the can of lager to his lips, McGarr turned and noticed for the first time what his wife was wearing: a filmy, lacy dressing gown just the turquoise color of her eyes. “Here or there?”

“There, of course, where we can press on with our project.” She turned, the silk whistling as she moved down the hall.

McGarr imagined that
Ulysses
would have to wait yet another night for his “professional” opinion, but he vowed that he would get to it soon. It was beginning to irk him that so much of what seemed increasingly important in the Coyle case came cloaked in literary obscurity. Could the whole world be divided into those who had read and understood
Ulysses,
the rest of Joyce, the
novels
of Sam Beckett, and the works of Kevin Coyle, and those other poor benighted, inconsiderable groundlings who did not?

McGarr raised the can and drained it, then reached for another. For the courage to be still without
Ulysses.
And without child.

BRESNAHAN’S HEART was in her mouth. Never, not for her leaving certification or Garda exams, even for her interviews for the Squad, had she felt so nervous and discombobulated and just generally…sick. That was it. She was so destroyed over the miserable little shite who probably never gave her a passing thought, or worse, hated who she was and what she stood for—herself, mostly, up until now—that, pausing before the ancient, battered, quayside building in which Ward kept his digs, she actually felt nauseous.

How in the name of St. Peter, to whom she prayed every night for strength, had she allowed it to happen? And just when she’d been availed the opportunity of proving herself, and had come back with exactly what the Chief had wanted. McKeon had said, “Well—not half bad, Rut’ie. Your report of the interview in particular; how you led them on with the cute little culchie bit. Mind, it won’t work around here.” He had pointed to a stack of correspondence, but it was the first
kind word she had ever heard from the sergeant, whom she regarded as the second hardest man in the universe.

But when she heard in his next breath what had happened to Ward, she despaired. It was as if the floor had sundered to expose a great, yawning gulf down which she could see the young, dark, darling detective—yuppy though he might be—falling; it threatened to consume her as well. “But how?” she asked. Wasn’t he a former boxing champ? And the way he carried himself was like—well, like a dancer or, rather, a boxer, his square and well-muscled shoulders swaying, his legs always seeming to be set to give or receive a blow, his expression not cocky but quietly confident.

“Got careless, I should imagine. Won’t happen again, I’d hazard. Not to Hughie. But we can only hope—about the ear. The wrist? That’ll mend, like his pride. But right now he’s one sorry soldier.” McKeon had picked him up at hospital and brought the hurting detective back to his flat.

And leaving her in one rush, her sympathy—all eleven stone of it—went out to him, and she knew what she had to do.

But the stairs of the building were so old they felt spongy under her step, and the door, when she knocked, roared like a drum. She heard what sounded like somebody falling and then Ward’s voice asking, “Who is it?”

How to reply to that? Ban Gharda Bresnahan? Ruth Bresnahan? Or “Bresnahan,” which she shouted, sure it was how the others referred to her, and then was seized with immediate panic. What could she have been thinking about, coming out here when he was ill? It was the worst possible time, and surely not the way to go about making him aware of her as something more than a competitor or some poor, pitiable lump of pink flesh, which was probably more in line with his thinking. She caught sight of her reflection in the glass door—of her broad shoulders and her jaw, which was defi
nite; of the oval of her long face, her surplus of bosom—and she nearly turned and fled.

But the door opened then, and there was Ward, still wearing the shirt and tie he’d had on that morning, but with the collar and shoulder stained by what she guessed was blood. The side of his head was so swollen that his eye was nearly closed and the ear huge and unsightly. He was obviously having trouble focusing, and he raised his only good hand to block the light from the puffy eye. The other was in a cast held in place by a sling. “Yes?”

“I’ve come to see how you are?”

“Bernie send you?”

“No, I came on my own.”

Silently he turned away, and in stepping back into the shadows, his step faltered and his knee seemed to collapse and suddenly he was down, rolling agilely nevertheless to spare the wrist. Then he was on his back, looking up at her. “Christ.”

Bresnahan closed the door and reached for the good arm, raised toward her. “You’re a bit dizzy, I suspect.”

“I hope.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She was surprised at both the strength in his small forearm and how readily she pulled him to his feet, and she imagined with what ease she might toss him around a bit. She blushed at the thought.

“That my balance—” was all he managed before he began going down again.

“Well, didn’t they test you for that in the hospital?” She wrapped a hand around his waist and buoyed him on her strong hip, her fingers curling about the tight muscles on his side. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, she bet.

“Not for a few days. The trauma—”

“I’ll say. And where’s the bed?” She nearly gasped at having said that so easily. She wondered what was happening to
her. What about her upbringing, her past? Could she forget it all in such a short time?

With his good arm he pointed down the long room that had evidently once served as some type of factory facility; she moved him in that direction. The bed turned out to be an enormous round affair heaped in pillows and soft, downy comforters, and she wondered what extravagances of the flesh had occurred on its shiny surface that looked like gray, steely silk.

She released Ward slowly, but once out of her grasp he fell roughly back and tried to scrabble some pillows under his head. Only after she had helped him arrange them did she look around.

It was brilliant, really, what he had done with the place: dividers and screens, some made of hand-painted, translucent, Japanese-looking textiles, had been placed here and there to section off rooms. One was a kitchen, another a type of study, and there, as in a Victorian tea room, were an Oriental rug and two wing-back chairs, a long, bolstered sofa, a tea wagon and table, even an ornate brass samovar buffed to a sheen.

Bresnahan turned back to Ward with even greater affection and concern, if such was possible. She could see herself forsaking everything she had ever known and living here with an abandon that made her head spin just to think of it.

“Well, we must get you comfortable first,” she heard herself saying. “And then—a little tea and something to eat.” And then the goods should be examined. Her own mother had taught her that, forgive her the thought.

Shoes came first. And first quality too. She couldn’t conceive how he managed it.

“No—I can do that.”

“Sure, but me the more easily. Rest your head. Relax. Do you know I studied nursing?” It was a lie, but she wondered
how many unsuspecting girls he himself had lied to and debauched on that silken plane. Agreeably, she was convinced with no need of proof.

“Years and years. Whole decades out in Kerry while waiting me higher calling of undressing Inspector Ward.” Did she see him smile? She thought she did, while she tugged at the knot of his tie.

“Really—” he again complained, but he had raised his arms, and she had it off.

Next came the buttons on his shirt. “Do you think they did it?”

“Who?”

The hair on his tanned chest was thick and tinged with blond. The muscles of his pectorals were firm, his stomach was ridged with muscles. “Them punks. The ones who—” She thought it best not to risk an unacceptable term.

“How else did they get the hat? And the stick,” he added after a while. His brow furrowed.

“But why?” Sliding one hand across his stomach, under the shirt, and then around him onto the small of his back, Bresnahan raised him; with the other hand she pulled the material up toward his shoulders. Drawing in a full chestful of the scent of his cologne or after-shave, something spicy or tangy, she let her breath out slowly and asked—no, begged—God in His mercy to aid her.

“For Coyle’s money, whatever he had. The hat, the blazer, the stick.” Again the pained expression. “For the hell of it, who knows? The bastards.”

“Amen.” Unlinking each cuff, she worked the now ruined shirt off his shoulders and arms and again was pleased and somewhat frightened at how perfect was the confirmation of his muscles. She wondered how she had missed seeing him knock all those other men flat, which she would have enjoyed immensely. She would commence following sport, so
she would, and view every boxing match she could. The telly,
live.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what was happening to her? It was as though she had been seized by everything about her that was
animal.

“But how would that account for the murder weapon being found under the seat of Professor Flood’s wife’s Fiat Five Hundred?” she asked. She could read in Ward’s expression that he did not yet know about the discovery, and as she explained, she tugged at his belt, his hands falling to her wrists.

“Don’t.”

“Why not? I’m a nurse, remember?”

He seemed to think for a moment, then loosened his grip.

“You might think I was trying to take advantage of you,” she observed before continuing her account. Boxer shorts. She knew she would find them, but not the very same taupecocoa color of his shirt. The smoothie.

And thighs; to raise himself up he had to push off on the bed, and they flexed like two powerful engines. She then turned and arranged the pleats of the trousers and looked for a closet to hang the shirt and jacket. “Or do you want me to take these ’round to a cleaners.”

There was a pause, and then, “Would you, Rut’ie?”

She liked that Rut’ie. That Rut’ie was very nice indeed, and if that was all that came of her efforts, she would be happy.

And then she had seen enough, she had. Jesus, no wonder the women went mad over the little tyke. He was built like a miniature statue of some gladiator, he was a little Adonis, that was it. Or Pan.

“Now then”—she turned back to pull a coverlet over him—“how about some nice hot tea and a cold cloth for your forehead?”

“Ah, no. Really. You’ve been great. I can’t thank you enough.”

But by then Bresnahan had reached the kitchen area with its butcher-block table, restaurant-quality cooker, an immense stainless-steel fridge and freezer, its blessed microwave oven. Could he be on the take? she wondered. Or did his parents have money? “And a bite of something to eat, just to get your strength back.” Oysters, she thought.

“Well,” said Ward, “maybe I could take something.”

And Bresnahan, opening the door of the fridge, was astounded by what she found. Some bachelor digs: every shelf was packed with interesting stuff (how would she ever keep her figure, which she mortified herself to contain, in such a place?), an entire selection of cheeses, a glass box of fresh vegetables and a second one of fruit, a plate of salmon steaks. An entire shelf was lined with nothing but bottles of white wine. Had he been expecting somebody? Of course. She had known about that from the start, which was something she’d have to put out of her mind. He was a bounder, a womanizer, a roué, and more,
only because
he hadn’t as yet met the right woman. Or, rather, been convinced of the right—“Some fish?” she asked.

“Oh—the salmon. I nearly forgot. Well—it’d be a pity to let it spoil. And the parsley-boiled potatoes. You’ll find them in a plastic container all ready to go. The lettuce—”

“I see the lettuce.”

“The lemons are in the bin. For the salmon.”

“I see them.”

“Salad dressings—”

“I see those too. I’d offer you wine, but you’re probably on medication.”

There was a pause, and then, “Well—I don’t think a little would kill me.”

Nor would a smash in the head with an ashplant stick, thought Bresnahan, carrying in a bowl of cold water and a washcloth she had discovered in the bath. The entire room—tile floors, tile walls, and dashed ceiling—were black. She wondered if, with his experience, he might have a social disease. Sitting beside him on the bed to cut his fish, she decided she didn’t care. Obviously he was a man who took pains to mind himself and everything he owned. He wouldn’t go out with just anybody.

After washing up and before leaving, she pulled her Glock from her purse. “I’ll be back to see how you’re mending, but in the nonce you might feel better with this.” She placed the large, gray-green handgun in his lap. “Rough country, this,” She meant quayside Dublin. “You never know who might be coming through that door.”

Turning his head so he could see her with his one good eye, he asked, “But what about you?”

“I have another.”

“Really? Do you collect guns?”

“No. I collect tools.”

Ward reached her his hand. “Thanks.” His grip was as firm as hers, and it lingered. “You’re a gem. Really. I don’t know how to thank you, Rut’ie.”

Bresnahan had an astounding idea, though it could wait.

There was no morning meeting.

Before McGarr left his house in Rathmines, he got a call from McKeon saying that the sexton of St. Michan’s had phoned in a complaint that some young people had remained in the church after it was locked at night and had obviously spent the night there, sleeping in the pews. When he had approached to chuck them out, two had threatened him.

The hair on the tops of their heads had been twisted into spikes; they were wearing denim and leather and metal. One
was carrying a stout stick. Another had said he had a gun and pretended to reach for it under his jacket.

By the time McGarr arrived, all exits from the church and the surrounding streets had been blocked off and uniformed police were having all they could do to keep the crowds back.

It was perhaps the worst place in Dublin for any sort of confrontation. At one end of the narrow, shop-lined, laneway was Grafton Street, Dublin’s premier shopping district; at the other was Clarendon Street and Powerscourt, an arcade of shops and eateries. Now, in the summer, it was packed with tourists. Behind was Wicklow Street, another commercial artery, and it was into the curb there, where O’Shaughnessy stood, that McGarr swung his Cooper.

He got out, since the superintendent was too tall and at sixty-four too old to be bending to the low car, and they spoke across its forest-green roof.

“They’re still in there. Two girls and two boys.” O’Shaughnessy let go the last word hesitantly. “Having done who knows what the night long. Sexton says the place reeks of drink.” His clear blue eyes flickered up at the spires of the church. He was a profoundly conservative man, and a muscle was working on the side of his face.

“Sexton locked them in and made the call. He says they’ve tried to break out and now he can hear them smashing things. Then, we’ve got Guards.” With his broad chin he indicated the cordon of blue uniforms at the end of the street. “I’d hate to…” Have to arrest them in the church, he meant. “But…” With the other police present, the sort of “interview” that both knew was necessary would be impossible in public, where there might be witnesses. “I’ve said they’re wanted for questioning in the Coyle case. And nobody will doubt…” They resisted arrest.