‘I don’t think we have any more reason to speak to each other, Sergeant.’
‘I think we have, Monsignor.’
‘That’s not my understanding. You certainly have no business here.’
‘It won’t involve anything God doesn’t know already.’
‘My sister has done nothing. It’s a lie.’
‘You think so? She told Seán Moran to get your letters from Vincent Walsh. When his Blueshirt pals buggered it up she sent him back to shut the poor bastard up for good. And when you told her to send a taxi car for Father Byrne, to bring Susan Field to hospital, she sent Seán instead, to clean up the mess. You do know why Vincent wouldn’t let go of the letters? He’d got the wrong end of the stick. He actually thought he was protecting you, Monsignor.’
It was difficult to read what was going on in Robert Fitzpatrick’s head. For some seconds he simply stared at Stefan. His face was white. There was something almost ferocious in his eyes; it could have been rage or despair. Then, quite abruptly, it was gone, and there was nothing. It was as if a light had been switched off. His face relaxed into a look of calm, bland disdain.
‘There really is no more to say, Sergeant Gillespie.’
‘I don’t care what you tell yourself, Monsignor. I don’t care what you believe. I’m not here for that.’
‘Then why are you here?’
‘Because I need your help.’
‘And what makes you think I’d want to help you?’
‘I’m sure you will. They can put a lid on a lot, but not on me. I haven’t finished with you.’
‘You disgust me!’
Robert Fitzpatrick stepped past Stefan. He gave him a look of withering contempt. Stefan grabbed him. He turned the priest round and held him by the lapels of his jacket, pulling him close and gazing angrily into his eyes.
‘You need to talk to me. You really do, I promise you.’
He let him go. Fitzpatrick didn’t move.
‘Do you know who Father Anthony Carey is?’
The priest was puzzled. The name meant nothing immediately.
‘He’s a curate in Baltinglass, but that’s not it; he’s in your Association of Catholic Strength. I think he’s a man you would probably know, Monsignor.’
Fitzpatrick answered warily, slowly, but he answered.
‘Yes, yes, I think I know who you mean. But I don’t understand –’
‘Your Church is trying to take my son away from me, because of him. And he’s your man, isn’t he?’ Stefan explained what had happened. He didn’t need to go into detail. It all made sense to Robert Fitzpatrick. In fact there was nothing about it that seemed in the least bit unreasonable to him. The contact he had had with Stefan Gillespie now gave him every reason to believe that Father Carey had been doing what any decent priest should have done.
‘This isn’t any business of mine.’
‘You can make it your business.’
‘Why should I? Why would you imagine I’d even consider it?’
He would have said more, but he stopped. Stefan was smiling.
‘Because I’ve got the letters you wrote to Vincent Walsh.’
Fitzpatrick froze. He had thought there was nothing to this other than more unpleasantness, but the letters were different. Whatever the detective knew about their content, he still believed they had disappeared along with Hugo Keller. It hadn’t occurred to him that they were in the hands of this man who had done so much damage and caused so much pain. But the priest’s sense of who he was, his sense of his fundamental invulnerability, was still there.
‘Are you trying to blackmail me?’
‘Yes, I am. I’m glad you understand that, Monsignor.’
‘I see. And what are you going to do with these letters?’
He had found a smile, a half-smile, from somewhere. He was still stronger than this policeman. He had too many friends. No one would listen.
‘I’m going to do more than Herr Keller, I promise. I know a man who knows a man in London who’s in the market for that sort of thing. Journalist might not be the right word for it. He works for the News of the World. Nobody would ever publish anything in Ireland, of course not, but it’s still quite a story; buggery, abortion, unexplained deaths. And who knows what they’d come up with? Maybe they’d find some other fellers out there who remembered you. What would you do, sue? It would be some case. And they’re not so delicate with priests at the Old Bailey. One way or another you’d be finished in the Church. And I’d forget any plans you might have about sainthood.’
It really was blackmail, plain and simple. And there was nothing Robert Fitzpatrick could do about it. Blackmail is only ever as effective as the blackmailer’s determination to carry through his threat. The monsignor only had to look into Stefan Gillispie’s eyes to see that he meant every word he said.
‘I’m done speaking for the dead, Monsignor Fitzpatrick. Now I’m speaking for myself. You will help me or I’ll make it my only purpose in life to destroy you.’
*
An end was needed to the whole affair, but it was difficult for the Garda Commissioner and the Minister of Justice to find one. Among the few people who knew the story there were already different versions. Even Stefan’s version had its versions. There was the version for Ned Broy, the version for Dessie, the version for Susan’s father, the version for Hannah. The version he gave her was close enough to the truth, but didn’t contain everything. What the Commissioner told the Minister and what the Minister told anyone else was something else again. There were certain things that could be done. Sister Brigid Fitzpatrick took a sudden decision to spend the rest of her days behind the impenetrable walls of a contemplative order of Carmelite nuns in County Limerick. She would never leave. She understood what had to be done although she would never feel any need for her daily prayers to be prayers of penitence. She would shut her life off from the world for the same reason she told Seán Óg Moran to kill: to protect her brother and allow him to fight the mystical war that would save mankind.
Monsignor Robert Fitzpatrick, who had done nothing of course, would continue to proclaim the conspiracies of Jews and communists, and there were many who heard him sympathetically within the Church. His ideas were, after all, not wrong in themselves; they simply needed to be voiced less stridently. Not everyone could warm to Adolf Hitler, and there were certainly some unpleasant aspects to Nazism; but the real enemy was still red, not red and black; the hammer and sickle not the swastika. And with democracy on its last legs, something had to bring order to the chaos of secularism and immorality it would leave in its wake. The Nazis came down on their opponents hard, no doubt about that, but these were hard times. And if Adolf Hitler did keep talking about eradicating Jews, why would anyone want to take all that bluster literally? The man was a politician after all. The Church didn’t have to like Herr Hitler to know that for now the future was with him. There was a longer game for the church to play than any Thousand Year Reich fantasies. It wasn’t as if Robert Fitzpatrick didn’t understand that. He spoke with the voice of the age. And somebody had to. Among the carpenter’s tools were axes and hammers as well as fine chisels; now was the time of the axe and hammer.
Nevertheless, whatever version of the story Ned Broy and the Garda Chaplain told Archbishop Edward Byrne, at the archbishop’s palace in Drumcondra, it was felt that Monsignor Robert Fitzpatrick would benefit from several years away from Ireland, researching his book on the Mystical Body of Christ at the Gregorian University in Rome. The need for all this new research came upon him almost as rapidly as his sister’s illness on her.
*
The day after Stefan Gillespie’s conversation with Robert Fitzpatrick in the University Church, he saw Hannah Rosen for the last time. They both knew it would be the last time and neither of them wanted to spend an evening talking about that, or worse trying to pretend there was something else to talk about. Instead they sat in the darkness at the Gate Theatre and let other people speak. It didn’t matter what the play was. It happened to be The Taming of the Shrew. It had the benefit of being long, but although it carried no special resonance for them, nothing that was about love felt easy. They would both have preferred an unhappy ending. However, they needed to be together and the Gate was a place to be that made silence something they could share. As they left the bar after the performance Micheál Mac Liammóir was heading towards it, out of costume now but with traces of make-up still on his face. He recognised Stefan and stopped, smiling.
‘The thin detective! And how’s the fat one?’
‘He’s not a great one for the theatre, Mr Mac Liammóir.’
‘Did we scare him off?’
‘There’s not much that scares Dessie.’
‘But it can be done.’
Stefan laughed. ‘This is Miss Rosen. Hannah, Mr Mac Liammóir.’
‘A pleasure, my dear.’ He took her hand. He turned back to Stefan, lowering his voice. ‘Did you ever find out anything about the boy, Vincent?’
‘We didn’t.’ It was an official lie. He didn’t like it any more for that.
Mac Liammóir looked at him harder. It was difficult not to feel he knew more, or at least that he already suspected there was more to know.
‘Well, we saw him off, just after Christmas. Eric Purcell was going down to Carlow to the funeral. I don’t know how he cudgelled the details out the mammy but he did, and in the end a few of us decided to take the train as well, chums from the theatre and other assorted reprobates. I’d always wanted the chance to sing the song, so I did, on the train. “Up with halberd, out with sword, on we’ll go for by the Lord, Feach MacHugh has given word! Follow me down to Carlow!” I’m not entirely sure Carlow has recovered yet.’ He spoke more softly. ‘If his mother and father didn’t know him, I hope they knew there were people who cared about him, and loved him, it was a lonely end.’
When they left the Gate and walked down O’Connell Street towards the river it wasn’t a journey they enjoyed, but they still didn’t want it to stop. What Hannah knew about Susan’s murder now was nearly as much as she could know. She seemed almost less angry than Stefan about the wall the state had already built around Monsignor Robert Fitzpatrick and Hugo Keller and Father Francis Byrne and Vincent Walsh and Brigid Fitzpatrick, and Susan Field too. She knew there was no further to go. There wasn’t the resolution public justice should have brought, but she could do no more to repay the debt she owed to her childhood friend, except for one thing. She could live. For the moment she was thinking about the other dead body on Kilmashogue, the man she knew nothing about, who had died in the same way her friend had, for the same reasons, for nothing at all it seemed to her.
‘I’d forgotten about him, Vincent Walsh,’ she said.
‘I’m glad not everybody has.’
‘His parents don’t know what really happened?’
‘There’s no one to tell them.’
‘There’s you.’
‘Not everyone’s like you. Not everyone wants to know.’
‘Do you believe that?’
‘There’s a time to stop. I believe it’s not my business any more. ’
Somewhere that business that wasn’t his was Hannah too. He didn’t want it to mean that, but it soon would. They walked on again in silence.
‘What will you do?’ asked Hannah.
‘My suspension’s over, as of next week. I’m thinking I’ll get out of Dublin and go back into uniform. When Ned Broy’s thanked me for keeping my mouth shut about everything a few more times, I’d say he’ll be glad to see the back of me. I think a lot of people will. He owes me a favour, so he can send me down to Baltinglass. Maybe I’ve got used to being at home after all these months.’
‘Is that what you want?’ She didn’t altogether believe him.
‘I don’t know what I want. I think it’s what I owe Tom.’
‘That’s not the same thing.’
‘It’s close enough,’ he smiled. ‘There are things you can’t have.’
‘If there was any point talking about it, Stefan –’
‘I know that.’
‘It doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it. I have.’
‘I’d have hoped so.’
‘I’ve thought about it a lot.’
‘That’s the difference. I don’t need to think about it.’
‘Please don’t, Stefan –’
‘I think if we were going to find a way to be together we’d have done it, Hannah. I think with you, if I need to ask at all, then there’s no point asking.’
They had reached the Liffey. Dublin was quiet now. They stood on O’Connell Bridge, watching the grey stream of water move towards the docks and the sea. There was no moon, only cloud and the city’s lights below it.
‘I wanted to change my mind. I can’t. It’s not easy to say that.’
‘I know my psalms. I sang them as a boy at St Patrick’s. They stick in your head, whether you want them to or not sometimes. “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem.” That’s the one that’s been sticking. I might be able to compete with Benny and the oranges, but I can’t compete with three thousand years of memory. I don’t know the man, but I know it’s not him you’re marrying.’
She could have been angry with him, but too much of it was true.
‘I wasn’t sure what I felt when I came back, Stefan. I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I mean when I first got home last year, before I met you.’
‘And now you’ve met me, you’re sure. Thanks,’ he laughed.
‘No, being in Europe made me sure. Danzig made me sure.’
‘This isn’t Germany. It never will be.’
‘I don’t know what it is.’
‘You’re Irish. You don’t mean that.’
‘And you’re a policeman. If they sent you to Clanbrassil Street to fill a truck with Jews and take them to a concentration camp – would you do it?’
‘That couldn’t happen, you know that.’
‘People like Monsignor Fitzpatrick would stop it, you mean.’
‘He’s not the Catholic Church.’
‘No. But perhaps he’s more of it than I want to live next door to.’
Stefan said nothing, but he knew she was still waiting.
‘You didn’t answer my question. What would you do?’
‘I hope I’d refuse to do it.’
‘You hope?’
‘I wouldn’t do it. Don’t you know that?’
‘You’d walk away?’
He nodded, but he knew it sounded like evasion, not principle.
‘You think walking away would be enough?’
‘No.’ He couldn’t say otherwise. He remembered Danzig too.
‘I don’t think so either. That’s what I’ve learned, I suppose. I need to be where someone picks up a gun, not where people turn their backs.’
‘Well, you’ve got the money for them.’ It was a stupid thing to say, but her words had hurt him. They hurt all the more because she was right.
‘You think we shouldn’t defend ourselves, Stefan?’
‘I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry. But I can’t fight any of this, Hannah. I want to talk to you about how I feel, about you and me. You want to talk about the world turning itself upside down and inside out. How do I deal with that?’
‘I need a place to stand, Stefan.’ She took his hand and smiled, looking up at him tenderly. ‘I’ve always wanted to make up my own mind about everything. My parents never did, or my grandparents. As far back as you want to go. Everything that happened to them was someone else’s decision. Sometimes whether you lived or died depended on nothing more than other people’s moods, that’s all. And it doesn’t feel any different now. I don’t want to live like that. I can’t. I never really intended to go to Palestine. It was Susan who was the Zionist. She used to irritate me because she was always so sure about it. I didn’t want the label. But my label’s in my blood.’
‘So is it for her as well?’
‘Is what for her?’
‘Palestine.’
She didn’t respond, then she shrugged. ‘I suppose a part of it is.’
‘You’re going to live Susan’s life too?’
‘If I can.’
She looked at him with something like defiance.
He smiled. She was still the woman he had met at Merrion Square.
They started to walk on, holding hands. As they reached Burgh Quay she put her arm through his and held him closer to her. They turned left along the Liffey. He could feel the rain beginning. It wasn’t heavy; it was what it always was, the soft, grey, constant rain of Ireland.
‘We won’t see each other again,’ he said.
‘I know.’ She held his arm tighter. ‘I’d like a drink, Stefan.’
‘There’s nowhere open,’ he smiled, ‘it’s Dublin, remember?’
She stopped. She was crying. He pulled her to him and held her.
‘It’s what I have to do. Can’t you understand? I just want to live!’
At Westland Row Annie O’Neill produced a warm bottle of sweet white wine they didn’t ask for and didn’t want. She’d been drinking. As she left them she pushed a key into Stefan’s hand. ‘No one’s in the front double.’
*
The next morning they dressed with a familiarity that reminded him for a moment of Maeve, taking no real notice of one another. It wasn’t a painful memory. What was painful was that within a very short time this would be another memory. Hannah was aware of it too. As they walked out of the hotel into Westland Row she kissed him, quite abruptly, and then shook her head as he started to say something. She didn’t want him to speak. She turned and walked away towards Lincoln Place. He stood looking after her, remembering the woman he had first seen in Merrion Square as he sat in a smoke-filled car with Dessie MacMahon. She moved with the same self-assurance. He knew now that sometimes she had to work hard at that. He smiled, hearing Dessie’s words the second day they saw her. ‘She’s back, your dark-eyed acushla.’ He waited, watching her move through the crowds going to work along Westland Row until she was gone. She didn’t look back. He turned the other way and walked down to the junction with Pearse Street. The tram took him past the Garda station and Trinity College and then along the Liffey and the Quays to Kingsbridge, to catch the train to West Wicklow.
Later that day Stefan stood in the door of the farmhouse. Tom and his grandfather were driving the cows in from the fields for milking, as they did every evening. There were fresh flowers from Helena’s garden on Maeve’s grave. He had taken them up that afternoon with Tom. The swallows, back barely a week themselves, were feeding excitedly over the farmyard. He watched his son run out of the milking parlour, chasing the sheepdog. Three hills looked down: Keadeen, Kilranelagh, Baltinglass Hill. They were safe.