15

At the Dalton house, Noelie examined a photo on the mantelpiece. It was of Ethel and Jim Dalton on their wedding day. A North Cathedral wedding: Ethel and Jim standing under the arched portico, well-wishers fanning away on each side. Ethel in white, the veil drawn aside; a bright smile on her face. Jim, beside her, in a dark suit with a carnation in his lapel. Ethel had inches on him in height.

Mrs Dalton came back into the room and sat on the sofa. She pulled a blanket over her knees.

‘My Jim wasn’t an orphan as such but he ended up as one. He was found wandering on Coburg Street. Do you know it?’

Noelie nodded.

‘He should’ve been at school, 1960 this would be around. His mother was never that good. In those days that’s what happened to you. He was taken from her and sent to the industrial school at Upton. There was just him and her. By the time he got out, she had died. So he kind of became an orphan. He never knew his father.’

Noelie put back the wedding photo. ‘Did you ever hear him mention the name Michael Egan?’

Mrs Dalton recognised who Noelie was talking about. She shook her head and propped herself more upright on the sofa. ‘Sharon,’ she called loudly.

The daughter appeared at the sitting room door. She had a coat on. ‘I’m going out, Mam.’

‘Can you bring the photo, the one of your dad and the bishop?’

While they waited Noelie asked if there was any further news regarding the allegations in the Sugrue statement. She responded with a series of colourful expletives; in short, no, there were no new developments. The Garda press office had now entered the fray and were disputing the claim that there had ever been any meeting involving Sugrue and the Garda Commissioner. The Daltons were taking legal advice but the allegations, for the moment at least, were last month’s news.

Sharon returned and handed the picture to her mother. She didn’t acknowledge Noelie. Ethel passed it to him. It had a light sepia colouration. A handwritten inscription on the edge read Danesfort Industrial School, May 1963. The subject was the presentation of a scroll. A line of boys in white shirts and dark short pants, ten or eleven years of age, were waiting their turn. Jim Dalton was third from the end. It would be difficult to identify him as the line of boys were not the focal point of the shot but Noelie decided to take Mrs Dalton’s word for it. Behind the presentation there was a monument with a Celtic cross at its apex.

‘That’s Con Lucey there,’ said Mrs Dalton, pointing at the deceased former bishop of Cork. Lucey had a reputation around Cork. Conservative didn’t quite do him justice.

Mrs Dalton pointed to the next figure along, a priest in a soutane. He was tall, wore glasses and had his hair in a comb-over style.

‘The Rosminian Order ran Danesfort. He was the head man.’

‘The occasion?’ enquired Noelie.

‘This group were altar boys trained to administer Mass in Irish. My Jim was a good speaker, to do with that I suppose.’

Beside the head Rosminian there was one other priest. He was young and wore a white soutane. He was smiling. Noelie wondered about the significance of the pale garb. A novitiate?

There were other adults present too, in civvies. However their faces weren’t easy to make out due to the angle the photo was taken from. Mrs Dalton didn’t know who they were. Noelie wondered why she wanted him to look at the photo.

‘From the Examiner?’ he enquired, referring to Cork’s main newspaper.

Mrs Dalton didn’t know. After a while she continued, ‘Jim was careful about this picture. He kept it to himself. I joked with him once that he must have been doing very well to have his photo taken with the bishop but he said that he could still smell the pee in his pants when he looked at the picture. Every boy there was scared half to death, he used to say. Jim was very bitter about Danesfort.’

This wasn’t any surprise to Noelie. ‘An unpleasant place from what I’ve read.’

‘A prison for the poor.’

‘Why did he have the photo?’

‘I don’t really know.’

He handed back the picture. Mrs Dalton laid it on the blanket on her lap. ‘Will you get me a glass of water?’ she asked.

Noelie was glad to. He had visited on a hunch. He recalled that Mrs Dalton had said her husband was an orphan. At the cemetery when he saw Egan’s bare grave, he had wondered if Egan was an orphan too. There hadn’t been any mention of his family in the news reports. Was that the connection with Dalton? He figured there had to be one. After all, why would a map of where Egan was buried be attached to the statement on Dalton’s execution?

The kitchen was spotless. The entire house was that way, well-kept and cosy. A very ordinary Irish house apart from the republican memorabilia in the hall. Not many Irish people remembered the 1916 martyrs with such devotion.

He watched Mrs Dalton sip her water. She declared that she was poorly since the let-down at Glen Park, that she had been certain that the body that was found would be Jim’s. She had seen the end of the road and was ready for it. She had decided long ago that her Jim was dead. Finding his body was all that remained.

She put her hand out for Noelie’s and squeezed it.

‘An informer is lowlife, the lowest. We’re republicans here, as you know.’ Noelie nodded. ‘It was the worst thing they could ever say about him and about us. Jim’s good name was taken. They said he was a tout, a collaborator. We’ve had to live with that.’

Picking up the photo again, Ethel Dalton added, ‘He wanted this photo but I wouldn’t give it to him.’

Noelie didn’t follow. ‘Who?’ he asked.

‘Sugrue.’

‘Sean Sugrue? He was here?’

‘A few times.’

‘Branch business you mean? Harassing Jim?’

Mrs Dalton frowned. ‘No. This was long after Jim disappeared.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Three times at least.’

‘What did he want?’

‘You see that was why I had no doubts about the statement you brought to us. The minute I saw Sugrue’s name on that document I knew it was probably what we were looking for.’

Noelie remembered. Mrs Dalton had certainly not hesitated. At the time, with all that was happening, it didn’t fully register with Noelie but now that she said it he understood.

‘So what did he want when he was here?’

‘He was interested in Jim’s involvement in Sinn Féin. He knew quite a bit about him, I’ll tell you that. I wouldn’t tell him anything though. He got the message too.’

Noelie nodded. ‘So it was police business?’

‘No. He was adamant it was a private errand. He was clear there. I got the impression he was sorry about something. I didn’t know what of course. This was around the time of the first IRA ceasefire, ’94, I think, right? Or ’95, maybe it was. I thought it was to do with that actually. Mending bridges and all that stuff.’ A look of repulsion came over Mrs Dalton. ‘He was quite religious, you know?’

‘So I’ve heard.’

‘Wanted to say the rosary with me, with all of us. That’s what convinced me he was involved in Jim’s disappearance. You could tell he was guilt-ridden.’

Mrs Dalton closed her eyes. Noelie suppressed his impatience.

‘What else did he ask about?’

‘It was all to do with Jim. What was he like before he disappeared? Had he spoken about anything that seemed suspicious, looking back. Was he worried? That kind of thing.’

‘And?’

Mrs Dalton suddenly heaved herself up from the sofa. She went to a sideboard and opened a set of doors. Noelie saw a shelf of books all neatly lined up with years printed on their spines. 1990 was the first. She retrieved 1994 but returned it and took out 1995.

‘I’ve kept a diary for every year. In the beginning it was for notes, to keep track of who said what. But in later years it became a way of dealing with Jim’s absence. The last few years I haven’t put much in them at all. There’s been nothing to report.’

She skimmed through 1995 until she came to February. ‘Here it is.’ She read the entry.

16 February

Sean Sugrue called. He was in Special Branch in Cork and knew Jim. He wanted to pray with me. He asked if Jim spoke about the Provos and what he said. He was interested in anyone Jim didn’t like or didn’t trust. He asked about a person called Brian Boru. I told him Jim wasn’t in the Provos, that he was in Sinn Féin.

‘This Brian Boru,’ Noelie asked, ‘what was that about?’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t remember.’

‘Why did you write it down so?’

‘Don’t remember that either. It was fifteen years ago. See I put things in the diary because they seemed important to me at the time. But why exactly I thought that, I don’t recall now. Why?’

Noelie told Mrs Dalton that he didn’t know who Brian Boru was but he seemed to be someone or something important inside the IRA. He asked if her husband had ever mentioned the name. She shook her head.

‘So Sugrue was here a few times and he wanted to pray with you all. Anything else?’

Mrs Dalton returned to the diary. The next few pages were empty. She returned to the very first entry in that year, on 1 January, and offered it to Noelie to read.

One day you will walk in. You will be at the door and you will stand there and you will smile at me. I won’t believe it is you. That moment when I know it is you and that you really are present and have come back will be the happiest moment of my life. I won’t actually believe it is you until I hold you. Then I will hold you so tight that I am sure I will squeeze the life out of you. I will never let you out of my sight again.

It was sad, and when Noelie looked up he expected to see something like sadness in Mrs Dalton’s eyes but instead she beamed.

‘What is it?’

‘I remember. Sugrue was interested in the photo because he knew someone in it.’

Noelie retrieved the Danesfort picture and examined it again. ‘You mean other than your husband?’

‘Of course. Well, he didn’t know Jim was in it. He was waiting out in the front room, where the piano is. We had got the photo framed and put up on the wall by that time. He was looking about, as you do.’ Mrs Dalton looked very pleased. ‘He asked me about it and why we had the photo. When he realised my Jim was in it too he became quite excited.’ She looked at the diary again and flipped through all the August entries but there was nothing. ‘I should’ve written something about all that, shouldn’t I?’

Noelie felt like screaming yes but he only nodded.

‘Well, it’s not always easy.’ Mrs Dalton suddenly looked sad. ‘It gets me down. I used to think I’d never give up on Jim but there’s been setback after setback. I don’t know any more. I despair of ever finding him.’

Noelie understood. He waited a while and then probed again.

‘Sugrue wanted to take the photo away to make a copy of it but I wouldn’t give it to him. No way.’

Noelie went through every page in the diary for 1995. He found one other reference to Sugrue in November. All it said was ‘Sean Sugrue called again.’

He looked at the Danesfort photo once more and then showed it to Mrs Dalton again. ‘Any idea who it was he recognised?’

Ethel Dalton looked. ‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’