‘Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all.’
John Mallon filled a third of Swallow’s tumbler from a newly opened bottle of Tullamore. He pushed the water jug across the desk.
‘That’s Shakespeare, you know. Hamlet. He’d have made a good detective, Shakespeare. Great insight into the criminal mind. It’s all about conscience, that Hamlet. That’s what made young Flannery admit what he’d done. I wonder if anyone’s ever counted the numbers of cases in this city when fellows have walked into police stations and said “I did it”? There’s something to be said for the Catholic sense of guilt.’
‘Are you shifting your loyalties, chief?’ Swallow gestured to Mallon’s whiskey glass. ‘Abandoning your beloved Bushmills for the vines of the King’s County?’
Mallon managed a thin smile.
‘Ah no, I thought you deserved something special. You’ve been through a rough passage. And I know you only drink the Bushmills out of politeness and to humour me.’
Swallow added water to his whiskey.
‘I appreciate the thought, chief. But it wasn’t necessary. Bushmills is no hardship. I nearly sunk the whole bloody ship, chief,’ he said quietly. ‘I nearly walked the wrong man into court on a murder charge.’
A blast of January wind rattled the windows of Mallon’s front parlour. Elizabeth Mallon had drawn the curtains before retiring, but the black of the winter night seeped through from the Lower Yard outside.
‘Don’t let it worry you, Joe,’ Mallon said. ‘Sometimes one’s instincts get knocked off course too. That’s all that happened. I’d have probably gone for Werner as the most likely suspect myself. Though you’ve got to give credit to Feore. He had doubts where both of us believed the evidence pointed in one direction.’ He laughed. ‘And we managed to get the misers in the Upper Yard to fund your visit to Berlin. That’s an achievement, even if it led nowhere.’
‘I know, chief.’ Swallow threw back a mouthful of the whiskey. ‘But I’d have put money on Werner as our man. He’s a slimy, slippery bastard. And if he’s not guilty of Alice Flannery’s murder, I’ll wager he’s guilty of something else. I didn’t believe his story about being with someone else’s wife when he spun it, and I don’t believe it now.’
‘It’s not relevant now, at any event,’ Mallon said. ‘He wouldn’t be the first suspect to come up with that sort of thing. And you wouldn’t be the first policeman whose instincts told him it was all bull. Did he say why he fled from the New Vienna when you and Vizzard went to arrest him? If he had nothing to hide, he wouldn’t have run.’
‘I think in Germany when the police come calling for you, most people try to make themselves scarce,’ Swallow said. ‘But there might be a more specific reason. Pat Mossop got word from a pal of his in the excise office that Mr Werner owes a lot of money to the Crown, built up over the years for imported wines and spirits at the New Vienna. Maybe he thought we were coming to collect it.’
‘If that’s the case, the excise people will get their due. They always do,’ Mallon mused. ‘Right now, just be thankful that you held back and didn’t charge him. That was good judgement too. So be thankful that we don’t have to explain our way out of that.’
Swallow knew he was right.
‘I shouldn’t have been taken in by Dan Flannery either,’ he said ruefully. ‘Mossop has checked out that alibi. Flannery said he’d been seen at Huband Bridge by this fellow Geoffrey Bradley, his teacher from Synge Street. But it turns out that Geoffrey Bradley is also Seathrún Ó Brolcháin. It’s the Irish version of the name. And he’s a member, along with young Flannery, of the Hibernian League. These patriot fellows will swear a hole in a tin bucket to protect each other. Giving a brother-member an alibi in a police investigation wouldn’t be a big thing.’
‘It should have been checked earlier,’ Mallon said. ‘Did we have him on our books?’
‘In the Irish form only. Ó Brolcháin’s been known to G-Division for at least a year. He was in teacher training with my sister. But these fellows slip from an Irish name to an English one and we lose track of them.’
‘We should be ahead of that game,’ Mallon said testily. ‘The first thing you do when you go back to the office is to put out an instruction that subjects under surveillance or investigation should be recorded under both English and Irish forms.’
‘I’ll do that that, chief,’ Swallow said. ‘And we’ll deal with Bradley. At very least we’ll do him for giving false information and wasting police time.’
Mallon grunted.
‘Put him away if you can. Another bloody liar.’
‘Right, chief, we’ll do our best.’
Mallon frowned.
‘I want to say that I’m sorry about Kelly. It’s shameful.’
‘You had no choice, chief, I know that,’ Swallow said. ‘But it’s bloody hard to think of him out somewhere tonight laughing at us, while my Maria is lying above in the Rotunda.’
Mallon poured himself another shot of Tullamore.
‘No, Joe. I didn’t have a choice. No bloody choice at all. Did you do any Latin at school?’
‘I did.’
‘Then you’ll know the phrase, “salus populi suprema lex est”, I’m sure.’
‘The safety of the people is the supreme law.’
‘Absolutely,’ Mallon said.
There was bitterness in the one-word sentence.
‘The safety of the people, as defined by our lords in Westminster, overrules every other consideration. So Major Nigel Kelly may be a killer and a brute, but as long as he’s doing the dirty work of the powers that be, they’ll stand behind him and give him cover.’
He drank from his tumbler of Tullamore.
‘I’m truly sorry, Joe. For you, for Maria, for your baby. I wish there was a way for me to say that we could nail him.’
‘It’s not your fault, chief,’ Swallow said. ‘I understand the rules of the game at this stage. We’re just the gravel on the road. Small cogs in a big wheel . . . and so on. I know that if you didn’t release Kelly you’d be gone from your job within the hour, and some time-serving arse-lick from England would be in your place.’
Mallon thought silently for a moment.
‘Maybe there’s a case for stripping away all this pretence. Maybe it would be better to have all those bloodless Englishmen in charge rather than the likes of you and me. We’re as Irish as any of the characters we chase and trace, sometimes arrest, sometimes see on their way to jail and sometimes see to the gallows, like the Invincibles.’
‘D’ye think so, chief?’ Swallow asked.
‘Ah, not really. We can keep some sort of grip on things. Maybe save Ireland from the foolishness of the English. That’s why we stay with this job, I often think.’ He laughed. ‘Apart from the great wages, that is.’
Swallow echoed the laugh.
‘All for the empire upon which the sun will never set.’
‘Indeed,’ Mallon smiled. ‘And you know why that is?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Because God couldn’t trust the English for what they’d likely do in the dark.’
‘I’ll drink to that, chief.’
Maybe, Swallow thought to himself. Maybe Mallon was right. It was a whole rotten mess. Nigel Kelly should be in a prison cell awaiting trial and then facing the rope for the murder of Nellie Byrne. He and Maria should be facing into the light of spring and then the warmth of summer, anticipating the arrival of their first-born child. A young woman called Alice Flannery should be building her dream of being a cook in a restaurant or a great house. Instead, she lay in a cold grave in Mount Jerome.
It would be so easy to walk away from it all.
‘By the way,’ Mallon said, ‘there’s developments in the Debbie Dunne case too. The bobbies in Irishtown had a walk-in. A lunatic navy deserter, living down by the Grand Canal Dock in a shed, just rolled in to them and confessed to it. He says he thought she was a lady of the night. God gave him an order to do it, he says. Harry Lafeyre has sent him for a mental examination at the Richmond Asylum.’
Strange, Swallow thought. Two murders and one near-murder, all in one small city over a few short weeks. A terrifying pattern of violence, it seemed. And now, when it was all broken down, it was no more than a series of unconnected criminal acts, committed by unconnected perpetrators, motivated by the basest instincts. Such was the nature of his work, he reflected. Individual human crises and tragedies would arise to be dealt with every day. A policeman’s lot.
‘All part of the rich tapestry of life,’ Mallon said, as if reading his thoughts. ‘Wouldn’t you be thankful to Jesus that we’re not dealing with anything like that Ripper business in London?’
Swallow took a sizeable draught from his whiskey.
‘You’re right, chief. But maybe Stephen Doolan wasn’t totally off the mark talking about that “Dolocher” fellow attacking women around Dublin forty years ago. There’s always characters living on the edge of sanity. They can be set off by anything. Even a newspaper report of a killing somewhere else.’
Mallon shrugged.
‘Who knows? Maybe the doctors in the Richmond will get inside the mind of this navy deserter fellow.’
He rose from his chair and walked to the window, drew back the curtain and stared out into darkness of the Lower Yard.
‘I’ve got to stay with it, Joe. I could understand it if you wanted to throw it all to hell and leave the job. But I can tell you, I won’t let the bastards drive me out. And if you want to stay with me in holding the line, I’ll be glad to have you on my flank. No obligation, but you know what I’m saying.’
‘I do, chief.’
Swallow checked his watch. It was coming to eleven o’clock. Maria would want him to be at M & M Grant’s to oversee last drinks and to see the last of the night’s clientele off the premises. Time to be on his way.
He drained the last of his Tullamore and stood to go.
‘I’ll go home, chief. Thanks for the drink. I enjoyed it. And I appreciate the words. I need to do a lot of thinking about all this.’
Mallon nodded.
’I understand. You need to get some sleep and get ready to welcome Maria home. You’ll be needed for a while there. Let me know whatever you want in terms of leave and I’ll make sure it’s all right.’
‘Thanks, chief. Good night.’
Mallon crossed to the door.
‘There’s been big developments in London, by the way. Parnell’s lawyer, Russell, has exposed the Times letters as forgeries, put together by that chancer, Pigott. The word is that Pigott has gone on the run. They say he’s gone to Spain.’
Swallow grinned.
‘They’re welcome to him out there. It’s one less reptile around Dublin.’
‘Tell me,’ Mallon pulled a mock-serious grin, ‘is there any sign of those protection logs that you’ve been searching for at Exchange Court? I’m sure the lads been going at it with all the resources they have.’
He opened the door to allow Swallow to step out into the icy air of the Lower Castle Yard.
‘Not a sign, sir, not a sign. But you can be certain, in a matter so important, I’ll ensure that not a minute is wasted.’