A June of Ordinary Murders, page 14
There were no such risks in the cells in the Lower Yard behind Exchange Court. After a day or two, the dankness, the inedible food and the attentions of vermin usually persuaded prisoners to start talking to their captors.
The G Division’s intelligence files linked the two men to a splinter group calling itself the ‘Hibernian Brothers’. It saw itself as providing armed support for the actions of the Land League, even though the newly aligned National League publicly dissociated itself from violent action.
Horan, the intelligence recorded, was employed by the post office. O’Donnell described himself as a student and part-time journalist, but the files did not offer any details of where he studied or where he plied his supposed trade.
Swallow was secretly relieved that the two suspects had elected to stay quiet for the moment. The less said about Harriet and her friends the better.
He knew that as soon as he could get an hour or two, he had to talk urgently to his younger sister about the dangerous waters in which she was moving. He was angry and worried. With luck, he calculated, there would be a safe interval before one or other of the prisoners would want to talk in the hope of saving their own skins.
Swallow knew the pattern. Initial defiance would begin to fade after a few nights in the cells where they would be held in isolation from one another. Some time after that, the prospect of 10 or 15 years in a prison cell would inevitably cause someone to rethink the policy of noncooperation.
For the moment, though, he had to deal with other matters.
‘Duck’ Boyle was the detective inspector in charge of G Division’s inquiries shift this morning.
If there were moments still when Joe Swallow bitterly regretted the failure of his medical career, they usually occurred in the days or nights when Boyle was rostered to run the detective office.
Shortly before 10.30, Duck Boyle was standing in the centre of the parade room, a bundle of files under one arm and a sheaf of incident reports clutched in his right hand. Perspiration rolled down his florid face, coursing along the fleshy rolls of his squat neck and forming into patches of dampness on his shirt and waistcoat.
‘Holy Mother of Christ,’ he waved the sheaf of incident forms at nobody in particular. ‘What was going on last night in this bloody city? How’re we going to deal with all this? Jesus, we’ll all be on the transfer list.’
In Swallow’s estimation, Boyle embodied police bureaucracy at its worst. His sole object was to keep the books and the records accurate, proofing himself against any possible reprimand or mark of disfavour from higher authority. Weighed down with volumes of regulations and green cloth files, he scuttled around the detective office in a curious, waddling gait, as fast as his short, corpulent frame would allow, earning himself the soubriquet ‘Duck’ or ‘Duckfoot.’
The contempt in which Swallow and most of his colleagues held Boyle was compounded by his being devoid of detective skills. Rumour had it that he was the landlord of half a dozen tenement buildings around the city, the management of which occupied most of his energies and all of his intellectual capacities.
His appointment to the G Division was a mystery. As far as was known, Boyle was not a churchgoer and he swore like an artillery man. It was said that his advancement was effected through his brother, a Church of Ireland canon and reputedly a man of influence in the corridors of power.
‘That bloody canon must have had a lot of pull to get Duck into the G Division,’ Stephen Doolan observed one evening as he and Swallow worked their way through a few pints in a public house at the South City Markets, neighbouring the Castle. ‘The shagger couldn’t track an elephant in snow.’
‘The whole city seems to have gone berserk last night,’ Boyle was shrieking as he stabbed a pudgy finger into the sheaf of incident forms. ‘How in the name of God are we going to deal with all this?’
His voice rose a further octave when he saw Swallow coming into the office. ‘Swalla’, you took your time gettin’ in, didn’t ye? And the whole city of Dublin bein’ swept be crime an’ depredation.’
Swallow had learned that the best method of defence with Boyle was to attack.
‘I haven’t been sitting around idle,’ he said sharply. ‘I’ve already been over to talk to Chief Mallon. I’ve been down to the morgue with Dr Lafeyre. I’m to parade here at 10.30, before getting on with the murder investigations,’ Swallow said. ‘I believe it’s there in the orders for the day.’
He nodded to the sheaf of papers in Boyle’s hand and glanced at the wall clock. ‘It’s two minutes to the half hour.’
‘Jesus,’ Boyle wailed. ‘That’s a great attitude and we facing a bloody epidemic.’
He waddled to the trestle table running across the centre of the room and began to fling down the incident reports, one after another.
‘We have two dead bodies last Friday at the Chapelizod Gate and then we learn that havin’ spent a full day investigatin’ them as a man and a boy, Sergeant Swalla’ finds out that the man is a woman.’ He shook his head. ‘Jesus … could you believe it? Six breakin’ an’ enterin’ in the A Division, four shops along James’s Street and two private dwellin’s in the Coombe. Murtagh’s public house in Pimlico half burned out with a bucket of oil flung through the window. Two Fenians of some sort arrested for attemptin’ an assault on the Assistant Under-Secretary and Alderman Fitzpatrick and for possession of a loaded German revolver. It seems as if Sergeant Swallow was on the spot in that particular incident so he hasn’t been altogether wastin’ his time.’
He paused to glare around at the detectives. They tried hard to give an impression of shared outrage. He hurled three more incident reports to the table.
‘There’s four serious assaults, two men across the river in Mecklenburgh Street and two men in Rutland Street. There’s one victim critical in the Meath Hospital with his skull broke’ open and another in Doctor Steevens’ with an eye gone. I remember when Sunday was supposed to be a day of prayer and reconciliation.
‘And…,’ he threw the remaining papers on the table, ‘there’s fears bein’ expressed by Lady Londonderry about intruders in the grounds at the Viceregal Lodge … the bloody Viceregal Lodge, no less.’
Swallow acknowledged to himself that it was an unusual night’s toll.
‘Then, as if we hadn’t anythin’ else to worry about, we’re goin’ to have to watch the gangsters at Ces Downes’s removal and funeral today. The scum will be full a’ drink and ready for fight over whatever she left behind her.’
Boyle slumped his shoulders like a man who had finally calculated the certainty of defeat in the face of overwhelming odds.
‘Meanwhile,’ he intoned wearily, ‘the crack detective of the Dublin Metropolitan Police can’t even put a name to the poor woman found murdered with her child dead beside her. Mind you, I suppose at least we know the gender of the deceased at this stage.’
Swallow winced inwardly at the jibe.
Tony Swann, a detective who specialised in organised criminal gangs, chimed in cheerily from a window-ledge, ‘Ah hell, Inspector, it’s not the end of the world. Sure we’ve a full unit here and the day is long.’
One of the curiosities of the detective branch was that it counted half a dozen men among its ranks whose names were ornithological synonyms. In addition to Swallow and Swann it had Wren, Crowe, Pigeon and Swift. A uniformed superintendent who fancied himself as a wit once dubbed G Division ‘the birdie club.’ It did not go down well with John Mallon.
‘Speak when yer spoken to, Swann,’ Boyle hissed. ‘Don’t be tryin’ to make light of things. Ye might bear in mind that the detective unit from College Street is out on them breakin’ and enterin’ cases. We’ll get no help off them today.’
‘Swann’s right,’ Swallow said. ‘We can deal with things by dividing them out sensibly. Let’s have a look at the incident reports and see if we can get a grip of what’s going on.’
He scanned the forms thrown on the table by Boyle, drawing the reports on the assault cases together. He recognised the names of the assault victims and saw the pattern at once.
The two men badly beaten in Rutland Street were runners for Charlie Vanucchi. One of the victims of the attack in Mecklenburgh Street was Tommy ‘Tiger’ McKnight, Vinny Cussen’s right-hand man, and Murtagh’s public house in Pimlico was a favoured drinking haunt of Cussen’s gang.
The turf war between the Cussen and the Vanucchi factions had broken out already. Boyle might have stared at the sheets for a month and not seen the connections. Swallow reckoned it was better to deal with it diplomatically.
‘I’ve got a couple of good informants across the river in the C Division right now, Inspector,’ he said. ‘They know what’s going on. Put Swann on it, I’ll give him the names of my contacts and let him look after these assaults. That’ll cut the workload.’
Swallow’s solution had been put forward mildly and pleasantly, but Boyle was not going to be pacified.
‘You won’t tell me how to run me unit, Swalla’’ he snarled. ‘I’ll decide who does what.’
Swallow shrugged his shoulders. Behind Boyle’s back he saw Tony Swann raise his eyebrows towards the ceiling. The door opened and the constable operating the ABC telegraph in the Lower Yard put his head into the room.
‘Urgent crime report here for the duty inspector.’
He handed a manila folder to one of the detectives who passed it across the room to Boyle. He read it silently for moment.
‘Jesus, have mercy. Is there no end to it?’
He waved the folder in front of him. ‘Now there’s a dead woman in the canal by Portobello Bridge. The sergeant at Lad Lane says there’s signs of foul play.’
He jerked his head towards Swallow.
‘Swallow, you can get up to Portobello and see about this woman. She’s up there on the canal bank with a couple a’ constables holdin’ the scene. There’s a director of the Grand Canal company on the telephone to the Commissioner’s office, roarin’ to get his feckin’ boat under way. Ye’d think it was a voyage t’Austhralia they were at.’
For a moment Swallow thought about protesting the instruction to attend the scene at Portobello.
He had his hands full with the Chapelizod Gate inquiry. If he protested, though, it would invite further vituperation from Boyle. It was easier to go along with it and hope that it was nothing too complicated.
‘I’ve got a conference on the Chapelizod Gate case so I can’t get to Portobello until maybe 12 o’clock,’ Swallow interjected as Boyle began to hand out the incident sheets to the detectives.
Boyle waved his pencil at two officers perched on the window-ledge.
‘Officer Feore and Constable Collins, you’ll do the assaults.’
Mick Feore combined intuition with valuable experience built over his years of service. Collins was a neophyte, just newly arrived from uniformed duties. Although he worked in plain clothes he was not yet formally appointed as a detective.
‘Seein’ as I’m the senior man, naturally I’ll g’up to the Viceregal Lodge with Tony Swann and Pat Mossop. I’ll want to check that all the protection posts are manned and to reassure the household that they have nothin’ to fear,’ Boyle announced.
He waved the pencil again, pointing to Swann and to Mossop who had been sitting quietly, his murder book on his lap, on a low filing cabinet near the windows.
The whole unit knew that Boyle would want to do the job himself at the Viceregal Lodge on the off chance that he might ingratiate himself with some minor official. In taking along two experienced officers – Swann and Mossop – he would minimise the risk of being exposed in the event of encountering any problem.
‘I’ve told you that I’ve got a crime conference here,’ Swallow said, ‘and Pat Mossop is the Book Man on the murders, so I can’t release him to work with Collins on the assaults.’
Duck Boyle stood stock still.
‘Don’t cut across me, Swalla’, he hissed. ‘Ye can get somewan else for Book Man. I’m the man who decides th’orders o’ the day.’
There was silence across the detective office.
‘I’m not contesting that, Inspector,’ Swallow was precise and respectful. ‘But Chief Superintendent Mallon agreed to have Mossop with me on this case.’
Boyle’s eyes darted around. He passed his hand nervously across his eyes. He had to find a way out of this without loss of face. He turned to Mossop who was still seated on the filing cabinet, attempting to appear unconcerned as his two immediate superiors battled it out for his services for the day.
‘It’s your loss, Mossop. I’m givin’ you the chance to do some real detective work o’yer own makin’. But if the chief says yer to carry the book for Swalla’ I can’t argue. I’m sorry, Son.’
He shook his head with feigned sympathy and then glared at Swallow. ‘And who else, if ye don’t mind, do ye intend to take off me roster today?’
‘I’ll need Swift or Feore. They led the search teams on house-to-house at Chapelizod Gate and around the area by the river. We have to collate what information we have after those inquiries.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ Boyle threw his hands towards the ceiling in a gesture of despair. ‘Mossop and Swift or Feore? How am I expected to do this bloody job?’
He resumed the task of handing out the incident forms, shaking his head and muttering as if he had been the recipient of deeply tragic news.
He pointed a finger at Eddie Shanahan, another newly minted detective, who was sitting near Mossop. ‘Shanahan, you’ll do the assaults inquiry with Collins.’
Shanahan stood. He took the incident forms from Boyle’s sweaty hands and distributed them to his colleagues. They only needed a few moments in which their eyes ran over the details.
The youthful Collins looked up from the forms. ‘Sure, it’s as plain as the nose on my face, Inspector. The Cussen and Moore gangs have started their war already.’
Shanahan concurred. ‘That’s how it looks to me too. Swann knows most of these fellows better than any of us. He should be doing this job … see if he can knock some sense into them before it hots up.’
‘Don’t even think of arguin’ about it,’ Boyle growled. ‘I’ve tried to do me best here. Detective Sergeant Swalla’ has his orders from higher authority. So you can best please me now be’ gettin’ on wid your duty.’
Shanahan shrugged his shoulders. He folded the incident forms and put them in his pocket.
‘Now,’ Boyle raised his voice, ‘Every wan o’ ye otherwise is on observation and inquiries for the Jubilee tomorrow and for Ces Downes’s funeral today. I have a list of special posts that I’m givin’ out now. I want every detail recorded. Every suspicious man, woman or child that moves in an’ around the city is to be questioned and their movements noted.’
He distributed another set of sheets from one of the folders under his arm. He drew himself to his full height to deliver a parting oration to the shift.
‘There’s Fenians and Land Leaguers and God knows who else that wants to disrupt the celebrations tomorra’. And there’s a lot o’ smart lads that’ll be out to tear down flags and decorations that’re put up be people over their shops and offices. They’re to be stopped. Restrain them. Use the baton if you have to. If they’re arrested, let the uniforms take them to the Bridewell. As G-men, yez have to stay on the street.’
The G-men gave no indication of being inspired by Boyle’s exhortations. It would be a long day in the heat of the city streets. Some of the group began to move towards the door, anxious to be out of the tension and the bad air of the detective office.
‘Not so fast. Not so fast,’ Boyle moved to block the exit. ‘We’ll present accoutrements an’ firearms first, please.’
There was a collective groan. Regulations required the completion of the ceremony before each shift went on duty, but no inspector apart from Duck Boyle ever insisted on it.
Each man dug in his pockets and produced notebooks, baton and handcuffs and placed them on the trestle table. Then the heavy Webley Bulldog revolvers came out of the shoulder-holsters and were placed along side the ‘accoutrements.’
Boyle walked along the table counting the notebooks, sets of handcuffs, the batons and the Bulldogs, telling each item off against the men scattered around the room with a pudgy finger. He then drew himself to his full, corpulent height and assumed a sorrowful expression. It was intended to indicate he was anything but satisfied with his unit’s preparedness to confront and put down crime and disorder wherever they might find it across the city of Dublin.
FOURTEEN
Before his 11 o’clock briefing with the inquiry team on the Chapelizod Gate murders, Swallow equipped himself with a set of photographs from the scene and presented himself to the clerk at Mallon’s office.
‘He’s expecting me to bring him up to date on the murders in the park,’ he told the clerk, who had standing instructions not to have the Chief Superintendent disturbed while he read through the morning’s divisional reports.
‘He is, it seems,’ the clerk acknowledged grudgingly.
He rose and knocked on the door connecting to Mallon’s private office. On the call of ‘enter’ he stepped in. Swallow could hear muffled voices. The clerk came out and jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
‘G’wan, Sergeant. He’ll see you. He’ll want to hear about what happened down at the Royal Hibernian Academy last night. He’s just finished the report … And just to mark your own cards, there’s somebody with him.’
Swallow was not surprised to learn that Mallon would want a firsthand account of the incident at the Academy. At the best of times, anything with a hint of politics was a matter of the gravest consequence to John Mallon. On the eve of the Queen’s Jubilee and with a royal visit just a week away any possible threat to the safety of a senior Castle official would be very close to the top of his list of priorities.
