The Blood Dimmed Tide Page 24

  ‘Does that mean tolerating murder, too?’

  ‘Inspector Grimes is a patriot, in spite of his murderous tendencies. Besides, we could never let it be known that he was involved in criminal activities. Think of the negative propaganda, the loss of trust in his Majesty’s forces that would ensue.’

  ‘Then why rescue me from the barrel?’

  ‘Just taking care of the loose ends. The murder of another Englishman might attract too much attention to this part of the coast.’ He placed the handcuffs around my wrists. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Adams. It’s time to give up the ghost. In fact, it’s time to give up everything.’

  Men with guns half-dragged, half-pushed me into the back of a motor car, the leather seats of which were surprisingly warm and comfortable in the spring sunlight. Marley climbed in beside me, while Grimes and the other policemen crowded into the back of a lorry which we followed back to Sligo along the coast road. I tried to console myself with the thought that at least I had discovered how Rosemary’s body came to be washed ashore in a coffin. It was a fate I had narrowly avoided myself. I could have ended up a corpse in a barrel of water, I thought ruefully, rather than one hanging from the end of a rope in the courtyard of Sligo’s notorious gaol.

  ‘First I want to take you on a little detour,’ said Marley, as the car swung into a lane sunken between tall thorn hedges. The lorry rattled ahead of us until we came to a stately house overgrown with creepers. I watched as the policemen bundled out of the lorry and forced their way through the house’s red door. Gunshots rang out.

  ‘I warned the bastards not to use live rounds,’ cursed Marley. More gunfire and the sound of glass breaking echoed from the house, which I now recognised as the address Clarissa had taken me to on the night I met Gonne and her Daughters of Erin. The handcuffs forced me to sit hunched over, but I was able to crane my neck and look out the side window.

  I watched with a sickening dread as the policemen tore the place upside down. Garments and pamphlets fluttered from the windows. A fire broke out in an upstairs room. I leaned back as the reflection of yellow and orange flames intensified across the car window. The sounds of wood splintering erupted from within the building. I listened intently to the trapped sounds of the fire, fearful of detecting a female shout or cry, but heard none. The policemen found a stash of poteen and were soon roaring drunk, waving the bottles wildly in the air. One of them staggered through the red door wearing a veil he had torn from a religious statue. The urge to add feminine touches to their uniforms was one of the less violent side-effects of their drunkenness. They discovered a pile of haberdashery and were soon dancing around the house with corsets over their jackets. Oddly, there was no sign of Gonne or any of her female militia.

  Marley was scrutinising me closely. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Adams, your friends are quite safe.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I tipped them off before saving you from that barrel.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we belong to the same side.’ He ordered the driver to take off. My last view of the house was of Grimes prowling the grounds with his gun and a look of frustration on his reddened face.

  ‘Gonne works for the British Admiralty?’

  ‘No. Quite the contrary. She’s a true Republican, an evangelist in that regard. A woman of selfless character, even though she operates outside the normal rules of society.’ He leaned back comfortably in the seat. ‘When I first met Gonne at the Abbey theatre, I thought to myself, there’s the woman for me. But I wasn’t the only one to fall for her charms. You saw her take over that mail boat. Every man on board was enthralled by her presence. If she wanted to enlist you to her cause, she would have had you. If she has a weakness, it is that she cares nothing for men. That is her only flaw.’

  The motor car headed back along the coast.

  ‘You should have come to me with your suspicions and spared yourself a brush with death,’ said Marley. ‘Don’t worry, we’re going to put a stop to that Ulster bastard Grimes.’

  Maud might have been a professional in the art of disguise, but I realised I was now in the hands of a true expert at subterfuge.

  ‘There are many of us helping the Republican cause, working in the shadows,’ continued Marley. ‘I was on the mail boat to help Maud’s safe passage to Ireland. We came to Sligo to hatch a conspiracy plot.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Maud travelled to Sligo so that the Admiralty might believe a German submarine was due to make landfall soon along the coast. In fact, the actual submarine was supposed to land much further south, near Galway. I informed the British Admiralty office that the plan was underway, and waited for Grimes to detect the suspicious activities of the Daughters of Erin along the beaches because we wanted the army to focus its attention here, rather than in Galway. At first, I couldn’t understand why he didn’t collect the clues in triumph and proclaim to his superiors that he had uncovered plans for a German invasion.’

  ‘So Gonne came here to wait for a submarine that did not exist?’

  ‘Yes. A ghost submarine if you like. Men have died over less.’

  ‘However, Grimes did the very opposite of what we expected. He advised the Admiralty that the plot was a diversion. He guessed that the red herrings which had been laid were precisely that – a false trail. What we didn’t know was that the raison d’être of Grimes’ life is smuggling. Every piece of contraband that lands on this shore does so with his permission. He knows every cove and smuggler’s path and has them operating when the conditions are right. The last thing he wanted was the place saturated with soldiers looking for a submarine.’

  I stared at Marley, trying to fathom why he was telling me all this. I concluded that he was too much in control of the situation to be lying.

  The motor car swung round the coast road, and we suddenly found ourselves watching a startling mob of horsewomen tumble down the hillside. There were cart-horses, ploughing horses, donkeys, and ponies of all sizes and descriptions, mounted by women and girls in black rags and tatters, coats, shawls and fluttering cloaks. Some rode on saddles, others none, some had leather-like reins while others made do with straw ropes. They rode from hiding places in the high ground around the cliffs, and at first sight of the car came galloping down the hill-side in an avalanche, yelling, shrieking and cheering, knocking each other over, and jumping the ditch onto the narrow road with such galloping haste that many of them were sent across the road and into the bog land on the other side. However, enough remained on the road to form a thick cordon around the motor.

  Marley’s face remained impassive as he unlocked my handcuffs.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked in confusion as the horses knocked against the car, heaving it from side to side.

  Marley spoke almost to himself in wonderment, ‘Who’d have thought a secret society of young women, their blood vessels bursting with the urge to procreate, would prove such an effective ambush party.’

  He removed a folder from his coat and opened it before me.

  ‘I am entrusting you with this important task, Mr Adams, because you have two advantages over me. The first is that you are an Englishman, which in the eyes of the authorities makes you a more credible witness. The second is your daft obsession with ghosts, which oddly makes you more politically reliable. I want you to present this evidence to the judge who is due to open Clarissa Carty’s murder trial this afternoon. He and the solicitors representing the prosecution and defence are all from Dublin and trustworthy. This is our best opportunity to have Grimes convicted as a criminal.’

  He handed me the folder and I glanced through its contents.

  ‘What do they mean?’

  ‘You thought you were sent here to investigate a ghost. Instead, you’ve helped uncover a ruthless smuggling ring. This is a documentary record of Grimes’ activities over the past month, including copies of boat ownership certifica
tes. If the authorities search the boats they’ll find evidence of smuggling.’

  My hands were numb from the handcuffs and I struggled to sift through the folder.

  ‘Clarissa told me you found Rosemary’s journal. In it, she catalogued the movement of his boats, the amount of contraband, and the nights that the smuggling took place.’ He pointed to a thin piece of brown paper. ‘Here are notes from Sligo’s harbourmaster. They detail how Grimes’ boats sailed in the direction of Blind Sound on the nights Rosemary and Captain Oates were killed.’

  The documents appeared genuine, and I began to believe that they weren’t part of a devious interrogation tactic. I felt their reassuring heft in my hands.

  Marley smiled thinly. ‘Part of me wanted to keep the documents and use them in a more tactical way, as and when required, but you forced my hand.’

  ‘You were planning on using them for blackmail?’

  ‘You see through me so easily.’

  Horses stamped on the road before us, their riders calling out to each other in Irish. One of the beasts reared close to the side of the car, its mouth lathered in foam.

  ‘If you think anything of Ireland and England, and the value of justice, you will ensure that these fall into the right hands,’ said Marley.

  A thundering roar from behind warned us that Grimes’ lorry had caught up with us. A swarm of thickset policemen jumped from the back of the vehicle and approached the horsewomen with guns and black truncheons drawn.

  Marley opened the door and shoved me outside. ‘I’m going to count to five and then I’m going to shoot my gun in your direction.’

  The advance of the policemen panicked the horses with many of them rearing into the air. I reached up and a female hand grabbed mine and helped haul me onto a horse’s back. I ducked down beside her, and squeezed my heels into the animal’s hot sides. My last view of Marley was of him withdrawing a gun and aiming it into the air.

  27

  Queen of Pentacles

  THE DAUGHTERS of Erin provided me with a labourer’s cap and a jacket for disguise. As they hurried me through Sligo’s side streets, I realised why I wasn’t afraid: I possessed the lethal calm of a man who knows he’s drowning, swept up by events far beyond his control. I had lost my grip on the runaway world of Irish politics and revolution. In every direction, I came up against my own gullibility and ignorance. Much easier to allow myself to be carried along by these wayward currents. I had come to the painful realisation that the complete collapse of the spiritual side of my investigation was of secondary importance. All that mattered now was to secure Clarissa’s release and let the authorities know the truth about Grimes.

  Several hundred yards from the courthouse, I came to an abrupt halt. The area around the building was crowded with protesters demanding Clarissa’s release. My female guides slowed, bumped into people, were swallowed up by the crowd, and then reappeared again at my side. By the time we reached the cobbled square in front of the courthouse, we were one with a pressing throng, swept along by the determined thrust of Clarissa’s supporters. At one point, I turned and through the sea of faces caught a glimpse of Grimes’ cold blue eyes and haggard moustache, as he scanned the faces of the protesters.

  A column of policemen snaked through the crowd and began interrogating the female activists, pulling at their headscarves, arresting some of the young men who had joined in the demonstration. They were hunting me down, I realised. I pulled my cap tighter and sank my head between my collars.

  The policemen shifted their scrutiny when a ripple of excitement broke out in the square. A makeshift platform had been erected right in front of the courthouse, and a tall woman, majestic in flowing black robes, took centre stage. Even though her face was obscured by a black shawl, I could tell it was Maud Gonne. Her appearance had a mesmerising effect on the crowd. I expected a public rant, but instead she spoke with the quiet dignity of a mourner attending a deathbed.

  ‘Daughters of Erin, we are here this afternoon to protest for the honour of Ireland. We do so at risk of suffering, for it is not easy for us women, some of us old and feeble, to come out like this. Roughly handled and bruised, our clothes torn, we will fight to save Sligo from the disgrace of convicting an innocent woman, a true Republican, while the real murderers triumphantly flaunt their crimes before a cowed people.’

  At this point, a swarm of police pushed their way through to the platform, and a roar of protest rose from the onlookers as Grimes’ men began to dismantle the stage from under the speaker’s feet. Gonne tried to rally the crowd once more before the police overwhelmed the remnants of the platform.

  A shrill whistle pierced the roars of the protesters as a policeman pushed through the crowd and grabbed me by the jacket. In the distance, I saw Grimes pointing in my direction, his face furious. He ran at full tilt, cutting a path through the throng. As I struggled to get away, one of the Daughters of Erin jumped on my captor’s back and knocked off his cap. His face was morose and beefy, grimacing stubbornly as he clung onto my coat. The girl grabbed hold of his big jowls and shook them violently. He wheeled round and round, trying to shake her loose, his face growing redder and redder. She flung her hands round his throat and gripped tightly, until, finally, he fell and released me from his grip. Another RIC man appeared out of the crowd and attacked the girl with the butt of his revolver. She fell from the policeman’s back, her head bleeding, and staggered against a wall.

  ‘This is no time for fainting,’ urged Maud from her disintegrating platform, whereupon the woman shook herself back to life, and threw herself once more onto the capless policeman. Several more women joined in, raining blows upon his red face.

  Grimes pushed open the valve of a fire hydrant and directed a skin-blistering jet of water onto his officer and the attackers, skittering them across the cobbled stones, blasting them away from their victim. Even when they tried to clamber onto their feet, the water kept gushing against them, sweeping them to the ground once again, pummelling their drenched bodies with the force of countless fists. The policemen gathered in a circle to watch, stirred to excited laughter by the sight of the soaked women writhing beneath the iridescent spray, their long wet dresses moulded against their bodies, their scarves and shawls floating down the gutters.

  Grimes redirected the spray at the rest of the crowd, cutting a swathe through the square. He was intent on flushing me out. I kept my head low and moved to the thickest part of the crowd, which pressed around Maud Gonne as she evaded the clutches of the policemen. Holding herself erect, she jumped onto the back of a cart, which was hurriedly hauled through the crowd by a group of her supporters. Somehow she kept speaking, addressing her people as they followed her to the top of the square, and then down a side street.

  ‘A great transformation is taking place in our beloved country,’ she shouted at the top of her voice. ‘Our suffering people will know justice and peace, and their children will understand the great meaning of the blood sacrifice, of struggle and hope. I ask you not to fear what lies ahead.’

  As usual, there was more than an element of theatricality about her delivery and her disregard for the threats of violence and chaos breaking out around her. She kept proclaiming to the crowds as though the seething town were a battlement on which she toured triumphant.

  In the minutes after she disappeared from sight, she still ruled the square, and her voice continued to echo against the buildings. Then the sound of gunfire broke out followed by the sound of someone feverishly blowing a whistle. In the panic, I ran up the steps to the courthouse and took shelter within, just as a pair of court guards pulled the doors across and barred them tightly.

  The trial had already opened, although there was no sign of Clarissa in the dock. I took a seat at the back of the public gallery and prayed fervently that the judge would adjourn the case soon so that I might get a chance of grabbing his attention without committing contempt of court.

 
; The judge began the slow process of empanelling the jury. Among the twelve selected were three landlords’ agents, a solicitor, a vicar and three retired Army officers. The judge went on to warn that the court would not give way to the moral pressure of the defendant’s hunger strike or the protests of her supporters in the square. Nor was it possible to consider the defendant an ordinary female. Consequently, her sex should not affect the merit of the question of detention or release. The defendant was being tried for the aggravated and premeditated murders of two innocent victims, he told the court. Although she was purported to be a lieutenant in a Republican female militia, there was little indication that either crime was a political act.

  Flanked by prison guards, Clarissa entered the court wearing a dark cape. From the evidence of her sharpened features, she had lost weight. Her eyes were so shadowed they appeared bruised, yet when she cast them over the public gallery, they flashed with feeling. She drew her hood more closely about her face and made her way to the dock. One of the guards stopped her in her tracks and ordered her to remove the cape. Her face blazed and she glared at him. He tried to forcibly seize her by her shoulders, but she skilfully eluded him and threw off the cape herself. The packed gallery gasped. Her head had been completely shorn by the prison wardens. The scabs where the razor had nicked her scalp were still visible. Her bald head gave her face a glowering expression.

  At this point, a commotion broke out in the hallway beyond the court. The doors flew open and Grimes pushed his way past the guards. He paused briefly to remove his cap in front of the judge. A livid red band stretched across his sweating brow.

  ‘Your Worship, I call on you to allow me to arrest that man,’ he said pointing an accusing finger at me.

  Clarissa stared at me; Grimes stared at me; the entire public gallery turned to regard me with astonishment. The judge frowned and also stared in my direction. He raised his gavel but then lowered it when the room appeared to settle. ‘The court does not approve of disruptions, or such lawlessness,’ he said, staring heavily at Grimes. The Inspector’s mouth slackened. He tried to think of something to say but then thought better of it.