Peeler

Kevin McCarthy

• Publisher: Mercier Press
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781856357029
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Crime & Mystery Literature
• Index: Literature

West Cork. November 1920. The Irish War of Independence rages. The body of a young woman is found brutally murdered on a windswept hillside, a scrapboard sign covering her mutilated body reads 'TRATOR'. Traitor. Acting Sergeant Séan O'Keefe of the Royal Irish Constabulary, a wounded veteran of the Great War, is assigned to investigate the crime, aided by sinister detectives sent from Dublin Castle to ensure he finds the killer, just so long as the killer he finds best serves the purposes of the crown in Ireland... The IRA has instigated its own investigation into the young woman's death, assigning young Volunteer Liam Farrell – failed gunman and former law student – to the task of finding a killer it cannot allow to be one of its own. Unknown to each other, the RIC Constable and the IRA Volunteer relentlessly pursue the truth behind the savage killing, their investigations taking them from the bullet-pocked lanes and thriving brothels of a war-torn Cork city to the rugged, deadly hills of West Cork, both seeking a killer, both seeking to stay alive in a time where 'murder's as common as rain and no one knows a thing about it, even when they do. '

Wednesday
1 December 1920

Shaving – careful to leave a wide razor berth around his scar – O’Keefe noticed dark circles ringing his eyes, as if he’d been punched with fatigue. There were wry glances in the kitchen when he went down for breakfast and he realised he must have been shouting in his sleep again. He brought a pot of strong tea back up to the office.

‘No lie-in today, Sergeant?’ Daly said, from the room beside the office where he stood over a fresh basin of hot water.

‘Where were you last night?’

‘The hotel. Murphy kindly locked us in. Only back an hour ago.’

To O’Keefe’s eyes, Daly looked unnaturally fresh for a man who’d been drinking all night. ‘So what you’re saying is that I was on duty last night, without knowing it, as such.’

Daly razored the last bits of soap from his face. ‘Well, I suppose you were, now you mention it. Never thought of it that way. Anything of interest, at all, at all?’

O’Keefe sat at his desk and poured tea into his mug. ‘I was asleep. Who was at the hotel?’

‘No one of any interest. Scribbler from the Examiner, one from the Star … Told them everything I know about the case. Thought you’d understand. They were buying.’

‘Sure, you lose the power of speech after two bottles and a dram.’

Daly towelled his face. ‘Well, I don’t remember, but they got the story somewhere. Probably from the News.’ He pointed to his desk where there was a fresh copy of the Southern Star. It was a newspaper printed in Cork and generally thought to be sympathetic to the republicans. It at least strove for fairness, despite its slant, which was more than a man could say for some of the London rags.

O’Keefe picked it up and scanned the article about Deirdre Costelloe’s murder. It was accompanied by a photograph, one of a pretty girl, alive and in love with life. The journalist must have got it from her family or a friend – possibly Anne Duffy. O’Keefe realised he had never asked the girl if she had a photograph of Deirdre taken in happier times. An oversight. No doubt it wouldn’t be his last.

The only difference in the Star’s article from the one in the Daily News was the fact that the Star article quoted republican sources as denying any Volunteer involvement in the murder of the young woman found outside Drumdoolin. No surprise there. It went on to identify Deirdre Costelloe by name and gave details of her funeral, which was being held that morning in Ballincollig.

He looked up from the paper. ‘How’d you like to go to a funeral, Jim?’

Daly continued buttoning his uniform tunic. ‘Sure, I’ve had my fill of free drink, man. Couldn’t stomach another drop.’

‘You won’t be drinking at this one.’

The big man thought about it for a minute, then turned and looked out the window. ‘Weather’s fair enough. How many men should I take?’

O’Keefe considered the question. ‘Bring two, in plain clothes. If you can, why don’t you take that Mathew-Pare fella and see what you make of him.’

O’Keefe claimed Keane when drill was finished. Heatherfield asked if he could come for the ride and O’Keefe told him to load his carbine and change into civvies. Finch he found in the day-room eating breakfast after a night patrol.

‘Come on, Finch. Shovel it in. You’re riding with me this morning.’

The Tan looked up, his mouth full of eggs and sausage.

O’Keefe said, ‘Chop, chop.’ He had decided to bring Finch along mainly because the man deserved to have his day ruined more than some of the other lads who had put in the same number of patrols, but it also wouldn’t hurt that Finch knew his way around a rifle. The road they would travel had seen a number of ambushes recently.

‘Ten minutes in the yard. In mufti, Finch. Wouldn’t want anyone to know we’re coppers where we’re going.’

Finch swallowed. ‘No chance of that, Sergeant.’

Fifteen minutes later, Finch emerged from the barracks. O’Keefe stood waiting on the cobbles, smoking by the armoured Ford with Keane and Heatherfield.

‘Fucking hell, Finch,’ Heatherfield said, ‘where’d you pinch the rags from, then?’

Finch looked pleased with himself and stopped, resting the stock of his carbine on the cobbles and opening his beautifully cut, tan cashmere overcoat to show off its silk lining. Under the coat he wore a suit of grey, worsted wool, tailored to perfection. A red silk handkerchief peeked out in a perfect triangular fold from the breast pocket of his suit jacket. Gleaming black brogues under cuffed, razor-pleated trouser legs; his hat a stiff, black-banded trilby, worn with a rakish cock over his left eye.

‘My brother,’ Finch answered, as if the question had been a serious one. ‘Took ’em the day I set out for this kip. Got ’em diced and stitched in Dublin. I ’alf expect the bastard to show up ’ere one day and cut my fucking throat for nicking ’em.’

‘Right, lads,’ O’Keefe said. ‘Finch, you ride up front with me. I’ve my reputation to think of.’

Finch gave him a mock salute and held the rear door of the Ford Tourer open for Keane and Heatherfield in their decidedly less salubrious corduroy trousers, wool coats and soft flat caps. Heatherfield ignored him and went to the front of the Ford to crank the starter.

The road to Crossbarry was quiet, not much morning traffic after they passed through Bandon. They drove with the windows down, past high hedges and dry-stone walls, fields patched with gorse and grazing sheep, passing the occasional ass and cart on its way to market. The farmers kept their eyes on the road, no wave or nod of the head from even one of them, fear drowning out the natural affability of Corkmen.

‘You gonna tell us where we’re ’eaded, Sergeant?’

‘Poultry farm, outside of Crossbarry. Just a whim of mine.’

‘You expect trouble, Sergeant?’ Keane asked. ‘Is that why we’re along?’

O’Keefe wasn’t expecting trouble, but poultry farms, like piggeries and creameries, were known to be meeting places for – and to employ men friendly with – the Volunteers.

‘Not really. But it’s no harm being careful. Sure, what else would you be doing with yourself of a morning?’

‘Happy to come, Sergeant.’

O’Keefe heard Heatherfield make kissing noises to Keane in the back and he smiled to himself.

‘Were you in the war, Sergeant?’ Finch asked.

The Tan appeared relaxed in the seat next to O’Keefe – his carbine barrel resting on the open window frame – but his eyes never stopped scanning the roadside and hills on either side of the car, even as he was speaking.

O’Keefe told him that he was.

‘Gallipoli, right?’

Eyes on the road, O’Keefe nodded. ‘Close enough.’

‘I ’eard it was a right tumble.’

‘It was. Where were you yourself?’

‘All over the Western Front. The Somme, Pasch, the Racing. Fought in all of ’em.’

‘Never wounded?’ O’Keefe could have ended the conversation there but, oddly, he didn’t mind it with Finch, perhaps because he could understand how much of the war was still in Finch, as it was in himself: the restlessness and violence. The war was in Heatherfield as well, though the young Geordie seemed, of all the veterans in the barracks, to have been the least affected by it.

‘Few knicks and scrapes. Bits of shrap and the like. Hit twice in the helmet, once by a sniper round. Fritzie put an ’ole through the brim that time.’ He touched his trilby. ‘Always kept that tin lid. Lucky, it was. Got soaked when it rained, through that fucking ’ole, but I always kept it, I did. Got an MG round in the breadbasket once as well, but I was wearing armour.’

O’Keefe was surprised. Some men had worn body armour in the war. Grenadiers and machine-gunners who were exposed to enemy fire more than most. But Finch didn’t seem the type. ‘It stopped the bullet?’

Finch grinned. ‘I’m not sure it would ’ave if it hadn’t ’it one of my grenades first.’

Keane leaned forward over the seat, his mouth full of ju-jubes. He offered Finch and O’Keefe the crumpled paper bag. ‘And the grenade didn’t go off?’

‘Fucking didn’t, mate,’ Finch said, taking a sweet. ‘Bullet left a bloody great gouge in the thing but didn’t hit the fuse. Lucky bugger me. Blessed, I was. The old man upstairs ’aving plans for me, no doubt.’’

O’Keefe smiled and shook his head to the offer of sweets.

Heatherfield leaned forward over the seat. ‘My mum sent me a vest, she did. Got it out of a catalogue and posted it to me for Christmas. Never wore the thing though. Fellas might have thought I was windy, if I wore...