Death at Christy Burke's (5 page)

“Finn is not letting on, but he’s very concerned about the vandalism at the pub. Afraid it might escalate to something worse. More serious property damage, or even violence. He wants it looked into, but doesn’t want the Garda Síochána involved.”

“I can believe it,” Kevin said.

“So we decided to take in your concert — brilliant by the way — and have a word with you if we could. You were the first on the scene after the last incident, I believe.”

“I was.”

“Would you mind if we asked you a few questions?”

“I don’t mind. Best not here, though. I’m meeting somebody at the Brazen Head, so we could all go over there for a pint.”

The four of them made small talk on the short walk to the Brazen Head, Ireland’s oldest pub. There had been a pub on the site as long ago as 1198. The front part of the establishment had the look of a medieval stone castle with an arch leading to a courtyard. A larger white-walled building rose behind it, and that’s where the party of four headed. It was jammed inside, no seats available, so they stood at the bar and ordered pints of Guinness all round. The place was dark and low-ceilinged, the walls covered with memorabilia.

“This place was the scene of plotting and planning for every rising in our history, and it was duly raided after every one of them,” Kevin said. “Robert Emmet drank here and so did the hangman who took his life. Emmet’s speech from the dock is posted on the wall.”

Michael was content to sip his pint and peer around in the smoky darkness, luxuriating in the history, while Monty and Kevin discussed the music scene in Dublin and Brennan listened with interest. The door opened, and Kevin waved to someone at the entrance. She was a very attractive and very pregnant young woman, with honey-blond hair tied up in the back and a fine, freckled complexion. It was plain that she had something on her mind as she stalked towards the bar.

“That poxy fecker, Matt, he should be checking himself in to a clinic, he should. If I ever caught you carrying on with those little tarts, you’d be shredded into so many pieces, they’d need an industrial-strength vacuum to suck enough of you up to give you a funeral, and don’t expect any kind words to be said over your coffin because —”

“Brenda, we’re not alone.”

“Oh!” Brenda looked past Kevin and caught sight of his three new acquaintances. “I’m sorry to be giving out to him like that in front of you.”

“More like giving sound advice, I’d say,” Monty replied. “My name is Monty Collins and this is Michael O’Flaherty and Brennan Burke.”

“I’m Brenda. But I guess you know that already.”

Kevin put his arms around the woman then, and gave her a kiss. He turned to his companions and said, “Brenda is my wife. With her is our child-to-be.”

“Your first?” Michael inquired.

“Our third!” Kevin replied, and laughed. “She keeps me busy at home and out of the . . . well, out of the clinic! Brenda, let’s see if we can find a chair for you.”

“No worries. I’m fine standing. I’d be finer with half a Harp in me.”

Michael raised his eyebrows, and Brenda caught him at it. She laughed. “That’s all I allow myself, is half a pint. Couple of times a week. It didn’t do any harm to the first two, so . . .”

“It never hurt me,” Kevin proclaimed, “and my mam took more than half a pint when she was looking forward to me! All right now, gentlemen. . . . They’re asking about Christy’s, the vandalism,” he explained to Brenda. “Brennan here is one of the Burkes.”

“Right. We’d better get on with our questions so you can get on with your evening,” Brennan said.

“Not at all. Ask away.”

“I guess you could begin by telling us what you saw that morning, when the graffiti last appeared.”

“It was green paint and it said, ‘Come all ye to Christy’s, killers own local.’ Or it started to say local but the paint just dribbled down. Rain must have got at it. Though maybe not. When I think of it, there wasn’t any water in the whiskey.”

“Whiskey?” Monty asked.

“Yeah, there was a glass of whiskey sort of leaning against the wall at an angle. The bollocks that did the paint job must have been enjoying a jar while he worked. The drink wasn’t watered down, so the rain must not have been hitting against the building. So maybe that’s not what stopped him writing.”

“What kind of a glass was it?”

“Usual kind.”

“The kind you have in Christy’s.”

“Sure. In all the pubs.”

“What else?” Brennan prompted.

Kevin shrugged. “Didn’t notice anything.”

“You came home with muck on your shoes,” Brenda said. “Remember, Kev? What did you tell me about that? Some mess in the garden.”

“Oh, right. The grass had been torn up by tires. So I kicked it back into place. Lot of muck after the rain. I thought it was the rubbish collectors that had driven up on the grass again, but turned out it wasn’t. They came later.”

“So, a vehicle on the premises that night or morning,” Brennan said.

“And somebody having a drink outside,” added Monty.

“Yeah. Nothing stood out.”

Kevin looked down at his pint. Michael had the impression suddenly that he was avoiding something.

“Kev?” Brenda spoke up.

“Mm?”

His wife gave him what Michael thought of as a significant look.

“Tell them. It’s not as if you did anything wrong.”

The young man looked uncomfortable. “Come on, Brenda, you know I wasn’t supposed to be down there.”

“You did no harm.”

“But Finn will have my bollocks. Especially if . . .”

“What is it, Kevin?” Brennan prompted him. “Finn wants to know what happened. I’ll do my best to keep him in good humour.”

“It’s just that . . . there was a gun down there.”

Michael looked at Brennan. The younger priest’s face was without expression. All he said was “Where?”

“The tunnel they dug under the place. You know, during the Troubles — the
old
Troubles — when they were fighting the English. Finn has something of a collection stashed in there.”

“Yes?”

“Didn’t he tell you about it?”

“We’re aware of it,” Brennan answered. Suavely, Michael thought.

“Yeah, well, one of the guns was missing. The black pistol he kept in a little niche behind the bricks. But that doesn’t have to mean anything. Finn might have taken it out to, em, clean it. Or put it in a safer place.” Kevin shrugged and took a sip of his pint. “I don’t know any more than that.”

“What did you do?”

“Just what I always did. Cleaned the place up, washed the glasses, locked up, and went home.”

“Including the glass you found outside?” Monty asked. Kevin nodded.

“What’s your take on it, Kevin?” Brennan lit up a cigarette and drew the smoke into his lungs, then asked, “Any thoughts about what’s behind it?”

“I figured it was about Finn himself.” He glanced uncertainly at Brennan. “You know, some nutter who doesn’t share his Republican views. But I really don’t know. I saw it, but I have no idea what it meant. I imagine there are lots of dark theories making the rounds, and dark thoughts about the fellow that did it. Christy’s is sacred ground to some.”

“People are fond of the place,” Brennan agreed.

“Fond indeed. There’s some that practically live there.”

“Right. Would you be acquainted with any of them? Do you spend time there in the evenings, or just shine the place up in the morning?”

“Oh, I lift a jar there from time to time. After all, I know the place is good and clean!”

The others laughed and, when Brennan didn’t ask, Michael stepped in: “So, who would they be, Kevin? The regular patrons of Christy Burke’s pub.”

“Well, you’ve got Frank Fanning. You’d need a grenade to get him out of Christy’s. And Jimmy O’Hearn. He’s a fixture as well. Eddie Madigan. He used to drink there when he was with the guards. Still there, as a civilian. And Tim Shanahan. Brainy sort of fellow, Tim. There was old Joe Burns, but he hasn’t been in Christy’s for months. He’ll be breathing his last any day now in the Mater — the hospital. They’ve got him all hooked up to tubes. There were a couple more who used to spend time there, but they moved on.”

“Who would they be?”

“The Buckle brothers.”

“Buckley?”

“No, it’s Buckle. Because they get so buckled by the end of the night the legs go on one or the other of them, and they have to prop each other up. They drink at Dec Gallagher’s now. They were out of Christy’s before any of this started, with the graffiti.”

Michael continued the questioning: “Why did they leave Christy Burke’s?”

“Dec Gallagher’s is closer; they live two doors away from it. Every step counts for that pair. You’d never get a sensible word out of them.”

“I see. Anybody else?”

“Well, there’s Nurse McAvity.”

“Oh, a woman?”

“No. Just drinks like one! Ha. No, can’t say that, can I now? There are some women who can drink us men under the table. They call him Nurse McAvity, or My Cavity; bit of a joke on his name, which is really Bill McAvity. You could set your watch by Bill; he’d arrive at Christy’s at a quarter to six on the dot. He runs an auto repair shop, and he’d close up at five, give himself a wash, and take his place at Christy’s. But he’s gone back to the Bleeding Horse. They put up with him there, same way Finn Burke did.”

“Why ‘put up’? Did he cause trouble?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s just that he doesn’t drink. He’ll order half a pint and — here’s the other part of his name — he’ll just nurse it all night, take a sip or two every half hour or so. He’ll finish it off right at closing time, then say, ‘Lads, it’s time,’ and he’ll head out sober as a Paisley Prod on a Sunday morning. Something wrong with the man, that was the thinking. And there are the oul ones who get table service because of their backs.”

“Their backs?”

“They have all these health complaints. That’s what they talk about the whole time, their sore backs, their arthritis, their pills. One’s got a bad leg, another one’s waiting for an operation. They rabbit on about this stuff all the time, but they look healthy enough to me. They manage to get to Christy’s once a week. Drunk as owls, a couple of them, by the time they leave. The fellows at the bar have a name for them. Can’t remember it right now. You probably won’t get any useful information out of them, since they’re not there every day, and they keep to themselves at the back. Anyway, Fanning and O’Hearn and Madigan and Shanahan, they’d be the regulars who would have an intimate knowledge of the pub and its goings-on.”

“There you have it: the Christy Burke Four,” Monty declared.

“I like it,” Michael said, “though it has a bit of a political ring to it. Let’s hope we’re not looking at anything political in this.”

“Political or otherwise, I suspect it won’t be pretty,” Brennan warned.

They spent a few more minutes with Kevin discussing his musical career. Then, after extending best wishes for the family present and future, Michael, Brennan, and Monty said goodbye to the McDonoughs and headed towards Monty’s hotel, nearby in Christchurch Place. Brennan would walk home from there, and Michael would call a taxi.

“Now there’s an oddity for you,” Michael said, pointing at two churches side by side. “Two churches called St. Audoen’s, one dating from the twelfth century and the other neoclassical. Strange to say, the medieval one is Protestant — that is, it
became
Protestant — and the newer one is Catholic.”

“History around every corner here,” Monty remarked.

“And you don’t always see it coming.”

Brennan

The next day Brennan went to work, so to speak, at Christy Burke’s, and he had his sergeant with him. He had assigned Michael, with his mild, friendly manner, to chat up the regulars during the early rounds of questioning. Brennan would observe the proceedings from his bar stool. He was in civilian clothes, Michael in his collar. When they entered the pub at around five in the afternoon, they saw four men sitting on stools at the bar, pints in hand. Brennan realized he had seen them before, planted in the very same spot. Quintessential pub regulars. The Christy Burke Four. Was one of them the victim of the spray-painted slander on the wall? Was one of them a killer, right at home in the “killers own local”?

Brennan chose a place at the other end of the bar. Michael sat right beside the last man in the row of four and nodded at the group.

They all nodded back and said, “Father.”

“Gentlemen, I’m on vacation. The collar’s a habit I can’t seem to shake, but call me Mike.”

“Mike,” they said in unison.

“And that’s Brennan.” They all acknowledged each other.

“Is Finn not in today?” Mike asked.

“He’s got the young fellow on. Sean will be back in a jiffy.” The man who spoke had a pleasant, roundish face, round eyes, and sandy hair going grey. “My name’s O’Hearn. Jimmy.”

The young barman came in then, greeted Mike and Brennan, and took their orders for pints of Guinness.

Jimmy made the introductions: “This is Mike, Sean. And Brennan. Gentlemen, Sean Nugent.”

“We’re acquainted already, as a matter of fact. Good day to you, Sean. You’ve given Finn the day off, have you?”

“Sure I told him to take all the time he needs.”

“And he could use it. A finger in many pies, has Finn Burke.” This came from a hard-looking man sitting next to Jimmy O’Hearn.

“Keeps the man sharp,” a tweed-capped regular put in. “If we had half the business sense Finn has, we’d be . . . em, well . . .”

“We’d be swimming in money and in drink. Wouldn’t be good for our health!” O’Hearn exclaimed. “Here’s to us, the leisure class!”

Everyone lifted a pint and took a sip.

“Let me introduce everyone to you,” O’Hearn said then. “The oul fellow in the cap is Frank Fanning.”

Fanning wore a shirt and tie, a grey cardigan sweater and a tweed cap, even though it was a warm July day. He wore heavy-framed glasses and had the red nose and broken capillaries of a heavy drinker.

“Oul fella, is it?” Fanning groused. “We’ll see who’ll be the last man standing!” He spoke in a broad Dub accent.

“And this is Eddie Madigan.”

The man with the hard-looking face had high cheekbones, and cropped, bristly grey hair. He raised his glass in greeting.