Death at Christy Burke's (6 page)

“And the quiet fellow with the specs is Tim Shanahan. Can’t you tell from the look of him he’s always got his face in a book?”

“When it’s not in a pint of porter,” Shanahan replied in a soft west-of-Ireland voice.

“He’s the voice of wisdom, is Tim.”

A few years younger than the other three, maybe his late forties, Shanahan was a handsome, ascetic-looking man with a thin face, black hair parted on the side and falling over his forehead, and small rimless glasses. He looked like a scholar. Or, Brennan thought, a priest.

There was a companionable silence then as the men returned to their drinks. Brennan had advised Mike not to cut to the chase but to warm them up first with a bit of friendly chatter.

“How long have you been coming here, Jimmy?” Mike asked.

“Oh, it must be twenty years now. Since I moved here from Donegal.”

“Ah, there is indeed a trace of the North in your voice. Do you still have people there?”

“I have a sister there. Sarah. She works in a lovely spot called  
McKelvey’s Bar, so it’s a double treat whenever I go and pay her a visit.”

“McKelvey. I was telling Sean here that I know Nugents back home in Saint John. McKelveys too. Is the bar in Donegal Town?”

“No, a few miles from there, a place called Ballybofey.”

“What brought you to Dublin, then?”

“I came to seek my fortune.”

“I hope you found it!”

O’Hearn laughed. “So does my wife! Then she’s going to let me back into the house!”

“Oh, are you and your wife separated, Jim?”

“Well now, we are and we aren’t. We don’t live under the same roof, haven’t for many years, but we get along better now than we ever did. That should tell you something, but I’m not sure what!”

“And you, Frank?” Mike inquired. “You sound like a Dublin man.”

“Right you are. I’m a Dub and right now I’m off to the bogs.” He got up and headed for the men’s room.

“Well now,” Jimmy O’Hearn said, “there goes a brilliant pintman, brilliant!”

“He is,” agreed Eddie Madigan.

“Legendary, you might say.”

“He has a bar stool now, but for the longest time he stood, did he not, Eddie?”

“He did. But now he’ll have a seat.”

“He has all the time in the world for the pouring of the perfect pint. Frank never rushes you, does he, Sean?”

“A gentleman and a connoisseur. It’s a pleasure to pour a pint for Frank Fanning.”

“Not like some that come in the door. They want their pint and they want it now. Sure if you’re that pressed, go to Temple Bar, grab your glass before it’s even settled, and blather away to the rest of the . . . what is it you call them, Tim?”

“Poseurs,” the younger man replied.

“Frank’s one of the regulars here,” Jimmy explained.

You’d have to wonder how much time the man spends in here,
Brennan said to himself. They all seemed to be regulars as far as he could tell.

“How often does Frank come in?” Mike asked. Three pairs of eyes stared, uncomprehending. “I mean, on average, you know . . .”

“Well, he’ll come in twice, Michael,” Tim replied.

“But how many days of the week?”

Again the stares.

Sean spoke up. “He’s in every day, so.”

“Like the rest of us,” said Madigan.

“Daily communicants, you might say,” added Shanahan.

Mike took a sip of his pint and then got down to business. “Finn was telling me he’s had to do some painting lately.”

“That fecker with the spray can is fortunate Finn Burke never caught him at it. Finn’d spray him from here to Bantry Bay!” Frank Fanning had returned to his seat and punctuated his remarks by taking a big gulp of Guinness, then brought his glass down on the bar with a resounding crack.

“He won’t fare much better if the four of us get hold of him,” Eddie Madigan warned. “Defacing a public house like that. Little gurrier.”

“It seems to be over now,” Tim Shanahan stated.

“Let’s hope so,” declared Fanning. “Maybe he came crawling round and spotted us on the job, and ran away. Wise move on his part.”

“What do you mean, on the job?” Mike asked. “Were you keeping watch on the place?”

“Sure we were,” Jimmy O’Hearn said. “Thought we’d help Finn out a bit, stay around late at night, see if we could nab the fellow.”

“But,” Frank said, “he never showed up on the nights we were on patrol. Maybe, as I say, he saw us and backed off.”

“What was he getting at, do you suppose?”

“I’d say what he was getting was off his meds!” Frank asserted. “Well, I hope we’ve seen the last of him. And of his sacrileges against this place!”

“I’ll drink to that,” Tim said with a smile and took a sip of his pint.

“Here’s Mr. Burke now. Howiyeh, Finn,” Frank said, as Finn arrived, saluted his patrons, and installed himself behind the bar. Sean said goodbye and left the pub.

Brennan listened to Mike and his new companions making small talk until their attention was caught by the television. It was six o’clock.

“Oh! I didn’t even notice the TV over there,” Mike remarked. The television sat on a shelf where the wall met the bar.

“Well, Sean enjoys it once in a while, but Finn’s not keen on it,” Jimmy O’Hearn explained. “He rarely turns the thing on except at news time or when they’re showing a football or a hurling match. But here’s the news.”

“God love the RTÉ,” Mike commented, as the Irish broadcaster duly played the Angelus bells before the news came on. The first story was from the United States, where a group of evangelical Protestants had issued a demand for the release of the Reverend Mr. Odom. There was still no word on his whereabouts. Then the news presenter announced that tourism was up this year. Particularly tourism from the Far East.

“A planeload of Japanese tourists touched down at Shannon Airport today. But these are tourists with a difference. They’re actually landowners here in Ireland. Diane Brosnan explains.”

The reporter’s voice came on and said, “A hundred and forty-four people from Japan have arrived in the country today to stand for the first time on Irish soil.
Their
Irish soil. These are all people who have purchased lots of land in the Republic, and have chartered an aircraft to bring them here and make their dream come true. Soon they’ll be standing on their very own little piece of —”

“Fuck!” Finn muttered, and thumped the TV off with a punch of his fist.

The regulars raised eyebrows and exchanged glances but made no comment.

Immigration might be a topic to avoid with Finn, Brennan reflected. But there was no lack of other subjects of conversation in the pub. Somebody piped up from a table in the rear, and described his luck the day before at the Leopardstown races. His horse was seconds from the finish line, promising big returns, when he, the horse, fell and broke his leg and had to be put down. Things had gone better at Croke Park, someone else noted; Dublin had trounced Kildare in hurling. This set off a round of sports talk, and Frank Fanning sought Finn’s views on the hurling season so far. But Finn had the appearance of a troubled man as he stood behind his bar with the TV battered into silence at his side.

Brennan

Brennan Burke enjoyed a drink, to be sure, but it wasn’t every day you would find him in a guzzling den ten minutes after opening time. On Wednesday morning, though, after early Mass at the John’s Lane church, he had headed out for a stroll and then decided to visit Christy’s to have a look around the place, the scene of the crime, without people eyeing his every move. When he got to the pub, he took a walk around outside the building, calling to mind Kevin McDonough’s description of the scene the morning after the latest incident of vandalism: the unfinished message, dripping paint, whiskey glass propped against the wall, clumps of turf disturbed by the tires of a vehicle.

When Brennan entered the pub, there was just one lonely soul drinking at a back table. The man looked up, kept Brennan in his gaze for a few seconds, then returned to his pint. Brennan stood at the bar and peered into the shadows. Yes, Finn was back there, cutting up some boxes and doing other chores. It wasn’t long before he sensed his nephew’s presence and emerged to greet him.

“Morning, Brennan. You’re here to add an element of respectability to the place, are you?” He gestured to the Roman collar.

“Things are going to change around here, Mr. Burke. You’re looking at the reincarnation of Father Mathew.”

“God help us and save us.”

They shared a laugh at the idea of Ireland’s early “Apostle of Temperance” coming to life again in the unlikely form of Brennan Burke.

“Actually, I was out for a walk and decided to survey the crime scene. But I didn’t learn much, I have to say.”

“I hear you. But sit down and rest from your labours. What will you have?”

“I feel Father Mathew asking for a ginger ale.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am. It will do me for now.”

Finn poured him the drink and waved away his currency. “Help yourself to the papers.”

Brennan saw the
Irish Independent
and the
Irish Times
folded on the bar, so he thanked Finn and took them to a table by the window. He sat, had a sip of his drink, and spread the
Times
out before him. He looked over at the bar and saw Finn’s face, partly obscured as always by the dark glasses, turned in the direction of the man at the back of the pub. The man paid no attention. Brennan directed his attention to his papers. There was a short piece on the Reverend Merle Odom, still missing a week after vanishing from the streets of Belfast; Brennan would have to make sure Michael O’Flaherty didn’t try to involve himself in whatever was going on there. God love Michael for his tender heart and the loving eyes through which he regarded the land of his forebears. Michael would walk through a bombed-out store front in Derry and see a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow made by the sun blazing through the shards of glass. But he’d be all right as long as he didn’t meddle in the Belfast crisis; there was no pot of gold waiting at the end of that.

Brennan was jolted by a sudden loud bang as the front door flew open and several men burst into the pub. Before he could take in what was happening, one of the men vaulted right over the bar and landed beside Finn.

The stranger from the back of the pub had bolted out of his seat and joined the invading party. He said, “Finn Burke, you’re under arrest for forgery, using a false instrument . . .” The list of charges went on and on. He had Finn’s arms pinned behind his back. Finn’s face was expressionless. Brennan got to his feet and approached the bar.

One of the policemen shot his arm out to keep Brennan away. “Leave him be, sir.”

Finn spoke up, “Let me have a moment with my priest, boys, would you?”

“No, Finn, we’re not going to wait here so you can pass the secrets of the empire along to Leo Killeen.”

“Not Leo, no. We have a priest in our midst right now: Father . . . Brennan.”

The new arrivals looked over and saw Brennan’s collar. Brennan made an effort to arrange his features into what he hoped was an expression of bland and benign goodwill. He suspected he looked like a simpleton. With obvious reluctance, the guards released their grip on Finn and let him go. Finn grasped Brennan’s elbow and moved him a few feet away.

“Stop where you are, Finn! You’ll be having your conflab right here.”

Finn said, “
In ainm an Athar agus an Mhic agus an Spioraid Naoimh. Amen
.” Finn and Brennan both made the sign of the cross. Finn spoke softly in Brennan’s ear. “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been three months since my last confession. I confess to Almighty God and to you Father that I have items in the tunnel of this building and I would like you to go down there and remove them. Now put your right hand on my left shoulder.”

Brennan put his hand out in a priestly gesture and placed it on Finn’s shoulder. Not having reached the point where sins had been specified and absolution could be given, Brennan just mumbled the words, “Go my son and sin no more.” Despite the dire circumstances, it was all he could do to keep a straight face while uttering the pious formula. When he was speaking, Finn put his own right hand on Brennan’s as if to thank him. Brennan felt something being pushed between his fingers. Something small and metallic. He squeezed his fingers together to grasp it.

“Stand apart, gentlemen!” one of the guards admonished. “Sorry, Father.”

Finn stepped back, and Brennan stood there with a key secreted in his right hand.

“Time to go, Finn. Take a look around you now. You won’t be seein’ this place again for a while.”

They hustled him from the pub. Brennan followed. He heard a click. It sounded like the shutter of a camera, the kind news photographers . . . there it was again, and there was the photographer. Tipped off by the gardaí. That was low, thought Brennan; they must really have it in for him. The guards opened the back door of the cruiser and pushed Finn inside. He turned to face Brennan. “Get my curate in to tend bar, will you, Father?”

Brennan nodded, but he was barely listening. He had other things on his mind, namely the tunnel beneath the pub and the things Finn wanted removed. Evidence. Proceeds of crime. No doubt Brennan himself would be committing a crime by tampering with the stuff. But Finn was counting on him. And the information — cryptic though it was — had been imparted in the form of a confession. So Brennan wasn’t about to break the seal of the confessional by seeking counsel from anyone else. Monty Collins, for instance. He was on his own. And he wouldn’t have much time. Surely the gardaí would be planning to search Finn’s house and this place, his second home. Brennan didn’t like this at all. This wasn’t the way he went about things, arseways and in a hurry. But he had no choice.

Finn wanted the bar open, and his assistant bartender in place. Brennan had no idea how to reach Sean Nugent, but he would worry about that later. First things first. He went behind the bar and cast his eyes about for what he needed. The big key hanging on a nail was likely the key to the building; he took it to the door and tried it out. Yes. He then found a pen, a piece of paper, and a thumbtack, and printed up a note. “Closed till noon. Sorry for the inconvenience.” He scratched out the Latin cross he signed with out of habit, and replaced it with “FB.” Finn would have done better, but there was no time for niceties. Brennan tacked the note to the door, locked up, and looked at the small key Finn had slipped him during confession time. Let the excavation begin.

He headed for the basement door. He saw a string hanging from a light bulb, and pulled it. The light wasn’t much, but it was better than subterranean blackness. He made his way down a set of crumbling concrete steps, bracing himself with one hand on the damp, cold walls. Down in the cellar there was one window large enough to admit a barrel of stout and clean enough to provide a bit of light.

It was only when he got to the bottom of the stairs that Brennan remembered being down here as a child, he and two other young fellows. He had sneaked them in when his grandfather was occupied at the bar. Told his friends there were secret items down there, and they could borrow them and play war with them. He hadn’t thought of that in years. When he had led the other two into the tunnel, he heard an ungodly roar come out of his father’s mouth. Declan and Finn were down there with a wrench and a big wooden crate. Brennan didn’t see what was in it because his father threatened to give him a toe in the hole, and no football for a month and a half, if he didn’t get his arse up those stairs and out of this building and take those two little gobshites with him before the oul fellow counted to five.

Out of that ill wind had come knowledge that stood Brennan in good stead now: he knew where to find the entrance to the tunnel. It wouldn’t have been obvious to a casual visitor to the cellar, if one could imagine a casual trip down here. All that met the eye were kegs, taps, glasses, and other paraphernalia associated with the running of a bar, along with several large pieces of furniture. Nowhere in the walls or the visible parts of the floor was there anything that looked like the door to a tunnel. But Brennan headed right for it. He was grateful to see a flashlight on a shelf near the window. And it worked. He grabbed it and picked his way through the clutter to a filing cabinet resting on a shabby Oriental carpet. The trap door was under there. He shoved the cabinet aside and lifted the carpet to reveal the door, which was made of planks. A padlock secured it to a sheet of metal bolted into the stone floor. He inserted the key into the lock, gave it a twist, got some resistance, and wrenched it around again. The lock sprang open. He lifted the wooden door on its hinges and eased it back against a chair.

The tunnel was accessible by a ladder, which had seen better days but served the purpose. Brennan climbed down and found himself in a passage about six and a half feet high and five feet wide. He cursed his decision to set out for the day in his black clerical suit, which was now grey with dust. He’d have to send it to the cleaners. But he put it out of his mind for the time being. The walls of the tunnel were made of stones and bricks, and the ceiling was covered with sheets of plywood, propped up by posts along the sides. He shone his light ahead and tried to estimate the tunnel’s length. It was hard to tell. About twenty feet from where he stood, the floor seemed to slope upwards. Not surprisingly it felt damp, and he could hear water dripping somewhere. But he didn’t have time to stand there and soak up the ambience; he had a job to do. Good thing he wasn’t claustrophobic, given that he was enclosed in a jerry-built confined space several feet under the ground. It was like being in the catacombs in Rome, except he didn’t expect to see any saints buried down here. He walked forward a few steps and noticed an opening in the wall to his left; he peered in and saw some old uniforms and caps wrapped in clear plastic. And ammunition belts, the kind worn diagonally across the chest. He moved ahead and found another opening on his right. Well! That one was interesting; there was a stash of rifles in it, a couple of pistols, and an old-style machine gun. A Thompson? There was a nickname for those, he seemed to recall. What was it? Something from the Al Capone days on the other side of the Atlantic. A “Chicago typewriter,” that was it. Interesting find, but Brennan couldn’t claim to be surprised, in light of his family’s history. He continued his exploration. He came to a part of the wall where the bricks were loose, and he removed one to take a look. His light didn’t show anything, but he put his hand in anyway and felt around. Nothing.

The next opening contained a collection of stone Celtic crosses, statues that had a pagan look to them, and others that brought to mind St. Patrick. Other images were of women in robes: Druids perhaps? Many of these items were unfinished, eyes or hands yet to be carved. The tools of the trade were there as well: grinders and power saws of some kind, and jugs of chemicals. One statue, of a young woman whose fingers were missing, was clean and new-looking on one side, drab and old on the other. Being restored? No. Brennan looked more closely. It was the opposite. Brand new items were being doctored to look ancient. The words of the arresting officer came back to him: “. . . forgery, using a false instrument . . .” It wasn’t long before he came upon what must have been the false instruments, if that meant, as he now suspected, false documents. In the next hole in the wall were papers piled on a wooden crate, along with a fountain pen and a packet of green paper discs, the round seals you see on the bottom of official documents. Brennan saw a heavy black object with a handle and what appeared to be a round stamp; he had seen this kind of thing in lawyers’ offices. A notary stamp. He picked up a piece of paper and saw that it was a title deed with no details filled in. He affixed one of the green seals to the page, slipped the paper into the black notary stamp, and pressed down on the handle, then read what had been impressed upon the paper: “James Shackleton-Gore, Notary Public, City and County of Dublin.” All of this would be of great interest to the gardaí. But the guards weren’t going to see it.

What was Brennan supposed to do with all this stuff? He couldn’t transport it in a cab; might as well wrap it up in a big red bow and present it to Garda HQ. But first things first; he needed bags to pack the stuff in. There were burlap sacks in the basement and, if those did not suffice, he was sure there must be bags of some sort upstairs. He would climb up and check. But first he wanted to make sure he had everything. He walked deeper into the tunnel until the floor began its upward slope. The ceiling didn’t rise at the same level, so he had to crouch as he made his way forward. Then he came to a dead end, a big slab of concrete. The foundation of another building? No. Brennan could see gravel and hardened lumps of cement on the floor. The slab had been formed down here and put in place to close the underground passage. Evidently, the tunnel had originally continued and, given the upward angle, opened somewhere outdoors. This tended to confirm what Brennan had heard in whispers when he was growing up in Dublin: that there was an escape route built underneath the old IRA drinking spot.

An hour later Brennan was upstairs, standing inside the doorway of the pub with several extra-large, very heavy plastic rubbish bags full of statues, uniforms, papers, other miscellaneous items, and guns. There was nothing left in the tunnel. He had closed and locked the trap door, replaced the carpet over it, and heaved the filing cabinet back into its spot on the rug. But his work was not yet done. He had to find a place to stash the goods. He didn’t have a car with him; he had arrived on foot. So he looked out the window and surveyed the territory. Across the street was a church known as the “black church,” which, he knew, was no longer being used. There was a pile of rubbish bags and debris beside the wall of the building. That might provide at least a temporary holding place for Finn’s things. The police would likely search the entire area, particularly if they found nothing in the pub itself. But they would start with the pub. Brennan decided that was his only hope for now. He hoisted two bags onto his back and was about to open the pub door when he saw two men approaching. He flattened himself against the wall inside. And felt like the villain in a bad vaudeville production; all that was missing was the cheesy moustache.