The City of Shadows. Michael Russell

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      ‘Why wouldn’t it? She said she was going the next day.’

      ‘Isn’t it something she might have changed her mind about suddenly?’

      She shook her head.

      Stefan decided to take that at face value for the time being.

      ‘What did she tell you about Hugo Keller?’

      ‘She just knew what he did and that he did it in Merrion Square.’

      ‘And the priest set it all up?’

      ‘I told you. He was paying for it.’

      ‘So who is this priest?’

      ‘I don’t know. I haven’t found him yet.’

      He took note of the determination in those words; she would find him.

      ‘So your friend, who told you everything, didn’t tell you his name?’

      ‘When it started she almost liked the cloak and dagger element. It was as if she was breaking all the rules at once.’ There was the hint of a smile again, as Hannah thought about the friend she knew so well. Then she shrugged. ‘And she had a genuine desire to protect him. She was in love with him. She wanted to protect herself too.’ Hannah laughed. ‘Susan liked breaking the rules but she hated getting caught. She wouldn’t have called herself a practising Jew, but the idea of what people would say – an affair, with a goy, who was a Roman Catholic priest.’ She stopped. She wanted to keep laughing about her friend’s foibles, but all of a sudden it felt like another way of hiding her fear. Even what she was saying didn’t seem so funny now. ‘It wouldn’t have been nice. We Jews may have been the victims of everyone else’s prejudice, but we can find plenty of our own, Sergeant.’

      ‘When you contacted Mr Field, what did you tell him?’

      ‘I told him what she’d said in her letters.’

      ‘The affair, the abortion, the priest?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And he passed the information on to the Guards?’

      She nodded, slowly.

      ‘That couldn’t have been easy for him.’

      ‘I talked to him last week when I got home. He didn’t want to see me really.’ She paused. ‘I don’t know which was worse, his daughter disappearing, or what he found out about her afterwards, from me.’

      ‘Isn’t that a bit harsh?’

      ‘Why shouldn’t it be?’

      ‘All right, so what happened?’

      ‘The Guards didn’t come back to him for weeks. He went to Rathmines every day, and every day they said they’d be in touch when they had any information. Only there never was any. In the end they told him they had no reason to suspect foul play. Do you have a manual for those phrases? Anyway, it was the same story as before, there was only one conclusion. Susan couldn’t face him after what had happened. She did what that sort of girl does. She got the boat to England. But they did think, sooner or later, she’d contact him. That sort of girl usually does – eventually.’

      ‘Did they talk to the priest? Did they talk to Keller?’

      ‘No. The priest was a figment of her imagination, or just a lie. The man must have been married and she made up the priest because she couldn’t deal with the shame. A Jewish woman wouldn’t understand what the vow of celibacy really meant, and how unlikely an affair with a priest was, you see. As for abortions, the inspector said Mr Field could rest assured such things didn’t happen in Ireland. That was, sadly, why some women, now what was it again, oh yes, why some women took the boat to England.’

      Stefan made no attempt to explain away what had happened. He couldn’t. He didn’t want the contempt in Hannah’s voice directed at him.

      ‘What were you going to ask Mr Keller?’

      ‘If my friend had arrived for her abortion, what happened then, oh, and who the priest was who paid for it all. That would have been a start.’

      ‘And do you imagine he’d have told you?’

      ‘I don’t know. That’s when you walked in.’

      ‘I don’t think your conversation with Keller would have lasted long.’

      ‘Why not? I’d just paid him for an abortion. I would have been happy to say that very loudly and very publicly. All I needed was information.’

      ‘The events of this evening make it clear Mr Keller isn’t without friends. He’s also a criminal who keeps a revolver in his desk drawer.’

      ‘I hadn’t thought about him shooting me. Perhaps I should have.’ She was laughing at him. It didn’t seem there was much she was afraid of.

      ‘So you’ve got a man, the priest. An appointment for a miscarriage. Let’s assume she went. You don’t think he’d have gone with her?’

      ‘They’d stopped seeing each other. She didn’t say he was going.’

      ‘Then there’s Keller, who’s unlikely to tell anybody anything. And Susan, who no one’s seen since July. It’s hard to know what it really says.’

      ‘I think I know.’ She held his gaze, unwavering now.

      ‘What’s that?’

      ‘It says Susan’s dead.’

      He didn’t answer. Instead he reached across the table and took Hannah’s hand. She nodded. It was answer enough. She had known for a long time now, however much she had tried to persuade herself it couldn’t be true. Even as she spoke the words she still hoped Stefan would tell her she was wrong. And it would have been easy for him to. It was what he was meant to do as a detective, at least till there was evidence to prove otherwise. And there was no evidence at all, of anything. Not that anyone had really looked for any yet. But he had a sense of where looking was going to lead already. It was the total absence of facts that made pushing aside Hannah Rosen’s simple statement hard. Hannah knew her friend. It wasn’t a fact but it was as close to one as made no difference. He couldn’t tell her he didn’t understand what Susan Field’s silence was. It was the silence of the grave.

      4. Stephen’s Green

      The lights were still on in the house at twenty-five Merrion Square. It was almost ten o’clock. The uniformed officer Stefan Gillespie had left there was still on the steps. Garda Liam Dwyer had the collar of his coat turned up, his cap pulled down. Smoke hovered in front of his face. He was cold and hungry and pissed off. He should have ended his shift three hours ago.

      ‘I can’t let you go in, Sarge, sorry.’

      ‘Who says?’

      ‘Sergeant Lynch. It’s a Special Branch operation now.’

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