To Keep a Bird Singing Read online

  Noelie was startled. He had figured with the blast that he was being watched. He and Hannah had talked about it. He wondered now if everything he had done and everyone he had spoken to was known about. ‘Fuck.’

  Casey watched Noelie. ‘You’re surprised, I see. That’s comforting. I was wondering – G2 have a very tight remit. They’re national security, end of story. Get my gist?’

  ‘Christ.’

  Noelie knew he owed Casey an explanation but what should he tell him and where to begin?

  ‘I’ve been asking some questions, that’s all.’

  Casey put his hand up. ‘It’s better I don’t know. Consider this a favour, for old times’ sake.’ His tone turned cautious. ‘I didn’t say anything about why you were over. I said we just talked about our mutual football friends, and that you were in my head afterwards, not having seen you in so long. I only asked about the blast because I knew you – that was how I passed it off.’

  ‘Did they believe you?’

  ‘Don’t know but it got me off the hook. But I better not be seen with you again.’

  Casey’s coffee was untouched, Noelie’s as well.

  ‘My advice to you is look at your phone communications. They’ll have your number tagged but they’ll also have everyone in your circle identified too. Pick up a second phone. Keep it anonymous but bear in mind it won’t stay that way for long. Meantime keep your real phone active. If you don’t, they’ll put two and two together and look afresh. The other thing is don’t have your main phone with you if you don’t want them to know where you’re going. Got me?’

  Noelie nodded.

  ‘Last thing: the new smartphones can be used as listening devices as well. They have the means. They can be activated even when they’re switched off. That’s why it’s essential to take out the battery.’

  Casey stood. Noelie stayed seated and in shock. It was hard to believe what he had heard and yet it explained a lot.

  ‘You’re sure they were army intelligence, not Branch or anyone like that?’

  ‘I’m certain. Sorry.’

  Noelie stayed on after Casey left. He drank his coffee in a daze. To distract himself he looked at the Danesfort enlargements. They were disappointing. His thoughts returned to army intelligence and why they might be involved. They were clearly all over anyone who was interested in the pipe bomb too. The question was, did they know who had thrown it? Or worse, had they done the job themselves?

  Noelie couldn’t remember the last time he had used a coin-operated phone. He found one, though, outside the main post office and called Hannah.

  She twigged straight off that something wasn’t right. ‘You okay?’

  He said that he had a new draft of his CV. Could she spare him a few minutes to take a look at it? He’d be right down.

  Hannah took the hint. ‘I’ll be waiting.’

  In the post office he purchased two pay-as-you-go mobiles and then went directly to the Voice’s office. They talked out in the corridor. It was quiet compared to the last time Noelie was there. He asked Hannah to leave her phone on the windowsill and they talked quietly a short distance away. He told her what he had learned from Casey.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ she said. ‘We’re naive. I was reading about all this new surveillance technology only recently. It’s a game changer.’

  They agreed that Casey’s news did seem to confirm that recent events were connected to a mole inside the IRA.

  ‘Danesfort, the Donnellys, they must be tied to this informer in some way.’

  Noelie was quiet. He found the idea that someone or some part of state security may have had a hand in attempting to kill him quite distressing to say the least. Who were these people? Rogue operators? Or had they political clearance? If so, how high up did that go?

  Although they had never said a whole lot on the phone to each other the problem was that Hannah had a smartphone, an Android.

  ‘They can be activated remotely and used as mics. I bought this for you,’ he said, handing her one of the pay-as-you-go mobiles.

  Hannah swore a number of times. ‘Welcome to 1984.’

  The full implications dawned on them. ‘From now on extreme care,’ she told Noelie.

  She told him her news to cheer him up. ‘First Facebook. A man named Caffrey was in touch. Lives in Thurles. Retired. He has an OAP card so he can get the train. He suggested meeting at 2.30.’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘I guess he has time on his hands. What do you think?’

  ‘Let’s do it.’

  ‘I provisionally agreed to meet at the train station as he’s arriving that way. We could get a coffee there.’

  Hannah’s other news concerned the stonemasons. ‘They apologised for not getting back. The inscription arrived by the same method as before, a self-destructing email. It’s confirmation of sorts.’ Hannah had written it down. She read it out to Noelie.

  Michael Egan

  1950–1970

  Duagh, County Kerry

  ‘But in the dark he learned to creep

  When all the guards were fast asleep

  And in his house of spinning pearls

  He hopped about in loops and whirls.’

  PG

  Noelie didn’t really understand. ‘What does that confirm?’

  ‘Philistine.’

  ‘Don’t call me that, not that,’ he mock protested.

  ‘PG is Patrick Galvin. It’s from a poem in the preface to his trilogy, The Raggy Boy. The point is Galvin spent time in an industrial school. The Raggy Boy is in part about that.’

  Noelie shook his head in disbelief. ‘How do you know all these things?’ He hugged her.

  ‘Confirmation then. Egan was in an industrial school. Which part of the Gulag we don’t know for sure yet but it could easily have been Danesfort.’

  They were both silent.

  ‘This person paying for the grave, why is he or she opting to remain anonymous?’

  ‘Embarrassment, fear, likely the latter.’

  Noelie nodded. A colleague came looking for Hannah to ask if she could help him with a computer problem. She said she’d be right there.

  ‘So we’ll meet at the train station.’

  Hannah nodded. ‘Just one thing though. Meabh’s story last night set me thinking. She was saying how she heard nothing about her dad’s statement over in Amsterdam. Figures, right? Cork’s just a dot on the planet and what happens here is never going to be earth-shattering. But if that’s true how did this person paying for the headstone hear about it? It seems they could be living in Australia, going by where the payment came from.’

  ‘The Irish press out there. There are a few papers for the emigrants. In New York there were plenty.’

  ‘They cover big items, sports and cultural news. Why would they report the remains found in lowly Glen Park?’

  ‘I see your point.’

  ‘Leave it with me. I’m way behind with work but if I get the time I’ll do a quick article. Mention Danesfort, Egan, Jim Dalton and all that stuff. I could post it on Indymedia and the like, here and in Australia. I’ll put a contact email with it too. You never know, it could generate something. I think we have to reach out. There’s no time to lose.’

  27

  Noelie decided to head back to Hannah’s. To his surprise, he found Meabh waiting outside the main block entrance.

  ‘Not answering your phone?’ she asked.

  ‘Long story. You okay?’

  ‘Sort of, not really. I was wondering if I could ask a favour. Do you know Glenville? There’s a Mass Rock just outside it. My mother’s on her way there now.’

  Meabh’s visit home had ended before it had even got under way. Her mother was dressed up and on her way out the door as Meabh arrived. She didn’t want to speak to Meabh or talk about Noelie’s visit.

  Noelie and Meabh went upstairs. He asked her if she wanted to come in for a coffee but she said she didn’t have time.

  ‘I got to thinking about what we talked about
last night, about what happened to me and how it could be linked to my father’s death. There’s this other man who was close to my dad and to Robert Donnelly. I’ve only just found out that he’s dead. It’s strange because this man helped our family, me in particular. He paid for my college fees.’ Meabh sighed. ‘That’s where my mother was going, to this man’s month’s mind. It’s a Mass said for someone–’

  ‘Hang on.’ Noelie went into the spare room and retrieved the box with the miraculous medal. He showed it to Meabh. ‘Is this him?’

  ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘Actually I took it from your mother’s. I was intrigued but I had no idea who he was. Hannah recognised him though. He was a big player in the property market in this city. Apparently loaded.’

  Meabh looked at the card with the picture of young Leslie Walsh.

  ‘How did your father know this man?’

  ‘Let There Be Light.’ Meabh pointed to the initials on the back. ‘It’s an organisation my father was in. Mr Walsh was in it too.’

  ‘Who or what are they?’

  ‘They’re religious. They do good works, that type of thing.’ Meabh showed Noelie the emblem. ‘I heard the story of this many times. Jesus is present. The tree represents nature, life and growth. Jesus is protecting us all.’

  Noelie thought about this. ‘Do you know how Leslie Walsh died?’ Meabh shook her head. ‘He threw himself from the Elysian, the glass tower beside City Hall. Apparently he had an apartment there.’

  Meabh examined the box and medal. ‘Suicide?’

  ‘It seems so. Why do you want to go to the month’s mind?’

  ‘Because of what we talked about last night. Robert Donnelly will be there. There will be others too.’

  Noelie looked at the time. Glenville was about a forty-minute drive away and it was already close to noon. He explained his dilemma, about his planned meeting at the train station with Hannah at 2.30 p.m.

  ‘Could you call her?’

  Noelie showed Meabh his battery-less phone and told her what Casey had said. She suggested he use her BlackBerry. Noelie figured it was worth the risk. He called Hannah’s work but he couldn’t reach her; he left a message with reception. His plan was to take Meabh to Glenville, drop her there and return in time for the meeting.

  They took the Dublin road and, at Fermoy, the road west. There was more traffic than Noelie had anticipated and progress was slow. Noelie asked Meabh about Amsterdam and how she had ended up there.

  ‘Chance really. I wanted to get out of Ireland and I had a friend there. First port of call and I stayed.’

  She worked at furniture restoration. She had a degree in psychology but had never worked in the area. In Amsterdam her friend had friends who did period renovations; a subspeciality was furniture restoration. She had taken it up and liked it. She was now in the final stages of her guild exams.

  Meabh asked Noelie if he’d ever lived abroad. He told her about his long stint in the States.

  ‘Why did you go there?’ she asked.

  ‘Like you in a way, convenience. I had a social security number from my J1 time there and New York appealed to me. Plus I needed to get away. The eighties were bad. The recession, no divorce, a constitutional ban on abortion. Back then it was even a crime to buy a condom.’ But he regretted not finishing his PhD. ‘Jacked it in with only a year to go. Crazy. Now I could do with those letters after my name.’

  Meabh asked if he had liked it in the States and he replied that he had. ‘But I was never going to stay there either. I knew that even before I went. Didn’t stop me staying thirteen years though.’ He told Meabh about nearly getting married. ‘It was going to happen and then her brother got ill and she wanted to go back to Colorado to help him. It was nearly the other side of the States, out in the boondocks as they say over there. I just couldn’t go. I stayed on in New York but eventually decided to come home.’

  Meabh had been to the Mass Rock as a teenager but she couldn’t recall exactly where it was. Finding it turned out not to be a problem. With the crowd attending, there was gridlock in the area. Finally they saw a sign, Carraig an Aifrinn. People were parking on the roadside verge so Noelie did too. He pulled in a short distance from the site. He was worried about how he’d get out again. They sat in the car for a moment.

  ‘Yesterday, in the pub, I asked you why you were involved in all of this. You didn’t answer,’ she said.

  Noelie looked at Meabh and thought about his reply. ‘There’s something’s wrong, I know that. That’s a good bit of it. But I guess I’m tired too. This is my second recession. Our so-called betters have ruined the country again. Now I’m hearing that beautiful refrain, let’s just pay the bondholders. It’s a case of sweep everything under the carpet again. I just can’t be doing with that any more. It makes me very angry.’

  They got out. Noelie was still thinking about the question. Some part of him suspected that there was some connection to his nephew’s death too. Of course he had nothing go on in that respect – just timing and the comment made by Cronin about ‘that crowd’.

  He rang Hannah’s new pay-as-you-go using his own and got a ‘You cannot be connected at this time’ message. He looked around. It could just be the poor reception but he realised also that he had made an error. He had left his main phone in Cork without establishing contact with Hannah using the new phones. Shit, he thought and texted, in glenville by fermoy. walsh month mind. returning asap. Hopefully his message would get through.

  There was a dip in the country road where there was an old stone bridge. It was pretty around here, quiet apart from the sound of the nearby river. Meabh pointed through the tree canopy at a sheer rock face about a hundred metres upriver. There was a steel cross impressed on the stone. Under it lay a natural shelf of rock that was being used as an altar; it was dressed with white and yellow flowers for the memorial Mass. A sizable congregation was already present.

  Noelie was torn. He wanted to stay and yet he knew that if he was going to make the meeting with Hannah he needed to get moving. He tried Hannah’s pay-as-you-go again. When he had no luck he asked Meabh to try; she had no success either. Noelie reckoned it was the location. There were hills on both sides of the river.

  A narrow gate led to a path through pine woods. A young priest was directing mourners onto the riverside embankment. Noelie was distracted, half listening to Meabh’s suggestion that they brazen it out and go in when he saw Inspector Lynch. The senior garda was out of uniform and was coming directly towards them. Noelie buried his head in Meabh’s shoulder. ‘Someone I know. I can’t be seen,’ he whispered urgently.

  Lynch didn’t appear to notice Noelie. He was with a bald-headed man also in civvies. Noelie was reminded of Kojak, the lollipop-sucking New York detective from the TV series of the seventies; this man was smaller but had the same distinctive bald round head.

  Seeing Lynch decided Noelie: he needed to stay. As soon as the Mass was over he’d head for Cork and hook up with Hannah then; she would probably still be with the Danesfort contact.

  A short distance along from the entrance the roadside ditch had collapsed allowing passage onto the pine-covered hillside above the riverbank. They made their way up this to the crest of the hill. Continuing down the far side, they rejoined the river upstream. They followed it back to the edge of the congregation and very close to proceedings.

  Meabh winked. ‘Good enough?’

  ‘Perfect.’

  The Mass was in Latin; Noelie hadn’t attended anything like it before. Three priests celebrated the Mass. Two were in green and white, while the lead celebrant was in elegant red and purple robes. There were lines of chairs on one section of the grassy bank for family and close friends. Noelie wasn’t able to see their faces. He spied Inspector Lynch, though, standing on the edge of proceedings, downriver from their location.

  Communion started with the priests coming across the footbridge over the river. They took up positions to serve the Host and people formed lines i
n front of the chalices. The piety of the ceremony in the open-air setting was impressive. The good weather helped too; it was a warm sunny day. Noelie finally got a decent look at the Walsh children; they were all in their thirties at least. A woman that Noelie guessed was Mrs Walsh took Communion. He didn’t know her.

  He wondered about the significance of Glenville. Was Walsh from the area or was it something else? Eventually he spotted Meabh’s mother. She was dressed in a black skirt suit and wore a dark headscarf. She looked as dour as when they had first met.

  When Communion ended there was a hiatus. People waited and the priests returned over the footbridge to the altar. Then a group of men, all in long cream robes with hoods and narrow red cummerbunds, came forward.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Noelie quietly. ‘I haven’t seen anything like that for quite some time.’ In fact he had only ever seen something like it in Spain.

  ‘My dad occasionally wore a robe like that,’ whispered Meabh.

  Noelie watched. Each of the men, seven in all, held an offering. These were simple items: bread, water, a Bible, a small cross, some form of a chain and what looked like a staff; two carried this. All the items were handed to the family. Shortly after that the ceremony came to an end.

  Noelie told Meabh he was going up onto the riverbank hill to attempt calling Hannah again. She gave him her phone too, just in case. Again, he had no success and returned just as the congregation was dispersing.

  ‘Are you going to talk to your mother?’

  Meabh was unsure. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘This Let There Be Light, what’s the story with them?’

  ‘They support Lefebvre. I think. That was quite a big issue when I was growing up. Lefebvre was excommunicated by the Pope but they stuck with him. To cut a long story short they’re the conservative end of the Catholic family.’

  Noelie was keeping an eye on Inspector Lynch. He had approached the Walsh family and was standing with them. After that he went over to a man in a wheelchair. He held this man’s hand. Kojak stayed with him the entire time.

  ‘The man in the wheelchair is Robert Donnelly,’ whispered Meabh. ‘My dad’s old boss in the gardaí. He doesn’t look too good.’