We present an extract from The City Underground, the new thriller by Michael Russell.
Ireland 1941. A German spy escapes from Mountjoy Prison, clearly with inside help. Yet no one wants to catch him. When the head of Garda Special Branch sends Inspector Stefan Gillespie to find out why, it must be in secret. But he meets a web of deceit in which the past's dark shadows loom over the lies of the present. Alone, except for an alcoholic private detective and a woman who could betray him to the IRA, Stefan embarks on a journey that drags him into a plot to attack British interests in Ireland and an attempt on the life of the IRA Chief-of-Staff by his own men...
The private detective pulled a packet of Player's from his pocket. He took one and held out the pack. He could feel the other man’s hands tremble. He struck a match and saw the tight lines on Bealen’s face. The man had problems, he knew that from Dinnie, but some of those problems were about to be solved, to the tune of three pounds. Yet there was tension, even fear, and something that almost spoke of regret. Emmet dropped the match. The troubled face was in darkness again, and so was the yard, except for a bulb behind an upstairs curtain that threw a dim light on the crates and stacked barrels that formed a gangway to a slatted door to the street.
'A name, a couple of names, Neale. Three quid. Money for nothing.’
Emmet laughed.
‘Twenty years ago, Nealie. Who fucking cares?’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Warde.’
‘Sorry for what?’
‘It’s just … well, you know yourself, Mr Warde …’
Neale Bealen turned and almost ran the few yards to the gate to the street. He pulled it open and was gone, even as Emmet Warde, startled, moved after him.
Before Emmet reached the gate, a man came from behind some barrels. Not a face he knew well, but he knew it. A Special Branch man, one of Terry Gregory’s. MacDermott, MacDonagh, MacDonnell. He went through names, as if it mattered. The fear he had seen in Bealen told him it didn’t. Someone didn’t like the questions he was asking. And that did matter. The arithmetic was elementary.
‘Did Terry Gregory send you?’
The detective didn’t answer.
‘I do the odd bit of work for Mr Gregory.’ In the silence Emmet dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out. ‘If he’s got something to say, he knows where I am.’
Distantly, it seemed very distant, laughter from the bar.
‘He knows where you are.’
‘Then he doesn’t need to send me messages. He can pick up the phone.’
‘It’s not that sort of message, Emmet.’
‘Well, whatever sort of f**king message, tell him to deliver it himself.’
The detective took a step closer.
‘I don’t think you’ll have a problem understanding it.’
Emmet Warde wasn’t drunk. He drank too much for it to be that simple. But he had drunk enough, he’d rarely not drunk enough, to feel this was a mad and stupid bollox of a thing and he could stop it. If McDermott or McDonagh or McDonell wanted to threaten him, didn’t he have enough about him to take him?
Terry Gregory couldn’t know much about what he was doing for Josie Kilmartin. Neale Bealen was the first connection he’d found to the night the woman’s brother disappeared. He had never looked in obvious places. He was coming in sideways. But no one came at anything sideways the way Gregory did. He should have thought harder about the toes he might tread on. He had assumed that just as he told Neale Bealen it didn’t matter, it really didn’t. But why did Gregory care? There would be a reason. Names might be it. People whose names mattered. Stirring up what should be forgotten. Emmet had crossed a line, not even registering it. And he had forgotten who Gregory was. The head of Special Branch looked lazy and fat behind a desk, in clothes that were too small for him. Emmet was the one who had grown lazy, feckless, befuddled by alcohol. For an instant he knew himself, as every holy drinker does; only for an instant and always too late.
The Special Branch man was uncomfortable. Silence wasn’t what he expected. Maybe argument, a fist, but not the pale, thoughtful face that looked through him, almost smiling. But then Emmet did what the detective wanted.
‘I think you need to f**k off, McDermott, McDonagh, McDonnell.’
The detective didn’t move. They were toe to toe and face to face.
Warde believed he could take the other man. Maybe he could have. He didn’t find out. As he swung his fist, the detective stepped back. Emmet collapsed to the ground. The cosh that landed on the side of his head was not Garda issue, but it was less likely to crack a skull than a pistol-whipping. Sober, he might have anticipated the man behind him. Sober, he might even have heard the footsteps.
Most of what followed was kicking. Head and stomach. Fists pummelled; head and stomach again. The fists, like the feet, were hard, but the blood came from broken glass. He didn’t fight back. He could have done them damage, but at a cost. There was less satisfaction in beating a man who did nothing, than one who gave something back. Unless a man wanted to kill you, it would end sooner that way. To stop it, you had to take it. They did stop. He lay among broken bottles.
‘You know, I never did meet a private detective before, Jim. Did you ever come across Bogart, Emmet? Now there’s a feller you could take some tips from.’
They both laughed.
‘Have you a fag, Mack?’
McDermott, McDonagh, McDonnell produced a packet of cigarettes. The two men lit up. The one who had coshed Emmet lit a third. He crouched down and put it between Emmet’s lips. They were relaxed. The job was done, well done too.
Warde breathed in the smoke and looked up.
‘Any words of wisdom from Terry?’
‘He said you’d know what it was about.’
They knew nothing. They were used to knowing nothing.
‘And if I don’t?’
‘It would be better if you did, Major,’ said Jim. ‘It was major, wasn’t it?’
‘Major-General! Give the man his due.’
The two detectives watched him for a moment longer.
‘Major-General!’ There was contempt in Mack’s voice now. ‘But the word is that you cut and run. Or maybe worse. Look at you now. A fucking piss artist.’
Then the two Special Branch men were gone.
Emmet gazed up at the night. The stars were clear and sharp. The yard smelled of sour beer and now of blood. Pain took a while to find its way in. Only now did he feel it. There was the noise of laughter again from the bar, louder. The back door opened. Dinnie O’Mara peered out. He walked forward cautiously. He nodded gravely, staring at the man who lay among his beer crates. He seemed relieved. Emmet saw it in his face. But he could feel, as the publican took in the scene, that part of the relief concerned the relatively light damage to his property.
‘They’ve gone, then, Mr Warde?’
The private detective nodded.
‘Well,’ said the publican, ‘it doesn’t look so bad.’
Emmet Warde started to get up, slowly and painfully. As he saw Dinnie checking the yard one more time for any extra damage he’d missed, he laughed.
‘It could have been worse, Dinnie.’
The publican stretched out his hand and helped pull him up.
‘There’s always that.’ He crossed himself. ‘Will I call you a taxi, so?’
‘Jesus, Dinnie, and isn’t it some service you’re offering these days!’
The City Underground is published by Constable
