The Convictions of John Delahunt by Andrew Hughes Read Free Book Online Page A

his lapels and hurrying to match her step. Skerritt’s gaze swept up and across the front of her house and I stood back from the window. I considered maintaining the charade – that I had been sent from the Castle to enquire about the attack. But the Captain was again unconscious, so what could result except time for them to ask searching questions and memorize my face?
    The front would be closed off by their approach. I slipped down the staircase and went back through the hall, then descended the stairwell leading to the basement. I heard the main door open. The gloomy passageway below went past sculleries and larders to the rear exit. I tried the handle and found it locked. Muffled voices reached me from the landing above. The keyhole was bare. I felt along the top of the lintel, scratched my thumb on an exposed nail, then brushed a key that fell with a clatter on the flagstones. I listened for a reaction. There was silence, so I scooped it up and turned the lock with a clunk.
    Craddock’s yard was long and unkempt, with heaps of rubbish and empty coal scuttles. A path ran down its centre, overgrown with weeds. I hastened through without looking behind, hoping that those inside were tending to the Captain in his front room. The perimeter wall was about ten feet high, but some intact masonry from a demolished outbuilding offered the means of scaling it. Standing atop the rubble, I leaped and grabbed the wall-cap with both hands.
    Still suspended, I scraped my right leg up towards the ledge and managed to catch my heel on top. In that ridiculous pose I had to pause and rest before attempting the final heave. A cat seated further along the wall in the neighbouring garden regarded my unseemly scrabble with mild interest, in the same way that I would observe him attempt a doorknob. I vaulted my legs over, maintained a grip as I lowered myself down the other side, and then dropped the remaining five or six feet, which sent a shock through my heels up to the knees. I found a stone, pitched it at the cat – who turned his head sharply as it sailed by, but was otherwise unmoved – and lurched down the lane towards St Stephen’s Green.
    The coal-heavers worked on Arran Quay, where the fuel was taken from barges, brought into Smithfield Market and distributed throughout the city by horse and cart. A few dozen men unloaded the cargo. One stepped nimbly along a gangplank, seized a coal sack by both corners and lifted it on to his back as if he was throwing on a cloak. Those broad shoulders carried the load as if it had no weight, but when he tossed it into a waiting cart, the bed shook and the horse flinched. He lifted his cap to wipe his brow, adding another dark streak to his face, then turned to retrieve the next bag.
    I’ve always been wary of coalmen, ever since I was very small. Our first maid used to threaten that if I misbehaved I would be carried away by the coalman in his empty sack. This was a real terror, and I dreaded the sound of that great grimy fellow clomping up the stairs to the wooden coal bin located just outside our nursery door. The thunder that came when he pitched in his heavy load, I can hear it now, and then the sound of his wheezing. He was just catching his breath, but I always thought he was weighing up my indiscretions, deciding if they warranted my abduction.
    I looked more closely at the coal-porters on the quay. Some wore gloves, but none carried his hand as if it was injured. From my vantage point, I couldn’t tell if any had a misshapen lip.
    On the far side of Whitworth Bridge, an old stevedore stood alone near the quayside wall. He lifted both sides of his coat to rummage in a number of pockets that had been sewn into the lining; the stitches were visible on the outside as several haphazard scars. He seemed to satisfy himself that whatever he searched for wasn’t there, for he withdrew his hands, leaned against the wall on his forearms, and gazed over the Liffey.
    I went to stand beside him.