‘So I loved him so much that I was prepared to stand by while he did disgusting things to young girls?’ Mary asked.
‘Yes,’ Blackstone agreed.
‘But despite my love for him, I gunned him down as if he were no more than a mad dog?’
‘By that stage, you’d decided that he deserved to be gunned down as if he were no more than a mad dog.’
‘You’re hateful!’ Mary said. ‘You’re hateful and spiteful and mean, and I hope you burn in hell for all eternity.’
‘If I do, I won’t burn alone,’ Blackstone countered. ‘But to return to your husband — the problem was that when they reached a certain age, the girls ceased to be attractive to him, and they had to go. And even if she hadn’t got pregnant, Jenny was reaching that age, wasn’t she?’
‘Enough!’ Mary said.
‘Are you prepared to confess now?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Of course not!’
‘Then it’s nowhere near enough. Do you know what Jenny said to me as she lay dying?’
Mary O’Brien clasped her hands over her ears. ‘No, and I don’t want to know.’
‘She said, “He’s dead because of me. He’s dead because I betrayed him.” I didn’t understand that at all. How had she betrayed him? I wondered. By revealing some guilty secret, perhaps? And then there were other questions. Why had she betrayed him? And who had she betrayed him to? We know the answers to all those questions now, don’t we?’
‘I’m not listening!’ Mary screamed.
But she was. She couldn’t help herself.
‘Jenny betrayed him to you, didn’t she? And she did it because of jealousy — because he was moving on from her to his new love.’
‘Please!’ Mary O’Brien begged.
‘I watched your children at his funeral,’ Blackstone ploughed on relentlessly. ‘Your son behaved with great dignity. Your younger daughter was in a daze, and hardly knew where she was. But your eldest daughter, Isobel — who is just thirteen — couldn’t even look down at the coffin.’
‘If there’s a trial, we’ll have to put Isobel on the witness stand,’ Meade said, ‘If there’s a trial, she’ll have to tell the whole world what her father did to her — and that will damage her even more than she’s already been damaged. That’s why you have to confess.’
Mary lowered her hands and bowed her head, defeated.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, in a flat, lifeless voice. ‘That is why I have to confess.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
There was no sign of any paperwork on Captain O’Shaugnessy’s desk, but then, Blackstone remembered, O’Shaugnessy had not got where he was by filling in forms but by wielding his nightstick. Besides, paperwork would only have prevented the desk from fulfilling its proper function.
It was fulfilling that function now. O’Shaugnessy had his feet planted firmly in the middle of the desk and his hands locked behind his head. Add to that general demeanour the amused eyes and slightly sadistic curl of the mouth, and all-in-all the captain had the appearance of a man who had been looking forward to this meeting, and was determined to extract the maximum amount of pleasure out of it.
‘Take a seat, Inspector Blackstone,’ he said jovially. ‘Would you like a cigar? ’Cos if you do, they’re right there on the corner of the desk.’
Blackstone sat — but ignored the cigars.
‘Well, ain’t you a hero?’ O’Shaugnessy said. ‘Only in New York for a few days, and you’ve already gone an’ caught yourself a murderer.’
‘It was Sergeant Meade’s case,’ Blackstone said. ‘I was no more than his assistant.’
But he was thinking, why did O’Shaugnessy ask to see me? And why is he looking so pleased with himself?
‘Course, havin’ set your heart on the killer bein’ either a dirty cop or a high muckety-muck politician, it must have been a disappointment to you that it turned out to be St Patrick’s widow,’ the captain said.
‘It’s never a disappointment to catch the real criminal. You should try it yourself sometime,’ Blackstone replied.
‘Maybe I will at that,’ O’Shaugnessy agreed, his good humour unabated. He unclasped his hands, reached for one his cigars, and lit it. ‘I hate to rain on your parade,’ he continued, blowing smoke out of his mouth, ‘but I’m afraid to say I’ve got some bad news for you.’
He didn’t look afraid to say it at all, Blackstone thought. In fact, he looked positively delighted at the prospect.
‘What kind of bad news?’ the inspector asked.
‘You remember that prisoner you came over here for? Now, what the hell was his name?’
‘James Duffy.’
‘That’s right, James Duffy. Well, Inspector, it would appear that he’s escaped.’
‘How in God’s name did that happen?’
‘He was bein’ transferred from Mulberry Street to my precinct, an’ he seems to have gone missin’ along the way.’ O’Shaugnessy smiled. ‘Which, when you think about it, is all your fault.’
‘All my fault!’ Blackstone exploded.
‘Well, not all your fault — your little friend Sergeant Alex Meade’s gotta take some of the blame as well.’
‘How could it possibly be our fault?’ Blackstone wondered.
‘Ain’t it obvious,’ O’Shaugnessy said. ‘Duffy was safe as houses in Mulberry Street. It was only when he was bein’ moved he got the chance to escape.’
‘But we had nothing to do with him being moved.’
‘See, that’s where you’re wrong. Remember that poster — the one with Inspector O’Brien’s face on it — that you had plastered all over the Lower East Side?’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, that brought a crowd of bums floodin’ into Mulberry Street, didn’t it? An’ where did the desk sergeant put ’em?’
‘In the cells,’ Blackstone said, with a sinking feeling.
‘In the cells,’ O’Shaugnessy agreed. ‘Which was the only place he could put ’em. Which meant that Duffy had to be moved someplace else. Which gave him his opportunity to run. So if you’d never put them posters up, Duffy would still be in custody. That’s the simple truth, an’ that’s what I said in my long telegram to your boss in Scotland Yard.’
‘Did he really escape?’ Blackstone asked.
O’Shaugnessy made a great show of looking around him. ‘Well, he sure ain’t here.’
‘When I spoke to Duffy, he offered me a large bribe to pretend he wasn’t the man I was looking for,’ Blackstone said. ‘I didn’t take it. Did you?’
‘Well, see here, I had this accountin’ problem,’ O’Shaugnessy said. ‘An’ the reason I had the problem was ’cos of what you talked me into doin’ to that nice Mrs de Courcey. Remember you said that it would be good for discipline to starve her out for a few days?’
‘Yes?’
‘Turns out you were wrong. Didn’t work out that way at all. From what I’ve heard, there’s some gentlemen that go to her for discipline, an’ she’s quite happy to administer it, if the money’s right. But she ain’t too keen on bein’ on the receivin’ end herself.’
‘Get to the point!’ Blackstone said.
But O’Shaugnessy was enjoying himself too much to rush things.
‘So she started to think about how she could get back at me, an’ she come with a jim-dandy of an idea. See, when you’ve been in the game as long as she has, you’ve had half the politicians in this city ruttin’ away between your legs. An’ she decided to give a few of them politicians a call, and ask if they’d do her a little favour for old times’ sake.’
‘And that favour she wanted was for them to serve her your head on a platter?’ Blackstone asked.