In Dublin's Fair City (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #6)

“Jesus, Liam, slow down. Talk to your sister,” I managed to gasp, but he kept on going, dodging from alleyway to alleyway. I had no idea in which direction we were heading, only that my side felt as if it was on fire and I couldn’t go on much longer. When we had to cross a major road and a horse and carriage came hurtling toward us, he took the chance and sprinted in front of the horse. I had to stop for a moment while it passed by. In the time it took for me to cross the road, Liam had vanished. I was standing at the entrance to a maze of backstreets. From a nearby saloon came the sound of raucous laughter. I recoiled at the smell from an open drain at my feet. I started down a narrow, twisting street, then stopped when it branched again, vanishing into pitch darkness. There was no way I could pursue him into that warren at this timeof night. I stood there, rain and sweat streaming down my face, almost weeping with frustration.

Then I realized how stupid I had been. All I had to do was follow the cart with the trunks on it and see where they were delivered. Even though it hurt to move and breathe, I ran all the way back and retraced my steps successfully to St. Stephen's Green. There was no sign of the cart anywhere. I tried all the streets that led from the green. I stopped passersby and asked if they had seen a cart go past, piled high with trunks, but none of them remembered seeing it. Who does pay attention to passing vehicles unless there is something strange about them?

Reluctantly I made my way upstairs to my room, now spacious and remarkably free of luggage. I ran a bath and lay back in the hot water, trying to calm my racing thoughts. What on earth was my little brother doing here in Dublin? Last time I had seen him he’d been an undersized and skinny fifteen year old, helping my father cut the peat on the croft, or with whatever laboring jobs the Hartley family needed on the estate. So what in heaven's name could have brought him here? He wouldn’t have come all this way by himself to find work, when there were big cities like Galway and Limerick closer by. Surely he couldn’t be mixed up in this republican business, could he? But if he were only working for a carter, doing an honest job, why run away from his sister? It did cross my mind that maybe he had been sent to Dublin by my father, or, worse still, by the Hartleys, looking for me. In which case, why run away when he had found me?

I asked myself if I could have made a mistake. It was almost two years since I’d set eyes on him last and in that time he’d have grown from fifteen to seventeen—from boy into a man. Would I still recognize him that easily? It was just possible that I had chased a complete stranger. But I didn’t think so. I had looked into his eyes and seen recognition there.

Tomorrow I would find him, I told myself. I would keep looking for him until I did.

In the morning I inquired at the hotel about the carters who had come to pick up the luggage. I drew a blank there. They had come with a requisition slip, and I had already let the hotel staff know that I was expecting the trunks to be removed. I then asked for the name of firmsof carters within the area. They gave me one or two. I went to visit them and from them acquired the names and addresses of their competitors. After a long morning of walking, I had not found the company that came to pick up those trunks last night.

I fortified myself with a good lunch of grilled herring with mustard sauce, followed by baked jam roll and custard, and then went out again, this time retracing my steps from the night before. I recognized the main road where I had been held up by the horse and carriage. On the other side was a large church, this one tall and gothic in contrast to the squat square Christchurch. The sign outside showed that it was St. Patrick's Cathedral—just how many cathedrals did one city need? Beyond it was the maze of small back streets. It didn’t take me long to realize that my instincts the night before had been right. This was indeed a terrible slum. I wandered down filthy alleyways and narrow backstreets. Some of the houses must have been elegant once, but now they had become tenements, crammed with people just like in New York City. I walked from street to street, some with open drains, while ragged children observed me from doorways, mothers hung out washing, men stood together talking, and cats slunk between railings. It reminded me of the streets of the Lower East Side in New York, but without the vibrancy of life there. This was the Lower East Side with the life and color drained from it. These were people who seemed to have given up the fight and decided to exist rather than live.

I did stop to ask people I passed whether they knew a redheaded young man who looked a little like me and told them I was tracking down my young brother who had run away from home, but I got little help. For one thing there were redheads and skinny lads aplenty in the area, for another I might well be a wife seeking a runaway husband or even someone in league with the police. I offered some street urchins a reward if they found out where Liam Murphy was living and led me to him. They were certainly interested in the word “reward,” but, as one of them said, “Dublin's an awful big place, miss.”