Reck leaned down at the hatch, closer this time, and caught Strafford’s eye again, then swivelled his attention back to Harbison. ‘Are you after him, yourself?’
‘Well, I’d be interested, if he was up for sale.’
‘Father Tom had a sister,’ Reck said, withdrawing from the hatch. ‘Talk to her, why don’t you.’
When the hatch was closed they heard Reck, from beyond it, intoning in his prophet’s voice, ‘She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks.’
Harbison sat down. This was his fourth or fifth drink – Strafford had lost count – and his eyes had taken on an excited glassiness.
‘So the padre has a sister, eh?’ he mused. ‘I wonder how I’d go about getting in touch with her.’ He was talking to himself, lost in eager speculation. Strafford rose from his chair. Harbison stared up at him. ‘You’re not going, are you?’
‘Yes. I’m tired. I’ll say goodnight.’
He went to the door.
‘Listen,’ Harbison said behind him, ‘if you hear anything, you know, about the horse, you might—’
‘Why don’t you speak to your sister?’
‘Sylvia?’ He snorted. ‘I told you, she lives in cloud cuckoo land.’
Strafford smiled vaguely, and opened the door. ‘Anyway, goodnight.’
Mrs Reck came through the archway, yawning.
‘Can you tell me how to get to my room?’ Strafford said.
‘Come on, I’ll show you,’ the woman said, and yawned again.
She led the way up a narrow, ill-lit staircase. Strafford wondered what had become of Peggy, she of the flame-red locks. She would probably be in bed by now. He recalled her overlapping tooth, and the saddle of freckles on the bridge of her nose.
‘Will Mr Harbison be lodging here tonight?’ he asked, of necessity addressing Mrs Reck’s broad rump as it preceded him up the steps.
‘He will,’ she answered over her shoulder. ‘I wouldn’t send even him out in that black weather. He stops over when he’s visiting the sister, above at the House.’
‘He sees her, then, Mrs Osborne, does he? I had the impression—’
They came to the landing.
‘Wait up a minute, till I catch my breath,’ Mrs Reck said, putting a hand on his arm and pressing the other to her collarbone. She was panting. ‘That stairs will be the death of me, one of these days.’ She moved on. ‘He’s a caution, isn’t he,’ she said, ‘the bold Freddie? You’d want to watch out for him, mind – he’s a fierce rogue.’
‘How often does he put up here?’
‘Oh, not often. Now and then. It’s handy for him. And of course’ – she chuckled – ‘he’s after our Peggy.’
‘Your daughter, is she?’ Strafford asked.
She stopped and stared at him. ‘God, no.’ She laughed again, shaking her head. ‘I wouldn’t be wanting Peggy Devine for a daughter, grand girl though she is.’
There were three rooms on either side of the corridor. Mrs Reck stopped outside the middle one on the right. From the pocket of her apron she took a set of keys on a big metal ring and sorted through them.
‘What was he talking to you about, anyway?’
‘Mr Harbison? A horse. Mr Sugar. It belongs – belonged – to Father Lawless.’
‘Oh, aye, he was a great one for the horses, and the hunting, all that. Hard to believe he’s gone. Not, mind you, that I was all that fond of him, God forgive me.’
‘Oh, yes? Why not?’
He could see she regretted what she had said. She turned away, busying herself with the jumble of keys. She selected one, and crunched it into the lock.
‘Bingo!’ She pushed the door open. ‘This is our deluxe suite.’ She gave him a broad grin.
The room was small, with a narrow wooden bed, a chair and an oversized tallboy. An enamel jug and basin stood on a pine table under the window. The curtains were drawn. A pink satin eiderdown covered the bed, plump and smooth and shiny as a pie crust. Strafford’s bag, which someone had set beside the bed, seemed to regard him smugly, as though, having got here first, it considered itself the rightful occupier.
‘Very nice,’ he said faintly. ‘Thank you – very nice.’
‘I hope you’ll be comfortable. There’s a hot-water bottle in the bed for you.’ She turned to go, then paused. ‘Mr Harbison’s room is the one opposite, by the way. Mind out you don’t bump into him in the morning, he’ll be like a bear with a sore head, after all that drink he took tonight, and him after driving all them miles in the snow.’
‘He’s not a morning person, then,’ Strafford said, laying his suitcase on the bed.
‘Well, he certainly wasn’t this morning – wouldn’t eat the rashers and eggs I went to the trouble of making for him.’
‘So Mr Harbison was here last night, yes?’ Strafford asked, turning to her.
‘Aye, he was. He left to go home but he got caught by the snow and came back and stopped over again.’ She gave him a questioning look. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Oh, no reason. Goodnight, Mrs Reck.’
He opened his bag and began to unpack. The woman was still standing in the doorway.
‘Will you tell me, Inspector Stafford—’ she began.
‘Strafford.’ He smiled apologetically, as he always did when he had to make this correction.
‘Sorry – Mr Strafford.’ She paused. ‘Only I wondered, you see. Father Tom—’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Yes? What about him?’
‘They’re saying in the town—’ Once more she hesitated, then went on in a rush. ‘They’re saying he didn’t fall down the stairs at Ballyglass at all, or that if he did, the fall wasn’t what he died of.’
‘Oh, yes? And what else are they saying, in the town?’
‘There’s all kinds of rumours flying around – you know what it’s like, when there’s big news in a small place.’
He nodded. He knew all about small places.
‘We’re investigating the circumstances of Father Lawless’s death,’ he said. ‘We’ve a long way to go before we’ll know anything for certain.’
‘There was a thing about it on the wireless tonight.’
‘Was there?’
‘On the ten o’clock news. Just that a priest had died in an accident in Ballyglass – they didn’t even say it was Ballyglass House, so it might have been anywhere in the village. They didn’t give his name, either.’
He thought for a moment.
‘There will have been a press release from the Archbishop’s palace, I imagine. Press releases never give much away, especially the ones the Archbishop issues.’
‘His poor sister,’ she said. ‘What’s she going to do, with him gone?’
‘Were they very close?’
‘They were. She’ll be lost without him.’
‘Does she live here, in Ballyglass?’
‘No, over at Scallanstown, in the presbytery there.’
‘They lived together, she and Father Lawless?’
‘They did. She kept house for him for years, since she was a girl, I think.’
‘I’ll go and talk to her tomorrow,’ he said, ‘or’ – he consulted his pocket watch – ‘today, I should say.’
She didn’t take the hint, but remained standing in the doorway. There were things she might say, he could see, but she would not say them. Big news, and bigger secrets, in a small place.
‘I don’t envy you making that visit,’ she said.
‘Yes. These things are never easy. Goodnight, Mrs Reck.’
He resumed unpacking, pointedly turning his back to her, but still she lingered. He was so tired. He thought of the hot-water bottle awaiting him in the bed.
‘Yes, goodnight to you,’ the woman murmured distractedly. She stepped into the corridor, but stopped yet again, and turned back to face him. ‘Was he killed, Inspector?’ she asked. ‘Father Tom. Was he murdered?’
‘As I say, we’re investigating the circumstances in which he died.’
&
nbsp; He laid out his pyjamas on the bed.
‘Right.’ She stood nodding to herself. ‘I’ll leave you in peace. Is there anything I can get you, before I turn in, myself?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Right, so.’ Pause. ‘The lavatory is at the end of the corridor.’
‘Thank you.’
When she had closed the door at last, he drew back the curtains and switched off the light in order to look out into the darkness. The glimmering landscape materialised slowly before him. Such stillness. He might have been the last man in the world.
15
He rose early, before the dawn, observing Mrs Reck’s warning about the inadvisability of an encounter with Harbison and his hangover. He went downstairs, and took his breakfast at the corner table where he had sat the night before. The dog lay in front of the stove with its muzzle on its paws, watching Strafford with deep suspicion. He broke off a crust of bread, dipped it in the yolk of one of his fried eggs and offered it to the beast, but was rebuffed with a disdainful stare.
He was finishing his food when Sergeant Jenkins arrived. There was still only the faintest glimmer of daylight in the window. Jenkins had come down from Dublin. Like Harbison, he was not a morning person, it seemed. He had the look of one who had been held forcibly under a cold tap and scrubbed until his skin glowed red and raw.
‘What time did you set out at?’ Strafford asked. ‘Did you sleep at all? What are the roads like?’
‘Terrible. Black ice at every turn.’
‘But it’s not snowing?’
‘Not yet. It snowed in the night, and will again, soon.’
‘Sit down, sit down. Have some tea. There’s toast left but I’m sure it’s cold by now. What did the Chief have to say?’
Sergeant Jenkins eyed the table doubtfully. It was plain he was hungry, but wasn’t sure of the propriety of sitting down to his breakfast with his superior officer, especially in an establishment such as the Sheaf of Barley. In the end, hunger overcame doubt. He took off his overcoat and hat, hung them up and pulled up a chair.
Jeremiah Reck appeared. He wore baggy corduroy trousers and a pair of carpet slippers – they looked like identical dead cats – and a jumper with moth holes in it.
‘There’s rashers and eggs,’ he said gravely to Jenkins, ‘or rashers and sausage and eggs, or rashers and sausage and black or white pudding and eggs. Or there’s eggs.’
Jenkins regarded him warily, wondering if he were being made fun of. He had a keen ear for the faintest hint of mockery. He put a hand to his buffed-up hair, and said he would have an egg, just an egg, soft-boiled.
‘You’re a great disappointment to my missus, the two of you,’ Reck said. ‘She’s out there in the kitchen, like Ruth amid the alien corn, with the rashers in one hand and the sausages in the other, only waiting for the word to set them sizzling. Anyway, an egg it is. The chickens will be happy, at any rate.’
He went off to the kitchen, murmuring to himself.
‘A great joker, that fellow,’ Jenkins said sourly.
Strafford nodded, saying nothing. He had long ago learned not to let his gaze stray higher than Jenkins’s hairline. It really was a remarkable head.
‘The Chief said to keep on as you’re going,’ Jenkins said.
‘Did he, now. That’s very helpful of him, very helpful. Any possibility of his coming down to have a look around for himself, do you think? It would be good to have someone to share the blame, when the newspapers get hold of the story and start baying at us and demanding why we haven’t found the killer yet.’
Jenkins shrugged. He had no time for sarcasm.
‘You know there’s a story already in the paper?’ he said. He fetched a rolled-up copy of the Irish Press from the pocket of his coat on the rack. ‘Page four,’ he said.
‘Page four? Hardly hot news, then. I suppose we should be thankful.’
Strafford opened the paper.
WEXFORD
PRIEST DIES
IN MISHAP
By Peter McGonagle
A Wexford priest, Father Thomas J. Lawless, PP, died at an address in the village of Ballyglass, Co. Wexford, in the early hours of yesterday morning. The circumstances of his death have not yet been disclosed by the Gardaí, but it is understood he fell down a flight of stairs and sustained fatal injuries.
Father Lawless, known to all as ‘Father Tom’, was popular throughout the county. He was a keen horseman, and rode regularly with the Keelmore Hunt, the Master of which is Colonel Geoffrey Osborne, DSO, of Ballyglass House, Ballyglass.
Father Lawless was also involved in many youth organisations, especially the Boy Scouts, and was a strong supporter of the Wexford Junior Hurling Team. He was chaplain of the Ballyglass branch of the Legion of Mary. When he was still a seminarian he travelled to Rome, where he was honoured by an audience with the Holy Father.
Tributes were paid to the late Father Lawless by the Bishop of Ferns, Most Rev Tony Battley, by his colleagues in the Church, by the business community, by sporting organisations and by parishioners.
Father Lawless is survived by his sister, Rosemary, and by numerous cousins in America, Canada and Australia. Funeral arrangements will be announced later.
‘That’s good,’ Strafford said. ‘Either they don’t know the actual circumstances of his death, or they have orders from on high to hold off. Either way, it means they won’t be crawling all over us, for a while at least. I hear it was on the wireless last night – probably from the same press release. The Archbishop’s people don’t waste time, do they.’
‘We should have put out a statement ourselves,’ Jenkins muttered. Jenkins disapproved of Chief Inspector Hackett and what he considered his lackadaisical methods. ‘Will you go and see the sister?’ he asked.
Reck came with Jenkins’s boiled egg, and slices of toast wrapped in a checked napkin. Strafford asked him to bring a fresh pot of tea.
‘By the way,’ he said, looking up from the newspaper, ‘where’s Peggy this morning?’
‘She only does nights,’ Reck said, reaching over and taking up the toast rack with its three shrivelled slices of cold toast. ‘By day she runs the local Ballyglass branch of the Bank of Ireland.’ Jenkins stared at him. ‘That was a joke. She does the odd shift in the Boolavogue Arms, our esteemed rival down the road. She’s there now.’
He went off, doing that buzzing whistle through his teeth.
‘This country has more than its fair share of comedians,’ Jenkins said darkly.
Strafford only smiled. He had a high tolerance for eccentrics, having grown up among so many of them.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ll talk to the sister. Though I won’t be expecting much enlightenment.’
‘How did you get on yesterday?’
‘I didn’t get on, and I didn’t get anywhere. At least, I don’t think I did.’ He folded the newspaper and laid it on the table beside his teacup. ‘It’s the way it always is, at this stage. I’m convinced the answer is staring me in the face, plain as day, but I can’t see it. What do you think?’
Jenkins considered the tablecloth, biting abstractedly into a slice of toast. After a moment he shook his head. ‘I don’t know what to think.’
Strafford nodded, sighing.
‘Who would have wanted the priest dead?’ he mused. ‘That’s the question.’
‘That’s always the question,’ Jenkins observed drily.
‘Yes.’ Strafford pushed a limp lock of hair up from his forehead. ‘He seems to have been about a lot at Ballyglass House. The daughter described him as “oogey” – have you come across that word?’ Jenkins shook his head. ‘Well, that’s what she said, that he was oogey, and that he was always hanging about the place. In fact, the son, Dominic, said the same thing, that he was around a great deal. Hardly a motive for murder, though, would you say? Hanging about the place and being oogey couldn’t be considered a capital offence.’
Reck returned with the pot of fresh tea and set it with ceremonial care
on its cork mat.
‘Your pot of plenty, gentlemen, straight from the Golden Orient.’
He went away again, whistling as before. Strafford, tolerant or not, was becoming a little tired of the fat man’s ponderous wit.
He poured the tea. The fragrance of it, on this wintry morning, wafted straight up out of childhood.
‘So what now?’ Jenkins asked.
‘Eh?’
‘What do you want me to do?’ He could see Strafford wasn’t listening. ‘Will I drive you up to see the sister?’
Strafford sipped his tea. As usual, he took it black, without sugar. He had noticed Jenkins noticing, and not being pleased. Jenkins had a keen sense of the class divide, the signs of which were of the tiniest moment, tea with or without milk, the buttoning of a waistcoat, the pronunciation of a name.
‘You know, it’s funny,’ Strafford said, ‘but either no one at Ballyglass House had a motive for killing the priest, or everyone had.’
Jenkins looked askance at the room where they sat. He was impatient of Strafford’s dreamy metaphysics. The art of detection was a matter of fact.
‘Maybe it was somebody from outside,’ Jenkins said, defiantly spooning sugar into his milky tea. ‘Somebody could have had a key to the front door, or maybe there’s another way into the house. Those old places have all sorts of coal-holes and trapdoors and God knows what, that get overgrown and people forget about.’
Strafford, his gaze fixed on the floor beside the table now, was lost in his own thoughts.
‘And no one had an alibi,’ he said, ‘not one of them, even the housekeeper. All asleep in their beds, even the insomniac Mrs Osborne. It doesn’t make sense, or it makes too much.’
‘Maybe they all did it,’ Jenkins said, with a snicker. ‘Like in the book by what’s-her-name.’
No, Strafford thought, there was no sense to it. The thing was entirely implausible, and yet there it was, the deed was done, the man was dead. He felt as if he were stumbling through a snowstorm, the snow dense and blindingly white. There were others around him, also moving, dim grey ghosts, and when he reached out to touch them he grasped only an icy emptiness.
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