Full Irish Murder

by Kathy Cranston

  “It must be a mistake.”

  “I’m afraid not,” he said, shaking his head and looking genuinely sympathetic. “Not only has the account been verified by another witness, but we have video footage from one of the shops on Main Street that shows your mother clearly. There’s no sound, but it’s very obvious what’s going on.”

  Fiona sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. “Can I see her? This is nuts. I need to see her and find out what’s going on.”

  “I can’t do that. The sergeant is about to go in and question her. Technically—”

  “But Dad said Granny is in with her.”

  He groaned. “Normally I’d let you in, but I can’t with the sergeant here.”

  Fiona was about to object but then thought better of it. She glanced at the door that led to the interview rooms and then an idea struck her. “Thanks, Garda Conway. I’ll be off so.”

  3

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Fiona and Marty watched from behind a poster in the ice-cream shop across the road as Sergeant Brennan hurried down the steps.

  Grinning, she counted to ten to make sure he didn’t return. When he didn’t, she dumped her empty cup in the bin and hurried out.

  “Hey, Garda Conway,” she said breezily.

  “Hello, lads. I thought you’d left.”

  “Ah, we thought we’d come back and try again.”

  Conway’s eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t have anything to do with the sergeant’s hurried departure now, would you?”

  Fi couldn’t hold back her laughter. “Oh he’s gone, is he?”

  The Garda couldn’t hold up the pretence any longer. “What did you do? Ha, I wouldn’t put anything past you. That’s comical.”

  “What?” she protested. “I did nothing.”

  “Lookit. I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m just glad to have a moment’s peace. You know, he’s almost fanatical about reports and checklists. Not to mention project plans. You’d swear he was responsible for keeping the peace in Beirut and not a sleepy place like Ballycashel.”

  Fi shrugged. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’ll let you in to see your mammy if you tell me what you did.”

  She snorted. “You drive a hard bargain, Garda Conway. Sure I did nothing. But if I had to guess, I’d say he got a call about a disturbance at his house.”

  Garda Conway laughed and came out from behind the desk to show her into the interview room. “Just be quick, alright? The sergeant was already giving me hassle about letting in your granny. Now, I couldn’t care less about him, but I’m close to retirement. A nice quiet life is all I aspire to.”

  “Don’t we all,” she grinned as she disappeared into the gloom.

  “MAMMY!”

  Ballycashel Garda station was small; a world away from the police stations on cop shows. There was only one secure area at the back, which held both the cells and the interview rooms. There was only two of each: God alone knew what would happen if there was a spate of crime in the town. It had never happened before. As it was, the furnishings, though utilitarian, looked like they’d barely been used.

  “Oh Fiona! Look what they’re after doing to me!”

  Fiona had to stifle the urge to laugh. Not at her mother’s plight, of course, but at the setup back there. The door to her mother’s interview room was wide open. All they had to do was get up and walk out of there. She noticed the door locked from the outside, but what use was that when it wasn’t even shut?

  “Why don’t you just get up and leave?” she asked, pointing at the door.

  “Ah,” Granny Coyle said. “Robocop knows we wouldn’t do that to Garda Conway. He’d never hear the end of it if we just sauntered out. He knows we wouldn’t do that: that’s why he let me in. Anyway, she’s here of her own accord.”

  Fiona shook her head in absolute disbelief. “What happened? Garda Conway told me you were seen fighting with Mrs Stanley in the street. What on earth, Mam?”

  Mrs McCabe threw back her head as if she was about to burst into a passionate defence. Her mother beat her to it.

  “It’s a cod,” Granny Coyle declared, before folding her arms and sitting back in her chair as if to say that was the end of the matter.

  It wasn’t that clear-cut for Fiona. “It is, but we need to figure out a way to get out of this. I don’t understand why you don’t just walk out of here.”

  “Ah, I couldn’t do that to Garda Conway. Anyway, the last thing I need is to be labelled a fugitive and hunted down like that Richard fella.”

  “That was a movie, Mam.”

  “Even so. What they did to that poor man…”

  Fiona sighed and looked at Marty, who shrugged. Very encouraging, she thought.

  “Right. We need a plan.”

  “Your father’s working on getting me out of here and the solicitor is on his way. You shouldn’t have come: this is all very embarrassing.”

  “What’ll be more embarrassing,” Fiona said through gritted teeth. “Is if you get charged and find yourself thrown in the women’s prison.”

  “It’s police harassment! I did nothing.”

  There was usually no talking to Mrs McCabe when she was in such a high state of emotion, but Fiona didn’t feel like she had a choice this time. “You were seen in the street fighting with Mrs Stanley,” she said as gently as she could. “It sounds like that’s their whole reasoning for arresting you. What was that about? I thought you barely knew her?”

  Mrs McCabe remained silent, which was unusual for her.

  “Come on, Mam. Just tell me. Stop being so stubborn.” Fi clamped her mouth shut, realising too late that she’d said exactly the wrong thing.

  “Stubborn?” her mother snapped. “Stubborn? You have the cheek to call me stubborn? None of ye get to do that after the heartbreak you put me through when you were small. Do you remember that time you refused to go to school and you couldn’t be tempted in there for love nor money? Two weeks you lasted. And I mortified beyond belief.”

  Fi nodded, knowing it was best if she just stayed quiet. Once Mrs McCabe started reminiscing it could go on for hours.

  “Actually, I think money was what resolved it in the end,” Marty said, deadpan.

  Fiona remembered it well. Well, she had a clear memory of the pound coin she’d been bribed with. Looking back on it, she thought she’d let them off lightly and she should have gone higher and demanded at least a fiver.

  “Mammy,” she whispered. “You can call me stubborn all you like. But let’s get you out of here first, okay?”

  Mrs McCabe pursed her lips. She nodded her head almost imperceptibly.

  “Right,” Fi said. “What were you doing fighting on the street with Mrs Stanley?”

  “I wasn’t fighting.”

  “Well what were you doing?” Fiona took great care to keep her voice gentle. She didn’t want to risk setting her mother off again and it was only a matter of time before Sergeant Brennan realised it was a hoax and made his way back to the station. “They have you on video, apparently.”

  Her mother sighed. “It’s all a big misunderstanding.”

  “What were you doing? According to their witnesses, you were waving your handbag around and yelling blue murder. What could have made you so mad at Mrs Stanley?”

  “It’s a long story.” She made no attempt to clarify.

  “I see,” Fi said, glancing behind her at the door. Several minutes had passed now. Robocop would be back at any moment. The pressure was beginning to get to her, she realised. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  “What’s the point?”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Fiona sniffed.

  Granny Coyle glared at her daughter and granddaughter in turn. “You’re as bad as each other,” she muttered. “I’ll tell you what happened.”

  Before she could speak, though, the door flew open.

  4

  “WH
AT ON EARTH is going on here?” Sergeant Brennan cried. “I was sceptical enough letting one of you in and now you seem to have multiplied!”

  “I can’t believe you used to go out with him, Fiona,” Mrs McCabe muttered, glaring at the sergeant with undisguised loathing.

  Granny Coyle’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. “Tell me she’s making that up, love. Sure you can’t stand the sight of him. Don’t you lament the day he ever set foot in this place?”

  Fiona shrugged. “It was supposed to be a secret. Anyway, we never went out. It was just one bad date. Mam is exaggerating as usual.”

  “I’m standing right here!” Sergeant Brennan bellowed.

  “More’s the pity.”

  The sergeant rounded on Granny Coyle. “I’d expect that from this lot, but not from you, Mrs Coyle.”

  At this, she threw her head back and laughed heartily. Her grandchildren were all fascinated by the fact that such a petite old lady who looked like a picture postcard version of a grandmother could have the filthy laugh of an errant sailor. But that was Rose Coyle: full of surprises.

  The smile vanished from her face. “Don’t you judge me, Brennan. Now, you’ll leave us be if you know what’s good for you.”

  “Is that a threat, Mrs Coyle? Because if it is I have to warn you—”

  “A threat?” she spat. “You’re accusing an old age pensioner of threatening you? Good God Almighty. Have you nothing better to do?”

  He flushed. “I can’t have you all back here.”

  “Well, we’re staying,” Rose said firmly. “So you had better skedaddle back out there and get back to whatever it is you do on that computer of yours. Drawing pictures most likely. Go on.”

  “You can’t speak to me like that!”

  Granny Coyle smiled. “What are you going to do, arrest me too? Is that your game? You want to have a full collection of us?”

  “Mammy.” Mrs McCabe’s embarrassment was unmistakeable. “Maybe you should…”

  “I’ll do nothing, Margaret. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll stay here at least until that solicitor comes. And then I’ll see if he’s any good. If he is I’ll leave you with him and get over to make the dinner for Francis and the kids. If not… well, I’ll defend you myself if I have to.”

  Mrs McCabe sighed. It usually amused Fiona to see her mother put in her place by her grandmother, but this time it gave her no satisfaction.

  “Give us a few minutes, Sergeant, would you?”

  He groaned, but then he turned and left, clearly defeated. Granny Coyle’s laughter rang out before the door had even closed.

  “I never thought I’d say this to anyone about Brennan,” Fiona hissed to her grandmother. “But maybe you shouldn’t wind him up like that. We want to get Mam out of this, don’t we?”

  “That’s debatable,” her grandmother said, arching her perfectly-plucked brows. “From what I’ve heard, Margaret here is responsible for telling the parish council tales on me.”

  “I only did it because you’re out of control, Mammy.”

  Granny Coyle baulked. “Out of control, my eye. Anyway, even if I was out of control, you shouldn’t have gone squealing to them. Have you never heard of omerta?”

  “Om…” Mrs McCabe started to say.

  Fiona sighed and massaged her temples. “You’re not a mafia don, Granny. Or a donna or whatever the female version is. Listen, we don’t have long. I’m amazed Brennan even left us back here the way he did.”

  “It’s because ye annoyed the head off him,” Marty observed. “What did Mam report you for, Granny?”

  “Not now!” Fiona hissed. “Okay Mam, listen. You’ve got to focus and tell me what happened. I’m not sure I should tell you this, but Dad has gone to pieces. He’s not going to be of any help to you. If you tell me what’s going on, I’ll coordinate the others. We’ll do everything we can to get you out of this.”

  Margaret McCabe’s eyes grew watery. “Thank you, Fiona.”

  “You just need to tell me what happened with Mrs Stanley.”

  Her mother closed up again in an instant.

  “Just come on. What could be so bad? What’s better, tell me now or keep quiet and have us read about it in the paper.”

  On hearing that, Mrs McCabe seemed to shrink into herself. “No, not the papers. Please. It’s bad enough thinking that all the neighbours know I’m down here. You can’t tell the papers.”

  “I’m not going to tell the papers,” Fiona said, rolling her eyes. “But it’ll get out eventually. You know what people are like around here. I bet we’ll have Simon Moriarty down here looking to do a true crime documentary on you.”

  Mrs McCabe’s face went all dreamy for a moment, betraying her soft spot for the journalist. He was something of a heartthrob to middle aged women all over Ireland. Fiona wished she hadn’t mentioned his name, but she hadn’t been thinking straight. She’d been too busy trying to talk some sense into her mother.

  “Come on, Mam. It was a stupid thing for me to say. You really think you have a chance with him after the stunt you pulled, tricking him into—?”

  “I thought you were trying to sort this out, Fi.”

  Fiona rolled her eyes at her brother. “It’s impossible to stay on-topic in this family. You should know that.” She turned to her mother. “But he’s right. You need to tell us what happened on the street. Now.”

  “It’s embarrassing.”

  “So? You’re always doing embarrassing stuff.”

  “Stop it, Marty. Don’t give her an excuse to change the subject again.”

  “But you’re the one who—”

  “Would ye both just—”

  “Alright!” Mrs McCabe yelled. “I’ll tell ye. But you have to promise not to laugh.”

  Fiona nodded eagerly. “I promise.” She didn’t mean a bar of it, of course, but she’d say anything to get to the truth.

  “Martin?”

  Marty nodded, his face contorted into a smirk that suggested he didn’t mean it either.

  “Mammy?”

  “Oh fine so, if that’s what you want to hear.”

  “It’s not what I want to hear. I want you to promise not to mock me when I tell you.”

  “I promise,” Rose Coyle said sweetly. Fiona noticed she’d crossed the fingers of her left hand as she said it.

  “Fine,” Mrs McCabe huffed, glancing anxiously at the door and lowering her voice. “Shut that door and come in. I don’t want anyone else to hear.”

  “Just tell us. I don’t want to close the door. What if Brennan comes and locks us in?”

  “Fine. Okay. I suppose it’ll spread like wildfire anyway knowing this place. Oh my, it’s so embarrassing.”

  They all watched her, undisguised anticipation written all over their eager faces.

  “She was on that Facebook and she had a picture of me on it. You know, the one they had done up for the parish council page.”

  Fiona sat back heavily in her chair. The plastic creaked. The chairs were identical to the ones they’d had in primary school: moulded plastic on shaky metal legs. “Why would she have your picture? Maybe she was just looking at the parish page?”

  She looked around. The others looked similarly bewildered.

  “No. She was using it.”

  “But why would she do that? Does she even have the internet? Mam, I’m seriously worried about you right now. Are you sure you haven’t been smoking something?”

  “Quite sure, Fiona. I have never touched a cigarette and I never intend to. I pride myself on that.”

  “She wasn’t talking about—”

  “Mam, I don’t get it. Why would you get so worked up about her just looking at a picture of you?”

  “I don’t know,” Mrs McCabe admitted. “It was strange. I can’t explain it. It was the way she reacted. I got a fright and called out to her and the next thing she was looking at me like she’d been caught in the act! She was up and out of that chair before I had a chance to get over to her.”
r />   Fiona was alarmed by the amount of bile in her mother’s words. “She’s a sweet old lady.”

  That, apparently, was exactly the wrong thing to say.

  “She is in my eye,” Mrs McCabe spat. “She’s a little monster.”

  “That’s what you were fighting about? She looked at a picture of you?”

  Mrs McCabe shook her head. “Didn’t I tell you it wasn’t the… Ah, it was just strange. I got curious then so I chased her out of the library and caught up with her on Main Street.”

  “How did you end up shouting and roaring at her? It’s not a crime to look at pictures on the internet.”

  Mrs McCabe wrinkled her nose as if a bad smell had just wafted into the room. “She couldn’t explain it! That was the odd thing. Not only that, but she had the cheek to get all shifty with me then. As if I was the one in the wrong for catching her in the act!”

  Fiona exhaled loudly and looked at the others. They appeared equally confused.

  “So what happened then?”

  “Well I gave her a piece of my mind! Told her it wasn’t right to run off like that; that she could have just told me what she was at. Oh, I suspected it, see. There was only one reason for her to be on that parish site. I’d bet you good money that she’s after my seat on the council. And she not lifting a finger to help out around the place!”

  “Wait now. Did she admit to any of this?”

  “No, she did not,” Mrs McCabe huffed, growing more indignant by the minute. “Not even when I threatened to grab her by the scruff of the neck and drag her to see Father Jimmy!”

  Fiona covered her face with her hands. “Please tell me you didn’t—”

  “Oh, of course I didn’t! How would that have looked? She knew well I couldn’t do anything, the sneaky little beggar.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I went home, Fiona. What else could I do? I had to get back and call the others on the council to find out if she’d been badmouthing me.”

  “Mammy,” Marty said slowly. “There’s something else I don’t quite get. What’s so embarrassing about this?”

  “Surely I don’t have to tell you that! The cheek of her! Driving me to confrontation in the street!”