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A Shocking Assassination

Page 25

by Cora Harrison


  ‘A visitor?’ The Reverend Mother waited until the door was closed before putting her question.

  ‘Yes, a visitor. It was quite late when she came. My housekeeper didn’t recognize her for a moment. All dressed up, she was. Very neat little hat, jacket, short skirt, nice stockings and shoes. Pretty girl. Of course, as soon as I saw the big grey eyes, I knew who it was …’

  ‘Eileen!’ exclaimed the Reverend Mother.

  ‘That’s right.’ He laughed quietly to himself, and she half-smiled. They both, she knew, were remembering the time when she had asked him to extract a bullet from Eileen’s arm and to shelter her from pursuit. ‘She had a copy of the Evening Echo with her,’ he went on, ‘and she had it open at the page where there was an account of Sam O’Mahony’s escape and recapture. At the bottom of it was a line that said he had been found in the throes – that was their word – of an asthma attack and that I had been called to the scene by Inspector Cashman.’

  ‘Is Sam all right?’ asked the Reverend Mother. She was conscious of a feeling of responsibility towards the dead mother of the young man. Prison, she thought, must be very hard on an asthmatic. She would have to move quickly.

  ‘It was touch and go,’ admitted Dr Scher, ‘but I pulled him around. I’ve made them change his cell, move him up to the top floor where he can get more air. I told her that, told her all about it, and in return she told me the story of the gaol break. It was Eileen and her friends who released him,’ he added.

  He waited for a moment looking at her expectantly and then said in shocked tones, ‘Don’t smile, Reverend Mother. Surely you don’t condone a pack of youngsters going into a gaol – one of them dressed as a woman and one as a priest, if you please – and then taking the prisoner away on the back of a motorbike. They nearly got away with it, too, but Sam had this asthma attack. Eileen left him in order to fetch one of those medical students, but in the meantime someone walked into the police station at Ballinhassig and informed on him. So Sam must have been secretly a member of the Republicans, all along,’ he finished.

  The Reverend Mother knit her brows. She was conscious of feelings of surprise. This did not fit in with what she had understood from her readings of his column on the Cork Examiner, and it did not fit in with her solution to the murder of the city engineer. But if he were not, then why was Eileen involved? She asked the last question aloud.

  ‘She didn’t tell me anything,’ said Dr Scher. ‘Well, she wouldn’t, would she? She asked me to ask you if she could come to see you this evening. She’s back living with her mother and she’s found a job in the Lee Printing Works, run by a man called Langford, I think. They are just down the road from me – in Stable Lane, just off the South Terrace. There are rumours that they print a lot of Republican stuff, but they do other things too, leaflets for shops, posters, anything really. Probably the authorities turn a blind eye to their other activities. Though it’s suspicious that she found a job so quickly in a city of unemployment, so in all probability, she got the job through her Republican connections. Anyway, I promised to drop into the printing works and to leave her a note if you were happy to see her. She said that she knew of the time and the place that would suit you.’ Dr Scher peered at her inquisitively.

  ‘I’m always pleased to see any of my past pupils,’ said the Reverend Mother sedately. ‘Please tell her that I would be delighted to see her this evening. A printing works is an interesting position for her. I hope she gets the chance to put her ideas down on paper.’ Thomas Aquinas, she thought, was in favour of people arriving slowly at the discovery of the truth. Had she rushed ahead in her solution to the murder? And then she turned her mind from Eileen and thought about Sam and about Patsy. No, she thought, I’m sure that I’m right. And I can’t afford to wait any longer.

  ‘And now, on a different matter, Dr Scher,’ she resumed. ‘I’m getting increasingly worried about our gardener, Mr Cotter. I don’t think that he is able to carry on any longer. I think that he should be in hospital under supervision.’

  Dr Scher sighed. ‘I wish that I could convince him of this. He keeps saying that he is fine. First it was a matter of getting the seed potatoes into the ground and now it’s a matter of earthing them up, or some such expression. He says that he can just as easily die in his shed as in hospital.’

  ‘I don’t agree,’ said the Reverend Mother crisply. ‘He would cause a great upset to whoever finds him if he were to die in that shed in our garden. He should be in hospital where he can be looked after properly. He’s coughing very badly. The matter worries me, Dr Scher. I am responsible for the adults and the children of this convent and, although I understand what you say about the germs not spreading easily in the fresh air, nevertheless, I don’t suppose that it is out of the question. I’m afraid that I have made up my mind that, for the good of the community, it would be better if he were under supervision and in hospital.’

  She drank her tea meditatively, keeping her eyes hooded and fixed on her cup. She could sense him looking at her, perhaps reproachfully, but she had made up her mind. She had no right to allow others to run a risk just for a little false sentimentality about a dying man. The living needed to be protected, also.

  ‘How is Sam, now?’ she asked briskly as she saw him open his mouth, probably to argue.

  This distracted him as she had meant it to do. His mind switched to another case.

  ‘He has pulled around well,’ he said. ‘I’ll go in and see him every morning, try to keep up his spirits. He is very depressed, very upset about his mother. Thinks he made a mess of his escape and he knows that he won’t get another chance. He has been banned from having visitors now.’

  ‘And Patsy?’ she asked.

  ‘Chilblains much better, but she’s not keen to get up. Looked frightened when I suggested that she might. I suggested that she might have a walk around the garden but she begged me not to make her. She seemed to be terrified at the very idea.’

  ‘Terrified.’ The Reverend Mother considered the matter for the moment and then nodded her head.

  ‘Let her stay where she is for another day or so,’ she decreed. ‘She could do with a rest and she’s quite safe where she is on the top floor of the convent. No one can get at her there. And now, Dr Scher, how quickly can you get an ambulance to transfer Mr Cotter to hospital? You may use our phone, if you wish. Now would be best. Things are quiet now and the children won’t be involved. And tell Mr Cotter that I shall visit him in hospital,’ she added as he drained his cup and got to his feet. He was slightly shocked at her harshness, she thought, but she ignored his expression. Her whole life consisted of weighing up priorities. She had little room for sentimentality.

  The Reverend Mother went out punctually at nine o’clock of the evening in order to lock the convent chapel. This was a duty which she had taken upon herself so that the other sisters could enjoy their two hours of recreation that followed the last service and ended with their bedtime. She had always enjoyed the walk through the shrubbery in the quiet evening air and tonight was exceptionally pleasant with neither fog nor rain. She cast a glance towards the direction of the gardener’s shed. It was well hidden from the nuns’ garden, probably built like that in order that it would not disturb their privacy, but she knew that now it was empty. She would, she thought, have to ask Dr Scher’s advice about having it thoroughly fumigated before engaging another gardener. Mr Cotter had worked well for the time that he had been in position, and of course as a boy he had lived in the country so that he knew something about growing things and had doubled the size of the beds, but perhaps, this time, she would endeavour to find someone who specialized in fruit and vegetables. Increasingly the convent was having to feed children as well as the nuns and a lot of those useless evergreen shrubs and stiff-stemmed roses, and certainly the carefully mowed lawn, could be grubbed up so that gradually the whole garden could be planted with edible produce. She thought of the children eating fresh peas and the image distracted her from her sadness about Mr C
otter.

  Eileen was already in the chapel. She was sitting on the back seat, just near to the doorway, long legs crossed and one high-heeled shoe dangling from a toe over the worn tiles of the middle aisle. She was dressed as Dr Scher had described her and the Reverend Mother gave a nod of approval.

  ‘You’re looking well, Eileen,’ she said.

  ‘I collected my money for the last three articles on the Cork Examiner and bought these. They’re second-hand, but they got me a job.’ Eileen stood up, smoothing down her skirt and glancing down at herself with an air of approval.

  ‘A job,’ echoed the Reverend Mother. Eileen could, or need not, respond to the inferred question. ‘Let’s go into the vestry. I need to make sure that all is well there before I lock up.’

  Father Toomey had left his stole and alb lying around as usual after the evening service, but the Reverend Mother ignored these. She had more important affairs on her mind than tidying up after the priest. She sat on a chair and looked up at the girl.

  ‘How are you, Eileen?’ she asked affectionately. By the light of the candle she could see the girl’s face flush.

  ‘I’m back with my mam, Reverend Mother,’ she said and then, almost defiantly, ‘I’m still a patriot, but I’ve decided to leave the Republican army. I’ve got a job now in the Lee Printing Works.’

  She waited. Eileen was never at a loss for words. There would be more to come.

  ‘Did Dr Scher tell you about us rescuing Sam?’ Eileen perched on the corner of a low cupboard and examined her shoe. ‘Well, it all went wrong.’ And then the whole story poured out, a mixture of bravado, a few giggles, a lot of self-blame, and then huge, biting resentment. The Reverend Mother listened gravely. Eileen, she reminded herself, was still only seventeen years old and she had the usual adolescent mood swings.

  ‘And I will never, ever forgive Tom Hurley,’ she finished. ‘He betrayed Sam. And he betrayed me, too. I believed in the cause, but now I can’t shut my eyes any more to the fact that a lot of the time it is just sheer murder that is going on, like shooting a man because he was a Protestant.’

  ‘Was Sam a member of the Republican Party?’ This, thought the Reverend Mother, was most unlikely if Tom Hurley was the one who had informed the police. She was not surprised when Eileen shook her head vigorously. She even giggled.

  ‘No, not in a hundred years. He’s dead against violence. Sam was the one that convinced me of how terrible it was to kill people just because you disagreed with their views.’

  ‘But you and your fellow members felt that you should rescue Sam?’

  ‘Well, you see I knew him,’ said Eileen looking embarrassed. ‘I met him because he criticized something that I wrote. I went to have it out with him and we, sort of, well, we made friends.’

  ‘I see,’ said the Reverend Mother. ‘You were always a very good friend, Eileen.’

  ‘And a very bad enemy.’ The words flashed from the girl. She sat on one of the altar boys’ stools. ‘I can’t go to the police myself, Reverend Mother. My name is probably down as a terrorist, or something; I would be arrested as soon as I went in through the door, but you could give a message from me, couldn’t you?’

  ‘Tell me what you have on your mind, Eileen.’

  ‘Sam didn’t do this murder, Reverend Mother, but I know who did and I want the right man arrested for it.’

  ‘You know, or you guess?’

  ‘I know,’ said Eileen defiantly. ‘It was Tom Hurley. He told me, told us all, that he was there. He knew all about the gun landing on Sam O’Mahony’s foot, he knew about it before there was anything in the papers or before anyone had a chance to tell what happened. He said that it couldn’t have been better, that Sam was an enemy of our party and there was enough evidence to hang him and to stop the police looking any further.’

  ‘I see,’ said the Reverend Mother thoughtfully. ‘I was there myself, of course.’

  ‘Tom Hurley told me that, too. He said that he saw you. Did you see him, a thin man, in a belted raincoat? You wouldn’t have seen his face, I’d say. He wears one of those slouch hats, one size too big for him and always keeps it pulled down to one side, hiding most of his face. He would have been by the candle stall. He brought back some candles for us on the morning when the city engineer was shot.’

  ‘I saw him,’ said the Reverend Mother. ‘But he had gone by the time that the lights went on again. Miss Mullane from the library, do you remember her? Well, she went up and turned them on and then everyone saw the dead body and they saw Sam with the pistol in his hand. He threw it into the fountain and when I next looked at Mr Skiddy’s soap and candle stall, the man in the raincoat had vanished.’

  ‘There you are,’ said Eileen with satisfaction. ‘That was Tom Hurley. I’m sure that he killed the city engineer.’

  ‘Why do you think that he did that?’

  Eileen shrugged. ‘He’s always killing people; it would be nothing to him,’ she said with a simplicity that slightly took the Reverend Mother aback.

  ‘And you don’t mind the thought that he might go to gaol, might hang for the murder?’

  ‘I care a million times more for Sam than I do for him, and in any case,’ said Eileen, confidently, ‘the police will never catch him. Tom Hurley is as slippery as an eel. He turned Sam in because he wanted to get them off his back, but now he’s gone, to Tipperary, someone said. We have a different man in charge of the Cork units now.’

  The Reverend Mother studied her carefully. ‘Are you thinking of marrying that young man, Eileen?’ she asked.

  Eileen flushed a rosy colour. ‘I’m not thinking of marrying anyone, Reverend Mother. I’m a modern girl. I want to have a career, to be a journalist, or an author or something like that. Get myself some more education, perhaps and go to be a doctor.’

  ‘But you must have felt something for this young man to have gone to such trouble and risk your friends’ lives as well as your own.’

  ‘That’s a matter of justice.’ Eileen looked at her defiantly and the Reverend Mother nodded her head respectfully.

  ‘I see,’ she said. Eileen, she thought, had probably fallen out of love by now, but would be too stubborn to admit it. She thought back to the time when she was seventeen, wandering on the cliffs of Ballycotton by the ocean, dazed by love, and then, quite suddenly, it was gone, replaced by a cold dislike of the man concerned.

  ‘And you would like me to talk to Inspector Cashman about this.’

  Eileen looked a little uncomfortable but then nodded. ‘Sam has to be got out of gaol,’ she said, ‘but I hate being a traitor …’

  ‘We’ll leave it to Inspector Cashman to deal with this matter.’ The Reverend Mother got to her feet. ‘Well, Eileen, I think that you’ve made the right decision. Your mother will be pleased to have you at home again. She’s a very good mother and did a lot for you. You were the most advanced child that ever came into our school and it was all due to your mother’s care for you.’

  ‘I know. I’ve made a mess of everything.’ Eileen looked rather downcast.

  ‘Well, you’ve many years ahead of you. Sometimes I, even at my age, make a mess of things, but then I know by now that I just have to start all over again and do it right the next time.’ The Reverend Mother made her voice sound bracing and encouraging. She blew out the candles and locked the door when they were both outside.

  ‘Keep in touch,’ she said, waiting until the girl had slipped away. And then she walked swiftly towards the convent door.

  Once back in her room, she thoughtfully evaluated what Eileen had said. No, she thought, I’m afraid that it changes nothing. She would still have to do what she had promised herself to do.

  St Thomas Aquinas, she remembered, had said that the law was just a matter of common sense.

  She did not, she reflected, appear to have any choice in the matter which she had to reveal. The innocent had to be protected and the guilty prevented from doing harm.

  TWENTY-TWO

  St Thomas Aquinas
:

  Utrum Deus possit facere quod praeterita non fuerint.

  (Whether God has the power to obliterate the past)

  ‘Sister Bernadette, could you telephone Dr Scher and ask him what time he means to visit Mr Cotter? I would like to meet him at the hospital.’ The Reverend Mother did not even raise her eyes from her desk when she said this and Sister Bernadette instantly went off without questioning.

  When she had gone, the Reverend Mother read, for the tenth time, that article by Sam O’Mahony. A very well-written piece, poignant, too. But terrible consequences had followed it. Apart from its initial result where it may or may not have influenced events, it had, she was sure, caused the death of the city engineer and probably the death of Mrs O’Mahony; had caused the arrest and probable sentence of death on the writer himself, and had put others such as Patsy Mullane in severe danger.

  The pen is mightier than the sword.

  Who was it who had said that? She had often quoted it to her senior English class and they had looked back at her with a lack of interest – all except Eileen who had argued vigorously that nothing ever changed unless the pen was followed by the sword – but now, thought the Reverend Mother, looking down at her desk again, she could say wholeheartedly that the pen was certainly as dangerous as the sword. If Sam had not written that article, and, she acknowledged, it had taken quite a bit of courage to write such a piece in this rebel city; but if he had not written it, he might be at liberty and his mother might be alive and vigorously selling her tripe and drisheen in the English Market.

  ‘Dr Scher said that he would be at the hospital at three o’clock, Reverend Mother.’

  The Reverend Mother fished out her watch from the depths of her pocket and clicked it open. It was just half past one. Morning school was over and the community had finished their midday meal. The afternoon lay ahead of her, free of appointments and duties that could be postponed to the evening hours.

  ‘Thank you, Sister Bernadette,’ she said. ‘And could you please tell Sister Mary Immaculate that I am going out now to visit Mr Cotter in hospital.’

 

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