The Private Wound

by Nicholas Blake

  “But I hadn’t heard anything.”

  “How could he be sure of that?”

  “Concannon doesn’t agree with you there,” said Flurry. “He was asking me a drift of questions about my brother—trying to find out if I knew anything about Kevin’s political activities. Well, I don’t. And I wouldn’t betray him if I did. Concannon’s a deep fellow, though. He has Kevin worried, that I know.”

  “Maire told me just now her husband thinks he’s being followed,” I said.

  “Is that so? I’ll have to have a talk with him. Whatever he’s up to, he’d better lay off it awhile. Have you heard anything more, Seamus?”

  “I have not.”

  “Seamus is my eyes and ears, Dominic. He’s been searching the length and breadth of the country, if he can get a hint of what Kevin’s up to.”

  “If I could find the man he was talking to that night Mr. Eyre overheard them—But I can’t discover hair nor hoof of him. I did hear he might have been at the horse show where Mrs. Flurry took a toss, but—”

  “Wait now,” I said excitedly. “I saw a fellow there making a sign to Kevin. I thought he looked a bit furtive.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  I tried to. But I had only caught the one glimpse of him, and in no particular had he stood out from the rest of the crowd.

  “He could have been just a fella laying a bet for Kevin,” said Flurry. “Maire’s terrible down on betting: she watches Kevin like a hawk to see he doesn’t have a flutter behind her back.”

  “Your brother’d only bet on a certainty, anyway,” remarked Seamus sourly.

  “That’s true of the races. But he has a powerful ambition on him. He’d take long odds if he saw the chance of something coming home that’d set him up high. Isn’t that so, Seamus?”

  “It is.”

  There was a long silence. At last Flurry said, “Harry never trusted him, God rest her soul.”

  Well, I thought, she’d not have to trust a man to get into bed with him. Not Harriet. For her, it would add spice to the affair. But might we not all be wrong about the attacks upon me and the murder of Harriet? Was not jealousy behind them?

  Yet how could I suggest this to Flurry? He’d said that he wouldn’t have minded Harriet going to bed with his own brother, if it made her happy. But that was in the first wildness of grief. Flurry never meant it to be taken seriously. And he was a changed man now: if I told him that Harriet had confessed to me there’d been a liaison between her and his brother, and that Maire had suspected it, I’d be signing Kevin’s death warrant.

  Chapter 11

  At midday on the morrow, Flurry and I were waiting inside the gate of the Church of Ireland graveyard. Maire was with us, but not Kevin: she made some excuse for his absence, which I did not take in. A fine rain had begun to fall; but it did not discourage the groups of townsfolk standing in the lane outside, silent, not menacing now—Flurry and I had passed through them with no trouble—but appraising and patient in their curiosity. I felt like a beast in a cage.

  Three uniformed Gardai stood by the gate. A car drove up, and Concannon got out: giving Flurry and me a preoccupied nod, he passed into the church. Murderers, they say, feel compelled to attend the funeral of their victim. Was Concannon here to observe my reactions?

  I looked round at the unkempt graveyard. Tombstones stuck up like teeth, discoloured and dishonoured, from the rank grass. I wanted to think about Harriet, to savour this finality and my grief: but my mind threw up no picture of her—only a grotesque thought: after the autopsy, would they have put back the embryo into her and stitched her up?

  I became aware of Flurry beside me, standing absolutely immobile, like a granite rock. It was thus that he would have faced an execution squad. No flinching, no prayers perhaps. I could not connect this hard man with the Flurry I had known for three months. It came to me in a revelation that I felt towards him now as a father figure: I had a son’s sense of guilt, no less for my past misunderstanding of him than for the wrong I had done him: I felt bound to him.

  At that moment the hearse arrived. The crowd drew back to the far side of the Lane, the men and women crossing themselves. Flurry’s huge hand gripped my arm—to give comfort or receive it? I felt the weight of the ordeal he was suffering.

  The bearers shouldered the coffin and carried it through the gate. That hideous, polished box with its hideous brass handles. It looked much too small to contain Harriet. With a discreet gesture, the master of ceremonies (I could only think of him so) indicated that we should follow the coffin. Flurry, head up, walked steadily behind it: Maire and I came after him.

  The church was bleak and dank inside, the service mercifully short. Maire looked covertly about her to see how these things were done in the Protestant persuasion. Flurry’s eyes, I believe, never left the coffin for an instant. I remembered that day Harriet and I had seen the funeral cortège moving over the strand: the parson’s words meant as little to me as had the screaming gulls then: I wanted to recall Harriet, in all the outrageous vitality of her flesh, for the last time before she went underground. But all I could see was a dim reflection of my face in the coffin’s wood.

  Then we were moving out of the church again. Not twenty yards away was a heap of earth, a gash in the grass. The coffin was lowered into it, tilting awkwardly at one moment. The last words were said, the handfuls of dust thrown in. Flurry took a rose from one of the wreaths and dropped it on the coffin. His lips moved silently. I noticed. Concannon looking steadily at him. Then Flurry walked away.

  Maire, putting away her handkerchief, gave me a strangely solicitous look and took my arm, guiding me through the tussocks of wet grass to the gate, as if I were an invalid out for his first walk after a dangerous illness. I became aware of the tears trickling down my cheeks.

  “Never mind, Dominic,” she said. “It’s all over now.”

  A hand opened the gate for us. It was Concannon’s. All over for Harriet, I thought. The groups of people in the lane made way for us. Last time it had been Flurry convoying me, to-day it was Maire. I felt utterly drained of emotion: my eyes saw the world as two-dimensional; the lane, the dripping trees, the houses of Charlottestown might have been cut out of cardboard.

  I heard myself say to Maire, “She should have had a fine day for it”

  “Won’t you come in a little and have some brandy?”

  “It’s kind of you, Maire, but I’m taking Flurry home.”

  He was waiting for me by my car, talking to Concannon, who had got ahead of us. Before we moved off, Concannon took me aside and asked me to make myself available at the cottage this afternoon. There seemed to be some change in his manner towards me, though I could not put my finger on it exactly.

  Flurry was silent on the way back. Only when I had dropped him at Lissawn House did he beg me to spend the evening with him. “You’d be doing me a favour, Dominic. I can’t face being alone to-night. We’ll have a wake, the two of us. Will y’ do that for me?”

  How could I refuse?

  Back at the cottage, I opened a tin of tongue and ate it with bread and butter. I was on edge at the thought of yet another interview with Concannon. To calm myself, I decided I would write to my mother and tell her something of what had been happening. I had meant to earlier, and even inserted a fresh sheet of paper in my typewriter; but before I’d written a word, something had turned up to prevent me. I must have taken the sheet out again, though I had no recollection of doing so, for it was not in the typewriter now.

  At three o’clock, Concannon arrived. This time he was alone, which gave me a certain sense of relief. His manner, too, seemed less official.

  “You must be feeling bad, Mr. Eyre, with the funeral and all. Still, duty’s duty,” he began, peeling off his raincoat and settling himself on the narrow window-seat. “I’m told you and Flurry Leeson are thick as thieves just now.”

  “I’m very grateful to him,” I said cautiously. “He’s saved me from starvation.”

 
“Has he now?” Concannon’s intelligent eyes probed at me through the dim little room. I told him about the boycott. He appeared interested rather than surprised, and made me describe in detail the forms this boycott had taken.

  “Ah well. Very unpleasant for you. The people here are terrible down on foreigners,” he said cosily. “But you’re all right now?”

  “I don’t believe the people here did it spontaneously. They’d had instructions, if you ask me.”

  “Who from?”

  “Kevin Leeson. Who else? Didn’t the police know anything about it?”

  “Kevin Leeson? That’s a grave allegation to be making about him. Have you any evidence? Have you faced him with it?”

  “No. It only happened yesterday, and he was away somewhere. I did have a talk with his wife, though. She took me in when they were going to mob me.”

  “I see. She knew nothing of the boycott?”

  “I don’t think so. But if she did, she wouldn’t have joined in. She’s a decent woman.”

  “So she is, so she is. Now about yourself, Mr. Eyre. Do you want to change the statement you made to me?”

  “The statement?”

  “About your movements the night Harriet Leeson was killed?”

  “So I’m still your chief suspect?”

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “No. Why should I change it?” I was indignant—at myself for having lied to the superintendent. But I must go through with it now. “If I’d crept out that night and killed Harriet, I’d hardly confess it to you. I did not kill her.”

  “But you did creep out.” Concannon’s voice tilted up at the end.

  “No,” I said firmly.

  “It’s a pity, then. You might have heard something, seen something, which would give us a clue.”

  I stayed silent.

  “You’re so friendly with Flurry Leeson now,” he went on in the tones of one, as they say, thinking aloud. “You owe him a great deal, Mr. Eyre, and I’m not talking about the boycott chiefly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You owe him a great deal,” said Concannon with sudden brutality, “for lending you his wife.”

  “That’s between him and me.”

  “So you’ve confessed to him about your liaison.”

  He had trapped me there. “Yes, I have.”

  “And he took it well?” There was a satirical edge to Concannon’s voice. I had the sense of being subtly manœuvred, like a chess-man.

  “He understood. Flurry’s a remarkable man—I’ve come to realise that.”

  “There’s no jealousy in his make-up at all? He must be a saint then. Doesn’t he even feel jealous about your having made his wife pregnant?”

  Concannon had turned on the heat with a vengeance.

  “He doesn’t suspect that,” I replied wretchedly. “I don’t know if it’s true myself.”

  What I must never tell Concannon was that I’d also confessed to Flurry about having been with Harriet the night she was murdered. The superintendent’s next remark surprised me.

  “I’m sure you’re a great student of human nature. You couldn’t write novels else.”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “But maybe you’ve a deal to learn still. About primitive people—people like us savage Irishmen. We’re a devious lot, you know. We’ve had centuries’ practice concealing our grudges against the English.”

  “I don’t see what—”

  “An Irishman could conceal even his bitterest jealousy, till the moment comes to—”

  Concannon’s voice faded away. Then he began again. “What I’m saying is, Flurry may have had you on a string all this time. When he had final proof of your affair with his wife, he put an end to her. It was the murder of a jealous man.”

  “No, no, no!” I burst out. “Flurry—you’ve got him utterly wrong.”

  “He had the motive. He had the opportunity—Father Bresnihan had just left him. He found his wife naked by the river, waiting for some other man. Wouldn’t that make you see red?”

  “I simply don’t believe it. He’d have killed me, if he was that sort of man—killed us both.”

  “Don’t you see how clever it is of him to take up with you like he’s done since. It’s aimed to show what a forgiving fellow he is. How could a jealous man behave like that? It casts suspicion right away from him.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I’m dead serious, Mr. Eyre.”

  “But you searched Lissawn House.”

  “If you’re thinking of blood-stained clothes, whoever did it must have done it stripped and then plunged into the river. Flurry. Or you, Mr. Eyre.”

  My heart sagged again, “Why don’t you arrest me then and get it over with?” I exclaimed. “I don’t like this cat-and-mouse—”

  “And I don’t like murder,” said Concannon formidably. “Nor would I like charging the wrong man.”

  “So it’s between Flurry and me now, is it? You should look a bit farther afield.”

  “Where will I look?” he asked mildly.

  The idea of Flurry being under such suspicion made me indiscreet. I did not want Maire hurt, but I could not bear Flurry to be thought guilty.

  “If it’s a jealous man you’re looking for, why don’t you pay a bit more attention to Kevin?”

  Concannon’s face took on a guarded expression. I realised I was doing just what a guilty man would do—try to draw suspicion on someone else. But it was too late to draw back.

  “Harriet more or less admitted to me that Kevin had been her lover. I’ve told you that already. Did you realise he was very near the Lissawn demesne when she was murdered?”

  “Was he now?”

  “Good God man, aren’t you interested?”

  “How did you know this?”

  I recounted all that Maire had told me, about that night—all except her own wanderings in the demesne—this would have been too gross a betrayal of confidence. Concannon heard out my deductions; not very enthusiastically, but no professional likes an amateur muscling in on his own territory.

  “So, you see, that car journey of his should be investigated. If he falsified the times, it would—”

  “I’ll look after that.”

  The sun, in the unpredictable Irish way, had burst out from the hopeless day and was shining slantwise through the window. I could see Concannon gazing at me, with that guarded look turned faintly quizzical now on his austere face. He might have been a Jesuit receiving the notions of a not-too-bright neophyte on a theological question.

  “Well, if that’s all you—”

  “Ah no. You’ve been a great help, Mr. Eyre. I’m grateful. But you know, if it’s jealousy in it, we have another candidate.”

  “Have we?”

  “Maire Leeson was jealous of her husband enough to go stravagueing the countryside after him just because he was an hour or two late.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, you don’t think she would kill anyone?”

  “And why not? I got the impression, when I questioned her, that she was a repressed woman—but with hidden fires banked down, you know. Her husband is too cold a man to lose his head and commit a crime of passion.” Concannon paused to light one of his rare cigarettes. “I believe you’re the same, Mr. Eyre, at bottom.”

  “Thank you very much!” I replied, inordinately vexed. At least, I had not told him Maire’s movements that night after waiting about on the main road. Then I remembered the drunken tramp she had seen. Should I divulge this? No: it was just the story a woman would make up to divert suspicion, had she herself killed Harriet. And I trusted Seamus to unearth this tramp, if anyone could.

  We talked desultorily five minutes more. Then Concannon rose to go.

  “How much longer do I have to stay here?”

  “Till I’ve ended my investigations, Mr. Eyre,” he replied neutrally.

  “And when will that be?”

  He shrugged.

  “But damn it, I may be
the next target.”

  “You’ll come to no harm; so long as you’re under Flurry Leeson’s protection.” …

  A few hours later I was in the fishing room at Lissawn House. Flurry and I were already well away with the whiskey. It was a queer sort of wake, the night after the funeral, in an empty house, two mourners talking in fuddled tones about the woman who should have set them at each other’s throats. Flurry was drinking to forget her: I drank to obliterate the suspicion Concannon had planted in my mind, that Flurry might have murdered her.

  “What was that fella Concannon after?” he said, picking the thought out of my mind.

  “He thinks you could have killed her. The silly sod.”

  “Does he now? Well, he’d have the right.”

  “I told him it was bloody ridiculous.”

  Flurry hefted a rod, then laid it back on the table beside him. “He was trying to drag something out of you?”

  “He was. And to make me admit I’d been with Harriet the night she—”

  “But you didn’t?”

  “You’re the only person who’ll ever know that, Flurry.”

  “And I’m not telling,” he replied, and loosed an uninhibited belch. “It’s queer, us two sitting here talking about her. Bloody queer. If you read it in a book, you’d not believe it. Ah well, women are the devil—God rest her soul.”

  At some stage in the evening, Flurry brought in bread and cheese. At another, he inveighed against the reporters who had been pestering him. “There’s no privacy to-day at all at all. Them fellas’ll be peering over the recording angel’s shoulder at the Day of Judgment to see what he has written down.”

  “They won’t read anything very bad about you, Flurry.”

  “Except murder, maybe,” he said sombrely.

  I was suddenly sobered. “But it was in war you killed.”

  “To hell with the Tans! I’m not talking about them.” He gave me a cunning look. “And I’m not talking about Harry either, whatever Mr. Bloody Concannon may think. It’s the fella who killed her. I’ll have his blood on my hands.”

  “Why don’t you leave him to the Law?”

  Flurry spat into the fireplace. “The Law?—the Law! I’ll not let him slip me that way.”