by W. C. Ryan
‘What time did he tell you this?’
‘Around eight in the evening, I’d say.’
Abercrombie’s visit had been at just after two. If Driscoll was in town the night before, might he have told Abercrombie he was staying at Moira’s guest house?
‘Did he stay long?’
‘No, he was in and out. Said he needed to be back at Kilcolgan for the morning and had a man he needed to meet. The barman told him to stay because of the trouble, but he said he’d be careful.’
Harkin ponders this statement for a moment or two, watching Bourke make short work of the last of his breakfast. Bourke helps himself to another slice of toast and then looks at the remnants on Harkin’s plate.
‘Do you want a hand finishing that?’
Harkin pushes it across the table and the big man smiles in anticipation.
‘I wonder about Driscoll,’ Harkin says. ‘I wonder how come he felt comfortable going about the town on a night when the Auxies were on the rampage. There are a lot of things to wonder about when it comes to Sean Driscoll.’
He tells Bourke about Sir John’s confirmation that the letters came from Sean Driscoll. Bourke’s expression darkens while he speaks.
‘It’s not looking good for our Sean.’
Harkin nods.
‘It’s not. Let’s see Father Dillon first, and then it would do no harm to square things with Egan before we deal with Driscoll. In any event, whether or not there was a message about Abercrombie passed on through the good father is something we need to know.’ Harkin takes a moment to consider his next question, knowing its implications. ‘Are you armed?’
‘If needs be,’ Bourke says, his mouth thin and hard. ‘I have a Mauser in the motor behind a panel. It takes no time to get it out.’
Harkin takes a deep breath, preparing himself for the day ahead.
‘Let’s see what the day brings.’
*
After breakfast, Harkin goes in search of Moira and finds her in the kitchen. When she sees him, she smiles and turns to Mary.
‘The gentlemen seem to have finished their breakfast. Will you go and clear the room for lunch? The ladies will be back from the Eustaces’ soon.’
When Mary leaves the room, he takes a step towards her and slips his hand around her waist. To his surprise, she lets him, turning up her mouth to him to be kissed.
‘Did you sleep well?’ she asks.
‘Not too bad.’
He wants to tell her about the apparition, but the words don’t come and then he thinks she knows enough to frighten off any sensible woman already.
‘I’ll be leaving with Mr Bourke in a little while.’
She regards him steadily.
‘You owe me nothing, you know. I am not a damsel in a fairy story that needs taking care of. If anyone needs taking care of, it’s you.’
‘That’s good to know.’
She reaches up a hand to pull at his tie.
‘I’d better take that litle gun back,’ he says.
She looks at him, then turns and leaves the room. When she returns, less than a minute later, she is carrying the small pistol in her hand. He takes it from her, checks the safety catch and puts it in his pocket.
‘Thank you.’
‘I would like you to be careful, Mr Harkin. Whatever you are getting up to today.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘That,’ she says, ‘will have to do.’
CHAPTER 32
S
t Ann’s is a small, recently built church on the outskirts of the town, the granite from which it is constructed still retaining a fresh polish that the sea air and the weather have not yet dulled. Bourke slows the car and brings it to a halt just past the entrance, indicating a detached house made from the same cut stone, set in a newly laid-out garden.
‘Does the housekeeper live in?’ Harkin asks, examining the building.
‘She was leaving when I was here last night, but she could have been just going out for the evening.’
Harkin pulls out his watch. It’s just past ten o’clock. He takes another look at the priest’s house. The curtains are still drawn across the windows.
‘Let’s take a look around.’
They step out of the car into a fine misty drizzle, barely visible on a day that is so overcast. Harkin walks over to the entrance to the church. There is a mass scheduled for eleven o’clock, which makes the house’s curtains still being closed all the more strange. He can tell from Bourke’s narrow mouth and alert air that he has the same presentiment.
‘Will I fetch the Mauser from the car?’
Harkin looks along the street, first towards the town and then along the road that leads towards the hills. He has a bad feeling about the house but, on the other hand, he knows he is not quite his normal self.
‘No,’ he says, after a moment’s further thought. ‘I’ll go and have a look. You stay back. I’ll let you know if I need you.’
‘Would it not be better if I went?’
Harkin looks at the big man and smiles. Bourke is good at persuading people to do what he wants them to do, but he’s not subtle. Harkin wants whatever information the priest has, but ideally without breaking any of his bones.
‘Best if I go, I think. You keep an eye out for trouble.’
Bourke nods his agreement but there is a part of Harkin that wishes the big man would insist on coming with him.
There is no pavement and the run-off from the verges has caused a layer of mud to spread across the road. Harkin has no choice but to walk through it, and the suck of it on his boots and the anticipation of danger send him back to the memory of a slow straggling night march up into the line – the sound of his company moving step by step through the dark, their boots scraping on duckboards and squelching through mud, the soft clang and bump of their equipment and the sound of the guns along the front a dull rumble that gets louder with each step. He feels a familiar dullness come over him. It is the deliberate suppression of emotion and hope. What will be, will be. He reaches the gate to the priest’s garden and lifts the cast-iron latch, the creak of the metal against metal bringing back another image of a German trench, and along it the strewn corpses of the dead. The image is so clear that he feels his body become damp with sweat. He swallows and takes a step onto the path that leads to the house. There is no sound or sign of life, only the cawing from the spiral of crows circling the field beyond. Harkin concentrates on walking, but even his best efforts can’t stop the nagging certainty that the house ahead of him does not harbour a warm welcome.
He reaches the door, pulls the bell and waits, hearing it echo within, imagining a tiled hallway with religious paintings and a clock on the wall that someone has forgot to wind up. There is no immediate response and he turns to look at Bourke, who is leaning against the motor car, his hat pulled low, a cloud of cigarette smoke hiding his face. Harkin nods to him and tries the bell again then, tentatively, puts his hand on the door knob. He turns it and the door opens inwards.
He finds himself looking into a hallway that is almost exactly as he has imagined it, except that there is no clock. He allows the door to swing open fully and stands there, taking in the small side table with a set of keys in a bowl and a statue of the Sacred Heart. He does not call out. There is no point. He can tell from the perfect stillness that no one will answer him. Somehow Maud’s pistol is in his hand, even though he doesn’t remember taking it out.
The house smells of patchouli and peat and something else that he prefers not to think about. He follows the short corridor that runs alongside the staircase towards the back of the house, where the kitchen door stands open. A half-eaten plate of food sits on the long table, beside it an overturned glass, red wine pooled around it, and in front of it an open book, the page held open by a red ribbon. A solitary supper interrupted. Harkin makes his way around the table and finds a chair is lying on the floor behind it, along with a single slipper.
He considers the scene. If there was
a struggle, it was brief. A kitchen dresser stands against one wall, a set of porcelain plates on display. A double Belfast sink stands in front of the window that overlooks the rear of the house, with dishes and cutlery long dried on the rack beside it. There is a pantry and a laundry room leading off the kitchen, but both are empty of anything but the usual. Harkin checks the range. It is still warm, but when he opens the lower door to look at the grate, there are only ashes.
An evening meal, an interruption. And then what?
Harkin walks back out into the hall and stands for a moment, considering whether to call for Bourke, but as he is passing the doorway on his left, his hand, as if of its own volition, comes to rest on the handle. He nods to himself. He has been in houses like this before. This will be the priest’s study. He turns the handle and the click of the mechanism sounds shockingly loud in the silence. He concentrates now on his senses. The smell he avoided addressing when he entered the house is coming from inside the room, and he makes his breathing shallow to avoid as much of it as he can. He knows the smell. He feels his stomach turn slowly and his eyes begin to water.
‘Come on,’ someone says, and he knows it is his own voice even if it sounds as though it belongs to someone else. He pushes the door and it swings open.
A body hangs from a cassock rope that has been tied to the ornamented corner of a huge wardrobe, at least eight feet high.
A single slipper still clings to the body’s left foot, which hangs in space, six inches above the floor.
The stench of death is almost overpowering.
CHAPTER 33
B
ourke enters the room and stands in front of the priest, examining the dead body, his face impassive.
‘He wasn’t a big man, was he?’
Harkin hears him speak as though from a distance. He is searching through the drawers of the priest’s desk, looking for something – anything – that might give some clue as to why the priest died. It’s true, though, Dillon was a small-boned man, not much bigger than a child. The priest’s eyes are closed, for which Harkin is grateful.
‘What time is it?’ he asks Bourke.
‘Just coming up to a quarter past.’
Harkin remembers the mass that is due to be said at eleven. He should have left as soon as he found the body, but here he is, going through Dillon’s papers as fast as he can.
‘I take it you didn’t find the housekeeper?’ Harkin says, relieved that Bourke didn’t return with news of another body.
‘No. It must be her day off,’ Bourke says, the distraction in his voice suggesting his mind is on other things. ‘She’s well out of it. Find anything?’
‘His appointment book.’
‘Anything useful in it?’
‘Might be,’ Harkin says, wondering if Bourke will ever be quiet and let him finish.
‘I’ll tell you something, though,’ Bourke says, sounding satisfied, as though he has solved a problem. ‘He didn’t hang himself up there, the little priest. He was dead before the rope was put on him.’
Harkin looks up to find Bourke reaching up to lift the priest’s eyelid. After a quick examination he lowers his hand to press a finger into the corpse’s neck.
‘Why do you say that?’ Harkin asks.
‘I’ve seen a man hanged himself before. There was spit all down his front.’ He taps at a long wooden library ladder beside the wardrobe, which the dead man had probably used to reach the upper shelves of the fitted bookcases that stretch from floor to ceiling on two of the study’s walls. ‘I’d say someone knocked him on the head – look, you can see he’s taken a knock – then hung him up there to make it look like he killed himself. I doubt the peelers will be fooled. Your Dr Hegarty won’t be fooled anyway.’
Bourke taps the priest’s body so that it sways for a moment, like a sluggish pendulum.
‘I’ll tell you something else,’ he says. ‘Rigor mortis. That doesn’t set in to this extent for around twelve hours. The priest wasn’t here when I visited at about six o’clock last night, and it’s ten in the morning now. So that’s my guess as to when it happened, between six and ten last night.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Harkin asks.
‘I used to work for an undertaker.’
Somehow this doesn’t come as a surprise to Harkin. He shuts the last of the drawers. He leaves everything except for the appointment book, which he places in the pocket of his overcoat.
‘Come on,’ Harkin says. ‘Rigor mortis or no rigor mortis, we don’t want to be found here with a corpse.’
They walk into the hallway, where Bourke holds up a hand to stop Harkin while he looks out through the side window beside the hall door.
‘The coast is clear.’
They walk briskly down to the road and Harkin lets out a long breath of relief when Bourke closes the garden gate behind them. Perhaps it’s the relief that causes him to stop walking, suddenly overwhelmed by the scene back in the priest’s study, his legs shaking as he struggles to stay standing.
‘You’re grand,’ Bourke says, taking his elbow and almost lifting him up from the ground as he pushes him forwards. ‘You can rest in the car.’
The next thing Harkin is aware of is sitting in the Ford’s passenger seat and the car moving slowly away from the side of the road. Bourke is looking in the rear mirror, where something has caught his attention. Harkin looks over at him and notices the sudden sharpness in his expression.
‘Peelers,’ Bourke says. ‘A trip out to the country for us, I think.’
Harkin turns with the last of his energy and sees a Crossley Tender turning in to the road that leads out from town to the church, about half a mile back. It disappears from view as the Ford follows a bend in the road.
‘I doubt they saw us,’ Bourke says. ‘And even if they did, we were moving by that point. Just a coincidence.’ He looks across at Harkin and frowns. ‘You look like a dead man.’
He reaches inside his jacket to the breast pocket and produces a thin silver flask, unscrewing its top with the hand he keeps on the wheel, sniffing it and then passing it across.
‘Have a drink of this. It’ll fix you up or nothing will.’
Harkin takes a sip. It’s as though he’s poured fire down his throat.
‘Christ almighty,’ he manages to say when the coughing subsides.
‘Fella in the bar sold me a bottle of it last night. You could run a car on that stuff.’
Harkin does feel better for it, though.
‘Don’t be hogging it, now,’ Bourke says, retrieving the flask and drinking deeply. In contrast to Harkin, his only reaction is a quick intake of breath and a tiny, pained grimace. ‘The man who put that through the copper piping knew what he was doing. Are you feeling better?’
‘Yes, sorry. Just felt a bit dizzy for a moment.’
‘If we’re being sensible here,’ Bourke says, his concern apparent, ‘we shouldn’t stop this car until we get to Dublin. Someone will have seen the car parked while we were inside. There aren’t so many cars in this part of the country that a passer-by won’t have taken notice of it.’
Bourke has a point, and Harkin is on the point of agreeing with him until they come to a crossroads and he sees a signpost for Ballycourt.
‘Stop here for a second,’ Harkin says.
Bourke obeys, although he looks over his shoulder, back along the road, in case the police lorry comes into view. Harkin considers the sign and then thinks about Bourke’s suggestion that they cut their losses.
‘Take the left to Ballycourt.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I am.’
Bourke shrugs as though to say ‘at least he I tried’. The car moves forwards and then turns the corner.
‘What’s in Ballycourt?’ Bourke asks, after they have driven for a short distance.
‘Egan.’
Harkin takes the appointment book out of his pocket and opens it at the last entry.
‘When you saw Driscoll last night, did you te
ll him you’d been out to see the priest?’
‘I did.’
‘And you’d be going back the following day?’
Bourke thinks back, then nods. Harkin holds up the open page of the appointment book. On the left-hand side of each page is a column of times. Driscoll’s name is written in for nine in the evening.
‘According to this, that meeting he told you about? The one he was so anxious to attend? It was with Father Dillon.’
Bourke gives out a low whistle.
‘He didn’t mention it.’
‘No.’
‘You think he killed him?’
‘I’m saying it looks like he was in the house within your time frame.’
‘On top of everything else.’ Bourke snorts.
‘The only question is, why?’
Bourke emits a dry laugh.
‘Maybe because Father Dillon would have told us there was no anonymous source of information – that Driscoll set the whole thing up. If you ask me, he’s the one tipped off the peelers about Matt Breen as well, to cover his tracks. The same way he probably pointed Abercrombie in your direction last night.’
Harkin flicks back through the pages of the appointment book until he reaches the day of the ambush. The initials B.M. are written in for an 11 o’clock appointment. B.M., reversed, could easily stand for Matt Breen, the column’s recently deceased intelligence officer. Harkin can feel his frown deepening as he sees another set of initials written in for the day before: K.R. He checks back through the pages and nearly all the appointments have the full name written out. The only exceptions are these two sets of initials. If B.M. really is Matt Breen, then perhaps Egan will know who K.R. is. Harkin turns to Bourke.
‘Killing the priest doesn’t stop us thinking Driscoll set up the ambush and Egan can tell us where the information came from one way or another. Also, the way we found Father Dillon doesn’t make sense. If it was Driscoll, why would he leave the appointment book behind? Why stage it as a suicide but leave signs of a struggle?’
‘Maybe he was disturbed?’
‘Maybe,’ Harkin allows. ‘And maybe it wasn’t about the informer. Look, Dillon has written B.M. in on the day of the ambush. My guess would be that it stands for Matt Breen. If Matt Breen was there the morning of the ambush, then the likelihood is he was picking up information and it came from the anonymous source. The information didn’t pass through Driscoll.’
