The Disenchanted Widow

by Christina McKenna

  She nodded. “He says Mass at half eight, according to his timetable.”

  “Right. So what time would he leave the house?”

  “No later than a quarter past. He’s very punctual when it comes to Mass times.”

  Lorcan got up. “Good. I’ll be there at twenty past eight, on the dot. I’ll knock on the back door.”

  “But I don’t have a key for his bedroom.”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  “But you haven’t finished your drink,” she said, not wanting him to leave.

  He sensed her unease, leaned over and took a swig, just to please her, for solidarity.

  “Now, you get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, twenty past eight, sharp.”

  After another sleepless night, Bessie was up with the Kilfeckin Manor rooster, and at the parochial house by the appointed time. She let herself in through the back, just as Father Cassidy was exiting by the front.

  Lorcan, sitting in his car within sight of the parochial house and idly scanning the newspaper, was alerted by the sound of a gate opening. He lowered the paper and watched as the priest stepped onto the curb, busied himself with the latch, and strode purposefully toward St. Timothy’s, cassock flapping in the breeze.

  “Now what are you up to?” He checked his pocket for the paper clips, put on his gloves, and left the car.

  The house was eerily quiet when Bessie let him in. Wordlessly they climbed the stairs and proceeded down a long corridor to the last door on the right.

  She tried the handle. “Locked. What now?”

  “No worries.” Lorcan dropped to his knees and removed his gloves. He drew two paper clips from a pocket and began unbending them. “A little trick I learned as a necessity in my digs. My landlady, a rather absentminded lady, would sometimes lock me out.”

  She watched in fascination as he raked the lock a few times before pushing in the second paper clip. Seconds later an audible clicking sound.

  “Now, that’s what I like to hear.”

  The door opened.

  “It’s just like it was yesterday,” Bessie said, going in first. “But the door of that was shut,” she added, pointing at the safe.

  “Not very tidy, our good Father, is he now?” Lorcan sniffed the air. “That smell?”

  “It’s drink, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but there’s something else.”

  He scanned the room. Went to the safe and peered in. Empty.

  “Keep a watch by the window. Just in case.”

  He went to the closet and jiggled the central knob back and forth. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Aha, there’s something in here he doesn’t want us to see, and it’s not his ceremonial robes.” He looked about. “Now, the key. Where would that be, I wonder.”

  “Maybe in his bedside locker. I thought I saw a key in it yesterday. Will I get it?”

  “No, you stay there. How’s the time?”

  Bessie checked her watch. “Nearly half past.”

  Lorcan rummaged through the locker drawer. “My passport, can you—”

  “Have it, already.” He found the key.

  After several tries the key turned in the closet lock. With difficulty he pulled the doors open.

  Bessie, looking out the window, noted that Lorcan had gone quiet. She turned to see him staring down at something in the wardrobe.

  “What is it?”

  “Come here.”

  She followed his pointing finger. In the bottom of the closet sat a large carpetbag. And not just any old carpetbag. No, this bag was a one-off. The garish emblem of the Virgin of Guadalupe was unmistakable. He took it out and unzipped it.

  Empty.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “It’s just a bag.”

  “Perhaps, but even empty, it puts Cassidy in the frame. It’s the one I put the bingo money in.”

  He shut the closet doors and turned the key. He crossed to the desk and tried the drawer.

  “No, everything’s locked. It was—”

  “It isn’t locked. Just old.” He yanked the drawer open. A glance inside confirmed his worst suspicions. There were several timer switches, a bottle of colorless liquid, and packs of condoms.

  “I was right! Come here.”

  Bessie looked in the drawer. “I don’t understand.”

  He carefully uncapped the bottle and sniffed. “Sulfuric acid.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “These,” he held up one of the condom packets, “are used to determine fuse delay. The time it takes the acid to dissolve through several layers of those is regulated by”—he lifted one of the timers—“one of these, which gives our terrorists an idea of how long it will take to ignite an incendiary device.”

  “You mean a bomb.”

  “Afraid so. Our parish priest isn’t running a Temperance Club in here. He’s running a bomb factory.”

  Chapter forty-one

  Early Monday morning and Sergeant Ranfurley was, for the first time in twelve long hours, feeling calmer and somewhat more confident. From the moment he received the anonymous call on Sunday afternoon—followed by the seemingly endless consultations for clearance from Divisional Command (not to speak of the administrative difficulties involved in securing a search warrant from Justice Robert Jenkins)—Ranfurley’s mind had been in a state of fever.

  To say he’d been shocked by the revelations confided to him in the course of that phone call would be putting it mildly—very mildly indeed. For in all his born days, and most of those as a serving officer, he had never heard the like of it. Father Connor Cassidy, parish priest of Tailorstown, exemplar of virtue, absolver of sins, spreader of the Sacred Word; he of the fine manner, pious air, and seemingly equanimous nature, was running a bomb factory. And not from any dank old basement or derelict shed in the middle of some woebegone bog, as was customary with the skulking scumbags bent on destruction. No, he was planning and executing his nefarious deeds right under the very noses of the constabulary—in his own bedroom at St. Timothy’s parochial house, no less.

  Ranfurley shifted uneasily in the passenger seat of the bulletproof Ford Cortina as it sped along the Killoran Road. A shrouding mist, rolling down off the Slievegerrin Mountains, was settling eerily over the fields and hedgerows like a cerement over a corpse. It was another grim morning in the life of the two officers. The previous day had claimed not one but two more IRA hunger strikers: Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O’Hara. You didn’t need to be a bloody psychic, thought Ranfurley, to predict that those deaths would lead to the murder of more innocents. He knew that he and his fellow law enforcers would have to be extra vigilant from now on. There’d be reprisals from the Fenians; that was a certainty. Even in the backwater that was Tailorstown they’d have to expect the unexpected, and check for explosives planted under their cars. Not just first thing in the morning—as was routine—but before each and every bloomin’ trip. No, their lives weren’t about to get any easier.

  Constable Johnston, in the driver’s seat, was a nervous wreck already: biting his lower lip, hands sweating on the wheel, wondering how the morning would unfold.

  They’d taken the unmarked vehicle on the orders of their superior, Chief Superintendent Ross. “Bad enough, your having to arrest the Devil’s disciple on his own doorstep, but it’ll have to be done discreetly,” Ross had warned. “If these allegations turn out to be unfounded—and bear in mind it wouldn’t be the first time we’d been wrong-footed by some cretinous half-wit—it’ll be my head on a platter, your station up in flames, and every Holy Joe and Josephine queuing up to genuflect at the bloody IRA’s altar.”

  Johnston glanced now at Ranfurley’s stern profile. “How d’you think he’s gonna respond, Sarge?”

  “Oh, he’ll not bat a godly eyelid, if I’m any judge. The unscrupulous are well practiced in the art of deception, Constable.”

  They rounded a bend and the parochial house loomed up out of the mist.

  Johnston slowed, threw the indicator s
witch, and eased the car through the gates.

  The moment of reckoning had arrived.

  “Ma, can I go out down the back field?”

  Bessie heard the question through a fog of crazy and confused dream sequences. They involved:

  Rose McFadden,

  a machine gun,

  Ned Grant singing his lungs out,

  the Virgin Mary rising up out of a carpetbag, and

  a toffee tipsy whiskey layer cake being blown to bits by an army bomb disposal team in the foyer of the Kelly Arms hotel.

  She threw back the bedcovers and sat up.

  “Jesus, son, what is it? Why are ye shoutin’ at me?”

  Herkie stood at the foot of the bed, a half-eaten Curly Wurly in one hand, his slingshot and what looked like a letter in the other.

  “I’m not shoutin’, Ma. Canna—”

  “What time is it?”

  “A quarter by eight—”

  “And what d’ye want to be goin’ down a back field at this hour of the mornin’ for, son?”

  “Mr. Grant said there was a fox chasin’ his chickens, and if I kilt it with me catapult he’d give me a pound.”

  “All right,” she said. “No farther than that back field, d’ye hear? I’ll be watchin’ from the windee.”

  “Thanks, Ma.”

  Herkie rushed to the door.

  “Not so fast, son! What’s that ye’ve got there?”

  “Aye—I mean yes, I forgot. A letter came for ye.” He threw it on the bed, and off he ran.

  The Hackney postmark and the childlike backhand, underscored by ruled pencil lines, meant it could be from only one person. Uncle Bert.

  “About bloody time, too,” she said, reaching for her first cigarette of the day.

  Ranfurley banged loudly on the door of the parochial house and waited. After a moment or two it was opened by Father Cassidy. His expression was unreadable.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said. “And what—”

  “Morning tae you, too, Father,” Ranfurley interrupted. No time for poncy small talk on this occasion. “I’ll come straight to the point. We’ve come about a rather serious accusation that’s been made against you.”

  He surged past the priest and into the hallway, Johnston in tow. Father Cassidy was immediately outraged.

  “Excuse me, what on earth d’you think you’re—”

  Ranfurley held up the search warrant. “We’ve come to search the premises.”

  He and the constable began to mount the stairs.

  “How dare you! On what grounds?” Cassidy, hard on their heels, shooting words like bullets. “You just can’t come in here and…”

  But the officers were already at the top of the stairs. Following the anonymous caller’s instructions to the letter, they made straight for the third door on the right.

  It was locked.

  “Open it, please, Father,” Ranfurley ordered.

  “This is preposterous! On what grounds?”

  “If ye don’t unlock it, we’ll have no choice but to force it. Now, what’s it gonna be?”

  Father Cassidy, judging that to argue further was futile, took a key from his pocket and did their bidding.

  “Go ahead,” he said, pushing open the door. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  “That’s for us to decide.”

  The officers entered the room. It was exactly as the caller had described it: a mess. They took in the unmade bed, the overflowing wastepaper baskets, the stench of stale beer, a poster on the back wall proclaiming that ALCOHOL IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL.

  “Temperance Club indeed!”

  Ranfurley went directly to the desk and pulled open the drawer. No wrong-footing this time. He’d hit the jackpot!

  Revealed were the unmistakable paraphernalia of the seasoned terrorist: a collection of condoms, acid vials, and timer switches. In and of themselves, they were harmless. But when combined, they constituted the deadly improvised explosive devices that had brought many of his colleagues’ lives to an abrupt and gruesome close.

  “Well, well, well,” he said, turning to face Cassidy. In his mind’s eye, the sergeant was on his last beat on the streets of Londonderry; he was stooping to collect the remains of two officers blown to pieces. Their charred limbs hardly filled a single body bag, so little was left of them. Their life’s blood trickling away down a drain grid in the driving rain. The image, seared in his memory, would never let him go.

  Rage welled up in him, but he held it in check. There would be plenty of time for that down at the station.

  “There’s also this, Sarge.” Constable Johnston was holding up the carpetbag. The garish image of the Virgin Mary seemed very much at odds with the grim contents of the drawer. “Same one used in the so-called robbery, I’d say.”

  Ranfurley looked from the bag to the priest.

  “Nothing to hide, ye say? Constable Johnston, read him his legal rights.”

  Bessie settled herself back on the pillows and tore open Uncle Bert’s letter.

  The Blarney Stone Tavern

  Mare Street

  Hackney

  London

  18 May 1981

  Dear Bessie,

  Sorry tae hear about Packie and sorry I couldn’t make it till the funerill. It is good that yiz got outta that hole Belfast. Tailorston sounds like a grand wee spot. I no I said you could come any time and work for me in the kitchen, but things is changed from the time I writ that till you.

  “Oh, yes, here we go!”

  I met Babs three month ago and we’re gettin married at Christmas. She came into the Stone one night for a Bloody Mary and a Rusty Nail and didn’t leave till morning for it was love at first sight. She’s a great cook. Doz the best sausage supper a man could hope for.

  “Aye, it takes a real brain box to make a sausage supper, ye oul’ fool.”

  She’s a grate cleaner too. Could scour a floor and a sink in the time it’d take me till lift a mop.

  “Ye never lifted a mop in yer bloody life…aye, a cook, a cleaner, a whore, and a wife, all rolled into one. Ye’ve got yer hands full, Babs. Damn you, Bert Halstone, ye durty oul’ divil!”

  Anyway what I’m tryin till tell ye is that with Babs bein such a gret cook and cleaner and what have ye she’s gonna take over in the kitchen, so when I’m out at the front she’ll be in at the back. It’ll work out well for the pair of us. I nivver thought I’d meet anybody at my age.

  “Aye, you’re seventy-two—no young buck. She must be a desperate slapper on the skids to take on the likes of you.”

  What it means is that I don’t need yiz comin over for tae help me out now that I’ve got Babs to do for me in the kitchen. I wouldn’t be able to pay ye even if ye wor comin over, anyway for now with the waddin things is tight.

  Hope you and Herkie can come over till the waddin. If you write back and tell me yer plans I’ll send yiz a invite.

  All the best,

  Your Uncle Bert

  “Bloody cheek! Who does he think he is? They’ll be ice-skatin’ in hell the day I stoop as low as tae go till his stupid waddin’.”

  She stuffed the letter back in the envelope. Stubbed out the cigarette in disgust. Got out of bed and went to stand by the window, which looked down on the backyard.

  “What now for the pair of us?” Herkie was lurking at the far end of the field, slingshot at the ready. “And what am I going to tell him? He was looking forward to going away.”

  She raked a hand through her hair, suddenly tearful. God, could things get any worse? Uncle Bert was an escape route she’d been counting on, but a couple of scrawled jotter pages had put paid to that idea. She tried not to cry.

  A blackbird swept down, landed close to the open well. She thought of Lorcan. He’d offered to put the cover back on. Said it was dangerous. She’d get dressed and do it right away. If Herkie tripped and fell in there, she’d never forgive herself.

  Spurred into action, she snatched up her dress from the ottoman.

&nb
sp; Creak.

  She tensed.

  The noise had come from downstairs. Was it the back door?

  “Herkie, is that you?”

  Silence.

  She was about to call out his name a second time but turned instead to check the window.

  He was still there in the field.

  Fear fluttered. Her pulse quickened. Clutching her dress, she tiptoed to the top of the stairs.

  “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  No answer.

  Aunt Dora putting in an appearance? Well, so long as she showed up in daylight and not at night, it was okay with Bessie. Gusty Grant up to his Peeping Tom tricks?

  “Is that you, Gusty?”

  Still no answer.

  You imagined it, Bessie. And any bloody wonder, given the last couple of days. Yer nerves are in shreds.

  Back in the bedroom, she pulled on her dress. She’d just go out and put the cap back on the well. No time like the present.

  She went down to the kitchen and reached for the back door knob.

  She didn’t get to turn it.

  Out of nowhere an arm appeared and clasped her waist, knocking the breath from her.

  A knife flashed before her eyes. A blade edge was pressed to her throat.

  “So ye thought I wouldn’t find ye, ye thievin’ whore! Time for us tae have some fun, Bessie luv. I’ve missed the smell of ye. This wee meetin’s long overdue.”

  The Dentist, Fionntann Blennerhassett, IRA enforcer and boss to Packie—evil incarnate—had crashed from the past into the terrifying here and now.

  Chapter forty-two

  Lorcan sat within the fairy ring, savoring the birdsong, the sibilating beeches, the clean, untrammeled air.

  Eyes shut, senses alert, he was identifying the various birdcalls as a way of clearing his mind. The sweet raspings of a corncrake. The melodious fluting of blackbirds. And somewhere in there was a valiant little robin, piping its distinctive trilling notes. Tuning in to nature’s music was a way of reminding himself that it was indeed a beautiful world, despite recent indications to the contrary.