‘Aye, and me and the missus too,’ said Tommy, counting out his coins on the counter.
As Tommy turned right towards Nelson Street, he looked left and, through the mist, saw McGinty, staggering down the street towards home with Brian running from the pie shop to catch him up.
Maura couldn’t have looked more surprised when Tommy walked in through the back with the four bottles. Her eyes filled with a ridiculous pleasure at seeing him home again. She shared his sadness. They both ached. She had been sorry that he had gone out to the pub, but at the same time she understood why. She was tidying away discarded shoes and children’s cardigans and jackets that had been scattered all around the kitchen, placing each on its own peg on the door to the stairs, when Tommy walked in.
‘Sit ye down, queen,’ said Tommy kindly, as he put the poker in the fire to heat and took the bottles to the opener that hung from a piece of string next to the sink.
Maura flopped into one fireside chair and Tommy into the other. As she kicked off her slippers, Tommy plunged the poker first into her Guinness and then back into the red embers for his own.
As they lifted the bottles to drink, they grinned at each other for the first time in weeks. Maura left her chair and sat down on the rug in between Tommy’s legs, with one arm on his knee. She looked up at him as they chatted and drank their Guinness in front of the leaping flames for an hour before bed.
Not about the evil that had swamped their lives and divided them, but about the things that held them together.
Their families in Ireland and America.
Tommy’s work. What to do about Malachi? Who in the family did Angela take after and had someone snuck into the house and swapped babies when they were sleeping? They talked about the things Kitty would see and do in Ireland, and the kindness of Jerry and Kathleen and the entire Deane family to help in this way. For the first time they talked about everything and anything other than that awful night. That night, Maura realized, was beginning to drive them apart.
Night-time chatter had always been a part of Maura and Tommy’s routine. Tommy always sat in the fireside chair, or at the table with his paper, while Maura nattered away to him as she cleared the dishes and tidied up. The ritual had stopped abruptly the night Father James was caught in Kitty’s bedroom and it hadn’t resumed since, until tonight.
‘Bed,’ said Tommy, draining the last of his second bottle.
‘You go up,’ said Maura. ‘I want to sort the washing for the morning.’
‘I bloody won’t,’ replied Tommy with a huge grin. ‘Get ye’self up those stairs, missus, ye are in for a treat tonight. It’s been over a week and that’s not natural for any man, especially not this one.’
Afterwards, as Tommy slept a sleep of deep contentment, Maura slipped out of bed. The washing still needed to be sorted for the morning. She sat on the edge of the mattress and looked back at the man she loved, who had fathered their beautiful and loving children. He was the best husband. He didn’t deserve to be in this position of guilt. Before she left his side, Maura prayed to God to forgive them for defending their child and asked him to bring them peace.
Maura prayed a great deal.
After all, it was not as if she could take confession.
11
HOWARD AND SIMON had not been able to gain entry to the Priory until the morning after the bishop had arrived.
At first, Howard had been furious at the nuns’ refusal to allow them in immediately following the murder. He and Simon had tried to be as gentle as possible, explaining the reason why it was very important that they have free access. As gentle as it was possible for two hard-nosed Liverpool detectives to be.
They had visited the Priory the morning after, but there was nothing to be seen, other than a gaggle of nuns in a state of high distress.
Miss Devlin, the teacher for whom Howard had a soft spot, was in the process of comforting the housekeeper. She told them no one had been near the Priory and that for all of the previous day the priest had been away, along with everyone else, at the church and the wedding breakfast.
The Priory had felt cold and flat, unyielding of what it knew.
The wailing and crying of the nuns, uninviting.
‘There’s nothing to see here,’ Howard had said, finding the tears of a nun particularly disturbing. ‘Let’s concentrate on the school.’
And, sure enough, they had got lucky, or so they thought, when Little Paddy had blurted out what he thought he had seen from the window that night.
Although the lead had crumbled away into dust in their hands, it had kept them busy for days. But although the lead hadn’t held firm, both Howard and Simon felt that nothing was quite as it appeared.
‘I can smell a great big dirty rat,’ Howard said. ‘I just can’t bloody see it yet, that’s all.’
The superintendent had begun breathing down their necks with threats of demotion and castration if they did not solve the case. It was now time to begin turning over even the very smallest stones.
The bishop had led them both into the study and dispatched Daisy to the kitchen to fetch a tray of tea.
Howard had no idea where to begin without causing offence. As he took his notebook and pencil from the inside pocket of his jacket, he cast his eye around, looking for an object of interest in order to stimulate a casual conversation.
But the study was deadly dull with no ornamentation to elicit his admiration nor painting to be commented upon. Heavy drapes hung across the windows as a mark of respect and the only light shone from a standard lamp in the corner, throwing eerie, creeping shadows onto the high ceiling and the tobacco-stained walls.
The murky-brown sofa and chair had seen better days and, apart from a small table in front of the sofa, the only other piece of furniture, in one corner, was the priest’s large dark wooden desk, with one tall hard-backed chair behind it and two smaller chairs opposite.
Tall dark-oak bookcases partly lined the walls, the books appearing not to have been read for many years.
Only a circular dark-burgundy rug with a deep-grey fringe provided any colour. Howard sighed. The room depressed him. There was something on the edge of the aroma, in the smell of musty old books and forgotten sermons, that made him feel intensely uncomfortable. Having been keen to gain entry into the Priory, he now couldn’t wait to get out.
Howard ran his finger irritably around his collar, easing it away from his neck.
‘May I look through the father’s desk, Bishop, whilst we wait for the tea?’ he asked.
‘Of course, Detective Inspector,’ said the bishop, ‘but I am afraid it is quite empty. We removed all the private papers yesterday.’
‘Really?’ said Howard, with a note of surprise in his voice.
Simon raised his eyebrows. Howard’s intuition was kicking in. ‘What private papers?’ he asked.
‘Well, there were his sermon notes going back over some years and he had kept all his prayer requests and mass cards and his confirmation lesson notes.’
Howard immediately felt stupid.
‘And what about his bedroom, his clothes and personal possessions?’
‘Clothes?’ The bishop stood before Howard, looking slightly confused, his brow deeply furrowed. Howard reddened immediately, feeling stupid and keener than ever to leave.
‘The only personal possessions in his room were his watch and personal bible, with his coat and hat and a few other personal books. They were dispatched today, to his sister in America.’
‘That parcel will be a bundle of laughs to open,’ said Howard under his breath as he turned away.
Daisy tapped on the door and, once the bishop had shouted for her to enter, crossed the floor with the tray of tea.
Howard felt the familiar feeling of despair. They were heading nowhere fast, again.
The priest walks home from a wedding, is murdered and dismembered in the graveyard, and they don’t have a bloody clue why or how. He felt his promotion slipping further and further away.
/> As Daisy handed the cups round, Simon tried to engage her in conversation.
‘Have you worked here long, miss?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Daisy, ‘nearly twenty years now.’
‘That’s a long time,’ said Howard, smiling at her. ‘I don’t suppose you saw anything unusual on the night the father was murdered that you think we should know about, did you?’
Daisy looked at Howard with some intensity, as was her way. This was different from any question the sister had asked her and one she had to think about. Was there anything she thought they should know about? Well, maybe there was. Maybe she had seen something and it was nothing to do with what happened inside the Priory and so she wouldn’t be in any trouble if she mentioned it.
Would she? Should she?
While she pondered Daisy continued to stare at Howard, as though her eyes were boring into his very soul. He felt disconcerted and, with an embarrassed cough, sat up straight in the chair, struggling to balance his cup and saucer. He wasn’t used to saucers. He wasn’t used to a cup that had retained a handle.
‘The girl is simple.’ The bishop’s voice sliced through the loaded silence. ‘Very simple. Back to the kitchen now, please, girl.’
She would have to be, to work here, Howard thought, looking around at the dreary room, slightly relieved that Daisy had stopped staring at him.
Within an hour, Howard and Simon had jumped back into the police car and were heading off down the gravel drive. As they turned left towards the four streets, Simon banged the dashboard.
‘God, it’s doing my fucking head in. I know there is summat we are missing, like it is just there, out of our reach, and yet we can’t get a handle on any of it.’
Howard was silent, deep in thought. As he shifted up a gear, he turned back down the Dock Road into town and, looking into the rear-view mirror, he replied, ‘We just keep shaking the tree, Simon, or, better still, let Molly Barrett do it for us. That nosy old woman is better than a dozen detectives on that street. If there is something to know, she will lead us to it, I promise you. We need to give her a little encouragement, sit back and wait.’
Annie O’Prey had finished brushing her step and wondered why Molly had been a no-show. Although their front doors were only two feet apart from each other, Annie turned back inside and walked through her house, out of the back door, putting her broom away in the outhouse, then walked through her back yard, into the entry and in thorough Molly’s back gate.
The front door was never used for the purpose that it was intended.
Molly was in the kitchen, baking.
‘The priest is dead, Molly. He won’t be wanting those scones where he’s gone,’ said Annie in a superior tone, as she folded her arms and sniffed her disapproval of a woman trying to cheat the inevitable reckoning at the pearly gates. Annie felt pleased with herself, having found a weakness and scored a point. Annie was on top.
Molly neither acknowledged Annie’s presence, nor looked up from her task.
‘I thought I would bake some for Daisy. I’m neither stupid nor senile, Annie,’ she replied. ‘I doubt a priest whose langer me cat brought home would be wanting a fresh scone.’
She mentally relished the put-down.
‘I’ve always sent her a few in the batch I made for the priest. Daisy and I are good friends and now that a little time has passed, I thought I might as well pay her a visit, just to see how she is getting along. She has no friends as such and, God knows, it took her ten years before she even began to speak to me and I’m the easiest person in the world to get along with.’
Annie raised her eyebrows heavenwards. Only that morning, she had felt the need to discuss Molly’s new-found self-importance with Frank, from the fish shop.
‘God, that fat lump gets on me nerves something wicked, so she does. Thinks she’s very important now that she’s having cups of tea in the parlour with the bizzies. Such an interfering busybody she is herself an’ all.’
‘Don’t listen to her, then,’ said Frank. ‘Leave the woman to her own devices.’
Both Frank and Annie knew that would never happen. Molly and Annie were best friends who complained about each other so often, it was as if they were sisters.
‘There you go, Annie, that’s a nice bit of fish,’ said Frank, handing her the damp and neatly folded newspaper package. ‘Give the skin to Molly’s cat, keep him happy and away from my front door, for feck’s sake. It’s a jungle out there on your streets.’
Annie blessed Frank with smile as she left to impart to Molly the gossip she had gathered from the fish-shop queue. All animosity towards her neighbour was forgotten in a flash of her naked gums.
Daisy looked out of the large sash window as she made the bishop’s bed to see Alice walking with the pram down to the bottom of Nelson Street, and Molly walking up towards the church with a basket in her hand, covered with a tea towel. She hoped Molly would be heading to the Priory and, when she turned the corner into the drive, Daisy’s heart skipped a beat.
She hadn’t seen Molly since the Sunday before the priest died.
Daisy’s head was hurting with all the things she had seen and heard, and now that the bishop was on his way back to Dublin, she hoped that Sister Evangelista would let her stay at the convent until the father’s replacement arrived. Sister had told Daisy to call into the convent after she had cleaned the Priory, but for now she would stop and have a cup of tea with Molly.
Daisy had a visitor. At last, someone she could talk to about all the things burning in her brain.
12
ALICE AND JOSEPH were on their way to Brigid and Sean’s house.
Brigid was sitting in front of the range with her youngest lying across her lap, about to have her nappy changed.
‘Hello, come in, come and sit down, and how’s our baby Joseph this morning?’ Brigid cheerfully greeted Alice. ‘Has the tooth come through that was giving him hell yesterday?’
‘Morning, Brigid, no, it hasn’t and I really wish it would. He hardly slept last night and his cheeks are burning up like mad,’ said Alice, lifting Joseph out of his pram.
‘Have ye any Disprin?’ Brigid asked Alice.
She didn’t look up as she deftly removed the pink-topped nappy pin from the white towelling nappy worn by her scrap of a red-headed daughter. Brigid was house-proud. The whiteness of her nappies, as they blew in the breeze, was a source of joy to her. She had seen too many grey nappies blowing on lines around her and had vowed that hers would always be the whitest in the entry.
As soon as the dust from a load at the docks blew up and across the four streets, she was the only mother to dash straight outside to pull her nappies off the line and dry them indoors.
‘No, I haven’t used anything, to be honest. Kathleen usually deals with most of this. I am really not sure what to do.’
‘Hang on, give me five minutes and I’ll get him one, I’ve plenty. I will just change this little madam’s nappy.’
Alice thought how much the red-headed baby reminded her of a skinned rabbit. The soaking wet nappy had filled the room with the heavy smell of ammonia.
To Alice’s horror, Brigid now folded the nappy over and wiped it across her own face, rubbing down the side of her nose before holding her hair back to wipe her forehead and under her chin. Then she rubbed it across her cheeks and over her closed eyes.
‘Oh, my giddy aunt,’ squealed Alice. ‘Why the hell did you just do that, with that stinking-wet nappy? The wee has been on that all night!’
Brigid laughed. ‘Exactly, and it’s all nicely concentrated. There’s a reason why we Liverpool girls have the best complexions in England, Alice. A wipe-over with the first wet nappy of the morning is the only beauty regime we need.’
‘What, you do that every morning?’ Alice found it difficult to hide her revulsion.
‘Alice, I have a brood of daughters and an endless supply of wet nappies. I have been doing it for years and so does every woman on the four streets and across the whole of
Liverpool. Sean tells me the sailors all say the same thing, that there are no women in the world with skin as soft as that of Liverpool women. They say the sailors are so captivated by it, they sing sad songs about Liverpool girls as they leave port, so they do, and happy ones when they sail back in.’
Alice had to admit it. The women who never seemed to wash, and smelt none too pleasant, always had lovely complexions.
Many of the women on the four streets had lost most of their teeth and those they retained were black and crumbling, but their skin remained beautiful. You could even tell that Annie O’Prey had once had nice skin.
‘Jeez, Alice, where have ye been living all of ye life?’ said Brigid, laughing.
With expert deftness, she picked up the baby and handed her straight to Alice, who was so shocked she almost dropped her. How did she explain to Brigid that she had never even held baby Joseph until he was three months old?
But Brigid hadn’t noticed and was still talking as she pulled back the curtain across her kitchen press to look for a Disprin.
Alice stood with the baby in her outstretched arms begging for her not to move or make a sound.
‘Was there anything else ye needed?’ said Brigid as she rooted around in her cupboard.
‘No, nothing, I just thought I would pop in to say hello and to say that we would love to come again to the club with you and Sean, if you are ever going on a Saturday night again.’
Alice didn’t take her eyes off the baby while she spoke.
‘Wasn’t it a grand night!’
‘It was, yes, we loved it and Angela was great about minding Joseph. Jerry gave her sixpence when we got back.’
‘God, I would have to pay someone a fortune to mind mine, so I would. We have so many, we have to wait until Sean’s mammy is here, but she isn’t going back for a few weeks so we can do it again. Will ye stay for a cuppa? Sure, go on, ye only have the one little fella to look after, ye have time.’
Alice was happy to stay for a while. She wanted to ask Brigid questions about Sean and their plans for America. Her golden opportunity came just as Sean’s mammy walked in the back door.
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