The Reverend Mother took out another envelope and wrote: The Manager; Cork Savings Bank; 97, South Mall; Cork City. And then she began her letter. This time she did not endeavour to establish a personal connection. The man was from Dublin. But she did ask for an interview to discuss the convent’s account and she knew that he was unlikely to refuse. Her sharp eye had noticed a chequebook from the Cork Savings Bank when Peter Doyle opened a drawer to put away Lucy’s cheque. It made sense, of course, that they banked there. A clerk from that bank, Mr James O’Reilly was, apparently, one of their operatic group. In any case, she thought, I do need to discuss the possibility of a tactful overdraft, without any crippling interest payments, of course.
When Dr Scher tapped on the door, she tucked the letter beneath many others. By the time that he came in, the pile of envelopes were neatly arranged in the new silver tray.
‘Where did you get that?’ Her words of greeting and remarks about the weather had passed over his head. He had noticed the silver tray. His eye went to it immediately.
‘In the antiques shop on Morrison’s Island; my cousin, Mrs Murphy, very kindly bought it for me as a feast-day present,’ she said demurely. ‘Perhaps I’d better hide it when the bishop comes to call. It has an expensive look, doesn’t it?’
‘Very expensive, very rare, if it is what I think it is. Surely, it is a piece of Cork Silver. Queen Anne, I would say.’ He took the pile of letters, deposited them untidily on the desk and brought the tray to the window.
‘Pity about the missing handle,’ he said when he brought it back.
She took it from him firmly. ‘On the contrary, Dr Scher, the missing handle is of vital importance,’ she said, putting the tray back onto her desk and re-arranging the stamped letters with meticulous care. Now that Dr Scher was here, she was uncertain how to lead up to the matter on her mind.
‘Tell me about the weapon used to kill Father Dominic,’ she said.
‘Not your missing handle,’ he retorted. He was looking at her in a slightly puzzled fashion.
‘No, of course, not,’ she said placidly, tucking her hands into her sleeves and waiting patiently.
He gave one more glance at the silver tray but then turned his attention back to her.
‘Patrick and I keep talking about that,’ he said. ‘I thought that it might be something like a very fine, thin stiletto, but Patrick wasn’t keen on that idea. It could be, but I told you about that, a sharpened knitting needle, but somehow, unless it was very expertly done, I just don’t think that was it. It wouldn’t be fine enough. The entry wound was very small; no sign of force or anything like that. Something very smooth, not rough in any way. Whatever killed him, it just slid in and punctured the brain.’
He eyed her carefully and although she was sure that she had allowed no sign of distress to escape, he said unexpectedly, ‘You may be consoled to know that I don’t think he suffered. Death would have been instantaneous.’
‘He knew that it was coming, though,’ she said. ‘I could tell that by the expression on his face. I think that he recognized his assailant – was surprised. I told you that and I am sure of it.’
Dr Scher made a half-gesture, a slight pursing of the lips, a movement of the hands, but said nothing.
‘I know what you are going to say, or what you would say if I were one of your students at the university,’ she said. ‘You would have a lot of long Latin medical terms, but I knew Dominic, knew his expressions and I do think that he recognized the person and feared his ending.’
And then, when he still said nothing, she added, ‘And, I think that may tell us something valuable, that he was astonished to see that person coming to confess and that he feared they were a danger to him.’
‘Or else that he saw something in their hand.’
‘That is very possible,’ she admitted. ‘I thought of something today. My cousin was joking with me today when she was buying me the present. I looked at a mirror, a gilt wood mirror, and she said “nuns don’t need mirrors”.’
‘And you replied?’ He looked puzzled.
‘I replied that of course nuns need mirrors, or how could they pin their veil to the wimple.’ The Reverend Mother got to her feet, went across the room and took something from a drawer. He was looking even more puzzled when she returned, both hands hidden in the wide sleeves of her habit.
‘This is one of the pins that we use to fasten the veil to the wimple and to pin the wimple itself. The convent has a lot of these pins.’
‘May I handle it?’ he asked respectfully.
The Reverend Mother suppressed a smile. ‘There is nothing particularly sacred about a pin, Dr Scher. Women use them to pin on their hats. We may have slightly larger ones.’
‘About nine inches long,’ said Dr Scher, picking up the pin and examining it.
‘Yes, there are several layers of material to be caught and pinned into place so we buy the largest size.’ She could see a question on his lips and decided to wait for it. Her mind was still slightly unsure as to the next step to be taken. Dr Scher, she thought would normally have joked about her murderous capabilities, but he was a sensitive man and knew that her sorrow over Dominic’s death was very real.
‘Well, I can tell you that this is a very possible weapon, in fact it fits my memory of the wound very well. Something like this would slide in through the ear with no tearing of the skin. A pinprick, we say, don’t we? Patrick will be interested to see this.’
‘He’ll soon be here.’ The Reverend Mother glanced at the clock. ‘That sounds like him now. I’ve just heard the doorbell. I had not thought that he would come as late as this. He’ll be in soon, once he has seen Sister Mary Immaculate.’
‘I would take a bet on it that he was still working up to now. There are so many witnesses’ statements to be gone through. The police take everything down in shorthand and then transcribe the whole thing. People can get very chatty out of nervousness,’ said Dr Scher. Meditatively, he inserted the tip of the hat pin into his ear, but then put it down and began busily scrubbing at the damp pane of the window with his handkerchief. ‘Terribly unhealthy place this city,’ he added. ‘No wonder that people are dying of TB and of bronchial pneumonia all over the place. Moulds form at the sides of these damp windows even in the best cared for houses. I’d have cured most of my patients if I could have prescribed a dry, cold winter and some nice sun through the summer.’
He was talking, thought the Reverend Mother, to give her a chance to recover herself and she appreciated his kindness. She, had, she guessed, gone pale when he had put her hat pin in his ear. When Sister Bernadette ushered in Inspector Cashman, they were both sitting in silence. By this stage, the Reverend Mother had made up her mind.
‘Thank you, sister,’ she said gravely, interrupting Sister Bernadette’s hospitable offers of fresh tea and cake, ‘I think that we are still quite well supplied.’
Patrick sat down, shaking his head as Dr Scher lifted the teapot in an enquiring fashion. He looked tired and discouraged, thought the Reverend Mother. She didn’t suppose that Sister Mary Immaculate had enlightened him about anything much. She had been declaring to all that she had nothing to say. Like a good penitent her eyes had been shut throughout the short time that she spent in the cubicle. She glanced at the clock. Half past seven. A late hour for him to be still working on a Saturday, she thought. The city was burning with indignation at the murder of one of its favourite priests, the saintly Father Dominic. The Saturday Evening Echo had compensated for the lack of new progress to be reported in the Monday morning’s Cork Examiner and had speculated freely on the possible involvement of paramilitary organizations, such as the Irish Republican Army, or the Anti-Sinn Féin Society. Everyone who had visited Father Dominic’s confessional stall had been urged to contact the Civic Guards instantly if they had not already done so and there was an open invitation to the citizens to speculate on what might have happened.
‘How are things going, Patrick?’ she asked and he gave a wea
ry sigh.
‘We’ve had lots of statements, Reverend Mother, but of course, it is impossible to know how many people went to confess to Father Dominic.’
‘No time limit on those outpourings?’ asked Dr Scher.
Patrick gave a reluctant smile. ‘That’s part of the problem. If things seem to be slowing up, people go off to another stall. I’ve done it myself. You see it all the time. One poor soul with a lot on their mind can occupy the cubicle for anything up to half an hour. The person on the other side might get tired, go out, another one pop in, taking his place and this can go on for a long time. That’s what seems to have happened.’
‘Have you had many witnesses, Patrick,’ she asked.
‘Not too many, yesterday morning, but the Evening Echo came out earlier than usual yesterday afternoon. I’d say that they rushed it out. Had a big photograph of Father Dominic on the first page and an appeal for help about those who were present at the Novena, and especially from those who either went to confession to Father Dominic, or who tried to go. We’ve had queues at the barracks since then. And all of today. I’ve only just finished up. One man had something interesting to say.’
‘Have some cake if you don’t want tea. Sugar will give you energy,’ said Dr Scher hospitably. He cut a generous slice and put the plate down beside Patrick. ‘Interesting?’ he queried.
‘That’s right.’ Patrick had a bigger notebook in an inner pocket of his jacket and now took it out. It had a meticulous drawing of the confessional stall, neatly executed in ink and pencilled numbers on either side. ‘Number twelve L,’ he said and then, almost apologetically he continued, ‘he had a tale to tell of being on the right-hand side and then he made way to allow a pregnant woman to go ahead of him and then the woman at the top of the left-hand queue insisted that he go ahead of her.’
‘Cork politeness,’ said Dr Scher with a grin. ‘And was the good father alive when he went in.’
‘Yes, and in good form. That’s the only question that I ask, you understand,’ said Patrick hastily and with an embarrassed look at the Reverend Mother. ‘But the most interesting bit was that when he came out, he saw a woman in a huge shawl, that covered her from head to toe, going into the right-hand cubicle. This woman hasn’t come forward, but someone else remembered her and another witness remarked that the woman in the shawl must have been a respectable woman because she didn’t smell.’
‘Didn’t smell,’ repeated the Reverend Mother thoughtfully.
‘I like your drawing’ said Dr Scher, examining the notebook. ‘You’re a bit of an artist on the quiet, young Patrick, aren’t you?’
‘It reminds me of those drawings of cranes that you used to do when you were a boy.’ The Reverend Mother spoke absent-mindedly. ‘And number 12 R, the person who went into the right-hand cubicle, after the woman in the large shawl?’
‘Number 12 R was a small boy, eight years old. He went in, stayed only minutes, then came out, and according to his mother, he burst into tears and said …’ Patrick flipped open another page of his notebook and read out: ‘The child was still upset, but his mother related that his words at the time were: “He wouldn’t speak to me,”.’
‘She is correct,’ said the Reverend Mother gravely. ‘I heard the words from the child myself. I began to worry then.’
‘And after the child …?’ Dr Scher looked from one to the other.
‘The next person, number 13 R, related that the priest’s head was turned away from her and she thought he had just forgotten to close that shutter and so she went out again very quickly. And she waited for some time, but there didn’t seem to be any movement in the queues on either side and so she went further up the church. That happened with quite a few people. Though it appeared that no one else went into the right-hand cubicle.’
‘That’s odd,’ said Dr Scher.
‘Not really,’ said Patrick. ‘People wait until someone comes out and then they go in. If no one was coming out of the right-hand cubicle, then no one would go in. That’s the way that it works, Dr Scher. Number 13 R said that she told the next person that the shutter was open and the priest must have forgotten to close it and that person left also and went with her friend to another confessor, further up in the church.’
‘More Cork politeness,’ said Dr Scher.
‘We’re a very religious and polite people,’ said Patrick, taking the proffered slice of cake.
They were talking to cover her silence, but she felt unable to join in the banter. She saw Patrick steal a glance at her and then, unlike his usually taciturn self, he started to talk to Dr Scher about how he used to go down the quays and count all the metal struts on the unloading crane so that he could make his drawing more accurate. And then he ran out of anecdotes and looked at her enquiringly.
‘There is something else, Patrick, that I need to tell you about,’ she said. ‘Dr Scher may have reported to you that he saw Father Dominic in the Morrison’s Island Antiques Shop and that he was looking distressed?’
‘That’s right, a ceramic, was that it, Dr Scher?’
‘A Japanese Arita hawk,’ said Dr Scher.
‘Whatever that is,’ said Patrick with a smile.
‘A hawk made of a particular clay and then hardened; in other words, porcelain,’ said the Reverend Mother with precision. ‘I was intrigued by this, especially as I had a memory of a Japanese Arita hawk from a house, from Shanbally House, where I stayed in my young days.’ She paused for a moment and then said quietly, ‘I have a memory of Father Dominic and his brother, the present prior, staying there in Shanbally House, also.’
‘It burned down last year, didn’t it?’ Patrick’s face was full of interest. ‘But I thought that everything in it was destroyed. It burned to the ground, roof, windows, everything. Just a shell left.’
‘Wasn’t it burned down by the IRA?’ asked Dr Scher.
‘Possibly,’ said the Reverend Mother cautiously and then turned back to Patrick.
‘I talked with my cousin, who shared my youth; we were brought up together. She wished,’ said the Reverend Mother demurely, ‘to buy me a feast-day present. We went to Morrison’s Island Antique Shop where she bought me a silver tray.’
‘Missing one handle,’ put in Dr Scher.
Patrick was beginning to guess what might come next.
‘Missing one handle,’ she agreed. ‘And that missing handle is significant. Both of us, my cousin and I, remembered a silver tray with a missing handle on the hall table at Shanbally House. It was used, when I was young, to hold gloves and riding whips and I think that it went on being so used later on. And while we were there, we saw other familiar objects. Not the single Arita hawk, which Father Dominic had been examining. That had been removed, probably after his query. As Dr Scher will tell you, they mostly are a pair. The one in the antiques shop was a single hawk, but my cousin, who went on visiting Shanbally House after I joined the convent here, remembered that one hawk was broken when one of the Wood family boys threw a tennis ball at his brother’s head and hit the hawk instead.’ She suppressed a smile at the look of pain on Dr Scher’s face and went on to explain about the chip from the beak and about the missing handle from the oblong silver tray. ‘And there was also a gilt-edged mirror which both of us remembered from Shanbally House,’ she finished.
‘So there may be a connection,’ mused Patrick. ‘I must visit the shop again. We had a reported sighting of Peter Doyle in the church before the Novena began. I thought that it was odd, though my informant seemed trustworthy and he would have known the man well. There’s no doubt about that. I was surprised, but I interviewed him because of that as well as because of what Dr Scher noticed. I thought it was strange, but Mr Doyle was adamant that he had not been inside the church. He seemed to be genuinely surprised, I thought at the time. But now I have two strange things. A Protestant in a Catholic church and a friar in an antiques shop.’ He seemed to be thinking hard.
‘Well, thank you, Reverend Mother,’ he said after a moment. He s
eemed to hesitate and she was quick to respond.
‘Thank you for coming, Patrick,’ she said gravely.
‘Shanbally House?’ he said slowly. ‘Surely, the IRA was supposed to be responsible for burning it down. But why then were some artefacts from the house in that antiques shop? The IRA were accused of many things, but looting was not one of their crimes. Discipline is very strictly enforced; everyone knows that.’ He rose to his feet. He did not, she noticed, appear to want an answer to his question. ‘Now I had better get back to the barracks, and so I will wish you both a good evening,’ he said and she let him go without the formality of ringing a bell. It looked as though he were thinking hard and did not want any interruption to his thoughts.
SEVEN
St Thomas Aquinas:
‘Religionis status ordinatur ad perfectionem caritatis, quae se extendit ad dilectionem Dei et proximi.’
(The religious state is directed to the perfection of charity, which extends to the love of God and of those who are near to us.)
When Sister Bernadette, wreathed in smiles, came in to announce that Mrs Murphy was on the phone, the Reverend Mother jumped thankfully to her feet, glad of the opportunity to escape from the dismal company of Sister Mary Immaculate who had not been feeling well all day, complaining of a bad headache that she had been suffering for days. On a Sunday, in the afternoon, most of the nuns, the professed sisters and the lay sisters, had visitors or were on outings with friends and relations. Sister Mary Immaculate, however, had no visitors and with the air of a martyr, had declared her intention of bearing the Reverend Mother company. She had ensconced herself beside the empty fireplace and sat there, propping her head on her hand, and from time to time sighing heavily. The Reverend Mother, busily sorting through various bills, placing them in two piles, ‘urgent’ and ‘can wait’, did her best to control her irritation.
Beyond Absolution Page 9
