Beyond Absolution

by Cora Harrison

  Very clear, very concise, that statement. A clever fellow, no doubt. Somehow, thought Patrick as he scanned what he had written, I don’t see him coming over here to Morrison’s Island, with a girlfriend on the back of his bike and assassinating a man, sticking around, sending for the police and waiting for them to arrive. It didn’t make sense. He took a quick glance downwards at the body and the white card, very visible by the light of the sergeant’s lamp.

  ‘Perhaps you could sign this and then print under it the words: “Found the body just after midnight”.’

  ‘I didn’t write that card, you know,’ said Eamonn, showing that he had seen through Patrick’s trick, but he signed his name with a flourish and then printed the words. He did not appear to take much trouble over the word ‘found’ or indeed over any of the other words.

  ‘And an address, please.’

  ‘I’m staying with Mrs MacSweeney, Eileen’s mother, on Barrack Street, not sure of the number,’ said Eamonn defiantly.

  More likely out in some IRA safe house in west Cork, thought Patrick, but he had other things of more importance to see to, so he allowed the address.

  ‘Thank you, both of you, you may leave now,’ he said formally. A quick glance had been enough to see that Eamonn’s handwriting was quite different. He had scrawled the words at top speed and had not even glanced at the card while doing so. Patrick dismissed the pair from his mind. The sergeant would see that they went off.

  Now he had to tackle the jolly crowd inside the antiques shop. He waited until the motorbike revved up and went off in the direction of the quays before he walked over to the door to the antiques shop. It was unlocked and the decorative brass knob yielded to his hand.

  And then his way was blocked by a large man.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’

  ‘Inspector Patrick Cashman, sir. It’s Mr Robert Beamish, isn’t it?’ It was easy to recognize this man. His photograph was in the newspaper often enough. There were high hopes of him putting Cork on the map by winning a gold medal for rowing at the Olympics.

  ‘That’s right. Want something?’ The voice was offensive, but the man was probably drunk. There were a lot of empty bottles on a tray on the counter next to the cash machine.

  Patrick ignored him. He walked forward. ‘Could everybody sit down, if you don’t mind? I think it would be best. Sergeant, bring some chairs. Yes, Miss Gamble, will you and the other two ladies sit on that couch, please.’ He waited calmly until they were all sitting down. They seemed to be completely at ease, amused, perhaps. There had been a certain amount of talk about people, who had too much to drink, driving noisily through the streets of the city. Letters had been written to the Cork Examiner, saying that the police should be doing something about it. Perhaps they thought that was why he arrived after midnight. He looked around. Perhaps if I could take everyone’s name and address,’ he said briskly. ‘Miss Gamble, could I start with you?’ He caught the eye of James O’Reilly. The man looked quite happy, sharing a low-voiced joke with Robert Beamish. The bank manager’s words came back to him. I’m worried about that young man.

  They were all there and seemed quite content, if a little puzzled, to give their names and addresses. The three women. Marjorie Gamble, the headmistress, Anne Morgan, the teacher and Rose O’Reilly, James’s pretty young wife. And then there were the men. Robert Beamish and James O’Reilly, Jonathon Power, the Englishman and Tom Gamble, the barrister. Tom was the first to notice that someone was missing.

  ‘Hello! Where’s Peter?’ he asked.

  ‘Went to the back to get some wine,’ said Robert Beamish. ‘I’ll go and get him and tell him that the Bull is here.’ He was on his feet in a moment, and made his way to the back of the shop, shouting, ‘Where are you, Peter, old fellow? The Bull is here. What have you been up to? Come on, out you come and keep your hands above your head!’

  Very funny, thought Patrick and kept his eye on the faces in front of him. None of them showed even a flicker of anxiety. Patrick nodded at the sergeant to join the search and waited in silence while the heavy footsteps sounded. These buildings did not go back too far, about forty to fifty feet wide, he reckoned. Robert Beamish was taking a long time over the search.

  ‘No sign of him. Had a bit of trouble with the gas. Dark as hell back there.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s upstairs.’ Jonathon now showed a trace of anxiety, but surely, that was natural. Patrick allowed him to run up the stairs, and the sergeant followed like a well-trained dog. Still no sign of anything other than puzzlement on the faces and not even much of that.

  ‘Perhaps he went out,’ suggested Patrick quietly when Jonathon returned. He watched their faces keenly. They seemed puzzled, but not concerned.

  ‘That’s impossible, inspector,’ said Marjorie Gamble. ‘We’ve all been here, standing around, having a glass of wine after the show, just as you found us. Peter went off to get another bottle of wine – it was probably about ten minutes ago. It’s impossible that he came back without anyone noticing and even more impossible that he left the building. There’s only one door, only one way out of this building. It’s only the other day that I told Peter that he should really get an outside staircase built from one of the windows upstairs. The place would be a terrible deathtrap if there were a fire on the ground floor. He must be somewhere,’ she finished. She sounded impatient, but not particularly worried.

  ‘He is,’ said Patrick bluntly. He looked around at all of the faces. The light was good here. An old chandelier converted to gas hung right overhead and the clear, white beam illuminated the group. Each of the seven faces turned towards him was showing a mixture of concern, exasperation and incredulity.

  ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you that Mr Peter Doyle has been found dead in a warehouse across the road from here.’

  ‘What!’ Miss Gamble was on her feet. ‘There must be some mistake, inspector. Peter is here, somewhere in this building.’ She looked with some exasperation down at the young teacher, Anne Morgan, who had suddenly begun to sob. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Anne,’ she said harshly. ‘This is nonsense. We all know that Peter is still in the building. Let me look.’

  Patrick allowed her to go. His eyes were on James O’Reilly. The man was very white. He looked even more upset than Jonathon Power did. And yet Jonathon and the dead man had been friends before they ever came to Cork. He remembered a piece in the Cork Examiner about them when the shop had first opened. Had been in school together, he seemed to remember. Both of Irish origin, they said, and were curious to see the land of their ancestors. Some sort of story like that. Now Jonathon seemed to be thinking hard.

  ‘Are you certain that it is Peter, inspector,’ he said.

  ‘Certain,’ said Patrick. ‘The people who found the body identified him and I knew him instantly. You may remember that I was in your shop a few days ago. It would be good, though, if you would kindly pop along to the barracks tomorrow morning and make a formal identification. Not tonight, I think.’ He purposely nodded in the directions of the empty wine bottles and Jonathon gave a wry smile.

  ‘Well, perhaps not, inspector. Don’t worry. We have hard heads. I was just saying to Robert that we would go for a walk by the river before driving home.’

  ‘There’s no sign of him.’ Miss Gamble was back, her face quite pale now.

  ‘He’s been identified by those who found the body,’ said Jonathon. ‘And the inspector met him here a few days ago.’

  ‘I don’t want to delay you in getting home,’ said Patrick. ‘I think that if we have a joint statement from you all. Perhaps …’ he looked from Jonathon to Miss Gamble.

  ‘You do it, Marjorie,’ said Jonathon. ‘You will be better at that sort of thing.’

  Marjorie Gamble’s statement was very clear. They had come to the shop, as they usually did after a show, they would have a glass or two of wine, discuss the evening and then go home. As far as she could remember Peter had left them about a quarter of an hour ago, he had gone to the storage room
s at the back of the shop to choose another bottle of wine – and there were nodding heads when she said that. Jonathon had asked Robert to help him to carry down a table that he had been working on upstairs. Miss Morgan had gone to the bathroom – Anne Morgan nodded at that – and Rose O’Reilly had gone to look at one of the newly cleaned pictures. James O’Reilly went with Tom – my brother, inspector – to check on some bank statements that Peter couldn’t understand – and Marjorie Gamble, herself, had taken off the glasses to be washed, as Peter didn’t like putting red wine into glasses that had held white wine previously.

  ‘So it is possible that Mr Doyle might have slipped through while you were all busy.’ Patrick held his indelible pencil poised for a second and watched the faces.

  ‘I suppose it might be possible now that you say it,’ admitted Marjorie Gamble reluctantly. ‘He might have wanted some fresh air.’

  ‘Anybody else anything to add to Miss Gamble’s statement?’ Patrick allowed his eyes to rest for a few moments on each face. All were shaking their heads. They wanted to finish with the matter and to talk it over with each other. He wondered whether to demand the key and lock up the warehouse, but he didn’t think that he could do that. After all, the murder had not occurred there, but in the derelict place across the road. He read his statement aloud and then laid the notebook on the counter. There was a pen there and a bottle of ink, black and indelible, he noticed with interest. He opened the bottle, dipped the pen in it and said, ‘Now could everyone print their name and address beneath the statement.’ Surely, there would be enough letters in every name and address to compare with the printing on the card. He had a strong intuition that this was not an IRA killing.

  ‘I’ll leave you to the sergeant,’ he said. This would give him a good excuse to wander over the premises. He would have to check that there was no possible exit from the warehouse.

  The whole affair was very puzzling, he thought as he made his way towards the back rooms. A glance was enough to show him that there was no chance of anyone leaving the premises from the small windowless room where the wine bottles were stored in racks. There was a small cloakroom with lavatory bowl and hand basin next door. That had a tiny window cut in the wall, not much bigger than a hand span in size. Must be the end-of-terrace wall. He came back out and looked around, getting his bearings. There was another small window, not quite so small, in that same end-of-terrace wall. It still didn’t look big enough to get out of and it had a diamond patterned metal screen over it and a silver candlestick, complete with a cream-coloured candle standing in front of the screen. Patrick reached up and touched the screen. Carefully screwed to the wall, he noticed, before he ran upstairs, noting the open-tread staircase that was fastened to the blank wall. When he got to the top of the stairs, he looked around. Just one enormous room with a high ceiling. Large windows here, but nobody could get out of them. They were a good twenty feet above the roadway. Everything was wide open and could be seen from downstairs. There was no doubt now in his mind that Peter Doyle must have slipped out of the front door while nobody was looking.

  But it did seem impossible that two people might have left, unseen, through that front door and that only one came back.

  Unless, he thought, that they are all in it. Unless they made a pact to lie.

  He came back down. By now, all the names and addresses had been printed onto his notebook. He was right about the ink. Thick, jet black ink. He had left the card on the body, but tomorrow he could compare the two. Something occurred to him then and he went back up the stairs and stopped in front of a picture. It had a card under it giving the name of the artist and the date when it was painted. He reached out and touched it. Not too dissimilar, he thought and came back down.

  ‘Who does the lettering on the cards?’

  ‘I do.’ Jonathon Power had a puzzled look on his face.

  ‘And where do you keep the cards?’

  ‘Here.’ Jonathon produced a bundle from under the counter.

  ‘I may keep one?’

  ‘Yes, certainly, inspector.’ The man was even more uneasy.

  ‘Just one more question, sir. Who would own this business after the death of Peter Doyle?’

  There was a very long pause this time. The man had gone pale. After a few more moments, Miss Marjorie Gamble intervened. ‘Don’t look so worried, Jonathon. The inspector is not accusing you of murder. He just wants to get the facts so it is quite all right to tell him. You are a partner, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I s … s … suppose so.’ He stammered a little over the words.

  ‘Well, I’ll let you all go home now. You must be tired. And you’ll pop into the barracks tomorrow morning, Mr Power, will you, and make a formal identification of the body. As early as you please. The barracks will be open. Just tell the man on duty that I sent you, if I’m not in when you come.’ Something more should be said, thought Patrick. Wishing them a good night or a pleasant end to their evening seemed a little strange after telling them that a close friend had been killed. He contented himself with a brief nod to the sergeant to open the door.

  ‘You have a quick look around,’ he said the sergeant. ‘I’m going across the road to have another check and then young Conor can get off home.’

  It was only when he was standing in the derelict warehouse, across the road from the antiques shop, that he suddenly thought of what Miss Gamble had said. Her brother Tom and James O’Reilly had been checking through bank statements. Why? What had Tom Gamble to do with bank statements? James O’Reilly might be of help with technical problems, but surely, a bank statement was a bank statement, a simple account of sums deposited and sums withdrawn.

  I’m worried about that young man. Those words kept recurring in his mind.

  A young man who lived in a style well beyond his income, who looked ill, who had a strange glitter in his eyes.

  And then there was that Tom Gamble. Another man who spent heavily, perhaps. He seemed almost to live in the Imperial Hotel. Patrick reflected that he had seldom passed the place or had gone in there without seeing Tom Gamble, at all hours of the day as well as at night. And Robert Beamish. The family had money, probably were happy to spend on tuition, trainers, on expensive boats, but he, too, lived a very high life. There were lots of young Beamishes. Would the family generosity maintain all of them in that style, or did Robert Beamish have some other source of income?

  All in all, he thought wearily, he had his suspicions about that crowd. In all probability the Reverend Mother was correct: they were behind many of the burnings down of the big houses. But he could not see why on earth any one of them would have murdered Peter Doyle, who was probably the man who masterminded the operation.

  Except perhaps the quietly spoken Jonathon Power. If he were a partner, then he would now inherit the business. And that seemed to be doing very well.

  TWELVE

  Civic Guard Handbook:

  ‘The Civic Guards are directly controlled by, and accountable to, central government.’

  ‘So, it was the Shinners that killed the fellow,’ said the superintendent when Patrick put his head around his superior’s door on Tuesday morning. ‘You’ve had a night of it, haven’t you? Pity you didn’t think to detain the two who found the body; I know that name, Eileen MacSweeney. She’s been in trouble before and the fellow that she was with, he was one of them, as well, I’d guess. I’d have thrown them in a cell for a few hours and got something out of them. You’ve seen this, of course, pinned to the man’s chest, I understand. What do you think? The Shinners without doubt, is what I’d say. To give them their due, they try to make life easy for us. Love to lay claim to their crimes.’ He took a piece of card from the top of his letter tray and handed it over to Patrick.

  ‘Yes’ I’ve seen it. “Found guilty of the murder of Father Dominic and executed by order of the Irish Republican Army.” Could be the Republicans, I suppose,’ said Patrick. He held no brief for the rebellious Sinn Féin, but the nickname, ‘Shinners’,
grated on him. ‘Seems a bit odd, though, doesn’t it, superintendent?’ he went on. ‘How did they know that Peter Doyle killed Father Dominic? We don’t know that ourselves. It seems unlikely. Why should he?’

  ‘Well, I put that very question to Dr Scher when he brought the card in before he started on the autopsy. He had some story about seeing Father Dominic looking upset about a ceramic bird of some sort when he was in Peter Doyle’s shop. Perhaps Doyle stole something belonging to the priest and when he was challenged, he killed the good man. Let me have your report on last night when you have the time.’ The superintendent returned to his work on the wages sheet and Patrick retreated. The superintendent was a Protestant, a leftover from the former police force, the Royal Irish Constabulary, and as such did not perhaps know that Capuchin priests were not allowed to possess any goods.

  ‘Let me know when Dr Scher has finished the autopsy, Tommy,’ Patrick said as he passed the sergeant on the desk. ‘Tell him I’d like to have a word when he’s free. Trouble you for five minutes, Joe,’ Patrick continued as he leaned into the open door of the office where his sergeant was sitting. Sergeant Joe Duggan was on his feet in an instant, notebook in hand. He followed Patrick into the inspector’s office and took a seat on the other side of the desk.

  ‘Well, another body,’ said Patrick with exasperation, ‘and, for the life of me, I can’t see any possible connection between a Capuchin friar and an Englishman who owned an antiques shop, though, apparently Dr Scher saw Father Dominic in the shop on the day before he was murdered.’

  ‘The superintendent thinks …’ Joe gave a hasty glance at Patrick’s face and then stopped.