Beyond Absolution

by Cora Harrison

  Quietly, Eileen replaced the brown paper package back within her handbag. The Reverend Mother still stared through the window and Eileen did not know what to say. Eventually she cleared her throat.

  ‘Has the story about the underground passageways anything to do with the attempt to murder Patrick?’ she asked. She could not trust her voice to pronounce Jimmy’s name.

  ‘You’re a clever girl, Eileen,’ said the Reverend Mother turning around. ‘Yes, we must concentrate on that. No more lives must be put in danger. There must be no more deaths. It appears that the superintendent has taken over the case.’ There was a bleak note in her voice. And then, after a minute, she said with an effort at briskness, ‘Jimmy could swim, you know. One of the older girls told me when I asked for prayers for him. He and his cousins used to swim off Morrison’s Island.’

  ‘And his mother?’ Eileen made the query timidly.

  ‘Is in Liverpool, apparently. I never knew. He didn’t want me to know in case he couldn’t keep coming here to this school, but he’s been dossing down in Morrison’s Island, according to my informant.’

  ‘I see. Well, he may have gone there. He would have been frightened if he saw the car. If he could swim, he might have gone down river a little and got out on the quay.’

  ‘There is another possibility,’ said the Reverend Mother. A little colour came back into her cheeks. ‘Jimmy told me that Robert Beamish has a place for his boat, just at the height of the river, on St Matthew’s Quay, not far from the bridge. It leads back to Jimmy’s underground passageway. It seems almost too much to hope for, but I pray that he might have found safety. He would, of course, be very scared if he thinks that a car deliberately hit him. He’s a sharp little lad. He may well have seen who was driving that car. He may be hiding in that underground passageway. But, if so, well, he is in grave danger.’

  ‘I’ll go and look for him.’

  ‘Yes, do,’ said the Reverend Mother, ‘but before you go, Eileen, there is something that I want to ask you. It’s about confession. What do you think about confession?’

  ‘Confession?’ Eileen felt alarmed. She had not been to confession for years. The Bishop of Cork had issued an edict against the Republican activists in 1920, banning them from the sacraments and few that she knew had ever returned to the church despite the efforts of certain priests like Father Dominic.

  ‘I was wondering about your feelings when you were here at school. I used to notice that none of the older girls went to confess to the convent chaplain.’

  Eileen giggled a little at the memory. ‘People used to pretend that he would tell everything to Sister Mary Immaculate as they were such great friends,’ she confessed. ‘But no one really believed that. That was when we were little. We knew really that no priest would ever break the sacred seal of confession. I think it was just that we felt more grown up going to confession in the town and it was a good excuse to get out and go around the shops,’ she added in an embarrassed fashion.

  ‘I see,’ said the Reverend Mother. ‘That’s interesting. Telling secrets is a human frailty so it would not be surprising if priests could be suspected of human frailties and yet, somehow no Catholic, no adult, does ever fear that will happen.’ She seemed to brooding about something and Eileen looked at her with curiosity.

  ‘You’re thinking of the murder of Father Dominic, Reverend Mother, aren’t you?’

  The Reverend Mother sighed. ‘It’s amazing how stupid I’ve been,’ she said. ‘To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, “Ireland is a country divided by their belief in a common Deity.” The one half believes that the other half must understand. But, of course, they don’t really comprehend the secret rules and understandings, the rituals, the set procedures. So when you think back to the murder of Father Dominic, and the consequential murder of Peter Doyle, well, in the end, the answer is quite simple. It couldn’t be otherwise.’

  Sounds very cryptic, thought Eileen, but she did not feel that she could ask the Reverend Mother to explain herself. She sat very quietly, turning over matters in her mind.

  ‘The key to the secret is confession; that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?’ she hazarded after a minute. ‘A fear …’ She considered the people whose lives had become entwined with hers during the last few weeks, considered the Protestants and the Catholics – two people divided by their belief in a common God or Deity, as the Reverend Mother had put it. ‘Someone went to confession,’ she went on. She was beginning to understand. ‘They went to confession. And there was another person who went, not to confess, but in consequence of that confession.’

  ‘And this person was armed with a hat pin,’ said the Reverend Mother. She brooded for a moment and then added, ‘And knowledge.’

  ‘Knowledge?’ Eileen had no sooner uttered the query when the solution came to her. Of course, she thought. Knowledge had been needed.

  ‘They say that confession is good for the soul,’ said the Reverend Mother meditatively, ‘but, of course, as you so rightly say, it can bring a fear of betrayal. And, of course, betrayal could affect others as well as the sinner.’

  Eileen thought back to that night when she sorted the roses and the pins for the wigs in the costume cupboard of the Father Matthew Hall. She had heard a secret then.

  ‘A secret shared …’ she said aloud.

  The Reverend Mother bowed her head. ‘Yes, it can bring re lief, but can leave fear in its wake,’ she said. ‘Fear for oneself, or for someone else. And fear can provoke violence, or even death.’

  Eileen jumped to her feet. ‘I’d better go,’ she said urgently. ‘I think that I should go now. I must find Jimmy. If he saw something he will be in danger. I will come back, Reverend Mother. One way or other I will come back.’

  Standing inside the gate of the convent was a delivery boy’s bicycle, labelled ‘Murphy’s Poultry’ on a broad metal strip, attached to its cross bar. Eileen grabbed the handlebars, wheeled it through the gate and, blessing her very short skirt, threw her leg over the crossbar and began to cycle as fast as she could, her cropped hair clinging to her head like a black helmet as she sped through the streets. She would risk the flooding on North Main Street and approach the South Mall from the Grand Parade, she decided, as her legs flew around, pushing the pedals as hard as she could. And from the South Mall, she could enter Morrison’s Island. She had a car in mind and she kept a sharp look-out for it. It shouldn’t be too hard to find the one that she wanted if she scrutinized every driver that she met. After all, the majority of cars were driven by men.

  NINETEEN

  St Thomas Aquinas:

  ‘Medicus autem abscindit membrum putridum bene et utiliter, si per ipsum immineat corruptio corporis. Iuste igitur et absque peccato rector civitatis homines pestiferos occidit, ne pax civitatis turbetur.’

  (Nevertheless, a physician quite properly and beneficially cuts off a diseased organ if the corruption of the body is threatened because of it. Therefore, justly and without sin, the ruler of a state executes dangerous men in order that the peace of the state may not be disrupted.)

  The Reverend Mother took a sheet of quarto paper from her desk. Meditatively and with slow deliberation she wrote a series of numbers down her margin and then dipped her steel pen again into the inkwell. Now she wrote quickly and without pause. By the time that she had finished there were ten neatly written questions filling the page.

  She read the list through, twice, and then put it down. She knew the answer to every one of those questions.

  But now what would she do?

  If only there was a way of making sure that this person did not kill again, she thought. A cornered rat is very dangerous. Little Jimmy had told her that. A rat, of course, had only his teeth. But a person could make use of all sorts of weapons. She thought of Jimmy for a moment. Even if he had escaped the river – and Eileen had given her hope for that – even if he were still alive, he was now in deadly danger. Already there had been two murders and an attempt at two more on this very day. Wou
ld more people lose their lives because of her hesitation? She rose to her feet. The telephone was only a three-minute walk from her room. She would ask for the police barracks, request politely a visit from the superintendent on an urgent matter. Tell him what she knew, what she had guessed.

  And then the matter would be out of her hands.

  She stood very still. Steadily she forced herself to contemplate a gibbet. A human being hanging from it. Deliberately she pictured the person in her mind and deliberately she tried to imagine the terror, the anguish, the physical torture, the wild despair, the agony of the nearest and dearest. And that last, final strangulation. She took a long moment over that. Could she do it? What if she were wrong? Only God is infallible, she reminded herself. Why not leave it in the hands of the superintendent. He would undoubtedly assign the guilt to the Sinn Féin.

  But what if there were another murder? What about Jimmy and Eileen? And Patrick? Or even Dr Scher? Or even perhaps one of the friars from the church?

  She could wait until Eileen returned, she could wait to make sure that Jimmy was safe. And then she would keep him safe. Sister Bernadette would find him a bed within the convent and she would forbid him to leave the premises.

  But safe for how long?

  Would someone who killed the gentle priest, Father Dominic, hesitate to kill a little boy from the slums?

  She thought not.

  Restlessly she paced up and down, and looked at the clock. She had mechanically dealt with Eileen’s theft of the messenger boy’s bicycle. Murphy the Poultry Merchant had been telephoned. No doubt Sister Bernadette had poured out apologies, sympathy and reassurances, the messenger boy had been given a meal in the kitchen. Now the Reverend Mother tried to calculate how quickly a bicycle ridden by a determined young lady in a short skirt would take to reach Morrison’s Island. Perhaps she should wait a little while longer. The appearance of police there might force the guilty person into a panic-stricken action against a boy who may have been a witness. She told herself those things but at the same time despised herself for being a moral coward.

  The Reverend Mother folded the sheet of paper, placed it within an envelope. She hesitated for a moment, then took it out again, unfolded it and made another copy. Then both were returned to the envelope. She did not seal it or write upon it. Time enough for that when Eileen returned. Carefully she locked it inside the bottom drawer of her desk.

  And then she went to the chapel. She could pray for Jimmy. It was the only thing left for her to do after so stupidly sending him into such danger.

  And she could pray for herself, also, for enlightenment. And for courage. If a decision was right, then she would have to find the courage to take it.

  Her patron saint, Thomas Aquinas, had said that one should not shirk to rid the world of a murderer, but he had also said that humans were given reasoning powers and should act according to them. The Reverend Mother pushed open the door of the chapel, walked up to the altar, sank to her knees and prayed to the Holy Spirit for enlightenment.

  TWENTY

  Michael Collins:

  ‘Give us the future. We’ve had enough of the past. Give us back our country. To live in. To grow in. To love.’

  There was a small group of young boys around when Eileen skidded to a halt on the quayside. Just back from school, she guessed, as the bells of the Holy Trinity Church chimed the hour of four o’clock. They immediately gathered around her, overawed by this apparition, a well-dressed young lady scooting along on top of one of Murphy’s Poultry bikes.

  ‘Janey Mack, did you hobble that?’ said one.

  Eileen saw her opportunity. ‘Where can I hide it? The peelers are after me. Quick!’

  They didn’t hesitate. With sidelong glances and sliding along very close to walls they led her down a back laneway, between rows of dangerously derelict warehouses, most of them leaning at odd angles.

  ‘In there,’ said one.

  Eileen looked in. The whole place still smelled strongly of smoke. Jimmy, she thought, if he had escaped from the river, might well use this place to hide. She remembered the page with the leaping flames and the underground passageways leading to the treasure and to the boat where the dog ate the giant rat.

  ‘Go and keep guard,’ she hissed to the boys. ‘Whistle loudly if you see one of the peelers.’

  It was quite a jump down to the lower level. Eileen hesitated for a moment, but then took a chance on it.

  She was driven by a feeling of terrible anxiety. Speeding down the streets on the saddle of the poultry merchant’s bike, she had been feeling hopeful. Jimmy was a street kid. She had seen him one day, with some other boys, playing the game of hanging on to a lorry and being raced across Parliament Bridge, dropping neatly off once it had reached the other side. He would react faster to a speeding car than Patrick, a careful but slow man.

  But now she began to feel apprehensive. This murdering monster was ruthless, was determined to destroy all threats. Softly and then more loudly, she called ‘Jimmy’ and the name echoed back. Something stirred directly above her. A gun? No, this murderer did not deal in guns. But a heavy stone could knock her unconscious and then there would be the deadly hat pin through the ear. She heard the sound again. This time it was louder and now she recognized it. She shuddered and picked up a broken piece of wood, banging it loudly on one of the piers. She hated rats; hated, loathed them and was frightened by them, but not as much as the thought of that deadly hat pin stealing in through her ear and piercing her brain. Where was the little boy? She would have to call again. Jimmy was in far more danger than she. She, unlike Father Dominic, and unlike Peter Doyle, was armed with knowledge. She knew who to look for. She flexed her arms and clenched a fist.

  But it was getting very dark. The light that had come in through the broken and burned floorboards had almost faded away and there was a heap of fallen masonry in front of her where a wall had collapsed. The passageway seemed to lead off to the side, but it was black as night, far more impenetrable darkness than any night under a clouded sky.

  And then the toe of her rubber shoe touched something on the ground, something soft. She heard a cry that was half a sob and realized that it was her own. She clenched her fists, thought of her mother, but forced herself to bend down and to touch.

  Fur. Fur and a scaly tail. It was a dead rat. Not just one of them, a whole heap of them. She shuddered with disgust. Once more she tried calling Jimmy’s name, but the echoes just came back to her and over her head there was a panic-driven scrabble of claws and the thud of running feet.

  She would have to go back. Go back and buy some matches and a candle. And perhaps ask those boys if they knew Jimmy. And perhaps they could direct her to Jimmy’s aunt and his cousins. She followed the patch of light back. There had been a rope tied to a pier. She was weak with relief when she came to it. There were boys shouting so she was not alone.

  ‘Patch, Patch, Patch!’

  And then they saw her.

  ‘Catch him, miss, catch him. There’s loads of dead rats down there. If he eats one, he’ll be a goner.’

  Quickly she grabbed the small black and white terrier by his short, curly tail and held on firmly, glad of her gloves as he twisted around and tried to bite her.

  ‘Thanks, miss.’ The biggest boy was beside her, knotting a piece of twine to the dog’s collar.

  ‘I’ve seen a dog die of eating a poisoned rat. It’s terrible.’ A younger boy bent down and stroked the little dog.

  ‘You must be Jimmy’s cousin. He told me all about Patch. Is Jimmy at your house?’ She found herself surreptitiously crossing her fingers, but he shook his head.

  ‘Nah, haven’t seen him?’

  ‘I’m looking for him.’ She looked at them with desperation. ‘Perhaps he’s hiding.’ They didn’t seem to be too interested so she tried again. ‘He’s in danger. Someone’s after him, please help me to find him. I’ll give you sixpence if you find him for me.’

  The boys looked at each other with int
erest.

  ‘You can guess where he’s hiding, Bob, can’t you?’ One boy addressed the eldest.

  ‘That’ll be it,’ said the other with a nod.

  ‘He hides there,’ said a third boy to Eileen. ‘When a lady gave him half a chocolate bar one day, he went scooting down so that he didn’t have to share it with us.’

  ‘And when we caught up with him, there he was, sitting on a velvet chair like a lord, and swallowing the last bit of it.’

  ‘I’ll buy you each a chocolate bar if you show me the place,’ said Eileen recklessly.

  ‘Benjy, you stay with her,’ ordered the biggest boy. ‘Take this candle. We’ll go on ahead in case there’s a gang of rats charging down.’

  The boys were already running down the passageway, Bob in the lead and his younger brothers behind him, Patch, held on a stranglehold by a short leash, but still managing a few hoarse barks. Benjy stayed with her, holding the stump of a candle impaled on a large rusty nail.

  ‘Mind where you walk, miss,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to trip over a dead rat.’

  She shuddered, but continued to look in every corner and at the broken ceiling above her.

  ‘Don’t you worry, miss,’ said Benjy. ‘He’ll be there. Bob’s right.’

  ‘Be careful’ she called out to the boys ahead. Perhaps someone would be there ahead of them, someone carrying a deadly weapon. For a moment Eileen half-hesitated and then the thought of Jimmy drove her on. The weapons so far had been a hat pin and a car. No car could get down here, but the boys might not be on alert for a hat pin.

  ‘Wait for me, or no chocolate,’ she screamed, hearing her voice echo again and again against the concrete piers that surrounded them. She had lost sight of them. She began to run, almost tripping over another dead body. This time she did not even pause. There was a faint light ahead.

  ‘Wait,’ she screamed again. ‘Or no chocolate.’

  This time they stopped instantly. And her heartbeat slowed. ‘Let me go first, Bob,’ she ordered. ‘You go behind me.’