Beyond Absolution

by Cora Harrison

  Eileen slipped through the gap in the tarpaulin. She looked all around. It was not as Jimmy had described it, but she could see how the silver dishes and candlesticks and the gold watches glinted in the candlelight. That would have taken his attention, sparked off some memory of a story about treasure. There was no little boy there, though. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw something rolled up in the corner of the storage space. She snatched the makeshift candle from Benjy and went across with her heart thumping.

  It was a small rug, rolled up. She felt it carefully, her heart thumping, but the centre was hollow. There was no body concealed within it. Rapidly she searched behind the tarpaulin and then stiffened. As quietly as a swarm of rats, the boys were moving away from her. She opened her mouth to say something, but Bob had snatched up Patch and held his hand clamped over the little dog’s small short muzzle. In a moment he had seemed to melt from the storeroom. His brothers followed him, their bare feet making no sound on the wooden planks laid on the rough cement.

  ‘I’ll just put it in the storeroom. It can stay there.’ There was a clip of heels on the floor above and the click of a key in a lock. Marjorie Gamble was upstairs in the showroom. It was her voice.

  ‘That’s too heavy for you, Marjorie.’ It was Jonathon Power. Tense. Harsh. Unlike Jonathon. Would he help Marjorie? Could she be a match for both? Was she even a match for Marjorie? The woman was short, but sturdy.

  ‘Miss!’ It was Benjy’s whisper. She had left him without his candle. Silently on her rubber soles, she joined him, handing over the candle. He moved away. His instincts would lead him to avoid discovery. She allowed him to go. Her heart was thumping inside her chest. She had to know. But the sound of Jonathon’s voice had alerted her to danger. If Marjorie screamed he would be down in a flash.

  There were footsteps thumping on the stairway. Slow, careful footsteps, someone feeling their way, vision barred by a load held in the arms. Once she slightly stumbled and Jonathon called out, ‘You all right, Marjorie?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ She sounded impatient, tense. Unlike the usual calm even-tempered Miss Gamble. Eileen held her breath. Three more careful steps, a slight shuffle as the woman’s feet checked the floor surface, a thump and then instantly the sound of feet running back up to the shop above. A slight slam of the door, a click in the lock and now there was nothing, no sounds, no words.

  Moving slowly and carefully, judging her pathway by the crack of light coming from the doorway above, Eileen shuffled her way over to the bottom of the stairs, waiting until her hand was on the wooden rail before kneeling down. Marjorie had dropped her burden almost as soon as she had stepped off the last stair.

  It gave her a shock when she touched it. It was quite warm. Rough to the touch, wool, she thought. Rough, harsh wool, not one of those beautiful rugs, Aubusson, she thought, not one of these that she had seen in the shop.

  ‘Miss!’ There was a faint gleam from the darkness that surrounded her. Benjy had come back. Getting to her feet, she crossed over the planks and took the candle from him. ‘Keep hidden!’ She breathed the words into his ear and then returned to the bundle. Jonathon and Marjorie Gamble were just above her head and she hoped that they were not going to re-open the door. She had to know, though. The roll of carpeting was tied tightly with a string and her shaking fingers could not undo the knot. Without hesitation she took the feeble flame from the candle stump and held it to the twine. The flame flickered and she watched intently, smashing down her fist on it the moment the twine parted. Trembling she opened the roll.

  Inside was just a pair of ornate silver candlesticks, heavily tarnished. Eileen sighed with relief. She found that her legs were trembling as she got to her feet. She bent to roll the rug back, but one candlestick escaped, falling with a soft thud on the boards.

  ‘What’s that?’ A sharp exclamation from above. The light streamed down again as the hatch was opened.

  ‘Jonathon!’ There was a note of fear in Marjorie’s voice. ‘Jonathon, listen.’

  Eileen cupped her hands over the flame. Could they see the pinprick of light? She thought of blowing it out. Then thought of going back down that passageway without her candle. She held her breath, stretched out her hand towards an ornately engraved silver tray and with her longest fingernail scratched rhythmically.

  ‘A rat! Bother! I’d better buy some more of that poison. I thought I’d got rid of them all.’ Marjorie’s voice was loud with relief. Eileen heard the hatch door slam shut again and this time the rim of light disappeared. They had gone back into the shop.

  There was no sign of Benjy. He had fled when he heard the voices, she reckoned. Eileen held the stump of the candle and made her way along the passageway, doing her best to avoid the corpses of the dead rats. She had an uneasy feeling that she was not going back the way she had come, but sooner or later there would be a hole in one of the boards over her head and she could scramble up it. The concrete shuttering was falling apart in places, large crumbling lumps of it strewn around and the roadway, itself, was broken in places. Eileen wanted to run, or at least to hurry, but caution slowed her steps as she picked her way among the obstacles. There was a cool dampness around her, a strong smell in her nostril. A sudden scream almost made her drop the little candle but it was followed by another and another. Her heat thumped violently. Those boys! She bit her lip, bit hard down to stop the scream that rose in her throat. The candle in her hand trembled. And then the scream came again, but now she knew what it was. Seagulls. She was coming back by a different route. There would be a sewage outfall quite close to her. The seagulls fed from these. Should she return?

  And then she remembered Jimmy’s story. The little dog had chased a rat and they had found it in a boat. A boat meant mooring ropes. She was strong and a good climber, as good as any of the boys in Barrack Street, she told herself. And she could not bear to turn back. Desperately she wanted to get out of this place. The draught was blowing the flame of the candle and the wax was melting rapidly. A second later it flickered and then went out. Eileen forced herself to keep moving, her hand on the damp, crumbling cement of the wall. The smell of the river, of sewage was getting stronger, the shrieks of the seagulls almost unendurable. ‘Jimmy!’ she screamed and the seagulls screamed back at her. Stupid! The boy could not be still in the river. By now he had run home. The light was getting stronger and so were the river sounds: the suck of the tide, the churning of an engine, the cranking of the unloading cranes, the shouts of the dockworkers. She quickened, and then slowed, forcing herself to go carefully and to find a safe footing with each step that she took.

  She was out of the darkness and into the mist and fog. Seagulls whirred around her head, raucous and menacing. She flung the candle stump at them; the wood and the large nail gave it weight and the birds rose in a screaming white mass of beating wings and viciously opened jaws. The boat was there; Robert Beamish’s boat, well secured at both ends to the mooring rings in the wall, but no sign of Jimmy. The fog was very thick; she could see little of the river, but she could hear the sound of a motorized trawler coming upstream; coming very fast, in the centre of the river, she thought, but the wash lifted the boat below her and it swung on its ropes, bumping against the wall as the wave caught it.

  And then the fog seemed to lift. She could look down into the murky water. Horribly something emerged from it: a hand, a child’s hand, waving, the small wrist bending over.

  The force of her jump rocked the boat dangerously. For a moment she thought it was going to tip her into the river but the ropes held it in position. She knelt down, reached into the water and lifted out the small body.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Sean M O’Duffy, Lieutenant IV Dublin, 1916; Registrar and Organizer of Republican Courts, 1920-1921

  ‘The Republican Courts are of the most vital importance and they must be kept going at all costs. Should hostilities be resumed between this country and England, the Courts, for reasons which it is yet premature to disclose, will be called upon t
o play a mighty part in the struggle and it may reasonably be anticipated that the enemy will redouble all previous efforts to destroy them. Therefore if you wish that the Courts in your area should be ready for the fight, you must be up and doing without a moment’s delay. Otherwise your Courts will be hopelessly inefficient and shamefully inactive at a time when the Courts in other parts of the country will be bidding dauntless defiance at all efforts to suppress them. This is the golden hour. Therefore be prepared.’

  She was very old, of course, thought Eileen. She remembered how the Reverend Mother had told her once about how she had worn a crinoline, so that meant she was as old as the girls in Dickens’ novels. Perhaps that was why she did not shed a tear. She talked with the sergeant, Joe Duggan, arranged for the child’s body to be brought to the convent chapel once the police and the doctor had finished with it. The convent would pay all burial costs, a white coffin, she told him. They would have a requiem mass next week. The whole school would attend and the older girls’ choir would sing. Jimmy’s aunt and his cousins would be invited. The little boy would be buried in the convent garden, under the flowering magnolia tree. Eileen looked at the composed face and made a great effort to hold back her own tears. She didn’t think that she could ever forget that small body, tangled up in a mooring rope, his neck twisted at an odd angle, his eyes dead and staring. It had taken all her strength to lift him from the river, with the help of Bob, while the other boys ran for the police. She blinked hard and went over to the window.

  And then when the sergeant, Joe Duggan, had gone, the Reverend Mother beckoned to Eileen to follow her to her room. She selected a key, unlocked a drawer, took from it a sheet of paper and handed it to Eileen.

  ‘I know the answer to each one of those questions, Eileen,’ was all that she said. And then she sank down very heavily upon a chair, almost as though her legs could no longer support her.

  Eileen read rapidly down the page, and then read the questions aloud.

  ‘I’m beginning to see,’ she said and after a quick look at the Reverend Mother, she returned her gaze to the sheet of paper.

  Arguments and pieces of evidence jostled in her mind. Of course the use of the confessional, so familiar to some and so strange to others, was central to the case. It was quite a while since she had been to confession, but the whole details of the cramped space and of the iron grid between confessor and penitent immediately flashed through her mind. And the choice of weapon. That was so significant. Knowledge, once learned, is not easily lost. The means of death depended on that knowledge.

  The second murder, like the first, was motivated by fear, fear of discovery, and of disgrace, and fear of losing a comfortable income. And, of course, she knew how the murderer could approach a man without giving alarm. She opened her mouth, ready to articulate her reasons, to argue the case, to put forward justifications and last of all to tell the Reverend Mother all about the Republican, or Sinn Féin court which had been set up and was all ready to hear the case. She would lay emphasis on the two experienced and well-qualified barristers, one acting as prosecutor and the other for the defence. And on the bench, she would say, there would be an experienced and well-qualified solicitor who had acted as a judge in many such trials. She would reassure the elderly woman that the evidence would be as carefully weighed as it would in the Cork City Court House. And that sentence would be carried out rapidly and would be quick and relatively painless.

  Unlike the agonized death that poor little Jimmy had suffered when the life had been throttled out of him. Eileen rehearsed all of those arguments.

  But she looked into the tired elderly face before her and knew that it would be unkind to transfer any responsibility, so all that she said, as she put the sheet of paper carefully into her pocket, was, ‘Give it forty-eight hours, Reverend Mother.’

  And then she left. She would mourn Jimmy adequately some time in the future, but now she had to ensure that his murderer would kill no more. The faces of the boys, Jimmy’s cousins, came to her and she knew that they, too, might now be in danger. She began to run. She would have to get a train to Ballinhassig and find Maurice the lawyer as soon as possible.

  TWENTY-TWO

  St Thomas Aquinas:

  Quidem iusta esse potest et a Deo et ab homine inflicta, unde ipsa poena non est effectus peccati directe, sed solum dispositive. Sed peccatum facit hominem esse reum poenae, quod est malum, dicit enim Dionysius … quod puniri non est malum, sed fieri poena dignum. Unde reatus poenae directe ponitur effectus peccati.

  (Further, a just punishment may be inflicted either by God or by man: wherefore the punishment itself is the effect of sin, not directly, but to settle the matter. Sin, however, makes man deserving of punishment, and that is an evil: for Dionysius says … that punishment is not an evil, but to deserve punishment is. Consequently the debt of punishment is considered to be directly the effect of sin.)

  The Reverend Mother read the article on the Cork Examiner through again, folded the paper carefully and looked across at Dr Scher. He looked puzzled. He would be waiting for some reaction from her. After all, he had rushed around to the convent at eight o’clock in the morning, the Cork Examiner under his arm and probably leaving his breakfast untouched. She considered the matter thoughtfully.

  ‘And Patrick, how is Patrick?’ she asked, putting the paper aside.

  His face changed and she waited, tucking her hands into her sleeves and sensing the hard knot of tense knuckles against the soft veins of her wrists. He was, she knew, trying to find words of hope, but she felt her heart skip a beat and a sharp knife of pain in her left side. A wave of nausea swept over her, leaving her trembling and the starched linen wimple was cold and damp against the skin of her forehead.

  ‘Not good,’ he said eventually. ‘Initially it was a matter of stopping the bleeding, you see. Of tying up arteries, but now … The liver, of course, was damaged by the massive blow in the lumber region from the car, and, of course … However, you don’t want a medical lecture, Reverend Mother. Pray for him. He’s in the hands of God now.’

  The Reverend Mother received this in silence. Dr Scher and two other doctors had worked on Patrick’s inert body for six hours in the operating theatre of the Mercy Hospital. That had been told to her. She thought of the young policeman, thought of him as the earnest child in her school, the hard-working schoolboy, the policeman, guardian of the peace. And she thought of Jimmy’s little body and knew that Dr Scher was thinking of it also. ‘Strangled, not drowned; very professionally done’, had been his verdict. Once again she felt that sharp pain and another wave of nausea swept over her. She sat very still and willed it to pass. She had too much to do. She could not afford to give in.

  Dr Scher was lost in thought, reviewing all the medical procedures and his attention was not on her. She could rest for a few minutes, but then she would have to share the knowledge. That pain in her left side made it a matter of urgency. The facts needed to be known by someone other than herself, someone who would be respected by the police. She had hopes that Patrick, young, strong, toughened by early hardships, would survive and when he was well enough, someone would have to tell him the truth about these killings.

  She, at her age, might not be there to serve that purpose.

  But if she were not, then Dr Scher had to take her place. And so she had to convince him. There should be no grain of suspicion left to attach itself to innocent people. Sooner or later the real facts about those three murders would have to be known. She felt a certain measure of energy come back into her veins and straightened herself unobtrusively, her eyes on the clock, pacing herself, hoping that her time-worn heart would last for yet another few weeks, months, or, if God was good, perhaps even years. When the large hand reached the third numeral, then she would speak. In the meantime, she rested, watched the doctor’s pensive face and thought about Eileen.

  As soon as the clock hand reached the quarter mark, she got briskly to her feet and unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk.


  ‘I wrote this last Friday, Dr Scher,’ she said ‘and I gave a copy of it to Eileen.’ She did not hand the paper to him, but held it, still folded, in a hand that was now quite steady.

  He roused himself from his inner thoughts, his review of medical procedures.

  ‘How is Eileen?’ he asked, trying to smile.

  ‘Well,’ said the Reverend Mother. ‘She has changed her mind about being a doctor. When Utopia will reign in Ireland; when university education is free to all who can avail of it. Eileen,’ she said deliberately, watching his face as she spoke, ‘has now decided to be a lawyer. She met a man, by the name of Maurice, who acts as a judge, or prosecutor or defending lawyer in the Sinn Féin courts. I think he has impressed her and now she feels that as a lawyer she can do more for the cause in which she believes. I gave her a copy of this list and she said that she knew the answer to each one of my questions. And so,’ said the Reverend Mother, hearing her voice now strengthening to a note which was firm and ringing. And so,’ she repeated, ‘I allowed her to take the list away in the name of justice.’

  He was staring at her and somehow his air of unease made her feel more confident.

  ‘A list,’ he repeated.

  ‘A list. And the first question on it was to query the reason for Father Dominic’s visit to the antiques shop. It seemed to me,’ she went on, choosing her words with care, ‘that as Father Dominic spent most of his time in the confessional that it might have something to do with a confession, that he might have gone there to endeavour to prevent a crime.

  ‘So you think that it was a confession to Father Dominic that triggered the killing.’ Dr Scher’s face was thoughtful. ‘Well, that must mean that James O’Reilly, the only Catholic in the group, confessed to Father Dominic that the Merrymen were not just a nice, lively group of young people, putting on Gilbert and Sullivan plays for the their own enjoyment and in order to entertain the citizens of Cork, but were, in fact, a gang of thieves and arsonists who had taken advantage of the Sinn Féin attacks on those lovely old houses, owned by Protestants, and were stripping valuable antiques from these houses and reselling them in the shop on Morrison’s Island.’