St Ernan's Blues: An Inspector Starrett Mystery

by Paul Charles

  Starrett walked around Father Mulligan’s homely accommodation and stopped by the window. The room was towards the rear of the house and half the view was of the waters of Lough Eske and the other half of the trees that made up the rear of the island of St Ernan’s. The foliage looked like a giant green bird’s nest had been plonked on top of the island. He could imagine the priest spending many a long hour enjoying this tranquil view. Starrett pulled himself away from the view and his mood and got back down to business.

  ‘How long has Father Matthew been here?’

  ‘He would have completed his service of one year at the end of this month. Then he’d have been off to his first parish and then we’d have had a replacement curate. October is always the replacement month.’

  ‘Where was he from?’ Starrett asked, taking a comfortable seat opposite the priest.

  ‘He was from Sligo.’

  ‘I see. Now, before you discovered Father Matthew, when was the last time you would have seen him?’ Starrett continued, working his way through his important list.

  ‘The funny thing was I saw him within the house just before and just after his death. Every day, mid-afternoon about 3:30, I go for a walk around the island by myself. At the far end of the island, just outside the line of the trees you see from here, there is a stone seat where I like to sit, enjoy the view of the water and beyond,’ the priest said, glancing briefly up to the heavens before continuing. ‘I meditate, say my prayers and give thanks. On my way out today I passed Father Matthew in the kitchen, peeling the potatoes for our evening meal.’

  ‘And you discovered him when you returned from your walk around the island?’

  ‘Yes in fact I did.’

  ‘What time would that have been?’ Starrett asked, totally intrigued with the priest’s information.

  ‘Around 5:30.’

  ‘And did you notice anything different in the kitchen?’ Starrett asked hopefully.

  ‘Well, no. He was slumped in the leather dining chair near but not at the dining table. He looked very peaceful. In fact when I first came upon him I thought he’d fallen asleep. I called to him because his potatoes were boiling over. He didn’t respond. I went over to him and as I got closer, I recognised immediately the look of death.’

  ‘Did you touch the body?’

  ‘No,’ he replied automatically and instinctively paused and then qualified himself with, ‘only to search for a pulse in his neck.’

  ‘Then what did you do?’

  ‘I went to the bishop’s room, informed him and he rang the guards.’

  ‘Did he go to the kitchen first to check Father Matthew himself?’

  Father Mulligan thought for a few moments as though he was discovering something himself before offering, ‘No. He went straight to the phone and called the guards.’

  ‘Then what did he do?’

  ‘He came back to the door, where I was standing, and told me the guards were on the way, then he instructed me to return to Father Matthew’s remains and ensure no one touched anything until the guards arrived.’

  ‘Was anyone else around when you returned to Father Matthew’s remains?’

  ‘No, he was still by himself, slumped in the chair.’

  ‘So Father Matthew was by the sink the first time you saw him?’

  ‘That is correct. As I said, he was peeling the potatoes.’

  ‘Then when you came back in from your constitutional he was slumped in the chair and the potatoes were boiling over? And would you know exactly how long you’d been out?’ Starrett continued, allowing himself to follow a natural flow.

  ‘No more than two hours, but sometimes I just get lost in my thoughts and lose all track of time,’ the priest replied.

  ‘So what happened to the potatoes?’

  ‘I took them off the boil?’

  ‘And just left them there?’

  ‘Yes,’ the priest replied, his impatience growing, ‘why is any of this important at a time like this?’

  ‘Well, don’t you see, people mostly behave due to instincts and their natural habits,’ Starrett offered through a warm thoughtful smile, ‘Like when I asked you had you touched anything else you said no, but just then you told me you turned the heat off the potatoes.’

  ‘O-kay.’

  ‘So I wonder, could there have been anything else you would have done without thinking?’

  Father Mulligan looked like he was considering such possibilities. He grimaced gently, rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand and then the gentle stubble on his chin before saying, ‘Well, I would have used the dish cloth to wrap it around the handle of the saucepan, but the usual one wasn’t around so I undid the button on my shirt cuff, pulled it down and wrapped it around the handle of the potato pot to avoid burning my hands when I brought the potatoes over to the sink to drain them.’

  He looked rather pleased that he’d been able to recall such details at will.

  ‘Why would you have done that and not just turned the gas off under the pan?’

  Again he thought for a few seconds before replying.

  ‘Must have just been instincts, I guess.’ The priest didn’t seem satisfied with his own answer because he continued, ‘shall we say, I acted on automatic pilot, the way I would normally have done and would have done dozens of times.’

  ‘Okay. Okay, this is all good,’ Starrett said in encouragement, ‘it may seem unimportant just now but it could be vital.’

  The priest nodded positively.

  ‘Can we go back to the time you visited Bishop Freeman to advise him about Father Matthew?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You said you told him you had found Father Matthew slumped in the chair. He rang the guards and he came back and advised you to make sure no one touched anything.’

  ‘That would be correct.’

  ‘He didn’t discuss with you about ringing for a doctor or an ambulance?’

  ‘No, but I’d advised him that Father Matthew had passed away.’

  Starrett nodded ‘okay’ and said, ‘and did you actually hear him speak to the guards on the phone?’

  ‘No, I could hear him speaking but he wasn’t talking loud enough for me to be able to make out what he was saying.’

  ‘Okay,’ Starrett sighed, ‘that’s nearly it for now but I do have one final question at this stage: do you have any idea where Father Matthew was going?’

  ‘Heavens!’ Mulligan said, so deadpan Starrett couldn’t work out if he was joking or not.

  ‘I meant more in the physical sense rather than the spiritual one. You know, which parish he would have gone to, had he lived?’

  ‘Oh sorry, forgive me. Yes I do, as a matter of fact,’ Mulligan replied in his breaking falsetto voice, ‘Bishop Freeman had found a place for him in his parish.’

  ‘Had he now,’ Starrett said, showing he could do a bit of deadpanning himself when the mood took him, ‘And tell me Father, where exactly would the bishop be in residence these days?’

  ‘That would be in Salthill, just outside of Galway,’ Father Fergus Mulligan, originally from Desertmartin, replied immediately, ‘the bishop claims that the sea air is good for his health.’

  I bet he does, Starrett thought as he said, ‘Right Father, that’ll do me for now. We’ll talk again in the near future but in the meantime, if you have any more recollections from this afternoon please contact one of the members of the An Garda Síochána straight away.’

  Chapter Four

  Sergeant Garvey and Ban Garda Nuala Gibson were waiting for Inspector Starrett outside Father Mulligan’s door.

  ‘Yes,’ Garvey said, literally the moment his boss appeared in the doorway. ‘Dr Aljoe sent up a message to say she’s just about finished downstairs and would like you to do your inspection before she removes the body back to the mortuary in Letterkenny.’

  ‘Go and find Garda Pips O’Toole for me,’ Starrett said, as he reached the bottom of the stairs and was in sure earshot of the aforementioned and naturally
stunning Dr Aljoe.

  ‘Who the feck is Pips O’Toole?’ Gibson asked, shaking her head in a confident, “I’m not amused,” manner. In a Ban Garda uniform it was difficult to look different enough to impress, not that she wanted to, but Gibson managed it quite simply with her snow, pure porcelain-like skin; sharp dark eyebrows; friendly, but reserved, brown eyes; blonde hair mostly tucked up into her standard issue hat and the most kissable lips this side of Scarlett Johansson.

  ‘You know, yer man?’ he replied. For his own personal reasons he wanted Gibson to be the one who’d take the bait.

  ‘I don’t know. Which man?’

  ‘Yer man,’ he barked impatiently and on seeing only puzzlement on both of their faces he continued, ‘Romany Browne, of course.’

  ‘Why not call him Romany Browne then?’ Gibson asked innocently.

  ‘Well, quite simply because you would imagine that someone called Romany Browne would have…you know, a full head of his own hair, perfectly chiselled features and a perfect body.’

  ‘Not to mention his smiling eyes, perfect teeth, kind hands, good manners, fit physique–’

  ‘Exactly, Ban Garda, exactly,’ Starrett interrupted, faking impatience, ‘which is why henceforth the rookie in question will be known as Pips O’Toole.’

  “Let’s just keep it simple sir, let’s just call him by the name his mother and father chose to give him,” Gibson said, making it clear it wasn’t a question.

  Not only was Nuala Gibson the Ban Garda in Starrett’s squad but she was also the best friend of Maggie Keane, his girlfriend, so the matter was finally parked there and then.

  Once the aforementioned Romany Browne turned up, Starrett completely ignored him while he instructed Gibson to team up with Sgt Packie Garvey to interview Father McIntyre up in his room. When they’d departed to do as bid, he nodded to Browne to follow him over to the grand fireplace, this time out of earshot of Dr Aljoe but still within her line of vision. He put his hand on Browne’s shoulder and leaned in close to him and kept stealing glances of the glamorous Dr Samantha Aljoe. Eventually Browne couldn’t help but steal glances of the pathologist as well.

  By this point Dr Aljoe was eyeballing Starrett and Browne just as much as they were her.

  Starrett braced himself for the corpse.

  He walked around the kitchen-cum-dining-cum-grand-fireplace-cum-book area. He went to the sink and discovered on the worktop the large saucepan with the drained potatoes. He put on a pair of evidence gloves and found a fork in one of the drawers beneath. He discovered that the skins of the blues offered absolutely no resistance to his fork. These potatoes were well boiled. He made a note to check how long potatoes would have to boil to end up this soft. Starrett also couldn’t find the missing kitchen towel that Father Mulligan had referred to. He picked up four pieces of two discarded opened Sweetex packets lying on the floor by Father Matthew’s chair.

  Aljoe clocked Starrett making his observations and remained schtum throughout the silent procedure.

  Starrett eventually made his way to the body.

  The first thing that struck him about Father Matthew was how handsome a man he had been. Starrett reckoned the priest would have been 25 years old, maybe 26 at the very most. Clean shaven, with well-groomed, jet black hair. With well-groomed hair in fact, fashioned in the style of Kirk Douglas. It certainly wouldn’t have looked out of place on some of that generation of Hollywood actors. His eyebrows were perfectly formed. He wore flawlessly pressed black trousers, a black shirt (as would have been expected), but he broke with tradition by adding a very expensive looking pair of Nike trainers. Starrett figured it made sense; the priest was bound to be on his feet all day, but nonetheless, it still jarred Starrett a little.

  Starrett sat down in the comfortable leather chair opposite Father Matthew and, with elbows resting on the arms of the chair, he clasped his hands together under his chin and stared at the remains of the priest. The young, handsome priest’s eyes were shut, which only served to make his eyebrows appear all the more stunning. Starrett was thankful Father Matthew’s eyes were shut; he was forever falling into a trance, induced by the strange spell of dead men’s eyes. Father Mulligan was easily forgiven for mistaking his colleague for being asleep. Father Matthew really did look like he was sleeping, and peacefully at that. Could he really look so peaceful if he had experienced a violent or troubled passing? How had he died? Naturally? Starrett didn’t think so; he looked too fit, too healthy, and too young for such a premature end. What had he done to get himself to the point where the breath was permanently stolen from his body? How had he met his end? What exactly had happened in the couple of hours or so between Father Mulligan going out for his constitutional and returning to the house again? Could Father Matthew have been accidently gassed? Nope, Father Mulligan had said he’d eventually turned off the gas under the boiling potatoes after he’d discovered the body, so the hungry, angry flame had devoured all of the available hissing gas supply.

  He dared himself to put his gloved hand in a naked gas flame next time he saw one if it didn’t believe it was angry. The detective knew he was getting nowhere with this.

  The discomfort of the evidence gloves eventually shook Starrett out of his mood.

  ‘What do you have for me Sam…sorry…Dr Aljoe?’

  She fixed her eyes on him and dropped her head slightly, before shaking it and her mane vigorously. It looked like she had decided to avoid her usual approach of flirting as a way of dealing with the macabre situation she found herself in most days of her life.

  ‘Well Starrett, come look at this,’ she replied, as she walked over to Father Matthew and knelt down beside him.

  Starrett did as he was bid and he was so close to her, the smell of her perfume distracted him from the inevitable rotten-apples smell of death – the same hypnotic bouquet that signalled the start of the inevitable decaying process of a human being. Her blue translucent scene-of-crime one-piece suit rustled as she swayed on her hunkers so she could position herself to cautiously lean across the body. Next she carefully lifted Father Matthew’s right forefinger.

  ‘What does that tell you, Inspector?’

  ‘There’s no dirt under his nails. He washed his hands properly?’ Starrett offered, looking back at her, directly into her brown eyes.

  ‘More?’

  ‘He cut his nails regularly?’

  ‘You’re getting warmer, and all things considered quite warm for a man.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It wasn’t a compliment,’ she said, through one of her sweetest smiles.

  ‘Thanks,’ he repeated, ‘and?’

  ‘His nails; he’d had his nails professionally manicured and not only that, he’d had them done regularly.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really Starrett.’

  ‘Bejeepers. Samantha, colour me impressed, I’d never ever have picked that up. Shouldn’t we ask the question: Why would a man manicure his nails?’

  ‘That’s not very 21st-century, Starrett. Haven’t you heard? Some men take pride in their appearance nowadays. Some men want to look good for their partners.’

  ‘Sure God was his partner’

  ‘Oh goodness, I was so taken by his good looks I’d forgotten all about him being a priest,’ she offered in a whisper, even though there was no one within earshot.

  ‘And had you used the term “partner” instead of “wife” because you thought he was gay?’

  ‘No, Starrett, I most certainly did not. I used the word “partner” as a term to suggest equality.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Well that’s what I hope I meant,’ she said, as she offered him one of her best ‘but even if I didn’t you’ll still forgive me’ smiles.

  ‘Can I check his pockets now?’

  ‘Yes of course, and then if I can borrow Romany Browne from you, we’ll get the remains back to Letterkenny.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Starrett started, as he put his gloved hand into Father Matthew’s right-ha
nd pocket, ‘but Pips O’Toole is otherwise engaged for the foreseeable future.’

  He withdrew his hand with his bounty of a single unattached Yale key, an expensive looking set of Rosary beads in one side pocket and in the other side pocket he withdrew five twenty euro notes, three ten euro notes and three five euro notes, all folded neatly in descending order into a genuine silver money clip. In the single back pocket of the father’s trousers was a perfectly folded cash receipt for a lunch for two in Blueberry Tea Room, Donegal for the Monday of that week.

  Starrett searched the area for Father Matthew’s jacket. He spotted one, hanging on a coat hook on the back door, which was perfectly in line with the corridor running down the length of the house. The jacket looked of an inferior quality to the priest’s trousers and it had a pioneer pin on the right-hand lapel. Starrett took the jacket off the hook in order to go through the pockets, only to discover another jacket underneath. He searched the first jacket and surprisingly all of the pockets were empty. He took down the second jacket and noted immediately that it was a better-cut jacket and made of material identical to that of Father Matthew’s trousers: it was clearly part of the same black suit. He replaced the first jacket, the one with the pioneer pin, on the hook, walked over to the worktop and, pocket by pocket, removed the contents of the second jacket on a cleared section of the worktop. He found nothing more than a pack of Kleenex tissues, a cinema stub for the Abbey Centre, Ballyshannon, a purple Liberty pen, some loose change and a couple of strips of a fresh mint chewing gum.

  Aljoe passed little comment as Starrett continued his search.

  ‘You’ve really got nothing else for me?’ he said, as he placed all the contents of the jacket pockets into a separate evidence bag to the one he had used for the contents of the trouser pockets, before carefully labelling both of them.

  ‘I have to admit that I haven’t a clue how he died.’

  They both hunkered down on either side of Father Matthew. She examined his hands closely again and then his face and neck, all his exposed skin in fact.