by Paul Charles
Packie Garvey didn’t know if the young guard was trying to stroke the priest’s ego to get him talking or hr genuinely wanted to know. Either way, it worked.
‘So how did I know which four?’ Father Pat said, licking his lips voraciously. ‘Well you pick up whispers, don’t you. Word was that the betting activity started on some of these horses the night before the races. Then when you studied the form, you discovered that Eye Of The Tiger hadn’t run for the best part of a year and a half, Indus Valley hadn’t run for nearly two years and Low Key had last run in February 2013 – nearly a year before – and none of them had been showing great form. So clearly there was some kind of…something…behind the buzz. All four horses enjoyed some kind of current, or historical, link – directly or indirectly – to a former trainer by the name of Barney Curley. And a single euro bet, I mean, there’s really no downside. I’ll take a punt like that most times I go into the bookies. All you really need is for one, just one, of them to turn up trumps.’
‘Was it all legit?’ Browne asked.
‘Well, I believe the stewards made comprehensive inquiries but everything must have been above board because I collected my winnings.’
‘And tell me this, Father,’ Garvey started, back in the driving seat again. ‘In your career how many handy wee accumulator wins would you have had?’
‘Three!’ he replied immediately.
‘So, do you see where we’re going with this?’
‘Ah yes, indeed I do, Packie, you’re much quicker on the hurling field than you are at this auld questioning lark.’
‘That’s as may be,’ Packie laughed, and refused to take the obvious cheap shot back at the priest, ‘but either way, we’re looking at a good bit of betting before you win that 17 grand back again and goodness knows how high your debt will rise before the wins start to emerge again.’
‘You need a steady hand,’ Father Pat cautioned the Gardaí, ‘to guide you through troubled waters.’
Packie thought it was incredulous just how unbelievably blasé Father Patrick O’Connell was about his gambling – he was a priest, for heaven’s sake! If he was a family man with a gambling problem he’d be at his wits end about where he’d find the money to pay off his debts. But here was this man of the cloth, a supposed example for the community in troubled times, and not only was he in debt to the tune of over 17 grand, he’d also admitted to having numerous affairs. And to top that, if that needed topping, he was acting as if he didn’t give a shit.
‘What recourse do EasiBet have against you?’ Packie asked.
‘What recourse do they have? How do you mean?’
‘How do they get their money back?’
Father Pat raised the palms of both hands to the heavens in a ‘Who knows?’, if not a ‘Who cares?’ shrug.
‘Do you think they could get you through the courts?’ Packie asked, crossing the border from annoyance to amusement at the priest’s attitude.
‘As I said earlier,’ he chuckled, ‘they’d have to join the queue.’
‘What, you were being serious?’ Browne chipped in. ‘You owe other people money?’
‘No, most certainly not!’ the priest snapped back. ‘I just meant, with the state of the country, they’re going to have to wait in the queue to get me into the courts.’
Again the priest shrugged, this time topping it with a smirk before continuing, ‘And so they take me to court, what then? They win and get access to all my worldly possessions? Hey,’ he said. He stood up cumbersomely, raised his palms up to the heavens again, turned around twice and said, through a laugh, ‘they’re welcome. This is it. You see what I stand up in? This is what I have to show for my life. Absolutely nothing. It’s theirs. If they want to give me more credit on my account they can have it all now.’
‘Are you aware of the John Hamilton nibs?’ Packie asked, as the priest awkwardly sat down again.
‘Am I aware of the Hamilton nibs?’ Father Pat echoed, seeming relieved that the EasiBet questioning was behind him. ‘You mean, the jewel in St Ernan’s crown?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes, of course I am. Everyone in the county is.’
‘Do you know how muck they’re worth?’
‘I’ve been told they’re not worth much more than 7,500 euro,’ he replied in a whisper, as if he didn’t want anyone to overhear that the nibs were most certainly not significant jewels in anyone’s crown.
‘Do you know where they’re kept?’
‘Do I know where they’re kept? The Hamilton nibs?’ The priest eyeballed Packie suspiciously. ‘Funny you should ask me that question – Bishop Freeman asked me the same question, not more than a week ago.’
‘And did you know the answer?’
‘I told him exactly what I’m now telling you; I haven’t a clue where John Hamilton’s nibs are.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
Meanwhile Inspector Starrett and Ban Garda Nuala Gibson were paying a visit to Father Gene McCafferty, the priest with the Buddy Holly glasses and the nickname, thanks to his flapping elbows, of Elephant Man. Starrett felt they now had enough evidence to confront the priest about the real reason he was moved ‘sideways’ from his previous two dioceses. The thing that troubled Starrett most about Father McCafferty was why he would tell two such obviously transparent lies. Could he really believe that the gardaí would refrain from, at the very least, doing a background check on the information he’d given them during the first interview? Surely the priest must realise that if he’d just given them the correct information in the first place, they’d have looked no further when they checked with the two cathedrals? Was he such an unsuitable priest that he thought the cathedrals’ clergy would have greeted the gardaí with, ‘Father McCafferty? You’re checking up on Father McCafferty, are you? Well, let us tell you a thing or two about his dealings.’ And then spill the beans?
Problem number one, Father McCafferty was not in either of his rooms. Problem number two, Starrett and Gibson – now assisted by the ever-helpful, not to mention broken-voiced, Father Fergus Mulligan – could not find Father McCafferty anywhere in St Ernan’s house. Problem three, the same trio, the ranks of which had been swelled to a quintet with the arrival of Sergeant Packie Garvey and Garda Romany Browne, fresh from their recent interview with the larger than life Father Patrick O’Connell, couldn’t find Father McCafferty anywhere on St Ernan’s the island.
So, when McCafferty had lied to them about his past service, had escape been the end game? If the detective was concerned about this development, he didn’t show it. He merely had Garvey contact Garda Francis Casey and have him put out an All-Points Bulletin (APB) on the missing member of the clergy. Then he announced to his team, in their temporary Operations Room on the first floor of St Ernan’s, ‘Okay, what next?’
‘I think we need to pay another visit to the Robinson house, this time to have a chat with the rest of Eimear’s family,’ Gibson offered.
‘Yes, the husband and the two daughters? What are the names of the two daughters? Don’t tell me now, wait a minute…yes, she called them after two American actresses. What was it? Roberts, yes, Julia Roberts. Right, one of them was called Julia and the other one…wasn’t she named after something Streep?’
‘Meryl?’ Browne offered helpfully.
‘No, that wasn’t it,’ Starrett replied, deep in concentration.
Nuala Gibson went to make a suggestion.
‘No, no, please don’t help me, not even a clue,’ Starrett protested. ‘I nearly had it there, yes Lange, Meryl Lange? No…wait a second…Jessica, that’s it Jessica Lange, or in our case, Jessica Robinson,’ Starrett proudly announced.
He shouldn’t have been too proud about remembering the names by heart, if only because Gibson had them written down in her notebook, along with the mother’s, Eimear, and the father’s, Gerry.
All well and good, but there was a fourth problem, potentially, and the biggest of them all: They couldn’t for the life of them find the bishop with the
bullfrog eyes. Starrett issued orders for another APB. Were the two disappearances connected? And if so, why? What was the link between Bishop Freeman and Father McCafferty? What did either, or both, of them have to do with the death of Father Matthew McKaye? Had Father Matthew discovered that Father McCafferty was up to his old tricks again? Had he found another widow to fleece? Had Father Matthew discovered this and was threatening to tell the Gardaí? Was Bishop Freeman involved and if so, how? Had the bishop made a pass at Father Matthew and if so, had Father McCafferty discovered it, and had he been blackmailing the bishop to force him into helping him stop Father Matthew from going to the Gardaí? Bejeepers, Starrett thought (thanks to Maggie Keane’s daughter, he rarely allowed himself to say the word out loud these days), yes, bejeepers, could that really be it? Could that really be the motive for Father Matthew’s murder?
Now he’d gotten himself on to the subject, how exactly was Father Matthew murdered? Dr Aljoe still hadn’t figured out the riddle of the magic bullet and the mysterious missing exit wound. So, not only had he a murderer to find but he also needed to work out how the priest was murdered in the first place. He felt like another chat with Father Robert O’Leary, although he realised he didn’t have enough new information for that. But when he did have, when he’d finally found the keys to this mystery, Father O’Leary would most certainly help him open all the doors.
* * *
Starrett knew time was fast running out on his second day on the case and he had too many things he needed to do before the day was as much a part of history as Father Matthew now was. He and Gibson needed to get to Eimear Robinson’s house by six o’clock-ish, which is when Starrett thought the entire family might be gathered for their dinner. It would be the perfect time to interview the rest of Eimear’s brood, as mother hen would be preoccupied with the evening meal. He also needed to visit Major Newton Cunningham before getting back to his own evening meal with Maggie Keane and her two daughters, Moya and Katie.
However, he still had something he needed to do before he addressed any of that.
When he, the various members of his team and Father Mulligan had been out searching the grounds for Father McCafferty, one of the places he’d checked was the closest stone outhouse to the main house. It seemed to be the domain of Father McKenzie, the supposed Ginger Beatle. Starrett still didn’t get the Beatle connection. Okay, so the father was ginger haired (and ginger bearded) all right, but his hair most certainly wasn’t styled after the Fab Four in their heyday. Surely Ginger Farmer would have been a better nickname? Even Ginger Beard or just Ginger would be more apt? Mind you, his was not the only nickname in St Ernan’s that was a bit obscure. For instance, they called Father Gene McCafferty the Elephant Man just because he walked around with his hands in his pockets and elbows protruding to the left and right and flapping, supposedly just like elephant’s ears. It was clearly a case of a group of old men hanging around all day, with nothing much to do except think up silly names for each other.
Anyway, he thought, back to the outhouse; during their search for McCafferty, Starrett had picked up a bit of a strange vibe from the Ginger Beatle when he’d briefly shown him around the ancient stone house, the one that was built directly into the steep hill behind the main house. At that point the detective had been preoccupied with finding the missing father, but not so preoccupied as to miss that something was out of sorts with Father McKenzie. And now he was ready to find out what, before he and Nuala Gibson left to fight the nightly, gridlocked traffic of Donegal Town en route to the Major’s residence; en route to Maggie Keane. So, he bid Romany Browne goodbye before the young garda set off for the Station House in Ramelton, to catch up on his paperwork and offer whatever assistance he could to Garda Francis Casey in his endeavours at ground control.
* * *
As it turned out, there wasn’t much call for Browne back at the station, apart from fielding the one and only call from the public that afternoon.
‘Hello,’ the caller said.
‘Hello,’ Romany Browne replied, ‘how can I help you?’
‘I’d like to make a complaint, please.’
‘And what complaint would that be, Sir?’ Browne continued, still upbeat.
‘They’ve cut off my disability allowance.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, Sir. Which disability exactly is it that you suffer from?’
‘Why I’m deaf of course,’ the man replied, still so furious, his anger was seeping down the line.
Browne set the receiver down, knowing that if he ever relayed this conversation to any of his colleagues, not a single one of them would believe him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
When Father Edward McKenzie greeted Starrett – flanked by Gibson and Garvey – at the top of the steep and precarious stone steps that led to the stone out house, he looked as happy as a bulldog that had just eaten a wasp. He was attempting to speed lock the green wooden door behind him.
‘Am…we’d like to talk to you inside Father, if you don’t mind,’ Starrett started, gesturing to the stone house, ‘you know, a bit of a private chat, away from the house?’
Father McKenzie reluctantly reversed the direction of the key he’d just completed turning, and hesitantly led them back into the open-plan room.
The room itself was packed with odds and (gardening) sods, but all very cleanly and neatly stored in boxes and on the numerous racks, stacks and wall-hooks. The other end of the room was sectioned off with a large dirty-white floor-to-eaves and wall-to-wall tarpaulin. That sight, and his over-active nostrils, were the main reason for Starrett’s quick return to the out house. He believed Father McKenzie when he’d claimed to have seen neither Father McCafferty nor Bishop Freeman, but something – maybe even Father McKenzie’s unconscious behaviour – had demanded he take another look.
And as if to confirm his suspicions, Starrett noticed that the closer he got to the tarpaulin, the more antsy the priest became. Then, at the right-hand side of the room, just by the tarpaulin, and partially hidden in the folds, he spotted a couple of shallow wooden crates, stacked on top of each other, and full of potatoes. Behind the potatoes Starrett noticed some deeper crates filled with empty bottles.
‘Tell me this, Father,’ Starrett began, expansively, ‘have you ever noticed that when you swat a fly and then dump it in a toilet the fec…sorry, the darn germ-carrying insect only refuses to sink when you try to flush it down the toilet? And not only that, but the more you try to flush said fly, as you patiently wait until the cistern fills up again before you can re-flush, the more it hangs around, looking like it’s having a great wee time swimming around in the bowl as it sneers up at you?’
‘Aye,’ Father McKenzie offered in agreement.
‘Why do you think that is, Father?’ Starrett asked.
‘Has it to do with thingamabobs, trapped air, you know…whatsits?’ Father McKenzie suggested, while looking very much like he’d have preferred to phone a friend.
‘Well, I’m sure there might be some scientific explanation,’ Starrett said, as he started to hoak around, looking for the edge of the canvas, ‘but I much prefer the explanation that some things are just impossible to get rid of, do you know what I mean?
‘Well yes, I think so.’
‘Take for instance,’ Starrett announced, in a Eureka! moment, ‘the smell of the potatoes in your poteen still behind the auld canvas here…’
Father Edward McKenzie had the decency to smile largely before shrugging to imply, ‘Well, you have to try, don’t you?’
Starrett was not prepared for the industry he discovered behind the malleable partition. The space on the other side of the canvas was also a lot bigger than he’d been expecting, nearly as much again as on the potting shed side, in fact. And the floor on that side of the canvas benefited from a covering (mostly) of thick, dark-blue seagrass carpeting. The still and the bottling set-up was as elaborate and as big a plant as Starrett had ever seen.
‘Bejeepers, Father,’ Starrett s
tarted, thinking that no matter what his step-daughter thought, sometimes there was just no other word that worked for such situations, ‘there’s a lot of expensive hardware here just to keep the dozen of you in poteen.’
‘Well, we do sell some of it to cover our costs,’ Father McKenzie volunteered, looking every inch a man who was trying to prove that it’s not so much what you say that gets you into trouble but more a case of what you don’t say that keeps you out of trouble (he hoped).
‘Really?’ Starrett offered, ‘how exactly does that work?’
‘Ah, you’ll have to chat to Father McCafferty about that,’ Father McKenzie replied. ‘He looks after the distribution of the drink,’ he offered and then seemed to feel a need to add, ‘and the vegetables,’ and just when Starrett thought the priest was done he concluded with, ‘aye, and I nearly forgot the what’sit’s…yes that’s them…the wee buns and the apple pies.’
‘He does now, does he?’ Starrett said, in a much louder voice, now realising he’d unearthed both the capitalist and the Joe Kennedy bootlegger-character in one fell swoop. ‘All that must generate a fair bit of money?’
‘My daddy always said that money is a lot like manure: it should always be spread around generously.’
‘And you still have no idea where we might find him?’
‘My father?’ came the shocked but innocent reply, ‘he’s been dead a long time now.’
‘No, no,’ Starrett said, consciously pulling himself up short on impatience.
‘Oh right, sorry, of course,’ the priest smiled, his white teeth contrasting perfectly with their ginger frame. ‘Father McCafferty. Yes, him. Well, I was going to say earlier, but you rushed off in a hurry so I didn’t get a chance to tell you that it might be an idea to check Orla O’Connor’s thingamajig…ah, you know?’
‘House?’ Gibson prompted.
