St Ernan's Blues: An Inspector Starrett Mystery

by Paul Charles

  ‘Well, yes he does, as it happens,’ she replied, appearing to be happy of the opportunity to sing her friend’s praises. ‘Everyone who comes along brings something with them: a pie, some sandwiches, a quiche, wee buns, biscuits, drinks, what have you. Father McCafferty will invariably bring either one of the pies from St Ernan’s or some fruit or vegetables from their gardens or, now and again, a bottle of their poteen. Horrible stuff, but he is very partial to it.’

  ‘And do people make any donations or anything like that?’

  ‘Well yes,’ she replied, totally unruffled. ‘When first-timers come over and they realise that it is the regulars that bring the food and drink, they feel the need to chip something into the pot. But Father McCafferty takes care of all of that. He collects it and tells me the amount, takes out enough for tea and coffee and pays the balance into one of St Ernan’s charities.’

  ‘This is truly a wonderful house you have here,’ Starrett offered, hoping he wasn't being as transparent to the others, particularly Orla, as he was in his own mind.

  ‘Why, thank you. When my husband and I were looking for a house all those years ago we wanted to be in this area and we wanted to have a Georgian styled house. The only problem was the majority of what we were after were manses, and were either in ruins or in service with the connected church. We wanted to put down some of our own history, our own roots, so we decided the only way to get that was to build our own version of an old house. I insisted we buy all the land around our original plot, as well, because I did not want people building dormer bungalows anywhere near us. The gardens have now matured and so I am very happy with it.’

  ‘Have your children all left the fold now?’

  ‘My husband never wanted any children,’ she admitted, without the slightest sound of regret, ‘and I never cared enough to argue.’

  She looked at Starrett, then turned her shoulders away from him, put her head back and raised it slightly, just so she could look down her nose at him.

  ‘Oh, I see where you are going with this,’ she started, ‘who will get the house?’

  ‘Actually, it’s a good question,’ Gibson said, immediately springing to Starrett’s support. ‘We come across far too many cases where there’s not a valid will and the property will fall into ruin before the estate eventually claims it.’

  Even Garvey felt disposed to mutter, ‘Yes, yes, that’s right.’

  ‘No need to worry about that,’ Orla declared, ‘Father McCafferty has gone to great pains to set it all up for me so that my house will become a retreat. They will continue with the prayer meetings, of course – we intend to step up that side of things next summer. We were going to do it this summer but then we did not really have a summer this year, did we?’

  ‘Indeed,’ Starrett said. ‘It’ll be very expensive to maintain, don’t you know – a house this size, with no one living in it.’

  ‘Well, Father McCafferty will remain here, of course. He will receive a stipend and humble accommodation. At the correct time, he will set up a trust to run the place. We have both discussed that it is vitally important that the place is not broken up, or sold off into small plots to build those wretched dormer bungalows the planners seem to favour. Father McCafferty has suggested that it should be called The Orla O’Connor House. He wanted to get a plaque made up for the front gate and carved into the stonework above the front door. I told him, “Can you please at least wait until I am gone?”’ she said, before laughing.

  ‘Father McCafferty is definitely a one-off,’ Starrett couldn’t help but mutter.

  ‘As I was about to say, for this place to work, in order for it to be a real retreat and a true sanctuary, we need to keep the gardens as they are.’

  ‘This is all going to be very expensive,’ he mused. ‘Are you going to go to the government for grants?’

  ‘No,’ Orla O’Connor said firmly, ‘Father McCafferty explained that we can do that when we are up and running but they would want too much from us at this stage in return for a grant. He maintains that it is his priority to protect the house and the grounds and to do that properly we have to be self-managed.’

  ‘So does he intend to charge for the retreat?’

  ‘No, certainly not!’ she said, as if she’d just noticed dog-doo on his shoes. ‘I have sufficient funds for the project.’

  ‘And so Father McCafferty will be your front-man for this project?’

  ‘He will just be plain Gene McCafferty then,’ she said. ‘For the obvious reasons I have just explained, I cannot favour a certain denomination over another.’

  ‘Did Father Gene McCafferty ever introduce you to one of his colleagues from St Ernan’s, a priest by the name of Father Matthew McKaye?’ Starrett asked.

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact he did. Father Matthew was a very nice man – well, more of a boy really. But very well-mannered, oh yes, very handsome. I would say that one such as he, without a clerical collar, would have broken quite a few hearts. He has been over here quite often, but a couple of weeks ago he stopped coming around. Father McCafferty said he did not know why.’

  ‘Mrs O’Connor–’

  ‘You can call me Orla, Inspector.’

  ‘Orla,’ Starrett started, beginning to feel sorry for her. ‘Do you have a solicitor who looks after the legal side of all this for you?’

  To all bar one in the room, it was blatantly transparent what was going on. Starrett accepted that, with their insider knowledge of why Father McCafferty had been moved on twice from his dioceses, it was obviously a lot easier for them to pick up on the scam. But, even with all of that, he still thought surely the poor woman should have at least a bit of an idea about what Donegal’s Buddy Holly was attempting.

  ‘Father McCafferty said that I need not worry about any of that. He is happy to take care of everything and he has promised that he will check all of the papers before I sign them.’

  ‘So you haven’t signed any of the papers yet?’ Starrett said, with a bit of hope in his voice.

  ‘Why no,’ she replied, unsure and, for the first time since they met, appearing concerned. ‘Gene has not finished checking them yet. He says you need to be very careful with solicitors these days.’

  ‘Orla,’ Starrett started, in his most kindly voice, ‘by any chance do you have any good friends who live nearby?’

  ‘Well there is…am…ah…of course Gene and…’ She stopped talking and Starrett and his two colleagues realised immediately that she didn’t really have a single true friend, which was, most likely, one of the real reasons behind why Father Gene McCafferty had almost been successful in pulling the wool over her bank account.

  Starrett began the slow and painful process of explanation to Mrs Orla O’Connor, about the reasons why Father Gene McCafferty had been moved out of his previous two dioceses. He then continued with what he believed the priest had been trying to do with Mrs O’Connor’s house and estate. Finally, he concluded his tale by informing her of Father Matthew’s sad demise.

  ‘Surely you are not saying that Gene was involved in Father McKaye’s death, are you?’

  ‘No Orla, we’re not claiming that at all,’ Starrett replied. ‘At this stage all we can say is we’re looking into the death of Father Matthew McKaye and during the course of our investigation we have uncovered certain facts about Father McCafferty. We have reason to believe that you were to be the next victim in one of his scams.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ she replied, either not joining the dots or preferring not to.

  ‘When are you due to see Father McCafferty again?’

  ‘Well, he telephoned earlier today and said he was off for a few days on business for St Ernan’s and he would most likely see me at the weekend or he would give me a call.’

  ‘Do you remember what time he called you?’ Gibson asked.

  ‘Yes, I do, it was just after the Highland Radio one o’clock news bulletin.’

  ‘Have you any idea where he might have gone?’ Starrett asked.

  �
��No, he did not say and I did not ask him.’

  ‘One final question,’ Starrett said, sitting upright and physically preparing to rise from the comfy sofa he shared with Ban Garda Nuala Gibson. ‘Is there anywhere Father McCafferty would regularly go to? A hotel? Maybe a friend’s house? Another retreat like the one he’d been planning to set up in your house?’

  ‘Sorry, Inspector, I have no clue as to where Gene might be,’ she confessed. ‘It shows how little I really knew the man. In fact, I suppose this entire episode shows that there really is no fool like an old fool.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Inspector Starrett and Sergeant Packie Garvey left Ban Garda Nuala Gibson at Orla O’Connor’s grand house.

  The plan was that Nuala would stay with Mrs O’Connor until a Mr Sean Clarke – an American living in the area who organised the music for Orla at her prayer meetings – could get over to Rossnowlagh, which was on the west coast of Ireland, just south of Donegal Town. Orla said she’d always found Sean easy to talk to.

  The encouraging thing was, after talking to Starrett over the phone, Mr Clarke was prepared to drop everything and ‘scoot across’ (his exact words) ‘to Orla’s side. She’s been there for so many of us who’ve taken so much joy from her prayer meetings; it’s a pleasure to be able to return some of the support.’

  Nuala Gibson made arrangements for Garda Francis Casey to drive over from Ramelton to Rossnowlagh to pick her up, once Mr Clarke had arrived. Before returning to Ramelton the two of them planned to have dinner at the nearby Smuggler’s Creek which was dramatically set into the incredibly steep side of a hill overlooking the beach below.

  * * *

  Starrett and his trusted side-kick, Sergeant Packie Garvey, hopped into Starrett’s car – a BMW, famous in Donegal for passing everything bar a petrol station – Garvey at the wheel as usual. They drove back up and into the congested Donegal Town and out the other side and onto the N15, along the Ballybofey & Letterkenny Road, intending to stop off just on the outskirts of town at Eimear Robinson’s house. After checking his watch, the inspector discovered it was just after 7:30. They were going to need at least two hours to interview Eimear’s two daughters, Julia and Jessica, and her husband, Gerry, and, if they were very lucky, Eimear’s sister, Mary, who was also, according to Eimear, quite fond of Father Matthew. Starrett did the maths. Along with the drive back to Ramelton, that would have them arriving at Major Newton Cunningham’s house, out on the Rathmullen Road, no earlier than 11 p.m. That was just too late to go calling on a sick man, even in Donegal. So Starrett, very reluctantly, instructed Garvey to set the dials for the town land known as Ray, pronounced Rai, two- thirds the way along the Ramelton to Rathmullen hilly and ever-bending road.

  Starrett could find nothing on the radio to distract him.

  ‘Do we really think that there is a possibility that Father Matthew was murdered just because he somehow discovered what Father McCafferty was up to?’ Garvey asked, using the ‘royal’ we.

  ‘Well, it’s most certainly an avenue worth investigating,’ Starrett replied, ‘but we’ve a long way to go yet, Packie.’

  Packie looked like he wasn’t sure whether Starrett meant in the case or on the road to Ray.

  ‘Listen, Packie, I’m sorry for being a bit off recently, a bit crabbit, if you will.’

  ‘Aye,’ Packie replied, concentrating on the tricky dark road, ‘you haven’t been the same since they shut down Bakersville and you lost your supply of the cheesecakes you loved so much, you know, the ones without the cheese?’

  ‘I wish you hadn’t reminded me about just how good they were,’ Starrett replied, and turned on the radio again without comment.

  Before they knew it they were pulling up outside Packie’s home in Coylin Court, Ramelton. Starrett bid farewell to Packie, took over the driver’s seat, drove on out the road to Ray, and, just after the bridge, he took a turn to the right before heading off through a mini forest of dense trees. It was just before 9 p.m. and when he saw how weary Mrs Newton Cunningham was, he was very happy that he’d put off the Eimear Robinson family interviews until the next day, which would be the third day of the investigation into the death of Father McKaye.

  When the Major’s wife escorted him to her husband’s bedroom, Starrett knew immediately that things were worse than he’d feared. He could never remember a time in his life when the Major was confined to bed.

  ‘How are you doing?’

  The Major looked to the door his wife had just departed through and signalled to Starrett to check that it was fully shut.

  ‘Starrett, I’m bad,’ he said, as the inspector sat down, ‘and I’m not going to get better.’

  Starrett’s first temptation was to cajole the old soldier with the traditional, “Oh, you’ll be back on your feet in next to no time.” But the Major had never been one for either seeking sympathy or making grand sweeping statements about beating the dreaded enemy. No, instead the inspector resigned himself to the seriousness of the situation he had feared ‘in his bones’ just yesterday, when his boss had been too unwell to see him.

  ‘What is it?’ Starrett asked.

  ‘Cancer,’ the Major replied avoiding the cliché of ‘the big C’.

  ‘When did they discover it?’

  ‘A few weeks ago. I’d this terrible pain in my back and it was so bad I thought I must have slipped a disc or something, so I went to my doctor. He examined me and when he was finished he looked at me, concern written all over his face. He said it wasn’t a slipped disc and he wanted me to have to some tests, later that very afternoon, in fact. I went back to see him the next day for the results. He broke the bad news – cancer of the liver – but also explained to me that it had spread. He wanted me to go for immediate treatment.’

  ‘So when do you start?’ Starrett asked, as he remembered noticing the Major had recently been fastening his belt a hole or two tighter in the buckle.

  ‘Starrett, I’m more prepared to meet my Maker than I’m prepared for the drama of surgery.’

  The Major looked to the medicine on his bedside table.

  ‘Morphine will get me through this battle, Starrett, this final fight.’

  Silence.

  ‘But what about your wife?’ the inspector asked, without even realising he was going to ask that question.

  ‘Starrett,’ the Major said, growing visibly weaker before Starrett’s eyes, ‘the leaves on the chestnut tree in the autumn are certainly more beautiful than they are earlier in the year, but they still have to fall.’

  ‘But–’

  ‘And it’s got little to do with gravity,’ the Major whispered, signalling to his junior that the subject was closed.

  There were so many things Starrett wanted to talk about with his old boss. There was so much he wanted to thank him for, so many things he needed to ask him. There were even a few things he needed to confess. He felt the urgency and need to get each and every one of these things off his chest and quickly at that, but he noted the Major’s laboured breathing, The brave old soldier appeared to have fallen into a sleep. So Starrett sat in silence. None of this was about him. It was all about the Major.

  Starrett stayed on to enjoy a cup of tea with Mrs Newton Cunningham. Unlike Mrs O’Connor, she had numerous friends and a few of them were rallying around the Major’s resilient wife, offering tea and sympathy.

  ‘You know,’ she said, when she and Starrett found a private moment, ‘the Major is trying really hard to put on a brave face for me, but I do know what’s going on. It’s important for him, though, important for us, for both of us really, that we continue this charade.’

  ‘I fully understand.’

  ‘You know, he is very fond of you Starrett,’ she continued.

  ‘And I him.’

  ‘He was just as pleased as punch when you got back together with Maggie Keane,’ she said, a smile creeping across her face. ‘He said it would be the making of you.’

  Starrett thought of Maggie Keane and mus
ed as he did most days of his life about how incredible it was that, after all he’d been through, they’d ended up together again.

  As if reading his mind she offered, ‘You know, Starrett, the thing I’ve always found wonderful is that you can’t make yourself love someone, nor can you make someone love you, but the most incredible thing of all is that you cannot make yourself not love someone you love.’

  ‘I’m very lucky, Mrs Newton Cunningham,’ Starrett said, and immediately regretted using the word ‘luck’ at a time like this.

  ‘After all this time you’re still calling me Mrs! You’re a credit to your parents, Starrett, you were always very well-mannered but it really is time you started calling me Annette.’

  Starrett knew it was important for both of them to be able to talk about mundane things when the Major was dying in the next room.

  ‘He doesn’t know I know this, but I did speak to his doctor and…’ and she paused to bite her lip, ‘he’ll go very quickly. A week at the most.’

  ‘But it’s all so sudden,’ Starrett gushed.

  ‘As you well know, he’s never liked going to the doctor, Starrett,’ she started and then laughed. ‘He claimed with all his ailments and war wounds he was held together with little more than a piece of string and a couple of staples anyway!’

  The inspector made sounds of sympathy by clicking his tongue.

  ‘Ah, Starrett, he’s an old man – we’re both old.’

  ‘Aye, but there’s been many a great tune played on an auld fiddle, Annette.’

  ‘Now, now, Starrett, I need you to be strong for him, I need you to be strong for me,’ she whispered, sounding like she would not trust herself to fully speak the words. ‘We’re not going to be of any use to him, any use at all if we start to grieve for him before he passes. You know what he’s like as well as I do. He’ll throw the both of us out on our ears. I need you to be with him the way you always are. Please, please, please Graham – never let him see pity in your eyes.’