St Ernan's Blues: An Inspector Starrett Mystery

by Paul Charles

  Sixteen-year-old Julia, on the other hand, was a lot more engaging. She wore touches of make-up, noticeable about her eyes and her cheeks. She was kitted out in a black Nike tracksuit and expensive looking trainers, the ones with the wee wheels in the heels. Eimear repeatedly warned Jessica not to skate around the living room or, Jessica’s preference, the wooden hallway. ‘Watch my new floors!’ she’d say to anyone who’d listen and even those (usually her daughters) who wouldn’t.

  ‘So, do you think my sister bears any resemblance to Jessica Lange?’ Julia asked Starrett, as her mother disappeared into the kitchen to prepare the family dinner.

  ‘Is that the actress who plays Mrs Brown in Mrs Brown’s Boys?’ Starrett asked as innocently as he knew how.

  ‘Dope!’ Julia screeched, ‘totally dope!’

  Starrett had found someone who shared his sense of humour. At least, that was if he was remembering the correct interpretation of ‘dope’ and he wasn’t, in fact, being called one – a real dope, that was. This was all very confusing, he thought.

  ‘So, are you meant to look like Julia Roberts?’ Starrett said, chancing his arm.

  ‘No,’ Julia giggled, ‘you’d never get a piano in my sister’s mouth.’

  Then the younger sister muttered something barely beneath her breath, which Starrett didn’t pick up, apart from the word ‘maybe’. Jessica clearly did because she hissed ‘Julia!’ and threw a cushion at her with all her might.

  ‘You might be able to play a tune on her teeth, but could never get a piano in there,’ Julia laughed, flinging the cushion back at her sister, who seemed a lot less concerned over this wise crack from her younger sibling.

  ‘We’d like to talk to you a little bit about Father Matthew?’ Gibson started as the laughter (mostly Jessica’s) subsided.

  Julia sat upright and Jessica shrunk slightly into the sofa, cradling the cushion her sister had recently thrown back at her.

  ‘Now Father Matt, he was defo dope, sick, or whatever. He was all of them,’ Julia declared, looking at her sister.

  ‘As in cool?’ Starrett asked, to ensure he was on the right page.

  ‘Oh, as in most definitely cool,’ Julia confirmed immediately.

  Gibson and Starrett looked at Jessica who nodded a bright-eyed ‘oh yes, I agree’ look. Well, at least that’s what Starrett took it to mean.

  ‘You both got on well with him?’ Gibson asked.

  ‘Yes, we were like his adopted family,’ Julia replied, as she got up from her seat by the window and skated her way across the room to join her sister on the sofa with a dramatic back-flop into the cushions.

  ‘I hope you’re not skating on my new floor!’ Eimear shouted through from the kitchen.

  ‘No mum, that’s just the floor settling – it’s a new house, Dad said it would creak like that for a few months,’ Julia shouted back and then got up from the sofa again and skated across to close the door and return to her sister’s side. ‘Father Matt was one of us. He helped us move here, you know. He wasn’t really like a priest.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Starrett asked, ‘“He wasn’t really like a priest”.’

  ‘Well, he wasn’t old and wrinkly,’ Julia said, through laughter.

  ‘Anything else?’ Gibson asked.

  ‘He enjoyed a bit of fun, he was great craic,’ Julia said.

  ‘You could actually talk to him,’ Jessica offered, ‘he really listened to you.’

  ‘Yeah, he didn’t treat you like a kid,’ Julia said.

  ‘Do you think he was happy being a priest?’ Gibson asked.

  ‘Well, he said he thought he was joining the priesthood but all he seemed to be doing was washing dishes,’ Julia said. ‘To which my mum would reply, “Well if washing dishes gets you to Heaven then I’m already there.”’

  ‘Did he ever tell you if there was anything else he’d had preferred to do?’ Starrett asked.

  Both sisters looked at each other in a ‘will you tell hi, or will I?’ way.

  ‘He told us that he wasn’t cut out for it, that he wanted to leave,’ Julia said.

  ‘Julia!’ Jessica said in protest.

  ‘Well, it’s true, Jessica, and the guards need to know what happened to Father Matt, so we have to help them by giving them as much information as possible!’ Julia said, and in the absence of contribution from her sister she added, ‘I’m just saying, Jessica, we need to find out what happened to Father Matt.’

  ‘Okay,’ Jessica said, quietly.

  ‘You tell them, Jessica,’ Julia said.

  ‘No, you tell them!’

  ‘He told you, he didn’t tell me!’ Julia said. ‘That’s hearsay, Inspector, isn’t it? You know, when someone who didn’t hear something tells someone else what was said?’

  ‘That’s correct, Julia,’ Starrett confirmed.

  ‘So it wouldn’t stand up in court, would it?’ she continued.

  ‘Well there’s no need to worry about that here,’ Starrett replied, noticing that Jessica had grown a little nervy on hearing the word ‘court’. ‘At this stage we’re really just concerned about gathering as much information as possi–’

  ‘He told me he was going to leave the priesthood!’ Jessica blurted out.

  ‘When did he tell you that, Jessica?’ Starrett asked gently, noting that Julia seemed proud of her sister.

  ‘A couple of weeks ago,’ Jessica replied.

  ‘Where was your sister?’ Gibson asked, looking a little concerned.

  ‘She said, out with Bono.’ Jessica was trying really hard to break the mood by going into one of her routines with her sister.

  ‘Ugh!’ Julia groaned, ‘he’s older than my dad! And nowhere near as fit,’ she added proudly. She looked at her sister and moved closer to her, ‘Just tell them Jess, eh?’

  ‘Father Matt said that he realised he’d made a terrible mistake and he needed to fix it,’ Jessica finally offered the sitting room.

  ‘You mean he knew he didn’t want to be a priest?’ Starrett asked, trying hard not to put words into the girl’s mouth. He was worried she wasn’t far from breaking down and that would be the end of their interview.

  ‘Something had happened to him and he knew he needed to get away from the priesthood before his time was up at St Ernan’s. He was dreading leaving St Ernan’s.’

  ‘What was the something?’ Starrett felt compelled to ask.

  ‘That’s all I know.’

  ‘Was there another person involved?’ the inspector asked, thinking immediately of Bishop Freeman.

  ‘That’s all I know,’ Jessica repeated.

  ‘I know he was devastated by the prospect of failing as a priest,’ Julia said, diverting attention away from her sister again.

  ‘Did youse discuss this a lot?’

  ‘Well, when our parents weren’t about,’ Julia replied, ‘Jess and I and Father Matt would get the newspapers out and trawl through them, looking for a new job for him.’

  ‘Did youse ever find anything suitable for him?’ Starrett had accepted that the interview was winding down with little more to be gained from the current session.

  ‘Well, I found what I thought was a perfect job for him,’ Julia said.

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, I thought he should replace Paul McGuinness as U2’s manager,’ Julia said and then waited a single heartbeat before adding her punch line, ‘but Father Matt said now that they'd given their CD away for free he couldn’t afford the cut in his wages.’

  Starrett imagined that Julia’s below par attempt at humour had been intended not to amuse but to draw attention away from her sister again.

  * * *

  As far as Ban Garda Gibson was concerned, it had been an unsuccessful attempt to draw attention away from the older sister.

  Ten minutes later, Starrett politely declined Eimear’s generous invitation to stay for dinner and he and Gibson started their journey to the Major’s house. The offer was tempting though, if only because they would have had a c
hance to chat to Eimear’s husband, Gerry, and her sister, Mary Mooney. Their interviews would have to wait until a later date.

  The first thing the ban garda said when they’d successfully joined the quirky N15 northbound road was, ‘Julia Robinson knows more, a lot more than she was telling us.’

  ‘Perhaps next time you should interview her by herself?’ Starrett suggested.

  ‘I’d guess it’s going to be very difficult to get her to even consider talking to us again without her sister,’ Gibson said. ‘Initially I agreed with you, that it should be a ban garda that interviews her. But now I’m not so sure – she seemed a lot more receptive to you.’

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Starrett was happy they arrived at the Major’s house at the more civil time of 7 p.m. that night. Maggie Keane was already there and so Nuala Gibson left after a few minutes’ chat with Maggie, her friend, since she didn’t feel comfortable accepting Annette Cunningham’s offer to visit the Major in his bedroom.

  Starrett, however, went straight in and, to his surprise, the Major seemed in better spirits than the night before. He said as much and the Major nodded in the direction of his medication.

  ‘So,’ Starrett continued immediately, ‘I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but a young priest, a Father Matthew McKaye, was found dead up in St Ernan’s – you know the house on the island, just outside Donegal Town?’

  ‘Good on you, Starrett,’ the Major said, getting Starrett to help him sit up a little more in the bed before elaborately tidying the bedding himself. ‘That’s exactly what I like to see, business as usual. So what do we know?’

  Starrett briefed his superior on his progress so far.

  ‘Do we know any of the cast?’ the Major eventually asked.

  ‘Well, that’s why I really needed to talk to you, Major,’ Starrett replied, hesitantly. ‘I have a possible conflict of interest – with Bishop Cormac Freeman.’

  ‘Never heard of him, Starrett, where do you know him from?’

  ‘He was Father Freeman when I went to Armagh to join the priesthood,’ Starrett admitted.

  ‘Might he be behind the reason you left so quickly?’

  ‘You got it in one, Major.’

  ‘Have you any reason to believe he might be involved in the demise of young Father McKaye?’

  ‘Well, Father McKaye was rather handsome. He was scheduled to move to Bishop Freeman’s patch at the end of his final training. He told someone he wanted – needed – to leave the Church. He expressed a wish to do so before he left St Ernan’s. He admitted to one of his colleagues that he’d lost his faith. Bishop Freeman disappeared a few hours before I was due to interview him. However, to be perfectly honest, at this stage there’s nothing more circumstantial than that.’

  ‘Okay Starrett,’ the Major said, ‘you’ve brought the matter to my attention. I know you well enough to know, no matter how much you might want to, you won’t fit him up if he’s not the one. Apart from which, if those were your true intentions, you certainly wouldn’t have raised the possible conflict-of-interest issue with me in the first place. I’ll have the current Mrs Cunningham type up my report; I’ll sign it and have it included with my files in Gamble Square.’

  ‘Perfect, as ever, just perfect,’ Starrett said, a weight lifted off his mind.

  ‘Tell me, Starrett, how’s young Romany Browne doing?’

  ‘Actually he’s doing very well; he’s gaining his confidence and, doesn’t seem to take advantage of his looks, like I at first feared he might. I have a feeling he’ll be a good member of the gardaí.’

  ‘I have the same feeling, Starrett,’ the Major said and then paused, looking deep in consideration. ‘Look, Starrett, I really do promise I’m not going to get all maudlin on you with all the “after I’m gone” poppycock, but please keep an eye on him for me. His father was a good man, a decent soldier. Sadly, a bad end and all of that. Also you might keep a lookout on the current Mrs Newton Cunningham. I know your mum and dad will look out for her as well.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Good, good.’ The Major seemed relieved, looking as if he’d just ticked the last few items from his ‘getting his house in order’ list. ‘Now, tell me this, Starrett, is there still a Father Peregrine Dugan down at St Ernan’s?’

  ‘As a matter of fact there is,’ Starrett offered. ‘How do you know Father Dugan?’

  ‘Oh, he’s got this tome he’s been working on for…well, it must be over twenty years now, called The History of Ireland. I met him, oh, it would be well over ten years ago now since he came to see me to record my memories on Ireland’s involvement in the Second World War.’

  ‘Yeah, he’s still stuck in his room, working on the same book.’

  ‘I’d a feeling he might be.’ The Major looked off into the distance. ‘I remember we were talking, I forget the place, but I do remember the content. He asked me if I knew how many people had died in the War. I told him, as far as would be admitted by the various governments involved, it was over 60 million souls.’

  Starrett gasped, even though he’d heard the figure before and most likely from the Major.

  ‘And do you know what he did, Starrett? He started to weep. Not cry, but weep – the tears just streamed down his face and we had to stop. He said he just couldn’t do any more work that day.’

  The Major didn’t dwell on the subject, and Starrett let it pass, fearing the subject might also bring down his boss. But it turned out the Major was happy to reminisce.

  ‘The things we forget are how the memories we cherish most are memories of events, usually first-time experiences, that made such an impression on our lives,’ he offered, seeming to benefit from a second wind. ‘These memories are so important and precious to us, and make such a lasting impression on us, that we are incapable of forgetting them. In my case, all such memories have no monetary overtones.’

  ‘For instance?’ Starrett asked.

  ‘I remember being around my house one evening after school, playing with my friend, Sixer Kelly, when Master Bailie, the headmaster of my school, pulled up in his maroon car and asked me to do him a favour.’

  ‘Really?’ Starrett said, concerned as to where this might be going.

  ‘Yes, he’d just got a new Austin car and for some reason or other – I’ve never really been able to work out why, even after all these years – he couldn’t drive it into his garage, which was just around the corner from our house. What he wanted to do was drive the car into the garage, leaving enough room to open the car door, and then turn the engine off, open said car door, get out of the car and then get someone – i.e. me – to steer the car, aiming for a centrally suspended fist-size sandbag near the back wall as a guide, and someone else – Sixer Kelly, in this case, to help him push the car the final five or six yards into the garage.

  ‘I can remember sitting in the car, drinking in the rich aroma of the new leather seats and recently polished wooden dashboard, behind a massive steering wheel. I was both excited and scared, as was the case with all my favourite adventures, not to mention tremendously relieved when he shouted for me to put my foot on the brake about ten inches from the back wall and, thankfully, the pristine vehicle obeyed and ground to a halt.

  ‘Then there was this girl, Lorna – she was the daughter of someone important in the town. They’d a big car and an appropriately sized detached house with huge, well-manicured gardens and stables around the back. I used to go for a dander around the village with no one but my thoughts to accompany me. I’d frequently come across Lorna dressed to the nines in her equine gear and riding a spectacular chestnut pony. Anyway, I soon worked out her route and her timetable and I would “accidentally” come across her on her route, and we fell into this routine of her up on her horse and me walking along beside her, and we’d rabbit away ten to the dozen to each other, like we were the best of friends.’

  ‘Was she one of your earlier girlfriends?’ Starrett asked in hope.

  ‘No, no, not a
t all. It was the pony I was always keen on.’

  They both laughed.

  ‘Another of my precious perennial memories also involves a car,’ the Major continued, quickly jumping back to the thread of his previous story.

  ‘Go on,’ Starrett encouraged.

  ‘When a new local church brought a marquee to the outskirts of town as a way to drive the congregation up, the church council decided a good gimmick would be for the elders of the church to pick up the potential “new members” of the congregation in their expensive cars. Not only that, but they also offered to give them tea and cakes after the service and they’d drive them home again. It was the first time in my life I was ever in a motor car and the experience was totally earth-shattering for me. It was also the first time in my life I’d experienced the magic that is known as the floating voice, created by a group of men and women singing in natural harmonies. The first time my ears twigged something different – yes, maybe even spiritual – was happening, I looked all around the marquee to see if I could discover where the enchanting voice was coming from. I was looking so see who in our midst had this beautiful soulful voice. I soon realised that this floating voice was somewhere – physically and mystically – above my fellow men and women. I soon stopped searching for the source and settled down to bask in the glory of it.’

  ‘Did the car collection gimmick work? Did you return on other nights?

  ‘A few times but then I stopped.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Well, Starrett, I’ll tell you. They started to ask for people who wanted to be saved, people young and old who want to, I believe the exact words were “Take the Lord Jesus Christ into their heart, and ask Him to forgive them their sins and to save them.” But I just couldn’t make that kind of divine connection. Some of my mates did, but I always thought that might have had something to do with the stunning girls strategically placed in the front row of the choir. On seeing the choir girls, my mates readily raised their hands in confirmation of their need, and agreement, to be saved.’