St Ernan's Blues: An Inspector Starrett Mystery

by Paul Charles

  ‘And so you think because you did a runner, leaving me with child, you were punished for it?’ she offered unsympathetically.

  ‘Well yes, don’t you see–’

  ‘For goodness sake, Starrett, don’t go all bleedin’ feckin’ hippie on me!’ she sighed, cutting him off but yet still managing to flash him her lopsided grin. ‘I keep telling you, and I keep telling you because it’s true, that if you hadn’t done a midnight flit–’

  ‘Morning, actually,’ he said, ‘I scarpered in the morning.’

  ‘Right, good to see your momentary lapse of humour hasn’t disappeared. But as I was about to say, and will say again because it’s so important: If you hadn’t left me, I’d never had met Niall and have my two wonderful daughters. So the next time you meet your suspect, please tell him that sometimes something bad happening actually produces wonderful things in the world. On top of which, sometimes there are truly evil men about, as is the case with your Bishop Cormac Freeman, and my theory would be that, eventually, someway, somehow they get their just desserts. Maybe that should be just rewards, but I think you know what I’m on about.’

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Day Five: Sunday

  Maybe it was because Starrett had, for the first time ever, told someone about the incident he’d been hiding all his life, or maybe it was due to the fact that for the first time in his life, he had someone he could finally share the horrific and traumatic memory with. Either way, he felt very differently now, in the presence of the bishop. Starrett reckoned he’d now beaten him twice. The first time he’d suffered no more than a broken finger. The second time – that was to say, during the nightmare, and thanks to Maggie Keane’s down-to-earth approach – he’d come away totally unscathed.

  For the bishop’s part, however, he didn’t look quite as comfortable, having endured his recent incarceration in Ramelton’s very humble gardaí station. He’d exchanged his usual regal attire for a sober grey suit and a collarless white shirt, and robe-free, the majesty of his office gave way to the sight of an overweight man.

  Yes, but although Bishop Cormac Freeman was down, he most certainly wasn’t out.

  ‘You realise you’re over, you’re through, you’re all mine and I’m going to stamp on your pathetic life until it’s dust,’ was the bishop’s opening gambit.

  ‘That sounds suitably pious,’ Starrett said calmly. He knew, as he always knew, that everything was official now and on tape and if he’d a chance of extracting a confession from the bishop, he was only going to succeed if he remained calm, the voice of reason.

  ‘Quite simply, you can’t throw a bishop in jail, Starrett,’ the bishop continued with his bellicose rant.

  ‘The law of the land pays no heed to how humble or mighty those before it think they are,’ Starrett said, before announcing to the already running tape the date, time, and names of those present - Freeman, Russell Leslie (Freeman’s very dapper local solicitor), Gibson, and himself.

  ‘I demand you let me go now, this very moment!’ Freeman barked, his bullfrog eyes straining to pop from their sockets. ‘Leslie, get me out of here immediately!’

  ‘Okay, Bishop Freeman and Mr Leslie,’ Starrett started evenly, ‘there are two issues here. The first is that, as you know and have been officially informed, I’m here to question you regarding the murder of Father Matthew McKaye.’

  ‘Are you charging me?’ the bishop roared, the veins in his neck visible and working overtime to supply blood to his brain. ‘Please, charge me Starrett, oh please do, then I’ll really have you where I want you.’

  ‘The inspector has advised you that he wishes only to question you about this matter,’ Russell Leslie offered, taking great pains to calm his client. ‘Let’s settle down and hear his questions.’

  ‘The second issue is that you absconded like a thief in the night just before we were due to meet for an interview down in St Ernan’s. That is why you were detained. That is why you will most likely be charged, at the very least, with being a fugitive.’

  Russell Leslie raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything.

  Starrett also realised he was on a very sticky wicket on that one and that if the Major had been well and up and about, he’d probably have warned Starrett about detaining the bishop overnight. But that wasn’t the point, the point was to try and get to the bottom of the bishop and Father Matthew’s relationship.

  ‘I understand you’ve already admitted Father Matthew was going to join you in your diocese?’

  The bishop remained noiseless for the first time since the proceedings commenced.

  ‘All you need do is answer yes or no to confirm or deny the inspector’s information.’

  ‘Yes,’ the bishop barked, now appearing to grow as annoyed with his own solicitor as with Starrett.

  ‘Can you tell me how the system works please?’ Starrett asked.

  ‘What system?’

  ‘How it’s decided which diocese a young priest will serve in?’

  ‘It’s decided by the Church,’ Freeman snapped.

  ‘And you wouldn’t normally be involved in the process?’

  ‘Of course I wouldn’t,’ he said, through laughter. ‘The Church has dedicated secretarial staff for all of that.’

  ‘But in this instance, you intervened–’ Starrett continued.

  Bishop Freeman cut him off with, ‘I’ve no need to answer that question; it has no relevance.’

  ‘Well, here’s the thing, Bishop Freeman,’ Starrett started, ‘I have reason to believe that you did intervene, and so if you won’t confirm or deny it, I’ll have to detain you and go and visit your diocese tomorrow to confirm or deny those facts there.’ The bishop was about to reply when Starrett added, ‘I should also point out that tomorrow I have to attend the funeral of Father Matthew McKaye, so it could be late tomorrow or even early Tuesday morning before I get back to Ramelton.’

  ‘As a bishop I have the discretion to make such recommendations,’ Bishop Freeman eventually admitted, through gritted teeth.

  ‘And why did you make such a recommendation?’

  ‘I thought the young priest would be a fine addition to our diocese.’

  ‘You thought the young priest would be a fine addition to your diocese?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I said,’ the bishop replied before looking at his solicitor as if to suggest ‘What’s this guy on?’

  ‘And how many times in the past would you have found a young priest who would have been “a fine addition to your diocese”?’

  ‘How on earth would I know?’

  Starrett paused here for a time and made a big deal of it, intending to imply to the bishop that the earth he was treading wasn’t altogether solid. He had been taken by something Father O’Leary had said to him in their previous meeting: ‘I find it’s good to look at those who have gone before.’ So much so, in fact, he’d set his top researcher on to that very task.

  ‘Well, funny you should say that, Bishop, you see because I have a young garda, by the name of Francis Casey,’ Starrett began, now looking like he was clearly enjoying himself, ‘and Francis Casey, to quote some of your own words, is, “a fine addition to my diocese”, if you’ll forgive me a wee bit of poetic licence. You see, I give him a project and bejeepers if his research isn’t only second to none. Isn’t that correct, Ban Garda?’

  ‘Yes,’ Gibson replied, proudly opening the brown file in front of her.

  ‘So I asked our Garda Casey if he could find out for me just how many young priests you’d personally recommended for your diocese.’

  ‘I thought we were here to discuss the death of Father McKaye,’ Bishop Freeman said, addressing his solicitor with a flicker of concern.

  ‘Oh, but we are,’ Starrett replied immediately. ‘Please, just bear with me. Ban Garda Gibson, how many young priests did Garda Casey discover?’

  ‘Seventeen.’

  ‘Seventeen, eh? And over what period of time are we talking?’

  ‘Eleven and a hal
f years.’

  ‘Seventeen over eleven and a half years, eh, surely not?’ Starrett said, taking the file and hamming it up as if in disbelief at the stats. ‘Why, you’re 100 per cent correct!’

  He returned the file to her, setting up his next question. ‘I know there’s a lot of research there in Garda Casey’s file, so could you please confirm how many of the seventeen young men would have been considered, considered…how’s the best way to put this…not pretty, well …maybe pretty, but probably better we describe them as…handsome?’

  Bishop Freeman rose to his feet in an attempted proceedings-stopping protest. But without his robes, he didn’t have the majesty to pull it off.

  Starrett merely held up his hand in a stop sign. A stop sign greatly emphasised by his crooked finger. ‘Just a few moments please, then we’ll most certainly want to hear from you, Bishop Freeman.’ Starrett nodded again to Ban Garda Nuala Gibson, who was in her Sunday civvies rather than her uniform.

  ‘Well,’ she started, ‘of course, it’s all very relative isn’t it, but by and large we could say that out of the seventeen young priests Garda Francis Casey found, all seventeen of them of could be described as handsome.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’ Starrett protested.

  ‘I’m not,’ Gibson offered, ‘and neither was Garda Casey.’

  ‘So that’s, let’s just count them, one – two – three – four – five – six – seven – eight – nine – ten – eleven – twelve – thirteen – fourteen – fifteen – sixteen – and seventeen!’ Starrett grandstanded. In fact, he’d had to speak over the bishop’s protests from number eight until seventeen.

  But he wasn’t quite finished yet.

  ‘Ban Garda, there’s one other stat I need you to pull from Garda Casey’s file.’

  ‘Okay,’ Gibson said, looking like she was primed to jump back into Casey’s fact-findings, which were not as multi-paged a file as Starrett and Gibson were trying to make out. Basically they’d placed Casey’s neatly typed foolscap page in the middle of a file containing Donegal’s RTA (Road Traffic Accident) reports for the previous two years.

  ‘How many of the original seventeen are still with the diocese they were, in Bishop Freeman’s own words, “going to be a fine addition to”, or for?’

  ‘Ah, that would be zero,’ Gibson advised those around the table.

  ‘Okay, and I promise this is my final question for you Ban Garda: How many of the seventeen young, pretty…sorry, not pretty but handsome, additions to Bishop Freeman’s diocese lodged a complaint, either official or verbal, about said Bishop?’

  ‘Twelve.’

  ‘Twelve, eh, just like the twelve apostles?’

  ‘Yes, but there might be more, Sir,’ Gibson offered. ‘But that’s as far as Garda Casey has managed to get with his research.’

  Starrett now focused on Bishop Cormac Freeman. He searched his face, his eyes, his body language for a sign, even just a flicker of regret. Nothing. He found nothing – Bishop Freeman was indignant to the end.

  ‘So you see, Bishop Freeman–’

  ‘You see what?’ the bishop barked. ‘This is nothing; you’ve got nothing, not a single thing! There are always trouble-makers among the young priests. I seem to remember you were one such priest yourself. I just never seem to remember you being one of the handsome or pretty ones, as you have a habit of calling them. You must have caught me in a weaker moment,’ he smirked.

  Starrett looked in disbelief at the tape on the wall edge of the table between them. If he’d jumped across the table and smashed the bishop to a purple pulp, he wouldn’t have gotten anywhere close to the satisfaction he now felt. Bishop Cormac Freeman had near enough admitted on the garda tape his physical attack of Starrett. The lights and magic eyes confirmed that the tape had been in perfect working order at the time of the remark. Yes, it was quite possibly just an oblique reference, but it was still a reference, nonetheless. He couldn’t believe how transparent a man the bishop was, and how blasé he was being about the whole affair.

  Then, as on the fateful night all those years ago, Starrett was scared. He was scared because he knew people like Bishop Cormac Freeman, or Father Cormac Freeman, as he then was, felt it there absolute God-given right to satisfy their lust by feeding on the fresh pickings of their juniors, and heaven help anyone, including their current victim, who got in their way.

  ‘You see, Bishop Freeman, we know that you’d personally intervened in the case of Father Matthew, as you had with the previous seventeen cases, to ensure he’d come within your control – and therefore your grasp – at your diocese. Father Matthew had mentioned to several witnesses that he didn’t want to go to your diocese. He had admitted to some that he was losing his faith. You were the sole reason he was losing his faith. I believe he discovered what had happened to some of his predecessors. If Garda Francis Casey could uncover this information then so could Father Matthew. In fact, if anything, as a priest, it would have been easier for him to do so. We all know you don’t like to be turned down, Father Freeman.’

  ‘Bishop Freeman!’ he snapped.

  ‘Sorry, yes, of course,’ Starrett apologised. ‘I just reverted there, for a few seconds, to your earlier life. So, when he turned you down, you grew incensed and killed him.’

  ‘Really?’ the bishop said, mocking Starrett.

  The inspector was now so close to cracking this case he felt if he could only push the correct button, he could get the bishop to confess. This would allow him to tie this terrible mess up and he’d be able to spend less time with this devil and more precious time with one of the good guys, Major Newton Cunningham.

  ‘Did Father Matthew come to you and try to blackmail you? Did he tell you that unless you got him out of going to your diocese, he’d go to the authorities with what he’d discovered?’

  If Bishop Freeman’s reaction was anything to go by, that stab in the dark looked like it had hit the target dead centre.

  Starrett decided to play a final bluff.

  ‘Bishop Freeman I am charging you–’ Starrett started, slowly and deliberately.

  ‘What! What! You can’t possibly,’ the bishop protested. ‘But my alibi, my alibi, what about my alibi?’

  ‘You mean the alibi of you walking about the streets of Donegal Town?’ Starrett said. ‘We checked and not one person claimed to have seen you. No one saw a bishop, in all his finery, wandering around Donegal Town.’

  ‘Of course I wasn’t in my robes!’ the bishop complained. ‘I was in a grey suit, such as this!’

  ‘None of the staff at the Donegal castle saw you wandering around the castle grounds. Oh, and by the way, just for the record, the roof still hasn’t been returned.’

  ‘Starrett will be blaming me for that as well if we’re not careful,’ Bishop Freeman said as an aside to Russell Leslie.

  ‘We also checked in with the bookshop you claimed to have visited?’ Gibson continued.

  The bishop clocked her, hopefully hoping for a break in his luck.

  ‘They were in fact closed all Wednesday afternoon for stock-taking,’ Gibson advised a visibly crestfallen Freeman.

  Russell Leslie seemed unemotional about the walls falling in around his client. Was that because the solicitor had started to consider how much more the case would be worth to him if the bishop turned out to be guilty?

  ‘So,’ Starrett continued his earlier thread, ‘Bishop Freeman I am charging you–’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ Bishop Freeman pleaded, raising his hands up towards the heavens in an apparent, yet unspoken, plea, ‘my Father, my Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?’

  In that instant the bishop reminded Starrett not of one of God’s disciples but of a character from a Leonard Cohen song who was ‘reaching for the sky only to surrender.’

  In the second part of the same elaborate gesture, the bishop lowered his hands. He put his left hand inside his inside right-hand pocket and withdrew a pen and a micro-notebook. He scribbled something down, tore out the tiny page a
nd passed it across the table to Starrett, who was delivering a running commentary for the benefit of the tape.

  ‘The note from Bishop Freeman says “Vincent Wickham” and lists a mobile telephone number.’ Starrett recited the number again for the benefit of the tape. ‘And who is Vincent Wickham?’

  ‘Am, an associate of mine,’ Bishop Freeman admitted.

  ‘Yes…and?’

  ‘He will confirm to you,’ the bishop started off in a very quiet voice, ‘that he and I were with…with a rent boy…’

  That wee bit of information certainly piqued the interest of the already piqued solicitor.

  ‘Go on,’ Starrett prompted, accepting that his pride - in tying up the case - had most certainly come before the inevitable fall.

  ‘We occasionally take a room in a well-known hotel. It’s always booked in his name. Can I assume you will be discreet with this information? You know you could ruin me with it?’

  ‘You’ve already ruined yourself,’ Starrett said, without a trace of pride. ‘I’m going to leave the room now. Ban Garda Nuala Gibson, will you please get a few clean sheets of paper for the bishop here. When I return, I want not only to see your written statement, but your written resignation, too, effective immediately. This Church has enough to deal with without enduring yet another scandal. But I swear to you, and just as sure as my right forefinger is permanently bent, if you don’t write your resignation I’ll take all this information straight to the papers.’

  ‘Are you not taking a bit of a risk, threatening me?’ the bishop moaned. ‘Sure, I haven’t even written my confession yet.’

  ‘Of course that’s true,’ Starrett himself confessed, hoping he was carrying off the look of someone who'd just been caught out. ‘But, bejeepers, isn’t that where the auld tape recorder comes in very handy.’