St Ernan's Blues: An Inspector Starrett Mystery

by Paul Charles

‘And you know we told you that he was going to leave the priesthood?’

  ‘Yes,’ Gibson replied.

  ‘Well, he was going to leave the priesthood so we could be together,’ she said, as she stopped playing with her hair and cradled both palms of her hands gently on her stomach.

  Starrett was impressed Jessica was addressing the topic head on, rather than circling around it.

  ‘Had Father Matt told your parents about this?’ Starrett asked.

  ‘We didn’t need to.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Starrett started, not really following her.

  ‘My mam caught us down here late one night, making out,’ Jessica volunteered freely.

  Gibson looked shocked but managed to restrain herself. Starrett knew he had to go with the flow and not appear too judgemental.

  ‘Sorry, Jessica, I’m not entirely sure I understand exactly what “making out” is,’ Starrett said, as casual as he knew how to be. ‘You see, from what I can gather from my girlfriend–’

  ‘Maggie Keane?’ Jessica asked immediately, as if she was seizing this golden opportunity to confirm a piece of gossip.

  ‘As it happens, yes,’ Starrett replied, openly confused as to why people in Donegal Town seemed to know so much about Maggie. ‘You see, Maggie also has two daughters and when they’re kidding around, the younger one thinks that “making out” is kissing, which apparently is what it means in America, whereas the older sister, Katie, well, she seems to think that “making out” is–’

  ‘Making love?’ Jessica offered thoughtfully.

  ‘Well, yes,’ Starrett replied.

  ‘Katie is correct,’ the elder Robinson sister confirmed. ‘And, yes, my mam caught Matt and me making love.’

  ‘How did she react?’ Gibson asked.

  ‘Well, all things considered,’ Jessica said scrunching up her face, ‘she was pretty civilised about it.’

  ‘What happened?’ Starrett asked.

  Jessica looked confused, and perhaps a little embarrassed. ‘Oh you mean when she discovered us?’

  Starrett nodded.

  A huge grin of relief spread across her face. ‘I thought for a moment there you were asking me to explain exactly what we were doing.’

  Gibson couldn’t help giggling, which started Jessica off in a fit of giggles as well. In that one second she was no longer an adult discussing an adult encounter but a wee girl enjoying a naughty moment with one of her mates. The interlude served to settle the proceedings down a bit by relaxing everyone.

  ‘So, my mam,’ Jessica started again, once she’d managed to regain her composure, ‘well, she could have been…she could have blown her top. Well, maybe she didn’t…maybe because my dad was upstairs asleep and if she’d woken him there really would have been hell to pay. Or maybe it could have been she just wanted to manage the situation by getting my Matthew out of the house immediately.’

  ‘Did your dad find out?’ Starrett asked.

  ‘Goodness, no way!’ Jessica said, physically looking like a kid again, one who’d just been caught eating directly from the sugar bowl. ‘I really felt for mam. I couldn’t work out if she was more disappointed in me or with Matt. She didn’t make a fuss; she covered me with her dressing gown, whispered to Matt to see himself out and led me upstairs.’

  ‘When did this happen?’ Starrett asked.

  ‘A bit over two weeks before Matt died,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Did your mum discuss it with you after Father Matt had left?’

  ‘No, that’s the funny thing,’ Jessica said. ‘She never even acknowledged that the incident had ever happened, that’s why this has been a very difficult time for me, no one is allowing me to grieve and I’m the one who has lost the most. You’re the first people I’ve really discussed this with…’

  She looked like she was very close to tears again. Starrett was hit hard by the impact of this young woman crossing the emotional lines from woman to child and then back again, and sometimes within the same sentence.

  ‘…and it’s…this is really helping me. We really did love each other, you know.’

  ‘We know,’ Gibson said, going over to join her on the sofa and putting a comforting arm around her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jessica sobbed. ‘I don’t want to be babbling here like a kid. I need to be strong – Matt always said I was the stronger of the two of us. He said I’d given him the courage to leave the priesthood.’

  ‘Had he told anyone he was leaving?’ Starrett asked.

  ‘He told that old letchy bishop that he wasn’t going to be going to his diocese. Matt said the bishop was seriously pissed. He told Father O’Leary that he was having serious reservations about whether he really wanted to continue on with it all. Father O’Leary was so caring and considerate with Matt. He didn’t throw a hissy fit. He’s such a nice man, Father O’Leary, such a sweet man. He’s how all priests should be. He calmly told Matt now was the right time to consider his doubts. He advised him to listen to his heart and follow it, and not listen to what his head felt he should do. He said, “It’s your life and you’ve only got one and whereas mistakes are your own to make, life’s so much easier if you can avoid the buggers.”’

  ‘Yes, Father O’Leary really is a decent man,’ Starrett agreed.

  ‘Do you think…’ Jessica started and then stopped and then started again, ‘do you think the bishop murdered my Matt?’

  ‘Jessica, Bishop Freeman has an alibi for the time of Father Matt’s passing,’ Starrett said.

  She nodded her acceptance.

  ‘Did you and Father Matt see each other after the night your mum caught you together?’

  ‘Why yes,’ she said, smiling again before sitting up and gently disentangling herself from the ban garda’s comforting arm. ‘I mean, we spoke a lot, we met a few times, but we never made love again.’

  When neither of the gardai commented, she continued, ‘Matt said he would leave the priesthood and get everything set up, and then we should start “dating” and take it from there, as a normal couple, rather than getting caught up in the stigma of me being a priest’s lover.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Starrett offered, in encouragement.

  ‘Made sense at the time,’ she said barely above a whisper.

  ‘Did Father Matt ever tell you about anyone he’d a falling out with?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Did he ever tell you about anything or anyone troubling him?’

  ‘No,’ she replied quickly, ‘and we discussed everything. He was a very happy boy. You know, he was just a few years older than me? He’d always say that by the time he was forty, people wouldn’t even notice the difference in our ages, let alone be preoccupied with them.’

  ‘Jessica, we have to ask you this question, so please don’t be upset by it,’ the detective started.

  ‘Okay,’ she replied plainly.

  ‘Could you just tell us what you were doing last Wednesday afternoon between the hours of, say, 3:30 and 5:30?’

  ‘Oh, that’s easy! I know why you’re asking, you have to ask the question just to rule people out.’

  ‘That’s correct,’ Gibson confirmed.

  ‘In my case, it’s simple,’ she said proudly. ‘I was with a bunch of my mates all that afternoon and early evening. We were at Aoife and Maeve’s house, we’d all great fun. Then I got back here and my mum told me the awful news from St Ernan’s.’

  As Jessica recounted to Gibson the details of Aoife and Maeve’s address, Starrett looked troubled. He had a question which had been floating around his head for a good few minutes now and he was 50/50 on whether or not he was going to ask it. Before he had a chance to consider the subject any further, the words just slipped from his tongue by their own accord:

  ‘Did Father Matthew know you were pregnant?’

  ‘No, but my mum did!’

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Starrett returned to St Ernan’s with a heavy heart. Gibson was at the wheel, as usual.

  ‘As soon as I drop
you off at St Ernan’s I’ll scoot back into town and check her alibi with Aoife and Maeve,’ she said.

  ‘Let the boys do that,’ Starrett said, shaking his head to try and remove something from it. ‘You and I will have a wee chat with Eimear.’

  As they entered the back door of St Ernan’s, the detective could hear someone, probably Father Ginger Beatle, close by in the trees and popping away on the air rifle, most likely trying to score another rabbit or two for the evening’s dinner.

  Eimear Robinson was immediately back at the sink, busying herself with the dishes. Father O’Leary was sitting by the roaring fire, holding a newspaper up, which he didn’t appear to really be reading. From some far corner of the house Starrett could hear a couple of voices, most likely Father Mulligan discussing some writing project with the Master Writer, Father Dugan. Starrett concentrated on the voices for a little while until he was sure he recognised the breaking voice of Father Mulligan.

  To all intents and purposes it looked like just another day at St. Ernan’s. Starrett figured it was both shocking and heartening how quickly life had returned to ‘normal’ following a death in the midst.

  Still, for all of that, there was something troubling Starrett about the scene. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it but he knew in his gut that something was wrong, something was missing.

  Eimear, who’d acknowledged Starrett briefly when he’d entered the room went on with her work. Father O’Leary folded his newspaper elaborately, put it down and invited the inspector to sit with him by the fire. Gibson went upstairs on a nod from Starrett to ask

  Sergeant Packie Garvey and Garda Romany Browne to check out Jessica Robinson’s alibi.

  ‘Any further progress?’ Father Robert O’Leary asked.

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact,’ Starrett replied, still distracted by what could have been missing from the scene.

  ‘Anything you wish to share?’ the priest continued, minus his usual air-writing.

  Starrett looked at him and smiled and shook his head slowly from side to side.

  ‘Can I make youse a cup of tea?’ Eimear asked, once again her opening words a lot louder than her closing ones.

  Just then Browne, Garvey, and Gibson came down the stairs. Gibson broke off towards Starrett and the other two continued out the back door.

  ‘I think we’ll skip the tea for now, thanks,’ Starrett started, ‘but Eimear, I’d like another wee chat with you.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ she said, wiping her hands in a crisp-clean dish cloth.

  ‘We’ll nip upstairs,’ he added, rising from the comfy chair. ‘Leave Father O’Leary here to his peace and quiet and his morning paper.’

  Father O’Leary made polite protests but seemed much happier with the arrangement. Eimear walked over to the table where she had her coat on the back of the chair and her handbag on the floor nearby, both of which she collected before following Gibson up the stairs.

  Starrett brought up the rear of the trio and as he was breaking the ground-floor ceiling and first floor, he realised exactly what he’d been missing from the scene earlier. The foul smell was gone. And it wasn’t that is was being hidden behind scented candles and air freshener – no, it was quite simply gone.

  Eimear Robinson had a good gawk around the room Starrett and his team had commandeered as their site office. She was trying really hard to study the writing on the blackboard, unaware that the crafty ban garda had already swung it around to the red herring side.

  ‘Youse have settled in here very cosily,’ she said, as the inspector offered her the seat that he placed in front of the blackboard. ‘How can I help you? I mean, I don’t want to rush you or anything, but I haven’t been here for nearly a week now, so I’m way behind on my work. I said to the father down there, “Father Robert,” I said, “just give me a couple of days and I’ll have St Ernan’s looking as good as new.” He said we’re 186 years too late for that. He’s so dry, so funny, most people don’t pick up on it.’

  ‘Eimear,’ Starrett said, ‘we need to talk to you about Jessica’s relationship with Father Matthew.’

  ‘Sure, I’ve told you already,’ she protested mildly, ‘he was just a good friend of our family and he was around at our house at lot. He was a great friend of all of us.’

  ‘Eimear, we’ve just questioned Jessica…’ Starrett said.

  ‘You’d no right to, you know!’ she protested again, more vigorously this time, ‘I had a right to be present when you were talking to my daughters! I might be just a housekeeper, but I know my rights, Inspector.’

  ‘We know Jessica and Father Matthew were in a relationship,’ Starrett said, knowing there was no other way to get through this phase but tackle the issue head on.

  ‘A relationship?’ Eimear said loudly. ‘Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what are you on about?! Sure, she’s only a child and with a child’s imagination. You see, Inspector, that’s why it’s the law of the land that an adult has to be with a child when the guards want to question them.’

  ‘She’s just over eighteen, Eimear,’ Gibson sympathised. ‘In the eyes of the law, she’s an adult.’

  ‘Augh, just listen to yourself woman, she’s no adult, she’s our wee Jessica! I was just saying to our Gerry last night, “Gerry,” I said, “it seems like just yesterday when I was pregnant with our Jessica and look at her now, just look at her now?”’

  Eimear sounded and looked like she had forgotten the point she was going to make; either that or she just didn’t want to shut down that particular thread. By the time she had muttered her way to the second ‘look at her now’, she was barely audible.

  Starrett was just going to ask his next question when there was a low knock on the door. Gibson went to open it and in wheezed Father O’Leary, performing his old man shuffle where his feet barely left the floor as if he was skating on an ice rink for the first time in his life. He arrived bearing a tray laden with a teapot, three cups, saucers, milk, sugar and a plate, quite literally loaded with plain Rich Tea biscuits.

  Eimear Robinson looked relieved.

  Three minutes later, when Father O’Leary shuffled back out of the room, Gibson poured all their teas and Eimear said, ‘Now listen, Starrett, please believe me when I tell you there was no relationship between Jessica and Father Matt, apart from perhaps in her imagination.’

  Then she started to hoak around in her handbag. Handbag? It was more like a malleable suitcase and she seemed to have everything in it bar the kitchen sink, and if the amount of hoaking around that went on was anything to go by, a Belfast sink might have even been in there, too. Starrett was surprised that his over-active nostrils seemed to detect a bit of a whiff of a stale-ish smell coming from the inside of that bag. In fact, he was very surprised by that, what with everything about Eimear and her house and her daughters being clean, very clean. He tried, without being rude, to steal a look as she continued digging around. There was a white plastic bag, knotted at the top, but apart from that the contents looked normal for a woman’s handbag. Eventually she got what she was after; a couple of packets of sweetener. She placed one on top of the other and when she was sure that all the corners were lined up symmetrically she tore the corners of both packets simultaneously and poured the total contents into her tea.

  Starrett set down his own tea and walked over to the large lockable cupboard the gardai had commandeered for safe-keeping of evidence. With his back to Eimear and Gibson, he eventually found what he was looking for: a small evidence bag with the two packets of Sweetex sweetener, which Starrett had discovered deserted on the kitchen table the previous Wednesday evening. Starrett carefully examined the two discarded packets of sweetener and turned to Eimear. At that moment he remembered Father O’Leary’s suggestion that he shouldn’t be scared about looking back to the original story of King Herod and John the Baptist.

  ‘Eimear,’ he said, ‘how many spoonful’s of sugar did Father Matt take with his tea or coffee?’

  ‘Sugar,’ she laughed, ‘you shou
ld have seen his teeth! I’ve never seen a man with such perfect teeth, he’d never let anything like sugar near them.’

  ‘What about sweetener?’ Starrett asked, replacing his valuable piece of evidence in the cupboard, locking the door and returning to Gibson and Eimear for a final sip of his tea.

  Once again Eimear laughed, this time shaking her head in a large ‘no’. ‘He couldn’t abide the stuff, said he’d never needed it, said he felt it was just as important to avoid the substitutes.’

  ‘Eimear,’ Starrett said, returning his cup to its saucer very naturally, ‘when we’ve finished our tea we need you to come with us to the gardai station in Ramelton.’

  ‘Will I need a solicitor?’

  ‘I think you might,’ Starrett replied, ‘I think you might.’

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Two hours later, Starrett, Gibson, Eimear Robinson, and her solicitor, coincidentally the same solicitor Bishop Cormac Freeman had retained, a Mr Russell Leslie, sat down together in the basement of Tower House, the gardaí base in Ramelton and the centre for Starrett’s Serious Crimes Unit.

  It was, in a way, a bizarre room in which to conduct an interview, due to the fact that the windows were only eighteen inches deep and all at the top of the wall, and because the room was 85 per cent subterranean, all you got to see were people from the knees down and cars from the top of wheels down.

  Starrett announced the details of the proceedings for the benefit of the tape recorder. His problem with the proceedings, however, was that although he felt he knew who had murdered Father Matthew, he still didn’t have a clue how the murder was carried out. He knew he needed to be very careful, because Eimear’s solicitor Russell Leslie was cute enough not to allow his client to incriminate herself.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, it sounding more like a large sigh, and him feeling like he didn’t have much heart for the proceedings. ‘This is a right old mess, isn’t it?’ He then had to announce, for the benefit of the tape recorder, that proceedings were temporarily interrupted as Garda Romany Browne entered the room with a tray of teas, coffees, and Jacob’s chocolate-coated, orange-flavoured biscuits (a personal favourite of Starrett’s – a point he did not note for the benefit of the tape recorder), milk and sugar.