Murder at the Queen's Old Castle

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Well, time for me to get back to work,’ he said aloud. ‘Can’t spend the morning standing here and looking at the seagulls.’

  ‘I suppose that’s what I will be doing with my time, come next Monday,’ said Michael Dinan. ‘Mind you …’ he said and now Patrick discerned an unpleasant note coming into his voice. ‘Mind you,’ he repeated with emphasis, ‘I’ve had an offer that I am considering, just considering, mind you.’

  ‘Good,’ said Patrick briskly and then he strode away. It had been a threat, he recognized. It had to be the IRA who had made Michael Dinan a proposal. No shop in Cork would employ him without an excellent reference and he would get no reference from the Fitzwilliams. No, he had been offered a job and his words bore a veiled threat. The IRA were at odds with the Garda Siochána and Patrick himself had rubbed up against them a couple of times during the last few years. If Patrick’s life was the price of a recruitment to their ranks of an able-bodied man with a good knowledge of the shops of Cork, then the price would be paid without hesitation. He shrugged his shoulders as he left the bridge and walked up Barrack Street. He couldn’t go around looking over his shoulder all the time. He had to trust to luck and to highly developed instincts which warned him of danger. He had a case to solve and he was determined to solve it as quickly as possible.

  TEN

  The Reverend Mother had persuaded Dr Scher to leave his car parked outside the church and to walk with her through the narrow streets and enter the shop by the back door to the Queen’s Old Castle. He had thought it beneath her dignity to arrive on foot, but she persuaded him that she would enjoy the walk.

  ‘Good to get some fresh air,’ she declared. ‘These stuffy churches always make me cough.’

  ‘I hate these affairs,’ he said, and the Reverend Mother looked at him with surprise. Dr Scher, she had always thought, was the most convivial of men. He met her look with defiance. ‘Puts a terrible strain on the family,’ he said. ‘Not the time nor the occasion,’ he said. ‘If they’d only leave a month or so, then the family might welcome everyone talking about the deceased, but not now, not when grief is raw and emotions are churned up. This is the wrong time for neighbours and friends. Now is the time for the family to huddle together and to keep away from the outside world.’

  ‘I see,’ said the Reverend Mother. And she did see, but did not want to probe. He had his mind focussed on one member of the family, but that was not for her to question him upon. And so she added lightly, ‘Well, make sure that you don’t eat too much cake and then you will feel a lot better.’ He was, she thought, worried about the effect of this very public affair on the fragile health of Mrs Fitzwilliam. Luckily there did not seem to be a large amount of people making the short journey from the graveyard to the back door of the shop. The shop assistants and their apprentices, the older ones well out-numbered by the young, had gone ahead of the mourners and their condolers, sent on their way, as far as she could see, by Robert Fitzwilliam while his older brother, the major, shook hands and gave some information about his father’s life and career to the Cork Examiner reporter. Mrs Fitzwilliam was just ahead of them. She had a daughter on either side of her and appeared to lean heavily on both. She was dressed in black and wore on her head, well-pulled down over her eyes, a rather old-fashioned hat with a very heavy veil. It was almost impossible to see her face through the black netting, but her shoulders were slumped and she moved almost like an automaton. Each of the younger women had linked arms with her and they almost seemed to carry her forward on the way back to the church. The Reverend Mother looked a couple of times at Dr Scher, wondering whether she was keeping him from a patient, but she did not like to make any suggestions. He was, after all, a free man. He would, she was sure, know her well and know that the Reverend Mother had not the slightest objection to walking by herself and did so, as he well knew, very frequently. She quickened her step slightly and soon they were directly behind the three women and then the doctor seemed to relax slightly. It was a pity, thought the Reverend Mother, that someone had the strange idea of holding the after-funeral meal within the shop, rather than at the house. If poor Mrs Fitzwilliam could get to her own house, she could easily slip upstairs and lie on her bed with a couple of aspirins or even just a soothing cup of tea.

  However, the woman soldiered on until some of the guests had begun to leave, most of them having left their cars outside of the church. Mrs Fitzwilliam watched them leave and then, quite suddenly and quite abruptly, she stood up and fumbled on the floor for her large handbag. Once she had it in her hand, though, she did not move. She appeared frozen. She stood very still and she gazed up at the small office perched almost at roof height on the wall. The sight of it seemed to paralyse her and she pushed aside the efforts that Kitty was making to get her to advance a little further. Monica had gone off and had just returned with another cup of tea when the woman suddenly drew in a deep breath.

  ‘I can smell gas!’ She said the words in a shrill, panic-stricken manner. Her voice rose up almost to a shriek, but then she sobbed and began to tear the veil from her hat. Both daughters took her arms and tried to seat her on the chair, but she resisted them, sucking in loud, sobbing gulps of air. ‘Like a rat in a hole,’ she seemed to be saying. The Reverend Mother looked across at the woman with deep concern.

  ‘You’ll be all right, will you?’ Dr Scher addressed her in rapid, and concerned tones. ‘Will you be all right, Reverend Mother? Can you get a taxi back to the convent?’

  ‘Yes, Dr Scher, you go!’ The Reverend Mother made a quick gesture of command and he left her instantly. He took the widow by the arm and urged her towards the door.

  ‘Let’s come out into the fresh air.’ The Reverend Mother heard him speak softly in cajoling tones to the stricken woman and applauded his quick-wittedness.

  Mrs Fitzwilliam, however, was not going to allow herself to be taken out quietly. ‘I smell it, I smell it. There’s gas in this place. Where’s Robert? Break the roof, Robert. Go on, break the glass.’

  ‘Janey Mack! She’s gone stark, staring looney!’ said Brian the apprentice, who had just appeared at the Reverend Mother’s side. There was a slight undertone of huge enjoyment in his voice and the Reverend Mother hoped that none of the family would hear that. Adolescents, girls as well as boys, lived in their own egocentric world. She had decided that a long time ago, had become completely reconciled to it, but knew that parents and employers were everlastingly surprised and horrified by displays of selfishness or inappropriate mirth. She looked at the bright, cheerful face beside her own and decided to ignore that last remark. Dr Scher was now talking soothingly to Mrs Fitzwilliam and one of her daughters – Monica, she thought – had proffered a cup of tea which her mother gulped down, though still looking around in an apprehensive way. The Reverend Mother decided that it was time for all wondering eyes to turn away from the unfortunate woman. Dr Scher, she noticed, had quietly taken a bottle of pills from his attaché case. Time to distract attention from the unfortunate woman.

  ‘Do you think that you could find me some tea, Brian?’ she asked in loud, clear and cheerful tones, designed to assure everyone that the Reverend Mother could smell no gas in the chilly atmosphere. ‘And some cake,’ she added. She didn’t particularly want any cake; she had no liking of sweet foods, but guessed that he would relish some. She moved towards the centre of the shop and watched with amusement the eagerness with which he sped off and the care that he took over the selection, sometimes choosing and sometimes putting a slice back, rejecting a solid-looking piece of fruit cake in favour of a cream-filled chunk of sponge. In the meantime, the Reverend Mother commented on the weather to anyone within reach and they, like all good citizens of Cork city, responded with various platitudes and stared upwards at the glass roof high above them. Robert, finding that everyone was looking upwards, went around and switched on the gas lamps and Brian took the opportunity to make a close study of all of the cakes and sweetmeats laid out on the counter tops.

  I
t was quite some time before he made a final selection. The sky was getting very dark overhead and less light came through the glass roof, allowing the gas lamps to illuminate, in a more individual way, the faces which passed beside the copper pillars. The Reverend Mother studied the members of the Fitzwilliam family as she waited. Lucy was right, she thought. The major would probably be a great success with the female population out in Palestine. He had an aristocratic set of features, very black eyebrows and hair, a touch of grey at the temples, but still almost Spanish dark. Good hair, she thought, hair that had a hint of a wave which allowed it to spring from his forehead and stay tidily clasped to his head. His aquiline nose was perfectly balanced by a pair of prominent, wide cheekbones, which gave an aristocratic shape and form to his face. That same family nose, however, made his twin sisters appear plain and turned the heavy-jawed, plump face of his brother Robert into a mask-like visage. Not one of the four had inherited the delicate features of their mother who, in her youth, fifty years ago, had been a very pretty woman. She must be a good five or six years younger than I am, mused the Reverend Mother, but the woman’s skin was as lined and her eyes as drooped as some of the ninety-year-old sisters in the convent. A hard life, perhaps, but for some women it might have been a rewarding one, working side by side with her husband to build up that small and almost useless share of the family inheritance into a prosperous business. The ancient ruin, which she could remember as a child to be lying empty and derelict, had certainly been turned into a useful space.

  ‘Going to rain,’ said Brian, reappearing at her side. ‘It’s great when it rains, here, Reverend Mother. Look, look up there, up next to the roof. Our dormitory is up there. You should hear the rain on a wet night. Bangs down on the glass roof. Blows your ears out.’

  That did not sound a very desirable state of affairs and the Reverend Mother cast a worried glance upwards at the darkening sky. In a moment she was joined by Dr Scher.

  ‘It’s going to rain; I’m going to fetch the car,’ he said. ‘I’ll park it outside the front door on Tuckey’s Quay. Don’t worry. Major Fitzwilliam will take his mother home. She’s fine now. You stay here until I get back.’ And then he was gone.

  ‘I think you’d better help me with all that cake, Brian; Dr Scher sounds as though he is in a hurry.’ The Reverend Mother had her eyes fixed on Mrs Fitzwilliam. She had swallowed her tea, and presumably a pill and was now standing alone, and without her family, just beside the Millinery counter. The poor woman was, like Brian, looking up every few minutes at the darkness overhead.

  ‘C’mon, c’mon,’ said Brian thickly, through a mouthful of cake. ‘C’mon, let it down, let it down, let it down! That’s what we all, all of us apprentices say; it’s like a sort of magic spell,’ he explained when she looked at him with surprise. ‘The rain, Reverend Mother,’ he explained. ‘It cleans the roof. Otherwise, first thing every morning, we have to go out there, with a cloth and wipe that glass. The ole fog gets it filthy and the boss makes us crawl out with wet sponges. Can’t take a bucket, neither, might crack the glass. Have to keep going forwards and backwards. It’s no fun,’ said Brian, taking an enormous bite of the chocolate slice.

  No, not much fun, and very dangerous, thought the Reverend Mother picturing a crack in that glass overhead and the lethal injury that could be caused to a boy who fell through. Were there any laws about how apprentices were treated, she wondered, and looked up again. Yes, Brian’s wish was going to be granted. The first large drops had begun to fall and she hoped that Dr Scher had by now reached the shelter of his car.

  The large shop had been filled with the buzz of voices, but now nothing could be heard but the thundering of the rain, crashing down upon the glass roof. Only the few visitors, such as the priest, herself and Tom Murphy, owner of a nearby shop, gazed upwards at the thunderous onslaught. The counter hands of the Queen’s Old Castle shop and the lowly apprentices did not take much notice but helped themselves liberally to the cake. The major, noticed the Reverend Mother, unlike his brother and his two sisters, was amongst those who gazed upwards. That glass, which in fine weather seemed to be such a good idea, such a source of light within the cavernous shop, now became something threatening. The employees and workers, however, were used to it and Brian took the opportunity to make another raid upon the fast diminishing slices of chocolate cake which were displayed upon the Millinery department counter.

  As he did so, he came within sight of Mrs Fitzwilliam and this time her scream was loud enough to surmount the noise of the rain beating down on the glass roof. For a moment, it was only a scream, high-pitched and piercing, but then it dissolved into a flood of words.

  ‘That boy,’ she screamed. ‘It’s that boy. He was the one with the gas canister. I saw him.’

  Brian stood, looking aghast, his fingers still hovering over the slice of chocolate cake, his pale green eyes large and fixed with terror upon the woman’s face. The Reverend Mother moved over towards him protectively. He was, after all, not much more than about thirteen years old, she thought. Despite his usual cheerful air of confidence, he now looked stunned and horrified. This accusation had been shouted too loudly to be ignored or be treated as a joke. He looked wildly around, the freckles standing out prominently on his winter-pale face. But before the Reverend Mother had reached the woman’s side, the major also had moved, more swiftly than she. He had his arm around his mother and half-lifting, half-dragging, he was moving her out from behind the shelter of her counter.

  ‘Come along, Mother, you’re tired and overwrought. This is all too much for you. Robert!’ The last word was said in quite a different tone, was whipped out in an authoritative note that sounded as though it were a parade ground order. Robert left his tea and his cake and his conversation with Tom Murphy and came over reluctantly and took his mother’s other arm. The Reverend Mother stood in front of Brian, blocking the sight of the boy from the unfortunate woman. She wondered whether Mrs Fitzwilliam was deranged or whether she had this new-fangled illness designated as a nervous breakdown. Whichever it was, it did not appear as though her family, with the exception perhaps of the major, were in any way sympathetic to her. Neither of the daughters came forward. Both had retreated behind their counters, the Haberdashery and the Household Linen counters and both were looking more embarrassed than worried. And Robert had a sulky and quite impatient look on his face as he hauled his mother along.

  ‘I never!’ said Brian. His denial was addressed more to his fellow apprentices, than to her, but the Reverend Mother chose to be the one to answer.

  ‘No one is suspecting you, Brian,’ she said calmly. ‘Now, finish your cake, like a good boy, and then go to the front door and look out. Come back and tell me if Dr Scher’s car is parked outside. It’s a …’

  She looked distractedly around, wondering whether Mrs Fitzwilliam had been taken away. The sons, she hoped, would take their mother home. She would have Dr Scher to herself. She would, she thought, tell of the accusation hurled at Brian. It probably would be best if he forbade Mrs Fitzwilliam from going into the shop until she began to regain her equilibrium; that was what she would suggest to him.

  ‘I know it. A Humber; an old Humber with a few bashes.’ Brian regained his cheerfulness, posted the last chunk of chocolate cake into his mouth and went rapidly down the middle aisle, between the banked rows of counters. Everyone was looking at him, though; especially his fellow apprentices.

  A scrap of a sentence came to her ears. It was uttered in the uncontrolled voice of an adolescent, still not used to his rapidly deepening voice, and so there was little chance of it being overlooked. ‘He kept on saying he was going to do for him and now he’s done it,’ said a tall boy with an outbreak of pimples on his face and neck.

  ‘You get those cups washed and keep your voice down in the shop, McGrath,’ snapped Kitty and the Reverend Mother looked at her with interest. This daughter, this Kitty, had an efficient way about her.

  The Reverend Mother moved across to her and int
roduced herself. ‘Brian was a pupil of mine once,’ she observed. An explanation was due as she had sent the boy on an errand without asking his masters or mistresses. ‘Your father, may God grant him eternal rest, was kind enough to offer me his services when I was collecting the goods that he donated to our charity.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right, Reverend Mother. Make as much use of him as you wish. An idle young wretch, but, sure, they’re all like that. Their one aim in life is to get out of doing anything that might seem like hard work.’

  Kitty sounded assured and had made no reference to her mother’s accusation. A balanced woman, confident and self-possessed. The Haberdashery counter was in very neat order, thought the Reverend Mother. The innumerable small drawers, with their brass knobs, were all well-polished, and a collection of representative items was grouped on the counter, displayed under glass covers and with the prices neatly inscribed on glossy white tickets. The counter had a more modern look than the rest of the shop and was well lit with a gas lamp angled on it from above.