A Gruesome Discovery

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Could I see it?’ Patrick held out a hand for the piece of parchment while his mind worked rapidly over this unexpectedly close link between the making of the will and the violent death of Henry Mulcahy.

  ‘Certainly.’ The solicitor unscrolled the document, placing the telephone on one corner and inkwell on the opposing corner. ‘You will see that it has been signed, below Mr Mulcahy’s own signature, by two people, Mr McCarthy, and Mr Hayes. They do not see the will, just testified that they have seen the testator, in this case, Mr Henry Mulcahy of Shandon Street and Montenotte, sign this will in their presence. I usually carry with me this piece of card which covers over the testamentary details of the document.’ He produced it from the corner of the table in front of him. ‘And you can see, inspector, that one of the witnesses is the executor to the will and the other is the auctioneer who was in the house at the time – it could, of course, have been anyone, a servant or anyone, even a passer-by on the street.’

  Patrick read the will. It did not take long. Basically, it just left everything to his wife. He would have thought that a man like Henry Mulcahy would have wanted to control what happened to his fortune after his death. He turned back a few pages of his notebook where he had written down the details of the Mulcahy family, names and ages. In a few years’ time, four of the twelve children would have reached the age of twenty-one, would be adult in the eyes of the law. There was no provision in this will for them, for any money or property to be left to them, nor were there any stipulations for the education and maintenance of the younger children. Henry Mulcahy had shown an enormous trust in his wife. Except that he had appointed this Mr McCarthy as his executor. Could that be of significance?

  ‘I wonder whether I could have a copy of the will.’ Patrick looked around at the bare office. There had been no sign of the arrival of a clerk and he guessed that the man worked on his own. ‘Or if you would be kind enough to let me have a sheet of foolscap paper then I will just copy it out myself, if I may,’ he continued. ‘It’s a short document from what you say; it won’t take me long.’

  There was an oddly reluctant look on the man’s face. A slight hesitation, a certain stiffening of the posture, a moment’s silence before Mr O’Sullivan opened the drawer in front of him and handed out a sheet of slightly crumpled paper. Patrick set to work immediately, rejecting the proffered pen for a soft, rubber-tipped pencil that he kept in his breast pocket. The contents of the will, the legalese, all this did not interest him so much as the man’s signature. Patrick had a talent for drawing and he did his best with the signature, stopping, from time to time, to reverse the pencil and rub out a letter that did not appear to follow faithfully the shape of the original. Then he did the same with the signatures of the two witnesses, Mr McCarthy and Mr Hayes and held the result to the dim light from the very dirt-encrusted window. He looked with care at Henry Mulcahy’s signature, comparing his version with the original written with very black ink on the parchment. He was reasonably contented with his work. He would, he thought, recognize the man’s hand if he saw it again. Quite a strong, olden day style of writing, the ‘H’ had a distinctive curl that was almost a spiral, but the ‘M’ did not share this, but ended with an abrupt and very straight line. Odd that a man would do the one, but not the other. Patrick examined the other two signatures. The auctioneer’s untidy scrawl, his signature Edward Hayes stretched across the page, but Richard McCarthy had written his name with great care. The handwriting of a man who did not do much writing; each letter carefully made as though in copying a headline from an exercise book. His had been easy to copy as, unlike the dead man’s signature, there had been little individuality in the hand. Patrick carefully placed the sheet of foolscap paper into his attaché case and looked back across the table at the solicitor. Did he imagine it or was there a slightly uneasy look about the man.

  ‘Did Mr Mulcahy ask for advice on the making of the will, sir?’ he enquired. ‘I suppose,’ he continued, ‘people do ask for your professional advice on a matter like this, don’t they?’

  ‘Some do, some don’t. Depends on the person. Some know their own mind long before they approach you, others are still dithering weeks later. And of course there are some who are for ever changing their wills.’ He smiled thinly. ‘Now they are a boon to a hardworking solicitor, inspector.’

  ‘But not Mr Mulcahy.’ Drafted his will on Monday, dead on Tuesday, thought Patrick as the man nodded. There used to be a rhyme chanted in the playground when he was a small boy. What was it? Solomon Grundy, Born on Monday, Christened on Tuesday, Married on Wednesday, Took ill on Thursday, Worse on Friday, Dead on Saturday, Buried on Sunday. As a child he had always imagined that Solomon Grundy’s early death was due to his early marriage. But Henry Mulcahy had married at the reasonable age of mid-thirties, had chosen a much younger wife who bore him twelve children. It was only after he made his will that his death occurred.

  Patrick rose to his feet. ‘Thank you for your time, Mr O’Sullivan. I shall see you, no doubt, at the funeral.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, inspector. A sad occasion, very sad, indeed. All those fatherless children!’ Despite his words, there was a relaxed note in his voice. The man was relieved that there were no further questions from the police. A smooth, anxious-to-please sort of fellow, thought Patrick, as he made his way up the cellar stairs. But if that relief was due to an impression that he had hoodwinked a young and inexperienced policeman, then it was premature. Patrick had a strong impression that something was wrong and that this solicitor would need an eye kept on him.

  Quite a big funeral, but probably mainly neighbours, he decided as he stood looking around after the service had ended. Decidedly lacking in important civic dignitaries. The presence of a reporter from the Cork Examiner was due more to the notoriety of the murder rather than a desire to offer tribute. There were no long queues to shake hands with the widow and her children and he was able to pay his respects with almost no waiting time.

  ‘A very sad and difficult time for you, Mrs Mulcahy,’ he said, shaking hands with the woman and the two daughters. She had a black shawl around her head, though the two girls wore hats. He nodded at the boys. They all wore black blazers, Farranferris School uniform, he recognised, and black ties and black armbands. No tears, he noticed. Even the youngest boy stood silent and solemn, shocked but dry-eyed. All eyes swivelled, though, when a man in shiningly-new black clothes came across to them. A heavy man, his metal-tipped boots rang on the stone of the pavement, lending emphasis to each step. Younger than he seemed at a distance, though. The dead man’s widow and children watched him impassively and none took a step forward or offered to introduce him. Patrick scrutinised the high colour of the face as the man shook him vigorously by the hand.

  ‘Good of you to come, inspector. I’m Richard McCarthy.’ He spoke as though he were a close relative.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Patrick. ‘I understand from the solicitor that you were a partner to the late Mr Mulcahy, a working partner,’ he added after a moment when the man looked taken aback. One of the girls moved her head then and looked sharply at the newcomer.

  ‘Yes, well, I suppose we did work together, a little, on an informal base.’ The words were guarded. ‘Nothing official, though, no legal documents, nothing like that.’

  ‘But you would know his business?’ Patrick had an eye on the girl, Susan, he thought, though he couldn’t swear to it. Mrs Mulcahy had not introduced any of her children to him. Yes, he thought from Joe’s description that this must be Susan. She was looking scornful, he thought, her thin lips compressed as though to hide a smile, her eyes sharp and intent on Mr McCarthy’s face.

  ‘Pretty well.’ The man was still cautious. He, too, glanced towards the girl. Patrick took a few steps away from the mourning family and, when the man followed, lowered his voice to a confidential murmur.

  ‘And he was doing well, was he?’

  ‘Pretty well. But this death has come at a bad time for him.’ This time it was Mr McCarthy wh
o moved. He walked away, picked up a small paper bag that was lying on the stone-flagged church yard, crumpled it up and then placed it in a bin full of dead flowers. Patrick followed and stood beside him. The unpleasant smell of decay reminded him of the body in the trunk. Odd how badly flowers smelled when they began to rot.

  ‘A bad time,’ he queried.

  ‘The man was what we call a chancer, inspector. Things happen in our way of business. Something goes wrong with the mixture, the skins mightn’t be good ones, and when you buy in the thousands, just as Henry Mulcahy did, then you can’t check every skin, and then there’s the selling of them. There mightn’t be a sale after all the hard work, all the money spent on them. Or something might go wrong with the delivery. He exported a lot of skins to England. That was his main market. Ships can sink; rats can get in among the goods; salt water can spoil the leather. But Henry never kept any money back, never made provision for losses. Make; spend, that was the way the man worked and sometimes “the spend” came before “the make”. That bloody big house he built for himself on Montenotte, well, I can tell you straight, he couldn’t afford it. There’ll be a lot of debts to be paid once probate has been granted.’

  Patrick nodded. You know a lot about the man’s affairs, was his thought, but he did not comment. He would gather as much information as he could from this Richard McCarthy. His eyes went to the figure of Mr O’Sullivan. Odd the link between the young man beside him, uncouth, uneducated and the suave gentility of the solicitor who was at that moment shaking hands with Mrs Mulcahy. The word ‘probate’ and ‘granted’ had tripped fluently off the lips of the young merchant in front of him, though most of his speech was rough. Somewhere or somehow, the two had met and Mr Mulcahy had been introduced, had been persuaded into making a will, naming as executor, his young friend, business partner, rival – which was true, he wondered as he looked across into the graveyard. Soon there would be a move to carry the coffin down to that gaping hole that he could see in the distance. The grave diggers were used to waiting while the condolences were got through, but once the handshaking stopped then they would want to get moving on the main business of the day. Henry Mulcahy had been dead for almost a week. It was time that he was buried.

  ‘So do you think that one of his business rivals might have killed him, someone that he owed money to, is that right, Mr McCarthy?’

  ‘You’ll have to give us the answer to that, inspector. I don’t know nothing about it.’

  Alarmed, belligerent? Patrick ran over in his mind the books on law that he had read for his examinations. He didn’t remember anything about the duties and powers of an executor. Nevertheless, if an executor and a solicitor were in league with each other, and had only Mrs Mulcahy to deal with, then perhaps assets could be concealed.

  But was the dead man rich enough to be worth a murder?

  ‘Perhaps you could help me with your local knowledge, Mr McCarthy. Who else is in the hide and skin business in Cork?’ Easy enough to find that out from Guy’s Directory, but the man was anxious to appear helpful and he reeled off a list of names, including wool merchants and leather dealers among the tanners. Patrick listened and nodded. His face, he was sure, still looked attentive, but his eye had been caught by someone who had just walked jauntily up to the mourning family and was busily shaking hands, not just with the widow, but also with the family. Tall, long-legged, tweed breeches tucked into shining leather boots, jaunty cap perched on the top of the head. Some might have taken the latest arrival for a youth, but Patrick recognized the face instantly. He saw her head turn towards him.

  ‘Thank you, Mr McCarthy, you have been very useful. Thank you for your help.’

  The man took the hint and went off, leaving Patrick standing there. He frowned; there was something familiar about that jacket and those tweed breeches. But then he smoothed out his brows. Eyes would be upon him and he prided himself on showing the world a face that held nothing but polite neutrality. Eileen MacSweeney, what on earth was she doing here?

  She must have felt his eyes on her, looked across, said a few more words to Susan Mulcahy and then came up to him and said in a rather informal way, ‘Hallo, Patrick.’

  He looked at her disapprovingly. He didn’t like the way that she dressed in trousers and tweed jacket, her air nonchalant and self-confident. Even the deep shine on her boots annoyed him obscurely. Who did she think she was? Countess Markowitz?

  ‘Good morning, Miss MacSweeney,’ he said, and didn’t trouble to hide the disapproval in his voice.

  ‘Good morning, inspector,’ she said and he wished that he had not noticed the mocking note in her voice. It made him feel awkward and ill-at-ease.

  ‘You are well, I hope.’ He remembered now. She was the one who had rescued Fred Mulcahy, had been, he could guess, involved in all that business out in Douglas. He wondered where young Fred was now and had a strong suspicion that the girl in front of him knew perfectly well the whereabouts of a man who was not just wanted because of the Republican raid on the barracks of Douglas, but also because of suspicion that he might have been involved in the killing of his own father.

  ‘You know the Mulcahy family?’ he asked.

  She raised a pair of strong black eyebrows as though slightly astonished at the question.

  ‘I know Susan Mulcahy,’ she said with the air of being obliging. ‘We sat the Intermediate Certificate together. It was held at the high school for girls.’

  Eileen would be a few years younger than Susan, he guessed, but he supposed that she might have sat for the intermediate certificate at an earlier age than the usual fifteen or sixteen. She had a name, he knew, of being very clever. His mother would know all about her; the whole of Barrack Street was a great admirer of Maureen MacSweeney’s talented daughter. He found her immensely annoying, interfering with things that she knew nothing of. Putting her own life and other people’s in danger.

  ‘So Fred Mulcahy is here for the funeral of his father, is he?’ he asked, casting a glance towards the sorrowing widow, surrounded by her two daughters and nine sons. Fine looking boys, he had heard a few whispers to that effect, but their presence made it even more noticeable that Fred, the eldest of the family, reputedly his mother’s darling, was not present to support her during this terrible ordeal.

  ‘Is he?’ Eileen, to his annoyance, swung around and surveyed the mourning family, appearing to scan their ranks and then turned a pair of large, innocent, grey eyes upon him. ‘Not that I can see,’ she said, turning back to him.

  Play actor, thought Patrick irritably. ‘His mother could do with him here today, would welcome his presence,’ he added, conscious that, despite himself, a measure of anger had come into his voice. He thought of his own mother and knew that he could never have allowed her to parade in front of the curious glances of the whole city of Cork without the support of a son by her side. He thanked his lucky stars that he had never been tempted to join in with the Republicans. Stupid enough four years ago, he thought, but idiotic now that a treaty had been signed and the majority of the country only wanted to settle down and live their lives in peace. Who cared about the six counties of Northern Ireland? Let them sort matters out for themselves.

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t think that it would be safe.’ There was an ironical note in her voice and he had an uneasy feeling that she thought herself twice as clever as he was, and that she was probably correct in that.

  ‘Perhaps he’s right.’ He endeavoured to copy her tone of voice, but only succeeded, to his own ear, in sounding bad-tempered. She looked at him for a long few seconds, almost as though she were weighing him up.

  ‘What exactly is Fred Mulcahy wanted for, Patrick?’ she was trying to sweet-talk him, he felt. There was a persuasive note in her voice, but he wished she did not sound as though she were older and wiser than he. ‘There’s no real evidence, is there, about the Douglas business? And he had nothing whatsoever to do with his father’s death. The man was dead and crawling with maggots when Fred shot him. He ju
st did that because he was a bit upset.’

  ‘If you are in touch with Fred Mulcahy,’ said Patrick trying to preserve a tone of remote authority, ‘then the best service that you can do for him would be to tell him to report to the police and to give his explanations to them in person, not to send messages by a girl, by a third party,’ he amended and added, ‘I wouldn’t like to see you waste your time.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right, Patrick. I don’t mind. I wouldn’t like to see you make a mess of this case, wasting your valuable time over someone who had nothing to do with it, while the real murderer gets away with it,’ she said sweetly. ‘Now I’d better be getting back to work. We’re very busy at the printers, today.’ She turned and scanned the small crowd of sympathisers that still lingered in the churchyard.

  ‘And if you want a bit of advice, Patrick,’ she said, ‘I’d turn my attention to someone who actually gains from Mr Mulcahy’s death, someone who could quickly pick up some contracts while the widow, poor woman, is sorting herself out.’

  ELEVEN

  Kevin O’Higgins, Minister for Justice

  ‘The internal politics and political controversies of the country are not your concern. You will serve with the same imperturbable discipline and with increasing efficiency any Government which has the support of the majority of the people’s elected representatives. Party will, no doubt, succeed party in the ebb and flow of the political tide. New issues will arise and the landmarks of today will disappear, but you will remain steadfast and devoted in the service of the people, and of any government which it may please the people to return to power. That is the real meaning of democracy, Government of the people by the people through their elected representatives. It is the only barrier between mankind and anarchy.’

  Patrick arrived at the convent just after four in the afternoon. He was apologetic and slightly shamefaced when Sister Bernadette showed him into the Reverend Mother’s room.