McNulty frowned. ‘He had a perfectly good bathroom of his own, so it wasn’t that.’
‘Would he have been looking for a book?’
‘Where?’
‘They’ve got some on those shelves in the fake-library corner of the bar.’
‘He had books in his room.’
‘Maybe they were all unreadable treatises on liberation theology.’
‘Well, they weren’t my idea of light reading,’ said McNulty. ‘But presumably people take with them whatever it is they want to read. Anyway he had a couple of political magazines: Republican News and some things about Marxism.’
‘Maybe he was hungry or thirsty.’
‘I can’t really see him raiding the kitchen or the bar, can you?’
‘Unless he was liberating capitalist property. But no, I suspect not. Insomnia? Wanted to go for a walk?’
‘With all the security people around and him being paranoid? And it lashing with rain? And with everyone having been warned it would be dangerous to go outside without first letting us know? Which he didn’t.’
‘A sexual tryst?’
‘Now you mention it, it’s a possibility. Unless he was up to no good where some other inmate was concerned. Which again, seems unlikely. The Father mightn’t have been everybody’s favourite priest but nobody ever suggested he was a terrorist.’
‘There isn’t much choice, is there?’
‘Miss de Búrca, Miss O’Hara or Lady Troutbeck.’ A slight smile crossed McNulty’s harassed features. ‘God, there’s a choice. Now left to meself, I’d probably settle for her ladyship, but I wouldn’t say a MOPEer would.’
‘You are of course assuming his tastes were heterosexual.’
‘Fair point. But I have a feeling it’s one thing for a priest to take the risk of being found in bed with a woman at a conference full of his enemies. But he’d have to be a right eejit to take the risk of being found in bed with a man.’
‘In these enlightened times?’
‘I don’t think the Jesuits are that enlightened.’
The William Tell Overture sounded and McNulty answered his phone. ‘Right…right…That’s timely. Thanks, Robert.’
‘I think we have the lady. Robert says Laochraí is in a right state. Positively hysterical.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Look, Rollo, I’d like you to listen to the interview, but you can’t be seen. I’m taking over a small sitting room in the hotel that has a curtained recess. Would you mind sitting in there?’
‘Delighted.’
‘Right. Now I can trust my Sergeant Bradley, but no one else will know. Second floor, east wing, beside the lift. It’s called “The Little People.” Off you go and hide. We’ll be along shortly with Miss de Búrca.’
***
Laochraí was surprisingly easy to crack. Listening from behind his curtain, Pooley felt almost sorry for her. She had recovered from her bout of hysteria, which she attributed to being a close friend and admirer of Father Cormac’s, but she finally cracked up when McNulty said he agreed there was a chance he might have been murdered. She suddenly burst into tears.
‘Who could have murdered such a great man? He was a leader. He would have saved the church from the reactionaries and the paedophiles and those that had always been too cowardly to help us in our struggles. Cormac knew that ours was a just cause and a holy war, whatever the Pope might say.’ She stopped sniffling and went into aggressive mode. ‘If he’s been murdered, you don’t have far to look. The securocrats. The opponents of peace. The RUC. M15. M16…’
‘Miss de Búrca,’ said McNulty patiently, ‘first we have to decide if he was murdered. That’s stage one. Wild allegations like this are absolutely no use to me. And what I really need to know is what light you can cast on the fact that he was out of his bedroom in nothing except a T-shirt and jeans and with no reason for it except that he was visiting someone.’
‘I’m not an informer.’
‘What’s an informer got to do with it?’
‘Informing on someone’s movements to the police is informing.’
McNulty surveyed her incredulously. ‘Listen, Miss de Búrca. You say you admired this man. He is now dead. If he was in fact murdered do you want his murderer caught?’
There was a pause. Then a muttered, ‘I suppose so.’
‘So, will you please tell me if you know of any reason why he would have left his bedroom during the night? If there is no good reason, then no one could have been expecting him to do so. If there was a predictable reason, then murder is more likely.’
‘I suppose I might as well tell you. Otherwise there will be nothing but harassment.’
‘And anyway you know perfectly well I will find out somewhere else.’
‘Probably. There are no depths to which you would not stoop.’
There was a pause. ‘Come on, Miss de Búrca. Spit it out. He was coming to see you, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘And it wasn’t to discuss liberation theology.’
‘There’s no need to be crude. We were friends.’
‘You were more than friends.’
‘Yes. More than friends.’
‘When did he arrive?’
‘About two.’
‘And he left?’
‘About six.’
‘Thank you. That is very helpful. Now I’d like to know how long your affair had been going on?’
‘None of your business.’
‘Miss de Búrca, I’m sorry for your trouble, but please stop being ridiculous. Of course it’s my business. I need to know how many people are likely to have known of this in order to see who might have been able to predict his movements.’
There was a further pause. ‘It started last summer at the festival.’
‘What festival?’
‘What festival? The only festival that matters in this country. Our Belfast festival of culture and protest.’
‘You were attending?’
‘We were co-organizers.’
‘Of what?’ McNulty sounded increasingly irritated. ‘Just tell the story, Miss de Búrca. It’ll avoid me having to harass you.’
‘I was one of those running the international side when Father O’Flynn came to me to suggest an event about international suffering and its relevance to our struggle. He thought it should be called the Rainbow Revolt.’
‘Rainbow?’
‘People of different colours. Like in South Africa.’
‘Right. I think I see. He was going to provide you with a few blacks, was he?’
‘He’s very well connected in the anti-imperialist religious network. And very well respected. It was because of his drive and energy and contacts that we were able to devise an event with members of the ANC, the PLO, several South American resistance groups, veterans of the American Civil Rights Movement and, of course, the Basques.’
‘Why do you say “of course the Basques?”’ asked McNulty, almost idly.
‘They’re our closest allies in struggle. They and we are brothers.’
‘Don’t the Basques want to separate themselves from Spain whereas you want to become part of United Ireland? Aren’t you the opposite of each other?’
‘That’s a simplistic interpretation.’
‘Oh, never mind,’ said McNulty, tugging his moustache hard, ‘I’ll never understand any of this. So the two of you got together this…what did you call it?’
‘It was a performance in song, poetry and prose of the literature of the various struggles in which we shared our mutual suffering, praised the courage of our communities and communally pledged to overthrow the tyrannies we’d groaned under all our lives.’
‘I know this is slightly off the point,’ said McNulty, ‘but isn’t the ANC in power and haven’t several of the other groups already got most of what they want?’
‘As Father Cormac always pointed out, no struggle is ever over…’
‘Till the fat priest sings…Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss de Búrca. I didn’
t mean that. It just slipped out.’
‘I’m going to write a letter of complaint about your crudeness and cruelty.’
‘I wouldn’t bother your arse, Miss de Búrca. Those complaints always go in the bin. Save the stamp and get on and tell me about yourself and the priest.’
‘We fell in love and then became lovers.’
‘No problem about him being a priest?’
‘Of course there was a problem,’ she snapped. ‘For as long as the church is dominated by outmoded, anti-feminism as well as anti-liberation prejudices there will be a problem. And he didn’t want to be thrown out of the priesthood where he could do so much good for so many people.’
‘If you say so, Miss de Búrca. If you say so. So you kept it quiet?’
‘As quiet as we could, but inevitably, there were some people who guessed.’ She burst into tears. ‘When you’re united in a search for justice and freedom, love sparkles with a passion that no bourgeois person could understand. People could see the aura around us and though we denied it we were not always believed. There were even some anonymous letters.’
‘To whom?’
‘To his superiors. To my husband.’
‘Ah, your husband? And were these letters believed?’
‘No. We denounced them as tittle-tattle, but it meant we had to be careful.’
‘So who do you think sent them?’
‘Securocrats, of course.’
‘Why would the security forces care about a priest and a cultural activist having an affair?’
‘They wish to destabilise our movement. They will use any means however foul. That’s why they murdered him. They think it’ll frighten me and my brothers and sisters in struggle. But it won’t. While there is breath in my body I will fight for an Ireland united, Gaelic and free. And making a martyr of him will only make me more determined.’
She burst into loud sobs and then, after a couple of minutes, pushed her chair back and jumped up. ‘The fools, the fools, the fools. They have left us our Fenian dead,’ she thundered, before she walked out of the room and banged the door.
‘The dead, the dead, the dead,’ muttered McNulty to Sergeant Bradley. ‘They have left us our Fenian Fools.’
He walked up and down the room for a moment or two. ‘Mind you, Joe, what would you expect? I hear her people are from Cavan.’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘And as we all know, Cavan people would tip a cat going through a skylight and come back for the kittens.’
Chapter Fifteen
‘Well now, Rollo, from what you told me earlier about the shenanigans last night, ‘tis yourself’s in a position to tell us who could have done mischief to the priest.’
‘More likely who couldn’t, Inspector. Incidentally, are you sure she’s telling the truth?’
‘About the relationship with O’Flynn, yes.’
‘And the times?’
‘Can’t see any reason why she wouldn’t. Let’s work on that basis anyway.’
‘So the key time is between two, when he went down his staircase unharmed and just after six when he went back to his room and presumably encountered the dark and the bottles.’
McNulty looked hopefully at Pooley. ‘Can anyone be ruled out?’
‘I’m not an expert on drunken behaviour but I’d be astounded if Wallace or O’Shea could have stirred after they reached their beds.’
‘They couldn’t have been faking?’
‘I don’t believe any of my flock could have been faking. I saw how much they drank and none of it was lemonade.’
‘And that applies to all of them?’
‘I suppose it’s conceivable in certain circumstances that Robert Amiss, Lady Troutbeck, Willie Hughes or Tomiichi Okinawa might have been capable of engaging in a practical joke, though I’d expect most of them—even though befuddled—to steer clear of something with potentially lethal consequences. But even if any or all of them had tried something like that, they’d have broken the bottles, smashed the light bulb and woken up everyone within shouting distance.
‘Apart from anything else, my room isn’t far from O’Flynn’s staircase, and though I didn’t get to sleep before three, I heard nothing.’
McNulty gazed dispiritedly at his list. ‘So, assuming the bottles were planted during the night, and leaving the couple of live-in staff out of it for now, the suspects are limited to you, Steeples, who was back here by eleven o’clock, Taylor, Kapur, Gibson, MacPhrait and the fat American. And of course, that academic who arrived after you’d all gone out and stayed in the bar reading alone until about ten thirty.’ He pulled his moustache despairingly. ‘There’s as likely a line-up as I’ve ever seen, especially if we might be thinking of ye in relation to the flag-pole mullarky.’
‘Inspector.’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you more inclined now to think Billy Pratt was murdered?’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Me too. There was some funny business with the rope that I’ll tell you about again. But they won’t like that in Dublin.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’d better go over and speak to them. And then I’ll have a brief chat with everyone individually. Now do you want to hide there for the duration?’
‘I’d like to. But how will I explain my absence?’
‘Tell them…tell them…’
‘…I’ve an urgent report to compose for my millionaire.’
‘There you are. You’re an inventive fella for an Englishman.’
Pooley looked at him demurely. ‘I’m not wholly English, Inspector. I had an Irish grandmother.’
‘Where was she from?’
‘Cork.’
McNulty stopped dead. ‘A grandmother from Cork. Are ye serious? And ye never told me? What part of Cork?’
‘Near Mallow.’
‘That’s even better.’ He looked at his watch again. ‘Can’t stop now to talk. You can tell me more later.’
As the hitherto silent Bradley rose to follow McNulty, he paused beside Pooley. ‘Do ye know the definition of a Corkman with an inferiority complex?’
‘No.’
‘Someone who just thinks he’s as good as everyone else.’ He left the room without looking back.
***
McNulty tugged his moustache. ‘Look, ladies and gentlemen, I know this is distressing for all of you, but I have a job to do and I intend to do it. All I can suggest is that you do the job you came to do as well. If we can see all of ye today and ye’re all cooperative, with a bit of luck we’ll be able to let ye go tomorrow lunchtime, when the conference is due to end.
‘Sergeant Bradley and I will have our headquarters upstairs. He’ll be coming and going to tell you who we want to see and when. We’ll try and disrupt things as little as possible. But please remember it’s in all our interests to clear this up, and the more you cooperate, the quicker we’ll all be out of here.
‘Now I’ll leave ye get back to your discussion.’
As he closed the door behind him, the conference participants sat in sullen silence. The baroness looked around the table. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘there’s nothing for it. Like it or not, we’re stuck here. And we might as well be stuck here discussing whether we’re separate races or just mongrels pretending to have pedigrees as well as anything else.’
She fixed Taylor with a steely eye. ‘You’ve got off lightly this morning. Give us your opinion.’
Taylor looked at her miserably and then jerked himself into life. ‘While, of course, I admire Dr Schwartz’s obvious scholarship, I feel he takes too little cognisance of the clear proof of a singular Celtic genius which has given to Western Europe a profound spirituality, infused…’
Amiss sat in a reverie, envying Pooley.
***
McNulty was struggling to keep his temper with the maintenance man. ‘Look, Peadar, for the hundredth time, I’m not accusing you of anything. It’s not your fault that you were at your cousin’s when we needed you yesterday. And no one’s blaming you for
what happened with the flagpole. Just tell me all I need to know about flagpoles.’
‘What do you need to know?’
‘Why it would collapse.’
‘Sure you know that already, don’t ye?’
‘I want a full explanation of how this accident could have happened.’
‘How would I know, and me not even here?’
‘Peadar,’ snapped McNulty, ‘stop playing games. I know you’re a Kerryman, but even so you’ll answer my questions if I have to lock you up until you do.’
‘And how would you be able to do that? Don’t I have a brother a guard and doesn’t he tell me ye…’
‘Peadar,’ roared McNulty. ‘Why did the flagpole collapse?’
‘Didn’t someone undo the bolt that fastened the hinge?’
‘How do you know?’
‘Didn’t I take down that flagpole only two weeks ago to paint it?’
‘Yes. And?’
‘And when I put it up again, didn’t I put the bolt on?’
‘Maybe ye didn’t.’
‘How could the pole have stayed up if I didn’t?’
‘Maybe ye didn’t close it properly?’
‘Why wouldn’t I, and I closing it at all?’
‘If that’s the case, how could Billy Pratt have been killed?’
‘How would I know?’
McNulty raised his voice to a level Pooley thought would be audible in the dining room. ‘Peadar Kennealy, you’re so cute you’ll disappear up your own arse if you’re not careful. Now if you don’t stop this oul shite this instant, I’m arresting you for obstructing the gardai in the course of their enquiries.’
McNulty’s eloquence had its effect. Though for his own self-respect, Kennealy maintained his grudging tone, he changed tactics. ‘You’ve no call to get so worked up. I’m the one has to put up them feckin’ flags. Do you think I’d leave the feckin’ bolts undone?’
‘We all make mistakes.’
‘Listen, guard, it’d be one thing to forget to close the bolt at all. But it’d be another to close it only a little bit so someone could be kilt. How could ye make that mistake?’
‘You tell me.’
‘If ye ask me,’ said Kennealy, ‘someone set that fella up. All he’d have had to do was slip the bolt nearly but not quite open.’
Anglo-Irish Murders Page 16
