A Shameful Murder

by Cora Harrison

  The Reverend Mother allowed this to pass. A sudden thought had struck and she grimaced, uncomfortable at her lapse.

  ‘I should have sent for the priest,’ she said aloud.

  Eileen grinned. ‘Well, you’ll excuse me if I don’t go to fetch him, Reverend Mother,’ she said airily. ‘We’re not in great favour with the priests. The Bishop has excommunicated all Republicans – called off the altar we all were. My mam nearly died at the idea of me going to hell. She’s a great one for borrowing trouble, is my mam.’

  The Reverend Dr Cohalan, Bishop of Cork, had been most unwise in this blanket condemnation, thought the Reverend Mother; there had been acts of violence on both sides – some acts by the official authorities had out-done, in brutality and loss of life, any action by an illegal organization like the Republicans. The people of Cork would never forget how the Bishop had refused to condemn the burning down of the city streets by the Black and Tans, the so-called auxiliary police, which had left thousands without housing or jobs, but had excommunicated the Republicans for their assault on an army barracks. However, in front of Eileen, she maintained a discreet silence and only said aloud, ‘Well, the civic guards will be back in a few minutes with something to take the body to the barracks. Perhaps it would be best if the priest near there will see to the matter; our Father Murphy is rather elderly to be brought out in this flood and rain.’

  ‘The civic guards.’ Eileen had picked this up and she stowed her notebook and pencil away in a businesslike manner. ‘I’d better be off. You don’t mind if I go through the convent gardens again, Reverend Mother, do you? Everywhere is flooded except for around St Mary’s of the Isle.’

  ‘Go through the gate this time.’ The Reverend Mother hesitated for a moment and then added, ‘Take care of yourself, Eileen, body and soul.’

  A just war, according to St Thomas Aquinas, must take place for a good and just purpose rather than for self-gain – and peace must be its object, she remembered, as she watched the trim, long-legged figure springing lightly up the steep steps. What would he have thought of the aims of the Irish Republican Party?

  And then the sound of a wagon trundling down the lane, the horse splashing noisily through the flood and from time to time snorting irritably at the water that washed around its knees; the civic guards had arrived, using horse power rather than an engine which could be wrecked in the flood, and the Reverend Mother composed her face to receive them with dignity and to make sure that the body was handled carefully as it was taken under the jurisdiction of the present authority. There were a number of people there – two civic guards who were not introduced to her; Patrick’s assistant, a silent young man called Joe; and the doctor.

  The Reverend Mother knew Dr Scher, as he had been the convent’s doctor for decades. Younger than herself by a good ten years, he had mostly retired from general practice, though he retained his lectureship in dissection at the university – Queen’s, she still called it, though now it had been renamed University College, Cork, and he did occasional work for the civic guards. A kind man, though, like Sister Bernadette, a terrible gossip, always on the lookout to increase his knowledge of the latest rumours and scandals in this city of talkers. He shouldn’t have retired, she thought. He had been bored ever since, though he still found room in his generous heart to lavish his skill on some of the poor who could not afford a doctor. The children in her school often talked of Dr Scher and of the small presents that he gave to them and of how nice his medicine tasted. She guessed that the pharmacist was ordered to lace each bottle with plenty of sugar.

  ‘Morning, Reverend Mother,’ he said heartily, climbing down from the heavily built brewery wagon and politely removing his glove to shake her by the hand, while his eyes slid across to the girl.

  ‘Strangulation, is it?’ said Dr Scher and Patrick made no reply, just stood looking down into the dead girl’s face. A tiny crease had appeared between his eyebrows and his hazel eyes were alert and attentive – not, thought the Reverend Mother, looking at the girl’s throat, but at the widely opened eyes that stared sightlessly up into the mist. There was a moment’s silence. Dr Scher had expected agreement – that was obvious by the sharp glance that he gave into the young civic guard’s face – but when he received none, he looked again at the corpse and then cleared his throat.

  ‘Hm,’ he said, and then, after a few more seconds, ‘well, we’ll see. Do you know her at all? Could she be an informer? The Republicans have taken to murdering these just to deter the others.’

  Improbable, thought the Reverend Mother. She was surprised at Dr Scher. She would have thought that he had more sense, more knowledge of what went on in the city around him. Girls dressed like that, in an expensive satin gown, were unlikely to be seen going to a civic guards barracks to inform on a member of the Republican Party. They might murmur something in the ear of a father or a brother, but they would not get involved. She looked across at Patrick wondering whether he would tell Dr Scher about the dance programme in the girl’s bag, but the face of the young guard was wooden and unresponsive.

  ‘Would you like to have her brought back to the barracks now, Doctor?’ he asked, his voice even and without inflection.

  Interesting, she thought, looking from the taciturn young man to the gregarious old one. The Irish were the ones that had the reputation of being garrulous and free with information and the English were supposed to be reserved and cautious in their dealings with their fellow men. Still, Dr Scher was Russian in origin, though he himself had been born and had spent his boyhood in Manchester. Perhaps that made a difference.

  ‘Yes, yes.’ The doctor did not look at him; he was busy studying the body, looking now at the clothes. ‘Any missing persons?’ he asked.

  ‘Not so far.’ This was answered by Joe. ‘Probably one of the girls of the quays – their night lasts until the lights are put out,’ he added with a quick glance at the lamp still burning in the yellow fog. And then he looked at Patrick’s still face and became very stiff and still himself. Joe, thought the Reverend Mother, was very young. Not long out of school, she reckoned. He would have even less knowledge of silks and satins than Eileen and would not know that it was most unlikely that a girl of the street would be dressed in a gown like this.

  Dr Scher looked at him impatiently and scornfully, but seemed to decide that his remark was not worthy of an answer and he bent over the girl again, a frown on his lined face. A hot-tempered man, Dr Scher – she had heard tales of his outbursts when he did not hesitate to roar at any of the medical students who treated a dead body with jokes or disrespect. Joe shifted uneasily and looked at his superior. Patrick remained aloof, just signalling to the two guards to lift the body into the back of the vehicle. Reverend Mother thought once again about her failure to summon a priest, but said nothing. The matter was now out of her hands.

  THREE

  Cork Examiner, 22 January, 1923:

  ‘Ten or twelve armed men robbed the Bank of Ireland at Kilbeggan of £2,000 after previously proceeding to the barracks and threatening to shoot the civic guards if they intervened. They also robbed other business premises before making good their escape.’

  Patrick wasn’t sure whether he wanted to see this post-mortem. Normally he forced himself to attend, but today he did not feel as though he could bear to. There was a lot to do, he told himself. He had to identify this girl quickly. One glance at her gown, her necklace and her gloves and he had known that there would be a fuss about her. The newly formed civic guards were apt to be criticized by the well-off merchant class of the city, used to the old order of the Royal Irish Constabulary. He, as part of this new police force, could not afford to be found lacking.

  Tommy O’Mahoney was the duty constable; he would go and see him. He glanced at the clock on the corridor. Ten o’clock. By now, surely a girl like this would have been missed; unless, of course, someone in England was expecting her off the Liverpool boat.

  ‘Any missing persons, Constable?’ he asked as he ca
me up to the glass-fronted booth that Tommy O’Mahoney had occupied, so it was said, for the last fifty years.

  ‘Nobody, Sergeant.’ Tommy stood up. He was older than Patrick’s father would have been, but he was always very correct.

  ‘Dr Scher is in with the superintendent,’ he added.

  And it was at that moment that the door swung open, pushed open and held open by a cab driver. Another man came through. Three-piece pin-stripe suit, well-cut overcoat, silk tie, bowler hat. ‘My name is Fitzsimon – my daughter is missing. There might have been an accident …’

  Patrick felt sorry for him. He always felt sorry for people coming in with this sort of query. Most of them had a mixture of hope and fear in their voices, and many, like this man, tried to sound as though they were convinced of their silliness in making a fuss.

  ‘I’m afraid I might have bad news for you, Mr Fitzsimon,’ he said quietly. ‘A young woman was found dead and brought in just ten minutes ago. Perhaps we should eliminate that possibility first before you take details,’ he said over the counter to Tommy and Tommy gave a quick nod.

  ‘Come with me, Mr Fitzsimon.’ Fitzsimon, he thought as he led the way down the long corridor, Fitzsimon the retail merchant, one of the so-called merchant princes of Cork. There was little doubt now in his mind that they had found a name for the dead girl. The daughter of Joseph Fitzsimon would undoubtedly have attended the Merchants’ Ball. He knew all about these affairs – members of the constabulary were usually called upon to stand by the red carpet and make sure that the poor, the starving, the homeless did not get within shouting distance of the rich of the city. When he was a new recruit to the civic guards he had got landed with that duty.

  ‘You were present at the Merchants’ Ball, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Patrick forgave the impatient tone of the answer. After all, this man was in a fever of anxiety about his daughter. Strange not to miss her until this hour of the morning, though – surely he would have taken her home, or seen that someone else did … And why had she a ticket for the midnight ferry to Liverpool in her bag?

  ‘I didn’t see her – I was upstairs for the whole evening,’ he ended.

  And, of course, that was the way that it would have been. Patrick had been ‘back-stage’ at this event last year, allowed to roam around the Imperial Hotel and make sure that no sneak thieves got in through some window. The merchants and their wives dined aloft and their sons and daughters danced in the big hall beneath, with the finest orchestra in Cork engaged to play for them. Supper for these younger ones, remembered Patrick, was a buffet, laid out on long tables covered by starched linen tablecloths between the pillars at each side of the majestic hall. Their fathers and mothers were safely aloft and there seemed to be many covert flirtations going on under the arcades and in dark corners around the corridors – though not even the daring ones slipped out through a side door and into the dangerous back lanes behind the Imperial Hotel.

  ‘This way, sir,’ he said. He wondered whether he should take the man’s arm as he led him in through the door, but then decided that this might be a liberty. Whatever lay before Joseph Fitzsimon, one of the richest men in the city of Cork, it was not for a humble man from the marsh of the city, schooled only by the Christian Brothers at the North Monastery, to try to console him.

  ‘The face will look a little different,’ he warned; his hand still on the knob of the door. ‘She was in the river for several hours, we think. Still you will recognize the hair, and the dress …’ He walked in front of the man. Only one gas lamp was lit – just over the body – and most of the room was filled with shadows. He led the way in silence and went to the far side of the table leaving the way clear for the father.

  He was prepared for a sigh of relief, or a violent onslaught of weeping, but Joseph Fitzsimon just stood like a man turned to stone. And then, quite unexpectedly, his face flushed to a deep dark red shade – almost an angry red. He said nothing but stared down at the girl for an instant and then averted his eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ he said in choked and muffled tones. ‘Yes, that is Angelina.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Patrick asked the question in a gentle voice.

  ‘Got that dress from Dowden’s only last week. Cost me a fine sum.’ Joseph Fitzsimon had control over himself now. Odd thing to say, though, thought Patrick, almost as though the dress was of more importance than the girl. Of course, Dowden’s was the most expensive shop in Cork. He had wanted to buy his mother a new hat there when he had been promoted to sergeant and she had screamed at the very idea.

  ‘The gloves, too. Kid gloves – you wouldn’t believe …’ Suddenly he stopped and produced a snowy white monogrammed handkerchief and held it to his eyes. Patrick preserved a respectful silence for a moment. He should cover the body, he thought. There should be a sheet in one of the drawers at the side of the room. Still, best to get the father out of there first. Old Tommy would make him a cup of tea and the superintendent, when he heard that the tea merchant was on the premises, would probably offer him a drink. After a minute he touched the super-fine broadcloth of the sleeve.

  ‘Do you feel able to come with me and give me a few details now, sir?’ he asked in respectfully hushed tones.

  A nod was the only answer so Patrick turned and went towards the door. Let the man have a moment alone with his child, he thought, kiss her goodbye, perhaps. But then he realized that Joseph Fitzsimon was at his heels as he fumbled in the shadows for the wooden knob. Smooth with the hands of the constabulary over the centuries, he thought as he opened the door and stood back to allow the merchant to pass through ahead of him. Suddenly all of his instincts, the instincts of a good policeman, had been awakened. The light from the corridor shone on the man’s face. The sudden flush had died away and the face was pale with the aquiline nose jutting out from the smooth cheeks, above the well-trimmed beard and moustache. There were no traces of tears on those cheeks, though, no reddening of the blue eyes and the handkerchief had not lost the crispness of its starch when he had replaced it in his pocket. Not a backward glance at the poor child, either. No, he walked firmly out, and waited as Patrick closed the door gently and locked it again.

  Patrick made a quick decision. He would see Dr Scher later on.

  The taxi driver did not hesitate when they got in. It was a small city. Joseph Fitzsimon would be known to them all.

  ‘South Mall, sir?’ he enquired. Ignoring Patrick and Joe, he addressed himself to Mr Fitzsimon and did not falter when the man shook his head and said briefly, ‘No, home.’ Without further query he turned the car around and they were off descending down into the flat of the city.

  Home, thought Patrick – well, not Montenotte, that colony of expensive houses on the hillside north of the River Lee – the taxi was going east, the wheels sloshing through the flood water along the quays that bordered the side of the south branch of the River Lee. Probably Blackrock, he thought. There were some very fine houses built down there, high on a bank above the river and a good mile or so away from the smells and diseases of the crowded city – and away from desperate men who prowled the badly lit streets at night and would kill for a fine suit of clothing and a well-filled wallet. The Fitzsimons were among the rich of the city – old money, his mother used to say, shaking her head wisely. Of course they were tea merchants and had begun shipping it into Cork nearly two hundred years ago when tea was a rare and expensive luxury.

  ‘Very bad, the South Mall today,’ said the taxi driver chattily. ‘I dropped off a fare from the station to there earlier this morning and I wished I had horses again – they could swim! The water was halfway up the wheels. We had to crawl along. Never so glad to get out of the place and get into Tuckey Street and along South Main Street. Never floods much there, do it? Funny, that?’

  Some barefoot, ragged children in Cove Street were flat on their stomachs, thrusting their hands down sewerage drains – trying to grab eels, he thought, and felt sick for a moment. The mo
thers, though, would not care where a dinner came from. These poor children might live down Sawmill Lane or Rutland Street. Families were big and work for the fathers – if they had not skipped off to England – would be fairly unknown. Food would often just be charity donations from the St Vincent de Paul Society, or stolen from barrows at the Coal Quay Market.

  As they came along Albert Quay, Patrick noticed that Joseph Fitzsimon didn’t even glance towards where the roof of the Imperial Hotel rose high above the surrounding buildings. How strange, thought Patrick – considering that, according to him, his last sight of Angelina was at that place. And why didn’t he notice his daughter disappearing from there? Surely one of those young ladies would never go home on their own. He had to admit that someone of his background knew little about the young ladies from Blackrock or from Montenotte. Perhaps in those big houses parents hardly saw their children from one end of the week to the other and they didn’t have the same feeling for each other.

  The Fitzsimon house at Blackrock had the dignity of a paved archway at the side where the fortunate owners could shelter from the weather while they paid off the taxi. Patrick fumbled in his pocket, but Joseph Fitzsimon had already taken out a coin and handed it to the taxi driver.

  ‘This way,’ he said and led the way along a covered passageway towards a small door at the side of the house, but then clicked his tongue with annoyance. ‘Locked,’ he said and went swiftly to the front.

  It was a splendid house, thought Patrick, standing back and looking up. It was built high above the river but would, if it were not so foggy, have a fine view of the water as it broadened out on its way into the fifteen square miles of Cork Harbour. It was three storeys high, about hundred years old, probably built in the reign of one of the Georges. A typical house of its time, like a child’s drawing, front door, porch with marble pillars, two windows on either side of it with all of the rest of the windows carefully arranged in neat rows as it rose to the roof.