A Shameful Murder

by Cora Harrison

  ‘You’ll be surprised to see it now,’ said Joseph with smile over his shoulder as she marched up the stairs behind him, disdaining the use of the handrail on the balustrade, still painted a pristine white – and she recollected the colour from fifty years ago. This was a house where little changed, where a carpet, when slightly worn, was replaced by one of the same colour and texture.

  The lobby itself bore the same colours of red and white – red carpet again, red cushions on the pair of long slender sofas that were placed in the exact centre and the walls were painted white. Painted white as always, but now, fifty years later the colour hardly showed with the lines and lines of framed photographs, their shades of pale cream and pale brown outlined by the black frames. Her host took her to the early ones – none of her – she remembered none being taken at that house – and the endless posing and elaborately screened cameras of that era made the whole process tedious and memorable. There were some that she recognized though – Edmund Fitzsimon, his wife Angela, both of them – and neither too young – there they were, gazing steadily and sadly into the lens – even one of their cousin, Thomas Copinger. Odd to see them, she thought. Odd to see those people without life or colour – hair, eyes, all just distinguished by shades of dark and light – preserved for prosperity in pale shades of light brown – all pictures of people who were now in the grave.

  ‘Here are some photographs taken of her recently,’ said Mr Fitzsimon taking down a few of the framed photographs. He avoided using his daughter’s name, noted the Reverend Mother, and he took his time to select that few. None showed an animated face; the girl stared steadily, and, she thought, almost fearfully, at the camera, posing with a tennis racket, holding a bunch of flowers, leafing through some music at a pianoforte, standing between her brother and her father, clipping rose bushes. Joseph Fitzsimon unhooked this one and handed it to her. A sad-looking girl, she thought, and then spotted a rather more cheerful one of the same girl, much younger and dressed in a school uniform.

  ‘So Angelina went to school at the Ursuline Convent, did she?’ she asked, recognizing the habit of the nun in the background. The Ursuline nuns had a school for young ladies down at the end of Blackrock quite near to the castle which overlooked the spot where the River Lee entered into the waters of Cork Harbour. She thought that she recognized the uniform. It was an expensive school – she had gone there herself and remembered that the fees were thirty guineas a term in the middle of the reign of Queen Victoria.

  ‘Yes, that’s her in her school uniform. She liked school.’ There was a hint of regret in his voice, a trace of nostalgia, perhaps for the days when Angelina had been young and biddable.

  ‘And who is this,’ she said, looking at another spot on the wall and seeing the same well-shaped face and slender neck, the same air of melancholy, all bearing a great resemblance to the profile of the girl Angelina, though the face was half-shaded by a splendid hat.

  Joseph Fitzsimon hesitated for a moment. ‘That is not my daughter; it’s her mother, my wife,’ he said quietly. ‘Taken a long time ago. She, she was not well, even then.’

  An early photograph of Mrs Fitzsimon, thought the Reverend Mother. There were a few later ones further along on the line where she seemed to have aged and to look even more apprehensive. Quite a few also with different types of large feathered hats on one side of her head, or the other, the wide brim shadowing her face. In the flesh, Angelina was probably not particularly like her mother, they probably would not have shared the same distinctive colouring of chestnut hair and bright blue eyes, but in a monochrome photograph shape of feature and the underlying bone structure brought out a strong resemblance between daughter and mother.

  Professor Lambert was in the hallway when they came down and took his leave with a cordial shake of the hand to both. When they re-entered the drawing-room there was no sign of Gerald Fitzsimon, but Dr Scher, tea tray at his side, was cosily ensconced in one of the vast padded armchairs in front of the fire. The Reverend Mother eyed him affectionately. Dr Scher always reminded her slightly of one of those comfortable-looking, well-rounded teddy bears that decorated the windows of Dowden’s shop in Patrick Street at Christmas time. She remained standing, however. The time for a visit of condolence had elapsed; there would be others calling to the house – drawn there by a mixture of compassion and curiosity. She declined the tea and the cake decisively and was allowed to depart. The advantage of her cloth was its reputation for austerity – it saved her from much unnecessary tea-drinking and cake-eating.

  ‘So what did you make of Gerald Fitzsimon?’ she asked as they drove off.

  ‘He only stayed a few minutes in the room after you left,’ he said readily, but he glanced at her sideways and his brown eyes had a touch of mischief in them.

  ‘So what did Professor Lambert say about him?’ She knew him well enough to know that he would have prised information from his colleague. Few could resist Dr Scher’s genial charm.

  He jerked the steering wheel to avoid a dignified cat that stalked across the road and did not reply for a moment. When she looked at him she could see a struggle going on across his face. She smiled slightly to herself as she guessed that he would soon justify his conscience by telling himself that she was a safe repository for secrets. And he would be right. Dr Scher had given her many a piece of juicy gossip, of information about the great and the good of the city and she had inclined her head, made no comment and kept the matter to herself. In fact, she thought now, the older she got the less she said. She waited calmly, watching how he struggled with the gear lever and thinking that she might make a better driver than he was. What a great thing it would be to have a car for her community. All this reliance on taxis and on friends! A car would give her such liberty.

  ‘Well, you’ll never guess, but he was telling me that young Fitzsimon is not a model student by any means. In fact, he was the ringleader in that scandal about medical students stealing ether from the hospital. The students were all having wild parties and getting drunk on the stuff, bringing in girls, too.’ Dr Scher’s resistance had crumbled, as she knew that it would. ‘And,’ he added with a quick glance at her, ‘there was a break-in at the bursar’s office, just after the fees were taken in last autumn, and it was rumoured, according to Lambert, that Gerald was responsible and that Joseph, the father, paid up in order to save the police being dragged into it. Lambert thinks that he’ll never get around to qualifying; he’ll be on his father’s hands for the rest of his life,’ he added. Then he swung the wheel wildly and turned into the marina and spent a few minutes re-aligning his car.

  I’m sure that I could do that better, thought the Reverend Mother, but long years of keeping her thoughts to herself made her sit calmly until he straightened all of his wheels and said with a relish unimpaired by his struggles, ‘But, of course, he won’t need to qualify, now, will he? His father has a reputation of being a bit tight with the money, but, as it turned out, Gerald will get the grandmother’s money.’

  ‘Grandmother?’ queried the Reverend Mother.

  ‘That’s right.’ Dr Scher nodded, and his chubby profile was alive with the interest of passing on a piece of gossip. ‘Old Mrs Woodford, Gerald and Angelina’s grandmother – she was even richer than I thought. Lambert was telling me. He got it from Curwen the solicitor. You’ll never guess,’ he went on eagerly, ‘but she left thirty thousand pounds. I’d never have thought that she was as rich as that. And all her money to the girl. She left it to the girl not to the brother, apparently on condition that she did not marry before she was twenty-one – but, of course, now … now that the girl is dead, well, Gerald Fitzsimon is a very rich young man.’

  He looked across at his passenger and the Reverend Mother resisted the impulse to snap: Keep your eyes on the road! It was amazing what indiscreet gossips these men were, she thought. However, she was honest with herself enough to know that she had not the slightest notion of checking him or of refusing to listen to his revelations. She agreed with Pat
rick. Angelina Fitzsimon’s body, with its bruised throat, had the look of a murder victim, even if the eventual cause of death was drowning. No one, she thought, would deliberately go down to a terrible death through a manhole into the sewers.

  And the ticket for the ferry to Liverpool, the ten-pound note, the carefully packed bag, full of clothing, and toilet articles, all of these seemed to point to flight, rather than to suicide.

  She made no remark, therefore, about professional discretion and waited patiently while Dr Scher, with great gusto, indulged in a horn-blowing contest against a humble Ford that had been innocently travelling on its own side of the road.

  ‘That will shake up his liver,’ he said gleefully. ‘That’s the latest medical theory, you know, Reverend Mother! A shock a day and you will live for ever.’

  The Reverend Mother bit back a smile, feeling that he should not be encouraged in his outrageousness.

  ‘So Mrs Woodford was as rich as that, was she?’ she remarked, steering him back on track, steering his mind, anyway, she thought as she watched his erratic progress on the road. ‘And Angelina knew of the condition that she could not marry before the age of twenty-one, did she?’

  ‘That’s right. Apparently, the girl was told of the condition by the old lady herself in the presence of her solicitor. And she said that suited her,’ added Dr Scher, after a moment of waiting for a reaction. ‘Shows that she had no notion of getting married in a hurry,’ he added.

  ‘But now that Angelina is dead the money goes to her brother, Gerald, is that right?’

  ‘All thirty thousand pounds of it,’ confirmed Dr Scher. ‘And when you think that a car like my Humber only costs about four hundred pounds – well, that young man is going to be in the clover for the rest of his life.’

  NINE

  St Thomas Aquinas:

  … oportet in intellectualibus non deduci ad imagination.

  ( … it is important when dealing with matters of the intellect not to be led away by the imagination.)

  Patrick was uncomfortable and apologetic when he arrived at the convent next morning. Sister Bernadette, knowing by instinct that this matter was of deep interest to the Reverend Mother, ushered him into her study without checking for permission, and then withdrew without any of the usual offers of cups of tea. Patrick’s face was tense, but his gaze was direct.

  ‘I’m sorry that you have to be involved in this matter, Reverend Mother,’ he said opening the conversation in an unusually blunt fashion.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s the inquest,’ he explained. ‘I’m afraid that the superintendent thinks that you should attend since you found the body. He’s a Protestant,’ he added by way of explanation and the Reverend Mother bit back a smile.

  The superintendent was a member of the old Royal Irish Constabulary who had been lucky enough to retain his job when the new nationalist civic guards were formed. There would be a certain amount of muttering at his subjecting someone like the Reverend Mother to the indignity of giving evidence in court. Little did Patrick know that she would have been furious if she had not been given this opportunity! The very idea that this girl’s death was going to be brushed aside as a suicide, despite the bruise on the throat, despite the ether in the stomach, annoyed her intensely and made her determined to do her best to influence the jury. It would, she thought, be a new experience and she had no notion of asking the Bishop for permission. If the question ever arose she would declare very positively she understood that the Bishop had been incapacitated by the wound on his arm. In fact, she doubted whether any would venture to challenge her judgement.

  ‘Very good, Patrick,’ she said quietly. ‘What time?’

  ‘The inquest is set for Monday morning at eleven, Reverend Mother. We’ll send a car for you.’

  ‘No,’ she said immediately. ‘Dr Scher will be going and I’m sure that he will be happy to take me. I’ll send a message to him and if you don’t hear from me then you will know that the matter is settled.’ She looked at him for a moment and then said, ‘And what if the verdict of suicide is not returned?’

  He returned her look steadily. ‘Then perhaps I’ll be allowed to get properly to work on the case,’ he said and she could see from the swiftness of his response how frustrated he had been by the orders to cease his investigations. She wondered how to drop a hint about the strange will made by the wealthy Mrs Woodford and decided that this could wait until after the inquest. In the meantime she would turn the matter of Gerald Fitzsimon over in her mind. He had the means of procuring ether – though she was puzzled as to the reason why that had been found in the girl’s stomach – and he had been present at the Merchants’ Ball at the Imperial Hotel and he had a powerful incentive to kill his sister if it meant that he would inherit a large legacy from his deceased grandmother.

  ‘What about the man who was said to have shot the Bishop?’ she asked cautiously as Patrick rose to his feet with a preoccupied air.

  ‘Not a sign,’ he said and he spoke with indifference. She hoped that he was sensible enough not to have displayed the same lack of interest in front of the superintendent, who might be a Protestant, but who would be well aware that the Bishop of Cork was an important personage and that if the Republican Party could be seen to be able to take a pot shot of him in public, then it would undermine the authority of the civic guards force in the city. However, she said nothing but allowed him to depart about his business. She had faith in his ability and in his common sense.

  Then she sat down at her desk to write a quick note to Dr Scher before going into the senior classroom to give her daily lesson in English literature to the eldest girls of the school.

  She had meant to set them a test on a passage of Jane Eyre, which they had been studying, but she sensed that they were restless – their houses had been visited and they had been questioned. This had caused a nervous tension that was almost palpable in the room. It would be dangerous to antagonize the civic guards – no family wanted that – but at the same time they had no illusions about retaliation shootings if any information was divulged – these happened all the time – between anti-treaty people, pro-treaty people, Republicans and Free-Staters. Cork was a dangerous place.

  In any case, Jane Eyre was not proving a success. Charlotte Brontë had put her heart and soul into this quite autobiographical work, but Jane’s problems with her aunt, the bullying from her boy-cousin and the burned porridge at her boarding school did not appear too serious to girls like these who had spent their teen years avoiding cross-fire in the streets and facing days when there was often literally no food in the bare rooms that they inhabited with their mothers and their numerous siblings.

  On an impulse she picked from the shelf Wuthering Heights, bestowed on them by Lucy, and began to read this piece of Gothic horror aloud as best she could and to her surprise the classroom was very still and attentive. The young eyes were interested and there was a low buzz of comments when she put the book away just as the bell had gone for the end of the school day.

  It was then that Nellie O’Sullivan put up her hand. ‘Please, Reverend Mother,’ she said politely, ‘you know the way the man in the story found the little boy Heathcliff in Liverpool, well, my sister Mary went to Liverpool this week.’

  ‘Did she, Nellie? That’s exciting news. Well, I’m so pleased to hear that.’ She managed to keep the note of surprise out of her voice. Ever since she had left school about four years ago, Mary O’Sullivan, the Reverend Mother had heard, had been hanging around the streets, doing what, she didn’t like to imagine. Though she couldn’t begin to surmise how either the girl, or her unfortunate mother, burdened with the care of ten other children, had found money for the fare, she was delighted to think that Mary had been put in the way of earning an honest living. She had been a striking-looking girl, quite different in appearance to Nellie – quite different with her …

  And then the Reverend Mother stared straight ahead, her eyes on the girls filing decoro
usly out of the classroom. She didn’t see them, however. In her mind was the picture of the dead girl, Angelina Fitzsimon, lying on the stretcher, china-blue eyes open to the sky, and chestnut curls of hair over her shoulders.

  And now she knew why the sight had been a familiar one.

  She stood for a moment in deep thought, ideas flashing through her imagination and then made up her mind.

  ‘I think I’ll pay a visit to Mrs O’Leary,’ she said to Sister Mary Immaculate, who was harassing some of the girls who lingered, chattering, on the doorstep. Thomas Aquinas had warned about the dangers of allowing the imagination to seduce the intellect, but often, she found, an imaginative leap was the first step to uncovering a truth.

  ‘Oh, she’d love that. Poor thing, she’s confined to a wheelchair these days.’ Sister Mary Immaculate was enthusiastic about this notion. When the Reverend Mother was out, she was in command and she enjoyed that very much.

  Mrs O’Leary lived in Bishop’s Street, only about a five-minute walk from the convent. In her working life she had been the chief maker of hats for Dowden’s, the most expensive shop in Cork, and she had been very generous with giving left-over pieces of hat-making material for the sewing class in the convent school. The Reverend Mother’s conscience reproached her that she had not been to see her more often. For such an active, gossipy woman this life, confined to a wheelchair and to the four walls of her sitting room, would prove quite a penance.

  The flood waters had receded for the moment, she noticed, as she stepped out of the garden gate on the pavement. Parts of the roads still had large puddles and the drains bubbled ominously, but she was able to walk dry-footed until she reached Mrs O’Leary’s house, with its neat lace curtains, well-painted front door and shining knocker. Mrs O’Leary was reputed to have put quite a bit of money away during her long years of employment and her three sons in America were always sending letters stuffed with dollars, according to Sister Bernadette, who was a great friend of the postman.