But, the truth was that bad things had happened in the river too, and when she’d said
that to Elizabeth it had only been a version of the truth. The town had its share of dark deeds and secrets. Frank knew more secrets than she did, and she couldn’t contemplate asking him. Priests, bank managers, head teacher, and the like. They knew everything that went on in the place.
Chapter Six
“I said to my Evelyn that she should mind her manners and come straight home from school and not be hanging around the street corners with them cheeky Twomey twins. There’s danger everywhere, these days, girl, and I want you here where I can keep my eye on you,, and you needn’t mind making a face like that. That awful face, she makes, Miss Cahill, honest to God, I don’t know where she got it from. Pursing her mouth up…look, like this, and casting her eyes up to the heavens. Like this, look, Miss Cahill.”
“I’m looking, Hannah.” She couldn’t really burst out laughing. It would be dreadful, but Maggie had an awful compulsion to do so. She had to remind herself of what had happened to poor Mr. Crowe, and that got her face straight again. Knowing her luck, the canon would walk in on them with Hannah pulling faces and she laughing, and the two of them gossiping away like two auld ones selling whelks on Cork quays. The sight of Hannah with her face screwed up and the whites of her eyes showing were funny, though. Or maybe, it was a bout of hysteria she was having.
“I was at Inishowen House first thing this morning, as usual. But, you see, I stayed the night. That poor woman, what a terrible thing to have happen.”
She paused for breath and Maggie’s body went rigid in the middle of folding the linen napkins. What was the right thing to do here? Discourage Hannah from gossiping, which is what she should do. But…
“Mrs. Crowe had to have someone in the house with her, poor woman. Thanks be to God, they called for me. I mean…she shouldn’t be out there on her lonesome, should she? Not that that poor husband would be much help to her, the way he was, laid up like that. All the same, it’s having company in the house, isn’t it? I know I complain about my gang, but all the same, I wouldn’t swap my lot for her, the poor woman, God help her.”
Maggie sighed. It was hard work, sometimes, listening to Hannah who didn’t seem to have any filter. She opened her mouth and out came a stream of thoughts, though funny enough, never anything truly scandalous. You couldn’t accuse her of gossiping.
“Anyway, the inspector was there. Ben Cronin, as was. Poor man got his own afflictions, hasn’t he, with an invalid wife? She’s big friends with that one you know, isn’t she? Miss Abina Moore? I’ve no time for that one myself, pardon me for saying it, now. She’s a nosy parker, and she looks down her nose at the likes of me. I mean what would she know? Soft life that she’s had.”
Abina hadn’t had a soft life, more a restricted life. But Maggie didn’t say it. She couldn’t cope with Hannah going off on another tangent.
There was only one thing that might work.
“We’ll have a cup of tea, Hannah. We need it. It’s been an upsetting night for everyone.
“He said he’d be coming to the parochial house to speak to everyone again. The inspector, I mean. It was a waste of time, me being at Inishowen House, this morning, anyway. I was forbidden from laying my hands on anything. They have to examine everywhere, for clues, footprints, all that sort of thing. It’s just like one of them Agatha Christie books, isn’t it, Miss Cahill?”
“I hope you’re not gossiping, with Miss Cahill, Hannah.”
Despite half-expecting him to walk in on them, like this, he had still caught Maggie unawares. Appearing like that at the half-open kitchen door. And you could bet your last shilling, he’d been lurking outside, ear-wigging. He was a man who would do that, who would probably claim that it was his duty to do it.
What did he think he was doing, though? Exerting control over how they spoke, even how they thought?
Hannah gave a laugh. “God bless and spare you, Canon, what else would I be talking about on a day like this. Sure, it’s the talk of the place. You’ll have your work cut out if you think you can stop people talking about this.”
You had to love Hannah. She was oblivious to rank and what was and wasn’t acceptable to blurt out.
The canon did not look impressed, and his throat moved a couple of times as though he was going to speak and then thought better of it.
“I’ll have a tray of coffee sent up to the parlour if you please. My plans for today, going to the convent, for instance, have had to be changed.”
“He’s coming down here, later, the inspector. He told me, coming round to talk to you, and the other two priests.”
Hannah’s voice was full of importance, and the canon had one more attempt at putting her in her place.
“Mrs. Scrivens, whatever you say about poor Mr. Crowe’s death being the talk of the place, I’d strongly advise you to take care. Your job and livelihood depend on discretion.”
He leaned his hands on the edge of the table and looked from one to the other of the women, at Hannah assembling delicate china on a tray and Maggie pressing the best Irish linen table napkins.
“I presume you know what discretion means, Mrs. Scrivens?”
Maggie quickly lifted the iron realising that she was pressing far too firmly on the fabric. Wonder if the canon knew what patronising meant. Maggie prided herself on keeping calm, not showing how riled she was. But, it was tough going, this time. She glanced at Hannah. However, she coped with life was very different from most people. It was like that saying about water off a duck’s back. You could envy Hannah that attitude—it would nice to be able to be like that.
* * *
Ben Cronin breathed in and concentrated on keeping his temper. It had been a long day, and he had pushed his sergeant, Dick Sheehan and the two other young Gardai who had been allocated to the case. Pushed them possibly a bit too hard, and he’d been lacking in patience.
He was getting to know the widow better though and through her, getting to know Simon Crowe’s character. There was a lot that still didn’t hang together about him. He was a curmudgeon and been awkward as blazes, and you got the distinct impression he’d sailed close to the wind. But, yet…there had been some good there too, something that had endeared him to some.
Or maybe he was wrong, and that was a load of balderdash, and he was getting swept away because Crowe had shown a bit of mercy to someone he’s caught poaching. That might be nothing more than one rogue looking out for another. Not altogether fair, that. Denis Field had been far from a rogue.
“I’m slipping home for an hour,” he said to Dick Sheehan at about four o’clock. He’d come back to the station, knowing he’d reached the point where he needed to do a recce. You could talk and listen until the words merged together and you were overwhelmed with impressions. Paperwork had to be done, but it could sometimes be a salvation, give you a chance to order your thoughts. Dick just nodded and returned to the file he was reading.
Good lad, Dick, not always having to talk or try to impress. If there was any justice, he’d go far.
He’d need to check on Harriett, have a shave and a wash and put on a clean shirt. It would be a late night.
The sight of Abina Moore dusting Hattie’s porcelain figures on the mantelpiece had almost been too much. For the first time in a long and taxing day, he thought he’d explode.
“Are you home now, Ben, or must you go out again?” It was his wife’s voice.
He’d nodded hello to the pair of them and grunted some sort of a greeting. His jaw ached from clenching his teeth.
Harriett was in the armchair, her high-backed chair by the fire and she had a tray in front of her.
Abina stood, duster held in midair, ears out on stalks.
He sighed. “I have to go out again, Harriett. I’ll try not to be late. I have a few phone calls to deal with. The radio station, for one.”
He glanced from Harriett to Abina. The woman wasn’t even pretending not to liste
n.
“I’ll stay with Harriett, so. She’s not too good today. Her hands are dreadful, aren’t they, Harriett.”
I had noticed, you spiteful woman.
He had seen it as soon as he looked at his wife, the tightening of her features and the rigid set of her upper body.
Chronic pain changed a person’s essence, but it wasn’t easy to always keep that in the forefront of your mind, not when you were at the receiving end of the accompanying frustration and impatience.
“Have you had your tablets?”
It was a futile question. Of course, she would have had her tablets, the maximum dose permitted, holding a couple back for the night.
“Yes, we’ve had the tablets and a nice cup of tea and cheese on toast, and we’re settling down now to have a listen to the wireless.”
The woman was a godsend. There was no getting away from that. He still couldn’t stand her, though, or the way she made him feel.
As yet, Harriett had hardly spoken to him. Then, she hadn’t had a chance to get a word in edgeways.
“You haven’t found who did it, yet then?”
Her very voice was weary, and a dull pain hit him in his chest. Pity was an uncomfortable emotion, shifting everything in a relationship. “Not yet, and that’s worrying. The more time that passes, the more likely that the person skips the county, the country, possibly.”
Abina replaced the figurine of the lady wearing the elaborate orange gown and stared at him. “You should look a lot closer to home than that, Inspector.” She’d drawn herself up to her five-foot four. She didn’t normally give him his full title, either.
“What do you mean?” God knows he didn’t want to encourage her nasty tongue, but…What was he thinking? He did want to encourage her.
“He was a wicked man with no decency in him when he first came to Ballytierney. I remember saying to my mother, Mother, I said. He’s bringing his foreign ways to a decent, Catholic country.”
He let out his breath. So, it was just the normal spite, then.
“He’s been quieter in later years of course, a prisoner in his own home you might say. Maybe, the good Lord paying back for some of the bad things he had done.”
Cronin stared at her. What a nasty piece of work she was. She might be a good friend and company for his wife, but how could Harriett put up with her bad spirit? Talk about seeing the worst in everybody. He’d given up talking to his wife about it. All it did was lead to a row.
He hardly paid attention to what she said next until something made him jolt back into the moment.
“I said to Maggie Cahill that young Father Tom was spending far too much time up there. Can’t understand why Father Stephen didn’t go or even the good canon himself. But, then the canon is getting on like the rest of us.”
“I suppose you mean sick visiting? Is that it?”
He kept his voice level. What he knew about church life could have been written on a postage stamp, but he knew there was anointing of the dying and presumably, they’d go out and hear confession, give communion. “Did they do that?”
“I suppose so. The priests in Ballytierney have always been very good at doing their duty like that. When my poor mother was bad, God rest her soul, the canon came out, himself, about once a week. It brought her great comfort. She said to me, ‘Abina, I’m stuck here in my sick bed, and that man is one of the few people who makes me feel better…”
He switched off. Abina Moore was obsessed with the doings of her late mother who had ruled her and everyone else in the family as though they were her subjects.
“I’ll go and make myself a quick drink and go and…I’ll make sure I come back for a while again about nine o’clock.”
“Surely, you’ll be calling it a day by then, Ben?”
It wasn’t his wife regulating his work hours, though. It was Abina.
She was right. He should be done for the day by then. He had never had a case like this before, but he knew that without a certain amount of sleep, he wouldn’t do a good job.
“I can stay till then, as long as you run me home. My car is in Tim Smith’s garage. Will that be all right?”
“Of course.” What else could he say? She was one of his least favourite people in the town, but the pair of them were becoming more dependent on her.
It was time he looked at everything properly, not left the care of his wife to chance and a piecemeal approach that depended on his own ability to drop back home at intervals throughout the day and the good will of Abina.
Chapter Seven
Dick Sheehan met him at the station.
“Superintendent Buckley wants you to call him urgently, Inspector. He rang back. I told him that you were still out at Inishowen House.”
The colour of Dick’s face clashed with his bright red hair.
“Thanks, lad. I’ll ring him in five minutes. Anything come in? Anything from any of the neighbours?” He needed as up to the minute account as possible before ringing his superior.
“One thing. A fellow bicycling back home. I’d say he had a drink in him. He said he saw a man dressed in all black leaving the back of Inishowen House at around seven o’clock.”
“What’s his name? The man who gave you this account? Did you take a statement off him?”
He looked at the sergeant who nodded.
* * *
She braved it and went to morning mass, but it had been tempting to give it a miss. There would be questions, and the way Maggie felt, she was liable to explode. The worst of them would be Abina. With the help of God, she might be at the inspector’s house looking after Harriett. Most people had a redeeming feature, and Abina did spend hours with that poor woman, keeping her company and more than that, taking her out in her Morris. Unlike most women and, indeed many of the men in Ballytierney, Abina could drive and had her own car. One thing, Maggie envied. Maybe one day. Abina was always particularly solicitous with Harriet when a crime or a bit of local scandal was in the offing.
She should not think like that. It was a wicked way to look at the world, and she was a hypocrite to be contemplating mass with a soul as black as that. Even if Abina placed herself in the inspector’s house in the hopes that some news would come her way, it didn’t take away from the good she was doing poor Harriet Cronin. People who kept visiting, when someone was laid up like that in a chronic way, were few and far between.
A visiting priest said Mass this morning. It was the expected thing, when a priest who had relatives in the area, came for a holiday. Maybe, like doctors and police, they were never completely off duty. Father McCarthy raced through the soothing Latin phrases, and his sermon didn’t disappoint the bigger than usual congregation. He gave a brief account of his life in Nigeria.
Maggie listened, and for the first time since the news of the murder in Inishowen House, she felt the tension drain from her shoulders and her mind calm.
What a wonder to concentrate on something else, just for a short time. It was amazing too, how you didn’t even recognise how tense and troubled you were until you let it go for a while.
“She’s coming,” Mrs. Brosnan spoke through her smile. They had stopped at the font on the way out to let an elderly man take precedence. The holy water had that distinctive salty tang, which mingled with the church smell, Maggie found comforting.
“Right,” she said. There was no point in making a dash for it. You didn’t dare do a thing like that to Abina Moore. For one thing, you’d never get away with it. She had, as they say, eyes in the back of her head.
“Well, what’s the news at the parochial house? Sure, you must be all at sixes and sevens.”
Abina was on top form for this morning, for sure. She hadn’t acknowledged Helen Brosnan, and there wasn’t even a salute out of her before she started information gathering. She might spend a lot of time at Inspector Cronin’s house, helping with his wife but she could also give him lessons on interrogation techniques.
“Well, with the extra work because of the supper…”
“Don’t mind that, Maggie Cahill. You know well what I mean. Wasn’t Simon Crowe a good friend of the priests, especially the canon, from what I hear? Is he awful upset?”
“I don’t know if I’d say, upset. He’s shocked, like the rest of us.”
“The inspector is out of the house, all day and half the night. Poor Harriett. No one knows what that poor woman suffers and what she has to put up with, on her own for hours on end, especially when something like this happens.”
She might not come out and say it, but the criticism was implied. Maggie’s chest was tight with tension. You couldn’t avoid gossip with Abina, no matter how much you tried. All trying to put her right achieved was, either to draw you further in or else you came across as a holier-than-thou, Miss Perfect.
Helen got in there first this time.
“In fairness, Abina, the man has an important job to do. He has to be out. You can’t expect him to give up his job, can you? Apart from anything else, they have a good livelihood, and she lives in a nice house. Holidays, trips to Lourdes, and fancy new treatments—they all need to be paid for.”
You could nearly hear the huff developing as Abina drew herself just a fraction away from the other two women. They walked in an uneasy silence.
“It’s an awful shame the daughter doesn’t come and see her mother…at all? Does she ever come, Abina?”
“Christmas, I think.” It was a short answer, by Abina’s standards. Clearly, this was one thing she didn’t want to gossip about.
One child and an invalid mother and they hardly saw each other. Just a small tragedy in a small town, but what a waste. How much grief did that cause the inspector? Maybe, work was his escape.
Abina’s tone was back to normal now as she turned an accusing look at Maggie.
The Body at Ballytierney Page 6
