“And where is he now?”
She pursed her lips and looked down at her clasped hands.
The silence was soft rather than heavy and into it ticked one of the many clocks that marked time in Inishowen House with soothing ticks and melodious chimes.
“I don’t know where he is, Inspector Cronin, which is not something any mother likes to admit.”
“You mean?”
“No, it wasn’t that dramatic or that bad, thanks be to God. We’ve had the occasional letter and card over the years and once, on Christmas day, a phone call. He’d had a drink, but all the same…talk about making my Christmas.”
“Would you say you were reconciled, then? I mean he won’t be the only young man, or…” A flash of brown wavy hair and angry tears searing into his mind; his daughter Agnes-where was she at this moment? Did she ever think about either him or Harriett?
“He won’t be the only young person who only gets in touch with their parents sporadically.”
She sighed. Resigned, reached some sort of acceptance.
“It would be pushing it to say we were reconciled. Of course, everything was miles better when he first got in touch. I had great hopes, you know. But, as time went on without Ezra actually coming home or telephoning after that first time…I went through a bad depression I think. I talked to a good friend of mine. Fred Willis. He said something wise; that I should temper my responses…be glad of what I got and not always be hoping for the sun and stars, too, that way lay, disappointment and pain. Those words helped me a lot.”
She’d mentioned that Fred Willis again and Cronin’s curiosity stirred.
“Would you think there’s any chance that Simon’s death was related to what happened in Rhodesia? I mean I know it was decades ago, but…”
“I really don’t know, Inspector. All I know is that some madman came into my home and killed my husband. Why he did it would take a better brain than mine to figure out.”
There had been a lightening change in her mood. Now, she was all impatience and irritation, and try as he might, Ben couldn’t identify what it was he said that had wrought the change.
* * *
“So who is staying with Mary Crowe?”
Hannah turned an intense look on Maggie, all round-eyed drama,
“Sure, that’s the thing, Maggie, no-one at all. She’s out in that creepy auld place all on her own. I wouldn’t do it for all the tea in China, not on my own. Can you imagine? Apart from anything else, the place is probably haunted.”
“Don’t be daft, Hannah. There are no such things as ghosts. My mother used to say there’s no harm to come from the dead. It’s the living we should worry about.”
The canon’s voice came to them, as chilly as the feel of window glass on an icy morning.
“This is really too much, Miss Cahill. In the priest’s house and talking this superstitious rubbish. I’d go beyond that…it’s positively the devil’s work.”
Oh, for goodness sake. When had he started creeping round the place ear-wigging on her conversations? Fair enough, she’d been absorbed in her talk with Hannah and the kitchen door was ajar in an effort to ease the steam, but he still must have been standing outside the door, listening. She swallowed the anger. Say nothing and let him have his little rant. It was easier in the long run.
“I want a private word with you, Miss Cahill. In the small parlour, if you please.”
He turned on his heels, and Hannah turned such a shocked look at her that she nearly laughed, in spite of her apprehension. She was apprehensive though, because there had been something triumphant in Canon Murphy’s voice when he had summoned her to his parlour.
* * *
“Is there something you have to tell me, Miss Cahill?”
He had gestured her to a chair at an angle to his desk and the leather chair where he perched himself, His hands folded on his non-existent stomach.
Maggie smelled the lavender wax polish she’d used earlier, on the part of his mahogany desk not inlaid with green leather. The knot at the top of her stomach tightened, and she heard the dull thud, thud of her heart. This was not going to be good.
“I don’t know what you mean, Canon.”
Try as she had to keep her voice calm, Maggie thought she heard a slight tremor at the back of it.
“It has been drawn to my attention that you actually applied for the post here, under false pretences.”
So, it was that then, though, truthfully, she’d known, in the ponderous, almost gloating way he’s summoned her. His heart hadn’t been in the telling off he’d given her and Hannah.
“I didn’t lie, but I didn’t go into details.”
“The sin of omission; one the church takes very seriously.”
His voice was distant, that tone she’d heard from the altar, too many times to count. He was enjoying himself.
“Do you have a problem with my work, Canon Murphy?”
He blinked.
“No. This is a separate issue, altogether, and don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. You know as well as I do that this house, more than any in the parish comes under scrutiny.”
He held a hand up though she hadn’t intended saying anything. “That’s as it should be and that’s why what’s happened with Father Tom is completely shameful and scandalous, and I mean to deal with it swiftly.”
What was he going to do? Send the poor lad off back with his mother, or on retreat somewhere -the church’s answer to so many problems.
The knot at the top of her stomach had dissipated or rather, turned into the ache of tears at the back of her nose. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her upset. It wasn’t upset, it was anger. If it wasn’t for worry about young Father Tom, she’d go. She’d go and stay with Helen for a few days and write to Phyllis or one of the other siblings, though Phyllis would be the easiest…but she couldn’t go and abandon the young priest, who she was getting dangerously close to as thinking of as a son.
“So, a decent period of notice on both sides. A fortnight, say.”
What? He was giving her notice? This was all wrong. What was going on here? Who had told him about her past, and what were the grounds for putting her out in the street like this? He was looking for an excuse; that was it. He wanted to have her out of the house, for some reason. She’d have to go—soon.
A wash of blind panic dried her mouth and made her eyes move rapidly around the room trying to find something to latch on to, something to ground her. Thoughts raced at breakneck speed, a sound from the kitchen, as though Hannah was dragging something, the carpet sweeper, maybe, the smell of the lavender polish, again, With certainty, she knew that the smell of that beeswax lavender polish would forever bring her back to this moment and the blind panic.
The image of the figures in her post office book danced in front of her eyes, a comforting sum when she was in her job, frighteningly small when she was without a home to go. She felt awfully sick and clammy.
“Excuse me,” she said, getting up and aiming her body at the door, praying she’d get to the other side of it before she either got sick or fainted. There was a crucifix on the desk, and she focused on it for a second, before looking at the door again.
Chapter Ten
The post-mortem report was on Ben Cronin’s desk. He read it in the quiet of his office. The sergeant and the two young guards were back scouring the countryside. Maybe not quite as dramatic as that, but he’d issued his instructions, no stone unturned, that sort of thing. He would be pressurised to go easy, before much longer. Plain as the nose on his face, that was. He had failed. But, he was going to have one last push before they shut him up.
Simon Crowe had advanced heart failure and congestion of the lungs. This would have resulted in breathlessness and swelling of the lower legs and feet. There was muscle wastage, probably indicating that he’d been inactive, at least, for a fair time.
He picked the telephone up to speak to Dr. Jim Cash. On second thoughts, the dispensary was only
a couple of streets away, and he might be there, dishing out pills and tonics and signing people off work. This early in the day, he’d hopefully be sober. The doctor was an embarrassment, but he was tolerated, in that way you got sometimes in places that could also be extremely intolerant. Quite major flaws could be overlooked providing you took your place, usefully, in the community and the doctor probably did, sort of. He’s a lush, but he’s our own lush. He’d been around for a long time anyway, and for most of Ballytierney, he was the oracle on health and spoken of highly. Things could slide, though, especially so when you were talking of alcoholics, and all the good will could disappear in a minute if he made a mistake.
The doctor was at home, jacket off, already a drink or two in. Mrs. Cash, worry furrowed brow, and keeping up the appearance of smartness, had let him in. A fine looking woman, and her life given up to this, watching out for her husband, making excuses for him and covering up. Why on earth would anyone stay in a situation like that? There were women in a lot worse set-ups in the town, though, and it would have to be severe indeed to breach the sanctity of the marriage, in this country so committed to the immovability of the family as a bedrock of stability and piety.
Mrs. Cash had a comfortable life, nice clothes, someone to help in the house, a couple of children away in university and no doubt, holidays, her own car and friendships of a sort with bridge groups and maybe the ICA. Stultifying middle-class life in small-town Ireland.
“I’ll leave you to it, so.” She’d offered a cup of tea, but they’d both declined, Cash with a tired smile at her. She’d smiled back too, and put a hand lightly on his arm as she left the room.
He’d misjudged them then, maybe being an alcoholic didn’t always equate with an unhappy marriage.
“I’ve had the post-mortem report back on Simon Crowe.”
They sat across from each other on two high-backed armchairs. Someone had put a few logs and sods of turf on the open fire, and a rich and redolent air of cosiness pervaded the air. It was a high-ceilinged room, with good, deep red carpets and curtains and a rosebud patterned wallpaper. Breaking through the depth of the smell from the fire was a sweet scent of lilies. Cronin saw a heavy Waterford crystal vase on the sideboard. Someone was a real home-maker.
“I’m sure you know better than any report, the state of Simon Crowe’s general health. His death was caused by haemorrhage into the brain, which resulted from more than one heavy blow to the back of the head. He must have been out of the bed, we think sitting, with his feet out of bed. When he was struck.”
“Bloody awful.”
“Had you known him, then, from when he returned to the town?”
Cash shook his head slowly and moved his head. His eyes fixed on the cupboard at the bottom of the sideboard, and it was plain to see what was in his mind. “Will you have a drop of something?”
Ben sighed.
He positively disliked any alcohol at all in the day-time with the grudging exception of Christmas time and maybe weddings and funerals. It dulled the brain and life was challenging enough. The main effect drink had on him was tiredness, and God knows his periodic insomnia did that job by itself.
Then, there were times, when you just had to. Instinct said that this man and his own drinking would make him defensive and that would be compounded by making him feel odd for drinking on his own in the middle of the day.
“I never saw hide nor hair of the man as a patient, not for years. Healthy bugger. Met him, though. Socially, as my wife would say.”
“And what was your opinion?”
Cash took a sparing sip of the amber liquor, with the conscious air of the hardened drinker; the controlled hardened drinker. “Make of him, you mean?” He turned the corners of his mouth down. There were thread veins, purplish-red on his cheekbones. “He spoke his mind. Maybe too much sometimes. Don’t think he understood the way things work in the small town.”
Cronin took a sip, himself, the hit of whiskey having an instant effect, a physical effect of warming him.
“Knocked about the golf course. Liked a bet, the point-to-point, and the racecourse. Generous.”
Cronin waited. Yet another insight into Simon Crowe. “So, it was possible that he upset people, in your opinion? The ‘speaking his mind’?”
“I think he did, but he still knocked about with the locals, Taffe, Frank O’Sullivan. Learned to keep his mouth shut and his nose clean after a while.”
“The friendship with Taffe and Frank O’Sullivan?” He took a shot. “Did it end?”
The doctor took a bigger drink, put the glass down on the small table with a small clatter.
“I don’t know that there was a falling-out. If there was, they kept it to themselves. But, he stopped knocking about with them. Abruptly.”
He didn’t think to ask where the canon came in. The clergy had this way of being involved in many groups, while still, in a way, apart. He was more than due a chat with the bank manager, too.
“You saw much more of him in recent times, because of his heaIth. Would you say that he was worried, particularly worried?”
Cash shook his head. “Not that he told me. But…got the impression sometimes of a thwarted life.” He laughed incongruously—a short bark.
“Then, no doubt that could be said about a lot of us, Inspector Cronin.”
Ben had an unpleasant sensation in his spine, a bit like a drip of cold water.
“Seriously, though. You and I might have our problems, but what separates us from poor Simon Crowe is that we have our jobs to do. It’s a mistake in my view for any man to have time and money on his hands and no purpose in his life. Never leads to anywhere good. That fits Simon Crowe to a tee. Plenty of money and given up on life far too soon. At that time, when he knocked about with Taffe and O’Sullivan and Buckley, you heard the odd rumour. Women…too much drinking, poker.”
He looked square at Cronin. “I’ve no room to talk about the drinking.” He held his hand a couple of inches up on the air, quelling any contradiction, though Ben hadn’t been going to utter a word.
It was all vague and unsatisfactory in the extreme. A poor explanation of why someone would brutally kill the man, now after all these years.
“I’m all right, thanks,” he put a hand over the glass as Cash held the bottle out.
“I have to watch myself, you know, going into people’s houses and asking probing questions. It’s bad enough without the smell of drink on me.”
“Mmm. Hazards of the professional man, I suppose. I should take heed.”
He gave a chuckle. Making Cronin uneasy just for a second. Was he judged as being a bit of a drip? Alcoholics were notorious at making other people feel guilty; in the wrong. It’s how they got by. It was all in his head, anyway, most likely. The man opposite him and the warmth of the room they were in, were helping him, against all his expectations. He was slowing down, thinking more clearly.
“All this in the past, in the past of the man…” Cronin was confiding in the man opposite, now, or maybe just thinking aloud. Could there be something in this bedside manner? Despite the doctor’s problems, he was reassuring, in that air of having seen it all and having a broad mind, albeit a little befuddled at times.
“If what happened to Crowe was not random, things point to it having its roots in the past.”
“A deathbed confession of some sort.”
That brought an instant frisson. Confession. The canon–even more to the point, young Father Tom.
“Or maybe someone who came back into his life? Someone who either just caught up with him or who was so angry about the past that he wasn’t prepared to wait to let nature take its course. So, tell me, Doctor…was there anyone? Did you know of any visitors Crowe had…any callers to the house?”
* * *
“Come in and calm down, Maggie. For goodness sake, whatever is it? What’s happened?”
Maggie couldn’t stop shaking, her teeth clashing together as if she’d been in the river. What’s more, it was as tho
ugh, she didn’t want to let go of the physical sign of her anxiety. It was a distraction, from the great hole of nothingness that lay at her feet. She’d fallen into that hole before, back in London when she’d been on her own, and her baby had died, and she couldn’t even tell anyone because of the shame of the thing.
“Come in, and I’ll put the kettle on.”
She led Maggie into the warm, cosy kitchen with its stove and oil-cloth covered table and smug cat, stretched out on the hearth rug.
“I’ve been given notice—told to go.”
Helen Brosnan swivelled fast on her kettle, teapot in her hand.
“You’re joking me? I’m sorry, stupid thing to say. You wouldn’t joke about such a thing. That man. I can’t believe he can do that to you—like that. Call himself a Christian…”
“He can, and he has, though, Helen. Two weeks’ notice.”
“But, why?”
“I was going to tell you a story the other day, and then Will came back from work.”
“Here, get this inside you. Have you eaten?”
Maggie shook her head—the very thought of food.
“It’s a story that probably doesn’t show me in a good light, and it certainly makes the canon think I’m not a suitable person to be doing the job I am doing. You know how people can be.”
“My God, Maggie. Did you murder someone or rob a bank or something?”
Maggie smiled or tried to smile. It seemed a difficult thing to do. Maybe that, in itself, was telling her something. She was sick of feeling guilty and sick of being back here, in Ballytierney. On the edge of the town, there were gentle blue hills, the tail of the Mushera mountain and the lay of the land was pastoral with gentle slopes and greens and lush grass that made this part of Ireland known as the golden vale.
It was gently lovely—no stark moorland or bleak, rocky shores. Ballytierney and the surrounding countryside always struck her as the perfect place to go for a walk on a summer’s evening in what the poets call the gloaming. It was safe and green. Quietly beautiful. That was then. Now, the trees crowded in on her, and the river was dark and dangerous. She wanted to get far away from the place.
The Body at Ballytierney Page 11
