“I didn’t rob a bank, and I didn’t kill anyone but what I did was almost as bad. I suppose. Maybe times have changed a bit, but I had a relationship with someone from a different country and a different faith. I got pregnant, and by then, he was gone.”
Give Helen a minute to absorb this. It was like telling someone else’s story. Maggie felt emotionless. That was strange, like touching a part of your body that had been seriously hurt and finding no pain. It was a long time ago.
“You poor thing.”
That was all it took. Maggie knew she’d done the right thing and chosen the right person to confide in.
“I started telling you the story. Reggie and I …it was such a strong feeling.” She looked at Helen, and the heat on her face was intense and, she was pretty sure, visible to the other woman.
“The church and the school and the nuns…all flew out of my head. Youth, I suppose…”
“Stop being hard on yourself, Maggie. For goodness sake…sometimes…I wonder how we end up with all this guilt.” Helen shook her head. “Go on with your story.”
“The inevitable happened. Reggie went off on his trip to Papua New Guinea, and I began to feel odd, sick, tired, faint. I had no illusions. Knew what it was straightaway.” She paused. These words sounded rusty, foreign as the place and the time, yet, the memory itself was strong.
“My cousin was outraged. Really angry, Helen. She frightened me. It was extreme, and now I wonder…she had no children of her own. Also, I suppose, I had landed her with a big problem. She must have felt responsible for me. She shouted and said some harsh things. Made me feel dirty, stupid, and ashamed.”
“Oh, Maggie.”
“Don’t feel sorry for me, Helen. Really and truly. It was a long time ago, and I’ve come to terms with it. Flo wasn’t a bad person. She was out of her depth and angry with me for putting her in such a position.”
“So, what happened?”
Maggie got up, restless, went across and looked out of the window—just for a second before turning back to Helen.
“You won’t be surprised that the local priest was brought into it. They arranged for me to go off to an unmarried mother’s home, in South London, Croydon, it was. A bit grim. But, I suppose I was fed and warm and safe. It was better than turning me out into the street.”
“Just. So, Maggie.” Helen’s attention was totally focused on her now.
“Ah, Helen. I haven’t even told you the half of it, yet.”
* * *
Ben was groggy and tired, and every bit of him ached; he felt ninety years old.
He opened his mouth to say something of this to Harriet who lay still, though he knew she was awake. He thought better of it. How could you moan about everyday aches and pains to someone who was in severe and chronic pain for much of the time?
“I’ll bring you up a cup of tea. It’s Annie’s morning to come today, isn’t it?”
“Yes, not for hours yet, though Ben. God, I wish you wouldn’t make so much racket this hour of the morning. I’m wide awake now. It makes it a long day.”
He breathed silently, resisting the sigh.
“Sorry.”
He put the kettle on and looked around the kitchen. It looked in need of a good clean, and he wondered about Annie. A pleasant enough woman, but maybe something a little sly about her. Perhaps she took advantage, just a bit. Still, there was that saying about beggars and choosers. Of course, everyone and anyone had suggested Hannah Scrivens as the perfect woman to do the cleaning.
He had resisted. She was a good, and God knows, a hard-working, woman, but something in him insisted that she wasn’t the best choice for his house. There was no evidence that she gossiped but she was in and out of everywhere, and it felt wiser not to take the chance.
The telephone jarred him, and he put the tray back down on the table.
“Inspector Cronin.” Instantly he picked up on the note in Dick Sheehan’s voice.
“What is it?”
“A dead body, sir. I just had a call from a farmer out at Castletown. There’s a shepherd’s hut on his farm with an old man living there from time to time. The farmer calls in on him, takes him food sometimes. This morning he found him dead.”
“Any signs of foul play?”
“No, nothing obvious. What do you want me to…?”
“I’ll go out there straight away now. Give me exact directions. I’ll pick you up. When O’Mara comes in, get him to get onto the police doctor. Come on, lad. You know the procedure. The chances are that the old boy died of natural causes. It isn’t exactly a healthy way of life.”
All the way over to Castletown, though, he had a bad feeling. He knew where the place was, once Dick had started directing him. It was in the middle of a field across the road from the farm entrance, a stone building. He wondered if the old man would have been able to light some sort of a fire, or whether his only heating would come out of a bottle. The trouble was that the shepherd’s hut was only a half-a-mile as the crow flies from Inishowen House.
Two unexplained deaths in the countryside within a week was …well, what was it really? Maybe not all that unusual. But the super’s words about the passing tramp or the crafty, would-be robbers nagged at him. Wouldn’t it just solve Simon Crowe’s murder, grand and neat, if the tramp could be connected with him, in some way?
There were three regular tramps who turned up around Ballytierney. One was a middle-aged alcoholic who surely suffered from some sort of religious mania. He spent a lot of time in the church. The nuns fed him. He probably wouldn’t get much of a reception at the parochial house, if Cronin knew anything. The other was an older man—mind you, it was notoriously difficult to put an age on a person who went around in rough clothing with a big beard and straggly hair, not to mention a dirty face. He’d read somewhere too that they had a terribly high rate of dying early. For all the freedom of the road, it was a hard way of living with poor food, when you got any, and inadequate rest and sleep, and of course, no access to any medical help. The third was also an older man, and he was pretty sure that this was the one who turned up from time to time at this farm.
Donie Ford, the farmer, had crossed the field towards him. He must have had a cold wait and obviously felt more comfortable outside rather than inside the shepherd’s hut.
Ben nodded and held his hand out. The farmer’s hand was hard and rough.
“This is a regular visitor, is it? The man you found?”
“He isn’t the old man who usually comes,” he said.
Dick Sheehan’s ears reddened and his Adam’s apple moved. An assumption had been made, a bit hastily, apparently.
“The old man, Fred. He comes this way, maybe twice or three times a year. Harmless poor auld sod. My wife gives him a bite to eat, and he beds down here, he might stay for weeks. I don’t exactly give him permission, but he knows I know. That sort of thing.”
The stone building was freezing cold, though there were signs that the occupant had lit a fire in the corner with smoking burnt out kindling. It hadn’t been much of a fire.
He was cold too. His cheek felt cold to the touch. From nowhere, a shaft of pity shot through Cronin’s body.
The man was young, and he didn’t fit the image of a tramp.
His clothing was the worse for wear, but of good quality, at first glance, and his hair was long and thick.
“A baby tramp,” he said to the farmer, an attempt to cover up the sympathy.
Donie Ford gave him a quick look. “Yes, makes it all the more pitiable.”
“What made you check the hut?”
Ford shrugged, big shoulders well covered in layers of wool and tweed.
“Sure, I knew we had a visitor. The way the gate was tied up. I thought it was old Fred, but I was surprised that he hadn’t called up to the house. He always stays in the hut, and we never mention it, but at the same time, he wouldn’t just come and sleep here, without calling on us first. Unless it was late. But, what am I talking about? This looks mor
e like some young fella who is down on his luck.”
They would have to get an identity and a cause of death. Already the possibility of a coincidental accidental death within a mile of Inishowen House was disappearing.
* * *
“He came back?”
Maggie smiled, a flashback to how unbelievably great that had been.
Not that it had lasted, that feeling.
“He turned up at the home. Highly unacceptable that was. The nuns who ran the place weren’t happy. Well, they let on they weren’t happy, but I saw the odd smile and glitter in the eye, amongst some of the younger ones. Incurable romantics, some of these nuns.” She laughed. “Not all nuns, not Stanislaus.”
“Don’t mind her. Get on with your story, Maggie.”
“He came back, and it was everything any girl could ever have wanted. I was bundled off from the mother and baby home. Flo changed her tune, too. Kitted me out with a nice costume in a pale blue and a lovely velvet cloche hat. There was a problem of course, with his religion. It was in a registry office. Unaccepted as a marriage at all by the Catholic Church.”
Helen sighed.
“You got married, though?”
“Yes, a bit of me kept thinking what my parents would have said. I was sad that, apart from Flo and her husband, George, there was no-one of my family there, with me. But, it happened, and it was a happy day, and all I thought was that if what they said was true—that I wasn’t married in the eyes of God, well, then millions of other people, most of the population of England must be living in sin, in that case, and that seemed…well, stupid, I suppose.”
Helen was looking impatient.
“What happened? What happened to him, to your baby?”
“There was another expedition.”
“Surely he didn’t go and leave you? Not after losing you, once? Not with you expecting?”
Maggie shrugged. “Look it wasn’t that simple. It was a short trip…only a month in Papua New Guinea, and he was committed, money put up for it and so on. I was so happy and so relieved. I can’t tell you—to be out of that place and respectably married. Reggie had got us that flat. I told you. I was in my element, playing at housekeeping.”
She was back there, suddenly, back in that communal stairway in the flat in 8 Palace Road, Streatham. With hindsight, it had been a dump, but it hadn’t seemed like that. She was young, in love and hadn’t even given a thought to how she’d manage a pram on those stairs. Not that she’d had to face that problem.
“Then, a policeman came. They had had a message about a disaster striking the expedition. There were five of them…attacked by robbers. Two of them got away. But, not Reggie.”
“Oh, God. Maggie.”
“I know.” Maggie put her hand on her friend’s arm.
“Don’t be sad, Helen. It was a long, long time ago. The past is a different country. So right.”
Helen opened her mouth as though to say something and closed it again.
“The rest of that night is confusion, Helen. The police got Mrs. Gottenberg from the flat downstairs. She made me drink brandy. I kept shaking and shaking. Then I was in bed, and then there was pain, really bad pain. Thank God Mrs. Gottenberg had insisted on staying. She was dozing in the armchair. It was confusing, though. One of those heavy old London ambulances. I lost the baby. He was born too soon.”
The silence in the room was reflective, rather than uncomfortable. The story could be finished later.
Chapter Eleven
Geraldine had to ask her husband’s secretary to repeat herself, all the while her heart pounding away and thoughts flying around in her fuddled brain, trying to form into some sort of order.
“Mr. O’Sullivan seems to be having some sort of a breakdown. I’m really sorry Mrs. O’Sullivan, but I wasn’t sure what to do. Mr. Cooney said to ring you. He sent the young lad round to fetch Dr. Cash and…and I’m sorry, Mrs. O’Sullivan but Mr. Cooney telephoned the guards, too.”
“The guards? But, what…why? Gerry was gabbling now. She stopped talking and licked her lips.
“Like I said…he seems to be having a breakdown of some sort…”
She put the receiver down and sat perfectly still for a few seconds.
Of all things she imagined ever happening…never this. Frank O’Sullivan, the power of him…the way he was so invincible, the sometimes terrible centre of her whole life, crumbling like this and in public too. How could he ever come back from this? And, though she tried so hard to push back the thought, like an insistent imp, it kept surfacing. There would be no escape for her now.
She’d have to get down to the bank.
Frank had prevented her learning from driving, one way and another, and burning anger at that intruded now when she should be thinking of more urgent things. But, the problem remained. How could she get down there? The town was a couple of miles away; the Bank of Ireland situated on the corner between Connelly Street and High Street. Central and important looking.
Where would Frank be? In his office with the polished desk and carver chair, the leather blotting pad that his parents had given him when he’d been promoted, and the corner cupboard with its bottles of sherry and Paddy Powers whisky. She ran her fingers through her hair. Think, woman. Mrs. Parnell, next door would be at home and the two elderly Lyons sisters, across the road and up their overgrown drive. They all had cars and drove, but the explanations would be excruciating.
It was exasperating that her thoughts kept going to the clergy. It was no wonder the church was so powerful when they came first to your mind, in times of crisis.
Before giving herself any more time to prevaricate, she got the operator to put a call through to the parochial house. She closed her eyes and hoped her instinct that the canon would not lower himself to answer the phone would be right. The chances were that it would be nice Maggie Cahill or one of the other two priests.
The telephone rang an awfully long time, and her mind was now sorting through old friends from her childhood, even her mother though that would be truly the last resort. How could she begin to explain this to her mother?
Father Stephen answered.
“It’s Geraldine O’Sullivan. I’m…” She stopped, on the brink of saying whose wife she was. She didn’t need to add herself always, like an appendage. He’d know who she was. It was best that he had answered. The younger priest was too green and innocent to be dragged into this.
“Father Stephen. I’m not sure what’s going on, but they phoned me just now from the bank. It seems…” She cleared her throat, trying to find the words. Breakdown. That was it.
“It seems like Frank is having some sort of breakdown at work. They mentioned getting the doctor.” There was no need to mention, guards.
“You’ll be needing a lift? Someone to go with you?” He made it so easy for her.
She got her coat after combing her hair and putting powder and lipstick on. The last thing she needed was to look scruffy.
As she got out of the car and waited for him to park around the corner, she thought of how much everyone underestimated Father Stephen, the quiet priest. Gratitude for his kindness and understanding made her want to cry. But that really wouldn’t do. The main thing he did was to act as though what was happening was nothing that much out of the ordinary.
“I’ll come in with you, Gerry, if you like.” That was another thing that had happened, in a few minutes. She wasn’t “Mrs. O’Sullivan”, any more.
“Please.” Her mouth felt dry, and a ball of something like dread had lodged itself in her chest. Weirdly, she was calm too, though. This was shifting something inside her.
“He’s in his office, Mrs. O’Sullivan. The doctor is with him now.”
The doors of the bank had been closed. They must have closed down, shut the bank; that would have caused a furore in itself. It was unheard of, apart from the time there had been an attempted robbery about fifteen years ago.
She looked at the priest, and he nodded at her.
; It was odd to knock on the door, but she couldn’t just open it, not if he was with the doctor.
The members of staff who’d been hovering in the main bank had looked at each other and then at her. Derek Cooney’s face was blotchy and damp, and she couldn’t help remembering Frank’s many scornful comments about him, “a drip”, “frightened of his own shadow,” and “tied to his mother’s apron strings”. Oh, and “promoted to the limit of his limited ability”. Frank would never get over this; not losing face like this in front of his subordinates.
She pushed the heavy door.
Frank was in his normal chair, but it wasn’t behind the desk. Someone, probably Dr. Cash had pulled it out, so both men sat close together at an angle. That was odd, but the oddest thing was the sight of tears pouring down Frank’s face.
“Are you all right?” Daft question, but she kept her voice calm and went closer, stooping down to make eye contact.
He looked at her, shook his head and the tears coursed faster down his face.
She pulled the spotted handkerchief from his breast pocket and tried to put it into his hand. To begin with, his hand just sat in his lap, didn’t respond at all, and that, more than anything else, frightened her.
Thank God, he did take the handkerchief just at the point she was contemplating whether she should dry his eyes for him.
“What is it, Frank? What happened?” Still, he didn’t say a word. A terrifying vision flashed into Geraldine’s mind. Was this the future? It was incredible, could not be happening. The strong bank manager; the domineering husband. Put no bones on it, the bully was sitting in front of her, tears chasing each other down his face. Broken. The world, as she knew it had moved, changed its shape and she had no idea what to do next.
“What can we do to help, Doctor Cash?” She’d nearly forgotten about the quiet priest who’d placed himself in the background.
“I think the priority is to get Frank home, for now. He needs to be in a safe place. Then we might be able to get him into see a colleague of mine, quite quickly, the morning if I can manage it.”
The Body at Ballytierney Page 12
