The Body at Ballytierney

by Noreen Wainwright

  “So, you’re coming over, this afternoon?”

  That was as big a hint as he could throw out without bringing even more ire on his head.

  “Yes, Ben. I told you. I need to be in the centre of this one, seen to be involved. More and more pressure is coming my way from inside and outside the force. You wouldn’t want it, let me tell you. This is the downside of the job. The buck stops here.”

  No, it won’t the buck will be passed back to me as skilfully as John Joe O’Rielly would pass the ball on the football pitch.

  He got off the phone feeling as though the energy had drained out of him trying to placate and reassure the old sod.

  The identity of the young man found dead in Ford’s hut was proving a tricky one. He had no identification on him. There had been two pound and one ten -shilling notes scrunched up small in his inside pocket. His hands, hair, and stubble looked unkempt, but his clothes and shoes weren’t bad. Not handmade maybe, but looked as though they came from a decent clothes shop. He had no wallet, or if he had, it had been stolen or lost. The cause of death wasn’t apparent, and Ben had shuddered when he wondered whether it was possible for a young man like that to succumb to the cold. Surely not?

  He’d sent Dick Sheehan to the train station and after that if he had no joy, to go to the CIE bus station. Nothing surer in a small place than that someone will have noticed the fellow. Was he new to the area, though? You walked around Ballytierney, and of course, you knew almost everyone you met. But you could pass a stranger, and not think much about it; think he was a traveller staying at the Carrig Hotel or someone’s cousin or boyfriend visiting.

  The town was small, but was it too small to get lost in? Whatever the super might think, or whatever the canon, and others in the town, thought, Ben was convinced that the past held the key. Simon Crowe and his wife had come to live here about thirty years ago and like him or dislike him, Crowe was a man who’d been noticed.

  The secretary—receptionist, Sarah was deep in the Cork Examiner when he passed out through the front office. They were supposed to call it a reception area, now, but that was giving it much more grandeur than it warranted. It was a poky, green and cream painted area, redolent of damp coats and old tobacco smoke. He breathed in that hard-to-define atmosphere of all rural Irish public spaces—train waiting rooms, health dispensaries and Garda barracks.

  Her shoulders jerked when she realised he was standing still and watching her and he felt a jolt of his familiar guilt. He hadn’t meant to make the woman uncomfortable.

  “I’m just having a quick look at what they’re writing about us. It’s…” She hesitated, and he saw that her discomfort wasn’t necessarily about being caught reading the paper.

  She handed it to him.

  The Cork Examiner wasn’t noted for prurient coverage. It wasn’t the News of the World, but phrases jarred on him. He wondered to whom, they’d been talking. There was nothing you could complain about; just little hints that the guards were taking a lot of time in bringing in the killer of Simon Crowe. There was mention of the body of a young and down-and-out man having been found on a local farmer’s premises.

  No link was mentioned, but they didn’t need to spell it out. It was what they said about himself that jarred most, stirring up a buzz of rage in his chest that made him clench his teeth. Senior Garda Inspector, carer of an invalid wife, approaching retirement. What did any of that have to do with the case of Crowe or the young man? But, the paper’s editor was another of the inner circle, no doubt.

  “You’re getting completely paranoid, Cronin,” he said, under his breath as he left the office.

  * * *

  “What brings you over to see me, Father Stephen? I have a fair idea, I suppose.” She smiled at him. His embarrassment at being sent on such an errand was obvious a mile off.

  “The pair of you sit in here, in the warm. I’ve put the fire on, look.”

  Helen had been kind and discreet. Maggie would never forget what a good friend she’d been.

  “You’re right. I have been sent. I hate it. No, not hate it. That isn’t right. Of course, I want you to come back to the parochial house, very much.”

  Father Stephen had a strange look when he was under pressure or embarrassed. It was as though he was in pain, a wince crossing his face. For the first time, it struck her that he wasn’t just quiet—he was shy as well. Funny, she’d never before realised that—maybe it was seeing him out of the context of the parochial house.

  “Look, Father Stephen. I have no argument with you. But it’s only a couple of days since the canon told me to leave the house — my job. Why on earth would I lower myself to go back? Especially as he hasn’t even the decency to come himself and ask me.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, if I ever saw him regret anything—and I never have—it’s this. I don’t know what possessed him. But, I do know he’s sorry, and he was hasty and...”

  “And you’re standing there making excuses for him. I said I haven’t got an argument with you or Father Tom. But, if I walk back now it’s like lying on the floor and telling him to walk all over me.”

  “I don’t think so, Miss Cahill. I don’t. We can’t manage without you, for one thing, and he knows it.”

  They sat in silence as Maggie tried to calm her thoughts. Fury was at the forefront, and it would be very easy to give way to it in front of Father Stephen, principally because he was there. That wouldn’t be right, though.

  A quiet knock came to the door, and Father Stephen jumped so quickly to his feet that she recognised that this was hellish for him too.

  A tray with Helen’s nice china teapot and cups and saucers, and a plate with Mikado and Lincoln Cream biscuits. Stupid tears rushed to Maggie’s eyes, and she blinked, angry with herself. What was wrong with her that a plate of biscuits should make her want to cry? Then she knew and, as Helen left them again, she said it to Father Stephen. It wasn’t that she wanted to drag him in but to explain that she wasn’t just being difficult.

  “As a priest’s housekeeper, you are nothing at all, Father Stephen…”

  He held his hand up, and she noticed a small tremor. “I’m sorry, Miss Cahill, I have to stop you there. I don’t agree at all. The priest’s housekeeper is one of the most respected people in the community.”

  Maggie poured out the tea for both of them, the familiar action just in a different house.

  “You might be right. But, when it comes right down to it, you are nobody and nothing. You’ll have heard of Larkin and the trade unionists, and I heard about it a lot when I lived in Wales — workers who have no rights.” She paused. How to explain without sounding bitter?

  “The housekeeper’s job is tied closely to the priest. Well, of course, it is. But, not only her job. Her home, too and that’s a big thing.”

  “My job is tied to the church too and my home.”

  “You’re right.”

  It was unusual to hear him refer to his vocation as a job.

  “But, when it comes to it, the church will look after you a bit better than it looks after me.”

  He nodded, conceding her point.

  “Is there no way you would consider coming back? Not just the canon, but for Father Tom and me...”

  He had put his finger on it and probably not deliberately. The young priest’s mother wouldn’t or couldn’t stay in Ballytierney forever. Who would look out for him, then?

  “I’m worried about him.”

  Again, the priest’s facial expression was pained.

  “He’s in a terrible state. I’m very worried about him, but he won’t or can’t talk to me.”

  She felt like a monster, but she would have to move this on somehow, or they’d be there all day, going no further forward.

  “I’ll come back on one condition, and that is that the canon should come round here and talk to me himself. I’m not being awkward, but it won’t work otherwise. I’m worried about Father Tom too, and that’s the main reason I’d consi
der coming back. How has he been? Is he honestly no better?”

  “No, and I think the cannon is putting pressure on him to go away to a retreat to somewhere in Clare. A rest, he says.”

  Maggie’s mind went into overdrive. Away in the wilds of Clare, out of the way. The canon wanted Father Tom out of the way and Father Tom knew something about what happened out in Inishowen House the night Simon Crowe was murdered. He had seen something or heard something, and the canon was worried. Maybe she’d borne the fallout from whatever that was all about. It was out of character for the canon to act in a precipitate manner—to be without a housekeeper; unless he hadn’t realised what that would be like until it happened.

  “There’s been something else, as well. A young man was found in Ford’s farm, in a stone hut across one of the fields. Dead.”

  She nodded. Mary Crowe had told her about it.

  “I think there’s some connection with Simon Crowe. The canon asked an awful lot of questions when I told him about it. I was called out, you see. There was nothing I could do. It was too late for anointing the poor young man. I prayed for him. Maybe Inspector Cronin though I’d be able to put an identity to him, but of course, I couldn’t.”

  Maggie’s heart beat hard in her chest, and she looked around Brosnan’s tidy sitting-room, concentrating on the cream wallpaper and the oak sideboard, just to steady herself, bring her mind to the here and now. Things must connect, but for the life of her, she couldn’t see where the connections were. The death of Simon Crowe; the behaviour of the canon, and the shock in the parochial house dining-room when she’d come back in after Mary Crowe’s telephone call. The hushed whispers…anger. There had been anger in the room. Mary Crowe’s conversation, in the cafe too—it had been so shocking.

  Maggie badly wanted to talk to someone and looked at the young man in front of her. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him. It didn’t feel quite right. She’d be better talking to someone like Helen. The conversation with Mary Crowe bothered her, but she hadn’t yet had a chance to think about it. Pregnant girls and cover ups, and babies taken away. The canon at the heart of it. She had the strong feeling that she must go back to the parochial house, but an equally strong feeling that it was the last thing she wanted to do.

  There was the letter too. Keeping it a secret was no longer an imperative, and in the midst of anxiety, that came as one relief.

  * * *

  “When?”

  Gerry coughed. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears.

  “As soon as possible, Geraldine. I can fix it up.”

  He’d make a telephone call. One professional man to another, dealing with the breakdown of another of their kind.

  She shook her head to get rid of this pointless ruminating. What did that matter?

  “What’s wrong with Daddy?”

  All Elizabeth’s usual bravado had gone when she’d come back from school and come straight into the kitchen to see her father, sitting by the range, in that position again. Hopelessness. His hands were the most pathetic, clasped and hanging down in front of his body. Even the slumped shoulders and the bent head weren’t as unnerving as those hands.

  “He is suffering from depression, Elizabeth,”

  “Someone said something at school, that he’d had a breakdown. What does that mean, Mam?”

  Gerry put an arm around Elizabeth’s shoulder and went into the sitting-room which was looking a bit bleak. She hadn’t had time…she felt the strong need to light the fire and make herself and her daughter warm and safe. The strength she was finding might be surprising, but there was no safety. She wasn’t frightened of Frank, ironically, but afraid of the impact of what had happened on all of them. It wasn’t only that. There was another fear—of the unknown. Dr. Cash said that sometimes breakdowns were inexplicable, or you had to go back years to find the origins. But, that wasn’t the case, here. Frank’s state had followed Simon Crowe’s murder and was related to the canon and probably Taffe too, and who knows, maybe more middle-aged men in the town. That thought made her not only frightened, but caused her stomach to cramp in dread.

  One step at a time. It would all fall to pieces if she let her imagination run away with her—tried to think too far ahead.

  “A nervous breakdown is the term people use when they’re not too sure what else to call it. It’s descriptive. The mind gets too troubled, and the person’s problems just go round and round, and they feel sad and frightened.”

  Maybe she was giving too much information to a young teenager.

  “It’s hard to understand. I wouldn’t have thought Dad was the kind of person to let things get to him, like this. If anything, he always seemed to just ride roughshod over everybody.”

  The look she directed at Gerry was almost defiant and the unspoken words, “especially you”, were there, hanging.

  “I’m no expert, myself, Elizabeth. But, maybe it’s like the trees—the ones that are able to bend a bit are sometimes able to withstand a bad storm, whereas do you remember that big oak tree at granddad and grandma’s, the one that came down in the storm?”

  Elizabeth looked at her with tiny frown lines on her smooth forehead. “But, what can we do, Mam? Does he have to go in the hospital? That place in Cork? Sarsfield’s Court? Or the Red Brick?”

  Her eyes had widened. Places like that were from nightmares, not helped by adults using the names in common parlance or as a joke.

  “I’ll end up in the red brick if you don’t behave.”

  “I’m hoping not.” Gerry knew that her words were meaningless. She hadn’t a clue what would happen next.

  Doctor Cash had closed the kitchen door behind him and Frank, and when he came out, he’d been firm about it. Frank needed to be somewhere he could get special help.

  “He needs to be safe. We all need him to be safe, Gerry.”

  She stared at him for a few seconds, then her legs grew weak. From her knees down to her toes felt strange, as if her body was too heavy for her own legs.

  How odd.

  She sat down, knowing it must look strange to feel her way to the telephone seat and plonk herself down, leaving Doctor Cash standing there. Rude, you might say. But it would be worse if she fell down.

  He must think that Frank had notions of doing away with himself.

  From thinking that she didn’t want him taken away, didn’t want the gossip, and the upheaval, now she wanted him gone out of the house and into professional care as soon as possible. She couldn’t trust herself to be there all the time and if he was determined to leave the house and, go off in the middle of the night, how could she prevent him? She needed to protect Elizabeth.

  “No need for an ambulance or anything like that. I’ll take him myself. You just need to put a few toiletries, pyjamas and so forth in a bag, and I’ll take him this evening.”

  “Has he agreed to go?”

  She didn’t give much for the doctor’s chances if Frank set his mind against it.

  “He won’t object, Gerry. He’s at such a low ebb that he won’t have the fight in him. Sometimes, I think there’s a primitive self-preservation instinct that comes into play in this sort of thing. Ask the person if they want to be saved, and they say no, but they would still jump out of the way if a bus was coming fast in their direction.”

  “I’ll get his things together, Doctor.” She hesitated, “He had a visitor too today.”

  She looked up at him, and the light from the glass over the door gave him a halo that almost made her smile. He was an odd saviour, a man with his own problems.

  “I’m assuming you mean the canon. I’ve told him to stay away for the time being.”

  That was a surprise. Bet the canon didn’t have the law laid down for him that often.

  “Sometimes, religious comfort is what a person needs and at other times, for other people, it’s the last thing that’s going to be any help.”

  She had the feeling that she was being deflected, that the doctor was being glib. There was more to it. But
, in Ballytierney, you had to be careful before you made direct criticism against the people who mattered.

  * * *

  “It’s the biggest clue we’ve had so far.”

  The US label on the jacket had been unexpected.

  Maybe it didn’t warrant the rush of excitement Ben had felt. Plenty locals had relations who’d taken the boat and who sent home parcels of fancy clothes home at Christmas. He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to picture the boy’s face. You could convince yourself that black was white and now he was imaging that there was something clean-cut and well-fed about the youth that suggested the States.

  “Inspector Cronin.”

  Ben looked at the young sergeant’s expression. “What is it? Spit it out.”

  “They’re all saying that Frank O’Sullivan, the bank manager has had a breakdown, that the doctor and Mrs. O’Sullivan had to be sent for and that he might be going into hospital.”

  “Good lad. I’m glad someone tells me something around here.”

  How strange it was that no-one else had deigned to say a word. People were cautious in what they said to the guards, though, and he had been preoccupied with the second death, not to mention the web surrounding the death of Simon Crowe.

  “When did all this happen?”

  “Yesterday. It’s the talk of the place today, though.”

  “Didn’t reach me.”

  His instinct was to go straight to the bank and find out what exactly had happened with Frank O’Sullivan. There may be no connection, but his name had been associated with Simon Crowe. It was a coincidence. Two big things like this happening in this usually quiet town—three if you counted the young man.

  He had a thought of the river Tierney. Fanciful thought about the water, flowing, rippling, all those things people said about rivers. Kids swam in it, and people fished for trout. There was even a family of swans providing the point of interest with their beauty and trail of cygnets following sometimes in their wake. But you could never really trust the river. Sometimes it was in flood, and it had taken people too, into its dark depths.