Murder in an Orchard Cemetery

by Cora Harrison

  ‘That seems good enough for identification,’ said Patrick briskly. ‘Off with you now. Take him to the morgue. The sergeant will be along later.’

  The Reverend Mother felt vaguely comforted by the way in which the body was now referred to by the pronouns ‘he’ and ‘him’. She had thought only to save the young novice from the ordeal of trying to identify a body which was nearer in appearance to a tray of meat than a human being on a hospital stretcher. Now her evidence and her deduction had resulted in the use of the word ‘he’ and prayers for the dead could use the word. She made the sign of the cross and murmured, ‘Requiescat in pace,’ and slightly awkwardly the ambulance men also made the sign of the cross and murmured, ‘Amen’ as she stepped back and went to stand beside Joe, leaving Patrick to give a few last instructions or commands.

  This was murder, she thought. An appalling and brutal murder. But was this apparently innocuous stockbroker the intended victim or was he just the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. She waited until the ambulance had turned and then was driven slowly and cautiously down the path. It stopped outside the convent and in the distance the Reverend Mother heard a familiar high-pitched sound from the horn of Dr Scher’s Humber Super Snipe car

  ‘You’ve met Mother Teresa, haven’t you?’ she said to Patrick, guiltily aware that she was nothing but a guest in this convent.

  ‘Spoke to her on the phone,’ he said briefly, and then with more animation, he exclaimed, ‘That’s Dr Scher, I’d know the sound of that horn anywhere. I should have phoned him. Excuse me, Reverend Mother, I’ll just go down and explain to him. There’s nothing for him to do here, but we should have waited for him.’

  And then he was off. The Reverend Mother did not follow him. He would make his peace with Dr Scher without her help; there was no man who minded about protocol less than Dr Scher. She, however, had a more important task ahead of her. In her own mind, she was certain that the body of the man blown up by the bomb, placed near to the bench in the orchard cemetery, was that of the stockbroker, James Musgrave.

  And James Musgrave, whose wife had been dead for over ten years and whose sons had emigrated to Australia, had only one member of his immediate family left here in the city of Cork. And that was Sister Mary Magdalene, novice in the convent of the Sisters of Charity.

  I must see the superior, immediately, thought the Reverend Mother. She nodded at Patrick but did not offer to accompany him to greet Dr Scher. In the distance, she could see Mother Teresa in conversation with the bishop and she made her way towards them. Not a very competent woman, she thought as she approached. It was, perhaps, an uncharitable conclusion, but the Reverend Mother had long since learned to accept herself and to accept the razor-sharp accuracy of her appraisal of her fellow members of the religious community in Cork. As long as the judgements were lodged securely within her own soul and were betrayed to none, she had decided, no harm was done and she wasted no time in confessing the sin of uncharitable judgement, in uttering platitudes, or on expecting more from people than they had the capacity to give. There was, she had often thought, a clarity of vision, an understanding of human frailty in the portrait painted of the humanized Christ by the gospels written by his apostles and she consoled herself with the memory of his sharply accurate verdicts upon Peter and his other followers.

  But now, Mother Teresa had to be made to understand that her support would be needed for one very vulnerable member of her community and the Reverend Mother walked steadily towards her and the bishop.

  ‘The body is being removed, my lord,’ she said, addressing both, but by convention using the bishop’s title only. ‘And a preliminary identification has been made. The person who was blown up was wearing a blue and silver tie from Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare and there was a pioneer badge pinned to the tie. I observed earlier today, as perhaps you did also, my lord, that Mr James Musgrave was wearing both at lunch time.

  The bishop bowed his head sadly. ‘I had thought that it must be he. I was just about to say this to Mother Teresa when you arrived. Poor man! His last minutes were spent in working for our holy mother, the church. God be with him!’

  The Reverend Mother, as all three solemnly made the sign of the cross, wondered fleetingly whether going through a set of possible investments was as much God’s work as feeding the hungry and housing the destitute, but she had more important matters upon her mind and so she turned to Mother Teresa.

  ‘Mr Musgrave’s wife is dead, and his two sons are in Australia, so my cousin, Mrs Rupert Murphy, told me recently. His only close relative is his daughter, Sister Mary Magdalene, here under your care.’

  ‘The novice I spoke of, my lord,’ said Mother Teresa to the bishop. There was an undertone to her voice which the Reverend Mother interpreted as meaning that Sister Mary Magdalene was a problem novice.

  ‘Will she have to identify the body?’ asked the bishop and there was, to the Reverend Mother’s slight astonishment, a note of pity in his voice. She hastened to reassure him and to inform him of the realities of bombs.

  ‘The body was blown into many pieces, my lord,’ she said bluntly. ‘Smithereens’ was the word that the ambulance men had used to the police sergeant, but she thought it might be an inappropriate word for his lordship. ‘There is no chance of his daughter identifying anything – it was pure chance that I noticed the Clongowes Wood College tie and the pioneer pin which the late Mr Musgrave wore at lunch. I don’t honestly think that there is any point in confronting his young daughter with the carnage.’ She did not wait for an answer but instantly turned to Mother Teresa. ‘May I offer my services to you when you break the news to the girl,’ she said and added quickly before her offer could be declined, ‘I think it might be consoling to the girl to know that I have identified the body of her late father. Do you not think so, my lord?’

  The bishop, of course, was immediately in agreement. To give him his due he had a shocked and slightly sick look and had obviously taken in the implication of her words.

  ‘I’m sure that Mother Teresa will be most grateful for your help, Reverend Mother. Now I must leave you both because I see that the police inspector is waiting to see me and to make his report to me.’

  The bishop went swiftly in the direction of Patrick and Dr Scher and left the two women together. There was still an undecided look on Mother Teresa’s face, but she said nothing as the Reverend Mother walked by her side towards the front door.

  A cluster of nuns broke up swiftly as they approached and only one was left when they reached the steps leading up to the building.

  ‘Mother Carmel, will you send Sister Mary Magdalene to me in the back parlour.’ The words were curt, but a glance of understanding passed between the two women. Not much pity in either face, thought the Reverend Mother. More an expression of exasperation. She remembered the conference between the bishop, Mother Teresa and James Musgrave and she wondered whether the conversation had been about the young novice. She said nothing, though. It was not her place and there had been little rapport between herself and Mother Teresa during the years when she had come to spend the annual retreat at the convent of the Sisters of Charity. In silence she followed the mother superior into the back parlour – she surmised that the front parlour, a more comfortable room, would be left vacant in case the bishop needed to make use of it in his conference with Inspector Patrick Cashman or the police surgeon, Dr Scher.

  They had not long to wait. The click of Mother Carmel’s shoes and the shuffle of the pair of slippers worn indoors by the novices came closer. The door was opened and Mother Carmel was standing there with her hand on the knob, ushering in the girl with the demeanour of a prison officer. She did not follow in, but with a glance at her mother superior, she closed the door with a careful click.

  Sister Mary Magdalene knew the truth. The Reverend Mother could see that by the terribly white face and the swollen eyes. She advanced and stood obediently in front of the two nuns, but it was with an effort and the plac
e where she had stopped was still at some distance from her mother superior. The child would faint in a second! The Reverend Mother ignored protocol and the ordinary politeness of a guest in someone else’s home and dragged a chair from under the heavy table and placed it behind the novice.

  ‘Sit down, sister,’ she said, and pressed upon the girl’s shoulder.

  She sat. One thing the convent did for these girls was to train them into immediate obedience.

  The Reverend Mother went back to Mother Teresa who so far had said nothing, but who was looking appraisingly at the girl, now slumped in a chair a good ten feet away. She had made no effort to approach nearer to the novice but stood very still and appeared as though she were turning matters over in her head.

  The Reverend Mother took advantage of the distance between them and the girl and said in a very low voice, ‘Would you like me to tell her, tell her what I saw?’

  There was a moment’s silence. A look of annoyance upon Mother Teresa’s face, but the offer was a plausible one. After a moment she said stiffly, ‘That would be most kind of you, Reverend Mother Aquinas.’

  The Reverend Mother did not hesitate. She dragged out another of the heavy chairs and placed it to one side of the girl’s chair. She reached out and took the two cold hands within her own. ‘I’m afraid that I may have bad news for you, my dear,’ she said gently. She pressed the fingers – how very thin this girl is, she thought – before saying, ‘A bomb has exploded in the orchard cemetery and I fear that your father may have been there and that he may have been killed.’

  And then she waited. She wasn’t quite sure what she expected, even after almost thirty years of being the principal in a convent and having had, over the years, to be the one who had to break bad news about a family death; even after all of those events, it was, in her experience, impossible to foresee the reaction. Hysteria, exclamations, pious words, dead silence, all were to be expected, but silence from this reserved girl fitted with what she had already observed of James Musgrave’s daughter. Her instinct was to send for a close friend from among the novices, but this was not her community; she had broken the news as carefully as she could, but now it was for the mother superior to deal with the child and so she looked across at Mother Teresa and waited.

  ‘I think that you may be excused your duties for the rest of the day, sister,’ the woman said coldly. ‘Go to your bed now. Someone will bring you something to eat, later. Please thank Reverend Mother Aquinas for her kindness and go straight up to the dormitory.’ She did not attempt to approach the girl or offer even the consolation of a hot water bottle in the bed or the companionship of a friend.

  The Reverend Mother stood her ground. She could not leave someone not too far past childhood in this manner. ‘Do you have an aunt or a cousin, Sister Magdalene?’ she asked and was surprised when the girl shook her head. Most unusual in a city full of large families. ‘What about Mrs Murphy, your neighbour, you were friendly with one of her daughters, weren’t you? Shall I phone her?’ Lucy, she knew, was kind-hearted to the young. She did not wait for an answer but swept on. ‘Go to bed now, my child, try to sleep.’

  She waited until the door had closed behind the novice before turning to Mother Teresa. ‘I fear I have to impose upon your kindness and use your telephone, once more, Mother,’ she said quietly and barely waited for a nod before leaving the room. There would be a queue for the telephone once every school principal and visitor realized the anxiety caused in the city when news of the explosion in the hillside convent had been broadcast. She would not hesitate to invoke the authority of the mother superior as she apologized for jumping the queue.

  SIX

  The only person to be seen where the telephone, like her own, was installed in a dark back hallway, was someone who had no responsibility for a school. The tall thin figure of Miss Maureen Hogan, the solicitor, with face to the wall and her free hand forming a funnel between the mouthpiece of the telephone and her mouth, was speaking in a low voice. Excellent hearing like all the young! When the Reverend Mother came near, she immediately stopped talking. She did not, however, finish her conversation and hand over the telephone to someone so much older and of so much more of importance than herself, but held it firmly with her left hand now clasped over the earpiece as she swivelled around and glared at the intruder. This tactic might have worked with the other members of the ill-fated ‘retreat’ but it didn’t worry the Reverend Mother in the least and so she waited, deliberately not moving away or even pretending not to listen. She waited with her expressionless face which she hoped conveyed to the young lady that she should finish up her conversation as quickly as possible. It would certainly have worked with every other member of the laity, or even of the clergy. Maureen Hogan, however, was made of sterner stuff.

  ‘Just a minute. Someone is here,’ she said into the mouthpiece and then transferring the phone to her left hand, with earpiece once again firmly blocked, she said in an imperative and rather high-pitched tone, ‘Yes?’

  ‘I wish to use the phone,’ said the Reverend Mother sternly. ‘So, if you have finished …?’

  ‘I haven’t finished,’ said the young solicitor.

  ‘Then may I suggest that you postpone private conversations until no one else needs the telephone urgently,’ replied the Reverend Mother promptly.

  The young woman had spoken with an arrogant rudeness that surprised the Reverend Mother. Many members of Sinn Fein were, she understood, very anti-religion, partly because of the bishop’s threat that members could be denied the last sacraments in their dying moments and partly because of the stance he had taken against the hunger strikers, heroes in the eyes of their comrades, but guilty of mortal sin according to the bishop. Nevertheless, she, personally, had never encountered any hostility. Most Sinn Fein members recognized the good that she had done among the poor of the south side of the city and saluted her with respect whenever she came across them. Now, faced with rudeness from this young lady, she waited with an impassive face, but deliberately did not take a step backwards.

  There was a short silence, but then Miss Hogan capitulated. With an abrupt ‘I’ll ring back’, she slammed down the phone and stalked off to a perch on a draughty windowsill without a word to the Reverend Mother, who immediately gave Lucy’s number to the telephone exchange, quashed any desire of the telephonist to gossip by commiserating on how busy they must be, and then when her cousin came to the phone, said briefly, ‘I need your help, Lucy, and your car. You remember the matter of which we spoke.’ And then she rang off and returned the phone to Miss Hogan. Lucy, she guessed, would by now have heard all – Cork was a city where gossip flew rapidly from the flat of the city to the lofty heights of Montenotte.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said to the young solicitor. She was inclined to add ‘but please do remember that many here will have important phone calls to make’. However, she resisted the impulse. There was, she felt, little profit in annoying the girl and it was, she always felt, better to lead by example rather than by precept. In any case, this girl might be a source of valuable information. Both Patrick, Inspector Patrick Cashman, and the humble young gardener had viewed the theft of the bag of fertilizer as a significant link to Sinn Fein. She looked thoughtfully at the girl before she went away. It was a good face, she thought. An intelligent face. There was character in the set of the chin and in the determined expression of the dark brown eyes. One girl with two older brothers. She would have had a struggle on her hands to win her father’s acceptance that she should study law rather than something innocuous like English literature and now, instead of doing the easy thing, and joining her father’s practice, she had set up on her own in the not too salubrious surroundings of North Main Street.

  It would be a good half hour before Lucy arrived, thought the Reverend Mother as she hesitated in the main hallway of the convent. She decided not to return to the company of Mother Teresa, and it would be impolite to wander upstairs towards the novices’ dormitory without the mother superior
’s permission. The sunrays slanting through the stained glass of the hall door decided her and she turned the knob and went outside. There was no sign of Patrick which slightly disappointed her but, on the other hand, the bishop had disappeared so she could regard herself free to walk around and perhaps pick up a few pieces of information. Her mind felt puzzled. The police had cordoned off the path leading to the orchard cemetery, presumably in case there was still some buried explosive material, though she would have thought that the fire brigade had searched the area completely. But the barrier meant that the church was also barred off and that meant, she told herself with a slightly guilty feeling of pleasure, that they could no longer have any of those church services that seemed to be degenerating into political polemics. She preferred, she thought, a more private connect with the Almighty, though she was sometimes guiltily aware that her prayers seemed these days to be more like begging letters.

  ‘Reverend Mother!’ Dr Scher was coming towards her, hands outstretched. Normally his manner towards her was rather ironic, and matter of fact, but now he seemed to be quite moved at the sight of her. She guessed that he might have been alarmed by the news of a bomb at the convent where she was making her annual retreat and so she returned the slight pressure of his hands. ‘You’re safe and well,’ he said, rather unnecessarily, but she welcomed his concern.

  ‘This is a strange affair,’ she said briskly.

  ‘And you’re in the thick of it, like everything else that happens in the city of Cork,’ he said, and she was warmed by the affection in his voice.

  ‘The man was blown into pieces,’ she said and hoped that he would not notice the slight tremble in her voice. He, she thought, would have the unpleasant duty of examining what was left of the body.

  ‘An IRA business, according to Patrick. They must be running out of funds from American republicans – back to the good old fertilizer, apparently. Patrick has been on to the Cork Examiner to put a warning to gardeners to lock up their bags. The farmers know that already, but the gardeners think that no one will bother about the odd bag here or there. And the dead man. A stockbroker, according to Patrick. You know all about him, I suppose.’