Murder in an Orchard Cemetery

by Cora Harrison

  A few of the young nuns were coming through the gate, novices, he thought, noting the difference in their habits and veils and he remembered that one of them was the daughter of the dead man. A terrible thing for the poor girl. He hoped someone was looking after her. He had no intention of bothering her today, but he would have to see her at some stage. Preferably in the company of someone sympathetic to the girl.

  And so, with that in his mind, he changed his plans and went in search of the Reverend Mother. He had known her since he was four years old and he trusted her more than he trusted any other living being. She was walking on the terrace, talking with one of the other nuns and he hesitated to disturb her, but when she saw him approach, she instantly left her companion and came towards him. The terrace was filled with nuns and priests and brothers – he thought that he recognized a Christian Brother who had taught him mathematics – and so he did not move near but stood and waited for her, taking off his cap and feeling the sun on his head.

  ‘Beautiful day, Reverend Mother,’ he said. Very few conversations in Cork started without a preliminary reference to the weather. She would, he knew, be quick to know what had brought him towards her and would already be sorting out matters in her clear and decisive mind.

  ‘This is a terrible thing, Patrick,’ she said gravely, refusing to comment on the weather.

  ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘May God have mercy on his soul.’ This customary Cork phrase came easily to his lips and allowed him to wait for more information from her without showing impatience. ‘You would have known him,’ he added.

  ‘He was a widower, you know,’ she went on with a nod. ‘He has two sons out in Australia and a daughter who is a novice here in this convent, Sister Mary Magdalene. Poor girl! I’m hoping that my cousin, Mrs Rupert Murphy, who was a neighbour and friend to the family, will be here shortly and she may have addresses for the two sons, but of course, it will take about a month before they could return – if they do. So, the poor girl may have to bear this terrible sorrow on her own.’

  ‘I shall have to see her, as briefly as possible, of course, but I hope that you and Mrs Murphy might be present.’

  She bowed her head. ‘Certainly,’ she said, ‘that is, of course, if the mother superior of this convent will permit it.’

  So, the mother superior was obviously a difficult character. That was about all that was needed. In the meantime, since she didn’t appear to be on the scene, he would make the most of his chat with the Reverend Mother. She was always one to know Cork people, especially the wealthy and the well-connected.

  So, if the Reverend Mother’s cousin was a friend and neighbour of Mr Musgrave, then he was one of the Montenotte crowd. Rich and with rich friends. Money and class, he thought. Not the type to be mixed up with the IRA or their rivals.

  He voiced his thoughts aloud. ‘Not a gentleman to be mixed up with the IRA, as far as I know,’ he remarked in a judicial fashion.

  The Reverend Mother bowed her head. ‘I think that you are probably right, Patrick,’ she said quietly.

  He nodded in a satisfied way. He knew that tone of voice. The IRA were to be ruled out of the investigation. Yes, he would do a few perfunctory enquires, just to keep the superintendent happy, but he wouldn’t waste too much valuable time. He turned his mind from political to private motives.

  ‘Mr Rupert Murphy, being a close friend and neighbour, probably has the will,’ he commented. He knew enough not to ask a direct question and he received no answer, but the Reverend Mother bowed her head again and he knew that meant that she considered him to be probably correct.

  However, if the IRA and Sinn Fein were ruled out, it wasn’t immediately obvious who the suspects were. Two sons out in Australia and a daughter in the convent. Not murdered for his money, he thought. Politics, money, two of the most frequent reasons for these secret murders.

  ‘Would have been a rich man,’ he stated aloud, not wishing to question her about her cousin’s friend and his money but hoping for a lead to the solving of what appeared to be a senseless atrocity.

  ‘You are probably right, Patrick,’ said the Reverend Mother, once again giving him the seal of approval, but this time she said it in a fashion of one brushing the matter aside. Her eyes, beneath the snowy white of her wimple, were thoughtful, not looking at him but fixed upon a small group of the laity, clustered protectively together. Patrick ignored the men – knew them all – their faces had been on every hoarding in the city for the last month, but he was interested in the young solicitor, Maureen Hogan. She had been a member of the IRA at some stage, a few years ago certainly, but possibly still a member in a more discreet way, so he made a mental note to have a chat with her as soon as possible. The others, the three men, he did not know anything against them. Never been in trouble with the police, any of them, he was sure about that and his memory for names and faces was a good one. He took little interest in politics – just a lot of talking, he thought.

  Best thing ever that the people of the city had done was to take the law to their city council, to bring them to the court, to disband the councillors, replacing them with an efficient and hard-working city manager, like Philip Monahan. Wouldn’t do it nowadays, he thought. Too many fat cats, ruling the roost. Yet, back then, in 1924, a nine-day inquiry, held in Cork’s courthouse, was thronged. The public galleries were full, the inquiry held in the courthouse – and quite right, too. It was a trial of inefficiency and corruption, with the corporation charging huge rates and doing nothing with them, just making themselves and their relatives and friends as rich as could be. Whole families working for the corporation, drawing big wages, just because a distant cousin was a councillor. It’s not who you are, what you can do, but who you are related to that counts: that was a saying on everyone’s lips.

  All sorts of excuses for this state of affairs, of course. There had been the war of independence and the civil war. City Hall burned to the ground and the library. Patrick Street burned in 1920. Yes, they had a hard time during the early years, but then, when things settled down and the English army had left, well then, they could have done something for the city, but they didn’t. It was only when they were thrown out and Philip Monahan was appointed that a few efforts began to be made to improve the roads and to build council houses for the poor unfortunates stuck in these crumbling old Georgian houses, in lanes so narrow that two people could not pass each other without standing sideways – no lavatories, no water, rats everywhere. These county councillors didn’t care about these unfortunate people as long as there were enough prisons to lock them up when they broke the law. And now, thought Patrick, they were trying to bring back another batch of county councillors. A bunch of people who wanted to be powerful in order to make money, he had thought and dismissed them all with indifference, resolving not to waste his time in voting for any of them. Nothing to do with him. He was not a politician; he kept well away from politicians of all kinds, didn’t belong to a single society or a single coterie in Cork – no friends, either. Friends were trouble; he had decided some time ago. They always wanted you to do them a favour, had other friends for whom they wanted their policeman friend to go easy on, or to swear false evidence. Joe was the nearest thing he had to a friend and even with him he was wary in case he could be accused of favouritism.

  Now he looked at this bunch of people with sharp interest. As the Reverend Mother had explained to him the previous day, the presence of the bishop, priests, brothers and nuns was to attend an annual ‘retreat’ and everybody knew about these retreats. He hadn’t been on one himself since he had left school, but his mother, he knew, enjoyed them immensely and always declared that she felt a new woman after one of them. Odd, though, that these candidates for the office of alderman had joined these members of the holy orders. And certainly, since one of their number had been murdered, he was most interested in the others.

  ‘It seems strange that the bishop arranged for these candidates for the position of alderman to come on the retreat,’ he
said in a low voice to the Reverend Mother.

  ‘The bishop,’ she said and then paused while she, he guessed, considered how to put the matter. ‘I imagine that the bishop felt they would benefit from divine guidance,’ she said in guarded tones.

  ‘I see,’ said Patrick. He didn’t really, but the bishop was a law, not just to himself, but to all officialdom in the city. No doubt he had his reasons and it wasn’t for a police inspector to question him. ‘I just wondered,’ he said.

  She guessed his meaning. A very sharp brain, the Reverend Mother. Must be as old as the hills – had been a century old when he was a small child, or so they used to say. She looked little different now as she glanced at him sharply. He knew that look.

  ‘You’ll let me know when Mrs Murphy arrives and when you …’ He stopped and rearranged his sentence. The Reverend Mother was always very punctilious and here she was a guest, not a ruler. ‘Just a message when it would be possible to see the daughter of the dead man,’ he finished, and she bowed her head in a stately manner, but reverted to their previous topic.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ she said. ‘The candidates, the four gentlemen and the lady are here for a seven-day retreat. You have, of course, all details about them, but you may wish to make a few additional notes or ask me some questions.’ She waited until he had produced the notebook and indelible pencil and managed, he noticed, to stop herself warning of the danger to his health as he automatically licked the tip. He remembered that she had always tried to stop children using these as she was worried about the danger to their health from the dye used in the pencil lead, but of course everyone did it. When used wet, its tip moistened repeatedly by water or saliva, it produced a bright purple ink and was a permanent record, accepted as evidence in the courts.

  He scanned the facts about each of the candidates and then stopped at the name MISS MAUREEN HOGAN.

  I’ve heard a few details about this young lady,’ he said with a slight frown. ‘Miss Hogan may have been keeping her republican connections secret from the bishop, but the use of an IRA type of bomb makes her presence rather significant to the police,’ he added in a low voice. He beckoned to Joe who had approached. ‘The army expert said that he didn’t think it was a professional bomb, but it was a fertilizer and diesel job,’ he continued, explaining the matter to Joe, but with an eye on the Reverend Mother.

  ‘It’s true, then, is it, that bombs can be made from fertilizer by the IRA? How very extraordinary!’ said the Reverend Mother. ‘And they work like real bombs,’ she said with a note of interest in her voice.

  ‘True enough and yes, they do work,’ said Patrick quietly, thinking of all the mutilated bodies that he had seen during his time as a policeman.

  ‘Easy enough to do,’ said Joe. ‘I remember a couple of lads experimenting with fertilizer after we had a chemistry lesson. I didn’t go myself, didn’t want to get into trouble, but one fellow burned his eyebrows and a patch of hair from the top of his head and got caned by the teacher for saying that the moths ate them. I remember there was a workman in the classroom fixing the gas light – could have been Bob the Builder, now that I come to think of it – and he said to us after the lesson, when we were going home: “Ye have a life of Reilly in these ‘Proddy’ schools!”’

  ‘How extraordinary to learn these dangerous things in a chemistry lesson,’ said the Reverend Mother. ‘But what fun,’ she added. ‘And I’m sure that everyone in the class remembered that piece of chemistry,’ she added.

  Patrick smiled a little at that story. He could just imagine a purple-faced teacher’s reaction to the joke about the moths. Funny how some lads didn’t care. Thought it was worth a caning to get a laugh out of the rest of the class. He had not been like that, had been terrified of being caned. Perhaps that was why he had ended up being a policeman while some of his classmates were over in America busy becoming millionaires. Patrick looked across at the tall figure of the young lady. Might have ended up in gaol if her father had not been a well-known and highly respected solicitor, he thought.

  ‘I’d say that if she wanted a bomb, she’d know a few people who could manage to make a better one for her,’ he said. ‘But why would she want to get rid of Mr Musgrave? He was a stockbroker, I understand. Not in the same line of business.’

  ‘Not in the least,’ agreed the Reverend Mother. ‘Did you study Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, when you were in school, Patrick? A great play and a great portrait of a flawed man. His ambition to be king led him to commit murder. Of course, the ambition to be an alderman is not quite the same thing as to be a king, but I must say that I have found myself wondering whether ambition has led to other less celebrated murders.’

  Patrick nodded. He had a distant, shadowy recollection of Macbeth and thought he must have studied it for his leaving certificate, or for matriculation. Remembered learning off by heart some dreary speech about ‘tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow’ which was supposed to come up in the examination. He understood what the Reverend Mother was hinting at and his heart sank. Macbeth murdered an old man because he wanted to be king. James Musgrave might have been murdered because someone else wanted to be an alderman. It was not what I wanted, he thought. Not a murder with four powerful people as suspects, and the bishop standing over them, interfering in the investigation. This was not going to be an easy task. He had a moment of brief regret for an IRA suspect, but then squared his shoulders. He and Joe would get to the bottom of this.

  NINE

  The Reverend Mother hesitated. Indecision was not something that ordinarily afflicted her, but here, on ground not her own, it behoved her to be careful. A tactless intervention could do far more harm than good.

  There was a small courtyard to one side of the convent buildings. In the centre of the space was a well, the original well which had probably guided the choice of the site – good, clean, fresh water springing from the limestone rocks of this south-eastern side of the city. Beside the well was a pump and a group of novices were energetically pushing up and down on the handle, filling pails with water. They were equipped for their charitable work, she guessed. Each girl wore an apron of sacking over her habit and there was a line of lidded baskets, probably holding bandages and medicaments, on the ground nearby. The sisters did good and charitable work among the poor and the diseased of the city; she knew that, but her eyes were on one figure, a girl with a bowed head whose shaking hands had already spilt some water which called down a sharp rebuke from the mistress of novices.

  So when the shabby Humber car drove noisily through the convent gates, the Reverend Mother breathed a sigh of relief. She had been wondering what to do, wondering whether she was justified in interfering, turning over tactful forms of protest within her mind, but at the sight of Dr Scher her spirits were lifted. As an old friend, she was quite justified in going forward to greet him and hopefully to drop a few words in his ear before he went to see the superior of the Sisters of Charity, Mother Teresa.

  He seemed to be, she was glad to see, his usual unperturbable self. Dead bodies were dead bodies to him and she supposed that the fact that this particular body had been in multiple pieces meant little to a man who spent most of his time at a dissecting table, working for the police as well as when he lectured on the subject to the students at Cork University. They would, she decided, as she walked towards the car, say little about that fragmented human body, although she would be available to answer any question which he might want to put to her. In the meantime, she had another task for him.

  ‘James Musgrave’s daughter, she’s a novice here. I don’t think she is up to this work. She should be resting upon her bed,’ she said rapidly as Dr Scher pushed open the door and swung his legs onto the ground.

  ‘Which one is she?’ Dr Scher didn’t waste time on greetings but straightened himself with a hand upon the door frame, his eyes on the group of novices by the pump.

  ‘That very thin one. Look she has just spilt some more water. Her hands are shaking. Do something. Her father
was blown to pieces almost in front of her eyes just yesterday.’

  ‘I’ll try, but I find nuns exceedingly difficult to deal with,’ said Dr Scher. He reached into the back seat, took his hat, placed it upon his bald head and then pulled out his medical bag. ‘Hope they’re not going down to the city. There’s diphtheria down in the Douglas Street area,’ he said as he left her.

  The Reverend Mother did not offer to accompany him. Doctors were privileged and could call upon their medical authority. Her eyes were on the girl’s white face. Poor child, she thought and resolved to ask Mother Isabelle what age her former pupil would be. She looked younger than the others. She was extremely thin, and her skin still had the blotches of adolescence. There was, thought the Reverend Mother, a certain unfinished look to the features of her face and her shoulders were bowed. Not a strong-looking girl, she thought, and wondered whether it was the death of her mother and perhaps the emigration of her two brothers that had made the child search for security in convent life where there was a structure and a substitute mother.

  But why the Sisters of Charity? She would have expected most fathers to refuse permission to a young daughter who wanted to join such an exacting and rigorous order of nuns and if that daughter had lost her mother, why then it doubled the unsuitability of such a huge decision being made at such a young age.

  Dr Scher, she saw, was now speaking to the mistress of novices, waving his hand in the direction of the city which lay below where they stood. So far, he had not gone near to the orphaned Sister Mary Magdalene but had turned the full battery of his volubility upon the person in charge of the girls. After a few minutes, a novice was sent scuttling off in the direction of the convent, doing her best to be quick, but not to run. The Reverend Mother smiled to herself. These ridiculous rules for girls hardly past childhood. She was glad that she had instituted the custom in her convent that novices would polish the convent corridors every morning by sliding up and down the wooden expanses, wearing cosy sheepskin slippers donated by a furrier in the city. It served, she hoped, to release some of their inner energy and exuberance. However, these girls were not her responsibility and so, propelled by curiosity and a worry for the children of her own school, she made her way over towards the group.