by Jo Spain
As the pathologist resumed his examination of the body, Tom turned to the GP.
‘I haven’t encountered this outside of films and books, Doctor. What kind of poison would you inject into someone to kill them?’
The doctor scratched his head. ‘There’s a long list. From arsenic – I know, a bit dated – to air. Yes, a good deal of air in someone’s veins can kill them. Not a small bubble, mind. If it were me and I knew Father Seamus’s medical history, I’d use some sort of adrenalin shot to give him a massive heart attack.’
The pathologist stood up slowly, rubbing his knees. He circled the body and stared into the cupboard.
‘I’d work on the assumption that this was murder,’ he said. ‘If he’d had a heart attack while in that cupboard, for whatever reason, his instincts would have been to push the door open and seek help. It’s more likely his dead body was placed in there and the door shut. I’m happy for the body to be moved to the mortuary now.’
Tom nodded. ‘You’ve known Father Seamus for a long time, Doctor Mulligan. Did he ever confide in you about anything? Was he afraid of anything or anyone?’
The medic scratched his head. ‘I guess you’re asking me if he believed his life was in danger. No, we never had those sort of patient–doctor sessions. I don’t know who could have done something as . . . clinical as this. Now, had somebody strangled him, I could have given you a list of suspects.’
‘I did get the impression he was quite disliked. How did you get on with him?’
The doctor smiled grimly. ‘I got on with him fine, Inspector. But I’m a Protestant, so I didn’t have to listen to him pontificating every week.’
‘Thank you, Doctor. I’m sure pathology will want to see his medical records, if you can help with that.’
They all watched as Father Seamus departed his house for the last time, on a stretcher between two paramedics.
Tom noted Ellie, standing silently behind them in the doorway as a mark of respect. Jack, as usual, was nowhere to be seen.
‘We’ll be lucky to get more personnel down here tonight,’ Ciaran said, as the ambulance doors swung shut. ‘Weather’s getting worse.’
Tom looked up at the oppressive sky. The clouds hung low and heavy. He brushed snowflakes off his face with a hand that was already starting to lose feeling. He’d retrieved his jacket, but even that couldn’t keep the heat in.
‘It’s starting to feel like we’ll never get out of this village,’ he lamented.
Chapter 38
Driving conditions were becoming next to impossible. On the car radio, the weatherman was advising people to stay indoors and only travel if necessary.
As Ciaran’s tyres struggled to gain traction on the icy road surface, daylight began to fade. ‘Haven’t seen snow like this in a long time,’ the sergeant said, squinting at the road ahead.
The five-minute drive took over twenty, and the inspector breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the convent safely.
Sister Bernadette opened the front door. Tom and Ciaran stepped in gratefully, shaking their overcoats and wiping their feet on the doormat.
‘That’s a fierce storm blowing up out there,’ the nun said. ‘Almost everyone is back, and the rest are en route. Your detectives told us what happened to Father Seamus. Is there any more news?’
‘No more news other than the man is dead, Sister,’ Tom replied.
‘Do you know how he died? Was he murdered?’
‘It looks like he was.’
The nun’s eyes widened. ‘Lord save us. You need something to warm you up. I’d offer tea, but I think a couple of Irish coffees might be in order.’
Tom could have kissed her. There were few things he liked more in the world than a strong Irish coffee. The whiskey, black coffee, brown sugar and fresh cream combined to make a drink that acted as a stimulant, relaxant and dessert.
‘That’s the best offer I’m going to get today, Sister.’
‘I can make you a better offer again. I know you’re using Mother Attracta’s office as your headquarters but we have another sitting room that we don’t use much, and there are the makings of a fire in the grate. It can be lit in minutes. I just need to get Sister Gladys sorted first. I left early to get her home.’
‘Thanks for that, Sister. Actually, before you go, there is something I need to ask you following our conversation last night.’
She raised her eyebrows.
‘You told me that Sister Concepta and Mother Attracta had a huge argument at Hallowe’en. But you didn’t mention that you had played a part in that altercation.’
The nun dropped her gaze to the floor. ‘I wasn’t deliberately trying to hide anything. It was partly embarrassment and partly me not seeing that it mattered. I wanted to forget about the whole silly affair but Sister Concepta insisted on fighting my corner. She would have reacted in the same manner no matter who was involved, Inspector. Concepta rarely missed an opportunity to clash with Attracta. Sometimes she’s just so fiery.’
Tom looked at the nun for a moment, before nodding. ‘That’s fine, Sister.’
Tom filled Ciaran in on the Hallowe’en episode as they walked.
‘Bernadette was a missionary nun, wasn’t she?’ the sergeant said, thoughtfully. ‘Strange that someone who has seen so much would stand back and let someone else get stuck in on their behalf.’
‘I think the point she was making there is that she is more careful about choosing her battles.’
‘Fair enough.’
In the sitting room, a couple of couches were positioned around a grate, expertly laid in the old-fashioned manner with screwed-up newspapers, sticks and peat briquettes. No cheating with firelogs here.
Ciaran took matches from his trouser pocket and shook them.
‘Boy scout,’ he said.
He hunched down and lit the base of the fire. Tom crossed to one side of the room and rapped on the wall. The dull thud confirmed its solidity. He’d imagined so, but wanted to check.
‘No one will hear through those walls,’ Ciaran commented. ‘This building is sturdy.’
Tom murmured in assent before reminding the sergeant, ‘You said there was something you had to tell me.’
The sergeant raised himself awkwardly from the floor and plonked himself on one of the sofas. ‘I’m worried you’re going to go away from this place with a bad impression of me. First leaving Father Seamus in the house this afternoon, and now this.’
Tom waited. It depended on what ‘this’ was.
‘There was something, a few years ago, to do with Father Seamus. A woman rang the station. I didn’t take the call. There was a young lad on the desk at the time, he’s moved on since. She was barely coherent but she made allegations against the priest. Claimed he was a rapist and that he’d been interfering with the girls in the laundry, even got a few of them pregnant. She gave her name but didn’t say if she was one of the women who’d been assaulted, or if she’d even been in the laundry.’
‘What was her name? What did you do about it?’ Tom asked, sitting up straight.
‘I can’t remember the name. I’m sure we’ve a record of it. But the guard who took the call said she sounded stark raving mad. She didn’t leave a number. I did send one of my officers down here to ask if any woman of that name had been in the place. Attracta denied it and said the records had been destroyed so she couldn’t check.’
‘Did you raise it with the priest?’
Ciaran fiddled nervously with the pin on his uniform tie. ‘No. What could I say? A woman rang in, there’s no trace of her, mind, but she’s accused you of rape. To a priest?’
Tom shook his head. ‘Ah, Ciaran.’
The other man’s shoulders drooped. ‘I know, I know. But without a proper witness statement, how were we supposed to pursue it? I’d already had a few run-ins with Seamus. For even the slightest reproach of his “authority” —’ Ciaran made quotation marks with his fingers, ‘he would bring a world of trouble to your door. Sometimes it jus
t wasn’t worth it.’
‘I get it, I just wish you’d told me earlier. This woman who rang in – we have to get her name. Was she young? Was she old? Did she have an accent? Where’s the guard who logged the call?’
Ciaran shook his head to all of the questions. But on the last, he had an answer of sorts.
‘When he left us he was headed to Dublin. The garda database will tell us where he’s stationed. I’ll get on it right away.’
He made to leave the room. At the door he turned.
‘I should have taken it more seriously.’
Tom shrugged.
Nobody could have predicted what had unfolded since.
*
Minutes later, Willie, Laura and Michael found the inspector. They were accompanied by Sister Bernadette, who was armed with a typical, tall Irish coffee glass, complete with handle to protect the drinker’s hand from the heat.
‘I met Sergeant McKenna in the hall,’ she said, by way of explanation for the lonely coffee.
‘Drinking on the job, sir?’ Michael nodded at the cream-topped concoction.
‘I’ll be back with the one you asked for in a minute,’ Sister Bernadette playfully scolded Michael.
‘Sláinte!’ said Tom, sipping blissfully.
He never stirred. He liked the flavours to blend themselves as the glass was tipped. After another mouthful, he filled them in on Ciaran’s story.
Laura tutted. ‘No wonder so few women report rapes. How calm and collected should she have sounded? “Stark raving mad” – who wouldn’t be?’ The detective shook her head angrily. ‘By the way, Barney Kelly didn’t budge from the nursing home. His nurse had to give him some medication after we left.’
‘There wasn’t much the Kilcross guards could do with no proper statement and a caller they couldn’t trace,’ Michael said, risking Laura’s wrath but stating the facts anyway.
Before she could jump back in, Tom intervened.
‘The rape allegations and what we know about Father Seamus from his attic add a new dimension,’ Tom said. ‘But before we get into that, did you confirm where all the nuns were this afternoon? For a start, we can absolutely rule out Sister Gladys as a suspect. The killer got into the priest’s back garden by climbing over a wall. That elderly nun might be sprightly for her age, but she’s not defying the laws of logic.’
‘We can rule her out, anyway,’ Laura said, pulling out her notebook. ‘Sister Gladys was in the kitchen with two other nuns for the entire time in question. We’ve others who are accounted for, too.’
She read out more names.
Five nuns left the parish hall at different stages during the afternoon – Sister Concepta, Sister Bernadette, Sister Ita, Sister Clare and Sister Mary.
‘To do what?’ Tom asked.
‘Sister Concepta and Sister Mary were delivering food parcels to villagers, separately. Sister Ita started cleaning the church on her own, but Sister Clare followed her over and helped her finish up – shortly after you talked to her, it seems, so she probably wanted to have a moan. Sister Bernadette went for a walk, but she did return later to take Sister Gladys back to the convent.’
‘Sister Bernadette went for a walk, in these conditions?’ Tom shook his head. ‘A walk to where?’
Laura shrugged. ‘I know. We weren’t convinced.’
Tom pictured the five nuns. He couldn’t imagine Sister Mary harming a fly. And Sister Ita, for all her bitterness, seemed to be Attracta’s one true friend.
‘Let’s cross-check what they were all doing on the day of Mother Attracta’s murder,’ Tom said. ‘I don’t want to jump to any conclusions but I’ve a headache just considering the possibility we could have two separate killers operating in this tiny place, or a pair working in tandem.
‘Now, though, it’s crucial we identify Ciaran’s mysterious caller. We’re going to have to find out how many women went through the laundry, what the age demographic was, if there are records of where they are now and, most importantly, if any of them have been in this area recently.’
The others looked at him, disbelief spreading across their faces.
Laura was the first to speak. ‘Seriously, sir, I’ve been in one of the rooms where those records are held. There are boxes upon boxes of paper files. There doesn’t seem to be a digitized record –’
She was interrupted by a light knock on the door. Sister Bernadette had fulfilled her promise and came in bearing a tray with three more Irish coffees.
Willie thanked her profusely as the nun left the room. None of the others spoke. They were all wondering if she’d killed Father Seamus.
Tom ran his tongue over his teeth, wondering if it had been a good idea to drink the coffee, considering the latest victim may have been poisoned. He shook his head to dispel the notion, and turned to Laura.
‘I know this throws the case wide open, and it’s going to take a massive amount of work to go through those files. I’ll ask for the rest of the team to be sent down from Dublin. In the interim, we can get local guards to help. I’d be just as happy as you to conveniently tie this up with one of the nuns, but we have to investigate every avenue.’
‘Jack says those footprints were made by size ten men’s wellingtons,’ Michael said. ‘You’d pick them up in any shoe store. And it wouldn’t have to be a man wearing them. I have to say, though, I’m finding it hard to imagine a woman, let alone a nun, committing these murders.’
‘Wouldn’t it be nice if all killers were men,’ Laura snorted. ‘It would narrow suspect lists greatly.’
‘Most killers are men,’ Tom said. ‘And that could still be the case here. We can’t confine our investigation into who was held here to the women themselves. We could be looking at a male relative, or a boyfriend whose girlfriend was forced to give her baby up. Somebody like that, seeking revenge, could be living right here in the village. None of the nuns said they heard any vehicles arriving or leaving the night Attracta was taken. That means her killer carried her from the house to a car that was probably parked outside the gates. A strong, fit woman could do that, but it would be easier for a man.’
The door opened, and Ciaran came back in.
‘I’ve tracked down that guard. He remembers the name the caller gave. He always had a brilliant memory. Liz Downes. Unfortunately, he couldn’t tell if she was young or old because she was hysterical. But he does recall something – the woman said she knew for certain that Father Seamus had raped a woman between 1973 and 1974. She said “a woman” but I’m willing to lay money on her being that woman.’
Everyone in the room sat up. 1973 was thirty-seven years ago. If Liz Downes had been a young girl then, she’d be middle-aged now.
‘Good work,’ Tom said, standing up. ‘Okay, Willie, could you lend us a hand until I can get the rest of the team down? Will you get the names of the parishioners Concepta and Mary say they delivered food to, so Ciaran’s lads can confirm what times the nuns were there. And see if Bernadette met anyone on that “walk”.’
Willie nodded, happy to throw his lot in.
‘Right, everyone else, we need to get stuck into some old-fashioned police work with the records. Ciaran, I want us to establish how many women went through this laundry and where they are now.’
Tom cast a wary eye out the window. He was relieved to see the heavy snow had stopped, but travelling conditions would be atrocious. It was Sunday – he very much doubted if there would be sufficient snowploughs out to clear the major roads, let alone the minor ones.
If they couldn’t get more personnel, the workload for the team would be overwhelming. Despite it, or maybe because of it, he could feel a sense of enthusiasm in the room.
They had something new to go on, and that was always a good thing.
Chapter 39
Ray felt like he needed a long, hot shower after viewing the pornographic material Father Seamus had collected. Such a desperate addiction in anyone would have disturbed him, but seeing it in a priest felt more than unnatural. It was abh
orrent. The man had been lecturing people for years about sin, sitting in judgement in the confessional box, all the while hiding his own very sordid secrets.
And hide it he had. Ray had searched through the house while local gardaí bagged the pictures and files in the attic, after extensively photographing the room. He found nothing else that offered any clue to the priest’s double life.
Ray had spent as much time in the priest’s hidden den as he could stomach. The DVDs appeared to be legal pornography, though most of them skated close to the wire.
As well as the films, there were magazines, erotic novels and the multiple images on the walls, which looked to have been painstakingly pinned up over years. There was nothing else resembling the material he had found in the folder containing the photographs of the Magdalene girls.
Ray was adept with computers and was prepared to do an extensive search on the priest’s, but there was no need. The history had never been cleared and he could see every filthy site ever visited, every movie downloaded. Father Seamus’s attempts to delete the files had been amateurish – they were easily retrievable.
Ellie was working alone downstairs, focusing on the inside of the stair cupboard. The other police officers were now searching the woods for other signs of the killer.
‘Find anything?’ Ray asked, coming down the stairs.
She jumped and banged her head.
‘Sorry,’ he winced.
She rubbed her temple. ‘My fault. I forgot you were here, you’ve been up in the attic so long,’ she said.
‘Longer than I cared to be. Is there anything in there?’
‘Yes, no, maybe. I don’t know. I could really do with Mark right now. There’s nothing obvious. I’ve picked up lots of fingerprints. We’ll have to run them against our own people who were in the house. If he was murdered by lethal injection, I honestly don’t think the killer would be stupid enough to break in and not wear gloves.’
She held up her latex-encased hands and wiggled her fingers. ‘There’s no blood, no sign of a struggle. Maybe something will show up on the body.’