A Shocking Assassination

by Cora Harrison

  ‘He just marched off, bold as brass, and bought two tickets for the stalls, real expensive seats, and then he came back and he took my arm this time and we went upstairs together and he found two seats in the back row – and you don’t need to sigh, like that, either, because he didn’t get up to any funny stuff.’ Not then, anyway, she amended within her mind before going on with the story and telling her mother how they had gone on arguing furiously in whispers but when the main film had come on, Nanook of the North they had fallen silent, had been mesmerized by the extraordinary scenes of desolation amid the ice and the snow.

  ‘It’s funny, but when it had finished, Sam said, “Imagine living in a place like that, even worse than Cork City!” and we both had a laugh and then, somehow, we seemed like friends and he held my hand as we came out of the cinema, just like as if he was my boyfriend. He asked me to come and have a cup of coffee with him, but I had to go because I was meeting Eamonn down Lavitt’s Quay and just as I was going to slip away, Sam said, “Same time, same place, same day next week.” And, then he just walked off, not giving me time to reply. And I shouted after him, “You’ll be lucky!” but, you know, Mam, you know how it is …’

  ‘You turned up.’ Maureen was trying to sound cynical, but Eileen knew better. Her mother loved a romance.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ she admitted. ‘I told myself that I hadn’t finished with him. I was going to make him eat his words, so I turned up outside the cinema and we went in and we saw Vanity Fair and he hadn’t read the book, and I had. Do you remember how you and me, we used to argue about Becky Sharp? Well, he was like you, he didn’t like her and so we went for a walk down the Mardyke and in the end he agreed with me that she was much more interesting than Amelia.’ They had kissed that night, she remembered, though she didn’t intend to tell her mother that. His lips had been warm and his hair had smelled of frost and they had clung together. Her mother didn’t need to know the details of these late-night strolls in the darkness, of the kisses and caresses well away from the gas lamps of Western Road. Sam was different, she told herself, he would not be like that father whom she had never seen, the man who had made her mother pregnant and then cleared off on the midnight ferry to Liverpool. She and Sam were friends. She kept the association secret from everyone except Aoife. Tom Hurley would have been furious, she knew.

  ‘And now he’s killed a man and will hang for it. We’ve no luck, you and me.’ Her mother sighed heavily.

  ‘He didn’t. I’m sure that he didn’t. He’s so against violence. We’ve argued and argued about it. Sam is a pacifist. He says that nothing justifies killing. And he wasn’t a member of the Republican Party, if that’s what you are thinking.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose he was; you’d know, wouldn’t you?’

  Eileen was silent. Even to Sam she had never broken her oath to keep secret that unit to which she belonged and the names of her fellow conspirators. It was, she acknowledged for a moment, just about possible that secretly he was a member of another unit. But then she shook her head.

  ‘No, I’m certain that he was a pacifist. Why should he spend so long arguing with me about violence?’

  ‘They were all talking about it at the pub at lunchtime. I heard them while I was scrubbing the stairs. They were saying that everyone saw the gun in his hand, even the Reverend Mother from St Mary’s of the Isle saw him. They were saying, too, that James Doyle got him sacked from his job at the Cork Examiner. That might be enough to drive a man to murder. Did he talk to you about that?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Eileen shortly. Sam had poured out his bitterness and yes, he had said wild things but that was only talk. There was little use in arguing, though. She knew that. What was needed now was decisive action.

  ‘I want to go to see him, to visit him in gaol, Mam. And I want you to go with me. We’ll pretend to be his auntie and his cousin. I’ll borrow that old shawl of yours.’ It would be fatal for any connection to be made between Sam and the Republicans, but her mother’s respectable presence would ensure that no questions were asked about the daughter. It was lucky that the men guarding the political prisoners were always recruited from another part of the county. No one at the gaol would know the story of Eileen’s involvement with the Republicans. In any case, she planned to dress so that she would merge into the mass of the ordinary poor of the city.

  One of the first things that Eileen had done when Tom Hurley had given her back six pence a week from the fee from the Cork Examiner column had been to save up for a new black shawl for her mother. The old plaid one that had belonged originally to her grandmother had been thriftily stored in mothballs below the mattress in the space beneath the settle bed. It was a huge shawl and would envelop face and figure. Eileen stood up, lifting the seat and pulling out the old flock mattress. Under it were also stored some spare clothes, and another shawl. Eileen was glad to see a worn woollen dress. It would be too big for her but that didn’t matter. The shawl and the dipping hemline – both would look poor and unobtrusive. It would definitely not be a place for her smart breeches, jacket and jaunty cap. She picked out some more things. There were a couple of pairs of bloomers which she had reluctantly sewed when she was at school, another old dress and a still more decrepit shawl.

  ‘When’s visiting time?’ Her mother sounded resigned.

  ‘It’s from three to four o’clock of the afternoon. You’ll come then, will you?’

  Her mother’s only answer was a comforting hug, but Eileen had glimpsed the expression of pity and the tearful eyes before the arms went around her. Maureen probably believed that her daughter’s heart was to be broken. She would have heard the matter discussed in the public house and the opinion would probably have been that there was no hope for Sam. He would definitely be hanged.

  ‘He didn’t do it, you know!’

  ‘I know,’ said her mother comfortingly. ‘But don’t build up your hopes. He has no one to speak for him. His poor mother! My heart goes out to her. Her only son. They were saying at lunch time that she looked twenty years older, standing behind the stall. Jack was saying that his wife had to ask her twice for a few scraps for the cat. She seemed in a daze. Does she know about you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Eileen. ‘I don’t think so. I don’t want to meet her, Mam.’ She hoped that Sam’s mother would not be there when they came. Visitors were only allowed ten minutes. One of the lads of the unit had told her that. Ten minutes would be enough for what she wanted to find out.

  Her mother looked keenly at her troubled face and said, ‘I could pop into the English Market, to her stall tomorrow morning, tell her how sorry I am, she won’t know me, but she’ll have everybody saying things like that to her. I’ll just find out when she’s going to see him. Though I could tell you that for free, now; she’s like every mother. She’ll be waiting for the jail to open. She’ll be in there for the first ten minutes of visiting time. I’d lay any money on it. But I’ll find out for you, if you like.’

  Eileen nodded, turning away from her mother’s keen eyes and tossing another sod of turf onto the fire. She had a plan, had worked it out with the others in her unit. She had encountered great difficulties in the beginning. No one wanted to hazard their lives and Republican property in rescuing a man who had publically criticised their movement. But eventually they had given in. A mixture of standing by a friend and an intense dislike of Tom Hurley’s bullying, she thought, though Aoife had asserted that Eamonn was sweet on Eileen. She had not wanted to believe this, as her loyalty had to be given to Sam and she had been very business-like in the planning of the rescue attempt. Eamonn had given her a list of things to observe when she visited the gaol and Liam had promised to lend her his pocket watch so that she could time every movement exactly. Aoife was the one that had suggested taking her mother with her.

  ‘She won’t know anything about it,’ Aoife had said, ‘so she’ll be acting natural and you can copy her. Don’t forget to keep the shawl well over your head and face and tell your mo
ther to do the same. They might be taking notes about visitors and I wouldn’t even put it past them to do little sketches. With a shawl over your head, there won’t be much to see. You can pretend to be drying your eyes on it while you pass the guards.’

  ‘You’ve got something in your head; I know you when you are up to some mischief.’ Her mother’s voice broke into her thoughts and Eileen immediately banished all the plans from her mind.

  ‘I won’t do a thing tomorrow. I promise. I just want to see Sam. While I have a chance,’ she added and felt the tears run down her face. There was, she knew, a very small chance that the plan would succeed. It had to be kept a dark secret from Tom Hurley, which added to the excitement, as none of them liked him, but it left only a small number of very inexperienced conspirators to bring the affair to a successful conclusion. She had, she thought now, no right to endanger the lives of her friends in order to rescue a man who had no sympathy for their armed struggle to establish a republic. She felt the sobs rising in her throat, did her best to subdue them, but the familiar kitchen and her mother’s presence was robbing her of her courage. For a moment she wished that she were ten years old again and if that were impossible, she wished that she had never met Sam. Everything would be so much easier if she were in love with Eamonn, or Liam, or Paddy.

  ‘You can never choose the one for you.’ Her mother’s arms were around her as she came and sat on the settle beside her daughter. ‘Life is like that; we just have to make the best of things. You don’t think that he did it. Talk to him tomorrow. See if he remembers anything. If he didn’t do it, then someone else did. Keep your mind on that and see if you can find out who it was. That’s the way to help your young man. Goodness only knows, you have brains enough and to spare. The Reverend Mother herself said that to me. “Your daughter is a very clever young lady, Mrs MacSweeney.” That’s what she said when you told her that you were leaving school. Even came around here to talk to me. I told her that you had a will of iron and that I couldn’t do anything with you. It was true then, and it’s true now, God help me. I think I brought you up too independent.’

  ‘The Reverend Mother,’ said Eileen thoughtfully. This was the second time that her mother had mentioned her former teacher. The Reverend Mother had been a witness to the murder. Perhaps she would have some ideas. Perhaps her mother was right. Perhaps she should be trying to find out what really happened on that Thursday morning when James Doyle was shot and killed in the English Market.

  TEN

  St Thomas Aquinas:

  Quomodo enim homo positus in sole caecus, praesens est illi sol, sed ipse soli absens est.

  (In the same way as when a blind man is standing in the sun, the sun is present to him, but he himself is absent from the sun)

  Sunday afternoon was always a peaceful time in the convent of St Mary’s of the Isle. The hours between two and four were times when the families and friends of the sisters came to visit them, having tea in one of the parlours and strolling around the gardens. The Reverend Mother usually found it was her best time to make her long-term plans for the school and the community. She could normally count on an uninterrupted few hours, but on the Sunday following the death of James Doyle she had a visitor.

  ‘I thought that I would pop in and see you.’ Dr Scher’s bushy head of iron grey hair appeared behind the flustered young lay sister who was the only one on duty that afternoon. ‘I can see that you have nothing to do and need a friendly chat,’ he continued with a quick look at her littered desk.

  ‘Come and sit by the fire and join me in a cup of tea,’ invited the Reverend Mother. Despite her workload, she knew that she was glad to see him. Her mind was haunted by Sam O’Mahony’s mother. That tragic face, that heartbroken voice and the appeal. ‘One small lie.’ Those words came to her mind with exhausting frequency. Was her conscience worth a young life, a neck broken on the end of a rope?

  ‘I suppose you’ve been asked to do a post-mortem, is that right?’ she enquired as she watched him tip a few more lumps of coal from the scuttle onto the molten ash and waited patiently while he fiddled around with tongs and damper settings. A man who liked his comforts, she thought eyeing him with affection. What would his decision be if he were asked to lie in order to save a fellow human being, she wondered suddenly? Was it something that he would regard as a ridiculous quibble, or would he feel as she did – that to lie under oath was to endanger the fabric of the society in which they lived?

  ‘Done it,’ he said succinctly and for a moment she was so preoccupied with her conscience, she hardly knew what he meant. She said nothing, but waited, listening to the young footsteps in the corridor and then she crossed the room and opened the door. Sister Mary Angela was barely fourteen years old, a former pupil of the school, who was doing her best, by a saintly expression, to convince the Reverend Mother that she had a genuine vocation towards the life of a nun, but after six months, hopefully, she would have had enough of convent life and would find something else. She might, at least, learn to make tea properly, she thought, suppressing a smile at Dr Scher’s disappointed face as the pale tan-coloured liquid dripped from a teapot held in a nervous hand. No sandwiches either and only two meagre slices of a plain sponge cake. It was not what Dr Scher was accustomed to receive from the discerning hand of Sister Bernadette. Still, it would do him no harm, she thought, with a glance at the well-rounded stomach beneath the pale grey waistcoat. In any case, there would be no point in upsetting or humiliating the child. She would try to remember to have a word with Sister Bernadette about a little tuition on boiling the water and allowing the tea to stand for a few minutes, before presenting it to a connoisseur like Dr Scher.

  ‘So, you’ve done the post-mortem,’ she said once the door had been closed and footsteps had retreated. ‘Anything interesting?’

  ‘Have you ever studied geometry, Reverend Mother?’ was his unexpected reply. He chewed on a piece of sponge cake and then put the rest of the slice back on the plate and rinsed the mouthful down with some of the weak tea.

  ‘Geometry?’ she queried. ‘A very long time ago,’ she admitted. ‘More than fifty years ago,’ she added.

  ‘But you remember about angles, I’m sure,’ he returned and then rapidly picked up a teaspoon, reversed it and aimed the handle towards the broad, stiffly starched breastplate that she wore above the black habit. ‘Bang,’ he said dramatically.

  ‘And I have a bullet through my heart.’ The Reverend Mother nodded. ‘And,’ she continued, ‘since we are about the same height and you were holding your pistol straight, I presume that an autopsy would show that the bullet travelled in a straight line through the flesh.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Dr Scher clambered onto the chair and stood dramatically pointing his makeshift pistol down at her. ‘What about if I fired it now?’

  ‘Well, in that case, I would expect it to carve out an angle of approximately forty-five degrees.’

  ‘Well done,’ said Dr Scher admiringly.

  The Reverend Mother ignored the patronising inflection. ‘What you are trying to tell me is that the bullet was fired by someone taller than the city engineer. Or else, standing at a height.’ Her mind went to the market layout. The centre walkway was below the level of the stalls. So someone standing against the wall would have been at a slightly higher level.

  ‘And there are stools behind many of the stalls.’

  ‘But why stand on a stool? It would make you conspicuous. Someone would remember you climbing up. And then you would have to climb down.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ admitted Dr Scher. ‘And stools are wobbly things. Would never climb on them, myself.’

  ‘Was the gun fired at close quarters?’

  ‘No scorch marks on the coat. Not too close, I’d say. What’s in your mind?’

  ‘I was wondering whether someone might have dropped something, or whether he dropped something. That would make him bend down and the bullet would enter his back at an angle.’

  Dr Scher borrowed another tea
spoon from the second saucer, laid it flat upon the tea tray and pointed the first teaspoon at it.

  ‘Bang,’ he said and then grimaced and threw down the two spoons. ‘No, the angle is wrong,’ he said.

  The doorbell pealed and again there were footsteps in the corridor. This time little Sister Mary Angela was blushing scarlet when she opened the door and announced, ‘It’s Patrick Cashman, Reverend Mother.’

  They would have been next-door neighbours when Patrick was a teenager. Nevertheless, the Reverend Mother frowned slightly and said with great emphasis on Patrick’s newly acquired title, ‘Come in, inspector, come and sit by the fire.’

  The young lay sister closed the door, still blushing and then shot in again, this time convulsed with giggles. ‘Oh, I do be forgetting,’ she said. ‘Would you fancy a cup of tay, inspector?’

  ‘No, thank you, sister,’ said the Reverend Mother decisively. She, herself, had not touched the second cup and there would be plenty in the pot if he wanted some of the lukewarm, watery liquid. No point in wasting Patrick’s time in small talk while they waited for a kettle to boil and another tray to be arranged.

  ‘You’ve probably heard from Dr Scher about the bullet track,’ said Patrick as soon as the door closed and the footsteps died away. He shook his head as the Reverend Mother touched the teapot with an enquiring look and then turned to face Dr Scher.

  ‘I wondered about the gallery upstairs, but the superintendent of the market told me that the door was locked. I went around to see him after I had read his report.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said the Reverend Mother. ‘I remember him handing the bunch of keys to Patsy. He sent her up to light the gas lamps.’