Broken Angels (Katie Maguire)

by Masterton, Graham

  Grumbling and muttering under his breath, Fatter heaved himself into the driver’s seat and made a noisy performance of backing the truck up close to the flagstaff. As soon as had done so, the other council worker helped the two garda technicians to climb up on to the scissor-lift platform. Fatter gunned the truck’s engine, and the scissor-lift gradually opened up like a concertina and raised the platform up to the same level as Father X’s body.

  It took over forty minutes for the two technicians to photograph Father X from every conceivable angle, and to take samples of the paint on the flagstaff. At last, however, they cut the wire that was bound around Father X’s ankles and lowered him carefully on to the platform. The council worker whistled to his colleague that they wanted to come down again, and they slowly descended.

  A paramedic wheeled over a trolley covered with a shiny green vinyl sheet, and together she and the two technicians lifted Father X’s body up on to it. Katie stood close by while the younger of the two unfastened the remaining buttons of the dead priest’s soutane, and the older technician meticulously snipped the brass wire that bound his wrists, his knees and his ankles.

  ‘I have no idea at all who fastens their wires in loops like these,’ said the older technician. ‘They’re not like the work of any electricians that I’ve ever come across, nor telephone engineers either.’

  ‘Picture framers?’ Sergeant O’Rourke suggested.

  ‘Jimmy – I thought I told you to go home and change and get yourself some breakfast,’ said Katie.

  ‘You did, ma’am. But I really need to see if he’s been – you know – discombobulated.’

  Father X’s soutane fell wide open, exposing his bony, greyish-white body. He was covered in bruises – some crimson, some purple, some turning yellow – and it was obvious from the way that his arms lay askew that they must have been wrenched from their sockets.

  His penis was still intact, lying against his left thigh like a featherless fledgling that had fallen out of its nest. But immediately below it there was no scrotum – only a soggy, gaping cavity, dark with clotting blood.

  The older technician leaned forward so that he could inspect the wound more closely. ‘There – see that V-shaped nick just above his anus? He was castrated by the same instrument as Father Heaney, I’d swear to it. Two overlapping blades, similar to sheep shears.’

  ‘I was fancying a couple of sausages for breakfast,’ said Sergeant O’Rourke. ‘But now – I don’t know. I think I’ll stick to Shredded Wheat.’

  ‘Was he alive or dead when he was castrated?’ asked Katie.

  ‘Oh, he was alive,’ said the older technician. ‘You have only to feel his habit. It weighs a ton, because it’s absolutely drenched. There’s no doubt at all that his heart was still beating when they cut off his testes.’

  ‘So he probably died from loss of blood?’

  ‘That, and shock, I expect. We’ll just have to wait and see what the illustrious Dr Collins has to say about it. You never know. She always seems to have some theory of her own.’

  ‘Well, I’m seeing her this afternoon,’ said Katie. ‘She said that she’ll be finished with Father Heaney by three.’

  Just then, a lanky young garda came loping across the car park and said, ‘Excuse me, ma’am, but there’s a woman here who thinks she knows who this is.’

  ‘Good, I’ll come and talk to her. Frank – can you cover the body with a sheet or something, just up to his neck? Make him presentable anyway. I may ask this woman to come and take a look at him. The sooner we know who he is, the sooner we’ll be able to find out who wanted to cut his mebs off.’

  She followed the lanky young garda to the police barrier that had been set up across the Old Youghal Road. A plumpish woman in a black coat and a black bonnet like a rook’s wing was standing behind the yellow tape, clutching a large black handbag. Her mouth was so grimly turned down that she looked as if she were taking part in a gurning competition.

  ‘Madam?’ Katie beckoned her. ‘Why don’t you come and join me over here?’

  The woman bent down and struggled awkwardly under the tape. She presented herself to Katie, panting slightly, still clutching her handbag as if she were afraid that somebody was going to try and snatch it away from her.

  ‘I’m Detective Superintendent Kathleen Maguire. And you are?’

  ‘Mary O’Malley. Mrs Mary O’Malley, but I’m a widow. My husband was taken from me seven years ago this Pentecost. It was the throat cancer, although he never smoked.’

  ‘I see. I’m sorry. This guard tells me you might know who our deceased is.’

  ‘My friend Eileen told me that there was a dead priest hanging from the flagpole outside of the orphanage, and so I came up here directly.’

  ‘So, who do you think it is?’

  ‘There’s only one priest missing that I know of, which is why I thought it must be him.’

  ‘Okay. So what’s his name?’

  ‘I arrange the flowers at St Luke’s, see, but on Tuesday morning Moran’s didn’t send up enough lilies, they only sent the five bunches instead of the usual six, so I had to go in early on Wednesday morning before the bereavement Mass to finish off my arrangement in the Lady chapel.’

  ‘Yes?’

  Mrs O’Malley stared at Katie as if she were educationally subnormal. ‘If it hadn’t been for that, I wouldn’t have gone in at all, would I? And if I hadn’t have gone in, I wouldn’t have realized that he was missing.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you would.’

  ‘Father Lynott knew that he hadn’t turned up, because Father Lynott had to take the bereavement Mass instead, but Father Lynott said not to worry because at his age he’s always taking odd days off without any explanation and we just had to be tolerant.’

  ‘What’s his name, Mary?’ Katie asked her.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The priest who’s missing. The one you think might be our deceased.’

  ‘Father Quinlan, of course. I just told you.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Katie, glancing across at the lanky young garda, who was rolling up his eyes in mock despair. ‘Do you think you could come and identify the body? It wouldn’t upset you, would it?’

  ‘Not at all. He always looked like he was half-dead, anyway.’

  22

  She found Monsignor Kelly on the touchline of the football field at Sunday’s Well Primary School for Boys, watching a second eleven game against Holy Cross. He was standing in a small group with the principal and the principal’s wife and several of the school governors and three priests – all of whom were holding on to their hats because the wind had risen, and everything was flapping – flags, coats, dresses and soutanes.

  Katie and Sergeant O’Rourke walked up behind Monsignor Kelly, so close that Katie could have tapped him on the back. At first he didn’t look round, but Katie could tell by the way that his shoulders shrank that he was aware of her presence.

  ‘Come on, Sunday’s Well!’ he shouted, still without looking round. ‘You’re three goals behind and it’s almost half-time!’ Then he turned to face her and said, much louder than he needed to, ‘Katie! This is a surprise!’

  ‘Good afternoon, monsignor.’

  ‘You must have some news for me, yes?’

  ‘I think we need to talk in private,’ Katie told him. She smiled at the principal, the curly-haired Martin Shaughnessy, and said, ‘You don’t mind my stealing the monsignor a moment, do you, Mr Shaughnessy?’

  ‘You’ll bring him back directly, I hope? Right now, our team needs all the spiritual help it can get.’

  They walked together to the back of the school building, and went inside. It was suddenly silent in there, and smelled of paint and glue and children who were given a bath only once a month, if that. Katie led the way into one of the classrooms, and sat down on the edge of a desk. There was a large mural on the wall that the children had painted themselves: a forest, with twisted trees in it, and wolves, and dark creatures with yellow eyes that l
ooked like leprechauns, or goblins.

  ‘Well, what’s this about?’ asked Monsignor Kelly, chafing his hands. ‘Have you found Brendan Doody yet? Is that it?’

  ‘No, we haven’t found Brendan Doody.’

  ‘Threw himself off Patrick’s Bridge, it wouldn’t surprise me, and floated out to sea. He’ll be halfway to France by now.’

  ‘That hardly ever happens, monsignor. In fact, it never happens. The tide always brings them back in again.’

  Monsignor Kelly gave her that sideways look that meant ‘you’re a woman, don’t you contradict me, even if I’m wrong’.

  ‘As a matter of fact, most of the floaters get themselves stuck by Horgan’s Quay,’ put in Sergeant O’Rourke, with a cheerful smile and a twirl of his finger. ‘They swirl around and around until somebody spots them and then we come along to fish them out.’

  Monsignor Kelly said nothing. Katie could sense that he was deeply reluctant to ask her why she had come to find him. If Brendan Doody hadn’t turned up yet, dead or alive, she could only be here because she had some more awkward questions to put to him. From the way his lips were so tightly pursed, she could tell that he wasn’t in the mood this afternoon for awkward questions. Not that he often was, she imagined, even from God.

  ‘Do you happen to be acquainted with a Father Vincent Quinlan from St Luke’s in Montenotte?’ Katie asked him.

  Monsignor Kelly’s eyes darted from side to side like two minnows in a jam jar, as if he were trying to decide what the right answer was. ‘I’m not sure. Is there any special reason why I should?’

  ‘He’s been serving at St Luke’s for the past eighteen years, so I’d be surprised if you hadn’t come across him once or twice, at least. And he was sent there after several boys at St Andrew’s Youth Club accused him of molestation. He was never formally charged, because there wasn’t sufficient evidence, but I would have thought that the diocese would have kept him on their radar, at the very least.’

  ‘That would imply that we didn’t trust him, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Not necessarily. But it’s always better to be safe than sorry, isn’t it?’

  Monsignor Kelly’s face reddened. ‘We’re not like the Spanish Inquisition, Katie. We believe in forgiveness, and forgiveness means forgetting, too. If a priest has shown himself to be truly penitent, we don’t feel that we have to regard him with suspicion for the rest of his life.’

  ‘Well, thankfully, monsignor, you won’t have to do that with Father Quinlan.’

  ‘Oh, yes? And what would be the reason for that, exactly?’

  ‘Father Quinlan was found this morning hanging from the top of the flagpole outside St Joseph’s, upside down. He was hog-tied with brass wire and throttled with string, and he had been beaten so viciously that almost every bone in his body was broken. He had been castrated, too.’

  The flush on Monsignor Kelly’s face drained away as swiftly as if Katie had pulled out a plug. He said, ‘Name of Jesus,’ and crossed himself, and then he promptly sat down on one of the child-sized chairs.

  ‘Murdered? My God. And then castrated?’

  ‘Not in that order, by the look of it.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  Katie stood over Monsignor Kelly for a few moments, saying nothing. He kept shaking his head and crossing himself, and glancing up at Katie because he knew what she was going to say next. In fact, it was so obvious that she hardly had to say it at all.

  ‘The way that he was tied up and mutilated, monsignor... we don’t have definitive evidence yet, but in my mind there’s very little question that he was murdered by the same perpetrator as Father Heaney.’

  ‘So what do you want me to say to that? “Dear God Almighty, I’ve been taken for a fool, and Brendan Doody is still alive after all!”?’

  Katie leaned over him, in his little chair. ‘I have no idea if Brendan Doody is still alive or not. He may have murdered Father Heaney, but if he did, he probably murdered Father Quinlan, too. Personally I don’t believe that he murdered either one of them. I don’t believe that he wrote that suicide note either.’

  ‘And what are you implying by that? What are you accusing me of, Detective Superintendent Maguire? Stupidity, or forgery, or conspiracy, or maybe you’re accusing me of all three?’

  ‘I’m not accusing anybody of anything at all at this early stage. We haven’t even finished our autopsy on Father Heaney yet. But I want you to be aware that I won’t bend to any pressure from you or anybody else to close this case before I’m satisfied that we’ve thoroughly examined all of the evidence.’

  Monsignor Kelly was plainly furious and Katie could tell that he was tempted to jump to his feet. But even if he jumped up, he would still be no taller than she was, so in spite of his fury he stayed where he was, crouched in his little child’s chair, and he lowered his voice so that Katie had to lean even closer and Sergeant O’Rourke wouldn’t be able to hear him.

  ‘Let me tell you this,’ he said. ‘Only one other person in all of my years in the church has dared to suggest that I have conducted myself at any time with anything but the greatest of propriety. And that person bitterly regretted having uttered that calumny for the remainder of her life. And I mean bitterly.’

  Katie narrowed her eyes at him.

  ‘Are you threatening me, monsignor?’

  ‘I’m giving a word to the wise, that’s all, detective superintendent. Cineri gloria sera est. You may solve this case, and you may be given all the credit for solving it, but applause is of no use to those who can no longer hear it.’

  ‘You are threatening me, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m simply making it clear to you that the reputation of the diocese could depend on this, and that the diocese has some very powerful friends in all kinds of high places – people who it would be advisable for you for your own safety not to cross.’

  ‘I could arrest you for saying that to me.’

  ‘I never said a word, Katie. I was just trying to be helpful.’

  ‘In that case, be helpful,’ said Katie, standing up straight. ‘Who do you suggest I ought to go looking for – apart from Brendan Doody? Who else can I arrest without ruffling any diocesan feathers?’

  Sergeant O’Rourke caught the sarcasm in her voice, and realized that there was a confrontation going on here. He came and stood at her right-hand side, his arms folded, to give her support.

  ‘I really don’t know,’ said Monsignor Kelly, looking away. ‘I still think that Brendan Doody is your most likely suspect, but then I’m not a detective, am I? I’m one of the vicars general, that’s all. What do I know, except of the ways of God?’

  Katie said, ‘I’ll talk to you again later, monsignor, after I’ve been to see Dr Collins. Look – half-time’s over. The Sunday’s Well boys are going to need all the support you can give them. You’d better get back out there on touchline and get down on your knees and start praying.’

  Monsignor Kelly stood up, and his little chair tilted back and clattered on to the floor. There was a look in his eyes that Katie recognized. She had seen it in the eyes of drug dealers and fraudsters and murderers and wife-beaters, but she had never seen it in a cleric’s eyes before. It was a look that said bitch.

  23

  ‘Fascinating, this case,’ said Dr Collins, lifting up the green sheet that was covering Father Heaney’s body. ‘Well... both of them, in fact. Fascinating.’

  Her bronze-coloured hair was still tacked up in a chaotic French pleat, and her starched overall was buttoned up wrongly, but she seemed much calmer and much more approachable than when Katie had picked her up at the airport. It obviously put her at ease, being surrounded by the dead. The dead spoke to her unambiguously in the language of bruises and contusions and swollen blue tongues. The dead never argued, and they were never hypocritical.

  Katie and Dr Collins and Sergeant O’Rourke were gathered around Father Heaney’s autopsy table. It was right at the far end of the long, chilly pathology laboratory at the University Hospital. The
opalescent light that shone in through the clerestory windows gave the laboratory an almost spiritual appearance, as if it really was the waiting room to heaven, and when the coroner had finished examining the dead, and sewing them up again, angels would come in through the double doors in a fluster of white feathery wings to carry them away.

  Four other bodies lay in an orderly row on the opposite side of the laboratory. Sheets had been drawn up to their chests, and although their faces were waxy, they all looked serene, as if they were dreaming rather than dead. They were a family of four – father, mother and twin boys of nine – who had all been killed instantly in a head-on collision on the N25 at Carrigtwohill.

  Next to the door, Father Quinlan’s body was still completely shrouded. The paramedics had wheeled him in less than twenty minutes ago, and Dr Collins had only had time for a very cursory look at him.

  Katie had seen for herself that Father Quinlan was stone dead, hanging upside down from the flagstaff. All the same, she couldn’t stop herself from glancing over at his trolley from time to time, just to make sure that she hadn’t seen the sheet stirring. After her first visit to a mortuary, as a young garda trainee, she had suffered weeks of nightmares about bodies suddenly sitting bolt upright.

  Dr Collins noticed her repeatedly turning her head. ‘It’s quite all right, detective superintendent. He’s as dead as mutton, I promise you.’

  ‘What? Oh, yes, I know he is. It’s only my imagination, working overtime.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Dr Collins told her. ‘I used to get the heebie-jeebies, too, when I was a junior.’

  Katie said, ‘It was my husband’s fault – my late husband, Paul. He used to love all of those zombie films. You know – Night of the Living Dead, that kind of thing. They were all total rubbish, those films, and those zombies – they were nothing compared to the drunks you get outside the Maltings on a Saturday night, believe me. But they still frightened the shite out of me.’

  Dr Collins smiled. ‘In the path lab, the middle of the night was the scariest, on the graveyard shift, when I was all alone with the recently departed. All of those people lying there, and no matter how hard you listened, you couldn’t hear a single one of them breathing, because none of them were.’