Mr. Flood's Last Resort

by Jess Kidd

  After a while I say, “Have you any practical advice for me? On finding Maggie and saving the cat?”

  St. Monica is staring out past the bus shelter. A muscle twitches in her jaw and the ghost of a grimace crosses her face as if some deep memory has suddenly snagged.

  “I could do with backup in there,” I say. “It’s not likely though, is it?”

  St. Monica shrugs; there’s a whole world of disinterest in her gesture.

  “So that’s it, then. It’s just part of my life’s rich tapestry?”

  St. Monica, with her eyes on some dim distance, smiles. It’s not a nice smile.

  CHAPTER 16

  I didn’t know who Deirdre was meeting, who was at the beach, who wasn’t at the beach, who drove a car out of the car park, and what the number plate on that car was.

  I couldn’t remember what my sister was wearing. All I was certain of was what she was carrying: a red leather heart-shaped bag.

  Mammy moved from the sink to the table and pointed her cigarette at me and asked if I had eyes in my fucking head.

  We looked at each other in surprise, Mammy and me. I had never heard her swear before. Then she took up the ashtray and threw it.

  * * *

  I COULD hear Mammy crying next door. Granny was in with her. I went over my spellings.

  * * *

  THE LADY guard opened the car door for me. I sat in the back and we waited for the man guard to come out. They were taking me back to Pearl Strand to see if my memory could be jogged.

  “Will you put the sirens on?” I asked.

  The lady guard smiled into the back, her hazel eyes tired and kind. “It’s not an emergency, Maud.”

  As we drove along they asked me questions about school. Had I settled in all right now?

  My old school was over three hours away, where our own house was. Jimmy O’Donnell could drive it in less than two, I said to the guards. The guards glanced at each other in the front seats. Then I remembered I didn’t love Jimmy anymore. So I stopped talking and looked out of the window, watching the wet fields go by.

  CHAPTER 17

  There is no customary welcome dance from Renata today, which can only mean one thing. As I pass by her kitchen window I hear two voices: a high-pitched jabbing and an exhausted monotone. I ring the doorbell.

  There’s a temporary lull, then the skittering of feet along the plastic mat in the hall. Lillian answers the door, head down, showing two inches of gray roots. She doesn’t want me to see her cry.

  I bend down to take off my shoes while she composes herself.

  “I am not coming back,” she announces, red-faced and defiant, her eyes blurred with tears of frustration and industrial oven cleaner. “This is the last time.” She points down the hallway with a shaking finger. “That thing in there, it’s inhuman. It wears me out.”

  She stands wiping her hands absentmindedly on a pillowcase with her blouse on inside out. Then she puts the pillowcase in one of the laundry bags she has lined up in the hallway and puts on her jacket.

  “One day, God forgive me, I will kill it in its sleep. I will poison it like a rat in a dress.”

  She picks up the bags and leaves without a backwards glance.

  * * *

  RENATA IS sitting at the kitchen table. Her lipstick has worn off and one of her eyebrows is smudged. She has a coat on over her kimono. I wonder if she attempted to storm off again, or just locked herself in the bathroom like she usually does. In an argument an agoraphobic is always at a disadvantage.

  “I will change the locks and keep her out.” She pulls at the edges of her headscarf. “I will never let her in again.”

  “You always say that.”

  “She wanted to throw away my magic costumes.”

  “Why would she want to do that?”

  “She says there’s damp in the dressing room and she can’t bring her builder round with my hooker’s outfits on display.” She shakes her head. “All it needs is a little paint maybe.”

  I follow Renata into a room that’s half bordello and half boudoir, with a rococo dressing table, beaded lamps, and three bow-fronted deco wardrobes. Renata pushes a heap of clothes off a plush sofa and we sit down and survey the havoc.

  Fishnets and leotards, furs and corsets, bras and feather boas are strewn across the floor or bundled into rubbish bags. Renata’s working wardrobe, the costumes she wore when she toured with Bernie Sparks, the fast-burning, early-dimming light of her life.

  “God, your waist,” I say, picking up a costume in mermaid green. Fronds of net bustle from the backside.

  Renata laughs. “And that bust, look at it.”

  The costume is engineered to provide a lethal chest. I turn it around on its hanger. Ghost bosoms fill it still, straining voluptuously at the seams.

  There is a faint smell of show business: sweat and panstick, singed hair and stage dust, and stale, stale dreams. I hold up a ringmaster’s outfit: black satin tails and a bustier. A sequinned bow tie dangles from a buttonhole.

  “I wore that the night Bernie died onstage in Weston-super-Mare,” says Renata.

  I look up at her, aghast. “Bernie died onstage? You never told me that.”

  “We were going up for an Asrah levitation.”

  “Christ, is that what killed him?”

  Renata laughs and shakes her head. “No, it’s an old trick. The magician hypnotizes his assistant and she lies down, all in a dream. Then he covers her with a cloth and she floats up, up, up. When he pulls off the cloth—she’s vanished!”

  “It sounds complicated.”

  “Chicken wire and a sideboard on wheels.”

  “You did well to earn a living from that.”

  “Only just.” She frowns. “We were halfway through the act that night when Bernie collapsed.”

  “Jesus, that’s terrible.”

  She nods sagely. “The audience didn’t see a thing. He fell down and as quick as a flash I bundled him up and stuffed him into the sideboard.” She points. “Top drawer of the dressing table, darling.”

  I find the framed photograph she’s after and I sit back down next to her. We study it. Renata, barely twenty, a wisp of a waist, stands in a corset with her hands on her hips. She is wearing an ironic smile and a top hat at a raffish angle. Stage right is a small man with the slippery air of a pickpocket about him. He has one eye narrowed and is reaching inside his jacket.

  She touches the photograph. “If you look closely you can see his Cuban heels.” She smiles. “People were shorter then because of the rationing.” She glances towards the mantelpiece. “You should feel the weight of Bernie’s urn. It’s pitiful.”

  I have no intention of manhandling the earthly remains of Bernie Sparks. “What happened next?” I ask.

  “I finished the act, got a round of applause, and pushed my darling off the stage.”

  “Heavens.”

  We sit in silence for a while.

  “You still miss him, don’t you?”

  She nods. “He was difficult, as all creative artists are. But he always stood by me, whether I was a boy or a girl.”

  “And you never came unstuck, living as a woman, I mean? Those were less forgiving times, surely?”

  “You’d be surprised.” She thinks for a while. “I was very good at it, but everyone fears being read. Being found out. Everyone has their secrets.”

  I say nothing.

  She taps me on the arm. “Do you know what I’ve learnt from life?”

  “Is it profound?”

  “Not at all; it’s very simple. Just be sincere and everything else will follow.”

  I think about this. “Do you think Sam is sincere?” I hazard.

  “Yes.” She looks at me closely. “I do. Why do you ask?”

  “He seems too good to be true, you know, with his yin and everything.”

  She smiles. “Sam is a diamond.”

  “You’re the expert.”

  “In men—not at all, but I am an expert detective’
s assistant.”

  “Do you have to wear fishnets for that?”

  She laughs. “Father Quigley from St. Joseph’s has just returned from Fuengirola. He’s been on retreat, apparently.”

  “Really? In Fuengirola?”

  “That’s what the housekeeper said.”

  “Then I’d better pay him a visit.”

  CHAPTER 18

  I look at the priest and then I look at the plate of biscuits. I wonder how many I should take, or if I should take any at all. The housekeeper wears spectacles smeared with fingerprints. She has a hint of frog about her, sticky wide-ended fingers and big soft-boiled eyes blinking behind cloudy lenses. She has a habit of licking her bottom lip with a quick dab of her tongue, just like a frog. The priest’s house has a thick air of damp that I blame on the housekeeper; she would no doubt thrive in such an environment. I wonder if she mists the curtains and waters the carpets. I imagine the biscuits to be soft. I take a malted milk and I’m proved right.

  Father Tom Quigley looks at me with concern. “Let me get this straight, Maud. You are here to ask me questions about a deceased parishioner?”

  I nod and chew. “That’s right, Father.”

  “And you would prefer to talk to me about this matter, rather than the family of the deceased? Now, why is that?”

  I think about whether I should drink the tea, for the cup, stained with old dribbles, is none too clean. I wonder if the housekeeper even washes them. She probably just licks them with her nervous tongue. I glance across at her; she’s pretending to pick the fluff off the antimacassars.

  The priest follows my gaze. “Thank you, Mrs. O’Leary; I think we have everything we need. I’m sure the housekeeping can wait until after our visitor has gone.”

  Mrs. O’Leary straightens herself up, sends a sneer in my direction, and ambles out of the room on a rackety set of legs.

  Father Quigley leans back in his chair. He is a jovial, well-put-together old man and no doubt a credit to the priesthood. He has a tanned, happy face, a frequent laugh, and a generous shape to him, all of which attest to a willingness to enjoy life, despite his pastoral responsibilities. Mrs. O’Leary said I was lucky to see him without an appointment as he had only just returned from a pilgrimage: to lie on a beach by the looks of it.

  He smiles at me. “And do you have a name for this individual?”

  “I do, Father,” I say. “Mary Flood.”

  He sits up in the chair. “Mary Flood?”

  “You said a fair few Masses for her.” I take Mary’s Mass cards out of my bag and hand them to him. “Do you remember?”

  He flicks through the cards. “I do of course. Fire away.”

  “Did you know Mary well?”

  “Quite well.”

  “And the rest of the family?”

  He shakes his head. “Not at all. When Mary passed away it was impossible to keep in contact with the family. Cathal wrote and warned me not to contact them again. A curious note.”

  The priest eases himself out of the chair and goes over to a filing cabinet by the window. “It’ll be in here somewhere. Under F, no doubt, after Flanagan and before Foley.”

  The priest bends over, straining the arse of his black trousers.

  “That’s a big Irish contingent you have there, Father.”

  “Here it is.” He smiles and straightens up. “I’m a great man for the organization of things.”

  He hands me a one-sided letter on the back of a betting slip that reads:

  Dear Priest,

  I’ll thank you not to call at the house or make further ingratiations or gestures of sympathy. Similarly, please inform your congregation that well-wishers, professional commiserators, and prying old biddies bearing casseroles and unidentifiable crap in Tupperware boxes are not welcome at Bridlemere. Neither myself nor the boy are interested in the ministries of you or your church. In fact, if any of your number darkens my door again you’ll receive the toe of my shoe right up your hole.

  Yours, etc.,

  Cathal T. Flood

  * * *

  I FEEL the priest watching me. I look up to catch him readjusting his expression from excited mirth to diligent calm.

  “Mary had a fall, Father Quigley?”

  “She did indeed.”

  “A tragic fall, up at the house?”

  The priest nods. “Yes. It was entirely tragic.”

  “An accident, was it?”

  A flicker of understanding crosses the priest’s face. He holds his hands up. “Now, as much as I love answering your questions, Maud”—he leans forwards and lowers his voice—“in what capacity are you making your inquiries?”

  “In a professional capacity.”

  I smile at him and he smiles back.

  We sit looking at each other, smiling, for a long moment.

  “Let me properly introduce myself,” I say, with all the conviction I can muster. “I’m Inspector Maud Drennan.”

  “Inspector, is it?”

  I nod and smile again, with utter sincerity.

  “Well now. Fair play to you,” says the priest.

  I continue, breezily, “I’m investigating links between the Flood family and a missing-persons case.” Remembering my uniform, I reveal the name badge under my cardigan. “I’m undercover, posing as a care worker.”

  The priest looks pleasantly aghast. “Missing persons?”

  The door to the room moves slightly, as if blown by a sticky-fingered wind; Mrs. O’Smeary is no doubt getting an earful.

  “Did Mary ever mention the name Maggie Dunne?”

  The priest shakes his head.

  “Or a village called Langton Cheney in Dorset?”

  The priest shakes his head.

  “Do you know who Marguerite might be?”

  The priest frowns. “Now, that I do know.” He takes a deep breath. “The Flood family experienced a terrible blow long before the tragic death of Mary.”

  “What sort of blow?”

  “The death of the daughter, Marguerite,” says Father Quigley.

  My heart pitches.

  “Of course, Mary refused to talk about it. After Marguerite’s death Mary hardly spoke a word to anyone.”

  “What happened?”

  “The Floods left one summer with the two children and returned with only the boy, Gabriel.” He looks downcast. “Marguerite was a lovely girl. She had just turned seven years old. Very sturdy and exuberant, with this mass of red curls.”

  Marguerite: the faceless girl in the photograph. The girl no one talks about.

  “That’s terrible.” I pause. “How did Marguerite die?”

  “The Floods went home for a visit and while they were there the child drowned in the sea. She’s buried in Wexford, so they say.”

  “Mary told you this?”

  “No, as I said, Mary never mentioned her daughter again.” He opens his hands apologetically. “And we didn’t ask. We heard it on the grapevine, you understand. People talk.”

  We sit for a while in silence.

  “Would you say that Mary was of sound mind?”

  The priest smiles sadly. “I’d say she was a little delicate. Especially afterwards.”

  I watch the priest. He sits with his hands folded and his eyes lowered, relaxed and full of post-pilgrimage contentment, despite all of the mothers and daughters dying of tragic accidents in the world.

  Then I come out with it. “Did Mary ever feel threatened, do you think, living in that house?”

  Father Quigley falters. “I can’t answer that, Maud.”

  “Did she ever ask you, or a member of your congregation, for help?”

  He frowns. “Not that I’m aware of.”

  I study him. He looks out of the window, his jaw tight. My newfound police instinct tells me he’s holding something back.

  I go to hand him the note.

  “Keep it,” he says. “If it can help with your investigation.”

  I fold it and put it in my handbag. “Thank you for you
r time, Father. If you think of anything else.”

  The priest looks relieved. “I’ll phone the station.”

  I rummage in my bag and pull out a pen and a scrap of paper and dash off Renata’s number. “This is my direct line, at the station. Please don’t hesitate to call.”

  The priest calls out. “Mrs. O’Leary, will you please show Inspector Drennan out?”

  Mrs. O’Leary shuffles instantly through the door.

  * * *

  IN THE hallway Mrs. O’Leary whispers, low and vicious, “You’re never a police.”

  I glare down the full length of my nose at her. “And you’re never a housekeeper. Those cups were filthy dirty rotten; you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

  She pulls down the corners of her wide toad mouth, blinking at me behind her smeared glasses. “And you ought to be ashamed of yourself for bothering the Father and raking up old coals.”

  “Did you know Mary Flood?”

  She nods resentfully. “The Father was ever so upset about her accident. He’d been ever so worried about her leading up to it.”

  As soon as she says it she knows she has made a mistake. I can see it.

  “He was worried about her?”

  “I wouldn’t know about that.”

  “But that’s what you just said.”

  She ferrets up her sleeve for a handkerchief and looks away, making a big point of blowing her nose.

  “Mary was unraveled. Father Quigley told the husband to get her some help.”

  “What gave Father Quigley that idea?”

  The housekeeper frowns. She seems to be fighting against her natural bent to gossip.

  “That’s not for me to say.”

  “Look, if you tell me, I’ll leave.”

  “And you won’t return to bother the Father?”

  “No.”

  Mrs. O’Leary narrows her eyes. “They say the daughter was destined for a home for the bewildered. Lord knows she was unhinged. If Mary brought her to Mass the girl would snap at people’s ankles and crawl under the pews. That’s if Mary could even drag her through the door.”

  “So Marguerite was unruly?”

  “Marguerite was an antichrist. They say that when the Floods took her to the beach the child ran into the sea and drowned herself. Foaming at the mouth she was and seeing monsters.” Mrs. O’Leary snorts. “Monsters, she saw, in County Wexford. Mary, who’d been having a nap for herself on the sand, nearly died with the grief.”