Mr. Flood's Last Resort

by Jess Kidd

  “I see.”

  “He is very beautiful.” Mrs. Cabello puts the photo back in her bag.

  “I’ll look out for him.” I glance over my shoulder and lower my voice. “You didn’t happen to know Mary Flood at all, by any chance?”

  “What has Mary Flood got to do with my cat?”

  I pause. “I just want to find out a bit more about the family.”

  Mrs. Cabello snarls and points a long-nailed finger up at the house. “Can’t you ask him?”

  I keep my voice low. “He’s not very forthcoming.”

  “He’s a bastard.” Mrs. Cabello crows in satisfaction. “His wife was lovely.”

  “You knew her well?”

  She nods. “She gave me a rosebush when I moved in.”

  “You must have been upset to hear about her accident?”

  Mrs. Cabello wrinkles her nose. “It was no accident.”

  I glance behind me. “You really think that?”

  Mrs. Cabello shrugs. “Maybe, but what would I know?”

  I lower my voice. “Did Mary ever mention feeling threatened?”

  “We only talked about her garden.”

  “Nothing else?”

  She points. “There was an arbor there, with roses over. This was a beautiful house when Mary was here.” She shakes her head. “It is so sad, how he let all this go. Everything stopped, everything died when she died. The only thing growing here now is rubbish.”

  “Did she ever mention her daughter?”

  “They have a daughter?”

  “Her name was Marguerite; she died very young.”

  “That is sad.” Mrs. Cabello looks sad. “Mary never once spoke about her daughter.”

  I duck into the kitchen and write down Renata’s number and give it to her. “If you remember anything else about Mary, however small, will you phone this number?”

  Mrs. Cabello pushes the paper into the pocket of her cropped leather jacket and smiles at me grimly. “And you’ll look for Manolete?”

  “I will.”

  She puts her sunglasses on and picks her way back down the stairs. At the bottom she waves and retreats up the garden path.

  * * *

  CATHAL HAS spent most of the day in the bath and, with the help of a flannel and a rubber bath mat, he emerged without incident and with his modesty intact. He has put on an old dark suit with a black tie. His washed hair has been carefully combed and he is clean-shaven. He looks like a disreputable guest at a wake.

  He now stands ready at the canvas watching me take my position on the chair.

  “How much longer will you be dragging this painting out?” I ask.

  “It will be finished by Friday. We’ll have the big unveiling on my birthday.”

  “Is there anyone else you’d like to invite? Friends, neighbors, your son?”

  Cathal looks at me with disdain. “You really are a gobshite.”

  “I’m only asking.”

  “When you know that I’m a hated man? Hated and hating. Sure what would I be doing inviting people round to detest me in person on my birthday?”

  “Talking of antagonism,” I say, “Mrs. Cabello called. She’s lost her cat.”

  “Has she now?”

  “She thinks you might have stolen it.”

  Cathal looks around him. In the conservatory there are multiple felines. Curled up between paintings, lolling at the feet of my armchair, and prowling around the legs of the easel.

  “I’ve cats; she can take her pick.”

  “This is a special cat. A bald one.”

  “Her cat is not bald; it has a soft down, like a wrinkled gray peach.”

  I frown at him. “You’ve stolen Manolete.”

  Cathal dabs at his palette, his face impassive.

  “Don’t try to deny it. Mrs. Cabello saw you flitting about her garden at night trying to lure him out. You’ve stolen him, haven’t you?”

  He squints at his painting. “I haven’t at all. Hush your mouth from flapping.”

  “The poor woman’s frantic.”

  “She’s always frantic. The poisonous old mare.”

  “She seems nice enough. She was a friend of Mary’s, wasn’t she?”

  Cathal regards me in disgust. “Is that what she said? Then she’s a bloody liar as well as a filthy brasser.”

  “So they weren’t friends?”

  He scowls. “That one was always slithering around here, inviting Mary to garden parties and gin palaces and fecking orgies. Mary held no truck with her. Mary was a decent woman.”

  “She was a religious woman, Mary?”

  “In a way.”

  “Fair play to her, the church is the place to be,” I say coyly.

  Cathal’s reply is steeped in scorn. “I never had you down as a sheep.”

  “St. Joseph’s is no trek and Father Quigley lays on some nice hymns.” I watch him out of the corner of my eye.

  He rinses his brush in the little pot clipped to his palette and wipes it dry on a bit of rag. He selects another brush and carries on painting as if absorbed in his work.

  Finally, he says, “If you want my advice, steer clear of priests, especially that one. He’s a great man for meddling in other people’s business.”

  “You know him?”

  He glances at me. “There’s a surprise. I suppose you’d like a tale about that?”

  “If you like.”

  “I think you’ve had enough stories now, Drennan.” Cathal concentrates on the canvas, the tip of his tongue touching his top lip. “I’ve told you where sticking your coulter in will lead.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Renata sways into the room, a look of high intrigue on her face.

  “It’s Father Quigley.”

  “On the line?”

  She nods. “He wants to know if Inspector Drennan can make a house call. He has some information for her.”

  “Tell him she’s out in the patrol car after a cat burglar but she’ll be with him as soon as she can.”

  Renata smirks. “He asks if she can come directly, before the housekeeper returns.”

  “She’ll see what she can do.”

  * * *

  THE PRIEST himself opens the door and practically lifts me inside, checking up the path behind me. There is no one there but St. Valentine, who has dogged my step since I left Renata’s, scuttling invisibly by my side and spitting on the pavement.

  I follow Father Quigley into his study. His Fuengirola tan hasn’t quite packed its bags yet but there’s an ashen edge to his complexion that comes with long hours shut in confessional boxes or drinking tea in hospices.

  He shakes my hand. “Thank you for coming, Maud. I’ll make this brief just while Mrs. O’Leary is out, you know. She has a great ear for conversation.”

  He waves me to an armchair.

  St. Valentine settles on the edge of the priest’s desk with the expectant air of an audience member taking his seat. He removes a toothpick from the sleeve of his robe and applies it to his few remaining teeth.

  “Her heart is in the right place.” Father Quigley glances towards the window. “But I’ve never known anyone with such a thirst for a drop of scandal or a dribble of gossip.”

  “Is this about Mary Flood, Father?”

  “No,” he says. “It’s about Marguerite. And it isn’t at all good.”

  * * *

  “MARGUERITE WAS sent to a children’s home?”

  The priest nods. “The church had connections with the place, so Father Creedo knew a few of the residents, including Marguerite.” He hesitates. “I hope you didn’t mind me being proactive, so to speak.”

  “Not at all, Father.”

  “Only I noticed Father Creedo’s name on the Mass cards.”

  “Of course. We had previously made inquiries—”

  “And you heard nothing? Well, Creedo is a devil to get hold of.” He beams at me. “He’s in Paraguay now, would you believe? That’s where I found him.”

  “All credit for t
racking him down, Father.”

  Father Quinn looks delighted. “I’m a bit of a one for solving the mysteries on the television there. What great gas being a detective.”

  “It has its moments.”

  “As that wee Belgian fella said, it’s all about the little gray cells.”

  “It is, Father.”

  “Putting two and two together.”

  St. Valentine stops picking his teeth. “Get him to speed up a bit. You’ve fifteen minutes: O’Leary’s waiting at the bus stop with a bag of chops.”

  I address him brightly. “Now, Father, tell me what you want to say, or else Mrs. O’Leary will be through the door with her ears wagging.”

  Father Quigley nods. “Marguerite was a long-term resident at the home. Father Creedo saw her arrive as a kiddie and met with her over the years. Although he lost contact with her when he moved to another parish.”

  “So Marguerite didn’t die?”

  The priest is grave. “No. She attempted to murder her brother.”

  “She tried to kill Gabriel?”

  “She took the little fella by the hand, led him down the garden, and tried to drown him in the pond. Afterwards the girl showed no remorse. In fact, she solemnly promised to try it again, so they sent her away.”

  St. Valentine tuts. “Siblings.”

  “So Marguerite is alive.” The thought thrills me. “She’s out there somewhere?”

  “According to Father Creedo.”

  I frown. “Cathal Flood didn’t contradict me when I spoke of his dead daughter.”

  “He didn’t? Well, in a way Marguerite was dead to her family. That rumor, terrible as it was, might have been easier to bear than the truth.”

  “Maybe.”

  Father Quigley looks reflective. “Jim Creedo said he’d never met a more charming kid. The family came up and visited a few times, although they always supervised her around the boy, in case she took the opportunity to have another pop at him.”

  And then it dawns on me. “Did Father Creedo tell you the name of the home?”

  “Cedar House.”

  “The Cedar House that’s now Holly Lodge?”

  “I wouldn’t know about that, Maud. It was a special home for maladjusted children.”

  I try to keep calm. “When did Father Creedo know Marguerite?”

  “Seventies to mid-eighties.”

  My heart leaps in me. “Then Marguerite must have known Maggie Dunne. They would have been living at the home at the same time.”

  St. Valentine lets out a muted whoop.

  The priest looks confused.

  “Maggie Dunne was also a resident of Cedar House, Father. She was fifteen years old when she disappeared and was never found.”

  “Is that right?”

  “I believe Mary was investigating Maggie’s disappearance: she kept cuttings.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know about that either, Maud, but there’s something else that Jim Creedo told me and that came from Mary Flood herself.”

  “What was it?”

  Father Quigley frowns, his face suddenly older, harrowed. “Mary suffered badly in her marriage to Cathal. It was a union she didn’t want.”

  “How so?”

  “It all started way back in Wexford, with this rich widower. A man notorious for his dissolute ways and his liking for young girls. Mary’s family sent her to work up at his house as a maid. Of course, it wasn’t long before Mary, who was a renowned beauty, caught the old man’s eye. Mary’s father forced a marriage to make an honorable woman of his daughter, intending to benefit from the match. For Mary’s father was both corrupt and cunning.”

  The priest purses his lips. “The old widower, who was on his last legs when the match was made, was gone within the year and no sooner was he dead in the ground than his son coerced Mary into a second marriage. So the poor young woman kept the name she was already cursed with: Flood.”

  “So Mary was married to Cathal’s father?”

  Father Quigley nods. “Just so. Cathal never loved her; he talked her into marrying him in order to claw back his birthright. You see, Mary had inherited the whole of the old man’s estate.”

  St. Valentine is gripped; one of his eyes is riveted to the priest and the other watches the garden path.

  The priest continues. “Mary was young and friendless, you understand. Her own family had forced her into wedlock with Flood Senior for their own financial gain.” A look of triumph crosses the priest’s face. “But Cathal underestimated Mary. She began to fight back. She invested what she could and began to amass wealth in her own name. She hid this wealth from Cathal, who was a terrible spendthrift, libertine, and gambler in his youth. So bit by bit Mary gained control of the estate.”

  Over the mantelpiece a clock marks time.

  “O’Leary has just got off the bus,” reports St. Valentine. “She’s called into the newsagents for a packet of mints. Two minutes, tops.”

  “Mrs. O’Leary will be here soon, Father.”

  “Soon enough Cathal realized he owned nothing but the trousers he stood up in and perhaps not even those.” The priest pauses. “Whether this state of affairs gave Mary immunity from Cathal’s temper is debatable. But I believe it fueled an already flammable situation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The priest frowns. “Cathal was a demon when roused, so is it not possible that he directed some of that rage against the woman who had taken command of his inheritance for a second time?”

  “Are you saying that Cathal was abusive to his wife, Father?”

  “I can’t prove anything of course, but I believe Cathal may have added significantly to Mary’s burdens.” Some dark thing crosses the priest’s face, some bleak cloud of thought. “I suppose I saw her terrible unhappiness, loneliness even. But she was such a private woman that I never encouraged her to share it.”

  St. Valentine shrugs and puts his toothpick back inside his dingy robe. “Least said and all that.”

  The priest looks contrite. “I could have helped her more, Maud.”

  We sit in silence for a few long moments.

  And then I break it. “So you don’t think Mary’s fall was an accident?”

  Father Quigley takes a deep breath. “I hope to God it was.”

  CHAPTER 30

  She’s moving along the hall under the carpet, the woman. See the ripple she’s causing. The pattern undulates with her. She moves quickly, following the sweep of the staircase down. Feet first like a breech birth she comes. Arms crossed high over her chest like a mummy. At the bottom step she bunches up, curls, and swells, pushing against the edge of the carpet. Then with a rush like waters breaking, she pools out, a liquid shadow, a dark puddle on the tiles. Behind her the carpet flattens as if nothing at all has happened.

  Her shadow grows and deepens. I watch it saturate the floor.

  I look down into a deep dark puddle.

  I see a face reflected, but it’s not mine. It has a wide smile. I look up and there she is, sitting cross-legged on the floor next to me with a white bow in her fair hair. She opens her mouth to talk and an earwig falls out. She giggles and clasps a hand over her mouth. She tries again. She opens her mouth and a whole host of them tumble over her chin.

  She is no longer smiling.

  She spits out tangle after tangle of black-bronze insects with a panicked look in her eyes. They tumble and writhe, hitting the floor and crawling up under her school skirt and into her shoes and down the cuffs of her socks.

  Then I notice: Maggie Dunne isn’t quite herself.

  There’s a certain thinness to her arms and legs, her eyes are sunken, and her teeth are loose. She spits them out onto the ground after the earwigs, with little exhausted coughing sounds. With effort Maggie stands. She looks down in dismay at the pearly maggots on her blouse. She picks them off, a sheepish smile on her green lips. Then she’s away, a clumsy run, an awkward skip, her shoulders hunched.

  Then I see: the frayed bandages on her wrists, he
r hair pulled out in clumps, the bruises—

  * * *

  “IF I were you I’d lay off the crime tales.”

  I sit up in bed, bathed in sweat and in the rays of golden light coming from the wardrobe.

  “The krupnik might not help either.”

  I shield my eyes.

  “Wait, I’ll adjust the brightness,” he says.

  And then I see him: the inordinately beautiful St. Raphael (lovers, insanity, nightmares). He folds his wings with a demure whirr and sits down on the edge of the bed, looking at me with his eyes large and dark in his heart-shaped face. Even on his dimmer switch St. Raphael shines. His eyes, lips, skin, and hair: all are burnished and lit by some radiant sun. Only his wings are in shadow: two arched black shapes that move behind him with a faint rustle.

  “The nightmares are back, Maud?”

  I nod.

  “Perhaps it’s best you give up the case. Take the quiet life.” He pushes a bronze curl behind his ear and leans forwards. “You know you’ll only bring grief,” he whispers.

  I try to think of some words I can put together, to explain.

  “Give it up, baby.” He smiles.

  “I can’t,” I answer. “I have to find out what happened.”

  He folds his shimmering arms and looks through his eyelashes at me. “Raking over old coals can be dangerous; some of them are still burning.”

  “Is Maggie Dunne still alive?”

  He frowns. “I can’t tell you that.” Velvet shadows flit behind him. I hear a wing beat, a sudden soft whirr. “But I know who might be able to.”

  “Marguerite?”

  He ignores me, glancing over to the empty side of the bed.

  “I don’t think he’ll be back.” As I say it, I realize how near I am to crying.

  St. Raphael looks at me with his dark eyes burning with kindness. “Who can say?”

  To my shame, I start to cry. “Will he be back?”

  “Are you still waiting for a happy ending, Maud?” His smile is so sad that I want to look away.

  “No,” I say, “I just want to know what to expect.”

  He nods. “Warp and weave, Maud, warp and weave.”