The Disenchanted Widow

by Christina McKenna

  Breathe, he told himself, when the inevitable thoughts of the previous day threatened to tug him back into darkness.

  Breathe! Forget! Dwell in the present! You’ve done your bit. You made that all-important phone call. By now Cassidy will be in police custody, the bomb factory dismantled, innocent lives saved.

  Half an hour had passed, and Herkie Halstone was becoming restless. Mr. Fox had not put in an appearance—only a floppy-eared rabbit he’d missed by a whisker and a gray squirrel too swift for his aim.

  He was sweaty from having lain on the grass. His back was hot from the glaring sun. The Curly Wurly was long gone. He needed to pee. On top of all that, he was thirsty.

  There was a can of Creamola Foam in the kitchen cupboard. He’d go home and mix himself a big glass.

  He got to his feet, holstered the slingshot, and wandered back up the field. Maybe he’d meet the fox on the way.

  Bessie struggled, her heels skidding on the linoleum floor. She yelled. She cursed. But her efforts were as nothing against the brute’s strength.

  “If ye yell again, ye’ll get this knife across yer fuckin’ juggler. D’ye hear me?”

  Her teeth chattered as she tried to clamp her lips tight. Her eyes bulged in terror. She felt the force of his forearm solid against her rib cage, fought in vain to pry it loose.

  He dragged her backward. “Now, yer gonna sit down on this fuckin’ chair for our wee chat, civil-like.”

  She found herself being forced down onto one of the chairs by the table. She kicked wildly. A stiletto came down on his instep. Hard.

  The Dentist roared like a stuck buffalo. He grabbed her by the throat, thrust her head back. “Try that again and ye’re dead!”

  His grip was getting tighter.

  She was gasping for her life. Her head growing light. Her grip on consciousness ebbing.

  He released her. Her head lolled, flopped forward.

  There was no fight left in her. She drifted further into blackness…

  She came to, gagged and bound. Hands behind her back, each ankle tethered painfully to a chair leg.

  She couldn’t move.

  She couldn’t speak.

  The Dentist sat before her, arms folded high on his stevedore’s chest, cruel, bloodshot eyes steady on her.

  On the table—Aunt Dora’s table with its beautifully embroidered storks—sat a bizarre and gruesome display. Neatly laid out on a canvas roll were pliers, a hammer, a drill, a set of drill bits, and a surgeon’s scalpel. They were unmistakably instruments of torture.

  “Ready for a bitta foreplay, Mrs. Lawless? Ye haven’t been gettin’ much of it since Packie passed away. Shapely woman like yerself.”

  He set down his switchblade and considered the table display, rubbing his hands in anticipation. “Now, which one of these lovely wee bastards tae get the party started?”

  Bessie tried to wrench her hands free, but he’d used cable wire as restraints. Every time she moved, the pain was agonizing.

  He picked up the scalpel and traced a line from the base of her throat down her breastbone, slicing through the fabric of her dress.

  Tears sprang up in her eyes. She felt the blade prick into her skin.

  “Now, when ye’re ready tae tell me where my fuckin’ money is, just nod.”

  Bessie nodded, terrified.

  “That’s more like it…a wee bitta progress…always nice tae see.”

  He leaned closer. She caught the whiff of Old Spice, commingled with Cuban tobacco. Smells she knew only too well.

  His disgusting hand was on her thigh. She froze.

  “Ye see, ’cos I’m a reasonable man, I’m gonna remove this gag so ye can tell me where exactly my money is. If there’s as much as a squeak out of yeh, ye’ll be doing the tango in hell along with yer fuckin’ husband. Understand that, Bessie luv?”

  Herkie pushed open the gate at the end of the yard.

  He halted, cocked an ear.

  He’d heard something. Something terrible.

  He waited.

  Suddenly, into the silence, a yell. Unmistakable. Blood-curdling.

  His ma!

  He raced up the yard—but stopped short of the door. He heard a man’s voice raised in anger. He thought he knew that voice.

  He crept up to the partly open window and peeped in.

  The Dentist! The wide back and bullet head were unmistakable.

  Herkie shut his mouth tight on a scream as his eyes met those of his mother—his terrified mother, blood trickling down her chest, face wet with tears.

  The Dentist, firing up his drill, was oblivious to the new observer and the degree of fear and loathing his hulking frame was stirring.

  Herkie heard his mother’s beseeching cries. “Please…oh, God, please…let me…let me get…get me breath back…then I’ll tell…”

  He was seized by rage, and by a courage that went beyond his tender years. He felt for the biggest stone in his pocket. The one he’d been reserving for the fox.

  “Ye’ve had enough fuckin’ time, ye bitch.”

  “Oh, please, God, please don’t…”

  Herkie raised the slingshot. His hands were shaking but his resolve was firm.

  The Dentist lifted the drill. Its whine was the soundtrack of nightmares.

  “Them lovely eyes-a yours first,” he said in a voice that would chill a desert sun.

  Herkie pulled back the sling with all his might. His mother’s screams were pitiful. The drill moved ever closer to her eyes.

  He let fly.

  Thwack!

  The stone found its target. It ricocheted off the Dentist’s bald head and struck Aunt Dora’s table lamp.

  The torturer let out a roar and dropped the drill. He spun round and caught sight of Herkie.

  “Ye snivelin’ fuckin’ maggot! When I get me hands on ye, I’ll wring…”

  He flung back the chair.

  Herkie took to his heels, running for his life. The Dentist crashed through the back door in hot pursuit.

  Herkie flew down the yard, the Dentist’s oaths thundering in his ears.

  “Come back here, ye fuckin’—”

  A crash!

  A crack!

  “Aaaarrghhhh!”

  Silence.

  The boy stopped running. He looked round.

  There was no sign of the Dentist.

  He was confused. Had the ogre decided to return to the house and finish off his ma? He raced back.

  He was overjoyed to find her alone in the kitchen, still tied to the chair.

  “Jesus, Herkie, get me outta here, quick!”

  Herkie seized the Dentist’s switchblade and sliced through the cable wires.

  “Where is he, son?”

  “Don’t know, Ma.”

  Bessie gasped with relief and buried her face in Herkie’s abundant curls, hugging her to him.

  “God, son, you’re a wee hero! Ye saved me life.”

  “Aye, Ma, I got him in the bonce. Ma, can I have a new Action Man and a Nicky Bocker glory later on?”

  “Ye can have a hundred, son. Now, help me up quick before he comes back.”

  “But ye’re bleedin’, Ma.”

  “It’s only a wee cut, son.” She went to the set of torture weapons. “He’ll not be so funny when I get me friggin’ hands on him—the fat, ugly bastard.”

  In the fairy ring Lorcan had been jolted out of his meditation by an almighty roar cutting across the mellow birdsong. His eyes snapped open.

  It had come from the direction of Rosehip Cottage; he was certain of it. He left the woods quickly and took a shortcut across a field. The rutted ground was a challenge for his city shoes and he nearly fell over twice, but he kept going.

  Bessie, holding tight to Herkie, crept out of the kitchen and into the yard. They’d armed themselves well from the Dentist’s torture kit. Herkie had the drill in one hand, the hammer and pliers in the pockets of his shorts. Bessie was clutching the deadly switchblade that had nearly done for her.


  There was no sight of the enemy in the yard.

  “Ma, I think he ran a—”

  “Shush, son…what was that?”

  They heard a low moaning. It was coming from close by.

  “It’s the gate, Ma,” he said, pointing down the yard. “I forgot to close it.”

  The moaning came again. Louder.

  “That’s not the gate, son. It’s coming from the bloody well!”

  When Lorcan finally reached Aunt Dora’s backyard, he was confronted with an extraordinary spectacle. Mother and son were bent over the open well, swear words shooting from them like forked lightning.

  “Not so funny now, ye fat, baldy bastard,” Bessie shouted. “Now ye know what it feels like, ye fuckin’ psycho—”

  “Aye, now ye know what it feels like, ye fuckin’ psycho,” echoed the boy, entering into the spirit of things.

  “That’s enough, son!”

  “What on earth is going on?”

  They turned to see Lorcan coming up the yard.

  “Aye, that’s what’s goin’ on!” Bessie cried, pointing down.

  Lorcan, shielding his eyes from the sun, peered over the lip of the well.

  He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Looking back up at him: a pair of bloodshot, affrighted eyes that could only belong to one man. There was no mistaking the bald head, the wine-stain birthmark. Fionntann Blennerhassett was clinging on for dear life several yards down the deep well shaft, immersed in dark water up to his neck.

  “Please…please…please!” he moaned. “Please help me…help meeeee!”

  “Oh…my…God!” was all Lorcan could manage to say.

  “Feckin’ Satan, more like.”

  “Aye, feckin’ Satan—”

  “Now, Herkie, I warned you…”

  Lorcan looked from mother to son, astounded. He could barely get the words out. “H-how…how…did he…?”

  “He was about to slit my throat with this.” The widow was brandishing the switchblade. Lorcan took a step back. “Only Herkie—”

  “Only I got him right in the bonce with me cata-puller and—”

  “Please…get…me…out…Lorcan!”

  “Oh, my God!” Bessie turned pale; her jaw went slack. Her eyes moved from Lorcan to the Dentist, and back to Lorcan again.

  She backed away, holding the knife high.

  “H-h-he knows you! Oh, my God. You’re one of them. Oh, Jesus, you’re—”

  “No, Bessie. I’m on your side. He made my life hell as well. Trust me. I’ll explain later.”

  She lowered the knife slowly, uncertain of what to believe.

  Lorcan peered down at the Dentist’s beseeching face, the eyes wild with fright, the knuckles straining, white. He thought of the victims the monster had tortured. The men he’d murdered. The devastation he’d visited on so many lives and families. He thought of how his own life had been blighted. Of how he’d never known terror until that day, barely a year before, when he’d been bundled into a car, gun pressed to his back, after stepping off a bus on the Antrim Road.

  In spite of it all, he couldn’t let the wretch die.

  “Lorcan, please…get…me…OUT…”

  “Herkie, get a rope.”

  “You’ll do no such thing, Herkie! Come here, son. Have you any bloody idea of what this bastard put us through?”

  “Yes, I have some idea, believe me, but we can’t let him die. We have to try. I couldn’t live with myself if—”

  “Well, I could.”

  “That’s the difference between you and me then.”

  “No. The difference is that you don’t bloody well know what sufferin’ is—you with yer posh life and everything handed to you on a friggin’ plate!”

  Lorcan sighed. “It’s not the time for this. Herkie, is there a rope somewhere?”

  Herkie glanced down the yard. “Aye, there’s one in—” He tried to twist free of his mother’s grip, but she held him fast.

  “You’re not goin’ nowhere, son.”

  Lorcan shook his head and ran to the clothesline. He took his pocketknife and sliced through the stout nylon cord.

  The Dentist was sobbing like a child when Lorcan returned. Great, whimpering, desperate sounds were echoing up out of the well shaft. The final refrain of the doomed man mere breaths away from extinction.

  Lorcan looped the severed cord around a wooden post and began feeding the remainder down the well shaft.

  “I can’t bloody believe you!” cried Bessie, snatching up the rope. “Let the fecker drown!”

  “Aye, let the fecker drown!” Herkie agreed.

  This time his mother didn’t rebuke him. For Bessie, the rules had changed. Lorcan Strong was no longer on their side.

  “Give me the rope, Bessie.” He held out his hand. “I’ve never killed anyone in my life and I’m not going to start now. And you’re not, either. I don’t think you have it in you.”

  She stared at him. “Try me. Some people deserve to die, and that bastard’s one of them. I’d be doing the world a favor.”

  The cries of torment were getting louder.

  “Think of Herkie,” Lorcan said. “He needs you. He’s suffered enough. Don’t…don’t have something like this on your conscience.”

  “Ma!” Herkie backed away from her, to stand by Lorcan’s side. He started to cry. “Give him the rope, Ma. Please, Ma.”

  She was outnumbered. Her heart broke. She let go of the rope.

  The Dentist made a grab for the lifeline. His right hand closed about it. He grasped it with his other hand. It held.

  The wooden post creaked.

  The trio bent over to track his progress.

  Bit by bit, gasp by agonizing gasp, Blennerhassett hauled himself up. Slowly, achingly, inch by hard-won inch, second by tortuous second, until his shoulders were clear of the water. But he was still a long way down the shaft.

  “Come on,” urged Lorcan. “You can do it.”

  “Feck off!” shouted Bessie. “I hope it bloody well breaks!”

  Cra-a-ck!

  It wasn’t the rope. The worm-eaten post, hammered into the soil decades earlier, splintered and split in two.

  The free end rushed toward Lorcan, drawn by the hapless Dentist’s weight.

  Lorcan tried to grab it, but it flew from his grasp.

  A scream.

  A splash.

  Gurgling and thrashing.

  Silence.

  An empty, deathly silence, into which a lone magpie chackered.

  As one, the three looked down into the well—just in time to see Blennerhassett’s wine-stain birthmark sink beneath the surface. Air bubbles appeared, many and frantic at first. Before too long, their number decreased. And died.

  It was over.

  Bessie lifted Herkie and swung him round.

  Lorcan turned away.

  A chill wind blew. The back gate clanged.

  The Dentist was no more.

  Chapter forty-three

  So ye don’t deny it, Father: That was your bedroom we just inspected?”

  Ranfurley sat facing Father Cassidy in the interrogation room of Tailorstown’s police station. On the table between them lay the bomb paraphernalia recovered from the desk drawer in the parochial house.

  Constable Johnston stood to one side, manning the door as usual.

  The sergeant couldn’t believe he’d landed such a big fish. What would the chief superintendent have to say? A Provo priest—an IRA man in a cassock. A first. Who could credit it? He saw the double-star insignia on the pressed sleeve of his inspector’s shirt, the glitter of a gong in the not-too-distant future.

  “No, I don’t deny it, Sergeant,” Father Cassidy said, sitting as still as a lizard, eyeballing the officer. He had his elbows on the table, hands clasped under his chin, in ruminative mode. “It’s my bedroom in the sense that it is my house. Therefore all the bedrooms, strictly speaking, are mine. I used it as my private sleeping quarters at one time. That is, until I started to hold the Temperanc
e Club meetings there. It was the ideal place: quiet, with sufficient office space for the purpose.”

  “I’d be inclined tae believe ye, Father, if it wasn’t for the bed in there. A bed recently slept in, too…a locker beside it containing your effects. Such would indicate tae me that ye were sleepin’ there and therefore were party to what was goin’ on.”

  Cassidy waved a hand dismissively. “Sometimes one of the lads would use it. If a meeting went on late and they were tired or—”

  Ranfurley guffawed. “D’ye hear that, Johnston?”

  Johnston smirked.

  “And how d’ye explain these?” The sergeant pushed the packet of Durex across the table. “Thought you Taigs—and most especially you Taig priests—were vast against contraception. What method is it ye preach from your high, papish pulpit?”

  Cassidy glared at him.

  “Johnston, would you know?”

  “I believe it’s called the rhythm method, sir.”

  Ranfurley threw back his head and laughed heartily. Johnston relaxed a bit and joined in.

  “That’s the very one, Johnston: the rhythm method. What’s that mean, Father? That ye do it tae bong-bong drums or what?”

  The priest’s face remained impassive. Ranfurley picked up the pack of Durex and thrust it under Cassidy’s nose.

  “So, what are these johnnies for…eh?”

  No answer.

  “In your quarters, as ye call them. In your desk…huh?” Ranfurley sat back in the chair. “Not unless…not unless ye were havin’ it off with one of the lads? Wouldn’t be the first time a priest turned out tae be a shirt-lifter. Can’t be too careful these days, what with clap and what have ye…the Divil might come lookin’ his pound of rotten flesh later on.”

  Cassidy’s face was a mask of disdain.

  Ranfurley got up and stretched. “We’ll be in this room for as long as it takes, Father, me and Johnston. So ye better start talkin’.” He leaned across the table. “A couple of my men are roundin’ up the shower of cretins ye entertained in that room, even as we speak. All of them have ‘form,’ by the way…not the holy-teetotaling-Joes ye’re tryin’ tae make out. But ye knew that already. That’s why ye chose them, isn’t it? Well, let me assure you, we have ways of makin’ them talk. And believe me, Father, when they start grassin’ on you, that collar will be no protection.”