Beyond Absolution

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Yes?’ He looked a polite query at the man.

  ‘How on earth does he afford that place of his on Pope’s Quay? And that car of theirs? And how does he afford to go drinking, night after night in the Imperial Hotel with Tom Gamble and his friends, that fellow Beamish and those two English men that have a shop on Morrison’s Island. That pair might be able to afford it – the shop is doing well. Tom Gamble mightn’t be making much as a barrister, but there’s money in that family, and of course, we all know about the Beamish family, but I can tell you one thing, inspector, James O’Reilly can’t afford that sort of company, not on the money that I pay him. I tell you, I’m worried about that young man.’

  Patrick concealed his impatience. Everything is relevant to a murder enquiry, he reminded himself.

  ‘You think he might have helped himself to some of the bank’s money, sir,’ he asked.

  ‘I know that he hasn’t,’ said the man bluntly. ‘I’m not one to trust blindly, inspector. I run checks from time to time and I’ve run quite a few on young James. No, wherever he’s getting the money, it’s not from the Savings Bank. In fact, he’s brought in a few accounts from his friends in that musical society. Used to be golf, where I come from; they used to advise the clerks to take up golf, but in Cork, apparently, it’s singing.’ He gave a short laugh but his sharp eyes keenly scrutinized Patrick’s face.

  Patrick said nothing. This was the way to deal with this matter. Stand very still, listen very respectfully, do not be trapped or surprised into any remark that might be regretted afterwards. He had found James O’Reilly’s account of his visit to the confessional to be slightly suspicious, but that was nothing to do with his employer.

  ‘I’ll bear in mind what you said, sir,’ he said when he judged the appropriate amount of time had elapsed. ‘Thank you for your time. And I’ll send one of the Garda around to let you know if we are closing off this end of the South Mall for Father Dominic’s funeral. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d better get on. I’m trying to interview everyone who was in the church yesterday evening.’

  THREE

  St Thomas Aquinas:

  Praeterea, docere nihil aliud est quam scientiam in alio aliquo modo causare.

  (To teach, therefore, is nothing other than, in some way, to give rise to knowledge in another person.)

  ‘Thank you, sister,’ said the Reverend Mother, ‘and could you send Jimmy to me. I want to send a note to Dr Scher. Sister Assumpta was complaining of a pain in her ribs this morning and I would like him to see her if he has time during the evening.’

  The very elderly Sister Assumpta, who had taken to her bed several years ago, was always complaining of something. Nevertheless, she reminded her conscience, which was telling her that she should not waste the time of a busy doctor, that it was only right that the woman should have all possible medical attention. And, of course, Sister Bernadette would insist on serving the kind Dr Scher with tea and cake and that would provide an opportunity to discuss Father Dominic’s visit to the antiques shop. She had been still in a state of shock when he had mentioned it, so she had not questioned him, but afterwards she said to herself, What on earth was Dominic doing in an antiques shop? Quickly she wrote a note, popped it in its envelope and then wrote another. Jimmy could deliver the two at the same time.

  Jimmy was a new member of staff in the convent. Traditionally lay sisters did all the errands. However, at this time – perhaps because of a big intake in the 1860s and 1870s – it was a fact that almost all of them were quite elderly and reluctant to go out on winter days through the chilly fogs and almost continual showers of rain and to get their feet wet in the constantly flooded gutters as they crossed roads. So the Reverend Mother had an inspiration and in came Jimmy to the life of the convent.

  Jimmy had been a pupil at the convent school until the age of seven years and then had been moved on to the Christian Brothers. The Reverend Mother had worried about him at the time. Jimmy appeared to be a bright child with a great interest in any oral facts or stories, but not one of the three teachers that he had during his time at the convent school had managed to teach him even the elements of how to read and write. He approached his speller every morning as though he had never seen it before. The whole business was a sealed mystery to him. Even the Reverend Mother herself had taken a hand in the process, but for Jimmy, words and sounds were like marks in the sand. No matter how firmly they were etched on his mind one day, by the next the sea of oblivion had swept across and erased them. The Reverend Mother had been so worried about him when he reached the age of seven that she had personally visited the Christian Brothers National School and had talked about the child’s problems, emphasizing that Jimmy was neither lazy nor stubborn, but just could not retain letters nor numbers. She had been listened to politely, but had been full of apprehension and her worst fears were realized when Jimmy turned up one day with bruised hands and legs black and blue from constant beatings and had begged to come back to the convent school. Jimmy’s mother said that she didn’t think school was any use to him, but when she kept him at home, the school attendance officer had threatened her with prison.

  ‘None of my sister’s children are like that, Reverend Mother,’ she wept. ‘They all do her credit at school. They live over on Morrison’s Island and they go to the Model School.’

  She stopped, obviously embarrassed and perhaps thinking that the Reverend Mother would be offended at the implication that the Model School was better than the convent school. Unlikely, thought the Reverend Mother. They had huge classes there in the Model School and everything was learned by rote. The sound of hundreds of children chanting in loud sing-song voices was a permanent accompaniment to the traffic noises on Anglesea Street. No, she was inclined to think that Jimmy’s lack of progress was due to some quirk within his brain, intelligent though he was. Not the child’s fault, nor the teacher’s – just one of the many unknowns in the teaching of children.

  ‘Perhaps it is because he is the only one that lived and I spoilt him,’ continued Mrs O’Sullivan tearfully. ‘I’ve tried everything, slapping him, everything, but he’s just a dunce. And, of course, his father just skipped off to England, but my sister’s husband stayed and queues up every morning for some work on the docks. It makes a difference for a boy to have a father. I don’t know what to do about him at all. I wish they’d just let him sit at the back of the class and ignore him, but the Brothers say that he’s clever, but just doesn’t concentrate and he needs to be punished. But the poor little fellow, Reverend Mother, he sicks up his breakfast on a Monday morning and he cries and cries and begs me to let him stay at home. I wish I could help but the Brothers say that he is just stubborn.’

  The school attendance officer was of the same opinion, but the Reverend Mother soon disposed of him, startling him with a few long words and bombarding him with names like Montessori, Piaget and Steiner, crisply summing up their educational theories. Very quickly, she got agreement that Jimmy would return to the convent and would work as a messenger and get private lessons from the Reverend Mother herself. He was to be paid a penny a week for running messages, she decreed. He was also to help Sister Philomena with the babies in the Reception class. When he was not needed there, and when the Reverend Mother had a moment, she was to give him a lesson in reading. They had started with a map of the Cork streets; he had learned to read the names of the streets that he was sent to – perhaps not as useful for early reading progress as the regulation speller starting with words like ‘cat’ and ‘rat’ and progressing to ‘rattled’ and ‘cattle’, by-passing all irregular, frequently used words like ‘said’ and ‘come’. However, she was hopeful that once some words were got into his head, once they were seen by him to be useful, that the whole process would suddenly become clear to him. In the meantime, she equipped him with a pair of rubber boots, a mackintosh, a warm jumper from the last jumble sale and directed Sister Bernadette to see that he had some hot cocoa whenever he came back from those chilly damp str
eets. And from time to time, they tackled the alphabet together.

  ‘I went to a bonfire last night, Reverend Mother, with my cousins at Morrison’s Island.’ Jimmy’s little pale face was lit up with excitement when he burst into her room.

  ‘Yes, of course, Midsummer’s Eve,’ she said. The midsummer bonfire was always a great event. She had forgotten about it in the tragic affair of poor Dominic’s death, otherwise she would have made a point of going around the classrooms and hearing the stories. The children would have been keeping woodworm-rotted pieces of wood dry inside hallways of the tall Georgian tenements and begged old newspapers from the surrounding shops. It was always great fun for the children especially when some kindly roadman donated some tar in order to keep the fire going in the heavy mist.

  ‘We got some rotten old wood from that old warehouse ’n Morrison’s Island, the one with no roof and we had a fire and it burned the floor down and there was a road under the floor and my cousin’s little dog Patch went down there and he chased a million rats!’ Jimmy was beside himself with excitement.

  ‘Goodness,’ said the Reverend Mother, doing her best to sound impressed. Morrison’s Island, she thought, had been abandoned by the wealthy Gamble family. Someone should be checking on the safety of those old warehouses. And then she thought of the busy morning ahead of her and her duty to educate Jimmy.

  ‘This letter is for somewhere beginning with an S,’ she said, holding it concealed from his view and focussing attention on her hand-drawn map of Cork city streets.

  ‘South Terrace,’ he guessed triumphantly pointing to the spot by the river. ‘Where Dr Scher lives.’ Jimmy loved delivering letters to Dr Scher who often came up with a sixpenny piece on delivery and who usually handed him over to his housekeeper for a slice of cake and a glass of milk while he waited for the reply to the letter.

  ‘Well, done,’ said the Reverend Mother, thinking with dismay that although South and Scher began with the same letter, their sounds were completely different. Jimmy had made her realize the complexities of the English language. ‘Yes,’ she said aloud, ‘and this letter is for Dr Scher, but the second letter is for someone else. It’s for someone who works in a little lane off South Terrace, just around the corner from Dr Scher. Ask for the Lee Printing Works. Look, I’ve made a large L for Lee here and now I’m going to write in the name of our river, it’s the Lee, isn’t it – do you hear the sound of the two ees? And the letter is for a lady who works in the Lee Printing Works, Miss MacSweeney. They’ve got the same first letters, Miss and Mac; can you see that? It’s the letter M, isn’t it?’

  ‘And M is for Mam,’ said Jimmy.

  Heartened by this she gave him a sweet. Her conscience sometimes pricked her when she included sweets under ‘sundries’ on the convent grocery list, so that the bishop’s secretary, who audited the convent accounts, would not discover such a frivolous item amongst her expenses. Sweets might be a luxury, but she did find them invaluable for encouraging learning and the thin, undernourished children did love them.

  ‘My mam said to ask you to pray for me that I learn to read,’ said Jimmy diffidently as he paused at the door on his way out. ‘She said you were a very holy woman … nun, I mean,’ he added with an apologetic expression.

  ‘I will, Jimmy,’ she promised.

  Not too holy, she thought when he was gone. Her days and half her nights seemed to be spent worrying about practical affairs, working out solutions instead of praying for them. Jesus would definitely class her as a Martha, rather than a Mary, she guessed, remembering the biblical story of the two sisters. She hauled up her watch from her pocket and pressed it open. It was time for the senior class’s English lesson and after that was finished, she wanted to supervise a lesson given by a newly professed nun who had an unpleasant habit of shouting at the children. And after lunch she needed to answer a letter from the bishop, write her thanks for a donation from the Architects and Surveyors Society, start on her six-monthly accounts and … and think about that murder, she added. This was a very strange business and might involve the Church in some scandal.

  It was, she thought with exasperation, just like Sister Mary Immaculate to choose to go to confession in the middle of the Novena prayers. She would have to tell Patrick about this and the nun, no doubt, would have to be interviewed. And before she did all of this, she would indeed say a prayer for poor Jimmy. Not to St Aloysius, she decided, there was a self-satisfied look about the boyish face, framed in the Renaissance ruff, and according to his life-story, he was a brilliant student. No, she would pray to humble old St Joseph, who, surely, had taught many boys the dangerous and difficult arts of handling saws, hammers and knives without injuring themselves. Perhaps he could do something for a boy so eager to learn as Jimmy O’Sullivan.

  And then her mind turned from Jimmy and back to Father Dominic. Someone had gone into that confessional cubicle, under the eyes of more than a hundred people and had murdered him. She remembered the blood on Dominic’s face and shuddered. It seemed to be an extraordinary affair. Why murder a priest? And, especially, why murder a good and gentle man like Dominic?

  With a sigh, the Reverend Mother picked up her copy of Jane Eyre, and went off to her class of senior girls.

  She was inspecting the publisher’s list of text books with Sister Mary Immaculate when she heard Dr Scher’s voice. Leaving the nun to do the addition, she went rapidly out to the hallway and interrupted the banter between him and Sister Bernadette.

  ‘Met your little lad,’ said Dr Scher as soon as she came into view. ‘Saw him down on the quay and he waved the note at me.’

  ‘He’ll be disappointed not to have gone to your house,’ she said.

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I drove him over there,’ said Dr Scher apologetically. ‘It’s that housekeeper of mine, she loves having someone young to feed. He said that he had another letter to deliver over there, anyway.’

  ‘That was very kind of you, Dr Scher. Now you simply must come and see my potatoes,’ said the Reverend Mother quickly. Dr Scher was very indiscreet and she did not want the name on the second envelope mentioned.

  ‘It’s raining,’ said Dr Scher, with a longing look into Sister Bernadette’s kitchen where the range glowed and a kettle was already at singing point.

  ‘You won’t melt.’ She got him outside and walked him over to the potato patch. They would be quite private here. Hopefully, Sister Mary Immaculate would have finished the tally by the time they returned.

  ‘Look at that mist. Very bad weather for moulds. Those potatoes will get the blight. You’ll have to spray them with Bordeaux mixture,’ said Dr Scher giving a disparaging look at the dripping foliage.

  ‘I’ll tell the gardener,’ she said absent-mindedly. ‘Any news about Father Dominic’s murder?’

  ‘Bit early in the day for that. Patrick is trying to get a statement from everyone who went to confession to the poor man, trying to pinpoint the moment when he died, I suppose. Funny place to commit a murder. Father Dominic walked the streets and went down the lanes. You’d think that someone could have murdered him somewhere like that. What’s it like in those cubicles?’

  ‘Very dark,’ said the Reverend Mother, ‘and, of course, there are people who keep their eyes shut. It’s considered holy to shut your eyes.’ And then she remembered.

  ‘One of the people who confessed to him was Sister Mary Immaculate,’ she said.

  ‘Still, I don’t suppose that she drove a stiletto into Father Dominic’s ear,’ he said.

  ‘A stiletto?’

  ‘Something sharp and narrow. Went through his ear and into his brain. He would have been dead within moments.’

  ‘Is that how he was killed? I was wondering. A stiletto, are you sure?’

  ‘Well, Patrick tells me that they don’t have stilettoes in Cork, so it will be something else. A knitting needle, perhaps. How sharp are knitting needles?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said the Reverend Mother. She was brooding on that death.
‘He knew that he was about to be killed,’ she said. ‘He knew his murderer and he knew why. I could tell by his face. It’s no use you looking dubious. I knew Dominic and you didn’t.’

  ‘He was well-known in the city,’ said Dr Scher thoughtfully. ‘I often heard people speak of him. A very nice man.’

  ‘He was,’ said the Reverend Mother sadly. ‘Dominic and I have been friends since we were in our cradles. I knew him very well. I’ll miss him, though I might only see once in every few months. The whole of Cork will miss him. He was a man of great warmth.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Great warmth. That shone out.’ He nodded his head in agreement.

  ‘You met him, you said, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s right. I met him. A very nice man. It must have been Wednesday evening that I met him, over on the other side of Morrison’s Island, in the antiques shop run by those English men.’

  ‘An antiques shop!’ So she had recollected correctly. She was quite startled. ‘But what was a priest doing in an antique shop?’

  ‘Don’t know.’ He looked a little surprised at her exclamation. ‘I know what I was doing, bought some lovely silver, old Cork silver, a Queen Anne tea set. Cost me a month’s wages from the university, but I don’t regret it. A beautiful set and in lovely condition. Pretty rare, I’d say.’

  ‘But what was Father Dominic doing there?’

  ‘Looking at a ceramic. A beautiful Japanese hawk, a blue Arita hawk,’ said Dr Scher.