St Ernan's Blues: An Inspector Starrett Mystery

by Paul Charles

  ‘Right,’ Gibson offered in sympathy, but she was still not really sure of the point he was trying to make.

  ‘So I had to find a way to make a bit of money on the side. I figured as long as I wasn’t hurting anyone.’ McCafferty said, grinding his story to a full stop.

  ‘And how did you make this money?’ Gibson asked.

  ‘That’s not really important. Nothing illegal took place, I can assure you of that, but my newfound wealth did make me a target for my less well-off colleagues, and so I kept being moved on. By the strict rules of the church I shouldn’t have been able to move from diocese to diocese, but enough to say that ‘strings were pulled,’ to accommodate my moves.’

  ‘Was Father Matthew jealous of you?’ Garvey said, sounding maybe just a wee bit too patronising to get away with it.

  Father McCafferty looked at the sergeant as if to say, “you haven’t been listening to me, have you?” He shook his head to the negative and said, ‘I was not on Father Matthew’s radar. I think you’ll find that even at St Ernan’s, most people are too busy looking after themselves to worry about anyone else.’

  ‘Okay,’ Gibson started, agreeing with her instincts not to pass judgment on Father McCafferty, at least not until a later date. ‘Are you aware of anything Father Matthew was doing that might have landed him in trouble?’

  ‘How should I put this,’ McCafferty started through a smile, ‘I did admit to you that others were jealous of me. Jealousy was never a sin of mine.’

  ‘Can you please tell us what you were doing earlier today between the hours of 3:30 and 5:30?’ Gibson asked.

  ‘Ehm, how should I put this,’ Father McCafferty said smugly, while blatantly ogling Ban Garda Nuala Gibson. ‘Between those hours and more I was in a state of undress in the company of one of the county’s most beautiful women.’

  ‘And could you give me her name,’ Gibson replied, without batting an eyelid.

  ‘But, Ban Garda, you more than most should know that a gentleman never ever tells.’

  ‘I’m sorry Father, but we do need to know her name so that we can talk to her and eliminate you from our inquiries,’ Gibson continued, ‘but I can assure you that we’ll be very discreet.’

  ‘But not nearly as discreet as I’m going to continue to be,’ Father McCafferty said, with a degree of finality in his voice.

  ‘I’m sorry Father, but we really do need to know where you were and who you were with,’ Gibson pushed.

  ‘How should I put this,’ McCafferty said as he stood up, ‘that’s for me to know and you to find out.’

  Chapter Eight

  The first thing that hit Starrett when he was shown through to Father Matthew’s room by Father Robert O’Leary was how small the room was.

  ‘The smallest room in the house,’ claimed O’Leary, raising his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Not only that, but it is also the most sparsely furnished room in the house. You see, the rest of us have had to make our rooms our home, we’re here for…well, we’re here until we’re called away. But in Father Matthew’s case he’s here for a minimum and a maximum of one year. He is clearly passing through and he’s not interested in putting down any roots.’

  ‘Or could it be that he’s spiritual and was in no need of anything more?’ Starrett said, voicing his thoughts.

  ‘There’s always the possibility of that,’ O’Leary replied, looking to the heavens again.

  The furniture consisted of a very basic single bed, with clean, expensive white cotton sheets. Starrett noted, a red, battered easy chair with three small blue cushions and a small varnished writing desk with a matching Captain’s chair. The desk was clearly an antique and was in brilliant condition, looking like it had been cleaned and polished that very day. It had drawers down each side of the knee-well and a further bank of much smaller drawers stacked along the top rear of the writing surface, with lots of different nooks and crannies to store writing material, paper, envelopes, paper clips, an ink well, a pen pot, and a black marble ashtray. Father Matthew’s further confirmation – if it was still needed – that he was on his way to somewhere and not required to put down roots was endorsed by the fact that there were no letters, or notes, or paper of any sort visible in any of the back ledges of the desk.

  The walls were white and, maybe two or three years since, overdue a fresh coat. They were bare excepting for a large black and white photograph of JFK and RFK, nearly in silhouette, sitting on two beds in a hotel room, deep in conversation while presumably on the campaign trail, and a large (as in six-foot deep by three-foot wide) oak framed mirror, which was beside the door that led to the bathroom.

  Starrett walked straight into the bathroom before he’d a chance to fully examine the bedroom. This was apparent from the fact that he totally missed the one remaining (and perhaps most important) piece of furniture. If he’d been asked about the omission he’d have put it down to being concerned that he wasn’t going to get back to Ramelton in time to enjoy dinner with Maggie Keane and his newly inherited family of Moya and Katie Keane.

  All such thoughts would have surely disappeared once he opened the medicine cabinet above the sink in the simple all-white bathroom. He had never seen as many male pampering products in his life. There, all neatly laid out with labels proudly to the fore, was: hair gel; hair tinting cream; scouring pads; cleansing creams; sun block; fake tan; a tub of Nivea cream; moisturiser; Gillette shaving cream; Crest 3DWhite teeth whitening strips; Nivea after-shave balm, to restore the skin after the wear and tear of razor blades; tweezers; toe- (and finger-) nail clippers; combs; one hair brush; and bath gel (he wondered why Father Matthew had no shower gel as the simple white bathroom suite housed only a shower and not a bath). There were two large boxes of Lemsip, one on top of each other. This surprised Starrett because the top box of Lemsip was still in its cellophane, the one underneath was minus cellophane and, if anything, appeared much more used. Surely the usual procedure would be to have the old box on top of the new, fresher box?

  He reached into his pocket for a new pair of evidence gloves, which he quickly snapped on before gently lifting the top box of Lemsip. He wasn’t able to remove the box completely because its exit was blocked by the shaving cream. So he lowered the sealed box of Lemsip back into its original position whereupon he removed the shaving cream, placed it on top of the white metallic medicine cabinet and then successfully removed the new box of Lemsip. The bottom box (the one without cellophane) was considerably lighter than the first one he’d removed.

  ‘Bejeepers,’ he couldn’t help saying, but immediately regretted it and thought of Moya sending him up again, ‘what have we here now?’

  By this point he knew clearly what he had, but perhaps he wanted Father Robert O’Leary to give the discovery more credibility by being the one to discover it. Either way, he pointed the box out to the priest.

  O’Leary very gingerly lifted a box, from within a box, with all the stage craft of David Copperfield.

  The inner box was clearly emblazoned with the Durex logo.

  And the shocks did not finish there. Once back in the bedroom, Father O’Leary showed Starrett that the oak framed mirror was in fact a door, which led into a reasonably sized wardrobe. He pulled on the string light for Starrett and both were shocked at the rows of expensive looking crisp shirts (white, blue, and blue with white stripes) three dark suits, several pairs of shoes, and (possibly) dozens of pairs of black and dark blue Armani boxer shorts.

  ‘Well,’ Father O’Leary began, his composure reappearing as they exited the wardrobe to return to the bedroom. ‘I had been saving one wee bit of information for you to try and lighten things up a wee bit for all of us.’

  ‘Oh?’ Starrett said, thinking that surely there couldn’t possibly be more.

  ‘No, it’s nothing really, but you know, this is the room in which previous owners found a packet of pen nibs, you know the pre-fountain-pen nibs, a nib on a stick affair, like the ones we learned to write with. Anyway they were addressed to John Ha
milton, the man who built the house,’ O’Leary offered, starting back up his sign-writing again.

  Starrett’s mind was still elsewhere.

  ‘They were in the original packaging and addressed to John Hamilton.’

  Starrett was close to the point of saying ‘Oh that’s nice’, but luckily he resisted.

  ‘They were never used and we kept them and the receipt, as passed on to us by the previous owner.’

  This piqued Starrett’s interest a little more. ‘Oh really?’ he offered, distracted somewhat by the previous findings in Father Matthew’s rooms. ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘Just in front of you, Inspector Starrett,’ Father O’Leary teased.

  Starrett quickly glanced all around him. He couldn’t spot anything that looked like he figured a pack of nibs would. ‘They’re where they’ve always been, Starrett; they’re where the previous owner discovered them. They’re in a secret compartment in the writing desk.’

  The detective futtered around for a few moments whereupon Father O’Leary, who’d clearly lost his patience with this game of hide and seek, removed one of the little drawers on the rear stack, inserted his hand and flicked something, which caused a smaller drawer to spring out to the left. He put his hand in the newly released drawer and searched around for a few seconds.

  ‘Well I’ll be…’

  ‘What’s the matter father?’ Starrett asked, troubled by the clear concern on the priest’s face.

  ‘Well, it’s just that the St Ernan’s heirloom seems to be missing.’

  Chapter Nine

  Starrett knocked on the third door down on the opposite side to the rooms of Father Matthew and Father O’Leary.

  On being so ordered, he opened the door and entered to see a priest apparently busy writing away at a desk by the window.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ Starrett offered.

  ‘Oh, it’s quite all right, come on in,’ Father McKenzie replied, ‘I’m just writing the words for a sermon that no one will hear.’

  That’s better, Starrett thought to himself, a priest who looks like a priest.

  In fact, Father Edward McKenzie looked like he might be straight off the farm. He was strong enough and of sufficient straight spine to be in his mid to late fifties. His clothes were ill-fitting, his shirt had been stretched out from behind the safety of his thick, brown leather belt, exposing a layer of excess fat, which Starrett predicted (to no one but himself) would, in two or three dinners’ time, block his belt from view forever. His black clerical shirt had a few stains noticeable to the naked eye and even more (quite a few more, Starrett guessed) that weren’t. His trousers were so wrinkled that they and the smoothing iron had most definitely long since parted ways. He had a bushy, unkempt beard that looked like it was hiding a multitude of sins, if not meals, in its midst. His eyes were ever so slightly bloodshot and his top lip, for some reason or other, probably even unknown to himself, was a hair-free zone. He’d a healthy head of hair (similar uncombed style to his beard), a shade darker than his facial growth and his exposed chin enjoyed a weather-beaten hue that would probably be classified and labelled by Farrow & Ball as ‘Farmer’s Tan’.

  For all of that, and maybe even because of all of that, he was a welcoming gentleman with a heart-warming smile and a strong handshake.

  ‘I’m not great indoors,’ Father McKenzie said, while still shaking Starrett’s hand and sounding a little uneasy, ‘would you mind if we went out and had our chat in what’s left of the light? It can be quite magnificent at this time of the day on St Ernan’s.’

  ‘Count me in,’ Starrett said, extracting his hand from McKenzie’s grasp, reacquainting it with his colder partner and rubbing them both together furiously to share equality in temperature.

  Father McKenzie lifted the Webley & Scott air rifle, which was just to the left of the back door on the way out.

  Five minutes later they were passing a corrugated lean-to shed, which, due to the open front, Starrett could see was packed front to back, ground to corrugated tin roof with chopped logs. McKenzie freed four flat-ish and dry logs from the mountain and passed two of them to the detective to carry without any other word of instruction. To the other end of the woodshed was a series of mismatched stone outhouses, which looked like they might even pre-date the main house, and beyond that the rough gravelled ground rose sharply to the border of dense trees.

  McKenzie led Starrett along a well-worn pathway, up to the crown of the hill and then down the other side. All the time they were covered by trees and their journey was monitored closely by what seemed like a battalion of rabbits. McKenzie popped off the rifle at a few of them, calling them rats with bigger ears as he did so. He missed every shot, either because he really wanted to, or, more likely, the task of carrying a couple of logs and shooting off a rifle at the same time was much too difficult to pull off. He didn’t seem upset at his endeavours claiming, ‘Oh well, it’s pasta or pizza again tonight.’

  Eventually they left the bunny boys in their wake at the tree border. It had been a ten-minute walk at the most but the change in scenery quite literally took Starrett’s breath away. The priest showed Starrett to a primitive stone bench, similar to those the detective had spotted peppered along the pathway. He placed his two flat logs down on the bench, nodding at Starrett to do the same.

  ‘The stones can get quite cold this time of year. Father O’Leary always warns me to be careful – cold surfaces can give you, give you…thingamabobs.’

  ‘Yes, I think I know what you mean,’ Starrett replied, finalising his own makeshift seating arrangement, ‘the Unspeakables?’

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s them,’ the priest said, before smiling largely, ‘the Unspeakables.’

  Starrett now realised why McKenzie wanted to get out of the house to this little oasis overlooking Donegal Bay. The water was glass calm, very inviting, but at the same time it looked as though it would freeze you to a permanent stillness. He figured that this was Father Edward McKenzie’s way of escaping from the darkness descending furiously over the house; he certainly looked a lot more relaxed here, more at peace with himself.

  ‘Is this your seat?’ he asked, starting off gently.

  ‘This is a place where all can go,’ McKenzie replied immediately, ‘but sadly few, other than Father O’Leary and myself, ever use it.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ Starrett replied earnestly, ‘why do you think that is?’

  ‘Oh, Father O’Leary says it’s because we, mankind in general, just never learn. We’ve all been posted to St Ernan’s at this stage in our lives because, you know, it wasn’t working for us elsewhere and we’re not so much being put out to pasture as maybe we’re in danger of becoming the pasture.’

  ‘Why are you at St Ernan’s, Father?’

  ‘Put quite simply, detective, because I’m a…a…whatdyamacallit?’

  ‘An Unspeakable?’ Starrett offered, trying to lighten the conversation somewhat.

  ‘Well, that as well,’ McKenzie said at the end of a fit of giggles, ‘but not…I mean you know…yes, that’s it, I’m a worker bee. Yes, I’m a worker bee and that’s it, and when I’m left to do my work I’m totally fine. But when I have to lead or take responsibility for something I grow clumsy, I spill things, I break things and my tongue gets tied and I can’t speak and then I go into one of my turns.’

  ‘But you’re okay while you’re in here?’ Starrett asked quietly.

  ‘Oh yes, of course, I’m fine here. I love it here.’

  ‘What do you do here?’ Starrett continued.

  ‘I have my garden patch back up by the house,’ McKenzie replied, brightening up somewhat. ‘It’s just on the other side of those stone outhouses – I’ll show them to you when we go back in.’

  ‘So did Father Matthew ever come out here?’

  ‘You know, I don’t believe he did, he was always in a hurry, that boy. He’d no time for peace and tranquillity. No, no, life had him by the…by the…you know, the whatsits?’

>   ‘The short and curlies?’ Starrett offered helpfully, seeing a pattern emerging here, where Father McKenzie had been programmed away from rude words and taught new ones, and he’d obviously forgotten all the rude words the new ones were hiding.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said, looking like a schoolboy sitting next to the boy who’d been caught smoking. ‘That’s it. Father Matthew was always running somewhere, or going somewhere, or coming from somewhere. He’s so ambitious he’ll either be the Pope or a criminal…oh sorry, sorry…I’m so sorry…he’s never going to be either now.’

  ‘Did you know him well?’

  ‘He’d no time for me,’ McKenzie said, without an ounce of bitterness. ‘I wasn’t his type. Don’t get me wrong, Inspector, we never had any issues, no words to regret. You know, back on my father’s farm he, my father, always used to say that the horses will never socialise with the goats. They’ve both got four legs but that’s where the similarity ends.’

  ‘Did anyone have regrettable words with Father Matthew?’ Starrett asked, finding himself involuntarily staring at McKenzie’s beard. He was trying to imagine how the natural lifetime growth of thirty feet of ginger beard would look if it was trailing behind the priest. Not a pretty picture, he felt, even for the Guinness Book of Records. On the other hand, a Guinness was the perfect picture to conjure up at this stage in the investigation.