St Ernan's Blues: An Inspector Starrett Mystery

by Paul Charles

  ‘You know, I’d hear bits of gossip around the house now and again, but Father O’Leary says that gossip won’t help feed and clothe the poor, so I always let it come in one door and kick it straight right out the other before it had a chance to get it’s bearings,’ McKenzie said, looking like he was rather pleased that he’d remembered O’Leary’s quote.

  ‘Okay,’ Starrett said, conceding that one for now, ‘but tell me this, Father: in your travels, did you ever come across anyone who looked like they wished harm on Father Matthew?’

  ‘Never,’ McKenzie offered after a delay.

  Starrett noted the priest’s eyes and furrowed brow contradicted his negative response.

  Completely out of the blue McKenzie volunteered that he’d been working in his garden all afternoon. On the way back to the house they stopped off at McKenzie’s garden ‘patch’. Starrett had been expecting more of an allotment-sized garden parcel, but the priest had cultivated a very large chunk of land and had neat row upon row of vegetables, protected all around by a waist-high, dense privet hedge. All of this was lined on the interior with small gauge chicken wire, used in this case not to keep the chickens in but the rabbits out.

  As though reading Starrett’s mind, McKenzie explained in great detail how he had also installed the chicken wire three-foot subterranean.

  Starrett was clearly impressed with McKenzie’s fine work but he also must have looked shocked that the priest had managed to pull it off.

  McKenzie started to laugh, quietly at first and then gradually it grew until tears were rolling down his cheeks.

  ‘Sorry, what?’ the detective asked, joining in with the infectious laughter.

  ‘No, no, it’s nothing!’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Well, the look of you there, your face, your surprise at my garden – it just reminded me of a story about the ex-president, Mrs Mary Robinson. She once visited this home where the inhabitants were, shall we say, a bit more restrained in their surroundings than we are.’

  ‘Like a prison?’ Starrett offered.

  ‘Maybe more like an open prison, where the patients suffer from personal problems more than the criminal type of problems, but either way, they certainly were not allowed out. Anyway, Mary Robinson wanders around the grounds, having her wee chat with this one and that one, and she comes across this gardener and he’s grown the most beautiful flowers the president has ever seen and before she knows it she’s deep in conversation with him, discussing all topics under the sun. The gardener picks a large bunch of flowers, which he presents to the president and she’s completely overwhelmed by both the gardener and his beautiful flowers. She takes the gardener to one side and says, ‘Look, I know you’re meant to be in here indefinitely but after our chat and your wonderful garden, there’s clearly been some mistake and I think I’m going to recommend to the warden that you’re let out immediately so you can come work at our palace.’ One of her aides takes the gardener’s details and all is well and several minutes later, just as the president is about to leave the garden, this brick comes flying through the air and bounces off the back of the president’s head. The thrower of the brick turns out to be the gardener, who shouts, in the direction of the fallen president, ‘Now don’t forget to get me out of here, you hear?’

  McKenzie started his hearty laughing again. Starrett, too, started to laugh but then his laughter gradually changed until he reached the point, close to inconsolable, where he hoped that McKenzie wouldn’t twig that the Donegal detective’s tears were not the tears of laughter.

  Chapter Ten

  It was taking longer than Starrett expected to question everyone who had been in the house at the time of Father Matthew’s death. He was concerned about whether he’d conclude all the interviews before the end of the day; Starrett’s team was rather thin on the ground, what with all the recent cuts in the public services. So thin on the ground, in fact, that the only member of the Gardaí on duty thirty-seven miles away back in Tower House, the Gardaí Station in Gamble Square, in Ramelton, was Francis Casey. Francis Casey, Starrett knew, would be fretting not so much about the fact that Nuala Gibson was a seventy-minute drive away from him, but more that she was (currently) only a few seconds’ walk away from Romany Browne.

  There were at least two more people who needed to be interviewed. The first was Father Patrick O’Connell, and Gibson and Garvey were currently in session with him. The second was the Master Writer, Father Peregrine Dugan. Father O’Leary had introduced Starrett to Father Peregrine Dugan after the detective had concluded his inspection of Father Matthew’s room and made his shock discoveries. Dugan assured Starrett that he hadn’t been out of his room, had never in fact met Father Matthew (Father O’Leary confirmed both these facts) but, more importantly, he was just about to retire for the evening and wanted the interview postponed until the following morning. In light of the priest’s senior years (82 at next birthday), and in the spirit of the level of cooperation he sought, the detective thought it was not an unreasonable request.

  This just left Bishop Cormac Freeman, and Freeman was another kettle of nettles altogether. In fact, the bishop was currently being monitored in his room by Garda Romany Browne. He wasn’t under, what you would call house arrest, but Starrett had stated it was important that he be kept under observation, and that as soon as Gibson and Garvey had finished their interview with O’Connell, Garvey would spend the night on shifts with Browne outside the bishop’s room, while Gibson and Starrett nipped back to Ramelton. On the journey, Gibson could bring Starrett up to speed on the Father Patrick O’Connell interview. Besides, the bishop’s restriction to quarters was sure to make him a little crazed, which was kind of the point, as it would make for a good interview the following morning.

  On top of which, Francis Casey would enjoy a lot more settled a sleep. Given he was Starrett’s top IT man – actually, Starrett’s only IT man – it was imperative that he got his proper sleep. And on top of that, on top of all of that, Starrett would get back to Ramelton, Donegal’s Holy See, to see Maggie Keane, who was proving to be a bit of a stickler for ‘family time.’

  Which was how, twenty-three minutes later, Ban Garda Nuala Gibson and Inspector Starrett where speeding up the N15, Gibson at the wheel of Starrett’s BMW and reciting in great detail – for she knew that is exactly the way her superior liked his information – the fruits of her and Garvey’s interview with Father Patrick O’Connell.

  The door to Father Patrick ‘Please, call me Pat’ O’Connell’s rooms was fourth down on the left-hand side of the house, the same side as Fathers O’Leary, McKaye, McCafferty and the absent Fathers Casey and Clerkin.

  Father Pat spent the entire interview acting as if national hurling hero Sgt Packie Garvey didn’t exist and instead focused all of his attention on Starrett’s current narrator, Ban Garda Nuala Gibson. Gibson further felt that should Father Pat not have been wearing a very expensive dark blue suit with snow-white clerical collar, she would have considered him to be a ridiculous flirt. She further admitted to being very happy that she’d been accompanied by Garvey.

  Father Pat’s rooms were the same size and layout as both Fathers Mulligan McIntyre – a.k.a Tubsey the gossip - on the opposite side of the corridor, and McCafferty’s, on the same but separating Father Pat from the rooms of the deceased Father Matthew McKaye. However, for a man who was clearly preoccupied with his own personal turn-out, his personal living space was a lot more throughother. Father O’Connell might not be as vain as Father Matthew had been, but that may have had something to do with the fact that his Maker hadn’t been as generous to him when looks were being dished out. The priest looked like he was bursting out of his face, as though his features would soon explode beyond recognition. His skin was red and shiny, while his stubby hands had more of a purple hue and very unsmooth. Father Pat, Gibson felt, wasn’t doing himself any favours with his pageboy, John Denver-style haircut. She couldn’t be sure, but she felt the intensity of the blackness of his hair might
have been aided by a bottle. It was maybe uncharitable to have such a thought, but Father Pat’s uncouth undercurrents had brought out the worst in her.

  ‘So, what you’re trying to tell me,’ Starrett offered, from the comfort of the passenger’s seat, ‘is that Garda Francis has no need to worry?’

  ‘Well, at least not about Father Pat,’ Gibson replied, before continuing with the details of the interview.

  As near as Gibson could remember she, recalled verbatim (excepting, of course, a few interruptions from her passenger and boss Inspector Starrett) the interview with the boorish Father.

  ‘Did you know Father Matthew very well?’ Gibson had asked, as Packie drew out his notebook and pen again to record the proceedings for both the record and Inspector Starrett.

  ‘Did I know him very well,’ Father Pat began, breathlessly, ‘well…well, as well as a man of my age can know somebody who may be as much as forty years his junior.’

  ‘How was he?’

  ‘How was he?’ Father Pat posted, ‘I’d say the best word to describe Father Matthew would be “confused”.’

  ‘Confused about his faith?’ Gibson shot back.

  ‘Well, in a way I suppose that’s what I mean.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Look, as I was saying, he was young; it’s a very confusing time. At that stage in your life, you know, when you’ve just crossed the threshold of the Church, that’s when it starts to dawn on you exactly just how big a commitment you have made. I mean, there really is no hiding place.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Gibson asked, regretting her interruption while at the same time feeling it was called for.

  ‘Well, basically you have two options. Option A, you stay with the Church or, option B, you walk away. Either path pretty much dominates the remainder of your life. So, as I was about to say, the upshot of this is that you start to doubt everything, and so a by-product of that is you can’t but fail to doubt your own beliefs.’

  ‘Did you discuss this with him in detail?’

  ‘Did I discuss this with him,’ the priest wheezed, ‘no, certainly not, but I’d been there and, as they say, I’d bought the T-shirt. I knew exactly what was going on,’ he replied, in his slow Castlebar drawl.

  ‘Could you explain to us exactly what it was that Father Matthew was going through?’ Gibson asked. ‘It could be very useful to us.’

  ‘Well, I can only tell you a bit about my own experiences and I believe, as I have said, I think he would have shared quite a few of them.’

  ‘Go on?’ Gibson prompted, when it sounded like the priest had reached a premature full stop.

  ‘Okay, from my side, you have to realise that my family had always planned this life, or should I say, this vocation for me. I’ll also admit quite freely that I never fought them on it because I didn’t exactly have a Plan B waiting in the wings.’ The priest paused for a moment or two, clearly deep in thought, before continuing. ‘As a young man, the two things that ran my life were dancing and Gaelic football. I’m not for one moment claiming that I could have been a player, but I did seem to have the knack for reading the game well and spotting great players. I could tell which teams were going to win their matches from seeing their form only a few times. You know, seeing if the players wanted to win as a team or were in search of individual glory. I got it down to a fine art and at one point I was successfully predicting eight out of ten match results. I got on Radio Eireann – my friend’s uncle, Tony Boland, worked there. Well, wouldn’t you just know it but on that particular night I got both results wrong and ended any chance of a career on the radio. I enjoyed it, but I never felt that I could make a living from it.’

  ‘And the dancing?’ Gibson promoted, sensing a dead end looming.

  ‘No…you…sorry, you misunderstood me, I didn’t mean that I went dancing.’ The horror in Father Pat’s eyes betrayed how unattractive a prospective that notion was. ‘I ran the dances – you know, with the showbands. I would have been seventeen when I started. I prompted the Royal Showband, they were from Waterford, you know, on a New Year’s Eve dance and I made more money on that one night than my father did in an entire year.’

  ‘How did your family feel about that?’ Packie asked.

  ‘How did my family feel about that,’ Father Pat offered expansively, ‘I’ll tell you how my family felt about that: my father felt it was just a form of gambling, but instead of gambling on the gee-gees, he claimed I was betting on the showbands. I remember that New Year’s Day just like it was yesterday, and I was very proud when I told him how much I’d made with my endeavours. Of course, I’d expected him to be impressed.’

  ‘And was he?’ Gibson asked, when Father Pat seemed reluctant to elaborate.

  ‘Well, all he said was, “Be careful, Patrick, and remember that the Devil always arrives with the biggest cheque.”’

  ‘So you didn’t keep working with the showbands?’

  Father Pat locked and primed his right-hand forefinger behind his thumb and flicked his starched white clerical collar before saying, ‘Clearly not. But I can’t help wondering that if I had kept it up, you know, the auld promoting, by this point I might be the one promoting Bruce Springsteen, Garth Brooks, U2, or Neil Diamond down at Croke Park in Dublin.’

  ‘Would you never run any dances just for the Church?’ Packie asked.

  ‘You know, we’re all the same, when we’re young – we’re all seeking something out, trying to find something we’re good at. You know, as I’m always saying, anything, anything at all will do. It doesn’t matter how bizarre it might be. It just matters that you excel at this one thing in order that you may become your own person. With me, I tried the dancing, I tried the high jump, the guitar, the bagpipes, cross-country running and, as I said, I even tried being a Gaelic football expert. I don’t know what Father Matthew tried to excel at, but I would bet you that if he was here today he would give you a list just as long and just as bizarre as mine. And then we both found something we could do, something we thought we wanted to do or, as in my case, something I knew my family wanted me to do. Maybe, even, it was something we thought we should do, and that’s how we ended up serving our Father.’

  ‘And do you ever regret it?’ Gibson asked, trying to take him back to the ground she felt she’d lost with her previous, stupid question.

  ‘Ah no, that wouldn’t be my biggest regret,’ Father Pat admitted solemnly.

  ‘What would your biggest regret be?’ Gibson asked, chancing her arm, or maybe even the both of them.

  Father Pat hiked up his knee and clasped his hands around it. Gibson guessed he was suffering from cramp. With his knees permanently parted while in a seated position he looked like he was prised to rise up from his seat at the first opportunity afforded him by the two Gardaí.

  ‘I’m beginning to feel I’m on the other side of the confessional box,’ he acknowledged, ‘but I will admit that yes, I did taste true love once, but only briefly. Still, I always felt it was enough to enable me to give council to others who were troubled by matters of the heart.’

  ‘Such as Father Matthew, for instance?’

  ‘Are you sure it’s the An Garda Síochána you work for and not the Irish Daily Mirror?’ Father Pat said, with a laugh flat enough to dismiss Gibson’s question.

  ‘No, no, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,’ Gibson protested, ‘I meant, was that what was troubling him?’

  ‘All I can tell you is that I once was a youth, a youth who was inclined to ramble. I was running around all the time, chasing stuff and trying to get to somewhere I knew not where, but in the end it didn’t matter. The only thing that really matters in your life’s journey is the scenery along the way, because, as the boyo downstairs has just proven, the destination leaves a lot to be desired.’

  ‘You said earlier that you once tasted true love; has the loss of the love–’ Gibson, who’d started off so well, lost her nerve and stuttered to a stop.

  ‘Has the loss of love, what? Ruined my li
fe, was that going to be your question?’

  Before Gibson had a chance to either protest or respond Father Pat continued immediately with, ‘Before you grow too preoccupied with this topic I would caution you to please remember that in your life you spend more of your time eating, sleeping, walking, talking, dressing, thinking, washing dishes, working, having your hair cut, reading, listening to music, driving, cutting the hedge, mowing the lawn, cooking, studying, or even praying than you do making love.’

  ‘And your point?’

  ‘My point is that the enjoyment is not dependent on how much you do it, or did it.’

  ‘Tell me Father, how long have you been a resident at St Ernan’s now?’

  ‘Aye, at least that’s an easier one. I’m coming up to five years this Christmas,’ he replied in a matter of fact tone and sounding like he knew what the next question was going to be.

  ‘And why did you move here?’

  ‘And why did I move here,’ Father Pat said repeating Gibson’s question, kind of proving that he did know what the next question was going to be. ‘I’ll tell you exactly why I moved here.’

  Gibson nodded like a chess player does when they’re not so much proud of their own move as they are impatient to see how their opponent responds.

  ‘I was disciplined by my last church,’ he admitted, but went no further.

  ‘Why were you disciplined, Father?’ Gibson asked.

  ‘Why was I disciplined,’ Father Pat said and continued immediately without waiting for Gibson to confirm her question, ‘I had an inappropriate relationship with one of my parishioners. She was a married woman.’

  Gibson figured from Garvey’s body language that the priest had just cleared up one of the sergeant’s own questions.

  ‘I mean, of course her husband had left the family home,’ the priest continued, suggesting that cheating was not as big a sin as committing adultery. ‘I realise now she just wanted some company while I wanted…I wanted to feel that I was still attractive to women.’