Death of a Novice

by Cora Harrison

  ‘My child, what is wrong?’ she asked.

  The tears sprang into the young eyes and overflowed. ‘It’s nothing, Reverend Mother,’ she said and tried to smile.

  ‘Nonsense, of course it is something. You are always so cheerful. Tell me. Was it Sister Gertrude? No need to be ashamed. It was a very upsetting sight. I felt it and I am five times your age.’

  The girl shook her head. ‘No, it wasn’t that, Reverend Mother. It’s just that there’s a tin of treacle missing from the pantry and Sister Bernadette thought that I might have taken it. But it’s all right. She believes me now.’ Sister Imelda brushed the tears from her eyes and did her best to smile cheerily.

  ‘I see,’ said the Reverend Mother. It wasn’t for her to interfere in the affairs of the kitchen. Sister Bernadette was a very kind person and the young lay sisters were all very happy under her rule. She was, however, an impulsive woman who often spoke before she had time to think. No doubt she would arrange a little treat for Sister Imelda and then all would be cheerful again in the kitchen.

  It was odd though, she thought as she made her way into the taxi. Why should a tin of treacle suddenly go missing? Sister Bernadette, she had gathered once, used a teaspoonful of treacle in her fruit cakes. It was, she seemed to remember, a very infrequent order on the weekly grocery list, usually featured at the end of November or the beginning of December. Dreadfully sweet stuff. Would anyone steal a whole tin of it?

  And then she dismissed the matter from her mind and thought of how to break the news of that untimely death to Sister Gertrude’s nearest living relative.

  FIVE

  Garda rank structure in descending order

  Commissioner

  Deputy Commissioner

  Assistant Commissioner

  Chief Superintendent

  Superintendent

  Inspector

  Sergeant

  Garda (constable)

  Inspector Patrick Cashman opened the door to the police barracks and came quietly in. Although he had been a member of the Garda Siochána for quite a few years now and had risen rapidly through the ranks of constable, sergeant and inspector, he was still conscious of a slight thrill when he came into these hallowed surroundings. It had been worth the hours of study and the daily intense concentration on doing the job well, in order, for him, a boy from the slums, to be able to wear the uniform and to hear the officer on the desk, a man old enough to be his grandfather, respectfully greet him by his title.

  ‘Any news of Dr Scher, inspector?’ Tommy loved a gossip and always found a line of conversation that would detain a transient police officer for a few minutes.

  Patrick shook his head silently and lifted some envelopes from the counter. Three of them for him. By rights, Tommy should by now have delivered these to his office but the man liked to finger through them first.

  ‘It’s just that the Mercy Hospital have been on to me, inspector. Got a body that they want him to look at. A young woman. Dropped dead.’

  Patrick nodded. The trick with Tommy in the morning was to say nothing. Give him no words to hang another sentence onto. He began to make his way to the door.

  ‘Heard the news? About the explosion?’

  Tommy had saved the best for the last. Patrick stopped abruptly. More trouble?

  ‘Spike Island,’ said Tommy dramatically. ‘Some of these Republican boys must have got onto the island. No one knows how. A whole shed full to the brim of explosives. The whole thing blown up. They could feel the heat of it right over in Cobh. Got them all out of their beds. You can read all about it in the Cork Examiner. The superintendent has got it now, but he’ll pass it onto you when he’s finished with it. God only knows how these IRA fellows organize these atrocities, what with the city crawling with spies and informants and a posse of soldiers at every street corner. I know for a fact that they’d have every one of that lot watched like hawks until they get enough to pop them into prison. They’ve been watching their doors, checking every visitor, checking their letters. You wouldn’t know this, I suppose, inspector, but there is a list of suspects in every post office in the city and any letter that arrives for one of them is checked before it is delivered.’

  Patrick nodded silently. He knew that, of course, but he didn’t grudge Tommy his snippets of information. A military matter, this blowing up of the ammunition on Spike Island. Nothing to do with him. Just as well. He had enough on his plate. Three cases of violence, eight robberies, including the theft of lead from the roof of a Protestant church, and then there was a missing twelve-year-old girl and a complicated case of possible blackmail that involved a local publican and a friend of the superintendent. It was all very well for Tommy to talk about the surveillance of known anti-treaty dissenters. In Cork, the rebel city, as it was well known by police and army, there would always be found some innocent to deliver a letter, a newspaper boy or someone like that. Still nothing to do with him, he thought.

  ‘Joe in?’ he asked and moved on towards his own room without waiting for an answer. Joe would be in. He was very reliable and would always be at his desk once the hour of nine struck.

  ‘Ten people on the phone looking for you,’ said Joe as soon as Patrick entered his own room. Everything neat and ready for the day’s work. A schedule of appointments lying on the snowy-white blotter on his desk, his inkwell would have been newly filled, pen nib checked and a packet of new nibs in the drawer. Patrick nodded to him, glanced at the schedule, placed the letters on the folders and then saw one of the names on the notebook by the telephone and looked up at Joe with surprise.

  ‘Dr Scher phoned. He’s back then.’

  ‘Dropped in, too. Came to the window and tapped on it. Wanted to see you. Didn’t want to get held up by Tommy. I told him that you would be late, that you were going over to Union Quay before you came in. Came across just a few minutes ago. You just missed him.’

  ‘What did he want? I’d have thought he would be sleeping off his journey. He had enough to say about it before he went. Terrible ordeal, those boats, that was what he said. Said he’s always seasick and that he would take days to get over it.’ And then Patrick stopped. There was a piece of paper tucked into the corner of the blotter. Joe had, in his usual efficient manner, made a note of the conversation with Dr Scher. He picked up the piece of paper and read it through again. ‘A young nun from St Mary’s of the Isle Convent. Dead!’ he said incredulously.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Joe. ‘That’s what he wanted to see you about. He’s over in the morgue. You should catch him if you get over there straight away.’

  ‘Oh, there you are, been looking for you, inspector.’ The superintendent stuck his head in through the door. Patrick silently instructed himself that in future, he should be sure to come into the barracks before doing other jobs. Everyone was acting as though he were out amusing himself and had arrived a couple of hours late for work complete with a hangover.

  ‘Union Quay,’ he said briefly and looked enquiringly at the superintendent.

  ‘I’ve had one of the soldiers at Victoria Barracks on to me about that blowing up of the gunpowder on Spike Island,’ said the superintendent. ‘He says that a crowd from North Main Street were mixed up in it. Someone in Cobh recognized them. Wants to know why we’re not keeping an eye on them.’

  ‘Yes.’ Patrick turned his attention to this new problem that was being landed on his shoulders. He did not contradict the name of Victoria Barracks, although the military barracks on the hill at the top of Wellington Road had been renamed Collins Barracks for some time. The superintendent was a leftover from the old regime, from the Royal Irish Constabulary and he hadn’t much patience with all the renaming that was going on where George Street was turned into St Oliver Plunkett Street and Great George’s Street was rechristened Washington Street and many more changes were in the pipeline. ‘Is that our job,’ he asked aloud and then told himself that he shouldn’t bother. He knew better than the superintendent. And he knew that it wasn’t the
ir job unless the men had committed some crime.

  ‘Well, we’re all on the same side,’ said the superintendent obscurely as he prepared to return to his perusal of the back pages of the Cork Examiner. ‘I’ve got to go to a funeral,’ he said over his shoulder as he opened the door to his office. ‘Old Ted Murphy has died eventually. Won’t be missed. Ted, I mean. Odd fella. Dr Scher’s been looking for you,’ he added and then shut the door firmly behind him.

  Dr Scher was still in the morgue when he went across. Looking very tired, he thought. Tired and discouraged. Must be a bit wearing, the amount of dead bodies that turned up in Cork.

  ‘Joe tells me that you’re up to your eyes in work,’ he said briefly. ‘Wouldn’t have troubled you, Patrick, but there is something very strange about this. I’d better warn you that I think we’ll probably have to have an inquest.’

  SIX

  Thomas Aquinas

  … nullius boni sine consortio iucunda est possessio.

  (… there is no delight in possessing any good things, without someone to share it with us.)

  The door to the house on Friars Walk was opened instantly to the taxi driver’s knock. The Reverend Mother, obeying Sister Bernadette’s instructions, stayed in the car until the door had been opened and until he came back to hand her out and escort her to the front door. The face awaiting her was not familiar. Not the sister of the young novice, that was sure. This was a woman in her late forties, at least. Perhaps, now that she approached, there was something slightly familiar about her. Yes, this was the aunt. She remembered the face from the day when the funeral of Sister Gertrude’s father took place. The mother’s sister, she thought, as the woman came rapidly down the path.

  ‘Oh, Reverend Mother, you won’t remember me. I’m Sister Gertrude’s aunt. Mrs O’Sullivan.’

  Is anything wrong? Her worried face asked that question as she escorted her guest up the garden path. Everything very neat. Very well-cared for garden, white net curtains in the windows. Comfortable, though not monied. Still, very much more than a normal, newly-married couple in Cork could afford. No garage, so probably no car. Or not yet. A shed with a widely opened door showing a long shelf filled with what looked like about twenty tins of paint and various bottles of cleaners and below them a two-bicycle rack, now empty.

  ‘My niece will be so sorry to have missed you.’ Mrs O’Sullivan was still puzzled, but she ushered her guest into the immaculate front room and rapidly put a match to the fire that had been set, but was probably only lit when the parish priest made a visit. The Reverend Mother wished that she could be entertained in the kitchen or living room. Mrs O’Sullivan was wearing a lightweight cardigan and already began to look cold. To her relief, the chimney began to pour out smoke to the extent that there was little possibility of staying in the room. She gave a few coughs to encourage the invitation to come into the kitchen.

  ‘It’s the fog,’ said Mrs O’Sullivan apologetically. ‘It gets into the chimney and blocks the smoke. I’m sure that Betty had it swept. Denis is most particular about getting the sweep every year. You know Denis, don’t you, Reverend Mother?’

  ‘Yes, indeed, I met him. Just before they were married. And at the funeral of Sister Gertrude’s father, of course.’ But her memory was more distinct of him at the former occasion. He had hung back at the funeral; but she had a clear picture of him in the convent parlour. A devastatingly handsome young man, who had been dragged by his fiancée to the reception tea party always held by the convent to welcome a new recruit into the ranks. Looked intelligent and efficient. She was sure that Denis had done his best with the chimney, but this was a common Cork city problem. Chimneys that were not used soaked up the prevailing fog and moisture. So Sister Bernadette had told her and they had decided, despite the cost of coal, that it was more efficient to light fires in unused parlours rather than let the damp seep into walls, floors and furniture.

  But this room was going to be uninhabitable for the next few hours. The Reverend Mother gave another few coughs and this time Mrs O’Sullivan, with a despairing glance at the fireplace proposed that they would go into the kitchen until the fire ‘had a chance’.

  ‘What a lovely room,’ said the Reverend Mother as she was ushered in. Partly, she had to admit to herself, the comment was evoked at the sight of the glowing range, but the kitchen was a very pleasant place with a well-scrubbed pine table, two bentwood easy chairs beside the fire and a pine dresser between the two windows. She crossed the floor to examine the wedding photograph that hung on the wall, while Mrs O’Sullivan plumped up the cushions and refolded an open copy of the Cork Examiner.

  ‘So they were married in February,’ she observed. ‘That must have been just after Sister Gertrude entered the convent.’ She had noticed the novice’s date of entry this morning when looking for the address of a family member.

  ‘That’s right, caused a lot of trouble that did,’ said Mrs O’Sullivan cheerfully. ‘It had all been arranged, you know. Betty was dead set on her sister being bridesmaid and she even changed the wedding from Easter back to the sixteenth of February to accommodate her. Patsy, I mean Sister Gertrude, was going to enter the convent in April originally. Not a nice month, February, to get married in. I said that at the time. “But that’s the last day, Aunty. Shrove falls on the sixteenth of February and then it’s Lent, so what can I do?” That’s what she said to me.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said the Reverend Mother sympathetically. The Roman Catholic Church did not permit marriages to be celebrated during Lent. She had never quite understood why.

  ‘But then Patsy wouldn’t wait, after all the fuss and the bother. Had to rush into the convent before the wedding took place. Never understood it myself.’ The girls’ aunt shook her head. More than a year later the puzzlement remained and her brow was creased.

  ‘Nor do I,’ admitted the Reverend Mother. ‘I hadn’t known about that,’ she added. She, too, was surprised at the decision. Very unlike Sister Gertrude who had struck her as a very sensible and calm young woman who knew her own mind and, she seemed to remember, had some practical reason for the change in her entry date. Why avoid her only sister’s wedding day?

  ‘And then poor Betty had to get a school friend to stand as bridesmaid.’ Mrs O’Sullivan was still pondering on the wedding day and the Reverend Mother judged that the time had come when she had to break the news.

  ‘When will Betty be home?’ she enquired, making her way to the fireside seat and choosing the chair with its back to the window.

  Mrs O’Sullivan sat down opposite to her, shaking her head. ‘Don’t expect her back for the day,’ she said. ‘She went off to spend the day with a friend, down Crosshaven way. Took her bike. Careful of the fog, I said to her, but she was sure that it wouldn’t last beyond Douglas. “First time that I’ve had a day off since his little lordship was born and I’m not going to give it up for a bit of fog.” Always knew their own minds, the two of them. That’s the way that their father, God have mercy on him, brought them up. And how is Sister Gertrude anyway, Reverend Mother?’

  The moment had come. The news could not be postponed. If Betty wasn’t going to return until the end of the day, then she couldn’t possibly delay the news until then. Far better, anyway, that the news of her sister’s death should be broken to her by an affectionate aunt, than by a stranger.

  ‘I’m afraid that I have some very bad news for you, Mrs O’Sullivan. Sister Gertrude died this morning. It looks like some sort of poisoning. Perhaps she ate something. I will have more news for you tomorrow when our own doctor returns. In the meantime the ambulance has taken her body to the hospital.’

  It was the best that she could do, though she was conscious of it sounding rather lame and improbable. There were lots of questions that could be put to her. How could a nun be poisoned while eating the same meals as everyone else in the convent? Why take a dead body to a hospital, rather than to a mortuary or an undertaker’s place of business? She braced herself to give satisfactory
answers, but the woman was weeping silently into a handkerchief. After a moment, the Reverend Mother got up and took a glass from the dresser, a rather ornate one, meant to be displayed rather than used, she noticed. Nevertheless, she filled it with water and carried it across to the woman.

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ she said sincerely. ‘There’s no easy way to tell of a death, is there?’

  The woman sipped the water, shaking her head, but her tears ceased and after a moment she put the glass aside and said sadly, ‘Would you like me to tell Betty? I’ll have to wait for her to come home. Don’t even know the name of this friend of hers. And I don’t suppose that she’d have a telephone or anything like that.’

  ‘I would be grateful,’ said the Reverend Mother. ‘No easy task, I know,’ she added. ‘I suppose that she will be terribly upset.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said the woman after a moment’s thought. ‘They weren’t that close, the two of them. A bit of jealousy between them always. Nothing to it, of course, but there you are. Sisters aren’t always best of friends.’

  ‘Both competing for their father’s attention, perhaps. Their mother died when they were quite young, didn’t she?’

  ‘That’s probably what began it. And then Betty was always the pretty one and always nice and slim. Didn’t have a sweet tooth; not like Patsy. Funny child, she was; Betty, I mean. The only child I’ve known that wouldn’t thank you for a sweet. Would always have Marmite on her bread, while Patsy would have hers piled high with jam. Fat little thing Patsy was, while Betty was as thin as a rake. I looked after them when they were young, you know. After the death of my sister. Didn’t grudge it, still don’t. Never got paid a penny for it, either. Had the two of them every day down in my house. Of course, John Donovan was full of thanks, then.’