Death of a Novice

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Thanks,’ he said to the girl before he left her. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you again, some time.’ Pity he couldn’t take her for a snack, but it was important to get hold of Raymond as soon as possible and find out as much of the truth from him as he could possibly do.

  Raymond Roche was at home when he arrived at the house in Montenotte. He had braced himself for the discovery that the bird had fled, but as he drove cautiously through the gates, he saw the man himself standing beside his car and looking down at an obviously punctured tyre with disgust. He was already all dressed up for a night’s entertainment. He wore elegantly-cut black trousers, a black tail coat, made from finest wool and trimmed with silk braid, a stiffly starched and ironed white shirt with a white bow tie. The double-breasted coat was open and the evening wind caused it to lift slightly, displaying the elegant white satin of its lining.

  Not an outfit in which to change a muddy wheel.

  And yet he seemed indecisive, not calling imperiously for help, just standing there, peeling off his white gloves and dangling them thoughtfully by the fingers. Perhaps his parents were tired of him hanging around the house with nothing to do, making, by all accounts, no effort to get himself a job, or even do something like joining the army or the navy. Perhaps servants no longer took orders from him.

  ‘A puncture, sir, bad luck,’ said Patrick and saw the man turn to him with something approaching relief. Good-looking fellow. Tanned, well-groomed, fine-featured with beautifully barbered dark hair, he would certainly have impressed two unsophisticated young nuns.

  Well, I’m damned if I’ll change a tyre for him. The thought that he might be expected to do that had crossed Patrick’s mind for a second, before he said smoothly, ‘May I give you a lift, sir? I’m on my way back down to the city.’

  Raymond wavered for a moment, looking from Patrick to his broken-down car, no doubt weighing up the possibility of getting another lift home at the end of the evening, with the stronger likelihood that he would have to pay for a taxi, but in the end he decided to chance the lift with the policeman.

  ‘Very good of you,’ he muttered and went around to the passenger seat of Patrick’s car, sitting there, very stiffly, while Patrick reversed the Ford and then drove carefully back out through the elaborately decorated iron gates.

  ‘What address, sir?’ he asked aloud, just like a well-trained chauffeur. Call them ‘sir’ the superintendent had told him when he was first appointed. Call all of the toffs ‘sir’ and then you ask them what you like. They can’t object if you stick ‘sir’ front and back of every sentence.

  ‘The Imperial,’ said Raymond. Grumpily. As if he had been forced to admit something.

  Best hotel in the city. Expensive place for a man with no job, thought Patrick, not as if the Roches were particularly rich these days. Would have been in the past, according to the superintendent, but not now. If Raymond had a need for drugs, then he would have to get the money from some other source. So had said the superintendent, and the Reverend Mother, in slightly more discreet language, had said more or less the same thing.

  ‘The Imperial Hotel, well that’s no problem; I have a visit to pay in South Mall,’ he said aloud. ‘I can easily drop you off there. I wanted to see you anyway, sir, in connection with the death of Sister Gertrude,’ he continued as he took the car at a slow pace along the narrow road.

  ‘Who?’

  That was a mistake, thought Patrick, feeling somewhat cheered by the monosyllable. Of course, the man would know that name. The whole of Cork was talking about Sister Gertrude. It wasn’t a city where the inhabitants kept quiet about any piece of news. The Cork Examiner had written one of its ‘shock/horror’ articles, implying that the affair was all down to the IRA troops that lurked underground in the city. Every shop and every public house in Cork would be discussing the matter and doubtless the same could be said of the bars and the restaurants of places like the Imperial Hotel and in the clubhouse of the Muskerry’s Golf Club. There would be no chance whatsoever that Raymond Roche did not know of that death. And, of course, he had actually known Sister Gertrude, had for the last few weeks attended classes with her at St Ita’s School.

  However, Patrick, seized on the opportunity. ‘Of course, you weren’t present at the Gaelic League class in Miss MacSwiney’s school this evening, were you, sir? I’ve just come from there. It was the subject of conversation there,’ he added and was glad to see a look of apprehension cross the face of his elegantly dressed companion. Let him mull over that, he thought, as he turned his attention to the steep hill leading down from the genteel heights of Montenotte and onto the Western Road. Raymond was in a state of nerves; he had jumped when he heard that. ‘Your name was mentioned in connection with Sister Gertrude,’ he added aloud as he negotiated a steep corner.

  ‘I knew absolutely nothing about Sister Gertrude,’ said Raymond angrily. ‘Hardly said a word to her.’

  ‘True,’ said Patrick thoughtfully. He pulled in at a layby, partly to allow a stately Daimler to overtake his humble Ford, but mainly because he wanted to watch Raymond’s face when he delivered his next sentence. ‘True,’ he repeated. ‘It was Sister Joan and Sister Brigid that you and Miss Mary MacSwiney concentrated your attention on, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about!’

  There was no doubt that Raymond’s nerves were in a bad state. There was a twitch at the corner of his mouth and the long dark eyelashes were blinking rapidly.

  ‘You recruited two young nuns to serve your purpose, or that of your master, Tom Hurley.’ Another reaction to the name of Tom Hurley. This time a violent blinking. What a naïve young man if he didn’t realize how the eyes of the police and of the army spies would be watching out for any connections to Tom Hurley.

  ‘The plan for Spike Island would not work unless you got some trained men, trained with explosives, secretly onto Spike Island. They did a very good job, must have been experienced. It takes a steady nerve and a lot of training to handle that amount of explosives and so you had to have the right people. It was important to get letters out to these men without any suspicion being aroused. What could be better than recruiting some innocent young nuns? Was that your idea, Mr Roche?’ Patrick injected a note of admiration into his voice. It didn’t work though. Not a good enough actor, or else Raymond was a tougher proposition than he had hoped for.

  ‘I don’t know what on earth you are talking about,’ he said angrily. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, could we get on? I do have an eight o’clock appointment.’

  ‘You can always say that you had a puncture and it would be the absolute truth,’ said Patrick mildly. ‘Indeed, far more truthful than you saying you don’t know what I am talking about. Yes, you do know what I am talking about and I want to know all of the details. A young nun, Sister Gertrude, has been murdered and I can tell you, Mr Raymond Roche, that your name features on my list of suspects.’

  ‘Why should I kill that nun?’

  ‘Because she was getting in the way of your plan. The two young innocent and easily-led sisters were a godsend to the plot. Mary MacSwiney did a good job in recruiting them.’ Patrick thought fleetingly of what Eileen had said to the Reverend Mother. Clever girl, Eileen. He was sure she was right in her surmise of how the young nuns’ feelings had been worked on by that woman. Sister Gertrude was a different matter. She might have met the two with their collecting boxes and then informed the authorities once she got back to the convent. ‘You gave her some poisoned cake, didn’t you?’ he said aloud. ‘You thought that she would eat it straight away, but that did not quite work out as she refused to eat it in public. Popped it into her bag so that she could eat it later. Spoiled your plan, didn’t it? But didn’t save her life.’

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about!’ Raymond put his hand on the door handle. In a moment he had opened it and swung his long legs out. Patrick sat very still. He was satisfied about the way that the interview had gone, but now was the time that everything was
put on a more formal basis.

  ‘I’d like you to attend the barracks for further questioning tomorrow afternoon at four o’clock, sir,’ he said. Then as the man turned an angry face towards him, he said evenly, ‘Please do be on time, sir. I would hate to upset your parents by having to send a constable to escort you.’ And with that he eased in the clutch, moved the gear and drove off just as Raymond slammed the door shut. Best to leave it at that, he thought with satisfaction. This business of asking questions in a car was not a good idea when you are dealing with a man who may, who very likely had, committed a murder.

  SEVENTEEN

  St Thomas Aquinas

  … bonum unius hominis non est ultimus finis, sed ordinatur ad commune bonum.

  (… the benefit to one man is not the ultimate end, but is ordained to the common good.)

  Sister Bernadette had the trunk ready in the back hallway by first thing on the following morning. She had, noted the Reverend Mother, put the keys in a neatly labelled envelope which she had left on the desk of her superior so that they were kept safe until the brother-in-law of the late Sister Gertrude arrived. The nuns, filing in for breakfast after the morning service, all cast a glance at it, and a low murmur rose up from amongst them. News spread fast. No doubt the three remaining postulants had spread the news that the trunk had been removed.

  ‘Will you want to see him, Reverend Mother?’ Sister Bernadette was always punctilious about ascertaining the Reverend Mother’s views on visitors before she even attempted to announce an arrival and she accosted her on the way back from the chapel.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said the Reverend Mother. She had nothing to say to the young man that she had not said before, and she had no desire to have any more hysterical scenes re-enacted in her room and taking up her valuable time. ‘Come and collect the key when he arrives. Tell him that I am busy, if he enquires for me.’

  He was at the door punctually at ten o’clock in the morning. The Reverend Mother heard the doorbell peal and the sound of Sister Bernadette’s rapid footsteps. There was a pause then and after a few moments a discreet knock on the door. The Reverend Mother reached into a drawer, took the envelope with the keys from it and called an invitation to enter and hesitated for a moment. Did she want to see the young man again, she wondered? This was a moment when she could change her mind. However, she could not think of any particular reason to do so and handed the keys silently to Sister Bernadette.

  She searched through the drawer for one of the bishop’s letters. Something about a meeting, one of the numerous meetings with which his lordship beguiled his time and kept a close eye on the workers on the marshlands of the city. She didn’t find it and hoped she had not put it hastily into the nearest bin, but then another envelope caught her eye. She had deliberately not filed this one, but had kept it in her own private and locked drawer. She remembered when it came that she had determined that it should not fall to the eye of Sister Gertrude, at that time efficiently creating a muddle-proof system of filing in the Reverend Mother’s office. Now she took it out and read it again. It was from the solicitor who had made the will of John Donovan, very shortly before his death and he had enclosed a copy of the will itself for her perusal and with a hint that perhaps, as Sister Gertrude’s superior, she would divulge the contents rather than hand over the will itself. She had agreed with him heartily. Sister Gertrude had shown no interest. The money would not have benefited her in any way, of course, but would have gone into the community’s coffers. It was just as well that she did not read what her father had said, though. The will had been worded with a bitterness that was surprising.

  Since my older daughter has abandoned her father and her home in order to pursue a way of life that would deny her of a child and her father of a grandchild, then no portion whatsoever of my goods, chattels, shares in Ford’s Company and money, whether in the bank or …

  The Reverend Mother stopped reading and stared into space. Why had Mr Donovan reacted so strongly that he had needed to cut his older daughter completely from his will and with such venom? He had not shown any very noticeable signs of grief or of anger when his daughter, the late Patsy Donovan, had decided to enter the convent. He had not wept, but then he was not that type of person. His attitude, she seemed to remember, was one of a man who had, to a certain extent, washed his hands of the enterprise. ‘She’s old enough to know her own mind.’ He had definitely said that, but he had said it philosophically rather than bitterly. And the will, she noticed once again, as she perused the solicitor’s letter, was not made at the time when Sister Gertrude had taken her first vows, but quite shortly, just a week or so, before the man’s death, when a year had elapsed since his daughter had left the family home. He had visited throughout that year. Punctually once a month, she thought, still puzzling over the matter. Never said much, quite unlike the parents of both Sister Catherine and Sister Brigid, who had been full of anxious questions and pieces of information to convince the Reverend Mother of the unique and sainted nature of the delicate souls that she had taken under her wing. Sister Joan had been the eldest of a large family, whose parents lived in north Cork, quite near to the border with Limerick. They visited less frequently and their time at the convent always seemed to be studded by shouts from her lively young brothers and sisters; and cries and squawks from pursued hens. A lively lot, said kind Sister Bernadette, but most other nuns drew in a sigh of relief once they had left the premises.

  Mr Donovan’s visits, however, had been short and almost unnoticed. The Reverend Mother had praised the work that his daughter was doing on her recalcitrant accounts and filing system, but he merely nodded and said, ‘That would be no bother to her.’ He did not seem to be very interested. He appeared, she thought at the time, to be one of those rare breed of parents who felt that it was up to their daughter to make her own decision as to how she wished to live her life. She had heard the two of them laugh together as they paced the garden paths. His visit was friendly, sociable and soon over.

  But the will told a different story and had shocked her when she read it first. There had been real anger in the words that were written down, presumably at his dictation. He had, it appeared, bitterly resented his daughter’s decision to enter the convent and deprive herself of children and her father of grandchildren. Was it because of that attitude that Sister Gertrude had fled to the convent before her sister’s wedding could take place? With a sigh she tucked the envelope away and returned to her task.

  It was about half an hour later when Sister Bernadette gave her distinctive double knock on the door.

  ‘Come in, sister,’ called the Reverend Mother.

  ‘Just wanted to check on your fire, Reverend Mother.’

  There was, of course, nothing wrong with the fire. It had been well set, and well banked up and was glowing in a well-behaved manner. Sister Bernadette fussed a little with the damper, managed to add another few coals and then made movements of one who was about to leave the room, but who wanted to relieve her mind before doing so.

  With an inward sigh, the Reverend Mother put down her pen, and waited for what was to come.

  ‘Raining again, I see,’ she said. A remark about the weather would give Sister Bernadette permission to engage her in conversation and after a perfunctory ‘never stops, does it!’ she launched into her grievance.

  ‘He’s gone. He’s taken the trunk away, that Denis Kelly.’ Sister Bernadette’s voice was abrupt and the very use of the word ‘that’ was enough to show the Reverend Mother that the young man and his manners had not been approved of.

  ‘That’s good,’ she said and waited for what would come next.

  ‘Don’t know what he expected,’ said Sister Bernadette with a toss of her head. ‘Don’t see why he should have thought that we had any interest in keeping anything belonging to Sister Gertrude. For my part, I have enough rubbish around this place. It’s twenty peoples’ work to keep it all dusted and clean and tidy.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ said the
Reverend Mother sympathetically. ‘Why, did he think that we had kept something?’

  ‘Wanted the trunk opened,’ said Sister Bernadette. ‘Would you believe it? Blamed the wife, of course. Said that she told him to do it. Took the keys from my hand. Not so much as a by your leave, just reached over and took them. Unlocked the trunk, threw the lid back. Standing there and staring into it. Asking me if there was anything missing, asking it before the trunk was even open. Saying that his wife told him to check it before he went off with it. That towel again. Would you believe it! A stained old towel with more than a year’s wear taken out of it. Wanted to make sure that there were three towels in the trunk. Involved the young girls into the questioning, too. Asked poor little Sister Imelda if everything was in there. I didn’t let him get away with that, though, Reverend Mother. Counted out the towels. Told him fair and square. Faced up to him. “What is it that you are looking for, Mr Kelly?” I asked him. Of course, his father was just a coalman. Still a nice man, the father. Wouldn’t have given his son any ideas above his station in life. “Just tell us what might be missing, Mr Kelly.” That’s what I said to him. He had the trunk open by then. Didn’t even answer me. Just stood there staring into it. Too much trouble for him to even answer. After all the business of unlocking, didn’t even thank me when I pulled up the lid. Didn’t worry about all of the clothes, everything that was in the trunk, all of the stuff that his wife, Betty, had put in there. Didn’t even pick up a single thing. I was the only one that touched anything. Showed him that the three towels were there. You’d think that he would be embarrassed. Well, he wasn’t. Not a bit of it. Well, he looked a bit strange, but not a word out of him.’