Death of a Novice

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Was he happy, then?’ asked the Reverend Mother, puzzled as to where this saga was leading, but Sister Bernadette disregarded the question. There was more still to come.

  ‘You’ll never guess, Reverend Mother,’ she said dramatically, ‘but there on top of all the clothes, just under the lid of the trunk, there was a box of chocolates. Well, not a box of chocolates, exactly. An empty cardboard box. All squashed up it was. Nothing in it. Don’t know why on earth the woman put it in. “Who put that in there?” That’s what he said. “Your wife,” says I. “She’s the one that packed it. You don’t think any of us would put a piece of rubbish like that into the trunk.” I’d have taken it and thrown it into the waste-paper basket, but he slapped the lid back down and was off before you could say Jack Robinson. Just took the trunk, grabbed it by the handle and then off with him. No manners, no manners at all. Still, it’s not for us to judge, is it, Reverend Mother?’

  Sister Bernadette, having talked out her indignation and hurt pride at an insult to the establishment, now began to back her way out of the room, swabbing some damp from the window that was weeping in sympathy with the weather outside and then running a quick finger along the length of the top of the bookshelf to make sure that it had been well-cleaned that morning. She was leaving an opportunity for something to be said, but the Reverend Mother said nothing.

  When she had gone, the Reverend Mother put down her pen, pushed away the writing pad and stared ahead.

  A box of chocolates. An empty box of chocolates.

  A sweet tooth. What was it that the girls’ aunt had said about the remaining sister? 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.

  And Sister Catherine’s remark: Be careful, Betty, there’s Sister Mary Immaculate’s little pet over there and she will go tittle-tattling to the big white chief if we’re not careful.

  ‘Be careful.’ Not ‘hush’ which would indicate an incautious word. ‘Be careful’ would assume that there was something to hide. Something handed over. She had thought of a memento, like a pen or something like that.

  But what was it that Sister Gertrude had cheerfully confessed that she found the most difficult aspect of convent life? Giving up sweets, of course. Unlike her sister Betty, Patsy loved sweets, loved chocolate; would, her sister had remarked, get extremely fat if she ever gave up riding a bike.

  A box of chocolates. Those new chocolates. Her cousin Lucy had tried to tempt her with one on the occasion of her birthday. She remembered it clearly. It had had a solid chocolate shell and, according to Lucy, a sweet liquid sealed within its covering. Easy enough, perhaps, to make a small hole in the top and to inject poison, a sweet-tasting poison, into the chocolates.

  The box had been completely empty. Squashed flat. Probably hidden behind some clothes. So the chocolates had been consumed and it was easy to guess who had consumed them. Patsy Donovan, the girl who could never resist a sweet. But would she have eaten the whole box?

  The Reverend Mother sat and thought about this for a while. It was a very long time since she had eaten chocolate or sweets of any kind, probably well over fifty years. Nevertheless, it would, she thought, be unlikely that a whole box would be consumed surreptitiously after lights were out in the novices’ dormitory.

  But even putting that aside … What would be the point?

  ‘But why?’ she said quietly to herself. She got up from her chair and paced the length of the room. Why should Betty poison her older sister, Patsy? That question went around and around in her head.

  Jealousy?

  Fairly unlikely.

  After all, the younger sister had come away with all the prizes. Had the man; safely married to her. No chance of him marrying her sister. Had a baby son. Had all of the money left by her clever and industrious father. A lot of money.

  ‘A considerable fortune!’ That’s what she had been told. A substantial bank balance, shares in Ford’s, best shares in the country, according to the solicitor. New house, new car. A good education for her son. It was all in her lap. Why should she be jealous of her older sister, now immured behind the walls of a convent?

  Once again, she took the will from the drawer, the last will and testament of John Donovan. A hardworking, shrewd man who had accumulated a fortune and then left it all to one of his two daughters. She went through the will, reading it with care. It did not enlighten her. And then she started again, struck by something that she had not noticed before, or if noticed, had not pondered upon.

  The puzzle was, she thought, in the tone of the will, the rancour; the anger. None of that had shown on his monthly visits – one of them only two weeks before his unexpected death. Had someone worked on him? Had the younger sister, Betty, a new mother of a baby boy, roused feelings of anger against her older sister, purely in order to ensure that she got her father’s entire fortune?

  It was possible.

  Mother love, she understood, was a very strong emotion, something that would very easily surpass the vague and tentative emotion aroused within her for the sister with whom she had grown up.

  Would Betty put the future of her son before the present welfare of her sister? A girl who, she probably thought, had made her bed and should now lie upon it.

  It took her less than a minute to peruse the details of the will once more. And then she sat back and pondered whether Sister Gertrude’s death could have benefited her sister in any way. No, Sister Gertrude’s death could not have benefited her sister. She could not come up with a single valid reason. A nun has nothing to leave, even to her nearest and dearest. If she had been left a fortune, then it would have gone straight into the coffers of the convent. Even if she had lived for another seventy or eighty years, she could never have touched the money that her father had bequeathed to her. It would all have disappeared long before her death.

  But another matter intruded itself. She looked at the date at the top of the will. Made just one week before he died. A week after his last visit to the convent. Her mind was clear on that. She remembered Sister Gertrude’s bewilderment. ‘It’s only two weeks since I’ve seen him and he was perfectly well then. I never knew that he had anything wrong with his liver. He hardly missed a day’s work all the time that I knew him.’

  ‘That,’ she said aloud, ‘is very interesting.’

  ‘Never went to the doctor, much. Never missed a day’s work, anyway. He just fell ill, was vomiting and then, he just died. A terrible shock for the girls. They sent for the doctor down at Turners Cross and he came and said it was his liver.’

  And there was something else interesting lurking at the back of her mind.

  If a man had a bad liver, would he not visit a doctor, need to take days off work when he felt ill. And were not the symptoms of his death very similar to those that occurred to Sister Gertrude: sickness, vomiting, death.

  Beyond a coincidence, she told herself that.

  It was just the question of the motive that made her hesitate.

  And then a sudden thought came to her. She sat very still, very upright in her chair, staring out at the grey sky and thick mist outside. Her mind went back to Dr Scher and his explanations and softly she said to herself, ‘Of course! I’ve been blind and stupid.’

  She got to her feet decisively and walked rapidly down the corridor and lifted the phone.

  No response. No crackle. No sound whatsoever.

  The phone was out of order.

  EIGHTEEN

  Garda Siochána Act 1924

  ‘In the event of a rule being broken, it shall be lawful for the Commissioner, or for any other officer of the Gárda Síochána nominated for that purpose by the Commissioner, or for any person nominated for that purpose by the Minister to hold an inquiry and to examine on oath into the truth of any charge or complaint, of neglect or violation of duty preferred against any member of the Gárda Síochána, and also by summons under his hand to require the
attendance of any witness at such inquiry.’

  Patrick sat back in his chair and stared across his desk at Eileen MacSweeney. Nothing in his training, nothing in his studies had prepared him about how to respond to her demand. An elderly woman, a very elderly woman, had sent him a message through this girl, not a very respectable girl, but one who had been involved with rebels; a girl who had reputedly broken into Cork gaol in order to release a prisoner, who had been subject to police surveillance and who had mixed with some of the most notorious Sinn Féin outlaws in the city. And now she came with instructions for him, a police inspector.

  And the instruction was based on a theory, not on any hard facts. She had told him to enter a house, something that required a court order, had told him that he needed to arrest someone. And all without a shred of hard evidence. He cleared his throat and wondered what to do.

  ‘Come on, Patrick,’ said Eileen impatiently. ‘The Reverend Mother is terribly worried. The convent phone is out of order. That’s why I am here, otherwise she would have asked you to come and see her and would have talked to you herself. But now time is getting on. Something might happen. That’s what she said. She says that you must go there immediately. She’s trying to get hold of Dr Scher, also. The lay sister who came to find him went on to find me. That’s what the Reverend Mother told her to do if she couldn’t find him. She said that she had never known Reverend Mother Aquinas look so worried. You must do what she says, Patrick. I went to the convent straight away as soon as I got the message and she explained everything to me.’

  Left her work, just like that, thought Patrick, feeling almost distracted with worry. All right for her, he supposed. Some people could get away with murder.

  ‘I can’t.’ He tried to explain it to her. ‘I’m in charge. I can’t leave here. I’ll send Joe and get him to ask if everything is all right.’

  ‘And what happens if he gets no answer? Or what happens if the answer is that everything is fine? What does he do then? Go away with his tail between his legs.’

  Patrick felt himself flushing hotly at her scorn. She just didn’t understand how these things worked. ‘And I can’t get a court order until the superintendent comes back,’ he said. ‘And he has the Ford, so how can I get up to Friars Walk?’ he finished.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Patrick! Come on. I’ll give you a lift. My bike is faster than that car of yours. Come on, Patrick! If this gets into the papers; that you knew and you did nothing …’

  He flushed angrily, but he knew that she was right. He could just imagine the newspapers. He lifted his phone. ‘Joe,’ he said, ‘could you come in here, please, for a moment?’

  ‘I’ll wait for you outside,’ said Eileen and he let her go. While he scribbled down the name and address for Joe and added a brief note for the superintendent, with the heading, ‘Acting on Information Received’ he could hear her revving up her bike. A glance through the window confirmed that she had taken the bike out through the gates and for a moment, oddly, he panicked in case she had gone without him. But no, she was still out there on the street, that motorbike of hers puffing out steam into the fog-laden air. He would do without his coat, he thought. He could imagine how it would stream out behind them like a sail.

  This is ridiculous, he thought, as they sped through the streets. Nevertheless, he had to admit that Eileen was making a good job of it. Either she had good directions or knew the area well. She never hesitated, never scanned the road names, placed high on buildings, but wove her way in and out of horses and carts, donkeys and carts, lorries and messenger boys on bikes until she pulled up in front of a smart newly built house in Friars Walk. Nothing parked outside. Everything looked quiet and normal.

  ‘A fool’s errand,’ he muttered to himself. There was a post office across the road and without a word to Eileen, he crossed over to it. Empty of people. That was fortunate. A quick showing of his badge and then he was in the back room with the door firmly closed and a telephone in front of him.

  ‘No, the superintendent is not back yet.’ Joe sounded worried, suggested that he take a message to him. Patrick hesitated. Over the years he had come to know the superintendent well and now he could guess the reaction to this interruption. A refusal to take action on such flimsy grounds, to ‘buy a pig in a poke’ as he would put it. An angry command to return to the barracks. He would not be able to disobey that order from a superior. Perhaps the Reverend Mother was wrong, but she could be right. And if she were, well then … The thought was too much to dwell on. No, he couldn’t risk it. The danger was too great.

  ‘Leave it for the moment, Joe, but stay near to the phone, won’t you?’ He didn’t wait for a reply. Joe was someone that he could rely absolutely upon. Once again, he wished that his assistant was with him. Somehow things were always easier to decide upon when Joe was standing beside and waiting, with a look of calm confidence for a command from his superior officer.

  ‘Many thanks,’ he said to the postmaster and strode out of the shop. Eileen was waiting for him, her face impatient.

  ‘I’ll knock at the door and make an enquiry,’ he said curtly to her and wished that he was on his own.

  ‘Have you got a gun?’ she hissed and he gave her an impatient look before striding towards the front door. Everyone knew that the Gardaí Siochána, the guardians of the peace, were unarmed. He hoped that she didn’t have an illegal weapon secreted in some pocket but he didn’t really want to know. If only he had Joe with him instead of this girl. It would have been better to have taken Joe, even if they both had to use push bicycles. Friars Walk had not been too far from the barracks. Eileen had been up to the top of Evergreen Road almost before he knew it. Yes, he should have taken Joe. He should have known that the superintendent would be unlikely to be back before lunch time.

  And then, just as he reached his hand forward towards the knocker, there was a sudden scream, the scream of a woman and the thin, high cry of a very small baby.

  ‘Around the back, Patrick.’ Eileen had the sense not to shout, but said it in his ear and he followed her past the small wooden shed, its door bolted. She neatly vaulted the padlocked gate between front and back gardens and he did the same, cautiously testing that it would hold his weight before he clambered across. The woman’s screams had stopped before they reached the back corner of the house. Not cut off abruptly. He noticed that. No, there had been words said. Words that were not muffled by any wall or window.

  Eileen had heard the words, also. Now she had flattened herself against the wall and was moving slowly and cautiously towards the corner of the house. The baby still cried, a shrill, alarmed cry, but nothing else. It was very loud for such a young baby, though. Only a couple of months old, he seemed to remember.

  A window was open. He was sure of that. Once again he heard something beneath the piercingly high shrieks. Somebody had spoken. Spoken in a low voice. No words distinguishable. But he was confident that he had heard something said.

  And now he was around the corner. Stepping out a little to avoid a prickly rose that clambered up almost to roof height, neatly tied to a solidly built timber trellis. He had been moving slowly and carefully, nevertheless he almost bumped into Eileen. She had stopped just beside a window frame and was standing, pressed closely to the wall, flattened against the trellis, her head turned sideways, tilted upwards.

  Above them was another window. One of those modern windows, not a sash window, but one that was hinged and both panes opened outwards like a pair of doors. A pair of lacy curtains, blown to and fro, dragged in and out by the wind, flew like sails, taking his eye as he looked up.

  Then he heard words again. Just two words. ‘Drink it!’ Almost a scream. More of a plea than a command. And a movement. Through the tangle of the curtains. Another piercing wail, a tempest of sound. A baby, bare legs, kicking the cold damp air frantically, a baby thrust out through the open window, chilled, shocked, seeking warmth and comfort. Screaming almost as though it sensed the terrible danger.

&nb
sp; Something said from inside.

  And then the cry, an angry scream more than a cry: ‘Don’t come any nearer!’

  A few words from the woman, a plea, perhaps. The body of the small baby stayed where it was, poised above the concrete path, the curtains, wrapping and unwrapping themselves around the small body. No more from the first voice. A pause, a wait, waiting for something to happen. Eileen had replaced her pistol in her pocket and moved forward, going step by step, moving very carefully, keeping her back to the wall, with her head turned, looking up towards the body of the screaming child. Now she was directly beneath the window. Hands empty, arms slightly stretched forward. Waiting like someone ready to catch a ball. Then she glanced at him and he gave a nod. There could be no certainties, but somehow he was sure in his mind that he could depend on her. Now it was his turn. For a second, he touched the truncheon at his belt, touched it for reassurance, but did not remove it. With another quick glance upwards, he stepped slightly forward, skimmed past her, just avoiding touching her and then he moved on. Yes, there was a back door, there, leading from a kitchen to the small back door.

  More words from the window. Another scream from the baby. A hasty glance upwards showed him that it was tiny, far too young to be aware of its peril; to be afraid for its life. It was just the shock of the cold air, the lack of reassuring arms holding it tight. The cold and the shock, he told himself and hoped that he was right. It wouldn’t be the first injured and then murdered baby that he had come across since the time when he had entered the police force.

  ‘Drink it down, every last drop,’ now screamed the voice, high-pitched, almost unhuman. Patrick glanced back. Eileen was in position, hands slightly forward, turned upwards. Without looking, she was aware of him and he saw her nod. He waited no longer. Put his hand on the door.