Patrick glanced at him with surprise. He would not have thought that the Queen’s Old Castle was the kind of shop where Dr Scher would go looking for a pair of shoes.
‘They’re a size 12, they’d be massive on you with your size of feet,’ pointed out the young lad who stood beside the Reverend Mother.
Young Maloney, thought Patrick. He seemed to remember the mother. Had a job scrubbing out the barracks, but then she had gone back to her own people in Mallow. Some talk of another man, he seemed to remember. The lad must be an apprentice here in the shop. Brian Maloney, that’s who he was. Brian had crimsoned and looked apprehensive as he got a withering glance from Séamus O’Connor.
‘Smart lad,’ said Dr Scher quickly intervening to save the boy from the wrath of the counter manager. ‘No, I’m just a size seven. I just want them for the old chap that sells newspapers on Cornmarket. He has only one leg, lost it at the Battle of the Somme, a soldier like yourself,’ he said to the major, ‘but his one shoe is falling to bits and he tripped and fell over this morning on the mud by the river. Didn’t do the remaining leg much good, poor fellow.’ Guiltily, he produced his purse and looked from one member of the family to another.
‘Take them and be welcome and anything else that would be useful to him. Tell him it’s from one soldier to another,’ said the major heartily.
Interesting, thought Patrick. He looked from the older brother to the younger brother and saw an expression of fury on Robert Fitzwilliam’s face. The major had spoken as though he were now the owner of the shop and had authority to give away goods.
‘The ambulance is here, ready to go now, inspector.’ Joe spoke quietly, but everyone seemed to hear the words, everyone except Mrs Fitzwilliam.
Patrick watched as Robert began to make fussy arrangements about moving counter-front chairs from their position in the alleyway so that the men with the stretcher had plenty of room. Kitty Fitzwilliam wiped a tear and her sister, Monica, looked from one brother to another. And then Monica moved and joined the major. After another minute, Kitty, also, moved, but she went over to where Robert stood. The pair of them almost huddled together, standing under the gas lamp of one of the bronze pillars. It was, thought the Reverend Mother, as if the family were splitting in two.
Mrs Fitzwilliam stared drearily ahead and Dr Scher made no movement to assist her to rise, just continued to pat her hand. Again only the major stepped forward when the father’s body was lifted onto the stretcher. He even helped with the lifting and then signed the dead man’s forehead with the sign of the cross. It was a certain sign of affection, restrained, but it looked genuine. He watched the body go through the shop and then out of the door before he walked across and took his mother’s hand.
‘Could I ask you, inspector,’ he said, ‘is there any reason why my mother should stay here on these premises? There is really no reason why this terrible accident should delay her. My brother, Mr Robert Fitzwilliam, will give you all of the details while I take my mother and my two sisters home. I’m sure that you agree with me as to that being the best thing to do at this moment, inspector,’ he said.
Patrick felt a surge of anger rise within him. There had been something very patronizing, very condescending in the major’s voice.
‘It appears that there may be grounds for investigating this matter of your father’s death, sir,’ he said carefully. ‘I’m afraid that I will need to question everyone who was present when the unfortunate man breathed his last.’ Not for the major to assign this strange death to a terrible accident or to any natural causes. This was police business. Looking around he could see very little shock on the faces around him. They had all known, he guessed. ‘Perhaps I could just take a statement from you all and allow you to take your mother home, then.’ He said the words in clear and determined tones and told himself not to budge.
‘Well, I haven’t anything to tell you, really,’ said the major impatiently. Patrick had moved to inside one of the counters but the major had not followed him but spoke out in clear and very carrying tones. A parade ground voice, thought Patrick, but he did not turn around until he reached his destination. Even then, he did not look at the major, but it was of no consequence as the man continued fluently and confidently, seemingly careless of whether the whole shop could hear him or not. ‘I was not here, inspector, at the time that my father came out from his office. I had just entered the shop when he fell to the ground. I’m sure that there are plenty of people here who can bear witness to this.’ He looked around confidently and there was a murmur of agreement from most of the counter staff.
Patrick wrote this down, leaning on the counter and then carrying it across to be signed by the major. There was no other question that he thought he could put out here in the open. Best to give way for the moment and question the man afterwards.
Then, without another glance at the major, he went over and took a statement from Monica Fitzwilliam, who said she had seen nothing as she was talking with a customer. Her apprentice, Tom Donovan, had sent up a change barrel about three minutes earlier, she thought, but couldn’t be quite sure of the time. It could have been five. She had not thought that it was a long time in returning. Her father, as everyone in the shop knew, liked to do six barrels at a time when the shop was busy so she was used to waiting.
Kitty Fitzwilliam willingly followed him behind the counter and gave her statement. She seemed happy to speak in a low voice and to keep their interview private. She said she had looked up, wondering what had delayed her change barrel and she had seen her father stagger out of his office, clutching something in his hand and then seen him fall over the railing. Very clear-minded, intelligent woman, thought Patrick.
‘And you thought that that there had been an unusual delay in returning your change barrel, Miss Fitzwilliam?’ he said.
She considered his question carefully. ‘I couldn’t swear to it, inspector,’ she said eventually. ‘You must know that I always felt that whole system was inefficient and caused unnecessary delays to the customer and to the counter staff and so I was always impatient while I was waiting.’
‘Not something that you would put in place if you were in charge of the shop,’ said Patrick. She had, he thought, a very determined face. Perhaps the father’s business ability had been inherited by his daughter rather than by his two sons. The major had no interest in the business and Mr Robert, as he was known in the shop, was generally considered to be a bit of a muddler. Kitty looked a different type and to his surprise she answered his throwaway comment with a serious air.
‘The faster people are served, the better for business, inspector,’ she said. ‘If you delay a customer, then they will rush out of the shop, but if you serve them quickly, wrap their parcel, give them their change more quickly than they expected, then the chance is that they will delay on the way out and buy something else that catches their eye.’
‘I see.’ Patrick nodded his head while reading through her statement. He would say no more, he thought as he handed it to her to read and to sign, but she had given him food for thought. He had assumed that the daughters had been forced into working in the shop, but perhaps this daughter had enjoyed it, had accumulated ideas of how to run a business. ‘Thank you, Miss Fitzwilliam, that will be all,’ he said, but his eyes followed her meditatively as she went back to where her mother sat with Dr Scher beside her.
‘Ask Dr Scher if I can have a word,’ he said quietly to Joe and waited until the doctor came towards him before moving into the back room behind the counter.
‘Is she capable of being cross-questioned?’ he asked. No need to say a name. Dr Scher would know what he meant.
‘No.’ The syllable was uncompromising and Patrick bit his lip with annoyance.
‘This may be a case of a murder,’ he said quietly.
‘That’s your business,’ said Dr Scher. ‘You are asking me if my patient is capable of being questioned and the answer to that is no! Mrs Fitzwilliam is not well enough to be questioned by the poli
ce and I would like her to taken home as soon as possible. I have given her a strong sedative which will enable her to weather the immediate stress of her husband’s death, but it may muddle her, or cause her to utter odd remarks. I think that her son and daughters should take her home now.’ Dr Scher looked blandly at Patrick and then turned on his heel and went back to his patient.
He was right, of course. A statement should not be taken from Mrs Fitzwilliam after she had been sedated. Patrick had studied enough of the police regulations, sitting up past midnight and going over and over the rules for taking evidence. The whole shop was abuzz, whispering about the strange things that Mrs Fitzwilliam had said about her husband. But a policeman was bound by the rules and so he went straight over to the major.
‘Thank you, sir, you are free to take your mother and your sisters home now. But I will be glad to have the assistance of Mr Robert Fitzwilliam.’ He looked across at Robert and received a sulky nod. You haven’t a doctor to protect you and you were here on the scene so you will damn well stay until I’m finished with you. Patrick found a certain satisfaction in addressing these words silently to the man.
Dr Scher, with a half-guilty glance, picked up the enormous pair of shoes, indicated a badly stained tartan car rug from a nearby counter, and the major nodded, picking up the rug and adding it and a pair of socks to the doctor’s basket before he stood back. The eyes of all present followed Dr Scher’s rotund figure as he went out of the shop leaving the two brothers to escort their mother to the major’s car.
‘Is Dr Scher going off to cut him up to find what killed him?’ whispered Brian in the Reverend Mother’s ear and Patrick bit back a smile as she frowned reprovingly at the boy. The thought, of course, had probably gone through the heads of all adults present and Patrick saw how Séamus O’Connor gave a half-amused, half-guilty look at Maria Mulcahy from the corner of his eye. Something between those two? It was possible. He seemed to have heard something about that. Though if true, they had been a long time at it. They had both been there working in the shop since the time he was a child. Something else to find out about, he thought, as he made his way towards the room that Robert Fitzwilliam had indicated to him. He was just about to go through the door when a sudden silence alerted him and he swung around. Mrs Fitzwilliam had stopped dead in the centre of the aisle between the counters and was resisting any effort to pull her along. She had remained silent for some time, her chin resting on her chest as she stood there staring forlornly at one of the bronze pillars as though mesmerized by its gleaming illumination. But now she raised her head, turned back and pointed at the young apprentice beside the Reverend Mother.
‘He didn’t do it for himself,’ she said in an almost conversational tone. ‘Who told him to do it? Or he made a mistake. Brian Maloney was always a stupid boy.’ She nodded her head and then turned back, almost wrenching her arm away from her daughter, going back to where she had been sitting and took several gulps from the cup of tea that had been brought to her earlier. ‘He made a mistake,’ she repeated. She pointed a skinny finger towards Brian. ‘He did the wrong thing. He’s a stupid boy. He was meant to kill me.’ She said the words in clear and distinct terms.
‘I never!’ The boy’s forehead was wet with sweat.
Patrick felt sorry for the boy, and the major, he was glad to see, turned a harassed face towards him and said reassuringly, ‘Don’t worry, lad. My mother is just a bit upset. Come on, Mother, let’s get you into the car.’
With Robert taking the other arm and Kitty and Monica following they forced the dazed woman down the aisle and towards the front door. Patrick followed and waited at the entrance until he saw the woman safely into the car. Dr Scher was right, he thought, as he watched the efforts made to get her into the back seat. There was no way that he could have taken a statement from a woman like that. Once the car moved off, he waited to allow Robert to go back through the large glass door and allowed him a few minutes to disappear within before he followed him.
SEVEN
‘Silence!’ Robert was shouting the words in an unsteady tone as Patrick came back into the shop. ‘If I hear another word, everyone here will be docked a day’s pay.’
Could he do that? Probably, thought Patrick. Those who were lucky enough to have a job didn’t often complain, but just put up with injustice.
While Robert shouted out a few orders and doled out jobs to keep everyone busy, Patrick busied himself by putting the names of the counters into alphabetical order, writing them into his notebook and leaving a space beneath each for the name of the counter manager and the apprentice.
Joe took a step forward, showed his own notebook and said quietly into Patrick’s ear, ‘You might have a word with Mr Robert about what he was doing in his father’s office,’ he said. ‘I went up there and found him rifling through things on the desk.’
‘The change barrels?’ Patrick also spoke in an undertone.
‘Could be,’ said Joe. ‘They were on the desk, anyway. All I know is that he had his hands on the desk and he seemed to stop what he was doing and look up suddenly when I came in. He definitely seemed as though he were hunting for something. The drawer was wide open. I’ve taken a note of everything that was in the office.’ Joe showed the page and Patrick nodded quietly. There was, he thought, something odd going on here.
‘Mrs Fitzwilliam manages Millinery, inspector. And her daughters manage Haberdashery and Household Linens; Miss Kitty for Haberdashery and Miss Monica for Household Linens.’ Joe whispered the names into his ear and Patrick, beneath an impassive face, cursed. This was going to be a complication. ‘And Mr Michael Dinan for Curtains, Mr Séamus O’Connor for Gents’ Shoes and Miss Maria Mulcahy for Ladies’ Shoes,’ continued Joe and Patrick gave another nod. Really, Joe was invaluable. If he ever managed to solve this case he must make sure that Joe got his share of praise.
Maria Mulcahy, Michael Dinan and Séamus O’Connor exchanged glances and then they stepped forward. No one mentioned the daughters and wife of the dead man.
Patrick gave himself a moment to think. One thing at a time, he thought. First a meticulous interviewing of everyone on the staff. He would interview those whose change barrels had been opened by the dead man; Joe could do the rest of the counter staff and their apprentice boys. Aloud, he said, ‘I wonder if there are a couple of rooms that we could borrow, one for me and one for the sergeant. I would like to get this over and done with quickly and cause the minimum of distress to your family, Mr Fitzwilliam.’
He did his best to sound calm and relaxed, but inwardly the case was worrying him deeply. It was obvious, he thought, that there was trouble between the two brothers. And the sisters, as well. Twins, they were, he was sure that he had heard someone say that. They, too, did not seem too friendly with each other. In any case, he would have to proceed very carefully with this case. It wasn’t like a drunken stabbing at a North Main Street pub. This murder was going to have huge repercussions and he reminded himself to be very careful, to walk quietly and to say little, as the superintendent had reminded him when he was first appointed. He looked all around him. There was a small office at the back of the cavernous shop. ‘Mr Robert’ was written above it.
‘Could I use your office, Mr Fitzwilliam?’ he asked respectfully, indicating the place. Not for him to call a middle-aged man ‘Mr Robert’ as though this sad-faced man, a good fifteen years older than himself, was just a teenaged lad in an affluent household.
The tactful approach worked. Robert Fitzwilliam nodded. A fairly ungracious nod, but still a token of acquiescence. Patrick exchanged quick glances with his lieutenant Joe and received a nod in return. And he knew that Joe would find his own space in order to interview the remainder of the counter staff and, of course, their numerous apprentices. More apprentices than decently employed staff in this shop, thought Patrick, but knew these thoughts had to stay safely locked within his head for the duration of this enquiry. He took a look at the first page of this section of his notebook and said al
oud, very calmly, without emphasis or stress, ‘Mr Michael Dinan, could you come with me, please.’
There was a certain movement among those who remained within the cavernous depths of the Queen’s Old Castle. Nothing could really have been discerned, but an atmosphere swept through the depths of the shop; it seemed that many people there thought that this name, the name of Michael Dinan, had a weighty resonance in the matter of the death of their master, Joseph Fitzgerald.
Michael Dinan himself stood up with forced assurance. He even swaggered a little as he came towards Patrick. Suddenly he was put violently aside. ‘Just a moment, inspector,’ said Mr Robert Fitzwilliam. ‘I want to have a few words with you before you interview my staff.’
‘Certainly, Mr Fitzwilliam, come in, won’t you. Just wait for a moment, Mr Dinan,’ said Patrick with a polite nod of his head. He held the door widely open for the other man and then shut it respectfully behind the two of them. ‘Take a seat, won’t you, Mr Fitzwilliam,’ he continued in moderate tones.
The man was disconcerted by his politeness; Patrick could see that. Mr Robert didn’t sit down but waited until Patrick had closed the door before he spoke. Patrick also remained standing and waited to hear what the man had to say. What had prompted that frantic search of his father’s office, even before the dead body had been removed from the shop? What had he hoped to find? Let him do the talking for the moment. Patrick waited politely.
Robert faltered, hesitated, and cleared his throat a few times before he spoke. ‘You see, inspector,’ he said after a moment, and it did almost seem that he had spent the time racking his brains about what to say. ‘I feel that perhaps I should be present when you interview the staff. After all, I have been in charge of them for the last ten, no, eleven years. My father looked after the money side of the shop and I was in charge of the staff.’
Murder at the Queen's Old Castle Page 5