by Anne Emery
He looked at his watch. It was half-noon. Brennan Burke had given him elaborate directions but there was no need. Michael knew the map of Dublin as well as he knew the Roman Missal, and he was only five minutes away from his destination at the corner of Mountjoy Street and St. Mary’s Place. His destination was Christy Burke’s pub.
Michael, decked out as always in his black clerical suit and Roman collar, kept up a brisk pace along Dominick Street Upper until he reached Mountjoy and turned right. A short walk up the street and there it was. This was an inner-city area of Dublin and it had fallen on hard times. But the pub had a fresh coat of cream-coloured paint. There was a narrow horizontal band of black around the building above the door and windows. Set off against the black was the name “Christy Burke” in gold letters. Lovely! He pushed the door open and stepped inside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the smoke and the darkness after the bright July sunshine.
“Michael!”
“Brennan, my lad! All settled in, I see. Good day to you, Monty!”
Michael joined his friends at their table, where a pint of Guinness sat waiting for him. Brennan Burke was a fellow priest, Michael’s curate technically. But it was hard to think of Burke, with his doctorate in theology and his musical brilliance, as anybody’s curate. He had lived here in Dublin as a child, then immigrated to New York before he joined Michael at St. Bernadette’s in Halifax. It was a long story. Christy Burke was Brennan’s grandfather, long deceased by now, of course. Brennan himself was fifty or a little over. Young enough to be Michael’s son, if Michael had been tomcatting around in his seminary days, which he most certainly had not! In any case, they looked nothing alike. Brennan was tall with greying black hair and black eyes. Michael was short and slight, with white hair and eyes of blue. Monty Collins, though, could be mistaken for Michael’s son. Same colour eyes and fair hair. A few years younger than Brennan and deceptively boyish in appearance, Monty was their lawyer and confidant.
Michael greatly enjoyed their company. So it was grand that they were able to arrange this time together in Dublin. Brennan had signed on to teach at the seminary in Maynooth for six weeks. Michael was on an extended vacation, with the blessings of his bishop. It was the first time he had been away for more than two weeks, ever. And why not? In any other job, he’d be retired by now! They had left the home parish in the capable hands of another priest they both knew. Monty, too, was on vacation. Told his office he was taking a month off. Made whatever arrangements he had to make for his law practice, and boarded the plane. So here they were.
Brennan
Brennan Burke was a man of firm opinions. He knew where he stood, and those who were acquainted with him were left in little doubt about who was standing and where. But that sense of certainty deserted him each and every time he came home to the land of his birth. He was glad to be in Ireland, to be sure, but he was afflicted with sorrow, anger, and frustration over the violence that was tearing apart the North of Ireland. Catholics and Protestants, Nationalists and Loyalists, Republicans and Unionists — however you labeled them — had been blasting one another to bits for the past two decades. This was the nation that had sent monks into continental Europe to evangelize and educate the barbarians after the fall of Rome, monks who had helped keep the light of European civilization glowing through the Dark Ages. St. Thomas Aquinas had been taught by an Irishman in thirteenth-century Naples, for the love of Christ. And look at us now.
Brennan’s own family had been steeped in the events of Irish history, certainly in the first half of the century. History had stalked his father, Declan Burke, all the way to New York City. Declan had fled Ireland at the point of a gun when Brennan was ten years old; he remembered as if it were yesterday his loneliness and terror as the ship slipped out of Cobh Harbour in the dark of night and began the long, heaving voyage across the Atlantic. Brennan’s father had not laid shoe leather on the soil of Ireland since that hasty departure in 1950. But that wasn’t the end of it. History caught up with Declan as recently as a year ago in the form of a bullet in the chest, at a family wedding in New York. The wound was not fatal, but nearly so.
Well, his son was a frequent visitor to the old country even if Declan was not. And here he was again. The Burkes of Dublin were spoken of as a “well-known Republican family.” Were they in the thick of things still?
But there was pleasure to be had today, so why not just bask in it for a while and banish dark thoughts to the outermost chambers of his mind? He picked up his glass of whiskey, inhaled the alcoholic fumes, and took a sip. Ah! Tingling on the lips, honey on the tongue. Cigarette? No, wait. As usual. Enjoy a pure hit of the Jameson first. The warmth spread through him as the whiskey went down. And there was more to come.
About the Author
ANNE EMERY is a graduate of St. F.X. University and Dalhousie Law School. She has worked as a lawyer, legal affairs reporter, and researcher. She lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with her husband and daughter. The other books in the Collins-Burke mystery series are Sign of the Cross, winner of the 2007 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel; Obit (2007); Barrington Street Blues (2008); Cecilian Vespers (2009); and Children in the Morning (2010), winner of the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction and a silver medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards.
Praise for Anne Emery
Praise for Children in the Morning
“This sixth Monty Collins book by Halifax lawyer Emery is the best of the series. It has a solid plot, good characters, and a very strange child who has visions.” — Globe and Mail
“Not since Robert K. Tanenbaum’s Lucy Karp, a young woman who talks with saints, have we seen a more poignant rendering of a female child with unusual powers.” — Library Journal
“Emery paints a poignant portrait of a girl burdened by information she was never supposed to have, and of a tormented man who, at the most critical juncture, realizes that mounting a proper defence requires fumbling around in some very dark corners.” — Quill & Quire
Praise for Barrington Street Blues
“The yin-yang of Monty and Maura, from cruel barbs to tender moments, is rendered in occasionally hilarious but mostly heartbreaking fashion. Emery makes it easy to root for Monty, who solves not only the mystery that pays the bills, but also the one that tugs at his heart.” — Quill & Quire
“Anne Emery has given readers so much to feast upon . . . The core of characters, common to all three of her novels, has become almost as important to the reader as the plots. She is becoming known for her complexity and subtlety in her story construction. . . . Barrington Street Blues should earn Anne Emery the right to fly first class from now on.” — The Chronicle-Herald
“This is a wonderful yarn, full of amazingly colourful characters, dialogue that sweeps across the pages like a tsunami, a story that will keep you reading late into the night, and a plot as devious as a lawyer’s mind.” — Waterloo Region Record
Praise for Obit
“Emery tops her vivid story of past political intrigue that could destroy the present with a surprising conclusion.” — Publishers Weekly
“Strong characters and a vivid depiction of Irish American life make Emery’s second mystery (in a projected trilogy) as outstanding as her first. The Irish Catholic flavor is reminiscent of Robert Daley’s books and will appeal to his fans.” — Library Journal, starred review
“Emery has concocted an interesting plot . . . Her depiction of the gregarious Burke clan rings true . . . it is a pleasure to spend time with them.” — Quill & Quire
Praise for Sign of the Cross
“A complex, multilayered mystery that goes far beyond what you’d expect from a first-time novelist.” — Quill & Quire
“This startlingly good first novel by a Halifax writer well-versed in the Canadian court system is notable for its cast of well-drawn characters and for a plot line that keeps you feverishly reading to the end. Snapp
y dialogue, a terrific feel for Halifax, characters you really do care about, and a great plot make this one a keeper.” — Waterloo Region Record
“Anne Emery has produced a stunning first novel that is at once a mystery, a thriller, and a love story. Sign of the Cross is well written, exciting, and unforgettable.” — The Chronicle-Herald
Copyright © Anne Emery, 2011
Published by ECW Press
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
library and archives canada cataloguing in publication
Emery, Anne
Children in the morning: a mystery / Anne Emery.
Originally published in hardcover in 2010 (978-1-55022-927-1)
ISBN 978-1-55490-679-6
Also issued as
978-1-77041-045-9 (Print); 978-1-55490-927-8 (PDF)
I. Title.
PS8609.M47C47 2011 C813’.6 C2011-904411-0
Cover and text design: Tania Craan
Cover image: Nick Daly/Photonica/Getty Images
Author photo: Danny Abriel, Dalhousie University
Typesetting: Mary Bowness
The publication of Children in the Morning has been generously supported by the Canada
Council for the Arts which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada, and by the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities, and the contribution of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit. The marketing of this book was made possible with the support of the Ontario Media Development Corporation.