Disappeared

by Anthony Quinn

  “I’m not looking for details, Father. Just your impressions. Did he seem afraid of anything or worried about his safety?”

  The priest switched on a lamp.

  “Joseph was a hard-boiled character, but lately his conscience had been troubling him. In this part of the world, the worst thing a person can be is an informer, of any type. Whether it’s to do with smuggling, or someone doing the double, anything at all. What Joseph did, however, was beyond the pale. He knew he was living on borrowed time.”

  “Did his death come as a shock?”

  The priest slumped in his chair. “There’s nothing as absolute and awesome as death.”

  “But what was your reaction when you realized the dead body was Mr. Devine? Was it surprise? Anger?”

  “Surprise, no. Regret, perhaps.”

  Daly looked up sharply. “What do you mean, regret?”

  “I didn’t have much of an idea about what Joseph was involved in, or who his victims were, but I fear I had a hand in his murder.”

  “How?”

  “I’m not sure. The last time I spoke to him was in the confessional. I’m afraid I can’t divulge what either of us said.” His face was grim. “But I’m convinced I sent him to his death.”

  “I need more details. You can’t make a statement like that to a detective in a murder investigation and expect it to be left unquestioned.”

  “I wish I could tell more.”

  “I’ll get to the bottom of this, sooner or later, even if it takes a court of law.” Daly tried to keep the threat out of his voice.

  The priest stood up. “I’ve been trying to make sense of Joseph’s death for the past fortnight. Trying to make it hang together according to some divine law.”

  Daly said nothing, letting the silence reel out wider and wider.

  Father Fee was standing at the window. “Every morning, the monks here tidy the rooms. They clean the toilets, plump up the pillows, replace the towels. Their satisfaction lies in caring for the troubled souls who come here on retreat. It reminds me of the pleasure I used to get from the confessional. Listening to parishioners’ tales of woe and betrayal. Providing a soothing word here, a formulaic penance there. I was able to construct a jigsaw image of the outside world from their stories. Better listening to it than inhabiting it, I told myself.” He sighed. “But after the Troubles ended, a new type of penitent started coming to my booth. Former paramilitaries, mostly. Men and women trying to pick up the threads of ordinary life again.”

  Daly nodded. It wasn’t for nothing that Northern Ireland still had some of the highest Mass attendances in Europe.

  “Hour after hour I listened as these men and women hid behind the metal grille and squawked and gibbered their terrible crimes. They came in droves seeking forgiveness. As if salvation could be guaranteed that easily. It was a terrible burden that made me tremble and weep. I felt uncertain about what I was doing, and I suppose that left me malleable to human weakness.

  “Joseph Devine’s confession was the first time I ever withheld an absolution. Six months ago, I would have handled his revelation differently. His story was not that strange or evil, and his soul was already beginning its tortuous journey back to salvation. But it was the depth of winter, and I felt old and tired. The booth reeked of alcohol and his sweat. Instead of the usual penance, I asked him to contact a relative of one of the men he had sent to his death. Make some form of reparation and ask for forgiveness. Undo the evil of his actions, so to speak. After he had done that I told him he could return to the confessional and I would finish the sacrament.”

  “I need to know who he contacted.”

  “I left the choice to him. We only talked in the abstract about his crimes. I knew he was a marked man. Not that that will ease my guilt or give me any peace. It won’t make me feel better thinking he would have died anyway or that he might have been killed a month or two or a year later. I’ve confessed my sin to the abbot, and I’ve prayed harder than at any other time in my life. Forgiveness is not that easy, though. This is my penance. To think that he suffered because I decided not to grant him God’s absolution.”

  Daly nodded.

  “I want to know where this ends.” The priest’s voice echoed in the bare room.

  “What?”

  “Your investigation.”

  “Cases like these sometimes never end.”

  The priest swallowed.

  Eventually he asked, “Do you believe in divine intervention?”

  “I only piece events together,” replied Daly. “I don’t believe in any pattern or explanation beyond that of criminal motive.”

  “What do you believe in, then?” asked the priest, his face inquisitive.

  Daly felt suddenly wrong-footed. He gazed out the window. “I believe in death. And life, of course.”

  The priest coughed. “As a priest I have to believe in a greater pattern, the possibility of a more mysterious explanation. I saw it perfectly on the morning I gave the last rites to Joseph. Unfortunately, it vanished quickly afterwards, the feeling that God had planned his death, and that I was an intimate part of His intervention.”

  The priest appeared embarrassed by his disclosure and joined Daly in looking out the window. The two men stared at the wide lawn dotted with yew trees and lined with laurel hedges. Small groups of men and women walked up and down the paths, deep in thought.

  Fallen angels who’d suddenly found mortal shoes, thought Daly. He could almost identify with the priest’s agonizing sense of plummeting, his fall from grace into confusion and self-doubt.

  “Are all these people from the religious life?” Daly asked.

  “No. They’re from different walks. Mostly they’ve experienced some sort of short-circuit in their relationships or career. They find consolation in the monk’s routine of prayer and meditation.”

  The priest glanced at Daly. “You should try it sometime.”

  A bell rang somewhere. A door opened and slammed. The figures walking in the garden slowly returned indoors. The air in the room felt oppressive. It smelled of dust and the musty days of winter.

  The solution as to why Devine was killed appeared simple enough. Prompted by a troubled conscience and a misguided priest he had revealed his past to someone and they had sought revenge, or employed someone else. The irony of it produced a grim smile on Daly’s face, which he hoped the priest did not notice. The informer had finally informed on himself.

  Daly’s eyes were drawn back to the view from the window. It was like a picture with a message for him, holding back some sort of a secret, like the postcard from David Hughes. A line from it rang in his mind: My kind hosts are looking after me. If only they would stop talking about God and salvation. Daly surveyed the lawn closely, but the people in the garden had disappeared.

  “I need to see the abbot, now,” said Daly, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice.

  31

  Dermot Jordan and David Hughes made their way along the ridge of whitethorn trees until, suddenly, out of the mist, a grotto of death appeared. The heavy stench of rotting flesh and the buzzing of flies hit them as they approached the edge of a disused quarry. For one nightmarish moment, Dermot wondered whether the smell of decomposing flesh could be from his father’s corpse. Then he saw the gaping carcasses of chickens, and the bodies of bloated sheep melting back into the earth amid split bin bags and piles of rubble.

  Hughes explained to Dermot how the IRA men had brought his father’s body to this godforsaken place and buried him in the bottom of the pit.

  Dermot shook his head. He wished he had never discovered the location. Never had a landscape produced such a sharp mood change in him. The anticipation and sense of adventure he had felt all morning was transformed in an instant into a dark, suffocating depression.

  Over the years, the quarried hole had been turned into a grim bunker of illegally dumped rubbish, and judging from the smell, the waste products from laundered diesel. It was a dump, a place for criminals to disca
rd what they would rather forget. Like a ghastly tapestry of death, the bodies of chickens hung from the blackened thorn trees growing along the sides.

  Before them lay a sea of black bin bags, more animal carcasses, and, incongruously, several prosthetic limbs like the ones in Mitchell’s back room, sticking out at odd angles from the rubbish. It would take months to excavate the quarry to find his father’s body, and even then, the bones would be lost amid the skeletons of dead farm animals. It would be a revolting and painstaking search for the truth.

  A series of dry retches gripped his stomach, but he remained where he was, trapped by curiosity and a wish to burn upon his memory the details of his father’s burial place.

  Hughes edged away on his own, counting under his breath, scanning the pit for terms of reference, a familiar rock or shrub, something for the mind to hold on to and trigger a memory. He circled the edge of the hole, then disappeared from view.

  Dermot’s clothes felt cold and clammy. Right then he realized that all these years what he had been searching for was a window, a window offering light and warmth, and a view of his father, the man whom he had wanted to love dearly but who had been taken away from him. He had never seen his father, but still he had an impression, an inverted memory of him, an illusion based on the stories he had heard and the photographs he had studied. But in the dark pit before him all he saw were the shadows of evil men. How easy it would be to give the old man a push and send him flailing into that pit along with all the other horrible secrets of the past. A sense of foreboding rose in his chest. Had he come all the way up this mountain just to follow in the footsteps of his father’s killers?

  “Let’s go back.” Hughes had reappeared. He stood close by, a fine rain drifting between them.

  “We should have turned back a long time ago,” mumbled Dermot.

  32

  By the time Daly entered the abbot’s office, he was accompanied by Inspector Irwin, and two squad cars of police waited at the monastery gates.

  The abbot nodded politely at their request and began explaining how the monastery ran its retreats.

  “Catholic monasteries used to be regarded as strange or the stuff of medieval myth,” he said. “The irony is that at a time of dwindling congregations around the world, our monasteries are being besieged by people seeking some form of retreat. In fact, we’re oversubscribed for the summer. Our guests stay in former monk cells, and payment is made on a free-will basis.” He smiled at the two detectives and steepled his fingers together. “No accommodation can promise silence and serenity like a monastery. Our only problem is keeping the growing hordes down to the genuine spiritual seekers, not just vacationers at ‘Club God.’”

  “We haven’t come here for the tour guide,” snapped Irwin.

  The abbot’s face froze. He blinked. In a cold voice, he said, “I’m glad you don’t plan to stay with us, Inspector. The Benedictine motto is to treat all guests as you would treat Christ himself.”

  Daly spoke. “We’re looking for a man called David Hughes. We have reason to believe he may be a guest here.”

  He handed the abbot a photograph of Hughes.

  “His life may be in danger. As might the lives of those he confides in.”

  The abbot studied the photo for a moment.

  “It’s an old one,” added Daly. “Mr. Hughes may have changed in the meantime, shaved his beard, or lost weight.”

  “No, no, he hasn’t changed at all,” said the abbot. He raised his hands in a gesture of bewilderment. “How can such a harmless old man cause such drama?”

  “An informer called Joseph Devine was murdered a fortnight ago. Mr. Hughes was his handler, his point of contact with the security forces.”

  The abbot got up and began fussing over a heavy folder.

  “I think you’ll find,” he said, addressing Daly, “that the gentleman you’re looking for is in Room 204.”

  There was a heavy creak of leather as the abbot sat down wearily.

  “He’s still registered as a guest here, but I haven’t seen him for a few days. His grandson used to come and take him out for trips.”

  Dermot, thought Daly. It had to be him.

  The cast-iron radiators hummed with heat, and Daly felt the sweat gather on his brow as he and Irwin hurried down the long corridor.

  An old monk came hobbling toward them, walking with two sticks to help carry his weight. Though he looked to be in pain, his smile as they passed him was pronounced, unwavering.

  The abbot had supplied them with a key, but the door was already ajar. Irwin gingerly pushed the door wide with his foot. He took a step into the room with the air of someone assuming control.

  The bed had been made, and a chair sat neatly at a bare desk. The carpet was spotless. A pile of clothes lay folded in an opened suitcase. A fly buzzed against the windowpane, a black dot of anger in an otherwise empty room.

  “For someone with Alzheimer’s, Hughes has a tidy streak.”

  “More likely it belongs to the person helping him,” murmured Daly.

  He walked over to the bedside cabinet and picked up a leather-bound notebook. It appeared to be a journal written by Hughes over the previous six months.

  One of the first truths of detective work was that the unexplainable almost never happens. Even a vulnerable old man disappearing into thin air turns out to have a perfectly logical explanation. Daly could see that now. The monastery had been a perfect hiding place with its fixed routine and unwritten code of privacy. Guests were looked after without too many questions asked. The behavior of a confused old man might not appear so strikingly out of the ordinary. Most of the guests were probably fleeing some sort of pain or disturbance in their spirit. If one of them rambled a little, it might only be because he was trying to shake off some burden of guilt. And if a guest seemed unsure of himself, wasn’t it because, in a fundamental sense, everyone on a retreat feels lost or undermined or no longer certain of anything? And then there was Dermot, posing as Hughes’s grandson, able to wander in and out like a shadow as the guest ate, prayed, and sang hymns.

  The boy was resourceful, Daly had to hand him that. He had established a refuge where he could patrol and keep an eye on Hughes, unbeknownst to anyone else.

  “Now that the boy knows we’re on to him, he’ll turn himself in,” remarked Irwin.

  “I don’t think our presence here is going to stop their mission.”

  “They’re not on a mission,” snorted Irwin. “This whole thing is an elaborate schoolboy’s prank. He’s using the old man to get attention. Just like his arson attacks.”

  “That doesn’t sound like the Dermot I know. He’s trying to extract information from Hughes. Dangerous information.”

  “You’re thinking like a sane person.”

  “I’m thinking full stop. That’s what we’re paid to do.”

  “You can’t think sane with a disturbed teenager and a senile old man. Trust me on this.”

  33

  Daly decided to hand over responsibility for the surveillance operation at the monastery to Irwin and Special Branch. It was not because he thought they could do a better job. It was because of something more personal—the thought that his involvement with the Jordan family had reflected badly on him as a detective. He worried that he had lost the necessary intensity of effort and concentration that should have alerted him earlier to the boy’s secret life. How could he penetrate the darkness surrounding a possible suspect when he felt he was walking in pitch-darkness himself?

  He went back to the station. He planned to spend the next few hours going through the investigation, searching for any more mistakes, or leads he might have overlooked. Then he would start reading through the journal he had recovered from Hughes’s room.

  It had been a long day, with many surprises, and it was barely afternoon. He postponed lunch and sat down at his office to read the journal. He quickly found himself absorbed by the old man’s words. Few things are as captivating as other people’s nightmares. />
  October 22

  It has been a week since I last was able to pen my thoughts. I misplaced my diary and was worried sick Eliza had found it. Fortunately, I found it at the bottom of my suitcase. Things aren’t getting much better for me since the last time I wrote. The ghosts keep appearing on the appointed nights. They ask me questions about old cases, and often I cannot remember. Sometimes they’re gone by the time I get outside. Then they leave newspaper clippings of old cases hanging on thorns to haunt me. Last night I locked myself out of the house and Eliza got mad at having to let me in. She said I shouldn’t be out wandering in the dark, and took the front door key off me.

  November 2

  I awoke last night to the sound of heavy rain drumming the window. My calendar tells me the ghosts will appear again tonight, but Eliza has made me a prisoner in my own home. Earlier, she locked the bedroom door, and threatened me.

  “I’ve got to sleep, David,” she told me. Her hands shook as she fitted the bars on my bed. “I’ll look in now and again, and if I see that you’ve tried to get out I’ll have to ring the police. You understand that, don’t you?”

  When I awoke later I used up a whole hour just listening to make sure she was in her room. I heard her settle into bed, and waited for any further creaks. Then I moved to the bottom of the bed and squeezed past the sidebars. I pressed my ear against the key hole of the door. Not a sound. I took out a key I had hidden, and unlocked the door. The only noise I could hear was the blood rushing in my head.

  The dark wind from the lough was blowing again, bringing with it the voices of ghosts. I could see through the whitethorn hedge a man wearing an old RUC uniform. The badge on his cap glinted in the moonlight. He was carrying a rope. He selected a branch and tied the rope to it. Before he placed his head in the noose, he turned towards me, keeping the features of his face hidden in the shadow of his cap. When I returned from the thorn hedge, my clothes were so wet I had to wring the water out of them.

  Daly read on. In a series of rambling entries, Hughes described his conversations with the ghost of Oliver Jordan. He had recognized Jordan from the blue electrician’s boiler suit he was wearing, and the details he supplied about the unexploded bomb that had signed his death warrant. Then on November 5, Hughes noted in capital letters that he had been INSTITUTIONALISED. Daly assumed this referred to his arrival at the nursing home. There were no notes for the following week, except the comment that the other “inmates” seemed to be drugged or asleep.