A Shameful Murder

by Cora Harrison

  ‘I don’t think he’s interested in anything except sailing,’ he said. ‘Someone told me that he has a yacht down in one of those east Cork fishing villages. Will spend days and nights on it, one of my students told me; all by himself, too, which is a bit strange. I’m a rowing man, myself, or I used to be and it was the companionship as well as the fresh air and the exercise that attracted me. We used to row on the River Lee – from the University down to Blackrock Castle and then back again.’ He looked down at his broad chest and heaved a theatrical sigh and then said, ‘Whenever you are ready, Reverend Mother … I live in South Terrace, you know. I can easily drop you back to St Mary’s of the Isle – no trouble at all.’

  As they drove along the South Terrace he showed her his apartment, up on the top floor of a house only six or seven doors down from Dr Scher’s place.

  ‘Never been in private practice – nothing but a university lectureship and a professorship was good enough for me – pass on the knowledge, I suppose – influence the next generation. That place has plenty of room for me – I’d rattle like a pea in a place the size of Scher’s; don’t know why he keeps on the whole house just for himself – hasn’t got a wife or a child to fill it,’ he said slightly scornfully. ‘Nice fellow, though – young people like him.’ He seemed to add those words in a slightly perfunctory manner, but the Reverend Mother did not respond. Her mind was busy with Gerald Fitzsimon. A liking for yachts and for remote fishing villages would not lead to any career for a young man of the merchant class of Cork. It would be little wonder if his father were to become impatient and withdraw him from his medical studies which appeared to engage so little of his time and put him to work in his own retail business. In fact, if Joseph had done so, that might have been the best thing for Gerald, especially since the Woodford fortune from the maternal grandmother had been destined for his sister, not for him.

  ‘This is most kind of you, and I know you must be busy,’ she said as they arrived at the gates to the convent. She did not ask him in – she wanted to have some space in which to think her own thoughts, so got out quickly as soon as he stopped and waved a brisk farewell. He drove off with a faint toot-toot of the horn and she made her way meditatively through the gate and up the front pathway to the convent.

  All was quiet within her kingdom. Saturday morning school classes were over for the day and the sisters, teacher, novices, pensioners and sacristans were at their midday dinner when she arrived. She slipped past Sister Mary Immaculate with a mutter about a lunch having been provided at the house of the dead girl and she went along to her study. She had, she knew, some very earnest thinking to do.

  She had reached its threshold and was just about to open the door when the faithful Sister Bernadette destroyed her peace.

  ‘We’ve had all sorts of excitement here, Reverend Mother,’ she said dramatically. ‘The police have been doing a door-to-door search of the whole area. They even had the cheek to call in here – I sent them off with a flea in their ear – you can depend on that! They’re searching for Eileen O’Donovan. You’ll never guess. They’re saying that she’s the one who killed that poor girl that you found in the lane – that she’s the one who murdered Angelina Fitzsimon.’

  Patrick came around at four in the afternoon. He was full of apologies that the convent had been disturbed and was, she thought, seething with wounded pride that the matter had been taken out of his hands and that his superior had ordered the search of the neighbourhood, without a word to him, just before they had both set out for the funeral. The Reverend Mother gathered that the superintendent wanted to be able to assure the family, and, even more importantly, the Cork Examiner, that active and sweeping measures had been taken to rid the city of a murderer. The lamplighter, she guessed, had given in his evidence, not naming the Republican Party – something that might have brought death to him and to members of his family, but laying emphasis on seeing a well-known figure, dressed not in the comely and suitable shabby rags and defining shawl over the head and shoulders, but in the heavy wool breeches, jacket and beret of the rebels.

  Patrick had, of course, known about Eileen O’Donovan although she would be about five years younger than he. There had been a mixture of excitement and outrage in the neighbourhood at her emergence from the chrysalis of respectable poverty into the exotic uniform of the Republican Party. The rumour that she was the author of the article for the Cork Examiner would have been enough to point the finger at her. The body, obviously described before the arrival of the police, might have been enough to condemn her. The Reverend Mother’s presence at the scene would have been immediately whitewashed out of the records. She wondered whether to summon the superintendent, but decided to wait until Monday. If Eileen were arrested before that, then she would take action immediately. In the meantime, she sat down on her chair and began to think about the murder of Angelina Fitzsimon and all the ramifications of relationships within those families who had once been so familiar to her.

  FIFTEEN

  St Thomas Aquinas:

  Ita vivunt in scaenis quomodo concordia sidera – bellum cum plerique sine paulisper ire vix aliquis scit animabus eorum?

  (How is it that the billions of stars live in such harmony – when most men can barely go a minute without declaring war in their minds against someone they know?)

  It was the smell of blood that alerted the Reverend Mother. She had taken the key to lock up the chapel after sundown – it formed a good excuse for her to get outside the convent and to refresh her mind by pacing the gravelled path of the shrubbery of Portuguese laurels and ugly privet which had been established in the Victorian heyday of the convent gardens and was the pride and joy of their present gardener, who continually clipped back every rebel branch.

  It had come on to rain though, almost as soon as she had stepped out of the side doorway – not a soft mist, but a heavy downpour which, together with the bitter wind from the east that snatched at her veil, made walking impossible and forced her to do without her evening stroll and go immediately towards the chapel for shelter. There would be flooding again soon just when high tide coincided with this cold east wind and heavy rain, she thought, as she pushed open the chapel door and closed it carefully behind her, omitting the customary dip of the fingers into the holy water and going straight through the little porch and into the main body of the church.

  And that was when the smell of blood came to her nostrils. It was surprisingly strong, overpowering the incense and the candle grease. Only one light was still illuminated, the red globe over the altar, but it seemed to show that the chapel was empty. She stood for a moment, looking around, feeling puzzled.

  Something else was amiss. The small table that stood to the side of the altar showed up bare and dark brown, stripped of its usual linen cloth. And the steps leading up to the altar, made from the finest Italian marble, had little round red spots marring their immaculate surface.

  Without hesitation the Reverend Mother snatched a candelabrum from the altar and held it up, following the trail to the small room where the priest robed every morning before Mass.

  ‘You should have stayed within the altar rails if you are looking for sanctuary, Eileen,’ she said and then moved forward instantly as the girl swayed. She put an arm around her and asked, ‘Are you badly hurt, my child?’

  ‘Bit of trouble,’ said Eileen. She turned a face that strove to be nonchalant towards the Reverend Mother, but was drawn with pain and deadly white. She looked as though she were about to faint. She sank down on a chair and bowed her head.

  It was an emergency and without hesitation Reverend Mother raided the cupboard for the sacred communion wine and angled the bottle towards the girl’s mouth. ‘Drink some,’ she said authoritatively and was relieved to see a little colour come into Eileen’s face. There was an ominous stain still spreading on the white tablecloth which Eileen held to her arm and the Reverend Mother seized the priest’s stole from its place on a wall hook and bound it firmly over the bulging c
loth.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked, relieved to see a little colour come back into the girl’s face.

  Eileen took another swig of the communion wine before answering. ‘Good stuff,’ she murmured, ‘you’d better take it away, Reverend Mother, before you get me drunk.’

  Reverend Mother accepted the bottle and waited for an answer to her question.

  ‘We had to get Jimmy Logan, the lamplighter fellow, out of the barracks,’ she said after a minute. ‘Not just for his own sake,’ she added as the Reverend Mother stifled a snort. ‘He’s the type that loves to give information and he’d probably give it to the civic guards as quickly as to the Free-Staters or to ourselves. The trouble is that the things he says and the things that he will swear to in court can do a lot of harm. We got a message to say that he was singing like a canary, fingering me for the murder of that girl.’ She shifted slightly, biting her lip and suppressing a groan as the Reverend Mother tightened the knot on the embroidered stole.

  ‘Was it a knife wound?’ asked the Reverend Mother, deciding not to go into the politics or the ethics of the raid on the barracks. This was not the time for a pious lecture.

  ‘Bullet, I’m afraid,’ said Eileen. ‘I’m sorry that I came here, Reverend Mother – I’ll be off when I feel a bit stronger. That stuff in the bottle is great. If I had a bit more I might be able to walk. One of our lads, Eamonn, is great at digging out bullets – was a medical student – at least, he did a year in pre-med. He does it with his pocket knife – dips it into iodine first, of course.’ There was a wobble in the voice, which its owner strove to make sound nonchalant and the Reverend Mother was not deceived.

  ‘How did you get here, Eileen?’ she asked gently.

  Tears started into Eileen’s grey eyes. She gulped and made a huge effort to control her voice.

  ‘I’m crazy,’ she said shakily. ‘You wouldn’t believe it, Reverend Mother, but a bullet in the arm really hurts and do you know the first thing that I thought – well, I wanted my mam – like I was a little kid again.’ With that she broke down and sobbed. The Reverend Mother eyed the communion wine and decided that the God of St Thomas Aquinas would intend her to use her common sense. She took off the cork again.

  ‘Just a small drink, now, Eileen. I certainly don’t want you inebriated,’ she said in brisk tones.

  Either the drink or the matter-of-fact words seemed to work. Eileen swiped her face with a rather dirty hand, had a quick gulp, gave a watery smile and continued her story.

  ‘And then I came to my senses. I couldn’t bring the civic guards down on top of my mam – she has enough to put up with – so I came in here. I thought if I had a bit of rest I could be on my way once it gets dark …’

  Her voice faded away. Her face, by the light of the six candles, was even whiter than ever. The Reverend Mother looked out of the small window. Already the light was fading. There was no doubt that another storm was brewing.

  ‘Wait here for a moment,’ she said. ‘I’ll find you a bed for the night. You can sleep in my study and no one will be the wiser. Just wait until the sisters have gone to bed and then I’ll smuggle you in. You don’t mind the dark, do you? I’ll have to blow out the candles or someone is bound to see their light and come asking questions.’

  She wished that she could tuck Eileen up in a bed straightaway, but it would be too risky. She touched the girl’s cheek and was alarmed to find how cold it was. Eileen needed warmth. She chose a heavily embroidered dark red chasuble from the cupboard and wrapped it around the girl. It would not be worn by the priest until Good Friday and any murky stains could be got out of it by then. She would, she planned, hand it over to Sister Bernadette in a nonchalant fashion just after the Palm Sunday rituals on the week before Easter and ask her to check that it was in good order. Hopefully any stain would be put down to a spilling of wine by a careless altar boy, or better still, by the priest himself.

  ‘Wait here until I come back,’ she said to Eileen, but she took the precaution of locking the church door when she went out. The girl was headstrong and stubborn; and seventeen, she knew from her own experience, is a time when one thinks one knows best.

  But when she got back to the convent she began to change her mind. It was not as late as she had thought – Eileen could not be left there in that cold chapel for another few hours – and there was no doubt that the bullet would need to be dug out of her arm. She had no faith in the young Republican who was so handy with his penknife, even if he did use iodine, and had gone through the pre-med year at the university. With a sigh she went to the phone in the back corridor, picked up the receiver and asked the exchange for Dr Scher’s number.

  He was in. For a few minutes she had worried that he would be out, that he had not gone back home after the funeral, but once the housekeeper knew that it was Reverend Mother Aquinas on the phone she changed her official voice, which doubted whether the doctor was at home, and said obligingly that she would get him.

  He sounded sleepy when he came to the phone, but the Reverend Mother ignored that. She was impatient of people who felt that they had to have these little after-supper naps.

  ‘I’d like you to come over,’ she said and then wondered what to say next. Sister Bernadette, of course, would have an ear open so she had to be careful. ‘I just want to discuss something with you,’ she went on, carefully. ‘You got home safely from Blackrock, did you? I heard that there has been trouble in town today.’ She chattered on, talking about her conversation with Professor Lambert and his praise of Dr Scher’s ability to operate successfully in any conditions. ‘I heard a story that will amuse you,’ she said carefully. ‘I’ve heard of a young man who digs out bullets with a penknife – used to be a medical student for a year, I believe, but then he gave it up. What do you think about that? Should he be trusted to deal with a case, what do you think?’

  There was a long silence and then a sigh. ‘You’ll get me hung,’ he said resignedly. ‘See you in ten minutes.’

  Well, at least he is quick-witted was her thought as she hung up the phone and went upstairs to the linen cupboard. There was plenty of spare clothing there. The Reverend Mother got out a habit, a wimple and a veil. There was also a bag for soiled linen so she packed the articles into that and strolled downstairs frowning in a manner which she knew would deter Sister Bernadette from asking whether she could help her in any way. The Reverend Mother was known to be charitable with donations to impoverished families and hopefully this would pass without remark.

  By a piece of luck she met no one and went out through the rain, towards the chapel, carrying the bag in one hand and an enormous umbrella in the other. Eileen was looking very faint, but she revived enough to giggle at the nun’s garb. Her dashing military-style coat was soaked with blood and it did not seem wise to remove the stole that was binding her arm to her chest so in the end they had to be content with draping the habit – luckily a large size – over everything and taking trouble to fix the wimple and veil as authentically as possible.

  ‘Can you walk?’ asked the Reverend Mother, looking at her anxiously.

  ‘“You can do anything if you want to badly enough,” that’s what you used to tell us,’ said Eileen. ‘I used to believe you,’ she added bleakly.

  What a lot of nonsense we tell the young, thought the Reverend Mother, but she just smiled and held her hand out, keeping it firm and steady as Eileen staggered a few steps. When they got out of the chapel, and once it had been locked up, she put up the umbrella, shielding both of their faces, and tucked her arm firmly into Eileen’s, supporting the girl. Many nuns walked like that, compensating for the loss of family by their affection for their fellow members of the religious order. The appearance of the two of them going arm-in-arm through the convent garden would not excite any attention in the semi-dark with the rain falling and she steered a path to the side door into the convent.

  ‘Wait for a second,’ she whispered, thrusting the umbrella into Eileen’s right hand and pushing the
door open. To her annoyance she felt her heart beating very fast when the figure of Sister Mary Immaculate came bearing down on her. She didn’t hesitate for a moment, though.

  ‘Ah, Sister, I was coming to see you. Could you prepare reports on the senior class for me for Monday morning,’ she said, making her voice sound slightly cold. ‘I’d like to have some notes on each girl’s strongest point as well as their weakest.’ Her mind had gone to her conversation with Professor Lambert – perhaps she was overemphasizing the academic at the expense of the practical. She would have to think hard about the purpose of education – it shouldn’t just be a butter-making process where the cream was allowed to rise to the surface, to be turned into the golden product that had made Cork rich, while the remaining skimmed milk was an almost-waste product.

  Sister Mary Immaculate received her command in sulky silence and turned away without any of the usual standing around and gossiping endlessly. The Reverend Mother stood very still until she heard the leather soles tapping on the staircase leading up to the nuns’ dormitories, then went quietly down the corridor and opened the door to her study. There was a leather couch in the room and she moved it to a position where its front was to the fire and its back to the door. She placed a cushion for a pillow and fetched a rug from the cupboard. Only then did she go back to fetch Eileen.

  When the sound of the doorbell came to her ears, she felt very tense. She would have loved to have gone to the door herself and usher Dr Scher in as quickly as possible, but that would have been too great a diversion from her usual behaviour so she sat at her desk with her account book open and hoped that Eileen, on the couch, would lie still until Sister Bernadette had departed.