The Lazarus Bell, an Irish Murder Mystery

by Patrick Dunne

  ‘Any idea where that might be?’ Gallagher asked.

  ‘No. But if I can figure out what it was, that could point to where it ended up.’

  ‘What kind of relic are you looking for – bones? A finger?’

  ‘Not if it’s associated with Our Lady. She was believed to have been assumed bodily into heaven, so there were no bits of her anatomy left around to distribute.’ I put out the lights and we closed the door behind us. ‘What brought you here, by the way, Matt? I should have asked before now.’

  He pointed to the small café above the library. ‘Fancy a quick coffee?’

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  ‘Official business first,’ said Gallagher when we sat down. ‘No success with picking up Darren Byrne so far, but he won’t evade us for long.’

  ‘That’s not very reassuring, Matt.’

  ‘I promise you, I’m putting plenty of pressure on to have him hauled in. And Eamon Doyle wants you to ring him personally if you think for a second that you’re in any kind of danger – day or night. I also suggest you stay with Finian for the next few days.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘I bumped into a reporter last night – Eddie Sugrue, do you know him?’

  ‘Yes, I know Eddie.’

  ‘He told me it’s well known that Byrne’s private views on immigrants would qualify him for entry to the Ku Klux Klan – he tends to become indiscreet when he’s snorting cocaine. But recently his prejudice has been showing in print, so a few days ago Eddie and a couple of others had a word with the editor of Ireland Today to let him know what a nasty piece of work he has on his payroll. Eddie got the impression the editor had already come to the same conclusion.’

  ‘I think I’ve seen evidence of that.’

  ‘I can also tell you that someone else feeling the heat right now is lap-dance club supremo Mick McAleavey, and it isn’t the warm weather that’s bringing him out in a sweat.’

  ‘Has he said anything about Latifah threatening to leave the club?’

  ‘Yes. And he claims he was negotiating with her. She told him there were, quote, medical reasons why it wasn’t possible for her to work as a so-called escort, so he told her to come up with three thousand euro and he’d let her go – heart of gold, that man. But if we accept that the wee lassie was trying to buy herself out, it brings us back to the argument about money she had with her brother. So it rings true. But we’ll keep the pressure on McAleavey for the time being. And we’re still keeping an open mind on Benjamin Adelola.’

  I made no comment. That Adelola was under suspicion was fine by me. There was no point in complicating things.

  ‘And now, on a personal note, I should mention that persistence has paid off. I have a date with Fran later on. She’s off night duty.’

  ‘I’m delighted, Matt. I hope it goes well.’

  He never mentioned Groot, and so neither did I. As soon as we parted, I went back to take a final look at the statue before contacting Muriel Blunden.

  With a mid-fourteenth-century date established for its creation, the challenge now was to make an educated guess as to its place of origin. To my eye, her hairstyle and fashionable sleeves were northern Italian, and so too, I felt, was the realistic shaping of her breast – similar to that of a Tuscan marble sculpture dating from about 1345, and said to be the first portrayal of a Maria Lactans in Italian art.

  So far, so Italian, but that left unanswered the questions of the red mantle and the swaying Gothic stance, as well as the comparative rarity of the nursing-mother motif in Italy at the time. There was a plausible explanation for the mixture of styles: the statue had been made during a period when Italian influences were being spread north of the Alps by migrant artists.

  But Germany, France and Spain were more associated with shape-shifting Madonnas than was Italy, so if my sculptor was Italian, then – as I had already begun to suspect – he probably wasn’t working from home. The carved group in the interior was of a style associated with a number of mid-to-late-fourteenth-century German examples and was the final piece of evidence I needed to propose where the sculpture had come from: a workshop somewhere along the Rhine employing artisans from northern Italy.

  Any doubts I might have had were dispelled when I arrived back in the office and read a terse e-mail from Muriel Blunden.

  Analysis of sample from crown: substance consists of animal glue, calcium carbonate and traces of gold leaf.

  Because of its availability, calcium carbonate (chalk) was used in the Middle Ages to make gesso in northern Europe, whereas gypsum (calcium sulphate) was more often used in the south, especially Italy. The reliquary commissioned by the Priory of Our Lady’s, Castleboyne, was a masterpiece of German engineering and Italian design.

  I loaded the latest images of the artefact and e-mailed them to Muriel, and, while Peggy went into the house to make coffee, I followed the e-mail up with a phone call. I needed to talk to someone who would appreciate the extraordinary artefact we had discovered. It struck me only then that Finian had not asked once to see the statue.

  ‘You say it was hidden for safe-keeping just before the Black Death arrived,’ she said, when we had discussed it at length and I was on my second cup of coffee. ‘So what was going on in Castleboyne at the time? Talk me through it.’

  ‘OK – here goes. In the summer of 1348, feelings are running high over a plan to install this newfangled statue at the Priory. One faction is against it on theological grounds; another believes that, once it’s been placed in the shrine with the relic inside, it will eclipse the much-revered icon. Against them are the Bishop, the Prior and presumably the monks – and the native Irish, apparently. Into this stand-off situation come strange-looking foreign pilgrims who won’t go near the shrine or attend Mass at the Priory. They say they’re objecting to the statue too. Their reasons probably have more to do with its cost than with the dodgy theology behind it – I’ll come back to that. But an already volatile situation is now getting out of hand. As a result, the reliquary and its relic are hidden for safe-keeping. Then the plague breaks out. The visitors are suspected of bringing it to the town, and no doubt their heretical beliefs are discovered, which points to their guilt. Then they die, along with so many others. My guess is, after the Black Death subsided, the factions who were against the statue would have no truck with either the reliquary or the relic being resurrected; they probably claimed the plague was made worse by the fact that the statue was about to usurp the icon in the first place.’

  ‘Hmm. Fascinating. So who or what were the strange visitors, do you think?’

  ‘I’m convinced they were members of a sect, and there’s one that just might fit the bill – the Brethren of the Free Spirit. Their domain in that period was the Rhine Valley and the Low Countries of Flanders and Holland. They were said to dress in ragged, monk-like garments with coloured patches on their hoods, and they preached against the sacraments, wealthy shrines and private property. They were also accused of disrupting church services and of indulging in sexual promiscuity. Remember the badges we found buried with the three bodies?’

  ‘Will I ever forget?’ I had asked Muriel to share some of the talking at the public meeting in the Heritage Centre. Since I was dealing with the skeletal remains, she had agreed to talk about the other finds, including the pilgrim badges, in a PowerPoint presentation. The result had been a mixture of amusement and embarrassment among the audience as Muriel gamely described the artefacts in detail, accompanied by slides. One of the badges depicted a vulva wearing a pilgrim’s hat and carrying a phallus for a staff; the other one had three phalluses carrying a crowned vulva aloft on a processional bier. Crudely comical, they were nevertheless intended to be deeply disrespectful towards the two things their bearers were guaranteed to encounter in Castleboyne: people on pilgrimage and devotion to the shrine of the Virgin.

  It seemed now, ironically, that continental Europeans were responsible for both the creation of the sumptuous reliquary and its ignominious departur
e from public view. But had the ragged strangers who travelled upriver in the summer of 1348 really borne the Black Death with them? We would never know.

  As an archaeologist, I felt an immense sense of fulfilment. By interleaving the results of careful excavation with documentary evidence and informed speculation, I had reconstructed a fascinating episode in history, and – it was still early days – there was much more to be learned. But as an amateur sleuth I was experiencing déjà vu – there were so many stray bits of thread about the place, and I had no idea how they might be woven into some kind of pattern. And as a person of small stature who had just swigged two cups of coffee on top of the one I’d had with Gallagher, I was now having the caffeine jitters.

  This had an unexpected side-effect: unable to put off the inevitable any longer, I set off to make contact with Groot. As I couldn’t face the hotel again, I drove to the hospital; if he hadn’t shown up there by now, he would soon.

  I asked the receptionist if he was in, but she didn’t know. So I asked her to page Cora Gavin.

  When Cora arrived, I apologised for taking her from her duties, explaining that I was waiting for Groot but that I was also anxious to ask her a few questions about Benjamin Adelola.

  ‘Fire ahead,’ she said.

  ‘On the way here with you, did he say anything about Terry Johnston?’

  ‘The man who died here? No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Did he even ask you about him or inquire what he had died of?’

  ‘Not that I recall. Did he know him?’

  ‘Yes, they worked together. But it’s as if he’s blotted Johnston out of his life for some reason. You must admit it’s strange: on the way to the very hospital that was in the headlines for treating his former colleague, he said nothing whatsoever about him.’

  ‘It could be a cultural thing.’

  ‘I don’t agree. Workmates are workmates. They even used to swap shifts.’

  ‘Well, then I have no idea.’

  ‘Sorry, Cora. Just thinking aloud. How’re Dr Abdulmalik and his family, by the way?’

  ‘He’s gone back to Egypt with them for a break,’ she said. ‘We’ve taken on a locum for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘I guess Groot will be taking off soon too.’

  ‘Not soon enough, as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘Why don’t you like him?’

  She looked around to see if there was anyone in earshot, then beckoned me to move a little further from the reception desk. ‘I don’t like to dish the dirt on a colleague. But when they’re guilty of unprofessional conduct, they don’t deserve to be protected.’ She looked me in the eye and nodded, as if confirming something I was supposed to know or suspect already. But if she meant his sexual orientation, in what way was that unprofessional? Unless…

  ‘I’m not sure I…’

  Cora bent towards my ear. ‘He drinks on duty,’ she whispered. ‘All the time.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ She had no idea how relieved I was.

  Cora looked at her watch and sighed.

  ‘Hey, I’m holding you up,’ I said. ‘We must arrange that tennis game soon,’ I added as I watched her go briskly on her way.

  I took a seat in the reception area to wait for Groot. To pass some time, I turned on my phone and checked for messages. There was a text from Finian: ‘Phone or call by. Much to discuss.’

  I rang him, and he answered immediately. ‘I got another call from the National Trust; they wanted a decision. I’ve made up my mind, Illaun. I’m closing Brookfield at the end of the season. And I mean for good – no ifs or buts, no escape clauses. Maeve has agreed to look after Dad, and he’s happy enough about going to Galway. He likes being with the grandkids.’

  ‘And…?’

  I could hear Finian taking a deep breath. ‘I’m suggesting we either postpone the wedding until the New Year or get married before I go to England.’

  This didn’t sound promising at all. ‘And I’d stay here?’

  ‘We’d have a proper honeymoon in January.’

  ‘Yes. But no marriage before then, not really.’

  ‘Then leave it all until the New Year, as I suggested.’

  I felt like a piece of lost luggage being shunted from one destination to another. ‘I’m not going to let another year kick in, Finian. Time is ticking for both of us. But neither am I having a quickie wedding tacked on to the end of the tourist season. I’m afraid this has become an either-or situation.’

  ‘Oh. I see. I guess I’ll have to put a bit more thought into this.’

  ‘Yes, I think you should. More thought would be welcome.’

  Finian was sensitive enough to know that my emotions were in a fragile state just then, so he didn’t argue. But he also knew I was drawing a line in the sand. There was little more to say, so we said a civil if cool goodbye.

  Groot arrived ten minutes later. I looked at my watch. It was three-thirty. His hair was like tossed hay, his stubble made him look older, and his hunted, bleary look suggested that frontal-lobe pain had found its way into his eyeballs. He had his leather bag swung across his shoulder like a man going to the gym – which was where he should be, I thought, having a good workout followed by a shower and shave.

  ‘Jeez, Illaun, what are you doing here?’ he said when he saw me coming towards him. He licked his dry lips with a dry tongue. ‘I’m a bit hung over.’

  ‘Let me get you some water,’ I said, and went across to a vending machine. He followed me over and gulped down the entire bottle of still water when I handed it to him.

  ‘A good night?’ I inquired.

  ‘Yeah. A bit of a bender, really. Tied one on, as the Americans say.’ He smiled wanly. ‘Guess who I ended up with?’

  ‘Ross Mortimer. I saw you going into his room this morning.’

  Groot groaned. ‘Oh my God, yes. What time was that?’

  I didn’t answer. The smell of wine on his breath had hit me for six.

  ‘Are you seriously going to carry out a pathological examination in the state you’re in?’

  Groot stood up to his full height, looking offended. ‘Why don’t you do it, Miss Prim and Proper? I’d damn well like to see your reaction when the smell hits you.’ He stormed off through the swing doors into the hospital corridors.

  I wasn’t affronted. In fact, it would have been amusing if it hadn’t been so serious. What should I do? Presumably Gallagher knew about Groot’s fondness for alcohol, but he hadn’t found fault with his work or I would have heard about it. An ex-policeman from abroad invested temporarily with the authority of a State pathologist would be an obvious target for nitpicking, if not outright resentment, among rank-and-file Gardaí. But the reviews had been glowing.

  Perhaps we’d all been taken in, apart from Cora. Was she like the little boy in the story of the emperor’s new clothes, pointing out what everybody else pretends not to see? She could hardly be accused of being puritanical. I’d witnessed with my own eyes what Groot was like. But did that make him incompetent?

  While driving home, I wondered what my father would advise. His profession was perhaps more tolerant of drink than most, which is not the same thing as saying that actors drink more than the rest of us. I had come to the conclusion that it has to do partly with the insecurity associated with the job – constantly having to tell yourself that, although you’re a spear-carrier tonight, you were Hamlet last week and will, you hope, get that small movie part next month, which will at least pay the bills… And, perhaps paradoxically, it has to do with the sheer demand of going on stage night after night, totally sober. What Groot was doing now – going to work drunk – would have been impossible for P.V. Bowe, but he would have been more tolerant of it than I was. For sure, he deplored the negative affects of alcohol on creativity; but, paradoxically again, he understood that it was inextricably bound up with the arts. The other point that he would probably have made – with a characteristic chuckle – was that Groot wasn’t operating on the living, and who could deny that his
job was an extremely unpleasant one?

  Thinking of my father prompted me to ring the nursing home as soon as I got home. He was weaker but still holding on. They had persuaded my mother to go back to Betty’s and get some rest. I thought it best not to disturb her.

  I put my head into the office and told Peggy I’d see her the following morning. Looking in the bathroom mirror, I saw that my face had aged about five years in the same number of days. My first reaction was to flop into bed and sleep around the clock, but that was supplanted by the urge to go out and do something. But it would hardly be appropriate to get all dressed up and go partying while my father was breathing his last. Nor was that quite what I wanted to do. I had a sense of wanting to change, to turn into another being, like the extraordinary sculpture in the Heritage Centre – still me, but different.

  You also need to eat, Illaun. Food! I hadn’t had anything but coffee since breakfast, and that had been minimal. But I was too tired to cook. Sleep for an hour, then get a takeaway. That sounded OK.

  I tugged a banana off a bunch in the fruit bowl and ate it, to put something in my stomach. Then I went into my bedroom, pulled the curtains, set the alarm, dragged off my clothes and lay down on the bed.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  7.30. The red display on my clock radio was being more assertive than usual. Then I realised why. It was accompanied by the hammering of piano keys; like demented skeletons, they were pounding and prancing up and down the scales of some unfamiliar scherzo. Usually providing a polite musical nudge into wakefulness, my radio had on this occasion homed in on the moment when a noisy intruder had infiltrated Lyric FM’s early-morning playlist. The piece concluded with a bang not unlike the lid slamming on a piano – one that happened to also contain an entire orchestra. The presenter back-announced it as the Tripping Scherzo from the third Concerto Symphonique by Henry Litolff, adding that the ‘tripping’ figures were created by the ‘prolixity of acciaccaturas’, something I didn’t doubt for a second. Then it came to me that it was evening, not morning, and that I had been asleep for two hours.