* * *
“Did your husband have any enemies?” It sounded like a clichéd line from a film, but what other words could he use?
“What do you mean by enemies, Inspector?”
“I mean anyone who disliked him or anyone he had fallen out with?”
“He wasn’t always an easy man, Inspector. But, it makes no sense…” She took a drink from the cup of tea, the sergeant had made.
“How do you mean?”
“I can’t easily explain it. He was my husband, and that counts for something, but he was a hard man to like sometimes. Stubborn and miserable as sin a lot of the time. I often told him he should make more of an effort with people…you know, oil the wheels. He just didn’t seem to …seem to…understand what I meant. Or at least he made out that he didn’t know what I meant.”
Cronin let her pause, didn’t hardly dare to breathe. This sort of candour was as rare as hen’s teeth, and maybe the woman would come back to her senses in a minute and remember it was a police inspector she was talking to and not a priest behind the grille in the confessional. Or maybe, he was looking a gift horse in the mouth. The woman was talking as though he wasn’t a policeman; in a funny way, as though he was a priest—the sanctity of the confessional. Ironic. Talking to him was the direct opposite to that.
“He offended a lot of people; seemed to almost enjoy it. There were those who gave back as good as they got and those who never spoke to him again.”
“So, you’re telling me there would be a long list?” It came out more flippant than he intended, and he glanced at her, but she didn’t react
“Yes, and no, Inspector Cronin. Some of those he upset are past worrying, and well, he’s been out of circulation for a good time now. He hasn’t been out and about, and he hasn’t been upsetting anyone, apart from the odd few who came to the house. All of them know him too well to take any notice.”
“So, there’s no-one who springs instantly to your mind?”
She put her hand over her eyes, as though she was shading them against strong sunlight and he got goosebumps. Just for a moment, he was sure she was no longer off her guard. She was playing for time and avoiding his gaze.
“No, Inspector. He’s been confined to the house for the past six months and more, and he’s been quieter. Not like in his heyday. Wrapped up in his own pains and aches.”
“What were his health problems?” Of course, he’d need to speak to Cash, later, provided the man was in a fit state to talk. Too fond of the bottle and getting worse. Cronin sighed.
“Doctor Cash said he had heart failure. His feet were terribly swollen, so bad he could hardly stand sometimes. The tablets they gave him helped, but it was getting to the point where I was struggling to manage. That’s why the doctor was trying to get the nurse—someone to help me with the nursing care.”
She looked at him, panic…like someone caught in a trap. “What will I do now, Inspector? What on earth will I do now? I don’t know where to start.”
He explained the procedure. Events would gather their own momentum, and Mary Crowe might find some solace in the things she would need to do, the people she’d have to contact. Hopefully, she’d have someone they could call on to help. A sibling maybe. There weren’t many neighbours out here, and you got the feeling that Simon Crowe hadn’t been the type to call round to them for the loan of a pair of hedge clippers.
“Is there anyone we can contact for you, Mrs. Crowe? Somebody for company? Someone to stay with you maybe?”
She shook her head, but then looked into the distance. “I have a friend, Freddie Willis, a friend from the old days, at college. We were in the same little group, and he’s not long moved back into the area.”
Well, there was a turn-up for the books. When he’d been a young man, he’d thought all that sort of carry-on stopped on the young side of middle-age. Life had taught him that this was very far from the case. He pulled himself up. This Willis was probably just a friend.
“He lives with his sister, near the town on Mill Road. Maybe I could ask them to come out. But, no, sure, I’ll be fine…won’t you be around for a while?”
She looked up into his face, and her expression froze. She clutched at her throat.
“Oh, my God, Inspector Cronin. I don’t believe it…that he’s gone…so sudden…in a way like this.” She looked around seeking some solace or some grounding in the familiar kitchen.
Chapter Four
“What exactly did the woman say to you, Miss Cahill?”
They had all gone. Finally. It had seemed like she’d never get her kitchen back. Women smoking. Making tea, and then, they’d started on the sherry, and the smell of perfume and fog of smoke had given Maggie an awful headache. And, of course, she was meant to hover round them, asking if they wanted another drink or ashtray, and nod away and agree with them but offer no opinion of her own.
Geraldine O’Sullivan was the best of them. You got the impression she was just following along in her husband’s wake and that this wasn’t her milieu at all. Maggie’s unease mounted as the clock ticked and there was no further news and no sound of the men.
Then, eventually, after her glances at her watch grew more frequent and Maggie’s headache began to take over her thoughts, there were sounds of activity.
The men had called down, and there was soon the throb of car engines. Father Stephen had come downstairs.
“You look tired, Miss Cahill. You must be ready for your bed. What a night. God help us all. What a thing to have happened in our little town.” He shook his head, grizzled and sparse, sandy in colour, and a lot of freckles on his skin, somehow looking odd on a man now into middle-age.
“Has young Father Tom gone up to bed?”
“He has. It was an exhausting business. Mary Crowe was insisting on staying out there on her own, but Inspector Cronin persuaded her in the end. Someone tried her friend or her friend’s sister…but they were away for a few days, at Ballybunion. In the end, they got…”
“Hannah?”
He looked at her.
“How on earth do you know that?”
“Because she’s always the one called upon in times of trouble and sure Mrs. Crowe couldn’t have anyone better.”
He yawned, covered his mouth and stretched. “I’ll say goodnight, Miss Cahill.”
When he left the kitchen, Maggie’s hand went to her apron pocket, and she drew out the envelope. At this stage, the feel of it was like her own skin, warm, familiar and as if it contained the whole world rather than the single page of writing it actually held.
Why did she need to be reading it again at this hour of the night after a distressing and exhausting evening? You’d think she’d leave it alone. Somehow, though, she couldn’t stop herself. Memories. Life in London; Conwy—times she’d filed away in her brain, taken out like photographs on select occasions to be brooded over; not a time to be catapulted back into like this. She should be thinking about Simon Crowe; the impact this would have on a small place where interest in the neighbours’ doings was like meat and drink.
* * *
“Ah, you’re still up. I’m glad. I wanted to have a word.”
Her heart flew up into her throat. It wasn’t that he’d crept up on her but rather, she’d been so lost in her thoughts that she’d paid no heed to the sound of the kitchen door opening.
Canon Murphy had aged about five years since her last sight of him, not two hours before. Well, that was ridiculous, but it was still her first thought. His hair was white and wispy and so sparse that it made his small head all the more like a boiled egg. Now, he had lost his colour, and sallow skin did nothing for him. His normal pink and white colouring at least gave the illusion of the wise and benevolent man that people wanted to see.
“Can I get you a cup of tea, Canon?” Please let him say no.
All she wanted, and she wanted it badly, was her bed.
“No, thanks, Miss Cahill. No tea.” He held his hand out as though to quell her; odd, as she hadn�
�t said anything. “What was it exactly that the Crowe woman said when she came on the telephone?”
She had already told him. Hadn’t she? Maybe not. It had been a long night.
“She was upset, in a state…crying and struggling to get the words out.”
“Yes, yes. I don’t mean that. Normal female hysteria…the words, Miss Cahill. What were the exact words she used?”
Maggie wracked her brains. It wasn’t that simple. She hadn’t been coherent. He’d have to settle for an approximation. Anyway, he wasn’t the Garda—though he’d certainly see it that he had as much power as them.
“She said that her husband was dead in bed. That she’d found him, that there was a lot of blood. Then, it was like she realised that she was alone in the house…I mean…apart from her husband and that maybe the culprit was still there. She began to get frightened at that point, and I told her to call the guards and that I would alert people from this end...” she looked at the canon. Was that what he meant? He was staring at her as though wanting something else from her. But what? What else could she tell him?” Mary Crowe had said something like, “he shouldn’t have come.” She’d meant the attacker, surely?
“The time, Miss Cahill. She rang here about half-past eight. Had she just found him?”
Maggie nodded. Her heart was hammering away in her chest, and she put her hand to it involuntarily. She swallowed, then got a grip on herself.
The canon was making her feel uncomfortable. But, she’d have to rise above that, not show it. That was the thing with bullies. They smelt out weakness.
“She had just found him, but I don’t know how long before that she’d checked up on him.”
He nodded his head.
“I expect this place to be alive with people tomorrow. All wanting to have the inside story. I want no-one to speak to any journalists or any other nosy parkers. It must all be done through myself. I’ve already been on to his Grace, Bishop O’Dwyer, and he’ll be out here himself in the morning.” He puffed out his thin chest and stood with his legs apart.
“Just you make sure the house is run like clockwork, Miss Cahill. I needn’t tell you I won’t countenance any gossip with those women you spend your leisure time with. Good enough women in their own way, I suppose. God-fearing, especially Miss Moore.” He smiled a thin, watery smile.
“But, you know Miss Cahill, what I always say is that where any more than one woman is in a room, you’ll have gossip and tittle-tattle.”
He chuckled at his witticism and left her in peace. Her blood pressure rose as she thought of the roomful of men downstairs in the dining-room and to some extent, their wives. Would there be a person of any consequence in Ballytierney who wouldn’t be chewed over and probably slandered, when the great and the good of the town got together? Talk about the beam in your own eye.
Chapter Five
Cronin turned his pillow over and tried his mother’s trick of counting sheep. It was no good. The damn things sneaked around him and gambolled and faltered, and he lost count, defeating the whole point. He needed to be at his best tomorrow as he faced the legions of power in the town, and he was sure it wouldn’t just be the town. The death of Simon Crowe would spread its tentacles wide. That feeling that he would be tested was what was really keeping him awake tonight. That and going over the interviews he’d had. In the end, he spoke to the main people who’d had dealings with the dead man in the last days and weeks of his life. Doctor Cash, the two priests—though he hadn’t yet spoken to the canon. He interviewed Hannah Scrivens and even Denis Field, an old crony of Crowe’s and of late, the gardener and general maintenance man at Inishowen House.
It had taken a while to calm the recent widow. This, the second time, he spoke to her, he’d expected maybe that she’d be a bit more coherent and less terrified. But, in the wake of such a shock, maybe that had been expecting too much.
“I can’t believe it, Inspector…in a place like this. Nothing happens.”
She shook her head, lips drawn and her face shadowy and thin. It was hard to imagine her feeling joy or fun in a long time. The kind of woman no-one paid much attention to, apart from the big necklaces and startling scarves she wore. Now, he wished he had taken a bit more notice of her through the years. She was one of those women you saw in the shadow of a big man, a big personality. The kind of woman he didn’t have a lot of time for, not deep down. His own mother had been a strong woman, formidable even, and he always thought they were the type who kept the world safer. Whereas a woman like Mary Crowe—they abrogated responsibility, and you never knew what went on behind the submissive façade.
“When had you last seen him?”
She swallowed.
“Not for a while. Things were quiet, and we’d had a busy day and…and.” Her voice trailed off, she gulped.
“To tell the truth, Inspector, I went and dropped off. I was reading my library book, one minute and the next…well, I opened my eyes, and it had gone dark outside, and I had a crick in my neck. I…I wondered if he’d been calling out for me. He had a small bell, and if I didn’t come, he’d bang his stick on the floor, too.”
Good God, what a life. How long had this been her lot? He needed to get past the guilt written across her face, or they’d be there all night with her apologising and trying to explain herself.
“It must be exhausting, caring for someone on a full-time basis…small wonder you dropped off.”
“It was unforgiveable. I bet I slept for an hour and a half—two hours maybe.”
His head was spinning. This threw a different light altogether on the night.
“Are you saying that your husband could have died then—maybe closer to six than eight O’clock?”
The stricken look was back, and her face had an unhealthy waxy look as if she rather than the man now in the mortuary, was the corpse.
Cronin held back a shudder. What nonsensical thoughts. The woman had a shock, which was compounded by guilt. Damned awkward, though, no firm idea of the time now at all.
He managed to have a quiet word with Hannah almost without anyone knowing. Just that sneaky trick of going into the kitchen with her and letting her talk as she opened presses and fiddled about with tins and packets of biscuits.
“It’s very good of you, Hannah, above the call of duty as they say. Coming out and staying with Mrs. Crowe for the night.”
She pursed her lips and gave him a look that said a volume about soft soap and that he needn’t think she was born yesterday. A woman unused to compliments and mistrustful of them.
“Sure, it’s nothing, Inspector. I was only going to bed. I may as well do that here as at home, and I’m here for a couple of hours in the morning anyway. I’m due at the parochial house in the middle of the day; helping Miss Cahill as I do three days a week.”
“Don’t worry about being in the house, here, Hannah. The sergeant, Dick Sheehan, will be posted here for the night.”
“Sure, I’m not worried. Why would I be worried?”
He looked at her face to see whether she was serious. Her expression was guileless.
“Do you enjoy your job here, Hannah?”
The note he heard in his own voice gave him the creeps. It was something he didn’t recognise as coming from him, a tone almost sibilant, wheedling. She brought that out in him, though. He was so careful not to be speaking down to her, putting her in her place. There would be enough in Ballytierney to do that. Tuppence looking down on a penny halfpenny, his mother used to say sometimes, trying to make light of another slight or put-down.
Maybe he didn’t need to worry about Hannah though.
She laughed at him.
“Enjoyment doesn’t come into it, Inspector. I make a living cleaning people’s houses; doing the jobs they think are beneath them, on the whole.”
A look passed her face. “I’m maybe not being fair. They’re not all like that. But, the first rule is that I don’t carry gossip from one house to the next, so if you’re after finding out who the nice
st people are—and the opposite, I’m afraid I can’t be telling you.”
This was going to be a pain in the backside, then. The woman had a chip on her shoulder as big as a plank, and her first position was always going to be in defence.
“I understand that, Mrs. Scrivens and I’m not asking you to gossip. But, it’s a thin line, between gossip and maybe giving us some information that might lead to the arrest of this poor man’s attacker.”
He let that sit there, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.
She’d put three cups and saucers on a large tray which, as far as he could see had a painted depiction of a hunting scene on the base.
Hannah Scrivens kept looking to the door, desperate to escape him and his questions.
“So, one minute, Mrs. Scrivens, before you go. Have you noticed anyone different visiting?”
She shook her head.
“Anything at all unusual, anyone lurking in the grounds for instance, or any telephone calls that were out of the ordinary?”
She shook her head, but this time, slowly and he knew that she was lying, albeit by omission.
“All right, you may as well go, and I won’t hold you up, anymore. I can see you’re not wanting to talk to me just now,” No harm in letting her know that she wasn’t fooling him.
What did he know about her and her family? They were like a vague and not very savoury backdrop to her. A wily, thin husband, wouldn’t meet your eye, dark hair slicked back with brilliantine, fag in the corner of his mouth, always looking as though he was on his way to some nefarious activity. Probably just going to the bookies. There were four sons, and the youngest was still at school, an altar boy, fair, scrubbed and different in every way from the three older lads, who were what his old boss would have referred to as corner boys. The one daughter, he only knew vaguely, always in the midst of a bunch of teenaged girls. This woman had her work cut out and probably was up to every trick and working of the male mind.
The Body at Ballytierney Page 4