The Body at Ballytierney

by Noreen Wainwright

  The telephone on his desk rang. As he turned from the window, he had a flashback to thirty years ago, to a bleak night and promises made. It wasn’t the first time this had happened to him in the past week. It shook him, though, winded him. There was the rest of the morning to get through and the afternoon.

  “It’s Ben Cronin here, Mr. Taffe. Your secretary put me through. Is it a good time to call around to have a word with you? I mean you’re not in a classroom or anything are you.”

  “No, not in the classroom.” He waited, weighing it up. Would it be better to deal with this here, at the school, than to have his home, his sanctuary disrupted by the bloody guards? He had little time for them, but they weren’t going to go away.

  “So, it would suit? If I came now, within the next half an hour?”

  “All right.”

  * * *

  “It sounds to me as if you’ve made your mind up, Maggie. You’re going to go back, aren’t you?”

  They were on their way back from morning mass. Thank God, Abina wasn’t there. She was taken up with the inspector’s wife who was going through a bad time with her arthritis. Not that Maggie would wish that kind of pain on anyone.

  “I think I have. It’s not fair on you and Will to stay with you like this.”

  “Maggie, stop it, this minute. I’d tell you if it bothered me, and it honestly doesn’t. I like the company. And you know Will. He’s an easy-going man and isn’t bothered in the least.”

  “Thank you, Helen. I’ll be thanking you all my born days for the friend you’ve been this last week. But, I need to deal with things properly. I’ve made a few plans. I will go back to the parochial house. For now. But, I will be looking for another job. I’ve thought it, and I’ve said it, but I need to start from a better position. An out-of-work priest’s housekeeper struggling to get a reference from her last employer isn’t going to be inundated with job offers.”

  “It’s so unfair, Maggie.”

  “I know. Don’t get me started. But I have to put my feelings to one side for two reasons. The first one is what I’ve just said. I need to look after myself. The second one is young Father Tom. I told his mother I’d keep an eye on him, and I intend to do it. Surely, the person who killed Simon Crowe will be identified soon, and whatever it is that’s troubling him will…I don’t know…go away.”

  “I hope so, Maggie but that depends, doesn’t it…I don’t think he had anything to do with it, no more than you do. But, he heard or saw something. He’s protecting someone. Why?”

  Maggie shook her head. Apart from worrying about where she was going to live and the letter from England, she had wondered about this until she’d come to a conclusion.

  “I think I have an idea,” she said to Helen.

  They had reached the end of Helen’s street, and both slowed down, absorbed in their conversation, oblivious to the chill breeze playing round their neck and legs.

  “The secrets of the confession. I can’t think of anything else. Father Tom had taken to calling out often to Inishowen House. Sick visiting, I suppose.”

  “I don’t know Maggie. In all the time they’ve lived in Ballytierney, I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve seen either of them in the church. Would a man like that make his confession? Especially to a young priest like Father Tom?”

  “Yes, but he was a sick man. On his own a lot. Time to brood. You know they say that confession is an important thing, whether or not you go to the church?”

  They had got to Helen’s front door. Collins Street was only a ten-minute walk from the church.

  * * *

  He felt an antipathy to Taffe. So, Ben needed to go out of his way to be reasonable with the head teacher, to give him no grounds for complaint.

  “How well would you say you knew Mr. Crowe?”

  “It’s a small town, Inspector Cronin. As you know. I’ve worked here the whole of my teaching career.”

  The man must be in his late fifties a similar age to Frank O’Sullivan; both a decade or two younger than the Canon and Simon Crowe. He waited, trying to keep his gaze still, not look as though his brain was busy making connections.

  “Simon Crowe was someone I knew years ago. He was one of the company; men who shared a love for sport, racing in particular. We had days out…the Curragh, Listowel, Mallow races…”

  He trailed off and looked at Ben. “I’m not sure what you’re asking me, Inspector. It’s not such a big thing, is it? Friendship between men in a small town? You’re thrown together. Conversation is about the hurling and the football and the horses.”

  The telephone on his big desk rang.

  Taffe shook his head. “I said, no telephone calls. Stupid bloody woman.”

  Ben had noticed a young woman, fair-haired, neat, in an adjoining office. There must be a secretary.

  “Maura, I said no calls.”

  You wouldn’t want to work for the man.

  Whatever the woman said to him, he stayed on the phone, but his left hand wound the telephone cord round his fingers.

  “Mrs. Grace.”

  He stopped fiddling with the chord and turned away from where Ben sat.

  Yes. Mrs. Grace, said to be running up against Bill Curran in the next election. It was a talking-point all right. Not the first woman to get into the Dail, but it was still unusual. She had a good reputation and was no pushover. It wasn’t surprising she’d been put straight through to Taffe.

  Most of the conversation must have come from her, but Taffe’s frequent, “of course, Mrs. Grace …I was saying the very same thing myself…” and the chuckle showed a different man altogether from the way he’d spoken to, and about, the poor secretary. A different man than the one who’d spoken to him, too. He’d been wary, then, but that was natural, wasn’t it? Few people were completely relaxed in the presence of the guards.

  “That was our local politician, the Fine Gael woman.” He didn’t need to identify the party. Everyone knew who Joyce Grace was. It was said that Bill Curran hated the sight of her.

  “She said she’d come and speak to our Leaving Cert students just before Christmas.”

  “Good of her.” Ben sat as still as if he had all day – which he really did not.

  “Would you say that he was a man who had enemies, Mr. Taffe? Simon Crowe, I mean?”

  Taffe smirked. “That’s a bit extreme, surely Inspector Cronin?”

  “It’s an extreme thing to be battered to death.”

  Taffe’s shoulder jerked, and he shot a look of dislike at Ben. “Fair enough, Inspector. When I knew him, well it was a different life, years ago since we hung around together. I didn’t know him to have enemies.”

  He paused. “I suppose he’d been through some pretty hairy experiences out in Africa. He could tell a good tale when he wanted. I…” He pulled himself up. It had been an unguarded moment, and he had himself back under control.

  Answer only what you’re asked. Ben could see the words imprinted in the head-teacher’s brain.

  “I’ll leave you to it…you’ll be busy.”

  Taffe’s shoulders relaxed, and he took in a slow breath, then covered it with a shuffling about as he got up from his desk ready to come round to where Ben was, his arm outstretched. The cuffs were slightly back. He was well-versed in the social gestures.

  “When did you last see Simon Crowe. Just out of curiosity?”

  The teacher’s jaw tightened. “Oh years ago. Sure, the poor man was almost house-bound. I couldn’t put a date on it, now. It might be five years ago?”

  He’d drawn his hand back, and his eyes darted towards the door.

  He was desperate to be rid of Ben Cronin; that was for sure.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Breda put a plate of bacon and cabbage in front of each of her brothers. A big bowl of floury potatoes took up much of the space in the middle of the table. A feeling of numbness made her worry that she’d tip the plates over. Mikey and Paddy didn’t thank her, and she didn’t expect
any different. It had been many a long year since there had been fun and laughter at Town End Farm. There had been six of them, then, of course. The four of themselves and Mam and Dad

  * * *

  “Inspector, there’s two things. Urgent. Both urgent.”

  Dick Sheehan had met him at the barracks door, and he was practically hopping from foot to foot.

  “Your wife had a fall.”

  He put a hand out as if to touch his superior officer’s sleeve, then thought better of it.

  “Is she hurt? Bad? When?” Ben stopped, drew breath.

  “She’s been taken to Mallow hospital. The ambulance. They’ve been telephoning here, that Abina Moore and Doctor Cash. I don’t know any details.”

  “Right, I’ll drive there now,”

  The second thing could wait. He could not deal with anything else now;

  “The other thing is a bit of a breakthrough sir, on that man found in the shepherd’s hut. We have a name—a Carl Stockland. He’s American like we thought.”

  He stopped, desperate to impart what was the first piece of solid information they had since Crowe’s death.

  A tiny flicker stirred in Ben’s chest. Something that could be excitement if the rest of him wasn’t tensed up and already on the journey to Mallow. His mind wouldn’t still. He thought about the drive and pulling up in front of the pale building and the smell and the corridors and the white uniforms. Nurses in tan stockings and white flat shoes. The smell of the place.

  His car was outside, Thank God.

  Fear had lodged in the centre of his chest, deep and clenching all the muscles in his body. The back of his neck and shoulders ached badly.

  * * *

  It was strange being back in the parochial house. She’d expected strangeness, but not the dream-like feeling of it. In an odd way, it reminded her of when she had spent that few weeks in Streatham, while Reggie was in Wahgi Valley before she’d received the news. It had been an unforgettable time of almost-suspension, as though she knew that the way she was living was temporary.

  At least, she was being left in peace, and at least, Father Tom hadn’t been spirited away to the retreat house in Clare. Be grateful for small mercies. Until she knew that there was a resolution to what was troubling him—and that something was clearly linked to the death of Simon Crowe—she didn’t feel that she could look for a job, not really with her heart and soul.

  One thing had changed, though. One week from today she was going to meet her destiny. As she thought of the phrase, she smiled. As a child, she’d always had a book somewhere about her. Maybe the big phrases had seeped into her so now, they often came to mind when anything important was happening. She was going to Dublin, and at one p.m. outside Eason’s bookshop in O’Connell Street, she was going to meet the writer of the letters.

  She hadn’t told anyone of her plan and wasn’t sure why not. Well, maybe she did know—it was because, anyone hearing what she was planning, would have her certified. It was daring and maybe stupid. But, she’d had enough of skulking about the place feeling apologetic. Maybe Stanislaus had done her a favour—something that wouldn’t please the old sour-face. The canon knew she’d been married in a registry office, that she wasn’t a respectable spinster lady. The roof hadn’t fallen in, though it had lost a few slates.

  She’d take care too, meeting the man in a public place and going for tea in a tea-room surrounded by people. What could he do and more than any fear was curiosity. She wanted to find out what this man knew if anything. It was like the plot of an Agatha Christie novel. She had read something like this though she couldn’t remember details or which book, but the plot had hinged on someone who had witnessed a murder in a distant time and place and had come back to England to see how he could capitalise on it.

  The person who wrote the letter might be dangerous, and he most probably was a blackmailer. If she’d any sense, she’d go straight to the guards and let them pick up this chancer outside Eason’s. No. She’d had enough of being sensible for now.

  * * *

  “How are you feeling?”

  Harriett was flat on her back, now on the Female Orthopaedic ward. She had a bed. That was something. It took a bit of doing to find any positives in this, though.

  “It’s a clean break, Ben. They can put a pin and plate in it. It could have been worse.”

  This was so strange. Their roles had swapped around. He was usually the one trying to dredge up something positive, but now, it was Harriett looking on the bright side.

  The story he’d got was garbled, a bit from the nurse who’d met him as he’d come through the casualty department and a bit from Abina, who, of course, was here. She’d come in the ambulance with Harriett and was full of self-recrimination.

  “Oh, if I’d been fifteen minutes earlier; if I hadn’t got into conversation with Maggie Cahill and Helen Brosnan outside the church.”

  “It’s no-one’s fault, Abina. She tripped.”

  If it was anyone’s fault, it was his. An image of a frayed carpet on the landing wouldn’t leave him alone. He didn’t know it was, but he had an awful feeling. He’d looked at that bloody thing hundreds of times and visualised calling into Burke’s in town and getting a new landing carpet. Then he’d think about how that meant new stair carpet too, and someone having to let the fitters in, and he’d just left it for the time being.

  “The woman across the ward, Ben.” Harriett nodded at the woman across the wide space of cream floor covering to a shape under the stripy counterpane. She fell too, on a banana skin, would you believe.” She half-grinned and did something funny with her eyes, something he hadn’t seen her do for years and his heart lurched at the echo of the funny, irrepressible girl she’d been. He swallowed the lump in his throat.

  “Well, she’s a big friend of Mary Crowe, apparently. She and her brother; way back from college days. She was telling me when you went off for the cup of tea, Abina, before you got here, Ben. She told me that Mary had been a tough woman, back in her day.”

  So, that was the woman who’d been away in Ballybunion. Maybe he’d get to talk to her. For that matter, he needed to get back, find out what it was that Dick Sheehan had started to tell him. It was about the young man, an identity for the young man and there must be a connection with Crowe. There had to be.

  It felt somehow distant from him. It was here in the hospital ward, with his wife laid on the bed, quite possibly because of his neglect of a basic maintenance job in the house. Abina was putting a few things away in the locker. She’d had the presence of mind to pack a few night things and toiletries. Of course, she had.

  “You go, Ben.”

  “What?” His heart had begun pattering hard against his chest.

  But, his wife smiled at him, more peaceful than he’d seen her in a long time. Maybe they’d given her something for the pain; quite likely they had -morphine or something.

  “They’ll be throwing you both out any minute anyway. It isn’t visiting time, and we’re probably disturbing the ladies trying to get a rest. You’re busy at work. It can’t have been easy just heading off in the middle of the day like that. And Abina will need a lift home too.”

  It was stranger and stranger.

  Serene and calm. That’s how she was. Apart from worrying about what her injuries really were, all the way here, Ben’s mind had spiralled when he thought about what this fall was going to do to Harriett. She had so much to contend with, and her life was tough enough. If for no other reason than to stop his persistent thoughts, he’d been very glad to reach the hospital car park.

  “I’ll come back tonight, visiting time tonight. Is there anything else that you need?”

  “I gave Abina a list. Don’t come back tonight, Ben. Seriously. There’s no point at all in racing back here in a few hours. To tell you the truth, I’m all in. All I want to do is sleep. I have the theatre in the morning. Why don’t you telephone them in the morning? They’ll let you know what time the operation is. Your job must come first.
I know you have that.” She glanced over in Abina’s direction and looked quickly at Ben. It was as though, for one moment, the first in a long time, Ben Cronin, and his wife were in tune. Abina sat still, in the pose of the listener, the observer.

  A half-a-hour of this on the journey home. He wracked his brain trying to come up with a handful of safe topics that would pass the journey. Religion, he supposed and her cat and maybe her mother.

  He pulled his shoulders back and said goodbye to Harriett.

  * * *

  The air, stuffy and depressing though it was, as he stepped through the barracks door, was better than that hospital smell. He’d dropped Abina Moore off at her house without strangling her. It wasn’t easy, feeling irritated with a person you owed so much to. But, no matter how much he told himself about her good points, she’d never be a friend. Only one potentially awkward subject had been broached between in the journey.

  “Your nephew called into see me the other day. Young Peter from Mallow. Did he stay with you for a good bit of time? Catching up and that?”

  Goodness knew what the imp was that made him draw Peter Barry up in conversation. He wasn’t exactly a subject close to Ben’s heart – the opposite. But, he wanted somehow to cut through Abina’s power. It might be all paranoid nonsense in his own head, but he wanted to let her know that he knew, that Angela’s difficult relationship with her parents had probably been discussed between Abina and her nephew. Although, in fairness, of all the things he could despise her for, this wasn’t one of them.

  She’d never thrown that one in his face, though she must have been fully informed. Maybe he was in danger of going too far at times, of allowing his dislike of her overtake his sense of fair play. Mind you, though she didn’t say anything about Agnes the way she held forth about other bits of news…still, he persisted.

  “He told me that Agnes was courting. Think he got a kick out of letting me know that he knew about it and me and Harriett didn’t.” He sneaked a quick sideways look at her. She sat, rigid in the passenger seat, looking through the windscreen and as far as he could see, expressionless.