Murder in Ballyhasset

by Noreen Mayer

  Conor whispered to Libby, 'Pamela's parents have taken it hard. You can imagine how upset they are today. No parent wants to bury their child. It's not the natural order of things.'

  Nodding, Libby gazed at Pamela's father for the first time. He was a small grey-haired man with a sallow complexion and a lined face, who stood with a tense expression beside Pamela's mother. She looked pale and drawn.

  'I feel dizzy,' Conor said in a quiet voice. 'I hope I don't faint during the service and make a show of myself.'

  'You'll be fine once the Mass starts, I'm sure,' Libby replied, trying to reassure him. 'It won't last too long, hopefully.'

  After an interval, they entered the chapel, glad to be out of the rain, which had shown no sign of stopping. The large bright church contained an altar full of vivid red gladioli in silver vases. Beside the altar stood an impressive white marble pulpit. Brendan walked up to the front pew of the church with Pamela's mother, father, and Conor, near the closed coffin, which stood in the central aisle. The casket was made of dark wood with a simple decoration of roses. Behind them, the rest of the mourners filled up the pine benches. Some of the local people joined them.

  A choir of three women sang a hymn softly, their voices emerging from the balcony above and behind the congregation. As the priest appeared, their voices rose in a beautiful rendition of ‘The Lord is My Shepherd’.

  Speaking in a calm soothing voice, the priest began the funeral service. Libby stood at the back of the church with Dawn, the nurse Gina and some of the other hospital staff. She buttoned up her light summer jacket as she felt a sharp breeze coming from the main entrance, where the doors were still open.

  Brendan Sullivan went up to the pulpit to read the First Reading. He picked a piece from the Book of Isaiah. Libby whispered to Gina, 'Why have they chosen him to read? He's not family. He's not even a close friend of Pamela.'

  Gina turned her head slightly to face Libby. She kept her voice low. 'Brendan pleaded with Mrs Kelly to let him do the reading. I wanted to, but she refused to let me. Mrs Kelly likes him a lot because he's on the church committee.'

  Brendan's voice was slow and soothing. The short extract emphasised the importance of people comforting each other after death. Next, Pamela's mother read out the short Responsorial prayers in a loud nervous voice. She was followed by Conor. He quietly read out the Second Reading. It was a short piece from the Book of Revelations about Christ giving up his life so that we gain eternal life after death. Then the priest read out the Gospel.

  After this, Pamela's father ascended the pulpit. He peered nervously at the congregation. He coughed and cleared his throat. He glanced down at the words he had written and began giving a speech.

  'Pamela was the ideal daughter, full of energy and ideas, kind and caring. She's been like that ever since she was born...'

  Mr Kelly's voice broke suddenly, and he stopped and started weeping. He left his piece of paper behind him and ran down from the altar, running out the side door of the chapel. Brendan came to the rescue and finished reading out the speech Mr Kelly had written. He ended with the words, 'Confronted with the deep mystery of why our lovely Pamela died, human words are inadequate. When we die, life is changed not ended. She is at peace now in heaven.'

  The words had a soothing effect on Libby while she pictured Pamela gazing calmly down on them during all of this, her troubles finally over.

  At the end of the Mass, the choir sang a Latin hymn. Six men carried the coffin down the aisle and out into the funeral car. The black limousine brought the coffin to Ballyhasset Cemetery for burial.

  Libby walked for ten minutes with the other mourners past many graves to get to the family plot at the back of the cemetery. She observed Conor weeping silently. Brendan had his arm around Conor's shoulder. The crowd arrived at Pamela's family plot at last and stood huddled together with belted raincoats and wide black umbrellas as the rain pelted down. A cold northerly wind blew strong gusts at them as the priest recited a short graveside blessing.

  Pamela's friends and relatives all listened as Mrs Kelly read out the final prayer. Then the men helped to lower the coffin down into the dark hole the gravediggers had dug. Conor threw in a piece of earth on top of the coffin. The rain pelted it with droplets. The mourners walked slowly away from the grave in twos and threes.

  Libby said goodbye to Dawn and walked back to her own house, which was a short distance down the street. She felt drained, as she always did after funerals. However, this death was particularly poignant and gave her a lump in the chest. It was the death of a young woman whose life had been brutally cut short. Pamela should have had the chance to get married, have children and grow old like everyone else.

  ***

  Libby spoke to Conor in the Green Lemon on the following evening. He sat on the sofa, slumped over his drink, looking dishevelled. His shirt was open at the neck, and his tie was crooked. He blinked at Libby and gave a small belch.

  'How many drinks had you had?' Libby's voice was sharp.

  'Not enough. I just need a few more. Pamela was my best friend. I should have minded her better.'

  Libby's voice was soft. 'You did your best. Pamela wouldn't have wanted to see you like this, so upset.'

  'I know. She always wanted me to be happy.' His eyes filled up.

  'You should have a long rest,' said Libby. 'Things will seem better tomorrow.'

  'Did you find out any more about Kathleen's death?' asked Conor, after an interval of silence. His voice sounded slurred.

  'It's still a mystery why someone smothered her,' confessed Libby. 'Is there anything you've forgotten to tell me?'

  Conor leaned forward towards Libby, and nearly toppled over. 'Kathleen's husband, Mick, had an affair behind her back, Pamela told me.'

  'Did she give the name of the woman involved?'

  'Ruth Breslin, she's a medical intern in St Gabriel's. Long blonde hair, great figure she has.'

  Libby's eyebrows rose. How careless Mick was to have an affair right under his wife's nose. 'Thanks for that, Conor. I'll talk to her.'

  'Pamela was always so kind.' His mouth turned downwards and his lips trembled.

  Libby hoped he wouldn't start crying. 'How are you getting home?'

  'I'm walking.' He grinned at her stupidly.

  'That's all right, so.' She rose from her seat. 'As long as you're not taking your car. Have you got anyone with you tonight?' He shouldn't be alone in this state, she thought.

  'Brendan is calling over to my house later,' said Conor slowly.

  She gazed at him with concern. 'Go to bed early and sleep off the booze.'

  'I will,' he said sleepily, as he drained the last of his pint.

  Chapter 20

  Mick Doody is very good-looking,' Libby said to Gina the next day while they sat in the sunny hospital canteen. The canteen was full of nurses having a tea break and chatting noisily. Libby added, as she drank her tea, 'I'd say women admire him.'

  'Yes, all the nurses here seem to find him very attractive,' replied Gina. 'And they know he's got money.'

  Libby smiled. 'Which makes him even more attractive, don't you think?'

  'Of course.' Gina's eyes twinkled. 'I was out in Mr Doody's house once. He had a party at Easter, and all the hospital staff was there. He has a swimming pool and tennis courts.'

  'I was there myself,' said Libby. 'Beautiful place.'

  'He even owns a racehorse,' Gina added.

  'Ruth, the medical intern, had an affair with Mick Doody, I believe.'

  Gina made a face. 'Yeah, we all heard about that.'

  Libby drained her cup of tea. ‘Is it still going on?'

  Gina said in a low voice, 'No. She told me they've split. She calls him a sleaze now.'

  Libby found Ruth on the cardiology ward and asked her to come down to the hospital canteen when she was free. After ten minutes, Ruth arrived, and found Libby sitting alone in the corner.

  'What's this about?' asked Ruth, as she sat facing the private dete
ctive.

  'I hear you're having an affair with Mick Doody,' said Libby, straight out.

  Ruth glared at her, her pretty face scowling with resentment. 'What's it to you?'

  'I'm sorry, it's just we want to find out who killed Kathleen.'

  'And you think I did,' the intern said with anger, keeping her voice low.

  'No, I never said that.'

  'I did have a fling with him, but it's over now,' she answered. 'I made a foolish mistake.'

  'Did Kathleen ever tackle you over carrying on with her husband?'

  'She never confronted me or him,' the young doctor said. 'This sounds strange, I know.'

  Libby answered, 'Very strange, given the type she was.'

  Ruth nodded. 'Kathleen was never meek normally. Maybe she never knew about us.'

  Libby thought of the fling Kathleen had with Shane. 'Perhaps they were both guilty of having affairs, so she said nothing to him.'

  'Yeah, Mick told me she was unfaithful to him a few times.' Ruth stood up quickly. 'I've to go now, I'm late for my outpatient clinic.'

  'Fair enough.' Libby watched as the young doctor took off down the corridor.

  ***

  Libby visited Mick Doody in his office in Cork, a few hours later. He wasn't pleased to see her and reluctantly invited her to sit down.

  He wore dark reading glasses and was dressed in a well-cut navy suit and a pink tie. He scowled at Libby across a pile of papers stacked on the desk. 'What's this about? I've a lot of work to do.'

  'Ruth Breslin admitted you had an affair with her,' Libby said, ignoring his bad temper.

  Mr Doody gazed at her with a blank face. 'Who?'

  'One of the young hospital doctors. Surely, you remember her? Blond hair, slim, freckles.'

  'Oh, that Ruth.' The planning officer waved his hand as if chasing a wasp off his coat. 'I slept with her a few times. We had a laugh, that's all. No harm done.'

  'And was Kathleen aware of these encounters?' Libby asked.

  'I don't know. She never brought up the subject.' He frowned. 'Kathleen had a fling with that doctor, Shane. You heard about that. I travel a lot, so she had plenty of opportunity to have affairs, if she wanted.'

  'So you didn't argue with Kathleen about these affairs?'

  He tightened his lips. 'If she had affairs, they weren't grand passions, just sex. I just know about the one with Shane. I don't think there were others.'

  'So you had a happy marriage,' said Libby.

  'We sure did, in spite of what you all seem to think. Now if you don't mind, I have these papers to read before the committee meeting, this afternoon. You can see yourself out.'

  He turned away and began searching for something on his desk.

  Libby met Dawn back at their office. 'I don't believe all this stuff the magazines say about an open marriage suiting certain couples,' Dawn said. 'I bet the two of them fought bitterly.'

  Libby agreed. 'Mick is arrogant and Kathleen was rude. I bet they had some good fights. I wonder who won them? Also, he lied to me before this. He knew Kathleen had a fling with Shane all along.'

  'I'd love to have been a fly on the wall in his huge place,' said Dawn, with relish.

  'Of course, just because they fought, doesn't mean he killed her,' Libby added, thinking of her own marriage and the many rows she had with her husband.

  Chapter 2

  1

  Libby visited the pathologist at his laboratory on a Friday. Dr Gallagher glanced up from his desk and greeted her. He pulled out a piece of paper from the file lying in front of him. 'These are the results on the blood test sample I took from Pamela Kelly, over a week ago.'

  'What do they say?' asked Libby, her voice eager.

  Dr Gallagher peered at her through his thick glasses. 'Well, they merely show Pamela took a few glasses of alcohol.'

  'What about the MS she is meant to be suffering from? Are there any signs of that?'

  'There is no blood test that would show that, I'm afraid. I found no other sign that she was suffering from this disease, anyway. Apart from her lungs, her organs were in excellent shape and typical of a young woman of her age.'

  Libby nodded. 'Was she very drunk?'

  'No, only merry,' the doctor said. 'By the way, I also found alcohol in the stomach contents.'

  'Could she have drowned in the bath and carried to the beach?'

  'Not at all, she could only have drowned in the sea, I found sea salt in her lungs, and diatoms in the lung tissue.'

  'Oh right,' Libby said.

  'I did a diatom test on the liver tissue,' continued the pathologist.

  'Diatoms - what are they?' asked Libby, her face blank.

  'Wee pieces of algae, found in seawater. I found these in Pamela's lungs and her liver. I had to use a microscope for this. It's a standard test we do. It merely confirms she died from drowning.' He added, 'I mean, she was alive entering the water.'

  'You told us this before,' said Libby with impatience.

  He smiled. 'This proves it further.'

  Libby said with a sigh, 'Fair enough doctor, you're the expert.'

  'From the bloodstream, these diatoms travelled to the liver. I found them in Pamela's liver tissue.'

  Libby said, 'Can you repeat what you said? About finding these things in her liver?'

  'Pamela was alive on entry to the water because her heart was pumping,' said the pathologist. 'The heart must have been pumping blood, to get blood with diatoms to go to the liver.'

  'Oh right,' she said, her face brightening. 'I understand now what you're saying, I think.'

  Dr Gallagher said, 'Now you've got it.'

  She thanked him and drove back to her office.

  Later that same day, Libby rang the pathologist again. 'I want to ask you, Doctor, about Pamela's blood samples. Did you check them for sedatives?'

  Dr Gallagher replied, 'Of course I did. I tested the blood for all common sedatives and alcohol. There were no sedatives, just alcohol.'

  'Can't you do any other tests to find sedatives?'

  'I kept some urine samples. I can test them for fast-acting sedatives.'

  'Please do,' she said with urgency before she rang off.

  On the following day, the pathologist rang Libby while she was in the office.

  He sounded excited. 'Wait till I tell ye, Pamela took a small amount of Rohypnol before she died.'

  'Isn't Rohypnol a sleeping tablet?' Libby asked.

  'Aye, it's a fast-acting sedative, twelve times more potent than Valium.'

  'Would Pamela be able to walk if she took this stuff?'

  'She would have,' answered Dr Gallagher gravely, 'if she had taken just a normal dose.'

  Libby thought about this and then said, 'Pamela lived beside Seapoint Promenade. It would only have taken her a few minutes to cross the road and get down to the beach.'

  'She may have done so,' said Dr Gallagher. 'The drug had time to clear from her bloodstream completely before she died.'

  'Why didn't you find this drug in her before this?' Libby asked with anxiety.

  The pathologist said, 'It wasn't in her blood. As I said, it had cleared out of her bloodstream by the time she died.'

  'So you found it in the urine?'

  'Aye, luckily I kept the samples,' he answered. 'The urine is the only place to find it after it clears out of the bloodstream.'

  'I wonder why this happened?' Libby mused out loud.

  The pathologist added in a weary voice, 'That's your job to find out, not mine.'

  'Thanks Doctor,' Libby said. 'But haven't you told all this to the police?'

  'Yes, of course,' he said. 'But they told me they're not going to reopen the case. It's probably best to let sleeping dogs lie anyway.'

  Libby disagreed but said nothing and he ended the call.

  ***

  The two women investigators entered the Cat and Cage on the north quay area of the River Lee, later that Friday evening. The pub provided cheap tasty lunches and a good pint of Guinness.
It was in walking distance of their office. This place is stuck in a sixties time warp, Libby thought, staring at the large flowery carpet and the peeling flowered wallpaper.

  Dawn admitted she had never imagined this drowning case would turn out to be so complicated. She ordered a pint of beer for herself and for Libby. Gazing directly at her companion, she said, 'Pamela had to have a prescription for Rohypnol, don't you agree?'

  Libby replied, after drinking from her glass and putting it back down, 'Not necessarily. She could easily have gotten that from Shane or got some herself from the hospital pharmacy, maybe.'

  'But...' Dawn's voice trailed off as she spotted Brendan entering the pub. As she waved to him, he came over and smiled at her, saying, 'I'll be back over in a minute.'

  After going up to the bar, he bought a pint of stout and came back. He sat down beside the two women.

  Libby said, 'I'm surprised to see you here, Brendan; this place is a bit far from your office.'

  'I know but I'm meeting a new client in here,' he replied. 'My client owns a clothes shop down the street and he's late. 'Any news on how Pamela died?' Brendan gazed at the two women earnestly.

  'The latest news is that she took a sedative before she ended up in the water,' Dawn said with a grimace. 'The pathologist found evidence Pamela had taken Rohypnol.'

  'What? I don't believe it!' Brendan gasped in disbelief and leaned forward. 'She never took tablets. Where on earth did she get them anyway?'

  'We don't know,' Libby said with a sigh. 'They're potent sedatives, but don't forget she was a doctor working in a hospital. I guess they weren't hard to come by.'

  Brendan looked at her anxiously. 'But Pamela's death was an accident, right?'

  Libby drank slowly from her glass of Guinness before replying. 'Yes, the pathologist said she definitely drowned. However, I think that's not the full story. In fact I'm sure it's not.'