A Gruesome Discovery Page 15

  ‘Oh, the pretty dresses and the little frilly aprons!’ Curiosity and the raised voices had brought Sister Bernadette peeping out from the kitchen and now, in answer to the auctioneer’s beckoning arm, she joined in the hymn of praise. ‘And the lovely flannel nightdresses and petticoats! Oh, Reverend Mother, just look at those little Chilprufe vests and not a moth hole in one of them!’

  ‘Well, I must say that these would be very useful to us, Mr Hayes,’ said the Reverend Mother cordially. ‘You were very kind to think of us.’

  ‘Not – at – all!’ Mr Hayes gave an expansive wave of a hand. ‘Only too glad to do something. Salt of the earth, salt of the earth, the people around here. Only too glad to do something for them. They may be poor, but what of it, I say. Our own blessed Saviour was poor. Nothing wrong with being poor. Poor and honest, that’s what they say, don’t they?’

  Not always, thought the Reverend Mother. Mr Hayes, she noticed, cynically, had carried his starting handle into the convent with him in case one of those poor, but honest people took a fancy to his motor car.

  ‘Do I owe you anything, Mr Hayes?’ she asked politely. Another one of those meaningless phrases with which she oiled the wheels of charity. Still this was Cork and these little rituals had to be gone through. If a Cork person tells you that they don’t want a cup of tea that means they are absolutely dying for it and would be most offended if you took them at their word, her father had once explained to a confused overseas relation.

  ‘Not a penny, not a penny!’ said Mr Hayes, warmly. ‘You’d be surprised, Reverend Mother, at the stuff that gets left over after a sale. Very bad times, these days. Don’t like to say it but we haven’t had a day’s luck in this city since the boyos started waving the green flag, and not a word of a lie. No, these would be thrown out, thrown out, Reverend Mother. Look here. I’ll show you the sale bill and you can see for yourself. He moved aside his auctioneer’s hammer and gavel and took out a heavily bound book. ‘On my way up to a house sale in Ballinlough,’ he said by way of explanation of the hammer. ‘Look at that, Reverend Mother, there it is, bottom of the Major Heffernan sale. “TRUNK OF CHILDREN’S CLOTHING, UNSOLD”.’ He put a stubby finger under the bold capital letters. ‘Not much call for these sort of out-of-date things from the crowd that we get in for an auction of stuff from a place like Fota House, Reverend Mother. Fussy! Lord, Lord! I could tell you some tales!’ Mr Hayes raised his eyes to the ceiling above and then fastened up his bag again. He waved aside her thanks. ‘Now don’t let me keep you another minute. I know that you are busy. The good sister here will tell these lads where to put the trunk, and then they have another delivery to do, but I’ll be off now; that house sale is in twenty minutes’ time. Got my own little Ford now, you know, Reverend Mother, support local industry, that’s me. Ford has brought a rack of jobs to Cork, you know. Well, Reverend Mother, I’m off now and will leave you to get on with the good work that you do. God bless you, Reverend Mother.’

  ‘Thank you again, Mr Hayes,’ said the Reverend Mother. Quickly she went back down the corridor. The man was actually opening the front door and she would not delay him another minute.

  ‘Oh, there you are, Reverend Mother.’ Sister Mary Immaculate had been attracted by the boom of Mr Hayes’ voice, trained to reach the furthermost corners of his large auctioneering hall. The Reverend Mother suppressed a sigh. It was no good brushing past the woman. She would only be tearful and suffering from a headache for the rest of the day, if she felt that she was being denied her true status as invaluable assistant to the Reverend Mother.

  ‘Yes, sister, did you want me?’ she said with as much patience as she could command. ‘Perhaps we could have a chat just before dinner if that suits you.’

  It was no good, though. Sister Mary Immaculate was in full flow. ‘No, need for that, Reverend Mother. I just wanted to explain that I was passing by the back door, and the phone rang, so I picked it up because I could hear that you and Sister Bernadette were busy at the front door and it was the bishop’s secretary. He told me to tell you that he was in the process of drafting some of those documents that you felt would be so interesting to see and he would be sending them down to you this afternoon, by a special messenger.’

  ‘Oh, good,’ said the Reverend Mother. Her mind was on the woman waiting patiently for her in the kitchen. She had to make sure that poor Bridie did nothing stupid. It seemed to her that there was something very odd about that discussion that had taken place in the half-empty house up in Shandon Street. Had Bridie and her devotion been sacrificed by mother and daughter to save Fred? Sister Mary Immaculate, though, was not easily escaped from. She stood right in the middle of the corridor and it was obvious that she had something of vital importance to say.

  ‘I must tell you, Reverend Mother,’ she said with one of her annoying little titters. ‘This will amuse you. You won’t believe it, but the bishop’s secretary was surprised that you had not confided in me your plans for the reform of the convent finances. Most astonished, these were his words. “I am most astonished, sister, that you don’t know about my method. I had assumed that the Reverend Mother would have talked it over with you, her second-in-command, before now.” That’s what he said to me, Reverend Mother.’

  There was more to come. The Reverend Mother resigned herself to a further delay. Better to let Sister Mary Immaculate get it off her chest out here in the corridor, rather than have her coming into the kitchen where that poor woman was dealing with much more serious matters than hurt pride or the bishop’s secretary’s view on how finances should be handled in order to avoid any waste of the diocese’s money.

  ‘Of course, sister, I always value your advice,’ she said evenly, doing her best to recollect the wise words, uttered by the foundress of the order, on the subject of unity among sisters. Sister Bernadette, she could hear, was no longer receiving the full flow of the auctioneer’s oratory as she lingered by the doorway, but now she was chatting with the removal men, debating about the size of a trunk and the feasibility of standing it on one end. In the meantime, poor Bridie was alone in the kitchen, alone with her sad and dark thoughts. ‘We’ll talk about it afterwards; but now I must go,’ she said decisively, but then hesitated for a moment, looking appraisingly at her assistant.

  A brilliant thought had just come to her. Why not let Sister Mary Immaculate deal with the bishop’s secretary and the pair of them could work away and together create a vast pile of documents which it would be unreasonable to expect her to read too quickly. She could always find another drawer or a box or something.

  ‘Sister,’ she began, ‘I hate to overburden you, I know that you are very, very busy, but I have long felt that your abilities are not properly used here in the convent …’

  She did her best to be concise, but the matter took longer than she had imagined as Sister Mary Immaculate made so many interruptions, and insisted on sharing so many of her ideas, that in the end the Reverend Mother had to make a pretence that she needed to visit the bathroom and even then had to lurk inside the stony cold of the white-tiled room for an extra few minutes to make sure that her zealous assistant had taken herself off to the classroom where, in all probability, a crowd of active ten-year-olds had started to have noisy fun in the absence of their teacher. She emerged cautiously, but the back corridor was empty and she hurried down to the kitchen. Her mind was now completely focussed on Bridie. She really must question the woman about the role played by this Mr McCarthy in the family councils. At the sight of the chaplain coming down the stairs from distributing Holy Communion to the sick and elderly nuns on the top floor of the convent, she took out her rosary, slid the time-worn beads through her fingers and walked away from him with what she hoped was an enigmatic look on her face. She did not pray, though. Her mind was busy with arguments which would weigh with Bridie.

  By the time that she opened the kitchen door, she had decided on a course of action. At least Bridie had been warm during her fifteen minutes or so of absence. The kit
chen was the most inviting place in the convent, she had often thought. The enormous black stove glowed and flickered, bunches of herbs and sides of bacon hung from the ceiling beams. Pots of blackberry jam and crab apple jelly gleamed from the dressers. The well-scrubbed long table in the centre of the room shone golden under the light from the overhanging oil lamp.

  But there was nobody there.

  She hesitated for a moment and then a young lay sister came through from the scullery, a sharp knife in one hand and a half-peeled potato in the other.

  ‘Sister Bernadette has gone to the door, Reverend Mother,’ she said respectfully.

  ‘I was looking for Bridie, sister.’

  ‘Oh, she said that she had to go, Reverend Mother. She passed me a minute ago. She went out through the back yard.’

  ‘Go after her, Sister Imelda,’ said the Reverend Mother urgently. ‘Go after her and bring her back.’ The young lay sister, though hampered by heavy skirts, was only fifteen years old and would be faster than Bridie who was riddled with rheumatism. When did the woman leave? She herself went to the door and stood there, as the girl flew across the wet yard and went to the gate.

  In her anxiety the Reverend Mother ventured out herself, treading carefully on the slippery flagstones. She reached the gate and stood there, looking up and down. The convent yard entrance was only a few yards down from the road on one side and on the other, the narrow laneway led only to the river. There was a slight fog, but it was almost noon and a faint silver warmed the clouds above their heads. There was enough light for her to see instantly that the lane was empty except for the flying skirts of Sister Imelda.

  ‘Bridie! Bridie!’ She feared that the shrill shrieks would surely bring Mr Hayes back down upon them, but fortunately there was no sign of the auctioneer. Once released from human company, his Ford car had borne him away swiftly to his house sale in Ballinlough. The Reverend Mother looked up and down the lane and suppressed an urge to join in Sister Imelda’s shouts. She forced herself to remain still and to say calmly when the young lay sister returned, ‘Just walk down towards the river, sister, will you? Perhaps Bridie went to get some air.’

  She stood very still and waited until Sister Imelda returned, slightly scared, slightly apprehensive. Only fifteen, but already well aware of the reputation of the two-channelled river that encircled the city of Cork.

  ‘There’s no sign of her, Reverend Mother, no sign.’ She half-whispered the words and looked apprehensively into the face of her superior. And then, hesitantly, faced with silence, she said, ‘Should we get someone? Get the guards …?’ Her voice tailed out.

  The Reverend Mother pulled herself together. ‘You go back in, child,’ she said. ‘Sister Bernadette will want those potatoes peeled by the time that she gets back, won’t she?’

  She waited until the scullery door had crashed closed behind Sister Imelda and then, tentatively, she made her way down the laneway. Several tiny tumbledown hovels, many of them still occupied, lined the right-hand side of the little roadway. She had been told that the building stone, blocks of red sandstone and gleaming white limestone, for the convent had been brought up the river and then taken on carts up this lane. She had often wondered whether the people living in these one- or two-roomed hovels had marvelled or sworn at the ornate building, three stories high, that was raised to house some holy women.

  But now her thoughts were all on poor Bridie. Always a victim, she thought, as she picked her way carefully among the puddles. A victim of the false prudery of the convent, who should have sheltered her in her time of need, a victim of the man who had made her pregnant, and now a victim of her own love for a boy who had taken the place of her dead baby in the poor woman’s lonely heart. She stood for a moment looking up and down the river. Low tide; the shoreline was exposed, raucous seagulls pecking vigorously among the malodourous deposits on the bank. She looked up and down, as far as her eyes could reach, but she had little hope that she would see anything more than Sister Imelda’s young eyes had done. And then she trudged wearily back up the steep slope of the laneway, went into the back hall of the convent and unhooked the phone.

  THIRTEEN

  St Thomas Aquinas

  Et ideo tristitia potest esse de praesenti, praeterito et futuro, dolor autem corporalis, qui sequitur apprehensionem sensus exterioris, non potest esse nisi de praesenti.’

  (Consequently sorrow has the power to be of the present, past and future: whereas bodily pain, which follows apprehension of the external sense, can only be something of the present.)

  ‘Patrick said that you sounded worried,’ Dr Scher’s arrival had frightened her for a few moments, and even now she scanned his face for any sign that he had been sent to break bad news.

  ‘I merely wondered whether a visitor that I had an hour ago had dropped into the barracks to give him a message.’ The Reverend Mother had formulated her query to Patrick carefully during her return journey back up the lane and even now, to her own ears, it sounded innocuous, the sort of question that could have been put with regard to a visitor who had left an umbrella behind, she had imagined. Patrick, however, had read more into it, and so, apparently, had Dr Scher. For one of the very few times in her acquaintance with him, he had turned down the offer of a cup of tea and politely but firmly closed the door on Sister Bernadette who was doing her best to urge him into partaking, what she termed, just a small sup.

  He poked the fire, more as a ritual performance than because it really needed it. Sister Bernadette had made it up to a roaring blaze while exclaiming with horror at the Reverend Mother’s damp muddy shoes and the stained hem of her skirts. He carried over her chair, placed it by the blaze, stood over her while she sat down and then placed himself opposite to her and waited for her to speak.

  ‘So Bridie didn’t arrive at the barracks.’

  Somehow she was not surprised. There would have been plenty of time for Bridie to have gone to the barracks. If she had not arrived by now, there would be little chance of her being still alive. She would not have gone back up to Shandon Street and confessed that she could not bring herself to make a sacrifice for a boy who had been like a son to her.

  ‘Did she tell you that she was going to confess to the murder?’ he asked.

  She did not answer that. Bridie had spoken to her in confidence. She just looked across at him and he nodded gently. ‘Don’t worry. Don’t bother answering. She was one of your flock at one stage, wasn’t she?’

  ‘How did you know?’ Sister Bernadette she supposed and did not probe him for an answer. He, like she, had a right to professional silence.

  ‘Is there anything that I can do?’ she asked.

  His eyes went to her soaked shoes and he shook his head. ‘Nothing really. You’ve been down to the river, I see. But it would have been no good, you know. It’s hard even to save someone that has gone over a bridge in front of your eyes. The tide flows rapidly, the water is not exactly crystal clear and it’s chock full of rubbish. Very unusual to get anyone alive out of it. You can only pray that her mind did not turn in that direction. She’s in the hands of your God now, Reverend Mother. You pray to him.’

  She sighed wearily. I’m not sure that I am too good at praying these days, I’m not even sure that it works. She thought the words, but she did not say them aloud. It would be a very shocking thing, she thought, if she, Reverend Mother Aquinas, should express any doubts about God’s listening ear; if she allowed her experience of death, starvation, abuse of small children, suicides, murders – all everyday occurrences in this city of Cork – to make her wonder about even His very existence. Not all of these horrors should destroy her faith in God, if she were a true religeuse. Aloud, she said merely, ‘I’m sure that you’re right, Dr Scher.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said in an off-hand manner. ‘I’m always right.’ And then with a return to seriousness: ‘I am guessing that she was on her way to the barracks, to confess to the murder of Henry Mulcahy. And yet, she was not sure that she was doing the righ
t thing, she was apprehensive about it. And what’s more natural than she should call into the convent to discuss it with her former mother superior, who may well have been a guiding light to her through the years.’

  ‘I stupidly left her in the kitchen with Sister Bernadette while I went to see Mr Hayes, the auctioneer, who brought me a trunk-load of children’s clothing, very good quality, I have to say, but I wish that he had not come at that moment,’ said the Reverend Mother wretchedly. ‘And then, of course, Sister Bernadette had to come out to see … and Bridie just went … left by the scullery door.’

  ‘Do you think that she did kill Henry Mulcahy?’

  The Reverend Mother shook her head firmly. ‘No, I don’t. She refused to tell me how she did it. She was flustered and taken aback when I asked her that question. She said that it was her business, but, of course, that was a ridiculous answer when she had just told me that she had killed him. And, as you know, Patrick has told me that they were keeping the method a secret for the moment, so perhaps only the murderer knows how it was done. Have the police found anything to match what you felt was the murder weapon? An iron bar, I think you said.’

  Dr Scher shook his head. ‘No, nothing was found that matches what I had in mind. I had a wander up around Shandon myself yesterday. There was a death, a suicide, I suppose, poor woman, in Cattle Mart Lane – took poison, poor thing. I went to see if I could save her, too late, of course. She was dead when I arrived. So I went out and bought some sweets for the children. They were being taken off to an orphanage by a neighbour. I saw the sign, “Mulcahy and Sons” so after I handed over the sweets, I had a look around, then went up to the cathedral, met the verger, and he showed me the new tanning yard. Plenty of long bars, iron rods up there, used for stirring and lifting the skins and hides, but they weren’t what I had in mind. I was thinking of something shorter, though. You see, the nearer you are, the greater the force. A short iron bar or a very hard solid piece of wood. Could be anything, something heavy – I’ve seen a wound like that from a very thick glass bottle in a public house, broke the skull in just the same way …’ Dr Scher fell silent.