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CHAPTER 1
St Thomas Aquinas
'... potest, igitur, lex naturalis deleri de cordibus hominum, vel propter malas persuasiones, ... vel etiam propter pravas consuetudines et habitus corruptos.' ( ... natural law, therefore, can be blotted out from the human heart ... either by evil persuasions, or by vicious customs and corrupt habit.)
There was a dreadful stench from the trunk. Damp, perhaps. Stronger than that, surely. Decay of some sort, thought the Reverend Mother, bending over it. Fifty years of working in the slums of Cork, a city where periodically high tides and south-easterly winds drove the river to flush out the sewers and empty them onto the streets and into houses, had inured her to smells of all kinds: excrement; rotting carcases of rats, dead cats and dogs; bodies unwashed for years, an everyday experience for her; and occasionally an overlooked corpse of a beggar who had died behind the convent chapel.
And yet this seemed to be a worse stench than most she had encountered. She was not surprised, now, that the men who had delivered it to her had hesitated to follow her orders about depositing it in a classroom and had suggested placing it in this century-old, unused outhouse at a distance from the school and the convent. She had acquiesced. There would be no point in disappointing the children next morning if the trunk only contained rubbish and now that she looked at it more carefully, she was afraid that would prove to be the case.
An old trunk with broken corners, disfigured by greyish patches of mould. A printed label in the precise centre with the name and address of an auctioneer on Princes Street, and beneath it, on another label, written in indelible purple pencil, in large, even, block capital letters: 'THE REVEREND MOTHER, ST MARY'S ISLE'. The Reverend Mother stretched forward a hand, withdrew it and looked at the trunk dubiously. Like all who seek charitable contributions, she was gifted frequently with items that, on examination, she would designate as rubbish. There was another, smaller label in a different hand, a brown luggage label, attached to the handle of the trunk. 'Old School Books' it said in fancy, ornate handwriting, finishing by a neat and perfectly rounded full stop, with a hollow centre. Useless, probably, she thought, imagining torn copies of The Christian Brothers Latin Grammar. But perhaps not. Heavy, anyway. The auctioneer's men had staggered under their load. They could well be hardback books, even perhaps expensively bound. The poor of the city did not send their unwanted goods to auctioneers. The rag-and-bone man would be the destination of their leavings. These might be good books, despite the appearance of the trunk.
The Reverend Mother stretched out a hand to open the lid and then stiffened as a voice from behind her said softly, 'I think that might be my property, Reverend Mother.'
The Reverend Mother did not reply. She did not turn around or draw attention to her name on the label. From the corner of her eye she could see the belted raincoat, the slouched hat, pulled well down. Almost a uniform for the proscribed Republican movement. Bother, she thought. Usually the convent was not troubled by their nefarious doings. There was something about the assumption of authority in that soft voice which annoyed her. Without answering, she leaned forward and flipped open the lid of the trunk. It moved more readily than she had expected, flopped over quite suddenly, striking the side of the table with a slight thud. And then there was a terrible stench of putrefaction, a sour, sickening smell.
She had not thought to bring a candle; the small, old roadside building was well lit by a gas lamp on the pavement outside the window. There were shadows everywhere, but there was enough light to see the contents of the trunk.
Not school books, but a man, a body, a corpse surely by that smell. The Reverend Mother forced herself not to recoil, and bent a little more forward so as to examine it. The body was wedged into the trunk. A small body, but it barely fitted, the legs doubled up, with the knees pressed up against the chest. A man, a very short, stout man, dressed in a respectable frockcoat, black broadcloth, starched white shirt, top hat rammed down upon his head, the eyes, just visible below the rim, stared up at her.
But that was not all. As her own eyes became accustomed to the dark, the Reverend Mother saw that there was something else. Packed all around the body were the rotting skins of dead animals, green, white, glistening silver with decomposition, gobbets of blood, lumps of fat, some crawling maggots.
There was a sudden gasp from the man at her shoulder and the Reverend Mother turned back to her companion. Bigger than his father, was her first thought, but not as tall as his younger brothers. She knew them better, but Fred was instantly recognizable. He had been the only red-headed child in the large family. She hadn't seen him for a few years, but the face, oddly, had changed very little since childhood, the eyes wide with apprehension, the vulnerable mouth, bottom lip trembling, the aspect of a child who dreads a blow, she had often thought.
'It's Fred Mulcahy, isn't it?' she enquired. And then when he made no reply, she added calmly, 'Surely that is your father. What has happened?'
He backed away from her hastily. 'I know nothing about this, nothing whatsoever.' He cast a sick look of loathing at the body and then averted his eyes. In the light from the street gas lamp his face was almost as white as that of the corpse before them.
'But you were expecting something?' She looked at him closely. His outstretched hand was shaking. His breath came quick and fast.
'Not that, not that at all. I was expecting something. It was to be handed over at the Douglas Street Sawmills, just outside the Sawmills, that was what they said, these were my orders. I was to go to the Sawmills and receive a trunk, supposed to be landed at Douglas Passageway. Come by sea. Not that at all.' His voice was high and breathless. Awkwardly, he removed his soft, slouch-rimmed grey hat and stood clutching it to his breast. 'When I saw this trunk on the back of a van I followed it. I thought that they had taken the wrong turning but I was slower – got stuck behind an old donkey. They had carried it into the convent before I could stop them. I thought the men had made a mistake.'
The Reverend Mother surveyed him dispassionately for a moment. Cork was a small city and she knew most of the inhabitants and she certainly knew all about the Mulcahy family.
The dead man, Henry Mulcahy, had been a country boy who came to the city well over fifty years ago. He had worked as a barrow boy for his uncle for a few years and quite soon had seen a way to profit from the busy meat market at Shandon, buying hides of cows and skins of sheep at very low prices, and transforming them into marketable leather and sacks of wool. He had married well; she had heard that his wife had been the daughter of a prosperous farmer; had sired ten sons but neither of the older boys, she had been told, was keen to follow their father in his trade. Fred, she knew, had rebelled and left home. Rumour said that he had joined the Republicans and rumour, she thought, surveying his slouch hat and belted raincoat, had not lied.
'You were expecting a trunk, but not this trunk?' she queried and then as he turned away, she called after him. 'I shall have to say that I saw you, Fred, so it may be as well for you to tell me what you were expecting to see when the lid of the trunk was raised,' she warned as he went towards the door.
He stopped abruptly, started violently and then turned towards her. She could see how his face grew even paler. He produced a revolver from his raincoat and pointed it directly at the starched bib that lay over her chest. Her heart skipped a beat, but she stood very still, not looking at him, but eyeing a small maggot that crawled across the dead man's trouser knee. The boy's face was chalk white and his hand shook. There was a possibility, remote, but nevertheless present, that he might fire. Guns were an evil invention, she had often thought. They allowed killing to be at a distance, they depersonalized it. Much harder to stick a knife or a sword into living flesh than to pull a small trigger from a remote point. She said a quick prayer; should be an act of contrition, she thought, but incongruously only the words of St Thomas Aquinas: 'Grant me, O Lord, a penetrating mind to understand' came to her thoughts.
'I think, Reverend Mother, you would be best to forget that you have seen me.' His voice was high, shaking and his face grew even whiter. She wondered when he had last eaten. 'Give me your word that you will say nothing of seeing me,' he screamed at her impatiently.
She made no reply to this, but studied him speculatively. He would be one of the republicans, one of the Irish Republican Army, as they named themselves, one of those who had rebelled against the treaty that left the six most northerly counties still as possessions of Britain. It was, of course, a lost cause by now. Michael Collins was dead; but the government he had set up was firmly established as a Dáil, a parliament. The ceasefire with the rebels had been agreed, de Valera was out of the country. Only the very dedicated, the very fanatical and the very desperate still kept the rebellion going. Which of these was the young man in front of her? The last, she thought. He must be about twenty now, she thought. It was a stubborn age. Only complete desperation would now drive him to return to Shandon as a prodigal son. While there was a cause to be fought for, then he kept away from his father.
And the man lying dead in front of her would have been unlikely to kill the fatted calf in celebration at the return of his son – more likely, she thought, to send him out to the yard to work on flaying the calf's skin.
'When did you last eat?' she asked and then when he did not reply, she added, 'I was thinking that if I showed you the telephone, you might ring Inspector Cashman and tell him the story. No need for you to await his arrival. I will deal with that. But at least you would not render yourself the first suspect in the killing of your father if you were the one that reported the finding of the body. But before you go, you must have a cup of tea and a slice of Sister Bernadette's fruit cake. You remember Sister Bernadette, don't you? She always had some little treat for you when you were a boy and when Bridie used to bring you here.' The reference to the past might calm him, make him feel less threatened. Did Bridie still work for the Mulcahy family, she wondered. Recently the woman had ceased her visits to the convent that had once sheltered her.
'I don't want anything to eat and I don't want anything to do with police or with ... that carrion.' He spat out the words, but his voice trembled and the hand that held the gun trembled even more.
'Your mother must be told,' said the Reverend Mother in a practical tone of voice. 'Death brings its duties,' she added, keeping her voice calm and resisting the temptation to ask him to put that pistol back into his pocket.
'A happy release for her, poor woman, after all those years of slavery.'
'Nevertheless,' she said persuasively, 'over twenty years of marriage brings its own affections, its own bonds.'
He didn't reply to her comment, didn't even turn his head, but he had heard her, she was sure. A clever boy, she had learned this from Bridie, who had worked in the Mulcahy household since his birth; young Fred had done well at Farranferris Seminary but had declined an offer from the priests to become a clerical student and progress to the priesthood. He wanted to go to university to study mathematics while his father had wanted him to become a feather merchant. No doubt the poor boy was now hiding out somewhere in a derelict cottage in west Cork. Let him go now, she prayed, let him lose himself in the back streets, or make for the Western Road and be outside the city before a hunt was organized. And once he had left the premises, then she could go indoors to the convent, lift the phone to telephone Inspector Patrick Cashman and leave the matter to him. Dead bodies were his affair; live, young, undernourished bodies and minds were hers.
But he did not go. He lifted the pistol with great deliberation, taking care to steady it by placing his left hand beneath his right wrist, aimed it carefully, not at her, but at the man in the trunk. There was a small explosion, a strong clean smell and then the rancid odour intensified. Light from the roadside gas lamp flooded in as the door was opened and receded as he closed it behind him. He had left and now she was alone with the body; the body which had just received the outpouring of a pistol.
The Reverend Mother took several seconds to recover. Her legs were trembling. Old age is no excuse for cowardice, she said to herself severely as she forced her unwilling limbs to move forward and to stand beside the trunk. No blood, she thought, nothing really to be seen without bending over the body. And even then it was impossible to see anything. The well-tailored black broadcloth would conceal any stain of blood.
But she had a strong impression that Fred Mulcahy had shot his father through the heart. For a moment she stood very still, visualizing the scene and picturing the angle of the pistol; picturing the young man steadying his shaking hand; trying to remember the sound. She looked back again. She had been very sure that the man was dead when she had opened the lid, but the smell of decay had been so strong that it was an obvious conclusion. It had been a little later when she had noticed the rotting hides and skins. She forced herself to look again. Yes, he was undoubtedly dead. The maggots continued on their grisly work, undisturbed, and one even crawled across the dead man's rigid eyeball.
Abruptly the Reverend Mother closed down the lid of the trunk. There was no key. She remembered now how quickly and easily she had opened it. The small latches had been well oiled, she thought, as they clicked into position with the slightest of pressures. She had opened it just by sliding the round metal lock. There had definitely been no key protruding from the lock and nor were they tied to the handle of the trunk. She slid her hand along it to be sure and then went resolutely to the door of the old building, taking out the large bunch of keys from her capacious pocket and turning back to lock it after her.
There was no one around in the hallway, or in the corridor beyond when she had gone back into the convent. A rattle of tea cups and a sound of voices came from the convent refectory. The nuns were at tea. The Reverend Mother continued down towards the back door, and unhooked the telephone receiver from the side of the instrument.
'Get me Inspector Cashman, will you, Miss Clayton,' she said wearily. She should, of course, give the number of the police barracks, but she was too tired to look it up.
'Yes, of course, Reverend Mother. He should be still in his office. I'll have him on the line in a moment.' Miss Clayton sounded alert and interested. The Reverend Mother reminded herself that she would need to be careful or else sensational stories would be flying around Cork within minutes. As she waited, she could hear a muffled sound. Miss Clayton had her hand well over the receiver, but her telephone speaking voice was penetrating and shrill and she could distinguish the words: 'she wants the guards'.
'Good evening, Reverend Mother.' Patrick sounded fairly breathless. 'Not in his office,' she could imagine Miss Clayton telling her fellow workers.
'Good evening, Inspector,' she said formally. Face to face, she called him Patrick and still saw him fondly as an earnest, hardworking, determined six- or seven-year-old boy in her school, but in public she always addressed him as 'Inspector' and the telephone exchange, she often reminded herself, was a public place. 'I was wondering whether you could spare the time to come here to the convent, if you are in the neighbourhood,' she continued feeling unable to invent an innocuous reason as to why he should come swiftly and perhaps bring the police doctor with him.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "A Gruesome Discovery"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Cora Harrison.
Excerpted by permission of Severn House Publishers Limited.
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