Himself(86)

By the time Dr McNulty and Jack Brophy arrive Teasie has stopped being sick in the sink for long enough to make tea for the gentlemen, although she forgets to boil the water. Jack Brophy cautions Bridget for disrupting the scene of death but the doctor pats him on the back.

‘It’s OK, Jack,’ he says. ‘Isn’t it a straightforward case of suicide? The poor woman was unravelled.’

A meddlesome wind plays about the bay today. It came in on the back of the wild Atlantic. It’s curious and coy, jaunty and teasing. It slinks through the town, licking at the walls and rooftops with its salty tongue. It hustles through doors and windows and capers uninvited into hallways. It dances the washing and bounces the spiders on their webs. It fidgets Mary Lavelle’s bedroom curtains and caresses Teasie’s hair as she rocks on the floor by the side of the bed.

It’s a ghost-ridden wind today that opens and shuts Mary’s bedroom door, whistles down the stairs and rattles right out of the letterbox. It rushes past Bridget Doosey and she holds on to the brim of her fedora as she hurries up the road to Rathmore House.





Chapter 50


May 1976


Mrs Cauley contemplates the button on the table. ‘So Jack had a hand in this?’

Bridget shrugs. ‘Well, I found that in Mary Lavelle’s hand and it’s from a guard’s uniform, isn’t it?’

Mahony nods. ‘I’d say so.’

‘And I’d say Mary had a bit of help,’ says Bridget. ‘Unless she flew up to the light fitting.’

‘There was no chair or furniture nearby?’

‘Exactly, Mahony. And she probably didn’t bruise her own wrists or tear her own slip either.’

Mrs Cauley raises her eyebrows.

Bridget frowns. ‘To say nothing of the teeth marks on her left breast and the broken clavicle.’

Shauna shudders by the sink as she washes the teacups and wonders why things have to get so grisly whenever Bridget Doosey is around.

Bridget picks up the button with the sugar tongs. ‘He had to shut her up; she was trying to tell us something at the play.’

Mrs Cauley shakes her head. ‘We should never have left her alone. What were we thinking? She was identifying him as the killer.’

Bridget drops the button into a plastic bag. ‘And so now we have a body, only not the right one.’

Shauna turns to them, drying her hands on a tea towel. ‘This is terrible, but what can any of us do?’

‘You’re right, Shauna, what can we do?’ agrees Bridget. ‘There’s Jack, a real lightning bastard who’s been getting away with murder for years.’ Bridget taps the side of her nose. ‘But it’s made him cocky and that might just be his downfall.’

Mahony looks at her. ‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean something important was missing from the body.’ Bridget leans forward and whispers. ‘Mary wasn’t wearing any drawers.’

Shauna stares at her, horrified.

Mrs Cauley ponders this. ‘How do you know that Jack took them? Maybe Mary hadn’t put any on? Maybe she was having a bit of an airing?’

Shauna is without words.

Bridget turns to Mrs Cauley with a venomous expression. ‘Are you trying to provoke me, old woman?’

Mrs Cauley hides a smile.

‘Now, I’m no expert,’ says Bridget. ‘But sometimes they just can’t help themselves, these murderers; they have to keep something.’

‘A souvenir?’ asks Mahony.

Bridget nods. ‘And I’m betting that if he kept something of Mary’s he’ll have kept something of Orla’s.’

Mahony thinks of the river, of Ida coming across Jack getting rid of evidence, something he’d kept, drowning it like a sack of kittens. But why there and why then, all those years later?

Bridget puts her hand on Mahony’s arm. ‘There’s something we need to do, son.’

Shauna glances at Bridget with a look of growing panic. ‘What?’

‘Search Jack’s house.’

Shauna waves the tea towel at her. ‘Are you crazy? He’s a killer, a cold-blooded upfront killer. We should leave him to the guards.’

‘He is the guards,’ says Bridget.

Shauna scowls. ‘All right, I meant go above him.’

‘And we will, Shauna,’ reassures Mrs Cauley. ‘But you have to remember that the moment he’s threatened with an investigation Jack will be covering his tracks. We have to take him down, truss him up and hand him over to them. Case opened, case closed.’

‘I’ll go,’ says Mahony. ‘Cover me, and I’ll go.’

Shauna glares at Bridget. ‘Now look what you’ve done.’





Chapter 51


May 1976


In the parochial house Father Quinn is experiencing the mother of all comedowns. He has managed to chew through his restraints and is now stealing down the stairs. He stops every now and then to make sure that the hell-donkey isn’t following him. With profound dismay he realises the keys to the front and back doors are missing and his trembling hands will not allow him to open the temperamental kitchen window catch. For a while all he can do is curl up, sobbing brokenly, under the table.

Then from some place, some inner resourceful place, a memory comes.