Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly (Detective Sean Duffy #6)(6)

He handed me the Irish Times crossword and a thesaurus. I gave him the thesaurus back. “That’s cheating,” I said. “What clue is bothering you?”

“Nine down.”

“Nine down: ‘Melons once rotten will drop off branches.’ It’s somnolence, Dad. It’s an anagram of melons once.”

“Oh, I see. This is the world’s worst thesaurus anyway. Not only is it terrible, it’s terrible,” he said and began to chuckle with such suppressed mirth that I thought he was going to do himself a mischief.

“Are you still on for tomorrow?” he asked. “I’ve been sensing that you don’t want to do it, son.”

My father’s senses were completely correct. I didn’t want to do it. Tomorrow we were driving to Lough Derg, about fifteen minutes inland from here, where we were going to get the boat over to Station Island for the St Patrick’s Purgatory pilgrimage. You could do the pilgrimage twice a year: in the summer (which is when nearly everyone did it) or during Lent. The whole thing had got started 1,500 years earlier when, to encourage St Patrick with his mission among the Godless Irish, Jesus Christ had come down from heaven and shown St Patrick a cave on Station Island that led all the way down to Purgatory. Ever since then it had been an important place of pilgrimage for devout Catholics from all over Europe. My father had never been a devout Catholic but his interest in Lough Derg had been kindled by Seamus Heaney’s new book-length poem “Station Island” about his own pilgrimage to Lough Derg. Heaney’s poem and his slew of amiable interviews all over Irish TV and radio had made the place sound spiritually and philosophically fascinating and in a moment of weakness I had agreed to my father’s request to accompany him; but now, of course, that we were on the eve of our journey I was not bloody keen at all. The idea of spending three days fasting and praying with my dad while walking barefoot around a damp, miserable island with a bunch of God-bothering weirdos didn’t sound like my idea of fun.

“Oh, Sean, I’m glad you’re still enthusiastic. It’ll be good for all of us. Beth, Mary and Emma will get some quality time together and you and I will get closer. Maybe even closer to God, too.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in God. That’s what you told Father Cleary.”

“Well, Sean, when you get to my age, you think to yourself that there’s more things in Heaven and Earth … you know?”

I didn’t know if I believed in God either but I believed in St Michael the patron saint of policemen and I owed my thanks to The Blessed Virgin, who, I reckoned, had helped change Beth’s mind about the abortion in Liverpool nearly a year ago.

“Wouldn’t you rather do the pilgrimage in the summer like normal people?” I asked.

“Nope. The Pope says that if you do a pilgrimage to one of the traditional sites during Lent it’ll be particularly blessed, so it will.”

“Hark onto Alfred Duffy quoting the Pope. Alfred Duffy who forced Dr McGuinness to teach us about Darwin. What’s happened to you, Da? Did you get hit in the head with a golf ball or something?”

He grinned and leaned back in the chair, his watery blue eyes twinkling. “Oh, I just remembered what I wanted to ask you. You’re on for the quiz tonight? We’ve never won yet, but with you on our team I think we have a good chance of beating the GAA.”

“Will it be in English? If Beth wants to come?”

Dad smiled at the mention of Beth’s name. “Ah, you got a good one there. You know it doesn’t bother us that she’s a, you know …”

“Red-head?”

“Protestant.”

“Is she a Prod? I hadn’t noticed. Well that explains everything.”

“All you have to do now is marry her and your mother will be in clover.”

“A wedding? Come on, Da. All our lot down one side of the church, them lot down the other?” I said, not mentioning the fact that Beth had told me never to even think about proposing to her. “And Beth’s father isn’t exactly a fan of mine,” I added.

“What does he do again?”

“Builds houses.”

“He works with his hands. I like that.”

“Like Gwendolyn Fairfax I doubt very much if he’s ever seen a spade. He got the firm from his father. All he seems to do is sit in his office and think up the street names for all his new developments.”

“What does he name them?”

“Mostly after obscure members of the royal family. Some Bible stuff. I only met the man twice and if I hadn’t been armed with my Glock I think he would have tried to beat me to death with one of his golf clubs.”

“Ah, golfer is he? He can’t be all bad. What’s his handicap?”

“Handicap? Well, he’s got an eighteenth-century mind-set, he’s stinking rich and for recreation he golfs at Down Royal or sails about on his bloody great yacht. Is that handicap enough?”

“Yes, you’ve said she comes from money. Down Royal though. I’d love to play that course. You couldn’t possibly ask if I—”

“No, I couldn’t! I’ve told you, he’s not my biggest fan.”

“Maybe if you made what they used to call ‘an honest woman’ of his daughter he wouldn’t be so hostile.”

“Dad, trust me, a wedding is not in the cards.”