Mr. Flood's Last Resort(63)

St. Valentine tuts. “Siblings.”

“So Marguerite is alive.” The thought thrills me. “She’s out there somewhere?”

“According to Father Creedo.”

I frown. “Cathal Flood didn’t contradict me when I spoke of his dead daughter.”

“He didn’t? Well, in a way Marguerite was dead to her family. That rumor, terrible as it was, might have been easier to bear than the truth.”

“Maybe.”

Father Quigley looks reflective. “Jim Creedo said he’d never met a more charming kid. The family came up and visited a few times, although they always supervised her around the boy, in case she took the opportunity to have another pop at him.”

And then it dawns on me. “Did Father Creedo tell you the name of the home?”

“Cedar House.”

“The Cedar House that’s now Holly Lodge?”

“I wouldn’t know about that, Maud. It was a special home for maladjusted children.”

I try to keep calm. “When did Father Creedo know Marguerite?”

“Seventies to mid-eighties.”

My heart leaps in me. “Then Marguerite must have known Maggie Dunne. They would have been living at the home at the same time.”

St. Valentine lets out a muted whoop.

The priest looks confused.

“Maggie Dunne was also a resident of Cedar House, Father. She was fifteen years old when she disappeared and was never found.”

“Is that right?”

“I believe Mary was investigating Maggie’s disappearance: she kept cuttings.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know about that either, Maud, but there’s something else that Jim Creedo told me and that came from Mary Flood herself.”

“What was it?”

Father Quigley frowns, his face suddenly older, harrowed. “Mary suffered badly in her marriage to Cathal. It was a union she didn’t want.”

“How so?”

“It all started way back in Wexford, with this rich widower. A man notorious for his dissolute ways and his liking for young girls. Mary’s family sent her to work up at his house as a maid. Of course, it wasn’t long before Mary, who was a renowned beauty, caught the old man’s eye. Mary’s father forced a marriage to make an honorable woman of his daughter, intending to benefit from the match. For Mary’s father was both corrupt and cunning.”

The priest purses his lips. “The old widower, who was on his last legs when the match was made, was gone within the year and no sooner was he dead in the ground than his son coerced Mary into a second marriage. So the poor young woman kept the name she was already cursed with: Flood.”

“So Mary was married to Cathal’s father?”

Father Quigley nods. “Just so. Cathal never loved her; he talked her into marrying him in order to claw back his birthright. You see, Mary had inherited the whole of the old man’s estate.”

St. Valentine is gripped; one of his eyes is riveted to the priest and the other watches the garden path.

The priest continues. “Mary was young and friendless, you understand. Her own family had forced her into wedlock with Flood Senior for their own financial gain.” A look of triumph crosses the priest’s face. “But Cathal underestimated Mary. She began to fight back. She invested what she could and began to amass wealth in her own name. She hid this wealth from Cathal, who was a terrible spendthrift, libertine, and gambler in his youth. So bit by bit Mary gained control of the estate.”

Over the mantelpiece a clock marks time.

“O’Leary has just got off the bus,” reports St. Valentine. “She’s called into the newsagents for a packet of mints. Two minutes, tops.”

“Mrs. O’Leary will be here soon, Father.”

“Soon enough Cathal realized he owned nothing but the trousers he stood up in and perhaps not even those.” The priest pauses. “Whether this state of affairs gave Mary immunity from Cathal’s temper is debatable. But I believe it fueled an already flammable situation.”

“What do you mean?”

The priest frowns. “Cathal was a demon when roused, so is it not possible that he directed some of that rage against the woman who had taken command of his inheritance for a second time?”

“Are you saying that Cathal was abusive to his wife, Father?”

“I can’t prove anything of course, but I believe Cathal may have added significantly to Mary’s burdens.” Some dark thing crosses the priest’s face, some bleak cloud of thought. “I suppose I saw her terrible unhappiness, loneliness even. But she was such a private woman that I never encouraged her to share it.”

St. Valentine shrugs and puts his toothpick back inside his dingy robe. “Least said and all that.”

The priest looks contrite. “I could have helped her more, Maud.”

We sit in silence for a few long moments.

And then I break it. “So you don’t think Mary’s fall was an accident?”

Father Quigley takes a deep breath. “I hope to God it was.”





CHAPTER 30




She’s moving along the hall under the carpet, the woman. See the ripple she’s causing. The pattern undulates with her. She moves quickly, following the sweep of the staircase down. Feet first like a breech birth she comes. Arms crossed high over her chest like a mummy. At the bottom step she bunches up, curls, and swells, pushing against the edge of the carpet. Then with a rush like waters breaking, she pools out, a liquid shadow, a dark puddle on the tiles. Behind her the carpet flattens as if nothing at all has happened.