Broken Angels (Katie Maguire) (3 page)

She went up to her office and switched on her laptop. Then she picked up her phone and punched out the number for the state pathologist’s office in Dublin. She got through to Dr Owen Reidy’s secretary, Netta, and gave her a message for him to call her. Outside it grew darker and darker, and the rain began to sprinkle against the window.

Perched on top of the multi-storey car park opposite, she could see a row of twenty or thirty hooded crows. She stood up, went to the window and stared at them, and it was so dark outside that she could see her own reflection, with her hair sticking up. It seemed to Katie that the crows only gathered there when her life was about to take a turn for the worse. Maybe she was imagining it. Maybe she simply didn’t notice them when everything was going well.

All the same, they made her feel strangely unsettled, and it wasn’t only because of the man’s body lying strangled and castrated in the Blackwater.

She sat down at her laptop again and checked the child abuse report for the Cork and Ross diocese, published in 2005. Father Dermot Heaney had been the subject of eleven different complaints, mostly of touching boys in the showers after sports, or helping them to dry themselves after swimming and fondling them while he did so. He had also taken boys out for spins in his car, parked in secluded places and encouraged them to engage in mutual stimulation.

In spite of everything, he had been very popular with some of the boys at St Anthony’s – ‘like St Francis of Assisi’ – especially the boys who excelled at music, and those who came from poor or broken families. The report said: ‘Father Heaney gave them his attention, his affection and many small treats, which they were rarely given at home. The principal reasons why they were so reluctant for so many years to lodge any complaint against him was their gratitude for his apparent acts of kindness and generosity, and their abiding guilt about what they allowed him to do to them in return.’

Katie phoned John, to tell him that she would be coming home when she had finished at Anglesea Street. He didn’t answer, so she could only presume that he was out in the fields somewhere, bringing in his cattle. She smiled to herself. She had never imagined when she had first met him that he would make such a natural farmer. He had emigrated to California after leaving college, after all, to escape from Ireland, and set up a very successful online business selling alternative medicines. He hadn’t come back to Ireland, not once in eleven years, until his father had died.

He hadn’t intended to stay in Ireland for more than a few weeks, but his mother had assumed that he would take over his late father’s place as head of the Meagher family, and all of his uncles and aunts and cousins had assumed the same, and he had found it impossible to refuse them – especially his mother. He had reluctantly sold off his dot.com business and returned to take over the farm.

Katie shrugged on her raincoat and was just about to leave when her phone rang. It was Jimmy O’Rourke, calling from the University Hospital.

‘It’s Father Heaney all right.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘One hundred per cent. We called round at his bedsit in Wellington Road and his landlady said that she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him since Sunday morning. She said this was very unlike him because he comes back almost every night for his tea, and he always tells her if he’s going away for a couple of days. She recognized him from the picture I took on my mobile phone, so we wheeled her around to the path lab and she identified him in the flesh. Sobbed like a babby, poor old girl.’

‘Thanks a million, Jimmy. But keep it to yourself for now. See what else you can dig up on him and give me a call if you make any progress.’

‘What about the media, like?’

‘I’ll probably call a press conference tomorrow morning, but I want to be very careful about what we give out. I have a strong suspicion that there’s a whole lot more to this than meets the eye. You heard what that girl from the
Catholic Recorder
was asking us to do – or what she asking us
not
to do, rather. I don’t want to give the church the chance to put a lid on this before we’ve even started.’

‘Okay, boss. We’ll be searching Father Heaney’s bedsit next, so if we come across anything interesting I’ll let you know.
Lives of the Saints
and porn mags, that’s what we usually find when we search a priest’s room. And half-empty packets of fruit-flavoured jub-jubs. Don’t ask me why.’

It was raining hard by the time she turned into the driveway of her bungalow in Cobh, close to Cork harbour, and almost dark. Her sister Siobhán had switched on the lights in the living room but she hadn’t yet drawn the curtains, so Katie could see her sitting on the couch watching the widescreen television. Barney, her Irish red setter, was lying at her feet, his ears spread wide like Falkor the flying dog in
The Never-Ending Story
.

Katie let herself in, took off her raincoat and shook it. Barney immediately came trotting out into the hallway to greet her, his tongue lolling out. She tugged at his ears and patted him and then she went through to the living room.

‘Hi, Siobhán,’ she greeted her.

‘Oh, hi, Katie. What’s the story? I thought you were spending the day with John.’

Katie sat down in one of the mock-Regency armchairs and unzipped her boots. Barney stood close to her, panting, his tail whacking against the side table. Katie had intended to redecorate the living room after her husband Paul had died, eighteen months ago, but she had never been able to find the time. Either that, or she had wanted to keep it the way it was, for a little while longer, anyhow. Paul had chosen the Regency-style chandelier and the Regency-striped wallpaper because he thought it was classy, as well as the gilt-framed reproduction paintings, most of them seascapes, yachts leaning against the wind.

The only picture that he hadn’t chosen was the framed photograph of himself, sitting at a cafe table in Lanzarote during their last vacation, grinning, lifting his glass of sangria, with one eye closed against the sunshine.

‘I was called out,’ Katie explained. ‘Two anglers found a dead body in the Blackwater, up at Ballyhooly.’

‘I thought this was your day off. And they’re
always
finding dead bodies in the Blackwater. There’s probably more dead bodies in the Blackwater than fish.’

‘Well,
this
dead body was exceptional,’ said Katie, taking her boots through to the hall, and putting them away in the shoe cupboard. ‘He was a priest, for one thing.’

‘I hope he gave himself the last rites before he jumped in.’

‘You’re too cynical for your own good, you. Anyhow, he didn’t jump in, he was murdered and dumped there. Throttled – and I’ll tell you what else, castrated, but don’t you go telling anybody.’

‘Castrated? You mean he had his whatsits cut off? Serious?’

Katie nodded.

‘Ouch!’ said Siobhán. ‘Didn’t do it himself, did he? I’ve read about priests doing that, because they can’t take the temptation any longer.’

‘Not likely, in this particular case. Not unless he was some kind of contortionist.’

‘Urgh. I don’t want to know all the grisly ins and outs of it, thank you.’

‘Drink?’ Katie asked her.

‘No, you’re all right.’

Katie went across to the side table and poured a stiff measure of Smirnoff Black Label into a cut-crystal glass. She took a large swallow, which made her give an involuntary shiver.

‘So what are you doing this evening?’ asked Siobhán. ‘Will you be seeing John again, or do you want me to cook something? I still have some chicken stew left from last night, if you want me to heat it up for you. Or we could order a pizza.’

Katie sat down on the couch beside her. ‘I don’t know yet. I called John, but he’s probably out chasing his cows.’

Siobhán was Katie’s younger sister, the third of a family of seven children, all girls. She looked more like their father than their mother. She was taller than Katie, and plumper, with a rounder face and masses of coppery curls and sea-green, wide-apart eyes. Soon after Paul had died, Siobhán had broken up with her boyfriend, Sean, an estate agent with snaggly teeth and a Jedward hairstyle and a very high opinion of himself, and so she had moved in with Katie. It suited Katie, because Siobhán could take care of Barney while she was at work, keep the bungalow tidy and do the messages.

It also meant that Katie could keep an older-sisterly eye on her, because Siobhán had been wild when she was younger, and was still given to bursts of outrageous behaviour, such as climbing out of her car if other drivers cut her up and banging on their windows, or drinking too much in Kelly’s Bar on a Saturday night and falling over in the road with her legs in the air and her black lacy knickers showing.

‘What did you do last night?’ Katie asked her. ‘Anything good?’

Siobhán was silent for a moment, and then she said, ‘I called Michael, if you must know.’

‘I thought you and Michael had been finished for donkey’s. Quite apart from the fact that he’s married.’

‘I still miss him. And he still misses me. He should never have married that Nola. What a drisheen! She’s more like his mother than his wife. Always fussing. She never lets him go out for a drink with his pals, and he has to take off his shoes every time he steps into the house, and put the toilet seat down. And now she wants to move to Kinsale, because she thinks it’s classier than Carrigaline. Well, it is, but that’s not the point.’

‘Well, there’s nothing you can do about it. You had your chance, and you blew it.’

Siobhán was winding her curls hair around her finger. ‘I think he’s forgiven me, to tell you the truth. I only cheated on him once. Well, twice. Anyhow, he said that he’d like to meet me again, just for one drink like.’

Katie took another swallow of vodka and raised her eyebrows. ‘Up to you, girl. But you’re asking for trouble, if you want my opinion. You know what one drink can lead to, especially with you. And if Nola ever found out, she’s not the forgiving kind, I can tell you that.’

Her mobile phone rang, and she picked it up. ‘Hi, John! I’ve been trying to call you for the past hour! Did you get my message?’

‘I did, yes. Sorry. Somebody left a gate open and half a dozen of the goddamned Jerseys got out. They were halfway to Rathcormac before we rounded them all up.’

‘I had a hunch you were chasing after cows – didn’t I, Siobhán?’

‘That’s what makes you such a natural-born detective,’ said John. ‘Listen – can we meet this evening? How about those mussels you were craving after?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not so sure I’m that hungry any more. And I’m tired, too.’

‘Oh, come on.’

‘It’s your fault, John,’ said Katie, winking at Siobhán. ‘You were the one who tired me out.’

John said, ‘Please, Katie. There’s something really important I want to tell you. I should have told you last night but one thing led to another. I’ll come and pick you up at quarter to eight. How’s that?’

‘All right,’ said Katie, pushing her fingers through her hair. ‘I’ll go and take a shower. That should wake me up.’

She hung up and looked at Siobhán with her lips pursed and her eyebrows lifted.

‘What?’ said Siobhán.

‘He says he has something really important to tell me.’

Siobhán frowned for a moment and then let out a high-pitched scream. ‘I know what it is! He’s going to ask you to marry him! He’s only going to propose!’

‘Oh, get away with you! Of course he’s not!’

‘I’ll bet you he is! Think about it! Paul’s been in the ground now for more than a year and a half, I’d say that’s a decent interval, wouldn’t you?’

‘Siobhán, I’m sure he’s not going to propose. And what would I say to him if he did?’

‘Well,
yes
, I hope! You know you love him! And he’s gorgeous! That wonderful American accent! He sounds just like that fella with the really deep voice at the beginning of
Law & Order
, who says “
These are their stories
!”’

‘I don’t know. I’m not so sure I
do
love him.’

‘Of course you do. And what’s the competition? Roddy Phelan, at the Water’s Edge Hotel?’

‘I
like
Roddy. He makes me laugh.’

‘I’m not surprised, girl. That haircut of his. Makes him look like a squirrel.’

‘Anyway,’ said Katie, ‘I’m going for a shower. If anybody rings, I’m not here, and I’m not expected back, either.’

Standing in the shower, with her eyes tight shut, she suddenly felt very alone and unexpectedly vulnerable. Paul had been a chancer, and a gambler, and he had cheated on her with some of the brassiest women in Cork. He had been prepared to do anything for money – as his drinking friends at the Ovens bar used to say, he would have minded mice at a crossroads for you, if you had paid him enough.

All the same, she had known him since school, and in the early years of their marriage she had found him funny and enchanting. No matter how much of a loser he had eventually turned out to be, she had never imagined that there would ever be a time when he simply wasn’t there any more.

Five minutes before John was due to arrive to pick her up, the phone rang and it was Sergeant O’Rourke.

‘We finished searching Father Heaney’s room but to be honest, ma’am, we didn’t find a whole lot. A box of Polaroids of young boys in their bayd-nas, paddling in the sea at Youghal, it looks like, but they must be more than thirty years old. Three diaries, bound in leather with locks on so we had to bust them open, and even when we did the writing’s so small that you practically need a microscope to read it. Not only that, it’s all in Latin, like.’

‘I know a classics professor at the university,’ said Katie. ‘He’ll translate them for us, although I expect he’ll be asking a hefty fee for doing it.’

‘Oh, very public-spirited.’

‘Well, I could ask the vicars general if they could recommend a priest who would translate them for us free and for nothing – to make some amends for the clergy’s transgressions, as it were. But I wouldn’t trust any priest to make a totally unbiased translation, would you? Especially if Father Heaney’s written anything incriminating in them, and if he’s implicated other priests, too. The church takes care of its own, Jimmy, and we’ve seen just how much.’