I cut in. ‘Do you know where they’ve gone?’
‘Back hame. The auld country as they call it.’
‘Ireland?’
‘Aye. I hear it’s awfu’ wet there.’
I watched her plod off and thought that only a West Coast Scot could picture somewhere wetter than here. I looked again at the drawn curtains and big locked gates and cursed myself. It seemed like the rock I’d thrown in the pool had made too big a splash. All the pond life had fled. I turned and ran after the woman.
‘Missus? Oh, missus? Sorry to bother you again. You don’t happen to have an address for Mr Slattery in Ireland? I could send him a wee note.’
She eyed me up and down. ‘You’re no’ the polis, are you?’ She paid particular attention to my scarred face.
‘Do I look like the polis?’
‘Ah’m no’ supposed to do this, but if you just want to write a letter…’ She was digging in her string bag, then in her purse. She brought out a scrap of envelope and unfolded it. ‘Here. Have you got a pencil?’
I jotted down the address and handed the slip back. I hoped I hadn’t stored up trouble for her. But now what? I gazed at the address. Planner Farm, Lisnaskea. It was a place I’d never heard of, presumably a village. But it was in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. Bandit country.
THIRTY-SEVEN
I got myself back to central Glasgow and went to the library. I trawled through some gazetteers till I found some references to Lisnaskea. It claimed to be one of the major villages near Enniskillen in Fermanagh. Which put it in the middle of nowhere. It was the former family seat of the Maguire kings, the ruling family in the area for generations, until good king James VI of Scotland and I of England decided to supplant the local Catholic top dogs with loyal Scottish Protestants. The Plantation.
Locally, this was badly received, and to this day, the population in this wildest and most westerly of the six counties of Ulster was still mainly pissed-off Catholics, and therefore a stronghold of nationalism and the Irish Republican Army. A Scottish Protestant strolling into such a village intent on making a citizen’s arrest of one of their distinguished old boys – as I assumed would be the case with the well-off Slatterys – would find it easier to stick his head into a bear’s cave, bang on a drum and ask how the hibernation was going.
Even I knew when I was beaten. The British Army were given a hard enough time of it over the last three hundred years. Why would one man fare any better?
*
When I got back to the house there was no sign of Sam. She’d left a note in her elegant copperplate on the kitchen table: Brodie, Had a phone call from Craig Allardyce. Lord Chief Justice himself! Said he wanted to chat about my career! Can you believe it? Judge Lech must have put in a word. What’s to lose? I can ask him face to face about the Donovan case and why he picked me. Meeting him at 11 for coffee at the Royal Crown. I can be a sleuth too! Sam
Good for you, Sam. Things were really beginning to happen, it seemed. I picked up the Gazette and read McAllister’s latest piece of invective against the police. He’d be piling on the sorrows in tomorrow’s edition by breaking the news about the Reid kids.
It made me think about Arran again and Father Connor O’Brien. He’d been conspicuous by his silence. Though Arran was an island they still got daily papers and news of his old pal Father Cassidy’s demise must have got through to him. Surely the news of Mrs Reid would have set tongues wagging and heads shaking in sympathy in that little community of Lamlash?
But O’Brien hadn’t tried to call me. I wondered why. Given how recently we’d met and our reason for meeting, it would have been perfectly natural for him to have phoned me as the bodies piled up to find out what the hell was happening. But nothing. Suspicious bloke that I am, I also wondered how much of a coincidence it was that after my visit to O’Brien’s island, I’d nearly met a watery end. At the time I’d dismissed his involvement out of hand. Now I wasn’t so sure. His silence was compounding my everyday religious paranoia. I picked up Sam’s phone and asked the operator to connect me. It rang for a while, then: ‘Father O’Brien. How can I help?’
‘Hello, Connor. This is Douglas Brodie. You remember?’
There was a silence, then, ‘Of course, Brodie. How are you?’
‘Surprisingly well, actually. Unlike your colleague. I’m sorry, Connor.’
Silence again. ‘Brodie, I won’t lie to you. I was shocked to my bones. I owe a great deal to Father Cassidy. He was my study guide when I was taking orders at Trinity.’
‘I didn’t know that, Connor. Neither of you mentioned it before.’
‘It never came up. But it’s of no importance.’
It was if you were paranoiac like me, but I let it pass.
‘The official view is that it was suicide. Does that square with your knowledge of him?’
‘I have prayed night and day for understanding. It’s not what I would have expected of the man.’
‘You know it was me that found him?’
‘I saw your name in the papers.’
‘And you know how I found him?’
‘If you don’t mind, I’d rather you spared me the details.’
‘Well, Connor, I don’t think I can spare you from knowing that in my opinion, my professional opinion, Father Cassidy was murdered.’
‘But the police…?’ There was just about the right level of shock in his voice.
‘The police are covering it up. It’s linked to the Hugh Donovan case. If you’ve been getting the papers over the past few days, or listened to the wireless, you’ll know they framed Hugh for the murder of the boy. And in case you haven’t heard about Mrs Reid – you knew her as Kennedy – she was found dead in a library in Glasgow.’
‘Merciful Father.’
‘God’s mercy seems to be a bit strained these days. Just three days ago her four wee weans were washed up on Largs beach.’
‘Dear God in heaven…’
I felt as if I was punching this man with every new bloody fact. And if he’d been within striking distance, I might well have bent his dog-collar. This priest knew something and was holding back. I was certain of it.
‘My God, my God…’
I waited for him to finish the quote: ‘… why hast thou forsaken me?’ But all I heard was something like a sob, then silence for several seconds.
‘Father O’Brien, why would someone want to murder Patrick Cassidy?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know.’ The anguish sounded real enough.
‘I think you know something. Is there a link between Cassidy and the Slattery gang here in Glasgow?’
There was a sigh. This felt like a confessional but with roles reversed. But there would be no absolution from me if this priest had bloody hands.
‘Belfast. A long time ago. The Slattery boys were placed with the Church.’
‘Placed?’
‘They were sent to the Nazareth House in Belfast. As children.’
‘And Cassidy was there?’
‘He was the visiting priest at the time. Their paths will have crossed.’
‘Will have? You’re not sure?’
‘Right enough, they did cross. Francis told me they were… shall we say, troubled children?’
‘Troubled in what way?’
‘I understand that their father sent them there. After his wife died. That’s all I know.’
‘I’m assuming Father Cassidy came to Glasgow first. Was he upset when the Slatterys showed up?’
‘Surprised, I believe. They came to his chapel. It was a difficult time for Francis.’
‘Why should it be? What happened between them in Belfast?’
