Death at Whitewater Church Read online

  They were gone only a matter of minutes. Paul reemerged first, lighting a cigarette again before he was even fully upright. Molloy stepped out after him, looking somber.

  “Well, you’re right,” he said. “They’re definitely human remains. It looks like they’ve been here for some time. And they certainly don’t appear to be part of the official, buried remains …”

  I interrupted him. “Actually, I don’t think there are any official remains here anymore. They would have been removed and reburied somewhere else when the church was deconsecrated; that’s what usually happens.”

  “When would that have been?”

  “The church was deconsecrated back in the 1990s sometime. I’m pretty sure there was something about it on the deeds.”

  “What are your clients’ names?” Molloy asked, producing a notebook and pen from his pocket.

  “Kelly. They’re a couple – Raymond and Alison Kelly. I think Liam said they’re away in the States at the moment. Not sure when they’re back.”

  Molloy took a note. “I’ll need their contact details.”

  I produced my phone from my pocket. The battery was dead. “I don’t have them on me but I can get them from the office.”

  “I’ll need them as soon as possible.”

  Molloy transferred his attention to McFadden, who had begun fixing crime scene tape to the wall. “Andy, did you get hold of the State Pathologist’s office? We’re going to need someone up from Dublin as soon as possible.”

  “Aye, I did.” McFadden straightened himself, rubbing his lower back. “There’s a pathologist in Letterkenny at the moment, up to give a lecture at the college. I lost coverage down at the gate but I reckoned I’d ring again when we knew what we were dealing with.”

  “It’s okay – I’ll do it. From what I’ve seen of the bones, we’ll need a forensic anthropologist.” Molloy took McFadden’s mobile and walked away with it.

  The beam from McFadden’s torch flashed on the bolted gate of the crypt as he struggled with the tape. I found myself staring at it, the memory of what I had seen half an hour before returning with a vengeance. My stomach lurched.

  “How long have the Kellys owned the church?” McFadden asked, jolting me back to the present.

  “I’m not sure. I didn’t act for them when they bought it.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t know it belonged to anyone. I assumed the church still owned it.”

  “The couple bought it with plans to turn it into some kind of heritage centre, as far as I know, but they ran into some problems.”

  “Money probably,” McFadden said. “The sorry end of our Celtic Tiger.”

  “Probably, or planning permission,” I said. “I think it’s lain derelict ever since.”

  McFadden whistled. “Jesus, I wonder if they knew what they had in their cellar?”

  Molloy shot McFadden a look of disapproval. In the dim light, I hadn’t noticed him return.

  “Stroke of luck,” he announced. “It turns out we have a forensic anthropologist and pathologist rolled into one, just down the road. She’s on her way.”

  He turned to me. “Not that I approve of McFadden’s crude analysis, but do you think there is any chance your clients did know about this?”

  “It seems a bit unlikely they’d have someone out to inspect the church if they did, doesn’t it?” I said.

  “Sarge,” McFadden said suddenly. “Take a look at this.” He shone his torch on the ground in front of the entrance to the crypt. There was something glinting in the grass.

  Using a handkerchief from his pocket, Molloy picked it up. It was a padlock, similar to those on the gate and the door of the church. It had been roughly sawed open. He rubbed his chin. “Looks like you might be right. Maybe they didn’t know.”

  He handed the padlock to McFadden, still in the handkerchief. “We’ll need one of you here when the pathologist arrives; I’m sure she’ll have some questions.”

  “Of course,” I said immediately.

  “There’s no need for you to stay,” Molloy told me. “Paul was first on the scene.”

  Paul hadn’t uttered a word since he’d come back out of the crypt. He nodded unhappily, an expression of resignation on his face.

  “I don’t mind staying, honestly,” I said.

  “I’m sure you have work to do,” Molloy said firmly. “And remember – I need to get your clients’ contact details as soon as possible.”

  “Okay, I’ll ring you back with them. Then I need to give them a call and let them know what’s happened.”

  Molloy frowned. “I’d rather you didn’t. That’s my job.” He handed me his torch. “And Ben?”

  I looked up.

  “I don’t need to tell you, keep the details of what you’ve seen to yourself.”

  * * *

  I made it back to Glendara and the old terraced house that accommodates O’Keeffe & Co. Solicitors half an hour later. O’Keeffe & Co. is my firm, since I took it over from my retiring predecessor six years ago. It’s the most northerly solicitor’s office in Ireland. Last legal advice before Iceland; I’ve always thought I should put that on my notepaper.

  As I crossed the road and watched people scuttle from shop to shop, weighed down with children and bags, people with busy lives and families to feed, I felt a familiar emptiness. Being an outsider in a town where most people have spent their whole lives is not the easiest way to live. Sometimes, in my darker moments, I felt as if my role here was limited to that of an observer and facilitator for other people. That my own life was a sort of half-life, as if I didn’t really count because no one knew my “people.” But I have my reasons for being here. I have made my choice.

  I’m Ben O’Keeffe. Benedicta, actually, thanks to my parents’ fondness for an obscure fifth-century Italian saint, but the full version rarely gets an outing. “Ben” does me just fine, although it does create some interesting misunderstandings.

  Leah was engrossed in accounts when I walked into the office. Leah McKinley is my receptionist, legal executive, and everything else rolled into one. One quiet afternoon she managed to identify a job description for herself for each letter of the alphabet – aide-de-camp, bookkeeper, coffee-maker … You get the picture. It’s a two-woman operation.

  Molloy had told me to keep my mouth shut, but I’d trust Leah with my life – plus she’s bound by the confidentiality clause in her contract. So I filled her in on what had happened, watched her jaw drop, then headed upstairs to my desk. I found an address and telephone numbers for the Kellys and dialed Molloy’s mobile. It went straight through to voice mail so I left a message. Then I went over to the filing cabinet and took out a fat conveyancing file.

  I extracted a large bundle of deeds, untied the pink ribbon keeping them together, and spread them out on the desk in front of me, reading through each of the titles until I found the one I was looking for: the most recent conveyance of Whitewater Church, from the Catholic Church Trustees to Raymond and Alison Kelly. I unfolded it and checked the date. The Kellys had bought the church on December 14, 2005. Back in the days when everyone had been full of big plans and easy money.

  I shuffled through the earlier title documents until I came across a Deed of Deconsecration from 1995. I was starting to read through it when I heard voices downstairs. Leah was talking to someone with a loud voice and a very distinctive accent. It was one I had been expecting, although not yet. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but from the decibel level, it sounded as if Leah was struggling to calm some frayed nerves. The expression of relief on her face when I appeared at the bottom of the stairs confirmed my suspicion. Standing at the reception desk, looming over her, was Raymond Kelly.

  “I can’t wait!” he was shouting. “I have to see her straight away.”

  “Mr. Kelly?” I said.

  He whirled around to face me.

  “What the fuck?” he said, spreading his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I turn my phone back on when I land in Belfast, and
there’s a message from some guard called Molloy. What the hell’s going on?”

  “Come upstairs,” I said.

  He followed me up the stairs. “I’m on my way to the station now. That guard said something about a body. A body, for fuck’s sake?”

  In my office he refused the seat I offered him and started to pace up and down like a caged lion. One, two, three steps to the left, one, two, three to the right.

  “Human remains were found in the crypt under the church,” I explained. “I was there at the time, as a matter of fact.”

  Kelly stopped in his tracks and turned to face me, an accusatory expression on his face.

  “What in God’s name were you doing there?”

  “Liam asked me to go and give Paul a map.”

  “Sounds like the whole fucking town was up there tramping about.”

  I counted to ten. “Paul needed it for the survey,” I said as calmly as I could. “As for the bones, they don’t know how old they are nor how long they’ve been there. They won’t know anything much until a pathologist examines them.” I looked at my watch. “She’s probably there now, as it happens.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Kelly ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “Why do they want to talk to me? Do they think I have something to do with it?”

  “They didn’t say that.”

  “How am I supposed to know how the hell the damn thing got there?”

  “Look, why don’t you sit down?”

  He shook his head. “I mean, why do they think I’d allow the place to be surveyed if I was hiding a fucking body there?”

  “I did say that, actually. I expect they need to speak to you because you’re the owner.”

  He stopped pacing. For a second he looked like a little boy. “Will you come down to the station with me?”

  “If you want me to.”

  His shoulders relaxed slightly. He sat down, put his elbows on the desk, and held his head in his hands.

  “Why did I ever buy that damn place? It’s been nothing but a headache since I first set eyes on it. Paid far too much for it, couldn’t get planning permission, and then the whole bloody economy collapses. A more superstitious person than me would think that the place was cursed. That I was being punished for buying a secularized church and trying to make something of it.”

  I smiled. “I don’t think Whitewater Church can be blamed for the collapse of the whole national economy.”

  “I suppose not. Still … It hasn’t brought me much luck. You can’t deny that.”

  “No,” I conceded. “But then you couldn’t really have predicted this latest development.”

  Kelly looked gloomily at the stack of papers on my desk. “Those the deeds?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Anything in them about a hex?”

  McFadden was on his knees searching for something behind the counter when we walked in.

  I leaned over to speak to him. “Is the sergeant back, Andy?”

  He looked up. “Nope. He’s still up at the church.”

  Kelly groaned beside me.

  “This is Raymond Kelly,” I said. “The owner. Tom wanted to speak to him.”

  McFadden stood up. “Aye, okay. I can start taking some details from you if you like, Mr. Kelly.”

  He managed to get as far as Kelly’s address by the time the door of the station opened and Molloy strode in, accompanied by an attractive blond woman, dressed in a dark trouser suit and flat shoes. They were deep in conversation. Molloy glanced briefly in our direction as they walked past and the woman looked up. Our eyes met and I found myself staring into a face I had hoped with all my heart never to see again. Without warning I was transported back eight years, to that awful courtroom where I had last seen her. I gripped the counter and looked away. Seconds later, I heard the door of the interview room at the back of the station slam shut.

  Time stood still until they reemerged. My gaze followed them as they walked together towards the door, Molloy leaning forward to catch what she was saying. Pins and needles started to work their way up my neck. I forced myself to look away again, and tried my best to concentrate on Kelly’s replies to McFadden’s questions until I heard the front door of the station close and felt Molloy beside me.

  “Was that …?” I asked. My voice sounded odd.

  “That was the pathologist.” He looked at Kelly. “And this is?”

  “Raymond Kelly, the owner of Whitewater Church.”

  “Thanks for coming down, Mr. Kelly. I’m sure this is very distressing for you, but we’d be grateful for any assistance you can give us. I’ll be back to you in a few minutes to ask you some more questions.”

  Kelly nodded miserably. Molloy looked at me and cast his eyes in the direction of the interview room. I followed him, unsure if my legs would even work. He leaned against the door with his arms crossed.

  “Nothing much yet,” he said. “Deceased was male. And according to the pathologist, from the level of decomposition, he’s been dead for at least five years. The body was completely skeletonized. But you knew that.”

  I looked down, the grisly image still clear in my mind.

  “That’s it so far. She’s only done a preliminary examination. No cause of death yet. We don’t even know whether the bones were put there by somebody or if the man died down there.”

  I struggled to refocus. “God, I hope he didn’t. What a place to die.”

  “If he did, it wasn’t an accident – we can be sure of that. The gate was bolted from the outside when you arrived, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “That confirms what Doherty said. With or without the padlock, that gate can’t be opened from the inside. The bars are too narrow. He’d have been trapped.”

  “Christ.”

  “Yes, Christ. The pathologist has arranged for the bones to be taken down to the hospital in Letterkenny. She’s going to do a full examination and postmortem there tonight, so we should have more in the morning.”

  Molloy opened the door. “Your client – I know him, I think. He owns a few pubs over the west of Donegal, doesn’t he, and one in Buncrana. Big into fund-raising for the hospice?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Do you want to stay while I talk to him?”

  Chapter 3

  I STAYED. THE interview didn’t last long. Kelly wasn’t exactly forthcoming. His responses to Molloy’s questions consisted mainly of him insisting that he hadn’t been in the blessed place since he bought it and he was damn sure there weren’t any skeletons there then. And, in case they were wondering, he was sure his wife hadn’t seen any either. And yes, there had always been padlocks on all of the gates, including the crypt.

  Molloy didn’t seem to want to press him any further at this stage, and so after half an hour, Kelly and I left the garda station together. I walked him to his Mercedes and left him wearing the expression of a man who has won the lottery and lost the ticket.

  Alone for the first time in the driver’s seat of my old Mini, I put the key in the ignition but couldn’t turn it. Instead, I found myself staring at the windscreen, frantically trying to rein in my emotions. A cold hand reached down my throat and clutched at my insides. I knew there weren’t too many female pathologists in Ireland, so when Molloy had said “she’s on her way” up at the church, how on earth could it not have occurred to me that it might be her? Was it the “forensic anthropologist” bit that had thrown me? She had obviously acquired an extra qualification, and there was no law against that. But I had never imagined for a second that I would see her again – and certainly not here.

  My phone beeped, making me jump. It was a text reminding me about a Drama Club meeting at seven o’clock. Pathetically grateful for the distraction, I looked at my watch: nearly half six. No point in going home, and as I hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch, there was time for a quick sandwich and a coffee.

  As I hurried on foot across the square, I wondered if news of the discovery at Whitewater Church had r
eached the Oak. Now that would be a true test of the town’s radar. But the pub was deserted. The only live body in the place was behind the bar building a house of cards with beer mats. Although “live” might be pushing it, as a description of Eddie Kearney. I knew, too, the second I saw the cellophane-wrapped sandwiches left over from lunch, that my stomach was not yet ready for food. The choice seemed to be egg mayonnaise or egg mayonnaise.

  “Hi, Eddie. Is the boss about?”

  He looked up at me all acne-faced and bleary-eyed. “He’s gone home for a wee while and then he’s going to some meeting in the hall, I think,” he said vaguely.

  “Grand. I’ll see him there. Can I get a black coffee, please?”

  I had just taken a seat by the fire when the door opened and a tall man in a pink shirt and blue tie stuck his head in and surveyed the room. It was Liam McLaughlin, the estate agent. He made a beeline in my direction.

  “I’ve just been over to your office. It’s shut. I’ve been trying to ring you there,” he said indignantly.

  “It’s twenty to seven, Liam.”

  “That didn’t stop Ray Kelly ringing me, so it didn’t.”

  “Oh God, yes. I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to tell anyone yet.”

  He sat beside me and lowered his tone. “Kelly says Paul found a body up at the church, is that right?”

  “Well, yes, bones. Human remains anyway, in the crypt underneath the church. They’ve been there for some time, apparently. The guards don’t know anything about them yet, how long they’ve been there even. The state pathologist is examining them in Letterkenny.”

  Liam whistled. “Jesus. Kelly’s not happy. My ears are still burning.”

  “I know. I’ve just left him.”

  “Do they know who it is? Or how they got there? I mean, did someone get trapped down there or what?”

  “No idea yet.”

  “Jesus,” he said again.

  I hesitated. “You would have been up there a few times, wouldn’t you, showing the place to people?”

  “Well, no. You see, the first people I showed it to was that English couple we were getting the survey done for. Fell in love with the place when they were driving by it. Called me out of the blue.” He grinned. “No accounting for taste. Why do you ask?”