Death at Whitewater Church Read online

  “Thank the Lord that’s over for another while.” I leaned back in my chair with a sigh. “Fancy a glass of wine to celebrate?”

  I was still waiting for her to decide what she wanted to drink when I felt a breeze on the back of my neck as the door behind me opened and someone entered the pub. Leah looked up. I asked again what she wanted to drink, but she didn’t respond. Her gaze was fixed instead on whoever had entered the pub as they headed up to the bar. Her mouth was slightly open.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “Fuck. When did he reappear?” she said at last.

  I turned to see who she was talking about. A man and woman were standing at the bar. Leah continued to stare openly at them, and I realized she wasn’t the only one. As I glanced around, it looked as if the entire pub had stopped chewing at exactly the same moment and were gaping at the couple. Even Tony was standing stock-still behind the bar, looking utterly shocked. Unshockable Tony.

  “You won’t believe who that is,” Leah hissed.

  The man was of average height, dressed in a long coat. His curly hair was receding a little and starting to gray at the temples. As he turned to the bar to order, I finally got a view of his face. There was no question about whom I was looking at: the photograph in the newspaper had stayed in my mind as if I had glued it to a noticeboard. He was slightly heavier and was sporting a tan his ex-fiancée would be jealous of, but other than that, he had changed very little. The man was Conor Devitt and the woman with him was his sister, Claire.

  “Conor Devitt,” Leah breathed, staring at him as if he was liable to disappear if she took her eyes off him. She shook her head in disbelief. “Imagine just walking in here after all these years as if nothing had happened.”

  Tony served up two takeaway coffees. How he managed to hold it together I’ll never know, but Tony’s not scared of an audience. There was no conversation though, and that wasn’t like him. The drinks were ordered, served, and paid for as if the man were a complete stranger, after which Claire and her long-lost brother turned on their heels and walked back down the length of the pub.

  Conor kept his head up and his gaze fixed on the door. He must have been aware of the fact that everyone was looking at him, but he didn’t speak to anyone and he didn’t catch anyone’s eye. Claire, on the other hand, appeared to be relishing the attention. She beamed broadly and her eyes darted around the pub like an insect.

  The second the door closed, the hum of conversation started up again, quietly at first, then rising gradually to a semi-hysterical din. After a few minutes I went outside. The Devitts had disappeared. The street lighting had come on and there was an orange hue over the square; the air was smoky and still. I dialed the garda station. Molloy answered, and didn’t even let me finish my sentence.

  “Before you say anything, yes, we know Conor Devitt is back. Yours is about the tenth sighting we’ve had. I think we can take it he’s not considered missing anymore.”

  “Have you spoken to him?”

  “He’s just been in with us.”

  “Oh right.”

  Molloy sighed. “Says he got back last night. Went straight to his mother’s house. We’re going to talk to him again, but it all seems above board. That’s one file we can finally close.”

  “So where has he been then?”

  “England, he says. Won’t give us any details as to why he left in the first place, although I guess he doesn’t have to. He’s an adult. But he’s bloody well wasted a lot of police time.”

  “So why now? Why come back after all this time? Is it to do with Danny?”

  “That’s what he says, that he had to come back after his brother’s death, for his mother.”

  “So now he’s concerned about her,” I said with more than a hint of sarcasm in my voice.

  “We’ve no reason not to believe him,” Molloy said. “Although yes, you’d think he’d have got in contact with her at some stage in the past six years to stop the poor woman worrying.”

  “How did he hear?”

  “Hear what?”

  “About Danny’s death. Do you think someone was in touch with him? Someone who knew where he was?”

  “He said he heard it on Highland Radio. He must be able to get it on the Internet or something over there.”

  “It took him five days to get back all the same,” I said. “You’d think he could have made it in time for the funeral.”

  “And he arrives back to the news that there is to be a murder investigation.”

  As I hung up, it hit me that Mary Devitt must have known that Conor was back when I went to see her that morning. That was why she had been so anxious to get me away from the house. He was probably in the bloody kitchen. I felt duped.

  Chapter 27

  THERE WAS AN oddly tense feel about the town the next morning. Or maybe the tension was coming from me. I’d had a restless night. Danny Devitt murdered, Conor Devitt alive, and Mary Devitt trying her best to … what was she trying to do? Who was she trying to protect? I had assumed it was Danny, but maybe I was wrong. I was tempted to try to talk to her again – but what good would it do? I had thought she was someone I could trust; now I wasn’t so sure.

  Wispy white flakes swirled across the square. The cold accessed any little bit of skin that was covered in fewer than three layers. I bought a newspaper and turned the corner towards the office. A white van pulled up beside me on the footpath and a window was rolled down. A bare elbow in a short-sleeved T-shirt appeared and Mick Bourke beckoned me over, his eyes darting to the left and right as I approached him.

  “Yes, Mick? Do you want to talk to me?”

  He nodded. His face was less florid than usual. Pale beneath the red, making a rather unattractive shade of pink. He was chewing his lip.

  “Do you want to come into the office for a minute?”

  “Nah, haven’t time. It won’t take long. Can you get in for a wee minute?”

  “If you want me to.”

  He leaned over to open the passenger door for me and with difficulty I clambered up.

  “I’ll just drive out the road a bit, if that’s all right. I think better when I’m driving.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly.

  He pulled off from the curb with a screech and headed out onto the Derry road. After a few minutes he began to hum rather tunelessly and tap the center of the steering wheel with his open palm. It was all a bit disconcerting. I was just about to tell him that I had someone waiting for me at the office and needed to get back, when he stopped humming and started speaking.

  “I want you to forget about what we were talking about last week,” he said.

  “The missing money?”

  “Aye.”

  “Are you sure? You were very anxious about it at the time.”

  “Aye, I’m sure. I made a mistake. Got me figures all mixed up.”

  “I thought you said it was Eithne who had done your figures?”

  “Aye well, she got them mixed up then.”

  I paused. “Does this have anything to do with Conor Devitt’s reappearance, by any chance?”

  “No, it doesn’t. I got me figures mixed up, that’s all.” He had a stubborn expression on his face.

  “So there’s no money missing.”

  He shook his head vehemently.

  “And never was?”

  He shook it again. The van veered a little to the left.

  “Right, okay,” I said. “Whatever you say.”

  “So that’s it then?” he asked.

  “That’s it. I did say there wasn’t anything I could do for you anyway, that you’d have to talk to the guards.”

  His eyes widened in alarm. “You didn’t say anything to them, did you?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  He breathed out audibly.

  Leah looked up at me with a grin when I walked back into the office. “Did I see you getting into a white van, by any chance?”

  “God, there’s no privacy in this town.”
<
br />   “New man?”

  “Yep.”

  “Who was it?” She handed me the mail.

  “Mick Bourke. He’s a funny one, isn’t he?”

  She looked up. “Not the brightest, my father always says.”

  “He’s Eithne’s brother though, isn’t he? She’s sharp as a tack.”

  “Half-brother. Eithne’s father died and her mother remarried – Mick’s father. He was a bit of a thug, by all accounts. Mind you, Mick must have something going for him. Have you seen his wife?”

  “I think she was at Danny Devitt’s funeral with him. I didn’t get a decent look at her though. Why?”

  Leah whistled. “She’s about half his age. A Derry one. Never seen her without some big rock or other expensive bit of jewelry.”

  “Really? I thought he said his wife had cataracts. You don’t get cataracts when you’re young, do you?”

  She laughed. “That was the previous one. He got rid of her a few years ago. Replaced her with this new model.”

  “I see. He never mentioned that. Just referred to ‘the wife’ as if it was some kind of generic position.”

  “That’s hilarious.” She chewed absently on her pen. “I wonder if Conor Devitt will go back to work for him, now that he’s back?”

  At lunchtime I wandered over in the direction of Phyllis’ book shop. I was dying to see what she made of Conor Devitt’s reappearance. I knew she would be delighted to chew over this latest town drama. I pushed open the door, and the little bell rang as it swung back. Phyllis was perched on a stool at the counter immersed in a book.

  “At last, someone to talk to,” she said, taking her glasses off her nose. “The town has been like a morgue all day.”

  “There’s a funny old atmosphere all right.”

  “I reckon everyone is hiding away gossiping about Conor Devitt.” She grinned. “Speaking of which, fancy some tea?”

  I beamed an assent.

  A few minutes later, Phyllis reappeared with a huge earthenware teapot and a plate of homemade butter biscuits.

  “So, what do you know?” she said, as she rested the tray on the counter. “I hear he made a grand entrance in the Oak last night.”

  “Well, not quite a grand entrance, but he certainly attracted a lot of attention. Claire was with him.”

  “I bet she was. Did you know he was back? Before last night, I mean?” she asked.

  “I was as surprised as everyone else. Or as everyone else looked, at any rate.”

  She smiled. “I’d say there was a bit of fly-catching all right. You can’t blame people. He has been gone for six years.”

  I took a biscuit. “And his family seemed pretty convinced that was him in the crypt.”

  “I wonder,” Phyllis said as she poured the tea. “I think people kind of hoped it was him in a way.” Then she caught herself. “Hope is probably the wrong word. I think they didn’t want to believe that Conor would up and leave his family and his fiancée just before his wedding. He was always the kind of fella to do the right thing, you know?” She shrugged. “Maybe it was easier to handle to think that something had happened to him. It seemed like such a callous thing to have done otherwise. And then to not even get in touch for all that time.”

  I took a sip of my tea. Earl Grey this time. None of your tar-like builders’ tea for Phyllis.

  “He must have had his reasons, I suppose.”

  “That’s no excuse for what he did to his poor mother. And Claire. I know what I’d do to him if I got hold of him.”

  “I’m sure Claire’s had a few things to say to him. I got the impression she didn’t appreciate being left alone to look after their mother.” I smiled. “Though I know Tony seemed to think it was the other way round.”

  Phyllis frowned. “I wouldn’t have thought that Claire would take him on. I always thought she was a little afraid of Conor, to be honest. He was the reason she stopped working for Eithne, you know.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Conor disliked Eithne, I knew that. But I never got the full story. I heard he just marched into the chemist shop one day and ordered Claire out of there. I often wondered …”

  “Wondered what?”

  She hesitated. “I don’t really like to say, but well – I often wondered if maybe Eithne was a little overfond of Claire, if you get my drift. Still is, in my opinion.”

  “I see. Would Conor really have taken a dislike to Eithne because of that?”

  She shrugged. “He seemed to. Claire was very young at the time, and Conor was always pretty conservative.”

  “And Claire?”

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure Claire likes men. At least she used to, which doesn’t mean she doesn’t take advantage of Eithne’s affection, I suspect.”

  “What do you think of him?” I asked.

  “Conor?” Phyllis made a face.

  “I thought everyone liked him?”

  “Was that something you were told when everyone thought his body was in the crypt?”

  “Well, yes, now that you mention it.”

  “That was the don’t speak ill of the dead phase,” she said with a cynical expression. “Look, Conor Devitt might have been straight in his business dealings. And a good carpenter undoubtedly, and he certainly took responsibility for the family when he was very young, got a job straight after school and all that, and of course that’s all very impressive …”

  “But?”

  “There was something about him I just couldn’t warm to.”

  “Go on.”

  “He was controlling, in my opinion. I assumed it was because he had to grow up too quickly with what happened to his father.”

  That was the second time I’d heard the word “controlling” used in reference to Conor Devitt.

  “Why did you think that?”

  “Oh, I probably shouldn’t mention this, it was so long ago.”

  “Go on.”

  “Okay. One day I was down at the shore below the Devitts’ house, going for a walk after Mass. You know I said that I used to go to Mass in Whitewater, when the priest here was driving me nuts?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now this could be twenty years ago, mind. It’s funny the things that stay with you. Claire and Danny were down at the shore – they were only kids. They were down around the old pilot station – they’d stopped using it at that stage – just messing about with the dog, when Conor arrived with a face like thunder. He ordered them off the beach and home. He was only a teenager himself at the time, eighteen or so. But there was something about the way he did it that bothered me. He was furious.”

  “I’m surprised Danny obeyed him.”

  Phyllis tilted her head. “I’d have obeyed him myself, the mood he was in.”

  “Do you think it had something to do with what happened to his father?” I asked.

  “I wondered that, too, at the time.”

  “Trying to protect them? Something like that?”

  “Maybe. But they only lived up the hill from the beach so they couldn’t exactly have kept away from it.” She murmured, almost to herself, “But that’s what it looked like – as if they weren’t allowed near the shore. Very strange.”

  “Do you think it was coming from the mother?”

  “Mrs. D? God, no.” Phyllis grinned. “She’s a lovely woman and all that, but not what you’d call hands on. She let those kids run wild.”

  “So Conor was a real surrogate parent?”

  “That’s right. He grew up too fast in my view. Cocky and charming, but you wondered if it was all an act, to show how grown up he was. Able to take care of everything, you know?”

  I looked at my watch. It was five to two.

  “I have to go. Thanks for the tea and biscuits.”

  “Right so. I’ll see you at your office at quarter past anyway,” Phyllis said.

  “Huh?”

  “That Glendara Poverty Relief Committee thingy.”

  “Oh right. Grand.”

  I was ab
out to close the door behind me when Phyllis called out.

  “Drama meeting on Friday, too, by the way. Here this time, upstairs in the flat. We have to have a look at those plays. Claire might even come.”

  I nodded.

  “If Conor lets her,” she added with a grin.

  My phone rang in my coat pocket on the way back to the office. The words home calling flashed across the screen. I hesitated before answering.

  “Sarah … Ben?” My mother’s voice was cautious.

  “Hi, Mum. How’s Dad?”

  “Good, better – he’s managing to get up the stairs with a bit of difficulty. Glad to be back in his own bed.”

  “That’s grand.”

  She paused as if she was working out how to phrase the next sentence.

  “What’s up, Mum?”

  She cleared her throat before she spoke. “We – that is, your father and I – we want you to talk to the pathologist.”

  My heart sank. “Whatever for, Mum?”

  “We want you to find out why she said what she did.”

  “I can’t, Mum.”

  “Whyever not? You said she was up there, in Donegal. Couldn’t you just ask her?”

  “She’s left, Mum. And even if she hadn’t, what on earth good would it do to talk to her? Why open all of that up again?”

  “Because she said some things that we know couldn’t be true. Maybe if you talked to her, she would understand. Maybe there could be a retrial or something – an appeal. That happens sometimes, doesn’t it?” My mother was talking breathlessly now, as if she had to get everything she wanted to say out all at once, before her allotted time was up.

  “Mum, she simply gave evidence of her own scientific findings. She is not going to change that, or be influenced by anyone else’s view. She wouldn’t be doing her job if she were. In any case, it’s too late for an appeal, and it would never have been up to us anyway; it would have been up to the Director for Public Prosecutions. He was convicted, Mum. There was no reason to appeal.”

  “But …”

  “Mum, I’m sorry, I have to go. I need to get back to the office.”

  Chapter 28

  A FAMILIAR WAVE of nausea hit me as I hung up, accompanied by a sense of dread that this nightmare was never going to end. My parents were not going to drop this. Why the hell had I told them about the pathologist? The whole reason for keeping my distance was to avoid these kinds of conversations, to allow the tragedy to settle into something less raw, a dull ache that could be lived with. The memory of my sister preserved in some way, however artificial, not ripped to shreds and trampled into the gutter. This was what happened when I let down my guard.