‘You wanted something on Father Burke,’ he said and went back to his desk.
Lottie looked at the passport-sized photo of Father Joe with his boyish fringe and blue eyes, an open and inviting smile. She skimmed the report until her eyes landed on a local newspaper article from Wexford.
‘Did you read this?’ she asked.
‘I did,’ said Kirby. ‘He appears to be something of a ladies’ man.’
The words on the page merged into each other. Lack of caffeine or sleep deprivation? She felt like throwing up; tried to focus but her mind refused to register what she was looking at. A small article quoting a local woman in Wexford Town. She had claimed Father Joe Burke had pursued her, wanting a relationship. She’d ignored his advances and when he’d persisted she’d reported him but the guards wouldn’t do anything about it. Lottie couldn’t believe this had actually been printed. Then she thought of the journalist Cathal Moroney and his secret source. She still had to find out who was behind that leak.
She raised her head to Kirby.
‘Chasing after female parishioners,’ he said, ‘is only a crime in the Catholic Church. Vow of celibacy and all that. If you ask me—’
‘I didn’t,’ she said, tuning him out.
She’d been taken in by Father Joe’s good looks and sweet charm. Had he been trying to seduce her when she only wanted friendship? Was that why he insisted she go to Rome when really he could have photographed and emailed the relevant ledger pages?
She shoved back her chair, grabbed her phone and, with one arm inside her jacket, was out the door without hearing another word from Kirby.
She fully intended to go have a look around St Angela’s but as she left the office she bumped into Maria Lynch at the car pool.
‘I’m heading back out to Ballinacloy,’ Lynch said. ‘You coming?’
‘Sure. I’ll drive,’ Lottie said, making up her mind on the spot. St Angela’s could wait. Maybe she might find something at the old priest’s abode.
Father Cornelius Mohan had lived in a bungalow to the left of a small church. Four cottages, early twentieth century, lined the road to the right, a hedged laneway snaking behind. Between the small houses and the church stood a five-class primary school, Thomas the Tank Engine painted on the oil tank. A playground curled around the school. And, for the last ten years, a paedophile priest had lived next door. All this had been facilitated by none other than Bishop Connor. Lottie shook her head in bewilderment.
The garda, standing at the gate, lifted the crime scene tape, allowing them through. With Lynch talking to the SOCOs in the yard out the back, Lottie pulled on latex gloves and opened the front door. She surveyed the dark rambling hallway and entered the kitchen with its high ceiling. Everything was murky brown and the air stank of smoke – turf and cigarettes. A clogged ashtray sat on the table beside a chipped mug half-full of stagnant tea. The stove door was open, its ashes as cold as the dead priest.
She pushed open another door. A narrow streak of mid-morning glow seeped through at the bottom of thin curtains. As she drew back the cotton, a shaft of brightness illuminating a crest of dust floating in the air threw light on an unmade single bed, a locker, chest of drawers and a two-door stand-alone wardrobe.
Lifting up a plain blue blanket, Lottie eased gloved fingers under the pillow, felt around and extracted a bulging wallet. It was full of fifty and one hundred euro notes. One five hundred euro note folded in the back behind a laminated card of St Anthony holding the child Jesus. In all, she counted one thousand, six hundred and twenty euro. Robbery was definitely not Cornelius’ murderer’s motive. It was evident that the old priest was the only person to have entered this room, in a very long time.
She opened drawers, then the wardrobe. Both held a minimal amount of clothing, all of it black, smelling of mothballs and staleness. Kneeling, she looked under the bed. Two pairs of black shoes were lined up with a brown leather suitcase behind them. She dragged out the case, covered with a layer of grime, and unclasped the locks. Yellowed newspaper clippings, folders and notebooks.
Lifting up one of the hardbacked notebooks, she opened it. Short pencil strokes neatly aligned on page after page. Figures, totted up in columns. Household accounts, she guessed, and picked up another notebook. The same. Come on Mohan, she willed, give me something.
Kneeling on the dusty wooden floor, she flicked through six notebooks, all containing figures. She lined them up beside her and took out the next one. Similar navy hardback. She opened it. No figures. Handwriting. She held her breath. The now familiar pencil, in well-schooled handwriting, a methodical, even structured, script.
Words merged and fluttered as she read. A history of abuse, documented in fading pencil, fell from the pages, letter by letter, word by word, floating around her, an incomprehensible pall of sentences. It wasn’t enough, she thought, that he’d perpetrated such acts on the innocent, he’d also recorded it. A chronicle of secrets, inscribed with fading pencil, in a navy, hardbacked notebook, incarcerated in the brown leather suitcase of a murdered, child-abusing priest. It assaulted her very soul. She felt her heart break and harden at the same time.
Unable to finish reading, she placed the notebook in a plastic evidence bag and shoved it into her inside jacket pocket. It didn’t matter where she placed it, she knew she’d never be able to expunge the horror inscribed by the hand of a demon. He must not have thought about what would happen to these notebooks when he died. Otherwise he would have got rid of them. Unless he had used them to revisit his crimes. What kind of sadistic animal had he been?
She called for Lynch, okayed it with the SOCO team and carried the suitcase to the car. She fled the house, unable to shake off the sound of soft footsteps belonging to little abused children trailing behind her.
The bell in the small country church chimed and the village resonated with the hollow midday toll.
Eighty-Three
The queue outside the bank ATM seemed to go on forever.
Sean stamped his feet in the snow and decided to take his chances inside. At least it was warmer there. He waited in line for a machine to become available.
The woman in front of him, struggling with a toddler and a screaming baby in a buggy, eventually got her money. He keyed in his PIN number and extracted two hundred euro. That should be enough, he thought, knowing he hadn’t much left now. He could trade in his old PlayStation for the balance.
He wondered where Jason could be. He decided he would ask his own friends if any of them had seen him. Not that his friends mixed with the likes of Jason Rickard. But you never know until you ask. He stuffed the money into his trouser pocket and headed for the door.
The man watched the boy.