Turbulent Priests (Dan Starkey 3) (35 page)

It was still before seven when we locked Snow Cottage up. There were no goodbyes. It had never felt like home. I’d written three words of a novel, and two of them I wasn’t sure about. I’d come within a moment of having my head blown off and once again been saved by a woman. Women, in fact. It almost hurt to think it. Patricia, Moira, the women of the parish, had all along been more on the ball than their menfolk, had all along expressed their misgivings to each other but agreed to stand by their men until things got really out of hand. Oh, they’d believed in Christine okay, but they’d preserved a certain detachment. They’d allowed their menfolk free range on the decisions, and in the process proved that they were the real decision-makers. Moira and Patricia had spread word of the bodies, and the revulsion had inspired
insurrection and suddenly the McCooeys were no more. It was a triumph for womankind.

Mind you, they’d needed Dr Finlay to start the tractor.

Patricia hummed gently as we drove. She didn’t look back. Little Stevie was happy in her lap. The hedgehog box was wedged into the boot.

When we reached town I asked Patricia if she would miss the old place.

‘Of course. Like a hole in the head.’

‘We thought it might be a little paradise.’

‘
You
thought it might be a little paradise.’

‘I thought it might bring us closer together.’

‘And do you think it did?’

I shrugged. ‘I suppose so. What do you think?’

She shrugged too. Little Stevie opened his eyes briefly. ‘I don’t know if we were ever that far apart,’ Patricia said.

I drove up the Main Street and stopped outside Dr Finlay’s house.

‘What now?’ Patricia said.

‘We should say goodbye.’

‘We’ll miss the ferry.’

‘There’s no shortage of ferries today, love,’ I said.

‘You don’t understand. I want on the
first
one.’

‘We’ll
get
on the first one.’

I rattled the door. Dr Finlay’s housekeeper was already up. She kept me waiting at the door. Several minutes later Finlay arrived, yawning, still tying his dressing gown.

‘We’re off,’ I said.

He didn’t look especially heartbroken. ‘Oh. Right. Good luck, then.’

‘You’re staying?’

‘Of course. I’m a doctor.’

‘And doctors don’t get sick.’

‘Something like that.’

‘Most people will leave, though, won’t they?’

He nodded solemnly. ‘They’ve been looking for an excuse for years. Christine stopped the rot. But now she’s gone . . . not gone – what would you say – diminished?’ I shrugged. ‘Well, there’ll be no stopping them.’

‘Will I send you some whiskey across?’

He cracked a smile. ‘That would be nice. I can’t see Jackie opening the pub again.’

‘I wonder if he ever did bury that drink.’

He yawned again. ‘It would have aged better than what did get buried.’

‘What about Duncan? There’ll need to be a funeral.’

‘Aye. I suppose. Same for the others. Don’t worry about it. Go on home. You’re well out of it.’

‘And Willie Nutt? Did he ever show up?’

Finlay shook his head. ‘Probably still running. Nah, he’ll turn up. Bad pennies always do.’

For several moments we looked silently back down the hill to the harbour, and then on across the sea. The mainland was hidden by cloud and mist. ‘All these deaths,’ I said, ‘do you think . . .?’

‘We’ll get away with it?’

I nodded. The six in the field. Bill. Duncan.

‘We’re an island, we’re used to keeping secrets.’

‘That big?’

‘One day I’ll tell you about the others.’

I looked at him. He didn’t smile. Patricia pumped the horn. He put out his hand. I shook it. ‘Good luck,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’

Patricia waved over. He smiled and turned back into the warmth.

Charlie McManus was busy on the
Fitzpatrick
as we drove onto the quay. A Land-Rover was waiting to board. I pulled up behind it. As we stopped, the driver’s door opened and Father Flynn climbed out. A head turned from his passenger seat. Moira. She waved back and got out as well. Christine’s face appeared suddenly in the back window, smiling and waving. Then she followed her mother.

I rolled the window down and Flynn bent in. Moira went round the other side to speak to Patricia. Christine beat her to it, reaching in immediately to pet Little Stevie.

‘I didn’t think you’d be first in the queue,’ I said.

The priest shook his head. ‘I’m just seeing Moira and Christine across. I’ve people in Ballycastle they can stay with. Then I’ll be back over. They don’t get rid of me that easily.’

‘They nearly did,’ I said.

‘Nearly’s a big word,’ he said.

It wasn’t. But I nodded. I knew what he meant.

Charlie McManus stuck his head above the quay. ‘Yees can bring them on now, if you want,’ he shouted. He pulled a rope back, secured it, then waved us on.

Father Flynn, Moira and Christine hurried back to their vehicle. He started the engine and carefully negotiated the ramp. I followed on. There was just about enough room for the two vehicles. Charlie secured the gate behind us. As he passed us on the way to the wheel I said: ‘You’ll be busy today.’

‘Aye,’ he said.

‘How many runs do you reckon?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said sourly.

He walked on. ‘Expansive as ever,’ I said. Patricia smiled. ‘What was out of Moira?’

She shrugged again. It was fast becoming a family trait. If Little Stevie came off with one before his first birthday I’d be prepared to acknowledge some minor contribution to his genes. ‘I think she’s just relieved it’s all over.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I imagine she is. It must be difficult thinking you’re the centre of the universe one day and just a single unemployed mother the next.’

‘I don’t think I could cope with it. I have enough trouble coping with you.’

‘Seeing Duncan like that can’t have helped. Did she ever say anything to you about him?’

‘Not a peep.’

‘Strange.’

‘We’re not all gossips, you know. Some women
never
talk about who they’ve slept with.’

‘Really?’

A throbbing of the engines.

In a couple of minutes we were underway. In a couple more we were out of the shelter of the harbour. Grey sky merged with the grey sea ahead of us. The mainland was only thirty miles away, but it might as well have been three hundred for all that we could see of it. We gathered instead to the rear of the vessel, the six of us, watching the island slowly fade. Some people had arrived on the quay and were waving to us. We waved back. All their shattered hopes and dreams were on board. In fact she was sucking one thumb and had plunged the other into her left ear.

‘There’s coffee and stuff back there,’ Charlie McManus hollered from the wheel, signalling behind him with his thumb, ‘’less those ’uns have scoffed it!’

Just about hidden from view was a small galley, four steps down. Half a dozen of the non-car-owning classes had already made it their home.

I was feeling unusually good. Perhaps it was the prospect of being able to open a cool beer without being buried under a cascade of dead bodies. ‘Do you want me to get them?’ I asked.

Patricia turned surprised eyes upon me. ‘That would be nice.’ She turned to Moira. ‘He doesn’t even drink coffee, you know.’

‘I know,’ Moira said, and smiled warmly at me.

I hurried away. Coffee for three.

As I approached the galley a short, rotund figure in a priest’s garb emerged.

‘Oh look,’ I said, ‘it’s Napoleon going into exile. I didn’t realise you were on board.’

‘Yes,’ said Father White, perfectly pleasantly, and raised a gun, ‘it’s my final journey.’

42

A rogue wave crashed against the
Fitzpatrick
, throwing us, instantly drenched, to one side. If I’d bothered enrolling for the Alcoholic Front training I might have taken advantage of the sudden shift to overpower Father White, but as it was we just looked at each other helplessly for a few moments until the vessel settled. Then we shook ourselves like a pair of enthusiastic Labradors.

‘Isn’t it strange,’ White said, holding the dripping gun steady on me, ‘that all of the protagonists in this little drama should find themselves together right at the end?’ With his free hand he wrung sea water out of his trousers.

‘I’m not a protagonist,’ I corrected. ‘I’m an observer.’

The sneer didn’t help his looks. Mad-jittery eyes did nothing for him either.

He indicated the direction I should move in with his pistol.
A new pistol, of course. I’d picked up his old one the previous afternoon just after his transformation from front runner to beaten docket. It was now resting, between murders, in the boot of my car. I’d intended to chuck it overboard once we got underway.

I glanced behind him. Three figures were hunched around a Calor Gas single-ring cooker in the galley, taking a little heat from it while they waited for water to boil and paying us no attention at all. White followed my glance.

‘The faithful?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘No. There’s only me.’

‘Aw,’ I said.

‘Me and Charlie. Charlie believes.’

I looked back along to the wheel. Charlie was watching. I gave a little laugh. ‘What are you planning, Father, making a run for Cuba?’

‘Somewhere much closer,’ he said, then added, quite normally, ‘Heaven, if you must know.’

‘That’ll be nice,’ I said, then nodded up at Charlie. ‘Who pays the ferryman?’

White glanced behind, then, brow furrowed, back at me. ‘Meaning what?’

I said nothing for maybe ten seconds. Then I said: ‘Nothing.’

He prodded me with the gun and I started walking. Behind me he said, ‘You’re referring to the ferryman who transports the souls of the damned, aren’t you?’

I ignored him.

‘That’s what you’re suggesting, isn’t it? That the ferryman has his price.’

‘No,’ I said over my shoulder, ‘it’s just a line from a Chris de Burgh song, much as I hate to admit knowing it. It seemed a shame to waste it.’

‘Charlie’s as loyal as they come,’ he snapped on my heels. ‘With me to the end. This end.’

‘Aye. Whatever you say.’

Perhaps I wasn’t treating him with the respect he deserved. He had a gun and a belief in the Messiah that couldn’t be broken down by mere logic. Perhaps I’d been too close to death to give it any respect at all.

We reached the rear of the vessel. Everyone looked surprised to see him. This was understandable.

‘Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water,’ I said by way of introduction.

Flynn snapped from incredulity to anger in a couple of seconds. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ he demanded, not for the first time.

White’s smile was almost gentle, and all the more worrying for it. ‘I don’t intend to do very much on earth, Frank, not very much at all. Just what God has told me to do.’

Moira tutted. ‘You’re not still on that, are you?’

‘I still believe,’ White said softly, but now with a little tremble of his upper lip.

Moira’s eyes blazed. ‘Don’t you listen at all?’ she boomed. ‘It’s the radon! It’s the bloody radon! God isn’t speaking to any of us.’

White waved the gun in her face. Christine cowered back against her mother. ‘You’re a sad deluded woman, Moira.’

‘Can’t you see the madness of it?’ Moira erupted again. ‘Look at you – you’re a priest, you carry a gun, you kill anyone who doesn’t agree with you! Can’t you see it?’

‘I see what God wants me to see. I see that we had the whole world in our hands. Now you’ve thrown it all away.’

‘We had nothing. We deluded ourselves.’

‘We had everything. We had Christine. God entrusted us with the responsibility of looking after her.’

‘I’m
still
looking after her!’

White reached his free hand out to Christine. Moira stepped back, pulling her away from him. ‘No, Moira, you’re not,’ White hissed. ‘You’re taking her to the mainland. She’ll lose her innocence. She’ll be corrupted.’

‘No, she . . .’

‘She will! I’ve seen it happen.’

Flynn leant forward. ‘Father, please . . .’

‘Get back!’ White shouted and thrust upward with the gun, glancing it off Flynn’s chin. The priest’s head rocketed back and he stumbled against the side of the ferry.

Abruptly Christine burst into tears.

White pulled suddenly away from Flynn, lurched with the sway of the boat towards Christine. Christine twisted away from her mother and ran crying down the ferry.

‘You see what you’ve done!’ Moira screeched and began to move after her.

‘Stay where you are!’ White shouted.

Moira twirled. ‘What are you going to do, Father, shoot me?’

‘If I have to.’

Patricia caught Moira’s arm. ‘Please, Moira, just . . .’

Moira slapped her away. Little Stevie started crying. Moira started after her daughter.

White raised the gun and shot once. Moira fell.

‘Jesus Christ,’ I said.

Anxious faces peered out of the galley. One man stood as if to go to Moira’s assistance, but then pulled the door over.

Moira rolled over on the deck and clutched her leg. She raised a bloody hand to her face, then turned murderous eyes back at White.

‘Let it bleed, Moira,’ White called. ‘It doesn’t matter, you’re guaranteed a place in heaven. Come with me, Moira.’

‘There are a lot of places you’re going,’ Moira wrenched out, ‘and heaven isn’t one of them.’

White trained the gun on her again.

‘That’s just what I was going to say,’ I said.

He turned to me, raising the gun. ‘You always have too much to say.’

I nodded.

Flynn, pushing himself erect, a hand clamped to his jaw, stumbled towards Moira.

‘Stay where you are!’ White roared, moving the gun again.

Flynn stopped. ‘Would you shoot me as well?’

‘You know I would.’

Flynn hesitated. ‘Are you all right, Moira?’ he called.

Angry, in pain, Moira barked back: ‘Of course I’m not!’

‘Let me help her!’ Flynn cried. ‘She’s Christine’s mother!’