Broken Angels (Katie Maguire) Page 22

  There was a fusillade of coughing, and the quickly suppressed warble of a mobile phone. Then Katie said, ‘The latest news I have regarding the murders of Father Heaney and Father Quinlan is that we are now one hundred per cent certain that both murders were committed by the same perpetrator. Although you may think that this was glaringly obvious from the start – both men tied up with harp wire and both of them castrated – there was always a remote chance that Father Quinlan’s murder could have been the work of a copycat.

  ‘However, new forensic evidence has shown us that there was another common factor in their killings, which a copycat could not possibly have known about.’

  ‘Can you tell us what that common factor is, ma’am?’ asked John McCarthy from the Southern Star.

  ‘Not just yet, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Is that because you’re afraid that this priest killer is going to strike again?’ asked Dan Keane, loudly, without looking up at her.

  ‘We’re obviously concerned that he might. And the last thing we want is for somebody else to be imitating him. I think we have enough on our plate.’

  ‘Is this the only progress you’ve made?’ asked Mary Fitzpatrick. ‘Confirming something that seemed self-evident right from the very beginning?’

  ‘No,’ Katie retorted. ‘We’re convinced now that the perpetrator’s identity is known or strongly suspected by a member or members of the clergy.’

  ‘Really? Do you have any idea which members of the clergy?’

  ‘I can’t release any more information about that, not yet.’

  ‘How senior are we talking about? What about Bishop Mahoney? Does he know?’

  ‘I can’t say any more at the moment, or name any names, because the perpetrator may well try to harm or threaten to harm any informant before he gets caught. Not only that, our informant might be forced to come out for the first time and admit that he was a child molester, too, and that’s how he knows what he knows. It’s always a possibility.

  ‘I believe that we’re this close to making an arrest,’ she declared, holding up her finger and thumb with only an inch between them. ‘I have a great team here in Cork and we’re receiving some truly invaluable help from the technical bureau in Dublin. But at the same time I strongly believe that we could catch this killer very much sooner if we were given more co-operation by the church. I’m not criticizing the diocesan authorities, but I’m certain that some individual who wears the cloth can give us a name, and save many more lives.’

  ‘Can you tell us what led you to believe that a clergyman knows who the killer is?’ asked Dan Keane. He had raised his eyes now, to look at her directly, his pen poised over his open notebook, and Katie could see that he was relishing tomorrow’s headline already. MYSTERY CLERIC IS SHIELDING TWO-TIME PRIEST KILLER, CLAIMS TOP ‘TEC.

  ‘Not in any detail, no,’ said Katie. ‘But let’s say that people sometimes try too hard to cover things up, and then it becomes blatantly obvious that they’re hiding something.’

  ‘Come on, you have to give us more than that!’

  ‘I will, I promise. Let’s just wait and see if this clergyman does the right thing, and tells us who the killer is.’

  ‘You’re positive now that you’re looking for a serial killer?’ Fionnuala Sweeney asked her. ‘I mean, if you are, it makes it all the more urgent that this clergyman gets in touch with you, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I’m sure he’s going to kill more priests, given the chance.’ Katie replied. ‘And now is the time for the church not just to apologize for what happened in the past, for all the abuse that was suffered by so many children, but for the clergy to make real and practical amends, regardless of the personal consequences to themselves. Whoever in the priesthood knows or suspects who this killer may be, they need to call me today – now – so that we can make an arrest and put an end to this butchery. They can remain anonymous if they like.’

  The media all seemed to be reasonably satisfied with this. After all, nothing sold better than a story with a cliffhanger ending. The newspaper and TV and radio reporters shuffled out of the conference room and Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll came up to give Katie a pat on the shoulder.

  ‘That was excellent, Katie. Nothing like leaving them panting for more.’

  One of the last reporters to leave the conference room was Ciara Clare. She looked across at Katie and narrowed her eyes and for a split second Katie thought she was going to come over and say something, but then she turned away and followed the rest of the media out of the door.

  Katie watched her go, and as she did so Ciara looked round just once more. Her expression wasn’t at all hostile, but neither she did look defensive. If anything, Katie thought that she looked anxious.

  Katie returned to her office and found Detective O’Donovan waiting for her with a slanted grin on his face. ‘I’ll tell you this, ma’am,’ he grinned, ‘there’s one gligneen who’s going to be very unpleased about what you just said in there, and that’s for sure.’

  ‘You mean Monsignor Kelly? Yes, I know. That was the whole point. Forgive me one moment, I just want to call the hospital and ask after Siobhán.’

  As she waited for the nurse to come to the phone, she said, ‘Any progress with the harp strings?’

  Detective O’Donovan shook his head. ‘Nothing at all. Nor with that bassoon cord, neither. We still have a couple of music tutors to call on, but if you ask me he bought those strings abroad, or maybe ordered them through the internet.’

  ‘Try contacting any company that sells them online. There can’t be all that many.’

  The nurse interrupted her by saying, ‘Hello? Is that Katie?’

  ‘Yes, it is. How’s Siobhán this afternoon?’

  ‘Still not awake yet, I’m afraid, Katie. But her vital signs are improving. We’ll be sending her down for another brain scan tomorrow afternoon.’

  Katie said, ‘Thank you, nurse. Maybe I can call again later,’ and put down the phone. Detective O’Donovan waited for a while, and then he asked, ‘How is she?’

  ‘A little better, thanks, Patrick. But still not conscious.’

  ‘I’m genuinely sorry.’ He waited a few more moments, and then he said, ‘I have Stephen Keenan downstairs. You know, the Latin teacher from Pres. He’s finished translating Father Heaney’s notebooks.’

  ‘Really? Why don’t you ask him to come up?’

  While she waited for Detective O’Donovan to fetch Stephen Keenan from reception, she checked her emails. She had received three, all of them from John. ‘Miss you, sweetheart... please try to get away tonight’ and then ‘Think I might at last have a serious offer on the farm!!!’ and then ‘Love you, Katie, believe me, more than my life.’

  Detective O’Donovan came back, accompanied by a balding, round-shouldered man in his early forties, with a large nose and hairy blonde eyebrows. He was wearing a green tweed jacket with brown leather patches on the elbows and a row of different-coloured ballpoint pens in the breast pocket, and baggy grey trousers. Katie couldn’t help noticing his worn-down brown shoes.

  ‘Stephen Keenan, ma’am,’ said Detective O’Donovan.

  Stephen Keenan held out his hand and gave Katie a soft, complicated handshake, as if he were trying to convey to her that he was a member of some secret order. His eyes were bulbous, with a slight cast, so that Katie wasn’t sure if he was looking at her directly, or at the framed photograph behind her of Commissioner Michael Staines leading the first Irish police force through the gates of Dublin Castle in August 1922.

  ‘So, Stephen – you’ve finished your translation,’ said Katie, trying to sound businesslike but not too intimidating.

  Stephen Keenan held up a dog-eared green folder and said, ‘I have, yes, superintendent, although it wasn’t easy, I can tell you. Father Heaney uses dozens of abbreviations and what I can only assume to be pseudonyms. Perhaps he was trying to protect some people’s identity. His Latin isn’t very grammatical either. If he had been in my class I would have given h
im no more than three out of ten. Well, maybe four, at a pinch.’

  ‘Please – sit down,’ said Katie. ‘How about a coffee? Patrick, ask Branna to bring us some coffee, would you? Mine’s a cappuccino. I’m dying of thirst here.’

  Stephen Keenan sat down and opened up his folder. ‘An awful lot of these notebooks are filled up with Father Heaney’s ramblings about the possibility of a second coming of Christ, and the reality or otherwise of angels. At first, I couldn’t understand why he bothered to write it all in Latin, but the more I translated, the more I realized that he seriously believed in the physicality of heaven.’

  ‘He thought that heaven actually exists? Like, somewhere up in the clouds or wherever?’

  Stephen Keenan nodded enthusiastically. ‘Precisely that. You’ve got it. To him, heaven was as real as Cork City itself. Heavenly bricks and heavenly mortar. Streets, people – except that the people have passed over, and they’re policed by angels rather than the Garda Síochána. Sorry – that was meant to be a joke.’

  ‘All right,’ said Katie, twitching the side of her mouth to show him that she had got it. ‘But why the Latin? Millions of people believe that heaven is real, don’t they? I don’t know. It may be a bit medieval, but it’s nothing you’d need to hide, like.’

  ‘Aha! But Father Heaney and his pseudonymous friends not only believed in the physical existence of heaven, they believed that under certain circumstances heaven can actually be seen from earth. I’m serious. They believed that there are ways in which God can be persuaded to show His face to us, and give us a preview of paradise, if you like.’

  ‘I see. It all sounds cracked as the crows. But I still don’t understand why he needed to be so secretive about it.’

  Stephen Keenan licked his thumb and leafed through six or seven sheets of handwritten notes before he came to what he was looking for.

  ‘It’s not the belief itself that he was trying to keep secret. It’s what specifically needed to be done in order to coax God into granting us poor mortals an audience.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  Stephen Keenan took a pair of tortoiseshell half-glasses out of his inside pocket and put them on the end of his nose. Then he picked out a sheet of paper and started to read out what he had written on it, using a sing-song voice that Katie thought was highly appropriate, considering his subject matter.

  ‘He starts by saying, “Illic est dulcis sono quod Deus diligo”, which roughly means, “There is some singing so sweet that God adores it.” Or He thinks quite a lot of it, anyhow.

  ‘He goes on to say that in the latter part of the sixteenth century, the Church of Rome set out to produce music that would delight God so much that He would show His appreciation by appearing to us in physical form. This sort of music was highly complex and polyphonic, with much elaborate ornamentation, and for this it required voices in the higher register.

  ‘In order to reach the high notes required, the papal choir used boys and male adult falsettists, many of them imported from Spain, because there was a papal injunction against women singing in public. But the children’s voices were lacking in resonance and their career was very short-lived before they reached puberty, and the adult falsettists were considered to be inferior in tone and power to...’ and here Stephen Keenan lifted one finger and said, ‘wait for it – eunuchs.’

  ‘He’s talking about castrati,’ said Katie.

  ‘Castrati – absolutely. And this is how Father Heaney goes on: the first pope to make a serious attempt to see the face of God was Pope Sixtus V. He believed that if he could persuade God to manifest Himself on earth, that would prove beyond doubt the supremacy of the Church of Rome and his own supremacy as its spiritual leader. He issued a bull in 1589 which called for four castrati to be included in the choir of St Peter’s in Rome.

  ‘Castrati remained in the papal chapel for over three centuries, as each successive pope tried to perfect the singing that would coax God into opening up the doors of heaven and showing Himself.

  ‘Father Heaney adds, perhaps at last we Catholics could end the Lord’s Prayer by saying, For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, which had always been denied to us, because now we could see them for ourselves in all their splendour.

  ‘There was a temporary hiatus in the use of castrati when the Papal States came under the rule of Napoleon in 1808, but after Napoleon’s removal in 1815 they were revived and not finally excluded from the Sistine Chapel until 1902. The last castrato in the Vatican was Alessandro Moreschi who died in 1922, at the age of sixty-four. He was said by those who heard his singing to have a voice like the purest crystal.’

  Stephen Keenan took off his glasses and looked up. ‘The rest of this particular notebook is filled with historical notes about famous operatic castrati, and also with Father Heaney’s own domestic details. For some reason he’s even written his laundry list in Latin. Do you know what the Latin for “five dog collars, no starch” is?’

  ‘Is that all he has to say about castrati?’ asked Katie. ‘We’re trying to find a motive for Father Heaney and Father Quinlan being castrated, but this notebook doesn’t really tell us very much more than we’ve theorized already, does it? Father Heaney for some reason had a very strong interest in the subject of castrati, but it still looks like somebody is taking his revenge for having been molested by a priest or priests. That’s what Dr Collins thinks, anyhow. For want of any other explanation, I tend to agree with her.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Stephan Keenan, raising his finger again to interrupt her. ‘There’s very much more. This second notebook is all about Father Heaney’s time teaching music at St Joseph’s Orphanage in Mayfield. I think this might well answer your question about motive.’

  34

  ‘Father Heaney says that in May 1982, when he was teaching music at St Anthony’s Primary School in Douglas – among other subjects, such as geography – he was called to a secret meeting by somebody whom he identifies only as Reverend Bis.’

  ‘Reverend Bis?’ asked Katie. ‘What kind of a name is that?’

  ‘I have no idea. But bis means “twice” in Latin.’

  ‘All right, then, what did this Reverend Twice want from him?’

  ‘Apparently, the Reverend Bis was deeply impressed with Father Heaney’s music-teaching ability. Among many other accolades, St Anthony’s had been voted top primary school choir for three successive years at the Cork Choral Festival, and they had been given the honour of singing for Pope John Paul II when he visited Ireland in 1979.

  ‘Anyhow, Father Heaney went along to this secret meeting, which took place in a large private house in Lovers’ Walk in Montenotte. Apart from Father Heaney and the Reverend Bis, the only other people present were two young priests, neither of whom spoke a single word throughout the entire meeting, and a middle-aged woman who didn’t say anything either but took shorthand notes of what was being proposed.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘That Father Heaney should take an extended leave of absence from St Anthony’s and create a new choir at St Joseph’s Orphanage, from scratch.’

  ‘Did the Reverend Bis say why they wanted to create a new choir?’

  ‘No, not in so many words. But he made it very clear that it would have to be the finest choir that the diocese had ever known, even better than St Anthony’s. His exact words were “a choir to delight the ears of God”.’

  ‘That sounds the same as like what your Pope Sixtus was after,’ put in Detective O’Donovan. ‘Don’t tell me this Reverend Bis was trying to cajole God into making a guest appearance in Cork. You can imagine it, can’t you, God turning up in Knocka? “Aight, God? How’s it hangin’, kid?”‘

  Stephen Keenan turned around and said, ‘You can laugh all you want, Patrick, but it does seem as if that was his intention. I’ll tell you this, though – I have the distinct feeling from what Father Heaney has written here that the Reverend Bis was not your principal instigator of this plan to form a choir. Father Heaney refe
rs to him several times as cursor, which in Latin doesn’t mean the little arrow on your PC screen; it means “messenger”.’

  ‘So it was somebody else who wanted to put this choir together, and the Reverend Bis was simply a go-between?’

  ‘I’d say it was.’

  ‘So what was the outcome of this secret meeting?’ Katie asked him. ‘Presumably Father Heaney agreed to do it.’

  ‘Oh, yes! In fact, he was so inspired that he went home and prayed all night without sleeping to thank God for choosing him to be His vessel. The next day he wrote a hymn called “Vox Angelus – The Voice of an Angel”. Composed it on the harp, because that was his instrument of choice, although he played violin and cello and piano, too.’

  ‘He played the harp?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He mentions it several times. He thought the harp was the musical equivalent of the wind blowing through angels’ wings.’

  ‘There was no sign of a harp in his room, was there, when we searched it?’ said Detective O’Donovan.

  ‘He explains that himself,’ Stephen Keenan told them. ‘His harp was damaged by the removal men when he moved to his new lodgings, and he couldn’t afford to have it repaired and restrung, so he left it in his sister’s garage in Ballincollig.’

  Katie glanced across at Detective O’Donovan, who nodded to show her that he knew what she expected him to do – drive out to Ballincollig and bring the harp back to headquarters for fingerprinting, as well as authenticating what Father Heaney had written in his notebooks.

  ‘Three other priests were brought in to organize the St Joseph’s Orphanage Choir,’ Stephen Keenan went on, and he counted them off on his fingers. ‘Father O’Gara, Father Quinlan and Father ó Súllabháin. Each one of them had outstanding musical expertise – each different, but each complementary. According to Father Heaney, Father ó Súllabháin is one of the best voice coaches in Ireland when it comes to sacred music. He trained the North Monastery Boys’ Choir before they recorded their album I Love All Beauteous Things. Father Quinlan plays woodwind – flute and bassoon – and Father Heaney writes that he’s also a highly gifted arranger, both of ancient and modern music.’