Peter Tremayne - Whispers of the Dead

Father Máilín colored a little and shifted his weight in his chair.

“I did not mean to imply a censure of the abbot nor his authority,” he replied quickly.

“It is just that I have carried out a very thorough investigation of the circumstances and have forwarded all the relevant details to the abbot. There is nothing more to be said unless we can track down the culprits and that, as I pointed out, will be impossible unless, in some fit of repentance, they confess. But they have long departed from this territory, they and their ill-gotten spoils.”

Fidelma gazed thoughtfully at the Father Superior for a moment or two.

“I have your report here,” her hand lightly touched the marsupium at her waist, “and I must confess to there being some matters which puzzle me as, I hasten to say, they have also puzzled the abbot. That is why he has authorized me, as a dálaigh, an advocate of the courts, to visit your small community to see whether or not the questions might be clarified.”

Father Máilín raised his jaw, slightly aggressively.

“I see nothing at all that is confusing nor which requires any further explanation,” he replied stubbornly. Then, meeting her icy blue eyes, he added brusquely, “However, you may ask me your questions and then depart.”

Fidelma’s mouth twitched a fraction in irritation and she shook her head briefly.

“Perhaps it is because you are not a trained advocate of the law and thus do not know what is required that you take this attitude. I, however, will conduct my investigation in the way prescribed by the law. When I have finished my investigation, then I shall depart.” She paused to allow her words to penetrate and then said, in a brighter tone: “First, let us begin with you recounting the general details of the Venerable Connla’s death.”

Father Máilín’s lips compressed into a thin, bloodless line in order to disguise his anger. His eyes had a fixed look. It seemed, for a moment or two, that he would challenge her. Then he appeared to realize the futility of such an action and relaxed. He knew that he had to accept her authority, however reluctantly. He pushed himself back in his chair, sitting stiffly. His voice was an emotionless monotone.

“It was on the morning of the sabbath. Brother Gormgilla went to rouse the Venerable Connla. As he grew elderly, Connla required some assistance to rise in the morning and Brother Gormgilla would help him rise and dress and then escort him to the chapel for morning prayer.”

“I have heard that Brother Connla was of a great age,” intervened Fidelma. Everyone knew he was of considerable age but Fidelma’s intervention was more to break Father Máilín’s monotonous recital so that she would be able to extract the information she wanted.

“Indeed, but Connla was also frail. It was his frailty that made him needful of the helping hand of Brother Gormgilla.”

“So, this Brother Gormgilla went to the chamber of the Venerable Connla on the morning of the sabbath? What then?” encouraged Fidelma.

“The facts are straightforward enough. Gormgilla entered and found the Venerable Connla hanging from a beam just above his bed. There was a sign that a valuable personal item had been taken, that is, a rosary. Some valuable objects were also missing from the chapel which adjoins the chamber of the Venerable Connla.”

“These discoveries were made after Brother Gormgilla had roused the community, having found the body of the Venerable Connla?”

“They were.”

“And your deduction was. .?”

“Theft and murder. I put it in my report to the abbot.”

“And to whom do you ascribe this theft and murder?”

“It is also in my report to the abbot.”

“Remind me,” Fidelma insisted sharply.

“For the two days previous to the death of the Venerable Connla, some itinerants were observed to be camping in nearby woods. They were mercenaries, warriors who hired themselves out to anyone who would pay them. They had their womenfolk and children with them. Our community, as you know, has no walls around it. We are an open settlement for we have always argued that there is no need at all to protect ourselves from any aggressor, for who, we thought, would ever wish harm to our little community?”

Fidelma treated his question as rhetorical and did not reply.

“You have suggested that these itinerant mercenaries entered the community at night to rob your chapel.” Her tone was considered. “You have argued that the Venerable Connla must have been disturbed by them; that he went to investigate and that they turned on the old man and hanged him from his own roof beam and even robbed him.”

“That is so. It is not so much an argument as a logical deduction from the facts,” the Father Superior added stiffly.

“Truly so?” Fidelma gave him a quick scrutiny Father Máilín read a quiet sarcasm there.

The Father Superior stared back defiantly but said nothing.

“Tell me,” continued Fidelma. “Does it not strike you as strange that an elderly man, who needed help to rise in the morning as well as to be escorted to the chapel, would rise in the night on hearing intruders and go alone into the chapel to investigate?”

Father Máilín shrugged.

“People, in extremis, have been known to do many extraordinary things: things that are either out of character or beyond their capabilities.”

“If I have the right information, the Venerable Connla was nearly ninety. In that case. .?” Fidelma eloquently spread her hands.

“In his case, it does not surprise me,” affirmed Father Máilín. “He was frail but he was a man of a very determined nature. Why, twenty and five years ago, when he was a man entering the latter years, Connla insisted on bearing the cross of Clonmacnoise in the battle of Ballyconnell when Diarmuid Mac Aodh was granted a victory over the Uí Fidgente. Connla was in the thick of the battle and armed with nothing but Christ’s Cross for self-protection.”

Fidelma suppressed a sigh, for all Ireland knew the story of the Venerable Connla, which was why the old monk’s name was a byword for moral and physical courage throughout the five kingdoms of Ireland.

“Yet five and twenty years ago is still a quarter of a century before this time and we are talking of an old man who needed help to rise and go to chapel as a regular course.”

“As I have said, he was a determined man.”

“Therefore, if I understand your report correctly, you believe that the Venerable Connla, hearing some robbers moving in the chapel, left his bed and went to confront them without rousing anyone else? That these robbers then overpowered him and hanged him in his own bedchamber?”

“I have said as much.”

“Yet doesn’t it also strike you as strange that these thieves and robbers, thus disturbed, took the old man back to his chamber and hanged him there? Surely a thief, so disturbed, might strike out in fear and seek to escape. Was Connla a tall man who, in spite of his frailty, might have appeared a threat?”

Father Máilín shook his head.

“Age had bent him.”

“Then the Venerable Connla could not have prevented the escape of the thieves nor even pursued them. Why would they bother to take him and, presumably, get him to show them the way back to his chamber to kill him?”

“Who knows the minds of thieves and murderers?” snorted Father Máilín. “I deal with the facts. I don’t attempt to understand their minds.”

“Nevertheless, that is the business in which I am engaged because in so considering the ‘why’ and ‘wherefore’, often one can solve the ‘how’ and ‘who.’ ” She paused for a moment and when he did not respond, she added: “After this barbaric act of sacrilege, you reported that they then removed some valuable items and went calmly off into the night?”