Peter Tremayne - Act of Mercy

‘Brother Guss told me that he firmly believed that Sister Crella was the person who had killed Muirgel,’ Cian offered, glad that the responsibility had apparently shifted from his shoulders.

‘Jealousy? Lust!’ sneered Sister Ainder disapprovingly. ‘The greatest sin.’

Sister Crella started to cry softly. Fidelma thought she should intervene again.

‘Sister Crella was only the unwitting cause of the death of Brother Guss,’ she revealed. ‘Unfortunately, Brother Guss did have that unshakable belief that Crella was the guilty person. He was young and fearful — and don’t forget that he had seen what the killer had done to both Canair and Muirgel. He was afraid for his life; frantic with a fear that caused him to lose his reason. When Crella came towards him, he thought she was going to strike him down and he backed away in fear, only to fall overboard. His death was caused not by Crella — but by the person who had engendered such a fear of death in him.’

There was another, long silence. Sister Crella was staring at Fidelma through her tears, not really understanding what she had said, simply registering that Fidelma was not accusing her.

‘Are you playing games with us, Sister?’ Sister Ainder turned angrily towards her. ‘You accuse in one breath and then you acquit in another. What do you mean by it? Can you not simply tell us what the motive for these killings was, and who is responsible?’

Fidelma kept her tone reasonable, as if discussing the weather.

‘You, yourself, have told me the motive.’

Sister Ainder blinked.

‘What?’

‘You told me — it was one of the seven deadly sins, the sin of lust.’ Fidelma paused to let her words sink in before continuing. ‘In any investigation the first question that needs to be asked is the one which Cicero once asked of a Roman judge. Cui bono ? Who stands to gain? What is the motive?’

‘Are you saying lust was the motive?’ Brother Tola interrupted, his voice full of derision. ‘How was the death of that Laigin warrior, Toca Nia, attributable to lust? Or are you treating his murder separately? To me it seems obvious that he was killed because of his accusations against Cian there. Only Cian stood to gain by his death.’

There was clearly no love lost between him and Cian.

‘You are right,’ agreed Fidelma calmly. ‘Toca Nia was killed to protect Cian.’

Cian tried to rise again but Gurvan pressed him back in his seat.

‘So you are accusing me, after all?’ he said bitterly. ‘I did not-’

‘Did not kill him?’ interrupted Fidelma mildly. ‘No, you did not. I said he was killed to protect you: I did not say he was killed by you. But the motive for Toca Nia’s death was the same as the motive for the deaths of Canair and Muirgel and the two attempts on my life.’

‘Two?’ frowned Brother Dathal. ‘Someone has tried to kill you twice?’

‘Oh yes,’ nodded Fidelma. ‘A second attempt was made in my cabin last night during the storm. I owe my life to a cat.’ She did not bother to explain further. There would be plenty of time later on.

‘So there is one killer and one motive? Is that what you are saying?’ Murchad asked, trying to follow her reasoning.

‘The motive being lust,’ she confirmed. ‘Or rather, I should say, a belief that they were in love with Cian, to the extent that all sanity was driven from their minds, leaving an obsession that they must protect him and drive out any who tried to win his love.’

Cian sat back, white-faced and shaky.

‘I don’t understand what you are saying.’

‘Had Toca Nia harmed you, then you would have been denied to this person, who wanted you for themselves.’

‘I still do not understand.’

‘Easy enough. I said that you were the common denominator. Weren’t you the lover of both Canair and Muirgel at various times?’

Cian’s face was defiant.

‘I do not deny it,’ he said shortly.

‘There were several others also whose affections you won in your insatiable appetite for young women. Were you trying to compensate for what Una had done to you?’ She could not help the malicious twist

‘Una has nothing to do with it,’ Cian swore.

Sister Gorman leant forward anxiously.

‘Who is Una? We had no Sister Una at Moville.’

‘Una was Cian’s wife. She divorced him on the grounds that he was sterile,’ Fidelma said with an unforgiving smile. ‘Perhaps Cian was compensating for that degrading position by finding as many young lovers as he could.’

Cian’s face was working in anger.

‘You …’ he began.

‘One of those lovers could not abide the idea that you had loved others,’ went on Fidelma. ‘Unlike most of your loves, this person was unbalanced. Insane, we might say, with jealousy. You did not realise what a cauldron of jealousy and hate you were stirring. Howfortunate, Cian, that the hate was not directed at you but at the other lovers you took.’

As if she had poured ice water on his anger, Cian had become suddenly still. He was sitting with his mouth partially open; his mind appeared to be working rapidly as he thought over what she was saying.

Brother Tola bent towards her.

‘If I have understood you correctly, Toca Nia was killed because he was threatening Cian; and this person, insanely determined to protect Cian, simply saw him as a threat, to be removed in the same manner that his lovers were.’

‘The person wanted Cian for themselves,’ agreed Fidelma.

‘Apart from Crella, there was no one else I had an affair with,’ Cian stated, ‘other than …’ He stared with wide-eyed suspicion at Fidelma; a flicker of fear came into his eyes.

Fidelma chuckled sardonically as she realised what was going through his mind. That he could accuse her was ironic in the extreme, but it followed his natural arrogance that he actually believed that she would have retained an intensity of feeling for him after all these years.

‘I have to confess that when I was eighteen I might have become a victim of that same insanity,’ she admitted to them all. ‘Youth intensifies such emotions, and sometimes we are not mature enough to control them. Yes, it is to the instability of youth that we must look in this matter. But you delude yourself, Cian, if you think that you still have any ability to rouse such emotions in me. You don’t even arouse my pity.’

Brother Dathal, eager and ferret-like, asked, ‘Why, surely you were not Cian’s lover, Sister?’

Fidelma grimaced resignedly.

‘Oh yes. I, too, came under Cian’s spell ten years ago when I was a young student at the college of Brehon Morann at Tara.’ She gazed thoughtfully at Cian. ‘It was a youthful, immature affair on both sides,’ she added with a maliciousness she did not realise that she possessed. ‘I grew up. Cian didn’t.’

‘Well, how would this insane lover realise that?’ asked Brother Dathal intrigued. ‘If your affair happened ten years ago, it was before Cian joined the religieux at Bangor and doubtless long before any of us knew him.’

Fidelma shot him a glance of appreciation.

‘You ask a good question, Brother Dathal. You all became aware when I first came aboard that I had known Cian before. One personwas very interested in that fact. That same person overheard Cian and me discussing our sad little affair.’

She swung round abruptly to Cian.

‘I am sure that you can work things out for yourself. You admitted to me that you had affairs with Canair, Muirgel and Crella.’

Before she had finished speaking, Brother Bairne had leapt from his seat opposite Cian and flung himself across the table. He was brandishing a knife.

‘Bastard!’ he cried, grabbing Cian by the throat and raising the weapon.