Turbulent Priests (Dan Starkey 3) (34 page)

Finlay cut the engine and clambered unsteadily from the vehicle. He leant back against it. His lips were poteen moist, but his eyes were bright, thrilled, proud. Moira, jumping down from the cab on the other side, pointed at the bodies, then at Father White.

‘This is what he has done!’ she shouted as the crowd began to swell about her.

‘Moira, please . . .’ the priest began, half disdainfully. But half not.

‘He’s murdered all of these people!’

They’d been lured by the tractor’s procession through the town, a mechanised Pied Piper, a Palm Sunday for the Millennium. Now they huddled forward to examine the stinking mass properly.

White spread his arms, wide and welcoming. Unaware still of the incongruity of the gun clamped in his left hand. ‘You don’t understand, Moira . . .’

Father Flynn struggled to his feet. ‘Duncan, Moira, poor Duncan,’ he cried, the emotion breaking in his voice. ‘Look what they’ve done to the poor boy.’

Moira noticed the body for the first time. She put her hand to her mouth to stifle . . . something . . . Her eyes blazed. She ran forward. Knelt by the body. ‘You’ve killed him as well?’

‘Moira, now . . .’

‘God help you!’ She stepped forward and punched White hard on the nose. He stumbled back into the protection of his own men, dropping his gun in the process. They gathered about him, now facing on all sides the growing crowd. Maybe two hundred strong. Or weak. Or easily swayed. Or out for justice.

I got up too. My knees clicked. ‘Nice punch,’ I said and picked up his gun.

White’s lip curled up towards a threat, but Moira stopped it. She pointed at Duncan. ‘How could you do that?’ she demanded.

‘He was a pornographer and a . . .’

‘He was Christine’s father!’

‘He was a . . .’

‘He was her daddy!’

‘Only physically, Moira. The spirit of the . . .’

She hit him again.

His protectors weren’t very protective. They held him up. Kept him in the firing line.

White, rattled, nose bleeding, turned on them. ‘Get them
back!’ he bellowed, waving his arms at the encroaching crowd. ‘Get them out! This is God’s house! It’s no place for a rabble like this!’

Holding their guns out in front of them, they began to push out, slowly widening the circle. One shot into the air.

Screams came from those who couldn’t see; there were some backward steps. But no panic.

A woman, a blue scarf tied about her throat, pushed through the throng and up to the man who’d fired. ‘Jimmy, put that gun down and come on home with me, now.’

Jimmy looked at her. It wasn’t a request.

‘Stay where you are!’ barked Father White.

Jimmy shook his head. He gave the priest an apologetic shrug and dropped his gun. ‘Okay, love,’ he said, and slipped into the crowd.

Patricia pushed through to me. Slipped her hand into mine. Squeezed. ‘Are you okay?’ she whispered.

‘Fine,’ I said.

I did love her. I would tell her later.

Moira still faced Father White. Blood dripped off his lip, off the end of his chin. She stuck a finger out at him. ‘You’ve been making decisions on Christine’s behalf for too long, Father!’ she bellowed.

‘I’ve been protecting her.’

‘You’ve been murdering in her name. You think she wants people killed in her name?’

‘They were dangerous.’

‘To who? You?’

‘To Christine.’

‘There’s no need for murder!’ somebody shouted.

‘No need to kill them!’ a woman hissed.

‘Duncan was a good boy.’

‘Duncan was my cousin.’

‘My nephew.’

‘My cousin.’

‘My uncle, and you killed him!’

‘Look at him! He has no head!’

‘What gives you the right?’ Moira demanded.

‘The Council decided.’

The Council suddenly didn’t look so decided. Heads went together. Some of them cracked.

‘Father,’ said Jack McGettigan, ‘perhaps we should reconvene.’

‘We’ve made our decisions,’ White boomed.

‘But, Father . . .’

The crowd began to press forward again. The gunmen withdrew slowly. They cast anxious glances at White. The priest looked desperately about him. ‘Bring Christine to me,’ he shouted. ‘Let her speak.’

‘Do you want to kill her too?’ someone yelled.

‘Please, bring her here, let her speak . . .’

‘She’s only a child!’ Moira yelled. ‘She’s scared.’

‘She’s . . .’

‘Just a kid.’

‘God bless her,’ a woman called.

‘God bless her soul,’ echoed another.

‘Keep him away from her.’

A roar of approval. The crowd pressed further in.

‘Stop there!’ White shouted. ‘Stop this instant! I’ll order them to shoot! I’m warning you. Go on home. We’ll sort this out. In the name of Christine, go home.’

It had gone too far. They weren’t for stopping.

‘I’m warning you.’ White turned and poked one of his men in the shoulder. ‘You! Shoot one of them. Any one of them.’

The man raised his rifle. Lowered his rifle. Looked at his comrades. Shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Father, I can’t.’

‘I am the law. Shoot someone.’

‘I’m sorry. Half my family’s here. I didn’t join to . . .’

‘I don’t care!’

White pushed the next man. ‘Shoot. Anyone. Now. I’m telling you. Do it now!’

The second gunman shook his head. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘They’re family.’

‘Murtagh was family. Mary Reilly was family.’

‘That was different, Father.’

‘In God’s name how?’

He looked at the ground. Mumbled. ‘It was dark.’

‘Good God, man. There’s devils abroad in the daylight as well. Shoot!’

‘These aren’t devils.’

White grabbed at the gun. ‘Let me show you how . . .’

The man held it tight. ‘No, Father,’ he said. ‘I can’t let you.’

White looked desperately from one to the other, right around his protective circle. He saw that none of them would back him up.

The priest swivelled back towards the crowd. His anguished eyes flitted from one to the other desperately looking for support, but there was none. ‘Don’t you see what’s happening?’ he cried. ‘In God’s name come to your senses before it’s too late.’

There wasn’t even sympathy. Just a hard island glare. He wilted under it. He dropped his head into his hands, then slowly slipped to his knees. He began to sob.

Flynn stepped forward and placed a hand on his old colleague’s shoulder. ‘We have come to our senses,’ he said softly.

The crowd quieted, stood about him, transfixed by the sight of the priest’s shoulders moving up and down as he cried uncontrollably. It lasted for several minutes.

When the tears had run their course he snorted up and down, then spread his fingers and peered through the gap. Like a child checking to see if the monster had gone.

One of Duncan’s relatives bent forward and spat with perfect accuracy between index and forefinger into the priest’s left eye.

‘They’re not as dumb as I thought,’ I whispered to Patricia.

‘They’ve had their eyes opened, that’s all.’

‘Just wait till they hear about the radon.’

‘The
what
?’

41

Patricia peered into the box. ‘What do you think?’ she asked, pushing a loose strand of hair out of her eyes. She was happy. Her eyes sparkled. She was going home. So was I.

As usual, I shrugged. ‘Up to you,’ I said.

Apparently there’s something thrilling about being up and about in a misty dawn. Something to do with the exhilaration of being in at the start of the new day; the cool damp is supposed to be invigorating. Lost on me. My trainers and the bottoms of my jeans were already sopping from standing in the dewed garden for too long. I was tired. We’d spent most of the night packing up our stuff, cramming it back into the car.

‘What’s that old saying?’ Patricia asked. ‘Home is where the hedgehog is?’

I tutted. She wanted to take the hedgehog home to Belfast.
‘You agree to take responsibility for the fleas, and I’ll go along with it.’

‘But we’ve looked after him for so long.’

‘Trish, it’s only been a few days and he’s slept for most of that. Catch a grip. Anyway, if he wakes up in Belfast he’ll probably die of culture shock. All of those sophisticated hedgehog coffee mornings on the Malone Road, they’ll give him the spiky shoulder.’

‘I suppose I do get attached to things.’

‘You could say that.’

‘I got attached to you. And I already have a child to look after.’

‘There’s that.’

‘And Stevie.’

‘Oh hah-hah.’

Eventually, we reached a compromise. We agreed to transport the hedgehog across to the mainland and place the box in some remote undergrowth where he could sleep away the winter safe from the dangers of radon. He would not be the only evacuee, that was for sure.

The previous evening’s town meeting had stretched through to the small hours. The packed hall had not needed much convincing of the existence of the radon, but the que stion of whether to press ahead with a full evacuation had left the small community divided. At first it was agreed that the children should go, then the mothers wanted to go with them, but wouldn’t leave their husbands, who didn’t want to leave at all, although they didn’t mind the children
going. Christine, playing at the back, had become almost irrelevant to the proceedings, demoted in a few hours from daughter of God to bright kid, and who likes a bright kid? She didn’t appear to be particularly disturbed by it, though there was some doubt as to how long her good humour would last. The other children seemed to enjoy being able to pull her hair without fear of divine retribution.

Father Flynn, restored by popular acclaim to his seat at the head of the Council, although there was no Council to speak of, spoke eloquently and with authority about what had happened in the preceding months and years, and about the dangers of remaining on the island. ‘Most of us have been horrified by what has gone on here in the past few days,’ he said, his eyes falling on Father White, sitting head bowed in the front row, staring at the floor, ‘but we shouldn’t blame anyone. People have died. But we can hold no one responsible. That, I fear, is the nature of this radon, this gas which has corrupted all of our lives. Just as it seemed to bring us the goodness of Christine, it also brought us the madness of murder. Just as it brought us the bounty of good health, it brought us the unpredictability of insanity.’ He clasped his hands before him, giving his words the emphasis of prayer. ‘I honestly believe that it can only become more dangerous the longer we stay here. We should thank God for this brief interlude of sanity he has given us, and get off the island before its darkness descends upon us once again.’

One of Duncan’s many relatives jumped up. I recognised
him as the man who’d so expertly gobbed on Father White. He looked about ready to spit again. He jabbed a finger out in White’s direction. ‘You don’t mean to let him go? After killing Duncan?’

White didn’t seem to be listening. He didn’t twitch.

‘I hesitate to say, let he who is without sin cast the first stone, Shane, but it does apply here.’

‘I didn’t shoot anyone.’

‘No, you didn’t, but you did follow Christine just as much as anyone. I seem to remember you making a point of setting fire to your television set in your front garden, long before we decided to outlaw them. We’ve all been affected in our own way, Shane.’

‘But I didn’t kill anyone!’

‘Neither did Father White. Not the Father White we all know and love. This radon has corrupted him as much as the rest of us, just in a different way. Our Council’s the same. How can they be blamed for what the radon has done? I started all of this off with my visions of Christine. Blame me if you want to blame anyone.’

‘You mean to just let him go?’

Flynn nodded. ‘We’re all guilty. We’re all innocent.’

A skinny old man at the back of the hall rose unsteadily to his feet. ‘The name’s Gerry Mulrooney,’ he rasped.

‘Yes, we all know you well, Gerry.’

‘The name’s Gerry Mulrooney, and I’ve farmed here for the best part of sixty-five years, and there’s not no one’s going to throw me off of my land.’ He sat down.

‘Of course not, Gerry,’ placated Flynn.

Mulrooney struggled to his feet again. ‘And I don’t know what the hell this radon stuff is, but I’ve not noticed it doing any harm.’

‘Aye,’ someone shouted from across the hall, ‘you’ve not noticed half a dozen bodies in your garden either.’

Laughter. Mulrooney glared across the rows in front of him. ‘What’s that?’ he growled.

‘He has a point though,’ said a man close to the door. ‘I can’t leave the farm the way it is. Not now. I’ve been there all my life, Frank. Can we not just forget about all this madness? We got caught up in it, that’s all. Now we know what to watch for, won’t we be okay?’

Flynn shook his head. ‘My point is, Francis, that we just don’t know how it’s going to affect us next.’

Moira, about six seats up from White in the front row, stood up. ‘Father, everything you say is right. But it could also be wrong.’ She nodded round the audience. ‘What I think he’s saying is that we just don’t know what’s going on because everything we say and do is affected by this gas. We could all be talking nonsense now. Christine could still be the Messiah. We’ll only really be in a position to know if we get off the island, away from its influence.’

Flynn nodded enthusiastically. ‘Exactly, Moira. We need to get our people off, and those who do know something about radon on. Then maybe one day we can come back. When it’s safe.’

Jack McGettigan, to Flynn’s left at the Council table,
shook his head. ‘You know as well as I do that once people leave they’ll never come back. It has always been like that.’

‘Didn’t I come back, Jack?’

‘Aye. And look what happened. Maybe it was that Protestant heart.’

‘Now, Jack,’ said Flynn, and waved a finger in jovial admonishment, ‘don’t be saying that.’

As I stood in the garden, I flashed back to Duncan’s head exploding. To the taste of him on my lips. The stench of piled bodies remained trapped in my nose. Flynn was right. There was madness in the air.