Death of a Pilgrim (39 page)

Suddenly Powerscourt turned round. His eyes locked on to those of Waldo Mulligan as surely as a matador might lock eyes with a bull in the ring. Powerscourt knew. He knew that Waldo Mulligan was
the killer. Worse, looking at Mulligan, Powerscourt was certain that Mulligan knew that Powerscourt knew that he, Mulligan, was the killer. The prayer rang out for a third and final time.
Powerscourt joined in where it talked about guiding us in the bull run. Mulligan was going to try to kill him in the next few minutes. Death would come for him in the morning.

Lady Lucy felt helpless when she realized Francis had gone in pursuit of the missing pilgrims. She wondered what she should do. If she went out on to the streets she could be
another potential victim. She remembered the two bolsters hacked to shreds in the hotel in Aire-sur-l’Adour. She opened the doors and went out on to the balcony. The sun was high in the sky
now. It was going to be a beautiful day. She could hear the noise of the running of the bulls but she could not see it. Lady Lucy didn’t know that her husband was in deadly peril, and not
just from the twelve-hundred-pound bulls.

Johnny Fitzgerald too had been sucked into the event, but further down the course from Powerscourt. He had made friends with a man with a couple of wineskins tied round his waist. Johnny thought
the day was beginning to look up already.

At seven o’clock precisely the clock of San Cernin struck the hour. A rocket shot up into the sky, announcing that the mighty gates of the corral holding the bulls and the oxen had been
opened. The police removed the barriers that had held the runners in. The
encierro
was under way. Powerscourt’s group began to run, not very fast, down Santa Domingo towards the Plaza.
Other braver or more foolish souls waited to run as long as they could with the bulls in this opening stage. You could hear them before you saw them, Powerscourt thought, a rumbling noise like
thunder getting closer or the pounding noise the closest spectators heard as the horses came round the last bend in the Derby.

As he looked round he saw that Waldo Mulligan was right behind him and trying to trip him up. Very suddenly Powerscourt turned and smashed his elbow into the centre of Mulligan’s mouth as
hard as he could. Mulligan stumbled and held his hand to his face. The crowd was so tightly packed that he only slipped back a little, but he was no longer directly behind Powerscourt. Looking back
again Powerscourt saw the bulls for the first time, dark brown brutes running as fast as they could, threatening to trample anybody who stood in their way. They were about twenty yards behind them
now. Mulligan, swearing to himself, had returned to a position behind Powerscourt. Again he tried to trip him up. Then the crowd behind carried him to the right-hand side of the course. Powerscourt
had been edging to his left, to the side of the street, away from the centre where the bulls were running. They had reached the Estafeta Bend now and the bulls were ahead of them now, two young men
running just in front of them at top speed waving their rolled-up newspapers in the air.

Then disaster struck. The cobblestones were slippery. The largest and fiercest-looking bull slipped on the wet surface right at the edge of the ninety-degree bend. He fell slowly to the ground,
less than ten feet from the crowd. The bull didn’t seem to know how to get up again for it took him the best part of a minute. He looked around sadly. All his companions had disappeared. He
staggered towards the centre of the street. Runners swerved left and right to avoid him. He straightened himself up at last and seemed to Powerscourt to have an expression that said, Somebody is
going to pay for this. Powerscourt pressed himself up against a wall. Some of his companions flung themselves to the ground and curled up into human balls. Powerscourt had often been in positions
of extreme danger in his military service, under attack from mounted Pathan tribesmen on the North-West Frontier, strafed with shell fire in the Boer War, climbing up dangerous mountains for a
night attack in India. Never had he been as frightened as this. The bulls were so big and so stupid. Anything could happen. This one, stumbling about in the wet street, might soon be close enough
to shake hands or shake horns.

There was a scream from one of the balconies. The surrounding crowd had fallen silent, holding on to each other in their fear. Was the bull strong enough to break through the barrier? Would he
soon be amongst them, goring as he went? The bull turned, still disoriented, and went back towards the other side. Powerscourt saw Waldo Mulligan shaking his head and trying to make himself
invisible pressed against the barrier. Younger, fitter or more frightened people were climbing over the top of the fences, helping hands waiting to lift them to safety. Maybe it was the movement
that tipped the bull over the edge. He stared at Waldo Mulligan. Mulligan looked at the bull and raised his fists to cover his face. The bull may have taken that as a hostile act. A couple of steps
and the bull bent down. He gored Mulligan just above the groin, the horn ripping deep into his body, and flung him backwards to land on the cobblestones of the Calle Estafeta.

Blood was pouring onto the street. The crowd was screaming. Mulligan’s blood, almost the same shade of red as the scarves and the sashes, dripped across the cobblestones. The bull glowered
at Mulligan as if thinking of a second goring to reinforce the first. Powerscourt remained pressed against his wall. The bull lumbered down the edge of the barrier where the crowd were now running
away as fast as they could; he was looking for another victim. A group of cowherds with long sticks who were policing the event forced the bull back into the middle of the road and down the street
to rejoin his companions in the bullring. Four medical orderlies raced through the gap in the barriers and put Mulligan on a stretcher. They carried him down to the hospital in the bullring. The
staff there were used to gored people. They saw them virtually every afternoon on the days of the bullfights. Another rocket shot up into the morning sky. The bulls were all in the bullring. It was
four minutes past seven.

Lady Lucy could sense the excitement as she looked at the crowds streaming past her balcony, heading for the bullring to hear news of the victim. When she went downstairs to
the reception a porter with a little English told her that an Englishman had been gored running with the bulls. He pointed her in the direction of the hospital. Lady Lucy found she could not hurry
as she would have wished. The crowd, sombre now, the high spirits before the start ebbing away like Mulligan’s blood, was so thick that all she could do was to allow herself to be carried
along. Was it Francis? Was it Johnny? Were they even now breathing their last, their insides ripped to shreds by the horns of a bull, and she wasn’t there to hold their hands and stroke their
faces?

Running as fast as he could, dodging in and out of the crowd, Powerscourt forced his way into the hospital. He had to speak to Mulligan before he died. He explained his position to a doctor who
spoke French, that he was investigating four murders, that he believed Mulligan to be the murderer, and that he must speak to him before he died. If he died. Wait till we have looked at him, said
the doctor. Inspector Mendieta appeared, panting, to add local weight to the foreigner’s pleas. They sat on hard chairs in a little waiting room. Pictures of bullfighters and bullfights
filled the walls. It was growing hot in the Pamplona hospital. A couple of flies were buzzing around the ceiling. There were no pictures of the bulls’ victims who were carried here on what
proved all too often to be their last journey.

‘You can have a couple of minutes,’ the doctor said, ‘no more. He may not last that long.’

Mulligan was heavily bandaged right round his middle. His dark eyes looked up at Powerscourt, filled with pain that turned to hatred.

‘I think you should tell us the truth now,’ said Powerscourt, speaking very quietly. ‘Did you commit the four murders? You don’t have to speak if that’s too
painful, you can just nod your head.’

Mulligan’s eyes travelled to and fro between Powerscourt and the Inspector, coming to rest on a painting of the Virgin on the wall. Maybe it was the Madonna that did it. He nodded his
head, slowly but unmistakably.

‘Are you Michael Delaney’s son? Were you planning to kill him at the end?’

Again Waldo Mulligan’s eyes came to rest on the picture of the Mother of God. Pray for us now and in the hour of our death, Amen. Another nod.

‘Were you planning to kill all the pilgrims? Because they too were Delaneys?’

Mulligan grew agitated. His eyes searched for the doctor. His face turned even paler.

‘Gentlemen,’ said the doctor, ‘I’m afraid you must go now. The patient is becoming disturbed. If you wait outside I will tell you more in a moment.’

They passed a priest coming into the ward as they went out. The last rites had arrived for the man from Washington. They would never know how many pilgrims Mulligan intended to kill. They would
never know whether he picked his victims at random as the opportunity presented itself or whether he had a predetermined list of targets in his mind. Half an hour later the doctor came back to tell
them Mulligan was dead. He made the sign of the cross.

Walking back to the hotel, Powerscourt suddenly realized the full import of what he had just seen. He thought back to Franklin Bentley’s telegram. Waldo Mulligan had plotted his revenge on
the relations who had abandoned him and the father who had deserted him. Mulligan must have thought the pilgrimage was his lucky break, the perfect opportunity to take his revenge with all those
Delaneys collected in one place like lambs to the slaughter. Michael Delaney had launched this great venture as a thank you to God for saving the life of one son. He did not know that another son
had travelled in his party halfway round the world on a deadly mission of retribution for events thirty years before. Nemesis travelled from the New World to the Old. The pilgrimage had been ruined
by murder, the pilgrims travelling by day in a sealed train and sleeping most of the time on the floor of police cells or the unforgiving concrete of the local jails. Now it was clear that another
of Delaney’s sons had come out of the past to kill him and nearly succeeded. James was the son who was saved in the New York hospital under the picture of St James the Great. Waldo Mulligan
was the other one, abandoned all those years ago in Pittsburgh. His life had not been spared. It was ended early on a Wednesday morning by the horns of a bull from Pamplona.

Everybody was back in the hotel by half past eight that morning. The other pilgrims had been rounded up partying on the streets or drinking in some of the bars that never
closed during Fiesta. Powerscourt had all the pilgrims assemble in a private room on the first floor. The Inspector joined them. Michael Delaney was wearing a very bright suit of yellow check
today. Alex Bentley worked his way round so he could sit next to Lady Lucy at the top table. Johnny Fitzgerald wondered if anybody would notice him taking the occasional swig from his new wineskin.
He hoped to be able to spend a day or two in the mountains soon, looking for vultures.

Powerscourt rose to his feet. He was finding it hard, as he had told Lady Lucy five minutes before, to believe that the case was over. It was finished. Normal life without wine cellars and
bodies in cloisters could resume. He was sombre as he began.

‘Ladies’, he nodded to Maggie Delaney, ‘and gentlemen, I have both good and bad news for you this morning. I have to say I think the good outweighs the bad, but you must decide
that for yourselves. We have another death, I’m afraid. Waldo Mulligan took part this morning in the running of the bulls. I’m sure you have all heard of it by now. He was unfortunate
enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. One bull got detached from the rest. I am told they are at their most dangerous when they are disoriented and separated from their companions.
Waldo Mulligan was gored by the bull just above the groin. He died of his injuries shortly afterwards in the hospital in the bullring. A priest was with him at the end.’

Powerscourt did not mention that Mulligan had tried to kill him, to trip him up beneath the hooves of the bulls.

‘That is the bad news. The good news is that there will be no more murders. Waldo Mulligan confessed to me before he died that he was the killer. He was responsible for all four deaths.
The Inspector here was with me at the time. He can confirm it. The special trains, the nights in the cells should all stop now, once the Spanish authorities give their approval.’

The Inspector said that he hoped to complete the formalities by that afternoon. There was a moment of silence, as if all this was too much to take in at once. Then there was a torrent of
questions. When did Powerscourt know that Mulligan was the killer? How had he found out? Did he think Mulligan would have tried to kill more people? And, the most regular of all, why had Mulligan
done it? What was his motive?

Michael Delaney rose to sum up the views of the pilgrims. ‘Could I say first of all, Powerscourt, how grateful we are to you for having solved the mystery. I may have spoken harshly to you
the other day but I take back everything I said. And could we ask you to tell us something about your investigation?’ Powerscourt felt reluctant. Then he told himself that these pilgrims had
lived with the threat of death for a long time. One short walk with the killer might have been enough to end their lives. But he felt, even after their row a few days before, that he should spare
Michael Delaney.

‘I will do that, Mr Delaney,’ he said, ‘but could I suggest that you do not stay with us now? There are some matters you might not like to hear in public. I would be perfectly
happy to give you the details in private later on this morning.’

‘Nonsense, man, I’ve got nothing to hide.’

Oh yes you have, Powerscourt said to himself, wondering if Delaney had blotted out large sections of his own past. ‘Really, Mr Delaney, I do think it would be better if I spoke with you in private.’