The Priest (34 page)

Mulcahy flicked back through what the sergeant had told him on the phone: the scrapes he said he’d had with Rinn back in the
late eighties. They hadn’t sounded too serious, mostly involving incidents in Palmerston Park, the secluded couple of acres
of well-tended lawns and rose beds in front of Rinn’s grandfather’s house. Brennan now told him again how, during the few
months Rinn had been home between
colleges, a number of ‘courting couples’ had been attacked in the park after dark, as a result of which one young guy had
been hospitalised after being beaten round the head with a brick.

‘This girl you said got a decent look at him,’ Mulcahy said. ‘How come she got so close?’

‘She was the one whose boyfriend was hurt. Susan Roche.’ All the anger was gone from Brennan’s voice now. ‘I remember her
like it was yesterday. Crying over her young fella in the dark, while we waited for an ambulance. She was drenched in blood,
got a thump herself but was lucky it was only a glancing blow. The boyfriend was on top when he was struck first and he’d managed
to shield her from the worst of it. I went with her to the hospital and she told me, in the ambulance, how she’d seen their
attacker’s face as he stood over them. From her description it was Rinn alright, I had no doubt. But the case got handed over
to CID straight away, and those guys… oh, they interviewed him, but you could tell they’d been got at. Chief-bloody-Justice
Padraig Rinn again. Never was justice so ill served by anyone in the judiciary.’

‘It can’t have been easy for you,’ Mulcahy sympathised, genuinely. He’d felt similar frustration himself on one or two occasions,
when the system he was desperately trying to uphold seemed wilfully directed away from the side of good.

‘You’re right there,’ said Brennan. ‘I almost packed it in. Went through a bit of a rough patch, so I did. But I didn’t give
up, in the end. Because the girl, young Susan, came
back to me a couple of months later and thanked me for what I’d done. She said even though she felt let down by the investigation
she knew I’d done my best. A lovely kind girl, she was, didn’t deserve that. She even said some day she’d find it in her heart
to forgive him. “I might even get around to saying an
Our Father
for him, Sergeant” – that’s what she said. An
Our Father
. That really impressed me.’

‘Why so?’ Mulcahy said, wondering at the sudden emotion in the old man’s voice.

‘Because that’s what Rinn was bawling at her all the while he was beating her fella with the brick.’

Although she’d only had a couple of hours sleep back at her flat, Siobhan looked immaculate when, just after three o’clock,
she emerged from the lift at the
Sunday Herald
in a scoop-necked Betty Jackson top, tailored black trousers and a pair of pointy black Christian Louboutins she’d blown
the budget on a good few months back but which still looked as good as new. She strode across the open-plan floor of the newsroom,
thanking heaven for the reviving miracles worked by make-up and curling tongs. Almost before she put her bag on her desk,
Paddy Griffin was there beside her, dangling a long arm around her shoulder and giving her a squeeze.

‘Good work this morning, girl – especially all that malarkey about the Papal Cross. Nice touch. Shame we had to waste it all
on RTE, though.’

Siobhan extricated herself as politely as she could and leaned across the desk to turn on her computer monitor. ‘It
wasn’t a waste, as well you know. And anyway, there’s loads left in the tank for Sunday, don’t you worry.’

Griffin’s eyes lit up immediately. ‘What you got?’

Siobhan looked at him and laughed. ‘You don’t want much, do you? Another scoop? No chance. I only meant I can work up what
I’ve got into something special. “Eye-witness exclusive: fear and loathing in the Furry Glen”, etc,’ she laughed. ‘You know
the kind of thing. All the gory details. They’ll be lapping it up come Sunday. Anything yourself?’

Griffin sighed and swatted at the air in front of him.

‘Not really. Foreign Affairs has been on the ropes in the Dáil over whether there should be an official enquiry into the “Spanish
invasion” or not. Word is they might agree to one, if only to kill the media coverage by putting it all on a
sub-judice
footing for now. I’ve a couple of the lads looking into it. Actually, I was wondering if you’d be free to help them with
it, later.’

‘Ah, come off it, Paddy, does it look like I’m not busy or something? Or is getting up at two o’clock in the morning not enough
for you? I only brought you the biggest story of the week.’

‘So far,’ said Griffin glumly.

‘So far,’ Siobhan parroted, and leaned over to touch her desk for luck – though the closest thing to wood in it was the chipboard
under the laminate. ‘And what’ll be my chance of improving on it, if I’m stuck weighing up the likelihood of a dull-as-ditch
public enquiry?’

‘Okay, okay!’ Griffin held his arms up in surrender. ‘Christ, I forgot for a moment that you were a fucking celebrity now,
and that you don’t have to play by the same rules as the rest of us mortals. Forget it.’

Siobhan’s triumphant smile was broken by the trill of her mobile. She put a hand up to block out Griffin’s whingeing.

‘Yeah, that’s me,’ she spoke into the phone, then her eyes widened. ‘Are you serious? When?…Yeah, of course… What time?… Great,
yeah, thanks.’

Siobhan snapped her phone shut, looked at her watch, then turned to Griffin again. ‘Maybe we’re not going to need that public-enquiry
piece after all.’ She grabbed her bag from the desk and shut down her monitor again. ‘You’re not going to believe this.’

As soon as he got back on the N11 northbound, Mulcahy put his foot down and worked the car in and out through the heavy traffic
heading into Dublin, trying to make up time. It really hadn’t helped when Mrs Brennan, a spritely little woman who looked
as fit as her husband, had appeared carrying a mountainous plate of smoked-salmon sandwiches and a pot of tea and insisted
that he stay for lunch with them. Nice as it was, the conversation had ground to a halt at that point. Brennan was not one
to discuss ‘work’ in front of his wife and Mulcahy found himself sitting there politely, talking about the great weather they’d
been having and wondering what the hell he’d got himself into. Sure, everything Brennan had told him about Rinn had set alarm
bells ringing. But he still couldn’t see how, if Rinn was as out of control as Brennan said he’d been, he hadn’t been caught
– regardless of who his high-powered grandfather was. It was the eighties when all this had supposedly gone on, not the bloody
Middle Ages. Why the hell hadn’t Rinn been active in the meantime? Surely somebody would have to have picked up on that?

The one thing that did continue to niggle away at him was the Caroline Coyle connection, since there was something just not
right there. Everyone, from his dad to the fat-necked martinets who’d trained him years ago at Templemore, had bludgeoned
the same thing into him: never trust a coincidence. His own hard-won experience had taught him to temper that maxim with a
healthy dose of common sense, convincing him that sometimes life just throws up entirely random conjunctions. But, even so,
his gut told him the Coyle thing wasn’t right.

He was trying to manoeuvre past an overtaking lorry when he heard the pips for the news on the radio.

‘Reports are coming in of an arrest in the so-called Priest case.’

Mulcahy pressed the tab on his steering wheel to raise the volume, willing the newsreader to get the words out of his mouth
faster.

‘A Garda spokesman announced a few moments ago that a man was detained by Gardai at his home in Chapelizod, Dublin, earlier
today and is now helping Garda investigators with their enquiries relating to the so-called Priest case. The
spokesman said that, following the discovery of the body of a young woman in the Phoenix Park in the early hours of this morning,
the case had progressed rapidly, resulting in an arrest. No other details are available at present but a further announcement
will be made at a press conference later today. In related news, the row over a Spanish military unit allowed to operate on
Irish soil continues. In the Dáil today, the Minister for Foreign Affairs resisted calls…’

Mulcahy made a long, low whistle and turned down the volume. Christ almighty, that was fast. What the hell had happened to
bring about an arrest so quickly? He spotted a lay-by ahead and pulled into it. He had to find out immediately what was going
on. He scrolled down to Brogan’s number and tapped the call button, but got put straight through to voicemail. Of course he
did. Everybody and his wife would be ringing her now. He left a message asking her to call him back. He’d barely hung up when
the phone rang.

‘Is that Inspector Mulcahy?’

It was a man’s voice, light and refined, the accent full of the rounded vowels of Dublin 4. Mulcahy had a quick glimpse of
the number before responding. He didn’t recognise it.

‘Yes, it is.’

‘My name is Sean Rinn. You left a card at my home yesterday, asking me to call you.’

It wasn’t so much a statement as a question:
why?
Mulcahy sat back in his seat, wondering what to say. News of the arrest had knocked all thoughts of Rinn from his head, replacing
them, it seemed, with a vacuum.

‘Um, yes, Mr Rinn. Thanks for getting back to me. It was in relation to an incident you were a witness to last year. I was
reviewing the case and wanted to have a word with you, if that would be possible?’

‘Is it really necessary?’ Rinn complained. ‘I told the Gardai everything I knew at the time. It’s all in my statement. Nothing’s
changed since then, has it?’

Something about the way he said it irked Mulcahy. A fleeting memory of Caroline Coyle’s face as she nearly collapsed in her
own front door flashed through his mind. Followed by one of Brennan describing a boy beating another with a brick.

‘It’s routine but necessary, yes, Mr Rinn.’ He looked at his watch. Everybody back at Harcourt Square would be fixated on
the arrest for hours now. This might be the last chance he’d get to do anything about it. Fuck it, why not?

‘Look, I’m going to be in your area in half an hour, Mr Rinn. Will you be at home?’

When the door bell jangled this time, he was rewarded by the sound of footsteps approaching across a tiled hall. The door swung
open and the man who answered it was not at all what Mulcahy had been expecting: not exactly a small man, five ten or so,
in his mid- to late thirties, slim built with sandy hair and a narrow kind of face distinguished only by the sort of absence
of features that sinks into the background in photographs. Somehow, from Brennan’s description, he’d imagined he would be
entirely different – younger, certainly. The only
notable thing about this guy was that he dressed a little bit older than his years, a red polo-neck sweater hanging from his
thin frame, a pair of well-worn tan cords sagging above battered brown leather brogues.

‘Mr Rinn?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I’m Inspector Mulcahy. We spoke earlier…’

‘Yes,’ he said, looking at the warrant card Mulcahy was holding up.

‘Can I come in?’

‘Oh,’ Rinn said, as if the thought had never crossed his mind. ‘Well, of course, yes. Come in.’ He stepped back to allow Mulcahy
through the front door into a huge hallway. The floor was a worn mosaic of brown and white tiles, leading to a fine mahogany
staircase that was let down by a threadbare pale green carpet. The hall furniture looked dated – dark, bulky antiques – and
the paintings and pictures on the walls looked relentlessly gloomy.

‘Excuse me, Inspector,’ Rinn said. ‘I don’t get many visitors. Why don’t we go into the sitting room? The doors there are
open on to the garden.’

Mulcahy followed him into a marginally brighter room. There the furniture seemed somehow less heavy; the carved marble mantelpiece
had a lightness to it, as did the faded silk shades on the table lamps, dripping with tassels and frills. It was a room that
felt like it had the hand of a woman about it.

‘You certainly have a fine big house and garden here, Mr
Rinn,’ Mulcahy said, moving towards the open French windows and looking out across the wide flight of lichen-stained stone
steps leading down to the garden below. From this elevated position it looked even more strikingly beautiful than on his previous
visit. Only the half-laid path in front of the left-hand borders marred its elegance.

‘Yes, my grandparents left it to me. I’m lucky, I suppose. I spent a long time teaching abroad, never living the high life
exactly. And then I came back to this. I do rattle around in it a bit, and both the house and garden take quite a bit of upkeep.
But it’s worth it. Will you sit down?’

Mulcahy chose the armchair closest to the window.

‘You lived abroad, you said?’

‘Yes, until a couple of years ago.’

‘And you live here now,’ Mulcahy continued. ‘On your own?’

‘Yes, I do,’ Rinn said. ‘Why?’

Mulcahy shrugged. ‘As you said, it’s a lot for one person.’

Rinn didn’t respond to that, so Mulcahy went on. ‘Like I said, I’m here about the assault over on Temple Road last year.’

‘Yes,’ Rinn said, ‘nasty incident. I was hoping you’d caught someone for it, at last, when I saw your card.’

‘I’m afraid not. But we are reviewing the case. I was wondering if we might go back over a couple of details in your statement.’

‘I suppose so. Although I’m not sure how well I remember what I said in it now.’

‘That’s okay. I have a copy right here.’ Mulcahy flapped the thin folder in front of him. ‘But maybe first you could tell
it to me as you recall it now – to see if anything new comes up.’

‘Alright, if that’s what you need.’ Rinn scratched his head and took a deep breath. ‘As I recall I was driving up Temple Road
at the time. It must have been a warm night as I had the window down. I heard screams coming from one of the gardens and,
well, it sounded like a woman in trouble, so I stopped the car and ran back until I came upon a man standing over a young
lady who was sitting on the grass. She was crying and shaking, and the man was trying to calm her.’ He paused, as if replaying
the scene in his mind before continuing. ‘It was so dark it was hard to tell exactly what was going on, so I challenged them,
and the man said the woman had been attacked and that the Gardai were on their way. I didn’t know the man, but the front door
was open and the light was on so I assumed it was his house. I asked him if he’d seen the attacker and he said no, that he
must have panicked and run off. So I waited with them until the patrol car and an ambulance came and next day, as requested,
I made a statement at Rathmines Garda Station. And that, Inspector, was it, I’m afraid. I didn’t see or hear anything else.’