Murder in an Orchard Cemetery by Cora Harrison

Author:Cora Harrison [Cora Harrison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2021-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

‘I’ll interview the lady solicitor, Joe.’ Patrick had finished writing and now he looked up at his sergeant. ‘You pop into the kitchen and just check that this Sister Mary Agnes did suggest that the gardener dig a grave to be ready for the old nun when she dies.’ Joe, he knew, would get on well in the kitchen and he preferred not to have him around while he was talking to Miss Hogan.

Patrick had an instinctive dislike of people like Maureen Hogan. By now, though having been brought up in the slums of Cork, he had achieved a manner which made him feel quite comfortable in the presence of the wealthy professional and businessmen of the city. He never pretended to be other than he was. Cork was a small city, and everyone knew the origin of everyone else – ‘breed, seed and generation’ was a great Cork saying. He had slightly modified his accent, toned down the sing-song tones of his boyhood, took some care to make sure that he bore in mind the second letter in the digraph ‘th’ and assiduously tried to widen his vocabulary by studying one of the classics, dictionary by his side, for half an hour every day when he wasn’t too tired.

But Maureen Hogan did not fit in. For one thing, she wanted to be too matey, too much as though she had met him in a public house, rather than being a respectable solicitor who was being questioned by a police inspector, after the brutal murder of a respectable citizen.

‘Let’s go and sit on that wall,’ she said in a friendly fashion. ‘And, for heaven’s sake, stop calling me Miss Hogan, Patrick. You’re making me nervous. Don’t be so stiff.’

Resentfully, he followed her. He didn’t mind her sitting on the wall, though he did dislike the way her skirt was so short that when she perched upon it, she displayed most of a pair of shapely legs. No stockings either, he noticed. And he certainly resented the way in which she called him ‘Patrick’ as if he were one of her drinking pals.

‘I won’t keep you long, Miss Hogan,’ he said as briskly as he could manage. He debated whether to sit on the wall also – then he could avoid looking at her legs, but he felt that would gravely threaten his dignity and so he compromised by putting his notebook on the flat stone which topped the gate pier and keeping his eyes fixed upon it. He occupied a few minutes in asking her name, address and occupation and noting the answers before proceeding to his more probing questions. He had settled on asking everyone their movements after the midday luncheon at the convent and to ignore their movements during the morning when mostly they all seemed to have been occupied in a group with religious matters. The chances were that the makeshift bomb had been planted in the very early morning or even overnight, but it would, according

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