‘No, Your Grace, I don’t think anybody up there had seen him before.’
‘Well, thank you, young man, thank you for coming down to tell us this terrible news. We mustn’t keep you from your duties with the police. And please give my best regards to your father when you next see him.’ That message, Matthew knew, would keep his father happy for weeks. What happiness you could bring into people’s lives if you were an archbishop. Matthew wondered briefly about joining the priesthood as he set out through the early morning light for the officers of the law.
Father Macdonald’s anxiety had not abated. That little red vein he so wished he could have removed was throbbing busily in his forehead. ‘We’ll have to keep it a secret, Your Grace, the death, I mean. Nobody must know.’
The Archbishop frowned. He glanced briefly at a painting of the disciples on the wall, one of them a man called Thomas. ‘I don’t think that would do, no, not at all. I have no idea how many people were at the summit when the body was found – it sounds as if the poor man was murdered now I think about it – and I have no idea how many people young Matthew will tell here in Westport. Word will get out. Much better to let the pilgrims know. That way they can’t accuse the Church of covering up unpleasant truths.’
‘B-but how?’ stammered Father Macdonald. ‘We can’t get anything printed in time. If you tell somebody on the way up the rumour will have multiplied it into half a dozen corpses or more by the way down.’
‘I expect there may even be a ballad about it before the day is out,’ said the Archbishop. ‘The answer is simple.’ He saw he would, as so often, have to take command. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll tell them. Find me three priests or Christian Brothers to act as stewards and we’ll hold the pilgrims up for ten or fifteen minutes or so at St Patrick’s statue. Then I’ll tell that batch what happened. Ten minutes later I’ll tell the next batch and so on until I have to set off for the summit. You can take over then.’
Father Macdonald nodded feebly. The prospect of having to address a crowd of a thousand people or so filled him with dread. The little red vein was working overtime already and he wasn’t even on the mountain. Oddly enough, for a man ordained into the priesthood, Father Macdonald hated public speaking.
The route to the summit of Croagh Patrick is not one that would be taken by a flying crow. It begins at Murrisk a couple of miles from the mountain itself and the path goes up to the top of the hill and then turns right to snake its way across the scree towards the peak. At the bottom the going is fairly benign, but later on the surface is composed of loose stones where the pilgrim slips back almost as far as he advances.
By eight o’clock there was a thin trickle of penitents beginning the climb, dressed as if going to church, the youths and the men in sober suits of dark grey with white shirts and caps on their heads, the women in long skirts with matching jackets in sombre colours, and hats, often purchased specially for the occasion. Powerscourt and Johnny and Lady Lucy were all soberly dressed as they arrived to start their ascent just after half past eight.
‘Don’t go and get converted now, for Christ’s sake,’ had been Dennis Ormonde’s parting words. ‘I’d never live it down.’
‘Are you going to say any prayers on the way up?’ Lady Lucy addressed her two men in turn.
‘Think I might manage the Lord’s Prayer a couple of times,’ Powerscourt said with a smile, ‘but not in the numbers these good people have to say. They have to get through industrial quantities of Hail Marys and things, I believe.’
‘If I think I’m going to fall off the edge of this damned mountain further up in that cloud,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, ‘I shall start praying like a bloody Jesuit.’
There was a family of four in front of them, young parents with children who must have been about eight or ten years old. The youngsters were larking about on the edge of the path, running further up to ambush their mother and father later on, the parents trying to persuade the children to conserve their energy for the more arduous territory ahead. A group of four nuns overtook them, their hands on the rosary beads, their lips moving silently. Powerscourt suspected they were going to pray all the way to the summit, and possibly all the way down, a whole day of pilgrimage and prayer and penitence. They passed an old couple, the woman bent, the man carrying a stick in his right hand and trying to help his wife with the other. Powerscourt thought they must be over seventy years old. They weren’t going to go all the way, the old woman assured Lady Lucy, just as far as their old legs would carry them and then they would have a rest. Within half an hour they had reached the statue of St Patrick, a great beacon of a thing with the bearded saint gazing out to sea. Here the procession seemed to halt. Powerscourt could see a couple of priests barring the route with a pair of long sticks held out over the path. After a few minutes, with the crowd behind them growing ever deeper, there was a great shout from one of the men in black.
‘Pray silence for His Grace the Very Reverend Dr John Healey, Archbishop of Tuam!’ The voice went right back down the mountain. Somebody seemed to have found some kind of impromptu platform for the Archbishop to stand on, raising him well above the crowd at the front and easily visible to those at the back.
‘Pilgrims of St Patrick!’ he began, his arms extended to encompass all his flock. ‘Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I welcome you to Ireland’s Holy Mountain today!’ There was a murmur of approval from the penitents. It wasn’t every day or every pilgrimage that you received a greeting in person from such a prince of the Church. The Archbishop raised his crook above him to quieten the noise. ‘I bring sad news for us all on this day. I want to tell you about it in person. Over the last six months, as many of you know, a new oratory or chapel has been constructed on the summit of this Holy Mountain. Later today we shall celebrate Mass in this place and you will have the chance to observe the skill and devotion which have gone into the construction of the building.’ The Archbishop paused for a second. The crowd were completely silent. He could ask each person to kill his neighbour, Powerscourt thought, and such was the hold of his personality, they would probably do it. ‘This morning,’ Dr Healey went on, ‘this morning of all mornings, a dead body was found resting in the chapel. It was that of a young man. He had been shot. We do not yet know his name. God moves in mysterious ways, my friends, even on the mountains devoted to his glory. I was asked if I would consider cancelling the pilgrimage in view of this terrible event. My answer was No. I could not deny you the opportunity of penitence and devotion which mark Reek Sunday. I could not deny you the chance of the spiritual nourishment and the experience of God’s grace which so many find on this barren hillside, wrapped in cloud today, symbol of God’s mystery. I ask you to pray for the soul of the dead man whose body has been taken away to the appropriate authorities. I ask you to pray that he may find peace with our Father in heaven. Finally, let me repeat what I said at the beginning. Whether you live in Westport and the surrounding villages, or whether you lodge with us from distant parts for the duration of this pilgrimage, you are most welcome. May the Blessing of Father, Son and Holy Ghost be upon you.’ With that the Archbishop made the sign of the cross very slowly and climbed down from his improvised pulpit.
Most of the crowd surged on up the hill. The very old stayed behind. There were three stations for the pilgrims to make on this climb and St Patrick’s statue was not one of them. But it became a place of prayer for those who felt they could go no further. The murmuring noises Powerscourt was to associate ever after with this day began to float upwards into the air.
‘Did you know about this young man, Francis?’ Lady Lucy whispered.
‘I did not,’ replied Powerscourt, ‘and I hope most sincerely that he is not the young man I am thinking of.’