Silence by Anthony J. Quinn Page B

warning signs that we were harbouring such murderers in our midst?’ He stared up at Daly, as if expecting him to shed light on the puzzle.
    ‘What drew Walsh to this particular set of murders?’ asked Daly.
    ‘Evil.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘He was a different sort of priest to the one you’re familiar with. He believed not in miracles and goodness but in the power of evil. Most of us have a blind spot in that regard. We are sane and solid and we place our trust in society and the power of law and order. But Father Walsh didn’t accept the conclusions of others, and there was a danger in that. He wanted the details of these murders cleared up. He wanted everyone he believed guilty held to account.’
    ‘And who was everyone?’
    ‘The murderers, the intelligence services, the men who pulled the strings in the background, the politicians. Even the police and the judiciary.’
    Daly raised an eyebrow.
    ‘And did you believe his murder conspiracy theories?’
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m a monk and everything I believe in is shut up inside a golden box on an altar. I tried to ignore the facts of evil he was at such pains to reveal. Many of his fellow priests thought he was a crank, out of step with the politics of peace and moving on.’
    The abbot made to leave. He bowed politely but Daly could see the unease working its way though his mind.
    ‘There was one other thing,’ he said. ‘It struck me as odd that he had taken to wearing a watch. It added to the sense that he was in a hurry. In all the years he’d been here, I’d never seen him wearing one before.’
    The abbot waited for a response from Daly but there was none. The detective was thinking about the priest speeding off from the checkpoint. He had certainly seemed in a hurry on the night of his death. He was reminded of his meeting with Donaldson and his new watch. Another old man anxious about time. Did the former RUC commander also have a ticking deadline?
    ‘You see, the days here are structured, and the church bells are always ringing out the hour. I couldn’t understand why he was always glancing at this new watch of his.’
    Daly tried to analyse the detail as simply as possible. What did it mean for an old man, living in an institution like an abbey, to start wearing a watch? He needed to measure time. Not the time inside the abbey, which appeared to stand still, but time in the outside world. It signalled a new relationship with life outside the abbey walls, the possibility that he was synchronizing his life to some other beat, another person or a series of events.
    ‘Did he have any unexpected visitors? Someone you hadn’t seen before?’
    The abbot drummed his fingers on the table.
    ‘Yes.’ He hesitated. ‘There was a woman. A journalist. Her name was Jacqueline Pryce.’
    ‘Why did she want to see him?’
    ‘She was helping him piece together the details of the murder map. I believe she was going to write a book about it.’
    The revelation troubled Daly. Walsh’s research looked disordered and unfinished, but the idea that a journalist was writing a book on it suggested a measure of order and completeness. Journalists were in the business of making a name for themselves, especially when they undertook to write books about the Troubles, and they seldom stopped until they were published, no matter the consequences. Walsh’s research was beginning to look less and less like the secret obsession of a harmless old priest.
    ‘Do you know her?’ asked the abbot.
    ‘I’ve never heard of her.’ Daly made a mental note of the name. ‘Something about this map must have whetted her interest.’
    The abbot had decided he’d said enough. He nodded and left Daly to peruse the room on his own.
    The detective stood for a while, contemplating the priest’s handiwork. A wall full of secrets in a silent room in a silent monastery. He blinked at the map. He could see that it had been in a constant state of flux. Walsh had rearranged the