Free Eye for an Eye by Graham Masterton

‘Sorry to disturb you, ma’am,’ said Sergeant O’Malley, knocking at Katie’s open office door. ‘There’s been a priest found dead in somebody’s back garden, up at White’s Cross.’
    Katie looked up from the report she had been reading on drug-smuggling through Ringaskiddy, using disabled children as mules. She hadn’t slept well last night and she was suffering from a dull, persistent headache that even Nurofen hadn’t been able to cure.
    ‘A priest?’ she asked.
    ‘Retired priest anyway. I’ve reported it to Detective Inspector O’Rourke and he said to come up and tell you, too.’
    ‘What did he die of, this priest? Natural causes?’
    ‘Well, the rock that was used to bash his head in, that was natural.’
    ‘I see,’ said Katie, closing the folder in front of her. ‘What was he doing in somebody’s back garden?’
    Sergeant O’Malley approached her desk and handed her an iPad. On the screen was a picture of a white-haired priest in a black cassock, lying on his side in a bed of flowering purple hydrangeas. His eyes were open and he looked as if he were staring at the camera with an expression of mild curiosity. However, the right side of his head had been deeply dented in, and his hair on that side was stuck together with congealed blood.
    ‘He had his wallet on him. His name’s Father Fiachra Caomhánach, from Watergrasshill, eighty-three years old. We contacted the diocese to get some background on him and we’re trying to trace any relatives now. But take a sconce at the next picture. There, see? Those were found lying in the bushes beside him.’
    Katie slid to the next picture and saw a wooden crucifix with a silver figure of Christ nailed on to it, at least thirty centimetres in length, as well as a white glass bottle bearing an embossed medallion of a guardian angel.
    Sergeant O’Malley said, ‘The diocesan secretary told us that Father Caomhánach retired in 2005. They said he was often in the news when he first took holy orders because the Caomhánach family used to be one of Cork’s worst crime gangs, back in the sixties, and his twin brother Deaglán spent years in prison. Not only that, Father Caomhánach was one of only four priests in the whole country who was trained by the Vatican to carry out exorcisms, and even though he was retired he was still qualified to do so, if he was called upon, like.’
    ‘And you think that was what he was doing when he was killed?’ asked Katie. ‘Performing an exorcism?’
    ‘He had all the gear with him, didn’t he? The cross, and the holy water. I’m assuming it’s holy water in that bottle, any road. He had a book, too. It’s all in Latin, but it has the word Daemonum in the title, so I reckon it was something to do with driving out demons.’
    ‘I don’t know. In this day and age? An exorcism?’
    ‘It’s possible, I’d say. I saw a programme about it on Channel Four the other evening. They said that there’s been a growing demand for them in Ireland recently – the exorcisms, like, you know.’
    ‘Well... Pope Benedict was a great believer in casting out evil spirits, wasn’t he?’ said Katie.
    ‘That’s right. And Pope Francis healed some poor fellow with the abdabs, or whatever it was that was wrong with him, right in front of a crowd of people in St Peter’s Square. That was supposed to have been an exorcism.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Katie. She sat thinking for a moment, and then she said, ‘Whose garden was he found in?’
    ‘Some auld wan. Hold on.’ Sergeant O’Malley took back his iPad and tapped on the keys. ‘Mrs Mary O’Donnell, seventy-seven years old, widowed. She lives alone in a bungalow on the R674, next to the Toolmate factory.’
    ‘Yes, I know where you are,’ said Katie. ‘And what did Mrs O’Donnell have to say for herself? Did she actually witness Father Caomhánach being killed? And who called us? Was it her?’
    ‘It was her all right, but all she told the operator was that somebody had