Haunted Ground

1

Distances could be deceiving at night, but looking out from the kitchen window in the light of morning, Cormac could see the edge of the lawn against which the light had seemed to travel last night—or rather, earlier this morning—and he felt he’d judged the path of the light fairly accurately. A small flock of sheep grazed near the lakeshore, some standing, some lying as though their spindly legs had been cut out from under them. He looked farther, past the perimeter of the lawn, to the Bracklyn woods. Rising up out of the branches only a few hundred yards from the house was O’Flaherty’s Tower, its ivied walls a shade of green subtly different from that of the surrounding leaves. From this angle he could see a few wooden roof beams still intact, their slate covering long since robbed to patch holes elsewhere, probably on Bracklyn House itself.

After he’d had his breakfast, Cormac headed to the jeep parked in the drive and deposited the books and tools he needed for the day’s work. But the furtive movement of the torch beam—not to mention Hugh Osborne’s dew-covered wellingtons—had pricked his curiosity. Instead of climbing in and driving off, he rounded the corner of the house, past the stable that now served as shed and garage, and followed the tumble-down bawn wall that formed the first defensive barrier around Bracklyn House. He tried to imagine living in such a circumspect state of mind, as generations of landowners in these parts must have done, ever watchful for some enemy to come and batter down their doors. Not all that different, he supposed, from the Dublin pensioners shut up in their tiny flats, windows barred and doors bolted with sixteen locks.

He followed the wall, now up to his ankles in thick grass. This patch was one of several to which the sheep had yet to turn their attention. About thirty yards from the lake, the wall came to a crumbling end, no doubt toppled by time and the thick, ropelike vines that snaked over it from the wild wood. He hadn’t been careful to make sure no one saw him, but he could just claim that this exploration was somehow related to his business at the priory.

The woods were thick, and the light that filtered through the leaves felt cool and indistinct. It struck him how quickly rampant vegetation could take over any place abandoned or neglected by humankind. The sounds of the wider world were muffled here, soaked up by moss and loamy soil, the carpet of ivy and the green canopy above. What a riot of shapes and textures existed in this monochromatic world. Cormac thought of Una and Fintan playing here as children, of the treasure Aoife McGann had brought home, and understood the attraction a place like this would hold for any child with a vivid imagination. It was the very sort of place that would make you believe in ancestor spirits. How often at the site of some primitive settlement had he tried to conjure up an image of Ireland before it was cultivated—a wild green expanse of forest, lake, and bog, when the people dressed in the skins of animals and plaited their hair and worshipped the sun and the spirits of trees and water?

There was no apparent footpath here, and the thin, thorny branches that stuck out from the confusion of undergrowth caught at his clothing. He pressed on, and eventually found a narrow trail, or, rather, a place where the ferns did not grow quite as thick. He stepped over a fallen tree, its bark and fleshy wood being slowly subsumed by a radiantly pale green moss, and as he did so, he heard the distinct snap of a branch. Cormac whirled to see who might be following, but the wood seemed to have closed up behind him. Perhaps it was just paranoia. He turned back toward the tower, listening carefully for any movement besides his own footsteps. The path began to wind this way and that, and Cormac began to understand the reason: he nearly lost his balance when his foot struck a jagged stone embedded in the earth. He knelt and parted the underbrush in several places, finding a handful of similar rocky points within arm’s reach. It might be part of a chevaux-de-frise, an ancient defensive tactic used around ringforts to prevent easy assault by enemies on horseback. There was the tower, dead ahead, the dark gray stone of its base-batter blooming with lichen and moss. He picked his way carefully through the ankle-breaking stones, then climbed across an overgrown earthwork ditch that might be the remains of a medieval motte. The tower was about four stories tall; the only windows were arrow loops several feet long but only a few inches across. How dismal it must have been to live in such a place; how like a prison it must have seemed. Above him jutted a square garderobe that flanked a corner, and above that he could see stone corbels made to support some wooden structure long since destroyed. No sign of crows today. Cormac skirted the base of the tower, looking for the entrance doorway, which he discovered on the far side from his approach. The doorway was a simple pointed Gothic arch, above it a carved stone that might have been a family escutcheon, but it was too damaged to make out. The fact that there was a wooden door at all was curious, because the tower looked to be long abandoned. More curious still was the stout, shiny new padlock that hung from a latch firmly anchored to the wall. He lifted the lock and examined the keyhole at its base. Newly made scratches shone where someone had tried to insert the key and missed the mark. Once the door was locked, there was no way into or out of this tower short of scaling the walls.

Why would Osborne want to keep this building locked? The place was in ruins. Probably something to do with liability, preventing local hooligans larking about and getting themselves killed. But why would someone be out here in the middle of the night? If it were some sort of trysting place, that would explain the secrecy. But a trysting place for whom? Maybe he was wrong about Hugh Osborne and Una McGann. If they were involved, they certainly had reason not to be seen together in public. He couldn’t imagine Lucy Osborne in a place like this, but what about Jeremy? It could also be someone completely unconnected to this house, some local lothario who could have claimed this abandoned fortress as a meeting place. If that were the case, however, the whole village would know about it. Dolly Pilkington would certainly know who had purchased such a whacking great padlock, and might even have divined its purpose. Here he was again, acting the policeman.

As he stood at the door, Cormac heard the croaking call of a crow. He turned and saw nothing but leafy greenness all around, heard nothing but the distant shout of a corncrake. Was someone out there, watching him? The teeming silence of the wood gave no answer.

2

Nora overslept the morning after the mysterious phone call. She was hurriedly repacking her case for the return trip to Bracklyn when she remembered to check her mobile phone for messages. There was only one, from Cormac, wondering if she would mind picking up a few items for him while she was in Dublin. Robbie McSweeney had a key to the house, and was going to gather up the stuff; she could just collect the bag from him. She erased the message and punched in Robbie’s office number. They arranged to meet at Cormac’s house.

Coming from the city center, Nora crossed over the Grand Canal at Charlemont Street and found herself immediately in the heart of Ranelagh. If the daylight seemed a bit harsh this morning, it was probably because the leaves on the trees were still small, still a fresh shade of pale green against the sky. Cormac’s street, Highfield Crescent, turned out to be one of those gracefully curved and chestnut-lined Dublin avenues that seemed miles from the cacophonous bottlenecks of the main roads. Robbie hadn’t arrived yet, but he was coming all the way from the Belfield campus. Nora studied the face of Number 43, a tidily terraced red-brick row house, with an arched entrance trimmed in leaded glass, one of the thousands of nearly identical Victorian doorways in Dublin. Why did it seem curious to her that Cormac’s door was painted a bright, sunny yellow? The fenced front garden was a sharply edged patch of green turf so small that he might easily keep it trimmed year-round with a pair of embroidery scissors. Though she hadn’t yet seen the inside, she knew it would be a space very different from her airy, modern flat across the canal. She felt a twinge of uneasiness. It was strange coming here without Cormac’s knowledge. Should she have arranged to meet Robbie at his office? She hadn’t time to answer her own question when Robbie tapped at the driver’s-side window.

“You can wait out here if you like,” he said as she rolled down the window, “but I was hoping you might come in for just half a minute. I’m dyin’ for a mug of tea. And your reward would be the small bit of news I have for you.”

Nora found herself following reluctantly as Robbie pushed open the front door, careful not to knock down the old-fashioned black bicycle that stood in the narrow front hall. “I’ll round up the things he’s asked for, shall I, and you can get started on the tea.” After pointing her in the direction of the kitchen, at the back of the house, Robbie disappeared up the stairs, half lilting, half humming a faintly familiar tune. Nora entered the clean black-and-white-tiled kitchen; a table and two chairs stood in the small conservatory that jutted off the back of the house into the walled garden, giving the room a bright aspect, even on this slightly overcast day. She filled the electric kettle, found tea in a tin beside the stove, and prepared two mugs, then checked the fridge for milk. Plenty for tea; she held the bottle to her nose to make sure it hadn’t turned. The kettle boiled quickly, and while the tea was steeping, she ventured into the dining room, or what would normally have been used as a dining room, for this place was set up as a study: bookshelves lined the walls and a large table in front of the window was piled high with books and manila folders that almost obscured the view of the garden. Through an open set of double doors was a sitting room, with a deep leather sofa in front of a fireplace, and a couple of chairs upholstered in Turkish-looking geometric tapestry. The walls of both rooms were painted a ruddy ochre, and at the front of the house was a broad window seat flanked by two bookcases that reached to the ceiling. The atmosphere was orderly, unfussy, much like the man himself, and yet there were a couple of pieces that didn’t seem to fit, like the pillow-covered chaise in the corner at the far side of the fireplace. She tried to imagine Cormac at home here. The stereo cabinet in the near corner was piled high with homemade tapes. Nora scanned them, recognizing the names of some older traditional musicians. She approached the bookcases in the living room. The archaeology titles were no surprise, but Cormac also had quite a collection of books on art history, world religions, architecture, and language. There was a whole section of books on Irish place-names. What was it he’d said to Hugh Osborne? “Interested, but not very knowledgeable.” Right. She moved to the other set of bookcases, running her fingers along the spines of old editions in Irish, antique collections of Dickens, Shakespeare, and Jane Austen, newer translations of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, a pile of Graham Greene novels, books of poetry by Seamus Heaney and Patrick Kavanagh. Had Cormac read them all? She was suddenly seized with homesickness, remembering her own precious books, save for the few volumes she couldn’t possibly live without, packed up in storage at home in Saint Paul. Seeing this wonderful collection only served as a reminder that nothing in her life was the same as it had been before. She sank down slowly on the window seat and closed her eyes, overcome by a terrible and familiar craving. And what if her need to scrabble through the evidence to find something, anything—what if it never satisfied her emptiness? Nora opened her eyes. She could still hear Robbie’s absentminded lilting from upstairs.

A small framed photograph on the mantelpiece caught her gaze. It was Cormac and Gabriel McCrossan, looking up from an excavation pit and showing off a hoard of artifacts they’d just uncovered, looking tired and dirty and immensely pleased with themselves. How was Cormac faring after losing this man he must have considered a second father? Maybe Robbie had some clue about how he was getting on. She set the picture back on the mantel as she heard footsteps on the stairs.

“Find everything all right?” Robbie asked. “For the tea, I mean,” he added hastily, and from the look that came with it, she knew he was giving her a gentle ribbing for having a look around the place.

“Everything was exactly where it ought to be,” she said. “Cormac is a very logical fella.”

“Oh, he is,” Robbie agreed, following her into the kitchen. “Promise you won’t hold that against him?”

“Robbie, I’m anxious to hear what you found out.”

“And I’m just as anxious to tell you. But hang on, hasn’t he got a biscuit or something to go with the tea?” Robbie asked, opening a cupboard and rummaging around until he found what he needed, an unopened packet of plain chocolate wheatmeal biscuits. “Doesn’t even fancy these, but keeps a few on hand because they’re my favorite. Commendable, isn’t it?”

“Very touching,” Nora agreed. “But, Robbie, what did you find out?”

“You understand that what I was doing was only very general research.”

“I do. Go on.”

“Well, it’s interesting,” he said, through the crumbs of his first biscuit. “Beheading was generally reserved for people of some importance. Old-fashioned hanging was considered sufficient for most crimes, and for most criminals, right up through the nineteenth century.” He was warming to the subject now. “And hanging generally meant slow death by strangulation. I found several reports of people being resuscitated after a half hour on the rope.” He spoke with some amazement at this fact. “Of course, we have a couple of Irish doctors to thank for the long drop. They took into account the prisoner’s weight, and how much force it would take to break his neck. It was all very scientific; they had tables for calculating the length of the rope. Though it seems the main reason for the change wasn’t to put the condemned out of their misery any more quickly, but to spare witnesses the discomfort of watching them dangle.”

“Absolutely fascinating,” Nora said, hoping that her exasperation wasn’t starting to show.

“But back to beheading—you’d have to be a fairly high-born person to get your head chopped off. Not only that, but you’d have to have done something pretty terrible, treason or regicide, or something equally heinous. That’s why not a lot of women would have been beheaded; I’m having trouble coming up with any actual historical accounts. But—and here’s what I found most interesting—” he said, leaning forward, “starting in the Middle Ages, beheading became a sort of standard punishment for infanticide. I suppose it’s always considered the worst sort of abomination to kill a child—”

Nora could hear Robbie’s voice continuing, but the noise in her head crowded it out. There was a dinning sound, like the beating of dustbin lids in her ears. She felt a prickling sensation down her neck and on the backs of her arms.

“Robbie,” she said suddenly, “we have a date now, or at least a rough time frame. Remember that piece of metal in the X rays?”

“I do.”

“It was a ring, possibly a wedding ring. And it was inscribed with a date—1652. How many women could have been executed in East Galway since then? If we were looking for a needle in a haystack, I’d say the needle had just grown larger.”

“Ah, but you’re forgetting that a large portion of the haystack itself went up in smoke,” he said. “Lots of documents from that period were destroyed when the Public Records Office was shelled during the Civil War back in 1922.”

“But surely not everything burned. There are other sources, aren’t there? I just can’t believe that would be the only place to look. What about the National Archives? Or the Public Records Office in London? And couldn’t the initials from the ring help somewhat? Maybe there are marriage records, or at least census records for the area somewhere that could give us a clue.” Nora was surprised at the urgency in her own voice. “Don’t give up on me now, Robbie.”

3

St. Columba’s Catholic Church was a severe-looking gray stone monstrosity, built in the nineteenth century, and now serving Dunbeg and several small neighboring communities. Father Kinsella was evidently just finishing up with the cleaners, a small brigade of nondescript, slightly doughy middle-aged women armed with mops, buckets, rags, and polish. Their beaming faces and collective posture told Devaney that the handsome, curly-haired curate knew exactly the effect he had on female parishioners of a certain age, and felt no compunction about using it—all to the advantage of the Church, of course. Devaney stood inhaling the atmosphere—that mixed scent of furniture polish, incense, flowers, and candle wax peculiar to a church—and waited for the priest to finish with his fan club and herd them off in the direction of the sacristy.

Despite its familiar essence, this modern space felt strange to Devaney, not at all like the ancient and mysterious church of his childhood. Perhaps it was the changes in the Mass since he was a boy; perhaps it was just that the rituals and accoutrements of faith no longer impressed him.

“Ah, Detective,” Kinsella said, rubbing his hands together like an eager young businessman when he turned and caught sight of Devaney. He paused to genuflect briefly in front of the altar, then came sprinting energetically down the center aisle to shake hands. “Garrett, isn’t it? I know your family, of course, Nuala and the children, but we haven’t had the pleasure of your company.” When Devaney offered no visible reaction, the priest was politic enough to press no further.

“Is there somewhere we could talk that’s a bit more out of the way?” Devaney asked, pulling a small notebook from his breast pocket.

Kinsella led the way to the baptismal chapel, and offered Devaney a seat on one of the benches that lined the walls. “Now, Detective, what can I do for you?”

“I’m going through the file on the Osborne case, talking to some of the original witnesses, just on the chance that anything new has come to mind.”

The priest’s helpful demeanor changed to a look of thoughtful resignation. “I had a feeling it might be that,” he said. “I try to keep hoping for the best. It’s getting more and more difficult. But I do pray for them every day.”

“You said in your original statement that Mina Osborne wasn’t a regular parishioner when you first came here.”

“That’s right. She only started coming to Mass after Christopher was born.”

“I was surprised to find that she was a Catholic,” Devaney said. “Coming from India—”

“There’s actually quite a large number of Catholics in India, Detective. Ever since the forcible mass conversions by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century. Not the most commendable period in Church history, I grant you. That’s when Mina’s family would have taken the surname Gonsalves.”

“Strange how they kept the faith, if it was only forced upon them.”

“Yes, that does seem curious, doesn’t it? But I suppose by the time they did have any choice in the matter, it was already something of a long-standing family tradition.”

“I think you said Mina spoke with you the week she disappeared, and in fact had been to see you more than a few times in the previous couple of weeks.”

“Yes, that’s right, there were things she wanted to discuss about her own spiritual life, but she was also thinking about her son. Whether he ought to be brought up in the Church.”

“You say she was trying to decide. Was there any disagreement between Mina Osborne and her husband on that point?”

“I don’t know that I’d call it disagreement. They were discussing options. Christopher was still very young. I don’t know that Hugh Osborne had a terribly strong opinion, to tell you the truth. It was more a matter of Mina trying to resolve some questions of her own about her faith.”

“Did she say anything that seemed out of the ordinary, anything to indicate her state of mind? Was there anything troubling her that day?”

“I hope you’re not trying to insinuate—” Kinsella began. “Because I’m certain that Mina would never have harmed herself or Christopher.”

“I’m not insinuating anything; what I am trying to do is to find Mrs. Osborne. Please, just tell me what she said.” The edge of exasperation in Devaney’s voice seemed to give the priest pause.

“The reason the whole question of religious education had come up was that Mina wanted to take Christopher to India to meet his grandparents. She wanted to be able to tell them, truthfully, that her son was going to be raised in the Church. And her husband evidently had some reservations. There’s always tension when the couple come from different traditions. There were a few issues they’d not really resolved before the marriage—one of them was how the children would be raised—but it was nothing that couldn’t eventually be worked out. Mina had been estranged from her parents—her father, at least—since she married Hugh Osborne. They’d chosen not to be married in the Church, you see, and it mattered a great deal to her father. His family had always been strict Catholics, loads of aunts and uncles in religious orders; one was even an archbishop, I think. Anyway, Mina believed that such a gesture on her part might ease things with the father. Personally, I think there was more to it than that. We see it all the time. People fall away when they come of age, but when they have children, when they need something to connect with, something meaningful and profound to pass on to their children, they’re drawn back to the Church. The pull of tradition is much stronger than we realize.”

“Do you remember exactly what she said?”

Kinsella looked as though he wasn’t quite ready to part with the information. “I’ve gone over and over our last conversation. It was a couple of days before she disappeared, but I never saw her after that. Just as she was leaving, she said, ‘Hugh’s against the idea now, but he’ll come around. He’s hardly going to try keeping us here under lock and key.’”

“Excuse me, but I don’t recall any reference to ‘lock and key’ in your earlier statement,” Devaney said.

“She was only joking, Detective. There was no fear in those words. She’d come to a decision, and was joyful about it.” He added, as if to excuse his sin of omission, “I knew it would be taken the wrong way.”

Devaney gave the priest a questioning look. “Anything else you’ve suddenly remembered?”

“I swear that’s the only thing I might have left out of my original statement.”

“Would she have made the trip without her husband’s approval?”

“I believe she would have waited. She’d never have deliberately done anything to hurt him. That’s why her disappearance has been so troubling. You don’t know her, Detective. Mina’s spirit was filled with light, unlike any other person I’ve known.”

Devaney studied the priest’s face. “Sure you didn’t fancy her yourself? You wouldn’t be the first.”

“Contrary to what you might read in the papers, Detective, there are a few of us who do take the vows seriously. I don’t deny that Mina confided in me. I don’t even know why, really. I suppose there weren’t many people around here she could consider friends. But we were just friends.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Oh, I don’t know—books, music, the nature of God, the life of the soul. I think she was just starved for conversation.”

“And she couldn’t talk to her husband?” Devaney asked.

“Of course she could. I’m not saying that. But an intelligent person like Mina needs a very high level of intellectual engagement. She told me once that when she came here she couldn’t paint all day and all night as she’d done before. I think she needed other outlets.”

“What was your impression of the Osbornes’ marriage?”

“I think it was fairly solid, despite their brief courtship. She was certainly committed to the marriage. Of course she knew that her husband had other…women friends, before they married. He is somewhat older, and she wasn’t completely naive. But I got a sense that—”

“What?”

“Well, she never actually put it into words, but I think she may have had…some worries. Probably completely unfounded.”

“Can you recall what it was that gave you that sense?”

“I remember her asking rather pointedly in our last conversation about God’s forgiveness of sin. Hating the sin, but loving the sinner.”

“Maybe she was thinking of herself. You know that she was pregnant when they married?”

“Yes. Oh, don’t worry, I’m not divulging any secrets of the confessional. She didn’t try to hide it. Sometimes I think that may have been the real source of her doubts.”

“You don’t believe Osborne had a bit on the side.”

“I don’t know, Detective. I can’t say I really know the man.” Kinsella looked steadily back at Devaney. “He comes here, you know. Shows up at an early Mass and just sits in at the back. I’ve tried to find him afterwards, a couple of times, but he’s always gone.”

For a brief second, Devaney thought he glimpsed what failure felt like to a priest. “Thanks for your time, Father. I think that’s all for now.”

“Tell Nuala and the children I was asking for them.”

“I will.” Devaney turned to leave, and was about to push open the door at the back of the church when he heard the priest draw a tentative breath.

“You know, I wonder, as long as you’re here,” Kinsella said. “It’s hardly worth mentioning, really….”

“What is it?” Devaney asked.

“Well, we’ve had a rash of petty thefts recently, nothing serious, just somebody nicking offertory candles from one of the side chapels. I know a few candles might not seem like much in the larger scheme of things, but every penny counts in a small parish like this, and it’s all quite mysterious.”

“Can you show me where?”

Kinsella escorted him to a small, shadowy chapel just off the altar. A stained-glass window filtered a gloomy light into the alcove, where a painted plaster statue of the Virgin stood upon an altar. A metal crown of stars formed a halo around her head, and a half-dozen flickering candles illuminated her face from below. Devaney suddenly remembered being in thrall to a similar statue as a child. With her outstretched arms draped in that sky-blue robe, her face a portrait of radiant kindness, he had thought her the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. He’d have willingly saved a thousand pennies just to light one candle at her feet. He turned his attention to the priest.

“So this recent theft wasn’t the first.”

“The first time was about six months ago, then again a few months later, and, finally, last weekend. The candles are usually kept here.” Kinsella indicated an empty shelf below the row of burning votive lights. “I might not have noticed, even, except that we’d just put out a whole rake of new candles on Friday, and on Sunday morning they were all gone. I’ve held off saying anything, but now it’s becoming a rather regular habit. I’m not sure we’d want to prosecute, but I’d surely like to know who feels the need to steal from the church. It may be a cry for help.”

“How many entrances to the building?” Devaney asked.

“The main doors, of course, and two side doors, one through the sacristy, and the other through this side.” The priest indicated a door just around the corner from where they were standing. “But that’s locked most times, only used for funerals and the like.”

“Do you ever lock up entirely?”

“I’m afraid we have no choice,” Kinsella said. “I only say Mass here two days a week; I have two other parishes to look after. Unless the cleaners are here, like today, or we have some evening function like a wedding rehearsal, the building is locked up tight. And Saturday evenings, of course, when I hear confessions. I’m almost sure that’s when it’s happening.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, it occurred to me that each of the thefts happened on an evening we had a visit from the ‘phantom penitent.’” Kinsella’s face betrayed slight embarrassment. “Not very respectful, I’m afraid.”

“Why do you call him that?”

“I’m not even sure it’s a him,” Kinsella said. “This person—whoever it is—waits until the last one before him is in the confessional, then comes in at the other side. Never says a word. At first I just waited; I understand it sometimes takes a few moments to order your thoughts. I’ve tried speaking up as well, but there’s never any response. After about five minutes, whoever it is gets up and leaves. I haven’t gone so far as opening the door to try and find out who it is.”

“How many times has this happened?”

“I don’t know. Four or five times, I think.”

“Could I have a look at the confessionals?”

“Surely, right over here,” Kinsella said, leading the way to the opposite side of the church.

“Do you hear confessions every week?”

“I do. Always a rush at Christmas and Easter, but there’s generally not a great demand.” Kinsella gestured for Devaney to open the door to the confessional and look into the central compartment, which he did, noting the red velvet cushion for the priest, and the small sliding wooden doors. The one to his left was open, and he could see where the confessor heard sins through a grille covered with black cloth.

“I wonder if you’d mind stepping inside for a moment,” Devaney said. “Which side does the person come in?”

“Always the right side. My right, that is, when I’m inside. Does that make a difference?” Devaney thought he detected a touch of excitement in Kinsella’s voice, the kind of enthusiasm an ordinary citizen feels when involved in some aspect of a police investigation—the kind of enthusiasm the police were often better off without.

“It might,” Devaney said. He stood just outside the confessional door, looking up and down the length of the church. “Who are your regulars?”

“I don’t know if I ought to say.”

“It’s possible someone might have seen your phantom.”

Kinsella seemed to consider this point. “There’s Mrs. Phelan, who lives just beside us here, in the lane. Tom Dunne, since he’s been retired, has been coming every week, and Margaret Conway. A few others as well.”

As harmless a bunch of wretches as ever there was, Devaney thought to himself. A hell of a lot they’d have to confess. “And where do they queue up?”

“In the pews, just opposite. But as I said, whoever it is always waits until the last one of them is inside the confessional before coming in the other side. I doubt whether any of them have seen who it is.”

Devaney opened the door and went into the confessional on the side the phantom penitent used. The last time he’d been in one of these places, he’d been Padraig’s age, a brainwashed altar boy fairly saturated with impure thoughts. He pulled the door closed, to get the full effect. He half smiled at the idea, remembering with clarity the exact moment when he’d rejected the notion of God. It had been no more complicated than flicking a light switch. He’d been better off since. He knelt at the leather-padded prie-dieu, and did not adopt the prescribed posture of supplication, but examined the interior of the tiny space, hearing in his head the whispered sins of multitudes, a running inventory of gossip repeated, losses of temper, drinks taken, as if God were some miserly bookkeeper, logging every minor offense. But maybe there were a few major offenses as well. What was it Houlihan always said? He could hear his old partner’s nasal East Clare accent digging into the pithy syllables: Debauchery, skulduggery, fornication, and witchcraft. No shortage of them, anywhere you look. Devaney was aware of dampness on his palms, and he could feel his breath becoming shorter, but he remained in the compartment, the only illumination coming from a small barred opening at the top of the door. He felt the air stopping halfway down his windpipe, no matter how he tried to draw it in. He was starting to feel light-headed, and knew he should get out. He reached for the prie-dieu to pull himself to his feet, and, although he was almost overcome with panic, felt a roughness with his thumb below the ledge. With great effort, he stood, and burst out of the confessional, gasping for air. Kinsella was right behind him.

“Are you all right?” The priest’s face showed genuine concern. Devaney sat at the end of the nearest pew and tried to get his breath.

“Touch of a flu coming on,” he said when he was able, wiping his face with the crumpled handkerchief from his back pocket.

“Are you sure? I can phone for the doctor.”

Devaney shook his head vehemently. He wasn’t even supposed to be here. And this wasn’t the sort of thing he’d want his comrades in the Guards to know about. He went back to the open door of the confessional. He didn’t go in this time, but crouched to look under the armrest on the prie-dieu. What he had felt seemed to be letters—initials, perhaps—crudely cut into the wood, probably with a penknife. He had to crawl part-way into the confessional to see. He pulled a small torch from his breast pocket and shone it on the obscure spot. It wasn’t just initials, but a whole string of letters—H E K N O W S W H E R E T H E Y A R E. It took him a few more seconds to make out the separate words: He… knows… where… they… are. Devaney felt his breathing become shallow once again.

“That’s all for now, Father,” he said, rising from his hands and knees, and replacing the torch in his jacket pocket. “But do me a favor, will you? Don’t let anyone in. Get everyone out of the church and keep it locked up until I get back.”

4

It was nearly two-thirty when Nora pulled up at the Drumcleggan Priory. She could hear flute music, and the noise of a pickaxe hitting damp soil. All the way out here she had argued with herself about whether to tell anyone about the phone call. In the end, she decided to keep mum unless something else happened. She just wasn’t sure what “something else” entailed. Nora grabbed the file containing photographs of the ring, and made her way to where Cormac was working. His back was to her, so she walked closer, admiring the way he swung the heavy pick. She waited until the sharp point was in the ground before speaking.

“I’m back. I brought the things you asked for.” Upon hearing her voice, Cormac dropped the wooden handle and turned, wiping his palms on his dusty trouser legs.

“Oh, hello,” he said. “Thanks.” They stood awkwardly for a moment, looking at one another. The day was overcast but warm, and a mist of sweat covered his face.

“I’m making some progress,” he finally said, gesturing to the second set of test trenches, which he’d already excavated down to a depth of about three feet. He must have been working pretty steadily while she’d been away.

“So I see. Anything turn up?”

“Just a few bits of crockery. I’m not very far along with this area.”

There was a pause before they both began speaking at once.

“Sorry,” Nora said. “You first.”

“No, I insist,” Cormac said.

“All right. That piece of metal inside the girl’s mouth—you’ll never guess what it turned out to be.” She extended the folder, which he opened to a glossy photo of a gold ring, shown at about five times its actual size, the red stone looking slightly washed out by the flash.

“There’s an inscription,” she said. “You can see it in the next couple of pictures, I think.”

Cormac sat down on the lip of the trench to look through the photos more carefully. “It’s a pretty astonishing find, but what does it tell us? That she wasn’t likely in the bog before 1652—but it could have been any time after that. It’s possible that the ring was inscribed in 1652 but not buried with her until years later.” He sounded disappointed.

“At least it’s something,” Nora said. She felt slightly perturbed that he wasn’t more excited.

“What did Robbie make of all this? I assume you told him.”

“He isn’t too hopeful, but he agreed to press on, looking for trial or marriage records. It occurred to me on the way out here that OF could stand for O’Flaherty.”

“Surely. But it could just as easily be O’Farrell, O’Flynn, or O’Fallon as well. We’ll never find out conclusively, and we’ll just end up running in circles and going mad over all the possibilities.”

“I know we can find out who she was,” Nora said. “I don’t know why I believe it so strongly, I just do. Go ahead and laugh, but I think the ring is some sort of a message. I think it was the only way she could think of to tell us who she was.”

“Anyone could have put that ring in her mouth, even after she was dead. We’ve nothing to go on either way. You see, we’re going mad already, arguing about it. But what if we go and speak to Ned Raftery, the schoolteacher?”

She could tell he was trying to make peace. “All right,” she said. “What was it you were going to tell me?” She listened intently as Cormac told about what had happened in her absence: the light in the woods, his late-night chat with Hugh Osborne, and his visit this morning to the tower house.

She said, “I hope you notice that I’m not in the least bothered by the fact that you went there without me. You’re turning into a regular gum-shoe.”

His look was slightly sheepish. “God help us.”

“I think it’s time I got my hands dirty,” she said. “Back in a bit.”

Nora drove rapidly to Bracklyn House, first dropping off Cormac’s case in his room, then returning down the broad, carpeted hallway to her own. The house was quiet, but something in the stillness made her uneasy. There wasn’t enough life in this place; things got done silently, by unseen hands, and it could unnerve a person. In her own room, she slipped off her shoes and crossed to the bathroom. Before she stepped over the threshold, something caught her eye, and she stopped short. Shards of broken glass lay scattered across the floor. She checked the shelf above the sink. The drinking glass was gone. And yet the jagged shards seemed to add up to more than a single water glass. She looked down at her stocking feet. Stepping into the room would have been disastrous. Was this really an accident, or some sort of warning? Nora felt a sudden prick of fear as she remembered the whispering voice on the phone: Leave it alone. This place was making her paranoid. She should just carry on, and assume it was an accident unless something else happened. She’d seen where Hugh Osborne put the broom after Jeremy’s encounter with her wineglass, so she put her shoes back on and ventured downstairs toward the kitchen.

She heard the sound of scrubbing coming from the doorway under the main stairs, and saw a figure in old clothes, down on hands and knees, scouring the stone floor with a hard-bristled brush. The woman’s dark hair was caught up in a scarf, but a few stray wisps moved as she worked the brush with one gloved hand in a vigorous circular motion.

“Excuse me,” Nora said. The woman dropped the brush in her bucket with a splash and started to her feet, removing her bandanna in one sweeping motion. It was Lucy Osborne. They stood for an instant in silence. Lucy’s humiliation was evident from the rising tide of crimson on her neck, until Nora managed to stammer, “I’m sorry, I thought you were—”

“Yes. Well.” Lucy Osborne was beginning to regain her composure, smoothing the stray hairs back into place. “My cleaner, Mrs. Hernan, is down with a flu, and these stairs were in sore need of attention, with all the extra traffic through the house.”

“I apologize if I startled you,” Nora said. “I was just getting a broom—there’s a broken glass in my bathroom.”

“Oh dear. I’ll be right up to see to it.”

“There’s no need. I know where to find the broom.”

Nora left Lucy Osborne standing in the doorway at the top of the kitchen stairs, with the bandanna still clutched behind her back. But when she came back up the stairs a moment later, there was no sign of Lucy or her brush and bucket, except for the faint damp spot on the stone floor.

5

After returning to the church and swearing Father Kinsella to silence about this latest development, Devaney shot some pictures of the letters carved in the wood of the confessional and dusted the area for prints. There were no clear fingerprints; plenty of smudgy partials, but nothing of any real use.

When he’d finished at the church, Devaney drove to a spot just outside the gates to Bracklyn House and waited. He saw Dr. Gavin’s car pull out of the drive, presumably headed toward the priory. About twenty minutes later, he spotted Osborne’s black Volvo. He counted out ten seconds, then pulled out of the blind approach and followed.

Teatime came and went as he followed Hugh Osborne to Shannon Airport, but Devaney found he wasn’t even hungry. Now he watched through the glass of the departures lounge as Osborne boarded a British Airways flight to London. When the last passenger was gone, Devaney approached the counter where the uniformed reservation agent stood.

“What time does this flight arrive in London?” he asked.

“There’s no stopover in Dublin,” the young woman said, “so it should arrive in Gatwick at nine-fifty.”

Nine-fifty. It might not be too late to call the Badger. Jimmy Deasey, an old friend from his early days in the Guards, had been called “the Badger” as long as Devaney had known him, which must be going on twenty years, although it was doubtful whether anyone at all remembered why. Deasey had emigrated to England five years ago, taking up a cushy post as head of security for some high-tech company outside London, but they had kept in touch. Devaney located the nearest coin phone, looked up Jimmy’s entry in the tiny book he kept in his breast pocket, and dialed the number.

“Hullo,” said a deep voice, which, despite the loud, thumping music in the background, he thought he recognized as the Badger’s.

“Jimmy, it’s Garrett Devaney—”

“Hang on. I think you want my da.” The sound of a hand over the receiver muffled the boy’s voice as he called, and Devaney could just make out the Badger saying, “Ciaran, would you ever turn that down? How do you expect to hear anyone over the phone?” The music subsided, and he heard the Badger’s voice, but with an unfamiliar, businesslike tone. “Seamus Deasey here.”

“Jaysus, Jimmy, the lad must be as tall as yourself. It’s Garrett Devaney.”

Instantly, the Anglicized inflection disappeared from Deasey’s voice, replaced by his own musical Cork accent. “Ah, Devaney, begod, how are ye getting on? It’s been fuckin’ ages.”

“Ah indeed, don’t remind me.”

There was a pause. “I heard about your trouble, Gar. I’m sorry. It could have happened to any one of us.”

“Thanks, Jimmy,” Devaney said. Another brief silence. “I’m actually ringing for a favor. I’d never ask, but there’s nobody else who can help me out on this thing, only yourself.”

“Not in trouble with another superintendent, are you?”

“Not yet. Although if that fuckin’ magpie mentions his spotless divisional record to me one more time…I’ve actually just followed a suspect out to Shannon Airport. He caught a flight to Gatwick, should be arriving there at nine-fifty tonight. I was wondering—I mean, if you’ve nothing on—if you’d be up for a small bit of—”

“Surveillance?” Devaney could hear the surprise in his friend’s voice, and waited uneasily as Jimmy considered the proposal. It was a lot to ask.

“Just see where he goes from Gatwick?” Deasey asked. Devaney had him.

“That’s it, just tell me where he goes, who he talks to. Nothing strenuous.”

“What have you got on him?”

“Fuck-all, that’s the trouble. But his wife and kid have gone missing, and I can’t convince myself that he wasn’t somehow involved.”

“Could be interesting,” Deasey said. “Better give me the lowdown.” Devaney passed along the pertinent information: Osborne’s description and flight number. He could hear Deasey scribbling them down.

“Ring me at home, will you, Jimmy?” he said. “I’m heading there now. I’ll be up late.”

As he went home, Devaney timed the drive from Shannon to Dunbeg. It was no more than thirty miles as the crow flies, but there was no direct route, only branching secondary roads up through Sixmilebridge and then east on the Ennis road to Scarriff and Mountshannon. Couldn’t have taken Osborne less than an hour and forty-five minutes, providing that he drove without trying to attract attention. Including the walk from the plane, and out to the car park, that would have put him outside Dunbeg at 2:15 P. M. at the very earliest. So, if he had met his wife and son outside the town, taken them somewhere, and still returned to Bracklyn by 6 P. M., as Lucy Osborne reported, they’d have to be somewhere within a two-hour radius. Jesus. That was half of Clare and East Galway. He studied his road map, mentally drawing a circle around Dunbeg. That area included the lake, but it also included some remote and heavily forested mountains along the border. No fucking wonder they hadn’t been found. He’d see what the Badger came up with on Osborne’s trip to London, then suss him out about checking into that conference Osborne had attended at Oxford. If he was telling the truth about having to stop for a kip on the way home from the airport, who or what had kept him up so late the night before?

Deasey’s call came at a few minutes past eleven. “Well, that was a dead-easy job,” he said. “Your client left the airport, took a cab straight to a house in Christ Church. I’ve got him under obso now. Posh sort of a house for the area; he’s standing outside the door. I’ll check on the address for you in the morning. These fuckin’ mobile phones are great, aren’t they? What did we ever do before?”

“Is he letting himself in, Jimmy, or is somebody answering?”

“Hang on, let me get the specs on him. There’s a woman answering the door. Looks Pakistani, short hair, about thirty. Seems like he was expected. Big hug; she’s kissing him on the cheek.” Devaney felt a surge of adrenaline, as he had in the old days, chasing down a hooligan on foot. When he spoke, however, his voice was calm. “Are they alone?”

“Yeah,” said Deasey. “No—now it looks like he’s talking to somebody else.” There was a pause.

“What’s he doing now, Jimmy?”

“He’s just leaned over and picked up a kid.”

6

Una McGann had to use all her strength to knead the huge ball of brown bread dough on her kitchen table. The house seemed peaceful at the moment, with the occasional ray of early morning sun coming in, and the wireless tuned to Radio na Gaeltachta, the rhythmic waves of traditional music occasionally interrupted by the faint drone of the news in Irish. But it was a false tranquillity. Since Monday night the atmosphere in the house had been poisonous. Brendan and Fintan went about their work on the farm without uttering so much as a word to each other, and neither would speak more than two words to her. When they got home, each retreated to his room, venturing into the kitchen only when the other was safely out of the way. Brendan was still angry at both of them, and Fintan was furious with her for not leaving immediately—and for forcing him to stay, since he felt he couldn’t leave her and Aoife alone with Brendan after what had happened.

Una looked over at her daughter, who’d crept downstairs early and was now slumbering again on the sofa. The sun was beginning to cross Aoife’s bright hair, her face so smooth and relaxed in the oblivion of sleep. She was going to be tall, Una thought—unlike her mother. No doubt about that. She felt a surge of anger at Brendan. How dare he request a copy of Aoife’s birth certificate behind her back? She’d have shown him the bloody thing herself if he’d bothered to ask. And how dare he think it any of his business who Aoife’s father was? That’s what he’d been after, she was sure. There was only one person besides herself whose business it was, and that person was Aoife. She would be told when the time came. So far, it hadn’t been a problem, but Aoife was getting to the age where such things did matter. In a place like Dunbeg, the label of bastard still carried a lot of weight, far more than it had in Dublin, where half the children in their street had no known fathers at all. She’d better start working out what she would say to her daughter and to the world. Una had once half thought of making up some foreign student—a German, or a Swede, perhaps—who’d been at university when she was there, a short-lived romance with someone now totally out of the picture. There was no danger that such a man would ever resurface, since he was fictional.

That would be the simplest story to tell the outside world, but what about Aoife? She doubted that she could tell her daughter such a lie, but to tell her the truth meant telling everyone, since you couldn’t expect a child to keep that kind of confidence under pressure. And pressure there would be; no one could find the weakness in a person’s armor like a malicious eight-year-old in a schoolyard.

Brendan’s outburst had convinced her that she and Aoife must not be dependent on anyone. That’s what had prompted this flurry of activity, in preparation for the market day. Two hand-knitted jumpers and as much brown bread and seed cake as she could turn out in three days wouldn’t bring much, but Una knew she had to begin setting aside something so that she and her daughter could strike out on their own. It would be another year at least until the priory workshops were finished, and that was only working space, no living quarters, as far as she knew. Perhaps she could clean or cook in exchange for a little house or an apartment. She had rejected Fintan’s offer to bring them to America with him, knowing that it wasn’t what he really wanted, or what she and Aoife wanted either. The few years she’d spent in Dublin had given her a glimpse of a kind of desperation she did not want to see again. At least here you could grow your own vegetables, and the shops in the village, some of them, anyway, would keep a running total of your purchases that you could pay off as you were able. There was slightly more mercy here than in the city, she thought—about some things, not others. She knew people in the village remembered how she’d run away, shamed her family, and shamed them once again when she’d come back with a child in tow. Some still clucked over the fact that she’d only come home for her mother’s funeral, though it was more than three years past. There was no way not to be talked about. People in Dunbeg had nothing else of importance to occupy their minds. She could see it in their faces when she entered a shop, hear it in the polite conversation when they asked after Aoife, or remarked on how tall she was getting. People in Dunbeg seemed to have her whole life neatly summed, but sometimes she wanted to ask what they’d bloody well figured out, because it wasn’t at all clear to her.

She had two large rounds of brown bread and four half-sized loaves ready to go into the oven. Una took the bread knife and deftly cut a cross in the top of each one, just as her mother had shown her how to do, then quickly shoved the pan into the hot oven. She turned and regarded the mess in the kitchen, the large crockery bowl and table covered with the sticky remains of the brown bread and spilled buttermilk, the open bags of flour and wheatmeal, and she sat down wearily at the table and rested her head on her arms. A few hot tears trickled off the end of her nose and splashed in the flour left over from where she’d kneaded the bread. The world had fallen asunder, and she had no idea how to put it right again.

7

The phone beside his head roused Devaney out of a deep sleep. He rolled over and grabbed the receiver. “Devaney here.”

“Still in bed. Christ, how I miss dear auld Ireland,” Deasey said. “I’m calling with news. The least you could do is act surprised, if you can’t manage to be pleased this time of the morning.”

“I’m fucking delighted,” Devaney said, sitting on the edge of the bed and squinting. “What time is it, anyway, Jimmy?”

“Nearly half-nine, ye lazy sod.” Fuck it; nine-thirty, Devaney thought, and nobody had bothered to wake him. That meant he’d already completely missed the station meeting this morning.

“Thanks for ringing, Jimmy. What have you got?”

“Your man’s gone into a bank. The receptionist turned out to be a girl from Cavan, so I turned on the auld charm and actually got her to cough up a small bit of information. Seems he was at school with one of the top men there, and you know what chummy bastards old school boys are. No word on what the meeting was about, but nobody goes to a bank unless he’s got plenty of money, am I right?”

“Or needs money.” Devaney was completely awake now, struggling to put an arm through his shirtsleeve while keeping the phone to his ear. “Anything on the address from last night?”

“Oh, yeah. Bad news, I’m afraid. Or mebbe I should say no great mystery. Your man’s not a bigamist after all. The house belongs to a doctor named DeSouza. Well respected, good clientele. The woman and child were evidently his daughter and granddaughter, friends of Osborne’s wife. He always stays with them when he goes to London. Sorry.”

As he hung up the phone, Devaney knew he should have asked the Badger to follow up on Osborne’s movements in the days before the disappearance. Why hadn’t he just come out with it? The image of the carved letters in the church floated in his groggy head: He knows where they are. If somebody knew something, why wouldn’t he just come forward? The usual reason was that he’d have to put himself—or someone else—in a compromising position. Who among Osborne’s family, neighbors, and business associates might have something to hide? He already knew the answer: everyone.

8

Ned Raftery’s house was set at a right angle to the road, so that the gable end faced out, and the front of the house faced a walled garden. Nora pulled up in the gravel drive, and Cormac followed as she entered through the black iron gate. Inside, a chest-high boxwood hedge defined the margin of the garden, and against its tiny, dark green leaves grew hundreds of rosebushes. Most were just beginning to bud, but a salmon-colored climbing rose and several sprays of white shrub roses were already in bloom and gave off the most marvelous scent. Nora leaned in to the nearest open flowers to inhale their sweet, heady perfume, and let out a small, wordless exclamation.

“I’m glad you like them,” a man’s voice said. She turned and saw the man she presumed to be Ned Raftery rising from his knees, closing the lock on his pruning shears, and moving toward the sound of her voice. His clouded eyes seemed to look straight ahead.

“They’re wonderful,” Nora said. “I’m drunk on that fragrance, I swear.”

“And people wonder why a blind man bothers growing flowers at all,” Raftery said, smiling.

“We haven’t met. I’m Nora Gavin.” She was unsure whether a handshake was in order until Raftery put out his open palm, on which she placed her own. He brought a fresh-cut rosebud from behind his back and presented it to her.

“Welcome, Dr. Gavin. And Professor Maguire as well, I presume, welcome.”

“Thank you for taking the time to speak with us,” Cormac said.

“Not at all. I’m not sure I have any knowledge that might be useful to you, but you’re welcome to whatever I’ve got locked away up here.” Raftery tapped his forehead. “Please come in; I’ll make tea.” They waited for him to step onto the path before them, and followed as he ushered them into the house.

Just inside the front door was a long room. At one end, near a large fireplace, sat four well-used upholstered chairs; bookcases, crammed with volumes old and new, crowded the walls. A heavy oak trestle table with eight chairs divided the sitting area from the open kitchen, and a huge cook-stove stood opposite, where the fireplace used to be.

Raftery followed an obviously familiar path to the kitchen, where he put the kettle on to boil, and set about cutting some white soda bread studded with raisins, using his left hand to reach across the knife blade and gauge the thickness of each slice. Nora and Cormac each took a seat at the large table.

“Fintan McGann mentioned that you were his teacher,” Cormac said.

“Ah, Fintan. Bright lad. I tried to teach him something about history, but even then he didn’t care about anything at all except the music. He’s getting to be a tasty piper, wouldn’t you say?”

“Very decent,” Cormac agreed. “He was playing some great notes at the session last week.”

“That was a mighty night, wasn’t it? Well now, you’re here to find out something about our local history,” Raftery said, bringing over the bread on one plate, a lump of butter on another, and a couple of knives. He drew out the chair at the end of the table and lowered himself into it. He must have been about sixty years of age, clean-shaven, with gray hair standing up a bit off his forehead. He was a burly man, with short legs and a long, barrel-shaped torso. He wore a button-down shirt and a sweater with a hole in one elbow, and heavy brogues on his feet. More the look of a laborer than a schoolteacher, Nora decided.

“We’re trying to find out anything that would help us identify the girl from the bog,” she said. “I assume you’ve heard about her—seems like everyone has. We know it’s a long shot, but we’ve just come across something that I hope could be a significant clue.”

Raftery’s face was impassive; his eyes seemed to fix their sightless gaze on the other end of the table. “Go on.”

“There was no sign of her body anywhere about. Just the head. Since then we’ve been able to do a fairly thorough examination. She was about twenty to twenty-five years old, with long red hair. From the damage to the vertebrae, we think she was beheaded, most likely with a single blow from a sword or axe. Now the recent development is that inside her mouth, we found a man’s gold ring with a red stone. There was an inscription: two sets of initials, COF and AOF; a date, 1652; and the letters ‘IHS’ set in brackets at the center of the date.”

“We’re still waiting on radiocarbon results,” Cormac said, “so we’ve started to do some historical research on beheading. Then Nora discovered this ring, which gives us a possible date—a place to start at least.”

“Our reasoning is that she’d probably been in the bog no earlier than 1652, since that’s the date on the ring, although it could have been any time since then.” Nora looked at Cormac and shrugged. She’d known he was right, even though it annoyed her.

“So you’re looking for the record of a trial, or an execution, or perhaps a marriage record of some kind,” Raftery said. He considered for a moment. “You realize that 1652 was smack in the center of the Cromwellian resettlement. There was pretty significant upheaval all over Ireland. Catholic Church records from that time are sketchy. Civil records, especially something as serious as an execution, might be another matter, it’s hard to know. Have you checked the National Library or the Archives?”

“We have a friend in Dublin who’s working on that now,” Cormac said. “You were recommended as a person who might be able to tell us about the local history.”

“As I used to tell my students, there is no history but local history. And some of that is written down, and some of it lost, and a good bit of it is carried in what you might call the collective memory of ordinary people, whether they realize it or not.”

“What was happening here in 1652?” Nora asked. “I only have the most general knowledge of the transplantation. What was that time like for the people living here?”

“You’ve heard the expression ‘to Hell or to Connacht’?” Raftery asked. The kettle began to boil, so he rose and moved slowly to the stove, poured the steaming water into a battered tin teapot, and returned with it to the table to let the tea steep as he continued. “That was the choice many people were given, so they were on the move. For modern comparisons, think of the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia in the early 1990s, the ‘reeducation’ camps of Southeast Asia. Catholic landowners were being uprooted and shifted west, and when they proved understandably slow about going, Cromwell gave them a deadline. They had until the first of May in 1654 to relocate to whatever lands they’d been granted in Connacht. And the English were building garrisons and fortifications along the Shannon to keep them there.” Raftery’s voice was relaxed, but he was completely engaged with his subject. “There was terrible starvation where the English troops went about burning and cutting down the corn, and most ordinary people had to subsist on potatoes. Bands of refugees—entire extended families—were wandering the roads, so an order came down to transport the children who had lost their families, and the women who could work, to the colonies in America. Between the fighting, famine, transportation, and the plague, Ireland lost more than half a million people in the space of about two years. Wolves became so plentiful that the government issued an official order in 1652 prohibiting the export of wolfhounds, and they paid a generous bounty—five pounds for the head of a he-wolf, ten for a bitch. Heads of priests and Tories—the Irish word for outlaws—usually brought a good price as well. This part of Galway was considered a border area, so despite the fact that Connacht had officially been reserved for the Irish, the landowners in what the English called ‘riparian’ areas—along the coasts and navigable rivers—were displaced for security reasons.”

“Including the O’Flahertys?” Nora asked, with a sideways look at Cormac.

Raftery considered. “Yes, including them. Most of the lands around here belonged to various branches of the Clanricardes, the Norman family also known as the de Burgos, or the Burkes. They managed to hang on, despite the fact that they were Catholics. But there were a few smaller landowners as well; the O’Flahertys of Drumcleggan were among them. You’ll find a great number of O’Flahertys out in the west country, but there was one branch of the family that still held lands here. It was Eamonn O’Flaherty who built the big house at Drumcleggan in the 1630s—only to be evicted twenty years later. He was granted a parcel of land farther west, but died soon after being relocated.”

“And the Osbornes took over his lands,” Nora said.

“That’s right,” Raftery said, pouring the tea now. “Hugo Osborne was granted the entire estate at Drumcleggan, which was considered a vulnerable location along the border. He rechristened it Bracklyn House. But O’Flaherty’s son became a rather notorious outlaw; he kept an armed band of men above here in the Slieve Aughty Mountains, and attacked various English garrisons in the locality. Even mounted a rather ill-advised armed raid on Bracklyn House—when the Osbornes were all away, as it turned out. Young Flaherty was eventually captured and sentenced to hang, but because he and his men had committed no serious outrages, he was transported instead—or Barbadosed, they called it.”

“Do you happen to remember when he was transported?” Nora asked. Raftery got up and crossed carefully to one of the bookcases filled with file boxes.

“I used to have a copy of the transport manifest here somewhere, if I can find it.” He felt the face of each box in turn. “I think it may be in this one, if you’d like to have a look.” He set the file on the table, and Nora opened it eagerly, scanning through the photocopied documents until she found a thick sheaf of handwritten ledger entries. She handed Cormac half the pages, and began scanning the list of names, ages, and what looked like occupations. She experienced an almost hallucinatory image of the hand that penned these lists, and suddenly grasped the fact that these simple quill scratches represented multitudes of uprooted, ravaged lives.

“Is there a date at the top of those pages?” Raftery asked.

“November 1653,” Nora answered. She scanned a few more sheets, before turning toward her companions. “Hang on, this could be him. O’Flaherty. Aged twenty-seven. Outlaw and thief. Transported for life. Do you know anything else about him? Did he have a wife? Is there any way to find out?”

Her barrage of questions left Raftery looking a little nonplussed, but he smiled. “I’m not sure there’s any documentation. The story I’ve always heard is that he ended up on the Continent somewhere, as a mercenary. A sad tale, but not uncommon. I’m not sure now whether or not he was married.”

“Nothing else?” Nora asked. “What was his name?”

“Sorry, didn’t I say? Cathal.” Raftery paused. “He was known as Cathal Mor because of his great height.”

“Cathal O’Flaherty. COF. You can’t tell me it’s just coincidence,” Nora said to Cormac, feeling a flush of victory. “The date is right. The location and the initials are right. So if our red-haired girl is his wife, and supposing she is, there’s no record of her being transported as well. And if he was only transported for his crimes, why would she have been executed?” She heaved a frustrated sigh.

“Has anybody collected songs from this locality?” Cormac asked. “It seems like a famous outlaw might be deserving of a song or two.”

“I’m not sure there’s any formal collection, but you know, for those sorts of things—” Raftery hesitated a moment, frowning.

“Yes?” Nora perked up slightly at the prospect of advice.

“There’s no one better than my aunt, Maggie Cleary is her name. Lives in a little townsland called Tullymore up the side of the mountain. Now I have to warn you, she can get a bit narky. She has good days and bad, and it’s come to the point where the bad are beginning to outnumber the good. But when she’s on, there’s no one can tell you more about the families around here. And she has loads of songs—hundreds. You never know. If you just chat to her awhile, show her some attention, she likes that. A naggin of whiskey wouldn’t go amiss either.”

9

Half-eleven the following morning found Cormac and Nora hard at work on the excavation site. Banks of low gray cumulus clouds scudded across the sky from west to east, and a damp breeze from the ocean blew in over the mountains. Resting for a moment on the spade handle, Cormac thought about his own life, and what might remain of it in three hundred, eight hundred, or a thousand years: items he’d lost down the floorboards, or hidden so no one else could find them, until he, too, had lost track of their existence. He identified with the hoarders of earlier ages, burying and protecting their precious possessions, and then—whether through faulty memory, migration, or death—unable to reclaim them.

He looked down to the end of the trench at Nora. Her job was once again sifting through the rubble with a large sieve, looking for artifacts: pottery shards, glassware, bits of slag, or the telltale green of corroded bronze. As far as artifacts were concerned, early Christian sites like this one usually yielded little more than the bones of slaughtered animals, and a few bits of broken crockery. Much of what would have been used in this sort of community was organic material that would have decayed long ago. Still, one never knew what one would find. Though no ruin existed at all aboveground, there was bound to be evidence beneath the surface, some clues to the methods of construction or the industrial activity that took place here. And there were always the middens, of course, rubbish heaps where each layer contained a valuable cache of information. That was the beauty and mystery of archaeology to him. Each site had to be treated as a potential treasure, each step in the excavation undertaken with the same scrupulous care, in case valuable artifacts—or even more important, valuable details—might be lost or overlooked. He was not just undertaking this work for the present, but also for future generations, who might come to see some larger pattern in the discoveries that he and his contemporaries were now making that wouldn’t reveal itself for another fifty or a hundred or two hundred years, and perhaps then only if the previous research was thorough and meticulous. The soil samples he took today would be sieved back at the lab for microfossils, insect remains, seeds, plant matter. They still used many of the same techniques when excavating by hand, looking with the naked eye for layers and horizons, but so many new microscopic and chemical analysis techniques had been developed in the last few years, not to mention new types of sampling and scanning technologies, things Gabriel had never even dreamed of when he picked up the trowel.

Cormac looked down to the other end of the trench, where Nora was working, kneeling in the dirt with her sleeves rolled up. Gray dust clung like mist to her dark eyebrows. She was about four feet away from him, concentrated on her work, searching through the damp soil with a trowel, then dumping the gravel into her growing pile of debris. Cormac decided he quite liked being here, the only sounds the scraping of the spade, the thump of each panful of soil, the occasional distant croak of a disgruntled crow.

“Do you ever get tired of turning up nothing?” Nora asked. “All this work, to find nothing but four solid feet of sand and gravel? What keeps you going, inch after bloody inch?” Strange how she seemed to know exactly what he’d been thinking.

“The potential, I suppose, the hope that something might turn up. Your work must have a good bit of drudgery as well, all those thousands of straightforward textbook cases before you get to the one really interesting anomaly. Isn’t it this part, the sifting through the ordinary, that makes breakthrough moments all the more memorable?”

“You’re right, of course,” Nora said, “but remind me again what we’re looking for.”

“Artifacts from any period, of course, but also evidence of any structures, layers of ash or charcoal that might give us dates or horizons for the occupation of the site. Refuse pits, slag heaps, any specific waste from human activity. Communities like this often served secular needs as well as spiritual ones. We’re looking to see what this spot can tell us about the events that took place here, and in what order.” He continued talking as he pulled a slip of paper from his clipboard and wrote a number on it, then impaled the paper on a three-inch nail in the wall of the bank. “I will admit it’s frustrating, trying to get clues about a whole culture from what you can see through a couple of what are essentially peepholes. But put our peepholes together with the peepholes from all over the country, and a larger picture begins to emerge. And who says we’re turning up nothing?” He gestured toward the bank of clay in front of him. “See how the coloration of the soil changes here? And see this thin layer of black between? That’s charcoal. Evidence of human habitation. With a little more work, we can even tell what kind of wood they burned. You have to learn how to look at it.” He put down his spade and came to sit beside Nora.

“Look over there,” he said, gesturing toward the landscape across the road, “and tell me what you see.” Nora lifted her head, and gazed toward the horizon of hay fields and pastureland.

“Cattle, grass. Lots of yellow flowers. Why, what do you see?”

“Look again,” Cormac said. “Straight ahead.”

“I see a hill. Is this some sort of a trick?” Cormac said nothing, but watched her face as the rounded knoll that rose out of the canary-colored sea of dandelions, the shape she had no doubt first seen as a natural feature of the landscape, took on an altogether different profile. He knew that all at once she could see that it was too round, too regular to be an ordinary hill, and one end was cut out, almost like the entrance to a mine shaft. He watched appreciatively as her mouth dropped slowly open, and she turned to face him once more.

“What is it?”

“Could be the remains of a ringfort, or a burial mound.” He was pleased that the discovery had made such a profound impression.

“You’re giving me goose bumps,” she said.

“I swear that wasn’t my intention.”

They worked for a while in silence. “You know, Raftery said it might be a couple of days before he can get his aunt to speak to us,” Nora said. “There must be something else we can do in the meantime.”

“What do you propose?”

“Well, we could go to the heritage center you mentioned, see what kinds of records they keep. We could try bribing Robbie with biscuits to dig up all he can about Cathal Mor O’Flaherty.” She paused, but he sensed there was more.

“And…”

“Well, what I’d really love is a look inside that tower house. Are you any good at picking locks?”

“Hang on. I’m not going to go breaking in somewhere.”

“How else are we supposed to get in?” Nora asked, dumping out the sieve and banging it on the ground to dislodge the last bits of pebble and clay. “There isn’t exactly a welcome mat at the door. I suppose you’re waiting for an invitation.”

“You realize that if you insist, I’ll have no other choice but to go along, if only to keep you out of trouble.”

“I’m perfectly happy to go on my own,” Nora said. “I might have to, if you’re going to be squeamish about—”

Cormac raised a finger to his lips to signal silence, and Nora clamped her mouth shut and listened. She heard nothing but the harsh aic-aic of a corncrake.

“There’s somebody here,” Cormac said under his breath. “Up in the cloister walk. Keep working. Maybe we can get whoever it is to come out.” They busied themselves at their work again, stealing an occasional glance toward the cloister wall.

“Let’s walk back to the jeep,” Cormac said quietly. “Slowly. You go first. Create a distraction. Cut through the cloister at the near end, here, and I’ll go to the far end. Unless whoever it is wants to climb out a window, he’ll be stuck in the middle.” As he spoke, Cormac wondered if he was a physical match for Brendan McGann, if it came down to that.

Nora nodded and stood up, brushed the knees of her jeans, and spoke loudly enough that the eavesdropper could hear. “Well, I can’t wait any longer for lunch, I’m ravenous.” She walked a diagonal to the corner nearest where the jeep was parked. “I believe our choices today are plain cheese or cheese and tomato.” She had reached the end of the cloister, and turned to find Jeremy Osborne pressed against the wall at the far end of the corridor. He looked at her, and turned to retreat, but by then Cormac had come up behind Jeremy and received the tackle solidly, catching the boy by the shoulders.

“Hold up there,” Cormac said gently. “No need to run.” Jeremy was wresting his arms away from Cormac as Nora came up behind him. “Hello, Jeremy,” she said, and he turned to look at her again. Out here in the daylight, how fragile he looked, she thought, with the same large eyes, pronounced cheekbones, and pale, translucent skin his mother had. His features were more pleasing, however, and his cheeks still had the youthful high color Lucy’s had lost. Something in the way he moved reminded Nora of a skittish horse, and from what she’d seen of this boy with his mother, he was not unused to bit and bridle.

“What are you up to?” she asked, hoping that the glimmer of friendship she’d once seen in his eyes could be coaxed back if they used gentle words, and avoided sudden movement.

“I wasn’t spying,” he said. “I came to help.” Nora looked at Cormac and raised her eyebrows in silent exclamation.

“That’s great,” she said. “I’m sure we can find plenty for you to do. Nice of your mother to spare you.”

Jeremy’s eyes met hers for an instant. “I’m here on my own.”

“Well, we can certainly make use of you,” Cormac said. “Always good to have an extra pair of hands. You don’t mind being a general dogsbody, do you? I’m afraid that’s the only position available on this dig.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Can I show you what to do?” Cormac led the boy over to the trench, while Nora went to the jeep to get their lunch pack; she really was ravenous. When she came back, she watched them for a while: Cormac, his voice quiet and confident, was explaining what they were about, what Jeremy should look for, and how he was making a record of everything they found. This was a side of him she hadn’t seen: Cormac the teacher, down on one knee, demonstrating the proper way to sift debris, letting the boy try it, then praising him for a quick study. Jeremy was hunkered down on his heels like a child, filling the pan, sifting through it with his fingers, and methodically dumping the gravel into the small pile she had started.

“Well, now you’re fully broken in,” she said to Jeremy, “how about some lunch? We’ve plenty of food.” She could see the boy hesitate slightly before accepting. They settled on a patch of grass a short distance from the trenches and Nora began passing the sandwiches, then poured them each tea from a flask. Cormac took out his pocketknife to cut a pair of green apples so the three of them might share. The sky was overcast, but behind the clouds they could tell the sun had climbed to its place at the top of the sky; the day was growing more close by the minute. They’d been saved from sweltering thus far by a gentle but steady wind that seemed to roll down from the mountains in the west.

“Ever work on a dig before?” Cormac asked. Jeremy shook his head, and Nora was struck by the mannerly way the boy swallowed his food before answering.

“I used to come and watch, when they were working on the priory,” he said, “but they’d usually run me off. Didn’t want me messing about, I suppose. I was only a kid.”

“You must be finished with secondary school,” Cormac said. Jeremy nodded. “Are you thinking about going on to university?” Though it was asked without judgment, this question seemed to make the boy uncomfortable. He started methodically uprooting handfuls of the grass that grew beside him.

“I’ve still got exams. I’m not sure yet what I want to do. Mum says I ought to be learning something about how to run an estate,” Jeremy said, his voice betraying how little he thought of such an occupation.

“What are you interested in, Jeremy?” Nora asked. His eyes met hers, and for a second she thought she saw something in them vaguely akin to an accusation. Then they dropped to the ground again, to the rapidly balding patch beside him.

“I—I don’t know,” he stammered. As though that were something to be ashamed of, Nora thought, at his age. She could see his ears begin to burn a bright crimson.

After lunch, they continued working a good three and a half hours until teatime. Cormac took a break from his spadework to take some photographs showing the general progress of the dig and to check levels. Jeremy acted as his assistant, holding the meter staff in place to mark the depth of the trenches, and the scale of variances in coloration. As the afternoon wore on, the breeze died down, until there was hardly a breath stirring. Nora stopped to take a long drink from her jug, then tipped her head down and poured some of the lukewarm water over the back of her neck. As she stood straight again and mopped the extra droplets with her bandanna, she found Jeremy Osborne staring at her. When their eyes met this time, he did not look away, and something in his look made her inordinately self-conscious. Nora turned away and knelt to gather up her tools. She remembered helping the sodden young man to his feet the night they met, and wondered whether he might have acquired an unhealthy yen for her. If that was the case, she’d probably only encouraged it, chatting away like that the afternoon she found him asleep in the nursery. How could she get him to talk to her now? She had had no business fueling any adolescent fantasies. Nora suddenly remembered the breathy voice on the telephone. Could the words of warning have come from Jeremy Osborne?

10

Nora had been surprised when Una McGann and her daughter stopped by the dig on Friday to ask for a lift into town on Saturday morning for the market, but she’d agreed, partly out of curiosity. The market was just gearing up this time of year, Una said, but there were small baskets of new potatoes, early hothouse strawberries, flowers, peas, lettuces, white and brown hen eggs, duck eggs. No one made cheese anymore, but there were homemade sausages and black and white puddings, along with household goods like rush brooms and baskets.

Saturday morning arrived damp but mild. Nine o’clock seemed late for a market to open, Nora thought, as she approached the McGanns’ house. She hoped she wasn’t late. Through the open window, she could see the little girl, Aoife, skipping in a circle around the kitchen table and hear Una counting aloud, no doubt totting up how much her wares would bring. The little girl’s voice broke in: “Mammy, Mammy, can I get a bun from the sweet shop, can I please, Mammy?”

Una’s reply was short: “I’m still counting, Aoife, can’t you hush?”

“Mammy, Mammy.” Aoife was pulling on her mother’s hand now. “I think she’s here. I think she’s here.” Una withdrew her hand in annoyance, and Aoife, who had been pulling with all her strength, went sprawling backward. There was a moment of horrified silence before the child began to whimper, and Una dropped to the floor beside her.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m just so tired, Aoife. I’m not angry with you.” When Nora came to the open door, Una was kissing her daughter’s head, and rocking back and forth to calm them both.

“Hello,” Nora called. “Anyone home?” Una was helping Aoife to her feet, and wiping her eyes with the back of one hand.

“Are you all right?” Nora asked. Una looked frayed, but she patted her daughter’s hand and said, “We’re grand now, aren’t we, a chroi? Nora, could you manage a few of these bags? Aoife, you take a couple as well.” Una herself picked up the heavy box full of sweet cakes, and followed them out the door.

When they arrived in Dunbeg, the market vendors were still setting up: Travelers setting out cheap mobile phones and garish rugs next to farmers selling brown eggs and wild heather honey. Una shared a stall with a few fellow artists, some of whom had finished work to sell, and some, like herself, who sold whatever they could. Aoife hung on her mother’s conversations with fellow vendors though it was clear, from the number of times she had to be asked to stop touching the goods and to be careful not to knock things over, that she was getting underfoot.

Nora pulled Una aside. “Aoife and I could take a little excursion, if you like, down to the tearoom or something. At least until you’re set up.”

Una’s face revealed a mixture of gratitude and relief. “That would be brilliant. Wait, I’ll give you some money,” she said, reaching for the small pouch that was slung around her waist.

“Oh no, my treat, please. But maybe we’d better ask Aoife what she thinks of the idea.”

Una made her way over to where the little girl was strumming the fringes on a whole rack of Indian scarves. Nora observed their conversation from a short distance, then saw Aoife running toward her, face aglow with anticipation.

“Mammy says you and I can go off on our own.” She slipped her hand into Nora’s. So much for her fear that the child wouldn’t want her as a chaperone. A quick wave and they were off, with Aoife pulling her through the streets like a tugboat towing an ocean liner, her small feet beating double time on the pavement, stopping occasionally to share a tidbit or a confidence.

“There’s Declan Connelly,” Aoife confided to her at one corner. “He chased me once, with his manky old dog.” They barged past a nameless pub; Hickey’s garage, with two petrol pumps stuck in the curb and a shop window full of bicycle tires; the newsagent’s, with windows full of faded postcards and HB ice cream posters. Aoife slowed her pace when she was within sight of her ultimate destination, so that she could get the full effect of the colorful half-curtains, and the homemade sign depicting cream-filled cakes and apple tarts. A signboard leaning by the door said Teas, Coffees, Confections.

“Shall we go in here?” Nora asked. Aoife nodded wordlessly, as if mesmerized, and made a direct line for the case, which displayed a variety of cream buns, as Nora spoke to the girl at the counter: “We’ll have one white coffee, a currant scone, a glass of milk, and—” She looked at Aoife. “Whatever my friend here wants.” The little girl perused the case carefully, finally selecting an enormous, greasy-looking bun piled with whipped cream and with a radioactive-looking cherry on top. Nora shuddered inwardly. She let Aoife choose a table by the window while they waited for the server. As they sat at the bare table, she felt herself the object of the child’s frank scrutiny. Aoife sat back in her chair.

“Do you love Cormac?” she asked.

Nora was dumbstruck. Aoife went on: “I asked Mammy if you did, and she said she didn’t know, I’d have to ask you.”

“Well, he’s very nice,” Nora said, but could see that this answer was not definite enough for her interrogator.

“Would you want to marry him?” Fortunately for Nora, the server approached with a tray. The dreadful cream bun looked even larger on the table than it had inside the display case. Aoife had a fork, but couldn’t resist dipping immediately into its crown of stiff, buttery cream with her index finger, carefully avoiding the cherry. Watching her, Nora was overwhelmed by a sense of loss, remembering outings just like this one that she’d shared with her niece. She hadn’t seen Elizabeth for almost four years; that had been the price of her conviction that Peter Hallett was guilty of murder.

“I’m going to marry someone,” Aoife declared, as if the admission might make it easier for Nora to confess her own true feelings.

“Are you, really?”

“Yes. His name’s Tomas O Flic, and he plays with me sometimes. We have tea”—her voice took on a conspiratorial volume and tone—“only it’s not real tea, it’s pretend.”

“What’s he like?” Nora asked. Elizabeth had made up scores of imaginary friends when she was small, and Nora had loved asking her about them. She’d always been intrigued by the idea that children had such an instinctive buffer against loneliness.

“Well, he’s twigs all in his hair, and sometimes he’s a bit smelly. That’s because he never washes himself and he lives under a tree in the woods.”

“And what do the two of you talk about?”

“Oh, he never says anything at all,” Aoife said. “But sometimes he brings me things. He gave me this.” Licking the cream expertly from between her fingers, she reached into a pocket and brought out a flat, pale stone about the size of a 10p coin.

“It’s beautiful. May I have a closer look?”

Aoife hesitated before handing it over. “Do you promise to give it right back?”

“Oh, I promise,” Nora said. She turned the stone over in her palm. It was a highly polished piece of rose quartz, not something you might find in nature. She handed it back, and felt the slightest twinge of queasy doubt, wondering if she should press any further.

After replacing the precious stone in her pocket, Aoife concentrated briefly on the mountainous portion of cream bun left on her plate, then slumped back in her chair and scrunched up her nose. “I have something to tell you, Nora. I can’t eat any more of this. And there’s something else as well.”

“What’s that?”

“You forgot to answer about Cormac.”

11

While Nora was at the market, Raftery had phoned to say his aunt would see them this afternoon, and Cormac had taken down a rather elaborate set of directions to the old woman’s house, though she lived less than five miles from Dunbeg. Now the road to the townsland of Tullymore stretched before them like a green tunnel, its walls composed of leafy ditches strangled with ivy, its vaulted roof the arching branches of trees.

“Do you think Jeremy was disappointed that we didn’t ask him along?” Nora asked as she turned the car down a narrow lane at the end of the sheltered road.

“He didn’t look happy about it. But we can’t completely monopolize his time.” Nora felt the same way; it seemed they’d had hardly a minute without Jeremy’s company for the past couple of days. “There’s another turn up here,” he said, “left at the T-junction.” They were beginning to climb the side of a hill now, with flowering blackberries growing thickly on the steep slope to their left.

“I’ll be amazed if we can find our way back,” Nora said. “And I’m trying to convince myself that this Mrs. Cleary might just remember some story from over three hundred years ago.”

“It’s a long shot, but it’s not actually impossible. Some of the airs I play are at least that old. Don’t forget, our cailin rua was an actual person who might have lived no more than two or three miles from where we are right now. You’d be surprised how long things remain exactly where they’ve fallen; the same applies to songs and stories. Just passed on, one person to the next. And a bold attack on English settlers, or a beautiful young woman losing her head—whatever the reason—are just the kinds of things somebody might have set down in a song.”

“I’m wondering whether we shouldn’t have brought the jeep,” Nora said as the road began to narrow. She had to downshift twice; by the time they reached the summit of the hill, it was only a lane with a grassy ridge growing down the middle. The land to either side of the road was a treacherous combination of football-sized stones and spongy pasture.

They crept down the far side of the hill, and turned once more, when Cormac said, “Well, according to these directions, we should be there.” Nora stopped the car, and they looked around. At the far end of the road, some three hundred yards distant, stood a freshly thatched house with tiny windows, its whitewashed walls and yellow roof gleaming in the afternoon sun. As they drove closer, Nora could see that the half-door stood open.

“Looks as if we’re expected, anyway,” Cormac said as they climbed out of the car and approached the house. “Hello?” He rapped on the open door. “We’re looking for Mrs. Cleary?”

An old woman’s croaking voice came from the dark, cool interior of the house. “Tar isteach. Come in.” Cormac entered first, and Nora followed. After the brightness of the day, her eyes took a moment to become accustomed to the gloom. She could dimly make out an old lady sitting beside the open fireplace at the far end of the room, propped up in a tall, uncomfortable-looking upholstered chair. She was small-framed and thin, and wore a plain wool skirt, a crisp white blouse, and a cardigan. Age accentuated the hawklike curve of her nose, and the bony, arthritic hands that gripped the chair’s arms further underscored the avian impression. Despite the warmth of the day, a turf fire glowed orange in the grate.

“You’ll pardon me if I don’t get up,” she said. “My daughter should be in the scullery there, just getting the tea. Rita—Rita, where are you?”

“Quite all right, Mrs. Cleary,” said Cormac, taking a small bottle out of his coat pocket. “I hope you were expecting us. My name is Cormac Maguire, and this is Nora Gavin. We’ve brought you a drop of whiskey.” He advanced a little cautiously, knelt beside the chair, and pressed his gift into one of the bent hands. The woman’s wrinkled face brightened as she fingered the bottle. Nora could see that she had the same milky-white eyes as her nephew.

“I’m pleased to meet you,” Nora said. The old lady cocked her head at the sound of an American voice.

“What’s the matter with the Irish girls, then, Maguire?” she asked abruptly. Nora’s cheeks burned with embarrassment.

“Dr. Gavin is a colleague, Mrs. Cleary. We work together.”

The old woman ignored him. “Well, sit yourselves down, the two of ye. Rita—where is that lazy girl? She was to put the kettle on for tea.” She gestured vaguely toward a table arranged against the wall, where the tea things were laid out. “And I’d have a drop of that whiskey now, meself.” Cormac took the bottle from her and handed it to Nora, who found a glass on the table into which she poured a generous shot.

“We appreciate you taking the time to see us,” he began, venturing to sit on the edge of a chair across from Mrs. Cleary.

“Ah, sure, what’s a useless old woman like me got besides time?”

From the door of the scullery came the voice of the “girl” to whom Mrs. Cleary had referred; she must have been nearly seventy. “Now, Mammy, go away out of that, you’re not useless. You’re enjoying a well-deserved retirement.” Rita Cleary was quick to gather what had gone on in her brief absence. “You haven’t already been passing remarks on these nice people, have you?” To Cormac and Nora she said, “I hope you can bear with her. She usually loves visitors, but I’m afraid she’s been in a rather unpredictable mood this afternoon. Go on and sit down there. She’ll be fine as long as I’m here to keep an eye on her.”

Cormac and Nora sat down again. “Here’s that whiskey now, Mrs. Cleary,” he said, taking the glass from Nora and guiding it to the old lady’s hand. “Do you mind if I record our conversation?”

“Do what you like,” she said.

He fished in his pocket and drew out a tiny tape recorder. “I’m not sure if Ned mentioned what we’re looking for, Mrs. Cleary. Any songs or old stories you may have heard over the years about a famous outlaw from these parts, or perhaps a young girl who was beheaded. Perhaps some story about a famous murder, or someone being executed for a crime.”

Mrs. Cleary smiled and took a tiny sip of the golden liquor. “I don’t know when I’ve had so much attention. First the crowd from Radio Eireann coming down last week to record me, and now the likes of you. I’ll have to start charging by the hour.” She looked pleased with herself, but Rita crouched down beside the chair, took the old lady’s hand and stroked it as she said in a soothing tone, “Now, Mammy, you remember it was a long time ago that the men from the radio were here. It’s more than thirty years ago. You know that, don’t you, Mammy?” The old lady looked sorely put out, and the volume of the daughter’s voice dropped as she addressed them, somewhat apologetically, still holding her mother’s hand. “She usually doesn’t start getting like this until much later in the evening. It’s possible she’s a bit tired.” Nora was beginning to wonder if they were on the wrong track entirely, but surely Raftery wouldn’t have sent them out here if he’d known the trip was going to be a waste of time.

“This girl—what’s she got to do with you?” Mrs. Cleary demanded sharply.

“Well, nothing personally,” Cormac replied. “We just happen to have dug her head up a few days ago in Drumcleggan Bog.”

“Red-haired, was she?”

“How did you know?” Nora asked.

Mrs. Cleary pursed her lips. “People talk. No secrets around here.”

“Would you have many red-haired people around these parts?” Cormac asked.

“Well, there were a fair number, in certain families. The Clearys—my husband’s family—the Kellys, and the McGanns always had a good deal of ginger-hair amongst ’em. Not them all, now, but always a few.”

“What was significant about red hair?” Nora asked. She knew it supposedly indicated a hot temperament, but maybe there was more.

“My father always said meeting a red-haired woman at the gate was terrible bad luck. Ah, you never know but they might have powers. With cures and curses, the evil eye and such.”

Nora realized she hadn’t asked Robbie specifically about what might happen to a young woman suspected of practicing witchcraft.

“We found a ring as well,” Cormac said. “It had some initials inscribed inside, COF and AOF, and a date, 1652. We’re hoping it might help us find out who this red-haired girl was. Do those initials mean anything—”

“And supposing you do find out who this girl is? What difference will it make?”

“Well, no difference at all, I suppose, in the grand scheme of things,” Cormac said, accepting a steaming cup of tea and a biscuit from Rita.

“I think we feel—responsible,” Nora said. “At least I do, to try to find out who she was, and how she came to be there. You might feel the same, if you’d seen her.” Nora realized her blunder, but did not apologize.

The challenge in her words had a strange effect on Mrs. Cleary. The old woman’s eyes narrowed; her lips curved into a scowl, but she seemed to be considering. They waited.

“I know nothing about any red-haired girl,” Mrs. Cleary muttered.

“Nora’s got a suspicion that the initials OF might stand for O’Flaherty,” Cormac said. “Ned was telling us about the last of the O’Flahertys from these parts, a young fella called Cathal Mor, who was transported to Barbados. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about him?”

Mrs. Cleary’s right hand grasped the arm of the chair as she thought. Her clouded eyes were downcast as if focused on some scene from the past. The left hand, which held the whiskey glass, rested slackly in her lap. For the first time, she seemed a little hazy, worried about something. “I used to remember it all. Used to hear the auld ones talking, and I remembered things. People came to me. It’s all gone now….”

“Perhaps we could call around another time,” Cormac said. The old woman gave no response, but her daughter nodded from across the room, and he switched off his tape recorder. What else could they do? He gently took the glass from Mrs. Cleary’s hand and set it on the table beside her. All hint of her former peevishness was gone, replaced by pitiful confusion. “Rita,” she said. “Rita, where are you? I’m thirsty.”

Nora was just turning her key in the ignition when they heard a voice calling sharply from the doorway: “Mr. Maguire, wait! Come back.” Rita ushered them back into the dimly lit room, where they took their former places on the straight-backed chairs beside the old woman. This time the daughter sat down beside Mrs. Cleary, and stroked her hand.

“Now, Mammy, you were just singing a bit of something just there, do you remember? A little snip of a song you used to know.” She hummed a fragment of melody, and patted the old lady’s hand in time, as Cormac silently pushed the record button again, and Mrs. Cleary squeezed her eyes shut in an effort of concentration. Then the old woman opened her mouth, and from it came a voice as sinewy as old leather. There was nothing of conventional beauty in this voice, but it lay on the ear and invaded the chest in a way that no youthful, thrushlike strain could equal.

Here the old woman’s voice faltered, but the daughter held her hand fast, bringing it forward in a slow circular motion in time to the song, almost like the piston arm on a locomotive. Nora watched, fascinated, as Rita continued humming the melody: “‘But tell to me your true love’s name,’” she prompted. Something clicked in the old woman’s head. She began again:

Again she stumbled, and again the daughter’s low voice kept the music going until the old lady had cleared enough cobwebs from her memory to deliver up another few lines:

This time the singing ended abruptly. “Sin e,” said the old woman. “That’s all. Ah, there’s more, but I’ve lost it now. I can’t—”

“It’s all right, Mammy,” said Rita. “Whisht now; you did grand, just grand.”

“You got the best part of it,” Cormac said. “Not to worry.”

“That was wonderful, Mrs. Cleary, really,” Nora said. The sound of her own voice grated on her ears, and she knew that she could never truly be a part of what was happening in this room. It was not the first time she’d felt it. There was an intimate form of communication taking place here, an exchange from which she was excluded, cut off by the broad chasm of culture and experience. The sound of Mrs. Cleary’s ancient voice and the image of the grieving soldier in the old lady’s song merged with the red-haired girl and the vision of Triona’s smiling face, and Nora felt filled again with the terrible, aching sadness that had overcome her as she stood alone in the lab with the red-haired girl.

“Well, Mrs. Cleary, we don’t want to be wearing you out,” Cormac finally said. “Perhaps we could come back and visit another day. Thank you so much for talking with us.” The old lady had warmed to Cormac now, and clearly didn’t want him to go. She reverted to her cranky persona in an instant.

“Do what you like,” she said, waving a hand indifferently. “Makes no difference to me.”

Cormac could see that Nora was upset as they left Mrs. Cleary’s, so he didn’t speak until they were some distance down the road: “Sorry, that was a bit rough. Are you okay?”

“Not really. I’m thinking of that old woman sitting there day after day, with all that inside her—doesn’t it overwhelm you sometimes, Cormac? All that’s been squandered and lost?”

“But it’s not all lost. That’s what I’ve been thinking about as we’re digging at the priory. Things do remain. People carry on, without even knowing. You can’t kill that, as hard as you might try. It’s almost like something embedded in our subconscious, like a virus, that only shows itself in certain conditions. Sounds daft, I know, but doesn’t it make sense, when you think of all that’s managed to survive? I hear it all the time, Nora. I hear it in your voice.” He watched a solitary tear spill down her cheek.

“Oh, bloody hell,” she said. They were going uphill now, and she was struggling with the gearshift. “Bloody buggering hell.” Neither of them saw the sheep until it was nearly too late.

“Look out!” he said, and she swerved instinctively to avoid hitting the animal. The car veered wildly as she tried to maintain control, then landed with a thud as the left front tire skidded over the edge of the small embankment. “Are you all right?”

Nora nodded, and let out her breath. Cormac peered out his window, testing to see whether the movement would cause the car to tip further. When he was satisfied that it wouldn’t, he cautiously opened the door and climbed out, circling the car to assess the situation.

“It’s not too bad,” he said. “I might be able to push us back up onto the road. Put the gearbox in neutral, would you?” He pressed his back against the passenger door, grasping the bottom edge of the door, braced his legs, and heaved. He could feel the car rock slightly, so he heaved again, to no avail.

“It’s no good,” Nora said. “You can’t do it alone. I’ll give you a hand.”

“The ground’s a bit soft to get any traction,” he said, looking down at the high grass that brushed against his thighs. “I doubt if even the two of us would have much luck, but come on.” They positioned themselves with their backs to the car, on either side of the front wheel well, and began to shove. “If I’d been watching the road—” Nora said. With the sudden force of the push, her feet slipped out from under her and she disappeared into the wet grass.

Cormac dropped to his knees and parted the thick blades with his hands until he found her lying on her back about halfway down the embankment. Tears streamed down her face, and her body shook as though wracked with sobs, but when she opened her mouth, the sound that floated upward was a silvery peal of laughter. He couldn’t blame her; the whole situation was ludicrous. She lifted her arms and, seeing that they were coated with mud, dissolved into helpless laughter once more.

Cormac sat back on his heels. “This isn’t going to work, is it? Come on, then. I suppose we can walk back.” She grasped the hand he held out to her, and Cormac pulled her toward him, and didn’t stop until he was kissing her, cradling her dark head in his hands, aware only of her vital electricity and the soft warmth of her lips. He let her go and sat back abruptly. “I’m very sorry,” he said. “I had no right.”

“No,” she said. They were both breathing hard. He struggled to stand, but felt her hand grasp the front of his shirt. She held him there until the distance between them began to close again, ever so slowly. He felt her eyes travel across his face, intimate as a touch, and this time he tasted her salt tears, the gritty smudge of mud on her chin, the softly perfumed whiteness of her neck. But the image of the pair of them on their knees in the ditch must have been too much; she had to pull away to release another helpless whoop of laughter. “Oh God, I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s a good thing I’m not easily offended. But I’m afraid you’re alarming the sheep.”

12

Devaney rapped on the kitchen door at Bracklyn House. Through the small squares of wavy glass, he could see a figure approaching.

“Mrs. Osborne? I hope I’m not disturbing you,” Devaney said when a slim, dark-haired woman opened the door. “There was no answer upstairs. Detective Garrett Devaney.” He presented his identification, which she studied with interest.

“I’m afraid my cousin Hugh is away at the moment, Detective. I assume he’s the one you’ve come to see.”

“Actually, you’re the person I had hoped to find at home today,” Devaney replied.

Lucy Osborne returned his level gaze. “I’m at home every day, Detective.”

“I wonder if I might ask you a few questions. Please, continue whatever you were doing. I won’t take up too much of your time.” She led him down the hall to a room where she was in the midst of doing some flower arrangements. Devaney positioned himself on a stool across the table so that he could watch her through the spray of roses as she worked.

It was Lucy Osborne who spoke first: “What can I do for you, Detective?”

“I just had a few questions about Mina Osborne’s disappearance.”

“I thought Hugh mentioned that the case had been given over to some sort of national task force.” She knew about the referral. Devaney saw that he’d better tread carefully.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean the local police have given up. Besides, the task force are all the way over in Dublin. It’s our duty to be their eyes and ears in the community.”

“I understand that you had no control over what people would say when that”—she searched for the right word—“that person was found in the bog. But I must tell you, I don’t think it’ll do any good to stir things up all over again.”

“It’s an ongoing investigation.”

“Of a nonexistent crime. Hugh’s wife left him, Detective. It’s unfortunate, certainly, but what possible concern can it be to the police?”

“That’s why I’ve come to you. In the past, most of the attention has focused on Mr. Osborne as chief suspect, but I’m wondering if we haven’t been overlooking some of the other, perhaps less sinister possibilities.”

“And just exactly how may I be of help? I have nothing to add to any of my earlier statements. I’m sure they’re in your files.”

“I’m trying to find out more about Mina. Her habits, her usual routine, her circle of friends and acquaintances. I’m trying to get closer to who she was, to see if that might not shed some light on the case.”

“I’m not sure I can be of any assistance to you. We were not close.”

“Still, you lived in the same house for several years.”

“It’s a very large house, Detective.” The woman’s manner softened. “I don’t mean to be unhelpful, but we led almost completely separate lives.”

“But surely you could offer a few details about how she spent her time here.”

“Well, it was clear to me from the start that she wasn’t remotely interested in the running of the household, and it was just as well. I can’t imagine—” Lucy Osborne evidently couldn’t stop herself picturing the disaster that would have befallen if Mina had been interested, and gave a small shudder. “Neither she nor Hugh was much use at that sort of thing. She did have some ability as a painter, I believe, though her work was never really to my taste. Hugh set up a studio for her at the top of the house, but the smell of paint evidently disagreed with her. And after the child was born, she rarely ventured up there. The place is strewn with half-finished canvases.”

“If she wasn’t painting, what did she do?”

“I believe she was a great reader. Always leaving piles of books about the house.”

“And who were her friends? Did she socialize much with anyone in the town?”

“I’m not sure she had any friends here. She did have ties in England, of course, school friends and the like, but—” Lucy Osborne hesitated. “The only person I remember her seeing on a regular basis was the priest, I can’t recall his name.”

“Father Kinsella?”

“Yes, that’s it. She may have mentioned him from time to time.”

Devaney’s thoughts leapt back to the letters in the confessional: He knows where they are. Maybe he’d been too hasty in assuming that the “he” in this case referred to Hugh Osborne. What if it meant the person on the other side of the confessional wall?

“Was Mina happy here?”

“I was not in her confidence, Detective.”

“But perhaps you have an impression about how she and her husband were getting on at the time of her disappearance.”

“I’m afraid I’m not in the habit of prying into other people’s private affairs. I believe they were reasonably happy.” She paused briefly. “At least they always seemed so, in spite of the obvious…difficulties when people from such dissimilar backgrounds decide to marry.”

“What difficulties would you say they had, in particular?”

“Nothing of any great consequence. But a child always complicates matters, Detective. Especially when the parents come from such divergent worlds.”

“Surely a child can learn from both,” Devaney said.

“But the tragedy is that he can never really belong to either. Wherever he goes, such a child will always be an outcast. My view of the situation may sound harsh, Detective, but it’s based in reality. The world can be a pitiless place.”

Devaney remembered what little he knew of this woman’s circumstances, and considered her statement for a moment. “Did they have any disagreements about how to bring up their son?”

“I never heard them argue.” Her reply left the question open, to be asked again another way, even as it condemned indiscretion as a sin.

“But you felt there might be some tension on the subject?”

“I really couldn’t say.”

“And at the time of the disappearance? Was there any particular point—even a seemingly minor one—that remained unresolved?”

Lucy Osborne stopped her work. “Detective, I’m not about to feed any false impression you may have that my cousin was not completely devoted to his wife. It simply isn’t true.” She had finished the first arrangement and started in on the second, clipping the end of each flower before dethorning it and wrapping it in wire.

“Of course, I’m not sure I can say the same about her.”

“Go on,” Devaney said.

“On the night before she went away,” Lucy said, and he sensed she was measuring the weight of each word as she twined the green wire along the stem of a rose, “I did happen to overhear her on the telephone; I assumed she was speaking with Hugh. I could tell she was upset, but then she was often emotionally overwrought. I couldn’t hear what she said, but I wouldn’t characterize the conversation as an argument.”

“How would you characterize it?”

“I thought there was a note of disappointment in her voice. I couldn’t say any more than that.”

“Would you call your cousin a possessive man, Mrs. Osborne?”

She fixed him with an ironic look that said she wasn’t that easily fooled. “So, you haven’t entirely given up on him, Detective? But to answer your question, no, I would not. If anything, Hugh was always far too willing to give up his own ways to please his wife.”

“And what about Mina? How do you think it would have affected her to learn that her husband had other women?”

“I’m not stupid, Detective. I know what people have been saying about Hugh and that McGann woman. But it isn’t true.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Hugh was devoted to his wife. Rather foolishly devoted, as it turned out.” It struck Devaney at that moment: throughout this entire conversation, Lucy Osborne had never once spoken Mina’s name. It was always “she” or “my cousin’s wife,” and Christopher was “the child.” He wasn’t sure why this disturbed him, exactly, but he filed it away.

“Have you any idea of Mr. Osborne’s financial situation?” Devaney asked. “For instance, who would stand to inherit the estate right now if something should happen to him? We know he’d made provisions for his wife and son, but if she’s cleared off, as you say, maybe he’s had second thoughts.”

“He hasn’t chosen to share any information with me on that subject, Detective, and it’s really none of my business. My son and I are only guests in this house.” She rearranged a rose stem to turn the bloom outward, then reached for a spray of greenery that would serve as the final touch, snipping the long stem into shorter sprigs, adding them to the arrangement, and adjusting the balance here and there with an expert’s quick, decisive motion.

“That reminds me, I’d also like to speak to your son, if he’s here,” Devaney said. Lucy Osborne stiffened, and Devaney at once saw the cause. In her haste, she had pricked her finger on a hidden rose thorn. A droplet of bright red blood fell onto the wooden tabletop.

“Are you all right? Can I help?”

“I’m quite all right, Detective,” she said, pinching her injured finger to stem the bleeding. Devaney noted the large diamond on her left hand while she fished in the drawer of the table for a bandage. Lucy Osborne was evidently prepared for such occurrences, and had the wound bound up in a few seconds.

“You asked about my son. I believe Jeremy is over at the priory today, helping with the excavation. Now, if you would excuse me, Detective, I must get these flowers to the church.”

From where he stood in the sacristy at St. Columba’s, Garrett Devaney could see seven or eight people sitting at some distance from one another in the pews just beside the confessional. Father Kinsella had gone into the central compartment a few minutes earlier, and was just hearing the first confession. The faces in the pews were familiar to Devaney. They were mostly older women. He could see Mrs. Phelan, one of the regulars Kinsella had mentioned, Mary Hickey, and Helen Rourke, all charter members of the Father Kinsella fan club, who might gladly make up sins for the opportunity to confess them to the handsome young cleric.

He thought of Kinsella, sitting there in the darkness of the confessional. It must be strange listening to the petty jealousies, the slights and counter-slights that made up the multitude of sins, dispensing novenas and Hail Marys like a village doctor treating numberless cases of flu. Though he never felt it himself, Devaney imagined that the urge to confess must be strong. When he first joined the Guards, every time there was a particularly horrible crime reported in the papers—the sort of act that made people cringe even as they soaked up every available and repellent detail—a smattering of false confessions would turn up. Most were from people desperate for attention or delusional, who once might have harbored thoughts of committing such a crime, and felt they ought to be punished for even imagining such a thing.

The words from the confessional swam once more to the forefront of Devaney’s consciousness: He knows where they are. What if Kinsella had succumbed to the desires of the flesh? If he and Mina Osborne had so much in common, perhaps he had helped her to disappear. And if indeed he had, that might explain why she hadn’t contacted her mother. But Kinsella hadn’t appeared the least bit ruffled when he discovered the carved letters; on the contrary, he’d seemed intrigued. Still, it was worth looking into.

Mrs. Rourke was just shuffling into the confessional when he noticed another figure in the side chapel, head bent over clasped hands. When the man raised his head, Devaney could see that it was Brendan McGann. Brendan had never been a cheerful-looking man, but he looked particularly troubled at the moment. What was he waiting to confess? The McGanns were Osborne’s nearest neighbors. Devaney vaguely remembered talk of Brendan objecting to the development at Drumcleggan Priory. Squabbles over land, no matter what the cause, had a history of escalating into the bitterest of disputes. He considered McGann’s darkened countenance once more, and decided that this, too, might be worth checking out.

13

There was no one in the foyer at Bracklyn when Nora and Cormac returned from their outing, and she was still feeling a bit light-headed from what had taken place out on the Tullymore road.

“Hey, don’t you think we’d better take off our shoes, at least?” she asked, as Cormac seemed ready to head straight up the stairs. “I’ve already had a complaint about extra traffic muddying up the floors,” she whispered.

“Oh, right.”

“My bloody laces are too tight now. I can’t get them undone.”

“Here, let me try,” he said. Jeremy came through the door at the top of the kitchen stairs just as Cormac was kneeling to have a look at her muddy shoelaces; her hand rested lightly on his shoulder.

“Hello, Jeremy,” Nora said, then watched as the boy’s expression changed from pleasure at their return, to surprise and bewilderment at their disheveled appearance. “I’m sure looking at the state of us, you’re probably glad you didn’t come along after all.” He didn’t reply.

“Near miss with a sheep,” she continued. “The car went right off the road.” Something in Jeremy’s face made her acutely aware of the mud on her back and elbows, and the dark patches on the knees of Cormac’s trousers, and how they might easily be misconstrued. From the sudden heat in her face, Nora knew that she was blushing deeply, but there was nothing she could do to stop it. Jeremy’s looks, and his silence, only made matters worse. She nattered on about how they were finally rescued by a trio of farmers. “Three brothers by the name of Farrell. Hauled us out of the muck with a chain. Michael was good enough to give me an old potato sack from the back of their car, to keep from getting my upholstery muddy.”

“Too late for your upholstery, I’m afraid, but it did save the car.” Cormac must be completely unaware of what was happening here. Perhaps he hadn’t seen Jeremy’s accusing look as he dealt with the laces. But why did he have to pick this moment to demonstrate his sense of humor? Cormac went on: “We’ll be down for supper as soon as we’ve changed, Jeremy, if you’d like to join us.”

Nora watched the boy’s eyes flicker from her face to Cormac’s, and watched with a sinking heart as the hurt began to harden in them, and his jaw muscles began to tense in the slight concavity of his cheeks. He was just a boy, and everything mattered so much when you were young. Cormac looked evenly at Jeremy. Could he really have missed all this? Retreat seemed like the best strategy at the moment; they could talk later.

“Well, lads, I’d love to stand here chatting, but I’ve got to get rid of this mud,” Nora said. “See you in a bit.” She walked between them, holding her mucky shoes aloft.

“Will you come down and have supper with us?” Cormac asked again. This time the boy offered a barely audible response, which seemed to satisfy, because Cormac began to follow a few steps behind her. As she turned on the landing, Nora could see Jeremy standing in the foyer with his hands in his pockets, following their movement up the stairs with a new coldness in his eyes.

Jeremy did not come down to the kitchen for supper. As she and Cormac lingered over their evening meal, Nora alternately suffered twinges of guilt for perhaps having alienated Jeremy, and small surges of gratitude for time alone with Cormac. He had not even so much as brushed against her while they were preparing the meal, and neither of them had mentioned the momentary madness that overtook them on the road from Tullymore. They both seemed to be engaged in an elaborate game of avoidance, but the question that loomed—at least in her own mind—was not whether such a thing might ever happen again, but when. And yet she wasn’t even quite sure how she felt about it. She wasn’t ready for things to progress any further than they already had. There was so much Cormac didn’t know.

“You’ve never told me how you came to be so interested in bog bodies,” he said, taking a dripping plate from her as they washed and dried the supper dishes.

“I guess it started with the summers I spent with my grandparents in Clare. My grandfather used to cut a bit of turf, and I was always fascinated by the things he turned up in the bog. Nothing spectacular, mostly small chunks of waterlogged wood that looked as if they’d been cut only the day before. He showed me once where he’d come across the outline of a fallen tree. The wood was completely gone, but it had left a kind of ghost image in the turf.

“Then when I was about fourteen, I decided to do a school paper about bogs. I stumbled across a book in the library that had these incredible black-and-white pictures of Tollund Man.” She paused. “You know Tollund Man, the famous bog body from Denmark?”

Cormac nodded. “I certainly know of him, although we’ve never actually met.”

“Isn’t he incredible? To see his face, down to the worry lines and the eyelashes and the chin stubble, so perfectly preserved after two thousand years. That was it for me. And the more I found out, the more interesting it was. Why was he naked? Why was his throat cut? And why was that noose around his neck? I started digging for everything I could find about bogs—archaeology, biology, chemistry. Even when you understand the science of bog preservation, it’s still pretty mysterious, the way unsaturated fatty acids are gradually replaced by saturated fatty acids with two carbon atoms less. So the body’s organic compounds aren’t broken down in the usual way, but chemically transformed.” She pulled the stopper in the sink and watched the last of the soapy dishwater as it slipped down the drain.

“Are you all right, Nora?”

She nodded. “Just thinking.”

Nora climbed the stairs from the kitchen with Cormac following behind her. When they reached the main foyer, the only sound was the loud, steady ticking of the grandfather clock.

“Dead quiet, isn’t it?” Cormac said.

“A bit too quiet. I think I’m just going to head upstairs to bed.”

He made no reply, but followed as she turned to go up the main stairs. They had just come to the landing when Cormac spoke: “Hugh gave me a very nice bottle of single-malt that I was thinking of cracking open for a nightcap. I don’t suppose you’d care to join me?”

She stopped and half turned to him: “I don’t know, Cormac….”

His voice was quiet. “It’s only half-ten. Come and sit with me for a while. Maybe that willie-the-wisp I saw will show itself again tonight.”

Nora still hesitated, struck by the thoughtful expression in his eyes. She found herself wondering whether the slight and rather appealing pronouncement of his lips—the muscle she knew professionally as the orbicularis oris—came from playing the flute. “Single-malt?” she asked. He smiled. “Maybe you could play that tape of Mrs. Cleary for me again.”

A few minutes later, Cormac was lighting the fire in his room, and Nora was tucked into a heavy leather armchair just beside it. “You know, I wonder if we shouldn’t have tried to find Jeremy,” she said as Cormac handed her a heavy tumbler containing a small amount of golden liquor. She lifted the whiskey to her nose, and enjoyed the dusky scent of turf smoke that rose from the glass.

“My guess is that he would hate anyone fussing over him,” said Cormac as he settled into his chair opposite her. “Whatever it is will blow over. Wait and see.”

“And how did you happen to gain such insight into adolescent psychology, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“If I know anything about a mixed-up young lad like Jeremy,” Cormac said, “it’s because I was once just like that myself.”

“And what had you so confused?”

He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, then moved to the fireplace again, to gaze down into the flickering light.

“Oh, you know, typical bewilderment of a young fella leaving home and finding out he isn’t quite as smart as he’d reckoned he was. And then my mother was very ill. She died the following winter. She was the only real family I had at that point, it was like being cut adrift.”

“God, Cormac, how awful. How old were you?”

“Nineteen. I don’t know what would have happened if Gabriel hadn’t thrown me a lifeline.”

“I had no idea you and Gabriel went that far back. I saw the picture on the mantel—” Nora suddenly realized she hadn’t told Cormac about being in his house. “You must be truly missing him.”

“I am.” Cormac’s face was still turned away from her, but she could hear the note of desolation in his voice. “The strange thing about Gabriel was that he had no children—I’m not sure whether that was by choice or by chance—I don’t know how he knew so much about being a father.”

“What happened to your own father?” Nora could feel his embarrassment at the question, and wished she could withdraw it.

“Maybe we’d better talk about something else,” he said. But when he looked at her, Nora could see that he was at war with himself, unsure whether to venture into that uncharted, dangerous place. “I’ve always told everyone he was dead.”

She wasn’t prepared for this response. “He’s not?”

“No.” Cormac seemed to be trying to form the words in his head. “When I was nine, he volunteered for a few weeks at a South American mission run by an old friend, and became very involved in the human rights work they were doing. He went back again, and happened to be part of a delegation visiting Chile when the generals took over. The six weeks he was supposed to be there turned into six months, and after that, I think my mother knew he wasn’t coming back. It was hard for both of us, but especially for her, I think. She could never be officially angry with him; the man was a humanitarian hero.”

Cormac knelt and reached for the poker to stir up the fire. “He did come home for a time when my mother was ill, but after she died he went back to Chile. I’ve tried to put myself in the place of all those people who lost someone. It’s hard.”

“Where is he now?”

“He came back to Ireland two years ago, to his family place up in Donegal. He wrote me when he was coming home, but I couldn’t—I haven’t seen him since the funeral.” She understood now that this was the first time he’d ever told anyone the whole truth.

“Cormac, I’m sorry.”

“Yes. Well. It’s my own choice.” He changed the subject. “Would you like to hear that tape now?”

“I would.” She didn’t want to press him any further. Was he sorry that he’d told her all this? “Maybe we can keep an eye out for your willie-the-wisp while we have a listen,” she said. “Where were you when you saw it—just there in the alcove?”

“Yes. But listen, if you’re coming away from the fire, you’d better have this.” He pulled a small blanket off the bed and draped it around her shoulders.

“Thanks. Won’t you be cold as well?”

“I’m very warm,” said Cormac, and he pressed the backs of his fingers to her cheek to prove the point.

“So you are.”

Nora sat with her knees pulled up to her chest on one of the deep, cushioned window ledges in the tower alcove as Cormac pushed the button on the tape recorder. They sat looking out into the darkness, listening to the background noises of conversation and chairs being rearranged. The sound of Mrs. Cleary’s croaking voice affected her almost as much the second time she heard it. When the old lady’s song ended, she asked, “Why wouldn’t the song just say the girl’s name?”

Cormac switched off the tape. “Too dangerous. Besides, at the time, everybody in the locality would know who it was talking about. Lots of songs were written in code. It was pretty common convention during dangerous times.”

“I suppose you’re right, like all those allegorical songs with the veiled references to Napoleon coming to save Ireland. Robbie has a song that doesn’t mention the lady’s name, only gives a cryptic anagram of her initials—I’m still trying to figure it out. But you know, there are a couple of things that don’t fit. Mrs. Cleary’s song is about a soldier transported for fourteen years, and Cathal Mor wasn’t a soldier; he was an outlaw, and transported for life. And the song says, ‘they’ve murdered thee,’ but there’s pretty good evidence to say our red-haired girl was executed—she couldn’t be both.” Nora had been slouching in the window ledge, but now sat forward abruptly to peer through the glass.

“What is it? What do you see?” Cormac joined her at the window.

“It’s just the new moon. There, do you see it?” She murmured under her breath: “‘I see the moon and the moon sees me—’” To her surprise, Cormac joined in: “‘God bless the moon and God bless me.’” He was close beside her, and his warm breath stirred in her hair. There was something strange about the sound of their voices joined in the darkness, as if this harmless, whispered prayer were a sort of spell or incantation. Perhaps that’s what it was, an ancient attempt to harness the frightful power of the moon, and to use that power for good and not for mischief. Nora shivered, and suddenly felt anxious having him stand so close. If she weren’t careful, the voices of reason and temperance could so easily be drowned out by the sound of her own pulse. And yet for some reason, she couldn’t move.

“Nora? Could I ask you something?” She didn’t answer, but could sense his unease as he sat down beside her on the deep window ledge. “That very first day, when we were out on the bog, something Devaney said seemed to upset you.”

The silence between them grew, but he waited, unmoving. He’d shared with her his most private thoughts, things he had never revealed to anyone else. What could she do but answer?

“It wasn’t anything Devaney said,” she began. “At least not at first. It was the red-haired girl. My sister Triona had the most gorgeous red hair, masses of it, thick and wavy. I was always so envious. When I was twelve, and Triona was seven, I had to brush her hair every morning before school. It was one of my chores. I grumbled a lot, but I secretly enjoyed it. You’ve no brothers or sisters?”

“No.”

“Those five years between us were like a gulf at the time. They seem so insignificant now. When I saw that red hair coming out of the turf…Everything that reminds me of Triona also reminds me that I was at least partly responsible for her death.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because I was the one who convinced her to leave her husband, and the very next day she disappeared. It wasn’t just coincidence, Cormac. When I had to identify her body, the way I knew that it was Triona was all that lovely red hair. I couldn’t look at her face, you see, because she didn’t have a face anymore.”

“Ah Jesus, Nora.”

“And I was the only one who knew it was Triona’s husband who killed her. I knew it. The police believe it now as well, but they can’t do anything. He’s been questioned, but there’s never been enough evidence to arrest him. It turned out that Triona never told anyone but me about how Peter got some sort of twisted pleasure from hurting her. She said she was too ashamed to tell anyone. He was smart enough never to raise a hand to her in public. Why should anyone suspect him? He’s rich, he’s handsome, he’s on the boards of dozens of worthy charities. He had everyone actually feeling sorry for him because of the theory he put forward, that some crack-head carjacker must have killed my sister. He swore she never once mentioned leaving him, so that made it my word against his, and lots of people started to think I was crazy. He told the police that he and Triona spent the evening at home, then she went off to the health club for a massage the following morning and never came back. Her car turned up in a parking ramp four days later. Her body was in the trunk.”

“And there was nothing to link her husband, no physical evidence at all?”

“Nothing, despite the fact that he had no real alibi. Through all of it, I kept telling myself that I didn’t want revenge, that all I wanted was justice. I’m not even sure what that means anymore. When Triona’s case was put in the drawer with all the other unsolved murders, Peter filed the claim on her life insurance. Of course the insurance company denied it, since he was still the main suspect, but he sued and they eventually had to settle out of court. He took the money, and he took my niece, and he moved as far away as he could get. I haven’t seen Elizabeth for nearly four years; she’ll be eleven in October.” Nora paused and looked up at Cormac. “She’s already lost her mother, and I would gladly have taken her father away as well. If I’d had a chance in hell. But it seems I didn’t.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

“Desperately trying to patch together what’s left of my life and my sanity.”

“I’m so sorry, Nora.”

“I might have been okay about the red-haired girl if Hugh Osborne hadn’t shown up, looking for his missing wife. With no alibi, and no evidence against him.”

She could see by Cormac’s expression that something had finally clicked into place. He hesitated. “It seems unfair to assume that Hugh Osborne is guilty when we don’t have all the facts.”

“Then why not help me find some? We could just as easily exonerate him.”

“Nora, we can’t just go charging through people’s lives like—I mean, maybe the light I saw out there is somehow related to Mina Osborne’s disappearance, but there’s a better chance it’s not. It must have been so terrible to lose someone like that; I can’t even begin to imagine. But they’re two totally separate situations. You can’t let your own anger and frustration make you jump to conclusions about people. You must see that.”

“I saw something in his eyes, Cormac, the first night I came here. I can’t even describe it, except to say it was almost a challenge. Like he was saying, ‘Prove it,’ right to my face. You were out of the room at that point. You didn’t see.”

“I just wonder how much of it can be put down to the fact that you want him to be guilty.”

“Next you’ll be saying that I’ve come unglued.” As she spoke, Nora found the elevated pitch of her voice disconcerting, almost unrecognizable.

“I don’t think that.” Cormac’s voice softened. “Jesus, Nora, I don’t. It’s just—” He reached for her, but she pushed past his hand and crossed to the door, shedding the blanket he’d given her. When she reached for the door handle, she felt Cormac’s hand cover hers. “Please, Nora, you don’t have to leave.”

“I do.” Her voice was even. “Please let me go.” Cormac removed his hand from hers and took a step back.

When she was alone in the hallway, Nora slumped against the wall and drew in a long breath. What the hell was going on with her? Everything he’d said was perfectly rational. Hadn’t she been telling herself the same things over and over again for the past few days? She’d become so bloody defensive, and nobody deserved that, least of all Cormac. Remembering his gentleness, Nora felt overwhelmed by a sudden, hollow ache of desire. At precisely the same moment, she heard a clattering noise in the stairwell only a few feet from where she stood.

She pushed open the stairwell door. “Who is it? Who’s there?” No one. But someone had been there, watching her—perhaps watching them. When she turned to go back to the hall, her foot struck something that rolled and clinked against the wall. She stooped to pick it up—an empty whiskey bottle. As she made her way down the hall to her own room, Nora raised the bottle briefly to her nose, remembering her first chance meeting with Jeremy Osborne, and the same sweet, strong whiff of his breath against her face.

Instead of enlisting their help, she’d managed to alienate both Cormac and Jeremy in the space of a single day. She was especially sorry about Cormac. Why did everything have to be so complicated? Nora’s stomach was in knots as she switched on the light in her room and dropped the whiskey bottle in the trash. She lingered by the door another few seconds. Something felt wrong. She scanned the room, looking for anything out of place; her eyes came to rest on the bed. The cover was disarranged. Had Jeremy been sleeping in her room this time? She crossed to the bed, threw back the covers, and had to stifle a cry.

Atop a pile of dirt and leaves lay the huge carcass of a crow. The bird’s dead eyes were dull and sunken in their sockets; its large claws grasped empty air. The broken glass might have been an accident, but there was no mistaking the warning in this message.

Her first reaction was to phone Devaney. But as she rummaged through the pockets of her jeans, looking for the card he’d given her, Nora realized that calling the policeman meant that she and Cormac might have to leave this house before they discovered anything. Probably exactly what the perpetrator wanted, and she wasn’t about to be so easily manipulated. And that meant calling Devaney was out of the question.

Who could have done this? And more to the point, why exactly was someone in this house trying to scare her off? Hugh Osborne was out of town—gone to London, he’d said—and she wondered whether the story was true. She also remembered Jeremy’s cold look, and wondered whether he’d been upset enough to pull a prank like this.

Nora returned to the bedside and looked down at the crow. The filthy thing was crawling with maggots. She couldn’t just leave it here, not if she was going to have to spend the night in this room. She gathered up the corners of the sheets and carefully rolled the bedding into a tight bundle. Then she opened the casement as far as it would go, and pushed the whole thing out of the window into the garden below, and turned to face the room again. Sleep seemed impossible, and it was cold in the room. Nora wrapped herself as best she could in her raincoat and settled onto one of the sofas near the fireplace, contemplating what she ought to do next.

14

Una McGann was awakened by the sound of pounding at the front door. She hurried down the stairs in her nightdress and bare feet, and stood on the other side of the door, unsure who was making the commotion. Then she heard Brendan’s voice.

“Una, open the door, I’ve dropped my key. Una!” She stood frozen to the floor, trying to work out how to respond. He pounded again, with the flat of his hand.

“Una! Let me in. I know you can hear me. Come on, open the fuckin’ door.”

“Hush, Brendan, you’ll wake Aoife.” It suddenly dawned on her what was wrong with him. “Brendan, are ye drunk?”

“S’none of your fucking business how I am. Open up, I said.” He gave the door a vicious kick, and then another. “I built this fuckin’ door with my two hands; you’ve got some fuckin’ neck using it to bar me.”

“I can’t let you in when you’re like that. You’re frightening me. And you needn’t bother trying the back door. It’s locked as well.”

She winced as Brendan swung wildly at the door, but its stout wood received a rain of blows from his fists and feet without so much as a shudder. There was a brief respite, and she could hear him moving away from the door. But her momentary relief was shattered when she heard an explosion of breaking glass against the door and the side of the house. He must have brought home a few bottles from the pub. Una sat crouched on the floor, her arms clasped around her knees in a posture of self-protection, and though she knew the door would hold against this onslaught, the sound of each heavy pint bottle hitting the house made her jump. Fintan appeared beside her, dresssed only in his underpants. “What’s going on? Is that Brendan? What the fuck is he up to?” They listened, but could hear no more than a low muttering from beyond the door. Fintan lifted a corner of the curtain in the kitchen and peered outside. “It’s all right. He’s heading off.”

“Brendan’s drunk. He’s drunk, Fintan. He never drinks.”

“We’ll leave him until he’s sober. He can go sleep in the shed.”

“Fintan, what are we going to do?”

“He’s just angry about us wanting our shares of the farm. He’ll get over it. We can’t let it change what we’ve planned.”

“There are things you don’t know, Fintan.” She looked at him, but couldn’t find the strength to speak.

“Tell me. Una—you must tell me what it is.”

“Come,” she said, and led him down the hall to Brendan’s room, where she pulled the bed from the wall, and showed him the hiding place she’d discovered on the day of the bird’s intrusion. She reached in and lifted up some papers, searching for Mina Osborne’s hair clip. It was gone.

“It was here, I know it was. I held it in my hand.”

“What?” Fintan asked.

“A hair clip. It belonged to Mina Osborne. I know because I saw her wearing it on the day she disappeared. And there are a whole lot of cuttings about her in here as well. Fintan, what are we going to do?”

Her implication took a moment to sink in. Una could see him resisting the notion, as she had, denying the possibility even as he remembered the look in Brendan’s eyes when the sickle blade had sunk into the table only inches from his own head.

“No, there’s no way,” he said, shaking his head. “He’s our brother. You must be mad.” Despite his protestations, she could see the idea burrow in and take root. But the fact that Fintan now shared this dreadful knowledge did not make it weigh any less on her own heart.

15

Nora was startled awake by a knock at the door of her room. She was momentarily disoriented, but the memory of the crow crashed back into her consciousness.

“Are you all right, Nora?” It was Cormac’s voice. “It’s after ten. Nora?” The handle moved, and she hadn’t time to react before he opened the door. He understood immediately that something was wrong, and quickly approached her.

“Nora, what’s happened? Are you all right?”

She hesitated. It all seemed so strange now. “I’m fine, Cormac.”

“Then what’s—” He gestured toward the stripped bed.

“When I came back here last night, I found something.”

“What? Please tell me.”

“A dead crow.”

“Jesus, Nora.”

“I didn’t want to raise an alarm. What good would that do? So I”—it seemed too bizarre in the light of day—“I threw it out the window. Bedding and all.” She got up and crossed to the window. “I know it was dead, and it wasn’t going to hurt me, but—” She stopped short. There was no sign of the crow, or its litter of bedding and dead leaves. She knew Cormac saw it too.

She turned to him. “It did happen.”

“I believe you. But Nora, why didn’t you come get me?” She found she couldn’t say a word, but could only look at him. Cormac put his arms around her, and neither of them spoke for a few moments. Then he asked: “Do you still have the card Devaney gave you?”

“What can he do now? I’ve nothing to show him.”

“But he asked us to tell him about anything out of the ordinary, and I think this definitely qualifies. Please, Nora.”

“I left my mobile phone out in the car.”

Cormac led the way downstairs. There was no one about, until they met Hugh Osborne at the front door. He looked strangely at them, and said: “I’m very sorry.”

At first Nora wondered how he knew about the crow, until she saw the cars parked in the drive. Cormac’s jeep was in the worst state, its wind-screen and rear window smashed in, and all four tires completely flattened. The whole thing had been smeared with mud, now dried into patterns showing the sweep of the vandal’s arm. The final insult, a fresh pile of manure on the jeep’s hood, had begun to dry in the morning sun; flies buzzed about in a swarm. Her own car had fared somewhat better: although it was streaked with the same thick brown muck, and appeared to have a couple of punctures and smashed headlamps, at least the windows were still intact.

Nora couldn’t help noticing that there was, in fact, a great stillness in the air—like the deep quiet she always imagined upon a battlefield after the calamitous noise of war. It was as if the morning itself could not countenance the violence done here lately. There was nothing but the mute testimony of the two ruined vehicles to bear witness to what had passed.

16

Devaney was at Bracklyn House not more than five minutes after he received the call from Dunbeg Garda station. He arrived to find Osborne, Maguire, and Gavin on the gravel drive with the damaged vehicles. Osborne’s Volvo was parked nearby, without so much as a scratch.

“Thank you for coming so quickly, Detective,” Osborne said. “I just got in from London this morning, and came home to this. We haven’t touched anything.”

Devaney took a closer look inside the jeep. Bits of safety glass lay scattered all over the vehicle’s interior. A load of surveying equipment was still in the back; he’d have to ask to make sure nothing was missing. A blue-and-white vehicle pulled up beside him; it was Declan Mullins from the Dunbeg station. The scene-of-crime officers would have to come from Galway, so it would be a while before they arrived.

“I’ll start the interviews here in the house,” Devaney said.

“Right, sir. What’ll I do, then?”

Devaney found himself envying the eagerness in his young colleague’s freshly scrubbed face. “Mark off this whole area and don’t let anyone touch anything. Get the scene-of-crime boys set up if I’m busy when they arrive. And see if you can’t get the vehicle owners to give you an inventory of what was in them, to make sure nothing’s missing.” He suspected that Gavin and Maguire knew more about the inhabitants of Bracklyn House than they had so far been willing to divulge. Perhaps this turn of events would prompt them to be a little more forthcoming. He spoke to Osborne first, in the library, while the other two waited outside.

Hugh Osborne had taken an early flight and driven up from Shannon this morning, he said, and arrived at about twenty minutes past ten. Devaney asked him about security around the house. The front gate was never locked, never even closed. The house only had the two entrances, the big front door, and a smaller door in the kitchen round the back. Lucy always made sure both doors were locked and bolted before she went to bed. Neither of the visitors had keys, since Lucy was generally here during the day, when they would be coming and going.

“I don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily,” Devaney said, “but I’m not concerned about this only as a property crime—it’s fairly serious as property crimes go, but I’m more concerned that this might be some sort of personal threat. Can you think of anything that’s happened recently—even something that might have seemed harmless at the time—anything at all that might have angered someone connected to you or your guests?”

“I can’t imagine, Detective. I’ve not had any unpleasant dealings with anyone. Maguire’s here doing a small job for me, the excavation at the priory, and Dr. Gavin’s just lending a hand. They’ve been around just over a week, and they’ll be finished in another few days. The work they’re doing is all very routine in the course of any development.”

“You haven’t run into any opposition to your project?”

“Nothing explicit.”

“What do you mean by ‘explicit’?”

“Well, no one has come right out and voiced any opposition. I mean, we’ve all seen the placards posted everywhere, all that nonsense about bog evictions, trying to stir people up with incendiary language. Knowing some of my neighbors, it’s hard not to take those as indirect criticism. I know they mightn’t believe it, Detective, but I had nothing to do with Drumcleggan being put up for the list of conservation areas in the first place. I supported the move, but I had no part in the decision.”

“So you’re saying there’s no relationship at all between your project and Drumcleggan being named a protected area?”

“Actually, I wouldn’t say that, Detective. The bog does adjoin the property I’m trying to develop. It’s not in the immediate plans, and I’ve not discussed it with anyone yet, but eventually I hope to offer some environmental education programs centering on Drumcleggan. We’d be foolish not to do so. It’s an amazing resource.”

Not to mention a dead handy place to get rid of a couple of bodies, Devaney thought. He changed the subject. “You’ve been away. Where?”

“London. I had meetings with my solicitor and with the group that’s going to handle the additional financing on my redevelopment plan.” Devaney pictured the name the Badger had given him, of Osborne’s banker friend, written in block capitals a few pages back in his notepad, and made a mental note to ring London and check the story. He’d get Mullins to check out British Airways to make sure Osborne had been on the early-morning flight.

“As far as you know, there’s no apparent connection between this incident and the disappearance of your wife and son?”

“I’ve been struggling with that question myself, Detective. I can’t think of any possible connection.” He sat back in the chair and sighed.

“You’ll let me know if you think of anything further.”

“Of course. Surely this had to have been just some local hooligans,” Osborne said. “Some of them can’t resist taking the piss when they’re drunk. It’s happened before. Not recently.”

Devaney looked into Hugh Osborne’s bloodshot eyes. “You may be right,” he said. “I hope that’s all it was. I’ll see the professor next.”

Cormac Maguire had heard nothing in the night. “Dr. Gavin and I were out all afternoon; we came back to the house sometime between five and six. We washed up and cooked a meal, and afterwards we sat and talked in my room until about midnight.”

“And then?”

“And then Dr. Gavin left and went back to her own room.” There was something more he wasn’t saying. Why not? Devaney decided to try another approach. “What about Bracklyn’s other residents? Where were they all last night?”

“Hugh probably told you he was away in London; he just got back this morning. Lucy Osborne’s pretty much kept to her room since we’ve been here; I haven’t seen her at all except on the afternoon I arrived. I did see Jeremy twice yesterday, both times only briefly.”

“I happened to be here yesterday afternoon myself. The boy’s mother told me he was helping you and Dr. Gavin,” Devaney said.

“He has been helping with the excavation, but he wasn’t with us yesterday. We took the afternoon off to visit a Mrs. Cleary.”

“Ned Raftery’s aunt?”

“Yes, that’s right. Ned told us she might be able to shed some light on the story of that red-haired girl from the bog. We didn’t bring Jeremy along. Didn’t think he’d be interested, I suppose. He sort of latched on to us, Nora and myself, a few days ago, and started helping out with the dig. Apparently hasn’t many friends his own age. He might have felt left out, but that’s hardly enough to provoke such a vicious attack.”

“When did you say you last saw him?”

“Early evening, when we got back from Mrs. Cleary’s. I asked him to join us for a meal; he said he would, but he never showed up.”

“No one thought twice about him going missing?”

“He may have been with his mother. I can’t say I know what the boy’s usual behavior is.”

“You’ve no idea why anyone would want to do something like this? Could it have been intended as a warning?” Devaney could see that he’d struck a nerve.

“A warning about what, Detective?”

“Maybe someone doesn’t like the idea of yourself and Dr. Gavin being here. Perhaps someone who doesn’t want this development to go through. Can you think of anyone who’d object to Osborne’s plans for the site?”

“But in that case, why interfere with Dr. Gavin and myself? We’ve nothing to do with whether or not the project goes through. And there’s no equipment missing. Surely if someone wanted to delay the work at the priory, they could have just stolen or damaged the equipment. Or sabotaged the site.”

“Maybe delay wasn’t enough. Maybe someone wanted to bring it to a stop.” Devaney pressed further: “Did you know that the priory land abutted Drumcleggan Bog? And that it’s the subject of a rather heated dispute at the moment?”

“Hugh did mention it, but only once, when we first arrived. I’d seen the signs posted along the road—you know the ones I mean—and when I asked what they were about, he told me, but didn’t seem particularly worried. Then the day after we arrived, I was out at the site. Brendan McGann and I had a few brief words. He’s evidently not keen on the plans for the priory. He said if I were smart, I’d pack up and go home to Dublin, and not get mixed up in things that had nothing to do with me.”

“Why didn’t you mention this before?” Devaney asked.

“It just seemed like idle talk. Bluster.”

“What’s your impression of Brendan McGann?”

“I’ve only met him a couple of times. He seems to me an unhappy sort of man. Doesn’t like Hugh Osborne; that much is very clear. But you live here, Detective; you probably know the why of it better than I do.”

“I appreciate your honesty,” Devaney said. “As I told Osborne, in all likelihood this isn’t related to his wife’s disappearance, but until we know more, we can’t rule anything out. May I offer some advice to you and Dr. Gavin? Mind yourselves—this may not be an isolated incident.”

“No.”

“Was there something else you wanted to tell me?”

“When I went to call Dr. Gavin this morning, she told me someone left a dead crow in her room last night. We were actually on our way to phone you when we found the cars. I only hesitated telling you because I didn’t actually see the thing—it’s probably better if you ask her directly.”

“I will,” Devaney said, excusing him.

Dr. Gavin was eager to talk. Devaney indicated one of the overstuffed armchairs. “Shall we start with last night? Just describe what happened from, say, late afternoon onward. Whatever you can recall.”

“Cormac and I came back from Mrs. Cleary’s about five-thirty, I suppose. We had a bit of a mishap on the road, so we were both pretty well covered in mud. I had a bath, and Cormac got cleaned up as well. Afterwards, we had supper in the kitchen, then sat in Cormac’s room and talked.” Both of them were holding something back about that conversation, Devaney thought. “I must have gone back to my room around midnight, I think.”

“And where were Lucy and Jeremy Osborne?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t actually see anyone.” She stopped suddenly. “I thought I heard someone in the stairwell when I came out of Cormac’s room. But when I looked, there wasn’t anyone there, just an empty bottle on the floor.”

“What sort of a bottle?”

“A whiskey bottle. I threw it away when I got to my room.” Devaney waited. “I could tell there was something wrong; the bed was rumpled. When I pulled back the covers I found that someone had left me a message. There was a dead crow in the bed. My first thought was to call you—”

“You should have.”

“Yes, I know. But whoever left it there meant to frighten me, and I wasn’t about to give them any satisfaction. So I threw it out the window.”

“Excuse me?”

“I wrapped it up in the bedsheets and threw it out the window. And when I looked out this morning, it was gone.”

Devaney felt a sharp twinge just behind his eyebrows. “Who would want to frighten you?”

“I’m not sure. But I don’t think it was the first time. I got a strange phone call when I was home in Dublin last Monday. It was late at night, and the person—I couldn’t tell who it was, or even whether it was a man or a woman—just said, ‘Leave it alone. They’re better off.’”

“You’re absolutely certain those were the words?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I tried to get the person to say more, but whoever it was hung up.”

“Is there anything else you can remember from the past few days, any little thing that seems amiss or odd in any way?”

“When I came back from Dublin a few days ago, I found broken glass all over the floor of my bathroom. At the time, I thought it must have been an accident. Now I’m not so sure. When I went to get a broom to sweep it up, I came across Lucy Osborne, down on her knees scrubbing the floor in the front hall. All done up like a cleaning woman, head scarf and everything. I don’t know, it was just odd. She said her cleaner, Mrs. Hernan, was down with a flu, but for some reason, I don’t really know why, I didn’t believe her. It was something in the way she handled the brush and the bucket—like she was used to it.”

“Let’s go back to the crow for a moment. Whoever put it in your room had access to this house. Hugh Osborne says he was in London last night and didn’t get back until this morning. If his story checks out, that leaves Lucy or Jeremy, and why would either of them want to warn you off? What have you been doing here?”

“Nothing. I’ve done nothing to provoke anyone, unless—” Dr. Gavin began absently fingering the brass nail heads that stood out on the arm of her chair. She continued: “I was wandering around upstairs one day—by the way, did you know there’s a painting studio way up on the top floor?”

Devaney nodded. “It’s Mina Osborne’s.”

“I came downstairs when I heard a child’s voice—it turned out to be a video of Mina and Christopher Osborne. And I found Jeremy sleeping in the next room, a nursery, in a child’s bed. That’s when Lucy came in. She wasn’t happy to see either of us in that room.” She paused again, and Devaney could see that she was wrestling with whether to tell him any more. “Cormac probably told you that Jeremy is helping with the work at the priory. I’ve caught him a couple of times, staring at me.” She sighed. “He may be upset because he thinks Cormac and I don’t want him around.”

“And do you?” Devaney asked. She was flustered by his question, and colored deeply. “I don’t mean to pry; it’s important that I have all the facts.”

“We weren’t actually trying to get rid of him. I just can’t see Lucy Osborne putting a rotten animal carcass in someone’s bed; it’s so completely out of character. I wish I could be so sure about Jeremy. But he doesn’t strike me as the kind of kid who’d go around bashing things. And the other thing is, if the damage to the cars was meant to scare us off, it was a pretty poor job, since we can’t leave without them.”

Devaney was with her on that point. It seemed unwise to assume that all of the previous night’s events were somehow related.

When he opened the door for Dr. Gavin, Devaney found Lucy Osborne sitting in the foyer, waiting to give a statement. Although her windows faced the drive, she had little to add.

“I’m a very light sleeper,” she said, “and normally would have been awakened by the slightest noise in the yard, but I hadn’t slept well for a couple of nights previous, and decided I’d take one of my tablets to see if I couldn’t get a decent rest. I’m very sorry not to be more help. Have you any idea who would do such a thing?”

“Have you?”

“The local villagers are nothing but ruffians, the lot. I wouldn’t put this sort of thing past any one of them.” She got up to leave the room.

“You do a lot of gardening, Mrs. Osborne?”

“Flowers are my passion, as you may have gathered.”

“I suppose you always get a few animal pests disrupting the beds—moles and birds and the like.”

“A few. We manage to deal with them. The crows are a terrible scourge. I had to resort to poison, but that seemed to take care of them.”

“Poison? So what do you do when a dead crow turns up in the garden?” He watched for any change in her demeanor but saw nothing.

“Jeremy takes care of it for me.” Then she stopped, puzzled by his line of questioning. “Why are you asking me all this?”

“Just routine. I want to make sure I speak to all the potential witnesses. If your son is outside, would you mind sending him in?”

“I’m afraid he’s not here, Detective. He was running an errand for me this morning and hasn’t returned yet. But he should be back any time now; I’ll tell him you’re waiting to speak with him, shall I?” Devaney now understood why Lucy Osborne had so eagerly volunteered: she hadn’t a clue where her son was. Just then the library door opened slowly, and Jeremy Osborne’s dark head peered cautiously around it.

“Hugh said you wanted to see me—” When the boy saw his mother, he turned his face away automatically, but the movement was not quick enough to keep her from seeing the cracked, swollen lip and the darkening bruise on his left cheek. Lucy Osborne’s alarm was instinctive; she stepped protectively between Devaney and the boy.

“Jeremy, what on earth happened? Did someone hurt you?” Devaney could see her inspecting her son’s face and frame for any other injuries. The boy’s face and clothes were clean, as were his hands, though the knuckles were swollen and abraded.

“I’m all right. I slipped climbing over an embankment when I was out.” As Lucy searched her son’s face, Devaney saw ordinary motherly concern, but something else as well: wordless entreaty, supplication. He realized that at this moment, for the first time since he had met her, Lucy Osborne seemed completely bereft of her usual and formidable lines of defense.

“Thank you for your statement, Mrs. Osborne,” Devaney said. “I’ll just finish up with Jeremy here, and then be on my way.”

“I’d like to stay, if you’re going to question my son,” she said. The boy looked pained.

“There’s no need. This isn’t a formal interview, just a couple of routine questions.”

“Nevertheless—”

“I’ll be all right, Mum, don’t worry.” Devaney thought they’d have a harder job getting rid of her, but Lucy Osborne withdrew without another word. He gestured for the boy to sit on the sofa, and placed himself in the chair facing. Jeremy’s eyes traveled nervously to the door a couple of times, as Devaney began jotting down a few brief notes in his book.

“Sore head?”

The boy’s eyes snapped toward him. “Sorry?”

“I asked if you had a sore head.” Jeremy studied him curiously. “You have to watch yourself with the whiskey,” Devaney continued. “Only takes a few before you’re stone mad. You’re better off on the beer at your age.” Jeremy took this fatherly advice with a trace of suspicion, but Devaney could see that underneath the brusque exterior, the boy craved this kind of attention.

“Why don’t you tell me what you were up to last night, Jeremy? Don’t worry, it’s strictly between ourselves at this point.”

“You’ll have to put it down in there,” Jeremy said, looking at the notebook.

“That’s right. But nothing goes into any file except a formal statement, if that becomes necessary. You may be sure I don’t pass this round for people’s mothers to read. Were you down at Lynch’s again last night?” Jeremy shook his head wordlessly, and Devaney could see the dim memory of the evening coming back to him in the successive waves of shame, anger, and disappointment that washed over his face. Devaney leaned forward and spoke as gently as he could. “Where were you, Jeremy?”

The boy’s eyes were on the patterned carpet, his voice was barely audible. His long fingers picked at a thread coming out of the seam of his black jeans, and Devaney could see that his nails had been bitten to the quick. “I nicked a bottle Hugh keeps in his workshop. I remember having a few drinks from it, but I don’t know what happened then. I woke up this morning in the woods.”

“So what you told your mother about slipping on the embankment—”

“I couldn’t tell her I’d been out all night.” The pathos in his voice was sincere. “I’m not supposed to be drinking. She gets worried enough as it is.”

“So you don’t know how you happened to get those—souvenirs?”

“No.” Jeremy gingerly touched his broken lip, and winced. Well, fuck me if he isn’t telling the truth, Devaney thought. If he did do it, the scene-of-crime boys might soon have the evidence; drunks weren’t normally careful about not leaving prints.

“And you know nothing about a dead crow turning up last night in one of the bedrooms upstairs?”

“No!” The boy appeared genuinely taken aback, even horrified by this bit of news, and Devaney pushed a little further.

“Maguire tells me you’ve been helping him with the excavation at the priory.”

“Well, I’m finished with it.” Hurt and anger flashed in the boy’s eyes.

“And why’s that?”

Jeremy Osborne looked down, and tried valiantly to regain control of his emotions. When he’d succeeded, he raised his face to address Devaney once more: “Bloody boring work, isn’t it?”

17

Devaney wasn’t sure what he expected to find out by speaking to Brendan McGann. He remembered what Maguire had told him, of McGann’s veiled threats at the priory. The information didn’t surprise him; everyone knew Brendan had a short fuse, and bickered with his neighbors—over livestock gates left open, property markers and fences, the usual small irritations between farmers. Devaney would wager that every perceived indignity, every slight that Brendan McGann had suffered over the years had been banked and kept alive in his belly like the embers of a turf fire. Eventually, those things either ate away at you from the inside—he had seen it happen to his own father—or they came bursting out. On the murder squad, he’d seen the consequences of the latter far too often.

Brendan’s statement in the Osborne case file had been true to form: few words, grudgingly delivered. He’d offered no alibi for the time of the disappearance, said he’d been driving cattle home from pasture. Devaney pulled into the drive, feeling the Toyota vibrate dangerously as it rumbled over the cattle grid. Jesus, something was going to fall off the fucking car any minute. No one answered when he rapped at the door, which was shut, and locked, when he checked the handle. Something popped under his foot, and he looked down to see several shards of dark brown glass on the footpath. Looked like a piece of a broken Guinness bottle. He flipped it aside, and was just stepping away from the door when he saw Brendan McGann round the corner of the house, wiping his hands on a bit of a rag.

“Devaney,” he said curtly. It was a greeting.

“How are ye, Brendan? Thought I might have a chat with you about what happened last night at Bracklyn House.”

“What happened there? I’ve not been to town today.”

Now there was a strange thing, Devaney thought. For all his roughness, Brendan McGann was known as a regular churchgoing man, and he’d been to confession last night. “Bit of a shemozzle over a couple of motorcars.”

“And I’m meant to know something about it, am I? I’ll tell you once and for all, anything going on at that house is nothin’ got to do with me.” Brendan jerked a thumb in the direction of the shed. “D’ye mind? I’m in the middle of something here.”

“Maybe I can give you a hand,” Devaney said. Brendan’s face was expressionless; he said nothing, but turned on his heel and headed for the shed. When Devaney reached the door, he could see that Brendan had been struggling to get a new tractor tire on a rim and could probably use his help.

“Fine collection of old tools you have here,” Devaney said, kneeling to hold the wheel rim steady, and looking about him at the astonishing assortment of hay forks, scythes, thatching tools, and sleans that hung from the walls and rafters of the shed. “By Jaysus, I haven’t seen a billhook like that in years. It’s the very same as the one my father had. You still use all these?”

“I do. Lift.”

As they wrestled the tire upright and laid it down again, Devaney’s nostrils took in the smell of turf mold and damp, and yet Brendan’s tools seemed wondrously untouched by rust. Given the right provocation, Devaney imagined any one of these gleaming metal blades could cut a person’s throat as cleanly as they severed slender stalks of oats and hay. Brendan strained to pry the tire over the rim, and Devaney was close enough now to smell the sour reek of sweat that came off the man, mingled with his stale, beery breath. Strange. Everybody in town knew McGann wasn’t much of a drinker. On the rare occasions he was seen in the pub, he had a quiet pint or two on his own, and then went home. It took more than a couple to leave you stinking like a brewery the next day. As he held the tire in place, Devaney looked around the shed once more. His eyes grew accustomed to the dim light that made its way through the one tiny window, and he could see a makeshift cot in the corner, with an ancient straw mattress. His eyes returned to Brendan, registering the creases in the man’s clothing and the few bits of dirty yellow straw that clung to the back of his shirt.

“I stopped to see if you saw or heard anything out of the ordinary last night,” Devaney said.

“No,” Brendan replied. He must have seen Devaney’s chagrin at the curt answer. “I stopped for a jar at Lynch’s last night. Left around nine. I saw no one coming or going, and went straight to bed when I got home.”

“Is there anybody who might vouch for you? Your sister wouldn’t be at home by any chance?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s all right, I can talk to her later. She’s fairly involved with Osborne’s new craft workshop, isn’t she? But you’re not too keen on it yourself, I understand.” Brendan just looked at him, and Devaney’s eye was attracted to a stack of plastic bucket lids that stood on the workbench behind him. These plain, white rounds were identical to those used in making the signs that had appeared on the roadsides around Dunbeg.

“Some people say you have good reason to resent Hugh Osborne,” Devaney said. “They say—”

“It’s no secret I don’t like the bastard,” Brendan interrupted, the volume of his voice rising ever so slightly. “That’s not against the law, and the reasons for it are me own. But I was home in bed last night, Detective.” Brendan gave the iron another mighty push, and the massive tire finally snapped into place on the rim. “And you’ll never prove otherwise. I’m obliged to you for helping me here. But I’ve nothin’ more to say.”

18

After the cars had been towed away, Hugh Osborne proposed a trip to the excavation site.

“I’ve been so busy, I hope you don’t feel as though I’ve been ignoring your work,” he said as he drove them the short distance to the priory. “I’m really interested in how you’re getting on, that is, if you don’t mind showing me around.”

“Of course,” Cormac said. They each took a hand carrying some of the equipment, and when they reached the site, Nora began to set up for the day while Cormac gave Hugh a guided tour of the several trenches they’d dug so far.

“At the moment we’re working on an area that appears to have been some sort of midden or rubbish dump. Archaeologically speaking, middens are like treasure troves. They have so much information, not just for the purpose of dating a site, but about what people ate, what kinds of tools and vessels they had, all kinds of details about their everyday lives.” Cormac jumped down into one of the pits just barely within earshot, and Hugh crouched above him to have a look.

The day was overcast, with a strong wind pushing billowy, moisture-laden clouds eastward. Between gusts of wind, Nora heard Cormac’s murmuring voice and watched him point out for Hugh the dark layer of a charcoal deposit, and the brown stain that marked where a wooden support had been sunk into the soil. He also showed Osborne the sheets they used for describing what turned up in each test pit.

“What we’re doing here is really keyhole archaeology,” Cormac was saying. “It’s like trying to do a big three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle without any picture to go by.” Hugh was standing with his arms crossed, asking the occasional question and nodding appreciatively. Nora could see that they had become friends, and worried what would happen if it turned out that Hugh Osborne had been involved in his wife’s disappearance.

She hadn’t even told Cormac the worst part of her story last night. That her parents wouldn’t do anything to help convict Peter Hallett, despite the suspicions and the intensive police investigation, despite everything she told them about what the man had done to their own daughter. Her father simply refused to listen, and had taken an adamant position on his son-inlaw’s innocence. Nora could see that her mother had instinctive doubts, but wouldn’t allow herself to contemplate any action as long as Peter had sole custody of their only grandchild. Please try to understand, Nora, she’d said. We’ve already lost Triona. If we do anything, anything at all, he could take Elizabeth away from us as well. Forever. And then what would we have? But he had taken Elizabeth away. So what did they have now?

Nora watched the two men deep in conversation in the far trench. Cormac was right: they knew little about Hugh, and still less about the circumstances of his marriage and family life. He seemed like a decent guy on the surface. But so did a lot of disturbed people. What was that expression her gran had? She could see the old lady’s shrewd eyes, the set of her lips as she pronounced the words: street angel, house devil. The first time she heard those words was the moment Nora realized there were plenty of things grown-ups never told children. Who could say that Hugh himself hadn’t lost it and smashed up their cars? He said he’d only returned this morning, but the guy looked like hell, as if he hadn’t slept at all. It was all very well to go about their work and to keep telling themselves that they weren’t really involved here, but they were involved. Deeper and deeper, it seemed, first with the anonymous phone call, and now with all the events of last night.

Hugh took his leave, and a few minutes later, Cormac was in the trench they’d begun at the rubbish dump, about four feet down, wielding the pickaxe with a ferocity Nora hadn’t seen before.

“Cormac, did you tell Devaney about that light you saw out at the tower? I couldn’t really say anything; you’re the one who saw it.”

“No. That is, not yet. I’m not sure it’s significant.”

“He’s supposed to decide what’s significant. That’s his job.”

Cormac was silent for a moment. “I asked Hugh about the tower.”

“What?”

“Just now. I asked him about the tower. Why it’s locked up. He said he didn’t want kids climbing around in there and getting hurt.”

“Did you tell him you’d been out there?”

“No.” He stopped digging and looked up at her. “I’d like to go back. Just to have another look.”

“I’m coming with you this time.”

He pressed his lips together and nodded briefly. Nora could see the clash of conflicting emotions in his face, doubt and curiosity battling his sense of loyalty and fair play. He had obviously thought about everything she said the night before. She felt somewhat guilty for tarnishing his opinion of Hugh Osborne, but as she studied the warring impulses that passed over Cormac’s dark features, a sense of elation washed away any regret.

19

Delia Hernan’s house was on a small lane off the main road about a mile past Drumcleggan Bog. As Devaney approached he observed the general air of neglect about the place. The whitewashed stones that lined the path were out of place; the choppy hedge in front was overgrown, and thick moss grew on the tile roof. He knew Mrs. Hernan had been widowed over the winter, but it looked as if the place had been suffering for at least several years. Devaney had heard there were a couple of sons off in England who didn’t often get home.

Mrs. Hernan didn’t seem at all surprised to find him at her front door. While he took a seat at the kitchen table, she began to fuss about making tea, and Devaney used the opportunity to look around. The house had a look of hire-purchase shabbiness about it: the loud wallpaper, the wobbly chairs, the cracked oilcloth on the table where he sat, the cheap, faded souvenirs from Ireland’s holiday spots, even the new strip of flypaper that hung from the smoke-stained ceiling next to a bare lightbulb. The patterned linoleum on the floor was worn away in places, and the lace curtains that hung in the windows had not been white for many years. A yellow enamel cooker in the corner had been scrubbed clean in spots, but remained blackened with sooty grease around the edges. Three pots of busy lizzies on the windowsill pressed their faces to the light outside and shed their shriveled blossoms onto a growing pile on the floor. The room felt closed in, its warm, damp air permanently flavored by decades of cigarette smoke and the sour smell of cabbage. He spoke over the sound of running water as she rinsed the teapot in the tiny makeshift scullery off the kitchen.

“I’m here to ask about your work at Bracklyn House. How did you first come to be working there?” Mrs. Hernan emerged from the scullery with the teapot, into which she spooned a great quantity of loose tea from a tin, and then filled with water from a huge steaming kettle that rested on the corner of the cooker. She was a plump, full-bosomed woman of about sixty, with a frizz of mouse-brown dyed hair about her face. The fingers of herright hand were stained and leathery from nicotine, and she was apparently unaware of the cigarette ash that clung to the front of her shapeless woolen skirt. As she spoke, Mrs. Hernan went about slicing several cuts of brown bread and thickly slathering them with butter.

“My Johnny, God rest him, always did the firewood for the house. Shortly after Missus Osborne—the elder Missus Osborne, that is—and her young lad arrived over from England, Mr. Hugh asked my Johnny did he ever know anyone who’d be interested in helping out with the cleaning once or twice a week. I went there the very next day. Of course yer wan thought she was in charge, acting the grand lady, but I told her, seeing it was Mr. Hugh that paid me, it would be him that gave the orders. Oh, she didn’t like that. Not one bit.”

“And when Mina Osborne came to Bracklyn?”

“Ah, now, she was a dote. Always very lighthearted. And a real lady she was, too, but not above pitchin’ in now and again, not her. The little lad, Christopher, was a pure angel, used to love going around with me while I was cleaning. I’d give him a bit of a rag—” Mrs. Hernan’s voice quavered, and tears sprang to her eyes. “I know it’s dreadful to think the worst. I can’t help meself.” She shook her head and sighed. “And Mr. Hugh has taken it terrible bad, poor man.”

“How would you say they got on, Hugh Osborne and his wife?”

“Ah, a pair of lovebirds, those two. Couldn’t get enough of each other, if you know what I mean. Are you married, Detective?” Devaney nodded. “You know yourself, then. Of course they hadn’t been married terribly long when the baby came along. I suppose they were still getting used to each other, like. I’m sure everyone has their ups and downs. They might have had a few small disagreements now and again, but they never went so far as throwing the delft or any such thing like that—not like meself and Johnny. Oh, Janey, we used to go at it sometimes. And I’d surely know if they had. You learn an awful lot about people from what’s in their bins, I always say. I’m trying to think now if I ever heard them arguing at all. There was one time I heard her giving out to him about how much work he was doing, leaving her alone there in the house. And he said he understood how she felt, but they needed the money.” Mrs. Hernan swirled the pot around a few times and poured the tea. Devaney opted for two spoons of sugar and plenty of milk.

“So you were working at Bracklyn at the time Mina Osborne and her son went missing?”

“Not on the very day. We had to get the bus, you see, Johnny and me, up to the doctor in Portumna that day.”

“That reminds me. How’s your flu?”

“What flu?”

“Lucy Osborne mentioned to someone that you weren’t able to come and clean at Bracklyn House last week because you were down with a flu.”

Mrs. Hernan was stunned. “Well, of all the—I never had any bit of a flu in me life. And as for the reason I wasn’t there last week, she should know bloody well enough—it’s nearly three months since I was sent packing.”

“By whom?”

“By herself, Mrs. High-and-Mighty Lucy Osborne, who do you think? She’s a right bitch, that one, accusing me of stealing. I never was so insulted in all me life.”

“What did she accuse you of stealing?”

“A scarf belonging to Mr. Hugh’s wife. I never took anything. Now, I’m not saying I never opened a drawer or two while I was cleaning, but I never took anything, and I’ll swear it on me own mother’s grave.”

“Why did she think you’d stolen it?”

“That’s what I’d love to know. When I showed it to her, she starts givin’ out stink, accusing me, running me out of the house like a common thief before I can even tell her where I found the feckin’ thing.”

“Was there something strange about that?”

“Well, didn’t I find it in young Mr. Jeremy’s room while I was hoovering under the bed? Stuffed under the mattress, it was, as if he was trying to hide it, like.”

“But you never mentioned that to his mother?” Devaney asked. Something about this didn’t sit right, but he couldn’t say what, not just yet.

“How could I? I was out the door with her foot up me backside before I could get a word in.”

“And you didn’t find any other items of clothing?”

“No, nothing else. And you may be sure I got down on me two knees and looked everywhere under the bed. What was her young fella gettin’ up to with a lady’s scarf? That’s what I’d like to know.”

“You’ve not mentioned your dismissal to anyone?”

“And have her spreadin’ lies about me? No, thank you. Better to say nothin’ at all, turn the other cheek, as Our Lord said to do. Ah, ye couldn’t pay me to set foot there ever again.”

Devaney changed his tack: “Mrs. Hernan, how would you say the Osbornes get on with their neighbors?”

“Ah, sure, not great. But Brendan McGann’s always been a bit mad, if you ask me. And you could see his sister playing the innocent, trying to sink her hooks into Mr. Hugh the minute his poor wife was gone. She’s got some awful neck, that Una McGann. No shame at all. Oh, it’d sicken ye.”

“What gives you the impression she’s out to snare Hugh Osborne?”

“Sure, didn’t I see them often enough when I’d be coming and going on me bicycle, her getting a lift off him, or chatting to him through the window of his car? This was going on all the time, mind you, even after he was married. But she’ll never get him, not for all her tears and her sweet smiles.”

As he took his leave and filled his lungs with the fresh air outside Mrs. Hernan’s house, Devaney had a claustrophobic vision of her sitting in that room day after day, drinking tea and chain-smoking, boiling bacon and cabbage for her dinner, marking the hours until Coronation Street came on the telly, and winding the clock at bedtime so that it would continue slowly ticking away the remaining minutes of her life.

20

“Have you got a torch?” Cormac asked. Nora patted the pocket of her jacket. It was Monday evening; they had put in almost a full day at the excavation, and were now on their way to the tower, before Hugh Osborne returned from Galway. The late afternoon was as the day had been, overcast but temperate, with a faint taste of the lake in the air. But for the occasional birdcall, it was quiet as they made their way along the demesne wall toward the woods. Nora led, with Cormac following close behind.

“Watch where you step as we get closer,” he said. “You could break an ankle if you aren’t careful.” He’d been solicitous since yesterday morning, and hadn’t wanted her to stay alone in her room last night. She’d finally persuaded him that she’d be fine on her own, but decided that she didn’t mind his consideration. They had traveled about a hundred and fifty yards when she stopped. Through the thick cover of leaves and branches, she could just make out the tower’s outline. Cormac was pointing out some of the tower’s features when he suddenly fell silent.

“What is it?” she asked.

Cormac raised a finger to his lips, then pointed wordlessly to the door of the tower. The hasp was open, as was the padlock, which dangled from the staple.

“What should we do?” she whispered. He gestured to her to keep back against the wall, then indicated that he would approach the door. Cormac looked behind him, and picked up a stout tree branch that lay near the cleared area, turning it to find the surest grip, and using the cudgel to push against the stout wooden door. To her surprise, it swung open easily, as if the hinges had recently been oiled. There was no response from inside, no sound or movement, so they exchanged a glance, and began to walk slowly through the doorway. It was dark and damp inside. The narrow slits in the thick walls didn’t let in much air or light. Cormac’s torch beam revealed a stone stairway that wrapped around the room and disappeared up into the heavy, cross-timbered ceiling. Nora reached in her pocket and switched on her own torch, whose light fell on a stack of large books and a pile of woolen blankets that lay on the dirt floor to one side of the room. She nudged the blankets with her foot, and saw that one was not a blanket at all, but a large shawl or something similar, shot through with gold threads. The floor looked as if it had been swept. Beside the blankets stood a crate covered with what appeared to be puddles of melted wax and burned candle ends. In fact, there seemed to be half-burned candles everywhere they could see: a few tapers and pillars, but mostly tiny votive lights. A jumbled pile of brand-new candles lay on the crate nearest the makeshift bed. As Cormac turned, his torch flickered over a stack of crates against the far wall, and he trained the beam more carefully to see what was there.

“Nora, look at this.” She added the light of her torch to his, illuminating what appeared to be an orderly collection of small animal bones: among them she recognized long-toothed skulls of rabbits and sturdy-snouted badgers, the delicate skeletal remains of stoats and birds. The next crate held the road-flattened carcass of a fox, with its bushy tail intact, and the severed wing of a crow, with its jet-black feathers fanned outward.

“What do you make of all this?” Cormac asked.

“I don’t know. Hey, what are those?” Nora shone her light on several large sheets of paper that lay on the floor beside Cormac’s feet. He crouched to examine them.

“Sketches,” he said.

Nora knelt beside him, and they each took a handful of curled and water-stained sheets to sort through. She could make out the recognizable shapes of animal skulls and bones, done in thick lead pencil, but the lines were wildly expressive, as though the artist had tried to memorize the contours of each object, and had put pencil to paper with closed eyes. There were dozens of sketches, compulsive repetitions of the same objects. Nora picked up and studied one of many distorted outlines of the crow’s wing. “Who could have done these?”

“Just what I was—wait a minute, look.” Cormac shone his torch slowly up the wall. Nora added her light as well, and each of them turned slowly in place, until their torch beams revealed that most of the wall space had been covered with huge abstract images of bones and eyeless skulls, on a background of twisted organic shapes—jagged lines, curving contours, and spirals of dark purple and dusky blue, interlaced with wide, wriggling swaths of metallic gold. Seeping moisture had caused some of the paint to come away in places, and from its thickness, they could see that the walls had been obsessively layered with paint over time. At the foot of the stairs lay a jumbled pile of empty cans, rags, and petrified brushes. A few spray cans and tins of paint, obviously used, stood on one of the crates nearby. Of all the things they had imagined when the door remained locked, the tower house as some kind of makeshift studio was not even among the considerations. And yet here it was before them.

“God, Cormac, this is so weird. But it’s kind of wonderful as well.” Nora began perusing the volumes that lay by the makeshift sleeping area. “Bird books, lots of art history,” she reported, then pushed the stout wooden door shut. The back of it had been painted in the same fashion as the walls, but in the midst of the paint was a large color plate of an icon depicting a Black Madonna and Child.

“Cormac, have a look at this.” There was no answer but a startled cry and a flapping, scuffling noise, and Nora swung her torch around just in time to perceive that she was under attack. She threw both arms up to protect her head, and felt a sharp scrabbling and a gust of wing beats against her face and hands as she flailed the torch in an effort to shake free. Cormac grabbed hold of her sweater and pulled her to the ground.

“Keep down!” he whispered fiercely as the random flapping continued above their heads.

“What the hell is that?”

“Just a bird. I’m afraid I dropped my torch. Which way is the door?”

“Behind me here,” Nora said. They scrambled out into the fresh air and light, and sat for a moment with their backs pressed against the tower’s sloping base, gasping for air.

“I should have warned you,” Cormac said. “This place seems to be a sort of rookery, I suppose you’d call it. There’s a whole flock of crows nesting in the top of the tower and the trees above.”

Nora rubbed her pecked fingers, then reached up and felt the scratch on her forehead. “Here, let me see that,” Cormac said. He knelt beside her and tipped her head back to examine the wound. “It’s not too deep. You’ll mend.” He sat back on his heels and crossed his arms. “Well—we’ve seen inside, and we don’t know anything more than we did before. But I’m willing to call Devaney if you think we ought to.”

“Let’s think about this for a minute. Somebody uses this place to make pictures. That may be a bit strange—I’d even go so far as to say creepy—but it’s not illegal. And if it is Hugh—”

“But he already has a sort of workshop in the house,” Cormac pointed out. “So why would he come all the way out here? And in the middle of the night? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Well, who else could it be? He put the padlock on and presumably has the key—although I suppose it’s easy enough to pick that sort of a lock.”

“Dead easy. What about Jeremy?”

“I don’t know,” Nora said. “Could be anyone who knows about the tower.”

“So have we any reason to phone Devaney?”

The Madonna and Child image flashed through Nora’s consciousness. She hadn’t really had a chance to examine it closely. Apart from some overpainting, there was something else strange and disturbing about the picture, but what was it? With effort, she might be able to conjure up the image that had only imprinted itself briefly on her brain in all the pandemonium. She closed her eyes and willed herself to remember. If she wasn’t mistaken, the eyes of both mother and child had been cut out rather crudely with a knife.

“You know,” she said, “I think we might.”

On the phone, the young Garda sergeant had reminded Devaney of himself nearly twenty years ago, and he could hear the distinctive cry of a newborn in the background as they spoke. They settled on meeting in a pub on the outskirts of Ballinasloe. Donal Barry had been the man assigned to Bracklyn House during the original search for Osborne’s wife and child more than two years ago. Devaney knew he was grasping at straws here, but he’d begun to feel as if he was getting somewhere. Sooner or later, something would tip. That’s the way it was with cases like this. Keep scraping away, like a file on metal, and eventually someone’s story would weaken and give way. The hard part was sussing out where the vulnerable spot might lie.

Devaney got a pint and stood at the far end of the bar. Soon a strapping young man of about twenty-five came in. He was over six feet tall, clean-shaven, with fairish curly hair and a rugby guard’s muscular build; he wore jeans and a heavy plain blue pullover.

“Devaney?” the young man said.

“Mr. Barry.” Devaney held out a hand. “Thanks for coming. What’ll you have?”

“Same as yourself.”

Devaney lifted his near-empty pint and held up two fingers to the barman. “You were posted at the Osborne house during the various searches and the original interviews,” he said. “And I wanted to get your impression of the situation there.”

“I thought the case had gone up to the task force in Dublin.”

Devaney frowned. “It has. But my superintendent evidently doesn’t see how this one sticks out.”

“Don’t tell me—Brian Boylan?” Barry’s tone was one of disgust. “What a fuckin’ toe-rag.”

Devaney found himself warming to the young man. “I can’t say I disagree. Now, I don’t quite know how to put this: Was there any angle that ought to have been pursued and wasn’t?”

“I knew from the start the whole kidnap scenario was a fuckin’ waste of time,” Barry replied. “I mean, the boys generally know when there’s something up, don’t they?” He meant the Provos, the Provisional IRA, and he was right. They were sometimes the first to volunteer any information they had on criminal cases—provided they weren’t involved. A bit of community-mindedness went a long way in the propaganda war. “There was nothing on the telegraph about this one. Boylan wasted a whole lot of precious time on it, though.”

Devaney was impressed both by the young man’s powers of observation and his common sense. Apparently Barry hadn’t actually participated in any of the interviews, which was a great pity; Devaney was sure the lad would have gotten more out of the witnesses than his superiors apparently had.

“What did you see or hear that didn’t get into the official reports?”

“The trouble with this case was always the lack of a really good motive,” Barry said. “The most obvious suspect, the husband, has a motive all right—the insurance money—but then why bother with the whole disappearing act? It would make more sense if the wife’s body was found right away. I was never sold on the husband.”

“There’s a neighbor who might have a motive as well. Brendan McGann. Thinks Osborne was messing about with his sister.”

“Ah, those rumors have been flying for years. I know Brendan—mad as a snake, but canny. I’m not saying he couldn’t have done it, of course. He’s got a wicked temper. But Brendan’s more likely to goad people into killing each other than topping anybody himself. I never knew why they didn’t spend more time on that cousin.”

Devaney’s ears pricked. “The boy?”

“Well, he was another right head case. But no, I meant the mother,” Barry said. “Something quare about that one. A bit too—precious, if you know what I mean. I can’t think why they didn’t shake that tree a little harder.”

“Tell me more about her.”

Barry thought a moment. “After a day or two sitting in that chair in the front hall, I got to be invisible. Part of the furniture, you might say. She’d make tea and sandwiches for the detectives when they were doing interviews, bring up these trays loaded with food, and straight into the library with them, as though”—he hesitated slightly—“well, almost as though she were part of the investigation herself. I don’t know, I’m not puttin’ it very well, but it was like she got some sort of thrill out of being there, so close to it all, and having to mind Osborne while he was in such a state.”

“Did you get the impression there was anything between herself and Osborne?” Devaney asked.

“I can’t say for certain. Nothing obvious. I do remember one day she thought they were being too hard on him, asking too many questions. Well, she reared up. Fairly chased ’em out of the place.”

“And she never made you tea and sandwiches?” Devaney inquired with a sideways glance.

“She did, of course. But I had mine below in the kitchen, not above with the great men. I’ll tell you what else bothered me: she was the one who kept pushing the notion that the wife had just scarpered. I mean, there were things missing, clothing and so forth, a couple of suitcases, right? But anyone in the house would have had access to those things, and could have nicked ’em before we even searched the place. Had three fuckin’ days to do it.”

Devaney felt foolish; he had never stopped to consider that fact. Put it together with the scarf Mrs. Hernan found under Jeremy’s bed—

“Listen, I have to be heading off,” Barry said, draining the last of his pint. “Sorry. I promised the wife I wouldn’t be late. New baby.”

“You’ve been a great help. Let me know if you think of anything else.” Devaney watched Barry’s broad shoulders push through the door as though it were made of cardboard, and imagined him stooped over, changing the nappy on a tiny infant. There was a father who hadn’t missed the delivery of his child, Devaney thought. He took another drink from his pint. Barry had helped uncover another side of Lucy Osborne, one he had never fully considered before. He’d been concentrating all this time on one motive, money, and never settled long enough on one of the other overwhelming human motivations—jealousy. He remembered Lucy’s vague disapproval, even disparagement of Mina Osborne as she stood before him, arranging those flowers. If she did have her eye on Osborne, was that enough to make her get rid of his wife? She’s there for years with her son, getting used to the idea that this little arrangement could go on forever, and what does Osborne do? He goes off on a summer course and brings home a pregnant wife. Must have been a shock, to say the least. Lucy and Jeremy get shunted aside, while he starts a new family. But what could have triggered a murderous impulse? In Devaney’s experience jealousy usually had a trigger point, sometimes brought on by drink, or seeing the person with someone else. Devaney cast his mind back again to the flowers, and focused on Lucy Osborne’s finger wrapped in a bandage. Was it just coincidence that she’d slipped and injured herself at the very moment he’d happened to mention her son?

The pub door opened, and who should appear again but Donal Barry. “There’s one more thing I forgot to mention,” he said, coming up beside Devaney and leaning forward on the bar. “Probably nothing, but you never know. There was one day when I was in the kitchen, one of the very first days after the disappearance. Lucy Osborne sets a plate of biscuits in front of me, right, and all of a sudden the stone drops right out of her ring. Huge fuckin’ diamond. And along with it comes a little shower of dried clay. I think nothin’ of it, and she brushes it away, sayin’ something about how she’ll have to give up digging in the garden.”

“What’s so strange about that?”

“My mam’s a great gardener. Colossal. Never gets the clay out from under her nails. Now, hanging about that place, I saw Lucy Osborne working in the garden plenty of times. And she always wore gloves. Always. That woman wouldn’t get her hands dirty for nothin’.”

After Barry left, Devaney checked his watch—ten minutes past five. He’d have to head off if he was going to make it to Dunbeg before Pilkington’s shut for the evening. In asking around, he’d found Dolly Pilkington had a small fiddle that might work for Roisin, and he had promised to come by the shop this evening to have a look at it.

Mullins had dutifully phoned this morning with the information he’d been checking. The scene-of-crime unit had found no complete fingerprints on the vehicles at Bracklyn, and nothing was missing from either car. This was going to be one of those cases where they’d never be able to prove who the perpetrator was—but they had to look as though they were making an effort. Mullins also reported that Hugh Osborne had indeed been on the seven o’clock British Airways flight from London on Sunday morning, just as he said. Fine. There was no reason for him to interfere with his own project. Maguire had a point: if whoever it was wanted to stop the priory development, why not actually put a spanner into the works at the site itself? Besides, there was fury in the way the damage had been done, Devaney thought. This wasn’t just some calculated, bog-protest publicity stunt, it was personal. So why target a couple of strangers? Could they just have been in the wrong place—too near the real target? What was it Osborne had said, that his car might have been damaged as well if he’d been at home?

And then there was Dr. Gavin’s mysterious dead crow. He didn’t want to disbelieve the woman, but he’d checked all around the house and found nothing to support her story. He agreed with her assessment of Jeremy Osborne: the boy’s destructive tendencies seemed more inward-than outward-directed. But his mother was terrified that he’d actually done the damage; you could see it in the way she looked at him. What did that say about how they were getting on? The word overprotective wasn’t strong enough for Lucy Osborne.

And then there was Brendan McGann, with straw in his clothes, broken Guinness bottles on the footpath, and a story about coming straight home to bed after the pub. Devaney made a mental note to have a word with Dermot Lynch tomorrow at the session, to ask if there was anything unusual about Brendan’s behavior Saturday night.

Devaney pulled up in front of Pilkington’s just as Dolly was locking up the old-fashioned double doors. She opened them again to greet him. “How are ye, Detective? I was just thinking you weren’t going to make it.”

“Sorry, Dolly—busy day.”

“I heard about the goings-on at the big house yesterday.” She clucked and shook her head. “Shockin’—I’d be terrified, livin’ in a huge wreck of a place like that. Have you any idea at all who did it?”

“We’re pursuing a few lines of inquiry,” Devaney said. It was what he always said, even when they had caught the doer of the deed red-handed. Besides, if he told Dolly Pilkington anything, he could be sure the whole town would have some version of it in a matter of minutes. Oliver Pilkington’s head appeared from around the corner of the back room, as he looked to see the person his mother was addressing. He squeezed past them and busied himself sweeping out the shop, sticking close enough to hear what they were saying.

“Ah, sure, we’ll never get so much as a midge’s dinner out of you, will we, Detective?” She opened the small fiddle case on the counter. “Well, here it is. Poor Oliver hasn’t a note in his head—sure, you may just as well try teachin’ music to a lump of stone. Try it out there, if you like.” Devaney picked up the diminutive fiddle and put it to his shoulder, leaning his head over the body, the better to hear its voice as he pulled bow across string.

“Got a good tone.” He plucked the strings, and held the instrument up to the light, to check the varnish and the straightness of the neck and sound post. “Could I have Roisin try it as well, to see if it suits her?”

“Surely. Keep it as long as you like, Detective.”

Devaney set the fiddle back in its case and began to examine the hairs on the bow. “You’ve lived in Dunbeg a long time, Dolly.”

“Born and reared.”

“I imagine you hear both sides of every quarrel. Like it or not.”

“Ah, there’s some of that, you know. The secret of staying in business is listening to what people say and keeping it to yourself.” She nodded wisely.

“So you might have heard a theory or two about what happened at Bracklyn House last night.”

Dolly Pilkington’s face lit up, and he knew she was about to ignore her own sage advice. “You won’t have to look very far to find the culprit.”

“Is that so?”

“Maybe only as far as across the road, they say.”

“I understand Brendan McGann’s dead against the development at the priory. Can’t be easy when his sister is keeping company with your man.”

“Keeping company, indeed,” Dolly snorted. She glanced at Oliver and leaned forward. “There are some saying he’s going to sue.”

Devaney must have looked blank.

“For maintenance,” she said, and raised her eyebrows. “For the child.”

“His sister’s child?”

Devaney heard a snigger and saw Oliver Pilkington’s gingery head lift slightly. “Sure, everybody knows Aoife McGann is Hugh Osborne’s bastard,” the boy said, and almost before the words were out of his mouth, Dolly had whirled and delivered a resounding slap to the back of her son’s head. Oliver dropped his broom and made a dive away from his mother to avoid another clout, then stood a short distance away, rubbing his head and scowling.

“Go away out of that, you dirty boy,” she said, brimming with indignation. “I won’t have that kind of talk in here.” It was plain that Oliver had heard this very phrase on his mother’s lips, and was shocked to be dealt with so severely when he simply repeated it. Devaney was sorry to make the boy suffer for his benefit.

“It’s a few years ago, now, but you know how people go on,” Dolly Pilkington said. She offered a sniff of disapproval. Devaney’s mind began turning over this new information. Of course he’d heard the current whispers around the town about Hugh Osborne and Una McGann, but he couldn’t believe he hadn’t heard the whole story. Even the children of Dunbeg took it as fact. Perhaps his own children. He thought of Brendan’s bowed head and clasped hands as he sat in the church pew, of the crude letters carved inside the confession box. If Una McGann had had a child by Hugh Osborne, that might put Mina’s disappearance in a whole different light.

When they returned from their expedition to the tower, Cormac found a note slipped under his door. He read it in a glance, and hurried down the hall to Nora’s room.

“Message from Ned Raftery,” Cormac said when she’d answered his knock. She was daubing at the scratch on her forehead with antiseptic. “Just says to ring him back; he may have found something on our red-haired girl.”

“I might have had something for you earlier,” Raftery said when Cormac had him on the phone, “but I had to ask someone to read through some of the boxes of old papers I have here. I don’t know if I mentioned that I’d done a history of the Clanricardes some years back. I got to thinking, and wanted to check through some of the material. I knew that Ulick, the marquess of Clanricarde—he was the son of Richard de Burgo, who built Portumna Castle—wrote a memoir that was published a hundred years after his death. He lived from 1604 to 1657, so that puts him in roughly the same time frame as your red-haired girl, if she was indeed married in 1652.”

Cormac covered the mouthpiece and called out to Nora, “Come quickly, I think you’ll want to hear this.” She came and stood beside him, and Cormac tried to hold the phone so that she could hear as well.

“There was nothing in Ulick’s own memoir or letters,” Raftery said, “but what I found was a letter Clanricarde received from one of his neighbors, a Charles Symner, in the spring of 1654. Symner mentions attending the execution of a young woman named Annie McCann, convicted of killing her newborn child. The date on the letter is May twenty-third. It’s not much, but Symner makes particular mention of the young woman’s wild red hair.”

21

When Devaney returned home with the fiddle, he found his daughter Orla reigning over the kitchen, wearing a baker’s apron that nearly wrapped twice around her slender waist. She’d been on a French cookery kick for the last fortnight, ever since she got home from a school trip to Normandy, and the family were all beginning to put on weight from the cream sauces, herself excepted. Now she was trying to show Roisin how to make a rose from a tomato, which his younger daughter undertook with the same earnest concentration that she brought to every task. The aroma of onions and seared meat reminded Devaney that he’d forgotten to eat lunch.

“Begod, Orla, that food smells mighty.” He lifted the lid off a saucepan and breathed in the fragrant steam. “What is it?”

“Get out of that, Daddy, you’re not supposed to take the cover off while it’s cooking.” She sounded a bit like her mother. “It’s Supremes de Volaille Veronique avec Riz a l’Indienne,” she continued, with a perfect French accent, apparently anticipating his grimace at such a reply, because she quickly translated: “Chicken and grapes in cream sauce, with curried rice.”

“With the hunger that’s on me now, I’d eat the Lamb of God. Mammy home yet?”

“She’s on her way.”

“Orla, this is impossible,” Roisin said. Devaney felt her frustration, and appreciated the way her face brightened when she saw the fiddle case under his arm.

“Daddy, you remembered. I knew you would.” She quickly abandoned her bruised-looking tomato and began circling around him, hungry for a look at the new instrument. He set down the fiddle and noted the parcel beside it on the table, bearing a large number of foreign-looking stamps.

“That came for you in the post today, Daddy,” Roisin said. “Where’s it from?”

“From India,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Just my work, Roisin.” Satisfied with that answer, his daughter shifted her attention to the new fiddle, and he watched with pleasure as she traced her finger around its curved sides, and tried out the instrument as he had done.

When Nuala arrived home, Orla’s feast was ready. The girls had laid the table; now they lit candles and poured wine, and they all actually sat down and had a meal together—like a real family, Devaney thought—for the first time in months. Even Padraig tore himself away from his PlayStation battles long enough to sit and wolf down some food and trade a few good-natured barbs with his sisters. The phone rang at one point, and Devaney half rose to answer it, but Nuala threw him a look that said, Let it ring, just this once? And so he had. Probably for one of the children anyway.

He caught Nuala looking at him curiously several times. Why was he pushing himself so hard, when it seemed so simple, so easy to be here? The feeling, like the wine, seemed to warm him like a candle flame from the inside. It lasted all through the supper, through the fiddle lesson he gave Roisin, watching her fingers take their positions for a new tune. It hadn’t worn off by the time he and Nuala went to bed, and as he watched her undress, he imagined stopping his wife’s fingers as she reached for the zipper on the back of her skirt and undoing it himself. But even in his imagination, he was clumsy, hesitant, unsure of how she would react. Sitting on the edge of the bed removing his shoes, he watched as she slipped from the skirt and hung it in the closet. As she lifted the silky blouse above her head, he imagined reaching out and pulling her toward him, until he could drink in her subtle fragrance, feel the warmth of her breasts and belly against his face, the ever wondrous softness of her pale skin. There was nothing to stop him from doing so, nothing but the deadening force of habit and his own fear. As Nuala climbed into the bed beside him, pulled the duvet over her shoulder and plumped the pillow, the same way she did every night, the distance between them had never felt so great. He reached up to switch off the light.

When he did pull her against him during the night, he was amazed how easily it all happened. Why had he hesitated so long? For the first time there was no terrible urgency in their lovemaking. In its place, Devaney was aware of a new kindness in the way they touched each other; he felt they were once more moving in tandem as he heard Nuala’s voice whispering urgently in his ear. At the sound, he awoke abruptly from his dream to find her breathing softly beside him. Devaney had been here a thousand times before, suspended on the point of indecision, and wondered what would happen if he were to touch his wife the way he had in the dream. Disconcerted by the thought, he quietly slid out of bed and went downstairs. It was just after one o’clock, and the house was completely silent.

When he switched on the light, the package from Mrs. Gonsalves awaited him on the kitchen table. It was done up in striped brown paper, with clear Sellotape, his name and address in a curious, old-fashioned hand. He hesitated for a moment, then got scissors from the drawer and sliced open the end of the bundle. As he did, a pile of tissue-thin gold-and-green-edged air mail envelopes slid out onto the tabletop. There must have been almost a hundred letters in all. It would be best to read them in order, starting with the oldest first, and so he dug every one out of the package and began organizing them by the dates on the postmarks.

He had not learned much about Mina Osborne from the case file. Despite the photos, the physical description, the witness statements that described the kind of person she was, he did not have a complete sense of her. It was typical of witnesses in a disappearance like this to offer vague descriptions that didn’t even begin to capture the complicated character of a human being. Even her husband’s attempts to draw a detailed portrait seemed to come up short. The fuller picture of Mina Osborne did not start to emerge until he opened her first letter home. “Dearest Mama,” it began. He thought of the mother’s voice echoing on the telephone line, and could almost imagine the sound of Mina’s voice from the way she wrote. “Give Pa an extra kiss tonight. Maybe someday you may tell him it’s from me.” That was the only reference she made to being cut off by the father. She promised to write often, and from the looks of the stacks of letters on his table, she had kept that promise. He carefully reinserted the letter in its dated envelope and moved on.

Mina offered vividly detailed descriptions of every room at Bracklyn House, no doubt in case her mother would never have the opportunity to visit. She marveled at its age, the comfort of its furnishings, the profusion of books in its library, the sweetness of the roses in the garden. The newly married Mina also painted a glowingly affectionate portrait of Hugh Osborne, and shyly confided to her mother the surprise and delight she found in being married. Devaney felt his face flush as he realized it was an indirect way to tell her mother how much she enjoyed sex. “I’m glad after all that you persuaded me not to join the Sisters of Mercy. I was so keen on it, too. How did you know it wouldn’t be the right thing?”

But if her view of Hugh Osborne was softened by love, she was able to observe other people with a less clouded eye: “Lucy is not the warmest person, I’m afraid, but she’s put on a brave face and is obviously making an effort to get used to me. I sometimes catch her staring, when she thinks I’m not paying attention. I know that my arrival has changed things for her, but I hope one day we may become friends.” Of Jeremy she wrote: “He’s such a sad, beautiful boy that I feel like weeping when I look at him. At times he’s not like a child at all, so serious and thoughtful. But sometimes I also get a feeling he longs to be held and comforted like a child again.”

Subsequent letters contained details about Hugh’s teaching, how her work in the studio was coming along, the progress of the herbs she’d sown in the kitchen garden, the dismal lack of variety in the fruits and vegetables available at the little market in Dunbeg. There was always a lively description of whatever book she was reading at the moment. Devaney was amused by her fond characterization of Father Kinsella: she genuinely liked him and valued their exchange of ideas, especially on spiritual matters, but Mina Osborne was also aware of the effect the handsome young priest had on most of his female parishioners. The picture that emerged from the letters was that of a highly intelligent young woman, acutely observant, and yet somehow completely guileless. She knew so much, saw so much, but remained almost painfully innocent about the motivations of those around her, interpreting their actions as if all shared her open-hearted spirit.

In the first few letters there was scant mention of the child she carried. And only once did she express apprehension about having a child so early in the marriage, before she and Hugh had come to know one another sufficiently. But as the pregnancy progressed, Mina began to provide her mother with more regular updates on doctor visits, and marked how her own enthusiasm and energy for painting and letter-writing seemed to flag.

“I sometimes feel quite depressed when I don’t have the inclination or the energy to work,” she wrote. “But then I consider the millions of cells dividing inside me, and I think that nurturing a new life is one of the supreme acts of human creativity.”

Devaney tried to keep in mind that he was looking at Mina Osborne’s life in a drastically telescoped, condensed fashion, and also through the medium of letters, which could lead to a somewhat heightened impression of reality. He found a noticeable gap in the letters from just before Christopher was born to about six weeks after. No doubt learning to care for a newborn left little time for the kind of expansive letters Mina was used to writing, but he made a note to ask the mother if they’d had contact by phone during that time, or if there really had been no communication at all.

The next letter contained photographs, fuzzy close-up shots of the tiny newborn Christopher, all wispy curls, plump cheeks, and tiny slits of bright, dark eyes. Mina acknowledged her long silence, and promised she would not neglect letter-writing again. She described the surreal days and nights following her son’s birth, the blur of feedings, the sudden seesaw between wakefulness and fatigue, and the intensely physical experience of motherhood.

Mina’s letters began to grow more relaxed again as the weeks went by, as she and the baby got used to one another. Her husband’s presence began to fade ever so slightly into the background, details about his academic work displaced now by Christopher’s exploits, the walks Mina took with him in the pram. Hugh occasionally stayed late in Galway to work, a thing that seemed to disturb her somewhat. Ordinary adjustments, Devaney thought. Jeremy began to have a larger role in her letters as well, growing curious about the baby, and becoming involved in his care. “He’s very gentle,” Mina wrote, “and looks so sweet holding Christopher with a nappy over his shoulder.” Devaney tried to picture this from what he’d seen of the boy, and had trouble conjuring the image in his mind. Jeremy would have been what age then? About fourteen, he reckoned. Christopher’s sitting up on his own, his first tooth, his first steps were all documented in the letters, along with photos showing him asleep in his cot, long dark lashes lying like shadows on his cheeks. There was nothing so far that seemed remotely disturbing or out of balance. Hugh Osborne was only mentioned in the most loving terms. In one letter there was mention of a dust-up about Jeremy going to Mass with Mina. From what she said, Devaney gathered that the boy’s mother didn’t approve and had evidently put a stop to it. Later missives confirmed what Kinsella had said, that Mina was anxious to reconcile with her father. The separation from home and family seemed to weigh upon her more heavily as Christopher grew.

It was nearly five o’clock when Devaney reached the last few letters; there was a note clipped to the last two: “Received these after October 3.” That meant Mina mailed them just before she disappeared. Devaney opened the first one and read the now familiar hand, searching for some hint, some trace of information in the words, or between the lines, but all he found was astonishment about the rate at which Christopher had grown, a mention of Hugh leaving for a conference in Oxford, and Mina’s hopeful spirit continuing to press toward reconciliation with her father.

“The subject of our visit remains under discussion. Hugh still thinks it would be ill-advised, but he doesn’t know Pa. You and I know Papa’s secret, that he’s not really the hard man he pretends to be. How could the embrace of our beautiful, innocent child not change his heart?”

Devaney slipped the last letter back into its envelope. Did she not have a clue what people in the town were whispering about her husband and Una McGann? He supposed she could have been ignorant of the town’s idle gossip. Or simply unwilling to discuss such a subject with her mother. There was not enough in these letters to implicate Osborne as a suspect, nor anything to suggest Mina Osborne had simply run off.

It was only then that Devaney recalled the telephone ringing during the meal. He picked up the receiver and heard the broken signal indicating a waiting message. The call had not been for the children after all, but for him: Dr. Gavin, with news that she and Maguire had found something that might be of interest, and asking him to ring back. Fucking hell. He’d told them to ring at any time.

Devaney looked at the letters and photographs stacked on the table before him. As he gathered them into the envelope, and climbed the stairs toward his bed, he contemplated the lightness, the seeming insignificance of this small package that held a few scant remains of Mina Osborne’s earthly existence.

He snapped awake when the phone rang. It was still dark, and he heard Nuala answer from her side of the bed. “Yes, he’s here,” she told the caller. His first thought was that it might be Dr. Gavin, but it was Brian Boylan’s voice on the line.

“We’ve got a lucky break on your arson case, if you’re interested.” The superintendent’s tone made Devaney think someone might have tipped him off on the Osborne thing.

“What’s happened?”

“Night watchman in Killimor caught your firebug—up to his eyeballs in petrol.” Wonderful, thought Devaney, just what he needed. Some gombeen with a torch stumbles onto the arsonist at work, and in the process manages to make the officer in charge—himself, as it happened—look like a totally incompetent gobshite. But it wasn’t as if Boylan had far to go to be convinced on that score anyway. He could tell the superintendent was waiting for a reaction.

“Well, apprehending the suspect is really the main thing, isn’t it, sir?”

“We’ll need you up in Killimor as soon as possible,” Boylan said.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” Devaney turned to his wife, slipped an arm around her, and kissed her lightly on the temple. God, she was so warm, and she smelled wonderful. “Nuala, I’ve got to go.”

Her voice was slurred with drowsiness. “I missed you, Gar. I woke up and you were gone.”

“I was downstairs. Couldn’t sleep. I was doing a bit of reading.”

“Mmmm,” she responded, and pulled his arm around her more tightly. Devaney cursed Brian Boylan and the Killimor firebug as he gently extricated himself from her grip.

22

Hugh Osborne insisted on driving them to the session on Tuesday evening. As Cormac looked over at the tall figure in the driver’s seat, he could feel a difference in the way Osborne had engaged with them in the past couple of days. Had he seen them coming back from the tower yesterday evening, or perhaps overheard Nora leaving the message for Devaney? Or was Cormac letting his attraction to Nora color his assessment of the whole situation? Then he remembered the violence to the cars, and in the pencil strokes of the sketches in the tower. They had done the right thing in phoning Devaney.

“How’s the work coming along?” Hugh Osborne asked.

“We should be able to finish up by the end of the week, I think,” Cormac said.

“Good, good, that’s good. We’ll be able to move ahead, then.”

“You will. There’s nothing significant enough to hold up the plans.”

Nora had been conspicuously silent, but finally spoke up from the back-seat: “I’m sure you’ll be glad of a little peace and quiet once we’re out of your hair.”

They drove in silence the rest of the way to Dunbeg. As they climbed out of the car, Osborne said, “Give me a shout when you’re ready, and I’ll come collect you.”

The punters were three deep at the bar at Lynch’s. From the dark suits, Cormac guessed there was a crowd in from a funeral up the road somewhere, and from the look of them, decked out in brand-new Aran sweaters and tweed caps, a tour bus full of Yanks as well, stopping in for a pint and a bit of the local color, God help them. The air was already thick with smoke, and the din of voices overlaid with tipsy laughter. The players were in their corner, with full pints but instrument cases shut tight, no doubt waiting for a bit of a lull in the commotion. Cormac surveyed the half-familiar faces and nodded to Fintan McGann, who lifted his glass and shrugged. No sign yet of Devaney.

He turned to Nora, and had to shout to be heard. “What’ll you have?”

“Small whiskey and a glass of water.”

“Nora!” came a voice from a few feet away. “Over here!” She turned and scanned the crowd, until she recognized the jubilant face of a fair-haired, bearded giant of a man making his way toward her.

“Gerry!”

“How are ye, gorgeous?” The man’s merry blue eyes seemed to devour Nora; it was only then that Cormac noticed that she was wearing a touch of dark lipstick, and that the clean soap scent of her hair lingered in the air before him. Despite the crush of the crowd, the man proceeded to lift Nora off her feet and plant a sloppy kiss on her neck, which she wiped away in mock disgust.

“God, Gerry, you’re an awful messer. Do you know Cormac Maguire? Gerry Conover.”

“Delighted to meet you,” Conover said, straightening up and grasping Cormac’s hand. “Nora’s told me nothing about you at all, but I’m guessing that’s a good thing. She has to keep a few secrets from me, I suppose.”

“Don’t make me sorry I came down here, Ger,” Nora said. “What are you doing here?”

“Ah, it’s a sad occasion.”

“Are you part of the funeral, then?” Cormac asked.

“I am. We buried my uncle Paddy this afternoon. Ninety-four years old, God rest him. We’re giving him a good send-off.” The drinks arrived, and Cormac handed Nora her glasses over the heads of their fellow bar patrons.

“Do you mind if I steal her away?” Conover asked. “I’m dyin’ to show her off to the relations.”

“Be my guest,” Cormac said.

“Back shortly—maybe you can find Devaney,” she shouted into Cormac’s ear as Conover lifted her whiskey glass and led her away by the hand through the crowd.

Cormac took a long swallow from his own pint, and wondered how long he could stick the noise level. He ventured over to Fintan McGann, who moved down to offer a seat on the bench.

“Welcome to the Wild West,” Fintan said. “Jaysus, didja ever see the bate of it?”

“Do you suppose anyone’s actually going to play?”

“Well, I am, funeral or no funeral, and Yanks or no fuckin’ Yanks. Got the machine there, yourself?” Cormac patted the flute case he’d stuck in his coat pocket. He could see Ned Raftery down the way. The woman sitting beside Raftery waved to catch Cormac’s eye, and asked her neighbor to pass a folded piece of paper down to him. This must be a copy of the letter Raftery had promised. The blind man raised his glass. Cormac made another quick scan of the room, but Nora was nowhere to be seen.

It was nearly half-ten by the time Devaney arrived. Cormac quickly drained his glass to indicate that he’d come up to the bar for another drink and a chat with the policeman. From where they stood, leaned over the bar, Cormac could see Nora at the center of Conover’s group, the funeral party. As he described to Devaney what they’d seen in the tower, his eyes kept returning to the sight of Conover’s arm draped casually around her shoulder. He heard Devaney’s voice, but his attention was elsewhere.

“Sorry?” Cormac said, turning to him. “What was it you just asked me?”

“No sign of whoever it was had been in the tower?” Devaney repeated.

“None that we could find. But we got chased out of the place by a belligerent crow.”

Devaney pulled at his chin. “I’ll have to think about this. It’s all right for you to be going out there, but for me to go stickin’ my nose in, it’s probably got to be more—official, if you like. But I’m glad you told me. I’ll check it out as soon as I can. Right, seeya.” The policeman took his drink and his fiddle case and plunged into the crowd. Cormac knew Devaney was aware of who might be observing them, and was determined to make their conversation brief.

“Ciunas, ladies and gentlemen, ciunas!” a booming voice shouted over the noise. “Let’s have a bit of quiet. We’re going to have a song.” A silence fell, broken only by a few drunken giggles, until the singer began, and Cormac immediately recognized Nora’s voice. He squeezed through the crowd to where he could see her better.

Cormac watched Nora’s upturned face as Conover grasped her hand between his own burly paws, and all the carousers sat with bowed heads and closed eyes as they listened to the sound of her liquid voice:

There was a brief silence when the song finished. Gerry Conover lifted Nora’s hand to his lips and kissed it. “By the Jaysus, that was gorgeous!” he shouted, and the spell was broken; everyone could go back to drinking and swearing and telling stories at the top of their lungs.

Nora eased her way past a pair of black-suited mourners and made her way to Cormac. Her face felt flushed and damp from the heat of the crowd, and she fanned herself with both hands. “Did you see Devaney?”

“He says he’ll check it out as soon as he can,” Cormac said. “Listen, I was thinking of heading off. You can stay, if you like. I’m sure Gerry would see you home.”

“I’m sure he would, but I’m fed up with this place.”

“I was going to walk back. You don’t have to come along.”

“Ah, but I want to.”

The night was fresh and cool after the stifling atmosphere of the pub. They were a good way outside the town before either of them spoke.

“Did you get that letter from Ned Raftery?” she asked. Cormac patted his breast pocket. “And have you read it?”

“I was waiting for you.”

“I didn’t think it’d be so black out here. I didn’t even think to bring a torch.”

“I dropped mine at the tower.”

Nora felt something brush against her legs, and stumbled over a sturdy branch lying across the roadside. Cormac reached out to keep her from falling. “I’m all right,” she said. “It’s only a stick or something.”

“Take my hand.” She hesitated briefly, then slipped her hand into his. As his warm fingers enfolded hers, Nora wondered if Cormac understood what it meant for her to actually feel safe with someone. They were passing by the tower, and she could barely distinguish its ivy-shrouded outline against the inky night sky.

“I suppose you’ve known Gerry Conover a good while.”

“Only about three months. We met in Dublin when I started going down to the singers’ club at the Trinity Inn. That’s where I first met Robbie as well, before I realized that you and he and Gabriel all knew each other. Sometimes I’m still amazed at what a small world it is here.” She knew that wasn’t really what he was asking. “Gerry’s a lovely guy,” she continued, “but he’s a singer, you know, and I’m finding that I’m more partial to flute players. I’m not even sure why. Maybe I’m just a sucker for a nice embouchure—”

She couldn’t say any more, because Cormac had pulled her close and was touching his lips to hers, at first gently, then more urgently, until Nora felt dizzy, even slightly delirious.

“Let me stay with you tonight,” he said. “I can’t stand the idea of leaving you alone in that room again. I’d sleep on the sofa.”

“You wouldn’t have to do that, Cormac.”

“I don’t want to take advantage.”

“You wouldn’t be taking advantage. You’d be welcome.”

She took his hand once more, and they turned into the gate at Bracklyn House. Their feet made a rhythmic crunching in the gravel as they ambled up the long drive.

Cormac tried the front door. “Locked. We’ll have to ring the bell.”

Now that their feet were silent, Nora could barely hear a faint noise in the distance, like a motorboat propeller idling underwater. “Cormac, do you hear something?”

His hand dropped from the bell. “I hear it. Seems to be coming from the garage.” The old stable building where Hugh Osborne kept his car was set perpendicular to Bracklyn House, thirty yards from the doorway, but they both covered the ground in a few seconds. Through the window on the side door, they could see the black Volvo inside the garage, enveloped in gauzy clouds of exhaust. Cormac tried the doorknob.

“Locked.” He used one elbow to break the glass, then reached in to unlock the door. The billowing fumes made them both cough as they made their way to the car. “See if you can find a way to open the garage door,” he shouted as he pulled at the car door. “This is locked as well.” He searched around the floor for something heavy enough to break through safety glass, and finally came up with a sledge from the corner. She couldn’t see him swing it, but heard a dull thud and the rain of shattered glass as it fell into the car. Cormac pulled open the door and struggled to lift the slumped figure from the driver’s seat. It was Hugh Osborne.

“Turn it off,” he said, “then come and help me.” Nora reached in to switch off the ignition, and heard something roll off the seat onto the floor. She felt around the floor mat until her fingers closed on a small plastic cylinder, and held her breath as she read the label. She ran quickly to where Cormac was kneeling over Osborne’s still form.

“Cormac, let me have a look at him; he may have taken sleeping tablets as well.” She held up the pill bottle. It was empty.

23

Two hours later, after the flashing lights had disappeared and the ambulance had taken the unconscious Hugh Osborne off to hospital, Bracklyn House was quiet again. Lucy had rung for the ambulance and insisted on going off to hospital with Hugh. In all the chaos, Jeremy was nowhere to be found. Unable to sleep, Cormac lay on the sofa in Nora’s room, revisiting the troubling events of this night and the past few days. He looked over at her, lying on the bed, and saw that she was asleep. Nora was convinced the case was closed, that Osborne would confess if and when he ever awakened. Cormac didn’t feel sure. He’d begun to regret this whole episode, everything that had taken place since he had answered the phone call in Dublin and agreed to come to Dunbeg. Well, almost everything. He couldn’t regret coming to know Nora better. He still felt a certain kinship with Hugh Osborne, despite Nora’s suspicions about the man. He also felt bound to Jeremy Osborne, in whom he could see so much of his younger self. But how much of that understanding was real, and how much was based on illusion?

Responsibility. His father had felt it for complete strangers more than for his own family—the people for whom he should have felt truly responsible. Cormac had always told himself that he wanted no part of his father’s abstract notion of responsibility. But wasn’t that what had brought him here in the first place? What was the word Nora used in talking about the cailin rua? Obligation. He had understood exactly what she meant, and felt it acutely when he first laid eyes on the girl’s small ear exposed in that cutaway. The thought of it pierced him through, along with the memory of the expression in Hugh Osborne’s haunted eyes out on the bog, and Nora’s laughing, tearstained face on the road from Tullymore. He felt exhausted, and lay very still.

The next moment he was awakened by Nora’s voice in his ear. “Cormac. Cormac, there’s someone out there. I saw the light.” What was she talking about? The tower. She was talking about the tower. And then she was out the door. Cormac threw off his blanket and stepped hurriedly into his shoes, fully awake now. He couldn’t let her go out there on her own. He only realized he’d forgotten his glasses as he left by the kitchen door.

Nora was about fifty yards ahead of him. He watched as she vanished beyond the end of the demesne wall, and followed, unsure whether to call out or keep silent. He plunged into the brush at the place he’d seen her disappear, only conscious of the danger she was in, not of the branches that whipped at his chest and face. He plowed through the wood before stumbling and falling hard, his ribs taking the brunt of the blow against a jagged stone. The pain in his side took his breath away, but he got up and forced himself to continue through the rocky maze of the chevaux-de-frise, until he came to the tower house. Nora stood outside the door, and as she swung it open, a golden light spilled out and seemed to surround her. The glow came from a hundred or more flickering candles inside the tower. Each of the tiny flames cast a wavering light, and the undulating shapes on the walls seemed to take on life and movement, an effect further exaggerated by his astigmatism. He stood for a moment, transfixed, before stepping inside. Jeremy Osborne sat at the foot of the stone staircase, arms wrapped tightly around his knees, rocking rapidly back and forth, as if he were in a trance.

“Jeremy,” Cormac said, “are you all right?”

The boy looked up. The wavering light accentuated both his thinness and the recent bruises, and the naked panic in his face. He picked up the first weapon he could find, a screwdriver, from the floor at his feet.

“Get out—get out!” he screamed, backing slowly up the first two steps. “You’re not supposed to be here. No one’s allowed in here!” Nora seemed about to speak, when Jeremy flung the screwdriver, which bounced harmlessly against the door behind Cormac’s head. Jeremy spun around and scrambled as fast as he was able up the crumbling stone stairway. Cormac followed, taking the steps two and three at a time, until he was suddenly engulfed in darkness.

“Jeremy,” he called. “Jeremy, wait.” The sound of footsteps continued, and Cormac could hear Nora shouting to him as well as he continued climbing blindly to the top of the tower, panting and dry-throated when he came out upon the battlements. The sky above was clear, and in the dark he could just make out the edge of the steep roof and the silhouettes of spindly weeds that sprouted from the cracks. He slid against the stone wall, stepping sideways cautiously; there was no telling when any of these floors or walls might give way, rotted as they were by centuries of neglect.

“Why did you have to come here?” Jeremy’s anguished voice cried from beyond the pitched roof beams.

“Jeremy, I’m sorry if we startled you. Everything’s all right.” There was nowhere to run, only a narrow circular walkway around the battlements, and Cormac stayed where he was. He didn’t want to lose access to the stairs below. Again he heard Nora’s voice, more urgent this time: “Cormac, you’ve got to come down.” He smelled the smoke in the same instant that he heard her voice. “There’s a fire—I can’t put it out. Cormac!”

“Jeremy, did you hear? We’re in danger if we stay here.” He inched along the wall, feeling his way with one arm, thinking he might be able to bring Jeremy along if he could only reach him. There was no time to lose. The smoke from below was getting thicker. He could hear the roar and crackle of the flames, and then a strangled cry from below.

“Nora, are you all right? Nora?” he shouted over his shoulder through the battlements, searching for her figure through the acrid smoke that billowed from the stairwell, filling his lungs and stinging his eyes.

“I’m here,” she shouted. He could hear that she was outside now, safe. “I’m all right. Jeremy, please come down. You can still make it.”

Cormac had edged his way around the top of the tower, moving toward the spot where he’d last heard Jeremy’s voice. “Come on,” he said. “There’s no more time.”

Cormac pictured the melting candles on their wooden crates, the dozens of paint cans, the stacks of books and papers, and the rotting beams that would begin to catch fire any minute. He knew that once a fire started, a tower house was little more than a giant chimney, its windowless walls containing and encouraging the flames upward until they burst out the roof. He was counting the seconds until it happened. Why did the boy delay?

“Leave me,” Jeremy shrieked. “Everything I do, everything I touch is fucked. It’s fucked. Just leave me.” He held his head in his hands, rocked his body against the wall in terror and despair.

“I can’t do that.”

The heat from the fire was becoming intense. There was no way they could go down the stairs now. Cormac pressed himself to the wall, and as he did, what was left of the tower roof gave way, crumbling into a gaping pit of fire before them. Jeremy let out a howl through clenched teeth, and pushed himself from the wall, as if to pitch himself headlong into it. Without thinking, Cormac lunged forward and seized the back of the boy’s shirt with one hand, nearly losing his balance, and pulling with all his strength until Jeremy’s full weight slammed back against him, knocking the wind from his chest. And with the force of the blow, time seemed to telescope. The spaces between seconds allowed an almost unbearably acute perception of each sensation as it passed through him. He was conscious of the grinding sound of stone and mortar giving way, of sharp pain and snapping tree branches, then falling, falling into darkness, and the earth seeming to meet him too soon, with a shuddering thump. And then silence. A most pure and sublime silence roared in his ears as he struggled to take a breath.

Then Nora was beside him, close, touching his face, saying, “Cormac, Cormac!” Her horrified face was upside down, and he wanted to laugh, but found tears starting to his eyes instead.

“Can you breathe? Just try to breathe. Please breathe!” He took a gasp of air, and began to cough. Nora turned her attention to the motionless shape just beside him. “He’s alive,” she said. “I’ve got to go for help. Don’t try to move.” She hesitated only a second before disappearing into the woods.

Beside him, Cormac could see Jeremy’s eyes flutter. The boy’s lips moved as though he would speak.

“No,” Cormac said. “Lie still.” Jeremy made a noise that was like a gurgling cough. Cormac desperately tried to remember what to do, but he couldn’t seem to think straight. He struggled up on one elbow, wincing in pain, and put his ear down to the boy’s lips, hoping he wouldn’t pass out himself. He heard a whisper.

“They’re here,” Jeremy said. “There’s a place underground.” He paused to gather what strength he could. “She knows,” the boy muttered urgently. “She knows. She’d never tell—” He lapsed into unconsciousness. Cormac felt himself sinking as well; his head drooped until it rested against Jeremy’s chest.