The Irish Cottage Murder (16 page)

“I don’t see, Mr. Willinger—” Fergus Callaghan stood up, his face a little pale; his hands in the pockets of the cardigan dragged down the sweater. “You have a respectable knowledge of Irish history. As for the Comerfords and any relationship to Desmond Moore’s family, I have not made a psychological study of—I hardly—that is not precisely my field.” His voice shook with distress. “So there is really nothing—”

Luke said, “I was in Desmond Moore’s bedroom at Castle Moore. On the wall there is a portrait of Catherine, Duchess of Comerford, and her children, 1790.”

Fergus Callaghan looked bewildered. “That is rather odd. Seeing that given the bitter history of the past, one would’ve thought the Moores, and then finally Desmond Moore, would’ve gotten rid of such a portrait. There’s a good market in the antiques business for such old paintings. And, of course, Sotheby’s or Christie’s—Still, Desmond Moore also kept a portrait of the Duke of Comerford in his library. He could have gotten rid of that, too.”

“But he didn’t.”

“Well, as I said, odd.” Callaghan shifted from one foot to the other and glanced toward his worktable as though politely waiting for Luke to get up and leave.

Instead, Luke leaned forward in the green leather armchair. “Odder still, Mr. Callaghan, is that in the portrait in Desmond Moore’s bedroom, the face of Catherine, the Duchess of Comerford, is the face of Maureen Devlin of Ballynagh.”

*   *   *

They stood in Fergus Callaghan’s small kitchenette. “Cold tea is fine for me,” Luke said. The pitcher of tea on the kitchen table had bits of mint floating in it. Callaghan poured two glasses.

In the workroom again, they sat down, ice tinkling in Luke’s glass, the ice a concession to American tastes.

“I didn’t know about the portrait in Desmond Moore’s bedroom,” Callaghan said. “But in Ballynagh, even the little ones know that Maureen Devlin is the last of the Comerfords. English blood. And bringing up her little girl as a Protestant, though Danny Devlin was Catholic. So Maureen Devlin is different. The Anglo-Irish think themselves Irish, but they’re fooling themselves. And even nowadays plenty of Irish Catholics in the Irish republic can’t forget British rule. The troubles in Belfast rub the sore spot sorer whenever it looks like getting to heal. Not that it ever will.”

“So it appears.” He felt like a spy, watching Fergus Callaghan’s face, the tenderness in his eyes when he spoke of Maureen Devlin, the tremor in his voice. He said the name Maureen as though it were part of an ancient lyric: Maureen … Maureen.

Luke abruptly put down his glass of tea and got up. “Thanks for clearing up my confusion about the portrait. Maureen Devlin being a Comerford.” He looked down at the balding genealogist who sat slumped in the armchair in his Rex Harrison cardigan, the glass of tea resting on his corduroy-clad thigh. “If anything occurs to you that might help the investigation, Mr. Callaghan, I’d appreciate your calling me. I’m still at Castle Moore; it seems Winifred Moore is thinking of going ahead with the landscape design.”

“Yes, of course. I’d be glad…”

“Torrey Tunet didn’t kill Desmond Moore, Mr. Callaghan. I’m positive. So even the smallest clue that might help…”

“You can count on me,” Fergus Callaghan said.

*   *   *

Luke drove south through the streets of Dublin. Except for visiting the National Botanic Gardens the morning he’d arrived in Ireland, he’d seen little of the city. AA meetings at Saint Anne’s hardly counted. It was already five o’clock, traffic along O’Connell Street was noisy and heavy, cars and buses and people on bicycles and motorbikes; he had to drive slowly. The sidewalks were filled with men and women who were jamming into pubs, some in work clothes, others in business clothes and carrying briefcases. There were teenagers chatting on street corners and mothers with shopping bags and children at bus stops. The streets were sunny, the air dry; people who jostled each other kept their good nature as though it would be a pity on such a beautiful day to bother becoming angry. It was remarkable to Luke that in a half hour he’d be driving along the hedged roads of Wicklow, in the quiet countryside of hills and mountains and glens, of isolated little villages and an occasional castle. He drove on; and, driving, he seemed to see Fergus Callaghan sunk in the chair, naked love on his face. Enviable, to feel such love.

“Watch out!” A woman jumped back from the traffic, glared at him, shook a fist; he was on Fitzwilliam Street, going too fast. Pay attention. He slowed.

*   *   *

Half an hour later, he turned from the access road with its high hedges and drove through the iron gates that led up the tree-lined drive to Castle Moore.

Just inside the gates, he braked to a stop. Castle Moore lay in the late afternoon sunlight. He gazed at it and thought how it was built on the stone remains of the ancient Celtic castle, and then fort, that had once stood there. It had been fought over and fought around. Men with swords and pikes and iron rakes and kitchen knives had torn and stabbed and slashed and killed other men and their women and children and babes-in-arms through the centuries. They had raped and murdered for power, for ownership, and in vengeance.

Was it still going on? Rage and hate; sexual vengeance visited on the hated Comerfords? Revenge? Or was it disguised perverted lust, masquerading as vengeance? And then, in consequence, bloody retaliation following, swift as a speeding arrow? Luke gazed at Castle Moore, but instead of the castle looming in the sunlight, he saw a woman’s face. Was he off track? His imagination plunging into some wilderness of fantasy? Or was it possible, just possible, that Maureen Devlin had killed Desmond Moore? Not with a sword or a pike or an arrow, but with a knife.

He drove slowly up to the castle.

“Hello!”

He turned. Torrey Tunet was coming through the trees from the direction of the stables. White T-shirt, blue jeans, the peacock bandanna around her dark hair. Made him think of a pirate.

“You have a minute?” Luke said. And at her nod, “Come into the library.”

46

“Stop that damned video,” Torrey said. “It’s so revolting I want to cry.”

Luke turned on the light on Desmond’s Florentine desk and clicked the remote. The bathtub scene of the naked man and the child halted and the video of
Irish Gardens, Twentieth Century
rewound with a whirring sound.

It was just past six o’clock, dinner would be at eight; Winifred and Sheila would soon return from Dublin where they were seeing a rerun of
The Crying Game.

“Oh, God!” Torrey rubbed her bare arms and gave a shiver. “What can you actually prove, with this?”

“Nothing, so far,” Luke said. “But what I’d like to prove is that Maureen Devlin would have reason enough to murder Desmond Moore.”

“Any mother would. But what are you talking about? You can’t go to Inspector O’Hare with this video and a murder theory. It only proves that Desmond Moore was a pedophile. And anyway, that child isn’t Finola. Surely Finola can’t be the only child in the neighborhood.”

“True. But I’ve done a bit of sleuthing. Try this on;

“Finola is the only child who arrived at Castle Moore early every morning, delivering bread. ‘A pretty little thing,’ is the way Rose described her to me.”

“But—”

“Finola was left alone at that cottage in the woods from before six in the morning, when her mother left to work at Curry’s Meats. ‘You’d see her playing in the woods,’ is what else I learned from Rose. The woods close enough for Rose to look out and glimpse her. Or to be observed from the Castle Moore library, for instance. It gave me a chill.”

“You’re giving
me
a bit of a chill. Still, that’s hardly—”

“Add to that the fact that there aren’t other likely children around, not nearby. The only place anywhere near Castle Moore is a half-mile away, the Sheedy farm, hard-working farm boys, and the twins, they’re girls, fourteen, local soccer champs. The other children are strictly within the village, most of them from a bit down the valley beyond Butler Street.”

“You’re reeling me in. But only a bit. I still—”

“And what I told you, Desmond’s psychotic rage against the Comerfords, that portrait in his room: Lady Comerford, the image of Maureen Devlin. Lady Comerford, with her young children. Maureen Devlin is a Comerford. I visited Fergus Callaghan this afternoon. He confirmed it. To Desmond, it would’ve been a perfect excuse for his pedophilic choice of Finola.”

“Reasonable, but not quite—So that’s what you’ve been doing! Sleuthing. Even going to Dublin to see Fergus Callaghan. But we still haven’t any proof that Maureen Devlin discovered Desmond was up to something with her little girl. And that she murdered him. If you went to Inspector O’Hare, you’d be putting her head on the block.”

“It might save your own head.”

She shivered, remembering her night at the police quarters in Dublin.

Luke shoved his hands into his pockets. “You’re right about Maureen Devlin. My evidence so far is pretty damn good. But it’s not quite good enough. Still, I have a feeling that—”

“Mr. Willinger?” Rose stood in the library doorway, “Brian Coffey is in the stables. He’s just back from his family in Galway, his sister’s wedding this afternoon. Ms. Winifred said would you please be telling him about the stables because of the plans. The landscaping? He’s in the office at the stables, so if—”

“Thanks, Rose.”

*   *   *

With Luke gone, Torrey looked at the bronze clock on the Florentine desk. She would give it fifteen minutes. Time for Luke Willinger to give the message about landscaping to Brian Coffey and leave the stables.

Since four o’clock, she had haunted the stables, waiting for Brian Coffey to return from Galway and his sister’s wedding in Oughterard. He’d gone by bus this morning according to Rose, a token visit; he couldn’t yet trust Kevin with the castle’s horses.

Brian Coffey. It was Brian who knew something about that bloody murder in the stables. Brian. A gun shot. It was a solid lead. And now Brian was back from Galway.

She looked at the bronze clock. Ten minutes more.

The clock ticked. Five minutes.

Torrey got up.
Merde!
Her muscles ached from this morning’s horseback ride. A second ride today would be torture. But it was the only excuse she could think of. She groaned. Get on with it. Brian Coffey.

*   *   *

In the kitchen of Castle Moore, Janet sat down at the scrubbed wood table and poured herself a cup of tea. The lamb roast was in the oven, sending up the smell of rosemary and thyme. The bread pudding was in the pan on the stove. The honeyed carrots were in the black baking dish next to the pudding. The rest would be easy, though Rose usually forgot to take the ice cream out of the freezer, so it was hard as a rock at dessert time. “Some day I’ll break my arm dishing it out on account of you,” Janet often said to Rose in exasperation. “Take it out at seven o’clock and put it in the refrigerator. That’ll give it an hour to get creamylike.”

At the range, Rose buttered a piece of toast, sprinkled it with sugar and cinnamon, and put it in a saucer and brought it to the table. She sank down and poured herself a cup of tea from the brown pot. She was frowning in thought. “Remember last summer—that dented pink celluloid pig Mr. Desmond found in the shrubbery?”

“What about it?”

“Remember he left it on his desk? When I threw it away, he yelled at me for throwing things out without his say so.”

Janet nodded. “He always had a fit if anything was missing. What’s his is his, and don’t you dare touch it. Past tense.”

“Like about that little shoe. On his desk.”

“What little shoe? A paper weight was it?”

“No,” Rose said, “Just a little patent leather shoe with a rosette on it. Like for a doll. He had me combing the library with a magnifying glass. But it wasn’t there.” She criss-crossed her cinnamon toast with a knife, cutting it into four triangles.

“Well, it’s not your fault,” Janet said.

“I guess,” Rose said, picking up a triangle of buttery cinnamon toast. “But where did the shoe come from in the first place? And where did it go?”

47

Brian Coffey, with a thankful feeling of deliverance, said good-bye and thanks to Mr. Luke Willinger in the stable yard.

He came into the tack room. It was just past half six o’clock. The horses were out of the field and in their stalls. Watered and fed. Brian could see that in his absence Kevin had done his job right. Now the lad had scrubbed himself up in the shower, put on his good pants and sweater, and gone on his bike to see a girl in Ballynagh, pedaling off in a plastic raincoat. A light rain had begun to fall.

In the tack room the air was warm and misty and smelled of leather and hay and mold. Brian had a homey feeling of coziness to be back from his day in Oughterard for his younger sister’s wedding. He loved the Moore stables. From down the walkway, he heard Black Pride nicker. Black Pride had proved his stall door no stronger than a bit of plywood that day of Mr. Desmond’s murder. He’d bolted. It had taken Kevin a feverish four hours to find him and get him back to the stables before dark.

At the card table, Brian picked up the phone and dialed the number in Oughterard. He was smiling, so relieved. He had a momentary twinge of guilt that he ought to be calling collect. But this was horse business, wasn’t it? In a way. So the phone call could rightly be billed to the Moore Stables.

“Eileen?” he said in Gaelic, when his married oldest sister answered. She loved the Gaelic. Oughterard in Galway was one of the few places in Ireland where people still spoke the old tongue, a Gaeltacht area. Even the road signs were often only in Gaelic. “I’m back okay. The bus got to Dublin and I took the local. Good news!—I keep the job! Mr. Desmond’s landscape man, Mr. Willinger, came to see me. He says Ms. Winifred’s going ahead with the landscaping and she’s keeping the stables besides!”

His sister sounded so pleased, so delighted for him. Then—“Brian, you might pay them a visit, Maureen and the little one, Finola. After all—”

That whore! No. Never. He stopped smiling. He could feel the sweat starting under his armpits. He’d sometimes wished that when he’d first come to Hennessey Stables in search of a horse-training job, they hadn’t referred him to Castle Moore in Ballynagh. But that’s the way the world worked. Honey came in a bitter cup.