The Shadow and the Night: Glenncailty Castle, Book 3 (3 page)

She studied him, her gaze lingering on his face, but he could tell it wasn’t sexual—it was almost clinical.

“Hello,” she said, “I’m Dr. Melissa Heavey. You’re…” She did a second once-over. “…either the head chef or the
poissonnier
.” She was English and well-educated, from the sound of her accent.

Tristan stopped, taken by surprise. “I am the
chef de cuisine
.” He used the proper name for head chef.

“And you’re French. That explains the western European Caucasian bone structure but Mediterranean coloring.”

Tristan tilted his head to the side. “You’re a doctor?’

“A Doctor of Philosophy, yes. I’m a forensic anthropologist.”

“And you are here for the bones.”

“So you do know about them. I wasn’t sure if the staff had been told.”

“I am not staff. I am the chef.”

“Of course, my apologies. I did a research project on the social stratification within kitchens while I was at university. It’s very structured, almost caste-like, but with huge potential for upward mobility.”

“And that is how you know
poissonnier
.” Despite his irritation, Tristan smiled. The pretty English woman was intriguing.

“The fish chef, yes. You have the air of command necessary for a head chef, but you smell a little like raw fish and there is something shiny on your apron, which I assume is scales.”

Tristan’s gaze narrowed. “You are a detective.”

“No, of course not. I’m a scientist.”

Tristan shrugged. She sounded like a detective. “As you say.” Down to business. He held up the pub menu. “If you want to eat this food, you must go to the pub.”

“I need quiet. I won’t be here long.”

“Then you may stay, but you will not eat.”

“But I’m hungry.”

“Then go to the pub.” She was arguing with him. No one argued with him—no matter how beautiful they were. He wanted to shake her. Then kiss her.
 

“I want to eat here.”

“And I will not serve bangers and mash—” The inelegant words made his lips curl. “—in my beautiful restaurant.”

She tilted her head, hair swinging. “You’re quite serious.”

“
Oui
.”

She sighed, folded the brochure she’d spread out on the table. She then carefully replaced the silverware, napkin and glasses back in their proper spots and grabbed an ugly black case off the floor. She brushed past him.

Tristan nodded in satisfaction that he’d maintained the rules he’d set for his restaurant but was a little sad to see the interesting woman go. She wore loose pants that tied at the hips, and they were just tight enough across the
derrière
that he got the feeling that under the loose tunic top was a nice body. It had been a long time since he’d been drawn to a woman the way he was drawn to her. And it wasn’t just physical attraction—she was intelligent and strong.

He was so distracted by her
derrière
and his unexpected reaction to her that it took him a moment to realize that she wasn’t headed for the front door, but deeper into the restaurant.

“
Mademoiselle
,” he said, jogging a few steps to keep up with her. “Where are you going?”

“I’m hungry.” She stopped for a moment, looked around and then headed for the kitchen.
 

Tristan darted ahead of her, positioning himself in front of the swinging doors. He folded his arms. Pretty or not, intriguing or not, she wasn’t going to interfere with his dinner prep.

“This is my kitchen.”

“I can tell. I’m excited to see it.”

She tried to push past him, and he grabbed her upper arms. She made a little noise, and her eyes widened with pain. The case she carried fell from her hand.

Tristan released her. He’d barely touched her, yet it seemed he’d caused her pain.

“I’m sorry, did I hurt you?”

“I…have a bruise there.”

Tristan raised a brow. “From another chef whose kitchen you tried to disrupt?”

“The result of killing the last man who tried to come between me and my dinner.”

Her expression was so deadly serious that Tristan had a moment of real worry. Then she smiled and laughed. It changed her whole face, making her seem less serious and disconnected—more warm and approachable.
 

“You looked quite alarmed,” she said as her laugh faded.

“I do not understand English humor.”

“Too bad, I’m quite funny.” With a smile, she grabbed her case and slid past him into the kitchen.

Cursing, Tristan followed her.
 

“Hello everyone.”

The busy sounds of the kitchen stopped as everyone looked up at the strange blonde woman standing in the doorway. “My name is Melissa Heavey and I’m hungry. Is there someone here who might be able to—”

Tristan grabbed her around the waist and hauled her back out through the doors.
 

“You are…crazy,” he said as he set her down. He was too surprised to be really angry.

“You’re not the first to mention that.”

Resigned, Tristan threw his hands in the air, then planted them on his hips. “Fine, I will bring you food. You will have stew, fresh bread, a salad.” That was as far as he was willing to relent.

“That sounds lovely.” She stooped and picked up her case. “Thank you very much…?”

“Tristan, Tristan Fontaine.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tristan.” She held out her hand. “As I said, I’m Melissa.”

Rather than shaking, he took her hand and kissed her knuckles. “
Enchanté, mademoiselle
.”

He was both surprised and pleased when she blushed. He’d expected her to laugh.

“
Enchanté, monsieur
,” she replied.

He held her hand for a moment longer than was casual. When she pulled back, he let her go, watching her walk to her table with a smile. Tristan was looking forward to learning more about Dr. Melissa Heavey.

A very somber-looking Sorcha let Melissa and Detective Sergeant Oren into the west wing. They’d locked down the whole building, ensuring that no one disturbed the remains any more than they’d already been disturbed. Melissa rolled her shoulders, trying to shake off the lethargy the truly delicious food had brought on.

“I’ll leave the door unlocked. Please let the front desk know when you’re done here, Dr. Heavey.” Sorcha finished unlocking the door at the entrance to the west wing. They were standing in the glass hallway that connected it to the castle, and though it was only just past six, clouds had gathered, hiding the evening light.

“Thank you,” Melissa said absently. Sorcha nodded and closed the door, leaving Melissa alone with Detective Sergeant Oren. She took a moment to look around the nice if unremarkable hotel hallway. The only distinctive features on the first floor of the west wing were the exposed stone walls at either end. Other than that, it was a simple hallway of hotel doors.

“It’s up here,” Oren told her.
 

She followed him up. White dust had been tracked down the stairs, and in some places she could make out distinct boot prints.

As they mounted the last few steps, she saw more hotel doors, as nondescript as what was below them, but once at the top it was clear that something was very wrong here.

Midway down the hall, the debris started. There were chunks of plaster and splinters of wood leading up to a stone wall with an arched doorway in the middle. The door was half closed, and a pile of bricks was stacked to one side.

“Tell me what happened here,” Melissa said. She pulled out a small camera and took pictures. For an archaeologist, pictures and diagrams were key, because it was all about the context around a find or body. In her field, there was rarely any context to work with—a pit full of jumbled bones had no context other than horror and war.
 

But Melissa’s first love had been archaeology, and that was what her bachelor’s degree was in. In the ’70s and ’80s they’d discovered some truly amazing archaeological finds in Ireland. The bog bodies, as they were affectionately known, had taken the nation’s imagination by storm. By the time she was in university, the bodies had been studied and photographed, but she’d been lucky enough to be part of a team that took one of the bog people to be X-rayed and studied using new, more sensitive, equipment. After that, she’d been all about the bones and pursued her PhD in forensic anthropology rather than archaeology.

There were times she wished she’d stuck with archaeology—all these years later she’d seen more human bones than she cared to think about.
 

Though capturing the context of a body was not part of her field, based on what little she knew about what she was here to see, context was most likely important.

“It seems this room was closed up, sealed off if you will. Those bricks there were covering the door. No one got in, no one got out.” Oren rocked back on his heels, his voice grim.
 

“And no one has any idea how long ago that was done?” Melissa flexed her bad left arm out of habit, the familiar ache barely registering as she surveyed the destruction.

“Glenncailty was ready to fall down around us until Seamus O’Muircheartaigh—that’s the owner—decided to turn it into this fancy hotel a few years ago. There are stories about the castle, legends even, and I’d maybe heard that there was a doorway that had been bricked it.”

She’d read about the renovations on the website and had looked at the before pictures. “Why wasn’t this room opened when the castle was renovated?”

“For that you’d have to ask Seamus. I could only speculate.” Oren rocked back and forth on his heels, as if he was having trouble keeping from saying more.

“And what is your speculation?”

“That Seamus knew he was tempting fate herself by letting people in here and didn’t want to make it worse.”

Melissa frowned. “What do you mean?”

Oren looked at her. “Glenncailty is haunted.”

Melissa waited for the rest of the statement, or for him to laugh, but it appeared that he was quite serious.

“It’s haunted?”
 

“Yes.”

“Someone saw a ghost?”

“Not someone, many people, and not just one ghost.”

Melissa nodded, accepting that, though she didn’t believe in ghosts.
 

“You think that the owner—Seamus, was it?—knew that there was something bad in there, and that opening it might cause there to be more ghosts.”

“He knew that no one would have done such a thing without reason. Or at least that’s what I think, but I’m sure I couldn’t say.”

“So why was it opened now?”

“Well, that part of the story I’m still working on, but I’ll tell you that Séan Donnovan, a farmer in the area, came to the castle and he’s the one who took it down.” Oren gestured to the remnants of plaster and wood on the floor.

“So this—” she gestured, “—was a wall erected to hide the stone and the door?”

“It was.”

“And did he say why he took it down?”

“He said a few things, but none of them made much sense.”

There was definitely something that Oren wasn’t telling her, but Melissa let it go for now. She was anxious to get into the room.
 

She took a few steps forward, until she was beside the partially open door, and set down her case. She wouldn’t take it inside, so as to minimize her impact to the scene—plus, that freed up her good right hand. “As far as the police are concerned, what needs to happen?”

“We need to know what we’re looking at. If it’s something natural or something unnatural.”

“You mean how they died.”

“Yes, and we need to know how old the bodies…bones are.”

“Are you prepared for this to become a police matter if they’re more recent than you think?”

“There’s plenty of sadness in our history, and if the bones are very old, they’ll be blessed and buried, no matter how they died. If they’re recent, we’ll open an investigation.”

From the tone of his voice, it was clear that he didn’t want to open an investigation. Squatting, she opened her case and took out a small, lightweight torch.
 

“I don’t want to disappoint you, but I may not be able to give you a clear answer as to date of death based only on the skeletons. A human decomposes down to the bone at any point between a few months to a year after death. We can use teeth for radio carbon dating, but that’s only accurate for remains older than 500 years and anyone alive after 1955, because the radiocarbon levels worldwide doubled around then due to nuclear testing.

“So if your remains are between, say, seventy and 500 years old, carbon-14 won’t work.”

“Ah, well then.” Oren rubbed the side of his nose.
 

“Don’t give up yet,” Melissa said as she pulled on gloves and took a mask out of its plastic package. “I’ll gather samples for other tests that might be able to tell us more about when they lived rather than died. We’ll test for polonium-201 and uranium-243. I’ll need you to take the samples to Dublin. The National Museum has agreed to test them, though it may take a while.”