Erin Hart - The Book of Killowen

She snapped a few more pictures and glanced at the framed image on the camera’s small screen. One more shot. This time, as she zoomed in on the curled fist, something stood out from the glistening peat beside the bog man’s elbow. Another half-moon shape, almost like another thumbnail.

She peered into the boot and pushed aside the surrounding peat. This seemed like an awkward spot for his left hand. Then again, she reminded herself, if poor Killowen Man was indeed in pieces, there could be body parts crowded every which way in the boot. She could be looking at a toenail rather than a thumb.

Nora set aside the camera and her pulse quickened as she began scraping away the peat from around the second nail. She hadn’t been mistaken. Definitely a thumb, and then a whole hand. Another right hand.

Killowen Man was not alone.

Cormac hefted two sheets of plywood near the edge of the cutaway, wondering how much weight each would bear and calculating the full weight of a bog man with his swaddling of soggy peat. Might be better to take him in sections, if he was already divided that way. They had to be able to lift the bloody things. Nora was standing in the trench beside the half-buried car, camera resting in her left hand.

He set down his load a few paces from the cutaway. “How are you getting on?” he asked. When she didn’t respond right away, a spark of fear flared inside him. “Nora, is something wrong?”

She stepped aside without a word, and he looked into the boot. The bog man’s right fist lay curled against the peat. Beside it was a second hand, this one poking out of a sleeve that sported three knotted leather buttons at the cuff.

“Jesus.” He quickly jumped down into the trench to get a closer look. Nora handed him a magnifying glass, which he used to examine the sodden sleeve and the oblong signet ring that seemed to wink at them from the peat. The block capitals of a monogram were upside down but clearly visible: BKA.

When Nora spoke, her voice was calm. “You’d better fetch Cusack.”

They could hear Niall rounding the corner of the tarp wall. As soon as he saw their faces, Dawson grasped that something was wrong. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Complications,” Cormac said.

Dawson came to the lip of the cutaway and looked down into the boot. He swore softly. “We’ll have to get Cusack and her crew back in here. Do you want to go, or shall I?”

“I’ll go,” Cormac said.

So the car was a crime scene after all. They’d been here less than a full hour, and already he was starting to have a very bad feeling about this place. Once again he and Nora were unraveling connections between the living and the dead. Some of those connections were to be expected in their line of work. But some could be dangerous, particularly when people preferred that they remain buried.

He began to make his way across to the road, feeling the eyes of the bystanders upon him—and the landowner, Vincent Claffey, in particular. Why was Claffey giving out like that when they arrived, and what exactly did he imagine they would find here? He was obviously unfamiliar with the law on treasure trove. The government had claim on any artifact found on Irish soil, even on private property.

Cusack was still on her mobile as he approached. He could hear her end of the conversation: “Benedict. And the last name, is that with a C or K ?” A pause. “Right. Kavanagh with a K it is. Thanks.” Cusack snapped her phone shut. “Well, we’ve got a registration on the car’s owner, but nobody’s seen hide nor hair of him for the last four months.”

“I think we found him,” Cormac said.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a second body in the boot. Clearly not as old as the—”

Cusack held up one hand. “Wait. Back up just a minute. Another body?”

“Looks like he’s been pushed into the back of the boot.”

Cusack paused for a moment, trying to get her mind around this new information. Her joyriding theory had suddenly vanished, replaced by something much darker. All the tumblers that had begun lining up in her brain would have to be recalibrated.

“We’ve stopped the recovery work, obviously,” Cormac said. “At least for the moment. But we can offer our assistance if you need it—”

Without a word, Cusack began marching over the bog once more. Cormac had to jog along beside her to keep up.

“Did I hear you say the owner of the car was Benedict Kavanagh?”

Cusack gave a sideways glance. “Why? Do you know him?”

“Not personally, but I remember thinking when he went missing that someone must have done him in.”

Cusack pulled up short. “Why would you think that?”

“You never watched his television program?”

She kept walking. “No.”

Fair enough, Cormac thought. Spending a Friday evening watching tweedy intellectuals lock horns in epistemological debate was not everyone’s idea of a good time.

“It was a chat show, but not like the usual—philosophy was Kavanagh’s hobbyhorse. He’d spend the first twenty minutes teasing out his guests’ ideas, grilling them about their latest book or whatever. You could feel him digging the ground out from under their feet. Then in the last few minutes, he’d prove his guests not just sadly mistaken but wrong on every possible level. He was brilliant. But I couldn’t help feeling there was something a little sadistic underneath it all. I’m amazed that anyone ever agreed to be on the program. I mean, surely they knew what was in store for them. Or they imagined themselves somehow able to fend him off, unlike the last poor sod.”

“So you think he may have been murdered by a disgruntled guest?”

“Well, perhaps not—that would be too bizarre. But I’ll admit it was my first thought when I heard the name.”

Stella Cusack wished that her instinct about this case had been wrong. But there was no mistaking the age of the second body; she stared at the three buttons on the tweed jacket, the gold signet ring a few inches from them. There was no mistaking the initials on the ring either: BKA. She spoke to Molloy. “Give Dr. Friel a quick ring, Fergal. We’ll need her back as soon as she can manage. The crime scene detail as well. And ring up central records in Harcourt Street, tell them we need everything they’ve got on this man.” She reached for her notebook and ripped out the page on which she’d written the name of the car’s owner. “Missing person case.”

She turned back to the archaeologists, who were standing above her at the edge of the cutaway. “I understood there was some urgency in getting your bog man out of here.”

Niall Dawson rubbed his chin. “There is. I was just going to say, we’ve got to extricate him sooner or later. So I was thinking, it’s probably better for all concerned if we just press on.”

Stella knew that the decision—and the consequences, should something go wrong—would be on her.

Dawson looked at her hopefully. “Dr. Gavin has been an official consultant to the state pathologist on bog remains, and Dr. Maguire has extensive crime scene experience, documenting mass grave sites in Bosnia. They’re both well up on the protocol for clandestine burials.”

Stella knew she had to make a decision. “All right, carry on, then. But I want all your photos and drawings. And I want scene-of-crime to go through everything you’re planning to take away.”

“Done,” Dawson said. “And we can see about keeping our bog man on ice at the local mortuary until you’re ready to release him.”

As she stepped around the edge of the tarp again, Stella found herself scanning the faces in the small crowd that still lined the perimeter of the site, thankful that at least she’d not chased them off. They were bound to guess that something was up when the state pathologist made a return appearance. The new body changed everything. Vincent Claffey claimed to own this parcel of bogland, but what exactly was he up to here? He’d hired Kevin Donegan to cut a drain, but there were no milling machines or baggers lined up to turn this bog into garden-grade peat moss or extruded turf. Whatever he was doing, it had to require planning permission, so had he filed the necessary paperwork, or was he trying to get away with something?