Erin Hart - The Book of Killowen

As she closed her eyes, the vision of the two men in the car boot resurfaced—limbs at all angles, intertwined like two figures in a medieval knotwork design. The first corpse she’d already begun to refer to as Killowen Man, with his delicate hands and cutwork shoe, who, despite being dead, had also become a miraculous survivor in a way. She was eager to begin learning more about him tomorrow. Those cuts in his garments said he hadn’t simply fallen into a bog and drowned, but his remains were too recent to have been a ritual sacrifice. So maybe he was the victim of a crime of passion, a domestic dispute, or a robbery gone wrong? One thing was certain: people murdered one another centuries ago for the very same reasons they did today.

It was the other man, the one they believed to be Benedict Kavanagh, who was more unsettling, especially as he might have been pushed into that boot by a killer who was still nearby. Perhaps very near. Nora tried to shove that thought out of her mind, realizing that she hadn’t even thought to lock the door behind her.

As if on cue, she heard a small whoosh as the door to the thermal suite began to swing open. She sank down, keeping as still as possible and letting the peaty water lap against her chin. She held her breath.

“Nora?” The sound of Cormac’s voice loosed a small flood of relief. “Are you there?”

“Back here. And there’s definitely room for two, if you—”

“Say no more.” In a few seconds, he had peeled off his damp clothing and sunk down into the bath beside her. “Great stuff,” he said. “Somehow I had forgotten all about the grinding physical labor involved in fieldwork.”

Nora slid closer. “Well, then, a spa treatment is just what the doctor ordered.”

He leaned in, brushed his lips against hers. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“Did you get something to eat? And did you check on your father?”

Cormac nodded. “Yes and yes. Sleeping peacefully.”

“And you got the two gents settled at the mortuary?”

“Ready and waiting for your ministrations in the morning. Anything strange here?”

Nora considered for a moment. “I’m not sure. I looked in on Eliana just before coming down here, and she seemed to be crying. She said it was the sad story she’d been reading, but I don’t know.”

“It’s possible that she’s just homesick. I got the feeling that she’s led a rather sheltered existence up to this point.” Cormac frowned. “And you know yourself what a confounding old goat my father can be, even at the best of times. We’ll have to make sure she doesn’t feel like we’re abandoning her here, expecting her to be alone with him all day long. I know it’s only temporary, but—”

The door swung open and they both started in surprise, though not as much as the astonished female who’d just walked in on them.

“Sorry!” she said. “I didn’t realize anyone was in here. We usually flip over the sign on the door.” A fellow American, Nora noted, thirtyish, with an uncomfortable smile and a pair of bright blue eyes that she was trying studiously to keep averted.

“No, we apologize,” Nora said. “We haven’t been here long enough to know the house rules. Just arrived today.”

The woman’s voice brightened. “Oh, you’re the archaeologists from the National Museum. Me, too. I mean, I’m an archaeologist—Shawn Kearney.” Then, suddenly realizing that she was still the only person in the room wearing a stitch, she put a hand to her eyes and blushed furiously. “Sorry! Not the best time to chat. I’ll just—sorry!” She flipped the sign on the door and was gone.

“Not quite how I imagined getting acquainted,” Nora said, when she and Cormac were alone again.

“Good to know about the sign, though,” he said. “We must employ it in future.”

Cormac’s forefinger traced an elaborate cipher along her collarbone. “You know, there was something else I noticed out on the bog today. I hate even to bring it up, but—” He seemed to be fighting with himself. “Well, it was strange. When Niall found out the car was registered to Benedict Kavanagh, he never said a word.”

“And why is that strange?”

“Because he knew Kavanagh. They were at university together. We were all there at the same time, Niall and Robbie McSweeney and I—and Benedict Kavanagh, though I didn’t know Kavanagh personally. He and Niall were best mates in their first year. I know it’s a long time ago, but still, you’d think Niall would have mentioned that he and Kavanagh were acquainted.”

“You said they were good mates, past tense. Was there some sort of falling-out?”

“You could say that. It only started coming back to me as we worked. The Philosophical Society had this tradition of sponsoring a head-to-head debate between their two most promising undergraduates. Philosophy became a spectator sport eight weeks into the fall term, because you were guaranteed a bloody good argument. I mean, rooting sections and everything. But that year, it was even more interesting, because the two chosen combatants happened to be best mates.”

Nora nodded. “Niall and Benedict Kavanagh. So what happened?”

“I can’t quite recall the topic of the debate, but it was impossible to forget the outcome. Poor Niall was left sputtering, while Kavanagh ran rings around him. I’ve never seen anything like it, before or since.”

“And you think Niall remembers, too?”

“I don’t see how he could forget. The way I heard it, the whole experience made him chuck philosophy. He very nearly dropped out of university altogether. It was only his good friends—Robbie and a few others—who saved him from going down the rabbit hole.”

“And you think he may have held a grudge against Kavanagh all these years?”

“That’s what’s strange. From the little I know, Niall never held Kavanagh responsible for his failure in that debate. He blamed himself for being ill prepared.”

Nora was thinking aloud. “So, if he didn’t hold anything against Kavanagh, why not mention the old connection to Cusack?”

“Exactly what I was wondering. It’s not like he could keep it from surfacing sooner or later. He and I have never spoken about Kavanagh. I don’t know if Niall’s even aware that I was at that debate. We didn’t meet until he switched to archaeology—”

A noise came from the direction of the doorway. Surely not the embarrassed intruder again, Nora thought. Cormac put a finger to his lips, and they both froze in place, waiting. Then the bathroom door closed with a loud click.

Stella arrived home well after midnight, greeted by an empty house. A sense of impending doom washed through her, thinking about the mortgage she could barely afford, all the other bills that had to be paid now out of one pay packet. Yet another reason for Lia to prefer her father’s place. He wasn’t exactly flush, given the current state of the economy, but at least he wasn’t trying to scrape by on a Garda detective’s salary. There had been a time not so long ago, Stella thought, when she felt strong, decisive, like she was actually capable of making her own choices. Now, more and more, the choices seemed unworkable, and she seemed to be sinking in a swamp of indecision.

She thought of the words Barry and Lia and her colleagues at the station in Birr would use to describe her: reliable, thorough, organized, responsible, competent, sensible, words that enclosed her like the bars of a prison cell. She was all those things, to be sure, but wasn’t there even a spark of something more, or had she become just another steady plodder? Whatever happened to that bracingly alive creature she had once been, the one who jumped into everything with both feet?