Erin Hart - The Book of Killowen

“And then what happened?”

“Claffey got back on his motorbike and rode off.”

“Was there any indication that Mairéad Broome knew about this meeting?”

“Well, actually, I happened to hear her discussing it with Healy a few minutes later.” No need to mention the fact that she’d been up in a tree when that conversation took place. “Graham Healy said he had no choice but to hand over the money, since your man had the nerve to come to the farm in broad daylight. He seemed afraid of what Claffey might say unless they did something. Mairéad Broome seemed a bit more resigned—she said she knew Claffey was using them. But she didn’t want Graham to do anything; she told him just to let things be. Then they were out of earshot, and I couldn’t hear any more.”

Cusack thanked Nora, told her she had done the right thing in reporting what she had heard. Still, Nora felt a bit grubby. What if it was nothing? And what if the people she’d just blithely implicated were innocent of any crime?

As she entered the kitchen, a low murmur of conversation came from the corner where Claire Finnerty stood with the Gwynnes and another couple she hadn’t met.

“—but do we know how long she’s staying?” Martin Gwynne asked.

“I’m not sure,” Claire said. “She’s evidently helping the police with their inquiries—”

Spotting Nora, the group quickly broke apart. Claire returned to sawing through a crusty loaf and Tessa Gwynne began tossing a bowl of fresh greens. The new couple tended to something in the oven as Martin Gwynne began pouring the wine. Just another Friday evening at Killowen, evidently. One could hardly blame this crowd for their slightly somber mood, considering that a pair of murders had just turned up a quarter mile from their doorstep.

Claire Finnerty looked up. “Glad you could join us this evening, Dr. Gavin. Where are your compatriots?”

“Just back from the bog,” Nora said. “Getting cleaned up. They said not to wait.” In fact, Niall and Cormac were just returned from the hospital, after depositing the ancient leather satchel they’d discovered at the crime scene this afternoon—a detail they’d asked her not to share in company just yet. She turned to find the archaeologist, Shawn Kearney, coming through to the kitchen behind her, accompanied by a bushy-bearded man in his forties.

Claire Finnerty said, “I don’t think you know everyone.” She presented Nora to the new people, Lucien and Sylvie Picard, Diarmuid Lynch, and Shawn Kearney, who laughed and said, “That’s all right, Claire. Dr. Gavin and I have already met.”

“As have we,” Martin Gwynne said, with a gesture to include his wife as well. “In the studio this afternoon.”

Claire waved at the far end of the table. “And this is our neighbor, Deirdre Claffey.” Nora recognized the girl from the chipper van yesterday, now clapping the pudgy hands of the child she held on her lap.

The long table was laid out with hand-thrown stoneware, woven linen place mats and napkins, and candles, along with a heavenly smelling pan of something under bubbling red sauce. There was an impressive-looking cheese plate and three unlabeled bottles of red wine. Through the glimpses she’d gained these last couple of days, Nora was beginning to form an impression of life here at Killowen. It seemed both profoundly simple and elegantly sufficient—growing the bulk of your own food, using the rest of your time for creative pursuits. Here it seemed possible to imagine a proper sort of balance. Compared to this, the rat race of life in the city suddenly seemed seriously out of whack.

Anthony Beglan slipped in the garden door and removed his cap, the whiteness of his high forehead contrasting with the weathered cheeks. Difficult to tell his age—he looked to Nora like some of her grandfather’s mates, men who had worked farms in Clare for fifty years or more, never married, and had no one to whom they could bequeath the fruit of their labors. Was Anthony Beglan also the end of a line? He sidled into the room and stood next to Deirdre Claffey and her baby.

Claire looked around the room, gathering everyone in with her eyes. “Just so you’re all aware, we have another couple of visitors as of today. Mairéad Broome is in her usual cottage. It’s a dreadful time for her. I know you’ll all respect her privacy.”

“So it was her husband in the boot of that car?” Shawn Kearney sat at the table and popped a mushroom from the salad into her mouth. “That detective was asking everyone—”

“I think that’s a subject we’d better leave right there for the moment, Shawn,” Claire said, casting her eyes discreetly in the direction of Deirdre Claffey, who stopped playing and sat with her arms wrapped around the baby, much to his displeasure. He tried to squirm away, but Anthony Beglan began to mug and dance, lifting the cap in front of his face in a game of peekaboo. Nora wondered whether Deirdre Claffey was a regular guest here—or perhaps tonight was unusual?

Claire took a seat at one end of the long table and motioned Nora to take the opposite place. Martin Gwynne took the seat beside Nora. “I hope you like aubergines,” he said. “I must admit I never did, until Lucien and Sylvie applied a few secret herbs and tomato sauce. Try this.” He held a steaming forkful to Nora’s lips. She took the offering and tasted an explosion of flavor. Gwynne looked on expectantly. “What do you think?”

His wife said softly, “For heaven’s sake, love, let the poor girl enjoy her meal in peace.”

Nora had to admit that she had never been convinced about eggplant—until that moment. “Mmm,” she managed, groping for the appropriate word.

“Fantastic,” said Gwynne. “Isn’t it?”

“Ah, non, non,” said Lucien, waving off the compliment. “Pas du tout.”

Joseph and Eliana came through from the sitting room, and Joseph took the other chair beside Nora. “What’s a dingo?” He pointed at her plate. “Your eeking.”

“Eggplant,” Nora said. “It’s eggplant parmigiana.”

“Upland,” Joseph repeated. “Ugglamp—good.”

The food made its rounds of the table, and when Cormac and Niall Dawson finally arrived and took their places, the only sounds in the room were the clinks of serving spoons and the low murmur of voices.

“Shawn, you mentioned last night that you’re an archaeologist,” Nora said. “Are you doing excavation work here?”

“Not at the moment. But that’s the reason I came here last April. With the new heating system going in, my company got the contract for the archaeological survey, to see if anything might turn up in the excavation.”

“And what did you find?” Nora looked up to see a worried look on Niall Dawson’s face.

“Well, plenty of pits and postholes that fit with what we already knew about the site,” Shawn said. “From the name, Cill Eóghain, Owen’s Church, you know it’s a monastic settlement, and there’s even a brief mention in the Annals of the Four Masters . The postholes we found showed pretty typical early Christian wooden structures—although there is a beautiful tenth-century stone chapel over beside the orchard—”

Niall Dawson jumped in. “You know how surveys go, Nora—a lot of digging and not much to show for it.”

Shawn Kearney looked curiously at Dawson and continued. “We did find one really spectacular piece—a metal stylus, the sort used on wax tablets. And that’s how we met Niall—when he came down to take the stylus back to the museum.”

Nora felt the pull of several threads at once. “You’ll have to pardon my ignorance. What’s a wax tablet?”

“Notepad of the ancient world,” Shawn Kearney said. “Until the advent of cheap paper, they were the best—well, really, the only —temporary writing surface. Suppose you wanted to scribble something down—a poem, a shopping list, whatever. You’d take a flat wooden board and carve out a shallow reservoir, and into that you’d pour melted wax. Once it cooled, you could scratch down your thoughts in the wax. And when you didn’t need whatever you’d written any longer, you could just rub it out and start again. People used them right up to the nineteenth century in some places.”