Erin Hart - The Book of Killowen

The dinner party was breaking up, the mood shattered by Vincent Claffey’s intrusion. Guests were politely banished to the sitting room at the front of the house while the Killowen residents cleared the table and started the washing up. Cormac had been hoping to have a few tunes with Niall Dawson after supper, but proposing a session after the strange scene they’d just witnessed didn’t seem right.

The sitting room at Killowen was more library than formal drawing room. Bookcases stretched from floor to ceiling—art books, Irish history, science and natural history, architecture, fiction by some of the country’s most respected writers, a small but choice selection of crime novels. Had some of these authors stayed here? Cormac tilted his head to read the spines as he circumambulated the room, feeling restless and unsettled, thinking about the abrupt way the meal had ended, Vincent Claffey’s eyes drilling everyone.

His father had stuck close to Eliana ever since Claffey had barged in. She’d found a box of dominoes and had enlisted Joseph’s help in setting up a game. There was such a… what would you call it? An ease between her and the old man, a camaraderie he himself had never shared with his father. Seeing it stirred up a few unexpected and unwelcome feelings. Added to that was a tiny but undeniable concern. The old man was acting as though he knew this girl, when they’d only just met. What if the attachment strayed over the line of what was appropriate? The thought had never before occurred to him, and now he couldn’t shake it. He kept checking on the little scene playing out in the corner, Eliana and his father, heads conspiratorially close as they overturned the ivory-colored tiles. She was so natural with the old man, no doubt blissfully unaware of the undercurrent of familial tension into which she’d stepped. Probably for the best. He turned away and caught the last bit of what Nora was saying to Niall Dawson. “—and the middle finger is quite discolored.”

“What’s this?” Cormac asked. “What am I missing?”

Nora turned around. “I was just telling Niall that Dr. Friel and I wondered whether Killowen Man might have been a scribe.”

“And what made you think that?” Dawson frowned.

“Proper-looking calluses, for a start, and what seemed to be ink stains, just here.” She held up her right hand, indicating the thumb and first two fingers. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “And now with the satchel, from the same spot where the body turned up…”

“You’re wondering if Killowen Man might have been a resident of the monastery at Cill Eóghain?”

“Well, it’s possible, isn’t it? I haven’t even told you the most interesting detail we found in the postmortem,” Nora said. “I had a suspicion, but Dr. Friel was able to confirm. He was definitely murdered.”

Dawson sat forward in his chair. “How do you know?”

“Cuts through his garments, matching multiple stab wounds to the upper torso. Dr. Friel said both sets of wounds looked as if they were made by some sort of double-edged blade, like a dagger.”

Dawson’s eyes narrowed. “ Both sets of wounds?”

“There were two groupings. Probably too early to say for certain, but it looks as if he might have been waylaid by two assailants. Viking raiders, maybe?”

Dawson seemed stunned, trying to take it all in. “We’ll have to see what else the evidence says. Oh, I meant to tell you, I got through to the textile expert. She’ll meet us in the mortuary at eight, if that’s not too early.”

“Not at all.” The mention of a phone call reminded Cormac that he’d left his mobile in the car. “Will you excuse me for a second? Be right back.”

Outside, the clouds had dissipated, and the sky was almost unnaturally clear. No need for a torch this evening. Cormac went to the jeep and found the phone on the front-seat floor where he’d dropped it. He was rounding the corner of the house, checking for missed calls, when he ran full on into Anthony Beglan. Beglan cursed as he dropped the plate of food and a full carton of cigarettes he was carrying.

“Sorry,” Cormac said, rubbing his jaw where it had made contact with Beglan’s fist. “I didn’t hear you coming. It’s Anthony, right? Don’t know where my mind was—”

Beglan’s jaws snapped together three times before he could answer. “ ’Twas an accident,” he said, the words rushing out in a torrent. “You’re all right.” He was trying to gather up the spilled food, but it was no use; everything was dirt and gravel. When he had the plate partially reassembled, he climbed to his feet and took off at a quick trot up over the field without another word.

Why was Beglan carrying that plate of food? He’d sat down to table and eaten along with the rest of them, so where was he carrying leftovers? Cormac thought he remembered Claire Finnerty saying that meals at Killowen were communal. He glanced down and saw something glinting in the gravel. A key. Beglan must have dropped it when he’d fumbled the plate. Cormac turned it over in his hand. He could feel its sharp edge—newly cut, not worn down from use. Perhaps Anthony hadn’t noticed that he’d dropped it.

Cormac set off, following the shortcut Beglan had taken, over the fields and then down a small lane. He followed the curving lane for about a hundred yards, the last fifty of which was bounded by high hedges. Tucked away and a bit overgrown, Beglan’s farm was definitely rough-and-ready. A foul odor permeated the air—no wonder Anthony seemed to spend most of his time at Killowen.

The first building Cormac came upon was an old house—a water-damaged two-story ruin, its gaping door and broken windows crisscrossed with lengths of baling twine, on which hung glinting bits of aluminum and discarded CDs. Evidently an attempt to keep swallows from roosting inside. The adjacent barn looked as if it had been converted into a dwelling; a power cable stretched between the two buildings, there were patterned curtains in the windows, and an old cast-iron pot sat beside the door. The window beside the kitchen door was open, and a pair of voices came from inside—one male, one female.

“Don’t worry, Anthony,” the woman said. The voice was heavily accented, Eastern European. “I’ll find something else to eat.”

“I haven’t anything to give you. Muh-muh-bollocks barged right into me,” Beglan explained. “Sorry, eeh-eeh-Anca. Got your cigarettes, though.”

The girl gave a mirthless laugh. “That’s good. Cigarettes are more important than food.”

Anca. The name Nora had mentioned at dinner. Martin Gwynne’s apprentice, the one Claire claimed had left Killowen more than a month ago. She was obviously still here, so why would Claire lie? If the girl was a foreign national, maybe her papers weren’t in order. That could get a bit dicey, with the police everywhere, digging into everything at the farm. Whatever the immigration rules were for Eastern Europe these days, they weren’t likely very strict. Dublin was still full to bursting with Romanians and Bulgarians and Poles, although some had legged it off home when the Irish economy soured.

He looked down at the key in his hand. Perhaps it would be better if he didn’t make himself known. Not his business, any of this. He edged up to the door and set the key gently on the threshold, moving away silently the same way he’d come. One of them was bound to find it there, and he’d have discharged his duty. He felt guilty for ruining the girl’s dinner. She’d go hungry, and all because he’d been fixed on the bloody phone and hadn’t looked where he was going.

He found Niall and Nora still in the sitting room. They had cracked open the bottle of twelve-year-old whiskey from the side table. Nora looked up, and Cormac tipped his head at the corner where Eliana and his father had been. “Gone to bed already?”