Erin Hart - The Book of Killowen

“The carving I mentioned is just inside,” Shawn Kearney said, leading them through a fine Romanesque arch on the far side.

“Here he is, the scribe of Killowen,” Kearney said. The carving beside the doorway showed a figure holding what appeared to be a stylus and a wax tablet. He wore a flowing cloak that pooled around his feet, and his head seemed to be naturally balding rather than tonsured in the Irish style. Nora felt the tug of intrigue.

“See the Greek letters on his tablet,” Cormac said, stepping closer. “Alpha and omega. That’s unusual. Most tenth-century inscriptions were in Latin. There’s a kind of monogram as well—interlacing letters, it looks like an I and an O , maybe an H . Hard to see. You were never at this place before, Niall?”

Dawson glanced away. “As I said, I was only here briefly. Had to get back to Dublin.”

“Listen, we can come back to that carving later,” Nora said. “Remember why we’re here.”

They spread out and began to search, poking through the tall grass that grew up through the floor of the chapel and all around the exterior. Nora spied the open door to the round tower and stepped inside. The tower had no roof, but a piece of blue tarp material was secured to the wall to make a kind of shelter inside. Somebody had been here, and fairly recently, too. Nora knelt and found a plastic carrier bag under one corner of the tarp. Inside the bag were a few items of clothing for a young child. If Deirdre were running away, why would she not go back to Killowen Farm, where she obviously felt safe? Or perhaps Deirdre and the baby weren’t running at all but had been taken away by force—an especially frightening possibility if Deirdre had seen the person who killed her father.

“It looks like they might have been here,” Nora said, rejoining the others. “I found a bag in the tower, with some baby clothes and some extra nappies.”

“Look at this.” Cormac pointed to several cigarette butts on the ground next to a crushed packet. “Silk Cut. That’s Anca’s brand, isn’t it, Shawn?”

Shawn Kearney turned to him. “How do you know that?”

“I’ll spare you the long story. We know she’s still here somewhere. The real question is, why are you all pretending otherwise?”

Shawn stared at the ground. “Anca’s been hiding out. I’m sure you’ve read stories in the papers about the Romanian gangs and what they do to young women, promising them good jobs here and then forcing them into prostitution. The people who brought Anca to Ireland were into all sorts of things—not just prostitution, but cigarette smuggling, identity theft. It’s a huge operation. Anca was so afraid of what would happen if they ever found out where she was, and she was our friend, so of course we hid her. You’d have done the same.”

Nora turned to Niall Dawson. His face betrayed a greater degree of concern than one might expect from someone who didn’t even remember the girl. A quick glance at Cormac told her that he’d seen it, too.

“Let’s leave everything here just as we found it,” Nora said. “I don’t think there’s any way around it, Shawn. You’ll have to tell the Guards what you know. They’ll protect Anca.”

“ Can they protect her? You have no idea how much money is involved. That makes it impossible to trust anyone, even the police.”

“There’s also Deirdre and her child to think about,” Nora reminded her. “I’m afraid we have no choice, Shawn. We have to call this in.”

Shawn Kearney turned away with a frustrated sigh. “Do what you have to do.”

As they waited for Cusack and her team to arrive at the chapel, Niall Dawson was standing a few yards apart, speaking to Shawn Kearney. Cormac moved closer to Nora and lowered his voice. “I haven’t told Cusack about what I heard last night at Beglan’s place, about Anca. I don’t know why—”

“Because of Niall? He has been acting strangely, I’ll admit.”

“There’s something he’s not told us about that girl, Anca. You must have seen his reaction when you mentioned her at the dinner table, and just now. I didn’t have a chance to tell you before, but I saw him going back into his room after that episode with my father last night. It was close to four in the morning, Nora. I’m not sure what to do.”

“Can you talk to him?”

“There’s something else, too. When we found Vincent Claffey this morning, he had a handful of those gallnuts in his mouth.”

“You’re not serious.”

Cormac glanced over at Niall and Shawn Kearney, still deep in conversation. “I am. And I can’t help asking myself who could have known that detail about Kavanagh’s body, apart from the people with access to the excavation site.”

Nora considered what he was saying. “So, the Garda contingent and the coroner’s crew, Dr. Friel, the two of us—and Niall.”

“That’s it. You see, maybe Claffey’s murder was a warning to anyone else who might consider making threats. I want to get you and Eliana and my father away from here.”

“But surely we’re in no danger, Cormac. You and I know nothing.” She considered for a moment. “Well, next to nothing… very little, anyway.”

“Do you see what I mean? Every minute we stay, we learn more and more. We may be gaining knowledge completely by accident, but that doesn’t make it any less dangerous.”

“And what about our work here? All the things we’re finding out about our bog man, the satchel, and the wax tablet.”

“Yes, of course that’s all very important, but, Nora—”

She took his hand. “We’ll be fine, Cormac, really. Rest easy. Nothing will happen.”

Dr. Friel was just stitching up the Y incision on Vincent Claffey’s chest when Stella joined her in the mortuary.

“Another tongue cleaved down the middle, I’m afraid—postmortem again. And those were in his mouth.” Catherine Friel glanced down at the metal tray resting at her elbow, which held five dark brown objects that Stella now recognized as oak galls. “One fewer than Mr. Kavanagh had; I don’t know if that’s significant. Have you found out what they are?”

“Dr. Gavin said they’re gallnuts—they grow on oak trees, apparently. Still not clear what they mean. Any fix on the cause of death?”

“Blunt force trauma. He either fell or was on the receiving end of a pretty vicious blow to the back of the head. Fractured the occipital bone. He was at least incapacitated—most likely dead already—before he was wrapped in the cling film and placed on that conveyer belt.” Dr. Friel kept stitching. “It’s all in my report.”

“What about time of death?”

“From the core temperature and onset of rigor, I’d say he was killed in the wee hours, somewhere between one and five A.M.”

Stella’s phone rang as she stood at the table. It was Molloy.

“One of the search parties found a bag with some baby togs and a few nappies at a ruined chapel not far from Killowen. We haven’t found the girl yet, but here’s a new twist: she may be traveling with a Romanian national, Anca Popescu. This girl, Anca, was working at Killowen for the past nine months, but when you turned up asking questions about Kavanagh, Claire Finnerty and the others told everyone she’d left weeks ago.”

“How do you know she’s still around?”

“Maguire overheard her at Anthony Beglan’s place last night. And we found some recently smoked butts and an empty packet of her brand of cigarettes here at the chapel.”

Why had Cormac Maguire neglected to mention any details about the Romanian girl when they spoke this morning at the Claffey place? Too many people connected to this case were keeping secrets.