Erin Hart - The Book of Killowen

Cormac’s thoughts raced back to Claffey’s threats at the supper table. I know your secrets , he’d said, the small, dark eyes drilling into every one of them. He winced. “Jesus, Niall, you were set up.”

“I know that now. The photos were taken from that tower at the chapel. I realized it as soon as I saw them. But don’t you understand, even if it was a setup, that doesn’t absolve me. And it didn’t mean that Vincent Claffey couldn’t ruin my marriage, destroy my family. I didn’t know what to do except pay him off. I couldn’t risk him saying anything to Gráinne. But I never killed him, Cormac. I wished him dead, so many times over, but I never… I swear to you on the lives of my children—I am not a killer.”

“But, Niall, if they’ve found the girl, Anca, all this is bound to come out. There’s no way to stop it.”

“Help me.” Dawson’s eyes pleaded. “I can’t think what to do. Everything’s falling asunder.”

Cormac took a moment, considering. He thought of Niall’s wife, Gráinne, his three lovely children, all the hours he and Niall had spent playing music together at sessions, all the meals and countless bottles of wine he’d shared in the Dawsons’ back garden, and the sight that always affected him, his friend’s arm slung around Gráinne or one of the children. Niall stared at the ground, his shoulders sagging.

“If Vincent Claffey was blackmailing you, how likely was it that he was holding things over other people as well?”

Dawson’s head lifted suddenly. “Yes, if we could just work out who did kill Claffey and Kavanagh, none of this ever need come out.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Cormac said. “But perhaps we can stop you being the focus of the investigation. Back up and tell me again about this tip you got about the treasure hunters.”

Dawson took a deep breath and pulled himself together. “The caller was a man. He seemed to know things.”

“What did he say, exactly?”

“That there was some illegal activity going on around Killowen that might bear looking into.”

“You’re sure the caller mentioned Killowen by name?”

“Yes. Made sure I knew it was Tipperary he was talking about and not some other Killowen.”

“And Shawn Kearney’s news about the stylus came the very next day—that didn’t strike you as odd?”

“Of course it did. But when I arrived, she seemed forthcoming about what they were finding. Her license was up to date, and she had her whole excavation very well documented.”

“And Shawn didn’t seem worried about security?”

“Apparently not. She never mentioned it to me.”

“I don’t like to cast aspersions, but how can you be so sure of Shawn Kearney’s honesty? There’s no way, for instance, she could be in league with the treasure hunters, perhaps accidentally left something out of her report?”

“She’d have had to enlist the cooperation of everyone at Killowen—they were all helping with the excavation. Everyone living there would be complicit in the lie.”

“And that’s not possible?”

“I honestly don’t know. A lot of our business depends upon trust. You know we can’t possibly keep an eye on all the sites that need monitoring, so we have to hope that national pride can overcome baser instincts.”

“If we could just figure out what Kavanagh was doing here,” Cormac said. “You know more about his work than I do, and you think he wouldn’t have come here except for some new discovery about this philosopher, Eriugena. He couldn’t have had any other motivation—his wife being here, for instance?”

“But that’s just it—she wasn’t here at that time. There were no visiting artists during the excavation and construction those last two weeks of April. They only let me stay because I convinced them that I was used to rough conditions.”

“What could have made Kavanagh drop everything and rush out here? And doesn’t it seem like there are only a few people in the world who would have understood the sort of information he’d be interested in? So the question is, who around here knows a thing or two about old manuscripts? What about Gwynne? Shawn mentioned him as the resident expert, but he’s only a calligrapher, isn’t he?”

“Try paleographer with a degree in medieval history from Cambridge.”

“I can’t believe you haven’t mentioned it before now. Why the hell is he working out here in the back of beyond and not at some great university?”

“He used to work at the British Library. I gather that he left under some sort of cloud, but I haven’t had time to find out what it was. I dread prying into people’s personal lives.”

“We might have to pry, if we’re to save you from becoming a suspect. You’ve got to come clean to Cusack, tell her that Claffey was blackmailing you, and why, that you and Kavanagh were friends at university. And you have to tell Gráinne what’s going on. You have to do it, Niall. Can you really justify keeping this from her when it’s bound to come out? That would be even more hurtful. She loves you. You have to trust her.”

Dawson swallowed hard. “It could all go pear shaped.”

“Tell her the truth. It won’t.”

Niall Dawson was still trying to convince himself. “Gráinne first, then Cusack.”

“You’re a decent man, Niall.”

“A decent man doesn’t end up making a fuckin’ bollocks of everything.” Dawson held his gaze for a few seconds, then climbed up out of the pit. He looked down at Cormac from the bank. “I can’t just ring her. I’ve got to go home. I don’t know when I’ll be back—it’ll depend on what happens.”

“Go, then. Don’t worry about me. I’ll carry on here, and I can walk back to the farm.”

Watching Niall Dawson’s disconsolate posture as he trudged across the overgrown bog, Cormac felt a twinge of guilt, having urged his friend to come clean. Some things between people were better not said.

The house was empty when Nora returned to Killowen. She headed to the kitchen to work on her report about Killowen Man, curling herself onto a short sofa with camera and laptop. Time to concentrate on work.

But all the events of the past few days had her head in a muddle, especially after seeing Cormac’s anxiety about staying here.

Nora had felt enormous relief when word came that Deirdre Claffey and her baby had been found. They all should have stood up to Vincent Claffey last night, kept him from taking his daughter away. He might still be alive if they had just found a way to resist. And what would become of Anca? She was probably not much older than Deirdre. Impossible to know how bad things had been for Anca at home, that she’d had to seek a better life here.

Nora shook herself, trying to clear these thoughts out of her head. There was nothing she could do to help right now. Better to stop worrying and just stick to her work. She pulled the memory card from her camera and slid it into her laptop to begin downloading the new pictures of Killowen Man, the ones they had taken this morning with the textile expert.

The first images were shots of the stab wounds in Killowen Man’s chest. She clicked through the pictures, pulling descriptive details: the visible pores in his brown skin, the size and placement of the wounds. From all these elements she could begin to weave at least a fragmented story for an unknown, fragmented murder victim. He did have a name, once.

Looking at close-ups of the gashes that had allowed a man’s lifeblood to escape, Nora suddenly felt the spark of vitality that had once been in the form before her. She felt the man’s pulse, his breath inside her, along with the fierce burst of mingled fear and joy that must have seized him at the very instant that he merged with the infinite. All at once, the letters on that stone carving on the chapel loomed forward in her consciousness. Alpha and omega. The beginning and the end. Nora found she couldn’t breathe. She reached forward and snapped the computer shut.