Erin Hart - The Book of Killowen

Tessa Gwynne left the storehouse and crossed over to her husband’s studio. They both emerged a minute or two later, Martin climbing into the driver’s seat of the Killowen van.

Cormac could hear Nora’s voice inside his head: What a perfect way to smuggle stolen goods—inside a wheel of cheese. We should at least see where they’re taking it.

Cormac slipped behind the wheel of his jeep and headed down the driveway, careful to keep his distance.

Cormac checked his watch. Martin Gwynne was a careful driver, coming to a full stop at every crossroads, checking both ways before pulling out. Wherever the pair of them were headed, they didn’t seem in any hurry. The van cruised along a back road from the farm to the N52, followed that main road north for a bit, then turned onto a secondary road that led into the Slieve Bloom Mountains. At the twenty-six-kilometer mark, just past the village of Coolrain, they turned into the driveway of a big house with beautifully manicured grounds. Cormac hesitated at the gate, not wanting to make his presence known. He’d park outside and see if he could figure out what this place was. The sign at the gate said simply HAWTHORN HOUSE.

Driving on for a bit, he turned around and found a field gate and parked beside it. He tapped “Hawthorn House” into his phone and found that it was part of a network of residential rehabilitation centers for people with brain injuries. If the Gwynnes were smuggling a stolen manuscript hidden in a wheel of cheese, why bring it to a place like this?

Cormac drove onto the grounds. There was a small car park at the side of the main building, a rambling old gray limestone mansion. He left the car there and circled around to the front door. Perhaps he could see about a tour…

No one was at reception. Cormac waited, taking note of the surroundings. All the furnishings were new, none of the draperies yet faded by sunlight. Someone was spending a bit of dosh, keeping this place updated. It was private, which meant fees were probably steep. If the Gwynnes did have someone here, how on earth could they afford it? Their own modest living arrangements boasted no such luxury, and calligraphy, unless you were the warranted scribe of some royal family, wasn’t exactly a lucrative profession these days.

Cormac walked to a tall window that looked out over the back garden, a spectacular formal arrangement, with miniature boxwood hedges, rosebushes, and other colorful blooms. The edges of the beds were as sharp as if they’d been cut with a razor.

From the window, he could see the Gwynnes strolling through the side garden, coming upon a younger woman sitting at a table on the terrace, under the shade of an oak. They greeted her warmly, but she remained diffident, barely looking at them. Tessa Gwynne reached into the basket and brought out the brown paper package, unwrapping it carefully. She’d brought a knife and cut into it—nothing but a wheel of soft cheese.

He turned his attention to the younger woman. She was short and slight, dressed in a pair of pale green corduroys, a patterned blouse, and what looked like a hand-knitted cardigan; a long dark plait fell down her back. She sat up eagerly to the table now, looking for a taste of the cheese. Tessa Gwynne reached out to touch the younger woman’s hair, but she pulled away, shrugging off the attention. Tessa’s disappointment at the rebuff was visible, even at a distance. Who was this person? The touch implied some sort of close relationship, but he could have sworn he remembered someone at Killowen saying that the Gwynnes’ only child had died. Cormac felt ashamed, following these people like some sort of half-arsed private investigator, prying into their personal business.

Tessa Gwynne seemed to have recovered. She stood close to the younger woman, speaking softly. Cormac was so intrigued by the miniature drama unfolding in the distance that he didn’t hear the footsteps approaching behind him.

“Can I help you, sir?”

He turned to find a fresh-faced receptionist standing at his elbow. Her name badge read FIONA.

“Are you here for an appointment with Dr. Carnahan?” she asked brightly. “I can ring and let him know you’ve arrived.”

“Sorry, no,” Cormac said. “I just happened upon your website and thought I might have a look around. My father’s recovering from a stroke, you see, and we’ve got him at home just at the minute, but my wife and I, well… we’re looking for a place where he might receive more intensive therapy.” He’d just managed to spit out a plausible lie. “I suppose it’s not all stroke patients here.”

“Oh, no, we get the lot—car accidents, sport injuries, strokes, and falls.”

Cormac threw a glance over his shoulder. “Your garden is certainly stunning.”

“Isn’t it, though? Designed by the father of one of our residents,” the girl explained. She joined Cormac at the window. “There she is now, with the parents—Derryth. They’re here every Sunday, but she’s in that garden all the time. Hard to get her indoors, even when it’s raining. Anyway, the father’s some class of artist, I think. He made up the plans for the garden. Fantastic, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Cormac said. He didn’t say any more, hoping that Fiona would try to fill the silence. He didn’t have to wait long.

“Very sad, what happened to her, poor craythur.” The girl’s voice dropped to a whisper. “They say she tried to hang herself, over some boy. By the time they found her, she’d gone without oxygen for too long. She’s been here near on twenty years like that.” A shaking of the head suggested the extent of the damage done. “You’d never catch me trying to top myself over some man. Nothin’ but a shower of shites, the lot of ’em—well, present company excepted, I’m sure.” Fiona suddenly seemed embarrassed. “God, I’m an awful eejit. Shouldn’t have gone and opened my yap. I’ll just go and ring Dr. Carnahan for you, will I?”

When the girl turned and left the room, Cormac slipped out the front door and made his way to the car. He had what he’d come for, to see where Tessa Gwynne had taken her package. And he had something else: the knowledge that the Gwynnes’ daughter was not dead after all.

Pulling into the car park at Killowen, Cormac had a notion about how he might be able to find out more about the Gwynnes. He reached for his phone and punched in a number.

Robbie MacSweeney was Cormac’s oldest friend. He and Niall and Robbie had a regular session at the Cobblestone, which of a Wednesday night became an island of wild, wind-tossed West Clare music in the heart of Dublin. Perhaps he should tell Robbie about Niall being arrested—but Niall wasn’t ready for that information to reach Dublin quite yet.

“Robbie, I’m ringing to ask a favor.”

“Fire away.”

“Could you find out anything about a fella called Martin Gwynne? He’s something to do with handwriting or old manuscripts, I’m not quite sure.”

“Say no more. That’s G-W-Y-N-N ?”

“And an e at the end,” Cormac said. “I think he’s Welsh—he worked at the British Library and may have been in academia at one time, if that helps.”

“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me why I’m on the lookout for this fella?”

Cormac hesitated. “I wish I could, Robbie. Just ask around and see what you can suss out, will you? Ring me back as soon as you have anything.”

A wise decision, ringing MacSweeney, the best researcher Cormac knew. If past experience was any guide, he would have something from Robbie within a couple of hours.

The house was quiet. Everyone must be outside. Cormac went straight to the sitting room, curious to see if there was any pattern to the books collected there. He crossed to the Irish history section and paid closer attention this time to the titles, all about the early Christian era into the Middle Ages, and a great preponderance of books about books, manuscripts, scribal arts. And a large-format book about artifacts, treasures of the National Museum—a treasure hunter’s sourcebook hiding in plain sight. He found an appendix at the back, a gazetteer of priceless objects, including exact GPS coordinates of each findspot. How exactly had Shawn Kearney happened upon that stylus?