Erin Hart - The Book of Killowen

Suddenly he let go of her. “Ah, Christ, Stella, you must know—”

Before he could finish, she grabbed his collar with both hands and pulled him to her, this time tasting that errant dab of grease and salt on her tongue.

Cormac made sure that Nora was deeply asleep, then dressed and grabbed his torch and headed downstairs. It was time to check out the storehouse. Two a.m. The farm was in complete darkness as he slipped through shadows to the building that housed the cheese-making operation. The wind had picked up, and the leaves rustled in the steady breeze that blew inland from the bog.

Cormac thanked Providence or whomever that the van was still parked in front of the storehouse and could serve as cover for his intrusion. Cracking open the door, he slipped inside. Cormac was conscious of every noise and could hear his own heart as the moldy odor of aged cheese greeted his nostrils. This was madness, he knew, but he couldn’t stop. Something strange was going on in this place, and it must have something to do with both a missing ancient manuscript and the artifacts they’d just recovered from the bog. There were too many facts lining up to suggest otherwise.

He made his way through the workspace that was the front room, walls lined with shelving and all kinds of strainers and separators, metal and plastic molds. He picked up each wheel of cheese as he passed and tapped it, listening for the sound of a hollowed-out space, a void that could be used for smuggling. No luck. Every cheese large enough to hide anything sounded solid to the core. Beyond the workroom, a cave had been carved out of the limestone hill, the perfect spot for aging. The ceiling was supported with large oak timbers, and the cave seemed to go back about ten meters. The beam from his torch played over the walls, showing more cheeses waiting on wooden shelves, built in a way that increased air circulation. It was all about the flora, Lucien had explained at dinner the other night. Allowing the spores to work their magic in concert with other varieties of mold was the secret to great cheese. The shelves were stacked floor-to-ceiling with large wheels the size of car tires, and miniature gray-black pyramids, the last rolled in ashes as a contrast to the creamy white goat’s milk, undergoing a miraculous transformation inside.

“Cormac?” Nora’s whisper came from the workroom door. “What’s going on? What are you doing out here?”

“Nora, you shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe.”

“If it’s safe enough for you—”

He didn’t let her finish but pulled her deeper into the cave. “I saw two people sneaking out here the other night. I couldn’t see who they were or what they were up to, but I thought I’d probe around a bit, in case there’s something out here that could help Niall.”

“It seems unlikely. What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know. Treasure, a manuscript, some evidence of what Kavanagh and Claffey were after.” He began to feel along the shelves, looking for a crack or a set of hinges, a hidden doorway, perhaps. All at once, his fingers found a break, the cool metal of a hidden hinge with a spring-loaded mechanism. Only the bottom half of the shelf came forward when he pulled on the latch. They’d have to crawl through.

On the other side was a small room, carved deeper into the hill behind the storehouse. The contents of the room took Cormac’s breath away. There were several books—old, leather-bound volumes on a worktable, along with a half dozen magnifiers.

The light of his torch fell upon an ancient book open to an illustration of a plant, its leaves and roots drawn on vellum with a delicate hand. Below the plant was some Latin script and a drawing of a man being administered a draught of liquid from a wooden tankard, his limbs writhing, eyes rolling in his head.

“Looks like a medical text,” Nora said, coming up behind him. “I’ve read about these, but I’ve never seen one. Doctors called them ‘leech books.’” She closed the book and turned it over, pointing her light to the title stamped into its leather spine. “ Regimen Sanitatis ,” she read. “These other titles are different kinds of books—geography, astronomy, a Bible.”

By this time, Cormac had spied a laptop computer on the far side of the table. “Nora, come look at this.” He pointed to the screen, which had come back to life listing a number of North American colleges and universities, private libraries, and museums, each with an abbreviation of several letters and numbers. “An inventory,” he said to Nora. “Someone is selling these books to the highest bidder.”

“But where have they come from?”

“You said you suspected that an ancient manuscript was somehow part of Benedict Kavanagh’s murder. If Kavanagh found out about this stash, if he was a potential customer—”

“Someone might have killed him to keep him from exposing this operation.”

Cormac nodded. “I think we know whose office this is, but let’s see if we can confirm it.” He started looking at the files on the computer desktop. Clicking on a folder marked “Photos,” he found hundreds of images of the French couple, Lucien and Sylvie—skiing in the Alps, dressed in gauzy tropical gear on a beach, along a wharf on some Mediterranean island. “Here they are.”

A sudden whoosh came from the opening into the storeroom, and a dozen tiny balls of fire rolled in at their feet as the hidden door slammed shut. There was no handle on the inside, no way to get out. Cormac knelt and pressed his shoulder against the false wall. It wouldn’t budge—they were trapped. He turned around to Nora, the question in her eyes answered by the sound of liquid being splashed about on the other side, then a match being struck. Through the cracks in the wallboards, they could see light and hear the roar of the fire before they smelled smoke.

Together they shouted, in unison, as loud as they could, “FIRE!”

The goats in the barn next door began to bleat, helping to sound the alarm. Smoke was beginning to seep into the small room, searing their eyes. Cormac thought he heard someone outside, but it was only the van. Whoever had started this fire was getting away. “HELP!” he shouted again. “FIRE!”

Nora crawled on the floor, chasing fireballs, trying to extinguish them. “Stay low!” she shouted.

He could hear noises outside, indistinct voices raised in alarm.

The wall was beginning to feel warm to the touch, the flames crackling louder and louder, fed by oxygen from the outside. Finally, they heard footsteps running into the storehouse. “Back here,” he shouted. “Behind the shelves. Hurry!”

A series of heavy blows sounded, smashing down the shelving and breaking through the false wall. Cormac grabbed Nora’s hand and dragged her. As they passed the table, she made a lunge for the stack of books, but he pulled harder. They hadn’t time to stop. They made it through the opening just as flames snaked up the table legs and began to consume the ancient volumes.

Diarmuid Lynch stood outside, surrounded by smoke, a sledgehammer in his hands. “Get out, quickly!” he shouted, and they clambered past him and out the storehouse door. “The fire’s spreading to the barn. We’ve got to save the animals. Open the pens and let them out—quickly!”

Although he could barely see, Cormac followed Diarmuid’s command, lifting the pins at each gate as he passed and chasing the goats through the opening. Nora worked the other side, driving frightened animals before her. The goats scrambled madly, tripping and falling over one another, spreading out as they reached the huge door and running madly in all directions. The humans outside stood openmouthed in their nightclothes: a wild-haired Claire Finnerty with a mobile in her hand, Martin and Tessa Gwynne, Shawn Kearney, his father and Eliana. Mairéad Broome and Graham Healy were on the path from their cottage, and Anthony Beglan came running up from the back meadow. The only two missing were Lucien and Sylvie. The white van was gone.