Erin Hart - The Book of Killowen

Cormac released his grip, letting his father slide to the floor. They were both still gasping. Stretched there, the two of them resembled a pair of knotwork figures, arms and legs at all angles. The old man’s eyes were open, and Cormac searched for any tiny glimmer of recognition, wondering if his father might have had another stroke. At the very least, the lack of oxygen couldn’t have done his overtaxed brain any favors. “Stay with me, Da. We’re not finished. Stay.”

Joseph’s hand reached out blindly, as though he couldn’t see who or what was before him. Cormac felt the old man’s palm, warm against his face.

“Sum,” Joseph said, his voice hoarse as a crow’s. “My sum.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to understand.” He smoothed the old man’s hair. “Who did this? Can you tell me who tried to harm you?”

The old man shook his head and croaked, “Free Stater.”

Cormac’s brain began searching for possibilities. It couldn’t have been Anthony Beglan—he was injured—and whoever had done this to his father must have just left. Probably still close enough to catch if he… no, he couldn’t leave the old man here.

Joseph’s breathing finally began to slow. He grasped Cormac’s shirtfront and pulled him down closer. “My author?” He started to reach for his breast pocket but couldn’t find whatever he was looking for. The old man began to plead: “She-she’s-my-author. My author .” More labored breathing. “You see?” Why was it always like this, two steps forward, one step back? Cormac felt lost once more, and frustration was rising in him again. “We’ll figure this out,” he said at last. “I’ll find some way to decipher it, I promise.”

The wail of an ambulance sounded, far away but fast approaching, and Cormac struggled to his knees. “Eliana’s managed to get through. She’s out in the shed with Anthony, I’m afraid he’s hurt.”

Joseph reached for him once more. “Stay. Stay.”

“Don’t worry,” Cormac said. “I’m going nowhere.”

Stella Cusack was flying down the N52 when she heard the keening of an ambulance and saw flashing lights overtake her on the narrow road. They turned off, headed for Killowen or Beglan’s place—there were no other options this way. She arrived in the yard at the Beglan farm a few seconds after the ambulance.

Eliana Guzmán was at the shed door. “Over here! A man is hurt!”

Cormac Maguire was coming out of the house with his father, the two of them staggering along like punters after a long night at the pub. “Help!” he shouted. “Someone help us.”

The ambulance crew split up, two in each direction. Stella headed for the Maguires.

“What’s happening here? Who’s hurt?”

“My father, and Anthony Beglan over in the shed. Someone tried to kill them. I don’t know who it was.” He held out his hand, revealing a half dozen gallnuts. “But someone tied my father up and stuffed these down his throat. If I hadn’t found him when I did…” He shook his head, trying not to imagine.

Stella said, “Did he keep repeating the same word to you?”

Maguire looked at her curiously. “How did you know that? Yes, he kept saying ‘Free Stater.’ Do you know what he meant?”

“I thought I had it figured out,” Stella said. “When I talked to him yesterday morning, he kept repeating that same word over and over, and I thought he was saying ‘fire starter.’ I believe he saw the person who lit the fire in the storehouse.”

“Jesus.”

“And that person saw him speaking to me—that’s why he was targeted. I’m so sorry. You didn’t happen to hear a car just now, before the ambulance arrived?”

“No, there was no car. Whoever did this must have left on foot.”

Molloy wouldn’t have tried to escape down the lane, Stella reasoned, since that was the way the police and ambulance would have to approach the farm. No, he’d head for the bog. Maybe he’d left his car there, out of sight of the farm.

As she set out toward the bog, Stella felt her soul begin to harden from the inside out. What on earth had possessed her? She felt ill, remembering how sorry she had felt for him, having to witness Anca Popescu’s terrible death, and realizing that he would have gotten away with it, too, if Catherine Friel hadn’t spotted his footprint on the girl’s body.

More sirens sounded in the lane; squad cars were on their way. What would she do if she found Molloy, if he tried to resist? She’d show him the same mercy he’d shown Anca Popescu.

The field in front of her started to slope downward, and a long row of furze bushes about a hundred yards away separated them now from the bog. Stella kept her eyes on the ground, letting her gaze sweep left and right, checking for bent grass, footprints, anything Molloy might have dropped along the way as he made his escape. About fifty yards from the hedgerow, she heard a low moan and glanced up, shocked to see a figure spread-eagled across the huge bank of furze. It was Molloy, hanging upside down, caught on the spiky thorns. He must have been running down the slope and somehow tripped and tumbled into the furze. When she reached the hedge, she saw that Molloy couldn’t move without two-inch barbs tearing into his flesh. “Help me, Stella,” he pleaded. “You’ve got to help me, please.”

She couldn’t move.

“For fuck’s sake, Stella!” he began to protest and then winced—every tiny movement caused a dozen fresh wounds. Blood was beginning to trickle from his face and hands. One barb had quite pierced his ear. It must have been extremely painful. Still, she didn’t move. She had to know.

“I know about the ‘accident’ on the mountain,” Stella said. She couldn’t bring herself to say his name. “You were in this all along, weren’t you? Right from the start. Even the assignment to the Antiquities Task Force, it was all just preparation. You deliberately kept those pictures from Interpol until you could warn your accomplices, and then you made it look as if they started the fire. But Maguire, the old man, saw you running away. You put those gallnuts in Dawson’s room, too, to cast suspicion on him.” She felt sick as the whole story came crashing in on her. Turning away from Molloy, she spied a group of uniformed officers at the top of the hill. They hadn’t seen her yet.

Molloy groaned as his weight pulled him into the thorns, and for the first time Stella noticed a cloth-wrapped bundle at the base of the furze bush. She inched closer, realizing that the canvas cloth was marked with bright drops of blood.

Reaching in, she brought the heavy bundle out and began to unwrap it, feeling a chill as she caught the first glimpse of intricate golden metalwork, the checkerboard patterns and knotwork designs, beautifully rounded letters cut into the border, and the glowing bloodred stone embedded in the cross at the center. She said, “This is it, the thing you were after? Tell me, was it worth all the people you had to destroy to get this? Kavanagh and Vincent Claffey, and Anca, that poor child—”

“Poor child?” Molloy tried to sneer through his grimace. “Who do you think helped Claffey blackmail everyone? Who do you think killed him?”

“And if she did, that’s supposed to justify what you’ve done, how you nearly killed two innocent human beings back there as well?” Stella pointed to Beglan’s farm. “At least you didn’t succeed this time. Jesus Christ, Fergal, why? You were a good cop.”

“I was a fuckin’ poor cop.” His voice was labored. “Look at your life, Stella. Can you blame me for wanting more? You can’t prove anything.”

Stella couldn’t bear any more. “Say you did it,” she demanded. “Say you killed Anca.”