Erin Hart - The Book of Killowen

Deirdre brushed away a single tear. “Then I heard him on the phone.” Her voice was a whisper. “He said, ‘You’ll pay for your bastard, you tosser.’ He said he’d have money, and plenty of it, for me and the child—or he’d tell the whole world, anyone who’d listen.”

Kilpatrick cast a quick glance up at the camera, at Stella. “Deirdre, can you tell us his name, this man you met at the chapel?”

Deirdre’s fingers traced the edge of the table in front of her. “I don’t know his name. I never saw him again, until that lady from the Guards showed me his picture.”

“Kavanagh,” Stella breathed into her headset. “That’s the photo I showed her. Benedict Kavanagh.” But how would Claffey have known where to find Kavanagh? Unless he’d discovered who his daughter had met at the chapel from the camera he’d rigged up there, the same one he’d used to trap Niall Dawson. She’d just about written off Vincent Claffey as a suspect in Kavanagh’s murder, but this was further confirmation that he wasn’t involved. He’d have had no reason to bury that car in the bog if Kavanagh was about to become his cash cow for life. He must have been sore when the prospect of an easier life evaporated, and just when he was so close.

What would someone in Kavanagh’s position pay to keep an underage pregnant girl and her money-grubbing father well out of sight? Another possibility trickled into her brain: What if Kavanagh wasn’t at all put out by the news that he was going to be a father? What if he had embraced the possibility, welcomed it? He’d married Mairéad Broome when she was only eighteen, and she’d not given him any children. Perhaps this was his only chance to carry on the family line, and he was making plans to throw his wife over for this girl. Mairéad Broome claimed not to care about the Kavanagh family money, which might just mean that she did. Not to mention being shown up by some brainless poppet who’d only to open her legs once to get knocked up. A thing like that could push a person off the deep end.

The kitchen at Killowen filled slowly at dinnertime. There was no conversation, only people going about their mealtime preparations singly or in pairs. They’d all heard about Anca, and about Molloy. It would have been easier to stay apart, to take the blows of the latest discoveries in solitude, but there seemed to be a purpose in gathering around the table this evening above all others.

Cormac sat at one corner of the table, grating a lump of hard yellow cheese. At the opposite end, Nora cross-sectioned shallots into paper-thin slices for the salad. Martin and Tessa Gwynne were helping Shawn Kearney lay the table, while Claire and Diarmuid wrestled a trio of crisp herb-roasted chickens from the oven onto a serving platter. Mairéad Broome and Graham Healy joined the company, each bearing two bottles of wine.

Cormac pressed the block of parmigiano into the grater, watching short curls fall onto the plate below. His father and Eliana were still resting, worn out by the mayhem earlier in the day, and Anthony Beglan was spending the night in hospital. He’d received a nasty shock but was expected to make a full recovery. Niall Dawson slipped in from the sitting room and sat down across the table. He leaned forward and spoke under his breath. “Is it true, what I just heard—about Anca, and that detective, Molloy?”

“I’m afraid so,” Cormac said.

Dawson looked bereft. “I was going to try to talk to her, to apologize, something.” He stared at the table. Cormac didn’t know what to say.

After a moment, Dawson spoke again. “I’m going to see Cusack in the morning, to tell her I’m taking Killowen Man back to Dublin. She’s got what she needs from the site.”

Cormac glanced up to see Stella Cusack standing behind Niall. “Looks like you can tell her right now.”

“Apologies for the interruption,” Cusack said. “But I have a few more questions, particularly for you,” she continued, turning to Mairéad Broome. “When did you find out that your husband was the father of Deirdre Claffey’s child?”

Claire Finnerty reached out to her friend. “It’s all right, Mairéad.”

Mairéad Broome’s voice was quiet but strong. “Vincent Claffey informed me of that fact just after my husband went missing. It seems they’d had a… financial arrangement, but Mr. Claffey never had a chance to collect.”

“And that’s why Mr. Healy was paying him off when you arrived here?”

Mairéad Broome nodded. “I agreed to honor the arrangement he’d made with my husband, but I wanted to add one condition. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, I don’t expect you to believe me, Detective.”

Graham Healy spoke. “What Mairéad wanted was to raise the child and to look after Deirdre as well, give her a better start in life. But Claffey was holding out for more money. He knew Mairéad would give anything to help the girl and her child.”

“It was the only way I could think to protect her, to get her away from that man. Deirdre will have to make her own decisions now, but Cal will eventually inherit the bulk of my husband’s estate, according to the terms of the family trust.”

“You all knew this,” Cusack said, issuing a challenge to the assembled Killowen residents.

“Mairéad has suffered enough,” Claire Finnerty said. “But you can’t accuse her of murder. For God’s sake, she loved Benedict. She’s still protecting him. Can you not see that?”

Mairéad Broome spoke quietly. “Please, Claire, that’s enough. We’ve been through it all, Detective. Graham and I were on the other side of the Slieve Bloom Mountains when my husband disappeared. I know we can’t prove that to your satisfaction, but it’s the truth.”

“And if I choose to believe you, then that means my investigation will have to focus elsewhere,” Cusack said. She looked in turn at each of the people around her. “Do you know what I’m beginning to think? That one of you deliberately brought Benedict Kavanagh here, knowing that it was the perfect opportunity to get rid of him, not only for your friend’s sake, but for your own. Or perhaps for all your sakes.”

The detective took a few more steps, walking behind Shawn Kearney, as she thought aloud. “I have my former colleague, Detective Molloy, to thank for some of what I’m about to tell you,” Cusack said. “Before the worm turned, he’d actually done some police work. You must have wondered where Vincent Claffey got all the material he used for blackmail. Molloy was supplying it. He used his position to dig into your backgrounds, your histories, and discovered that you were all running from something. He’d found out, for instance, that at least one of you is using an alias.” She stopped behind Claire Finnerty, who shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Cusack moved to the next person at the table, Diarmuid Lynch. “I even considered that Benedict Kavanagh’s death might have been carried out by more than one person. You all had reason to hate him—”

Lynch turned to face her. “Say whatever you’ve come to say, Detective.”

“All right.” Cusack continued on her circuit around the table. “We’ve had plenty of distractions, if you want to call them that. Book shrines and treasure hunters, ancient manuscripts, Vincent Claffey and his blackmail schemes. But it struck me just today that this whole case goes back to what sort of a man Benedict Kavanagh was. Intelligent, yes, but also arrogant, aggressive, blind to his faults, and more than willing to use other people in pursuit of his own aims.” Cusack stopped, fixing Martin Gwynne with a steady gaze. “But perhaps most telling was the evidence we found suggesting that Benedict Kavanagh was a serial seducer of young girls. Why did you insist on telling everyone that your daughter was dead, Mr. Gwynne? I can understand if the shame of attempted suicide was too much to bear—”