Joanna swallowed and stared at Ciara silently while she composed herself.
“I . . . I thought the baby was dead when I saw it, for it was blue and it didn’t cry. I picked it up and used my teeth to cut the cord, like I’d seen Daddy do with the cows he kept. I wrapped it in my arms, trying to give it warmth, but nothing would stir it.”
“Oh God.” There were tears in Joanna’s eyes.
“So I moved up to Niamh, who had stopped screaming by now. She was lying still, her eyes closed, and I could see the blood still seeping out of her. I tried to stir her, to hand her baby to her, to see if she could help it, but she didn’t move.” Ciara’s eyes were wide and haunted, her mind having crossed back over the years, reliving the dreadful scene again.
“So I sat on the bed, nursing the lifeless babe, trying to wake my sister. Finally, her eyes did open. I said to her, ‘Niamh, you have a babe. Will you hold it?’ She beckoned me to come close to her, put my ear to her mouth so she could whisper.”
“What did she say?”
“That there was a letter, in her skirt pocket, for the baby’s daddy in London. That the baby should go to him. Then she raised her head, kissed the babe on its brow, gave a sigh, and spoke no more.”
Ciara pressed her eyes shut, yet the tears still escaped from them, and the two women sat together in silence.
“How terrible for you to witness that so young,” Joanna whispered eventually. “What did you do?”
“I wrapped the babe in a covering from the bed. ’Twas wet from all the blood but better than nothing. Then I reached in Niamh’s pocket and took out the letter. I knew I must run for the doctor with the babe, and not having a pocket in my nightshirt and in fear of losing it, I took up a floorboard and stowed the letter away beneath it to collect later. I stood up and crossed Niamh’s hands over her breast, like I’d seen the undertaker doing for my granny. Then I gathered up the babe and ran for help.”
“What happened to the baby?” asked Joanna slowly.
“Well now, this is where I become confused. I’m told they found me, standing in the middle of the estuary, screaming that Niamh was dead in the house. Joanna, I was a sick girl after that for many months. Stanley Bentinck paid to have me taken above to hospital in Cork. I had pneumonia and they said my mind was wandering so much with stories that they put me in the madhouse once I was well. My mammy and daddy came to see me there. They told me all I’d seen had been a dream, brought on by the fever. Niamh had not come back. There’d been no baby. It was all my imagination.” Ciara grimaced. “I tried for weeks telling them that she was still dead in the house and asking after the babe, but the more I talked about it, the more they shook their heads and left me longer in that godforsaken place.”
“How could they?” Joanna shuddered. “Someone must have taken the baby out of your arms!”
“Yes. And I knew what I’d seen was real, but I was beginning to know that if I continued to say so, I’d be spending the rest of my life with the other mad people. So, eventually, I told the doctors I’d seen nothing and the next time my daddy came up to see me, I pretended to him too I was out of my fit, that I’d never seen anything, that the fever had made me hallucinate.” Ciara gave a wry smile. “He was after bringing me back home that very day. Of course, from that moment on, everyone in town saw me as stone mad. The other children would laugh at me, call me names . . . I got used to it, played their game and frightened them with strange talk to get my own back,” she cackled.
“And what you saw was never mentioned again by your parents?”
“Never. You know what I did, though, Joanna, don’t you?”
“You went back to the house to check whether the letter was still there?”
“I did, I did. I had to know I was right and they were wrong.”
“And was it there?”
“Yes.”
“Did you read the letter?”
“Not then. I couldn’t, I didn’t know how. But later, when I’d learned, I did, most definitely.”
Joanna took a deep breath. “Ciara, what did the letter say?”
Ciara regarded her thoughtfully. “I might be telling you that in a while. Listen to me, I haven’t finished.”
Is she telling the truth? Joanna wondered. Or was she, as the other inhabitants of the town seemed to think, simply deluded?
“ ’Twas a good few years until it all made sense. I was eighteen when I discovered why. Why they’d kept it quiet, why ’twas something so important they’d been prepared to lock their daughter away and call her mad for saying what she’d seen . . .”
“Go on,” urged Joanna.
“I was in Cork city, buying some linen for new sheets with Mammy. And I saw a newspaper, the Irish Times. There was a face on the front I knew. ’Twas the man I’d seen at the coastguard’s house.”
“Who was he?”
Ciara Deasy told her.
32
He sauntered up the stairs to his hotel room, and discovered the room was unlocked. Shrugging at the slapdash behavior of the chambermaid, who must have forgotten to lock it after cleaning it, he pushed it ajar.
Two uniformed officers were standing in his bedroom.
“Hi. Can I help you?”
“Would you be Ian C. Simpson, by any chance?”
“No, I would not,” he answered.
“Then would you be telling us why you have a pen with his initials on it by your bed?” asked another, older officer.
“Of course. There’s a simple explanation.”
“Grand. Ye be telling us then. Down at the station might be more comfortable.”
“What? Why? I’m not Ian Simpson and I’ve done nothing wrong!”
“Grand, sir. Then if you’ll accompany us, I’m sure we can sort this out.”
“I will not! This is ridiculous! I’m a guest in your country. Excuse me, but I’m leaving.” He turned and headed for the door. The officers made a grab for him and held him tightly by his arms as he struggled.
“Let me go! What the hell is going on here? Look in my wallet, I can prove that I’m not Ian Simpson!”
“All in good time, sir. Now, would you be coming quietly? We don’t want to upset Margaret and her regulars downstairs.”
He sighed and surrendered himself to the officers’ viselike grip. They marched him off down the corridor. “I’ll be contacting the British embassy about this. You can’t just break into someone’s bedroom, accuse them of being someone they’re not, and cart them off to jail! I want a lawyer!”
The crowd at the bar watched with interest as the officers escorted the man outside and into the waiting car.
* * *
Simon arrived at Cork Airport at ten past four that afternoon. He’d been on the wrong end of a bollocking from Thames House, for failing to get on the flight last night or the early one this morning. The truth was, he’d pulled into a service station on the way back from Dorset, realizing he was falling asleep at the wheel, and had passed out for the next four hours. When he woke, it was past nine, and he’d had to catch the one o’clock flight, which had been delayed by two hours.
Emerging from arrivals, Simon made a phone call.
“Glad you’ve made it, at long last,” Jenkins said sarcastically.
“Yes. Any news?”
“The Irish police think they’ve located Simpson. He was holed up at the same hotel as Haslam. They’ve taken him to the local station as we requested and are waiting for you to arrive to give a positive identification.”
“Good.”
“He was apparently unarmed and they didn’t find a weapon in his room, but I think we should send a couple of our people over to help you escort him back.”
“Sure. And . . . Haslam?”
“Our Irish colleagues tell us she’s just checked out. Seems she’s headed back to London. Her name’s on the passenger list for the six forty flight out of Cork. As Simpson is under lock and key for the present, I want you to wait at the airport for her arrival. Find out
what she’s discovered, if anything. Call me for further instructions later.”
“Right, sir.” Simon sighed heavily, not relishing another two-hour stint at an airport or the ensuing conversation with Joanna. He walked over to the newsagent’s, bought a paper, and settled down on a seat that gave him a clear view of the entrances to the departure hall.
At six thirty, the final call for Heathrow was being broadcast over the loudspeaker. Having already confirmed with the check-in desk that Ms. J. Haslam was a no-show and then gone airside to scour the departure lounge thoroughly, Simon was certain she wasn’t here. He watched the final passenger run through the boarding gate and down the stairs to the waiting plane.
“That’s it, sir. We’re closing the flight,” said the young Irish woman on the desk.
Simon strode to the large window and watched the stairs slide silently away from the plane and the door shut. He sighed in resignation, thinking it had all seemed too easy.
Twenty minutes later, Simon was in a rented car, haring down the N71 toward Rosscarbery.
* * *
The sitting room was lit by the flames from the fire, casting ghostly, flickering shadows on the walls. The two women sat in silence, hardly noticing the night that had descended on them, too lost in their own thoughts.
“You believe me, don’t you?”
After all of these years of being labeled mad, it was hardly surprising Ciara Deasy needed reassurance, Joanna supposed.
“Yes.” Joanna put her fingers to her temples. “I just . . . can’t think straight at the moment. There are so many things I want to ask you.”
“There’s time, Joanna, maybe tomorrow, so, we can speak. Ye have a rest, collect your thoughts, then come back and see me.”
“Ciara, have you kept the letter?”
“No.”
Joanna slumped in disappointment. “Then there’s no way of proving what you’ve told me.”
“The house has.”
“Sorry?”
“I left it in there under the floorboards. I’d a feeling ’twas the safest thing.”
“Would the damp not have got to it by now?”
“No. That house might be old, but it’s dry. It was built to withstand the worst of weather. Besides”—Ciara’s eyes glinted—“I put it inside a tin box under the window in the bedroom where she died. The one that you can see this very cottage from.”
“Then . . . should I go and get it? If I’m going to prove that neither of us are mad, I need it.”
“Be careful, Joanna. That house, it holds bad spirits, so it does. I still hear her crying, sometimes, from across the estuary . . .”
“I will.” Joanna refused to be spooked. “How about I get it tomorrow morning when it’s light?”
Ciara glanced out of the window, lost in her own thoughts. “There’s a storm brewing. The estuary’ll be swollen by the morning . . .”
“Okay.” Joanna stood up, the darkness and talk of storms and ghosts galvanizing her into action. “Thank you, Ciara, for telling me all you know.”
“You take care now.” She squeezed Joanna’s hand. “Don’t be trusting anyone, will ye?”
“No. Hopefully, I’ll be back here tomorrow with the letter.”
Outside, the wind was now howling across the estuary, the rain scudding at an angle. Joanna shivered uncontrollably as she saw the black mass of the coastguard’s house outlined against the sky. Struggling in the darkness to unlock her car, she climbed inside with relief and slammed the door shut against the gale. She switched the engine on to stem the noise outside, and drove off up toward the village. A hot port and the warmth of the fire would comfort her frayed nerves, she told herself, give her a chance to sort out her thoughts.
She was just switching off the engine, ready to go back into the hotel and tell Margaret she was staying for an extra night, when a familiar figure emerged from the front door of the hotel a few yards away from her. She instinctively ducked down as he stepped out onto the pavement.
Please God, don’t let him see me . . .
The blood pumped in her ears as headlights bathed the car in bright light for a few agonizing seconds, then there was darkness once more. She sat up, leaned her head back, and breathed again. They were obviously onto her, which meant she had very little time left and couldn’t wait until the morning. She had to go to the coastguard’s house now and retrieve the letter before someone else did.
There was a tap on her rear window and Joanna nearly jumped out of her skin. She turned round and saw another familiar face smiling at her through the glass. She rolled down her window reluctantly as he walked round the car toward her.
“Hi, Lucy.”
“Hi, Kurt,” she said carefully. “How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Right.”
“I thought I’d missed you. I dropped by the hotel and they said you’d gone. I was just on my way back to my hotel in Clonakilty when I saw you out here in the car.” He studied her. “You look awful pale. Anything wrong?”
“I’m fine.”
“You going somewhere?”
“I . . . no. I just got back. It’s bed for me now.”
“Sure. You positive you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. Bye, Kurt.”
“Yeah, bye.” He gave her a cheery wave as she rolled the window back up, waited until she saw him walking away, then legged it through the rain to the entrance of the hotel. Peering out of the window, she waited until Kurt’s car had driven off out of sight, then ran back to her car and started the engine.
She drove back along the causeway toward the house, her eyes continually darting to the rearview mirror, but no other car appeared behind her.
* * *
Simon drove through the lashing rain toward the garda station at the other end of Rosscarbery village. He’d stopped off at the hotel to quickly check out the room Ian had been staying in, before going to identify him. Margaret, the woman in charge, had told him that the room had already been cleared by the guards and all Ian’s possessions taken down to the station half an hour ago. As for Joanna, Margaret had not seen her since she’d checked out and left for the airport at four o’clock that afternoon.
He pulled up in front of a small white terraced house, its lit Garda sign outside the one indication that this was a police station. The reception was deserted. He rang a bell and eventually a young man came through a door.
“Good evening to you, sir. Terrible weather we’re cursed with, isn’t it? How can I be helping ye?”
“My name’s Simon Warburton. I’ve come to identify Ian Simpson.” Simon flashed his identification card.
“I’m Sean Ryan and I’m glad to be seeing you. Your man’s given us trouble ever since he arrived. He’s not happy to be here. Not that any of them are, to be fair.”
“Is he sober?”
“I’d say that he was, yes. We gave him a breath test and he was under the limit.”
That makes a change, Simon thought. “Right, let’s go and take a look at him then.”
He followed Sean down a short, narrow corridor. “I had to lock him in the back office, Simon, he was acting up so. Watch yourself, won’t you?”
“Yes,” Simon replied as Sean unlocked the door, then stepped aside to let Simon enter first. A man was slumped over the desk, his head resting on his arms, a Marlboro Light burning to its filter in the ashtray. The man looked up at Simon and let out a sigh of relief.
“Thank God! Maybe you can tell this ignorant bunch of Paddies that I’m not Ian bloody Simpson!”
Simon’s heart sank. “Hello, Marcus.”
* * *
Joanna parked the car on a grass verge just opposite the coastguard’s house, turned off the engine, and reached for her flashlight, galvanizing what was left of her shredded nerves to get out of the car and cross the causeway to the house.
She opened the door and switched on the flashlight, her legs feeling weak beneath her. She shone the flashlight beam onto the sandbanks and sa
w the tide had begun to come in, filling the estuary with water. She knew the only way to get inside the house was to wade through it, climb up the wall, and slip in through the kitchen window.
As she made her way down the steps and into the sea, she gritted her teeth against the shock of the freezing water that reached up to just below her knees, the pelting rain soaking the top half of her body. Wading across to the steeply sloping back wall, she shone the flashlight upward to locate the kitchen window. A few more feet and she was just beneath it. She reached up to grab the top of the wall with her fingertips, then pulled her body upward, her muscles straining with the effort as she struggled to find a foothold. She cried out in pain as she lost her grip and nearly toppled over backward into the water. Another three tries and her foot managed to find an indent in the brick so she could haul herself up.
Panting hard, she lay on top of the wall. Standing up carefully on the slippery ledge, Joanna shone the flashlight and located the broken windowpane. Realizing the width was too small to shimmy through, she pulled down the sleeve of her jacket and, covering her hand with it, punched at the bottom corner of the remaining glass, which splintered, then eventually fell away, until there was enough room to climb in. Knocking the remnants of the glass from the frame, she launched herself inside headfirst.
The beam of the flashlight showed her the floor of the kitchen was three feet below her. She reached down, her legs still hanging out of the window, and her fingertips touched the damp floor beneath her. She tumbled forward with a sharp cry, landing with a thump on the hard floor, and lay there for a few seconds, feeling something furry tickling the side of her face. Joanna sprang up, shone the flashlight down, and saw the dead rat on the floor.
“Oh God! Oh God!” she panted, her chest heaving in shock and disgust, her shoulder aching from the brunt of the fall.
As she stood there, the atmosphere of the house curled around her. Every nerve ending in her body sensed the danger, the fear, and the death that seeped out of the walls. Instinct told her to get out and run.
The Royal Secret Page 34
