He was trying to remember something the Archbishop had said earlier on down by St Patrick’s statue, something that might prove to be a clue in his inquiry. Dr Healey had talked about the dead body at the summit – that wasn’t it. He had talked about the need to continue with the pilgrimage – that wasn’t it either. It must have been something near the end when Powerscourt’s attention had been diverted by a group of fifteen nuns all climbing together.
‘When the Archbishop addressed the faithful, Lucy, by the statue early on, what did he say at the end?’
Lady Lucy looked at her husband closely. ‘He blessed the faithful, Francis, and I think he asked them to pray for the dead man. Why do you ask?’
‘I think it could be something important, my love, did he say anything else? Very near the end it was.’
Lady Lucy frowned. ‘He talked about the people who lived in Westport and the people who were visitors all being welcome. Hold on, he didn’t put it quite like that.’ She struggled to find the word. ‘This is it, I think, Francis. “Whether you live in Westport and the surrounding area or whether you lodge with us for the duration of the pilgrimage, you are all welcome.”’
‘That’s it, Lucy! Well done!’
‘I don’t understand, why should that be important?’
‘Lodge, Lucy, that’s what I was trying to remember. Not lodge in the sense of stay with or reside but lodge as in hunting lodge or shooting lodge or fishing lodge. Can’t you see? It would be a perfect place to hide the two Ormonde ladies, Lucy, miles from anywhere, you could see a rescue party coming from miles away, nobody would think of looking there anyway. They’re perfect hideaways.’
‘Would the people who took the pictures know about such places, Francis?’
‘They knew enough about all the big houses to come and steal the pictures. No reason why they couldn’t know about fishing lodges. Let’s see what Dennis Ormonde thinks.’
They passed the third station of Croagh Patrick, the pilgrims marching round it in circles once again. The afternoon was warm and the young men took off their jackets on the way down. Johnny Fitzgerald recovered his good humour at the easier passage at the bottom. Powerscourt still found it hard to believe that his friend was descended from one of the leaders of the ’98 Rebellion. Lady Lucy hoped that all those poor people who went up and down in bare feet could receive some attention as soon as possible. Just after one o’clock they were back in Ormonde House.
12
Dennis Ormonde was delighted to see his pilgrims return. ‘Come in, come in,’ he said, ushering them into his dining room. He was accompanied by a young police inspector from Westport. There was an enormous spread of cold food laid out in front of them. ‘Thought you would be famished after all that climbing,’ he went on, ‘didn’t know what time you’d be back. There’s cold chicken and salmon and a pheasant pie and cold potatoes and all kinds of stuff. And there’s beer and lemonade and wine for the thirsty.’ Johnny Fitzgerald advanced rapidly towards the drinks department and downed a glass of all three in quick succession, beginning with the lemonade and advancing through the beer to the Ormonde Chablis.
‘God, there were a lot of people out there today,’ Ormonde continued. ‘I took a little walk round about ten o’clock. There’s even a pilgrim with a bloody great motor car parked not a hundred yards from my front gates. I saw one of the locals patting the bonnet affectionately and telling his friends: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”’
Through mouthfuls of cold chicken and potato salad Powerscourt outlined his theory about hunting and fishing lodges.
‘By God, that’s clever, Powerscourt. Must be worth the ascent if it puts your brain into that sort of working order. They’d be perfect places to hide people, miles from anywhere, well equipped, bit of fishing if you get bored. Hold on . . .’ He paused for a moment. ‘My grandfather had a list of all the lodges round here, don’t suppose any new ones have been built in the last fifty years. It’s in the library somewhere, I’ll go and fetch it.’
Powerscourt asked the Inspector, whose name was Ronan O’Brien, if there was any further news on the name of the body found at the summit, and was told that there was so much confusion caused by the pilgrimage and the vast numbers of people that normal police work was virtually suspended for the time being.
‘Here we are,’ said Ormonde cheerfully, returning with a map which had a number of lodges marked on it, stretching as far north as Ballina and south into Connemara.
‘Is there a lodge belonging to the Butlers anywhere in that list?’ Powerscourt asked.
‘Not on here,’ said Ormonde, ‘but I believe there is one on the borders of Galway and Mayo, miles from anywhere. Bloody huge, the place is. Why do you ask, Powerscourt?’
‘With your permission, Ormonde, Johnny and I would like to take a look at that one.’
‘Is there something,’ asked Ormonde, staring closely at Powerscourt, ‘that you’re not telling us? Some information you have about the Butlers?’
‘Coming from you, my friend,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I don’t think any charges of holding back information carry much weight, seeing you have not yet shown me the blackmail letter.’
‘Of course you and Johnny can inspect the place. The Inspector here and his men will look after the rest.’
Powerscourt took a long draught of his lemonade. ‘This is, of course, premature,’ he said, pushing his plate back, ‘but I think we should consider exactly what anybody, policeman or ourselves, should do if they find the two Ormonde ladies and their captors. This is especially important for you, Ormonde. It’s your wife and her sister we are talking about here.’
‘I’m not quite sure what you mean.’ Dennis Ormonde looked puzzled.
‘It’ll be like a siege, for a start, and very few sieges end up with no casualties in my experience. Suppose you find signs of life in one of those places, smoke coming out of a chimney, a horse tied up round the back, somebody going in and out of the house. Do you go up and ring the front door bell? I think not. You might be shot or hauled inside to join the hostages. Another one in the bag.’
Dennis Ormonde looked thoughtful.
‘Suppose then’ – Lady Lucy wondered if her husband was about to start ticking off his points in the palm of his hand – ‘you decide on a frontal assault. One person rings the door bell and tries to shoot his way in, another one breaks a window and comes at the thieves the other way. There’s nothing to say they won’t shoot the two ladies the minute they hear the sound of gunfire. You could try launching some kind of attack in the night time but they’re perilous ventures, those night attacks, you can’t see who you’re shooting at and you can’t see the person shooting at you either.’
‘Dear me,’ said Ormonde.
‘Then there’s the problem of messages,’ Powerscourt went on remorselessly, ‘not just the messages we might want to send back, but the messages going into the house. There are three days left as from today until the deadline expires, as you well know, Ormonde. Somebody’s going to want to send messages to the people holding the women. If we’re doing our job properly we can spot the messenger before he arrives and intercept any message. But then how do we deliver it, assuming the real messenger is our prisoner? Or do we send a false message, saying Ormonde has paid up, the mission is accomplished, let the ladies go? And then what? If I were them and that happened, I’d leave the house with the ladies inside, lock every door in the place and take away the key. That would give my escape a head start.’
Dennis Ormonde looked confused. Lady Lucy remembered her own time as a hostage, incarcerated in a suite of rooms on the top floor of a Brighton hotel some years before at the time of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Francis had used a cunning combination of smoke and fire to effect her rescue on that occasion but she did not think he could use that device again.
The policeman had been looking at Ormonde’s map. ‘If I could make a suggestion, gentlemen,�
�� he began hesitantly, not accustomed to this sort of company, ‘there are two other lodges on the way to the Butler one. It would be a great help if you could look them over on your way.’
‘Of course,’ said Powerscourt.
‘And one more thing, if I may,’ the Inspector went on. ‘I’d like to send a couple of cavalrymen with you. We’ve got a detachment of them just now from the garrison in Castlebar. You may need people to send your own messages and so on.’
‘Thank you, Inspector, that would be most helpful.’
‘Were you involved in sieges in your time in the military, Powerscourt?’ Dennis Ormonde seemed to attach great importance to Powerscourt’s time in uniform.
‘We both were,’ Powerscourt replied, ‘and damned messy things they are too.’
‘Well,’ said Ormonde, refilling Johnny’s glass, ‘you’ll just have to use your discretion. I trust you to bring them back if you find them.’
Later that evening Powerscourt and Lady Lucy took a walk in the garden. Swallows were flying in formation round the terrace. A couple of sailing boats could be seen out in the bay.
‘You will be careful, Francis, promise me,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘I’ll be thinking of you all the time you’re away.’ Lady Lucy had never told her husband about the knot of anxiety that twisted its way round her stomach when he was off on a dangerous mission, a knot that sometimes seemed to her to grow into the size of a tennis ball.
‘Of course I will,’ said Powerscourt, putting his arm around her waist. ‘You mustn’t worry,’ he went on, although he suspected she did worry about him all the time.
‘Tell me, my love, why did you ask if there was a Butler lodge? Do you have suspicions about the people in the Butler house?’
‘It’s a hunch, Lucy, that’s all. Sometimes I think the key to the whole affair is in Butler’s Court, if only I could put my finger on it. But it’s nothing more definite than that. I wish to God it was.’
Early the next morning the four horsemen, not of the Apocalypse but of the rescue mission, set out from Ormonde House. Lady Lucy was there to wave them off. Powerscourt and Fitzgerald both had rifles and binoculars and an enormous supply of the Ormonde House cook’s finest chicken sandwiches along with some cheese and fruit. The two cavalrymen, Jones and Bradshaw from the County of Norfolk, looked as if they were equipped to survive out of doors for days at a time. Just ten minutes after they left Inspector Harkness rode up to the front door of Ormonde House. He left a large envelope addressed to Lord Francis Powerscourt. The rescue party made good time in the bright sunshine along the road to Louisburg, Croagh Patrick behind them looking especially friendly this morning, the sea and the islands on their right. In Louisburg, a miserable-looking place, Powerscourt thought, they turned left and took the road towards Leenane across the mountains. This was desolate country, barren hills all around them, not a single soul to be seen, the only sign of life the occasional sheep that wandered across the road and stared at the four riders as if they had no right to be there. Powerscourt reached into his breast pocket and pulled out grandfather Ormonde’s map.
‘For God’s sake, Francis, will you give the thing here,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, holding out his hand. ‘We want to find the bloody place this year, don’t we? If you’re in charge of the map, we’ll end up going round in circles like these sheep here.’
Powerscourt handed it over. ‘According to this,’ said Johnny doubtfully, ‘there’s a wood with a little river going through it about a mile or so up the road. Inishturk House, the first of these places, is in the middle of that. Quite how we find a wood in this empty space I don’t know, but that’s what the man says.’
On their left now they could see that the ground had been cut open to reveal black sections where turf had recently been cut. Turf, Powerscourt remembered, the free fuel of the poor, used to heat their homes and cook their food, always taking a long time to dry out before it would burn properly. He remembered an aunt of his who had refused to have it in the house on the grounds that it was tainted with Catholicism, only good for the poor Papists of the west, not the respectable Protestants of Dublin who had the sense to burn proper English coal in their fires. After five minutes or so they came upon the wood, a sad affair now, the trees diseased or stunted, battalions of crows nesting in the upper branches. The little river was behind the house, gurgling its way towards the Atlantic. An overgrown path, heavy with brambles, led off to their right.
‘The house must be down there, Francis,’ said Johnny, folding up his map. ‘What do we do now?’
‘I think we stop and listen for a moment or two. If we don’t hear any noises, you and I will go and have a look.’
The two cavalrymen stayed on guard at the entrance. Powerscourt and Fitzgerald tiptoed very slowly down the little track. Their feet seemed to be making a vast amount of noise. The brambles scratched their clothes. After a hundred yards Johnny tapped Powerscourt on the arm. Just visible ahead was the roof of a fairly large house. One or two of the slates seemed to have come off and one of the gutters was hanging down the side of the upper wall. Fifty yards further and the whole thing came into view. Powerscourt could just make out the words Inishturk House on a faded sign to the left of the front door. He made gestures with his hands to indicate that he was going to go round the left of the building and Johnny should take the right. He passed what had once been a tennis court or croquet lawn, a lopsided net full of holes still in place in the centre, but with only one post still standing. All the windows on the ground floor were enclosed by shutters that had once been white and were now a grubby grey. On the floor above there were curtains with holes in them. Towards the back of the house he came across a window that stood clear with no shutters. Spiders had been having a competition on the inside to see who could produce the most webs to stretch across the panes. He rubbed at the glass to get a better view. All he could see was a large dresser, looking in pretty good shape, he thought, and a stove where the cooking surfaces were thick with dust. At the back he met Johnny Fitzgerald, trying to rub the dirt off his hands.
‘What the devil do you think you two are doing, creeping round this house like a couple of burglars!’ An old man with a dog and a shotgun in his hands was addressing them from the front of an outhouse about thirty feet away. Powerscourt and Johnny both reached instantly for their right-hand pockets and then stopped. Was the old man the guard, the sentry for the people holding the hostages? Were they in the stables rather than the house? Was there another building further back where the captives lay?
‘We might ask the same of you,’ said Powerscourt pleasantly. ‘Just what are you doing wandering round the place with a gun in your hands?’
‘I’m no burglar,’ said the old man, ‘not like you two, though quite what you’d find to steal here I don’t know. I’m the caretaker here, they pay me a little to keep an eye on the place.’
‘Well, we work for Dennis Ormonde back at Ormonde House,’ said Powerscourt. ‘We’re trying to find his wife. She’s been kidnapped. All the empty houses round here are being inspected.’
‘I heard about the missing wife, and that’s a fact,’ said the old man. ‘Come to think of it now, you don’t look very much like burglars.’
‘Have you seen any strangers about the place,’ asked Johnny, ‘some people with a couple of women in tow?’
The old man spat neatly between his feet. ‘Couple of women, did you say? Single woman would be a bloody miracle round here. Something went wrong with the breeding business in these parts. Males everywhere. Hardly any women. I think it’s the peat in the water myself. One woman would be a bonus. Two would be a gift from God. No, I haven’t seen anything suspicious at all now.’
Powerscourt wondered if he was telling the truth. The party could still be hidden round the back somewhere. ‘We’ll be on our way then, Mr . . .?’ said Powerscourt.
‘O’Connell’s my name. Daniel O’Connell,’ the old man replied. ‘Named after the Liberator, you see.’
‘Spl
endid, Mr O’Connell,’ said Powerscourt, handing over five shillings as a mark of good faith and loyalty to the memory of the Liberator.
‘Tell me this, Mr O’Connell,’ said Johnny, ‘are there any pubs round here at all?’
‘Pubs? Pubs?’ The old man laughed and spat on the ground once more. ‘There’s no more chance of finding a pub in this district than there is of finding a woman. Less, I should say. You’ll have to go back to Louisburg or further on to Leenane to find a bloody pub and that’s a fact.’ The old man inspected Johnny carefully. ‘I could sell you a bottle of home-made, if you follow me, for a half a crown, so I could.’
Johnny handed over the money. The old man disappeared into his shed and brought back an innocent-looking dark brown bottle that might once have contained beer. ‘There you go,’ he said. ‘I’ve always found that if you drink enough of the bloody stuff you forget about the women altogether.’
The next house was a couple of miles further down the road. The sun had gone in and dark clouds were coming in from the sea, threatening rain later in the day. They were climbing deeper into the hills, the great empty wastes rolling across on either side of them. Johnny announced that Masons Lodge was just off the road and proposed that they should ride past it and then double back for an inspection. Rain was just beginning to fall as Powerscourt and Fitzgerald set off back down the road with Jones the cavalryman bringing up the rear. Bradshaw was in charge of the horses.
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