Arcanum: An Irish Mystery

by Ann Mann

  “I’m just a phone call away, but I will need to know by the beginning of November. Ring me.”

  And she was gone leaving Clodagh feeling even more confused and battered by the rapid onslaught of events than she had been before.

  Did Erin have a point? Was it worth considering joining another company when Arcanum’s future was hanging in the balance? It was a good offer but how could she abandon Silas now at this crucial time when he desperately needed her support and friendship? More than ever they were connected by a common bond within a maelstrom of emotional uncertainty.

  Anyway, Deirdre McCall had suggested that the two of them could headline a season in Ennis. If and when they did decide to dance, then maybe that would be the best option for the short term and they could still be around for their friends when…

  Her thoughts trailed into a cloud of miserable despair. And that despair once more threw up the same old questions. Why hadn’t they reached their destination? Why couldn’t they be contacted? Why hadn’t her prayers been answered?

  Not wanting to be seen crying yet again, Clodagh rose quickly and made her way out of the bar. She wouldn’t need to tell Silas about Erin’s offer for there was no way she would be accepting it.

  *

  The remainder of September and most of October passed slowly and forlornly with the drawing in of damp, foggy nights and the spiteful promise of winter just around the corner. Halloween fireworks and celebrations had begun to excite families up and down the country as grinning pumpkins beamed a candlelight welcome from windows, and in dark shadows figures dressed in sheets and scream-masks hissed and booed and leapt out at unsuspecting night walkers.

  For Joe Tierney and his colleagues in Ennis the disappearance of the coach and its passengers had become a nightmare of international proportions as the families of the three non-Irish members of the troupe each from Valencia, Hamburg and Chicago descended on Dublin and County Clare bringing with them a trail of film makers and news teams, lawyers and priests. Each family offered their own reward on their Facebook pages and this in turn attracted the anticipated number of sick prank responses which sent the social network sites almost into meltdown. But there was still an absence of any information that could throw light on the mystery and the Gardai were forced to admit that they were baffled.

  Speculation grew, due to this lack of hard information. Twigs of possible news, sightings, rumours were woven into stories. Silas and Clodagh had made the decision to stay in Ennis with Clodagh making the occasional journey home to see her parents. They had taken daily drives in those early days following the disappearance, but the more time passed the more depressing those futile searches had become as they returned each evening with the same dull sense of failure and overwhelming loss.

  Silas figured he had nothing to lose by taking up Deirdre’s suggestion to work out a programme for the two of them which would certainly draw in the crowds although for all the wrong reasons. They could each perform individual routines and as the Arcanum scenery was at the theatre, he and Clodagh would re choreograph a segment of the Tarot set dance for the two of them. He had copies of the music tapes but they would need to pay for new costumes, an investment which Deirdre was certain they would recoup.

  For Silas, having to re-tell the story he had woven from the Major Arcana for his dancers was a painful and difficult process. For the moment he would keep his role as the Diviner, the person who foretells the future through the cards to the Inquirer, who was played by Michael but now would be an unseen character. Without the rest of the troupe to play members of the deck he could only rely on Clodagh’s luminous presence as The High Priestess, choreographed as a ballet in an atmosphere of partial silence, before they took the dance to its spirited finale together.

  He perched on a stool at the side of the stage, watching her rehearse and marvelling once again on how she had totally absorbed this character. He also found himself reflecting on how it had all started for him and what a great time he had enjoyed before arriving at this present unlikely cross-roads in his life and career.

  Born in Boston to an Irish-American family, he was the youngest of four children, of whom the other siblings were girls. His father Patrick was a quiet and thoughtful presence in the home, a master carpenter like his father and grand-father before him, who always managed to put food on his family’s table and who loved to read to his children at night which he did until they were around thirteen or fourteen. Silas’s mother, like Clodagh’s, was a part-time school teacher but also a theatre enthusiast spending many an hour helping backstage with amateur productions of plays and musicals in which the pupils at her school participated.

  None of his sisters were in the least interested in Irish dance and when Silas first expressed a desire to learn at the age of seven, they screamed with laughter and teased him mercilessly. Fortunately for Silas, his father and mother encouraged him in his passion, sending him first to a small dancing school for the under twelve’s which was situated within walking distance of his home.

  After years of suffering bullying at his Catholic preparatory school, being named a faggot and shunned by some of the boys he would have liked to have become friends with, Silas hit the magic age of twelve and then everything he had ever dreamed of was suddenly on the brink of fruition.

  An Irish dance group had made a guest appearance in an international European song festival held in Dublin which had been televised it seemed in almost every country in the world, including on a couple of small stations in America. They had actually stolen the show and made headlines in most newspapers the next day.

  Soon their fame had reached U.S. shores as the two lead dancers were of Irish-American stock and Silas was shown the video by his excited mother and dance teacher, who managed to record the segment when it was eventually transmitted on ABC.

  The young Silas was captivated. Michael Flatley, the charismatic choreographer and lead dancer became his role model and everything he aspired to be. An Irish-American boy who proved that a red-blooded male could make an ancient musical culture into a modern, sexy and exciting form of entertainment.

  Silas became obsessed, collecting all the audio and video recordings the dance group had made but the highlight for the young boy was being taken by his parents to see them perform live at the Radio City Music Hall in 1996.

  When Flatley left Riverdance and started his own troupe, Silas followed “Lord of the Dance,” “Feet of Flame” and “Celtic Tiger” with all the fervour of a religious convert. With the onset of DVDs and the internet, he was able to access as much material as was possible and left the small dancing school he had been attending to study in the bigger and suddenly very popular Boston Academy of Irish Dance.

  From then on it was uphill all the way, although he still had to achieve Flatley’s unbelievable record of thirty-five clicks a second. Moving from competition to competition, he continued to learn and perform with thoughts and ideas ever crowding his mind on how he could create his own productions which would be seen by audiences all over the world.

  Then he met Clodagh. And that memory jolted him swiftly back to the present as he realised she had finished dancing and was looking enquiringly at him for approval.

  “Yes. Yes,” he shouted and she looked startled. “You’ve got it. Absolutely.”

  She was surprised. She didn’t think she had got it at all. In fact she was deeply sceptical that the dance could work in this reduced format. The other thing which was bothering her, and she wouldn’t tell Silas, was the way the costume was making her feel. Before, she had simply thought of it as another prop necessary for her performance. Something to be worn, taken off and hung up in her dressing-room, then forgotten about until the next time she needed to wear it. Now, something indefinable had occurred, in that the dress itself felt like a second skin. Almost part of her own body and when she removed it she felt naked and exposed.

 
She wondered a little for her sanity. She could hear Silas speaking to her but wasn’t taking in his words. Had this whole unhappy event unhinged her? She suddenly felt a cold wave of fear and needed to get out of the theatre, into the air where she could feel normal again.

  He moved forward asking if she was okay and she nodded, stumbling past him anxious to get out of the blue dress and into her jeans and trainers.

  Concerned, Silas stared after her. He wished that she would confide in him for he knew that something other than the disappearance of her friends was playing on her mind.

  He attempted a humourless soft shoe jig on the dusty stage and heard a door creak open at the top of the auditorium throwing a pillar of light on to the crimson velvet seats.

  “Silas!” Deirdre McCall’s voice was strange. Higher than usual with an imperceptible hint of hysteria.

  “Deirdre? Are you alright?” He jumped down from the stage and started walking towards her as she ran up the aisle shouting the words that almost stopped his heart.

  “Silas, they’ve found him. They’ve found the driver.”

  *

  Co. Clare.

  1735

  The two handsome horses pulling the elegant black coach came to a halt outside the big house, flaring their nostrils and stamping their hooves, clearly relieved that the two hour journey they had just endured along the rutted country roads was finally over.

  He stepped out in full costume, then as the coach drove away and before making his way to the great front door, peered into one of the brightly lit windows, drawing a deep breath and assimilating the scene inside, as perfect and idyllic a picture as he could only have fantasised about until tonight.

  Tall candles burned brightly in silver holders on polished tables, flowers that he could have sworn were out of season seemed to bloom in ornate vases as he watched them, a large bowl containing fruit, another filled with walnuts sat on smaller tables beside massive fireside chairs and the tableau was completed by the characters who inhabited it and whom he was about to meet.

  Hired by the master of the house to tutor his ten year old daughter and twelve year old son in the minuet and the hornpipe, he was to be paid one gold coin as well as supplied with a free supper courtesy of the housekeeper when the lesson was over.

  When he was shown into the drawing room, flanked by two excited wolfhounds, he removed his feathered hat with a flourish and bent into an exaggerated bow which drew giggles from the children who were then gently reprimanded by their mother.

  The master of the house was tall and of swarthy appearance, dressed in an embroidered silk waistcoat and grey silk breeches. He carried a riding crop certainly just for effect and bore an air of wealth and power which he appeared to exercise over family and servants alike. His son, although golden-haired, was a minute version of the master, dressed similarly, but wearing buckled shoes for dancing rather than tall leather riding boots.

  The women present could have been created from an artist’s palette. The pastel coloured silks of their dresses blended delicately against the heavy maroon and cream drapes and damask wall coverings and rustled seductively when they moved.

  The lady of the house and mother of the children, had a plain but pleasant face with light brown hair woven into circular braids flattened over her ears. Her beautiful dress was a design of lemon, parsley green and white and she kept her eyes lowered as she daintily worked on needlepoint while seated beside the area where the dance lesson was to take place.

  The other woman was playing the harp and she would have been the one he would have bedded that night if he only had the chance. Dressed in lavender silk, her hair flowed long and red over her shoulders and her creamy breasts rose and fell in rhythm with the plucking of her instrument while she purposely kept her eyes very firmly away from his.

  He offered the little girl his hand and bowed again to which she replied with a curtsy. Also fair like her brother, her hair was fashioned into bobbing ringlets and the pastel of her dress was a musky rose which accentuated her pink and ivory complexion.

  They already had the deportment and carriage of the aristocracy and that made it so much easier. So very different to those peasants in the village, half of whom could not stand straight and who were unable to tell their left from right so that the only way he could teach them was to tie straw around their right ankles making it easier for them to differentiate and understand his commands.

  The oriental rug had been pulled back revealing the floorboards on which the dance was to take place. He took a piece of chalk from his pocket and marked a large letter Z on the floor then guided the children by their shoulders into the centre of the floor where he placed them either end of the chalk mark.

  Their mother laid aside her needlework and made her way to a delicately carved harpsichord where she sat down and opened the sheet music for the minuet. When she and the harpist received their cue they began to play the melody and he moved the children in a slow dance along the chalk mark, passing each other and finishing in the other’s place. They repeated this graceful movement several times before he ordered the boy to approach his sister, bow and escort her back to their starting position where they both bowed to their delighted father.

  Dismissing the two women from their musical duties, he then brought out his penny whistle and blew a jaunty tune to which, using intricate footwork, he began to dance the hornpipe, indicating that the children follow him as best they could. When they collapsed with laughter, he gave a mock frown and showed them how to put the accents on the first and third beat of the music and use a rocking motion with their ankles.

  When they finally mastered the rudiments of the dance, he blew out another lively tune and their parents rose to applaud the excellent efforts their offspring had achieved.

  Later, with a gold coin in his pocket and his belly full of rabbit stew and mead, he bid the servants goodnight in the flagstone kitchen but then remembered he had stupidly left his hat on a chair in the drawing room.

  Creeping back up the stairs into the house, he opened the door quietly and seeing no one there, went inside to retrieve the hat while suddenly becoming conscious of a scratching sound emitting from behind a lacquered Chinese screen at the far end of the room. Most of the candles had gone out but there were still one or two flickering on the mantelpiece of the huge stone fireplace and he stopped, rigidly still, wondering whether to advance or to leave. Then he heard something which he recognised all too well as a man and a woman reaching a sexual climax.

  Tiptoeing towards his hat with fingers outstretched, he noticed a riding boot protrude from behind the screen together with a brief flash of lavender silk and when he had snatched this most important element of his craft, he let himself quickly out of the house wearing a smirk of satisfaction.

  As the coach took him home, he lay back against the leather head-rest and closed his eyes. He would be there again because they were pleased with the way he had tutored the children but it was always useful to have a secret weapon. Just in case.

  *

  Joe Tierney took the call from Gerry Doyle at precisely ten past ten when he had just added a heap teaspoonful of white sugar to his third milky coffee of the morning. An action of habit and one which he should have surrendered upon recently hearing on the news how this seemingly innocent part of his daily ritual now appeared to have become the most deadly toxin since Hemlock.

  Up until then he had started the day in a way that had become routine since the disappearance, checking, double-checking and making calls, no matter how nebulous a particular line of enquiry might seem.

  His colleague from Clare told him that Dennis Ahearne had been taken to a hospital in Newmarket-on-Fergus, a town thirteen kilometres from Ennis, after being found by two men fishing earlier that morning at Lake Rosroe, a National Heritage area just north of the town.

  Tierney immediately placed a call to the
driver’s wife who was now setting off for the hospital with her son, but he felt worse than useless and unable to offer any information when she begged to know what had happened. Doyle had told him that the man had seemed confused and disorientated, mumbling incoherently and obviously in some state of shock. His clothes were now being examined by forensics and a new search centred on that particular area had been ordered, complete with sniffer dogs.

  He pulled out two aspirin from his desk drawer and swallowed them quickly with his coffee which by now was tepid and unappealing. The pressure over the last two months had been immense with no sign of a breakthrough, but perhaps at last there was some glimmer of light at the end of the Shunnel. He smiled weakly at his stupid play on words and grimaced at the amount of paper work that once again had to be abandoned because of this case.

  He knew that Doyle and the County Clare Garda were going to be more stressed than he was by this new development. The driver, although a Dubliner, had re-appeared in that county and all resources would be concentrated on finding the others in the vicinity of the lake. It was also possible that because it was a Heritage site area, this could throw up further complications for Doyle who might want to instigate a dig there. In addition the Parks and Wildlife Service might also feel they should be involved. ‘Well,’ he found himself thinking, uncharacteristically selfishly. ‘That’s his problem, not mine.’

  But Tierney’s problems were still questions crying out for clarification. Where had Dennis Ahearne been during the last six weeks, where was the vehicle and more to the point where were those young people? He knew he would have to arrange another press conference, this time just with himself and Doyle, as the two elderly fishermen had already been giving interviews and yet again the story was poised to continue it’s worldwide obsessive trail. He had told Doyle that he would get to Newmarket on Fergus as soon as possible to try and interview Ahearne, but the Clare detective had led him to believe that it wasn’t an option at the moment as the man had been heavily sedated.