by Erin Hart
“No good will come of this,” Brendan said, his muscles visibly tightening. “No good. You’ll see.” Then he turned and tramped stolidly away, leaving Cormac to wonder what kind of hornet’s nest he had stumbled into here. There were Osborne’s missing wife and child, perhaps the victims of foul play; young Jeremy Osborne’s self-destructive bent; and now Brendan McGann’s seething hatred of his neighbor. He thought back to the way Brendan had glared at Osborne out on the bog, and the look on Una’s face as she defended Hugh against whispered accusations about his wife’s disappearance. Maybe that was it—Brendan believed, or at least harbored a strong suspicion, that his sister was involved with Hugh Osborne. And maybe he wasn’t the only one—hadn’t Fintan said that he wished Una would wise up?
“Hello? Cormac? Where are you?” It was Nora.
“Over here.” He heard her footsteps approaching.
“Sorry that phone call took so long. I should have been here ages ago, I know.” She came around the corner of the church, following the sound of his voice. “You’ll be happy to know it paid off. Dawson’s agreed to let us remove the piece of metal that showed up in the X rays. So that means I’ll have to be back for the dental exam on Monday, but you have my full assistance until then.” She paused, waiting for his response. “Well, isn’t that good news? You do want to find out who she is, don’t you?” He stood silent and frowning.
“Hello? Cormac?” Nora said, waving a hand in front of his face. “You haven’t heard a word I said.”
“No, I have, I have. But I’ve just been carrying on a very odd conversation myself.”
“With whom? There’s nobody here.”
“Brendan McGann. He’s just gone.” Cormac related the gist of his exchange with Brendan, and tried to describe what he’d seen in the man’s eyes when they spoke of Osborne.
“So Brendan believes there’s something between Hugh and his sister? What do you think?”
“I don’t know. Hugh Osborne’s a married man.”
“Whose wife has disappeared,” Nora said.
“This is none of our business anyway. Maybe we should give up speculating and try sticking to hard science while we’re here.”
They unloaded the surveying equipment from the jeep and, working from the maps Hugh Osborne had provided, began to measure the site and set up markers where the excavator should begin digging. The sound of car tires on gravel broke the silence, and soon Garrett Devaney approached them.
“How are you getting on?”
“Have you developed an interest in archaeology since we last met, Detective?” Cormac asked.
“Not exactly. I ran into Fintan McGann, and he told me what you were up to out here. I’ve been going through the old Osborne case file. And I thought with you working out here for a while, and staying up at the house, you might happen to pick up something useful.”
“Do you really think anybody’s going to talk to us? We’re strangers here.”
“You never know,” Devaney said. “But what I had in mind was more just keeping your eyes and ears open, letting me know if you notice anything that seems out of the ordinary.” He handed each of them a card. “The first number is the station in Loughrea, and the second is my home number; you can call at any time.”
“And what should we consider out of the ordinary?” Nora asked.
“You’ll know. Why? Was there something you’d like to tell me about?”
Cormac cut in. “No, Detective, I don’t think so, just wondering what you consider strange. Perfectly innocent behavior might appear unusual if you don’t know the background.”
“Indeed. I’m not asking you to betray any confidences, only to keep your eyes and ears open. A woman and a child have gone missing. They may very well be dead, and not one suspect has ever been charged. At this point, I’m willing to follow any sort of lead.”
When Devaney had returned to his car, Nora turned to Cormac. “You’re very cautious.”
“There’s a simple explanation for everything we’ve seen. Lots of farmers get a bit narky about traffic on the roads where they drive cattle. And lots of young lads get maggoty drunk once or twice. Not exactly front-page news.”
“You might feel different if it were someone you knew who was missing. Or dead.”
6
Just past midday, Una McGann was working at the loom when she heard a crash from the other side of the house. Brendan was off with Fintan tending the cattle; they weren’t due back until teatime, and Aoife was upstairs taking a nap after a long morning of make-believe. She stopped her shuttle to listen, trying to pinpoint where the noise was coming from. Sliding off the long bench seat, she moved quietly to the front hall, and followed the sounds to the closed door of Brendan’s room, directly behind the sitting room.
Una threw open the door to find a slightly dazed-looking hooded crow peering up at her from the middle of the floor, black wings shiny against the soft gray of its back.
“Well, Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph,” she said, her surprise melting into relief that it wasn’t a more dangerous intruder. “Just let me get the broom, you dirty bugger, and you’ll be outside before you know it.” She closed the door again, and retreated to the kitchen, where she fetched the broom, then opened the front door of the house. As she stepped into Brendan’s room, she and the bird eyed one another, each expecting the other to make the first move. The bird turned slowly on its large claws, keeping its head cocked and one shining black eye pointed in her direction.
“Out with you now,” she said, making a sudden lunge with the broom. “Out that door you go, now.”
But the bird opened its wings and tried to take off inside the small room, fluttering awkwardly over the bed and down behind it. Una gripped the bedpost and gave a mighty pull, then swept the astonished bird along the floor and straight out the bedroom door. Out in the hallway, it began once more to flap, but found the narrow walls too constricting, and skated on its claws toward the open front door, broom straw at its back. Outside, the bird remained grounded for only a brief instant before opening its dark wings and lifting up into the air and away.
Una’s heart was pounding. She could not imagine how the bloody thing had gotten into the house. Brendan was usually so careful about stopping all the chimneys with netting. She returned to his room to put things right. The books on his table were all awry. She knew he wouldn’t be at all pleased to know that she’d been in here messing about with his things, crow or no crow, so she tried to replace everything exactly as it had been. She straightened the coverlet on the narrow bed and was about to shove it back against the wall when she noticed a bit of paper sticking out from a hole in the plaster. There was a small hollowed-out place behind the head of the bed, with a folded sheet of paper hanging precariously from it. She smiled at the idea of Brendan keeping a secret place like a schoolboy, and was just pushing the paper back into place when she saw a bit of handwriting that spelled out her own name.
She hesitated, not wanting to intrude upon her brother’s privacy, but feeling that she was entitled to read something that bore her name. Slowly she drew the paper from its crevice.
“Eire—Ireland,” the heading ran, “BIRTH CERTIFICATE issued in pursuance of Births and Deaths Registration Acts 1863 to 1972.” Everything was written twice, in Irish and in English. “Ainm (ma tugadh)/Name (if any),” and in the space below, “Aoife.” Her own name was written in the space labeled “Name and Surname and Maiden Surname of Mother.” The space under “Name and Surname and Dwelling Place of Father” was blank.
Her first reaction was to tear up this reminder of the day, five years ago, when her daughter was born, a day that should have been a joyous celebration but instead had been twisted into something shameful by the vaguely disapproving looks of the nurses at the hospital in Dublin. She had never told anyone who Aoife’s father was, maintaining that it could have been any one of a half-dozen lads she’d known from university. Her aim had been to shock the prying busybodies, and judging from their looks she
had succeeded, but it was an empty victory.
Why would Brendan have a copy of this certificate? And why should he keep it hidden? As she reached in to extract whatever else might be in the hiding place, she heard a small metallic clatter at her knee, and looked down to find a gold hair clasp. She turned it over to find two filigree elephants with their trunks entwined. Holding the clasp in her hand, feeling the weight of it, the roughness of the filigree against her fingers, Una remembered where she’d seen it before.
It was nearly three years ago now. She and Aoife had stopped in at Pilkington’s to pick up a bottle of ammonia, which she used as a mordant for her dyes. She’d seen Mina Osborne standing at the counter holding her son, who was a bit younger than Aoife. The child wore a brand-new pair of red wellingtons. Mina Osborne had shifted the child from one hip to the other. The tired little boy had put a thumb in his mouth and reached up the other hand to twine his fingers in his mother’s hair, and in this small gesture of self-comfort accidentally touched the clip that held her long black hair in place. The clasp had sprung open, frightening the child, who immediately began to wail, and as the mother comforted him, the hair clasp slid off and fell to the ground at Una’s feet. Both women had stooped to pick it up, and Una noticed the intricate metalwork, and its distinctive design of two elephants. What a beautiful clasp, she had said, handing it back. Mina Osborne had looked at her so strangely that Una hoped it was not the sight of herself and Aoife that had caused the pain and sadness in those lovely dark eyes. Mina had taken the clasp with barely audible thanks and left the shop. It was the very afternoon she had disappeared.
Una looked down at the clasp in her hand. Two or three long black hairs were caught in its hinge. She reached back into Brendan’s hiding place, this time pulling out a pile of carefully folded newspaper cuttings. “Wife, Son of Local Man Missing,” said one. “Family Appeals for Aid in Tracing Mother and Child,” read another. “Gardai Resume Bogland Search Today,” and finally, “Gardai Baffled by Disappearance.”
Why was Brendan hoarding all these things? What explanation could he possibly have? She hurriedly shoved all her discoveries back into the hole, not knowing or caring whether they were in exactly the same place. She nudged the bed back against the wall. Brendan had always been hot-headed; he’d go off by himself when he needed to think, walking the bog or the mountain, or sitting by the lake until he had worked things out or calmed down a bit. He often snapped at her and Fintan. But she’d always believed he was anything but a hard man inside. He could be very gentle with Aoife. She’d lived with her brother in this house for more than twenty years, but did she know him well? Willing her fears not to be true, Una set the pictures on the walls to rights and closed the door to Brendan’s room once more. She decided to say nothing about the crow.
7
Dunbeg reminded Cormac of his own home place in many ways: the humpback bridge, the small lace-curtained windows on the white, pink, and green pebble-dash houses that lined the only main street. The original Irish name for this place was dun beag, “small fort.” It was possible that there had been no fort here for a thousand years, but the name lived on. A couple of sagging shop fronts stood abandoned, with weeds sprouting in their rain gutters, and a thin layer of soot seemed to cover everything. Even the lowering gray sky contributed to the town’s pervading air of pessimism. There had obviously been a recent push to tidy up and present a good face, as evidenced by a couple of freshly painted pub fronts with hanging pots of flowers. But the roar of the Celtic Tiger had yet to be heard here, and Dunbeg was not near any of the main roads so frequented by cars full of tourists. Cormac guessed any holiday-makers here tended to be solitary anglers looking for a quiet spot to fish.
As he pulled to a stop at the curb, a muscular, short-haired terrier and a shaggy black and white sheepdog ambled past, taking turns for a sniff and a piddle at each doorway, a couple of old comrades out on a spree. He climbed out of the jeep and ventured toward a nearby window that displayed a miscellany typical of a small-town hardware shop: a pitchfork and spade, wallpaper brushes and paint scrapers, pots and pans, clocks, locks, trowels, dog leashes, flashlights, and fishing poles. A plainly painted antique sign above the window said, “J. Pilkington.” As he drew nearer, a white placard propped in the window caught his eye; below the quatrefoil emblem of the Garda Siochana, the national police force, was a black-and-white image of a woman and child. The notice was dated almost a year ago. Cormac stooped to read the smaller type. “In the approach to the second anniversary of the disappearance of Mina and Christopher Osborne, the Gardai are renewing their appeal for information that would or might help in the ongoing investigation.” The paragraphs that followed gave physical descriptions and details of what the two were last seen wearing. As he read, Cormac became aware of a pair of eyes looking intently at him from the other side of the glass. When he glanced up, the woman inside pretended to be dusting the shelves below the window.
He entered the shop, and as he went about picking up the things he’d need for the dig, had the distinct sensation that he was still being watched, though every time he raised his eyes, there was no one in sight. When he’d gathered all he needed, he proceeded to the counter.
“Can I help you find anything else, sir, or is that the lot?” piped a bright-eyed pixie of a woman. Hers was the face that had been staring at him through the front window. She was thin and dark, and wore a loud polka-dotted black smock. The woman’s wispy haircut further emphasized her elfin character.
“I’ll also need a roll of baling plastic and a half-dozen planks of wood, if you have them, about eight feet long.”
“Ah, we do,” the woman said. “I’ll get the young lad to fetch them out for you.” She stuck her head through the doorway to the back room, and communicated his order to a red-haired boy of about fourteen who was sweeping the floor inside.
“You must be the archaeologist fella who was here before,” said the elf-woman, leaning forward on the till. Cormac smiled faintly.
“I am.”
“Dolly Pilkington’s my name. You’re very welcome to Dunbeg.”
“Cormac Maguire. I have a letter here somewhere from Hugh Osborne, giving me leave to charge these things to his account,” he said, patting his various pockets to locate the paper.
“Now, don’t trouble yourself, there’s no need for that at all.” She began totting up his purchases with pencil and paper. “I don’t suppose there’s any news on your bog person then?” she asked. “Oh Lord, you should have heard the rumors flying here a few days ago. Horrible they were, too. Desperate stories about murderers and banshees. There was grown men and women didn’t sleep in their beds that night, I’m tellin’ you.”
“I heard it was somebody’s chopped-off head,” said the freckly red-haired boy, who’d returned with the plastic sheeting and boards.
“This conversation is none of your concern,” said Mrs. Pilkington. “Set those things outside the door, and then back on the broom with you, before I give you a box.” The boy’s lower lip jutted defiantly, but he did as he was told.
Cormac was unsure how to respond, knowing that the next person to make a purchase at Pilkington’s would no doubt emerge with as much knowledge of the cailin rua as he was willing to divulge. But better they should have the basic facts than to let rumors breed. “We really don’t have much information at all at this point,” he said, “apart from the fact that it’s a young woman with red hair.” He searched for the least sensational combination of words. “And we didn’t find her body.”
Mrs. Pilkington made a hurried sign of the cross. “Be the holy mother o’ God. Well, of course the first thing we all thought was that it was the pair of them,” she said, pointing toward the placard in the window. “And wasn’t it strange that Mr. Osborne was right here in the shop, standing where you are now, when my Oliver came in with the news about a body bein’ found in the bog—well, I suppose you’re after saying it wasn’t a body at all, but we didn’t know that at the time,
now, did we? Anyway, poor Mr. Osborne went pale, so he did, the very same as the color of chalk, and took hold of Oliver by the shoulders, asking where had he heard it, and where did they say it was, and was he certain he’d heard it right, till I thought he’d shake the life out of the poor lad. And as soon as Oliver answered him, he bolted straight out that door, never even waited for his packages or his change. I had to send Oliver round with the parcels and the money this morning, because he never came back for them, not that day, nor the next, isn’t that so, Oliver?”
“Yeah,” the boy said glumly, without looking up. Cormac guessed that he’d been called upon to corroborate his mother’s story more than once before in this manner.
“Why was it strange that Osborne was here?” Cormac asked.
“Because this is the last place we saw his missus and the little lad before they disappeared,” said Mrs. Pilkington. “Dreadful, isn’t it? They used always to be coming in here, you know, a very nice quiet lady she was—a proper Catholic, too, though you mightn’t think it to look at her, she was as dark as a black African, that one. And little Christopher. He’d always stop and say hello to me when he came into the village with his daddy. Such lovely manners, he had, for such a small little lad. Do you have any children yourself, Mr. Maguire?”
“I’m not married.”
“Well, sure, the want of a wedding doesn’t stop them,” she said. “There’s plenty around here proof enough of that. Ah, but you’re better off as you are, really, for all the heartache you’d suffer with them.” Cormac glanced over at Oliver Pilkington’s bowed head, and wondered what heartache he’d been responsible for thus far.
“What do people make of it—the disappearance?” Cormac asked.
“Depends on them you speak to. Now, I don’t hold with gossiping. I’ll tell you straight out. It’s a sin. There’s some round here and they’ve nothing better to do than sit and natter about other people’s misfortunes. For instance,” she said, suddenly lowering her voice, “there’s a few would be delighted to tell you how Mr. Osborne’s always had a bit of a name for himself as jack-the-lad; they say the wife got fed up with his carry-on, and took the child and ran off. Some look at the money he’s supposed to get from the insurance and say she’s murdered in the bog and he’s the one that done it. Ah God, it’s shocking altogether, what people will say.” She gestured dramatically, as if she could bear to talk about it no longer.
