by Erin Hart
“My Johnny, God rest him, always did the firewood for the house. Shortly after Missus Osborne—the elder Missus Osborne, that is—and her young lad arrived over from England, Mr. Hugh asked my Johnny did he ever know anyone who’d be interested in helping out with the cleaning once or twice a week. I went there the very next day. Of course yer wan thought she was in charge, acting the grand lady, but I told her, seeing it was Mr. Hugh that paid me, it would be him that gave the orders. Oh, she didn’t like that. Not one bit.”
“And when Mina Osborne came to Bracklyn?”
“Ah, now, she was a dote. Always very lighthearted. And a real lady she was, too, but not above pitchin’ in now and again, not her. The little lad, Christopher, was a pure angel, used to love going around with me while I was cleaning. I’d give him a bit of a rag—” Mrs. Hernan’s voice quavered, and tears sprang to her eyes. “I know it’s dreadful to think the worst. I can’t help meself.” She shook her head and sighed. “And Mr. Hugh has taken it terrible bad, poor man.”
“How would you say they got on, Hugh Osborne and his wife?”
“Ah, a pair of lovebirds, those two. Couldn’t get enough of each other, if you know what I mean. Are you married, Detective?” Devaney nodded. “You know yourself, then. Of course they hadn’t been married terribly long when the baby came along. I suppose they were still getting used to each other, like. I’m sure everyone has their ups and downs. They might have had a few small disagreements now and again, but they never went so far as throwing the delft or any such thing like that—not like meself and Johnny. Oh, Janey, we used to go at it sometimes. And I’d surely know if they had. You learn an awful lot about people from what’s in their bins, I always say. I’m trying to think now if I ever heard them arguing at all. There was one time I heard her giving out to him about how much work he was doing, leaving her alone there in the house. And he said he understood how she felt, but they needed the money.” Mrs. Hernan swirled the pot around a few times and poured the tea. Devaney opted for two spoons of sugar and plenty of milk.
“So you were working at Bracklyn at the time Mina Osborne and her son went missing?”
“Not on the very day. We had to get the bus, you see, Johnny and me, up to the doctor in Portumna that day.”
“That reminds me. How’s your flu?”
“What flu?”
“Lucy Osborne mentioned to someone that you weren’t able to come and clean at Bracklyn House last week because you were down with a flu.”
Mrs. Hernan was stunned. “Well, of all the—I never had any bit of a flu in me life. And as for the reason I wasn’t there last week, she should know bloody well enough—it’s nearly three months since I was sent packing.”
“By whom?”
“By herself, Mrs. High-and-Mighty Lucy Osborne, who do you think? She’s a right bitch, that one, accusing me of stealing. I never was so insulted in all me life.”
“What did she accuse you of stealing?”
“A scarf belonging to Mr. Hugh’s wife. I never took anything. Now, I’m not saying I never opened a drawer or two while I was cleaning, but I never took anything, and I’ll swear it on me own mother’s grave.”
“Why did she think you’d stolen it?”
“That’s what I’d love to know. When I showed it to her, she starts givin’ out stink, accusing me, running me out of the house like a common thief before I can even tell her where I found the feckin’ thing.”
“Was there something strange about that?”
“Well, didn’t I find it in young Mr. Jeremy’s room while I was hoovering under the bed? Stuffed under the mattress, it was, as if he was trying to hide it, like.”
“But you never mentioned that to his mother?” Devaney asked. Something about this didn’t sit right, but he couldn’t say what, not just yet.
“How could I? I was out the door with her foot up me backside before I could get a word in.”
“And you didn’t find any other items of clothing?”
“No, nothing else. And you may be sure I got down on me two knees and looked everywhere under the bed. What was her young fella gettin’ up to with a lady’s scarf? That’s what I’d like to know.”
“You’ve not mentioned your dismissal to anyone?”
“And have her spreadin’ lies about me? No, thank you. Better to say nothin’ at all, turn the other cheek, as Our Lord said to do. Ah, ye couldn’t pay me to set foot there ever again.”
Devaney changed his tack: “Mrs. Hernan, how would you say the Osbornes get on with their neighbors?”
“Ah, sure, not great. But Brendan McGann’s always been a bit mad, if you ask me. And you could see his sister playing the innocent, trying to sink her hooks into Mr. Hugh the minute his poor wife was gone. She’s got some awful neck, that Una McGann. No shame at all. Oh, it’d sicken ye.”
“What gives you the impression she’s out to snare Hugh Osborne?”
“Sure, didn’t I see them often enough when I’d be coming and going on me bicycle, her getting a lift off him, or chatting to him through the window of his car? This was going on all the time, mind you, even after he was married. But she’ll never get him, not for all her tears and her sweet smiles.”
As he took his leave and filled his lungs with the fresh air outside Mrs. Hernan’s house, Devaney had a claustrophobic vision of her sitting in that room day after day, drinking tea and chain-smoking, boiling bacon and cabbage for her dinner, marking the hours until Coronation Street came on the telly, and winding the clock at bedtime so that it would continue slowly ticking away the remaining minutes of her life.
20
“Have you got a torch?” Cormac asked. Nora patted the pocket of her jacket. It was Monday evening; they had put in almost a full day at the excavation, and were now on their way to the tower, before Hugh Osborne returned from Galway. The late afternoon was as the day had been, overcast but temperate, with a faint taste of the lake in the air. But for the occasional birdcall, it was quiet as they made their way along the demesne wall toward the woods. Nora led, with Cormac following close behind.
“Watch where you step as we get closer,” he said. “You could break an ankle if you aren’t careful.” He’d been solicitous since yesterday morning, and hadn’t wanted her to stay alone in her room last night. She’d finally persuaded him that she’d be fine on her own, but decided that she didn’t mind his consideration. They had traveled about a hundred and fifty yards when she stopped. Through the thick cover of leaves and branches, she could just make out the tower’s outline. Cormac was pointing out some of the tower’s features when he suddenly fell silent.
“What is it?” she asked.
Cormac raised a finger to his lips, then pointed wordlessly to the door of the tower. The hasp was open, as was the padlock, which dangled from the staple.
“What should we do?” she whispered. He gestured to her to keep back against the wall, then indicated that he would approach the door. Cormac looked behind him, and picked up a stout tree branch that lay near the cleared area, turning it to find the surest grip, and using the cudgel to push against the stout wooden door. To her surprise, it swung open easily, as if the hinges had recently been oiled. There was no response from inside, no sound or movement, so they exchanged a glance, and began to walk slowly through the doorway. It was dark and damp inside. The narrow slits in the thick walls didn’t let in much air or light. Cormac’s torch beam revealed a stone stairway that wrapped around the room and disappeared up into the heavy, cross-timbered ceiling. Nora reached in her pocket and switched on her own torch, whose light fell on a stack of large books and a pile of woolen blankets that lay on the dirt floor to one side of the room. She nudged the blankets with her foot, and saw that one was not a blanket at all, but a large shawl or something similar, shot through with gold threads. The floor looked as if it had been swept. Beside the blankets stood a crate covered with what appeared to be puddles of melted wax and burned candle ends. In fact, there seemed to be half-burned cand
les everywhere they could see: a few tapers and pillars, but mostly tiny votive lights. A jumbled pile of brand-new candles lay on the crate nearest the makeshift bed. As Cormac turned, his torch flickered over a stack of crates against the far wall, and he trained the beam more carefully to see what was there.
“Nora, look at this.” She added the light of her torch to his, illuminating what appeared to be an orderly collection of small animal bones: among them she recognized long-toothed skulls of rabbits and sturdy-snouted badgers, the delicate skeletal remains of stoats and birds. The next crate held the road-flattened carcass of a fox, with its bushy tail intact, and the severed wing of a crow, with its jet-black feathers fanned outward.
“What do you make of all this?” Cormac asked.
“I don’t know. Hey, what are those?” Nora shone her light on several large sheets of paper that lay on the floor beside Cormac’s feet. He crouched to examine them.
“Sketches,” he said.
Nora knelt beside him, and they each took a handful of curled and water-stained sheets to sort through. She could make out the recognizable shapes of animal skulls and bones, done in thick lead pencil, but the lines were wildly expressive, as though the artist had tried to memorize the contours of each object, and had put pencil to paper with closed eyes. There were dozens of sketches, compulsive repetitions of the same objects. Nora picked up and studied one of many distorted outlines of the crow’s wing. “Who could have done these?”
“Just what I was—wait a minute, look.” Cormac shone his torch slowly up the wall. Nora added her light as well, and each of them turned slowly in place, until their torch beams revealed that most of the wall space had been covered with huge abstract images of bones and eyeless skulls, on a background of twisted organic shapes—jagged lines, curving contours, and spirals of dark purple and dusky blue, interlaced with wide, wriggling swaths of metallic gold. Seeping moisture had caused some of the paint to come away in places, and from its thickness, they could see that the walls had been obsessively layered with paint over time. At the foot of the stairs lay a jumbled pile of empty cans, rags, and petrified brushes. A few spray cans and tins of paint, obviously used, stood on one of the crates nearby. Of all the things they had imagined when the door remained locked, the tower house as some kind of makeshift studio was not even among the considerations. And yet here it was before them.
“God, Cormac, this is so weird. But it’s kind of wonderful as well.” Nora began perusing the volumes that lay by the makeshift sleeping area. “Bird books, lots of art history,” she reported, then pushed the stout wooden door shut. The back of it had been painted in the same fashion as the walls, but in the midst of the paint was a large color plate of an icon depicting a Black Madonna and Child.
“Cormac, have a look at this.” There was no answer but a startled cry and a flapping, scuffling noise, and Nora swung her torch around just in time to perceive that she was under attack. She threw both arms up to protect her head, and felt a sharp scrabbling and a gust of wing beats against her face and hands as she flailed the torch in an effort to shake free. Cormac grabbed hold of her sweater and pulled her to the ground.
“Keep down!” he whispered fiercely as the random flapping continued above their heads.
“What the hell is that?”
“Just a bird. I’m afraid I dropped my torch. Which way is the door?”
“Behind me here,” Nora said. They scrambled out into the fresh air and light, and sat for a moment with their backs pressed against the tower’s sloping base, gasping for air.
“I should have warned you,” Cormac said. “This place seems to be a sort of rookery, I suppose you’d call it. There’s a whole flock of crows nesting in the top of the tower and the trees above.”
Nora rubbed her pecked fingers, then reached up and felt the scratch on her forehead. “Here, let me see that,” Cormac said. He knelt beside her and tipped her head back to examine the wound. “It’s not too deep. You’ll mend.” He sat back on his heels and crossed his arms. “Well—we’ve seen inside, and we don’t know anything more than we did before. But I’m willing to call Devaney if you think we ought to.”
“Let’s think about this for a minute. Somebody uses this place to make pictures. That may be a bit strange—I’d even go so far as to say creepy—but it’s not illegal. And if it is Hugh—”
“But he already has a sort of workshop in the house,” Cormac pointed out. “So why would he come all the way out here? And in the middle of the night? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Well, who else could it be? He put the padlock on and presumably has the key—although I suppose it’s easy enough to pick that sort of a lock.”
“Dead easy. What about Jeremy?”
“I don’t know,” Nora said. “Could be anyone who knows about the tower.”
“So have we any reason to phone Devaney?”
The Madonna and Child image flashed through Nora’s consciousness. She hadn’t really had a chance to examine it closely. Apart from some overpainting, there was something else strange and disturbing about the picture, but what was it? With effort, she might be able to conjure up the image that had only imprinted itself briefly on her brain in all the pandemonium. She closed her eyes and willed herself to remember. If she wasn’t mistaken, the eyes of both mother and child had been cut out rather crudely with a knife.
“You know,” she said, “I think we might.”
On the phone, the young Garda sergeant had reminded Devaney of himself nearly twenty years ago, and he could hear the distinctive cry of a newborn in the background as they spoke. They settled on meeting in a pub on the outskirts of Ballinasloe. Donal Barry had been the man assigned to Bracklyn House during the original search for Osborne’s wife and child more than two years ago. Devaney knew he was grasping at straws here, but he’d begun to feel as if he was getting somewhere. Sooner or later, something would tip. That’s the way it was with cases like this. Keep scraping away, like a file on metal, and eventually someone’s story would weaken and give way. The hard part was sussing out where the vulnerable spot might lie.
Devaney got a pint and stood at the far end of the bar. Soon a strapping young man of about twenty-five came in. He was over six feet tall, clean-shaven, with fairish curly hair and a rugby guard’s muscular build; he wore jeans and a heavy plain blue pullover.
“Devaney?” the young man said.
“Mr. Barry.” Devaney held out a hand. “Thanks for coming. What’ll you have?”
“Same as yourself.”
Devaney lifted his near-empty pint and held up two fingers to the barman. “You were posted at the Osborne house during the various searches and the original interviews,” he said. “And I wanted to get your impression of the situation there.”
“I thought the case had gone up to the task force in Dublin.”
Devaney frowned. “It has. But my superintendent evidently doesn’t see how this one sticks out.”
“Don’t tell me—Brian Boylan?” Barry’s tone was one of disgust. “What a fuckin’ toe-rag.”
Devaney found himself warming to the young man. “I can’t say I disagree. Now, I don’t quite know how to put this: Was there any angle that ought to have been pursued and wasn’t?”
“I knew from the start the whole kidnap scenario was a fuckin’ waste of time,” Barry replied. “I mean, the boys generally know when there’s something up, don’t they?” He meant the Provos, the Provisional IRA, and he was right. They were sometimes the first to volunteer any information they had on criminal cases—provided they weren’t involved. A bit of community-mindedness went a long way in the propaganda war. “There was nothing on the telegraph about this one. Boylan wasted a whole lot of precious time on it, though.”
Devaney was impressed both by the young man’s powers of observation and his common sense. Apparently Barry hadn’t actually participated in any of the interviews, which was a great pity; Devaney was sure the lad would have gotten more out of the witnesses
than his superiors apparently had.
“What did you see or hear that didn’t get into the official reports?”
“The trouble with this case was always the lack of a really good motive,” Barry said. “The most obvious suspect, the husband, has a motive all right—the insurance money—but then why bother with the whole disappearing act? It would make more sense if the wife’s body was found right away. I was never sold on the husband.”
“There’s a neighbor who might have a motive as well. Brendan McGann. Thinks Osborne was messing about with his sister.”
“Ah, those rumors have been flying for years. I know Brendan—mad as a snake, but canny. I’m not saying he couldn’t have done it, of course. He’s got a wicked temper. But Brendan’s more likely to goad people into killing each other than topping anybody himself. I never knew why they didn’t spend more time on that cousin.”
Devaney’s ears pricked. “The boy?”
“Well, he was another right head case. But no, I meant the mother,” Barry said. “Something quare about that one. A bit too—precious, if you know what I mean. I can’t think why they didn’t shake that tree a little harder.”
“Tell me more about her.”
Barry thought a moment. “After a day or two sitting in that chair in the front hall, I got to be invisible. Part of the furniture, you might say. She’d make tea and sandwiches for the detectives when they were doing interviews, bring up these trays loaded with food, and straight into the library with them, as though”—he hesitated slightly—“well, almost as though she were part of the investigation herself. I don’t know, I’m not puttin’ it very well, but it was like she got some sort of thrill out of being there, so close to it all, and having to mind Osborne while he was in such a state.”
