by Erin Hart
Stella rang off, feeling numb. Anca Popescu was only nineteen, but she had probably experienced more horrors than any human being could be expected to endure. And all Stella could see now was that haunted expression in the girl’s eyes, the nervous, darting hands, the way she’d sucked that smoke from her cigarette, as if it were pure oxygen. That, and how Anca had turned her gaze into a silent plea as Stella had left the safe house the other day, as if she had somehow known it would be their last meeting. Why the hell had she sent Molloy? She ought to have gone with him, or picked the girl up herself, and none of this would have happened. She sat in the car, hands on the wheel but going nowhere, not sure what to do next.
Her phone buzzed again.
“Mam, it’s Lia.”
Stella didn’t say anything, afraid that if she opened her mouth to speak, she would begin to sob.
“I’m sorry about hanging up on you yesterday,” Lia said, her voice sounding less like the stroppy seventeen-year-old she’d been lately and more like the child she used to be. “It was rude. I only wanted… it just makes me crazy when you and Daddy are so unhappy. I don’t mean to mess things up.”
Stella forced herself to speak. “Oh, Lia, you haven’t messed anything up. What happened between your father and me, it’s not your fault, sweetheart. It’s nothing to do with you. Are you all right, staying with Daddy for another little while? It’ll only be a day or two more, I promise. I’ll ring you.”
“But you should talk to Daddy. He’s not—”
“I’ll speak to him, Lia, don’t worry.”
“Right, see you, Mam.”
“I love you, Lia. I’ll ring you back just as soon as I can.”
Stella started her ignition and felt the tears begin to flow.
* * *
Forty minutes later, she bumped along the road that crossed the top of the mountain at Cappaghbaun and found an ambulance, a Mountain Rescue van, and several Guards vehicles all parked in the middle of the road.
“Stella!” A voice came from beside the ambulance as she stepped from the car. It was her superintendent, Eamonn Brown, looking smart in his expensive suit. Not a bad copper, but too ambitious, always looking for the next opportunity to impress those above him, which tended not to impress the people below him.
“Eamonn, why are you here?”
“One of my officers involved in a fatal accident? It’s my job to be here.”
And to see how your investigation is coming along, was the unspoken subtext.
“Where’s Molloy?” Stella asked.
“The ambulance lads are checking him over.”
“Have they recovered the girl’s body yet?”
“A bit dodgy, that.” He waved her to the edge of the road to look down. “The Mountain Rescue team is rigging up some lines to make sure no one else takes a tumble. Then they’ll send a couple of people down and bring the body up on a gondola. Dreadful business. Molloy said he phoned and told you what happened?”
“Yes, that the girl jumped from the moving car.”
“I gather she was one of your witnesses on the Killowen case?”
“Yes, although I was beginning to have serious doubts about her story.”
“You’re saying you’ve no leads at all?”
“No, we’ve got substantial evidence for book theft but still not much to go on for either of the murders, unfortunately. I was hoping this girl might finally come clean when we got her back to the station.”
“Well, this is pretty damned inconvenient, then, isn’t it?”
She got the message: Brown wanted this case cleared up, and fast, before Serious Crimes ran roughshod over all of them, himself included.
The paramedics were just coming up the hill, pulled up by their mates along a couple of nylon cords. Anca Popescu’s body was already zipped into a black body bag. A light rain had begun to fall while they were down the slope, and now the valley below was beginning to disappear in the mist.
“Can I just see her face?” Stella asked the nearest paramedic.
He turned to look at her. “It’s not pleasant.”
Stella unzipped the bag. Anca’s face bore cuts and contusions; her lip was split, and there was a dreadful gash at the temple, lots of blood. She looked so young, even more like a little girl now that her wary eyes were closed. Where were this child’s parents? Stella wondered. And who would have to go and tell her people that she was dead?
6
The sun was just coming up behind the brow of the hill as Joseph Maguire climbed the rise that led to Anthony Beglan’s farm. He felt a little short of breath and paused to rest for a moment against one of the crumbling gateposts along the hedge-lined lane. In his mind was a picture of the eels he’d have for lunch today. He could see their shiny, slippery skins, the intricate and beautiful architecture of their tails.
He closed his eyes and breathed, letting the scent of cattle and grass fill his head, bringing back the animal smells of childhood, the strange gaze of beasts standing out in the rain along the road he walked to school. Everything took such an effort now, and time itself felt slippery as an eel. He was young, and then he was old again, in the blink of an eye.
He pushed off from the gatepost and passed by a field where a dozen pairs of large brown eyes looked up to greet him, ears with yellow tags flapped and twitched as he kept walking. He looked down and saw the bulge of a belly, two stout legs beneath him. Whose were they? Not those of a boy. Hard to keep things straight when his brain was so uncooperative.
A house stood at the end of the road, old and weather-beaten, paint peeling from the window and door frames. No one home. He could see no sign of life, no sounds, but he walked toward it, waiting for something. Glinting shards of light came from the building beside him, and he turned to see the sun broken into hundreds of pieces, bright circles, blinding him as he looked through a missing wall. All a dream, it had to be.
He felt the sharp jolt of the blow before the pain registered. It seemed like he waited for eternity after that, with that hollow roar in his ears as his knees buckled under him and he pitched forward into darkness.
* * *
Joseph felt himself drifting, floating in space. When he tried to move, he could not. Pain in his head. Cracking his eyes open, he saw and then felt the band, something around his chest. His hands were behind him, shoulders pulled back, a shooting pain up the shoulder. Where was this place? Was someone here? His head still lolled forward on his chest, but he could see a table before him, cracked oilcloth, a basin of water—and a shape made of green rushes. He was alone.
He began to move, trying to break free, but he was fixed, immobile. He twisted from side to side, and at last the chair moved, but only to topple over. He landed on his right cheekbone with such force that the pain knocked the breath from him, and he experienced a sudden flashback—the cold floor, the musty smell, the shooting pains through his limbs. Another interrogation? They could beat him all they liked—he knew nothing. The whole right side of his face felt numb. He was ready to pass out when the door opened and a pair of muddy black shoes walked slowly toward him. From his awkward angle on the floor, he could not see the wearer. The silent figure stood and looked at him, as if deciding what to do. He’d let his jaw go slack, feigning unconsciousness, knowing instinctively that it was the wisest course. When the boots turned and proceeded out the door once more, he tried to open his eyes wider but felt himself slipping into an unconsciousness that this time was not feigned.
7
“Sorry about the hour,” Catherine Friel said. “I’ve got to be up in Cavan by noon. You must know I wouldn’t have dragged you out of bed for no reason.”
Stella was gazing at the mortal body of Anca Popescu, looking in her nakedness on the table here this morning even more like a waif than she had appeared yesterday evening. Again Stella’s throat constricted, thinking of how alone this girl was, in death as in life. “What is it? What have you found?”
“Since I wasn’t at the scene, I don’t
know a lot about the circumstances surrounding this girl’s death, but I can tell you with a fair degree of certainty that it was no accident. At first I thought perhaps it was the position of the body after the fall, a function of livor mortis. Then I found this.” She lifted Anca’s arm away from her body and revealed a mark on the skin, a pattern of discoloration.
“What is it?” Stella asked. “What am I looking at?”
“Do you see the outline just here?” Catherine Friel’s gloved finger traced the air above the shape. She pointed to a jagged line on one side, a rounded curve on the other.
Stella’s brain began to distinguish the significance of the outlines before her, just as Dr. Friel’s voice sounded in her ear: “It’s a footprint, Stella. This girl didn’t jump to her death. She was pushed.”
Stella stared at the mark, remembering Molloy’s distraught voice on the phone.
“Are you all right?” Catherine Friel’s voice had become a low, echoing noise, like a sound traveling down a long tunnel. Time slowed, and all Stella could feel was the touch of his hands upon her skin, his eyes locked on to her own. It wasn’t real, any of it—it had only been a distraction, to keep her from seeing what he was. She had to force herself to focus.
“You’re sure this happened at the time of her death? It couldn’t have happened earlier?”
“The marks would be much darker if the contusions had happened a day or two earlier and the blood had had a chance to settle in the surrounding tissue.”
An image came back—those fresh red marks on the girl’s arm in the interview room. Stella had let herself imagine that they were self-inflicted, but Molloy had just been with her. Was he threatening the girl? Had he forced her to point the finger at Niall Dawson for the murder of Vincent Claffey?
Of course Molloy knew Anca. Because she was mixed up with Vincent Claffey, and so was he. How could she have been so thick? Molloy and Claffey and the Swiss book thieves, and perhaps Anca as well—they were all in on it. That secondment to the Antiquities Task Force, and all those cracks Molloy kept making about treasure hunters trying to corrupt Guards—she’d heard only what was on the surface and not the truth that lurked below. They know we’re always skint. He needed money, and for that he’d let himself be pulled into a hole so deep… Stella looked down at Anca Popescu’s fragile, battered face. Was it money that had driven Molloy to treat another human being like this? She felt the floor shift beneath her, and held on to the table for support.
“Detective?” Catherine Friel’s voice was louder now. “Stella, are you all right?”
8
Cormac emerged from his room at Killowen at about half-seven in the morning to find Eliana in the hallway, still in her dressing gown. She raced to his side, eyes wide and slightly frantic. “You’re awake, thanks God!” she cried. “He is gone again. I looked in his room, and the bath. Your father is not here.”
Cormac put his two hands on her shoulders. “Calm yourself. He can’t have been gone long. Have you any idea where he might have headed? Had you made plans for today?”
“Anthony was going to bring us eel fishing again, but not until later.”
“He may be mixed up about the time. Let’s see if we can find him at Anthony’s. You get dressed, and I’ll wake Nora and tell her where we’re going.”
He was trying to maintain a calm demeanor for Eliana’s sake, but Cormac could feel fear rising in his throat. It was tempting to believe that two murders had been solved with the discovery of stolen books in the storehouse, but what if Lucien and Sylvie were only book thieves and not killers?
It took nearly ten minutes to cover the fields between Killowen and Beglan’s place. They went up over the field and along the perimeter of the orchard, then down the narrow lane that separated the two farms.
Cormac turned to Eliana. “Don’t worry, I’m sure he’s fine. Probably having a very interesting conversation with Anthony Beglan right now.” Eliana allowed the ghost of a smile to pull at the corners of her mouth.
They turned down the lane that led to Beglan’s drive. Anthony had been here. The gate was open, the cattle grid littered with fresh dung from the morning’s milking.
“Hullo!” Cormac shouted as they approached the sheds. “Anyone here?”
No answer from the ruined cottage or the house. The shed gave off an acrid, rotten smell, as before, and Cormac held his nose as he approached the door. Something was not right here—he could feel it. With Eliana behind him, he pushed open the first door. In the center of the room was a strangely shaped chopping block alongside a crude table holding several rounded blades, plus a dozen or more stretching frames, some with half-dried skins upon them. The light from the grimy window glowed through the rough but translucent skins, casting the room in an eerie yellowish light. Jesus.
“Stay here,” he whispered to Eliana. “Don’t come any farther.”
Cormac crossed to the next doorway and pulled it open to reveal two large bubbling vats of opaque liquid the color of heavy cream. A sopping, pale skin lay draped across an old oar that had been adapted for use as a stirring paddle. Cormac felt his blood freeze. He ran forward and seized the paddle, and began feeling around in the cauldron, unaware of the agitator stirring up the bottom. It clamped on to his oar and practically lifted him from the ground, the oar bending and nearly snapping with the weight of him, until he was able to let go. The machinery stopped, and he dislodged the oar and finished stirring each of the vats. Nothing.
Anthony had to be here, Cormac thought. He wouldn’t leave this machinery running if he weren’t, surely. Cormac heaved himself away from the vat and surveyed the room. There was no place to hide. At the center of the third room hung a chain studded with large hooks, where Beglan evidently hung the bodies of recently slaughtered animals. One calf hung suspended by its hind legs, blood staining the metal trough below. Still dripping. So where was Beglan? Cormac inched around the corner, expecting the worst, but found only a skinned calf’s head, pink and white musculature exposed like an anatomical drawing. His eyes scoured the walls, the floors, looking for clues. All he could see were a couple of stalls in the far corner. A closer look revealed a handprint in blood on the dirt floor and a few stray bits of straw that must have been carried in by the calves. Above the print dangled a long pair of tongs on a coil of electric cable. The line ran to a control panel on the far wall. A stunning device of some kind, no doubt used on the animals. A spark leapt from the tongs and landed harmlessly on the dirt floor, prompting Cormac to cross and shut off the power.
A low moan came from the corner stall. Cormac dug through the straw, uncovering a semiconscious Anthony Beglan.
He lifted Beglan’s head and began checking for broken bones, obvious wounds. All he found was an angry circular burn at one temple but no blood anywhere. An accident, or a foiled attack? He gripped Beglan’s face. “Anthony, can you hear me? Is my father here? Joseph Maguire, is he here?”
Beglan opened his lips and emitted another low moan. He couldn’t speak but seemed to be trying to cast his eyes in the direction of the house. “It’s all right now,” Cormac said. “You’re going to be all right.”
He shouted for Eliana, and when she came around the corner, he thrust his mobile into her hand. “Stay here with Anthony and make sure he’s warm. He may be in shock. Ring emergency services, nine-nine-nine, and do exactly what they tell you. Do you understand? I’ve got to find my father.”
Cormac burst out the door of the shed, heading toward the house. He entered by the back door, trying to remember what his father had said on the morning after the fire. Some nonsense about Free Staters. It wasn’t exactly what he was trying to say, but he just kept banging on about it, so it must have been important. Trying to wring the meaning from his mixed-up words was like trying to crack an ever-changing code. Sometimes the words came in spurts, sounds or meanings like the one he intended but not quite the thing he meant. Letters transposed, or dropped altogether. Free Staters. Perhaps someone else had understood.
The kitchen was in disarray, although whether from a struggle or just general neglect, it was difficult to discern. Crockery in the sink, peeling wallpaper, the table and chairs pushed from the center of the room. Cormac bent down on one knee to examine the kitchen floor. There was a small amount of blood, about an arm’s length from the table.
But for the dripping faucet, the house was eerily still until a strangled cry came from the far corner. Cormac flung himself forward and found his father bound to a toppled chair, eyes wild, his mouth stuffed with gallnuts. He was choking. Cormac scrabbled for the blackened marbles that blocked the old man’s airway, spilling a shower of galls onto the floor. But there were more—he had to keep going until he reached the very deepest one, lodged in the windpipe. He couldn’t reach it. Too far down. He ran to the sink and seized a carving knife, slicing through the tape and watching the old man go into a spasm. He was dying. Cormac lifted him from behind, and cinching his arms around his father’s middle, gave a mighty squeeze. It worked—the last gall shot out of Joseph’s mouth and pinged off a windowpane four feet away.
Cormac released his grip, letting his father slide to the floor. They were both still gasping. Stretched there, the two of them resembled a pair of knotwork figures, arms and legs at all angles. The old man’s eyes were open, and Cormac searched for any tiny glimmer of recognition, wondering if his father might have had another stroke. At the very least, the lack of oxygen couldn’t have done his overtaxed brain any favors. “Stay with me, Da. We’re not finished. Stay.”
Joseph’s hand reached out blindly, as though he couldn’t see who or what was before him. Cormac felt the old man’s palm, warm against his face.
“Sum,” Joseph said, his voice hoarse as a crow’s. “My sum.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to understand.” He smoothed the old man’s hair. “Who did this? Can you tell me who tried to harm you?”
