The Death of Love

by Bartholomew Gill

  “Ah, Peter. We’ve just got here, and I’m shattered from the drive and all. I thought we might have a simple breakfast, just you, me, and Maddie.”

  There was a pause, and McGarr said, “So—the postmortem arrived.”

  “It did, sure, but I’d just like to be brought up to speed on the matter.”

  “So you will. Over breakfast. Unless, of course, you prefer to sit this dance out.”

  Hanging up the phone, Noreen heard a noise and turned her head to see another envelope—small and white—being fitted under the door. The official Garda seal did not deter her. It was from Superintendent Butler of the Kenmare Barracks, saying that Nell Power was presently registered at the Waterville Lake Hotel, another resort that was only twenty-five or thirty miles away.

  Noreen showered and dressed quickly, and soon found herself on the carpeted stairs where she tripped past Detective Sergeant Hughie Ward without recognizing him.

  Little wonder, Ward thought, glancing at himself in a mirror. He looked like a character out of Dickens, he decided. A reverse Copperfield who had been snatched from the comfort of his familiar urban surroundings and thrust headlong into rural domestic service.

  A former international boxer in the seventy-kilo weight class, Ward was a small, dark, handsome man who took pains with his appearance. Thrice weekly he toned up his well-muscled body by jogging, bag work, and sparring at Dublin’s newest sport facility, and every month without question his largest personal expense was on clothes. Ward was nothing if not dapper. Undercover here, literally, in a servant’s swallowtail tuxedo that was a size too large, he looked bereft and juvenile.

  Stopping his work of washing glasses for a fifth time to scan the hall, Ward at last caught sight of Bresnahan, who was standing at the reception desk, speaking with the manager of the hotel, who was yet another large person.

  Christ, he thought—making sure Sonnie, the tall beverage manager, was nowhere in attendance—his situation had changed from Dickens to Swift—that is, bad to worse. He was surrounded by a hotel of Brobdingnagians, and his only hope was that its womankind would treat his Gulliver as immodestly.

  It was a sleazy, macho, sexist thought, but Ward, who had long ago learned how sexually expedient it could be to sublimate the macho elements of his personality, was not feeling very good about himself today. and Bresnahan looked smashing—there was no other word for her—in a new outfit, the brilliant colors of which made a point of her stature and angularity.

  A tall, shapely young woman with stormy gray eyes and waves of bright red hair, Bresnahan was today wearing a speckled—was it cashmere?—three-piece suit with white arabesques flowing across the front of a tight crewneck top. The graceful designs were repeated on a midthigh-length cardigan jacket. This last had blousey sleeves and on most women would have required padding in the shoulders, which were cut wide. The color was cobalt blue, as were her shoes, the silk scarf around her neck, and her knitted cashmere gloves, which suggested that she had just come in from outside.

  Her long, shapely legs, set in ballet’s first position as she conversed with the manager, were attracting the darted stares of passing men. Wrapped in longitudinally ribbed bright orange hose that was the same color as her hair and, in fact, a nearby tangerine banquette, they made her look like a stunning ornament of the sumptuous lobby. In all, she was a match for the tall, coolly striking models who graced the pages of slick women’s fashion magazines that Ward considered more tantalizing by far than the graphic nude glossies some of his friends perused. All this Ward’s eyes took in at a glance.

  And to think, he thought, that of all the rich and powerful men presently resident in Parknasilla—heads of international banks and lending institutions, finance ministers of various countries, from what Sonnie had told him—only poor he (amateur pugilist, detective sergeant, barman) knew her intimately. It was an even sleazier thought, but Ward believed he had never desired Bresnahan more, and his mind flooded with the potential for quick, secret, occupationally illicit sex that the hotel might afford.

  Bresnahan would be given a room, or so he assumed; and he, inconspicuous servant that he was, had access to all parts. After all, in spite of her recent cosmopolitan pretensions, she was merely a farm girl from one of the hills he could now see outside the windows. And in Ward’s precociously bountiful experience with farm girls, he had noted a singular approach to the male of the species. They treated men like cattle, namely, the Bull; often Ward had found such a stance availing.

  But another disturbing thought struck him as well. Where had she gotten that suit, and how much had she spent? Ward knew the price of clothes, and, if her suit was woven of cashmere, as it appeared, she had either happened upon the buy of the decade or—his ears pulled back—she had been given the brilliant blue suit as a present by another admirer. It had to have cost the sort of packet that no detective inspector in her right mind could splash out.

  Seeing her now approach him down the long, carpeted hall, Ward moved to the shadows of an alcove. “Psst—Rut’ie,” he whispered, as she powered her orange legs and cobalt-blue heels past him. “Rut’ie—here. C’mere a minute.”

  Bresnahan looked both ways before joining him. She smiled. “What do we have here, an apprentice barman? Should I be speaking to you? May I congratulate you on your humility, if not your appearance. I must get a camera.”

  Ward waved a hand to mean he was unfazed and it was all in a day’s work. “God, you look brilliant this morning. Really. Where did you get that dress?” He reached out and touched her elbows.

  It was cashmere, but she only smiled at him. She was not telling.

  “Turn around now, so I can appreciate you in all your exquisite totality.” Ward was a great man for compliments, which cost nothing, and his hand lingered on the significant curve of her hip. They had been “dating” now for nearly a year. Discreetly. Apart from eye contact, they had made no acknowledgment of their liaison while at work, lest one of them be transferred to some other squad. “Grand, really. Glorious. To be sure, you’re the best-looking woman on the ground floor of Parknasilla—foyer section, bar part.” His hand slipped farther. “Look—do y’have your room yet?”

  She nodded.

  “What’s the number?”

  “Why?”

  Ward’s head moved back dramatically, and he regarded her with quizzical dismay. “Well, you know, I thought—”

  Bresnahan’s smile muted. It became brittle, pouting her cheeks and making her eyes seem overbright. Ward’s hopes plummeted. He had seen that smile before; it was the smile that said no.

  “You thought wrong, and I think you know it. Not only are we on duty, we’re on my turf now, and I’ll not have a word said of me that isn’t already in circulation.”

  Ward opened his mouth to object, but she placed a finger on his lips. “Listen to me now while I tell you, and don’t take offense.” She waited until he looked at her, and he fell into the limpid pools of her slate-gray eyes in which he would have—and sometimes feared he already had—happily died.

  Ward was put in mind of a deer startled in a field. The impression was of abundant and even animal good health. One perfect nostril, arced like a cashew, flared as she drew in a large chestful of charged, serious air.

  “You might think you know about country places like this, but you don’t. A city fella like you couldn’t without having lived here yourself, and maybe not even then.

  “Parknasilla, this hotel, is in Sneem, and Sneem is my village. There’s not a person who works in this hotel, including Sonnie, your boss, who doesn’t know every public detail about my family, high points and low, within memory.” She pointed down the hall where they now saw the head barman standing, hands on hips, his head turning this way and that, looking for Ward.

  “There’re good points and bad to that, but I can’t let anybody cop on or even sense the drift of you and me, who are not married, you see. You do see, don’t you?”

  Ward thought he did, but he was not about
to let on.

  “As it is, my parents are over the moon because of the account they think I’ve made of myself in Dublin. You and I know it’s nothing, but they look at me, see a detective inspector in the Murder Squad, and they can hardly believe their eyes. To them and everybody else they can tell, I’m pure gold. It’s helped them get over my decision that I won’t be returning one day to take over the farm they’ve worked to build into the best single holding in the district. As you know, I’m their only child.”

  She paused for a moment, as though considering the enormity of her mistake. “Above all else they would have preferred I married some young country buck with his own property, and popped out a brawny brood to work the acres and add still more in their time. It’s the farmer’s dream of immortality, don’t you know.”

  Ward did not and he would not. Profoundly citified, Ward scarcely credited the possibility of meaningful life beyond the Pale of Dublin.

  “You?” She looked down the five feet eight-and-a-half inches of Ward fondly. “You’ll just have to grow on them, I’m afraid.”

  At thirty, how realistic was that, he wanted to say, if only to deflate the serious finality of her message. Sex wasn’t serious, it was fun. Well, fun if it happened, serious if it did not.

  “And since we’re both here in Sneem, now’s as good a time as any, I suppose. For them to take their first bite.”

  Which was Swift enough for any close reader, Ward thought. “But the place here. Parknasilla. The hotel. It’s immense. Floors and floors with dark hallways, all carpeted. Who’s to know?”

  She shook her head. “In spite of what you might think about Kerrymen and culchies, thick they are not. They’ll take one glance at you and one at me, and if there’s so much as a long look or a lingering touch, we’re chat that will nestle—count on it—in my father’s ear. And you”—again she regarded Ward—“you don’t want that.”

  “So!” another voice boomed. “Here you are.” It was Sonnie, who had treacherously misused the potential for stealth that Ward had assayed in the carpeted hall. “Come with me. I’d like a word with you.” And to Bresnahan, “Has he been bothering you, miss?” It was only then that he recognized her. “Why—Ruth Honora Ann Bresnahan, is it you?”

  Apart from her name, Ward heard only a kind of warble that ended in “…ooo?”

  “’Tis, and who else would I be, I wonder? How’re yah, Sonnie?” She held out her hand, which the tall man, who was only a bit taller than she, took. A full smile had transformed his features, and he looked her up and down. “It’s just that you look different.”

  “And I will be, to be sure, if I don’t run.” She turned her head toward the ladies’ room.

  “And lovely. Lovely! God, how you’ve grown. Are you staying with us now?” He meant in the hotel.

  Bresnahan nodded.

  “Wait till I tell your father, won’t he be proud. Tell me now”—without having released her hand, Sonnie stepped closer to her and in a near whisper asked—“is it official business that brings you here?”

  She moved her head from side to side. “Yes and no.” Apart from McGarr himself, Bresnahan was the only other squad staffer instructed so to admit.

  “You mean Paddy Power? Could it be…?” Sonnie continued, encouragingly.

  “Ah, nothing of the sort. A mere formality, really, the government being overcautious, as you can understand. But, if it provides me with a bit of a buswoman’s holiday, well—who’s to complain? I’ve been here under other circumstances, don’t you know.” She meant as scullery maid, a job she had taken happily during a summer holiday from school.

  “I do, but—Janie—the difference!”

  “Which reminds me. I’ve got to run.” Bresnahan broke away from him and moved toward the open door of the passageway in which they were standing.

  “And you.” Sonnie turned and looked down on Ward. “I’ll say this once and once only. Somehow, through one of your Dublin connections, I don’t doubt, you were jumped over many a good local lad who would have worked this job gladly. And gurrier or no, you will, or you won’t work here long. That’s a promise.” He waited until Ward nodded.

  “First rule—you’re here to serve patrons, not socialize with them. Second—never leave the bar without permission. Now, get in there. You’ve got the glasses and the stocking to do. The keg of Guinness needs changing as well.”

  Ward paused.

  “You do know how to change a keg, don’t you?”

  Ward did not have a clue. “Years ago,” he lied.

  “Doubtless time out of mind.”

  CHAPTER 6

  On Full Faith, Credit, and Giving the Other Side

  MCGARR EXPLAINED TO Noreen that he did not want to be encumbered by wife and child, that the Power case was not just another investigation, and that she could best serve him by remaining in the hotel and keeping her eyes and ears open. “Also there’s the press conference at eleven when Shane Frost will announce Paddy Power’s death. Surely that’ll be more interesting than interviewing a dead man’s ex-wife. The press are out at the gate now, fighting to get in.”

  “That settles it. I’m coming with you,” said Noreen, who usually wanted to be in the center of things. And the reason? “I’m tired of being confined.” Which McGarr thought the better of questioning.

  At the gates they discovered a cordon of Gardai who were holding back what seemed like a motorized brigade of cars and media vans. McGarr pulled the brim of his hat over his eyes and waited until a path was cleared before he ran the gauntlet, then sped toward the village.

  Overnight a keen edge had been added to the wind, and a rime of frost had hoared the fields. Yet the day was brilliant, and Sneem sparkled in a thin, fresh sun. Each house on the two main squares had been painted a different, bright color, and immense tour buses were parked across from woolen and “traditional” Irish goods shops, which seemed to be doing banner business.

  “We should stop and get Maddie a little knitted jumper and knitted tam,” Noreen suggested.

  McGarr only eyed her in the rearview mirror.

  “Well, later maybe. On the way back.”

  Beyond the village, blue plumes of peat smoke were rising from the chimneys of farmhouses. Like neat cubes, the buildings were spaced out at generous intervals along the flanks of a vast sweep of gray-green mountain to the northwest. “Smoke,” he said to Maddie, who had insisted on sitting beside him and was locked into her crash seat to his left. He pointed to an azure billow that was passing across the road from a nearby farmhouse. “Smoke,” he repeated.

  With her own pointed finger she followed his hand, then lowered it to the cigarette he was holding. “’Moke.”

  “Very good, Miss Maddie. Very good,” he said, and she squealed her delight in his praise. “Now, where’s the smoke?” Again she pointed out the window and then to the cigarette, and McGarr repeated his acclaim.

  From the backseat, Noreen said, “You know—she never does any of that for me. Sometimes I feel—” But she held off. McGarr knew the plaint, having heard it now and then since Maddie was born. “Sometimes I feel like Maddie doesn’t even like me,” Noreen had once told him. “She takes me for granted. But you she responds to. For you she’s always got a big, sunny smile or a laugh or a warble. Her mannerisms and gestures are yours, for Jesus’ sake, not mine, and she even looks like you.”

  McGarr certainly hoped not.

  Another time Noreen had come up with, “I guess I expected too much from you two. You’re both working-class Turks, hard as nails, like your people before you.” When McGarr had attempted to sound her out, she had added, “I just want somebody who likes, wants, me, needs me for myself. But if that’s all you have to give, well—I guess I’ve got no choice but to live with it.”

  Or with you two Turks.

  On the most extreme occasion McGarr had arrived home one evening to find Maddie playing with her nanny, and Noreen out in the back garden pacing, her eyes flashing up at the house. “I know it’s my
hormones,” she had said in a tight, wild voice. “But that doesn’t keep you from being a heartless, miserable, selfish son of bitch and the ruination of my life. Body and soul!”

  It happened to some women after giving birth and when nursing, a doctor friend had told McGarr, and was only somewhat less disturbing than what did not seem to happen anymore: ess, eee, ex. The McGarrs had not had a satisfying “session,” as it were, for longer than McGarr cared to remember. “Who’s counting?” Noreen had said. “Counting makes everything rather petty, wouldn’t you say? Or would you prefer charity or duty? For me there has to be a certain…magic.”

  Rather less petty than no count at all. Or, to speak of magic, “ledger nodame,” though McGarr had wisely kept the smart, working-class-Turk remark to himself.

  At Rathfield the road began its winding, switchback climb over rugged, towering mountains. It was narrow and bounded on the cliff side by a low rock wall that bore the impress of tour-bus bumpers or was gapped here and there the width of a car.

  “Do you suppose…?” Noreen asked him.

  He did not. The wall had simply fallen in on itself, although plunging out into the ether in such a picturesque spot would be a way to go better than some that he knew of.

  Twice at step-asides they pulled in, “So Maddie can appreciate the singular beauty of her country,” Noreen enthused. But it was she who got out to stand with hands on hips, eyes narrowed in smile, and the waves of her auburn hair snapping in the cold, sea-tangy blast.

  There below them lay miles of wall-ribbed chartreuse fields that more than a millennium of toil had won from the rough mountains; today they were being menaced by the wild Atlantic. The surge from the storm of the night before was pounding the cliffs and beaches, sending up clouds of spray that fringed the green fields with rainbow lace.

  Farther still were Scariff and Deenish Islands—two dots of grass-tufted rock that appeared to be foundering in the giddy, foam-silvery sea. Every so often gannets, plying the wrack, flashed like far-off bits of mirror. Geysers of spray from a rocky hazard in Waterville Harbor, which they reached ten minutes later, seemed to be carrying hundreds of yards over the chop, and tourists had gathered along the seawall to watch its plume.