The Irish Manor House Murder

by Dicey Deere

  She looked at her watch. Five-forty-five, and having had no lunch, she was hungry. She pictured a bowl of Jasper’s delicious corn soup with the dash of hot red pepper, followed by one of his heartwarming and body-warming dinners while a fire glowed in the fireplace —

  A shove made her stagger, and a grating voice said, “Get on there, miss, if you’re going!” A man in a greasy cap and shapeless overcoat pushed roughly past her, hurrying toward the 41A bus.

  She followed, pulling her jacket collar closer, only to feel its cold dampness against her neck. To her left she noticed a sleek, dark blue Jaguar, parked but with its motor running. She thought longingly of the luxury of its soft leather cushions, the quiet purr of the expensive motor, the warmth of the air within, the —

  “Torrey! Torrey!” The driver-side window of the Jaguar had slid down, and someone in the driver’s seat was calling her name. Or was she imagining —

  “Torrey!”

  The rain was coming down harder; it blurred her vision. A gust of wind yanked at her hair. A taxi whizzed past and a sheet of water splashed up and soaked her legs and shoes. Damn!

  “Torrey! Over here!” That familiar, resonant voice. A parka-clad arm beckoned from the Jaguar.

  In the driver’s seat, Jasper O’Mara.

  * * *

  Smooth mahogany dashboard, a silver-edged clock. The warm air was delicious, cozy, relaxing. Torrey toed off her wet shoes and and sank back against the soft leather. She wouldn’t ask. Not yet. In minutes, the car was purring along the road to Dublin as though gliding on silk, the landscape sliding past. Outside, rain spattered on the Jaguar’s blue hood.

  “Try this.” A leather-covered thermos. “Hot raspberry tea with lemon and a shot of rum.”

  She drank from the little cup. Her stomach glowed. Heaven. It was several minutes more before she said carefully, wondering too many things, “How’d you know I’d gone to Copenhagen? I’d told no one.”

  “A book dealer wouldn’t have known.” Amusement in Jasper’s voice. “But easy enough for an investigative journalist to find out.”

  She ran a finger reflectively around the rim of the thermos. “So that’s what you are? I was never really sure you were a book dealer. I thought maybe a chef.”

  “A chef would’ve been my second choice. But I like puzzles even more. Less money, though. This Jag’s ten years old, but I baby it.” He shrugged. “Fine with me.”

  “Exactly what else you told me was the truth?”

  “Well…” A fog was coming in and he was squinting at the road ahead. “Dún Laoghaire to Clifden was the truth. I was only passing through Ballynagh, planning just bed-and-breakfast for the night. But there you were on the road, like a dying swan in jeans. Next morning, when I politely came by to check that you’d survived, I thought, Ms. Tunet needs feeding up. Looks like Ophelia just dredged out of the lake. Potato and mushroom soup with a bit of fresh tarragon. Chicken dipped in the finest of bread crumbs, then sautéed. Green beans barely parboiled, crunchy to the bite. So I thought I’d stay a night or two longer in Ballynagh. And then —”

  “Then you stayed on. And seduced me with gastronomy.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “What about those rare books you were always bicycling off after? Rare books. Eureka! A Yeats first edition found in a thatch-covered hut. Or maybe finding a volume of a James Stephens in a cow barn, propping up a chair leg. A lie, right?”

  “Well, rare books sounded romantic. I thought that would intrigue you, you love books. The fact is, I’ve a sideline. I was gathering recipes for a weekly column I write. So I —”

  “You’re not JASPER! That Jasper? In the Gaelic Guide?”

  “It relaxes me. With my kind of investigative reporting, I need it.”

  Torrey looked at his solid, comfortable body. He wore old tweed pants and a gray-green sweater. “What’s your real name?”

  “Shaw. Jasper Shaw.”

  She recognized the name. Political, the Irish Times. Standing with Gerry Adams. She’d read his piece attacking the violence of the “real IRA” that was responsible for the shameful explosions in Northern Ireland. Photos of mangled bodies, dead children. “But why call yourself Jasper O’Mara?”

  “Why? Because nobody’s ever heard of Jasper O’Mara. He doesn’t exist. But Jasper Shaw? At every bed-and-breakfast, the proprietor recognizes the name and gets a wild look in his eye, or her eye, and I’ve no peace over my breakfast while they’re tipping me off to an investigation I’m missing, such as who really shot crime reporter Veronica Guerin of the Sunday Independent, but they’ll give me a lead, the inside story. What’s more, they’re going to give it to me right now, over my sausages and eggs. Same thing in pubs. Wherever. From whomever. Why didn’t I tell you? I was always about to. But, I don’t know. We had something I didn’t want to jostle.”

  Torrey said, “I see. Sort of.” But for now she had too much else to think about. “How’d you know to meet my flight tonight?”

  “Easy. There’s only one afternoon return flight from Denmark that would’ve given you any time in Copenhagen.” She felt his glance. “Brev: Danish for ‘letters.’ Denmark. It was about Rowena?”

  She felt suddenly exhausted and hopeless beyond belief. “Yes, Rowena.” She clasped the leather-covered thermos and helplessly began to talk. She never thought, can I trust Jasper O’Mara who is really Jasper Shaw? She knew only that in this warm blue Jaguar she couldn’t keep from confiding everything to him. To Jasper: dissembler, investigative journalist, marvelous cook, and lover.

  Gazing through the windshield at the rainswept road, she told it all. At the end, exhausted, she said, “Rowena didn’t kill him. Somebody else did. Who?” And tiredly she leaned her head against Jasper’s shoulder and fell asleep.

  * * *

  A hand. A strong, tanned hand on the steering wheel. She woke to the luxurious purr of the car, aware of a clear dark sky, of stars, of the mountains of Wicklow. Lights of an occasional oncoming car swept up and vanished.

  But the hand. He was left-handed, guiding the car negligently. His hand, then the wrist, and between the hand and the sleeve of his gray-green sweater, on his wrist, the watch. The watch he’d lost in the woods that fatal afternoon of the knitting needle death of Dr. Ashenden.

  Torrey stirred and lifted her head from his shoulder. Her neck was stiff. She rubbed it. “I see you found your watch.”

  “Awake, are you? My watch? I never lost it.”

  “But, remember —”

  “A lie. I couldn’t trust you then. I couldn’t trust anybody. I said I’d lost my watch, an excuse so I could secretly meet Rowena in the gully. The gully where she lost the notebook the Gardai found that next day.”

  “You? Meet with Rowena?” She turned to stare at him. Her head began to ache.

  Jasper said, “I couldn’t tell you before. It goes like this: I’ve a good friend, Flann. He’s gotten involved in a political — a bit of trouble. In certain confidential quarters it’s known that he’s also involved with Rowena. He —”

  “With Rowena? Rowena Keegan?”

  “They’re lovers. Planning to marry. After this political … uh, situation is over. Once he gets clear and can safely return.”

  It was too stunning to take in. Rowena’s lover. Rowena had a lover. Flann. Flann something.

  “What’s he like, this Flann?”

  “Trinity College. With ideals, but not a firebrand. His heaven is more a small manor house, a loving wife who was formerly Rowena Keegan, a pack of kids, and running a local liberal paper. Plus a horse or two.”

  “Sounds … a gem.” Did this gem, Flann, know that Rowena was pregnant? And planning an abortion?

  Moreover, if he was a gem, why was he in hiding from the law? And what did Jasper mean by “can safely return”?

  “So, this Flann, return from where? How are you involved?”

  “We keep in touch, Flann and I. When he learned I was going through Ballynagh, he asked me to let Rowena know he wa
s still safe, and where, and when he’d return. But we’re known in those same certain quarters to be friends, Flann and I. A phone conversation wasn’t safe; it could be bugged. So we met in the gully.”

  Ahead, to the left, the lights of the Duggans’ farmhouse, it was seven-thirty and full dark. In a few minutes they’d reach the break in the hedge; the groundsman’s cottage was only a few yards the other side of the hedge. “Leek and garlic soup,” Jasper said. “Mashed sweet potatoes, mint peas, and sausages. All on the stove, only needing heating. I’ll park the Jag in Ballynagh. Back in twenty minutes.”

  “About Flann, return from where?” She felt obstinate.

  “The price of petrol is going up,” Jasper said, “and wasn’t that ever the way of the world?” He kissed her on the nose and reached across her and unlatched the door. “Out. Out.”

  48

  Torrey wormed the Danish ring from the tight front pocket of her jeans. “Here. And thanks so much, Caroline.”

  Caroline took the ring and looked up at Torrey who hadn’t even sat down but stood beside the breakfast table at Ashenden Manor looking so … well, so intense. Her black-fringed gray eyes were strained, as though she hadn’t slept. For another thing, Torrey’s rust-colored sweater was on inside out, all the seams showing, as though she’d dressed inattentively, her mind elsewhere. And on her dark hair she wore, like a headband, a kerchief, orange and turquoise, with a design of blue peacocks. A Chinese-looking thing. Incongruous. But then, there were quite a few things that Ms. Torrey Tunet didn’t care a fig about.

  Caroline pensively turned the Danish ring over and over. Lovely, intricate design. “What did he think of it? The craftsmanship.”

  “What? Who?”

  “Jasper. Your friend, Jasper O’Mara. You thought he’d be interested in the Danish craftsmanship.” She waited.

  “Jasper. Oh, yes. Admirable, he thought, remarkably … Caroline, I want to ask you something.” And now Torrey did sit down.

  Caroline said, “Do. And have some tea. You look a bit chilled.” She poured a cup of tea. “And the toast’s still warm.”

  “Thanks. Think back, will you, Caroline?” Torrey’s face was serious. “The night before Rowena ran down — accidentally ran down — her grandfather in the meadow, were they friendly?”

  “Of course! As always. And of course it was an accident. It couldn’t have been otherwise.”

  “Yes, certainly. I just —”

  “The night before, they had a whiskey nightcap before bed, in the library. They always did that. Just the two of them, Rowena and my father. Scott didn’t get on with his grandfather; neither did Mark. I went to bed after dinner, as usual, to read for a couple of hours or knit and watch television. Why? Does that answer your —”

  “And the next morning? Rowena and her grandfather? Still … friends?”

  “Torrey, really! Of course! Why ever not?”

  “I mean, what I’m trying to get at, Caroline — were they still friends right up to the time your father left for Dublin that morning? That’s what I’m asking.”

  Caroline sighed. How was this helping Rowena? Impossible. She gazed at Torrey in the inside-out sweater. “Yes, friends. Right up to the time he left for Dublin. I was going out to the kitchen garden behind the stable, and I heard them talking horses. Chatting, laughing. On my way back, I saw Rowena kiss him good-bye. As always.” She waited, then said triumphantly, “So you see! No enmity at all!”

  But Torrey persisted. “That would’ve been about what time?”

  “About…” Caroline thought. “It was a Friday. My father’s short day, end of the week. Not medical. Business. Accounts and such. Lunch at the Shelbourne or Merrion. He left here about ten that morning as usual. He was always back by three.” She waited, looking at Torrey, feeling helpless. She seemed to see not Torrey Tunet but her Rowena growing smaller and smaller in the distance, a dwindling, lost figure.

  Torrey stood up. To Caroline’s surprise, she now looked remarkably wide awake. Her eyes were bright, and there was a flush of color on her cheeks.

  “I’m off.” She gave Caroline something that was rather like a military salute, and was out the door.

  49

  Jennie O’Shea was deadheading the geraniums in the big concrete pot beside the stable door. The pot of geraniums had been Ms. Rowena’s idea, to dress up the stables. End of October, cold weather, this would be the last of the geraniums. Jennie liked deadheading: bend and snap, bend and snap, breaking off right at that knobby part, no twisting or tearing, and not having to bring scissors or a knife from the kitchen. Only thing, that bastard stallion, Thor, always lunging off to the side and taking a bite out of the geraniums. But no more. Dead as a doornail, knitting needle in his behind. Now there was only Sweet William, the bay, Ms. Rowena’s three-year-old. His coat was like brown satin — she wouldn’t mind having hair like that, gleaming like brown satin, not like her own black dull hair, though at least curly, curlier than Rose’s over at Castle Moore.

  Jennie straightened, holding the plastic dish with the withered geraniums to be got rid of, and said “Oh!” for there was Ms. Tunet not five feet away, and Jennie hadn’t heard a thing.

  “Sorry, Jennie, did I startle you?” Ms. Tunet said. She was wearing some fancy-looking scarf tied around her head, pretty colors, mostly turquoise.

  “Oh, that’s all right, I was just —” Jennie shook the plastic dish.

  “I was looking for you,” Ms. Tunet said. “I wanted to ask you. You know Ms. Rowena and I are friends, so I’m sort of trying to, well, figure out some things. Maybe in some minor way, to help her. So there won’t be any, uh, miscarriage of justice. You see?”

  “Oh, yes! I do!” She liked Ms. Rowena so much. It was all so scary. She and Rose were on the telephone every morning with each bit of news; it looked worse and worse for Ms. Rowena.

  “I was wondering, Jennie,” Ms. Tunet said. “That Friday. The Friday that Ms. Rowena rode the stallion into the meadow? And accidentally might’ve killed Dr. Ashenden? That morning. Were you here, Jennie?”

  “Oh, yes. Tuesday’s my day off, Ms. Tunet.”

  “Well, let’s see.” Ms. Tunet smiled at her. “That Friday morning. Have I got it straight, that Dr. Ashenden left about ten o’clock that morning for Dublin?”

  Jennie could smell the sharp, acrid aroma of dead geraniums in the plastic bowl. “Yes, he always did, Fridays.” A waste of petrol, spending such a short day in Dublin, but Dr. Ashenden was rich; he could spend his money any old way he liked.

  “Uh-huh,” Ms. Tunet said, “What happened then?”

  Jennie was puzzled. “Nothing happened, that I can exactly — well, Ms. Rowena went up to her bedroom to study. I made them soup and sandwiches for lunch. They eat dinner at night.”

  “Them?” Ms. Tunet said. She looked very intense, her eyes almost squinting.

  “I mean Ms. Rowena and her brother Scott and her mother. Of course Dr. Temple was at his office in Dublin, it being a weekday. After lunch, Ms. Temple went to lie down; her neck or back was out. Sometimes she doesn’t come down until maybe three o’clock. Even later. Reading and such. Napping.”

  “So … let’s see,” Ms. Tunet said. “So after lunch, well, what I’m asking is, just before Ms. Rowena left the house and went down to O’Malley’s and got drunk, and then supposedly tried to ride down her grandfather in the meadow … well, what I’m saying is, did anything happen to upset Ms. Rowena? that you know of?”

  Jennie started to get that creepy-crawly feeling she’d had when she’d told Rose on the telephone about it. But it wasn’t exactly related, so she’d thought better not get involved, what with her holiday coming up and all.

  “Anything particular?” Ms. Tunet asked.

  “Particular? Not particular, I wouldn’t say particular.” She felt funny, because now that she was thinking of it again, it began to swell up, seemed to get bigger and bigger. It was like she was beginning to see it through a magnifying glass. “Not particular.” In her
hands the bowl trembled.

  “What?” Ms. Tunet said. Then again, louder, “What, Jennie?”

  “Oh, Ms. Tunet! Nothing much.” But maybe it wasn’t nothing much. Uneasy guilt rode her shoulder. “Just … it was after lunch, maybe half past one o’clock.” Now that she’d started, it wasn’t so bad. “I’d cleared the dishes and all. I heard Jimmy Hogan — he’s the postman — ring his bicycle bell, and I went out through the hall and got the post. I came back in and I was walking past the library. It was all so peaceful. I could hear Ms. Rowena and Scott talking in the library, having a chat, I guess. Then all of a sudden, I heard Ms. Rowena give an awful … like a scream. Then she came out of the library. She was walking like a sleepwalker, her eyes staring like they were painted on her face. She went right past me, out the front door.

  “Scott went hitching after her. He almost fell down the front steps, calling after her. But she paid no attention.” Jennie stopped. She felt breathless.

  “And?” Ms. Tunet said.

  “And? They said later she went down to the village to O’Malley’s and got drunk.”

  “Did he follow her? Scott?” Ms. Tunet asked.

  “No, he just sat down on the bottom step. It must’ve been cold, those granite stones. He sat there rubbing his face. But after a minute he got up and he almost fell over on account of his leg. His little car was in front. He got in and went off. I could see down past the main gate. He went left, toward Dublin.”