The Celtic Riddle (33 page)

"There was only one problem."

"The treasure," I said.

"The treasure. If they found that, then, if it was as fabulous as
Eamon said it was, and I had no reason to believe it wasn't, it would
solve their financial problems. I could ruin them again, of course, but
time is important to me. I want to be able to enjoy their downfall for
as long as possible, and we never know how much time there will be for
us on this earth."

"Why didn't you just destroy the clues? You could have told Eamon
you'd placed them. He wouldn't be able to check up on you."

"Because he insisted John Herlihy come with me while I placed the
clues."

Poor John Herlihy; poor all of us, I thought.

"You did rather well finding this place," Charles said. "I had all
the clues, both sets. I copied them of course, before Herlihy hid them,
but still, it took me some time to figure it out. Not schooled in
either ogham or the old stories. You did well. It's a big place, as you
can see," he said, waving the gun around. "I had a lot of looking to
do. It was near the stone, Aill na Mireann. I expect that was where you
were heading just now."

I nodded.

"Every moment I could, I came up here, once I'd figured it out. It
was simply a matter of getting here before anyone else."

"So who hid it, the treasure, I mean, if you didn't?"

"John Herlihy, of course. I thought you knew that. I believe that
Byrne had instructed him to tell the family eventually if they didn't
find it. Eamon was not as heartless as that video might indicate, and
he was genuinely hopeful they would all work together. He even told me
that Herlihy would get it to them when I told him what I had planned. I
suppose he thought that would thwart me. He can't have been thinking
clearly, in his weakened condition. John Herlihy merely presented a
small, but easily dealt with, obstacle."

"By which I assume you mean you killed Herlihy." It was a statement,
not a question.

"I did. Not difficult, even if it never occurred to Eamon that I was
capable of it. If it had, I assume he wouldn't have told me. I asked
Herlihy to tell me where the treasure was. He wouldn't. It was a simple
matter to send him over the side. I lured him to the cliff and pushed
him over. Next, no doubt you'll ask about the others. Michael, for
example. Michael crept into the house the night he was killed. He was
hunting about the place, going through wastepaper baskets and such-I
have no idea why he came back nor why he was creeping around."

Would you believe it if I told you he was looking for a tortoise? I
thought. And I suppose the destroyed clues.

"In any event, he overheard Deirdre and me-did you realize Deirdre
was my aunt, Owen Mac Roth's sister? Yes? When I traced my roots to
Connemara, I found her first, working, as you know, in a dry cleaners.
It was she who told me the whole sordid story, about how my grandfather
had died shortly after my father was incarcerated, having spent the
family nest egg on his son's defense, I might add, and how she'd been
left alone, without prospects to use that rather antique term, and had
sunk to a pitiful state. In any event, Michael heard us talking about
my plans, and he was heading off to tell the rest of the family.
Unfortunate that. I had killed once, the geis was broken. I killed him
too. I actually had the poison with me- I'd got it from one of my less
salubrious clients-and had thought to use it on Eamon, although in the
end I didn't need to. Called to Michael to stop, that I could explain
everything. He did, too. Much too nice and polite a young lad. Death of
him, really."

"And Deirdre?"

"She lost her nerve, that's all. She was going to tell you.
Unfortunate that I involved her at all, but I had to, you see. I needed
someone at Second Chance, so that I could manipulate the strings from
far away in Dublin, unsuspected, but still have the information I
needed about what was happening there. I sent her back, although she
didn't want to go. I wanted her to wreak some more havoc-I thought her
statement to police about Conail was inspired, don't you?-and also to
keep her eye on you, after your rather insistent questioning of me when
you came to Dublin. I made her call me from town every night to report,
and so that I could bolster her resolve and keep her anger at the
family stoked. But then one evening she didn't call, and I knew what
that meant, although I didn't know why."

"Because Eithne Byrne told Deirdre how grateful they were she'd come
back and promised to look after her."

"Interesting," he said. "After I got back to Dublin with Ryan, I
turned around and drove much of the night to get there before she could
do anything, then all the way back to Dublin to be at my office at the
usual time. You know, I thought that because she had suffered too, like
me, she must want, no need, revenge, that she was the perfect ally, but
she hadn't the stomach for it."

I thought of how Deirdre had tried to warn me off, right at the
start, out there on the road in the rain. She'd known what would happen
to anyone who persisted in looking for the treasure. Charles was right:
she hadn't the stomach for what he planned to do.

"Hated to do it, really, to kill her, I mean, but I'd come this
far," he went on. "She'd had a hard life. Death might be a blessing for
her." He paused for a moment or two, but his eyes never left my face.

"It's important to me that you understand that I do not kill
casually or without reason," he said, suddenly. "In fact, I have gone
to some lengths to avoid it. I am not a monster. I locked you and your
friend up in the clochan to give me time to find the treasure, as you
call it, before you did. But you moved too fast. If I had found it and
left before you were able to get here, I would have made an anonymous
call to the police and they would have sent someone to release you.
There would be no need for this," he said, waving the gun in my
direction. "The family could look for the treasure forever, as far as I
was concerned, as long as there was absolutely no chance they would
find it. And now, of course, they won't."

"So are you going to look at it?" I said.

He looked startled. "The treasure, you mean? I suppose so. It was
never about the treasure, but now that I have it, why not? A bonus,
perhaps. Here," he said pushing it toward me with one foot. "You open
it. I need to keep my hands free," he said, tilting his head toward the
gun.

My fingers were shaking so badly I had to struggle with the knots in
the twine. It had started raining again, and the wet was soaking into
my clothes and dripping off my hair into my eyes.

"Take your time," he said. I was, desperately hoping that help would
come, and surreptiously trying to look about me. The trouble with being
at the sacred center of ancient Ireland, the Axis Mundi, a place from
whence all of Ireland could theoretically be seen, and a fire burning
here could be repeated from hilltop to hilltop until it could be seen
across the island, is that there is nowhere to run. Or more accurately,
I could run, but there was nowhere to hide from the maniac with whom I
found myself inhabiting the place, except perhaps, a very small clump
of trees on the downward slope to the west. To get to it, I would have
to pass him.

"Your father did look for you," I said, desperately hoping to buy
myself time, or distract him for a moment. "Owen Mac Roth, I mean. Your
birth father. He looked everywhere for you."

"Did he now? How touching. I'm sure he was to be pitied. As I was."

"Eamon did too. They wouldn't tell him, the authorities, I mean."

"Need I say, too little and too late?"

"But the family, Margaret and the three daughters, are innocent.
They know nothing of all of this. Surely you know this."

"I too was innocent," he replied. "But I suffered immeasurably
because of Eamon Byrne. If I cannot have my revenge on Eamon Byrne, I
will have it on his children. Besides, they have lived a life of luxury
in their innocence. Whatever they wanted, I'm willing to wager, Eamon
would have given them. And now I will bring them to ruin. Please
continue with that package."

I did. I knew he was getting angry, and I didn't want to provoke
him. But I wanted to tell him, although I didn't dare, that he was
wrong. He wasn't going to destroy Eamon Byrne's children. Oh yes, he
could ruin them financially. But I had seen the determination in Eithne
Byrne's eyes, and I didn't think she could be defeated.

Thinking about that kept me going, looking for some way out of the
horrible predicament in which I found myself. But I knew I was running
out of time. At last, the knots loosened. Whoever had wrapped this
package, had known what they were doing. Carefully I rolled open the
plastic, to find another roll, this one of unbleached linen.

"Stop," he ordered. "Let's have a little fun. What do you think it
is?"

"Nuada Silver Hand's sword," I said.

"Interesting. How did you arrive at that conclusion?" he said.

"The first letter of each of the clues, starting at the end, with
the last one, like ogham, bottom to top, spelled out Nuada Argat-lam,"
I said. "Eamon Byrne was always looking for the treasures of the gods,
so I figure this has to be the sword, one of the four gifts of the
gods. It's long enough, isn't it?"

"Ah, interesting. Let's see if you're right," he said. "Proceed.
You've come this far, you might as well finish it."

I thought that whatever it was, it would have to be pretty
spectacular to distract him for a moment or two ,so I could try to get
away. I wasn't sure a worn-out old iron sword would do it.

But it wasn't Nuada's sword. As the next layer of wrapping was
pulled aside I saw a hand, a silver hand. Across the lower knuckles of
the silver fingers were four large jewels, rubies, I'd say, and at the
second joint were four little windows, in a clear stone, polished
quartz, perhaps. It wasn't pagan, though, not something that would date
to the time of Nuada, if ever he existed. It was Christian and very
old, what is referred to as a reliquary, something to hold the bones of
someone very special, a bishop perhaps, or even a saint. There was
scrollwork etched into the silver in Celtic patterns, and it was one of
the most beautiful works of art I had ever seen.

"Let's see!" Charles said, and I handed it to him. It was heavy and
for a second he set down the gun. I lunged for it, but he saw me
coming, also reached for it, and it spun to the ground a few yards
away. As he scrambled to retrieve it, I made a dash for it, slipping
and sliding down the side of the hill, trying to make for the shelter
of some trees.

"Stop!" he yelled. But I didn't. I heard the report of the gun, felt
a short burst of pain in my side. Nothing much, I thought. He can't
really have hurt me. But then my legs wouldn't work and I found myself
falling, then lying, facedown in the mud. I heard first some shouting,
then a roaring in my ears, as the rain kept running in rivulets over my
hands, and the world darkened around me.

Chapter Nineteen

WISE AM I

LYING, I can tell you, is not what it's cut out to be. I can
personally attest that all that stuff about bright lights, long
tunnels, and a transcendent feeling of peace is a crock, a figment of
someone's imagination. I felt completely lucid but irritatingly cold,
my fingers and toes blocks of ice.

I could hear everything, understood everything. I just couldn't move
or speak, although I followed everything with a kind of detached
interest as if it really had nothing to do with me. I had it in my
mind, however, that I had something very important to say.

Gradually, I began to realize that some of the voices I could hear
belonged to people I knew. I recognized Rob, Alex, and then Moira and
Clive. Moira and Clive! Either I was having an otherworldly experience,
or I'd been out for a bit, long enough for Moira and Clive to get
themselves across the Atlantic to Ireland. And if the latter
possibility was the correct one, then I must have been in pretty bad
shape.

I heard a door swing open, and new footsteps in the room.

"Hello Breeta, dear," Alex said.

"How is she?" Breeta said. She sounded almost her old self. That was
something, anyway. And I'd certainly be interested in the answer to her
question.

"She's come through the operation all right," someone said, a doctor
presumably.

How reassuring, I thought.

"But now it's a matter of seeing how she does over the next few
hours."

What did that mean? I wondered.

"Can she hear us?" Breeta demanded.

"Possibly," the doctor said. "It's good to keep talking to her."

I heard footsteps come up right beside me and breath very near my
ear. "I know you've had a very bad time, frightened for your life out
there on the hill with that lunatic; shot and lying there in the mud
and the rain," Breeta said. "And I'll grant you that Rob and the gardai
cut it a little fine getting to you. And no doubt being operated on for
hours and hours must have been very difficult whether you were
conscious or not. But you've had long enough. From now on you're just
wallowing. So pull yourself together, and wake up!"

People who hurl your own words back at you when you are in a
weakened condition are a blight on the landscape, I decided. Not quite
as bad as people who shoot you, perhaps, but a blight, nonetheless. I
ignored her.

"This is all my fault," Jennifer sobbed. "She went after that awful
man because she was worried about me.

"No, it's not," Rob said. "It's mine. I lied about where I was going
when I left the station. I didn't want anybody to know I'd gone to
Maeve's place to discuss things. If I'd told someone, or gone back to
my room sooner, we'd have figured it out and got there before she did."

Oh dear, I thought, I really will have to rouse myself and say
something. I wouldn't want them to go through life thinking it was
their fault. I was the one who'd persisted in this whole thing. Heaven
knows, I should have known better. Deirdre had warned me after all. But
I couldn't wake up, try as I might. Instead, I found myself drifting
away. Soon, I was sitting in an empty theater, empty, that is, except
for me. A single spotlight made a bright circle on the stage.