The Irish Village Murder (19 page)

BOOK: The Irish Village Murder
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I
t was after dinner, the pork roast with apples had been heavenly. Chocolate sorbet-and-banana dessert. The peat fire kept the cottage warm. Torrey wore only a T-shirt with her jeans. Jasper was in his abominable horizontally striped blue-and-white cotton sweater. They still sat at the kitchen table, the teapot on a hot plate.
“A bit of history for you,” Jasper said. “I poked around an archive or two, not my field. But anything you're involved in captures my interest. Here's this.” He put something down beside Torrey's teacup.
Torrey picked it up. It was a photocopy of a letter. Exquisite, old-style handwriting. It bore a crest of crossed swords, with a rose between the hilts.
My dear cousin Sarah,
We give thanks to God that we were not among the kidnapped. We have lived through the horror of our friends' loss, and nightmares of their fate there in Africa. We will at once remove to Longford, far from this dangerous coast. We hope never to see the sea again, or to smell salt air. Our prayers and sadness go to Celia and Desmond Creedon and their little Annabel, kidnapped from our shores by those Barbary pirates. Their fate is something we dread to imagine. You will hear from us, once we are settled in Longford.
our loving cousin
,
Louise.
Baltimore, Co. Cork.
August 12, 1631
For some minutes there was only the ticking of the old wall clock that Torrey had found at a tag sale. Then Torrey said,
“But we
do
know little Annabel's fate! At least that. It was in John Gwathney's journal … What he learned from the monastery's old records: The child lacking a last finger was one of three children the monastery sold to villagers in the nearby Berber village. Only forty years ago, that village was attacked and pillaged by brigands from the Aures Mountains. A handful of the villagers escaped through the desert to the monastery. One of them, the only one of his family to remain alive, stayed on as gatekeeper at the monastery, and according to the journal, ‘is much valued.'” Torrey paused. “I expect it's all in John Gwathney's manuscript.”
Jasper's eyebrows rose and he whistled softly under his breath. “John Gwathney, investigative reporter.”
“Hmm?” Torrey was looking dreamily off into space. “I keep wondering … about how somewhere there are descendants of the people kidnapped from Baltimore. Living in Algeria … or nearby Tunisia … or Morocco …”
“Let it go,” Jasper said. “Let it go.”
 
In the morning, toward noon, she went with Jasper past the pond and through the hedge to the Jaguar parked at the side of the access road. This time he'd be going south, destination known only to someone at a desk at the
Independent
in Dublin. A cold wind was blowing, low clouds obscured the tops of the surrounding mountains, mist lay in tattered layers across the hills. Shivery weather; barns would be dank, animals huddled within, hooves stamping, breath steaming.
In her parka, Torrey stood beside the car, the window wound down. Jasper reached out an arm and drew her head close and kissed her cold nose. “E-mail me from Portugal, right? And bring back some of those dried Portuguese sausages. I have a recipe waiting. And …” In his long Irish face, his nostrils twitched. “Pray for Irish political peace.”
Jasper gone, she went back through the hedge. The cold wind made her eyes tear. There was a thin-looking sheet of ice on the pond as she went past it to the cottage. It would be warm in Portugal. In a week? Two weeks? She should call Myra Schwartz at Interpreters International. What time was it in Boston?
Indoors, the phone was ringing, then a voice, “Torrey? It's Myra in—”
She ran across the room and snatched up the phone. “Myra! I'm here! I'm here!”
“Well, now, honey bunch,
bello.
Can you believe it? Portugal
again
off! But a diplomatic brouhaha in Greece, I'm tickled to say. So, Greece. I've already booked you a room at the Acropolis Palace in Athens. Near the
plaka, and
with a view of that temple with the Vestal Virgins. Sunday through Thursday … Oh, wait! I'm just looking at your … Greek
is
one of your languages, isn't it? I just took it for … Anyway, Greek is, isn't it?”
Torrey said, “Yes, Myra, it is.” It is
now.
Whistling under her breath, she packed the sleeveless black dress, the dangling jet earrings, the sandals and walking shoes and the rest on the list pasted inside her suitcase. Lastly, she packed the Greek dictionary and grammar.
Then, standing in the fireplace kitchen, she unwrapped a chocolate bar, bit off a piece and stood pensively looking about at the hutch under the wall clock, at her desk in the alcove and at the shabby old couch she'd meant to finish slipcovering with the pea-green corduroy she'd bought over a year ago. But then: A child alone on a dark street …
She finished the chocolate bar. She stood a moment frowning, biting a fingernail. Then she tied the peacock scarf around her head as a bandanna, put on her parka and left the cottage.
It was just twelve noon. At O'Malley's Pub she'd find Michael Mclntyre of the wild white thicket of hair and tales of his seafaring days along the coast of North Africa, so long after those Barbary Coast pirate days, but perhaps holding a whiff of the past.
She would let go, of course, finally. “Let it go,” as Jasper had said. And yes, she would. But slowly.
Piracy along the Barbary Coast of North Africa lasted from 1400 to 1830. By 1518, Algerian corsairs (privateers of the Barbary Coast) dominated the Mediterranean, forcing ships of all countries to pay tribute if they wished to pass. They also kidnapped people from the coasts of Spain, England, Italy and other countries, to be ransomed or sold as slaves, as in the Raid of Baltimore, which occurred in Ireland in Baltimore on June 20, 1631, in which the Algerian pirates killed two people and took over a hundred away with them as slaves to North Africa.
In 1815, a U.S. naval squadron under Captain Stephen Decator attacked Algiers and forced its governor to sign a treaty banning piracy against U.S. ships. A year later, in 1816, the British and Dutch combined forces against the Algerians and almost totally destroyed their fleet. It was the end of Barbary Coast piracy.
The Irish Cairn Murder
 
The Irish Cottage Murder
 
The Irish Manor House Murder
 
 
Available from St. Martin's/Minotaur Paperbacks
“Grittier than most British cozies … [W]ill appeal to fans of Bartholomew Gill's Irish procedurals.”
—Booklist
 
The Irish Cairn Murder
“Shows off some intricate plotting and a cast of eccentrics, including Jasper, Tunet's overweight gourmand boyfriend, and her rival, the inept and vengeful Inspector O'Hare.”
—Publishers Weekly
 
“Literate and well written, in a style that's simple and direct. It would be a jaded reader who could resist its seductive narrative skill.”
—Southampton Press
 
“A complicated cast, an interesting plot and an admirable amateur detective who can laugh at herself.”
—Dallas Morning News
 
The Irish Manor House Murder
“Good writing, all the twists and turns of a complicated plot, peopled with well-rounded characters … [S]hould satisfy the most discriminating mystery lover.”
—The Tampa Tribune
 
“Interesting characters keep one moving through the labyrinthine plot, and the local color is the green and silvered gray of Ireland.”
—Booklist
 
The Irish Cottage Murder
“There are easily enough plots, subplots, and full-bodied characters to supply a half-dozen novels. An excess of riches, then, in a most promising debut.”
—Kirkus Reviews
 
“Every page has a new discovery, a surprise, a twist, a new character revelation. And the solution to the mystery is as convincing as it is unexpected.”
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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THE IRISH VILLAGE MURDER
Copyright © 2004 by Dicey Deere
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
 
 
St. Martin's Paperbacks are published by St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
 
 
eISBN 9781466821330
First eBook Edition : May 2012
 
 
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2003066683
ISBN: 0-312-99674-8
EAN: 80312-99674-1
St. Martin's Press hardcover edition / March 2004
St. Martin's Paperbacks edition / March 2005
BOOK: The Irish Village Murder
12.1Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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