The Irish Village Murder (9 page)

BOOK: The Irish Village Murder
7.35Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
 
 

E
ven my mam uses a computer,” Sergeant Bryson said to Inspector O'Hare. “Orders elastic stockings and such. Pot holders. Cat food. Hair stuff. Paid for and delivered.” He fed one of the small-sized dog biscuits to Nelson. “Too bad John Gwathney didn't use a computer. That way, we'd have leads: correspondence, addresses, e-mail. Clues.”
O'Hare said, “Right.” It was two o'clock, he'd just come from a too-hearty lunch at Finney's and was not feeling strictly comfortable. Tomorrow he'd be more …

The Dublin Times
,” Bryson said, “says that John Gwathney even wrote his books in longhand.
I
say, either way, bad for your back—all that sitting.” Bryson squared his shoulders. He was proud of his straight, soldierly back. As for the colcannon of potatoes and such that Inspector O'Hare gobbled up at Finney's, not for
him.
He patted his own flat stomach.
“What's this?” Sitting down, O'Hare picked up the two-page document from his desk.
“Just in by fax, sir.”
“About time.” From the Galway Police Department. He'd sent his inquiry about Liam Caffrey two weeks ago; were they sitting on their hands in Galway? Autumn vacations, what? This was a murder investigation! Everybody involved and the possibly guilty were already profiting by the bloody horror of
blasting John Gwathney to death with a shotgun. A stunning windfall for Roger Flannery, for instance, that Landseer painting worth a fortune, and Flannery driving around Ballynagh in a green Mercedes, a fact not to be discounted.
“Peppermint tea, sir.” Sergeant Bryson, grinning, put down a mug of the hot tea on O'Hare's desk.
“Thanks, Jimmy.” And then there was Liam Caffrey with much to gain. Caffrey, lover of Megan O'Faolain, who'd had much to lose. Had she known about John Gwathney's will? A will that Gwathney, betrayed, cuckolded, enraged, might at any instant change?
Slut. Whore.
Conspire. A Machiavellian sort of word, conspire. So, Liam Caffrey.
Inspector O'Hare put on his glasses and picked up the document from police headquarters in Galway.
Five minutes later, frowning, he dropped the papers on his desk. What had he expected? Something criminal? Liam Caffrey, thirty-eight, divorced, no children, had owned a successful pottery shop in Galway. Three years ago a fire, cause undetermined, had sent the shop up in flames. Mix-up re insurance, which was supposed to have been paid by Caffrey's ex-wife, but wasn't. Malice? Forgetfulness? Anybody's guess. In any event, it wiped Caffrey out. Two months later Caffrey, with nothing more than a few write-ups on his pottery-making in art magazines, had appeared in Ballynagh.
“You read the fax?” O'Hare said to Sergeant Bryson.
“Yes, sir, when it came in. But where'd Liam Caffrey get the money to pay Sullivan to fix up the old Dugan place, put on a new roof?”
O'Hare said slowly, “People have friends. Or Caffrey could get credit and hang on for a while. Swinging by his teeth, for all anyone knows. Casting about for … God knows what. A fortune?”
Sergeant Bryson was eating one of the fig cookies from the box on top of the soda machine beside the door. “Oh? I saw
her
,
Megan O'Faolain, coming out of Grogan Sisters Knitting Shop with that little niece, Sharon; she'd just bought her new mittens with kittens on the backs. ‘A handsome woman,' my mam would call Megan O'Faolain. But gone pale, lately, not her usual high color. RTE reporters and all, lawyers' meetings in Dublin. Taking Gwathney's ashes to Drogheda. Knocked the wind out. But still handsome.”
O‘Hare nodded. Handsome. Megan O'Faolain was also now the richest woman in Ballynagh, likely the richest woman in this corner of Wicklow. And with a lover, besides.
O'Hare rubbed his chin. Michael Fogarty's report. In the file across the room was Fogarty's interview of two weeks ago with Liam Caffrey. Fogarty had been one of the Murder Squad from the Crime Division of the Garda Síochána in Dublin, one of the four Gardaí who had inched over the surrounding woods and had questioned nearby residents who might have seen or heard someone lurking about in the fields or woods the evening John Gwathney was murdered. A lost button off a jacket, a footprint, even the shotgun itself.
The nearest resident to Gwathney Hall was Liam Caffrey, who, questioned, had said that, in fact, around six o'clock he'd heard someone go past on the road. Not voices, just footsteps. “The road near the path is pebbly, makes a crunch,” Caffrey had told Fogarty. “Definitely heavy footsteps, though, or I wouldn't have heard.”
Inspector O'Hare rubbed his chin. Heavy footsteps. But it had been a chilly night. Was Liam Caffrey so warm-blooded that he had the windows open, to have heard all the way down the path to the road? Moreover, Dugan's old dwelling was fieldstone, and Brian Sullivan and his sons had made a tight roof.
“It figures,” O'Hare said aloud, cupping the mug of tea, feeling the warmth.
“Figures, sir?”
“I'm thinking that Roger Flannery's windfall from John
Gwathney's death is due to his being nothing more than a lucky bastard. He's no murderer.”
“Sir? I thought we were talking about Liam Caffrey.”
“We are, Jimmy. We're talking about Liam Caffrey and Megan O'Faolain.”
 
 

M
y love!”
“Where
are
you? Jasper, I've been wanting … I need your perspicacious—”
“What big words, you have, Grandmother.”
Holding the phone, Torrey tried to slide the biscuits into the oven, but the pan slipped and they fell on the floor. So much for that. They probably wouldn't have risen, anyway, they almost never did. It was four o'clock. She'd have bread and butter with her tea. Juggling the phone, she picked up the biscuits, dumped them in the trash, and sat down at the kitchen table. “Tell me about you, first. Such as when do I see you?”
“Not till Doomsday. Translate that to in almost two weeks. Series of sober meetings going on here in Belfast. Morning coats, grave faces, ‘significant progress,' the press says. Likely in the next millennium. Sorry, my love, but there it is. Now I'm ready to be perspicacious.”
She told him then, first, that she was sure Roger Flannery had stolen the pocket journal and address book from the cottage. “Find out about Flannery, will you, Jasper. He has something to hide and he's come into a fortune. That Landseer.”
“Right.”
Then she told him about having gone to Castle Creedon on the south coast, and the strangeness of her visit. “A hairbrush!
The twins told me that John Gwathney swiped an old hairbrush. Their parents had shown him about, he said he'd come to Castle Creedon because he was interested in researching historical castles in Cork. I expect they showed him relics and … well, God knows what. Stuff in glass cases?
Heirlooms?
” She paused at a sudden thought. “Maybe his visit was about a
later
historical book he was planning. On Ireland. Because it couldn't be …” She stopped.
Eight miles into the desert
…
Jasper said, “I'll check out Roger Flannery. Take care of the figs.”
 
In the narrow front room of his shabby flat on Pearse Street, Roger Flannery used his new slender silver pen to sign the check for the initial payment on the elegant Georgian house. It was on Boylston Street in Ballsbridge, that prestigious quarter of Dublin. White stone, paneled front door, a fanlight. He would drop the check off at Haines, Ltd., this afternoon instead of trusting it to the post.
“We'll be living there next month,” he said to Cherry, who was coming into the front room, barefoot and wearing only his new maroon silk robe. She had just showered. She loved to wear his things. Which was fine. Whatever Cherry did was fine. And now, finally, she was leaving Willy for him. He had thought it would never happen. Saucy face, auburn hair. And that cruel limp, courtesy of Willy. In the elegant house in Ballsbridge they would have a drawing room: sofas with plump cushions; a graceful fireplace; and above the fireplace, lit by a subdued light, a copy of the Landseer. His legacy. For remembrance.
“But
when?
” Cherry said. “When can we move in?”
“Month or two's my guess.” Meantime, no reason to shift his files and other belongings from his third-floor quarters at Gwathney Hall to this minuscule flat, which was already overflowing with Cherry's things. Megan O'Faolain wouldn't begrudge him his old quarters. She had too much else to concern her. “Poor
Megan,” he said under his breath. He frowned, feeling a stab of sympathy, remembering how Megan had brought him up snacks and soup on many a late night when he'd had to organize his research for John Gwathney by morning. And then, those other things, the ugly, secret things … But what good was his sympathy for Megan now? “No good at all,” he said aloud.
“What?” Cherry tipped her head at him.
“Nothing, I was just … What do you say to the ribs of lamb at the Shelbourne for dinner? You liked them last week. Shall I make a reservation?” The very words,
make a reservation,
made him abruptly give a breathless little laugh, so that Cherry looked at him in surprise.
 
 

Y
ou're a service to the female sex,” Winifred said to Torrey, and she smacked a hand heartily down on the translated pages. “The Warrior Queen Maeve! None of that Joan of Arc drivel, fighting
men's
wars! A shot of brandy in your tea, Torrey?”
“Absolutely.” It was only ten o'lock in the morning, but her fingertips were still frozen; she'd come on her bicycle, and she and Winifred were in the chilly tower room of Castle Moore, where Winifred wrote her modern works on a computer and her medieval sonnets, rondels, villanelles and ballads with a feather pen. On the desk, the battered electric hot-water pot steamed.
Winifred wore her usual khaki pants and flannel shirt. But around her neck was an incredibly beautiful knitted apricot-colored scarf that looked soft as thistledown, weightless as gossamer.
“Like my scarf?” Winifred said, catching Torrey's glance. “Cost a packet, no doubt. Not mine, but I couldn't resist … It's Megan O'aolain's. Had her to tea, and she forgot it. Must be spending her fortune, as witness this priceless bit of fluff.”
Winifred unwound the scarf from her neck. “Got to return it to Megan before I wear it out. Tempting. Did you know that the Moores, my branch, anyway, were a light-fingered lot?” She ran a hand through her rough gray hair and looked at the clock.
“Fifteen minutes until my second cigarette. Then the sonnet, overdue, for
Sisters in Poetry.
Sheila may
look
a weakling, but she's a galley slave-master about deadlines … You wouldn't care to return Megan's scarf for me? Or would you?”
 
Megan said, “Thanks, Torrey. I missed it, but I was just too …” She held the soft apricot-colored scarf in both hands, looking down at it.
Just too …
tired,
Torrey thought. A weak sunlight came through the mullioned sitting room windows at Gwathney Hall. Megan was thinner; faint hollows in her cheeks made her dark blue eyes look even larger. She wore a high-necked black cashmere sweater and a long violet woolen skirt. Talking, she nervously kept scooping her dark hair behind her ears. “Sharon is somewhere about. I'll be keeping her at Gwathney Hall for a bit. Her mother hasn't come through the baby's delivery very well. So—anyway … Can you stay for lunch?” And then: “Who's
that?
”—for the reflection of a car glittered across the windowpanes. Then came the muffled sound of a car door slamming.
 
Blake Rossiter, wrapped in a suede duffel coat the same shade as his sandy mustache, and wearing a brimmed cap on his handsome balding head, said, “No, thanks, I won't sit down. Sorry to burst in on you, Ms. O'Faolain. Glad to find Ms. Tunet here, though.” He flashed an easy smile at Torrey. “Haven't seen you since Winifred's dinner party.” He turned back to Megan.
“Roger Flannery mentioned at that dinner party that John Gwathney's estate contained two or three more paintings. I merely want to let you know, Ms. O'Faolain, that if in the future you should be interested in selling, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know. As a dealer, I deal constantly with private collectors, collectors who can afford … So if, at any time …” Blake Rossiter drew a card from his jacket pocket. “My place in Ballynagh and my office in Dublin.”
Megan, holding the card, said, “Thank you, Mr. Rossiter. I've so far given no thought to … But thank you.”
Torrey waited by the window while Megan saw Blake Rossiter out and came back.
“Nice-enough man,” Megan said. “But I'd feel obligated to sell any paintings through Mr. Bendersford, if at all, and not through Mr.—” She glanced at the card she still held. “Through Mr. Rossiter. Not that I've thought of disposing of anything in Gwathney Hall as yet. I … I don't, I haven't … I'm not sure of my future plans.” Color came up in her pale face.
“Why through Mr. Bendersford?” Torrey said, wondering who Bendersford was.
“I guess because John had bought the Landseer years ago through Bendersford. He's a dealer in Dublin. They were friendly, John and Bendersford. I met him only once. Maybe two months ago? He stopped at Gwathney Hall on his way to Waterford, wanting John to autograph a copy of
The Silk Road
for his seventeen-year-old nephew, who is a big fan of John's work.” Megan was smiling. “That day, John was elated about the way his new book was coming along. He was … hospitable, happy, expansive. Not like … well, sometimes, lately.”
“That's nice,” Torrey said tentatively.
“I made a lobster lunch. It was lovely, we had a white wine. I was happy to see John so relaxed. So buoyant. Because lately …” She closed her eyes.
Because lately you were in bed with Liam Caffrey in the pottery shop.
Torrey almost said it aloud.
“Anyway,” Megan said, “I haven't even begun to take inventory of Gwathney Hall. I'll do that before we … before I …” She lifted a hand and rubbed her forehead. “Anyway … Can you stay for lunch?”
“Thanks, but I've got to get on.” Torrey zipped up her jacket and felt for her gloves. Megan accompanied her into the hall.
At the door, Torrey, looking at Megan's thin face, said impulsively,
“If there's anything I can do, I'm just a bicycle ride away and marking time between jobs.”
Megan said, “Oh, Torrey! Would you? Could you? Tomorrow I have to go to Dublin, to the lawyers. And Kathleen, the village girl who's taking care of Sharon, sort of a nanny—Kathleen is supposed to go to her Weight Watchers group in the village, ten to noon. Maybe you could take over? Two hours.”
“Of course, Megan.” It wasn't Newton's apple falling into her lap, but it would suffice.
 
At three-thirty, Torrey's phone rang. She stabbed the needle into the pea-green corduroy in her fresh attempt to sew a new couch cover and picked up the phone from the cushion beside her.
“Torrey? Calling from inside the lion's mouth. That is to say, Belfast. Did the research, my love, as per your request.”
“Jasper,
really?
So soon? You truly are—”
“And even sent you a box of Malachy's Mixed-Berry Preserves, only available here if you give up your virginity to a dragon. Now, here's what I got:
“Roger Flannery, aged twenty-nine. Flannery was lifted out of the Limerick gutter by John Gwathney, his problem being alcohol, no home or family. That was eight years ago. Typical Gwathney act when in his Good Samaritan mode. Shaped Flannery up, God knows how. Discovered that Flannery at fifteen had won a history scholarship, but the scholarship went down the drain when young Flannery discovered malt and hops. Hah! Gwathney rehabilitated the lad via some strange alchemy—stern kindness and discipline? A good dose of AA? And Flannery became Gwathney's research assistant. Researcher on Gwathney's last three books.”
“What about money? Flannery's salary?”
“Good. Good enough. But God knows what Flannery spent it on, what with his old car and his cheap flat on Pearse Street.
No booze, so that's not it. Maybe saving it up for his headstone, ha-ha?” A pause. Then Jasper's voice, serious:
“So that's that, my love. But I'm thinking of what Miller says in
The Official Rules.
Worth your paying attention to.”
Torrey glanced over at the hutch where Jasper's copy of his beloved Dickson's
The Official Rules
stood beside her half dozen dictionaries. “Miller? Says what?”
“Says ‘You can't tell how deep a puddle is until you step into it.'”
BOOK: The Irish Village Murder
7.35Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

A Merry Little Christmas by Melanie Schuster
Jessica and Jewel by Kelly McKain
The Mistress by Lexie Ray
Ballistics by Billy Collins
Adopted Parents by Candy Halliday
Dangerous Obsessions by Kira Matthison