Murder on Clare Island: A Garda West Novel (A Garda West Crime Novel Book 3)

by Valerie Keogh

  West hung up with a sigh. It was the way the job was. One step forward, two steps back. Red herrings, dead ends, wild goose chases. Normally, he enjoyed untangling it all but not this time.

  Shaking his head, he looked around for Kelly who was looking out to sea, one hand holding her hair, the other buried in her pocket. Leaning against the wall of the house he watched her, and thought about what she’d said. He’d waited for this moment for so long. He loved her; had done almost from the beginning.

  Walking over, he put his arms around her waist and drew her back against him. They stood that way for some time, just standing and staring across the sea to Achill Island, watching birds whirl by, listening to the waves crash on the rocks below. It would have been easy to have said I love you too but West wanted to wait, wanted the words to be more important, separate from hers, and not merely a reflex.

  But when he didn’t, Kelly kicked herself for being so stupid. Why hadn’t she kept her mouth shut? Feeling his warm body behind her, she knew she didn’t want to lose him. She needed to change the mood. Turning in his arms, she asked him what Andrews had to say.

  West told her about the possible drug connection.

  ‘It’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘There’s nowhere for a boat to land near Toormore, is there? We’ve seen the cliffs.’

  ‘Unless there’s a way down we don’t know about.’ West smiled. ‘Do you fancy a long walk? We could go over, explore the cliff-top.’ He shrugged. ‘The case seems to have stalled, so for want of something better to do we may as well have a look.’

  ‘A long walk sounds like a good plan. And perhaps we may see something we’d not noticed by car.’

  ‘I’ll just tell Daisy where we’re going, in case Eamonn arrives,’ he said, heading back into the guesthouse.

  Minutes later they were heading out the road.

  The walk was quiet, peaceful. No cars passed them; no other walkers crossed their path. Following the road, it was just under an hour before they saw the low profile of Toormore House appear.

  They were almost at the gates when West spotted a footpath. ‘I bet that leads to the coastal path,’ he said, ‘let’s try it.’

  The path skirted the grounds of Toormore House and did, as West thought, lead them to the coastal pathway. The wind was stronger here, coming in gusts from the sea. ‘We’d better not walk too close to the edge,’ he said to Kelly, having to repeat himself when she looked at him blankly, his words lost in the wind.

  She nodded to say she understood, and hand in hand they approached the cliff side. There was no barrier and the edge was raggedly eroded. Peering over, the fall was straight down. There was no way any boat could land here. He said as much to Kelly, shouting to be heard over the wind and the crash of waves far below.

  She nodded in agreement and they turned back to the rough path that ran along the cliff. West shook his head when they got to it, he’d seen enough there was no need to go further. He jerked his head toward the house. Kelly nodded and turned.

  There were more ruined walls on this side of the house. West remembering Tadgh’s story looked for the wall he might have pitched his tent beside, smiling when he saw a likely one. He pointed it to Kelly, shouted Tadgh’s name, and saw her smile. They moved to stand behind it and immediately were sheltered from the wind. ‘This must be where he meant,’ West said, ‘incredible the difference one wall can make.’

  ‘It’s unbelievable they were allowed to build so close to these ruins,’ Kelly said, running her hand along the rough brick. ‘It must have been a big enough settlement; it seems to spread from here to the house.’ She looked around, peering into the distance, estimating the size. ‘Of course, they would have had to build from stone; there are hardly any trees on Clare Island. I suppose, that’s why it survived as long as it did.’

  They wandered around, trying to guess the lay-out. ‘It’s a shame no records exist,’ West said, standing beside one isolated low wall, trying to figure out which way the building would have gone, searching the ground for any evidence of the remnant of the walls.

  Kelly had moved on to the next, her eyes like his, trying to see where the original buildings would have stood. She tripped over a wooden pallet and almost fell, swearing loudly enough to attract West’s attention. He moved immediately to her side. ‘You ok?’ he asked.

  ‘I tripped over that stupid pallet,’ she said.’

  ‘Be careful where you walk. There’s been a lot of rubbish dumped here over the years.’ He looked at the pallet, wondering how on earth it had ended up there. About to turn away, something caught his eye. Something under the pallet. He bent down to look closer.

  ‘Is there something there,’ Kelly asked, seeing an intent look on his face.

  ‘I don’t know. Something caught the light. But I can’t see what. Probably a piece of glass or something.’ Curiosity made him investigate further. Reaching down he gripped the corner of the pallet and gave it a tug. It moved easily. ‘It’s not heavy,’ he told her,’ just awkward. Stand back and I’ll move it away.’

  West bent, took a firmer grip, and pulled the pallet out of the way, his eyes widening at what he uncovered. ‘Well now,’ he said, straightening, ‘what do we have here?’

  Kelly stood behind him. ‘It looks like a hatch,’ she said puzzled.

  ‘It does indeed.’ West knocked on it. The sound rang dully. Metal. It was covered in moss and lichen, and had obviously been there for a long time. A handle of sorts was set into one end, and here the moss and lichen had been rubbed away exposing the metal to the sunlight.

  ‘A secret passageway,’ Kelly said, her eyes shining. ‘I bet it was an escape route from the house.’

  West stood. An escape route. Perhaps, but to where? The land around was flat as far as the eye could see. ‘It might have been a military route,’ West suggested, ‘if they were under attack it could take soldiers behind their attackers, fight them from two fronts.’

  Kelly bent, and putting her fingers under the handle, gave a firm tug. It didn’t budge. ‘It might have been found when the house was being built. They probably put the cover on it for safety.’

  Perhaps, but why hide it? West bent and looked around the edges. ‘See,’ he said to Kelly who bent down to follow where his finger was pointing. ‘The moss and lichen, they break along the sides. This has been opened recently. And more than once, I’d say.’ Straightening, he looked back toward Toormore House. ‘I think we’ll find this runs down to the sea,’ he said, and quickly filled her in on his conversation with Andrews. ‘It’s just too much of a coincidence. We should cover it up again, and wait until Hall is with us. See what he thinks.’

  Kelly’s face fell. ‘Can’t we just have a look?’

  West shook his head, and then, seeing her disappointment, changed his mind. ‘Ok. Just a quick look. Stand back,’ he warned her, and gave the hatch a yank. There was no movement. Standing astride, West tried again, this time applying continuous pressure.

  ‘It’s moving,’ Kelly cried, clapping her hands together. ‘Keep going.’

  West grunted and kept pulling and then, suddenly, the hatch lifted easily and he dropped it back to expose the gap beneath. They peered down. There was a staircase, roughly hewn from the rock, the steps uneven and narrow. But it looked solid.

  ‘You ready for a bit of exploration?’ West asked, meeting her eyes. ‘It’s probably going to be dirty and damp.’

  Kelly eyed the darkness. There’d be spiders. Probably big ones. But a secret passage, it was the stuff of adventures. She grinned at him. ‘Absolutely. But I hope you have a torch?’

  West smiled, and reaching into an inside pocket, he pulled out a small torch. He switched it on, the powerful beam lighting up the interior, showing a tantalising curve in the steps. ‘Let’s go down a little bit,’ he said. ‘I’ll go first, if I say go back, go back, ok?’

  He took a tentative step down, keeping his hands on the edges, ready to retreat if the steps were less trustworthy than
they looked. He’d reached the turn before Kelly took the first step down. ‘Can you see anything,’ she asked.

  West took another step and suddenly the patch of sky vanished. The torch, small but powerful, lit up a few steps ahead of him, and then hit wall. Another turn. ‘There’s another turn,’ he called back. ‘I think I’m right. It’s a spiral, going downward.’

  It was cold, but surprisingly dry inside and the air was fresher than West expected. It strengthened his belief that someone was using the passage regularly. ‘We should go back,’ he said suddenly. What on earth had possessed him to be carried away on a whim? They should have waited.

  ‘Oh not yet, Mike,’ Kelly pleaded from a few steps above. ‘Let’s go on a bit more. I bet you’re wrong, it’ll level off soon and then we’ll pop up like rabbits from a warren.’

  But it didn’t, it continued its downward trajectory.

  ‘Ok,’ West said, a few minutes later, ‘we have to go back. It’s still going downward, Kelly. It isn’t an escape route to land; it’s one to the sea.’

  ‘It can’t be,’ Kelly said, ‘there’s no beach, no coves along here.’

  ‘When this was dug there probably was. We’re talking about hundreds of years of coastal erosion; we’ve no idea what the coast of Clare Island was like then.’

  They stood in silence as both considered the changes that time had made. Even in the shelter of Clew Bay, the Atlantic was rough.

  ‘It makes sense, I suppose,’ she agreed. ‘So where do you think this passage ends now? High up on the cliff somewhere?’

  Sense told West they should turn back but curiosity was stronger. ‘I suppose we could go a bit further and see. If someone is using it, it has to go somewhere.’

  They moved on, the silence only broken by their footfall on the rock or the occasional grunt as one or other of them stepped awkwardly on the uneven surface. West didn’t bother reconsidering when each turn led to another figuring they had to come to the end soon.

  Twenty minutes after they’d entered the passage he heard a distinct sound that made him stop. ‘Listen,’ he said, turning the torch back on Kelly, blinding her before he directed it to her feet. ‘Do you hear?’

  Kelly listened. ‘It’s the sea!’

  The next turn brought them to a small, shallow cave. ‘Wow,’ Kelly said, moving past West to stand near the edge, peering down to the sea several feet below.

  ‘Careful,’ West warned, coming to stand behind her, slipping an arm around her waist and drawing her back against him.

  ‘This is amazing,’ she said. ‘It must, one day, have continued to a cove. What a great escape route. They probably had a boat waiting here and sailed off to Achill or the mainland.’

  ‘It’s probably not visible at a distance,’ West surmised, releasing Kelly and looking around. The entrance to the passage way, set at a slant, was barely visible even from where he stood. To one side, there was a small concavity in the rock. Curious, West moved to examine it.

  ‘What is it?’ Kelly asked, joining him.

  West pushed the equipment that was untidily stowed at the back with his toe, his voice disparaging as he told her, ‘A pulley system. I’d say someone is using this passage to bring in drugs.’

  Kelly’s face fell. The place had seemed so magical and now suddenly it was tainted, sordid.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ West said. ‘We can let the drug squad know, they can close the place down.’

  ‘What a shame,’ Kelly said, taking a last look at the sea before with a shake of her head, she started back up the steps.

  West directed the beam of light at her feet as she walked. It took them longer on the return, their steps slower, the excitement that had driven them to the bottom missing from the climb upward. It was thirty minutes later when West stopped, puzzled. ‘Hang on, Kelly,’ he said.

  When she stopped, he switched out the torch. The darkness was dense. Switching the torch back on, he said, ‘Let me switch places with you.’

  Kelly waited as he brushed by and then anxiously asked, ‘Is there something wrong?’

  West didn’t reply. ‘Let’s just keep going.’

  When they rounded the next curve in the steps, he did the same. Still no light. He gritted his teeth but said nothing. A minute later, he saw it, a glimmer. He was right underneath the hatch.

  Someone had closed it.

  25

  West pushed at the hatch but it didn’t budge. Handing the torch back to Kelly, he used both hands, gritted teeth and pushed as hard as he could, and then swore loudly. ‘I think someone has put something on top,’ he said. ‘Switch off the torch for a sec.’

  In the darkness, the problem was obvious. There was a crack of light around the edge of the hatch but in two sections it was missing. Someone had laid something over it. Something heavier than the pallet that had been there earlier.

  ‘Maybe if both of us push, it will work,’ Kelly said, moving up to stand beside him.

  West put the torch in his pocket. ‘Ok, on three,’ he said.

  They strained for several minutes, grunting and groaning with the effort, desperation giving them the adrenaline rush to continue even after they knew whatever it was, it was too heavy to push away.

  ‘Is someone playing a trick on us,’ Kelly said, and lifting her chin shouted hello at the hatch door.

  There was no reply. Perhaps whoever had done it was up there laughing. But West guessed, whoever it was, he was leaving them to their fate.

  ‘What do we do?’ Kelly said, putting her arms around him, hugging him closely.

  West held her tightly but said nothing for a few minutes, ideas running through his head. ‘Ok,’ he said finally, ‘this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to sit tight here until it gets dark. Maybe whoever did this is playing a practical joke on us. If so, they’ll probably come back and let us out. If not, when it gets dark we’ll go back to the cave and use the torch to try to signal a passing boat.’

  ‘Send an SOS, you mean?’ Kelly said with a smile in her voice. ‘Honestly, this is very James Bond, isn’t it?’

  It was cold in the passage and as the afternoon turned to evening and the light faded, it grew colder. They alternated standing, arms around one another for warmth and comfort, with sitting one step apart, Kelly resting her head on West’s knee.

  Trying to signal a passing boat wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all they could think to do, so once they were certain nobody was coming to let them out, they headed back down the steps.

  ‘The islands of Inisbofin and Inisturk are nearby,’ West explained to Kelly as they moved into the shallow cave, ‘there may be someone heading from either to Achill. They’re more likely to pass this way, the channel between Clare Island and the mainland is a busy one. I’m going to flash an SOS every fifteen minutes for as long as we can.’ He stood close to the edge and flashed the sequence once. He was tempted to do it again, but it was going to be a long night. He had no idea how long the battery would last and it was their only hope.

  ‘Well, I hope someone does save our souls,’ Kelly said, looking around for somewhere to sit. Picking up the rope attached to the pulley system, she curled it around to make a mat and sat on that. It didn’t help much, it was cold, and it was going to get a lot worse.

  ‘It doesn’t actually mean that, you know,’ West said, switching off the torch and sitting beside her, wincing as he sat on part of the pulley by mistake. He wondered if they should move into the stairwell but they needed to keep an eye out for an answer to their signal.

  ‘Save our ship?’Kelly ventured.

  West laughed. ‘Nope, keep guessing.’

  He felt her shake her head and knew she was struggling not to cry.

  ‘Spoilsport,’ he said, giving her a hug. ‘I’ll tell you the answer. It doesn’t actually mean anything. In international morse code, three dits form the letter s, and three dahs form the letter o. So SOS became an easy way to remember the sequence, three short, three long and three short
.’

  ‘Save our souls sounds better,’ Kelly muttered.

  They sat huddled together in silence for a few minutes, their eyes adjusting to the almost complete darkness. The clear skies of earlier hadn’t lasted, thick cloud had drifted over during the afternoon.

  ‘We could have done with a full moon,’ Kelly complained.

  ‘Our signal will stand out even more in this darkness,’ West said, trying to stay positive, even as he felt the cold creep under his skin. ‘Next time someone offers us warmer coats to wear, we’ll take them,’ he said.

  Kelly gave a forced laugh. ‘We hadn’t planned to get locked down a secret passageway by some deranged murderer.’

  West took his jacket off, pulled Kelly closer and draped it around them both, buttoning the top to stop it falling away. ‘Better,’ he whispered into her ear.

  ‘Much,’ she lied and kissed his cheek.

  Every fifteen minutes, without fail, he undid the button, stood, and sent the signal. The regularity was important. If it had been seen and reported, someone might be looking for it. By the sixth time, it was becoming more difficult, his numb fingers struggling with the small, awkward on/off switch.

  Looking down at the sea, he wondered, by daylight, if it would be possible to climb down and swim until he reached somewhere he could climb out. He was a strong swimmer. It may be their only option if nobody answered their distress-call. The battery wouldn’t last for another night.

  ‘Who do you think did it?’ Kelly asked, when he sat down.

  West, who had been wondering the same thing, shrugged. ‘My guess is Finbarr. He has history, he’s obviously taking drugs. This, I think, has his stamp all over it.’

  Kelly nodded. ‘Do you think he killed Eoin Breathnach too?’

  There was a long pause before West replied. He wasn’t sure if she understood the implications of what Finbarr had done here. If he was responsible for locking them in, his intent was clear. He wanted them to die. If they weren’t rescued, he’d come down in a few days and roll their bodies into the sea. When they were found, if they were found, people would assume a tragic accident. If there were enough of their bodies left intact, a post mortem might show they’d died of hypothermia, and that would be a puzzle. But there would be no link to Toormore House, no link to Finbarr.