Echoes Through the Mist: A Paranormal Mystery (The Echoes Quartet Book 1)
Page 9
“’Tis exactly as Oi’ve told you, m’Lord. The village has a constable and that eejit, Sean Maher knocked him down. Oi had the pleasure of firing Maher too. The man won’t work again.”
The Pale Man sat behind the desk and steepled his fingers as he listened to McMaster. He thought for a moment and then asked, “Not an auspicious start for the policeman. Who is this new constable? What is known about him? How did he come to be in the village?” His eyes narrowed and he continued, “What is his agenda? Why is he here and why now?”
The man’s voice was cultured with barely discernable Irish English cadences. He was an Irishman, but one of substantial means, highly educated, well traveled and well read. He was a man who knew his business, a man who had secrets and a man who inspired fear.
McMaster should have guessed the pale man behind the enormous carved oak desk would have questions. Still, he was prepared to appear knowledgeable without actually knowing anything at all.
“M’Lord, these are all questions that have occurred to meself and Oi am busy getting to the bottom of ’em now. Oi will have answers shortly. Oi have spies throughout the village. Oi can tell you the man’s name is Blessing.”
That much was true, but the rest was a tissue of convenient lies. McMaster had no inside sources. He had overheard someone mention Julian’s last name. McMaster was a man not at all well liked in the village. Even Father Fahey didn’t like him and Father Fahey liked everyone.
Liam McMaster always felt Father Fahey was listening to him in the confessional, but only begrudgingly. It didn’t really matter. McMaster made up the sins anyway for the benefit of the old priest and any parishioners who would see him enter and leave the confessional box. “Hell with ’em all!” McMaster thought, “’tis nothing but jealously that Oi am prosperous and they are dirt poor. That is why they all hate me.”
This man behind the desk – that was different. If McMaster was prosperous, this man was wealthy beyond words. He had leased a large manor house some distance from the village and staffed it entirely with people from the big cities of Dublin and Wexford and Cork. The staff, McMaster knew, had instructions not to mix with the locals and that included him.
***
Julian slept late into the day and awoke with an appetite and a plan. He showered in what turned out to be quite a modern facility. He shaved, and quickly dressed with every intention of putting his plan in motion. His head still throbbed and when he closed his eyes lights still popped behind his eyelids. Still, things were looking up.
He opened the door and found a young man sitting on the police station’s stoop. The young man seemed fascinated as he watched a bird in a nearby bush.
“What can I do for you?” Julian asked cheerfully, but the last word caught in his throat.
At Julian’s feet sat a young man of perhaps seventeen. Handsome in every way and as big as a bull, the young man had a distracted smile and his eyes held the iridescence of a child. He hadn’t suffered the ravages of living in this world because he lived in a world of his own. Julian saw this and more and he knew.
He sat down next to the young man and asked his name.
Through the obstacle of a pronounced stutter the boy said, “Brendan Maher.”
“Would Sean Maher be your father?”
Julian winced as the young man worked on and finally forced the simple answer out.
“Yes,” he said.
“Well, Brendan, you should be very proud.”
“Me da got free beer for the village.” Each word from Brendan’s lips was an effort and each pulled at Julian. The boy capped his stumbling sentence with a child’s smile.
“That’s true. But far more than that.” Julian glanced around conspiratorially before he looked into the simple handsome face and sparkling blue eyes of Brendan Maher, “More than that he is a good man and being a good man is one of the most difficult things to be.”
There was a moment of incomprehension as though the words were somehow disconnected from their meanings. Then what was said seemed to settle in. Brendan sat up taller, pushed his broad shoulders back, and smiled with a pride beyond compare. A guilelessness unknown outside of absolute innocence illuminated the boy’s face.
For all his life, it had been like this. Things were said, words spoken, but very few of them involved him. In Brendan’s world things were simple if not always easy. Sometimes he had to try very hard to be good and not fight even when some of the village children tormented him for his simple ways.
The perverse delight children take in torturing their own, although well documented, is little understood. As real and as serious as children take their playing, they seem to take no heed of the damage they cause, and the damage they cause to the damaged is a cruelty beyond words. It flails alive those with scant defenses and bores into the marrow of those whose frailty is demonstrable.
The cruelty of children is Darwin’s theory taken to the extreme – not only do the strongest survive and thrive, but they do so at the expense and heedless of the tears of the beautifully innocent.
“Brendan, I need to go up the street and visit someone. Will you be alright here?”
Brendan closed his eyes and pushed the words out one at a time again. “Should Oi sit here?”
“You can if you want. I might be gone for awhile though so make yourself comfortable.”
***
The lush vegetation grew wild in the Hagan’s front yard and Julian had to pick his way with care up to the front door. His knock had an authority he did not feel. The front door opened slowly and Julian glimpsed a back door on the opposite wall closing hurriedly before the Hagan came into view. Her strong, stark features looked out onto Julian and she let an uncomfortable silence hang in the air like drifting smoke.
“I would like to see the Mayor,” Julian said. The Hagan could tell he wouldn’t be put off as before.
“Would you? I’ve not seen him in,” the left corner of her mouth twisted into something like a smile and her eyebrow arched, “awhile.” She closed the door and left Julian steaming.
He knew what she meant. The Mayor had dodged out the back door only moments before and the Hagan’s “awhile” meant anything from three days ago to three seconds ago.
Julian hammered at the door this time. It opened again with greater speed, but before she could speak Julian said, “My business is not entirely with the Mayor. I am here to see you.”
Again, silence hung between them as she barred the door to her home. Her features softened, she turned her back and walked toward her turf fire.
“By all means then, come in. When our village constable wishes to see a citizen, why ’tis that citizen’s duty to comply.” She sat in a chair by the fire and indicated another chair to Julian.
“My business with you touches only slightly on my business with Mayor Cahill. I will catch – that is I will find him later when it is,” and Julian paused, “convenient.” It was his turn to arch an eyebrow and the Hagan smiled slightly and inclined her head.
***
An hour later, he returned to the police station and found a young boy sitting with Brendan Maher on the stoop. The boy was about twelve years old, had red hair sticking out from under his cloth cap and freckles across the bridge of his nose. The boy rose but indicated to Brendan that he should remain sitting.
The boy approached Julian. At a respectful distance, he stuck out his hand and announced that his name was Timothy, and that he was a friend of Brendan’s. The boy’s hazel eyes were clear and spoke of spirit and intelligence. To Julian, he couldn’t quite place it, but there was something familiar about the boy.
“May I talk with you Constable Blessing, sor? It is regarding Brendan so you wouldn’t mind if we stood over there, would you?”
Julian attempted to look suitably grave as he stifled a smile at the grown up language and manner of the young boy.
“Sor, did you tell Brendan to wait here for you?” The boy’s manner was direct and efficient.
“No, Timo
thy, I did not. I told him I would be visiting with someone up in the village. He asked if he could sit on the stoop and I told him that he could and to make himself comfortable.”
“Oi thought as much,” Timothy said. “You see, sor, it sits like this. Brendan is me best mate in all of the world, but he is simple as you can see. When you said he could wait he understood that he should wait. It seems he waited too long though.”
Timothy and Julian turned to look at Brendan who shot to his feet and as he did the matter became perfectly clear.
“He’s pissed himself you see.”
Indeed Julian could see a large spot on the front of Brendan’s pants. Julian motioned for Brendan to sit down which the young man did.
To Brendan Maher the matter was a simple one. An important man in the village had told him he would be back. After fifteen minutes of watching a thrush in a thorn bush, Brendan became aware of a need. The important man would return soon and tell him it was all right to use the toilet in the station. He had told Brendan to make himself comfortable, but what if while making himself comfortable he missed the important man’s return. These conflicting instructions played back and forth in Brendan’s mind to the exclusion of all else.
After an additional thirty minutes with his fists clenched in excruciating frustration there was no choice. Brendan urinated on himself just as his friend Timothy spotted him from the road and waved. Brendan waved weakly back and Timothy approached and saw at a glance his friend’s predicament.
“Oi’m sorry,” Brendan had said to Timothy and tears had welled up in Brendan’s eyes.
“’Tis nothing,” Timothy responded and bumped up against his big friend. In an easy silence, they both sat and watched Julian approach the police station from the far end of the village. While they waited, these two friends watched the thrush in the thorn bush.
“It stands like this,” Timothy said. “If you will sit with Brendan, Oi will run to the Maher house and get him some fresh trousers. Then he and Oi will walk home as Oi’m to have supper with the Mahers tonight. If Brendan doesn’t change his clothes he will be in for no end of ribbing as we make our way home and frankly, he and Oi can’t afford to get in trouble again for fighting.”
Julian looked puzzled.
“Brendan and Oi get into fights because of the way he is and because we are best of friends. Oi don’t often win. Oi never win really, but Brendan always does and he tells me Oi get too angry to win – oh, aye, and I talk too much.”
Julian nodded his understanding and his approval of the plan and walked back to Brendan as Timothy ran up the street.
Brendan pointed out the thrush to Julian. Together they admired the small, plump, bird as she constructed her cup-shaped nest.
Before long, Timothy was back with a tote sack. Brendan went into the police station, and changed his pants. As the boys left, Julian told them that they were both welcome anytime. He also told the boys they were welcome to use the toilet in the station at any time. Julian had not moved from the station’s stoop.
He thought to himself, “Knowing that would have made it easy for Brendan. I’ll make sure he understands.” As an afterthought, Julian called out, “Timothy, what is your last name?”
Timothy stopped in the street and answered, “Dwyer, sor.”
Julian closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. “How many Dwyer families are there in this village?”
“Just us, Sor,” Timothy said while cocking his head to the side. The boy had his mother’s eyes and smile.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Julian thought. “Timothy, please tell your mother I am an eejit, would you?”
“Oi would never say you were an eejit, even if you were and Oi’d certainly never say it to me Ma.”
“Oh she knows by now,” Julian thought.
***
In the darkness from a position where he could see all three pubs, Julian sat and waited. Time was on his side.
Shambling down the street in the shadows, Mayor Cahill cut round a corner too quickly and clipped the end of a fence. After cursing the darkness for allowing such a thing to happen, he cursed the householder for living there, then moved on to the fence builders followed by the lumberjacks who cut and milled the lumber and finally the tree itself. He would have followed this line of reasoning further, but cursing God was a sin and it just brought bad luck. Besides, he had lost interest by then as he targeted O’Gavagan’s Pub.
Straightening himself and squaring his shoulders, Mayor Cahill opened the door and the interior sounds of friendly voices spilled out into the street only to be muted again when the door closed. Julian smiled.
Within minutes, the pub’s door was torn open and Mayor Cahill bellowed into the darkness like a wounded animal, “O’Gavagan, you are a rogue and no Christian!” Thomas Cahill drew himself up and marched with all the majesty his office could afford to the steps of Mulherin’s Pub and Julian smiled again.
Moments later the mayor emerged. “Francis Mulherin is an even filthier scoundrel than O’Gavagan!” Cahill roared into the empty street. He staggered to the second O’Gavagan’s only to discover the full impact of his predicament.
“The world is full of nothing but bastards! Not one of them will sell me a pint of ale or a thimbleful of whiskey. Why is God doing this to me?” Mayor Cahill’s lamentations were painful to watch. They were painful for everyone except Julian Blessing who had now moved to a position within striking distance of the mayor.
“So, no one will sell you a drink.” The Mayor had fallen heavily into a chair by the front door of the last O’Gavagan’s. Julian’s voice sent Cahill into a panic and he nearly escaped, but Julian got hold of the back of the Mayor’s coat. “That seems to be a dreadful shame. Why do you suppose that is?” The sugar oozed in Julian’s voice and the Mayor sat very still.
Julian continued. “You know, of course, why none of the pubs will give you a drink. Although I am paying them for not giving you a drink, they would have done it for free just to see you suffer. Cruel men are our local pub keepers, don’t you think?”
“What is it that you want?” Julian had torn away the Mayor’s only comfort and support in this life.
“The village needs a new constable. I’m not the man for the job. Tomorrow before mass, you will appoint a new one. You see, if you don’t, you will never touch another drop of alcohol in Cappel Vale again.” The Mayor thought Julian’s was the voice of purest evil although it never rose above a whisper.
“We have no one to appoint. Nobody will take the job,” the Mayor said.
“I shouldn’t worry about that. Tomorrow you will introduce Constable Sean Maher to the entire village,” Julian said.
“Maher! You’re mad!” The Mayor shot out of his seat and was as rapidly propelled back down. The wail that went out of the Mayor was pitiful indeed. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Sean Maher is an eejit. God forbid we should ever have a crime. He would just start beating people until he found one to confess.
“And old scores? In the name of Christ, Maher’ll be settling them by the score he will. And who is going to pay him? And, and, well, he’s an eejit!”
“These are not problems,” Julian said. “I’ll be nearby to guide him when he needs it. I’ll even be an assistant constable so I can still have a place to stay for the time being. I’ll talk with him about settling old scores.
“He needs a job after McMaster fired him. I will pay him myself – but understand me, he is never to know that. If, by some accident, he finds out – follow me closely here Cahill. If he finds out – your fault, anybody’s fault, nobody’s fault, everybody’s fault – it will be the driest year of your life.”
“It doesn’t matter, he won’t take the job,” the Mayor said and brightened somewhat.
“Really? Not even if The Hagan had a vision?” Julian said.
“You’re a viper! Oi took to you like you was me own son and gave you a place to sleep. And how am Oi repaid? How! Oi’ll tell you how…”
Chapter Ten
Alone in a cold study in the quiet manor house, the Pale Man studied a topographical map of the area and wondered. Here? There? Where? In his left hand, he turned a small tarnished coin over and over. He stopped and began to rub the coin in his long fingers hoping it might act like a divining rod over the map.
He selected a book from a stack on his desk and began to read, stopping to look at the map from time to time. Here? There? Where? What he sought could be almost anywhere, but he was close. He knew it. He could feel it.
He said, “Enter,” a moment before there was a quiet knock on the heavy oak door.
A tall, austerely dressed man opened the door and advised his employer of a visitor.
“Farmer McMaster, Sir.”
“You have something for me, McMaster?” There was no real expectation that the farmer would lead the Pale Man to what he sought, but McMaster did occasionally bring bits of information that were of value.
“M’Lord,” McMaster said as he removed the cloth cap from his head. “That numbskull Cahill has appointed Sean Maher to be Village Constable.”
“So the American has moved on? That is good. Maher will make a fine policeman for my purposes.”
“Well, sor, the first Peeler, the one from Amerikie, Cahill made him assistant constable.”
“How many constables does that village need? At this rate they’ll have more policemen then Galway City.”
“Sor, if’n I might ask?” McMaster said as he gave the slender man a sidelong glance.
“Go ahead,” the Pale Man said, but he knew what his visitor was about to say.
“Your honor said Maher would make a fine policeman for our purposes. What are our purposes?”
The Pale Man had been leaning over his books and maps. He straightened and turned his slight frame to face the beefy farmer.