The Irish Cottage Murder

by Dicey Deere

  “A pretty little thing,” Luke repeated. He was staring at Rose. “Finola. Playing in the woods.”

  * * *

  For some ten minutes after leaving the kitchen, Luke sat in his rented car before the castle. The sun reflected on the hood of the car; birds sang in the bushes, a squirrel hopped onto the broad stone steps of the castle, held a bit of something between its paws, nibbled and nibbled it, then whisked off.

  Luke started the car. He would go to the village. Exactly why he was going to Ballynagh, he could not pin down. Finola was only a name. Yet he had a peculiar sense of foreknowledge. It had happened to him before, more than once, in dealing with landscaping clients—as though he were glimpsing a fully completed project when, amazingly, he had barely started the conception.

  In Ballynagh, he drove slowly up the main street. Likely the butcher shop, O’Curry’s, would be somewhere along here.

  There was almost no traffic on the cobbled street. The sun struck the cobbles and reflected upward; the morning was warm and breezy. Three or four women were getting on a bus marked DUBLIN; the bus driver was chatting out the bus window with a man in shirtsleeves and a greasy vest. A horse and cart stood before O’Malley’s Pub. A couple of men in shirtsleeves touched their caps to Luke as he drove past. Across from O’Malley’s Pub he saw a shop with gold lettering on the window: O’CURRY’S MEATS.

  He parked a few feet past the butcher shop and sat for a minute.

  “Which way to Dublin, mister?” A couple of teenagers on motorbikes, Canadian emblems on their caps, and gunning their motors, stopped beside him on the cobbled street. “Lost our map.”

  “Straight ahead, two miles up. You’ll see the road signs.” He watched them out of sight.

  Rose in the kitchen, the bread crackling under the knife, “A pretty little thing, the child. Finola.”

  He got out of the car, pulled open the door of O’Curry’s, and went in.

  A couple of customers, stocky housewives with shopping bags, were at the counter, trading laughter and remarks with a heavyset, red-faced man in a white apron, who was cutting meat at the butcher block. The shop smelled of smoked meat and spices. Behind the counter, next to the cash register, a dark-haired woman, also in a big white apron, stood with bent head, wrapping a package of meat in shiny butcher paper.

  “And what’s the little one doing here, Mrs. Devlin?” one of the woman customers said and jerked her head toward the back of the shop. Luke turned.

  The child sat on a chair, legs folded under her. She looked to be about eight years old. She wore a navy cotton jumper over a white T-shirt and was reading a book, her finger moving slowly over the page, her lips moving soundlessly. Her silky pale hair fell across her cheeks.

  “She’s come to learn the butcher business!” the red-faced Mr. O’Curry said, with a jolly sounding laugh.

  “No,” the dark-haired woman said, head still bent. She was tying string around the wrapped package of meat; she had a low-toned voice, music in it, to Luke’s mind. “School opens in another week. I want her doing her reading instead of going off berry picking.” And in a lower voice, “You know how children are.”

  “That I do”—said the woman customer—“having five of my own! You leave them alone for a minute and—Mother of God!—who knows what they’ll get into!”

  Maureen Devlin lifted her bent head to hand the package of meat across the counter to the customer and for the first time Luke saw her face … the very blue eyes, the glossy brown hair in curls and ringlets, untidy and mixed with gray strands, the shape of the woman’s face.

  And stood dumbfounded.

  It was a face he had seen barely an hour before in the portrait in Desmond Moore’s bedroom. The face of the Duchess of Comerford.

  43

  Luke drove back to Castle Moore. He found Winifred on the weedy tennis court smashing balls across the net, practicing her serve. When she saw Luke, she came off the court and mopped her sweaty, sunburned face with a towel.

  “If I weren’t a poet, I’d be on the tennis circuit,” she greeted him. “Inspector O’Hare wants to see me for questioning. Maybe I did away with Desmond is the idea.”

  “That genealogist,” Luke said, “the fellow who was researching the Moore family background for Desmond?”

  “Fergus Callaghan. What about him?”

  “What happened to Callaghan’s research? His genealogical research for Desmond? What did he find out? About the Moores?”

  Winifred grinned. “God knows! Probably nothing. Mr. Callaghan quit on Desmond. Couldn’t stand my bastard cousin, no doubt. I couldn’t even find a bill from Callaghan. If I know Desmond, he wanted this Callaghan to fudge up exalted phony stuff about our family.”

  “I always thought genealogists delivered phony stuff,” Luke said, “if they figured that’s what you were paying them for.”

  “Did you, now?” Winifred draped the towel around her sweaty neck and gave him a derisive look. “Not this Fergus Callaghan. He’s a special breed of Irishman. More interested in Irish history than in a pint of Guinness. He’s deep into Irish tradition; writes little essays in Gaelic for the Gaelic press. I’ve a friend with similar interests; he reads Callaghan’s stuff. That’s how I know. Can you imagine Desmond trying to subvert a man like that? Not that I can prove it. Not that I even care to.” She looked shrewdly at Luke. “What’s this about?”

  “I’m in a forest,” Luke said, smiling at her, “following a trail of bread crumbs.”

  “You mean,” Winifred said, “you’re falling in love with her.”

  44

  In the late Desmond Moore’s bedroom, Rose turned the key and locked the door. She went to the gold-leaf Chinese cabinet. She slid open the drawer and lifted out a box. She opened the box and took out one of the diamond necklaces. She held it up. The diamonds glittered, the emerald sparkled. There were at least six or eight of them left. Mr. Desmond had always kept one in a red leather jewelry case in the Florentine desk in the library. Rose imagined Mr. Desmond in the library lifting a necklace from the velvet in the red leather case, a girl’s eyes widening, the girl giving a gasp. Come into my parlor. The world was stocked with girls transfixed like rabbits at the sight of a diamond. And offered to them by the rich and handsome Desmond Moore. Rose dropped the necklace back in the box, returned the box to the drawer, and closed the cabinet.

  “Swoon first, weep later,” Janet said, when they’d found out about it, though too late, too late.… Rose could feel her face squinch up. She shouldn’t cry; she’d look a mess, serving lunch. Janet said she should stop coming in here and brooding about it; she was just driving needles under her fingernails.

  Now Janet had told Mr. Willinger about the necklaces and how Mr. Desmond did it. “I wouldn’t have told him anything, except that he’s, you know, one of … one of…”

  “Yes,” Rose had said. Janet meant because Mr. Willinger was AA, like her; the AAs had some kind of understood thing among them, a communion like, like they were all Catholics or something.

  Rose dug her handkerchief from her pocket and blew her nose. Hannah was all right now; their mother didn’t know a thing. “It’s like nothing ever happened,” Janet had comforted her when she’d got back from London yesterday. They’d had a biscuit and tea in Rose’s room, Rose still shivering in spite of her warm flannel robe.

  Rose had managed a smile over her biscuit. She truly loved Janet; Janet was her best friend. It was good to be back at Castle Moore in her cozy room, comforting somehow, and always good things to eat down in the big kitchen.

  45

  The house at Fourteen Boylston Street was Georgian, of white stone. It was tall and narrow and had a paneled front door with a fanlight.

  It was three o’clock in the afternoon. The leafy street was quiet. Luke had driven to Dublin directly after lunch; Winifred had gone back to the tennis court; Sheila was chasing balls for her. Torrey had not appeared for lunch. He’d felt a sharp disappointment. Where was she? Doing what? Meantime—
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  There were two polished brass nameplates beside the door. Luke pressed the bell of the upper one. Because he was expected, there was the immediate sound of a buzzer. He pushed upon the door and went up a curving staircase that had a white banister with mahogany trim. Another door. He knocked.

  “Ah,” Fergus Callaghan said, opening the door, “Mr. Willinger.” He wore tan corduroy pants and over a blue shirt, the kind of shapeless beige cardigan that made Luke think of Rex Harrison as Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady. Fergus Callaghan was short, thick in the waist, and balding; but to Luke there was somehow a romantic quality to the man, perhaps because Winifred Moore had told him of Fergus Callaghan’s interest in Irish history. Luke thought of old Irish folktales and romances, wars and famine, Gaelic songs, ruined old towers, Vikings, Norman adventurers, and Cromwell.

  Yet as he came into Callaghan’s airy, spotless study, he saw that the long table beneath the bow window held the newest model of a fax-computer-printer machine. It was expensive state-of-the-art equipment. It was, in fact, the same equipment that Luke himself owned. So this genealogist, Fergus Callaghan, wasn’t kidding around.

  “Well, then,” Callaghan said, “sit down, Mr. Willinger.” He waved toward a green leather armchair and himself settled on a similar chair facing it, hands clasped between his knees, face patiently inquiring.

  “Thanks … Interesting photographs.” Luke glanced around. On the walls were black-and-white photographs of manor houses and castles, thatched-roof cottages, and even a blacksmith shop. Over a bookcase of thick reference books was a three-foot-long color photograph of heraldry, perhaps twenty-five to thirty coats of arms.

  “Yes … some clients bring photographs.”

  Luke said, “I’ll get right to it. I’ve become a partisan of Ms. Tunet in this investigation about the murder of Desmond Moore. You probably know I posted bail for her?”

  “Yes. It was in the Independent.”

  “Now I seem to’ve become an amateur detective. I’ve taken a bite out of the apple and I like the taste.”

  Fergus Callaghan gave a kind of inquiring laugh, more of a cough.

  “In relation to the murder,” Luke said, “I’ve become curious about the Comerfords, the Anglo-Irish family to whom the English king—Charles the Second, was it?—gave the castle and its six hundred acres. And it remained Castle Comerford until about twenty-five years ago when the Moore family came into possession. Isn’t that right?”

  “Quite. Quite accurate.” Fergus Callaghan’s brow was furrowed; he looked puzzled.

  “A cause for deep satisfaction in the Moore family, no doubt,” Luke said, “though possibly tinged with bitterness.”

  “Bitterness? Because of Ireland’s history, you mean? The suffering under English rule? Possibly. Still, all in the past, what with the Irish republic. One can’t keep blaming—”

  Luke leaned forward. “Ideally, yes, Mr. Callaghan. But I can imagine someone, for whatever reason, putting on a hair shirt of … of remembrance, let’s say. Wounds of the past. Rubbing in the salt. Thinking about their family’s bloodshed. And how often they died of starvation while the great Anglo-Irish landlords in Ireland, landlords like the Comerfords, for instance, ate beef and drank cream.”

  “I don’t see, Mr. Willinger—” Fergus Callaghan stood up, his face a little pale; his hands in the pockets of the cardigan dragged down the sweater. “You have a respectable knowledge of Irish history. As for the Comerfords and any relationship to Desmond Moore’s family, I have not made a psychological study of—I hardly—that is not precisely my field.” His voice shook with distress. “So there is really nothing—”

  Luke said, “I was in Desmond Moore’s bedroom at Castle Moore. On the wall there is a portrait of Catherine, Duchess of Comerford, and her children, 1790.”

  Fergus Callaghan looked bewildered. “That is rather odd. Seeing that given the bitter history of the past, one would’ve thought the Moores, and then finally Desmond Moore, would’ve gotten rid of such a portrait. There’s a good market in the antiques business for such old paintings. And, of course, Sotheby’s or Christie’s—Still, Desmond Moore also kept a portrait of the Duke of Comerford in his library. He could have gotten rid of that, too.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “Well, as I said, odd.” Callaghan shifted from one foot to the other and glanced toward his worktable as though politely waiting for Luke to get up and leave.

  Instead, Luke leaned forward in the green leather armchair. “Odder still, Mr. Callaghan, is that in the portrait in Desmond Moore’s bedroom, the face of Catherine, the Duchess of Comerford, is the face of Maureen Devlin of Ballynagh.”

  * * *

  They stood in Fergus Callaghan’s small kitchenette. “Cold tea is fine for me,” Luke said. The pitcher of tea on the kitchen table had bits of mint floating in it. Callaghan poured two glasses.

  In the workroom again, they sat down, ice tinkling in Luke’s glass, the ice a concession to American tastes.

  “I didn’t know about the portrait in Desmond Moore’s bedroom,” Callaghan said. “But in Ballynagh, even the little ones know that Maureen Devlin is the last of the Comerfords. English blood. And bringing up her little girl as a Protestant, though Danny Devlin was Catholic. So Maureen Devlin is different. The Anglo-Irish think themselves Irish, but they’re fooling themselves. And even nowadays plenty of Irish Catholics in the Irish republic can’t forget British rule. The troubles in Belfast rub the sore spot sorer whenever it looks like getting to heal. Not that it ever will.”

  “So it appears.” He felt like a spy, watching Fergus Callaghan’s face, the tenderness in his eyes when he spoke of Maureen Devlin, the tremor in his voice. He said the name Maureen as though it were part of an ancient lyric: Maureen … Maureen.

  Luke abruptly put down his glass of tea and got up. “Thanks for clearing up my confusion about the portrait. Maureen Devlin being a Comerford.” He looked down at the balding genealogist who sat slumped in the armchair in his Rex Harrison cardigan, the glass of tea resting on his corduroy-clad thigh. “If anything occurs to you that might help the investigation, Mr. Callaghan, I’d appreciate your calling me. I’m still at Castle Moore; it seems Winifred Moore is thinking of going ahead with the landscape design.”

  “Yes, of course. I’d be glad…”

  “Torrey Tunet didn’t kill Desmond Moore, Mr. Callaghan. I’m positive. So even the smallest clue that might help…”

  “You can count on me,” Fergus Callaghan said.

  * * *

  Luke drove south through the streets of Dublin. Except for visiting the National Botanic Gardens the morning he’d arrived in Ireland, he’d seen little of the city. AA meetings at Saint Anne’s hardly counted. It was already five o’clock, traffic along O’Connell Street was noisy and heavy, cars and buses and people on bicycles and motorbikes; he had to drive slowly. The sidewalks were filled with men and women who were jamming into pubs, some in work clothes, others in business clothes and carrying briefcases. There were teenagers chatting on street corners and mothers with shopping bags and children at bus stops. The streets were sunny, the air dry; people who jostled each other kept their good nature as though it would be a pity on such a beautiful day to bother becoming angry. It was remarkable to Luke that in a half hour he’d be driving along the hedged roads of Wicklow, in the quiet countryside of hills and mountains and glens, of isolated little villages and an occasional castle. He drove on; and, driving, he seemed to see Fergus Callaghan sunk in the chair, naked love on his face. Enviable, to feel such love.

  “Watch out!” A woman jumped back from the traffic, glared at him, shook a fist; he was on Fitzwilliam Street, going too fast. Pay attention. He slowed.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, he turned from the access road with its high hedges and drove through the iron gates that led up the tree-lined drive to Castle Moore.

  Just inside the gates, he braked to a stop. Castle Moore lay in the late afternoon sunlight. He gaze
d at it and thought how it was built on the stone remains of the ancient Celtic castle, and then fort, that had once stood there. It had been fought over and fought around. Men with swords and pikes and iron rakes and kitchen knives had torn and stabbed and slashed and killed other men and their women and children and babes-in-arms through the centuries. They had raped and murdered for power, for ownership, and in vengeance.

  Was it still going on? Rage and hate; sexual vengeance visited on the hated Comerfords? Revenge? Or was it disguised perverted lust, masquerading as vengeance? And then, in consequence, bloody retaliation following, swift as a speeding arrow? Luke gazed at Castle Moore, but instead of the castle looming in the sunlight, he saw a woman’s face. Was he off track? His imagination plunging into some wilderness of fantasy? Or was it possible, just possible, that Maureen Devlin had killed Desmond Moore? Not with a sword or a pike or an arrow, but with a knife.

  He drove slowly up to the castle.

  “Hello!”

  He turned. Torrey Tunet was coming through the trees from the direction of the stables. White T-shirt, blue jeans, the peacock bandanna around her dark hair. Made him think of a pirate.

  “You have a minute?” Luke said. And at her nod, “Come into the library.”

  46

  “Stop that damned video,” Torrey said. “It’s so revolting I want to cry.”

  Luke turned on the light on Desmond’s Florentine desk and clicked the remote. The bathtub scene of the naked man and the child halted and the video of Irish Gardens, Twentieth Century rewound with a whirring sound.

  It was just past six o’clock, dinner would be at eight; Winifred and Sheila would soon return from Dublin where they were seeing a rerun of The Crying Game.