December

by Gabrielle Lord

  It was a catalogue of books to be sold at an upcoming second-hand book sale. I squinted at the long list of titles printed on it, and there, between John Ferdinand Bottomley’s Roman Epigrams in Irish Poetry and Alferic Buxtehude’s Romance and Reality: The Celtic Twilight I read ‘Sir James Butler’s Lives of the Saints’.

  ‘Check this out,’ I said, picking it up. ‘Look, the book Dr Brinsley was talking about. He knew it was going to be in this sale.’

  ‘Whatever, Cal,’ said Boges, practically dragging me out. ‘Tell us about it when we’re not in a room with a dead guy.’

  I pocketed the catalogue and we hurried out of Brinsley’s house, shaken up and shocked.

  We half-walked, half-ran from Parnell Square, heading south down the street, stopping only at a public phone in the foyer of a noisy restaurant.

  ‘Here,’ said Winter, snatching the phone from me, ‘I’ll do it. Away with ye,’ she continued in a thick Irish accent, before speaking into the receiver. ‘A man has been murdered in Parnell Square,’ she said, disguising her own accent perfectly. She gave the address to the constable who’d answered, then hung up.

  We headed off again, hurrying back to a café close to our hotel. We huddled in an empty corner and all tried to gather our shocked wits. Winter was trembling and it wasn’t just the cold. Boges was shaking too.

  ‘That poor man,’ murmured Winter. ‘We were only just talking with him. I can’t believe it. He was innocent. Just caught up in this mess for no good reason.’

  She was right. I felt nauseous. I’d been responsible for another innocent person’s death.

  ‘Take a look at this,’ I said, pulling out the sketch, trying to focus our attention onto something else.

  ‘Man,’ exclaimed Boges. ‘This has been taken from a crime scene. Could make you an accessory after the fact. I can see the headlines now: “Psycho Kid strikes in Ireland”.’

  Winter glared at the drawing with glassy eyes.

  ‘Look,’ I pointed. ‘The motto inscribed in the Jewel is here in this picture.’

  Although the drawing was faded, and the interior that it depicted was crumbled and decaying, the words that had mesmerised me, drawn my eyes to the sketch—‘AMOR ET SUEVRE TOSJORS CELER’—could just be seen in the stucco. They were barely legible in places, letters missing or eroded away, but still enough of them were left for us to be able to recognise the words of the motto inscribed inside the Jewel.

  ‘So it is,’ said Winter, sounding a little less spooked than a moment ago.

  ‘That’s why Dr Brinsley got so excited when he saw the photo of the Jewel, and that enlargement of the inscription,’ I said. ‘He recognised the motto from the sketch. He made a connection between the Jewel and this building—whatever it is, wherever it is. We don’t know where this sketch fits in,’ I said, ‘but whoever killed Dr Brinsley and trashed the place missed this.’

  ‘It must have been Sligo,’ said Winter. ‘He must have been after that book—the one Dr Brinsley told us about. Lives of the Saints.’

  ‘Probably,’ I agreed, pulling out the catalogue of books. ‘As I was saying before, it looks like it’s going to be here at this sale,’ I said, pointing at the listing. ‘It’s on in a couple of days, in Kilkenny. At the Black Abbey. We’ll have to go there and buy it before someone else does. The Clonmel Way Guest House will just have to wait.’

  ‘Dude, it’s some kind of antique. It’ll cost heaps.’

  ‘Might have to steal it,’ suggested Winter.

  ‘Maybe we won’t have to do either of those things,’ I said. ‘If the last two lines of the Riddle are in there, like Brinsley said, then we just need to take them out. We can leave the book behind.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Winter, slowly. ‘If the last two lines of the Ormond Riddle have just been tucked into this book, wouldn’t someone have found them already?’

  ‘I hope not,’ I said. ‘It’s the only lead we have.’

  4 days to go …

  During the darkness of a winter dawn, we all got up and left the hotel behind. We had to move on. Time was ticking down and we were keen to leave Sligo and the bad memories of our encounters with Brinsley behind. At the bus station we bought tickets to Kilkenny.

  We were stinging for Sharkey to return from his reunion so he could join us, but he was going to have to follow us to Kilkenny later.

  ‘We’d love to see the Black Abbey,’ Winter said to the landlady, Mrs O’Leary, as we were checking in. ‘We’ve heard there’s a big book sale happening there shortly.’

  ‘Yes, yes, they have it every year,’ Mrs O’Leary cheerfully comfirmed. ‘Fond of books, are you? Well, you might find something very old and very rare for a good price.’

  She gave us directions to Kilkenny Castle, too, and we rugged up and headed for the old attraction.

  As we walked the paths under the dripping trees, we tried to imagine how the castle would look in summer with the huge oak trees full of leaves and the roses blooming.

  But after some aimless wandering, I stopped walking and sat down on a low brick wall.

  ‘What is it?’ Winter asked, sitting down beside me.

  ‘I feel like we’re wasting time. I don’t think there are any answers for us here. How about we go back to the Waterford and get our torches—we can go check out the Black Abbey tonight, see if we can find more information about the book sale tomorrow. Don’t want anyone getting their hands on Lives of the Saints before we do.’

  ‘Sounds like a good idea to me,’ she responded.

  ‘Let’s move,’ said Boges, tugging on his beanie.

  I couldn’t help thinking, as we hurried through the dark, sleety night, up the hill towards the Black Abbey, that this could all add up to a big fat zero. All we had was the word of one man—now dead—who thought the last two lines of the Ormond Riddle were in this mysterious book.

  I wondered, too, why Sligo had murdered Dr Theophilus Brinsley. Was it out of frustration when he realised that Brinsley didn’t have the missing two lines? Or was it because Dr Brinsley wouldn’t tell him where they were?

  But what if he had told him where they were? That would mean Sligo could already be in Kilkenny. Instinctively, I looked around us, even though it was almost impossible to see anything in the darkness.

  The bulk of the Black Abbey loomed ahead. It was a low building with a short, square tower, its turrets barely discernible against the night sky. As we approached the stone wall that surrounded it, I grabbed the others, stopping them in their tracks.

  ‘There’s somebody there, look. See that van parked over there?’

  ‘Dude, let’s check out who it is. I’ve been wondering whether Sligo would be here already,’ said Boges.

  ‘Me too,’ I admitted.

  ‘Me three,’ added Winter, gripping my arm tightly.

  We pressed on, cautiously, trying to keep out of sight of anyone near the van.

  The van had its headlights on, illuminating the door to a stone building, adjacent to the Black Abbey, that I had mistakenly thought was part of the abbey itself.

  ‘What are they doing?’ whispered Winter.

  ‘Looks like they’re unloading something,’ said Boges, close behind me, as we watched two people vanish through the doorway.

  ‘They’re unloading books,’ I said. ‘Setting up for tomorrow.’

  I put my hand in my pocket and grabbed my torch. This was a piece of unexpected good luck. Maybe we could sneak in and get a preview.

  The three of us hurried through the drizzle and over to the deserted van. Inside, it was empty. They must have only just unloaded the last of the boxes.

  Silently, we sneaked inside the building, following the same path the people from the van had taken. The sound of footsteps and voices echoed from the other end of the corridor.

  ‘Quick! They’re coming back!’ I hissed.

  I opened the nearest door and the three of us scrambled inside, closing the door again behind us. I pressed my ear up against it,
listening for movement. I heard the movers pass by outside in the corridor, then they left, slamming the door behind them.

  A few moments later, the van started up and drove away.

  ‘OK,’ I breathed, slowly turning the handle of the door and checking the corridor outside. ‘We’re alone now. Let’s see what we can find.’

  The lights had been switched off but we used our torches to guide us. We hurried to the end of the dark corridor where a door on my left and a flight of stairs on my right formed a T-junction. Passing my torch to Boges, I tried the door. It wasn’t locked. I opened it and walked inside.

  Ahead of us were three long trestle tables, each one covered with tablecloths and piled high with books for tomorrow’s sale.

  My heart was like a drum, pounding as excitement mounted in me. Winter and Boges rushed to the books and started looking through them and I quickly followed. Somewhere in this collection, I hoped, was the book containing the missing last two lines of the Riddle. The answer to the mystery of the Ormond Singularity was at our fingertips.

  ‘OK dude,’ said Boges, ‘I’ll take this table, Winter’s on that one,’ he said, pointing to the furthest one. ‘You take the middle.’

  The smell of musty old books in the freezing air filled my nose as I ran the torchlight over the spines and covers of the ancient books. Some were in Latin with old-fashioned marbled endpapers. Some were in Gaelic with faded gold lettering on their covers.

  After about half an hour, I’d been through every book on my table.

  ‘I think I’m done, guys. Either of you have any luck?’

  ‘No,’ they both answered, their disappointment obvious in their tones.

  I swore. It wasn’t here. What were we going to do now? What if Sligo already had it?

  ‘Quick, hide!’ I ordered the others, as voices interrupted the air.

  We scrambled under the trestle table furthest from the door, huddling in the darkness, shielded, I hoped, by the tablecloth and other book-covered trestle tables. Someone was in the building with us.

  Footsteps approached. The door handle squeaked as it was opened and someone came into the cluttered space. I didn’t dare move to see who it was.

  Foreign torchlight started darting around the room, wavering across the floor and over the tables. We squashed ourselves as hard as we could against the wall, hoping the light wouldn’t pick us up. I bumped my body into a box that had been shoved under the table.

  I peered into the box and focused on a thin book sitting on top. The lettering was barely visible in the dark, but the shape of the title had grabbed me.

  My eyes widened with stunned surprise. My head started spinning, not because of the imminent threat of being discovered, but because I was staring straight at the book we were after! I couldn’t believe it! I bit my tongue and tried to keep still.

  Once satisfied that everything was in order, the security guard or whoever it was, stepped back out into the corridor, closing the door behind them.

  I exhaled and grabbed the book out of the box. I turned to my friends and shone my torch on it so they could both see what I had found.

  ‘You found it!’ said Boges, trying not to shout.

  ‘Amazing!’ Winter smiled, shuffling in closer, and wiping dust from its cover. ‘No point sticking around any longer. Hold onto it for dear life and follow me out of here!’

  Winter crawled out from under the table, then stealthily led us over to the door, down the corridor, outside and away from the Black Abbey.

  We ran, without stopping, all the way back to the Waterford.

  Breathlessly, I opened Butler’s Lives of the Saints, as Winter and Boges practically bounced with excitement on the bed beside me. My hands were shaking as I flicked through the heavy paper with its dense printing, checking page after page.

  Pretty quickly my excitement vanished.

  ‘There’s nothing in it. Nothing!’ I yelled, throwing the book down on the floor. ‘Just page after page of rubbish about ancient old saints!’

  ‘Don’t give up so quickly,’ said Winter, hopping off the bed and picking the book back up. ‘Maybe the lines have been written in somewhere—along an inside margin or something. Let me have a careful look.’

  She plopped down on the bed again and slowly, methodically, started turning every page, running her finger down the central margins of each one before turning to the next page. She used her torch to throw extra light on the yellowing pages.

  ‘I just don’t know how we’re going to beat the deadline,’ I said. ‘I was so sure we were on the right track, but we still don’t really even know what we’re doing, where we should be going. We don’t even know what we’re looking for.’

  Winter turned her smoky eyes on me. ‘Cal,’ she said, ‘I have a feeling that everything’s going to fall into place for us. Everything will come together. You’ll see.’

  Outside, the wind had picked up and heavy rain was driving against the window, rattling the wooden frames. I went over to pull the heavy curtains shut but before I did, I peered out into the darkness. I had a horrible feeling that someone was out there. I dragged the curtains across and sat back down.

  ‘No good,’ admitted Winter, shutting the book

  after her closer examination. ‘Still thinking everything’s going to work out?’ I asked her. She replied with an unimpressed look. ‘My turn,’ said Boges, before he too went

  through it. He ran a magnifying glass carefully over every page and margin, and peered down the cracking spine of the old-fashioned book.

  But there was nothing in there that we wanted.

  We sat in a triangle, staring blankly at each other. None of us had any energy or will left to bother saying anything. Eventually we just picked ourselves up and called it a night, crawling into bed, hoping tomorrow would deliver us a miracle.

  3 days to go …

  ‘I just have a couple more family meals to survive here,’ Sharkey joked over the phone, ‘before I can come to you guys. I’ve had enough of the Sharkey family, to be honest. They just want to talk, talk, talk. The murder of Dr Brinsley has been massive news,’ he said. ‘Everyone knows about it. At this stage the Garda don’t have any leads.’

  ‘At least I’m not on their radar,’ I said. That was one good thing. We’d avoided talking about it, but the death of Dr Brinsley was hanging over us like a black cloud, reminding us of the huge danger that accompanied our quest.

  ‘So you’ve checked the book thoroughly?’ he asked. ‘Been over the margins?’

  ‘Nelson, we’ve gone over it with a fine-tooth comb. If the last two lines of the Ormond Riddle were ever in that book, they sure aren’t now.’

  Sharkey groaned. ‘What a waste of time,’ he said. ‘Look, I have to go again, but you three be very careful,’ he warned. ‘I’ll join you as soon as I can. Don’t go anywhere you don’t need to go, OK?’

  ‘We’re leaving Kilkenny and going to Carrick-on-Suir today,’ I said. ‘Off to the Clonmel Way Guest House, where my dad stayed last year.’

  ‘Good idea. Stay safe and I’ll see you soon.’

  A bus took us all the way down to Carrick-on-Suir. We stepped out into another cold, grey day, and as I walked down the cobbled streets with my two friends, I felt a confused mix of emotions: sad that this was where my dad first became so sick, but almost excited to be walking where he’d walked.

  The drawings that I still carried with me had started me off on this huge journey. Time was running out. I only had three days left. It wasn’t just about survival any more.

  ‘Oh look!’ cried Winter, pointing to a decaying tower sticking up over some long grey walls in the distance. ‘Do you think that’s one of Black Tom’s castles?’

  I checked the map I’d picked up at the bus station. ‘It sure is,’ I said. ‘Ormond Castle. We should check that out, but first we’ve got to find the guesthouse. It should be just up here,’ I said, indicating the end of a narrowing road, lined with houses.

  Clonmel Way Guest House
was the last building in a row of homes that backed onto the broad quay along the river. I could see the sign, cut in the shape of a salmon, swinging in the wind.

  The narrow, two-storeyed property was painted blue and white, and had a small garden.

  I went to open the gate and stopped abruptly. Winter gasped behind me. Boges swore under his breath.

  There in the rusty wrought iron of the gate, in an enamelled oval, was the number five, just like in my dad’s drawing!

  ‘See?’ cried Winter. ‘I told you things were going to come together!’

  The drawing suddenly became clear—Dad had been trying to point out this place! I felt a surge of new energy powering through me, easing my disappointment about not finding the last two lines of the Riddle. We’d just have to find another way to get to the right destination.

  I opened the gate and ran up the short path, knocking on the bright red door. A brass plaque above the doorway read: Clonmel Way Guest House; Imelda Fitzgerald, Proprietor.

  A fair woman with rosy cheeks opened the door. She smiled broadly and welcomed us inside.

  ‘I have plenty of rooms this time of year,’ she said. ‘You look like you could do with some good Irish scones and a cup of tea. Come in out of the cold.’

  We happily followed her into the cosy interior—a small foyer where plump crimson lounges and armchairs were grouped around a blazing fire. Old sepia photos above the fireplace showed horses towing barges along the riverside.

  I introduced myself as Matt Marlow, along with my friends Grace and Josh.

  ‘Like I say,’ said Mrs Fitzgerald, ‘it’s not the best time of year. Doesn’t do the place justice. Still, there’s plenty to do, even in winter, and we have a couple of cots down on the river for the use of our guests.’

  ‘Cots?’ asked Boges, a funny look on his face.

  Mrs Fitzgerald laughed. ‘That’s the name of the famous Carrick fishing boats. The Carrick cots. That’s if you like messing about in boats.’