The Celtic Riddle

by Lyn Hamilton

  We picked our way carefully across the fields and stone walls heading down toward the sea and the road along the coast. It was very late, but at last we came upon a farmhouse. “I’ll go to the door,” Rob said. “You hide well back, just in case we’ve picked the wrong place.”

  But it was all right. The farmer and his wife, once roused, called the local gardai station, and within a few minutes we were on our way back to town. We made statements to the police, and then they dropped me at the Inn, while Rob said he was going to take the police back to try to find the clochán we’d been thrown in.

  Wearily I climbed the stairs to my room. It was almost dawn now, and I was very tired. I carefully unlocked the door to the room I shared with Jennifer in order not to wake her. She was not in her bed. On the desk was an envelope with my name on it.

  Paddy and I think we can find the treasure, the note read. We’re taking his bike. Don’t worry, I’ll call you tomorrow. I left Dad a note too. Hope he isn’t too mad. Love, Jen.

  I went straight to the restaurant. It was closed, but I could see a light at the back in the kitchen. Breeta wasn’t there. I begged to know where she lived. “I shouldn’t tell you,” the cook said. “But you seem to be very upset. She’s two doors down, the blue door, second floor.”

  But Breeta, when she saw me, tried to slam the door in my face. I was ready for her, and I was desperate. I shoved the door open and pushed past her into the room. She was thinner now, and the bulge in her tummy more prominent. “Okay, Breeta,” I said almost yelling. “Enough is enough. I know this has been a very bad time for you. I know that losing your father was bad enough, but then Michael, in such a violent way. Well, it has been terrible. But you have had long enough. From now on, you’re just wallowing in it. Talk to me.” She said absolutely nothing, and kept her eyes averted from my face.

  “Here,” I said pulling up the map in front of her. “I have narrowed down the location of your father’s treasure to this area. The two nearest towns are Mullingar and Athlone. You need to understand that it is not the treasure I am after. Jennifer Luczka, whom you’ve met, a young woman who is very dear to me, has gone off to find it with Padraig Gilhooly. For all I know, he is the killer, and even if he isn’t, then the killer will be after them. I must find her. Please help me, Breeta. I don’t have anyone else to turn to. You’ll be a mother soon. You must understand what responsibility for a young person like Jennifer means.”

  Still she said nothing. I felt tears of desperation forming in the comers of my eyes. “What would be here, Breeta, that your father would be interested in? Right here, Breeta,” I said, pulling the map and pointing at the place where the lines Alex and I had drawn intersected. “I can’t cover the whole area. There isn’t time. This is life and death, Breeta.”

  Silence greeted my plea. I was too upset even to cry. I turned and walked to the door. As I put my hand out to pull it open, I heard her move behind me. I turned. Breeta was looking at me, really looking at me.

  “Ooshna,” she said. At least that is what it sounded like. “Ooshna Hill. Find the stone, Aill na Mireann.”

  “Thank you, Breeta,” I gasped, and dashed from the room to my car.

  I blasted up the Dingle peninsula to Tralee, then picked up the N21 toward Limerick, then the N6 through Ennis, Gort, and Loughrea, then on through Ballinsloe to Athlone. It was a frustrating drive, two-lane highways much of the way with few opportunities to pass, and it rained off and on, leaving the pavement slick. It took me almost four hours with one stop for a coffee and gas, and another to try to reach Rob at the Inn and the garda station. I was cursing the fact that I didn’t have my cell phone. I’d left him a note, and I could only hope he too was on his way.

  That was four hours to think, as well as drive, about treasures and broken geise, fathers and daughters, inappropriate love, ruined lives and revenge. I knew, just as I knew that it was Jennifer who mattered, not the treasure, that this was not about wealth, but about a stolen life. By the time I got to Athlone, I knew who would be there. It was all a process of elimination. There was really only one possibility left. Denny had told a true story. Oh, he’d changed the location just a little, had added a little fantasy, and a happy ending to bring a tear of joy to Eamon’s eye. This ending couldn’t be happy, that I knew. But I had to find Jennifer.

  In Athlone, I pulled into a gas station for directions. The gas jockey was a young man. “I’m looking for a place called Uisnech Hill,” I said, pronouncing it Ooshna as Breeta had.

  “Never heard of it,” he said. “Is it around here?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Somewhere between here and Mullingar.”

  He shrugged. “You could ask my Da,” he said, tossing his head in the general direction of the office.

  “I’m looking for a place called Uisnech,” I said to two men in the office, one I assumed to be the gas jockey’s Da, the other, if I wasn’t mistaken, his grandfather.

  “Can’t say I know it,” the father said.

  “What did you say?” the older man asked.

  “Uisnech,” I repeated.

  “Sure,” the older man said. “Uisnech Hill. Take the valley road,” he said drawing me outside and pointing out the direction, “toward Mullingar. You’ll come to a fork at the far end of town. I’m not sure if it’s signed, and you’ll probably get lost again. It’s a ways yet, but once you’re on the valley road, it’ll be on yer left. You’ll know you’re just about there when you find the pub by that name. There’ll be a small sign, not much else. People don’t visit much these days.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I sure hoped he knew what he was talking about. But he did, because as I got into the car he called after me.

  “If you go to the pub, raise a cup to the Stone for me, will you?”

  As navels of the universe go, Uisnech, the sacred center of Ireland, is not much to look at these days, a rather unprepossessing hill gradually rising just a few meters from the floor of the valley between Mullingar and Athlone. There’s a small sign, terribly worn, and a cleared area for a few cars. There was no sign of Padraig’s motorcycle, nor the van he’d borrowed earlier, but there was another car, a rental like mine. I prayed I wasn’t too late. The way up to the hill was gated and locked, with a sign on it that read DANGER, BEWARE OF BULLS AND SUCKLER COWS, DO NOT ENTER, LANDS PRESERVED & POISONED.

  There was a old metal turnstile beside the locked gate and I went through, undeterred. Bulls and poisoned earth be damned, I thought. Theoretically, at least, you wouldn’t have both poisoned earth and suckler cows in the same field, but I reminded myself to keep my eyes open for a bull.

  The route up was relatively easy at first, an overgrown lane. Near the top of it, though, I had to climb up some old cement stairs and over a wire fence into an open field, which sloped gently upward to a small plateau. I felt terribly exposed there, feeling the killer’s eyes on me at every step. The ground was wet and very, very muddy, and the climb was an effort, my feet making a sucking sound in the mud after every step. My pant legs were coated in mud.

  A few hundred yards later on, I came upon a large cleared area. The rain stopped for a few moments, and the sky cleared, and I found myself on a small hill surrounded by a ring of mountains off in the distance. With the exception of the view to the west, which was hidden by trees, I felt I could see forever. It was a very large space, and I had a feeling finding the treasure would be almost impossible, but then I remembered the Stone, Aill na Mireann, the Stone of Divisions, the large stone on the slopes of Uisnech that is supposed to represent Ireland. I wondered where that might be.

  I went on a little farther to a standing stone surrounded by a ring of smaller stones. Seated off to one side of the ring sat Charles McCafferty. He was wearing rain gear, including rubber boots, and an umbrella. At his feet was a bundle, maybe a foot or two long, well wrapped in plastic and twine. And he was pointing a gun at me.

  “I have been expecting you,” he said.

  “And I, you,” I replied.

>   “Is it this you came for?” he said pointing at the bundle at his feet.

  “No,” I replied.

  “No,” he agreed. “You came looking for that young woman, what is her name?”

  “Jennifer,” I said. “Where is she?”

  “Gone,” he said. My heart leapt into my mouth. What did gone mean?

  “Gone,” he repeated, seeing my dismay. “She left with that man of hers. They had a bit of a disagreement. I believe he had a somewhat closer relationship in mind, a reward, perhaps for bringing her here. She didn’t see it that way. She wasn’t ready, apparently.” He smiled. “Then he confessed he still loved someone else. All rather sweet, I thought. Quite right, too. He was entirely unsuitable for her. They didn’t find this,” he said, pointing once again to the bundle, “because I already had it. Nor did they see me, so I let them leave. I am not entirely unprincipled. I see you are relieved. She’s not your daughter, is she?”

  “No,” I said. “She’s the daughter of a friend of mine. I care about her very much.”

  He nodded, and for a moment I thought he would cry. “That is as it should be. But it is not always so.”

  “The lost child,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “The lost child. It sounds poetic, doesn’t it? William Butler Yeats wrote a poem called ‘The Stolen Child,’ did you know that? It’s a story about a child being enticed away from this vale of tears to a wonderful place by the fairies. Lovely.”

  I said nothing. He was going to say whatever he was going to say. I could only hope he would get distracted and I could get away, as difficult as that might be in the mud.

  “But not so lovely when it’s you who’s lost, is it?” he went on. “Not nearly so lovely and poetic. Prosaic, perhaps, when compared to the gut-wrenching, heart-breaking stories of abuse so prevalent these days, some of them genuine, some of them not. Prosaic, yes, even perhaps, banal. But not when you’re living it. Not when it’s you. I was bundled off to an orphanage. Awful things, orphanages, but not nearly so bad as the home I was eventually sent to. I won’t bore you with the details, just the highlights. Drunken, abusive father, feeble put-upon mother. Boy goes to bed hungry, gets up cold and even more hungry; beaten regularly; dirty, worn clothes, bad teeth, poor grades, scorn of class-mates. Father beats mother almost to death; lost child beats father, leaves home never to return. Boy hears his mother is dead, finally, by his father’s hand. Determined to be a success. Through hard work, desperately hard work, becomes a solicitor. Uses his new skills and knowledge to find his real family. That’s it.”

  “And vows revenge,” I said. “You forgot that part.”

  “Revenge,” he agreed. “Beautiful, unadulterated revenge. I see it as a bright, white light of some kind, purifying, taking the blackened parts of my soul, and healing them.”

  Mad as a hatter, I thought.

  “You think me mad,” he said, as if reading my thoughts. “I prefer to think of it as focused, or even, perhaps obsessed. But you may be right. If I am, I was driven to it. These people, rich, so careless of others, they deserve everything that has happened, and will happen, to them.

  “I found them, then I set out to destroy them. First, I had to get their legal work. I managed some introductions, all the right people, of course, and after giving Eamon some rather good bits of advice, if I do say so myself, took over his legal work. Then, it was just a matter of time. I looked after most of their banking and investments, and gradually I lost their money. Not in such large amounts, or so fast that they would notice it was done deliberately, but steadily. There was a period of time when it was actually difficult to lose money in the stock market, but I rather pride myself on having managed it. Not much, but a little. I’d waited a long time for this, and I wasn’t for rushing it. It helped in a way that Eamon Byrne was ill. He wasn’t there to see what was happening, figure it out, and he thought the reason his beloved empire was failing was on account of his inadequate sons-in-law.

  “I did not benefit personally from this, you understand, not financially at least. To do so might have alerted various authorities who are charged with the responsibility to watch out for these things. But I derived enormous personal satisfaction, I’m sure you will appreciate, from the execution of my plan.

  “It was something of a disappointment to me that Eamon Byrne managed to escape my clutches by dying. Very untimely of him. I had hopes that he would die in poverty, but unfortunately he did not. In that objective, I ran out of time. I was there when he died. You’re the only one who knows that, although Deirdre may have guessed. And I told him just before he died. I came down to finalize his Will and to record the videotape. I had already hidden the clues to his specifications. When he was all alone, gasping for life, I told him what I was going to do to his family. He died minutes later. Shock, I like to think, in his weakened condition. Even so, I deprived him of only a few hours, or days, of life, hardly worth it. Possibly, he will try to haunt me from the grave. I think I might enjoy that. But I didn’t want any of the family to die, not yet. I wanted them alive and suffering. Anyone else was, and is, expendable.” His words were full of menace, but his tone matter of fact.

  “I did consider wooing one of the daughters and marrying her. It was easy enough to split up Fionuala and Conail, and she would be an easy mark. There were two problems with that. One was that whether she knew it or not, she already had very little money worth marrying, my activities being so successful so quickly. The other is that I’m not really that way inclined : women, I mean. I see my adoptive mother’s bleeding and bruised face in all of them. It would have been difficult, if not impossible, for me. Perhaps you sensed that. On balance, I decided to stay with the original plan.

  “And it’s working rather well. Second Chance, as you may have noticed, is on the market, at fire sale prices. Just a word or two on my part is all that is required to persuade potential buyers that the property would not be suitable for them. Byrne Enterprises is on a satisfying downward spiral. Sean and Conail, who might between them have managed to salvage something, I have set against each other. To each I blamed the other, when business affairs did not go well, and they were all too eager to believe the bad things I had to say about the other. It caused all kinds of strife in the family, all of which suited my purposes. I expect to be able to buy the company within a year. They’ll be grateful, no doubt, for the pittance I pay them. It will not last them long.

  “There was only one problem.”

  “The treasure,” I said.

  “The treasure. If they found that, then, if it was as fabulous as Eamon said it was, and I had no reason to believe it wasn’t, it would solve their financial problems. I could ruin them again, of course, but time is important to me. I want to be able to enjoy their downfall for as long as possible, and we never know how much time there will be for us on this earth.”

  “Why didn’t you just destroy the clues? You could have told Eamon you’d placed them. He wouldn’t be able to check up on you.”

  “Because he insisted John Herlihy come with me while I placed the clues.”

  Poor John Herlihy; poor all of us, I thought.

  “You did rather well finding this place,” Charles said. “I had all the clues, both sets. I copied them of course, before Herlihy hid them, but still, it took me some time to figure it out. Not schooled in either ogham or the old stories. You did well. It’s a big place, as you can see,” he said, waving the gun around. “I had a lot of looking to do. It was near the stone, Aill na Mireann. I expect that was where you were heading just now.”

  I nodded.

  “Every moment I could, I came up here, once I’d figured it out. It was simply a matter of getting here before anyone else.”

  “So who hid it, the treasure, I mean, if you didn’t?”

  “John Herlihy, of course. I thought you knew that. I believe that Byrne had instructed him to tell the family eventually if they didn’t find it. Eamon was not as heartless as that video might indicate, and he
was genuinely hopeful they would all work together. He even told me that Herlihy would get it to them when I told him what I had planned. I suppose he thought that would thwart me. He can’t have been thinking clearly, in his weakened condition. John Herlihy merely presented a small, but easily dealt with, obstacle.”

  “By which I assume you mean you killed Herlihy.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “I did. Not difficult, even if it never occurred to Eamon that I was capable of it. If it had, I assume he wouldn’t have told me. I asked Herlihy to tell me where the treasure was. He wouldn’t. It was a simple matter to send him over the side. I lured him to the cliff and pushed him over. Next, no doubt you’ll ask about the others. Michael, for example. Michael crept into the house the night he was killed. He was hunting about the place, going through wastepaper baskets and such—I have no idea why he came back nor why he was creeping around.”

  Would you believe it if I told you he was looking for a tortoise? I thought. And I suppose the destroyed clues.

  “In any event, he overheard Deirdre and me—did you realize Deirdre was my aunt, Owen Mac Roth’s sister? Yes? When I traced my roots to Connemara, I found her first, working, as you know, in a dry cleaners. It was she who told me the whole sordid story, about how my grandfather had died shortly after my father was incarcerated, having spent the family nest egg on his son’s defense, I might add, and how she’d been left alone, without prospects to use that rather antique term, and had sunk to a pitiful state. In any event, Michael heard us talking about my plans, and he was heading off to tell the rest of the family. Unfortunate that. I had killed once, the geis was broken. I killed him too. I actually had the poison with me—I’d got it from one of my less salubrious clients—and had thought to use it on Eamon, although in the end I didn’t need to. Called to Michael to stop, that I could explain everything. He did, too. Much too nice and polite a young lad. Death of him, really.”