She ignored the men but stopped to pat a small black-and-white terrier that came running up to her. In an instant, she was surrounded by children who seemed to appear from every direction. Small hands tugged at her parka, her fingers, her legs. Childish voices entreated her for money.
She looked into the crowd of upturned faces and met the eyes of a girl of about eight or nine, freckle-faced with a mop of thick red hair, exactly the same color as her own. The child smiled at her, and Kate dug in her pocket, retrieved a bar of chocolate and broke it into several small pieces. She held out her hand, grinning as the kids jostled each other to get a piece.
“What’s your name?” the red-haired girl asked around a mouthful of chocolate.
“Kate.” The chocolate dispersed, she stuck the empty wrapper in her pocket and started walking. The girl kept pace beside her, thin cotton trousers stuffed into black rubber boots. She shot Kate a sideways glance.
“You here on holiday?”
“Yeah,” Kate said. “Kind of.”
“My mam’ll tell your fortune.” She waved in the direction of the trailers. “She’s right over there.”
“No, thanks,” Kate said. Not that she believed in that sort of thing, but if there was bad news in her future, she didn’t want to know.
“Ah, come on now.” The girl ran over to the nearest mobile home and pulled open the front door. “My mam’s in there waiting for you.”
“Sorry, maybe another time.” But as she stepped around a pink plastic flamingo someone had positioned to drink over a puddle, she saw the look of disappointment on the girl’s face and relented. What the hell?
She picked her way across the muddy ground and up the trailer’s front steps. Maybe the woman’s forecast would tie in with Niall’s destiny prediction. I see you both a year from now, holding hands in your Santa Monica condo. He is cooking bouillabaisse. You are pregnant. It is destiny.
Inside the smoky, dimly lit room, a stout middle-aged woman sat at a wooden table, intent on trying to insert a straw crucifix into an empty whiskey bottle. Half a dozen completed bottles were lined up on the table. Souvenirs, Kate guessed, for sale to tourists.
The woman glanced up and motioned her inside. “Cross me palm.”
Fishing a pound from her pocket, Kate sat down opposite the woman. The room was warm and heavy with the smells of stale cigarette smoke and cooked cabbage. A few feet away, a kettle set over a blue gas flame began to hiss. Something brushed against her legs, and Kate looked down into the amber eyes of an orange cat.
The woman reached across the table, touched the gold hoops at Kate’s ears and pointed to the similar pair in her own lobes. Deep lines wreathed her brown leathery skin, bracketed eyes as blue as periwinkles. A small clay pipe was tucked behind her ear.
“’Tis a dudeen.” The woman had seen Kate’s eyes go to the pipe. She took Kate’s hand in her own. “A bit of auld Oireland, isn’t it?” She winked. “Sure, I hate the thing, but visitors like yourself, well, that’s what they expect to see, isn’t it?”
Kate watched as the woman examined her palm, tracing the lifeline with a long painted fingernail. It was true, she supposed. Tourists had certain expectations, regardless of reality. Like the college friend from Nebraska who’d visited one summer in Santa Monica and expressed disappointment that she hadn’t bumped into a single movie star at the supermarket.
“You’ve traveled over the water.”
An easy enough guess, she thought. It would apply to any visitor to Ireland.
“There’s a man. You might have met him, or you might not.” The woman rubbed her forehead and closed her eyes. “Far Liath,” she said slowly, the words almost a chant. “He covers the land and sea with his mantle.”
“Far Liath?” Kate looked at the woman. “What does that mean?”
“Far Liath is the gray man who obscures. With Far Liath, all is not as it appears.” The gypsy eyed Kate for a moment. “Now, this I don’t like saying, miss. Bad news,” she added with a sly smile, “is not good for business.” Then her expression sobered. “But I’m telling you as a warning. There’s death around you. ’Tisn’t here on your hand, but I sense it.”
Kate swallowed. The faint smile, meant to show she wasn’t taking any of it seriously, congealed. She moved to pull her hand away, but the gypsy’s fingers held it tight.
“Beware of Far Dorocha.” Her eyes seemed to bore into Kate’s. “Several have stood at the edge with him.” Her voice had taken on the chantlike quality again. “Fewer have joined him on the homeward journey.” Suddenly, she released Kate’s hands and folded her arms across her chest. “The cards tell more,” she said, her voice brisk now. “Will I do them for you?”
“No, that’s okay.” Kate shook her head. All the air seemed to have gone out of the room, and she could hardly breathe. The cat sidled against her leg. A child wailed somewhere. “I’ve got to go.”
“There’s no charge.” The woman held out a pack of cards.
“I don’t think so.” Kate rose, then backed toward the door. “Thank you, though. Maybe some other time.”
The woman nodded. “Far Dorocha,” she said again. “Mind yourself.”
Outside, the clouds had darkened, and Kate heard a distant rumble of thunder. Once again, the children surrounded her, but this time she ignored their entreaties and hurried past the camp. With the woman’s voice jangling in her brain, she picked up her pace as though she could somehow outdistance any lurking danger.
By the time she reached the road that led back into Cragg’s Head, she was running. Five minutes later, still breathless, she let herself into the Pot o’ Gold. She stood in the hall, trying to catch her breath. Embarrassed now by the irrational fear that had gripped her. A fortune-teller, the cynic scoffed. You have definitely overdosed on Celtic intrigue.
Then something odd struck her. The house was in darkness. By now, Annie always had all the lights on and the fire burning. Puzzled, Kate pushed open the sitting-room door. In the dim light from the window, she could barely make out someone sitting in the armchair where Patrick usually sat. As her eyes adjusted, she realized it was Annie.
“Annie?” She came into the room. “Is something wrong?”
“My brother Michael was just here. They’ve found Elizabeth’s body at the bottom of Cragg’s Head Leap.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I JUST CAN’T GET IT through my head,” Annie told Kate the next morning. “Nothing seems real. It’s like something you read about in the paper, but this isn’t some girl in Dublin I’ve never heard of.” She blew her nose into a tissue and dabbed her eyes. “Elizabeth sat in this kitchen, Katie. She slept in the bed upstairs. The very one you’re sleeping in.”
Kate leaned over to fill Annie’s cup. They’d been up most of the night, sitting at the kitchen table drinking pot after pot of tea. From where she sat, Kate could see the pink-tinged morning light through the window. Daffodils bobbed in windowsill containers, their cheeriness somehow all wrong.
The Garda had found marks on Elizabeth’s neck. The locket she always wore, gone. A struggle, apparently. Foul play was suspected. Kate poured more tea. The brown teapot wore a green-and-white woolen cozy, the kind of thing her grandmother used to knit with yarn left over from sweaters and scarves. On the wall hung a cross-stitched sampler in Gaelic. Roughly translated, Annie had told her, it said: Tell A Good Story, Tell A Lie, Or Get Out. Advice Niall Maguire should take to heart, Annie had muttered darkly.
The scene on the cliffs played like an endless video in Kate’s brain. The two figures she’d seen. Niall’s sudden appearance. Her stomach felt as if someone had punched it. She’d intended to ask him about Elizabeth when she saw him tonight. Promised herself she’d do it before she got distracted by chemistry. Now she wondered whether she should cancel the date. But how would Niall interpret that? And what about Rory? Time for him to clear up a few things, she decided.
As soon as she walked into the Gardai station, Kate knew she’d made a mistake. If Rory
did know anything about Elizabeth’s death, he was hardly likely to confess it to her here, surrounded by fellow Gardai all looking grim-faced and preoccupied.
“He’s in the toilet,” one of them said when Kate asked for Rory. “Where he’s been much of the morning. I think he might have decided to take up residence.” He called Rory’s name and rattled on the doorknob. A moment later, Rory emerged. Sweat beaded his forehead and, as he came over to the counter to where she stood, Kate caught the faint, but unmistakable whiff of alcohol.
“Kate.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You’ve heard the news then?”
She nodded and then the front door opened. Annie’s brother, Sergeant Michael Riordan, walked in. He wore a heavy blue overcoat and vapor streamed from his mouth.
“It’s bitter out there this morning.” He shot a concerned glance at Rory. “Are you feeling all right? You’re white as a sheet.”
“I’m fine.” Rory took a peppermint from his pocket. “Just got to me a bit, seeing Elizabeth like that. I mean, knowing her and all.”
“Ah sure, it would, wouldn’t it?” Michael looked at him. “You’d have to be awful coldhearted if it didn’t. A young girl like that. And it’s always worse if it’s someone you know. Well, just remember this is your first big test. Now you’ve got something like this under your belt, you’ll never be the same again.”
Kate watched as Rory started checking the booking entries. He’d studiously avoided looking at her directly.
“Rory, I’ll need you to hold down the fort here,” Michael told him. “There’s a bit of a panic in town. Everyone’s talking about how it’s just like what happened to Moruadh.” He shook his head. “I’d not been here for five minutes this morning when Brigid Riley rang to say we should be looking at Niall Maguire’s whereabouts last Monday night.”
Kate stared at him. She felt exactly as though she’d been punched in the stomach. Words scrambled around in her brain. Surely no one really believed that Niall…it was preposterous. Anyone who really knew him would know… Her thoughts stopped short. Who really did know Niall Maguire? Including herself.
“Will you be doing that then, Michael?” Rory looked up from the ledger. “Talking to Maguire, I mean?”
“Sure, him and a few others. We’ll follow all the leads.” He leafed through a stack of papers on the counter. “I’ll not have this turn into a witch-hunt for Maguire, though. The talk aside, we’ve nothing much to go on with him but the whole thing with Moruadh’s death. Although our new superintendent’s been talking about opening that up again.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Kate said, and both men turned to look at her. “Niall Maguire is not a murderer.”
Michael gave her a look that said he didn’t appreciate her input. “That’s exactly what we intend to find out.”
She would talk to Rory tonight, she decided as she left the station and headed to the superette on the high street to pick up some things for Annie. A cold wind whipped around her head, and she huddled into her parka. The shock of hearing Niall’s name as a suspect in Elizabeth’s murder was already giving way to the numbing realization that no one even considered the possibility that anyone else could have done it. Everywhere she went, people huddled in shop doorways, their heads close. And the name on everyone’s lips was Niall Maguire.
In the superette—a tiny store that would have fit into one corner of the Ralph’s Market she shopped at in Santa Monica—she tried to remember what it was Annie wanted. Bread? Butter? Her brain refused to focus. In the adjacent aisle, two women she couldn’t see were talking about the murder.
“Sure, well, it’s not surprising, is it?” A woman’s words floated over to her. “My Elaine takes his class at Galway and she says the girls flit around him like flies. I’m telling you, it was only a matter of time until something like this happened.”
“Mind you, though,” another voice said, “he’s been very good about helping out when he’s asked, and every time I’ve ever spoken to him, he’s very polite.”
Before she could hear more, Kate walked away. Was it butter or jam she was supposed to pick up? She tried to think. Where had she put the shopping list? Her pocket? She felt around. Not there.
She felt as if her head had been placed in a spin drier, then tossed and tumbled until she could no longer think straight. Had Annie said something about honey? Or was it lemon curd? Playing it safe, she picked up a jar of each, added them to her basket. A pound of butter, a piece of cheese at the dairy counter.
In a daze, she found her way to the checkout. Again, she saw the shadowy silhouettes on the cliffs. Had they been fighting? Embracing? She thought of the way the short one had disappeared. She saw Niall’s face emerging from the fog. But Rory had also been up on the cliffs. She’d seen him herself. The cashier said something and Kate stared at her blankly. Money, right. She produced some notes, left the shop in a daze.
Plastic bags in hand, she walked slowly along the high street. Intuition told her she could trust Niall, but intuition about men had not served her well in the past. She lined up all the evidence against him. He’d been up on the cliffs Monday night. He knew Elizabeth. He’d taken her picture. “Elizabeth is beautiful,” he’d said. “And very naive.” But, so what? Most teenage girls are naive.
Maybe she was also naive. Annie certainly thought so. “If you have to go up to the castle again,” she’d said, “you’d be a fool not to ask Rory or Patrick to go along with you. Not that I’m rushing to judgment, of course.”
Kate glanced at a shop window, optimistically crammed with things to catch a tourist’s eye. Aran sweaters, Waterford crystal, Connemara pottery. Racks of postcards that showed a verdant Ireland under improbably blue skies. Next door, she saw a display of Claddagh rings. Two hands holding a heart. Tidily cradled in a crown, the rings symbolized hope, promise or eternal love. Take your pick, she thought, moving on. Maybe she was naive.
Hadn’t everything with Niall happened a little too rapidly? What if he was some sort of clever, attractive sociopath? A Ted Bundy type? How many college girls had succumbed to Bundy’s charm and good looks? None of them suspected his real character.
In the window of the bakery shop, she stopped to look at the shelves of breads and sticky-topped buns. Behind them she saw her own reflection. Hollow-eyed, shoulders hunched in her green parka, hair shoved up under the black knit hat.
What did he see in her anyway? She recalled Caitlin’s simpering remarks about his eyelashes and the girls flocking around him. What would he want with a thirty-four-year-old writer with freckles and invisible lashes when he could, apparently, have any nubile young coed he wanted? Unless he really was just a womanizer. Impressionable young girls, lonely American writers. Makes no difference. Fill them with blarney and get them into bed. And murder them?
With a shiver, she thought of the narrow ledge in the west tower. A slight push would have done it. Why had he taken her over there anyway? Planned to push her, maybe, then changed his mind? Seduce her first, then kill her. God, her imagination was running away with her again. She didn’t know what she believed anymore.
BY THE TIME Niall drove back into Cragg’s Head from his overnight trip to Kerry, the sun had already gone down. The tide was out as he drove past the harbor. Lights from a boat on the horizon appeared as pinpoints in the darkness. He drove slowly, then decided on the spur of the moment to take the Cliff Road toward the Pot o’ Gold instead of the road up to the castle.
Tired, he turned his head from side to side to ease the tension. It had not been a good day. Most of the shoot had been done around Killarney, a town that had let its natural beauty become eclipsed by tourism. All day his mood had swung between anger and depression at the sight of the pony carts and tawdry souvenir stands, and a dreamy yearning to be out on the narrow roads. Meandering across the heather-dotted moors with Kate at his side.
She’d never left his mind. He thought of the things they would talk about, the places he’d show her. He’d take her up to Sligo. “C
onnemara has this stark beauty about it,” he’d tell her. “The gorse and rocks and trees all stunted and gnarled by the winds off the Atlantic.” He wanted her to see it all.
The thought of being with her again had fueled him for most of the day. But he was exhausted now, and the gloomy fear that maybe all his mystical mumbo jumbo and talk of destiny had scared her off began to overwhelm him. After all, wasn’t she an American? Pragmatic and cynical—as she herself had put it.
Maybe he’d gone too far. Sure, it was one thing to think such thoughts himself, but he should never have said anything to her. No doubt, she’d thought him completely daft. In fact, it was a miracle that she’d even wanted to see him again. They might be destined for each other, but at times even destiny needed a bit of a push.
Flowers sometimes helped, too. He glanced at the bunch of daffodils on the seat beside him. He’d bought them from a stand in Killarney intending to give them to her tonight. What he’d wanted were marigolds, the color of the jumper she’d had on the night they’d cooked dinner, but it was too early in the year for marigolds, the shop girl had said. The daffodils had wilted a bit on the drive back, and the things he’d been rehearsing in his head to say to her now seemed all wrong. Naive and overly romantic.
God, a woman like Kate was probably used to long-stemmed red roses. And himself with a bunch of wilted daffodils, he thought as he pulled up outside the Pot o’ Gold. He looked up at the boardinghouse and felt an edge of panic. It wasn’t good to feel this desperate over a woman. It had happened once before, and he should have learned his lesson. He stared through the windscreen, thinking of how he’d sat here like this just a few days ago. He’d known nothing about Kate then, not even her name. Tonight there were no lights on in the sitting room, and he wondered if she was even in.
Only one way to find out. He got out of the car, closed the door behind him, then remembered the flowers. A moment later, daffodils in hand, he opened the latch on the garden gate. Up the path, his footsteps loud on the gravel, up the two steps to the front door.
The Man on the Cliff Page 16