The Man on the Cliff

by Janice Macdonald

  Annie usually had all the lights on, but through the panels of amber glass he could make out only a dim lamp at the back of the house. He lifted the polished brass door knocker, let it fall back. Not sure it would be heard, he lifted it again. No one came, and he rang the bell. A light went on in the hallway, and after a moment he saw Annie. She wore a black skirt and cardigan. There was no smile on her face as she pulled open the door.

  “Mr. Maguire.”

  “Evening, Mrs. Ryan.” Her face was pale, her eyes red as though she’d been crying, and Niall thought for a moment of asking what was wrong. Then he saw her eyes go to the bunch of flowers in his hand. He shifted his feet, awkward suddenly as an unwanted suitor. “I’ve come to see Kate,” he said. “Is she in?”

  “She is not.” Annie dabbed her nose with a handkerchief. “But if she were, she’d not want to see you.”

  He looked at her, at a loss for words. Had Kate told her to say that?

  “And you’d be doing everyone a great service if you’d stay away from that girl.” One hand on the door, as though to close it, she apparently saw something on his face, and her forehead creased in a frown. “Have you not heard then? They’ve found Elizabeth.”

  “Found her.” He shook his head, confused. “She’s home, is she?”

  “They’ve found her dead, Mr. Maguire.” Annie spat the words at him. “Dead at the bottom of Cragg’s Head Leap where you said you were to have met her last Monday. She’d been pushed by someone, Mr. Maguire. Pushed to her death.”

  Niall stared at her, too stunned to speak. Shocked as much by Annie’s anger as he was at the news. He took a step back as though from a fire. Her eyes blazed at him, and her hands were clenched at her sides. It seemed all she could do not to claw at his face.

  “And you’ll excuse me for saying so, but it seems a bit of a coincidence that you yourself should have asked about her just that very night.”

  “Mrs. Ryan, you’re not saying you think I—”

  “What I’m saying is neither here nor there. I’m sure the Garda will have plenty to say to you and if you’ll take a bit of advice, you’ll not come calling here anymore. You’ve more than enough on your plate as it is. So, good night to you, Mr. Maguire.”

  The door slammed, and Niall felt a rush of air across his face. For a moment he just stood there feeling as though the whole thing had been a vivid dream and if he rang the bell again, Kate—not Annie—would answer the door with a smile on her face. Across the road, he could hear the sea crashing against the rocks. He smelled smoke from the chimney, the tang of salt in the wind. From inside the Pot o’ Gold, he heard a clock chime the quarter hour. He glanced again through the door’s glass panels to the dim light at the end of the hall, then, daffodils in hand, he walked back down the path to his car.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  KATE LOOKED UP from buttering bread for sandwiches to see Rory watching her from the doorway, still in his uniform, tie off, shirt collar unbuttoned.

  “I thought I heard Annie’s voice down here,” he said as he sat down at the kitchen table.

  “You did.” The kettle whistled, and Kate got up, scooped tea into the pot then poured in the boiling water. “She’s upstairs now with Elizabeth’s mom. Annie was talking about calling the doctor for some tranquilizers; maybe you could see if she needs someone to pick them up.”

  Rory nodded, but stayed put. “I wanted to say something to you,” he said after a moment, “While there’s no one around.”

  Kate glanced at him. Elizabeth’s mother, Maeve, had arrived earlier in the day, and the house had been full of people; an endless stream of friends and neighbors bearing plates of food, the doorbell and the phone constantly ringing. She’d left a message on Niall’s machine, cancelling their plans to get together that night. She’d also postponed her interview in Galway, and she and Rory had pitched in to help Annie. Shirtsleeves rolled up, he had brewed endless pots of tea and stood alongside her as she cut and buttered bread for countless platters of sandwiches. Kate had used the time to rehearse what she wanted to say to him.

  “I need to talk to you, too,” she said. “Who else knows that you were with Elizabeth on Monday?”

  “No one.” He frowned down at his hands. “Look, I know what you must be thinking. I mean, I can see it looks suspicious, but all we did was kiss a bit.”

  “Hold on.” Kate had started to place a slice of ham on the buttered bread. Meat in her hand, she looked up at him. “You told me there was nothing between the two of you.”

  “I know I did.” He sighed and scratched the back of his neck. “I was worried you’d get the wrong idea about me if I told you. Look, I’ve never run around on Caitlin, you can ask her. Honest, Kate. I don’t know what it was with Elizabeth, it was like I had a drug in me, I swear. D’you know what I mean?”

  “Not really.” She pushed away images of Niall. “The problem now is that Elizabeth is dead, and you were up on the cliffs around the time it happened.”

  “So were a lot of people. So was Niall Maguire. I saw him.”

  “Rory, you were with Elizabeth. You’d both been drinking. Maybe—”

  “Who told you that? Fitzpatrick?”

  “Yeah.” She sighed, mad at herself for mentioning Fitzpatrick’s name. “Look Rory, maybe you had nothing to do with this, but I’m not comfortable with keeping your secret anymore. I want you to tell your supervisor that you were with Elizabeth Monday night.”

  “Ah, Katie…” He dug his knuckles into his eyes. “Look, I swear to God I’m telling you the truth. Ask Caitlin if I’ve ever laid a hand on her. She’ll tell you I haven’t.”

  She nodded. “I’m sure that’s true, but—”

  “Come on, Katie. You don’t understand. We’d had a few drinks and sure she was all over me, but that’s all it was.”

  “So if your conscience is clear, you have nothing to worry about, right?”

  “It won’t be like that, though. Right now they all think I was on the Galway Road. If it gets out that I was up on the cliffs, the whole thing with Elizabeth will come out. And then I might as well kiss my life goodbye.”

  “Rory…” Kate hesitated. “You’re a Garda, for God’s sake. You’re supposed to be investigating Elizabeth’s death and you’re sitting here figuring out how to cover your tracks. Shouldn’t you at least try to get off the case or something?”

  “It’ll be fine. The only people who know I was there are you and Hughie, and he’s not going to say anything.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because he wants to see Maguire get what he deserves for Moruadh. He wants this pinned on Maguire, and so does everyone else in Cragg’s Head.”

  Kate shook her head, speechless. Any minute someone was going to wake her from this nightmare.

  “I know what you’re thinking right now,” Rory said. “You’re thinking that if I won’t make a report, you’ll do it yourself. Well, you might as well save yourself the effort. There’s no one who doesn’t know you’ve a thing for Maguire, and if you think the Gardai are going to take your word over mine, you’re soft in the head.”

  Kate watched as he got up from the table and went over to the fridge. With the door open, he perused the contents, removed a beer and sat down. As he popped the top on the can, the door opened, and Annie came in.

  “Katie.” Annie patted her on the shoulder. “I wasn’t going to mention this, but then I thought about the article you’re writing and decided it was something you should know. Mr. Maguire was by to see you a little while ago. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I told him you were out.” She paused. “Holding a bunch of daffodils in his hand, he was.”

  Daffodils. Kate felt the burn of tears in her throat. She could picture Niall’s face as Annie turned him away. She watched Annie pick up a knife and start hacking away at a loaf of bread as if she had a personal grudge against it. After a moment, she put the knife down and came over to sit beside Rory. Hands on her knees, she leaned forward, looked directly into his ey
es.

  “Rory, love, I’ve got to ask you something,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Maeve upstairs, would like to have the locket Elizabeth always wore, but she was told it wasn’t on the body. Would you or any of the Gardai know what might have happened to it?”

  Her mind still on the daffodils and the exchange with Rory, Kate had gone to the sink to rinse out dishes. Her hands, immersed in soap bubbles, froze. She barely heard Rory’s reply. All she could see was the glint of the locket Niall had dropped that night on the cliffs.

  A BAG OF DOG FOOD under his arm, Niall stood outside the superette, looking at Brigid Riley’s pudding of a face. If Rufus hadn’t been completely out of food, Niall would never have driven back to the village. Listening to Brigid, though, he was sorry that he hadn’t simply sacrificed the roast beef.

  “I used to clean up at your family’s house,” she said.

  Niall nodded slightly.

  “Terrible thing about the murder of that young girl, isn’t it? Terrible thing indeed. It put me in mind of poor Moruadh and the way she died. Sure, what a tragedy that was, don’t you think, Mr. Maguire? And what a strange coincidence that this poor young girl was discovered in almost the same spot as Moruadh.”

  “What exactly is your point, Mrs. Riley?”

  “Oh, nothing at all, Mr. Maguire,” she replied, her eyes wide. “Nothing at all. Sure, ’twas just a tragic coincidence is all I meant.”

  Later, in his darkroom, Niall poured developer into a tray and watched the image slowly come into focus. Moss-covered gates—no sign now of the castle they’d once guarded. Barren hills behind the gates. A Celtic cross. Usually, he could lose himself in the process; tonight he was simply going through the motions. Brigid Riley’s voice still rang in his ears.

  Distracted, he paced the room. It was happening all over again, as it had after Moruadh. The gossip, the whispers. Tomorrow, there would be a visit from the Gardai. No doubt there was already a message on the machine downstairs. With no direction in mind, he left the room, wandered down the ancient corridors of the west tower. The haunted part, he’d told Kate. That day seemed long ago now.

  Down on the first floor again, he opened the door to the library. Switched on the light. The room was much as it had always been. In one corner, the massive mahogany desk the old man had used. Around it, shelves of books. On the desk, a Maguire family photo. He picked it up.

  The old man standing, hands on his wife’s shoulders. Smiles on their faces. And himself. A schoolboy in short trousers and a blazer, standing off to one side as though he’d tried to slip into the picture unnoticed.

  The mind plays tricks, he thought. Changing and shading memories so that they become unreliable. With a photograph, though, the truth—for that second, anyway—is captured. He replaced the picture and sat down at the desk. From a drawer he took out a large tan envelope. He’d pulled together a collection of pictures after his father died. Childhood pictures, himself and Moruadh. Hugh Fitzpatrick. The three of them together, apart, paired up, alone. Now he emptied the envelope onto the desk, studied a picture taken just a few months after the family photo.

  Two children, playing together at a table set for Christmas dinner. Moruadh, laughing as she reached for the paper hat Hugh wore. Niall stared at it for a moment, remembering. He had ducked his head to stop her taking his hat, too, held the flimsy paper in place with one hand. Happy children, frozen in time. Happy only in the moment the picture was taken. Just after it was snapped, Niall had been summoned to the library, where his father had told him he was an ingrate, a worthless disappointment. Unless he mended his ways, he would be sent away with just the clothes on his back.

  Niall riffled through the pictures, his thoughts drifting back through the years. Summer days and russet autumns. Winters of thickened clouds and low gray skies. Scenes captured by the camera.

  A picture with Moruadh, the summer he’d returned from university. He had put the camera on a tripod and set the timer, but as he’d dashed around to be in the picture with Moruadh, he’d tripped and barely made it to where she stood. They were both laughing, and his arm was around her waist. Standing under a chestnut tree, its branches dripping rain. Patches of damp on Moruadh’s blue cotton dress. And, through the trees, barely visible, a watchful Hugh.

  A month after the picture was taken, Niall had left Ireland. Lived in London and then Paris. A dark time, full of loneliness and yearning. And then Moruadh had come to him in Paris.

  He put the photos back into the envelope and returned it to the drawer. Glanced at his watch. It was nearly one in the morning. Tired, he walked downstairs. There were three messages on the answering machine. He pressed the button to hear them. One informed him that his gallery show had been canceled, the other that his college class had been closed due to low enrollment. The third was from Kate. He listened to it once, then rewound the tape and replayed it.

  “Hi, it’s Kate. I’m sorry, I don’t think it would be a good idea to…well, I can’t see you tonight after all. Could you meet me tomorrow, at the harbor at noon?” A pause. “Some questions I need to ask you.” Another pause. “If that doesn’t work, please leave a message at Annie’s and let me know what would be more convenient.”

  He ground the heel of his palms into his eyes. In his head, he heard the American accent, the flat impersonal tone. He went into the kitchen, took down a bottle of Jameson’s from the cupboard. Poured an inch into a glass, ran water from the tap. As he raised the whiskey to his mouth, he heard tires on the gravel outside. Moments later, glass in hand, he opened the front door to find Kate standing there.

  “This is probably the most stupid, impulsive thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she said. “But I just had to see you.”

  Stunned, he shook his head. Her shoulders hunched against the cold night air, she stood in the small circle of light cast by the lamp above the door. He couldn’t read her expression or the tone of her voice.

  “You’re shivering.” Beyond her shoulder, he could see her car. The driver’s door was wide open. “Come inside.”

  “No.” She looked down at the keys in her hand. “I told you I just wanted to see you.”

  “Kate, I…” he started, then realized that he had no idea what he wanted to say. No idea what this visit meant, or what she wanted from him. Bemused, he watched her for a moment. “Annie told me about Elizabeth,” he finally said. “I stopped by earlier. She told me in no uncertain terms to stay away from you.”

  “She’s worried. Any moment now, you’ll probably hear the Garda coming up the hill.”

  “What can I say to you?”

  “Right now?” Eyes on his face. “Nothing.”

  “Profess my innocence?”

  She shook her head.

  “Tell you a load of lies?”

  “Stop.”

  A moment passed. He felt the wind on his face, the chill of it through his clothes. Kate’s nose was pink from the cold, her face pinched. He felt a rush of impatience—not with her—with himself. With whatever it was about him that had led to this moment. To a woman fighting with herself to trust him. He thought of Brigid Riley’s face, of the suspicious eyes in the village. Of Kate’s voice on the machine. He felt weary, exhausted. Tired of dragging around the past.

  “Kate.” He touched her arm. “Come inside.”

  “I can’t.” She took a step back. “I have to go.”

  “That’s it? You drive up here in the middle of the night to stand on my doorstep for two minutes?”

  “I told you, I wanted to see you.”

  “And now you have.”

  “Right.”

  “And?”

  Her expression softened, a flicker of a smile.

  “What did you learn?”

  “Enough.”

  He shook his head at her.

  “Ireland has addled my brain,” she said. “Or something has.”

  He smiled.

  “I’m serious. I don’t even know myself anymore.”

/>   “Will I still see you tomorrow at the harbor?”

  She nodded.

  He caught the ends of her scarf.

  “Niall…”

  He watched her face.

  “I really have to go.”

  “Tomorrow then?”

  “Tomorrow.” She turned and walked to the car. As she climbed in, she looked up at him. “Hey, Niall. Do you know what Far Liath means?”

  “Far Liath. It’s Gaelic, I think.”

  “What about Far Dorocha?”

  “Far I think is ‘man.’ Darocha is ‘dark.’ The dark man.” He looked at her for a moment. “What’s all this about?”

  “I had my fortune told yesterday.” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “Who knows why? She said something about watching out for Far Dorocha.”

  He tried to remember the mythology he’d learned as a boy. “Far Dorocha was the sinister one.” It was coming back to him now. “He never looks around him, just rides until he finds who he’s looking for. No one ever turns him down.”

  Kate nodded slowly.

  “She warned you, you say?”

  “Yeah.” With a grin, she fluttered her fingers at him and got into the car.

  He stayed at the door, watching until the car’s taillights had disappeared down the hill and out of sight.

  KATE LAY BACK IN BED, hands locked behind her head. Annie had been waiting up for her when she got back from Niall’s. “You’ve taken leave of your senses,” Annie had said. And maybe Annie was right. Maybe her brain really was addled. Maybe it had contracted some sort of Celtic malaise that rendered it unable to engage in anything but dreams and fantasies.

  She’d planned to ask Niall about the necklace, but any doubts she’d had about him had disappeared the moment he’d opened the door. She had tried to look at him dispassionately—a tall man, pale and a little weary, with a shadow of beard on his jaw—but it had taken every bit of self-control she could muster not to fling her arms around his neck and tell him she knew he was innocent.