by Erin Hart
And of course Gabriel had been dead on, as usual. Nora was all the things the old man had said, and more. The idea of sharing his life completely with anyone had never before circled the edges of Cormac’s consciousness. Now it hovered, light and capricious as a butterfly. In many ways, his daily life had not appreciably altered since they’d been together. He still rose each day at seven, and cycled to the university for morning classes three days a week. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, he’d go down to the boat club and take his scull out for an early morning row down the Liffey. When the water was calm, it was the nearest thing to flying he’d ever experienced. He loved the dank smell of the riverbank, the dripping green moss and algae on the bridge pilings, and the image that always filled his mind as he rowed, of the river water merging with the seawater, brown and green. These things were all part of the life he’d made, layer by layer, over many years. And Nora was the mercurial salmon, that bright flash of silver he glimpsed only occasionally, swimming against the current in that steady stream. What would happen if he caught her?
He thought back to the last time they’d made love. She’d begun to weep, quietly but uncontrollably, and when he’d asked whether it was something he’d said or done that had upset her, she had only shaken her head. Her wordless sorrow had moved him to the point of tears as well, though he hadn’t shed them in years—not since his mother died, in fact. He hadn’t even been able to cry for the loss of Gabriel, his truest father in any real sense of that word. But he had felt so helpless, so completely defenseless against Nora’s tears. He’d wanted to gather her up like a small child, to tell her everything was all right, or would be all right, but he couldn’t do it. Because it wasn’t all right, and never would be, with that cleft in the world where Triona used to be, where Nora’s own life used to be. How often had she replayed that last conversation with her murdered sister, each time changing what she had said, so that circumstances would alter, the future would shift, and horror would recede into the realm of nightmare?
He wondered what she’d done to help build the case against her brother-in-law. He’d once found her poring over a file when he arrived at her flat, but she’d tucked it under a pile of papers, without letting him see what it was. Later, shifting the papers from the table, he’d scanned the heading: HALLETT, Catriona. Autopsy report. He sometimes tried to imagine how a family could be transformed by such a tragedy. He had often heard Nora on the telephone with one or both of her parents; it was easy to perceive her affection for them, and yet he detected a distance, a strain in the relationship—something in the tone of her voice, the duration of the pauses in the conversation. He imagined growing up in a close family, something that was as foreign to him as the place she was from. But when a thing is so horrifically broken, never to be put back together again, there must be all sorts of jagged edges.
Giving up on writing for the moment, Cormac put together his flute, hoping the distraction of playing a tune would get him thinking more about his article than about Nora. He felt the cool ebony against the underside of his lower lip, this once-living thing from the tropics now resident in a nearly treeless rainforest a world away. He felt the music pass through him, from somewhere unknown, out between his pursed lips and into his fingers, through the flute and into the air, the atmosphere he breathed and took into his lungs to make more music. So much of existence was like that: endlessly, thoughtlessly self-perpetuating cycles. His courtship of Nora—and he did think of it in that formal way—was part of another cycle of human life. He wondered where it would end, whether they would ever find enough common ground, but he remained hopeful. He had no choice.
He took another breath and began to play “The Dear Irish Boy,” the tune that had become, for him, the theme of the cailin rua, the red-haired girl who had brought them together last summer. The cailin rua had suffered a needless and cruel death, but her son had survived, and three hundred and fifty years later, through another tragedy, her descendants had learned her story. He played through the tune’s B part, feeling the cascade of high, keening notes pull like brambles at his soul. Slowly the theme resolved itself and flowed once more like a stream, with rippling, dark currents only occasionally audible under its surface.
He set down the flute and tried to go back to writing. The article he was wrestling with was a new look at Bronze Age and Iron Age gold from possible ritual deposits—and ritual deposits were always only possible because, as much as one wanted to believe in it, ritual intent was almost impossible to prove through archaeology alone. That whole period was fraught with riddles and mysteries to which they had only fragmentary answers. Why was it that the heaviest deposits of native gold were found in the rivers of Wicklow and Tyrone, and yet the most spectacular of the Bronze Age gold objects had been found all the way across the island in Clare? Why was there no direct evidence of beekeeping in the Iron Age, despite evidence that beeswax had most certainly been used for cire perdue metal casting? Why were gold objects so uncommon among grave goods—were they melted down, or passed on to the next wearer as a mark of office?
He studied the map showing the distribution of Bronze and Iron Age gold objects across Ireland. How many dots were missing because someone had stumbled on the gold and kept it, buried it again, or melted it down and sold it, and lived on the proceeds in comfort for the rest of his natural life? There were also hundreds of unknown and never-to-be-told stories of gold-fueled strife—thefts and confiscations and no doubt murders as well—all over bright yellow metal. He wondered how the ancients had perceived it, who worked in rusting iron and green corroding bronze. To cultures steeped in the ever-corrupting natural world, it must have seemed the only substance that did not decay, the sacred metal of the sun, of immortality.
A noise startled him—only a bird nesting in the eaves, but he realized how anxious he was, waiting for Nora’s arrival. He didn’t want a repeat of what had happened last night. Shortly after he’d arrived, he’d heard a rap on the door. He had answered it automatically, thinking the caller might be Brona Scully come back to see if he’d had any trouble with the boiler. He’d been caught off guard to find Ursula Downes on the doorstep. He thought back to the picture she’d presented. Ursula was slight and fair, and the hair cut tight around her ears gave her a rather self-consciously gamine look. The gold eyebrow ring was an addition since he’d last seen her, but somehow it was hardly surprising. It had been some time.
“I was just driving past, and saw the car,” she said. “Thought it might be Evelyn, but I’m happy to find that it’s you. Back on Loughnabrone Bog again. You’ll never believe it—I’m over at the old digs. The house has been fixed up, but once in a while I’ll open the door and expect to see you or one of the others standing in the queue for the toilet.”
“It was all about making the most of a rare opportunity, as I recall.”
They’d both spent several summers working out here with Gabriel nearly twenty years earlier, and seeing Ursula again brought it all back: the primitive student lodging, the aroma of wet wool jumpers drying by the fire, strong tea, cold rooms, warm beds. The very air in those days had seemed fraught with all kinds of physical hunger. From her expression, he had no doubt that Ursula remembered it too.
“Listen, Cormac, I was very sorry to hear about Gabriel,” she’d said, lowering her voice. “It must have been a complete shock. I’m sure we all thought he’d go on forever. I meant to phone you or Evelyn, but I’m no good at that sort of thing.” She had seemed alone at that moment, wary and vulnerable somehow, still standing outside on the doorstep.
“Would you like to come in for a drink or something?” he’d heard himself ask. Even as he extended the invitation, he hoped it wouldn’t be something that he would later regret.
“Maybe just a quick one. Thanks.” She stepped across the threshold and glanced around. “This place hasn’t changed much, has it?”
“What can I get you?” he asked, when she’d pulled up a chair at the kitchen table.
“Re
d wine?” She looked over at the half-dozen bottles waiting to be stowed in the kitchen cabinet. “Unless you’re saving it. Trying to impress someone.”
“Just experimenting.”
As Cormac opened a bottle and poured them each a glass, Ursula continued, “I find I’m not at all particular about wine. Cheap plonk is just as effective as the posh stuff, if you’re in the right mood. And I’m generally in the right mood.” She turned to face him and took the glass from his hand, her luminous green eyes as mischievous as ever. The lamp on the table beside her cast a warm gold glow that caught her skin tone and highlighted the angular shape of her face, the slight hollows in her cheeks. Only a few lines at the corners of her eyes marked the passage of time. “So what are you doing down here?”
“Working on an article for the Journal. Some new findings about Bronze and Iron Age gold work.”
“Really?” She started to peruse the books he’d strewn across the table in an attempt to get his materials organized. “You know, people always say there was gold in the Loughnabrone hoard, but the two brothers who uncovered it swore up and down they never found any.” She pulled a book from a stack on the table. “Any chance I could borrow this one? I promise to return it promptly whenever you need it back.” Checking the spine, Cormac saw it was one of the more obscure and detailed references on Iron Age metalwork.
He made a gesture of offering. “Be my guest.”
“Oh, I would in a minute,” she said, “but I believe you already have one.”
Still quick as ever, Ursula. He didn’t see any point in being coy. “I expect you’ll meet her tomorrow—Nora Gavin. She’s coming down to help with your bog man.” He tried changing the subject. “How’s your own work going these days?”
“Oh, you know. It’s a living. We’re finding bits of things, but it’s a bit of a mess at the moment, a real hodgepodge of odd stuff: platforms and short stretches of plank trackway, a couple of nice willow hurdles. We’ve come across some really interesting peat samples—you might be interested in taking a look. But the regional manager is a desperate whinger, giving me a lot of pointless grief about hurrying it up so he can get this area back on his precious production schedule. The bog man turning up hasn’t exactly made his day, although it’s improved my mood considerably.”
She looked at the open wine bottle, but apparently decided not to ask for another glass, for which he felt grateful. She leaned back in her chair and looked at him thoughtfully. “One of these years I’m going to give up fieldwork. Get myself one of those desk jobs. I’m sick to death of being out in all weather, of peat dust in my hair, and ten solid weeks of this—” She held up her hand, the fingers and nails black with ground-in peat. “Next year I’m going in for one of the consulting jobs, even if I have to switch firms. Those lucky sods barely get their feet wet once a year. It’s either that or pack it in altogether.” As she spoke, Cormac thought he perceived a change in Ursula. It had been a long time since they had met, and she no longer seemed to have that razor edge he had once so carefully tried to avoid.
She drained the last swallow of wine from her glass and stood up. “Time to push off home; I’ve an early start again tomorrow. Could I just run up to the loo before I go? I remember the way.”
Cormac switched on the light at the stairs for her. He’d always had an uneasy feeling about Ursula. From the time they’d first met, he had sensed danger in her presence, a moodiness and manic energy that was draining to be around. There was, he had to admit, an unabashed and frank carnality about her, something he’d once been close enough to know about firsthand. But it wasn’t that quality itself that he found worrisome; his reservations were about how she used it, as a weapon. Ursula had always possessed a very sophisticated—one could almost say scientific—understanding of sexual attraction in all its varying forms. He was still unsure whether “predatory” was the right word to describe exactly the way Ursula was, but she clearly got some sort of thrill from her ability to get another person’s pulse racing. Years ago he’d watched her in action, toying with fellow students, then colleagues at otherwise deadly dull faculty functions. She loved causing a stir, and seemed to draw energy directly from the amount of social discomfort she could engender during the space of a single evening, with a glance, or with fingertips that lingered just a fraction of a second too long. She excelled at pulling every eye after her, making them see she didn’t give a tinker’s curse what they thought of her. He always imagined tense arguments erupting in cars as everyone headed home. Ursula had not made these people unhappy, but she was a catalyst who could concentrate unhappiness and set it loose.
He had once tried to convince Ursula that it was only herself she was damaging with those antics, but she didn’t seem to care. He’d always sensed an edge of mistrust in her as well, of hurt or betrayal. Being in a room with her now filled him with unaccountable and overwhelming sadness. In all these years, had she ever found someone who was willing to risk everything, to get past all the defenses to reach her wounded soul?
She returned to the kitchen and breezed past him toward the door; he followed to open it for her. “Great to see you, Cormac,” she said, and leaned forward, apparently to offer a quick embrace. But when he moved to reciprocate, she reached up with both hands, turned his face down to hers, and kissed him full on the mouth. He felt her tongue dart between his lips for an instant, and he pulled back reflexively.
His startled reaction seemed to amuse her. “Ah, come on, now. Don’t pretend you wouldn’t.” Then she’d been out the door and into her car before he could say a word. He’d stood looking after the receding taillights, and when he’d reached up to wipe his mouth, his fingers had come away touched with plum-colored lipstick. He had rubbed his hands together, then scrubbed them against his trouser legs.
Feeling perplexed by the surge of emotion his memory of the scene had unleashed, Cormac climbed the stairs and looked at his clothes hung neatly in the wardrobe, his toothbrush and shaving things on the ledge above the sink in the adjacent bathroom. He sat at the edge of the armchair across from the bed, seized by a sudden gust of melancholy, similar to the feeling that had driven him from his own house to Nora’s flat almost precisely fourteen months ago. The prospect then had been a different sort of life from his ordinary, orderly existence, and the decision he’d made at that time had certainly lifted him to a new level. Had he reached a point where another decision was required, where what he and Nora had was no longer enough for him? He thought of her tears again and felt far away from her, closed off from all those interior passages in her soul that he had once imagined. What impulse was it that pressed for access there? And was he really willing to reciprocate? Was he prepared to make an offer—to lay himself bare, metaphorically speaking, and hand Nora a knife?
5
Death set all sorts of wheels in motion, especially when a body turned up where it ought not to have been. Within a few minutes, a quartet of brisk young Guards in two police cars had arrived on the scene and set to work. They herded everyone away from the cutting and marked out the crime scene—if crime scene it should turn out to be—with their familiar blue-and-white tape. The archaeology crew had been banished for the moment to their roadside hut, but on discovering that Nora was a physician, the policemen had asked her to stay behind, to certify for the record that the man in the cutting was in fact deceased, and did not require medical attention. It was a routine procedure, but seemed the ultimate redundancy in this case. The coroner’s crew had arrived a short while later; the uneven ground prevented them from erecting yet another tent over the cutting, but they did their best, rigging up some plastic sheeting to shield the body from prying eyes and cameras.
Nora was just about to inquire if they were finished with her when another vehicle stopped at the side of the road, and two people emerged. One was a tall man, well-dressed and serious—perhaps in his early fifties, she guessed, from the dark curly hair just going to salt-and-pepper gray. The dress shoes and immaculate raincoat looked
out of place on the bog, but it was clear from the junior Guards’ attitude that this man was in charge. The woman with him was evidently his partner. At the site, he nodded briefly to his fellow officers, then addressed Nora. “Dr. Gavin? Detective Liam Ward, and this is Detective Maureen Brennan. Are you connected with this excavation?”
“Not exactly. I’m actually here to help recover the bog body that was found the other day. I just arrived early.” Nora glimpsed a plaster peeping out over the top of Ward’s shirt collar, marked with a dark drop of blood.
“There’s a whole van-load of people on their way from the National Museum as well. They should be arriving shortly.”
“There’s no way we could contact them, request that they delay the trip?”
“We could ring them, but they’re nearly here, and I’m afraid it wouldn’t be prudent to delay. The body they’re coming to recover is in a very fragile state, and getting it to the lab as quickly as possible is critical.”
Ward turned to Brennan. “Looks as if we’ll need a few extra uniforms on crowd control.” He motioned for Nora to accompany him to the cutting. “Is there anything you can tell me? Who was it found this body?”
“One of the archaeologists working here at the site. They called her Rachel, but I’m sorry, I don’t know her surname. I only arrived a short while ago myself.”
Ward consulted a list he’d been handed by one of the uniformed officers. “Briscoe, it says here. Rachel Briscoe.”