Stone Heart

by Des Ekin

  They sat for a while, looking over the cluster of rooftops – black, terracotta, navy, flaxen with thatch. The houses, like many in the west of Ireland, were painted in colours that seemed to have been dreamed up by a confectioner on acid. Bright pink, pale blue, lavender, impossible shades of purple and orange. Anywhere else in the world it would have been brash and tasteless. But here, in the sea-bright Atlantic air, it created a Mardi Gras atmosphere of cheerful and almost childlike innocence.

  ‘Such a beautiful place,’ said Tara, as though seeing her home village for the first time. ‘The most peaceful place in the world in the summer. Yet in the winter you get gales that lash in from the ocean with enough fury to uproot concrete. Most people here would give you their last penny if you thought you needed it, but some of them would turn their own daughter out in the rain if she got pregnant out of wedlock. Two facets of one personality. It’s like this country as a whole, I suppose.’

  They sat for a while in silence.

  ‘I think you’re crazy to stick around,’ said Tara, ‘but you can rely on me. Whatever it means. Whatever it takes.’

  Fergal smiled and squeezed her hand. ‘I know that already, you half-wit. Thanks. Anyway, after what I went through on Sunday morning, everything else will seem…what?…petty. Not petty. Irrelevant.’

  Tara looked at him directly. ‘Would it help to talk about it? Or not?’

  He nodded emphatically. ‘It would help. It definitely would help. I’d love to talk about it. I’d love to shout about it and get it out of my system. But that’s the trouble, Tara. I can’t find any words to describe how…’ he struggled for an adjective and failed to get one… ‘how bad it was.’

  Tara smiled encouragement. ‘I know. There aren’t any in the dictionary. At times like this, they all seem inadequate.’ She was thinking of her own mother. She forced herself to stop, to concentrate on the needs of this man who had not only experienced that same grief, but also the unspeakable horror of finding his mother murdered.

  ‘After I left your house, I drove straight home,’ Fergal said woodenly, as though repeating a story he’d told a thousand times. ‘It was broad daylight. I was afraid of waking her, so I parked the ’vette out on the road and took a short walk up into the Burren, to clear my head and think things through. I climbed to the top of the hill just behind my house and just stood there for a while, looking out to sea. It was so calm at that hour of the morning, so…eternal. I thought about what we’d talked about, and about our future – my future, I mean, and yours, and how they might relate.’

  Tara stared at him. ‘Hang on a minute. You walked up into the Burren?’

  He seemed annoyed that she’d interrupted his soul-searching. ‘Yes, I just told you. I climbed the top of the hill behind my house. It only takes fifteen minutes if you’re in good shape. Then, after a while, I came back down and walked around the house to the back door. I had a key for the front door, but I knew I could just walk in through the kitchen door and make less noise. It’s always kept on the latch, you know, no matter how many times I warned her how dangerous it is.’

  Tara nodded. Her own father did exactly the same thing. Old country habits died hard, even though city-based gangs of violent criminals regularly blitzed remote rural areas in search of easy pickings.

  ‘I mean, I thought I’d got the point through to her when we had a break-in a week or so beforehand,’ he said. ‘Well, it wasn’t really a break-in. Whoever it was just walked in through the unlocked door. But it should have served as a warning to her. To both of us.’

  ‘A break-in?’ Tara sounded puzzled. ‘You never told me.’

  ‘Well, we weren’t sure. Nothing was taken. Not a single thing. The guy must have just wandered around, poked about a bit, and walked out again. We had banknotes and cheques stuffed in the teapot, and some jewellery in the drawer, but none of it was touched.’

  ‘So how did you know…?’

  ‘Some things were just shifted around a little. Mom thought I’d done it and I thought she’d done it. We didn’t even realise it had happened until a few days later.’

  ‘But Fergal.’ Tara gripped his arm. ‘This could be important. Have you told the police?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, but I could see they didn’t believe me. No evidence of any break-in. Same thing on Sunday, of course. That was the reason it hit me so hard.’ His eyes closed. He was back at the murder scene again. ‘I mean, if there had been a smashed window or a busted lock I might have been prepared, you know what I mean? Instead I just opened the door and found her lying there.’

  His hand, still on hers, tightened at the memory.

  ‘She lay twisted on the floor, her body covered with knife slashes, her arms cut where she tried to defend herself. Blood everywhere. Absolutely…everywhere.’

  He swallowed. ‘What amazed me was how calm I was. I knew there was no point summoning medical help – she was beyond that sort of aid. You know the calm part of us that takes over in a crisis? That’s what took control. I just stepped over her body and phoned the police. Then I phoned the priest. I was Mr Cool, Mr Capable. It was only afterwards, hours afterwards, that I cracked up.’

  Tara opened her window slightly. She could practically smell the odour of death. ‘I know exactly what you mean,’ she said. ‘The feelings kick in later. First gear, second gear, third gear, then into overdrive.’

  Fergal nodded silent agreement. Then he turned his head away and looked out of the passenger window for a while. When he turned back, she could see his eyes swollen with tears which he refused to release.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she whispered. ‘It’s all right. I understand.’

  But Tara could find no words to comfort him, any more than Fergal could find words to express his feelings. She silently held his hand for a few minutes. Then she started the car and drove back home, taking a back-route to avoid the centre of the village.

  Home for Tara was a nineteenth-century fisherman’s cottage that had been extended and modernised by its previous owners, a German couple who’d moved back to Berlin at the same time as she had returned to Claremoon. She’d been lucky to get it, because its unrivalled views of the harbour and the Burren hills had placed it in great demand.

  ‘I’ll make us some breakfast,’ she said practically, as she searched for her door-key.

  ‘Sounds good,’ he replied.

  But as soon as they were inside the house, they both knew that breakfast could wait. The door had hardly closed behind them when they were in each other’s arms, their lips locked together, oblivious to everything else.

  ‘Tara.’ His voice was husky, urgent. ‘I’ve missed you. God, how I’ve missed you.’

  ‘Yes.’ She felt her own body respond to his, an overwhelming ache of desire. ‘I’ve missed you, too.’

  Afterwards, they breakfasted in bed on buttered toast and chilled cranberry juice. He told her how beautiful she was, and how the past few days had made him realise how much she meant to him; she nuzzled his ears and neck and told him of her own feelings, of the hesitations and uncertainties that she was sure had now vanished for good.

  ‘You are such a wonderful lady,’ he said. ‘So goddam gorgeous. So goddam special.’

  She kissed him softly on the lips. ‘You know, you’re pretty special, yourself.’

  ‘Tara.’ Suddenly his voice sounded strained and awkward. ‘Something I wanted to talk to you about. It’s about that dream home of yours. You know, the old spa house…’

  Something made her lay her forefinger gently across his lips. ‘Not now, Fergal. Not now.’

  They made love a second time, slowly and lingeringly, savouring the sheer luxury of having stolen a couple of hours for themselves on a day when they would otherwise never be out of the public eye.

  ‘I suppose,’ he said unconvincingly as he sat on the edge of the bed, dressing himself, ‘I suppose today was not exactly the right time to do this.’

  He pointed to the rumpled bedclothes, as though she could have mis
sed his point.

  She knelt on the bed, put her arms around him, and kissed his neck. ‘When it comes to giving love,’ she said, ‘I don’t think there’s ever a wrong time.’

  The noise began slowly and softly, like a rumble of distant thunder. It gathered strength and confidence as it rolled and yawed through the crowd in an ocean-swell of sound.

  It had its own irregular rhythm, an unexpected rhythm, almost like a work by some obscure modern Russian composer.

  Yet it was a strangely primitive noise, carrying emotions that would have been familiar to the prehistoric folk who had built their own giant stone edifices of pagan worship on the hills overlooking the graveyard.

  It was the most basic noise that human beings could create – a mumble of voices, low and steady and constant, building a solid bulwark of resistance against the forces of chaos that appeared to fill the universe.

  ‘…lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil.’

  The prayer drew to a close and the cemetery fell silent again.

  Standing with her father among the scores of mourners, Tara watched as Fergal stood, head bowed, alongside the priest at the graveside. Beside him on one side were Ann’s only surviving relatives, an uncle from County Antrim and a cousin from Dublin. On the other side stood two tall, dour men who turned out to be Martin Kennedy’s brothers.

  The weather had been kind. A break in the rain left the churchyard suffused with clear, wet sunlight, the sort of shimmering, unnatural light you get only in the west of Ireland. It was like being on the inside of a child’s soap bubble.

  As the religious service ended, there was a stirring of bodies in the assembly as they prepared for an equally ancient ritual – the chats by the roadside, the exchange of platitudes, the few drinks, even the prospect of the sale of a car or a cow or the renting of a few acres of land.

  All crowds have a life of their own, and a wordless communication that travels through them like ripples in a pond. Those in the front rows paused first, and tensed; and within seconds the same tension spread back through the crowd, right to its outer fringe, and all without a single word having been spoken. The message was clear. Wait. Don’t leave yet. Something is happening.

  Heads craned. A small, elderly, monkish man emerged from somewhere in the crowd and whispered something to the priest. Fergal and the other relatives looked up in puzzlement – clearly, they had not expected this.

  The priest consulted with Fergal, who stared at the white-haired newcomer with astonishment and then nodded his head.

  ‘Brothers and sisters,’ the priest had called out, ‘we have a gentleman here, an old friend of our dear sister Ann, who would dearly love to say a few words in her memory. Silence, if you would.’

  And the obedient crowd fell silent, so silent that you could actually hear the faint voices of the men in fishing-boats far out in the bay. They waited in anticipation.

  It was a full half-minute before the monkish man opened his mouth to speak. He didn’t shout, but his clear voice effortlessly carried across the graveyard and beyond, into the trees and rocks that bordered it on two of its three sides.

  ‘Sweet love of youth, forgive if I forget thee,

  While the world’s tide is bearing me along;

  Other desires and other hopes beset me,

  Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong.

  ‘No later light has lightened up my heaven,

  No second morn has ever shone for me.

  All my life’s bliss from thy dear life was given,

  All my life’s bliss is in the grave with thee.’

  He bowed his head as the silence of expectation was replaced by the silence of bewildered anticlimax.

  He thanked them politely, then shook hands with the priest and – briefly, formally – with Fergal and the other relatives. Then the monkish man turned back into the crowd and was gone.

  On the other side of the cemetery, the local schoolmaster, Tommy Ardill, was heard to proclaim loudly that he recognised the poem as an obscure work by Emily Brontë, and that he considered it in damn poor taste to recite it in the circumstances.

  But that wasn’t what the villagers wanted to know.

  ‘Who in God’s name was that?’ The same question ebbed and flowed around the bemused crowd. And just as swiftly the answer came back. The same name was on everyone’s lips in broken synch, like a verbal Mexican wave.

  ‘Who?’ asked the man beside Tara when he heard the name.

  His neighbour yawned and loosened his tie. ‘Nobody,’ he said at last. ‘Just some artist fella she used to know.’

  Chapter Eight

  ‘WHERE DID he go?’ asked Tara.

  ‘De Blaca? I’ve no idea,’ said Fergal. ‘He just seemed to disappear. I turned around for just one second, and when I turned back again he’d gone.’

  Nobody, it turned out later, had seen Michael de Blaca leave Claremoon Harbour. Nobody saw him drive off, nobody saw him hire a taxi, nobody saw him queue for a bus. And he certainly didn’t hitchhike, as it was quite common for elderly people to do around these parts. He just seemed to vanish, not just from the graveyard but from the entire district.

  ‘I imagine he felt a bit embarrassed,’ suggested Tara. The artist’s eccentric behaviour at the funeral seemed to have thrown Fergal into an even more downcast mood, and it wasn’t helped by the gloomy emptiness of the function room where they sat, gamely trying to work their way through platefuls of ham sandwiches.

  As though reading her mind, a waiter moved forward with a giant teapot. ‘Would you like some tea, ma’am?’

  Tara nodded. The waiter dispensed three meagre tea-cups from a pot designed to cater for two dozen. He handed the cups to Fergal, Tara and Melanie and retreated in obvious embarrassment to his serving position behind a huge table laden with untouched plates of sandwiches and salads.

  ‘You might as well clear all this away,’ Fergal told him. ‘Looks like nobody else is going to turn up.’

  ‘If you’re sure, sir.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m sure. Tell Eamonn Breadon not to worry, I’ll pay for it all anyway. Just…just give the stuff to an orphanage, or something.’

  Tara took his hand, silently comforting him. What could she say to console someone who’d been cold-shouldered by an entire community? In keeping with tradition, Fergal had laid on refreshments for the dozens of mourners at his mother’s funeral. There had been no conspiracy, no concerted plan to boycott the function. It was just that every single person in Claremoon Harbour had decided to find something else to do.

  ‘Well,’ said Fergal, standing up suddenly. ‘I suppose there’s no point sticking around here, is there?’

  ‘Hang on a minute.’ Melanie frowned and raised her hand for silence. ‘What’s that noise?’

  The smooth hum grew steadily louder and then abruptly stopped. Peering through the stained-glass windows, they saw Andres Talimann dismount from a BMW R1100 motorbike and remove his helmet. His face seemed anxious and distraught as he hurried towards the function room.

  ‘Who the hell is that?’ demanded Fergal. ‘And why’s he coming here?’

  Before she had a chance to reply, the Estonian burst through the door. His troubled eyes scanned the room and lit up with relief when he spotted Tara.

  ‘Excuse me.’ Fergal stalked forward belligerently to meet him. ‘This is a private function.’

  ‘I know that, Mr Kennedy. I apologise for the intrusion. My name is Andres Talimann. I’m a journalist and…’

  ‘Well, if you’re a journalist, you can get the hell out of here. That’s what you can do.’

  Fergal stomped past him and threw open the door to assist his exit.

  Tara hurried forward. ‘It’s okay, Fergal. I know this man.’

  Slowly closing the door, Fergal retreated with bad grace to the table. He kept his eyes on Andres, watching him suspiciously.

  ‘What’s the matter, Andres?’ Tara could see that something was troubling him. ‘Is anything
wrong?’

  Andres removed his gloves, fished into his leather jacket and removed a folded copy of a newspaper.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Something is wrong. Something is very wrong indeed.’

  Tara stared at the opened newspaper. The message that confronted her was starkly simple – just three words combined with a colour photograph – but it was enough to make her stomach churn with nausea.

  ‘I wanted you to see it before anybody else does,’ said Andres. ‘This is the early edition. I collected it outside the print works in Dublin and drove up here as quickly as I could. The delivery van will not arrive for at least another hour. At least that will give you some time to prepare.’

  Tara didn’t even hear him. Her attention was focused on the front page of the Evening Report!, a London-based tabloid which had recently opened an office in Dublin and was pulling out all the stops in a desperate bid to win Irish readers. The byline on the article was that of Gerry Gellick.

  The entire page was dominated by a giant, grainy colour photograph of herself and Fergal outside the coffee shop where they’d met in Ennis early that morning. They were embracing. Tara was smiling. Fergal was grinning as though he’d just won the Lottery.

  In stark contradiction of the image, the headline in ninety-six point gothic type said: THE GRIEVING LOVERS.

  The words were obviously intended to be taken ironically. Behind the disingenuous surface message, the innuendo was clear: Fergal and Tara were celebrating Ann Kennedy’s death.

  Tight-lipped with silent fury, Tara read the text.

  Exclusive by Gerry Gellick:

  Lovers Fergal Kennedy and Tara Ross were united in grief this morning…only a few hours before the burial of Mr Kennedy’s mother, murder victim Ann Kennedy.

  The twosome kissed and canoodled unashamedly in the centre of Ennis, County Clare, shortly after Ms Ross had admitted to gardaí: ‘We slept together on the night of the killing.’