Keeper's Reach

by Carla Neggers

  He went through another gate and found himself face-to-face with a gray-haired man in a worn jacket unzipped over a wool sweater. “You must be Father Bracken,” the man said. “Martin Hambly. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to greet you last night.”

  He didn’t look as if he were in any condition to greet a guest now. His quiet formality stood in stark contrast to his ashen, ragged look. Being up and about was clearly costing him, but Finian greeted him with a smile. “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hambly. I was sorry to hear about your fall. How are you feeling this morning?”

  “Dodgy but better than at this time yesterday. Ruthie is seeing to you? If there’s anything I can do...” His voice trailed off, and he looked as if only pride were keeping him from grabbing hold of the fence to steady himself. He smiled feebly. “Apologies.”

  “Is there a doctor I can take you to in the village?” Finian asked with concern.

  “I’ll rally. A passing moment. I decided fresh air would be therapeutic.”

  “The sun is irresistible.”

  Martin’s hands were trembling visibly, and he licked his lips, as if to keep himself from groaning aloud. Swelling and bruising on his neck disappeared under a bandage and his jacket collar. “I thought I might walk down to the dovecote where I fell, but that’s a bit optimistic, I’m afraid,” he said. “I can get back to my cottage without collapsing.” He gave a look of pure distaste. “I hate to be a bother.”

  “I can walk with you—”

  “No, no. Thank you, Father. I’ll manage on my own. It’s good for me. It was a rough night, but I’d have died in my chair if there were anything seriously wrong with me. I’m much improved this morning. Good to be back on my feet.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “I would like to thank the woman who helped me. She might have stayed at the pub last night. I remember little of my fall and its aftermath, but I remember her. If you happen to see her, would you give her my regards? She’s American—young, with dark, curly hair and more energy than I could drum up when I was eighteen never mind sixty-two and bloodied. She handled herself well in an unexpected situation.”

  Finian would say it had been an emergency, not merely an “unexpected situation,” but he was struck by the similarity of the description of Martin’s rescuer with the woman asking about Aoife in the London gallery on Wednesday.

  “This woman urged me to get medical attention, too,” Hambly added, matter-of-fact. He touched a hand to his neck, his eyes half-closed. He shivered, almost like an involuntary shudder. He made an attempt at a smile. “Every minute is better, I assure you. A walk and sunshine do help.”

  Not enough, Finian thought. “You look as if you could drop here on the ground. Can I help you get back to your cottage?”

  “I’ll manage, thank you. Again, my apologies.”

  He staggered down a gentle hill toward a stone wall. Finian noticed a honey-stone cottage through a gap in the stone wall, tucked amid bare-limbed trees and shrubs. He waited, watching the Englishman until he reached the cottage and disappeared inside.

  Oliver York grunted, approaching Finian from the main house. “Hambly is bloody stubborn, but I don’t have to tell you. You’ve seen for yourself.”

  “Stubbornness can be a positive trait.”

  “Not when a head injury is involved.”

  Oliver was dressed in a heavy wool sweater, faded corduroy trousers and muddy wellies. He put his hand on a waist-high stone sculpture of Celtic knots and spirals. “I should pound this thing into dust. It’s an early work. Total mess.”

  “I rather like it,” Finian said.

  “You would with all the Celtic symbols. I was going to do a cross, but I decided it would look too much like a tombstone marking the spot where we buried the dog.” He nodded toward the cottage. “Martin’s avoiding me. Did you notice how he got wobbly once he spotted me?”

  Finian smiled. “He was wobbly before he saw you.”

  “He’s frustrated that he can’t remember the details of his fall, but it doesn’t occur to him that’s a good reason to see a doctor—not to mention the gash on his neck and a night in the elements. Lucky he didn’t die of exposure. Imagine explaining that to the local police. Worse yet, to our FBI friends.” Oliver drew his hand from the sculpture. “I have a stonework studio in the dovecote where Martin fell. I’ve hardly stepped foot in it this winter. I plan to shut it down. Martin can turn the entire dovecote into a potting shed. A puttering shed, my grandfather used to call it. My grandmother loved it there.”

  “Did you show your studio to Wendell Sharpe when he visited?”

  “Now, why would I do that?”

  So innocent, Finian thought. He knew, however, that Oliver had taunted Wendell Sharpe by sending him a small stone cross after each art theft, claiming the theft as his work. The stones were inscribed with a Celtic cross depicting a traditional, rudimentary image of Saint Declan, one of Ireland’s patron saints, and his bell, which legend said had led him to the south Irish coast, where he had established a monastery and performed miracles.

  Few people knew about the crosses. The Sharpes, of course, and the FBI, if only because Emma was both a Sharpe and an agent. And Aoife O’Byrne, because she had received one herself. It had ended up in the hand of a dead woman in Boston last fall. Finian hadn’t seen Aoife since then. From his momentary encounter with her in London, he would guess she had recovered from her ordeal in Boston.

  “Do you believe Martin’s fall was an accident, Oliver?”

  He narrowed his gaze, as if the sun were in his eyes, studying his guest, debating his answer. “No,” he said at last.

  “Perhaps the police should have a look at his injury.”

  “But I could be wrong,” Oliver said, as if Finian hadn’t spoken. “We have a ram who likes to escape.”

  “As rams are wont to do,” Finian said.

  “You and your brother grew up on a farm. Do you ever wish you’d stayed on the farm, Finian?”

  “There are days.”

  “It seems like a simpler life, but it isn’t. This farm covers its costs but I doubt it will ever turn a profit. Fortunately I don’t need it to. I can’t imagine if I did since I have no head for farming. I’m happy we can employ people who love it.” He stood back from the statue and looked out at the rolling fields. “I like the views here. They comfort the soul.”

  “This was your grandparents’ home,” Finian said.

  “Yes.” Oliver squinted into the sun. “They took me in. They did the best they could with me after my parents were killed.” He spoke quietly, keeping his gaze on the gentle hills. “I followed Martin everywhere in the months after their murder. He never once told me to buzz off. He was steady and uncompromising. He taught me to get on with it. Do the work, live my life. He refused to let me give in to self-pity. The British stiff upper lip and all that, I suppose.”

  “He seems like a good man.”

  “We never spoke of the investigation. My grandparents left it to the police and saw no benefit to supplementing their efforts. Interference, they called it. Discovering the perpetrators of my parents’ murder and my torment wasn’t their job. For them, there was no such thing as closure. There was only carrying on. It was a matter of will, and perhaps of faith, too.”

  Finian touched raindrops glistening on a Celtic knot on the sculpture. “They sound like good people,” he said.

  “The best. After they were gone, I had the means to hire private investigators, and I did. Martin didn’t dissuade me. He simply asked me what I expected to accomplish. It was a sincere question, and he was deliberate about saying ‘expected’ rather than ‘hoped.’ I had no answer.”

  “Have you ever taken time to mourn your parents’ death?”

  Oliver shifted his gaze to Finian. “I mourned my parents in the ruins of the Scottish church where their killers left me.” A coldness had come into his voice—an emotional distance that, Finian suspected, kept the small, terrified, traumatized boy inside hi
m at bay. “I knew they were dead. I knew what had happened to them. Even at eight, I had no doubt, no illusions. I was never in denial.”

  “Then you cried for them,” Finian said.

  “Ha. Tears. As if they equal mourning. Have a good sob and all will be well.”

  “Does that mean you didn’t cry?”

  Oliver smirked. “So asks a priest, a man who himself has suffered terrible loss. You don’t fool me, Father Bracken. You know there is no cure for my grief, by willpower, faith or the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators. My grief is with me every moment of every day, no matter that I do get on with my life.”

  “It’s a part of you.”

  “It’s a permanent injury to my soul. I live with it as I would an amputated limb.”

  Finian nodded and stepped back from the sculpture. “Yes. I see that you do.”

  Oliver pointed at him, then laughed, an unexpected, cheeky laugh that lit up his eyes. “Touché, my friend.” He made a face. “Can you wear that priest getup for a walk into the village, or do you have sweats and tennis shoes tucked in your bag? I thought we could wander to the pub and see if anyone there knows anything about this woman who rescued Martin yesterday.”

  “I have good walking shoes. I can leave whenever you’re ready.”

  “Excellent. I’d like to find this woman and thank her myself.” Oliver scooped up a small clump of sodden plant debris and tossed it into the garden. “I’ll meet you at the side door in fifteen minutes.”

  He eased off back toward the house.

  Finian lingered by the Celtic sculpture. He admired traditional Celtic symbols more than he understood them. He felt at home and himself when he saw them on a cross, a work of art, a bit of jewelry. He had visited Trinity College in Dublin to see the Book of Kells, a priceless medieval illuminated manuscript that was arguably the greatest example of early Celtic Christian art in existence. The sculpture didn’t compare, but it wasn’t supposed to.

  He reminded himself that he and Oliver York weren’t friends. Oliver had few, if any, real friends, apart from Martin Hambly and the rest of his staff.

  Was Oliver in love with Aoife O’Byrne? Did he want to find out if Finian harbored any romantic feelings for her that could ultimately lead him out of the priesthood?

  Was she the reason Oliver had extended the invitation to his Cotswolds farm?

  Or was the man only looking to connect with people, however awkwardly?

  He had peacemaking to do—with himself, with others, perhaps with God—and maybe he thought inviting an Irish priest here to his farm could help.

  Finian touched the cold stone, the last of the raindrops drying in the sun. He traced the edge of a Celtic knot. It was as if Oliver had channeled the eight-year-old boy in the Scottish ruins when he had carved the symbols into the gray stone. It was that horrific experience, no doubt, that had propelled him into his solitary study of mythology, and into adopting a different identity.

  Oliver Fairbairn. Oliver “fair child.”

  Finian turned back through the dormant garden.

  He wished he could help Oliver. Right now, the best thing he could do was to walk to the village pub and see about the American woman.

  * * *

  The pub was a cluster of small buildings and a walled courtyard set off the village green, complete with ducks, bantams, a playground and a shallow brook with its own little footbridge. The sun was fighting gray clouds when Finian and Oliver entered the pub, cozy with low, beamed ceilings, a wood-topped bar and an open stone fireplace, lit against the February chill. Breakfast had finished being served in a separate room.

  Oliver sat on a wood stool at the bar. This was his show. Finian sat next to him and kept quiet as Oliver chatted with the waitstaff and, then, the proprietors, a cheerful young English couple. Oliver was comfortable, good-humored and friendly, but, at the same time, reserved if not distant. His relationships, Finian realized, bounced on the surface, never went deep.

  But he got what he wanted.

  The American woman had stayed there one night. She’d had breakfast yesterday morning—prior to discovering Martin—with another guest, a man, also American.

  Separate rooms.

  Oliver had more difficulty prying their names from his friends, but he finally did, at least from the husband. The wife wouldn’t budge.

  Naomi MacBride and Ted Kavanagh.

  Finian didn’t recognize the names but he stuck on the descriptions of the pair. “Oliver, I saw them in London.”

  “Where in London?”

  “They were at the gallery. Aoife’s show. They didn’t speak with each other.” Finian spoke in a low voice. The waitstaff and the couple had returned to work in another room, and he and Oliver had the bar to themselves. “They fit the description of the pair who were here.”

  “FBI agents,” Oliver said, with certainty.

  “You saw them, too?”

  “Mmm. I told Emma. She scoffed.”

  Oliver ordered two coffees and moved to a rough-wood table by the fire, motioning for Finian to join him. Reluctantly, Finian eased onto a cushioned bench opposite his British host.

  “Did you speak with them?” Oliver asked.

  “No, I didn’t, I’m afraid.”

  “FBI agents,” Oliver said again, as if that explained everything.

  Finian frowned. “Where did you see them?”

  “They were in the park near my apartment.”

  “Wouldn’t Emma know if two FBI agents were...” Finian faltered, searching for the appropriate words. “Wouldn’t she know if two agents were interested in speaking with you?”

  Oliver grunted. “There’s no indication they wanted to speak with me, is there?” He glanced at the fire, eyes narrowed, his keen intelligence in evidence. “They must have known I was still in London when they came here.” He didn’t look at Finian. “What does that tell you?”

  “They wanted to see your farm? Speak with Martin without you?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Finian reminded himself that the Englishman possessed a calculating mind that had helped him avoid arrest for a decade. No doubt he was alert to dangers, tricks and pursuit.

  Their coffee arrived, delivered by the husband of the proprietor couple. Oliver thanked him and asked about business—the pub was bustling, the inn naturally quiet this time of year. They chatted about a quarrel over upcoming road improvements in the village. In other words, Finian thought, Oliver was communicating that he wasn’t pursuing more information about the two Americans but also that he wasn’t further explaining his interest in them.

  The proprietor withdrew, and Oliver poured coffee for himself then Finian. “I once dressed up as a priest. I missed my wellies, and the collar drove me mad.”

  “Dare I ask why you dressed as a priest?”

  He poured cream into his coffee. “For my mythology studies.”

  Finian doubted it. More likely for one of his heists.

  Oliver drank some of his coffee, looking at ease, perhaps a touch excited by having the names of the pair arguably following him. “You should consider leaving the priesthood, Finian. You’re going to get into trouble with your superiors. Mark my words. What will they do? Exile you? Or are you already in exile in Maine?”

  “I follow my calling.”

  “Mmm. What if you discover that Aoife O’Byrne is your calling?”

  The fire crackled behind him, as if it were a warning. Finian drank some of his own coffee. It was strong, hot, very good. If only he could relax and enjoy himself, but he didn’t thrive on danger and adventure quite the way Oliver York obviously did.

  “What about you and Aoife, Oliver?” Finian asked.

  The question didn’t seem to surprise him. “Am I in love with her, do you mean? Well, who wouldn’t be? She’s beautiful, talented and temperamental, and she doesn’t need love.”

  “We all need to love and be loved,” Finian said simply.

  “Isn’t that why we have God?” Oliver held u
p a hand. “Sorry. No theological discussions. I’m on the trail of FBI agents. What if one or both pushed Hambly down that hillside? What if one did without the knowledge of the other? What does that say?” He paused, tapping the table with one finger as he considered. “What if they didn’t do it but they know who did?” He took a breath. “I suppose neither could be responsible and they’re on the trail of who is—someone who is responsible for other misdeeds.”

  “This is England. The FBI has no jurisdiction here.”

  He laughed, incredulous. “Oh, yes, and that will stop them.”

  “You’re cynical,” Finian said mildly.

  “They could be after an American. I’ll allow that. I wonder where they are now.” He was silent a moment, then sat up straight. “Back to this notion of love. Honestly, I don’t know if I would recognize love. Feeling it, giving it. I’ve been turned inward. I can’t explain.”

  “Your parents and grandparents loved you, didn’t they?”

  “With all their hearts. I never doubted it, but that doesn’t mean I took it in.”

  “Studying mythology must help you understand human nature.”

  “Keeps me busy, anyway.” Oliver held his cup to his lips but didn’t drink. “I know you’re aware that I have...a past.”

  “Yes.”

  “Emma and Colin almost had me in Boston in the fall. Oliver Fairbairn nearly undid me. He can be a dolt.” He drank some of his coffee and smiled. “Tweedy types often can be dolts, don’t you think, Father Fin?”

  “You realize I don’t care for ‘Father Fin,’ don’t you?”

  The Englishman’s green eyes sparked. “I expected as much.”

  But his mood darkened almost instantly, visibly as his shoulders slumped and he seemed transfixed by the flames. Finian found Oliver’s vaults from cheekiness and soul-baring impossible to predict and suspected his English friend did, too. For a man so accustomed to being solitary and self-contained, soul-baring—openness, honesty—was a new experience, a foreign concept. Even without two Americans following him, such a change would be bound to make him volatile, uncertain, awkward.

  “Aoife doesn’t say she knows about my dual life but it’s obvious she does.”