‘I can understand not letting people out – but why prevent them coming in?’
‘To cut down on the numbers who could be exposed to infection, is the thinking. And it would be harder to manage growing numbers of people being allowed in and then not allowed back out again.’
It was my understanding that quarantine measures had been largely abandoned by health experts as a means of controlling outbreaks of infectious disease. I would have to ask Groot.
‘Where were you off to, anyway?’ Doyle asked.
‘Out to my Aunt Betty’s near Galtrim.’
‘Well, look…’ He glanced up towards the squad car again. ‘We’ll say you got through before the curfew, eh?’ He winked. I smiled and nodded my gratitude, opened the door and got back in. Then a car coming from the Dublin direction caught us all in its headlights.
‘Feck it, anyway,’ said Doyle. ‘Hold on there.’
As I waited for the Gardaí to turn back the other vehicle before letting me through, I thought about what I was doing and decided against it. I had to stay in Castleboyne; otherwise I mightn’t get back in for days.
As the other car was reversing, I did a U-turn. I waited for a few moments to allow a puzzled Sergeant Doyle to come back and ask what I was up to. ‘I feel responsible for some of what’s happened,’ I said. ‘I’d better stick around and show the face.’
‘Fair enough, so. In the meantime…’ He slipped a small notebook from his shirt pocket, jotted down something, ripped out the page and handed it to me. ‘This is my mobile number – just in case.’
A hundred metres from the house I saw the high beams of a car playing onto the road from my driveway. I was slowing down to turn in when a dark-coloured saloon with side-skirts and alloy wheels shot out onto the road and screeched off towards the town. I drove in and parked on the cobblelock at the front of the house. Taking a flashlight with me, I got out and was momentarily startled by the front-door light coming on.
I took in the scene. The door was closed. A breath of wind came up from the river and brought a familiar smell to my attention. Then I noticed movement at one of the windows: a curtain lifting in the breeze. They had broken in, of course. And I hadn’t activated the alarm before leaving.
I approached the window. It was open, not smashed. Damn. Finding my sandals had distracted me.
The smell was much stronger now. It was the acrid, octane reek of petrol.
I moved away from the window to the hall door, which was my mother’s usual entrance, and let myself in. I went into the living room and turned on the lights. The petrol had been poured in through the open window and had spread out all over the shiny wooden floor.
Then a light outside caught my eye, beyond the patio at the back of the house. Something out there was on fire. Something hanging from a tree.
I felt weak as I drew aside the patio doors. Where was Boo? I grabbed a fork from a flowerbed and approached the apple tree, which had a ball of flames suspended from one of its branches.
I held the fork out in front of me. The breeze was fanning the flames and sending sparks up into the tree. The fiery object looked like a Halloween pumpkin sent from hell, its jaws agape and breathing orange flames.
I poked at it with the fork and it immediately crashed to the ground, tumbled forward a couple of times and would have made contact with my bare toes if I hadn’t held it at bay with the fork. I’m sure I whimpered as I stood there, keeping the smoking horror away from me, wanting to know what it was but not daring to inspect it. I looked up at the branch and saw a length of rope with a small tongue of flame still licking at it.
Then I knew. I started to laugh and cry at the same time. They had set fire to a gourd-shaped, woven nest-box. I had originally placed it near the trunk of the tree in the hope of attracting brooding wrens, but I’d had to move it further away from the secluded area around the trunk because of Boo’s acrobatic, if unsuccessful, attempts to catch the birds perching on it. I got no wrens, of course.
Where was the damn cat, anyway?
I went back in and phoned Sergeant Doyle. He said he’d have the fire service call to the house and would circulate a description of the car. ‘At least we know it can’t leave town,’ he said, intending to reassure me. It didn’t exactly set my mind at rest. ‘And as soon as I have an officer to spare, I’ll send one to take a look around the house.’
‘Should I stay up?’
‘The way things are looking, it’ll be later today,’ he replied. ‘If I were you I’d get some sleep.’
Standing at the patio doors, undecided whether to close them or leave them open to let the fumes out, I felt my bare calf being gently butted. Boo! His upright tail flicked against the back of my knee as he circled me, purring. ‘Where have you been?’ I asked, squatting down and stroking his grey head and the white ruff under his chin.
As usual, Boo took it for a rhetorical question and didn’t answer.
Chapter Twenty-One
‘Do you know what the disease is yet?’ asked the male presenter.
‘No. We haven’t yet been able to identify it, but we’re hoping to have that information sooner rather than later.’ Oliver Patton, representing the Health Service Executive, had just explained that, in view of the lessons learned from SARS and other epidemics in recent years, it was essential to act quickly and firmly when trying to contain an infectious disease.
‘Some reports claim that it’s traceable to the leakage of infected material from a coffin in a plague burial ground during an archaeological dig. Is that the case?’
‘We’re looking at that as a possible source, yes. But I can without hesitation assure the public that the disease is not bubonic plague.’
‘So the Black Death has not broken out in Castleboyne?’
‘No. And people should have no fear whatsoever of that being the case.’
I was in the office, listening to Morning Ireland on a small portable radio on my desk. The Fire Service – a gang of cheerful characters who threw a few bucketfuls of sawdust on the floor to absorb the petrol – had arrived about ten minutes after I’d spoken to Doyle. They advised me to leave the windows open, and I said I would, but for obvious reasons I was disinclined to do so. The result was the presence of petrol fumes in my nostrils throughout the night as I tossed and turned in an over-warm bed, even though I was naked under just a single sheet. At six-thirty I couldn’t take it any longer; I got up, opened every window and door in the place, took a shower, dressed and ate my breakfast out on the patio in the relative cool of the morning.
I had become aware, as I sat there, that the phone was faintly but insistently ringing in the office. I vaguely wondered if it was Finian – I’d turned off my mobile after ringing my mother to tell her that she would have to stay put at Betty’s for the time being. I thought it best to leave sorting out the misunderstanding with Finian until later in the day. A little more time would help to reduce the rawness of his feelings.
So who had been ringing all the time I was out there? Listening to Patton being interviewed, I reckoned it was probably a journalist from the same programme. I was grateful that on this occasion I was not the one in the hot seat. I was even getting more pleasure than usual from my second cup of tea, which I had taken into the office with me.
‘Well, that hasn’t prevented Ireland Today from going with the Black Death on its front page, Mr Patton. And in an inside piece, reporter Darren Byrne claims that a South African pathologist who has worked on Ebola cases in the past has carried out a post-mortem on the first victim of this mysterious disease. Is that so?’
‘This outbreak has nothing to do with Ebola.’
‘You haven’t answered my question, Mr Patton.’
‘The fact that the post-mortem on the first victim was carried out by Dr Groot had nothing to do with his experience with Ebola or any other haemorrhagic disease, which is what you seem to be suggesting.’
‘It’s what Ireland Today is claiming, Mr Patton. I was merely bringing you
r attention to what’s being said out there. Now, you’re preventing movement in and out of the town of Castleboyne until further notice, is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘But is quarantine not an outmoded idea in infectious-disease control?’
‘I don’t want to quibble over words, but “quarantine” implies a specified period of isolation linked to the known profile of a disease. In this case, we’ve set up a precautionary cordon around the town to prevent the disease from spreading while we try to establish what it is. You have to strike a balance between the potential danger to the wider community and people’s right to travel. And keeping the town in isolation for what will probably be only a few days seems a small price to pay.’
The presenter grunted. ‘Unless you’re living there, that is. And anyway, aren’t you closing the stable door after the horse has bolted? It’s been several days since the first case came to light. Indeed, many people may have decided to flee the town already.’
‘But by isolating the town now, we can more easily trace any contacts between infected individuals within the town itself and, if necessary, track down anyone who may have been exposed and who has left the zone since. The measures we’re taking are in keeping with international guidelines on dealing with infectious-disease outbreaks – early detection of the outbreak, isolation of those infected and contact-tracing.’
‘Besides sealing off the town, what other restrictions are you imposing on the citizens of Castleboyne?’
‘I’m glad you asked me that. Apart from the movement of people in and out, we’re not imposing anything. What we’re asking for is voluntary adherence by the townspeople to a set of guidelines we’re issuing. We’re asking them to close schools and crèches, cancel functions where large groups of people might be gathering – such as concerts or markets – and go to work only if they’re working in essential services. In other words, the less people mingle, the less risk of spreading the infection. We’ve had restrictions here in the past with foot-and-mouth disease, so people understand that their liberty may be curtailed.’
‘And how long is this expected to last? For how long will Castleboyne be cut off?’
‘That will depend on when we identify the pathogen and learn how it’s transmitted.’
‘I see. Oliver Patton, thank you.’
I clicked off the radio. Then two things happened at once. The phone started ringing again, and Peggy arrived.
If I was a bit of a chameleon in my dress sense, then Peggy was like one of those mammals that changes the colour of its fur on a seasonal basis, or a bird that displays different markings at mating time. On more than one occasion I had arrived in the office to find a total stranger occupying Peggy’s desk, only to realise it was one of her transformations: new hairstyle and hair colour, plus an entire wardrobe makeover – usually a retro look she had decided on for reasons never stated. The only constant was her voluptuous – some might say ample – figure. No exhortation from beauty ‘experts’, no celebrity-endorsed diet fad, was ever allowed to make any dent in her body shape.
She had been kohled and flapperish until a couple of weeks ago, and I still hadn’t become accustomed to her new, fresh-faced 1950s look, which included dyed-blond hair set in soft waves with a pair of cute kiss-curls framing her forehead. This morning, she was wearing an apple-green satin blouse with a large soft collar and three-quarter-length cuffed sleeves. It tapered into a black, figure-hugging pencil skirt, the two garments cinched together around her surprisingly narrow waist by a wide red plastic belt with an oversized round buckle. A pair of high-heeled, peep-toe red sandals completed the look.
It made me feel utterly underdressed. Anticipating another scorcher, I’d decided that shorts, a T-shirt and flip-flops were the order of the day.
Peggy’s frantic waving drew my eyes away from her fascinating ensemble. She pointed to the handset, then made a face and put her hand over the mouthpiece.
‘Morning Ireland?’ she whispered, already shaking her head in anticipation of my answer.
I shook my head even more vigorously.
‘No, she’s not here,’ said Peggy.
I made a vertical line and and a circle in the air.
Peggy understood. ‘She’ll be here at ten. Can I say who called? … Uh-huh… And you’ve left several messages. Really? On her mobile, too… I see. Well, do call later. I’m sure she’ll be delighted to talk to you.’
Peggy put down the phone. ‘“The programme ends at nine,”’ she said, quoting the caller.
‘I know that. I’m just not up to being interviewed. And I have a feeling that phone is going to be ringing all morning. My mobile, too.’
‘Does it have to do with the outbreak?’
‘Unfortunately, yes. And, by the way, thanks for holding the fort yesterday.’
‘That’s my job. But I would like to know – are we responsible? For this disease, I mean?’
I shook my head. ‘In all conscience, I don’t think so. But I do think it’s important to co-operate with the officials investigating the outbreak. And I’m in close contact with the medical people at St Loman’s.’
‘Is it going to spread? I mean, are we all in danger of getting it?’
‘Honest answer? I don’t know, but I doubt it. I think the Health Service reaction is a bit over the top, but I suppose no government in the world wants to look like it’s doing nothing when there’s a potentially lethal epidemic under its nose.’
‘People are standing out on the streets talking about it, did you know that? Some shops aren’t even opening. And there’s a special Mass at five this evening for deliverance.’
‘Deliverance?’
‘From the plague-edemic,’ Peggy said, inadvertently coining an interesting term. She sniffed the air. ‘There’s a very strong smell of petrol, have you noticed?’
‘Yes. I spilled some in the house by accident.’ There was no point in worrying her. ‘How did you find out about the Mass?’
‘Father Burke was on the local radio station. He mentioned your statue, too.’
‘Oh? What did he—’
The phone rang again. Peggy answered it, then put her hand over the mouthpiece once more. ‘It’s a newspaper this time.’
I stood up from the desk. ‘I’m out of here,’ I said. ‘There’s something I’d like you to do while I’m out – would you try and get a number for Gayle in Tenerife and call her? Tell her I’d like to talk to her at’ – I looked at my watch – ‘one o’clock our time. It’s important.’
I grabbed my briefcase, phone and car keys and walked out into another glorious summer morning.
I leaned on the rails and took in one of my favourite views: a great expanse of meadow undulating gently down to the Boyne from the front of an eighteenth-century mansion called Longwood House. It was an entire swathe of countryside painted in broad strokes of field and hedgerow, copse and river, lake and woodland, with here and there a pergola or stone folly peeking out. The sun was pouring down light like warm honey. The birds had fallen silent in the trees. The only sound was of the occasional bee droning past.
Across from me, a trio of oaks grew so close together that they had abandoned their individual symmetry and become a massive humpbacked island rising up from a sea of grass. Beyond them were individual trees planted at random across the field. Only a week earlier, the horse chestnut had been bedecked with thousands of golden, red-flecked ‘candles’ that on that windy day had created the illusion of a patterned dress swirling and billowing around an eighteenth-century lady as she danced across the ballroom; but there was no breeze now to stir the drapery, nothing to relieve the plain material of her dress, only a haze of pollen that blurred the three-dimensionality of all the trees surrounding the meadow.
Lady Jane Tyrrell was the Anglo-Irish aristocrat credited with the planning and planting of this parkland, now owned by the State and open to the public. Had it ever crossed her mind that her family, not to mention her class, would eventually have to
relinquish their claim to this property? Probably not. But that hardly mattered now. I wondered what the people of Castleboyne two hundred years hence would be thanking us for.
That brought my father to mind. He often said that the mid-twentieth century’s medical successes against infectious diseases were the greatest legacy ever bestowed by any generation to humankind. Because of TB, he had grown up fatherless; he had seen one sister lamed for life by polio, another white-haired at the age of sixteen from typhoid fever. All of that was changed by medical science, and yet by the end of the century other malignant illnesses had emerged and some of the old ones, like TB, had come back reinvigorated. It seemed that as much as things changed, they remained the same. Alongside computers, the internet and the global economy, famine, plague and religious hatred stalked the third millennium just as they had the Middle Ages.
It was my father’s lot, having survived a perilous childhood, to be downed by an incurable disease associated with ageing. I hadn’t seen him now for a few weeks. I blamed it on the excavation – no time – but a part of me knew it was because I hated watching him getting worse when he had already suffered enough. I knew now what people meant when they said it was all right to pray for a happy release.
Prayer… To me, it meant a brief moment when I squeezed up all my anxieties into a bundle and mentally said something like, If you’re there, God, please sort this out for me and I promise the next time we communicate, it won’t be in the form of another begging letter. But then I’d forget.
I realised I needed a lot sorted out just then. For a start, I sensed an imminent shift in my relationship with Finian. It was as if a fault line had developed, along which stresses were starting to build up. But I wasn’t sure where that line lay or the extent of the forces pressing upon it.
Then there was the attempt to intimidate me the previous night. I went through the sequence of events: the phone threat, my flight from the house, the roadblock, returning home and almost coming upon the would-be arsonists in the act. Of course, they (or was it he, or even she?) had set fire to the nest-box to make their point.
The Lazarus Bell, an Irish Murder Mystery Page 16