Scandal in Skibbereen (10 page)

Althea took a moment to gather her thoughts. “The woman who had the little painting when she died—she came from Cork, although the records I found didn’t say where. I knew that Van Dyck had worked in Cork, or at least he had Cork connections. There’s a nice portrait by Van Dyck of Richard Boyle, the first earl of Burlington and the second earl of Cork, in the National Gallery in London. Boyle was born in Youghal, and that painting dates to around 1640. There aren’t a lot of surviving manors, or at least old families, in Cork from that period, and Mycroft House is the last one that I haven’t seen. The timing and the connections fit, don’t you think?”

“You may well be right,” Gillian said. “Have you a picture of it?”

“Of course.” Althea reached into her large handbag and pulled out an envelope, from which she extricated a glossy photograph. “This is Dorothy’s painting.” She passed it over to Gillian.

Gillian studied it. “Nice. I can see why you’re excited. But I haven’t seen a larger painting with that likeness in my visits to Mycroft House, though there are plenty of rooms, even on the ground floor, that I haven’t visited. Do you think it resembles Harry?” She handed the picture to Maura, who looked at it briefly—to her it just looked like a kind of dull painting of a guy with long hair—then returned it to Althea.

Althea looked at it again. “You know, that never occurred to me. But I think you’re right.”

Gillian went on, “So, where do things stand with you and the gardaí? What did they ask you?”

While Althea reviewed the events of the past day for Gillian, Maura went back to working, going around the room, greeting people who had come in recently, and collecting glasses. Somehow Billy had slipped in while she wasn’t watching and was settled in his chair by the fire, a pint glass on the table next to him. Rose must have taken care of him.

Maura perched on the arm of his chair. “Hello, Billy. How are you on this fine day?”

“Happy to be here. I see that our artist has come home for the summer.”

“That makes her sound like a bird. I should have figured you know her.”

“Only since she was as high as my knee. Knew her father before her, and her grandparents as well, may they rest in peace.”

“She a relative of yours?” Maura asked, only half joking.

“Well, her mother’s sister married a nephew of mine . . .”

“She asked if she could put up some of her paintings here, maybe sell a few. Will anybody object?”

“Nah, she does good work. I don’t think Old Mick would mind.”

“You think he’s keeping an eye on things from up above?”

“I’m sure of it.” Billy took a swallow of his stout. “Those two look thick as thieves.” He tilted his head toward Althea and Gillian, who seemed to be getting along well.

“All things considered. If you haven’t heard already, Althea has also now managed to tick off not only Mrs. O’Brien but even Eveline Townsend herself, so I don’t think she has a chance of getting into Mycroft House again. But Gillian can.”

“Gillian is a generous woman indeed.”

“Have you had any other ideas about Seamus Daly’s death?”

Billy sighed. “Nothing’s come to me. He wasn’t the full shilling, but he was a harmless lad. Most likely he startled someone in the act . . . but the act of what, I can’t say.”

If this was one of those boring English novels Maura had been forced to read in high school, Seamus the gardener would have come upon a poacher with a couple of rabbits, and the poacher had dealt him a fatal blow. Of course in this case, the stakes might be a lot bigger than rabbits. Maura wondered how the Irish police handled forensics. If this was
CSI
, somebody would announce that Seamus had been hit with an antique shovel used for digging turf, bearing traces of rust and a waterweed that could only be found along twenty-two feet of harborfront. And the person wielding the shovel was five foot ten, left-handed, and had grown up in Albania. If there still was an Albania. Maura’s sense of geography was a little fuzzy.

“You’ve customers waiting, Maura,” Billy reminded her gently. “I’ll be here for the afternoon, and I’ll see what people have to say.”

“Thanks, Billy. I hope it helps.”

She went back behind the bar to help Rose fill orders. Business was picking up again, and it looked to be a busy afternoon.

When she came around the bar, Rose nudged her. “There’s a fella over there—no, don’t look—who’s been keeping an eye on the three of you women.”

“Why shouldn’t he?” Maura asked. “From what I’ve seen, Gillian attracts a lot of attention.” And Althea in her New York clothes and shoes simply looked out of place in a shabby pub.

“Dunno,” Rose replied. “Oh, here he comes now.”

Maura checked him out. He had close-cropped hair and a cheap leather jacket, and he didn’t quite look like a typical sightseer. Whether or not he noticed Maura’s examination, the man came up and leaned against the bar. “Can I get another?”
American,
Maura noted, as he pushed his empty glass toward her.

“Sure. You’re American?” Maura asked conversationally.
This couldn’t be Nate, could it?
she wondered, then immediately stopped herself.
Good grief, Maura, you’re running a pub! See a stranger, assume he might be a murderer? You can’t be suspicious of every unfamiliar face that walks in!

He gave her a perfunctory smile. “Yeah. First trip to Ireland. You’re American too, aren’t you? What’re you doing here?”

Maura watched the pint she was filling. “Actually, it’s my first trip too.” She grinned. “Came over and never left. I’m behind the bar because I own the place now. Are you enjoying your visit?”

“Kinda quiet. I’ve only been here a day or two.”

“I’m Maura,” Maura offered. “And you?” His eyes kept drifting toward Althea and Gillian. Of course, Gillian was a striking woman by any standard, and Althea was dressed to attract attention.

He turned back to Maura. “Oh, uh, Ray. You sound like you’re from Boston.”

“Southie, born and raised.”

“Ah,” Ray said. “So, what should I see?”

Maura topped off his pint and pushed it back toward him. “On the house, for a fellow American. Have you thought about visiting the Blarney Stone?” Their talk shifted to touristy things, and the man proved to be clueless about what to see, leaving Maura wondering why he had chosen this end of the country for his first visit, rather than someplace like Dublin. Maura made some suggestions, based on her own scant three months’ worth of knowledge, and he seemed interested—but his gaze kept returning to the corner table where Gillian and Althea sat with their heads together. Well, if he wanted female company, Maura wasn’t about to set him up. If he was lonely, he could go over and introduce himself. Maura was pretty sure that both Gillian and Althea could brush him off if they wanted.

As the afternoon wore on and local people drifted in, talking about the death of Seamus Daly, Maura didn’t see the American leave.

G
illian and Althea went off to strategize their approach to Harry and Mycroft House. There was finally a lull in midafternoon, and Maura realized she hadn’t ever eaten lunch. “Did you eat, Rose?”

“I brought a bit from home. There’s some left, if you like.”

“If you’re sure you don’t want it.”

“Most recipe books have recipes for at least four people, and there’s only the two of us at home, when we’re at home at all. Please, help yourself.”

“Thanks.” Maura rummaged in the small refrigerator and came up with a half-full container of something that smelled wonderful when she opened it.

“It’s better hot, but it’s fine cold.”

“As long as I didn’t have to make it, I’m happy,” Maura said.

“You don’t like to cook?” Rose seemed to find that idea surprising.

“Let me put it this way. I
can
cook, well enough to keep myself going, but I don’t
enjoy
cooking. You do?”

Rose beamed. “I do. When . . . me ma was sick, a few years ago, I kind of took it over. She’d tell me what to do, and after a while I started trying things out. You know me da expects his supper, though I never know when.”

Maura sat down at the end of the bar with the container and a spoon and tasted it. It seemed to be a cross between a soup and a stew, but whatever it was, it tasted really good. She looked closely at it: there wasn’t anything she couldn’t identify, but she’d never managed to put those ingredients together in a way that tasted like this. “Rose, you can cook!” she said. “This is great.”

“Ah, it’s nothin’ special.” Rose blushed and concentrated on polishing the already shining top of the bar.

Maura wondered again if there was some way to fit a kitchen, even a tiny one, in the back of the building. It was clear that Rose had a knack for cooking, and it would be a shame to waste it, but she had a feeling that even trying to add a new electric outlet in the old building could be a nightmare. Still, she’d keep the idea in the back of her mind.

Mick unexpectedly appeared from the back. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “You aren’t on the schedule until five.”

“Just checking supplies. You’ve been busy?”

“We have. It’s an awful thing to say, but death is good for business.”

“Too bad about Seamus. He never did anyone harm, and to go like that . . . it’s not right.”

“No, it isn’t.” They both paused respectfully for a moment. Then Maura asked, “You have a minute?”

“You need something?”

“I have some more stupid questions, and I’d rather ask you than a stranger.”

“There’s nowhere I need to be, if you don’t mind a minute while I make meself a cup of tea,” he said. “Want one?” Maura declined, and he went around behind the bar and fixed himself a mug, then came back and sat down. “What did you want to know?”

“I guess I’m kind of confused by this whole class thing—you know, the big manor house, and who gets to go in the front door and who has to go around back. We don’t exactly have that in the States. I know that here it’s kind of a holdover from another time”—as was a lot that she had seen in Ireland, Maura added to herself—“but it seems kind of relevant right now, doesn’t it?”

“You mean Mycroft House and the Townsends?”

“Yes. I mean, they still have servants, right? Wasn’t that what Seamus was?”

“More or less.” Mick stopped to think for a moment. “I’ll give you the short course on Irish cultural history, shall I? Starting with Harry Townsend.”

“You don’t much like him, do you? You were kind of, I don’t know, stiff with him, when he was in here.”

Mick answered carefully. “I don’t know him well. I don’t like his type. Do you want the history or not?”

“Sorry. Go ahead.”

Mick sipped his tea. “Harry’s the bitter end of an old Anglo-Irish family that’s been settled here since the late seventeenth century, although most of the house is a bit newer than that. The Anglo-Irish used to be the important people—socially, politically, legally—and they owned much of the land in Ireland. They were Irish but they weren’t, you know what I mean? Most of them were English, if you went back far enough, or even Norman, and most were Protestant. They didn’t have much to do with our kind, except to hire us to work on their estates.”

Maura was surprised at the faint bitterness in Mick’s tone. The Irish held on to their grudges for a long time, it seemed—centuries, even.

Mick went on, “Like most wealthy people, they built a lot of grand houses—a lot of the city of Dublin too. They did do some good—the Anglo-Irish were very involved with Trinity College there, and they produced plenty of writers. Jonathan Swift, for instance—surely you’ve heard of him?”

Maura replied, tartly, “I’m not a total idiot, you know. We had to read
Gulliver’s Travels
in school. So these Anglo-Irish families, they were sort of the big fish in a small pond, huh?”

“That’s about the shape of it. Like I said, the Townsends were one of the old families, and they held some power in the old days, but Harry’s branch was pretty junior. You know, third son of a third son sort of thing—and they just gradually faded. They didn’t put enough back into their estates to make them productive, and to make ends meet they sold off bits and pieces of land, which didn’t help. They apparently thought the good life was going to go on forever. I guess a lot of people thought that until the bottom fell out after World War One. Actually Harry’s family was lucky that they’ve been able to hang on to the house this long. But the land around the manor’s all that’s left of the estate. Eveline is the last of her generation, and from what I hear, Harry’s having trouble enough keeping the roof over her head. To his credit, I’ve never heard talk of him trying to move her out of the only home she’s ever known, but aside from a few rooms, most of the place is closed up because they can’t afford to heat it, and of course it’s also falling down. The roof leaks, the plaster’s crumbling, and so on.”

Maura shook her head. “This whole class thing is so sad and stupid. Why didn’t the Irish rebel against the way the Brits treated them? In America we fought back and forced them out. Why not Ireland?”

“They did, but they weren’t very successful. You have to remember, until nearly the end of the nineteenth century, most of the Irish had no rights. They couldn’t own land. They couldn’t learn their own language. Your country is, what, a couple thousand miles away from England? It’s different when your oppressors’ seat of power is right next door. Here the British could all but spit at us. Do you not know that in the Famine, the landlords insisted that the Irish keep paying their rents and shipping the crops? When their tenants were starving?”

Mick was as angry as she’d ever seen him. “I’m sorry, but how was I supposed to know?” Maura protested. Maybe it was time to get away from history and back to the present. “Harry has a job in Dublin, right? Gillian told me that he’s an accountant.”

Mick took a moment to calm himself, then said, “She did, did she?”

Maura debated asking Mick about Gillian’s relationship with Harry, but decided that would be tacky. Besides, he might not even know anything; men could be kind of blind about things like that. She went back to the topic at hand.

“Mick, my question is, does any of this matter, here and now? Okay, you’ve got this big old house, even if it is falling apart, and you’ve got the last two heirs hanging on by their fingernails, with a couple of servants or whatever you want to call them. And now one of them has been killed. But do you think it has anything to do with class?”

Mick shook his head. “Seems unlikely to me. No one cares anymore. A century ago, the gentry provided jobs for a lot of farmers’ children, particularly the girls. The boys would work on the land or in the stables, and the girls’d put in a few years in service here, and then they might emigrate, with a better chance of getting a job in an American city. That went on for a very long time. Didn’t I hear that your gran worked in the kitchen there as a girl?”

“If so, she never mentioned it.” Like so many other things, Maura thought with regret. “In the U.S. she never did that kind of work, but she sure held her share of dead-end, low-pay jobs in Boston. So Harry is more or less the end of the line, any way you look at it?” When Mick nodded, she added, “Anyway, thanks, Mick, for filling me in. All this doesn’t show up in our high school history classes.”

Mick smiled. “Fair enough. I think your Revolution gets about three pages in our textbooks.” He looked up to see a group of men coming in. “Welcome, fellas. What can I get you?”

Maura set to work pouring more pints and serving, and the next time she looked up, it was three o’clock. Althea and Gillian hadn’t come back. Maybe Althea was promising Gillian a show of her own in a New York gallery, or maybe they’d cornered Harry somewhere and forced him to slip them into the manor house. No matter which, Maura felt a little left out. After all, she was the one who had put them together.

Sean Murphy, in uniform, came in the door and crossed to the bar.

“Hey, Sean,” Maura greeted him. “Or am I supposed to call you Garda Murphy when you’re on duty?”

“Sean is fine,” he said. “Hey, Mick.”

“Sean,” Mick said. “Can I get you anything?”

“Not right now. I stopped by to talk to Maura, if you can spare her.”

“Hey, I’m
his
boss, not the other way around,” Maura protested. “What did you want?”

“Would you walk with me, outside?” Sean asked.

“Sure.” Maura wondered what all the mystery was about, but as Althea had already commented, there were a lot of eager ears in the pub, and apparently Sean wanted a private word. “Where do you want to go?”

“How about along the harbor?” Sean suggested.

Well, that would certainly be more private than Sullivan’s. “Okay.” She followed him in silence until they’d crossed the road and descended to the rough lane that ran along the water. “So, here we are. What is it you wanted to talk to me about?”

Instead of replying directly, Sean pointed. “Look across the water there.”

Maura looked. Trees, fields, cows, and a few swans on the water. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“Straight on, over the water—that’s Mycroft House.”

When Maura looked harder, she realized that, on the other side of the harbor, she could see small glimpses of a structure. “I can’t see much, but I guess I can tell there’s a building there. Why? Is this about the murder? Have you arrested anyone?”

“We’re no further along than when we first found Seamus Daly’s body. Nobody saw anything or heard anything, and you can see why—it’s well hidden away. But nobody had reason to want him dead. He had no money, and he’d made no enemies. I don’t think any of this was about him.”

“So, what do you think it was about, then?” Once again Maura was faced with the dilemma of whether to conceal information from the gardaí. “Uh, you talked to Althea, right?”

“We did. She claims not to have seen Seamus, but she admitted to trying to gain entry to the house, though said she was turned away by the O’Briens, which they confirm.”

“Well, she found a way in last night. With Harry Townsend. Do you know Harry?”

“I spoke with him yesterday as well. He’s not been around much since I joined the guards, but I know of his reputation. But what does it matter if she was there the night
after
Seamus Daly’s death?”

“I can’t say, but I thought you should know that she’s still looking for that painting, and she seems pretty determined. Did you talk to Eveline Townsend?”

“I did not myself, nor did any other garda, as far as I know.”

That sent off a faint alarm for Maura. “That’s weird. Shouldn’t someone have talked to her, to see if she saw or heard anything?”

“We asked the O’Briens if she’d be up to an interview, and they warned us off, said it would upset her too much. Florence O’Brien went on to say that Eveline has been more and more vague in her mind of late—her old memories are clear, but not the newer ones.”

“Does she even know that Seamus Daly is dead?” Maura asked, still incredulous.

“I’d imagine the O’Briens would have broken the news to her, carefully. Maura, you have to remember, the lady’s not young.”

“Well, yeah, but I’m just wondering . . . Look, maybe I’m out of line saying this, but it seems like there’s still a class thing going on here. I mean, ‘She’s the fine lady from the Big House, so she shouldn’t worry herself about one of the hired help getting killed right under her nose’? And then your people don’t want to bother her, not even to solve a crime?”