The Book of Killowen (Nora Gavin #4) (16 page)

Nora pulled on a new pair of nitrile gloves for the second forensic exam of the day, on Killowen Man. Catherine Friel was the primary point person, given her experience with bog remains and suspicious deaths. After Nora had removed as much peat as she could, Dr. Friel began the external exam, first noting the appearance of the body into her minirecorder.

“The deceased appears to be male, approximately sixty to sixty-five years of age. The body has been dismembered, more likely the result of disinterment by machines than by homicidal violence or postmortem mutilation.” Dr. Friel’s voice was calm; she was focused on her subject, as if she had long ago learned to concentrate not on the horror but on the physical form before her and what that physical form had to contribute to the story that was about to unfold. “The deceased appears to be wearing a woolen cloak, which will have to be removed eventually, but I want to make a note first of cuts in the outer garment that seem to align quite precisely with sharp-force wounds on the body.” She pointed to the gashes in the woolen fabric where it was wrapped around the truncated torso and then lifted the cloak to show the corresponding cuts in the dead man’s flesh. “If we measure the length of these wounds”—she nodded to Nora, who reached for the measuring tools—“it looks as if these cuts were made right through the cloak.” She pressed the dead man’s skin with a fingertip to flatten the surface. “See how the wound narrows at both ends? That shows the shape of the weapon. It looks as if he was stabbed with a double-edged blade, something like a dagger. And not just once but at least a half dozen times.”

Dr. Friel stepped back again and began to scan the rest of the body, and Nora observed the differences in the way they each approached the corpse: she immediately took in details that told of the man’s life; Catherine Friel seemed to zero in on what the body revealed about his death. A slight but fascinating divergence in perspective.

“Look here,” Dr. Friel said. She was examining the other side of the
torso and pointed to a similar set of cuts in the cloth on the victim’s left side, underlaid once more with sharp-force wounds. “What do you think—two assailants, or one person with two knives?” She stepped back and mimed an attack with a short blade in each hand, thrusting up toward Nora’s rib cage. “Could have happened either way, but I’m betting on two assailants—see how there are many more cuts here, on the left side? Points to one attacker being a bit more . . . enthusiastic than the other. A symmetrical pattern is more likely if it’s only one person.”

Dr. Friel stepped back again, taking in the whole body once more. “Really quite amazing,” she said. “He’s so well preserved that we’ve got enough evidence for a real case. Suspicious death is suspicious death, even centuries later. Pity whoever did it is long gone.”

She pointed to several locations on the body with a gloved finger. “There are two distinct areas where the wounds appear to be clustered: there’s one grouping in the infraumbilical region, just below the navel; another in the epigastric region, which probably punctured the stomach. The different characteristics of the wounds in each area suggest that there was more than one assailant. That, plus the upward thrust of the blade, which is more usual for attacks than self-inflicted wounds, plus the holes through his garments that correspond with the wounds, all of that together suggests cause of death was exsanguination brought on by homicidal violence. That’s what I’d put in my autopsy report.”

“So he was stabbed, possibly by two assailants, and bled to death?”

“That’s certainly what it looks like. And from the lack of any decomposition, particularly around the wounds, I would also say that he must have gone straight into the bog after he was killed. What else can we tell about him, given the physical evidence?” Dr. Friel pointed to one of the bog man’s hands. “There’s a pronounced callus on the middle finger of his right hand. Also, the thumb and first two fingers of the right hand are stained darker than the rest of the body. Mishap with a leaky quill, perhaps?” Dr. Friel held up her own right hand, showing off her own discolored fingers. “Unfortunate incident over the crossword last night.”

“If it is ink, we should be able to tell from trace analysis.” Nora studied the bog man’s face, the open eyes and lightly stubbled cheeks, the gaping mouth. She wondered what, if anything, you could tell about
a person from his expression at the moment of death. What were the words on his lips at the instant the knives plunged into his gut? And what did he believe would happen to his spirit when his life was so rudely extinguished? The expression was perhaps a function of death itself, the muscles relaxing into primary flaccidity. She thought of the words of the requiem:
Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

The sun had gone behind a bank of dark clouds when Stella pulled into the driveway at Vincent Claffey’s house. Just as she remembered: three junked cars and a rusty washing machine, a trio of unlicensed dogs with the run of the place, a broken baby swing and a pushchair, rolls of fencing. No clamp of turf, so he wasn’t likely burning the stuff here at the house. There was plenty of greenery, and every bit of it weeds—not a potato drill or a cabbage in sight. The chipper was parked alongside a shed in the haggard and gave off a greasy reek. What a place to rear a child, Stella thought, realizing that she was thinking of Deirdre Claffey and not the baby she’d seen balanced on the girl’s hip yesterday.

She ought to go straight to the door and knock, but the shed door had been left open, and investigative instinct overcame her. She might be able to find out what Claffey was up to with the peat if she could just happen to walk past an open door. She glanced at the house, and seeing no one, made her way to the shed just beyond the chipper.

Just as she reached the door, Deirdre Claffey’s voice rang out across the haggard. “What’dye want?”

Stella turned around. “Is your daddy here, Deirdre? I was hoping to speak to him.”

“He’ll be back soon.”

“Maybe I could wait for him? I just have a few follow-up questions.”

The girl said nothing but moved away from the door, which Stella took as an invitation. She stepped across the threshold into a dim room with blinds drawn, television blaring, and a dozen spuds peeled and ready for boiling on the stove. Stella’s suit, rumpled as it was, made her feel out of place amid the squalor, but with the father’s checkered history, she was probably not the first Guards officer or social worker Deirdre Claffey had ever met.

The baby lay on his back on a blanket in the middle of the tiny sitting room, staring up at her from the floor with those giant blue eyes. He shrieked when she made eye contact, delighted to have a playmate.
Stella couldn’t help it—she picked up a set of plastic keys from the floor and rattled them in front of the child’s face. In contrast with nearly everything around him, the baby’s face and clothing, Stella noticed, were immaculately clean. Hard to know which stories to credit amid the local gossip. The child was loved—was that any sort of a clue?

“What’s his name?” Stella asked.

Deirdre’s voice, floating from the kitchen, sounded tired. “Cal.”

“Well, Cal, you’re a great little fella, aren’t you? What age are you, hmm?” She poked the baby playfully in the stomach, and he shrieked again. Was there any sound more irresistible?

“Don’t be getting him excited, now—he’s about to have his dinner,” Deirdre sounded exactly like someone’s nattering old granny. “He’ll be nine months next week.”

Stella felt her antennae picking up signals from all around the room: large stash of nappies in the corner, the brand-new clothing on the baby, and a new battery-powered swing to replace the knackered one out in the yard.

“Deirdre, do you remember the man I asked you about yesterday, Benedict Kavanagh?”

“I told you I didn’t know him.”

“But you also said you met all sorts, working the chipper van. I’m sorry to have to tell you this—Benedict Kavanagh is dead, Deirdre. That was his car in the bog. His body was in the boot.”

The baby began to cry, and Deirdre quickly plucked him up off the floor. “Shhh,” she whispered. “Whisht now, whisht.” She began to rock slowly and hummed a little tune until the child began to settle. Unclear, Stella thought, who was comforting whom.

“How well did you know Mr. Kavanagh?” Stella asked as gently as she could. No response. “When was the last time you saw him?”

The girl’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “I told you I didn’t know him.” She lifted the baby’s hand and stroked his dimpled fingers. The child began to suck his thumb and laid his head on her shoulder.

“Did your father know you were acquainted—”

“No!” Deirdre shot back, almost as if she was defending her father against some as-yet-unmade accusation.

Before Stella could form her next question, she heard a noise of tires skidding in gravel, and Vincent Claffey was through the door and only a few inches from her face.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doin’ here? You’d better not be talking to my girl—she’s underage, and you know it. Say nothin’, Deirdre, I’m warning you. She’s no right to be here asking questions.”

“Mr. Claffey—” Stella began, but her voice was drowned out.

“Did you get what you came for, then? Did you?” Claffey’s voice had risen in pitch, as if he was frightened of something. He turned to his daughter. “You, get to your room, and don’t come out ’til I say.” He moved to shove Deirdre, who was still holding the child, and Stella stepped forward to block him. Had she put the girl and her baby in danger by coming here?

“Mr. Claffey, I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I came to speak to you. Deirdre and I were just chatting.” Claffey was not a big man; he was short and wiry but prone to explosive outbursts, as Stella knew from reading his form. He’d never been arrested for striking his daughter, but that didn’t mean it never happened. Surely he knew better than to lay a hand on a Guards detective.

Deirdre spoke up: “She was only waitin’ for you.”

Claffey eyed his daughter over Stella’s shoulder, jabbed his finger at her. “I said shut up, you! Not another word.”

Stella held her ground. She was taller than Vincent Claffey and confident that she could take him down, if it came to that. “I’m here as part of an official murder inquiry, Mr. Claffey. Of course, if you’d rather not talk here, we can go to the station in Birr. It’s up to you.”

After a tense moment, in which he seemed to consider his options, Claffey’s stance began to soften. But his eyes continued drilling into her, and Stella wondered again whether she’d totally bollixed up this case by coming here today.

“I expect by now you’ve heard that there was another body in the car,” she began. “I asked you about him yesterday, Benedict Kavanagh. And all the evidence at this stage points to murder. I just wanted to double-check and make sure you’d never seen him around.” Stella proffered the photo on her phone once more, but Claffey ignored it. “We’ve discovered that his wife was a regular visitor at Killowen—”

“Wasters,” Claffey muttered. “All their crunchy-granola load of fuckin’ bollocks. Can’t stand seeing anybody making a few bob.” Stella filed away this tidbit of information. She could just imagine the difference of opinion between the owner of a chipper van and his totally organic neighbors.

“So you never had any dealings with Kavanagh?”

“What do you mean, ‘dealings’? I hope you’re not accusing me—”

“I’m not accusing anyone of anything, Mr. Claffey, just trying to get a picture of the victim’s movements before he disappeared—where he went, who he might have spoken to. I’m just doing my job, trying to figure out what happened. And I wondered if you could help me.”

The tongue darted between his lips. “I’ve told you, I didn’t know the man.”

“What about his wife? Her name isn’t Kavanagh—it’s Mairéad Broome.”

Claffey’s eyes had gone cold. “Never heard of her.”

For a petty criminal, he was a pretty piss-poor liar. But the bruises on Deirdre’s wrists came back to her, and Stella knew she couldn’t push any further without the risk of putting the girl and her child in danger. She’d have to leave it for now. “Well, if you’re certain . . . ”

The slight smirk that lit up Claffey’s face said he was pleased for having won—this round, anyway. He turned away and started rooting through a cardboard box that sat beside the door, pawing through its contents until he came up with a sturdy padlock.

He followed her out to the yard, and as Stella executed a slow three-point turn in the haggard, he made a show of slipping the lock through the hasp on the shed door and fastening it securely.

Low clouds had settled over Killowen by the time Nora returned to the farm. Her first task was locating Joseph, to try to find out what had been troubling him this morning—she’d promised Cormac. The front door of the main house was wide open, but no one answered when she called. The house felt peaceful, a diffuse light from the cloudy sky leaking in through the windows out onto the courtyard garden. The sitting room and kitchen were empty, so Nora stepped into the herb garden, refreshed by the pungent whiff of oregano. As she crossed to the other wing of the house, a small movement caught her eye. Stepping through the doorway, she called out, “Hello, anyone here?”

The stillness in the air refuted another living presence. Probably just her imagination. The interior walls of this corridor were plain whitewash, perfect for displaying the work no doubt donated by resident artists: there were woodcuts, flat metal sculptures, a few abstract seascapes, and a series of elaborate calligraphy pieces.