The Book of Killowen (Nora Gavin #4) (36 page)

Cormac stood at the top of the stairs, listening to the conversation around the dinner table below. A different, quieter sort of crowd tonight. Niall was missing, of course, but there were two new voices—Mairéad Broome and Graham Healy had evidently joined them. Why had they suddenly become sociable, after three days in isolation? Cormac started down the stairs, realizing that he was seeing everyone at Killowen in a new light since the visit to Hawthorn House and his conversation with Shawn Kearney this afternoon.

He’d been thinking of the stunning detail on the book shrines in the National Museum, with their elaborate metal covers studded with jewels, the intricate knotwork designs and large-eyed human figures that mirrored the high crosses. The
Cumdach Eóghain
, if it was like the book shrines he’d seen, would be priceless, something that might prompt a private collector to offer a huge sum. The tricky part was finding a person or an institution not so particular about provenance. Such buyers did exist; there was no doubt about that. But would the sale bring a fortune worth killing for? Two men were dead—perhaps therein lay the answer.

When the phone in his pocket vibrated, he stepped into the sitting room at the bottom of the stairs and closed the door behind him.

“You’ll owe me two bottles of whiskey when you hear this,” Mac-Sweeney said.

“Done. What did you find?”

“I rang up a friend at Cambridge, the one who invariably has all the gossip. Seems your man Gwynne is an expert on ancient manuscripts. He got his start at Cambridge, doing research under the famous paleographer T. A. Priest, the top man in medieval history there. When Gwynne left Cambridge, he went to work for the British Library.”

“Thanks, Robbie. I’m not sure how all this will help, but it’s good to know.”

“I’m not finished. The scuttlebutt is that Gwynne was let go from the
British Library, more than twenty years since, when a rare manuscript in his charge went missing. He claimed innocence, of course, and I gather there wasn’t enough proof to prosecute. When are you going to tell me what this is all about?”

Cormac was trying to process all he’d just heard. “I’m sorry, Robbie, I’m not even sure what I’m looking for.”

“Hang on, I’m not done. This is all something to do with Benedict Kavanagh, isn’t it? We do get the news here, you know, everyone’s talking about him turning up in a bog out there.”

“I can’t really say anything. It’s an ongoing investigation.”

“The reason I ask is that after he was sacked from the library, your man Gwynne went back to work for his old tutor, Priest, and apparently they put together the definitive work on the handwriting of the ninth-century philosopher John Scottus Eriugena. Everyone knows Eriugena was Benedict Kavanagh’s main subject.”

“Yes.”

“So all this about Gwynne is something to do with Kavanagh after all, isn’t it?”

“I am sorry, Robbie, but I still can’t tell you anything.”

“Don’t you at least want to know what the book was?”

“What book?”

“The one Gwynne was supposed to have pinched. It was a revised edition of
Deeds of the English Bishops
by William of Malmesbury.”

“Is that significant?”

“Well, William of Malmesbury was one of the preeminent sources of information about Eriugena, although most people took the stories as apocryphal. There’s a great one, though, about Eriugena having dinner with the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles the Bald, where the emperor posed him a question:
‘Quid distat inter sottum et Scottum?’
—What separates a sot from a Scot? And your man shot back,
‘Mensa tantum’
—Only a table. Cheeky wee bastard.”

Cormac couldn’t help smiling at his friend’s enjoyment of the legend. “Listen, Robbie, I can’t thank you enough.”

Everyone at the dining table was absorbed in passing plates and filling bowls. Paella and salad tonight, fresh greens fragrant with garlic and the tang of fresh blood orange. No one said a word about Niall’s absence, and Cormac could only assume that they knew what had happened. And that someone at this table might be willing to let an innocent
man go down for a crime he hadn’t committed. A strange wave of apprehension surged over him. He ought to get Nora and his father and Eliana away from this place right now, tonight. But he couldn’t do it—he couldn’t abandon Niall.

It was almost as if Nora was reading his turbulent thoughts as she tried to make conversation. “Cormac and I have just been reading up on the history of Killowen. Easy to be overshadowed by the monasteries at Clonmacnoise and Birr, I suppose. Still, the monks at Killowen had their own thing, didn’t they?”

Martin Gwynne looked up from his salad. “What did you find about our monks?”

“Just that they were known for their work as scribes, apparently,” Nora said.

Martin Gwynne said, “Oh, indeed. They saw it as their sacred duty to copy every book they could get their hands on.”

Nora considered for a moment. “Do you mean they copied absolutely everything, word for word? Never changed or embellished anything?”

Gwynne smiled. “Well, there were mistakes, obviously. They were human. And they certainly added glosses and annotations in various editions. But you have to realize the significance of the ‘faithful copy’ to these men—and women, too; there’s plenty of evidence of female scribes, but that’s another discussion. The notion of a ‘faithful copy’ was absolutely central to the worldview of a scribe. You’ll find that even books that were badly damaged were copied out exactly, with blank spaces left where they were illegible.”

Nora pressed on. “You know, all those stories you hear about hedge schools, about ordinary Irish people reading old Latin and Greek texts, right up through the eighteenth and nineteenth century, are they really true?”

“Well, there was certainly a great tradition of scholarship in Ireland,” Gwynne said. “History and poetry and writing of all kinds have always held a vaunted place in Irish culture—Welsh culture, too, going way back. When Christianity came, and with it the great wave of written language, the Irish weren’t particularly interested in censoring content, even if the monks writing down the old stories thought they were a load of pagan rubbish.”

Cormac’s gaze wandered across the faces around the table. No particular reactions to what Gwynne was saying, but the man was apparently
just getting started. Only Tessa Gwynne’s expression said she’d heard this all before.

Gwynne held his wineglass in front of him. “Imagine living in a time when the written word was so special—every book was an individual work of art, unlike any other in existence. Not like today, when all we have is mass-produced, so-called content, and—God help us—‘physical books.’ Imagine stumbling upon a unique collection of words and ideas and images so fantastic that it was worth spending months or even years of your life copying it out so that others would be able to share in and appreciate its splendor.”

Cormac decided it was time to show a little of his hand, despite Shawn’s earlier warning. “You know, I’ve always been intrigued by handwriting,” he said. “Such an intimate thing, really. It’s amazing how much of one’s personality comes out in the act of writing.”

Gwynne was enjoying himself now. “I couldn’t agree more—almost akin to the unique qualities of a human voice, or a fingerprint. For me, the act of writing has always been a kind of out-of-body experience. It starts with the spark here”—he pointed to his temple—“but then the head, the hand, the pen, and the ink all become one in the act of writing. Of course, all forms of creativity are a way of dipping one’s toes in the essence of the divine.”

Cormac glanced over at Anthony Beglan, whose head was bent over his plate. Sylvie poured herself another glass of wine. “What do you think of that, Lucien?
The divine
, Martin says.”

The Frenchman dismissed her question with a glance. “What do I know about the divine? I’m only a
fromager
. Although one thing I do know—a
crottin
is as close to heaven as a man can get.” He lofted a small plate of goat cheese for all to see.

Cormac couldn’t catch Shawn Kearney’s eye. The woman knew something, or at least had her suspicions. He was conscious of Nora watching him as well, no doubt wondering what he was at. He wasn’t quite sure of that himself.

Perhaps warmed by wine, Martin Gwynne began to wax on again about the scribal arts: “We tend to think of the monks’ copying as rote work, but it wasn’t. Each copy was distinct, a permutation, a way for the writer to put his own signature and stamp on the work, adding his own interpretation, his own embellishments and flourishes.”

“It’s the same in traditional music,” Cormac said. “The individual embellishments may be subtle, but they’re peculiarly individual.”

“Just so. You know, in the days of copying by hand, books were precious, even magical, but they were meant to be read and handled, studied, and above all, argued over! It was only much later that they were turned into artifacts of veneration, objectified like saints’ relics, used only on special occasions.”

“I suppose you’re talking about book shrines?” Cormac asked. He saw Shawn Kearney’s head jerk upward, and he could feel the tension around the table shift. “Nora and I were reading about a shrine associated with this place and the family that was supposed to have kept it—”

Claire Finnerty stood abruptly and said, “There’s blackberry crumble with cream for dessert. Who’d like some?”

As Martin Gwynne approached the front door an hour later, Cormac asked quietly, “I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to look over those photos?”

“I’m sorry, it’s been a rather busy day, busier than usual, even. I’ll have a go at them as soon as I get back to the cottage.”

Cormac said, “You might be interested in our other discovery this morning. Niall compared the marks on that wax tablet with the stylus found here last April, and he’s convinced that it was the writing instrument used on that tablet. He thinks he’ll be able to prove it without much doubt.”

“Takes your breath away, doesn’t it, what science is able to do these days? I meant to ask about Dawson—we did hear about his trouble. I think we’d all like to help, but no one is sure what to do. I was quite certain that Vincent Claffey had something to do with Benedict Kavanagh’s death. Now I suppose we’ll never know, will we?”

Tessa came up behind her husband, and for the first time, Cormac could see the way the blade of her jaw stretched her skin, sharp and insistent. Her eyes seemed to look out from a deep well.

“It’s time to go, my love,” Tessa said to her husband. He took her arm and tucked it in the crook of his own, and led her out across the gravel. Cormac recalled a gesture he’d seen that afternoon—Tessa Gwynne’s hand reaching out to touch her daughter’s hair.

It was after nine on Sunday evening when Stella arrived home. She changed into pajamas but kept her phone close by, just in case there was word on Anca and Deirdre and the child. Where could they have got to? She remembered the delight on the baby’s face when she’d dangled the plastic keys in front of him. Cal. Short for Calum? Where had Deirdre had come up with the name? She hadn’t thought to ask. Such a wonderful age, nine months. Not quite walking, but you could see all the wheels turning inside a baby’s head. She’d never forgotten what Lia was like at that age. It made her heart ache now, remembering how she had watched the words form on her daughter’s lips, the first time the spark of knowledge appeared in Lia’s eyes as she said
mama
.

She punched in Barry’s mobile number but hesitated before pressing the green button. What would she say? She wasn’t finished with this case, not by a long shot. She’d likely be working strange hours for days to come, so perhaps it was best if Lia stayed with her dad for the time being. When the school term started, they’d have to work out a more regular schedule, but until then . . .

She felt a punch to the gut, realizing just how many times she had left Barry and Lia to fend for themselves over the past seventeen years. How many times Barry had had to feed their daughter and put her to bed when she was off on some training course, or when she’d served on the Drugs Task Force. Spending more time with criminals than with her own family. She stared at the number on the tiny screen, then let her hand drop. There was nothing she could say right now that would bring her daughter home. Time to crack this case, then she could work on making things right with Lia.

Stella retrieved the Cregganroe bombing file from her bag, poured herself a glass of wine, and slid the file out onto the table. It was thick, gray with fingerprints, and stuffed with all the photographs
and intelligence reports that led to the arrest of the bomb makers.
CLOSED
was stamped across it in large black letters. Another successful resolution.

She flipped through lists of all the physical evidence collected at the bomb makers’ worksite. There was a list of suspected and known associates. Not all the associates had names; sometimes physical descriptions or code names were all investigators had to go by. The file was filled with photos of shaggy young men, cigarettes dangling on their lips, on street corners and in pubs. Stella studied the faces in the photographs, taken by a hidden camera inside a pub. She remembered those days, the heady talk from the young intellectuals about freedom from tyranny, the corruptibility of governments looking out for one another against the will of the people, the whiff of socialism that had laced the struggles in the North. So much had changed, and so much had stayed exactly the same.