The Book of Killowen (Nora Gavin #4) (38 page)

Suiting up, Stella entered the fire scene, noting a stench of burned milk. She addressed herself to the local fire brigade’s chief arson investigator, Thomond Breen: “What have you got, Tom?”

“Come through,” he said. “One thing I can tell you is that it would have been one hell of a lot worse if someone hadn’t turned a hose on. From what I can tell so far, it looks as if an accelerant was splashed about here.” They were in some sort of storage room. Strands of melted cheese
dripped from charred wooden shelving, and Stella noted the scorched petrol tin tossed to one side. Broken shelves at the back of the room showed the entrance to another space, also steaming and blackened. “Look here,” Breen said, stooping to pick up a small black object from the floor. “Looks like these were used as fire starters. Can you smell the petrol?”

He set the charred walnut-shaped thing in her outstretched hand. “Some are burned more than others. That one’s not too bad. Just what the hell are they, do you suppose?”

“Gallnuts,” Stella murmured.

She headed for the house and found most of the farm’s residents and current guests crowded into the kitchen with emergency service personnel. “We’ll need statements from everyone,” she said to Molloy. “I’d like to talk to them, if you don’t mind. I’ll take the sitting room, start with Dr. Gavin and Maguire, if you’d send them in. Give me about two minutes. Have we a call out for the two gone missing?”

“Just went out on the wire.”

“Bloody Interpol,” Stella said. “I’m guessing this all could have been avoided if they’d been on the ball.”

Molloy shot her a sheepish look and reached into his jacket. “I meant to show you these last night, Stella,” he said, then lowered his voice. “That’s why I came over, actually. Sorry I got distracted.” He handed over a couple of pages from the station fax machine, mug shots of two Swiss nationals wanted for theft of rare books from a library in St. Gallen. The names were different, of course, but it was definitely the supposedly French couple from Killowen.

She didn’t look directly at him. She could still feel the grip of his hands, the heat of him against her. “One more thing, Fergal. What were Maguire and Gavin doing out in that shed in the middle of the night, anyway?”

Molloy gave a shrug and the slight jerk of an eyebrow. “You’ll have to ask them.”

Often the best witness in an attempted murder was the intended victim. Stella’s advantage in this case was that she had two best witnesses, and not just ordinary witnesses, either, but scientists, trained observers of detail. Perhaps this whole case would be wrapped up tonight, if she was lucky. She went to the sitting room and waited for Dr. Gavin and Maguire.

“Have a seat,” she said when they joined her. “You were both very
fortunate tonight.” That came out differently than she’d intended, more like an admonishment. “Can you tell me what you were doing in the storehouse tonight?”

Maguire sat forward in his seat. “I went there. I thought Nora was asleep, but she followed. I went because I’d seen suspicious activity there a couple of nights ago. It was two people, a man and a woman, but I couldn’t make out who they were, in the darkness. Tonight I went looking for any evidence that could help Niall Dawson—”

“Evidence?” Stella couldn’t help herself. She had almost forgotten about Dawson, still in custody down at the station.

Maguire said, “I had a notion that Benedict Kavanagh’s death, and maybe Claffey’s as well, had something to do with an ancient manuscript—”

Dr. Gavin jumped in: “And as it turned out, we did find evidence that Lucien and Sylvie were stealing old books. I’m sorry that the fire destroyed the evidence.”

“Don’t worry, we’ve got all we need to go after those two,” Stella said. “Tell me how you arrived at that conclusion, about Kavanagh’s death being connected to a rare manuscript.”

Maguire’s face was still marked with soot. “This place, Killowen, used to be a monastery. You know about the metal stylus that was found here last April?”

“Niall Dawson told me it was his excuse for being here then. My colleague’s just off a stint with the Antiquities Task Force last year—he was very interested in that find.”

“Well, a few more things have turned up since then,” Dr. Gavin said. “The bog man, for a start. And while we were going through his garments with the textile expert, we found a wax tablet tucked into the folds of his cloak.”

Maguire picked up the story. “Niall and I also found a leather satchel out on the bog, the kind the monks used to carry books a thousand years ago. It was empty. We started to think there might be a missing book, but it was all so vague. Then there were the gallnuts turning up everywhere—”

Stella sat forward. “Used to make ink.”

Dr. Gavin said, “That’s right. Then I happened upon some old accounts of a manuscript called the Book of Killowen—”

“And what sort of manuscript would that have been?”

Maguire was hedging his words. “Perhaps a special illuminated edition of the Gospels, like the Book of Kells or the Book of Durrow, perhaps something else. We don’t really know.” He looked at Nora. “It’s possible that several important books might have come from the monastery here. Tradition has it that the Book of Killowen was guarded by a family called O’Beglan, and that there was a
cumdach
, an elaborate book shrine, made for it sometime in the tenth century. But evidently possession of this particular manuscript was so contentious that one of the O’Beglans got fed up with the fighting between the priests and bishops, and claimed to have burned it in the twelfth century. Seven hundred years later, one of that Beglan’s descendants was supposed to have sold the shrine to a clockmaker, presumably to have it melted down.”

“But you didn’t believe these stories?”

Maguire shrugged. “I think such tales are a good way to throw people off the scent. Saying that you’ve burned or destroyed something may be the best way to keep it safe.”

“Wait, back up for a minute. Who were the keepers of this manuscript?”

“The O’Beglans. The family was connected with the monastery, going back centuries. They farmed the termon lands of the church here. It’s not out of the question. Lots of important manuscripts were for centuries in the possession of private families. A few still are.”

“So why, in your estimation, would Benedict Kavanagh have been killed over this manuscript?”

“We haven’t been able to work that out. Perhaps he was after the same artifacts as the treasure hunters, or maybe he was mixed up with them. A book like that would be worth a lot to the right collector. And even more if there’s a shrine with precious metals and stones. If you could just locate Lucien and Sylvie—or whatever their real names are—perhaps we could find out whether Kavanagh and the book were connected. Vincent Claffey could have learned about it as well and wanted his share to keep quiet.”

Stella took all this in. “So tell me again what you were doing out in the storehouse tonight?”

Maguire sighed. “Trying to find someone else with a motive for murdering Benedict Kavanagh. It occurred to me that a compartment carved out of a wheel of cheese would be an ideal way to smuggle valuable artifacts away from the farm.”

“And what gave you that idea?”

Maguire paused for a moment. “I happened to see Martin and Tessa Gwynne, earlier in the day, carrying a wrapped package to a place called Hawthorn House—it’s a private nursing home. Turns out their daughter has been a resident for almost twenty years. Someone told us the daughter had died, but it isn’t true. The girl apparently tried to commit suicide after being jilted by some man. I’m not sure if it’s anything to do with what has happened here, but you did ask how I got the notion.”

Dr. Gavin said, “I saw something earlier as well, Detective. I don’t know if it’s important, but I was out in back, and I saw Graham Healy park up here beside the house and head down the path to the cottages. Eliana was just coming back that way—”

“My father’s minder,” Maguire said. “He’s recovering from a stroke.”

Dr. Gavin continued, “Eliana looked upset as she was coming from the wood, so I asked her what had happened. She said that Healy had been glaring at her. I wanted to see for myself what he was up to, so I went around the back way to the grove, and I saw him preparing a bonfire.” She glanced up at Stella. “He’d set out a can of petrol.” She shook her head. “That’s all I know. But whoever lit the fire in the storehouse tonight used petrol as well, or some sort of accelerant. The thing I don’t understand is, if Lucien and Sylvie did this, if they killed Benedict Kavanagh and Vincent Claffey, was it all for money? Then the elaborate staging, with the gallnuts and everything, that was all just for show. You saw the bodies, Detective. What do you think?”

Inside that question was the same vague notion that had been bothering Stella for several days. From the beginning, the two murders seemed very personal. Something about this was not sitting right.

After seeing her witnesses out, Stella called Molloy. “Fergal, can you get Tom Breen to look for a bonfire site in the oak grove, see what he can find there in the way of evidence? And one more thing, did you ever find out whether Graham Healy had experience with heavy machinery?”

Molloy inclined his head slightly. “Sorry, Stella, meant to tell you about that last night as well. I checked with the art school, like you said. Healy was the head of the sculpture installation crew, operated a small JCB they used for digging foundations. You were dead right about that.”

The rest of the interviews were unproductive. No one else at Killowen admitted hearing a thing before the fire began. Stella paid particular attention to the accounts of Mairéad Broome and Graham
Healy, but they claimed bonfires were a perfectly ordinary occurrence at Killowen, that they’d half a tin of petrol left after starting the fire.

So many things just weren’t adding up. If Kavanagh had been murdered by the Swiss couple, why would they stick around after his death? Wouldn’t it make more sense to disappear before the body was discovered and suspicion aroused?

But Maguire and Gavin’s theories about an old book being at the center of this case jibed with what they’d found in Kavanagh’s things from the B and B. Kavanagh could have been here looking for a valuable old manuscript, one that might raise a few eyebrows, give his academic notoriety a nicely timed kick in the hindquarters. What had he said to his wife?
This is going to rattle some bones.
It would have to be something sensational. But he had to make sure it was real. She could see the notes in his hand:
IOH returns to IRL, great work unfinished.

Fergal Molloy appeared at the door. “Stella, we’ve got something you should see. Come out to the grove. Breen and his lads did find the remains of a bonfire.”

Out at the bonfire site, Stella got a whiff of woodsmoke with an edge of something acrid, like burned chemicals. She turned to Thomond Breen. “What news here?”

“No petrol container, but we did find a few interesting bits. Photos and papers, mostly, not completely burned. I’ll have them bagged up and delivered to you.”

Stella felt a twinge of excitement. Vincent Claffey had made a mistake, squeezed the wrong person. And something in this pile of ashes may have led to his death.

She was headed back to the house when she brushed past an old man sitting on a bench outside the door at Killowen. She felt a surge of annoyance, realizing that she hadn’t interviewed this man; Molloy hadn’t brought him in. “Are you all right there?”

“Nan-nanning a wordoo,” the old man said. His diction was perfect, but the words were incomprehensible. “I flang the cubbits snaring.” It finally dawned on her. This was Maguire’s father, the one who’d suffered a stroke. On the ground at his feet were large white cards with black lettering on one side, pictures on the other. Common household objects, as if he were a child again. In her experience, even children noticed far more than people realized.

The old man seized her hand, a pleading look in his eyes. “I sew the
Free Staters,” he said. “You know, the Free Staters.” He kept pointing to an upstairs window and making the same gesture over and over, running his pinched-together right thumb and forefinger over his open left palm. Was it some sort of sign?

“Sorry, I don’t understand. Do you need pen and paper?”

“No, no.” He seemed impatient, urgent.

“Shall I get your son?”

“My sum?” He seemed worried, confused. “No, my author.”

“Maguire, the archaeologist, isn’t he your son?”

“Yes. Yes.” The old man let her go then and sank back onto the bench. No wonder Molloy had left him off the interview list. He had mentioned an author—could it have to do with a mysterious missing manuscript, or was he just talking rubbish? Impossible to tell. And yet behind his eyes, she sensed a kind of light, or intelligence. Or was it only the ghost of the person he had been?

Just then Graham Healy came through the front door of the house, followed by Molloy. Stella felt the old man grip her forearm. “Free Stater,” he whispered hoarsely.

She dropped down beside him, so that her face was on a level with his own. He started making the same gesture again, and this time she felt a jolt of recognition. He was lighting a match. She spoke quietly, making sure to keep her back to Healy and Molloy. “You saw that man start the fire last night, didn’t you, from the window upstairs?”