The Death of an Irish Sea Wolf (8 page)

It was suppertime, a storm was raging, yet Ford—a large man nearly eighty who would have to walk two miles each way—pushed himself away from the table and set out immediately. Why? Because he feared (and had been fearing for years) what came to pass?

Ford then hurried back here to the cottage and rang up Kevin O’Grady, a former guard, asking him to come with a weapon and stay with his wife while he…?

McGarr stopped by the stream and looked down into the amber water that had been colored by some tannin-rich mountain bog and was gushing golden down the rocky sluice.

…while Ford hid whatever the raiders had tried to find when they tossed the house? Why else would he leave his blind wife at such a moment?

But what and hid where? Certainly
not
in the house or anywhere near it. And whatever it was, it had to be something that an old man, like Ford, could carry during a raging storm.

McGarr looked round him—at the cottage and ocean beyond, at the garden and haggard, and farther up the ravine to the top where the stream seemed to be spewing from the azure sky. Turning, he began to climb toward that point; maybe from there he could see what the rest of the area looked like.

So—Ford left the house, O’Grady arrived and the wife let him in. The
blind
wife, McGarr reminded himself. But before Ford could return, the raiders arrived, murdered O’Grady, and tossed the house. Then Ford, entering by the front door, was shocked to find O’Grady on the floor with the back of his head blown off. It was then that he touched the bloodied picture of his wife. And whatever happened after that was less definite. McGarr thought of all the bloody footprints that had been tracked through the house.

Now he kept his eyes focused on the path where there were other prints, mostly those of sheep and a donkey—probably the dead donkey, since there was no other—and here and there an immense boot print, obviously Ford’s. But, then, it was equally obvious that Ford farmed the property actively. His prints were probably all over the area.

At any rate, there was the Webley. No, the
antique
British Navy-issue Webley. McGarr tried to think of when he had last come across a Webley handgun of that sort. Over a score of years earlier, and even then it had been unusual.

Somebody in or near the car had fired the Webley at the house, then dropped it in the drive and jumped into the car that ran over it. Ford himself, McGarr was willing to bet; there was the large, skidding footprint just where the driver’s door would have been.

The car then moved off, and the person wearing the small, narrow boots charged down from the top of the drive, through the cabbage garden, and out onto the switchback drive again, firing clip after clip of 7.62-caliber ammunition.

At what? At the car, O’Grady’s car, the Granada that had been left on the jetty wall with O’Grady dead in the boot. It was pocked and riven mainly with large-caliber bullet holes. The raiders had then hitched the donkey to the cart and taken it the four miles by road to the harbor, rather than the two overland. Why?

Because they did not know the overland route and feared blundering into a bog? Or because they had found what they were after here and had to transport it back to their boat? Or because one of them had been hit by the fire from the Webley, and the donkey cart was the easiest means of getting their wounded back?

Then who had lost so much blood in the backseat of the Granada? Ford’s wife. Because she was blind, she could not have been driving the car. But yet her ring was lying on the floor by the driver’s seat.

Plainly McGarr did not know enough, and he tried to keep his mind from rushing on. But if the raiders had found what they were after here at the Ford cottage, why had they then broken down the door of the fisherman’s living quarters on the quay and sprayed the interior with gunfire? Pique at not
having discovered what they had come for? Or anger that one or more of their number had been killed or wounded by Ford? They must have thought Ford was in there. Or O’Malley.

No, not O’Malley. It all had to have happened before half ten, while O’Malley was still in the pub. Why had nobody heard the gunfire? An assault rifle produced a deafening report, especially when fired in basin of concrete and stone like the Clare Island harbor. Unless, of course, the gun had been silenced, which the Tech Squad would be able to determine by examining the recovered slug.

The raiders had then left on their boat, the large white schooner. How far could it have got in the twelve plus hours between leaving Clare Island and McGarr asking the Coast Guard and Naval Service to search for it? Far. Say, it could motor as well as sail, and it made…fifteen knots under power. That would be over two hundred miles.

Say then, that it took another four or five hours at the inside for Scottish or Norwegian authorities to be made aware of the alert and to deploy their ships and planes. Or, say, that the boat had simply sailed straight out to sea, or that the raiders had in place some contingency plan for scuttling the vessel. Or abandoning it in some port on the mainland that was only eight miles distant.

McGarr shook his head, before tossing down the cigarette and crushing it under foot. Raiders with silenced assault rifles, who had come to the island for a purpose and were willing to kill, had probably also devised some way of making off. As well, there was the additional problem that there had been few government vessels in Mayo waters on the night before, and that onboard radar could sweep a radius of only twenty miles at the outside.

Now nearing the top of the dingle, McGarr again felt the wind off the ocean pushing him forward, more strongly the higher he climbed. At the top he had to plant his legs to look around.

Three hundred or so yards below him directly to the west, and tucked neatly into the dingle, lay the Ford cottage, looking like a photo for some “Hidden Ireland” promotional campaign. Were there not a road, it would be impossible to tell that there was a house anywhere nearby. Both to north
and south the land was nothing but a reach of towering, treeless mountain and an equally open expanse of rolling fields—bounded by the cliff—all the way to what appeared to be a lighthouse some two long miles away.

McGarr could see only one other group of buildings. Another cottage with some large buildings nearby had been grouped virtually on the cliff edge maybe half the distance to the lighthouse. It was also the direction in which the path now led, over hill, dale, stile and stream. McGarr set out.

Overhead a young gannet, its dun wings speckled, swooped in a circle, gathering itself before diving toward the edge of the cliff and the deep blue waves below. Farther on, McGarr came upon a patch of alpine sawwort, its yellow leaves thriving at the edge of a bog. Formerly he had thought the exotic plant restricted to special growth areas in Cork and Kerry in Ireland, and he plucked a leaf to make sure. Later—perhaps back in Dublin—he’d look it up. Other than fishing, McGarr’s hobby was gardening and plants.

Farther still along the path, he discovered a wallow where Ford—it could have been nobody but—had blundered through the mud. Perhaps walking at night in a storm without a torch because he feared being seen?

The water was deep but the prints still crisp.

McGarr moved on.

MIRNA GOTTSCHALK SAW the man approaching from at least a mile away. She had been scanning the hills with the binoculars she used for birding, ever since she received the first phone call about Breege and Clem and poor Kevin O’Grady. And now Packy O’Malley seemed to be missing as well. His house had been shot up, and his boat was gone.

Her first thought had been to go to the Fords’ cottage, her dear friends and nearest neighbors who meant so much to her and her parents in their time. Why? Because she felt guilty, and she wished there was some way she could help, now that it was probably too late.

Why had she thought Clem had been exaggerating or acting a bit dotty when he had come to her studio the night before? To her knowledge Clem Ford had never uttered so much as a fib, and he had been upright and genuine in all his dealings. Maybe she could have prevented whatever it was that had happened to them and the tragedy of O’Grady’s death.

How? Well, by having notified the guards in Louisburgh on the mainland. Would they have come on the report of an elderly man acting a bit strange? No, probably not. And even if they said they would, could they have got to the harbor and then all the way out to the Fords’ on time? No again.

Worried by what Clem had said and how he had acted, she
had rung up Breege shortly after he left but had been unable to get through to the cottage, even though she let the phone ring and ring. And Breege could not possibly have been anywhere else on such a night. That alone should have alerted her to the extraordinary nature of the situation—for the half century that she had known the Fords, they had been the most predictable and dependable people on the island.

Instead of taking action, Mirna had told herself she would stop round in the morning and return the packet. She had thought it an embarrassment for Clem, a sign that he was getting old and beginning to lose his grip on reality. But after the phone calls, she had changed her mind.

With fear and trembling, she had summoned the courage to look inside. It contained only what Clem had said—two single sheets of paper. The first listed the names of the two firms that Clem had told her about and also the name of the man that she should avoid at all costs: Angus Rehm. Also there was a paperboard pouch that was sealed with red wax and felt like it contained papers.

Could the rumors be true? Could Clem and Breege, who had lived the simplest of lives, have controlled the Clare Island Trust? Is that why they were missing or…whatever? Mirna reflected on how the Trust had helped her, granting her incipient business venture an immense loan of one hundred thousand pounds. And it had not foreclosed during the ten months that she had been unable to meet the repayment schedule.

As Mirna remembered, Clem and Breege had even offered to loan her money from “Clem’s pension scheme” Breege had put it, to help her through. They had been strange and wonderful people. No,
were
wonderful people. Mirna would not give up hope.

The second loose page was a hand-drawn map that showed how to enter a cave at the steepest face of the Croaghmore cliffs. Mirna was sure there was none. She had been by the place perhaps a half-dozen times during slack spring tide, which was the only time the area was even approachable, as far as she knew.

Now the possible reality of the cave, which would more than prove Clem’s statements of the night before, terrified her.
In every way, from the bottom of her soul, she wished the packet gone and the night before had never happened. But yet she copied the map onto the back of the other sheet of paper. It was spring, and the tides were low. Maybe in a day or two she would take herself out there, if the police weren’t still about.

The police. They had been at the harbor, and one of her employees, phoning Mirna, had said that they had gone out to the Fords’.

Raising the binoculars again, she found that the man was much closer now, no more than a quarter mile away. Short but square and fit, he was moving with a quick, rolling gait, ready and alert. He was dressed casually in khaki, like a golfer or a sportsman. She had seen the face before with its nose that was bent slightly to one side, those pale gray eyes, and red, curly hair. And more than once. But where? Certainly he looked too much of a piece for a country man.

Lowering the binoculars, Mirna looked around the studio. On the television, of course, and in the newspaper. He
was
the police, the detective, the one from Dublin who was sent out on major investigations. She panicked and looked down at the muddied packet and the still-unopened paperboard pouch with the red sealing wax. Why did she feel like she had done something wrong, when, in fact, she should welcome the security that his presence represented? He would protect her, perhaps even set everything right.

But she also remembered Clem’s entreaty about the Trust, and how it had given Breege’s and his life point and purpose. And certainly it had done great good. Finally, it could be that the Fords were not dead and would come back and take the entire thing off her hands.

Mirna looked down at the sealed pouch that Clem had asked her not to open yet, not until she had gone to the cave and to the solicitors in Dublin. But she just had to understand more completely what she was getting into, before pressing forward as he had asked.

Slipping a fingernail under the flap she slit the wax seal. It contained a sheaf of handwritten pages that were yellowed and timeworn. The top page was dated 1948. It began:

Mirna glanced up. If the memoir or whatever it was now told her that Clem Ford was some sort of thief or worse, she could not read on. It was all too much for her. And what was she seeing out of the corner of her eye, movement close to the house on the far side of the yard. The man had arrived.

Snatching up the sheaf, she folded the pages hurriedly and slipped them into the pouch and the pouch into the packet. Then the map. But where was the top sheet, the piece of stationery with the names and addresses on it? Glancing wildly round the table and then under it, Mirna could not locate the thing, so she emptied the packet again and shuffled through the documents. Perhaps it had got caught between some of the pages. No, it was not there, and she had only just fitted the documents back inside, closed the flap, and stuffed the packet under the cushion of her reading chair when a knock came on the door.

Flushing with shame or guilt or…she didn’t know what—mortification, maybe—Mirna Gottschalk rushed to the door and pulled it open. “Yes?” she demanded in a strange, choked voice that was not her own. Suddenly she felt faint.

The clear gray eyes regarded her calmly. It was as though he could read her thoughts, and the pause seemed to continue for an eternity. Finally without taking his gaze from her, he
pointed to the ground by the door. “Clement Ford was here early last evening, wasn’t he? He slipped and fell right here.”

Even through her tears, which without warning had filled her eyes, Mirna could see a long scrape. It could only have been Clem. There were other impressions from his large boots where he had picked himself up and staggered. Even his muddied tracks were still on the stairs, the print of his large hand on the rail.

“What did he bring you?”

It was the moment of decision. But too soon. Mirna had wanted to think about it some more, to wait for some word about Clem and Breege. She had also wanted to lay the entire matter before Karl, her son. Again, as Clem had requested.

She could lie. She could say that Clem had visited her earlier yesterday, sometime late in the afternoon. Why? Why to view the portrait she was painting of his wife. There it was in the center of the room, a bright blur of color through her tears.

But when she tried to speak, her throat wouldn’t let the lie out, and she only sobbed. And the sound of her voice cracking brought on further sobs for Breege and Clem and Kevin O’Grady and Packy, but also for herself and her predicament.

She believed she felt worse—both low and worthless—than she had ever in her life. How could she have lived beside Breege and Clem all these years and ignored the great problem that had created this debacle. Why had she not done something last night? And here she was embracing the problem as her own.

“I’m sorry,” she managed, turning away from the door toward a small kitchen. “But the Fords were—
are
—my best friends. Could you come back later, when I’m—” She reached for some tissues and began blotting her eyes. But it did little good, and Mirna just stood at the sink with her hands on the edge, her body racked by sobs.

McGarr studied her for a moment. She was a shapely woman in her early fifties whose braided white hair appeared whiter still because of her complexion. It was dark, like her eyes, and maybe because of the braids or her prominent cheekbones or the way she was dressed—blue cotton work
shirt, jeans, and even beaded moccasins on her feet—the woman looked rather Amer-indian.

McGarr let his eyes sweep the studio, fixing on the oil portrait in the middle of the room. The portrait was of the very same woman in the very same pose as the blood-spattered framed photograph in the hallway of the Ford cottage. The wife as a young woman. In fact, a print of the photograph was clipped to the easel.

But the larger portrait was a colorful oil painting, artfully rendered, such that the woman’s obvious beauty was enhanced not diminished. And just as in the photograph, the diamond-and-sapphire ring was on her finger, the one that was by now in the possession of the Technical Squad.

“What is your opinion of that ring?” he asked.

Mirna turned her head and tried to focus on the canvas. “What? I don’t understand.”

“Is it real?”

Mirna began to shake her head, but then thought better of it—realizing suddenly that, all along, she had admired the ring that had seemed so real because it
was
real. And, my God! What must it be worth?

“Did the Fords have money?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“I thought you said they were your best friends.”

“
Are
my best friends. You’re speaking of them in the past tense. Do you know something I don’t?”

“Only that whoever came to their cottage was looking for something important enough to commit murder. And we still don’t know how many.”

When McGarr stepped back to get a different perspective on the painting, he noticed something in the shadows beneath the easel—a sheet of writing paper. Even from where he was standing, he could read the “Clem and Breege Ford” printed at the top of the page. It was the same sort of sheet that he had seen in Ford’s sitting room.

Walking over, McGarr squatted down and picked it up. “Is this what Ford brought you last night?”

Mirna decided she would say nothing. If he now ransacked the studio and discovered the packet, well then, it would be all over, and she would be relieved of the burden Clem had
placed upon her. If he didn’t, she would proceed as she had intended, and either Clem would return and there would be no need for her to act, or she would tell Karl and he would know what to do.

McGarr looked down on the sheet, which was undated. In his peculiar script, Ford had written the names “Monck & Neary, 2 Merrion Square, Dublin” and “Sigal & Sons, the Coombe,” which was the name of a street also in Dublin.

The first was a firm of solicitors renowned in Dublin legal circles for handling the legal affairs of the country’s “quiet money”—the very few remaining Ascendancy families who had managed to retain their wealth, as well as a select group of newly rich who had the sense not to flaunt theirs. Monck & Neary had the reputation of being most discreet.

The second was the name of a family of jewelers and gold merchants who had been plying a similarly select trade in their own specialty, which was antique jewelry, old gold and silver. McGarr’s wife, who was a picture dealer, had dealt with the Sigals often and well, and she recommended them to her own clientele.

Farther down the page was a single name, Angus Rehm, but no address.

Turning the sheet of paper over, McGarr found what looked like a map but drawn with a soft lead pencil of the sort that artists used. He could make sense of nothing but the label, “cave,” which—it appeared—was near some wiggly lines that looked like water.

“Is this what he brought you?” he asked again, thinking: over a treacherous mile of boreen and bog, in the teeth of a storm, with a more deadly threat looming? All to deliver a note, the contents of which would as easily be said over the telephone in a minute or two? Also, where was the mud? If Ford had touched it after his fall, there would be mud on the sheet, but there was none.

But neither did she deny it. Only the wind replied, soughing past the eaves of the studio that was perched on the very edge of the cliff.

“You know, I could make one phone call and get permission to search this place. But I’d prefer your help.”

As in, “helping” the police. It was the euphemism em
ployed to describe suspects. “Don’t tell me you think that I’m involved in this?” Mirna asked in a small, incredulous voice.

McGarr cocked his head. “I hope not. For your sake. Now”—he raised the sheet of paper—“I’ll ask you once more. Is this what Clement Ford brought you last night? Just nod.” And then I can toss the place legally, he did not add. Looking for something that had to be mud-covered.

But she only continued to regard him.