Read The Irish Cairn Murder Online

Authors: Dicey Deere

The Irish Cairn Murder (8 page)

BOOK: The Irish Cairn Murder
9.86Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
I
n the coach house, gasping for breath, Natalie pulled the door to the carriage closed and sank back against the faded upholstery. She'd fled so crazily from the blackmailer that her heart was pounding. Quiet down, quiet
down
!
She drew a deep breath. He had to be a madman. She gave a shaky laugh. Belatedly, she'd get help. A fog had somehow slid across her vision bringing hallucinations, a residue probably of the dreadful loss of Andrew. The only reality was the man waiting at the cairn. A man who had stolen a penknife.
Her heart was no longer pounding but beginning to beat regularly. She breathed in the musty, comforting smell of the old carriage. She'd rest here for a few minutes. Then she'd call Inspector O'Hare. She'd make some excuse for not having come to him earlier when she'd received that first threatening letter. No matter. There had been three letters. There'd be a fourth. He wouldn't give up. The Gardai would stake out the cairn.
Later, Marshall, back from the States, would lovingly reproach her with, “But why didn't you call me at once?” and he'd hug her close. By next month she'd be dining out on her blackmail tale.
In the carriage, she glanced at her watch. Right now, she'd find Dakin and tell him that she was going to Inspector
O'Hare for help after all. Dakin was so angry at the threat to her, so ready to do battle on her account, that it had worried her.
She'd rest a minute here in the carriage before looking for Dakin. She ran a finger along the armrest; the figured mulberry velvet was now so worn, so old and faded. You could barely distinguish the entwined flowers, the shapes of reclining hounds. When had the carriage started to become her refuge? So many years ago, yes, even before Andrew was killed. She'd settle snugly into this old carriage in the corner of the coach house with a feeling of being loved. Sometimes she'd drowse and wake to find herself smiling, warm, hearing whispers, rubbing a cheek against the mulberry velvet … no, not the mulberry. The fabric was something else, it was twill, she could feel the tiny ridges of the twill, she smelled the masculine smell that came from it, she could even see the color of the twill, it was dark blue … .
On the worn mulberry velvet her hand went still. Her eyes opened wide. Minutes passed. Then, mouth dry, she whispered: “Cloverleaf.”
 
She was running now, running fast back toward the cairn. An hour!
Hurry!
She must get to him in time, tell him she'd have the money for him right away! She'd get it from her brokerage account. But she'd left him almost an hour ago! If he wasn't still at the cairn, she'd run to Ballynach, search everywhere, he could be in Finney's Restaurant or in O'Malley's, he could be staying at Nolan's Bed and Breakfast, or … where?
Where?
Suppose, vindictive, he was already calling RTV and the press. A sob caught in her throat.
Through the meadow grass, panting, past the fir with her childhood buried treasure she ran, a pain in her chest.
Cloverleaf, an ugly tale for your son to hear
. Legs trembling, she was stumbling now, hurry,
hurry!
She was crossing the field
toward the big oak by the cairn, praying he was still there, praying to see the hateful pale eyes and the jutting mouth, and not daring even to take an instant to glance at her watch. The pain sharp in her chest, she reached the oak that shadowed the cairn.
“
M
ushrooms like damp places,” Winifred said to Sheila, who lagged unhappily behind with the basket from the kitchen garden. They had left Castle Moore a half hour earlier.”After a rain, mushrooms just spring up. Particularly at the base of oaks.”
Winifred strode cheerfully ahead, the Barnaby book under her arm. Crushed down on her head was an old Girl Guide hat with the brim pinned up on one side. She wore her favorite flannel shirt, knickers, and hiking boots. Sheila, in a heavy woolen skirt and sweater, longed for an after-lunch nap. Nettles clung to her skirt and she was cold. The basket she carried was padded with a soft dishtowel to hold the gathered mushrooms. So far it was empty. To Sheila's relief, Winifred's careful scrutiny of the sides of rotting logs and bases of trees had turned up not a single mushroom.
“I
still
think,” Sheila said, “that we're taking our life in—”
“I'm not a mycologist, Sheila, but”—and Winifred held up the book—“Barnaby says there are three thousand and three hundred species of mushrooms in the world and—”
“I
know,
you
told
me! More than two thousand are harmless.
But which are which? It only takes maybe one tiny little poisonous mushroom, one single innocent-looking—”
“And we'll keel over with our claws in the air? I'm going by the illustrations, Sheila. Barnaby has
red
dots on poisonous mushrooms like destroying angel,
Amanita virosa,
and death cap,
Amanita phalloides.
We'll pick only Barnaby's
blue
dot mushrooms. The edible ones. Like the wood mushroom.
Agaricus silvicola. Silvicola
means ‘living in woods,' Sheila.”
“But—”
“And the horse mushroom. Edible.
Agaricus arvensis. Arvensis
means ‘growing in fields.' But we'll be careful there because Barnaby warns that it can be confused with destroying angel. But destroying angel has pure white gills and a saclike volva at the base of the stem. So, no problem.”
Sheila made a whimpering sound.
In ten minutes they reached the bridle path belonging to Castle Moore. “There are ancient oaks, beyond,” Winifred said, “and plenty of forest, we'll have good luck.” They crossed the bridle path and pushed on through thick gorse. A fallen log looked promising. Winifred knelt and studied the whitish growth minutely, referring to the Barnaby. “Lichen,” she decided. Sheila gave a shudder of relief. They went on. A hundred yards farther was a meadow, beyond which was forest. Winifred squinted across the meadow to a ridge of oaks. “Beautiful and ancient. Probably were here at the time of the Druids. If you believe in that sort of thing. Personally, I do. That big one marks the dividing line between Castle Moore and Sylvester Hall. Shady under those oaks, and certainly damp after last night's rain. Stop
lagging
, Sheila.”
They crossed the meadow and came under the shade of the big oak beside the cairn. There were only flecks of sunlight coming through the leaves, flecks that were like a scattering
of gold coins, the scattering of gold flickering down on the figure of Natalie Cameron, who stood holding what looked like a small knife.
A man's blood-soaked body lay at her feet.
I
t brought to O'Hare's mind a sacrifice he'd once seen as a kid in a frightening biblical illustration, the goat's throat slit, blood soaking into the desert sand, a line of camels in the distance, though of course this was Gaelic country, autumn leaves, birds chirping, a fresh breeze.
O'Hare made a repudiating, whistling sound between his teeth. The man's body lay faceup beside the cairn. Blood from his gaping, slit throat had soaked his diamond-patterned sweater and clotted the leaves around him. Bloodless, dead white face. He was no one O'Hare had ever seen before.
O'Hare swallowed with difficulty and looked about. Natalie Cameron stood a few feet away, head hanging, eyes dazed, hair in a tangle. Sergeant Bryson was relieving her of the penknife gently, adroitly, with his hand in a plastic sandwich bag so as not to smudge the prints. Dreadful, unbelievable. Yet incontrovertible.
Winifred Moore was standing at his left, and beyond her was Sheila Flaxton. Winifred was smoking one of her brown cigarettes, a book under her arm. She had called him ten minutes ago on the cell phone that was always on her belt. She'd said enough for him to avoid wasting time: he'd phoned headquarters of the Garda Síochána, the Irish police, at Dublin
Castle, Phoenix Park; the van with the technical staff would be arriving in thirty or forty minutes. The Dublin Metropolitan area comprised Dublin city and the greater part of the county and portions of County Kildare and Wicklow.
“I'm going to be
sick,”
Sheila Flaxton said.
“No need to stay.” O'Hare was jotting down notes. “Nor you, Ms. Moore. We'll be in touch.”
“Hmmm?” Winifred Moore said. She was looking off across the meadow. She grinned. “No surprise.”
Inspector O'Hare followed her gaze. Crossing the meadow toward them, walking swiftly, was Ms. Torrey Tunet.
 
“
So
,” Torrey said to Jasper, slathering butter on the brown bread that Jasper had baked and taken from the oven a half hour earlier, “when I got to Sylvester Hall, and Jessie told me that just ten minutes before, Natalie Cameron'd come tearing out of the coach house hysterically saying, “The cairn, the cairn!” and I'd only come to the hall to ask her about trying some late plantings of—”
“”Only to ask her' nothing,” Jasper said. “Late plantings!
You?
Hah!” They were at the kitchen table, it was four o'clock, and a fire in the hearth warmed the kitchen. Jasper grinned at Torrey and refilled her teacup.”Your color's high, rose on a peach; you look as made-up as Gilbert and Sullivan's ladies in
The Mikado.
Insupportable excitement. You can't keep your nose out—”
“That's got nothing to do with it. I'm—”
“Looking for trouble. You don't believe Natalie Cameron managed to slit that fellow's throat with a penknife, right? Hardly possible, either. A penknife! And Natalie Cameron could never have committed such a horrible crime, right? After all, she's your friend Dakin's mother and you've met her for all of ten minutes. So, in your considered—”
“Stick to your shortnin' bread,” Torrey said. “Besides, I'm not going to
do
anything.” She took a sip of tea.
 
At six o'clock, Inspector O'Hare telephoned his wife, Noreen. He'd be an hour late for supper. There'd been phone calls and faxes to and from Chief Superintendent O'Reilley at Dublin Castle. Sergeant Bryson had typed up the report. Meantime, the murder, already known as the Cairn murder was on the six o'clock RTE news.
Natalie Sylvester Cameron, thirty-six, of Sylvester Hall, Ballynagh, Wicklow, arrested in connection with the murder of Raphael Ricard, forty-four, of Montreal, Canada. According to Inspector Egan O'Hare of Ballynagh, Mr. Ricard, a financial advisor on a fishing vacation, was killed with a small penknife, his throat slit. No known motive as yet. Mrs. Cameron is at Sylvester Hall, bail having been furnished by her attorney, Daniel Morton.
O'Hare rubbed his eyes, then doled out a large-sized dog biscuit to Nelson, who ambled over to his blanket by the soda machine and settled down with the biscuit.
“I just
gave
him a biscuit,” Sergeant Bryson said from over at the computer.
“Then he's a lucky dog,” O'Hare said. He tapped the desk with his fingertips, frowning. The penknife was already in the forensic department at Dublin Castle in Phoenix Park. But what motive? What was the Canadian to Natalie Cameron that she'd killed him?
An hour ago, Natalie Cameron had sat right here beside his desk. Her bloodied sweater and shirt were in a plastic bag on the shelf, already tagged for Dublin Castle. Natalie Cameron wore an old plaid jacket of Jimmy Bryson's that had hung on a hook by the police station door for months. She was waiting for her attorney from Dublin; he would
make bail. In a husky whisper she told the horror of it, hazel eyes wide with shock. “Yes, Inspector, I was out walking. I came to the cairn and saw him lying there, blood thick around—It was horrible! I thought, ‘Go for help!' But then … . I could tell he was dead. I picked up the knife without thinking … What, Inspector? No, a man I never saw before.” And “The knife? I recognized it. My father's penknife … No I don't know how it came to be there … . Objects have been stolen from Sylvester Hall before, the doors are always left open for the dogs to go in and out … . Yes, Inspector, I picked it up, I suppose I was in shock. The man's appalling-looking body, after all! One hardly expects …”
After she was gone, accompanied by her attorney, Sergeant Bryson swung around in his chair by the fax machine. “Out for a walk, was she? Far's I know from Jessie, going out for a walk Mrs. Cameron'd always whistle for the dogs to come. That was her habit. But this time she'd gone off alone.”
Inspector O'Hare gave Jimmy Bryson a surprised look. More to the lad than he'd thought.
“Another thing,” Sergeant Bryson said, “What about them both being Canadians—this murdered fellow, Ricard, and the other one, Brannigan, who was attacked at the Sylvester Hall gates? What's the connection?”
O'Hare rubbed his eyes. So far, their only information about Raphael Ricard came from his passport, driver's license, and business cards, all of which had been among his effects at Nolan's Bed and Breakfast. “We'll have the Montreal police report on Ricard by tomorrow, Jimmy.” Maybe the report would reveal not only a connection to Brannigan but to Natalie Cameron.
BOOK: The Irish Cairn Murder
9.86Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

You Are Here by Donald Breckenridge
Nipper by Mitchell, Charlie
Beyond Vica by T. C. Booth
Anne & Henry by Dawn Ius
His Virtual Bride by Dee Brice
La mecánica del corazón by Mathias Malzieu