Haunted Ground Part 23

"Just wanted to say well done, Detective," Boylan said in a confidential tone. "Very well done indeed. A sad case, but good to have everything resolved."

"Sir" was Devaney's curt reply. He didn't feel he deserved even this brief congratulatory nod. Though he probably would have cracked it eventually, the fact of the matter was that the b.l.o.o.d.y thing had fallen right into his lap. When are you ever going to learn to ease up? asked the voice in his head. Whatever way the answers had come, the thing was finished.

A heavy rain lashed down all during the service, and by the time the Ma.s.s was over the television cameras had dispersed. The showers had all but stopped when the mourners reached the burial site, but the sun seemed to dodge in and out behind still-threatening dark clouds that occasionally let go a sporadic drizzle. Mother and child were interred in the same casket, in a corner of the ancient churchyard at Drumcleggan Priory, in an area slightly separated from the rest of the burials. The church had been full to the rafters, but here at the priory Hugh Osborne stood solemnly by the graveside, arm in arm with Mrs. Gonsalves, and the only others in attendance were Father Kinsella, Cormac Maguire and Nora Gavin, Una and Fintan McGann, Devaney himself, and the undertaker's men.

After the rain, the air smelled of freshly turned clay, and it struck Devaney that there was nothing illusory about this burial: no carpet of artificial turf covered the mound of earth that had been dug by hand from the grave; the unpretentious wooden coffin was lowered into the ground on stout ropes by two laboring men in shirtsleeves. Seated on a folding chair at the graveside, Fintan McGann strapped on his pipes and, when the holy water had been sprinkled and the last prayers said, lowered his head and began to play an air--a lament whose simple, dignified melody contained the purest distillation of grief. After they all filed from the churchyard, Devaney turned to watch the workmen as they shoveled the wet clay into the grave, listening to the damp, rhythmic sc.r.a.pe of the spades, and the sound of the soil hitting the coffin with a hollow thud.

12.

Back at Bracklyn House after the interment, Cormac noted how the noise level dipped for the slightest fraction of a second when Hugh and Mrs. Gonsalves entered the front hall, just as it had the night he saw Osborne ducking through the door at Lynch's pub. The mood here was decidedly somber, and yet this usually silent house took on a different, almost unrecognizable demeanor when filled with the buzz of conversation. It was clearly the first time most of these people had seen the inside of Bracklyn House, and he could see their eyes gauging its proportions, and their frank astonishment at its general state of disrepair, the age and shabbiness of the furnishings. The doors to the formal sitting room were open wide, the chandeliers managed to glitter through their thin veil of dust, and the huge dining table and sideboard were laden with plates of homemade ham and salad sandwiches, dark fruitcake, and currant scones. The combination of homeliness and grandeur struck a discordant note.

Hugh led Mrs. Gonsalves to a chair beside the dining room windows. Una brought her a cup of tea, and tried to press some refreshment on Osborne as well, which he refused. Mourners began to file past. "Sorry for your trouble," Cormac heard them murmur in low voices as they leaned down to Mrs. Gonsalves, or solemnly shook Hugh Osborne's hand. How strange to see the modern-day citizens of Dunbeg, whose tenant ancestors no doubt spent lifetimes tugging their forelocks in the presence of the Osbornes, greeting the current owner of Bracklyn House as though he still exerted some sort of control over their lives.

As he moved about the rooms, Cormac wondered where Nora had got to, and saw her talking to Devaney in a corner of the library. Going about his work, Devaney always seemed so self-a.s.sured, but here he had the uneasy look of a man not used to socializing, at least in situations where there was neither pint nor fiddle in his hands. When Cormac approached, they were talking about the cailin rua.

"So you're hoping the bones from the souterrain will come up a match?" Devaney asked.

"Malachy Drummond is helping us with it right now," Nora said.

Cormac addressed Devaney: "We found some evidence that the red-haired girl from the bog might have actually been"--he lowered his voice, not wishing under the circ.u.mstances to broadcast such news to every soul within hearing--"executed for the murder of her newborn child. But Nora doesn't believe it."

"I realize we may never find anything conclusive," Nora said. She looked through the open door into the dining room, where Hugh Osborne stood by the window, accepting condolences. "I just think we ought to get all the information we can."

13.

The morning after the funeral, Nora was packing her case when her mobile phone began to chirp. It was Malachy Drummond.

"I have some interesting news," he said. "First, the skeletal remains of the adult from your souterrain were a conclusive match for the head found at Drumcleggan Bog. The vertebrae matched exactly, as did the blade marks on the bones. I'm as positive as a pathologist can be that they're the same person."

"I knew it," Nora said under her breath, and at the same time, she felt slightly ill as she thought of the cailin rua putting a hand over her infant's mouth and nose until it lay still. She didn't know if the murdered child was a boy or a girl. There was no mention of its gender in the account Raftery had provided. "Thanks, Malachy, I appreciate you taking the time."

"Hang on. That was only the first bit; there's more. The museum has some sort of arrangement with one of our colleagues at Trinity. McDevitt's his name, a chap from the genetics department. He's working on a database of mitochondrial DNA. Anyway, he came to take a sample from your two specimens while I had them in the morgue, and we got to talking about his research." Nora was listening, but her mind was already turning over the possibilities of what Drummond was about to reveal.

"It's fascinating stuff. In addition to DNA, he's also collecting surname information. Taken in conjunction, his data will eventually produce a map of genetic diversity in Ireland, as a first step in making inferences about population origins. I told him you might have evidence about this girl's ident.i.ty, and he said he might like to phone you about it when you get back. I gave him your office number; I hope you don't mind."

"No, that's fine, Malachy."

"So as we were working, I told him the whole story, how this young woman's head had been found in a bog, and that you'd turned up evidence that she may have been executed for the murder of her child, very possibly the same infant who was found alongside her in the souterrain." Drummond paused for breath. "I thought no more about it. But then McDevitt phoned me, just a few minutes ago, with some very curious results. The mtDNA sequences of these two individuals were completely different. There's no possibility that they were mother and child. They're not even distantly related. Isn't that curious?"

Nora couldn't answer, as her mind tried to take in the enormity of what she had just heard.

"h.e.l.lo, Nora? Are you still there?"

"Malachy, you're sure that's what he said? Not related?"

"He said the evidence couldn't be more distinct."

"How is that possible?" She wasn't really talking to Drummond, but trying to fix the contradictory information in her mind. "So if the child wasn't hers, whose was it?"

Nora carried her case downstairs, where Cormac was waiting for her, and Hugh Osborne walked them out to the cars in the drive. Cormac's jeep still bore a few scars from Brendan McGann's attack; the rear window was temporarily repaired with clear plastic sheeting.

"I owe you both so much," said Hugh Osborne. "I've spoken to Jeremy. He's going to come back home here when he's released. I know it may be difficult, but I can't just abandon him. Mina would never have wanted that."

"If there's anything at all that I--that we can do--" Cormac said.

"I fear I've already asked far too much."

Book Five.

An Account of Innocent Blood.

We are come to ask an account of the innocent blood that hath been shed.

--Oliver Cromwell, 1649.

1.

At 9:15 P.M. on a rainy Thursday night the following November, Cormac Maguire slouched on the sofa in his sitting room, reading. The front window was streaked with rain, but a small turf fire glowed in the grate, and he realized that he had never before experienced such a remarkable feeling of fullness and serenity.

Six months ago, feeling wrung out from a week of difficult conversation with his father, and weary after the long drive from Donegal to Dublin, Cormac had pulled up in front of his own house. He'd sat in the car for a while, studying the dark windows, contemplating whether he could ever return to the solitary life he had studiously built for himself behind them. The car window had been open just enough to admit the seductive scent of some unidentifiable flower. Whether it was the prompting of that sweet fragrance itself, or the prospect of the different sort of life it suggested, Cormac did not know, but he'd turned the key in the ignition and made his way through the narrow Dublin streets until he arrived outside Nora Gavin's flat.

She opened the door as if she'd been expecting him. The time that followed was almost like a dream now. A smile tugged at Cormac's lips when he remembered that those three intoxicating days with Nora were the first time he had felt not like a bystander in his own life, but a full partic.i.p.ant. Now he looked down at her stretched out beside him with her head resting in his lap, appreciating the warmth and the intimate landscape of her body, the curl of her ear, the soft wisps of dark hair against her pale skin. This sleep was a good thing; she was exhausted. In the months since they'd returned from Dunbeg, she had kept searching, digging through records of Irish a.s.sizes and transportation records at the National Archives in Dublin and the Public Records Office in London, trying to find out more about Annie McCann and Cathal Mor O'Flaherty. Her search had so far borne no fruit, and it seemed at this point that she was completely stuck. Cormac tried to imagine the energy Nora had devoted to the investigation of her sister's death, and knew that she'd not given up in that quest either. He no longer believed that evidence of the cailin rua's true story existed, but he'd stopped trying to convince Nora. He found her tenacity extremely touching.

The phone on the desk began to ring, but Nora appeared to be sleeping soundly, and he decided to let the answerphone pick up rather than disturb her. After the tone, he heard a familiar deep voice: "Ah, Cormac, it's Hugh Osborne. Something's turned up here I think you and Dr. Gavin would be interested in seeing. I was phoning to see if you might come down for the weekend--and if you'd bring along any information you've got on the red-haired girl from the bog."

2.

The charred tower house was the first thing Nora spied through a tangled veil of wet black branches. Next spring the ivy would twine its way up the walls once more, but now in the bleak and waning November afternoon, it was a gaping ruin, collapsed even further by the rotting damp that had set in on its ancient, blackened timbers. The crows had reclaimed it as their own. Cormac craned his neck to see through the rain-streaked wind-screen, and she slowed to a stop to give him time to absorb the picture as well.

"It's all right," he said. "Drive on. I was just thinking of the first time I saw that place."

Hugh Osborne greeted them at the door looking red-eyed and slightly disheveled, as though he'd slept in his clothes. "Come in, come in. The place is in a bit of a state. I was up late last night digging through old papers. I've just made tea." They followed him down into the kitchen, which, like the front hall, seemed different somehow from the last time they'd been here. Nora realized, taking in the sight of unwashed breakfast dishes, an open box of Weetabix on the counter, and the wrinkled linen towel slung through the handle of a drawer, that what the room lacked was the pristine tidiness of the days when Lucy Osborne had reigned at Bracklyn. The house was by no means grubby or squalid, just lived in. She wondered if Cormac perceived the change as well.

"I realize I may have sounded rather cryptic on the telephone," Osborne said as he poured them each a mug of tea. "It's to do with that red-haired girl from the bog. At least I think it is. But now, please, you must tell me everything you know about her. I want to feel as if I'm in full possession of the facts."

The way he phrased it made Nora think he was preparing to make a decision. "Well, it was fairly clear from the start that the girl had been decapitated," she said, "and closer examination told us it was probably done with a sword or an axe. So that brought up the possibility of execution." Nora reached into her briefcase and brought out the first photographs of the cailin rua, taken at Collins Barracks, and laid them on the table. Osborne flinched slightly, but forced himself to look. It occurred to Nora that this was only the second time he'd laid eyes on the face he had searched so anxiously out on the bog. He'd been too overwrought to grasp the full horror of her image at that time; she was simply not the person he sought. But Nora could see that something had happened since then, something that led Hugh Osborne to contemplate every detail of the grim visage that stared back at him from the photo.

"At first we had no idea about a date of death," she said. "We had just done the preliminary exam when I found this unusual image in an X ray." She placed the X rays, the endoscopic video stills, and, finally, the color photographs of the ring on the table before him. "It turned out to be this ring, inscribed with the initials COF and AOF, and a date, 1652. That gave us a time frame and a clue about her ident.i.ty, but no real information about why she might have been killed. We started to speculate about why a young girl might have been executed."

Osborne's expression grew more disconcerted as he studied the picture of the ring. "Go on," he said.

"We went to see Ned Raftery, because we'd heard he knew a lot about local history. We told him about the ring, and he told us how the O'Flahertys of Drumcleggan were transplanted, and about the son, Cathal Mor, who was shipped off to Barbados."

"But he knew nothing about any execution," Cormac said, "so he sent us off to his aunt, Maggie Cleary."

"And what we got from her were some fragments of a song," Nora said, "about a man who comes home from the Indies in search of his wife, only to find out that she's dead, executed years ago for the murder of their newborn child. Then Ned Raftery phoned to say that he'd found an account of an execution in Portumna in 1654. A young woman named Annie McCann had been convicted of killing her illegitimate child, and was beheaded for the crime."

"And of course we were getting frustrated," Cormac said, "because none of this was really conclusive proof, just fodder for speculation."

"Nothing was conclusive, until we found these remains." Nora hesitated in producing the black-and-white images of the skeletons in situ, remembering the adult's body curled around the infant's tiny frame.

"Please," Osborne said. "Show me."

Nora set the picture down, and saw a jolt of recognition in his eyes. "Malachy Drummond, the state pathologist, was able to determine that the adult skeleton from the souterrain belonged to the red-haired girl from the bog. We thought we'd found Annie McCann and her child, the one she'd supposedly killed. But I kept going back to the words of Mrs. Cleary's song: 'They've murdered thee my own true love.' How could she be executed and murdered?"

"At that point, we thought we'd exhausted all the physical evidence," Cormac said. "But a researcher from Trinity did some DNA typing on the remains from the souterrain--"

"His research a.n.a.lyzes mitochondrial DNA," Nora explained, "which is matrilineal; it's identical in a mother and child. But the sequences on this woman and child didn't match, which means they weren't related."

"The radiocarbon results on the red-haired girl finally came back, and they confirmed the mid-seventeenth-century date, although 350 to 400 years is right on the borderline where the C-14 becomes too recent to be extremely reliable," said Cormac. "So what we're left with is a really confusing set of facts. The red-haired girl could very well be this Annie McCann, who may or may not have been married to someone with the initials COF. It seems clear that she was executed for murdering her child, but the infant found with her was not her own. None of it makes sense."

"No," said Osborne, "it makes perfect sense. Come with me."

They followed him upstairs to the library, where the far corner looked as though it had been ransacked. A safe hidden in the bookcase was open, and boxes of papers were piled about it, what looked like very old legal doc.u.ments, some still daubed with sealing wax.

"I've been going through the family records," Osborne said, gathering up some papers and motioning for them to sit on the sofa in front of the fire. "You'll understand why when you see this. There's some stuff that goes all the way back to the O'Flahertys." He spread a photostat of an ancient, creased sheet of paper on the table before them. The handwriting was small and cramped, and there was something of an antique flourish in the shape of the letters.

"What is it, Hugh? Where did it come from?" Nora asked.

"Remember the strongbox found in the souterrain? And the book that was found inside it? The thing sat at the National Library for months, until someone finally had time to look at it. And when they were doing a closer examination, this doc.u.ment evidently slipped out from the binding. Someone at the library was kind enough to send me a copy, since the book was found on the property here."

"It looks like some sort of confession," Cormac said.

"Read on," Osborne said.

"From a priest. He confesses swearing a false oath in denouncing the Catholic faith. If he hadn't, it says, his choices were being killed or being sent to Inisbofin."

"Inisbofin?" Nora asked.

"Island off the Galway coast," Osborne said. "Cromwell's place of exile for priests."

"Look here, he mentions a second false oath." Nora began to read aloud, stumbling over photocopied patches of mildew and strange spellings: I had been called upon to attend the lady of that house, who was suffering through the biterest pangs of childbirth, and by chance discovered whilst crossing the bog a young woman of the locality, known as aine Mag Annaigh (known as aine Rua on account of her red hair), herself appearing verie great with child. She entreated me to come to her aid, and told how she had made the arduous journey on foot from Iar-Connacht, the far West country, travelling always by night, for fear of English soldiers. I carryed her with me to Bracklyn house, hopeful that she might secure lodging and succor from the servants there. My Christian duty thus discharged, I attended the chamber where the mistress Sarah Osborne was being delivered of her firstborn. The lady was much weakened by the ordeall, which had gone on for fully halfe the night, and would continue on (tho we were not to know it at the time) another twelve houres hence. The lady was at last deliver'd of a boy child she named Edmund, a poor weakling who scarcely mewl'd or cryed. Alas, the child grew weaker by the houre, and at last expir'd. Nigh on to midnight, or sometime therebye, the mistress heard a l.u.s.ty mewling from afar, and made as if to fly from her childbed for to seek it out. She howl'd most piteously and carry'd on in such manner until the master promised he would fetch the child. He prevaild upon me to a.s.sist him in this task, for his lady was past all reason, past all care, and truth be told, nigh unto madness with the childbed fever, and could not be dissuaded. I was sent to fetch the child of aine Mag Annaigh when infant and mother lay in slumber. When I approached, the lady Sarah Osborne put aside her own dead child and s.n.a.t.c.hd the living from my arms, and began to give it suck and strok't its brow. "Take that away," says she of the dead infant, "'Tis but a changeling. Now I've found my own dear babe at last." Her husband tryed in vain to coax her from this conviction, but none would have the babe from her. "I would fain learn," says...o...b..rne to me, "about the wench below." "She is unwed, sir," says I, but I confess now it was a cruel lie. For had I not wed her, not a twelvemonth hence, to young Flaitheartaigh of Drumcleggan?

"Wait a minute," Nora said. "If aine Mag Annaigh and the Annie McCann from Raftery's account are the same person, then our red-haired girl was definitely married to Cathal Mor."

"She was," Osborne said. "Keep reading."

Indeed the marriage had been not much favoured by his father, the maid being but a servant in their house, but I did agree to wed them secretly. But in the evil time that followed, the English soldiers drove the old Flaitheartaigh from Drumcleggan, and banished him to Iar-Connacht. The streams of Gaillmh flowed red with Irish and English blood, and wolf and carrion crow grew stout upon the flesh of murdered priests. I myself was forced to sweare an oath, to renounce the Catholic faith and all its teachings. And alas, when next I heard of young Cathal Mor it was not that he had flown to France, as I advised, but that he was took as a rebel gainst the English, and transported to Barbadoes. All this I knew when I answered thus: "Her child is but a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, sir, and has no father but the Lord G.o.d in Heaven." Osborne tooke this news, whereupon he compelled me to press upon the girl the body of his own dead child, all wrapt in rags, and swear an oath it was her child had perish'd in the night. But when I did as he bade me, the girl flew into a heated rage, and bolted from the house. She began travelling the roads, clutching the lifeless infant to her breast, and pressing upon all pa.s.sersby the tale of injustice wreaked upon her and her child, the lawful son of Cathal Mor o Flaitheartaigh.

To stop her tongue, Osborne next proposed in secret that the two of us should swear the wench had smothered her own b.a.s.t.a.r.d. A miserable, deserted creature half mad with grief, he reasond, who would credit her denial? In truth I fear I did not know the man till then. And how dared I oppose him, miserable as I was in my own wretched, d.a.m.ned plight? Osborne made haste to the sheriff for to report the murder, and I was to act as his witness that we two had seen the girl with her hands round the infant's throat. I could not save her except by inviting my own destruction, and that of Hugo Osborne and his lady wife.

And so it came to be that aine Rua Mag Annaigh was arrested and charged with her child's foul murder, and brought before the a.s.sizes, where she was swiftly convicted and sentenced to die by the sword. Within a fortnight she was spirited to the place of execution and her head cleft from her shoulders with a single stroke. When I entreated the sheriff's men to grant me her wretched corpse for burial, they enform'd me that her head had been took by Hugo Osborne off the block. I know not where it lies.

This secret chamber was known to me from earlier days, when I was oft hid here by old Flaitheartaigh, and much use have I made of it since in this latest fearful time. I brought her here, my fear being great that Osborne, in his wrath, would cause her corpse to be disinterred, were she buryed in any rough patch of unhallowed ground. And so within this ancient, private place, along with my forbidden priestly goods, I have entombed the remains of aine Rua Mag Annaigh. And against her breast I have lodged the hapless infant Edmund Osborne, who drew mortal breath but for an houre.

My confessors all are dead or banished. I therefore confess to whomever shall find this writing that I am a weak and worthless man, who have been hindered by mortal fear from revealing the wicked dealings in which I have played so villainous a part. I dare not seek absolution. I can never rest, for I am haunted by the face of that flame-haired creature, bound upon her knees, and the piteous cry that leapt from her as the swordsman did his evil work. If any person ever find this doc.u.ment, I do heartily beg your prayers, and those of all good Catholics and Christians. I go to my grave beseeching G.o.d's mercy upon my eternal soul. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

The paper was signed Miles Gorman, and dated the twenty-fourth of May, 1654. Osborne had waited in profound stillness for them to finish deciphering the words he must have read over and over again. Nora looked up and saw him sitting in the chair across from them, waiting for a reaction with an anxious, guarded expression. "My G.o.d," she said, "if this is true--"

"If it's true, then the last three hundred and fifty years of my family's history is built upon an act of judicial murder," Osborne said. "Hugo and Sarah had no other children. That's what all these papers are; I spent half the night digging up the whole family tree."

"And all those portraits on the stairs--" Cormac said.

"Only the first one, Hugo, was actually an Osborne. The man they called Edmund Osborne was the son of aine Rua and Cathal Mor O'Flaherty, if this Miles Gorman can be believed. That's the question I keep asking myself. Why would he lie?"

A commotion of voices came from the front hall, and Aoife McGann appeared at the library door. "We're here," she announced, then retreated, and returned with Jeremy Osborne in tow. A profound change had come over the boy: his hair had grown out into dark curls, and his hollow cheeks had filled in. Jeremy actually looked healthy, and appeared both pleased and embarra.s.sed by Aoife's attention, especially in present company.

"How are you, Jeremy?" Nora asked.

He glanced at her. "All right."

"It's good to see you," Cormac said. The boy's eyes flashed as he checked to see whether the remark had been made at his expense; when he found it was genuine, he seemed at a loss to respond.

Una stood at the library door now. "As long as you've still got your coats on, you two, how would you like to go and get me some potatoes out of the kitchen garden? About a dozen ought to do." Aoife seized Jeremy's hand once more, and pulled him after her before another word was spoken.

"G.o.d, if I had only half her energy," Una said. "Will you come down to the kitchen, so we can talk and chop at the same time?"

Una put the men on the onion and garlic detail at the table, while she and Nora took on washing some greens. "You're going to ask me how things have been since you left," Una said as she stood beside Nora at the sink. "It's been hard. Hugh won't admit it, but he still doesn't sleep at night. Jeremy's been doing much better, but he may need more help than we can give him. Hugh's trying, he really is. We all are."

"Any word about Lucy? Does he ever see her?"