The Man On The Cliff

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She bit back a grin. Despite her suspicions about Rory McBride, he looked so young and earnest in his blue uniform. Advising her, a woman at least ten years his senior, to be careful. “If he tries to put any moves on me, I’ll sock him one.”

“I’m serious, Kate.” He frowned. “As a Garda, I shouldn’t be saying this, but I’ve never doubted that Maguire had a part in his wife’s death.”

This was the second time Rory had mentioned his suspicions. Kate reached for the coffeepot. “This stuff is cold. Come and talk to me while I make some more.”

Rory followed her into the kitchen and stood with his back to the wall, watching her as she ran water. “Maguire’s got money,” he said after a moment. “The rules are different for him. People will turn a blind eye and that includes those high up in the Gardai, although you never heard me say that.”

Kate turned from the sink to look at him.

“Under the same circumstances, anyone but Maguire would have been locked up long ago,” he said.

She measured coffee into the pot and put it on the stove. The view from the kitchen window offered a panorama of green fields and gray ocean and, off in the distance, another, but equally gloomy, perspective of Buncarroch Castle. It seemed to dominate the small white cottages dotted all around. If she lived in one of those cottages, she’d probably dislike Niall Maguire. She looked back at Rory.

“So what do you think his motive would have been?”

“Well—” he scratched the back of his head “—myself, I think Moruadh just got to be a bit too much for him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Anyone you speak to will tell you how everyone liked Moruadh. Small wonder, she was a great girl. I liked her myself.” He stared for a moment at the kitchen wall. “The thing is, she had a…well, a reckless way about her that sometimes made you wonder whether she was right in the head.”

“In what way?” She sat down at the table again. “Can you give me an example?”

“I can.” He looked down at the floor as if in search of a dog to pet, and glanced quickly up at her. “But you didn’t hear it from me.”

Kate met his eyes for a moment.

“I’m serious. If it got out that I told you this, it’d be my job. I’m only telling you because we’ve a bit of an understanding. You help me, I do the same for you.” He watched her face. “Do you want to know?”

“Go ahead.”

“A few months before she died, we got a call late one night about a bit of a disturbance at Reilly’s flower shop. I was sent down to look into it and when I got there I couldn’t believe my eyes. A window had been smashed, and Moruadh was inside, blood all over the place.” He glanced over at the door as though scared someone might come in. “Stretched out on the floor, covered in flowers.” His voice had dropped to a whisper. “Not a stitch of clothing on her.”

Kate felt her breath catch.

“Still as a statue, she was.” Rory reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Eyes closed. I thought at first she was dead. Christ, my heart was going like a drum. Then all of a sudden, she just opens her eyes and smiles at me as though it was the most natural thing in the world for her to be there. ‘Oh, hello,’ she says. ‘I’m just choosing some flowers for my coffin.’”

“My God…” Kate shook her head. “That’s incredible.”

“It’s written up in a report,” Rory said, “but you’ll never get anyone to show it to you. It was all hushed up quicker than a wink. That very night I was called into the superintendent’s office, told that I hadn’t seen a thing and if so much as a word got out, I’d find myself back in Donegal and off the force. If anyone should ask about the window, it had been broken by tinkers.”

“And it was never mentioned?”

“It never happened.” He held her gaze. “The next time I saw Moruadh she was giving a recital at the library. Right as rain, she seemed. Smiling and friendly when she saw me. The funny thing is, after a bit I began to wonder myself whether I’d just dreamed the whole thing.”

“But Maguire must have known about the incident, right?”

“He knew, all right. Sure, it was him she was asking for the night it happened. He was brought to the shop in the superintendent’s car. No doubt he paid for the damage himself.”

“And you think, what? That this sort of thing happened enough that he got tired of covering for her so he killed her?” She frowned. “It seems kind of farfetched. I mean why wouldn’t he just get psychological help for her?”

“I’m not the one you should be asking that question.” Rory looked down at the pack of cigarettes in his hands. “To my mind, Maguire’s odd himself. In fact, before I saw this with my own eyes, I’d have said she was the normal one and it was him who was off in the head.”

Kate nodded. Cold and aloof according to almost everyone she’d spoken to. Easy enough to see how such traits wouldn’t make him popular, but it didn’t exactly convince her that he was capable of murder.

“No slight on the article you’re writing,” he said, “but I’d be surprised if you turn up anything that hasn’t already been gone over. To my way of thinking, her death is a closed book. Sure, if they all want to believe it was an accident, better to just let them.” He stood and buttoned his coat. “And about the other matter…”

“I’ve already forgotten it.”

“Thanks, Kate.” He smiled at her. “And be careful when you go up to Maguire’s, all right? If you’re not back at Annie’s by supper, I’ll have a car sent up to the castle.” He’d already taken off down the road when Kate remembered the sandwiches Annie had made for him. It took her only a minute to decide to take them down to the station. Maybe she’d run into the gray-eyed man again. A third chance encounter would be an unlikely coincidence in Santa Monica, here in Cragg’s Head anything was possible.

“RUFUS. Come on, boy.” Niall whistled for the dog. After a moment it came bounding back, stick in its mouth. It panted, eyes expectant, waiting for him to throw.

“You think I’ve nothing more to do, don’t you?” As he ran his hands through the long hair on the dog’s neck, Niall eyed the bank of purple clouds banked over the low hills, mentally composing a shot. A silver shaft of light pierced the clouds, shimmered on a ruined tower. The light was just right, but if he went back for his equipment, by the time he’d got everything set up, it would have faded.

The dog barked at him.

“Sorry. I forgot. You’ve got your priorities, too, haven’t you?” He flung the stick and grinned as the dog chased after it. An Irish wolfhound, rescued from a German couple who had rented one of his cottages a couple of years back, intending to make Ireland their home. After a taste of one Irish winter, they’d packed their bags and left. Rufus had become his by default.

Chin cupped in his hand, Niall studied the bruised-looking clouds again, then decided against going back for the camera. The second time that day, he thought as he started across the fields, that he’d had to forgo a bit of inspiration. The first time had been the American girl. He had a vivid mental picture of her on the grass by her fallen bike. Glaring up at him. Strands of red hair had escaped her black wool cap, and he’d fought an impulse to pull the bloody thing off her head and watch her hair tumble free.

She had green eyes. Not flecked with hazel, as he often saw, just pure green. And freckles on her forehead and throat. Seven of them over the bridge of her nose. He’d counted them. They probably multiplied in the summer. He thought of the summer he’d spent in America a few years back. California. It had been very hot, he remembered. But so beautiful you forgot about the heat until you got burned.

He walked out to the edge of the cliff, peered through the clumps of purple-red valerian. About halfway down, a rocky outcrop formed a shelf that ran for several miles and eventually down to the beach below. As a boy, he would ride his bike along the narrow ledge, thrilled at the danger of riding high above the ocean. He walked on for a mile or so, the wind tugging at his coat, his thoughts drifting.

When the talk started after Moruadh’s death, he had wanted only anonymity. An escape from the hostile stares and murmurs that seemed to follow him everywhere he went. He’d considered America. New York, perhaps. Los Angeles. Any big city.

And then one day as he walked out across the fields, he had seen, as though for the first time, the vast wideness of the sky, the heather-colored landscape. He had felt the wind on his face, tasted on it the faint tang of salt from the Atlantic. And, in that moment, he had known he could never leave Ireland. He might be estranged from those around him, estranged from himself if it came to that, but here was where he belonged. Nothing would drive him away.

The dog bounded back across the grass and Niall threw the stick again. He’d stood at the car door and watched the American girl ride off, red hair streaming behind her. Stood there until she disappeared from view. Unable to remember what it was he’d been about to do before he met her. For some reason, he’d wandered back to the grassy patch where she’d fallen. Sometimes you did things without really knowing why and this was one of those times, he supposed.

As he’d bent to take a closer look at the tracks her bicycle tires had left, his hand brushed across something hard and flat beneath the grass. When he pulled the blades aside, he’d found a lichen-covered stone. Next to that stone, there’d been another, and another. A half-dozen of them in all, formed in a circle.

A cromlech. They were all over Ireland, circles of stones, half buried in the earth. Left there by farmers too superstitious to move them. They were also known by another name, the thought of which made him smile. Fairy rings they were called. She had fallen into a fairy ring.

Moruadh, who had claimed that rooks nesting in the turrets of the castle spoke to her, would have called it a sign.

Five minutes later, he pushed open the door to the tourist office. Annie Ryan and Brigid Riley were eating sandwiches as they stuffed envelopes. Both of them gave him looks that suggested he was about as welcome as rain at a picnic.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Maguire?” Annie asked.

“I have those pictures you’d asked me to develop for the festival.” Annie was one of the organizers of Cragg’s Head’s yearly music festival, and he’d offered to photograph some of the musicians for advertisements she was running in the local paper. He glanced down at the envelope in his hand. “So I thought I’d drop them off.”

“Ah, good.” Annie put her sandwich down and reached for the envelope. Brigid had started eating again, but she didn’t take her eyes off him.

“I was also wondering about Elizabeth.” He looked at Annie. “When I spoke to you last night, she hadn’t come home.”

“She still hasn’t.”