The Death of an Irish Sea Wolf Read online

  “But if your question is can somebody slip onto the island without anybody knowing? The answer is yes. In quiet water at low tide there’re probably a dozen sandy spots where you could run in a small boat. And isolated enough nobody would see. Getting off would be the problem, if the tide turned or conditions changed. Like I said, the brother-in-law fishes these parts.”

  “What about tourist season? When’s that?” He remembered Rice saying there were only one hundred and forty people on Clare Island, and maybe a third of them now in school. With the treeless vistas, the rough coast, and the small and now alerted population, the raiders would find it difficult to return unseen for whatever they had searched for but not found at the Fords.

  “It begins right round now, since the weather’s broken.”

  McGarr again scanned what he could see of the island, now as the day wore down. Yes, there was sun. But it was still cool, and the wind was intense even by Irish standards.

  “Day-trippers mostly,” Rice went on. “People over from Louisburgh for a day on the beach. Accommodations for overnight is scare. There’s the hotel, the new lighthouse we just heard about, the pub has a few rooms, and maybe four B and Bs. Oh, and there’s a hostel hard by the hotel. Maybe a hundred beds in all.

  “There’s little to do here, unless nature’s your game. I mentioned the beach, but there’s also the dive center and some prize shark-fishing when the water warms. And natural history.” Rice then explained that Clare Island had been the subject of a Royal Dublin Society study early in the century with a follow-up only a few years past. The reassessment began in 1989.

  “A hoard of scientists and scholars descended on the place and found birds and flowers and rocks the islanders themselves didn’t know were here. As well as passage graves from antiquity and such truck. It made all the papers, and the odd professor still comes and goes.

  “Other than that, the only big event is the ‘O’Malley Rally.’ That’s the roundup and reunion of all the O’Malleys from all over the world. A prolific people, I’d say. They come to find their roots, you know, and hoolie for the better part of a week. It keeps getting bigger and bigger every year. Sometimes upwards of three thousand of them, all here on this little island.” Rice let his eyes stray over the barren landscape. “It’s bedlam.”

  “When’s that?”

  “The coming week, I think. But I can give you the date exact. They moved it up early this year so the footballers among them won’t miss the World Cup. I always make sure we’re prepared.”

  From a pocket of his tunic, Rice pulled out a calendar and thumbed to the appropriate page. “Here we have it. This year they’ll begin arriving in two days’ time. The Chieftain’s Dinner in the Bayview Hotel, which wraps everything up, is three days later. It’s all the celebrating a human body—even one by the name of O’Malley—can tolerate. To say nothing of us. After that, we tell all the revelers to go back home to O’Malley-ville, wherever that might be. If they haven’t had enough of us, we have of them.

  “I try to keep the ‘police presence’ to a minimum, but with that many celebrants on hand and mouth, there’s always some gobshite to try our patience.”

  CHAPTER 11

  A TRIED PATIENCE was Detective Superintendent Bernard McKeon’s condition exactly. For nearly an hour now he had been compelled to listen to a tall young fisherman with a red and swollen left ear and skinned palms hold forth at the bar of the Bayview, Clare Island’s only hotel.

  The man had been saying how all guards, government men, EU officials, naval service personnel, water bailiffs, Spics, Port-u-gees, Japs, Ruskies, Brits, and others too numerous for McKeon to remember were variously thundering gobshites, blatherskites, bloody scuts, shite-hawkers, bad cess, and pooling hoors’ melts along with a host of other overused and less colorful expressions. All the while drinking pints and shorts that improved his spirits not one whit.

  At first McKeon was entranced. A confirmed Dubliner who usually manned the Serious Crimes Unit command desk, he was used to the “chat,” as it were, of the common run of psychopaths and murderers, and he had not been treated to such quaint and rustic speech in many a year. But the man’s shagraun soon grew old.

  Twice the barman pleaded with him to mend his ways, saying, “Well, my wild rapparee, you fairly destroyed that pint. Go easy, or you’ll have ‘Her Grace’ in here.” He meant the older woman, obviously the owner, who could be seen at the desk in the lobby. She was too close not to have heard some of the tirade.

  The second warning was more pointed. “Steady up or settle down, Colm. I tell you again, you’ll clear off out of here.” Which brought a brief surcease, while Colm took himself to “the jacks!” as the three or four other drinkers studiously ignored him. It was then that the barman told McKeon what had happened to Colm Canning’s ear and hands, which brought a smile to McKeon’s cherubic face.

  But Canning was not back for a roar and a swallow before the mistress of the premises appeared. Reaching over the taps, she removed the fresh pint and set it in back of the bar, saying, “There now, Colm—you were warned, and you’ve done it. You can come back for that on the morrow. But if I hear any more out of you, you won’t come back at all,” which was a potent threat indeed, McKeon judged, on an island having only two licensed premises that he knew of. It was a category of information that McKeon was quick to learn, wherever he went.

  And Colm Canning respected as well. Plainly miffed but feigning proud unconcern, he snapped a dismissive hand at the woman, who waited to be sure of his response. She checked the other drinkers’ glasses, smiled at McKeon, and had a quiet word with the barman. In silence, Canning dug out a smoke which he lit. Turning away from the bar, his hazel eyes lit on the only foreign, and therefore less potentially punishing, target in the premises. Obviously, he had not learned his lesson.

  For an unsteady moment, he regarded McKeon. “Whatever are you looking at?”

  Which was the question in a question, thought McKeon. Whatever. But he said nothing, knowing there could be no conciliatory reply, a drunk being a drunk being a drunk.

  At fifty-three, Bernie McKeon was a short, wide man with close-set dark eyes and a thick shock of blond hair that was now turning gray. In recent years, he had put on weight, which belied the fact that he had once been a drill instructor in the Irish Army and for a time in charge of the physical training of Garda recruits. McKeon still visited the gym at least once a week, even if, most times, it was just to amble around the track, pump enough iron to work up a thirst, and grab some steam.

  “You there. You’re starin’ at me.”

  McKeon couldn’t keep himself from glancing at the man.

  “You’re tryin’ to turn me to stone.”

  “You mean, like Gorgon? The Greek bloke with the stony gaze and the snakes in his hair?”

  Canning closed his eyes and shook his head. “That bloke was not a bloke. That bloke was a hoor, actually three hoors—Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa.”

  Ah, a literary fisherman—thought McKeon—with an ego as immense as classical reference. “You mean to tell me, my staring at you has put you in the condition you now find yourself?”

  Canning only grunted, his pupils dilating, his ears pulling back as his sodden brain struggled to think of some way of lunging at McKeon while still retaining the right to drink at the hotel bar. But there could be none. ‘Her Grace’ had returned to the door of the bar and was now watching him.

  “I must remember to avoid mirrors,” said McKeon.

  Which brought quick nervous laughter from the others at the bar.

  “I asked you a question—where yeh from?”

  But the woman stepped forward, saying, “That’s it, Colm. I warned you. Now you’re—”

  Raising a hand, McKeon stopped the blade of her figurative guillotine; some other man might thank him in the morning. “Me? I thought you’d never ask. Why, I’m from Bawling ass Crieth, and I’ll make you a citizen if I have to.” The phrase was a corruption of the Irish name
for Dublin, Baile atha Cliath.

  It took a few seconds for the phrase to sink in, but when Canning’s eyes cleared, McKeon could tell that the message had hit home. “You mean, you’re just another Dublin arse ban—”

  “Say that word, Colm Canning, and you’ll not only never set foot in this premises again, I’ll ring up the civic guards, though I’m not sure I’ll have to.” She glanced at McKeon, who tried to appear confused. He was supposed to be undercover.

  “Now then, we’ll be seeing the back of you. This instant!”

  Lurching out the front door, who should Colm Canning run into but Peter McGarr. Drunk though he was, Canning only flushed scarlet and thrashed off into the windy evening.

  “But the hotel is in perfectly good nick,” McKeon complained a few minutes later when McGarr said he wanted him to take a room at the lighthouse. “And look”—his hand darted to the window—“it’s got a clear view of the harbor. With these yokes—why, nothing will escape me.”

  He hefted the Zeiss night-seeing binoculars that McGarr had brought him; they had yielded only one set of fingerprints, believed to be Ford’s. “You can go out and about the island, interviewing and what not, and I’ll man the post right here in this window. I won’t leave it for…well, for anything but a call of nature. Don’t we want to monitor arrivals at the harbor?”

  They did, but McGarr was not certain how effective it would be with two other docking sites and a number of other potential small-boat landing points around the island. Also, when the raiders returned, they would need a new plan, now that police were on the island and the resident population was alerted.

  In the meantime, McGarr’s staff could run down the leads in Dublin: the solicitors, Monck & Neary in Merrion Square; the gold merchants named Sigal; and the immense diamond and sapphire ring that he now had in his pocket. That too had yielded nothing but a smeared print and a few flecks of dried blood. Also, there was the final name on Clement Ford’s note-paper. Angus Rehm. And Paul O’Malley’s tape of the radio conversation, boat to boat.

  So far, Ford himself had proved an enigma. He had paid taxes in the Republic of Ireland regularly and completely on a small income beginning in 1947 until the last tax year. But he was not a citizen. Nor was he a citizen of the U.K., as far as could be ascertained at the moment. England listed nine people by that name, but none was as elderly as Ford or resident outside of that country. And none six feet six inches and twenty stone in weight.

  Still standing at the window, McKeon now drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, as though resigned. “So—where is this lighthouse?”

  “About two miles from here. Perhaps a bit more. North.”

  “All uphill, I assume.”

  “Well, most lighthouses are situated on promontories. Think of it this way. When you come back, it’ll be all down hill.”

  “Is there anything else up there?”

  Wind, McGarr explained, wishing there was an audience to witness McKeon’s discomfort. He described the clouds and birds. “There might even be a ganetry. I caught a glimpse of one. And Tom Rice tells me there’s an ASI.”

  “A what?”

  “An ASI. Area of Special Interest—it’s an EU designation.”

  McKeon made a face. “What class of interest?”

  “Environmental interest. What other class do you think exists here? This one contains Alpine flora found only in some isolated parts of Cork and Kerry and, of course, Switzerland.”

  McKeon’s dark baleful eyes raked the hotel window with the now brooding sky and riotous waters below. “Which could do with some civilizing.”

  McGarr also explained that he had wanted an old hand to watch the Ford cottage and Mirna Gottschalk, somebody who would quickly determine what activity was normal and usual. And what was not. Also, he had chosen McKeon because, as his chief of staff, he seldom got out of the office on assignment, and such junkets were a perquisite of rank.

  “I suppose we could change places—me up there, you down here nosing about.”

  “No, no—we couldn’t have that.” It would be unseemly, at least from a police point of view. The ranking fellow on stakeout, the subordinate handling the investigation.

  Also, form dictated that McGarr attend Kevin O’Grady’s funeral. Finally, McGarr thought he would ring up his wife, Noreen. She and their young child, Maddie, were still at the fishing resort he had left that morning. Noreen had passed an entire summer on Clare Island; apart from weekends, McGarr had been forced to come and go. She would know the island better and might even be remembered by the locals.

  “The brochure of the place bills the lighthouse as ‘the Last Temptation.’” McGarr stood and moved to the door.

  “As in—‘of Christ’? If that’s the recommendation, I’m poxed. Haven’t I seen the film.” Like a man condemned, McKeon followed McGarr down the deeply carpeted staircase to the lobby.

  His head turned, as they passed through the bar, then the lounge where the national news was just coming over the telly now at 6:00, and finally the sun porch where a number of people had gathered at tables to look out on Clew Bay over tea or drinks.

  “What about me bag?”

  “I had it put in the car.”

  McKeon’s head went back. “Am I that easy to suss?”

  “No, but you’re a rare dutiful guardian of civic order.” McGarr was having fun. Outside now, McGarr had to shout. “And would you look at that seascape. Where else could you find a view like that?”

  Clew Bay was a rip of windblown water, bright green in toward shore but a deep blue beyond. And while a brilliant sun still bathed the myriad of islands to the east, dark clouds with high white thunderheads were now racing in off the Atlantic. In all, the scene was unusual and dramatic but threatening. Another blow was sweeping in off the ocean, and it would storm before morning.

  “I’ve seen better,” McKeon said sourly. “In a Guinness advert.”

  But his mood improved by the time they neared the lighthouse. “’Tis a bigger place than I thought.” The Rover rocked and staggered in the stiff breeze that became stronger the higher they climbed. “Belgians, you say the people are?”

  “So I’m told. Do you know that Belgium has more breweries per capita than any other country in the world?”

  “You’re pullin’ me leg.”

  “No, but I imagine some of that goes on too.” Beer being beer.

  McKeon had to struggle to open the door, and a bitter draught bolted into the car. “I hope they like heat.”

  Stepping out, the two men were literally driven by the wind toward a stout iron gate. But just as in the dingle by the Ford cottage, its force diminished considerably a dozen feet into the cobbled courtyard.

  In front of them was a large white stucco residence that was ringed by the walls of stables and other service buildings. In fact, in the growing darkness they could see funnels of yellow light from other mewslike areas within the construct, that had been built—like boxes within boxes, McGarr supposed—to wall out the wind. Overhead it was now wailing past the turret of the lighthouse and its cast-iron catwalk that were silhouetted against the gloaming to the west.

  There were lights in every window. Approaching the main door, they peered in to see a fire roaring in a large open hearth. Heaped with driftwood, it was displaying a nimbus of rainbow colors as the halogens in the sea salts combusted. But there was nobody in that room, nor in the two other tastefully furnished quarters that were also visible beyond.

  “Would you look at that,” McKeon said. “A light show, and all for me. Now, if we can just scare up the pooka who runs this place—”

  With that, the door swung open, and there appeared a tall wide man with a thick shoe-brush mustache and steel-rimmed glasses. “You must be the gentlemen who rang up,” he said in a deep voice that matched his size. “Let me take your bag. Monica is in the kitchen, and I’m afraid that’s it. We’ve just opened for the season, and you’ve got the place to yourself, Mr.—”

  “McK
eon,” said McKeon.

  “And you are staying with us too, Mr.—”

  McGarr introduced himself, and was sorry to say he wasn’t. Whatever Monica was making in the kitchen smelled appetizing in the extreme, and McGarr suddenly realized that he had not had a bite all day.

  “Just a humble carbonnade,” which, Robert Timmermans explained, was a chunky beef stew cooked in beer.

  “Really?” said McKeon. “Beer?”

  “Sticks to the ribs. It’ll be cold tonight. Speaking of which, may I offer you an aperitif?”

  McKeon liked that even better, and Timmermans led the two men into another room where, miraculously, there was a well-stocked bar.

  McGarr let himself be talked into dinner, which exceeded the promise of the aroma. And while sipping an excellent and piquant Calvados that was served with coffee by the fire, he mused that accommodations like this lighthouse were one of the many ways that Ireland—but most particularly the West of Ireland—had changed for the better, largely because of seoinini or their cultures.

  There had been a time, before the country’s entry into the EU, that a stay in a place as remote as Clare Island inevitably included plain, poor fare and a cold, damp room even in the better hotels of the day. Now McGarr could not think of a county that did not offer at least one acceptable accommodation, if not on the level of this lighthouse.

  And before sinking too deeply into the comfortable leather chair by the fire, he revealed to the Timmermans who McKeon and he were and why they had come to Clare Island, as if the couple hadn’t guessed.

  The Timmermans swapped glances, Robert saying, “Poor Kevin O’Grady. He was very helpful to us when we bought this place as a ruin. There was nothing he wouldn’t do. And Clem Ford—whenever he came to see us, he came with tools to work.”

  “Whoever could have done such a thing?” asked Monica, who was a pretty blond woman. It was the question that McGarr had wanted to put. But when he glanced up at her, he saw that her eyes were filled with tears.