Haunted Ground Part 4

She strode briskly past him to the arched doorway and, grasping the iron ring handle with both hands, swung the door open, though it took all her strength. Cormac was unprepared for the hardness in the woman's pale gray eyes. He had just opened his mouth to explain when Hugh Osborne's voice sounded on the staircase behind him.

"I see you've met our guest," Osborne said, loping easily down the stairs. He seemed to a.s.sume that Cormac had just entered through the open door. "My cousin, Lucy Osborne; Lucy, this is Cormac Maguire, the archaeologist I told you about. I may have neglected to mention that he'll be staying here with us while he oversees the excavation at the priory."

An instant transformation took place in Lucy Osborne's eyes. She smiled and extended her hand. As he took it, Cormac was struck by the sinewy strength beneath her cool, dry skin. "Welcome to Bracklyn House," she said. "I do hope you'll forgive my mistake. We sometimes get the odd tourist wandering in off the road. It's not something we like to encourage; I'm sure you understand."

"I'm sorry I forgot to mention it, Lucy," said Hugh. "We only just made the arrangements yesterday. I thought I'd put him in the green bedroom, if that's all right?"

She nodded. "Yes, quite."

"You'll find in pretty short order that Lucy runs the household," Osborne said. "Things would most certainly fall apart without her."

Lucy acknowledged this small bit of flattery with a slight, almost imperceptible tightening of her smile. "I hope you have a very pleasant stay with us," she said. "You will let me know if you need anything at all, won't you?" And with that, she turned and disappeared through the doorway under the stairs.

"Excuse me for a moment," Hugh Osborne said as he hurried after her. All Cormac could hear was a brief murmured exchange, too low for him to make out what they were saying. Osborne soon returned, looking slightly preoccupied.

"Sorry about that. She dreads leaving the front door unlocked, but I refuse to live in a fortress--ironic as that might seem." He finally noticed that Cormac's clothes were creating a standing pool of rainwater. "G.o.d, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were dripping. Come on, I'll show you to your room."

"There's something I really ought to mention right away," Cormac said. "I thought it might be a good idea to enlist some help for this project--I hope you don't mind. There'd be no extra expense. I found a volunteer, Nora Gavin--Dr. Gavin, I should say--the colleague who was here with me out on the bog." He watched the shadow of that strange day pa.s.s over Hugh Osborne's face. "I'm very sorry about springing this on you, I should have mentioned it when I phoned."

"She's arriving here this evening?" Cormac couldn't tell whether Osborne was displeased, or merely trying to work out the logistics.

"She said she might be able to make it by around six. If it's any extra trouble--"

"No trouble at all. I'll just ask Lucy to ready another guest room."

Hugh Osborne led the way up the ma.s.sive staircase hung with paintings of richly dressed men from various periods.

"Family portraits?" Cormac asked.

"Rogues' gallery is more like it. The first blackguard, there at the bottom," Osborne said, stopping to point out the picture of a dark-haired man in a stiff white collar, "is Hugo Osborne, the first of the family to settle in Ireland. He actually worked for William Petty--I a.s.sume you've heard of him--the chap who did the first complete ordnance survey maps of Ireland. They all came here as adventurers, part of Cromwell's grand resettlement scheme in the 1650s. Hugo basically robbed the whole of this estate from a family called O'Flaherty, first getting them s.h.i.+fted west, then making sure the family's only son and heir was s.h.i.+pped off to a life of penal servitude in the colonies. The next chap there beside Hugo is his ne'er-do-well son, Edmund." Cormac paused in front of a handsome ginger-haired character in a richly brocaded coat and breeches, and was dumbfounded by the resemblance between Hugh Osborne's features--particularly the heavy-lidded eyes and handsomely cleft chin--and those of his distant ancestor, who no doubt had led his own guests up this same staircase four centuries ago.

2.

At twenty minutes past six o'clock, Nora Gavin pressed the doorbell at the front entrance to Bracklyn House and waited. She felt uncomfortable about meeting Cormac again after last night. The memory made her face burn; she reached up and touched the place his fingers had rested. She'd been completely shocked. And what had she said to him? Something about being a coward? He must think her very odd. Glancing up, she noticed an overhang jutting out from the story above, and counted three openings above her head, all apparently blocked with mortar and stone. She heard the heavy door open behind her, and turned to find Hugh Osborne framed in the Gothic arch.

"Dr. Gavin? We've been expecting you."

Having only seen him briefly out on the bog, Nora was disconcerted by the impression Hugh Osborne made face to face. He was dressed more formally now, and was taller and more powerful than she remembered, with strong bones and a weathered complexion that made him undeniably attractive. The deep-set, hooded eyes regarded her with equanimity. But you could look directly into the eyes of a killer and see nothing at all unto-ward; she knew because she had done it. Osborne obviously had no recollection of her, which was just as well.

"I was wondering about this--" She pointed upward. "I'm not even sure what to call it."

"A machicolation. Something the original owners would've installed for dropping stones or boiling water on unwanted visitors. We don't actually use it anymore, as you can see." Nora studied Osborne's benign expression. Getting rid of a body was no simple task--two bodies must be much more difficult. How had he done it? And how had he gotten away with it this long?

"You're in time for supper," he said, "but perhaps you'd like to see where you'll be staying first." She followed him up the huge main staircase, noting his silent, measured footsteps on the Oriental carpeting beneath their feet. Upstairs, he led her halfway down the central corridor. He pushed open a door and stepped aside, gesturing for Nora to enter. A heavy four-poster bed dominated the room, which was darkly paneled and even more darkly furnished. The windows were draped in a heavy wine-colored brocade. The effect was impressive, if rather gloomy.

"I apologize if the room is a bit musty. It's been a long time since we had visitors."

"I'm sure I'll be fine," she said.

"Good. Supper's in the kitchen--below the hall where you came in; just go through the door under the main staircase."

Nora heard a knock as she lifted her small case onto the bed. Cormac stuck his head through the open door.

"Thought I heard voices, but I wasn't sure. My room's all the way down at the other end of the corridor. Anyway, welcome."

"Thanks again for letting me come along. Cormac, I'm sorry about last night...."

Even from across the room, she could feel his warm eyes envelop her. "Don't worry about it. I was out of line. See you below?"

"Wait, I have something to show you--can you come in for a second? You might want to shut the door." She reached into her briefcase and pulled out a file as he joined her beside the bed. "Have a look at those." Cormac sat on the bed to scan the first few photographs, the doc.u.mentary shots from the conservation lab.

"Keep going." He flipped through the prints until he came to several grainy, indistinct images, video stills from the endoscopic exam.

"That's it," Nora said. "The piece of metal in the girl's mouth that showed up on the X rays. You still can't see what it is. But we've got to wait for official approval from the museum before trying to remove it."

"Any more about the cause of death?"

"Well, Drummond concurred that there's no evidence of blunt trauma to the head. There's also no evidence of strangulation. I told him my idea about execution, and he agrees that it's one possibility, especially given that flap of skin missing from her chin. But he says the remains are too old and too fragile for the definitive tests that would say whether decapitation occurred pre-or post-mortem."

"I suppose it's as much as we can expect," Cormac said, still studying the video image. "May I keep these?"

"Of course." She hoped her next question wouldn't sound too pointed. "You've met Hugh Osborne a couple of times now, Cormac. What's your impression?"

"I've hardly seen him since I arrived. I wouldn't say he's overly friendly, but that's understandable. We're only here to do a job for him."

"Did he say anything about what happened out at the bog?"

"No. The longest conversation we had was about his family, all those portraits on the stairs. Evidently his branch of the family came to Ireland with Cromwell."

A person couldn't have Irish connections and avoid hearing about Oliver Cromwell's legacy: the dispossession and transplantation of Catholic landowners, the half million who died and the thousands more who were transported or sold into slavery in the colonies.

"He said the man in the painting at the bottom of the stairs, Hugo Osborne, got this house and lands from an Irishman named O'Flaherty."

"I'm amazed that he'd go into all that."

"It is more than three hundred and fifty years ago, Nora. I don't think Osborne can be unacquainted with his family's reputation, any more than he's ignorant of what people are saying behind his own back now."

3.

Nora spent the entire meal studying Hugh Osborne. He'd put together a fine curry for supper, and while she watched the two men eat heartily, Nora found she wasn't the least bit hungry. She was picking at the remains of her dinner when the outside door opened, and a boy about seventeen years of age stumbled into the kitchen. His dark hair was severely cropped, and his dirty sweater, several sizes too large, hung on his slender frame. After a brief silence Osborne said, "I'm glad you're back." The boy looked down at the floor and tried to brush past them, but tripped and staggered directly into Nora; his right hand struck her winegla.s.s, which tipped over the edge of the table and smashed to pieces on the flagstone floor. She tried to catch him, but he fell heavily against her, his face pressing into her chest. He seemed to think this was terribly funny, and let out a half-strangled chuckle, filling her nostrils with his volatile whiskey breath.

"Are you all right?" she asked, taking the boy by the shoulders and setting him upright. He swayed, but remained standing.

"Jeremy," Hugh said, "please be careful of the gla.s.s there." The boy stood in front of Nora for a moment longer, his dark, gla.s.sy eyes staring as though he could barely see her through a haze. Despite being thin and dirty, not to mention flushed and red-eyed from drink at the moment, he was extremely beautiful, in an almost feminine way, with long eyelashes, and flawless porcelain skin.

"Don't mind me," the boy said thickly. "Carry on." He turned and made a shaky retreat out the door that led upstairs.

"I'm terribly, terribly sorry," Osborne said to her. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Please, it was nothing, an accident. But maybe we should get rid of this broken gla.s.s before anybody steps on it." Nora stooped to gather up the larger pieces, and as Hugh Osborne went into the hall to fetch a broom, she whispered to Cormac: "Devaney never said--"

Hugh Osborne evidently overheard her. "Jeremy doesn't belong to me. He's Lucy's son." A slight upward movement of Cormac's eyebrows indicated his surprise, and Nora wondered what the mother must be like. While Osborne finished sweeping up the gla.s.s, she began to clear away the table.

"Jeremy and his mother live here with you?" she asked.

"Yes," said Osborne. "They came here from England eight years ago, after Jeremy's father died. Daniel was a distant cousin; we only met at university. But I never had much in the way of family, so I rather enjoyed having a cousin."

"What happened to him?" Nora asked. Hugh Osborne looked at her cautiously, as if he'd spoken to strangers once too often and regretted it, but he continued.

"A suicide. He apparently made some rather questionable investments, and lost everything. I gather there was a possibility of criminal prosecution as well. I suppose he couldn't face it. He, ah--" Here Osborne paused, as if he'd momentarily lost his train of thought. "He shot himself. Jeremy was the one who found him."

"G.o.d help him," Cormac murmured.

"Everything they had--including Lucy's family home--had to be sold to pay off the debt. She and Jeremy had nowhere else to go, so I offered them a place here. It was her own idea to take up the housekeeping; it's not something I would have asked. And I must say she's been a rock--" Here Osborne stopped, as if suddenly aware that his guests were devoting their full attention to him.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't burden you with family troubles." With deliberate care, he placed the last piece of crockery in the sink. "I'll show you the priory plans now, shall I?"

"I've never been big on pseudo--thatched cottage tourism," he continued, on the way up the stairs. "Such a blatant swindle, all of it, and not even necessary. I'm convinced that most people would be interested in a more honest approach to the history and culture of a place, if you'd give them half a chance."

In his library, Hugh Osborne unrolled a rather unwieldy blueprint across his desk. "This first drawing is the priory and grounds as they exist now. Here's the area we're planning to develop. The priory itself was excavated about six years ago, and is actually maintained by Duchas--the Heritage Service. But recent gradiometer and magnetometer readings show areas of disturbed soil here. They're well outside the newer priory enclosure, but very near where we'd planned to put the new buildings. That's what we need to take a look at before we can put in the gas and electric lines to the site." Cormac was studying the irregular shapes on the drawing, evidently trying to decipher what they could mean.

"This drawing," Osborne said, pulling a second plan from beneath the first, "shows the existing priory, and the new workshop buildings in the adjacent field. We'll have room for three potters along the west wall, with a kiln here in the northwest corner; metal, gla.s.s, and woodworkers here on the southern wall; and weaving studios and dyeworks along the east. The whole complex will generate its own power with solar panels and a wind turbine. Half of this larger building has been designated as a shop for the artists, and the other half as an open public s.p.a.ce, where we can serve food but also hold meetings and lectures, or concerts, that sort of thing. We hope to add an interpretive element that will explain the site's archaeology, and eventually a separate interpretive center focusing on the nearby bog habitat."

"I understand there's some controversy about Drumcleggan," Cormac said. "I've seen all sorts of signs posted along the road. Anything we should be concerned about?"

Hugh Osborne sighed. "I hope not. Drumcleggan has just been designated as a Special Area of Conservation, to bring us in line with other countries in the European Community. Essentially, that means turf-cutting isn't going to be allowed for much longer. Machine cutting is already banned outright. People around here have always relied on turf for fuel, and it's almost impossible to get them to think about the long-term impact that has on the environment. The government have recently exempted people who hand-cut turf for their own domestic use for another ten years, but it hasn't really a.s.suaged any fears. Those signs have been posted all over the place."

"A sort of citizens' protest?" Cormac asked.

"I suppose. There's been a whole lot of rumor and speculation, and claims that some boundaries have been changed to suit developers, myself included."

"And have they?" Nora's question was a bit blunter than she'd intended, but Osborne didn't appear to take offense.

"No," he said, "but tempers are a bit frayed. People around here are sensitive about outsiders telling them what they can and cannot do--and it's understandable enough, I suppose, given their history."

"What does Drumcleggan actually mean?" Nora asked.

"'Ridge of the skull,'" Cormac said.

"Right," said Osborne, observing Cormac with the eager antic.i.p.ation of a man whose obsession has found its way into conversation by happy accident. "Are you interested in place-names?"

"Interested, but not very knowledgeable, I'm afraid."

"It's my main area of study, so I'm liable to get carried away. I'll endeavor not to bore you too often on the subject."

"I'd enjoy hearing more about it," Cormac said. "I don't suppose there's very much historical information on the priory itself."

"Not as much as I'd like. The existing buildings date from the twelfth century. Its most recent incarnation was the family chapel, but there was a fire in 1660, and it was never rebuilt. I have a copy of the old report on file at Duchas. You can have a look through it if you like." He dug a thick ma.n.u.script from a drawer and pa.s.sed it to Nora.

Nothing remains of the first monastery founded here by Saint Dalach, who died around 809. Some time after 1140, the O'Flaherty family founded a priory for the Augustinian Canons for whom the existing church was built in the late 12th or early 13th century, one of several Augustinian houses in the area. After a disastrous fire in 1404, the priory was restored on a much grander scale. By the mid 15th century the monastery had become corrupt, and in 1443, the Pope took the priory under his protection. The monastery was dissolved around 1540, but the Augustinian friars returned in 1632 when they subdivided the church, and remained until 1650. A fire in 1660 destroyed the newer complex. There is a fine west doorway inserted in 1471 showing Saint Michael, Saint John, Saint Catherine, and Saint Augustine. Other notable fifteenth-century features include a vaulted rood screen, east window, and portion of the cloister arcade.

"You know, if you don't mind," Cormac said, "I think I should fetch down my own maps. I won't be a minute."

"Great enthusiasm for his work," Hugh Osborne said to Nora when they were alone.

"He has that."

"Listen, if you'd like to turn in, do, by all means--don't feel as if you've got to stay here."

"I'm fine."

"It's just that we really should go over these drawings if he's planning to begin first thing in the morning."

"No, it's actually very interesting..." Nora said, her voice trailing off as her gaze fell upon a silver-framed photograph of a dark-haired woman and child on the table behind Osborne's desk. The woman's coffee-colored skin, dark hair, and sloe eyes were reiterated in the features of the child she held facing her. One of the baby's chubby hands reached out to touch his mother's face. Hugh Osborne evidently registered the picture's effect, because when Nora raised her eyes, his frankly wary look told her he knew everything she'd heard about him. "Yes," he said. "My wife and son."

Nora searched for the hint of a reb.u.t.tal in his eyes, and found none. They both looked away. She knew that her own countenance too often betrayed what she was feeling. What had he seen in her eyes? She suspected that in future she and Hugh Osborne would observe a polite but measured distance, like two magnets repelled by opposing poles. What exactly had she gotten herself and Cormac into here? Why had she ever considered it an acceptable idea to stay in this man's home?

"Well, we're very lucky," Cormac said as he returned with the oversized map book. "There's quite a lot of detail for this area." He stopped short when he saw them. "Have I missed something?"

"I was actually just saying good night. I think I'm going to turn in early." Cormac looked startled, but said nothing.

"The stairs are just to your left through the next room," Hugh Osborne said. "I trust you can find your way."

"I'm sure I can," Nora said. She left the library feeling not a little disconcerted at the way the scene there had played out, and the way she'd reacted to Osborne's statement. What should she have said? "I'm sorry"? What words could possibly be appropriate in addressing a bereft husband who was also the prime suspect in his wife's disappearance? The paneled door to her left was dark and heavy, with an ornate iron latch that did not move until she applied all her weight to pull it down hard. The hinges were badly in need of oil. She found herself not in the front foyer, but in another, narrower hallway, paneled with dark wood and dimly lit. This couldn't be right--it wasn't at all like the way they'd come up from the kitchen. Nora tried a door to her right, which led into a dining room furnished with a Baroque-looking table and sideboard, ornately carved with the leering faces of fauns and nymphs. The evening light was completely gone now, and in the gloom, the faces that peered out from the carved wood seemed to take malicious delight in her discomfort. She proceeded cautiously through the room to the next closed door, but when she turned one huge handle with both hands and pushed, nothing happened. She could simply retrace her steps, but that meant crossing the roomful of faces again, and besides, she'd be d.a.m.ned before she'd go back into that library to ask for directions. This was ridiculous. She turned and pushed once more with all her might, and at last the door gave, and sent her stumbling forward.

The room was dark, but she could see from the moonlight streaming in from the windows that the plastered walls were painted a deep shade of scarlet, and that its woodwork, including tall shutters on the windows, had been painted many times over in a glossy white. As in the library, the ceiling was elegantly coved plasterwork, but in this room curls of peeling white paint clung precariously to its surface. The floor was made from broad planks of oak, and the huge Persian carpet that very nearly covered it was threadbare. The room was decorated in a jumble of periods and styles. There were two settees, with slender carved legs, upholstered in gold damask, facing one another in front of a huge stone fireplace. Above the mantel hung a portrait of an aristocratic-looking woman in full riding habit but sans horse. An elaborately carved wooden screen and a large hookah hinted at some family member's military service in India. Along with spoils of empire, this room also held the requisite hunting trophies from a country estate: stuffed pheasants and foxes, even the huge mounted antlers of an ancient Irish elk. Though the estate must undoubtedly be worth some serious money, this room and everything in it spoke of declining fortunes at Bracklyn House.

Nora pushed open one set of heavy double doors at the far side of the sitting room. The stairs had to be close by now; she felt as though she'd been going around in circles. The next shadowy chamber was some kind of office, but much of it was draped in dustcovers. She'd gone several paces into the room when she turned and saw in the darkness before her a pair of large yellow eyes. An involuntary cry escaped her lips. To her left, a door hidden in the paneling opened suddenly, and through it came Hugh Osborne, who quickly crossed to switch on the light. Cormac followed close on his heels.

"Nora, what is it? Is everything all right?"

"I'm fine. I just got lost," she said, peering at the thing that had startled her: in the light it was nothing but a large brown and yellow b.u.t.terfly in a bell jar. Nora's eyes traveled upward and around the room. b.u.t.terflies--hundreds of them, some as tiny as bees, others with wingspans of nearly ten inches--filled nearly every inch of wall s.p.a.ce. They were iridescent blue, and yellow, and brilliant orange, with eye spots and swallowtails, each one pierced through with a pin, neatly labeled and displayed under gla.s.s. Such beauty, but the vibrant colors and lifelike poses somehow did not make up for the fact that these lovely insects were all dead.

Hugh Osborne finally said, "I'd quite forgotten the impression this room can make. My grandfather had rather an avid interest, for an amateur collector. I remember him drilling me on all the scientific names."

"I've never seen so many," Cormac said. "Barring a museum."