Death at Carasheen (Inspector Faro Mystery No.13) Page 5

  Faro looked at him. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘To say that they don’t get on as devoted brothers is putting it mildly, Mr Faro. There is constant quarrelling among them, especially bad feelings between the eldest and the youngest, Mat and Luke. I gather from one of my patients - a rich widow named Molly Donaveen - that she is being courted by two of this unholy trinity. She is old enough to be their mother but what they want is her property as it adjoins their own. She is terrified of them.’

  As the grandfather clock’s warning wheeze indicated that it was gearing itself up for another dramatic performance, Faro realised, with some reluctance, that it was time to go. Margaret appeared from the kitchen as her husband was showing him out. Smiling, she held out her hand. ‘Good to meet you, Mr Faro. You and Imogen must come and have supper with us. We rarely get a chance of seeing her these days.’

  Closing the door, the doctor said, ‘Come any time, Mr Faro. I would dearly like to hear how your Edinburgh police would deal with a case like this one, here in Carasheen. And, of course, how they deal with corpses. Do they still have trouble with the bodysnatchers, like Burke and Hare?’

  Repeating the invitation later to Imogen, Faro said, ‘It seems that Burke and Hare, not body-snatchers but murderers who smothered their victims, have a lot to answer for in damaging Edinburgh’s reputation.’

  ‘What else did you discover with Uncle Des this morning?’ she asked.

  Faro shrugged. ‘There were no clues in the Donnellys’ croft and there is an awful lot about this case that makes no sense at all - although there might be a few clues to sort out in what the doctor told me.’

  ‘So where do you go from here?’

  ‘The next stage is that we will have to question - or rather confront - the Cara boys who have already denied all knowledge of the crime. According to your local policeman Conn, who I have yet to meet, they asked him who would dare take the word of the village simpleton against theirs. They believe they are quite safe - as indeed they are. Even if we got them into a court of law, a judge would dismiss Paddy’s evidence as that of an unreliable witness.’

  ‘But you can’t let them get away with murder,’ Imogen said indignantly.

  Faro’s secret wish was that, in this particular case, he could do just that. He was committed to lending a hand, aware of Imogen’s sense of injustice and her determination that the deaths of Peg and Will should be avenged. It was a dangerous course of action that he and her Uncle Desmond had embarked on. Faro had already decided that they should be armed and he wondered if, by any chance, Desmond possessed a revolver. Guns were things he had always treated with cautious reluctance but he had to admit they had their uses, especially in their function as deterrents. Being faced with a loaded gun would be enough to keep most villains at a distance and the Cara boys weren’t to know that Faro had seldom in his life used one while making an arrest.

  As they finished their midday meal, Imogen said brightly, ‘Aaron McBeigh is here, by the way.’

  Wrestling with the complexities of a forthcoming confrontation with Carasheen’s unholy trinity and wondering when Dublin were to provide the promised team of police officers, Faro stared at her blankly as he tried to think who Aaron was. At his puzzled glance, she smiled. ‘We met him in Heidelberg - the rich American? You must remember - he wanted to write a book.’

  Imogen had a bewildering number of acquaintances that Faro had briefly met and now a vague recollection of the American came to the forefront of his mind. The memory had been carefully shelved as disagreeable since this particular acquaintance seemed to have formed a passion for her. At least so Faro had believed from the evidence of his eyes that whenever they appeared in his vicinity, McBeigh would rush across waving wildly, pull out a seat at their table and, undeterred by a certain lack of spontaneity in their response to his ‘May I join you?’, he would settle himself in their company.

  Faro had to admit that sometimes, as a woman, Imogen had seemed amused and flattered by his attention. ‘What on earth is he doing here in Kerry?’ he demanded.

  A certain sharpness in the question was not lost on Imogen. She smiled and shrugged. ‘The McBeighs apparently have Irish roots...’

  And Faro remembered that the American had the nerve to claim Imogen as a long lost relative - almost!

  ‘He’s a writer too,’ she said, ‘and he’s compiling a book about his family history.’

  ‘Did he know you were to be here?’

  Imogen looked momentarily put out, wriggled uncomfortably and said vaguely, ‘He has kept in touch - through my publisher,’ she added hastily.

  ‘And so he turns up in Carasheen? Now there’s a coincidence,’ said Faro mockingly.

  Imogen’s eyebrows arched in a shrewd glance. ‘Surely you’re not jealous, Faro?’ she said softly.

  Faro laid a hand over hers and said, just as softly, ‘Have I reason to be jealous, Imogen dear?’

  As she squeezed his hand in a returning gesture that was meant to be reassuring, Faro thought of the man in Heidelberg whose boast was of being a self-made and self-educated millionaire. Raised from a childhood of direst poverty, the child of Irish emigrants, and, when they died, he headed west and joined the gold rush in California. But striking it rich was only the beginning. To hear him talk, which he did non-stop, there wasn’t anything he hadn’t tackled in his forty-odd years. His life was a chronicle of fighting grizzly bears, encountering hostile Indians and serving as a sheriff’s deputy in a lawless western outpost, where he had cleaned up the outlaws single-handed. It seemed now that his only remaining challenge was to win the hand of Imogen Crowe, thought Faro cynically, as he said, ‘Am I to presume he is staying with your uncle Desmond?’ As he said the words, he now knew the reason for that warning glance he had intercepted from Imogen to Desmond when the latter had mentioned his American visitor.

  Imogen, having braved his displeasure, smiled brightly. ‘Of course.’

  ‘And how long is he intending to stay?’ Faro asked in measured tones.

  Imogen frowned. ‘He doesn’t say. He’s very interested in Daniel O’Connell. There are some letters O’Connell wrote to his father and he’s promised to let me see them. They were friends. Isn’t that a coincidence now?’ If all this was true, Faro decided that Aaron McBeigh seemed to have access to a truly remarkable number of coincidences as, without waiting for his comment, Imogen continued, ‘He’s dying to meet you again. Keeps saying that the three lawmen - you, Uncle Des and himself - ought to get together and swap reminiscences over a game of poker.’

  Chapter 7

  There followed a day of holiday activities that Faro had expected and nevertheless dreaded, meeting a bewildering number of Imogen’s relatives - aunts and cousins of varying degrees of sanguinity - drinking countless cups of strong tea and consuming vast quantities of baked confections before being shunted on to the next house where the performance was repeated. At last, they said goodnight with less passion than Faro had intended since he was suffering from acute indigestion. When each hostess proudly offered her own special recipe, he felt that a refusal would not only be discourteous, it might create a sense of rivalry and family discord. (‘He liked my soda scones, bread, fruitcake, etc. better than yours, Theresa’s, Mary’s, etc.’) With long experience of walking warily in his police career, he had become adept at evasion; a smiling guest conveniently deaf whenever the conversation inched slyly towards hints of ‘tying the knot’.

  Heading towards the inn, his mind drifted back to the earlier, less agreeable events of the day and he toyed with a fleeting idea that McBeigh’s presence might prove to be a blessing. His boasted past career of fighting Indians and bad men in America had all the right qualifications for confronting the Cara boys and leading the expedition up to Cara House.

  Their meeting was to be sooner than Faro had thought and was quite inevitable. The American had been lying in wait for his return recognising his booming heavily accented voice long before he saw him. Any hope that he might sneak upst
airs to his room past the open door of Tom’s snug was dashed immediately by a roar: ‘Faro!’

  McBeigh obviously hadn’t forgotten him. Rushing over, he thrust a large hand in Faro’s direction. ‘Great to see you again, man. Imogen has told me all about your travels.’

  Faro took a moment to recover from that merciless handshake. There were not many men who had ever diminished Jeremy Faro but everything about Aaron McBeigh seemed to have that effect. He was larger than life - the hearty voice, the hearty grin under the large moustache, the close-cropped hair, the thick spectacles but, most of all, the desperation to be a friend to all the world. Faro decided sourly that this desperation was the man’s worst failing and then immediately felt ashamed of such unworthy thoughts.

  Was he being truly unfair? Was he just jealous at finding McBeigh here in Carasheen with Imogen? These thoughts ran through his mind as he sat there, politely listening to a chronicle of rather dull events that the American had experienced since they last met in Heidelberg. He was not expected to contribute much to the conversation. Aaron had already established promising friendships with many of the customers who were happy to draw their chairs closer so as not to miss a word of the marvels of the rich American’s adventures past and present. They beamed on him encouragingly while he paused to draw breath and constantly refreshed their fast-emptying glasses.

  At last Faro seized an opportunity to slip away and climbing the rickety stairs, he was aware of the power of his rival for Imogen’s affections. He felt himself reduced to being a boy in love for the first time - a ridiculous situation for a man of his mature years, a dignified retired Chief Inspector of Police. And the awful part was his secret suspicion that Imogen was enjoying basking in the rich American’s attention and obvious attraction to her. What made it even worse was his air of possession towards her. Again Faro groaned inwardly. Why had he ever allowed himself to be lured to Kerry?

  Dreading the confrontation that lay ahead, Faro awoke to one of those rare cloudless days agleam with radiant sunshine and warmth. So beguiling was the weather in its promise that all thoughts of storms were banished into nightmare. Such a scene persuades vulnerable humans to expect miracles and a future of benign peace in their miserable frail lives. Alas, one had only to walk up the hill to Cara House, Faro realised, to see hope turn into nonsense.

  When he came down to breakfast, Desmond and Conn were already waiting and with brief introductions but no spoken plan of action, they set off up the hill. Desmond said little but frowned incessantly, occasionally tugging at his beard as if his jaw was tender. Faro wondered if Desmond also suffered from toothache. A nagging twinge, each time he ate, reminded Faro of the devilish presence of a decayed molar and he knew that the day was looming when inevitably he would find himself reclining in the dentist’s chair.

  He now had a chance to study Conn O’Flynn, guardian of the law in Carasheen, and he felt compassion for this fresh-faced lad with carrot-red hair that did nothing for a dead white skin severely threatened by acne. He looked as if he had stepped straight from the school classroom into that smart new uniform; vulnerable and innocent of any world beyond Carasheen, totally remote from the legendary hero for whom he had been named by hopeful parents, Conn of the Hundred Battles, High King of Ireland, changed into a swan by his jealous stepmother. As the Cara House grew nearer, his resemblance lay more with fledgling cygnet than High King, his greatest desire for safe flight across the hills to far away Dingle Bay,

  The solid grey mansion, so imposing from the village, had arisen from the ruins of the original fortified castle, fragments of which were still visible in one wall and an untidy heap of masonry. The castle dated back to the harsh rule of Elizabeth of England and was demolished by Michael Cam’s father in the 1820s. Even to one with Faro’s affection for fine architecture and a tendency to regard houses as more than mere bricks and mortar, a roof and four walls to keep out the rain, the exterior of Cara House had little to commend it. Now, as they waited to be admitted, he realised valuable time had been wasted and that, before the journey had begun, they should have had a strong drink as well as a fixed plan.

  At last the door was opened by a lad of about ten years old. He was a thin dirty-looking urchin whose face and hands suggested only the most accidental contact with water and who was, by definition of the filthy apron about his waist, a servant. ‘Who d’ye want?’

  Conn stood forward, doffed his uniform helmet and said with great dignity: ‘We wish to see the...er...your masters.’

  The boy managed a scowl and then a nod indicating that they should follow him. Without a word, he left them inside the hall where they exchanged worried glances. Having expected something in the way of opposition, that they were expected seemed suspiciously like an ill omen and suggested that the unholy trinity boys had a story if not a plan prepared for their arrival.

  Faro considered their surroundings. The house, once so splendid, was even worse than Desmond had warned it might be. Indescribably dirty, it smelt of filth, of animals, particularly mice, of human sweat and vomit. Cautious footsteps were indicated to avoid those ominous patches on the once handsome carpet where persons or animals had been very sick indeed.

  A staircase wound its way upwards, some of the balustrade had fallen into the hall and on the walls were large faded spaces once held by proud family portraits and landscapes, their fate to be broken or, depending on their value, sold.

  The scene was sickeningly like something out of the Brothers Grimm, thought Faro as the urchin returned. With a rough gesture he pushed aside a once elegant door that now was scored with cuts and deep scratches. Beyond it, the lofty panelled room with its ornate ceiling had never seen the sight of a duster or polish for many a long year. Tapestries were lost beneath dust and generations of cobwebs - a spider’s paradise. Bookshelves, that had proudly housed a handsome library, the showpiece of Sir Michael Cara’s grand house, had long since been abandoned and stood empty or held a gap-toothed assortment of ragged documents and empty bottles. And as for those massive windows that had so impressed Faro as a convenient point from which to overlook the village, it was extremely doubtful if anything of advantage had been visible for many a year, so thick was the grime of dust and dirt.

  As they waited for the notorious brothers to put in an appearance, the silence was at last broken by a loud crash and screeching voices coming from the direction of the upper hall. Voices were raised in anger. Curses were replaced by the sound of yells and blows and what sounded like china being thrown and toppling down stairs. The noise of thin wailing children’s cries, suggesting that the urchin who admitted them was not alone, then followed this commotion and the three visitors exchanged alarmed and shocked exclamations at the childish sobs, the targets of the brothers’ displeasure.

  Faro and Desmond stared at Conn, representing the law of Carasheen, but he merely shook his head. What could he or they do? Storm out and defend them? Fortunately for them, before they could make such a rash decision, the door was heaved further open and Carasheen’s unholy trinity made their entrance or rather staggered in.

  It was fairly obvious that, although the day was still short of 10 am, they had already been drinking heavily. As they stood swaying slightly, inebriated and contemptuously grinning as they regarded the newcomers, Faro was taken aback by their appearance. Having expected to be confronted by monsters, he instead found himself staring into the faces of three tall young men who, despite their stained and filthy clothes, were undoubtedly handsome. They had the faces of angels - countenances that reminded him of the out-of-focus face of Paddy. There was a definite resemblance there. Were they perhaps related to the simple lad? It was a possibility to be investigated, Faro decided.

  With mocking smiles and no words said, they stood hands on hips, considering their visitors, in particular the law of Carasheen who was expected to make the first moves. And Conn did so gallantly, stepping forward very firmly, he said, ‘Perhaps we have come at an inconvenient moment.’ Considering the figh
ting they had interrupted, this was something of an understatement. ‘We can return later.’ he added apologetically.

  No, that wouldn’t do at all. Desmond touched his arm and said, ‘We are here to discuss with you the recent deaths of Peg and Will Donnelly.’

  One brother stood forward. ‘I am Matthew Cara, the Master of Carasheen. We are aware of the Donnellys’ demise.’ It was the voice of authority. Faro was surprised and Desmond was to tell him later that, despite their loutish behaviour, the Cara boys had been educated in English by private tutors. They had been taught to despise their native language and he doubted if they even understood it. Matthew continued, ‘And what particular business is it of yours, Mr Crowe?’

  ‘I am a policeman.’ said Desmond vaguely

  It was the wrong response. Another of the lads, the youngest Faro suspected, pointed at him and jeered, ‘We all know who you are, Mr Crowe. You are a retired detective from Dublin. That’s who you are.’

  Turning, he regarded Faro with a withering look. ‘And who might this smart gentleman be? By the look of him his roots are far from Carasheen, so what is he doing in our house without an invitation? A visitor, poking into matters that do not concern him.’

  ‘I am also a detective.’ said Faro.

  ‘You’re not Irish.’ shrilled Mark, the middle brother. ‘That’s for sure.’

  ‘What I am is beside the point.’ said Faro coldly. ‘Would you please attend to the matters we wish to discuss with you?’