Death at Whitewater Church Read online

  Eithne followed us into the kitchen and stood observing, hand resting on the counter.

  Claire pushed me towards the table. “Come and sit down for a minute, anyway.”

  There was nowhere to sit. All of the kitchen chairs were occupied. Claire’s eyes darted frantically around the room as if her life depended on finding me a seat. She flew out of the room and reappeared, followed by Mick Bourke carrying two chairs. She instructed him to place them at the table, dismissed him unceremoniously, and sat down. I looked for Maeve, saw her chatting to Tony, and sat, too. Claire shoved a loaded plate towards me.

  “Cake?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “I wish you would. We’ve enough cake to feed the entire French peasantry.” She gave a slightly hysterical giggle. “I don’t know if you know Lisa and Alan.”

  I glanced at the deeply tanned couple across from us.

  “They’re just back from their honeymoon. The Maldives.”

  The man I had seen twice in the past week. The woman was blond and slim, heavily made up, eyes lined with black kohl. She wore a black formal jacket with some kind of silk top underneath. I realized I recognized her, too. I struggled for a second to place her before it came to me; she worked in one of the banks in Buncrana.

  This was the couple who had been burgled while they were on their honeymoon. I wondered how they were coping. The woman’s perfume lingered heavily in the air above us, her arm linked with that of her husband. He was dark-suited and unshaven. Not Danny Devitt unshaven, more George Michael. He smiled a tight, uncomfortable smile, showing slightly discolored teeth. Claire introduced us.

  Lisa’s eyes were glistening. “We were sharing memories of Danny when he was a kid. We were all in school together.” She had a twitch above her left eye, which the makeup did nothing to conceal.

  “What was he like?”

  “He didn’t like being inside, that’s for sure. Always wanted to be out with the animals – cattle, sheep, pigs, didn’t matter. Skipped school constantly to help on the farm, didn’t he, Claire?”

  But Claire wasn’t listening. She was staring at something by the sink. I followed her gaze, but I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, merely the continuing conveyer belt of dish-washing. Eithne seemed to have vacated her post.

  “Claire?” Lisa said again.

  “Sorry?” Claire sniffed loudly and returned her attention to the table.

  “Danny. He ran the farm himself for a while, didn’t he?”

  “Oh aye. Mam used to say he was half-goat.” She sniffed again. I wished I had a fresh tissue to offer her. “Never happier than when he was covered in muck.”

  “Do you still have a farm here?” I asked. I got the feeling the shiny new kitchen I was sitting in hadn’t seen much farm life lately.

  Claire shook her head. “The land’s been sold.” Abruptly, she stood up and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

  I swallowed, feeling uncomfortable, as if I’d asked a particularly intrusive question.

  There was a low whine as Alan pushed his chair back, too. “I’m just going out for a smoke …”

  Lisa looked up at him in alarm and grabbed his arm. He leaned over and gave her a brief kiss on the lips. “I’ll be back in five minutes.” Her jaw tightened as she watched him leave the room.

  Before I had a chance to say anything, the door reopened. I looked up. Standing in the doorway, wearing a dark coat and red velvet scarf, looking startlingly exotic in the hive of domestic activity, like some aristocratic lady come to visit below stairs, was Alison Kelly. She glanced quickly around the room and approached our table, her eyes fixed on Lisa. Lisa’s expression changed in an instant from one of alarm to one of utter hostility.

  Alison didn’t seem to notice. “Ah, Lisa, how are you!” she exclaimed. “What a sad occasion to have to meet.”

  Lisa glared at her.

  Alison took Alan’s seat. “Where are the family?” she said. “I must talk to poor Mrs. Devitt.”

  Lisa looked away as if she hadn’t heard.

  “Claire’s gone that way,” I said, indicating the door Alison had come through. “And Mrs. Devitt is in the front room.”

  I’m never sure how to respond when I meet clients out of context. If the only way I know them is professionally, I usually let them take the lead, as I did now. Alison nodded a curt thank-you but gave no indication that she knew me. After she left the room, the uncomfortable silence resumed. Lisa sat staring at her hands, her mouth fixed in a thin line.

  I struggled to come up with something to say. “Sounds like Danny and Conor were very different?” I said.

  Lisa’s eyes flashed. A look not of grief, it struck me, but of anger, crossed her face again, but it passed quickly. She looked towards the door as if she wanted desperately to follow her husband. Suddenly it burst open again and Claire came back into the room. She had changed her clothes and was wearing a bright red dress, high-heeled sandals, and big gold hoop earrings. I caught Maeve’s sideways glance from across the room.

  “Sorry. Lots of people. All over the place,” Claire said breathlessly. “So many people to speak to.” She sank back down into the chair she had vacated earlier and began to play with her hair coquettishly. “Now what were we saying?”

  “I was asking if Danny and Conor were very different.”

  Claire smiled. “Not when they were kids. They both loved being outside. Danny was crazy about animals and Conor was always down by the shore. He was dead keen on the big ships; he used to go down at all hours of the day and night to watch them coming in.” Her eyes widened and she put her hand to her mouth as if suddenly frightened. She stuttered, “N-not that I remember really; I was too small.”

  “You’re the youngest?” I said.

  She nodded. “It was Conor, Danny, and then me. Conor used to boss us around like mad.”

  “I wouldn’t say Danny took a blind bit of notice of him,” Lisa said with a weak smile.

  “Oh, he hated it. Danny hated being told what to do, but Conor sure loved telling us. Just because he was the eldest. The good boy.” Claire’s tone was resentful, like a sulky child. “But Danny was going to be Conor’s best man. He’d have had to do what Conor said that day – he wouldn’t have liked that.”

  I shifted, ill at ease. There was something deliberately careless about the way she mentioned the wedding; almost cruel. Lisa stared into her cup.

  “He got very peculiar after that – after Conor disappeared,” Claire went on. “Did you notice, Lisa?”

  “I didn’t see much of him, to be honest.”

  “You weren’t the only one. He took off up to that cottage of his, and we never saw him from one end of the year to the next, even though he was only across the fields.”

  “That must have been hard on your mother,” I said.

  Claire’s voice was angry. “She was better off without him. Danny was a drunk.”

  I caught sight of Eithne watching us from across the kitchen. She had resumed her position at the counter, was standing there silently, arms crossed, lips pursed.

  “I don’t think he could help it, Claire. He had a problem,” Lisa said softly. “He wasn’t always a drunk.”

  “Of course he could help it! He could have given it up. And now look what’s happened. He goes and drives his car into a ditch.” Claire’s lips trembled. “Stupid, stupid, stupid man. As good as killed himself. As if we haven’t enough to cope with.”

  Her face crumpled and she started to cry. Immediately, Eithne appeared, glass of water and fresh tissue in hand. She knelt beside Claire, put her arms around her, and started to talk to her in a low murmuring voice, like a mother talking to a baby. Lisa pushed her chair back, stood up, and left the room, shutting the door behind her with a quiet click while I looked away, embarrassed. Maeve caught my eye and looked pointedly at her watch.

  I cleared my throat. “We have to go, Claire, I’m sorry,” I said.

  Claire lifted her head. “Thanks
for coming.” Tears spilled from her eyes and down her cheeks. “The funeral is on Friday, after eleven o’clock Mass.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  I crossed the kitchen.

  Tony whispered in my ear, “Looks like Phyllis is going to be here for the duration, and I have to get back to the pub. Any chance of a lift into town?”

  * * *

  After a complicated series of maneuvers in the narrow lane, Maeve finally managed to get the jeep pointing in the right direction.

  “Jesus, that was some bit of drama from Claire at the end.” Tony rubbed the windscreen with a yellow cloth from the dashboard on Maeve’s request. “Never one to shy away from being the center of attention, that one.”

  “That’s a bit harsh, Tony, isn’t it?” I said.

  “Eithne needs to stop giving her those damn pills for a start, I reckon. They’re doing her more harm than good.”

  “What pills?” I leaned forward from the back seat.

  He shook his head. “Ah, nothing.”

  Maeve turned the jeep onto the main road. “Why did she change her clothes like that?”

  “God knows,” Tony said. “She looked like a bloody flamenco dancer.”

  “It was a bit odd,” I agreed. “Still, she has just lost her brother. Maybe two brothers.” I paused. “What do you think happened, Tony? Do you think Danny was drunk?”

  He sighed. “Sure, what do I know? All I can say is that when he was in with me last night, he was drinking orange juice.”

  “Seriously? In the pub?”

  “Aye, in the pub. Now I’m not saying he didn’t get a drink in somewhere else after that, but he didn’t get it from me, that’s for sure.”

  “What kind of form was he in?”

  “He was quiet. As if he had something he needed to think through. Never seen him like that. But then I’ve never seen him in the pub drinking orange juice either.”

  I wondered when it would become common knowledge that Danny’s DNA was in the crypt.

  “What happened with him and Alan Crane on Sunday?” I asked.

  Tony threw a look at me over his shoulder. “What’s this? Twenty Questions?”

  I ignored him. “Did they argue?”

  “There is such a thing as barman’s confidentiality, you know.”

  I grinned. “It’s pretty selective though, isn’t it?”

  “Well, I’m giving you no details, but in my opinion Danny was behaving like someone who wanted to get himself arrested.”

  “You don’t think he might have driven himself into the ditch on purpose …?” Maeve’s question trailed off.

  “Not after the father,” Tony said firmly. He paused. “God, I’d hope not anyway. Jack had his reasons. He never recovered from what happened to the Sadie.”

  “What had Jack Devitt to do with the Sadie?” I asked. “Phyllis started to tell me about it but didn’t get finished.”

  “Jack was one of the crew of the Sadie,” Tony explained. “Ach, the whole thing was grim. It was a night in December – a real clear winter’s night, like tonight. The Whitewater pilot boat was hijacked and taken out to the Sadie. But before that, the pilot on duty was shot dead, just outside the pilot station.”

  “Jesus.”

  Tony nodded in agreement. “I know. Brutal. God knows why they did it – always seemed strange to me, that. Seemed so bloody unnecessary. Those operations were usually fairly tight.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They can’t have wanted to kill him. You’d think they’d have taken him with them. But it looked like he was trying to make a run for it. Someone must have screwed up – taken their eye off the ball, I’d say. And after they shot him, they just left him lying there on the shore, took the pilot boat and used it to board the Sadie. They set the crew afloat on life rafts before they blew it up.”

  “And Jack?”

  “Jack Devitt was luckier than others. He survived – physically, at least.”

  “When you say luckier …?”

  “Two crewmen from the Sadie were killed – they were still on the ship when it was blown up. I don’t think they were meant to die either; something went wrong there, too, I reckon. They were probably hiding. It’s possible the hijackers didn’t know they were there.” He said somberly, “They were locals from Whitewater, too, neighbors of Jack Devitt.”

  “Most of the men from Whitewater were employed on the ships at that time,” Maeve explained.

  “God.” I ran my hands through my hair in horror.

  “Aye, it was awful,” Tony said. “The pilot they shot was a friend of Jack’s, too – Eamonn McCauley, Lisa’s father. Jack was never the same again. He couldn’t get over seeing the boat blown up with men still on board. His mind went. He never worked a day after that. Couldn’t manage the farm, even. Just wandered about in a daze.”

  “So that’s what they meant when they said Conor had to take over as the man of the house, when he was young.”

  “Aye. Poor Jack Devitt was dead long before his heart stopped pumping. Shot himself with his own gun. In one of the outhouses.”

  “Christ.”

  “The kids were teenagers at the time, I think, or even younger. Danny, poor kid, was the one that found him. Must have affected him. That’s when Conor went off and got his apprenticeship with Bourke and started to support the family. His mother was lucky to have him. So were his brother and sister. Although Danny worked hard, too, on the farm when he was still only a youngster.”

  He clicked his teeth in disapproval. “But that Claire one, she hasn’t had a job since that stint she did for Eithne about ten years ago. Spoiled wee thing, in my opinion. Lazy as sin. Sees herself as some class of artist. I’ve never seen any bloody paintings. Not by her anyway.”

  “I thought she was looking after her mother.”

  He laughed. “Who told you that?”

  Maeve left Tony at the Oak, then dropped me off at my car. My head was beginning to ache again. I looked for the painkillers in my bag, but I’d left them in the office. Maybe I deserved to suffer a little.

  As I approached the site of the accident, I pulled the car in and got out to have a look, leaving the headlights on. There was nothing to see now, other than some broken bushes. The car had been removed and the road cleared of glass and debris. I looked down the road towards Malin, the direction Danny had come from less than twenty-four hours earlier. Tony was right. This stretch of road was straight and even, and the night before had been mild and frost-free. The state I’d been in, I’d probably have come a cropper myself, if the roads hadn’t been in decent shape.

  I stood for a moment and looked across the water to the lights on the other shore. If the results of the blood samples confirmed Danny Devitt’s sobriety, then surely there had to have been something odd about his accident? If it was an accident at all. And still no one knew what had happened to Conor Devitt – the man everyone had expected to be waking this evening.

  Chapter 15

  I ARRIVED EARLY at the office the next morning to find the estate agent Liam McLaughlin waiting for me on the doorstep. He looked surprisingly chipper.

  “Morning,” I said, as I turned the key in the lock. “You’re about bright and early.”

  “Good news will always get me up and about,” he said with a grin, as he stubbed his cigarette out on the wall and followed me inside.

  I dumped my keys and bag on the counter. “Go on, tell me. I could do with hearing it. Not much good news about at the moment.”

  He frowned. “Aye, you’re right.”

  “So what is it? I’m listening.”

  “You know that English couple?”

  “You’re going to have to be a bit more specific.”

  “The English couple who were going to buy Whitewater Church,” he said impatiently.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “They’re back on board!”

  “Back on board?” My brain was particularly sluggish this morning. Sleep had eluded me again the nigh
t before. “They want to buy the church again.”

  “You’re kidding.” Not what I was expecting.

  “Nope. It looks like they’ve managed to get over their squeamishness and they’re still interested. Same price, the works.”

  I crossed my arms. “Wow. That’s great news. Kelly will be delighted.”

  “Sure he will. I don’t know if they still want to live in it, but who cares? That won’t matter to Kelly. The important thing is that they want to buy it. I’ve just thought – I’ll have to get Paul Doherty up there again.”

  “Yes, I don’t think he managed to get his survey finished the last time. He was sort of interrupted.”

  “Maybe I’ll ask him not to be so thorough the next time,” Liam said wryly. “In case he turns up something else.”

  I smiled. “I don’t think he’s going to be too thrilled to have to go back up there at all, to be honest.”

  “Wouldn’t blame him. I’m not too keen on the place myself.” Liam turned to go.

  “Do you want me to phone him?” I asked.

  “That’d be great. Just wait till I call Kelly. I’ll give you a shout when I get him.”

  Half an hour later, I was going through the mail at the desk when the front door opened again. The smell of perfume hit me long before I saw the source. It was Lisa Crane. I was surprised to see her. I didn’t think she had particularly warmed to me the night before. Ignoring Leah, she addressed herself directly to me. “Would you have a minute? I don’t have an appointment.”

  Leah opened the diary, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

  “Your first appointment isn’t till ten,” she informed me.

  * * *

  Lisa arranged herself carefully on the seat. She made me feel unpolished and scruffy despite my suit. She was wearing skyscraper heels, a cobalt-blue woolen dress with the top button opened to give a hint of tanned cleavage, and she carried a chic-looking green coat, which she laid across her knees. If I were asked to bet, I would have said that both the dress and coat were cashmere. She was heavily made up, as she had been last night. I wondered what her salary was at the bank. She would have been an expensive lady to dress.

  “What can I do for you, Miss McCauley?” I asked.