9
Declan’s Cross, Ireland
Oliver York punched in Finian Bracken’s number on the mobile phone he’d borrowed from the proprietress of the O’Byrne House Hotel in the heart of the south Irish coastal village of Declan’s Cross. The borrowing was without Kitty O’Byrne’s knowledge, but it wasn’t stealing since he would return the phone as soon as he finished his call.
“Hello, Father Bracken.”
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the connection. “Oliver. The police are looking for you. Turn yourself in at once. Why are you calling on Kitty’s phone?”
“I don’t have my phone with me.”
“You left it behind or discarded it not wanting to risk the police tracking you.”
“There’s that, yes.”
“But you are in Declan’s Cross?”
Oliver looked up at the boutique hotel, framed against ominously churning gray clouds. The long June daylight would work in his favor. He could hear the boisterous laughter of a man, an Irishman, one of the hotel guests gathered in the lounge. The O’Byrne House had changed since Oliver’s first clandestine visit a decade ago. Kitty, the elder of the two nieces of the previous owner, John O’Byrne, had converted the rambling old house into what was now a thriving hotel. She was engaged to a garda detective, but he would likely be in Dublin, where he was based. At any rate, Sean Murphy was the least of Oliver’s worries at the moment. He knew he’d taken a chance in coming here, but today—the past ten years—had been filled with chances.
He’d had to leave England. He’d had to get away from the dead man, the blood, the rush of memories and questions.
He’d had to come here, to Declan’s Cross.
He couldn’t fully explain, and right now he didn’t have to.
He ignored Finian’s question. “I saw the texts between you and Reed Warren. That’s not his real name. His real name is Davy Driscoll. He was one of the two men who killed my parents. One of my kidnappers. But I think you know that, and I think you know he died in my arms this morning. Why did he come to you, Finian?”
“I can’t talk to you about this man, Oliver.”
It was not an unexpected answer from his Irish-priest friend. “I don’t remember everything about that night. It’s as if some of it’s wrapped in gauze. I remember Davy’s face. He was scared. He carried me to their getaway van. He and Bart Norcross debated killing me and dumping my body in an alley or on the side of the motorway. Davy didn’t do the driving. I was in back with him. Norcross drove.” Oliver paused, no sound at all—not even a breath—coming from the other end of the connection. “I’ve always been certain they killed my parents. Driscoll and Norcross.”
“You were a traumatized boy but you were able to identify them.”
“What if I got it wrong?” Oliver said in a half whisper. “Is that why he came to you? Davy? Did he tell you he and Norcross didn’t kill my parents?”
Finian didn’t answer immediately, as if he was taking great care to consider his response. “Some people draw a sense of power from manipulating others to get what they want,” he said finally. “That’s a general statement. It’s not specific to any particular person.”
“Why would a man who knew he was dying lie to me?”
“Why wouldn’t he lie?” Finian asked quietly.
“A dying man who doesn’t care about eternal damnation or doesn’t believe in it could lie and manipulate to get something he wanted. Satisfaction, vengeance, something tangible for another person.” Oliver heard how hollow his voice sounded. “Maybe a stab at cheating God. Lie to get eternal salvation instead of eternal damnation. Do Catholics believe in eternal damnation, Finian?”
“We believe in God’s transforming and unconditional love. Oliver, please—”
“If an amoral, unprincipled man—or woman—lies and manipulates to get what he wants, even if he’s not alive to see the results, it’s mission accomplished. He gets what he wants.” Oliver swallowed, aware he was still reeling from his ordeal that morning. “What did Davy Driscoll want? What was his purpose in coming to the farm?”
“Oliver...”
“I know. You can’t tell me. I assume it’s a question of priestly privilege. Or do you have a Donovan breathing down your neck? I assume our mutual friends Colin and Emma are in my twee Cotswold village by now. Another FBI agent? Sam Padgett? Matt Yankowski? I’ll guess Padgett.” Oliver didn’t wait for Finian’s response. “Did Reed Warren tell you that wasn’t his real name? Did he tell you he’d been on the run for thirty years for murder and kidnapping?”
“Oliver, I can’t...” Finian took in another sharp breath. “I urge you to turn yourself in to the gardai, or phone Emma and Colin next and ask them what you should do.”
“Did this man confess to murdering my parents?” Oliver kept his voice steady, cool. “Is that why you’re ignoring my questions? Did he tell you about Bart Norcross—where he is, what he’s been doing all these years?”
Finian sighed softly. “Are you safe, my friend?”
“Yes. For now. What do you know, Finian? I had to scrub Davy Driscoll’s blood off me in a public toilet. He can’t hurt anyone else. Surely you can tell me what he said. Or tell the police. I don’t care.”
“It’s glorious in Rock Point,” Finian said, his voice somewhat choked. “Come for a visit after you clear things up with the police. If this man really was one of your tormentors, the police will understand why you ran.”
“I didn’t run,” Oliver said. “I left. Our conversation is privileged, isn’t it? I’m not a parishioner or a Catholic but you’re my...what? Confessor? Finian...what if I caused my parents’ deaths? Can you absolve me of that? What if I killed Davy Driscoll today?”
“Will you surrender yourself to authorities?”
Oliver realized he’d hit a brick wall. Finian Bracken wasn’t talking. “First thing in the morning. Promise.”
“I’m sorry, Oliver. I know this is a difficult day for you. Be well.”
“Blast it, Finian.”
But the Irish priest was gone. Oliver stared at Kitty’s phone and sighed.
Well, he’d had to try.
He spotted Kitty in a window in the bar lounge. Dark-haired and attractive, she was laughing, presumably unaware of his presence in her garden. Had she heard about the morning’s events in his English village? Did she know he was on the run? Had Detective Garda Murphy warned her to be on the lookout for the thief who’d slipped into her uncle’s rambling old house a decade ago and made off with a fortune in art?
Alleged thief.
Oliver went around to the front of the hotel and trotted up the steps into the entry and deposited the phone where he’d found it on the reception desk. A record of his call to Finian would be on it. Kitty might notice, or she might not. If Finian told the FBI about the call—if the FBI had been standing over him, listening in—Oliver could count on gardai arriving at the hotel.
Best not to help himself to an unoccupied room.
He hoisted his small rucksack onto his back and walked into the village, with its brightly colored homes, shops and businesses. It had quite a different feel from his Cotswold village but had changed little in the past ten years, since his first clandestine visit. He came to a red-painted bookshop with a charming display of children’s books in the window. With an unexpected pang, he remembered visiting a London bookshop with his mother. He must have been six, no older than that. She’d loved to read.
Had he caused her death?
He pushed aside the thought—it was radical, unthinkable, absurd—and continued on to the headland. He knew this route well. The lane hugged cliffs above the sea and then wound past and through the Murphy farm and eventually out to a church ruin and a trio of Celtic crosses on a hillside at the tip of the headland, as if they were standing sentry above the Irish Sea.
The police would find his car and the texts from Finian Bracken, if they hadn’t already.
He’d left Reed Warren’s phone and wallet in the Rolls-Royce. He’d seen no point in taking them with him to Ireland, but he’d known his car wasn’t inconspicuous and the police would find it rather quickly. He kept an emergency go-bag in the Rolls as a matter of course and had been able to cover his blood-soaked clothes with a jacket and slip into a public toilet near where he’d parked. He’d changed into fresh clothes and binned the bloody ones, but no doubt the police had found them by now, too.
And it was Davy Driscoll who’d died in Oliver’s arms that morning.
He hadn’t gone mad.
“Why, Finian? Why did Davy Driscoll come to you?”
After seeing the texts, Oliver had considered flying to Boston to speak with his friend himself, but he knew he’d have been stopped at US customs. As it was, he’d been lucky to make it to Ireland by air taxi. Then a taxi to Ardmore and a few miles’ walk to Declan’s Cross. It probably wasn’t a wise place for him to come to, but here he was.
He’d left quite the bread-crumb trail for the authorities.
For the FBI, too. No surprise Emma and Colin were in the thick of things. It was their way.
Then there was MI5. Watching him? Protecting him? Planning to kick him into the churning sea? He liked to think such thoughts were drama and hyperbole on his part but he wouldn’t put anything past his MI5 handler.
And Henrietta? What wouldn’t he put past her?
Oliver didn’t dare think about her now. She’d always been there, a part of his life even when they weren’t together—a contemporary, a young girl when his parents had died. She’d loved them. He remembered seeing her in the village after the funeral, confused and frightened with her mop of red-brown curls and the spray of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Now...well, now she could have dispatched Davy Driscoll herself, no doubt without getting a speck of blood on her. She’d followed in her grandfather’s footsteps. She was MI5. No question in Oliver’s mind.
He felt no satisfaction at Driscoll’s bloody death. It had given him no clarity, no catharsis and no sense of justice. For decades, he’d waited to recognize Davy Driscoll and Bart Norcross on the street, at the butcher shop, having a pint at the local pub. He’d waited for the police to knock on his door and tell him the two killers’ remains had been discovered in an unmarked grave or had been plowed up by a construction crew or a farmer.
Never had he imagined one of them would arrive spurting blood, dying, at his door.
Oliver came to the end of the lane, where a small church lay in ruin next to a low stone wall entangled with overgrown trees and shrubs and bursting with June wildflowers—yellow, purple, pink. Henrietta would know their names in her new incarnation as a garden designer. He had no idea what they were called.
Had Henrietta seen the dead man?
Poor Ruthie Burns, horrified at what she’d seen, would have run straight to the dovecote to alert Martin. Once aware of the situation at the house, no way would either Martin or Henrietta have stayed at the dovecote and waited for the police. They’d have charged up to the house to see what they could do to help.
Oliver squeezed past a holly tree and crept into the graveyard by the skeletal remains of the church. His footsteps made little sound on the soft, uneven ground. He squished into a boggy patch but managed not to get his socks wet. He continued through the graves and up the hill to the trio of tall crosses that stood above the sea.
He breathed in the cool ocean air and gazed at the water, quiet and gray under the clouds. He found comfort in the sturdy stone crosses, with their intricate Celtic knots and spirals and their carvings honoring Saint Declan, a fifth-century patron saint of Ireland, founder of its first Christian settlement and a healer and worker of miracles.
“Ah, if only Saint Declan could help me now.”
Oliver couldn’t manage to smile at his attempt at lightheartedness.
He needed to rest, and to think.
If Finian told Emma or Colin about his call—which he should—or if Kitty or someone else in the village had recognized him, the police would look for him here. It was where he’d hidden twice, once the night after he’d slipped into the O’Byrne house, and then again last November—ten years later—when he’d returned the stolen pieces.
All except one, an unsigned watercolor landscape of these very crosses, painted, he was certain, by Kitty’s younger sister, beautiful, talented Aoife O’Byrne. Oliver was quite certain Aoife was in love with his Irish priest friend, Finian. Detective Garda Sean Murphy owned the farm on the headland—it was Sean’s sheep Oliver could hear baaing in the distance—and Sean had been the garda who had investigated the deaths of Finian’s family. They’d become friends, and that was how Finian met Aoife, before he’d entered seminary.
Life didn’t always take the route one expected or intended.
Oliver sat among the crosses. It was early yet. He would return to the ruin and settle into a sheltered spot for the night, where he’d be protected from the worst of the wind off the water. There’d be rain, too. With his luck the warm, dry weather was ending tonight of all nights. He wouldn’t die of hypothermia, at least. It had been a nearer thing his first night out here in November ten years ago.
He really wasn’t one for sleeping rough but he’d manage.
He watched a seagull wheel above the headland. Its cry mingled with the sounds of the waves crashing on the rocks far below. Was there a lonelier sound than that of a solitary seagull? Where were its mates? He didn’t know much about seagulls, or any birds, for that matter.
Henrietta probably would know bird names, too.
He supposed he could yet discover she wasn’t and had never been with MI5, but he doubted it. Why had she left? She’d only made vague pronouncements about leaving her dull London office job to pursue her dream job. Of course she missed Posey, too, but ninety-four was a great age. Oliver hadn’t brought up MI5 with Henrietta yet. He probably shouldn’t, but he was tempted.
What if he was wrong and she wasn’t MI5?
“I don’t know what’s real and what’s not.”
He spoke aloud, heard the rawness of his voice.
The seagull disappeared back across the headland.
What if he had done something all those years ago to cause his parents’ deaths? What if he’d pulled the trigger that night and couldn’t remember?
Davy, who did this to you?
I did... Your mother... Deborah...
Is anyone else in danger?
Scotland. The Sharpes...careful... I live in the ruin.
The dying words of a killer. A warning? An explanation? Delusional nonsense as he lost consciousness? Oliver had tried desperately to save him but he’d lost too much blood. He’d wanted Davy Driscoll alive. He’d wanted him to answer for his crimes—to answer the questions that lingered about that terrible night that had changed so many lives.
Had Driscoll cut himself and arranged to die in Oliver’s arms? Had he lain in wait, nicked his own brachial artery and lunged at Oliver when he returned from the dovecote, all part of a calculated, deliberate plan to...what? Absolve himself? Was that why he’d gone to see Finian Bracken?
Or had he been murdered?
Oliver dug his emergency blanket out of his rucksack and peeled it from its tiny package. He unfurled it and wrapped it around him, wishing he’d had one his first night up here ten years ago. As then, he could see his mother’s face when she’d grabbed him, one of her last acts before her death. Her eyes had been bright with fear, her fingers digging into him as she’d desperately tried to pull him to safety.
There had been no safe place that night.
He heard rain spatter onto rocks around him and huddled under his waterproof blanket. He’d have no dinner, but tonight rest was more important.
What if his memory of what had happened thirty years ago was faulty? Finian was right. He’d been a traumatized young boy. What if his mother had grabbed him to silence him—what if he’d been the one who’d alerted the killers that the apartment wasn’t empty? What if he’d led them to his parents?
If only he could have gotten Davy Driscoll treatment in time to repair the wound to his artery and ask him questions. Learn the truth about that violent night, about why he’d come to the farm now, after all this time.
Why hadn’t Driscoll put pressure on his wound and stopped the bleeding himself? Easier said than done, perhaps. It had been a grievous wound.
Oliver looked up at the crosses, steady and unmoving against the gray sky, holding their spot for more than two hundred years, and he promised himself he would learn the truth.
He felt a fat raindrop plop on his forehead. Right now, he’d love a bottle of good Scotch. He’d even settle for Irish whiskey.
He smiled, thinking of what Finian Bracken would say. Had he inadvertently sent Davy Driscoll to him that morning? To confess, and then turn himself into the police?
Questions. No answers.
A bit longer up here, Oliver decided, and then he’d head down the hill to the ruin and settle in for the night amid the Celtic graves and crosses.