"And Conail and Fionuala? What happened to them?"
"The usual, I expect," Deirdre replied primly. "She was always one to be looking around, and he corrupted with drink. Bone lazy as a result of it. The Irish curse, you know. Alcohol. The English brought it on us."
The English got blamed for quite a few things around here, I was beginning to notice. As I was getting my wallet to pay the bill, I looked toward the bar. It looked nice, the walls deep blue, with lots of old posters, nicely framed, advertising various types of brew. Newcastle Brown Ale! one poster said. Courage! said another. Apparently they drank English beer here, their views of the English notwithstanding.
I looked at the sign for the British brew, and then picked up one of the spoons and peered at the crest on the handle. It was a boar, rather fierce-looking with two bones crossed in its mouth. "What's the name of this place, Deirdre?" I asked.
"Here or the bar?" she replied. "This is Brigid's Tea Room: That's Brigid over there," she said pointing to the woman who had brought the tea and who was now at the cash. "The pub's called The Boar's Head Arms."
"Give me a minute," I said. I took a piece of paper out of my bag and scribbled a note on it. I handed both the money and the note to Brigid. She looked at it, and then me.
"Come with me," she said finally. She picked up a tray of tea and headed up a flight of stairs to the second floor. This was obviously the living quarters for Brigid and her family. An elderly woman sat in a large armchair in front of a television set. She looked up as we entered the room and surveyed me suspiciously. "Is everything all right?" she asked Brigid in a querulous voice.
"Just grand, Mother. Here's your tea now. How are you feeling?"
"As well as can be expected, at my age. Is it strawberry preserves?" the woman replied, poking at the food with a spoon. Apparently satisfied, she turned to me. She was very frail, her hands almost transparent and lined with blue veins, her hair absolutely white. Despite the warmth of the room, which I found uncomfortable, she was wrapped in a blanket, and she was almost dwarfed by the large chair in which she sat. But her eyes were bright, and I had the impression she was sharp as a tack.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"My name is Lara," I said.
"She's come for Eamon's clue, Mother," Brigid said. "She has the password, 'the boar enraged.' "
"You're not from around here. How would you know about it?" the old woman asked suspiciously.
"A friend of mine received something from Eamon Byrne in his Will."
"Who is your friend, and what did he get?"
"His name is Alex Stewart, and he was left Rose Cottage."
The old woman looked surprised, and then peered at me intently. "Then he must have been a special friend of Eamon's."
"I suppose in some way he was," I agreed. "Alex saved Eamon's life long ago."
The woman just nodded. "He was a fine man, no matter what they say. He's been very good to us. Wasn't his fault what happened, you know."
"And what was that?" I asked, but Brigid returned from another room and handed me a piece of paper.
"None of your gossip now, Mother," she admonished her mother. "Pay her no mind," she said to me as she lead me to the door.
I'd have loved to ask more, but one thing about this place seemed clear. If there were secrets here, and there were enough hints they existed, people were not about to share them, at least with me.
I walked Deirdre back to the car, and got out her bag, and waited with her until the bus came. As she was about to board, she turned and handed me the hat-box. "For Breeta, when she's ready," she said.
She was almost on the bus when I thought of one more question. "Who gets Michael's and John's money now that they're gone, do you know?"
She paused, one foot up on the lower step, perplexed. "Now, that's a question, isn't it? I can't say as I recall. I was so pleased to be receiving something I didn't pay much heed to the rest of it." She shrugged and stepped up on to the bus. "I don't expect it's me."
As the bus pulled out, I opened the hatbox. Vigs was happily munching on a lettuce leaf inside.
"What am I going to do with you?" I asked him. The simple answer was give him to Breeta as Deirdre had suggested. There were two problems with that. In the first place, I wasn't sure this was the best idea. Michael had gone back to Second Chance to get Vigs at Breeta's request, and while neither she nor the tortoise could be blamed for what happened, the sight of the little creature might upset her. The second was that I didn't know where she was. Sheila, the innkeeper, had said Breeta had been seen around looking for work and a cheap place to stay, refusing, even under the circumstances, to move back home.
Rather fortuitously, or so I thought at the time, I caught sight of Breeta at a table of a small local eatery, and approached her, Vigs in his hatbox with me.
"May I join you for a moment?" I asked her. A few seconds went by before she nodded her assent and I sat down across from her and ordered a coffee.
Breeta went on eating, virtually ignoring me. She was obviously eating for two, a rather large platter of fish and chips in front of her, with bread on the side, and a large cola too.
"I'm so sorry about what happened, Breeta," I said. "Michael was a lovely young man. This has all been quite dreadful." Breeta concentrated on working on the meal in front of her. It was not so much eating, come to think of it, as stuffing food in her mouth. She barely chewed it. I had the feeling that, whether she was conscious of it or not, she was stuffing herself with food to keep churning emotions, grief and anger, from rising up and pouring out of her.
"Breeta," I went on undeterred, although the sight of all that greasy food making its way so rapidly into her mouth was making me slightly nauseated. "I was wondering, I mean, I'm very worried about what has happened, and as selfish as this sounds, what it might mean to Alex. First John, and then Michael. I'm so afraid that being involved in this Will may be very dangerous for everyone named. I'm sure your father never thought that such awful things would happen…"
"I hate him," she said vehemently. "Hate him!"
"But perhaps finding the treasure would put a stop to this," I went on after a few seconds pause after this outburst. "We, Alex and I and some friends, have found a number of clues already. I have them back at the hotel. If you would just have a look at them, I'm sure you could help us. You know so much about Celtic history and…"
"No!" she exclaimed. "Stop. Never. I will never forgive my father for this. My life… ruined." She looked as if she would cry, but then stuffed some more chips in her mouth.
"But Breeta, you need the money," I protested. "Please…" I reached over to touch her hand. She wrenched it away.
"Leave me alone," she said getting up from her chair. "Go away. This is all your fault. Why did you have to come here?" She almost ran to the cashier and then out the door. Stung, I let her go. After a few minutes of feeling awful, I picked up Vigs and trundled him back to the Inn, where he was greeted with real enthusiasm by Sheila and Aidan's three young children, and resignation on the part of Sheila herself. Then I headed for the bar, and ordered a drink: nothing wimpy like wine, this time-a single malt Irish on ice.
It was depressing to think that Breeta blamed me for what happened. I told myself it was ridiculous to feel guilty about everything, but found it almost impossible not to wonder if I had, however unwittingly, done something that had set off a chain of events. But if this was the case, then I had to do something to fix it. The question was, what? It was not lost on me that not everyone shared my enthusiasm for finding the treasure, but I could not think of what else to do. While there were dire hints about Byrne's past from time to time, the treasure remained the most logical place to start. I'd heard lots of tales about Byrne in the last few days, in this bar and around town. As Deirdre had said, he wasn't the most popular person in town, but there seemed to be a grudging admiration for his business acumen. He kept to himself, it seemed, was not an habitue of the bars the way many in town were. And the place being what it was, he was still regarded by the locals as a newcomer, despite the fact he'd arrived in the Dingle a newly married man many years before. But there wasn't a whiff of anything that would meet Deirdre's criteria for a curse. The more I thought about it, the more Deirdre sounded like a superstitious and perhaps not well-educated woman, and the more plausible the treasure as the key to the question about why Michael was killed: a clue had been found clutched in his dead hand, after all. In the end, I promised myself that I'd keep my eyes and ears open for more on Byrne, but concentrate on the treasure, though it was clear we were going to have to find it without Breeta's help.