‘The question is how anybody got it off the place at all,’ he said. ‘No fingerprints, no footprints, no tire marks. If someone could figure that out…’
She slapped at a midge. ‘That’s too hard for me. I’m more interested in who, not how. Maybe a former guest. Or a neighbor?’
‘I haven’t seen any neighbors,’ he said. And Seamus was not in the lineup of possible thugs, he thought, absolutely not. ‘Given the size of it, it would be awkward to carry any distance. Managing it would probably take two people. How about the wine merchant we met coming out when Aengus was driving us in? He parks his truck off-road, and he and a henchman slip down to the lodge…’
‘But if he walks down the lane, he leaves footprints-the Garda said the lane was muddy.’
‘Right. Anyway, if he managed somehow to get there without leaving a trace, he and the henchman pop into the dining room, and in a flash they lift it off the two hooks and away they go.’
‘How would he know the dining room would be empty then?’
‘He watches through the French doors.’
‘But he still wouldn’t know that everyone was in the library, that nobody was likely to come back to the dining room and catch them at it.’
‘Then it’s an inside job. The wine guy knew when people would be out of the room and for how long.’ He felt suddenly foolish in the guise of amateur sleuth.
‘Would they have done it, Anna and Liam, for the insurance money? It’s a horrible thought, I can’t believe I said it. But would they?’
‘If they’d done it for money,’ he said, ‘they would have beefed up the insurance policy. Anna says the coverage was minimal. Besides, I’m convinced Liam loved that painting.’
‘I’m sorry I said it,’ she confessed. ‘Then what if Paddy insured it?’
‘Could be. Who knows?’
‘I wish I’d read more P. D. James. By the way, I don’t think they say henchman anymore-you are so quaint.’
‘Quaint,’ he said with distaste. Being a village parson had turned him off the word entirely-it was something tourists occasionally said not only of Mitford but of him when trooping through town like they owned the place.
She was still laughing.
‘Help yourself,’ he said.
She narrowed her eyes, looked at him approvingly. ‘It’s been ages since you let me paint you.’
‘You made me look like Churchill.’
She pulled a face.
‘Or maybe it was Mussolini.’
‘I could do much better now. What I’m after is that little quirky thing about your mouth, the one your mother had in pictures I’ve seen of her. It’s so fleeting-but I feel I could catch it now.’
Save for her, he would have jumped ship on all this. But he was in and he was glad; it felt right.
‘I’m excited about painting William-all those lovely wrinkles around his blue eyes, and that wicked scar on his temple. A fine nose, too-perhaps it was Roman before it was bashed in. Did the Romans come through Ireland?’
‘The Romans came through everywhere.’
‘William blames the Vikings for red hair, which he says isn’t Irish at all. It came from th’ bloody murderin’ Vikin’s, he says-from th’ numerous rapes an’ rampages that sullied th’ black hair of th’ Gaelic nation.’
‘There’s a view of history for you.’
She slapped her arm. ‘I see how Liam has taken to you, just like your parishioners in Mitford-even people who weren’t your parishioners. You attract that sort of thing like I attract midges. You never seem to mind.’
‘Maybe it’s some assurance to me that I exist, or have meaning-who knows? It’s always been that way.’
‘You’re like both father and priest to Liam, Anna says. That’s a lot to put on someone.’
‘Like you’re breath and life to me. That’s a lot to put on you.’
‘But I don’t mind it. Not ever. Besides, you try so hard to keep that need hidden. You seem afraid it will take something from me. But it doesn’t take anything away-it gives me something.
‘That’s what you do for people. It’s a wonderful gift, but it drains you. You see someone in need and take the plunge-that’s what God does, of course. But when you told Liam the police could jolly well come to you, I think you hit a home run.’
‘A first,’ he said, wry.
A young woman with an infant in her arms appeared on the narrow road, trailed by a border collie. The collie stopped, eyed them, barked. The woman lifted the tiny arm of the baby in a wagging salute to the couple at the chestnut tree, who waved back. He watched the trio disappear around a bend, praying for them as he had often done for the odd stranger or passerby, and even, on occasion, for the crew and passengers of a plane droning overhead. It was a private and instinctive thing, having little, or perhaps nothing to do with being a priest.
‘I love Ireland,’ she said.
‘You haven’t seen much of it.’
‘But I feel much of it, somehow. What if every day had a title, rather like the title of a poem-Psalm of Life or The Wild Swans at Coole, like that?’
‘Ah. So, what would today be titled?’
‘You go first.’
‘Free at Last.’
‘Perfect!’ she said. ‘You win.’
The mild zephyr that shook the blue flowers trifled with her hair. ‘I’m supposed to be painting Ben Bulben.’
‘Never mind. Legions have already done it, I’m sure. Getting down to brass tacks-shall I have Liam drive me to Sligo and rent a decent car?’
‘The world is full of decent cars,’ she said. ‘Let’s rattle around, we’ll remember it all’-she looked toward the Vauxhall-‘more vividly.’
‘Speaking of which, I just remembered…’
‘Tell me.’
‘We didn’t go to the country on my motor scooter.’
‘When?’
‘When we were courting-the time the bull chased me and we ate the raspberry tart.’
‘Who said we went on your motor scooter?’
‘I was thinking about it a few minutes ago, about you clinging on behind me, and it seemed so real. What I remembered was my fantasy about us going on the motor scooter. We went in the car.’
‘I would never have gone on that motor scooter.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘By the way, when I asked you about seeing Balfour’s place, how did you know what happened to it? You asked Anna?’
‘I skipped ahead to the end of the journal. Just for a peek.’ She slapped at a midge. ‘But I’ve decided to read it in proper order, roughly in sync with you.’
‘Do we want to keep reading it?’
‘We do,’ she said.
‘What if it was an inside job?’
‘Balfour’s place?’
He stood up, stretched. ‘The painting.’
‘I wasn’t going to talk about that anymore. But, yes, what if…’ She sat up. ‘I mean, why was Jack Slade at the fair when Bella was there, and why did he stab the fellow for talking out of turn to her? What business is she of his?’
‘Good question. The Garda probably asked that, too. Speaking of-what is it, anyway? Garda with an a at the end or Gardai with an i at the end?’
‘Beats me,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen it with two i’s at the end.’
‘Anyhow, let’s up and away, Kav’na. Tempus fugit.’ He checked his pant pockets, discovered the Connemara Black with its jagged barb-not a good thing to tote around in a pocket.
He helped her from the blanket; she looked curiously sober. ‘Are we nuts to stay?’
‘We’re a little nuts even if we don’t stay,’ he said. ‘So what’s the difference?’
‘Do we really want to visit a graveyard today?’
‘Probably not today. Besides, you already know the epitaph.’
‘Cast a cold eye,’ she said, collecting the picnic leavings and stowing them in the hamper.
Nineteen
The party was over-the caffeine had caught up with him.
He had fallen asleep around midnight, trekked to the bathroom at three, and woke himself snoring at four. Awake at his usual hour of five, he wrestled briefly with the notion of getting up and unpacking their book carton, then slept again and dreamed. He watched his hands break the whole-grain loaf-look on the heart by sorrow broken, look on the tears by sinners shed-smelled the sour yeast as crumbs scattered onto the fair linen. The dream wheeled to the stone arch of Sewanee’s Heaven’s Gate and the sight of an old school chum-he threw up his hand-but no, it was Dooley, his mortal flesh radiant in a patch of light. Dooley at Sewanee!-so he hadn’t gone down to Georgia with all those peaches and incinerating summers. A great happiness came to him, he called Dooley’s name and woke himself.