Condemned to Death Page 10

  It was time that they all began work on the affair of the dead man in the boat.

  ‘There are two main questions,’ she told her scholars. ‘First of all, when you are interviewing the fishermen and shore-dwellers, I think that you should ask whether they had ever heard of, or had ever encountered, antique pieces of gold on the beach. And the second question – just as important, in fact, perhaps more important, you must ask whether any of them had ever ferried Niall Martin, the goldsmith from Galway City, to these shores.’ And then, having briefed them, she dismissed them to their tasks, walking back up to the fishermen and addressing them for a brief moment, explaining the scholars’ role and beseeching their help in tracing the dead man and finding out what had happened to him during his last hours of life.

  Domhnall and Slevin soon had the scholars scattered over the beach at their makeshift stone tables. Domhnall had taken Art’s list and had distributed the ten fishermen among the scholars. Many of the wives had come too, amused and interested and already fond of the young people from the law school. There now seemed, it appeared to Mara, to be an atmosphere of not caring much, almost as though the accident of the boat – whether or not it had come from Fanore – had been wiped away once it had been buried in the sandy soil of the graveyard outside the little church.

  ‘Yes, I met him a couple of times.’ To her startled amazement the voice was that of Setanta, Cormac’s foster-father. He was being interviewed by Slevin and Finbar and his voice was loud, clear and unconcerned. Mara had known Setanta for most of his life. Long before he had married Cliona and become stepfather to Art, and subsequently foster-father to Cormac, he had been known to Brigid and to the household at Cahermacnaghten as a reliable purveyor of fresh fish and shellfish on Fridays and on the eves of saints’ days. Cormac, her son, was devoted to Setanta and his wife and, to Mara’s secret jealousy and chagrin, Cliona was far more Cormac’s mother than Mara had ever been. ‘Brehon’, he invariably called his birth mother, but Cliona was known by the softer, more intimate term ‘Muimme’. He respected the ‘Brehon’, but he went for comfort and for love to Cliona. If there was any involvement of either Setanta or of Cliona in this matter of the death of the gold merchant from Galway, that would, she knew, be a serious blow to Cormac. She was conscious of a feeling of fear in her heart at the thought of any possibility of guilt attaching to those two people who were of such vital importance to her son. Despite trusting Slevin, she felt compelled to listen to what was being said and walked towards the slab of rock where he had perched himself with Finbar at his side.

  Slevin was a good interviewer and he kept his head well, despite an inevitable moment of surprise, thought Mara as, unobtrusively, she moved closer to where the two boys sat. Unless Setanta looked around, he would not notice her and the line of rocks here partially screened her from his view.

  ‘So you knew him well, did he employ you?’ came Slevin’s calm, relaxed voice.

  ‘He did, indeed,’ said Setanta. Mara listened closely, trying to decide whether or not she heard a slight note of strain in his voice.

  ‘So what did he want you to do for him?’

  Finbar had said nothing and that, thought Mara, was probably his decision. Her older scholars were well trained to give a chance to the younger ones to ask questions if they wished.

  ‘Oh, he just wanted to have a bit of fresh air on a Sunday. He was stuck in a stuffy little shop from Monday to Friday, so on summer evenings at weekends, he liked to get away and get out on the sea, and walk on sands. That’s what he told me, anyway.’ Setanta’s tone was quite unconcerned.

  Slevin made a note and Mara admired the way that he allowed a long pause to intervene – a pause that asked its own question.

  ‘I didn’t recognize him when I saw him lying in that boat and that’s God’s honest truth,’ said Setanta defensively, after a moment, ‘but then when Oisín O’Davoren was so sure, well then I recognized him. It’s a matter of eight months or so since I’ve seen him,’ he explained. ‘And so the Brehon thinks that he came here for some purpose, is that right?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Slevin threw an air of confidentiality into his voice. ‘We think that he might have come here to meet someone.’ He beamed at Setanta and Mara suppressed a grin at his inventiveness. ‘So you weren’t the only one to bring him over here?’ Slevin had a very relaxed manner of questioning.

  ‘Lord bless you, no,’ said Setanta. His voice rose up to a pitch that carried well across the water. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, lads? That gold merchant was always coming over here?’

  There were a few subdued murmurs though most of the fisherfolk looked taken aback and rather appalled at Setanta’s outspokenness.

  ‘But why did he come?’ Mara decided that it was time she took a hand in the questioning so she came forward and looked around, appealing to everyone. ‘After all,’ she said, ‘if the gold merchant wanted just fresh air and a rest from the city there were other places much nearer for him to go to. What about Salt Hill? What about Spiddal?’

  Her intervention, she thought afterwards, was ill-advised. Slevin had been doing well by himself. She should have said nothing, not all the fishermen had the same open relationship with her as had Setanta. In truth, the very fact of his relationship to her, through the fostering of her son Cormac, might make him slightly suspect. Others around had heard Setanta’s words and had listened to her rejoinder. The effect had been to make them clam up instantly. Only Brendan was willing to admit that he had ferried the goldsmith over from Galway on a few occasions – didn’t know why the man came; took no interest in his doings; remembered the first time that he came; was tired out when he arrived; had gone up to their house at Morroughtuohy, just north of Fanore beach; he had breakfast and then had gone to help Etain who was collecting samphire on the rocks, and when they had filled all of the baskets in the hold the man suddenly appeared and climbed on board very quickly, ‘almost as though,’ said Brendan, with an air of wonder which Mara found to be rather false, ‘almost as though he did not want to be seen.’ His eyes went around the group and found those of the farmer, Michelóg. Mara could swear that a look was passed between them, even that a question had been asked and replied to in the negative.

  By the time that all the twelve families had been interviewed Mara had begun to get irritated. Standing aloof from them all and wearing a stern expression, she requested Domhnall to gather them all together, men, women and children. She waited until all stood before her and then addressed them.

  ‘I must confess,’ she said evenly, ‘that I am feeling rather puzzled. When the dead man, Niall Martin, the goldsmith from Galway City, was first discovered on the strand by little Síle, Brendan and Etain’s younger sister, you were all asked whether you recognized him and none, if I remember rightly, expressed any recognition of him.’

  Glances were being exchanged, though heads remained immoveable, each looking straight at her. They reminded her slightly of a flock of sheep, standing very close to each other, eyeing a strange dog and wondering whether ill boded for the flock. Despite herself she softened. Apart from Fernandez, and perhaps Brendan and his sister Etain, these fisherfolk were possibly among the poorest of the kingdom. The O’Connor clan had originated in Corcomroe and then a split in leadership, and a fortunate inheritance, several hundreds of years ago had led to land being acquired in the Kingdom of the Burren and a new clan established there. However, the lands that they held were small and families large. The majority of the O’Connor clan on the Burren had taken to fishing as a way of life and the three other clans, the O’Lochlainns, the MacNamaras and the O’Briens, had been glad to barter goods and silver for a steady supply of fish to satisfy their taste and the religious observation of no meat on Fridays and fast days which the Church endeavoured to enforce.

  ‘It was the wig, Brehon,’ said Setanta eventually and his voice sounded defensive. ‘He was bald when we saw him in the past. I haven’t seen him myself for months.’

  ‘Bald as a co
ot,’ said Muiris with emphasis.

  ‘Looked quite different, didn’t he? Didn’t recognize him at all,’ said Séan the Shark Slayer.

  ‘Funny the difference that hair makes to a man’s face,’ said one of the women.

  ‘Changes the shape of it entirely,’ agreed another.

  ‘I see,’ said Mara, glad to accept this excuse. Privately she considered that they had all come to an agreement, whether voiced or unvoiced, that this was none of their business and that considering the man was found in a local, though abandoned, boat, all knowledge of him should be denied.

  And, of course, it made sense that Niall Martin had made several visits to Fanore beach. Looking for a buried hoard would have been very difficult. Had he succeeded? She feared that he had and that he had been murdered for gold.

  ‘And the boat, the boat with no oars, was that known to you?’ she queried and then added swiftly, ‘I myself thought that I had recognized it as an old boat that had been beached over there between two sand-dune hillocks. Did anyone else recognize it?’

  After a moment Setanta spoke. ‘It could be that it was that one, Brehon,’ he admitted. ‘It’s been there for so long that I, for one, had forgotten about its existence.’

  There was a murmur of agreement and faces brightened a little, most of them glancing longingly back towards the top of the beach where the fires still smouldered and the neat, flat, triangular-tailed shapes of the mackerel, hanging from the well-soaked twigs, showed faintly through the grey-blue haze of the smoke. She would have to let them go soon – she had no wish to allow their catch to spoil from lack of attention.

  ‘Now that we have established that this mysterious stranger was known to you all,’ she said mildly, ‘perhaps you would tell my scholars when you took him here from Galway, how long he stayed at the beach here in Fanore, any conversation that you can remember, anything that he took back with him that he had not brought with him. In fact,’ she finished, looking around keenly, ‘any detail which may help me in the search for anyone who murdered a man here only days ago. Fernandez, could I have a word with you?’

  She waited until all were occupied, some going back up to tend to the fires, others clustering around one or other of the scholars seated on the rocks with ink pots beside them and leather satchels on their knees. And then she strolled aside with him a little.

  ‘And you?’ she queried. ‘Were you, too, deceived by the wig?’

  ‘Never saw him in my life before, wig, or no wig,’ Fernandez said, lifting his hands in mock-surrender. ‘I think you’re scaring the life out of them, poor things,’ he said with a warmth which she found rather endearing. ‘They have a hard life; they don’t want any complications, and, you know, every single one of these people here have lost a relation to the sea. A dead body doesn’t mean that much to them.’

  Mara nodded. She wondered whether if her scholars had not been present the man would have been hastily buried and no one the wiser. A close-knit community like this would keep its secrets. And Fernandez? Well, she reckoned he would have gone along with their decision. This matter was hindering his great money-making design, and, also, it might affect his relationship with the merchants, innkeepers and shopkeepers of Galway City. The sooner that it was forgotten, the better he would be pleased.

  ‘Do you think the murderer should be found?’ she challenged him directly and was interested to see the look of annoyance on his face.

  ‘If it does any good to anyone,’ he said shortly.

  ‘The law of the land must be upheld,’ said Mara, still watching him. ‘The law is the King’s law, it flows from him to his chieftains and is administered by the Brehon of the Kingdom. I think that the King would consider any man who did not uphold the law to be unsuitable for the position of taoiseach.’ There was a mild threat behind her words and she did not regret it. Who was he to play God and to say whether death of a man against the law of the kingdom did not matter?

  She left him to think about this and went to collect the results from her scholars. There was still remarkably little information. Five of the ten fishermen had admitted to taking a strange man with a bald head from Galway to Fanore beach about a year or so, ago, and to taking him back again within a space of a couple of hours. None had admitted a more recent visit. They had been paid well – a silver penny for the journey. The man had brought a leather bag with him each time and no one had noticed whether there was something in it or not. None had seen a map in his hands, but then he had quickly disappeared behind rocks as soon as he had got out of the boat.

  ‘And none of them speculated on what he was doing, is that right?’ Mara asked Domhnall.

  ‘None related their thoughts to us on that subject, Brehon,’ he corrected her gently and she had to smile at his precision and his acute mind. She turned and began to walk down towards the sea and he accompanied her, knowing instinctively that she needed a sounding board for her thoughts.

  ‘You see, all of this may have nothing to do with the murder, Domhnall,’ she said after a minute. ‘It could well be as Fernandez says …’ And then she related to him her conversation. ‘On the other hand,’ she continued, ‘it seems to me to be very unlikely that they didn’t keep an eye on him, didn’t wonder what he was up to. After all, these children here have been scrambling over rocks as soon as they are able to stand – didn’t anyone ask them to keep an eye on the stranger, to check whether he was gathering seaweed or shellfish or looking for rare seashells, or something like that – something that they could have understood? It just doesn’t make sense to me, Domhnall.’

  ‘And if he came to look for gold and went back, time after time, empty-handed,’ put in Domhnall.

  ‘But, on one occasion, a week ago, he perhaps found something,’ said Mara. Her conscience began to trouble her about her other six scholars left by themselves in the middle of the beach, grouped around one of the squared-off black limestone table-like rocks. It was against her principles to favour one above the others. They must all feel that they were part of her investigations. Without saying any more, she turned and went back to them, seating herself on a dry spot and signalling to them to sit down. They perched on spots very near to her and she was pleased with their discretion. Her voice, she knew, was a carrying one. She had trained it from an early age, standing in an empty field at Poulnabrone where the ancient dolmen made a focal point for the administration of justice in the kingdom. Hour after hour, during her girlhood, she had aimed fragments of the law at the tall cliffs on the eastern edge of the field, waiting, as her father had taught her, for the echoes to die down before embarking on the next sentence. Here on the beach with the shrill, childlike cries of the trim, sea-grey kittiwakes calling overhead, the temptation was to raise her voice to compete with the sounds around her.

  Instead she lowered it and forced them to lean close to her in order to catch her words.

  ‘Did anyone admit to bringing the goldsmith over here from Galway four days ago?’ she asked and waited for every head to be shaken before asking the next question. She kept her face turned down towards her scholars at her feet, but from the corner of her eye she could see that all the faces from the top of the beach were not turned towards their fires, or towards their barrels, but were angled down to where she sat.

  ‘And did anyone catch sight of him before they saw the dead body?’ She wished now that she had mentioned the matter of the wig to Oisín before he returned. At the time, she had thought it of little importance, many middle-aged to elderly men wore wigs in the City of Galway; she knew that and in this case it was only of interest because the false hair was made from springy horsehair and was so thickly woven onto a heavy woollen base that it had served to protect his skin from the force of the blow, even though the brain itself had been split.

  As she had expected, no one had admitted to seeing the gold merchant on the fatal days before his murder.

  ‘High tide was at about ten o’clock in the evening,’ put in Cael. ‘I asked Etain and she told me
. I’d say that means he arrived some time between eight and twelve.’

  ‘It seems impossible that no one saw him get out of a boat, even if the man who carried him is not willing to admit the truth,’ said Mara. She hoped that her voice remained calm and judicial, but she was beginning to hate this case. It was a most uncomfortable feeling to think that a whole community might be pitting its wits against her. Was it just because the boat, in which the dead man had lain, had belonged to Fanore, or was there a more sinister reason?

  ‘I was thinking that he might not have been put down at Fanore at all,’ said Cael. She looked impatiently at her friends who were staring at her with mouths open. ‘Birdbrains!’ she said with scorn. ‘These small boats could land anywhere along the coast – the men would know where it was shallow enough to stick an oar into the sand and hold it steady while someone scrambled out and onto the rocks.’

  ‘That’s good thinking, Cael,’ said Mara. She had waited a few seconds to see whether the others, Cian, Cormac, Art and Finbar, would say something. Usually they were generous in their praise when it was deserved, but now nothing was said. Perhaps Cael, in her anger at being excluded from the boys’ camp on the sand dunes, had said something that they regarded as unforgiveable. She would ignore the situation – Cael herself didn’t seem upset, just slightly puzzled – everything would be forgotten within a few days. She sat and thought for a few minutes and knew that the decision she had taken earlier was the right one at this stage.

  ‘I think,’ said Mara eventually, ‘that I shall go to Galway in the morning. It is of the utmost importance that we do our best to find if there are any more remains of an ancient hoard of gold, but that is something you can do as well, if not better than I can. So I will go to Galway and you scholars can go on searching. I shall leave Domhnall in charge of you all. I really do feel that it would be good to have the map that Ardal O’Lochlainn saw with the goldsmith – after all, he just had one short glance at it. Who knows, it may have more to reveal that we can tell just now.’