“Not offhand,” I said, “sorry,” and then I almost fell out of my tree. “Ah, sure,” Sam was saying philosophically, “that would’ve been too much to expect,” but I barely heard him. John Naylor: finally, and about bloody time, I had someone who began with an N.
“Which one do you like?” I asked. I made sure I didn’t skip a beat. Of all the detectives I know, Sam is the best at pretending he’s missed things. It comes in useful more often than you might expect.
“It’s early days, but for now Bannon’s my favorite. He’s the only one with any kind of history. Five years ago, a couple of American tourists parked their car blocking one of Bannon’s gates while they went for a walk in the lanes. When Bannon turned up and couldn’t move his sheep, he kicked a pretty serious dent in the side of the car. Criminal damage and not playing nicely with outsiders; this vandalism could be right up his street.”
“The others are clean?”
“Byrne says he’s seen both of them a little the worse for wear, at one time or another, but not enough that he could be bothered pulling them in for public drunkenness or anything like that. Any of them could have criminal activity we don’t know about, Glenskehy being what it is, but to look at, yeah, they’re clean.”
“Have you talked to them yet?” Somehow, I had to get a look at this John Naylor. Going down to the pub was out, obviously, and wandering innocently onto the farm where he worked was probably a bad idea, but if I could find a way to sit in on an interview-
Sam laughed. “Give me time. I’m only after narrowing it down this afternoon. I’m aiming to have chats with all of them tomorrow morning. I wanted to ask you-would you be able to come in for that? Just to give them the once-over, see if you pick up anything?”
I could have kissed him. “God, yeah. Where? When?”
“Yeah, I thought you might want a look.” He was smiling. “I’m thinking Rathowen station. Their homes would be best, not to spook them, but I couldn’t exactly bring you along there.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “Sounds great, actually.”
The smile in Sam’s voice deepened. “To me, too. Will you be able to get away from the others?”
“I’ll tell them I’ve got a hospital appointment, to get my stitches checked. I should be doing that anyway.” The thought of the others gave me a strange little pang. If Sam got anything solid on one of these guys-it wouldn’t even have to be enough for an arrest-then it was over; I was out, back to Dublin and DV.
“Will they not want to come in with you?”
“Probably, but I won’t let them. I’ll get Justin or Daniel to drop me off at Wicklow Hospital. Can you pick me up there, or will I get a taxi to Rathowen?”
He laughed. “You think I’d miss the chance? Say half past ten?”
“Perfect,” I said. “And, Sam-I don’t know how much depth you’re planning to go into with these three guys, but before you start chatting to them, I’ve got a bit more info for you. About that girl with the baby.” That sticky traitorous feeling clamped round me again, but I reminded myself that Sam wasn’t Frank, it wasn’t like he would show up at Whitethorn House with a search warrant and a bunch of deliberately obnoxious questions. “It looks like the whole thing happened sometime in 1915. No name on the girl, but her lover was William March, born 1894.”
An instant of amazed silence; then: “Ah, you gem,” Sam said, delighted. “How’d you do that?”
So he wasn’t listening in on the mike feed-not all the time, anyway. It startled me, how much of a relief that was. “Uncle Simon was writing a family history. This girl got a mention. The details don’t exactly match up, but it’s the same story, all right.”
“Hang on,” Sam said; I heard him finding a blank page in his notebook. “Now. Off you go.”
“According to Simon, William went off to the First World War in 1914, came back a year later deeply messed up. He broke off his engagement to some nice suitable girl, cut off contact with all his old friends and started hanging around the village. Reading between the lines, the Glenskehy people weren’t too pleased about that.”
“Not a lot they could do,” Sam said dryly. “One of the landlord’s family… He could do whatever he liked, sure.”
“Then this girl got pregnant,” I said. “She claimed William was the father-Simon sounded a little skeptical about that, but either way, Glenskehy was horrified. They treated her like dirt; the general opinion was that she belonged in a Magdalen laundry. Before anyone could send her off, she hanged herself.”
Brush of wind through the trees, small raindrops flicking leaves.
“So,” Sam said, after a moment, “Simon’s version takes the responsibility right off the Marches and puts it on those mad peasants down the village.”
The flare of anger caught me off guard; I almost bit his head off. “William March didn’t get off scot-free either,” I said, hearing the edge in my voice. “He had some kind of nervous breakdown-I don’t have specifics, but he ended up in what sounds like a mental institution. And it might not even have been his kid to start with.”
