Lake of Sorrows

He might not even be here if someone hadn’t deliberately planted that rucksack in the back of the jeep; if he could only work out why…Perhaps so that he would have to be questioned again; but to what end? He couldn’t believe the police would actually charge him for Rachel Briscoe’s murder. It didn’t make sense, thinking that he’d killed the girl while out looking for Brona. So why lead them down the wrong track—unless it was just to get him away from the house?

And with a sudden, awful horror, he knew. Whoever had planted the rucksack wanted the drawings. He couldn’t believe he’d been so thick. He’d said it himself: Ursula’s drawing was the only evidence that any Loughnabrone collar existed—and to some warped mind, probably well worth killing for.

He leaped from his chair and started pounding on the door of the interview room. “Detective Ward! Somebody—open up!”

As they made their way to the galley kitchen across from their office, Brennan spoke first. “I can’t believe he wants us to swallow all that—a gold collar, for God’s sake.”

“Does sound a bit outlandish, all right, but you have to admit it’s not impossible. Look at that fella stumbled across those Bronze Age gold necklaces at the beach on his holidays up in Mayo.” She must remember it; the case had made national headlines.

Brennan gave a grudging nod, and Ward continued: “Dr. Gavin’s statement says she overheard Ursula Downes telling Charlie Brazil that she knew what he was hiding. What if he and the father still have a whole pile of stuff from the hoard? Ursula finds out, and they have to get rid of her.” As he spoke, a gauzy notion dragged across Ward’s consciousness. The way Ursula Downes and Rachel Briscoe had been killed—just like Danny Brazil, one of the brothers who’d found the Loughnabrone hoard in the first place. It was Maguire who’d known so much about triple death, but Charlie Brazil who’d been suspected of carrying out bloodletting rituals. “Even if he is blowing smoke, Maureen, it wouldn’t hurt to see these drawings he’s talking about. And we should probably pull Charlie Brazil and Owen Cadogan this morning, see if they can give us details about what they were up to last night. Maybe we’d better split up, when we’re done with Maguire. I’ll take Brazil; you take Cadogan.”

They both turned to the uniformed officer who’d just stuck his head in through the doorway; he appeared slightly winded from legging it up the stairs.

“Ah, Detective Ward, there you are. Thought you were in the interview room. I’ve got a phone call for you.”

“I am in the middle of an interview,” Ward said. “We’re just on a short break. Take a message, will you?”

“I would, but she says it’s urgent, sir, and she won’t speak to anyone but you.”

Ward crossed the hall to his office and picked up the phone.

“I’d like to speak to the officer in charge of the murder.” The woman’s voice was smooth and educated, with a recognizable Dublin 4 drawl, but tentative. Ward guessed that she didn’t often ring the police about murder—or anything else, for that matter.

“This is Detective Liam Ward. I’m heading up the murder inquiries.”

“Inquiries?” Shock registered in the silence on the other end of the line. With one hand, Ward signaled to Maureen to pick up her extension. “Does that mean there’s more than one? I only heard about one on the television.”

“As of this morning there’s been a second murder. Are you calling with information?”

The woman’s tone was matter-of-fact. “I’m ringing to tell you that Desmond Quill’s alibi for Thursday evening is a lie.” Ward pictured her slender and fair, with expensive rings on her manicured fingers, but he could not see her face.

“And how do you happen to know this?”

“Because that Thursday chess game was something he and Laurence Fitzhugh cooked up years ago, the two of them, as a convenient cover for when they wanted to misbehave. Every week they work out who wins and who loses—plot every move, in fact, so that they can back each other up if that should be required. The game actually does take place, you see—not on a chessboard, but in their heads. I don’t know where Desmond Quill was that night. But I do know he wasn’t with Laurence Fitzhugh, because I was—as I have been every Thursday night for the past six and a half years.”

Ward wanted to believe the cool, anonymous voice. It could be a vital lead, but his inner skeptic made him pull back. “We appreciate your coming forward, but of course we’ll need to verify—”

She cut him off. “I haven’t come forward. I won’t give a formal statement, and I’ll certainly never testify in court. I have far too much to lose. I’m sure you understand, Detective Ward. And you needn’t bother tracing this call; I’m ringing from a telephone box. I just had a notion that you ought to know the truth.”

She rang off abruptly, leaving a loud, flat buzzing in his right ear. He looked up at Maureen, who was setting her receiver in its cradle. She made a face. “Worthless. Could be anyone, a crank, someone trying to take the pressure off Maguire.”