Lake of Sorrows

Brazil shook his head again, but no words came. He launched into another violent coughing fit, and this time Teresa was not beside him to help until it passed. Ward felt helpless watching the man go through agony, and knew he’d gotten all he was going to get from Dominic Brazil today. He would come back when they’d had a chance to let the reality of the situation sink in. It was the same whenever you brought this dreadful news to a family—they could never imagine anyone with reason enough to kill. As if reason came into it at all. He waited as Brazil’s cough gradually subsided, then rose and said, “I’ll leave you now. I may have more questions in the next few days.” Dominic Brazil nodded again, ashen-faced.

Ward found Mrs. Brazil in the kitchen, back at her cookery, scraping the skin from a carrot with furious intensity.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Brazil. You wouldn’t by any chance have a photograph of Danny? It might help in our investigation.”

She looked at him blankly, as if she’d never seen him before, then seemed to snap out of her slight trance. “Of course. I’ll see if I can find one.” She left him and went back down the hall. Through the cracked-open door, Ward could see that she went into a bedroom, and he heard her digging around, probably in the bottom of a wardrobe. She returned with a battered cardboard suitcase. “If there’s anything at all, it would be in here.” She flipped the latches and exposed a jumble of color snapshots and antique portraits, a collection of family history, corseted women and mustached men in well-worn Sunday suits, a dead child in its pram. He looked over her shoulder as she dug up ancestors, the jumbled details of their triumphs and tragedies long forgotten.

“My husband’s family were never great for taking photos, and after Danny—” She stopped momentarily. “After Danny was gone, his mother threw the few pictures she had of him into the fire. No longer any son of hers, she said.” Teresa Brazil turned her face away, apparently disturbed by the vivid memory. Ward’s own mind formed the image of a vigorous young man in a fading color photo, suspended for a few seconds against the orange glow of a turf fire, then curling up and crumbling away into ashes.

She continued looking, and at the very bottom of the case she found a newspaper cutting. “This was in the Tribune when the lads found all that in the bog,” she said.

Ward looked at the grainy image, softening into yellow and blurry gray with age and damp. Yet Danny Brazil’s face was clearly visible, along with the sword he held in his hands, like an offering, while his brother looked up at the camera from behind. It was astonishing to think that one of the vital men in the photo was now the living cadaver who sat in the next room. And the other was the wizened brown flesh he’d last seen on the stainless-steel table in the mortuary. He tucked the cutting into his pocket, thanked Mrs. Brazil for her help, and took his leave.

Driving back to the station, Ward tried to put his finger on the feeling he’d got in the Brazil house. It was like walking the bog; you had to be very careful where you put a foot down, in case you’d sink in. Stick to the well-trodden paths, and you’d be all right, you’d survive the crossing. But how had Danny Brazil happened to stray from the path? How exactly had he put a foot wrong and ended up dead?

8

“We’ve got a standing invitation to have a drink over at Michael Scully’s house,” Cormac said, when they’d finished their evening meal. “We could go over tonight, if you’re up for it. Michael keeps a bottle of Tyrconnell single malt for special occasions, and apparently we qualify. He’s quite anxious to meet you.”

Nora knew that Michael Scully had been one of Gabriel McCrossan’s great friends; that was enough incentive. “I’m delighted to go along for a drink. But I can’t understand why he’d be anxious to meet me.”

“Gabriel told him about your research project. He probably wants to meet the mind behind it. Michael would be a good person for you to know. He’s retired from the Heritage Service a good few years now, but his interest always ran much deeper than the job required. If you’re interested in bogs, archaeology, antiquities, the history of this area, Michael Scully is your man. He’s devoted years to going through all the annals and old manuscripts, especially the ones that mention this part of the county. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard tell of hereditary historians, families whose job it was to remember the whole history of an area. He’s a bit like that. An amazing character, for the most part self-educated, very grounded in the old culture. There are so many people around here who have nothing of it left in them at all. He’s fluent in Irish, and reads Latin and Greek. An unappreciated treasure stuck out here in the middle of the bog.”