The Exile Read online

  “Jason,” Rick said. “You remember Finn O’Grady.”

  The young man frowned at him.

  “This is Jason, my son,” Rick said.

  “Ah.” O’Grady offered his hand, which the young man took with some reluctance. “So, you’re working on the site?”

  Jason nodded, eyeing O’Grady from under his blond fringe, unsmiling.

  “With Sean O’Connor,” O’Grady said.

  The boy nodded again.

  “And who else?”

  “What do you mean?” Jason said.

  “The other directors of the company,” O’Grady said. “I gather there are several.”

  Jason glanced up at Rick. “Apart from Sean? There’s a guy who does the money, over in Dublin. Alastair something he’s called. And there’s another guy called Kiley MacAteer.”

  O’Grady froze. “Kiley MacAteer,” he repeated. He looked across at Bridie. She looked at the ground. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  Chapter 9

  O’Grady walked ahead, with Bridie a few steps behind him. They’d left Jason with his father surveying the site, Jason pointing out where work was about to start again, finishing the roofs, planting hedges and lawns.

  O’Grady stopped, waited for Bridie. She was drooping and sullen. She looked up at him. “I knew it,” she said.

  “Knew what?”

  The last rays of the sun caught the red of her hair. “I should never have asked you back.” She was level with him now, her eyes fiery and defiant.

  “What are you implying?”

  “Your history with Hawthorne will always obscure your view of the truth. It did before, and it is now.”

  “I don’t need to tell you about the friendship between Kiley MacAteer and Brian Hawthorne.”

  She walked away, striding down the hill to where the fields turned green again, to where the Salter farmhouse nestled between the hedgerows.

  O’Grady watched her go. If only you knew, he wanted to say to her.

  He’d known Hawthorne since schooldays. When they were both just small boys at St. Joseph’s school, where the nuns ruled the children’s lives.

  Little Brian Hawthorne was round and pink-faced, and seemed to know how to pretend to be good. The nuns adored him. But O’Grady always seemed to get on the wrong side of them. The sisters would stand little Finn on a chair, to give him time to “contemplate his sins,” as they would say. His legs aching, he would watch the sisters glide past in their steel-gray habits, while Brian would mock him behind their backs. The boys would often come to blows, resulting in more standing on chairs for O’Grady, more sneering triumph for Hawthorne. Once, in a particularly vicious fight, O’Grady threw a powerful right hook which caught his enemy under his left eye. Hawthorne still had the scar.

  O’Grady walked slowly back towards the farm. Bridie had already reached the house. He took a detour, went through the iron gates at the entrance to the track. He wandered around the tumbledown barns, thinking about James Salter and his English certainties, his sense of having a right to this Irish land. O’Grady thought about how those certainties had not passed down to James’s melancholic, academic son. Now Richard had left behind a fearful daughter shadowed by the unresolved violent death of her sister. Only the boys seemed to have escaped Richard’s inherent guilt, with Rick carrying the same swaggering entitlement of his grandfather, and now passing that on to his own son.

  O’Grady found himself standing by the old derelict windmill. He watched the skeletal sails circle slowly in the dusk, round and round. He thought about their former purpose, milling the grain to feed the people. Now, all meaning had deserted them. They turned uselessly.

  In the gusts of wind through the sails, O’Grady heard a whisper of a name. Kiley MacAteer.

  I know what I have to do, he thought.

  Chapter 10

  O’Grady’s Audi screeched to a halt outside the Garda HQ in town. The town clock said two minutes to eleven. He was aware of waiting for something, then remembered how the clock tower would strike the hour, a familiar dull tolling.

  That morning he’d sat at the kitchen table, watching Bobby eat breakfast cereal with one hand and push his blue toy car along the table’s edge with the other.

  Bridie had barely spoken.

  The night before she’d made up a bed for him in the downstairs study, a fold-down single bed with old Irish linen sheets and a patchwork quilt.

  Vera had gone home, back to her cozy cottage and her two tabby cats. She’d hesitated, her hand on Bridie’s shoulder. “You’ll be all right, will you?” she’d said, looking uncertainly at O’Grady. Then she’d given Bobby a hug and walked off into the night.

  Bridie had cooked for the three of them, baked cod with potatoes and apple crumble to follow. O’Grady had picked up Bobby’s teddy and talked for him in a funny voice. Bobby had laughed and O’Grady had looked at the warm fire, at Bridie’s illuminated smile, and had laughed too.

  Later Bridie had put Bobby to bed. O’Grady had heard her singing to him, a Gaelic lullaby:

  “Seoithín, seo hó, mo stór é, mo leanbh…”

  “Hush-a-bye, baby, my darling, my child.…”

  He remembered previous times when she had been working on her father’s folk songs and he’d hear her clear, sweet voice telling stories of love and desire, of warriors and exile.

  Now he stood under the town clock tower in the busy street and listened to the bells strike the hour. He slammed the door of his car and walked towards the Garda HQ, an imposing, white stone building.

  He strode up the steps.

  He stood in reception. He’d dressed carefully. Crisp blue jeans, his black leather jacket, expensive shoes.

  “I’m here to see the Príomh-Cheannfort,” he said.

  The young woman on reception had a neat black fringe, pouting red lips, and was wearing a white blouse draped over generous curves. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Tell him O’Grady’s here,” he said.

  She fixed him with her dark gaze. “You need an appointment,” she said.

  He looked at her name badge.

  “You’re wrong there, Miss Riley,” he said.

  She smiled at him, and he felt as if he’d passed a test. “I’m afraid I’m right,” she said, but she was blushing now.

  He smiled back. “Don’t worry. I’ve known him since we were small boys at St. Joseph’s.”

  He strode away. He could feel her eyes still fixed on him.

  The corridor was familiar, the staircases with their wide stone steps, the sweeping banisters.

  He reached the first floor, walked along the green-carpeted corridor and stopped in front of an old oak door.

  He knocked, then turned the handle. The door swung open.

  Chief Superintendent Hawthorne was sitting at his desk. He seemed more jowly than O’Grady remembered, more red-faced, more overfed. His collar was off-white and tight at the neck. His jacket was a shiny navy, stretched over his belly. He had strands of gray hair combed across his head.

  His small pale eyes focused on O’Grady. Then came recognition.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  O’Grady stood in front of his desk. “Your friend is building on the land next door to the Salters.”

  Hawthorne gathered himself, composed his face into the familiar sneer. “And what is that to me, O’Grady?”

  “Kiley MacAteer,” O’Grady said. “Still causing trouble.”

  “People here can do as they please without interference from jumped-up ex-guards.” The emphasis was on the “ex.” “I never expected to see you again, O’Grady.”

  “I want answers, Hawthorne.”

  Hawthorne’s eyes narrowed. “I’m warning you, O’Grady. I don’t know what’s brought you back to Ireland, but if I were you, I’d get the next plane out of here. I got rid of you once. I can do it again.”

  “Sure, Hawthorne. You got rid of me once. Once is enough.” He turned and walked out, leaving the
door wide open behind him.

  He headed for the staircase. Two men were walking towards him along the corridor. He recognized them. One was Sean O’Connor, brother of Bridie’s husband Stuart. With him was a large thickset man with neat dark hair graying at the temples, and wearing an expensive-looking suit.

  Kiley MacAteer.

  There was a flash of acknowledgement from MacAteer, a look in his eyes. It was a hard, triumphant look. O’Grady clenched his hands into fists.

  It’s over, MacAteer, he wanted to say, as their eyes locked. Instead, he stepped to one side and walked on.

  There will be a time for that, he thought to himself, as he reached the stairs. There will be a time for justice.

  Chapter 11

  “So, it got you nowhere.” Bridie O’Connor stood in her living room in the dusky evening light. She smoothed a linen cloth across the dining table. “I could have told you that. Going into town, annoying Hawthorne, stirring things up.”

  She crossed the room, switched on some lights and went into the kitchen.

  “I saw Kiley MacAteer,” he said. “Walking along the corridor with Sean, your brother-in-law.”

  She reappeared with two plates which she placed on the table: perfectly cooked lamb chops, steamed potatoes, redcurrant sauce. She sat down opposite him.

  He picked up his wine glass. “Kiley MacAteer,” he repeated.

  Her eyes flashed with anger. “And what’s that to me? I’m here with my brother dead, with my son threatened.” She looked at him. “Finn, I called on you in the hope that you would understand. I was clearly wrong.” Her eyes welled with tears. “Instead of listening to what I was telling you, you’ve got caught up in your old fights, old battles and grudges.” She dashed at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I should have remembered what you were really like, Finn. Why you and me came to an end. I should have remembered those times. Not the times before.” She was staring at the tablecloth, tracing a finger around a patch of stitching.

  Her words were like a slap. O’Grady put down his glass. He leaned across to her and touched her hand. “I’m sorry, Bridie.”

  She looked up at him, gave a shrug.

  “So,” he said. “Tell me. Tell me again. And I promise I’ll listen.”

  She circled the wine in her glass.

  “Your sister,” he prompted. “Maura. All those years ago…”

  She sighed, her plate untouched. She began to speak. “She’d talk about him, in those months before she died. The Green Man. She’d go on about our family guilt, the way our grandfather behaved, stealing the land. Maura would read all our father’s old books. She was haunted by it. She’d say our grandfather had done a terrible wrong, and that the Green Man would come to claim what was his own.”

  “And then she died. A brutal death.”

  “My father blamed himself. He said he should have listened. She knew she was in danger. No one protected her.…” She clapped her hand over her mouth, shook her head.

  “She was attacked by real men,” O’Grady said. “Not ghosts. And they were never brought to justice. Kiley MacAteer—”

  Her hand went up. “I don’t want to hear that name.”

  “Never brought to justice, despite all my best efforts,” he went on. “And now lording it around the land next door.”

  She breathed out.

  “And you’ve had to live with that injustice all this time,” he said.

  She shook her head. “I’ve just found a way of managing it, that’s all. It’s the same as when Stuart died.” She lifted her head. “We Salters are cursed. I’m cursed.”

  They sat in silence, each with their thoughts. Bridie spoke again. “I always knew he’d come. Mikey was killed by earth. It’ll be air next. Someone will die by air.”

  O’Grady watched her. She seemed more beautiful than ever, her skin illuminated by the flicker of the fire, her hair in soft curls under the low light. He thought of this house, of Richard Salter taking refuge in his work, and now his daughter feeling she too must bury herself in the old stories.

  He tried again. “Bridie—your grandfather wasn’t a nice man. He was a bully. He was hated in the town. What if…what if this isn’t a ghost? What if there’s some real bad feeling that’s never gone away?”

  A flash of rage. “Why do you need one or the other? I’m not saying that my grandfather wasn’t a difficult man. But why can’t you hear what I’m telling you? If Stuart was here—” She stopped, but it was too late.

  “If Stuart was here, you’d never have called on me,” O’Grady said. “Is that what you mean?”

  Bridie’s eyes were fixed on his, dark with feeling. She tried to speak, but shook her head.

  In the silence they remembered. How he’d promised to look after her forever. How he’d talked of their future, of the house they’d live in. He’d even started to build it. He’d bought a plot of land further along the valley, laid the concrete base, put up half a brick wall…

  Maura’s death, and the circumstances surrounding it, ate away at their relationship. He’d become obsessed with finding out the truth, just as Bridie had retreated into fear and grief. His days had been taken up with endless fruitless attempts to gather evidence; his evening hours were spent in Tynan’s bar.

  He remembered how Bridie had despaired of him. How Stuart O’Connor, dependable Stuart, the local carpenter, had come to her rescue. How O’Grady, realizing that he’d lost the only two things that mattered to him, his woman and his job, had seen that he had to go.

  O’Grady got to his feet. “I’m going to bed,” he said. In the doorway he turned. “Bridie—I give you my word. I will do my best to protect you and your family from whatever this threat is. I will fight to keep you safe. But please remember this. You and I, we both made promises. I learned long ago not to hold you to yours. You called me, and I came to you. That’s all I can offer you now.”

  He turned away, went into the darkness of the hallway. She heard the study door slam shut.

  The hammering on his door, when it came much later that night, woke him from deep sleep. Bridie was there, in a white nightdress, screaming his name, her phone clutched in one hand. “Finn—now, quick, come on!” She was grabbing at his arm, pulling him towards the door.

  “What—?”

  “Air,” she was shouting. “They called me. The windmill—” They were outside in the damp black night. “It’s happened again.”

  Chapter 12

  There was no moon. The Audi headlights cut beams through the mist. He drove fast up the track, Bridie silent and shivering at his side.

  They rounded the corner. The mill was a towering shadow, a black silhouette against the sky. The sails were turning, slowly. There seemed to be something attached to them.

  They jumped from the car, running close, seeing, as they got near, a human form tied to the blades, turning, round and round. Limp. Lifeless.

  “Rick!” Bridie screamed. “Rick…”

  The corpse circled. The branches of the trees were ghost-white in the headlight beams. Locals had appeared, gathering in silent groups, staring blankly up at the dead body of Rick Salter.

  Chapter 13

  There were police, ambulances. Bridie had called Vera, who had gone to the house to sit with Bobby. “Fast asleep, bless him,” Vera had reported. “Managed not to wake at all.”

  O’Grady went to find the police. There were two young men, one black, one white, standing at the foot of the mill.

  “Detective Sergeant Driscoll,” the first Garda said. “And this is DC Laverty.” DC Laverty was pale-haired and hunched with cold.

  All three men gazed up at the sails.

  “What do you make of it?” O’Grady asked.

  “He’d been shot,” Driscoll said. “Seems to be a fatal wound, from behind. Shot in the back of the head. But for some reason they took him, dead, dying maybe, and strung him up here, and then set the motor to turn—on a night like this, no wind, the air still.” He stared upwards. “They seemed to
have wanted theatre as well as a killing.”

  O’Grady smiled, in spite of the circumstances. “Thanks for your help,” he said.

  “You with the lady?” the young sergeant said.

  He gave a nod. “I used to be a Garda,” he heard himself say to them. “A sáirsint too.”

  Now, as the dawn began to touch the sky with gray, he went to stand with Bridie. They watched as the emergency crews stilled the windmill, climbed the tower, cut the ropes which held the body, carried him back down, laid him on a stretcher. There was a pause, a silence, in those moments before the birds began to sing. Then they laid a cloth over him and covered his face.

  Bridie began to sob, loud gasps of grief. She ran to her brother, pulled back the cloth, flung herself across the body. O’Grady was at her side, crouched beside her. After long minutes her sobbing abated. He put his arm around her and helped her to her feet. She leaned in to him as he walked her away, back to the car.

  He drove her back to her house. She was white-faced with cold, with grief. He helped her indoors, sat her at the table, draped a blanket around her shoulders and lit the fire.

  After he’d boiled a kettle he placed a mug of tea in front of her.

  She stared vacantly at the rising steam.

  He sat opposite her. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She raised her eyes to his.

  “All that time we were sitting here arguing about ghosts,” he began, “and your brother’s life was on the line. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

  She gathered the blanket around her.

  “Someone sought him out, tracked him down, shot him dead,” O’Grady went on. “There was a fatal shotgun wound, from behind. He didn’t stand a chance.”

  “Air.” She spoke at last, her voice thin. “Whoever did this knows the old rhyme, the old stories.”

  “Bridie—whoever did this wanted Rick Salter dead.”