The Exile Read online

  She stared at the table.

  “Your brother was lording it around the new estate,” O’Grady said. “Thinking he owned the place. Like the old Salters. And someone was angry.”

  She said nothing, so he went on. “I can only work from what’s in front of me. So, let’s start with your Green Man story. This account that you’ve been giving me, the old rhyme. Earth, then air…so, fire next?”

  She looked up at him, nodded.

  “Bridie—let’s say there’s a threat to your family, we can agree on that. And let’s say that I will do everything I can to keep you safe. Is that a deal?”

  She gave another small nod. She got to her feet, wrapped the blanket around her and left the room. He heard her feet on the stairs, going up to her bed.

  Chapter 14

  He went to his little room and lay down on the bed. The gray light of the early morning crept in through the study curtains. Bobby seemed to be still sleeping. Vera too was asleep, in the guest room upstairs. Bridie had gone to bed but O’Grady imagined her lying, shocked and afraid, her eyes wide open.

  He wished he could help her. He wished he could reach her.

  He heard a distant church clock strike the hour. Seven o’clock.

  He wouldn’t go back to sleep now.

  In his mind, he saw the towering windmill blades, their slow turning, the bleeding body of Rick Salter roped across them, turning too.

  It takes more than a leaf-masked ghost to carry out a shooting at point-blank range.

  O’Grady’s thoughts took him back to the day before, the corridors of Garda HQ, Hawthorne’s sneering face, the tight-faced hostility of Kiley MacAteer.

  He remembered how MacAteer used to be when he was young. Good-looking, dark-eyed, he played football for the local team and worked as the manager of a chain of sportswear shops. Always there with a joke, always good for a laugh. He got promoted, made some money, drove nice cars. And that was when he started dating Maura Salter.

  Maura was sixteen, with the Salter good looks. Darker-haired than her big sister Bridie, but she had the same soft grace. She was considered a catch, and Kiley would brag about it in pubs, how he’d got the prettiest girl in town, how when he married her he’d have the Salter farm too.

  And then, aged seventeen, she broke it off. Told him she didn’t want to see him anymore. Her family breathed a sigh of relief. Kiley MacAteer was known to be a bully, known to be someone who was used to getting his own way. While she was with him, Maura had become cowed and shy. But once she’d declared the relationship over, she’d become taller, somehow, with brighter clothes and the odd slick of lipstick. She’d begun to spend time with a young American, Gregson Elliott, a researcher who’d come from Yale to work with Richard Salter on Irish folk tales, in particular on the myths that had traveled to the States in the wake of the Irish potato famine in the 1840s. He said he’d always felt like an Irishman: “My mother was a Murphy, though it turns out that’s true for about half of all Americans.” Charming, good-looking, sandy-haired, with old-fashioned good manners, he’d settled into the town. When asked if he ever missed his life back home he would express relief to be away from his large family, “far too many brothers, cousins, godparents—and the beer’s better here too.”

  For a few months, Maura seemed happier. The family seemed happier. Richard relaxed in the knowledge that his younger daughter was safe from the bullying MacAteer and in the much more kindred company of Gregson. Gregson became part of the family. He got on well with everyone. He even joined Sean in his roofing business. “Makes a change from old books,” he’d said, “to be up a roof with a hammer.” Sean would tease him, call him Murphy. Bridie was pleased that her brother-in-law had a friend, as Sean had always had a reputation for being difficult and too quick with his fists.

  But then, Maura began to have her terrors. She’d talk about the Green Man and how he would wreak his revenge. Vera and Gregson would try to explain that the Green Man myth couldn’t possibly be used to threaten harm in this way, but she would turn away from them, locked in her own versions of the story. All through the autumn she would be found wandering near the watermill, murmuring the old songs. And then, the following March, St. Patrick’s Day itself, she was found in a ditch, strangled to death, having been raped.

  It was a big case locally. Brian Hawthorne, recently promoted, took it on. O’Grady, as a sergeant, was part of the investigation. “So,” Hawthorne had said, “let’s talk to her boyfriend. It’s always the last person to see the victim alive.”

  Gregson was shaky, nervous. He’d been due to meet her, he said. “I waited and waited. She never turned up.”

  “And where were you before that?” O’Grady asked him.

  “I was working. With Sean. We had a building job that day. Honest. Ask him. It’s the truth, I promise you.…”

  “Yeah,” Sean had said, when questioned. “We were working on a barn conversion, over in Polkeen. Old Murphy was whistling away, checking the time, saying he was due to meet Maura later that evening, they’d raise a glass to the holy Saint himself while they were about it.…As far as I knew, he went off to meet her.”

  Gregson was questioned again. “She never arrived. Honest to God. I stood there, by the old bus stop, opposite the post office—we always met there. No sign of her. I tried her phone. After an hour I ran to the farm, raised the alarm. And then it was the next day.…”

  The next day, in a cold gray dawn, she was found in a ditch, by the side of the main Galway road. Half stripped, her broken, clay-white body seared with the brutal markings of a violent end.

  Gregson blamed himself. “I should have looked for her,” he’d say. He’d talk to O’Grady, ask if there was any news. O’Grady would say no, no news so far, we’re still gathering evidence, please don’t blame yourself, Gregson, what could you have done differently…?

  And then one day Hawthorne announced, with regret, that the trail had gone cold.

  O’Grady would say to his boss, “I have some questions on the Salter case. How well do you know Kiley MacAteer? Where was Mr. MacAteer the night that Maura Salter was assaulted and killed?”

  At first, Chief Superintendent Hawthorne entertained these questions, pretended to go along with his keenness to pursue the case. He’d also answer questions from journalists: “We’re working on the evidence; my sáirsint here is gathering clues, we won’t give up.…”

  After a while, Hawthorne tired of the questions.

  The poor lad blamed was Ivor O’Dowd, a hapless youth with a father who’d run away to sea and a dubious livelihood breeding fighting dogs. He’d got embroiled in a fight outside a dockside pub in town and had recently been jailed for assault. Hawthorne’s team insisted that circumstantial evidence placed him within some miles of the Salter farm the night of Maura’s death. He was interrogated for twenty-four hours. His bruises were still visible when he was dragged to court and pleaded guilty.

  For the Salter household, the death of Maura brought changes. Gregson Elliott lost his enthusiasm for his work. Richard, too, retreated into grief, into silence, into despair. Vera would cook meals that she knew he liked, only to see them left untouched. She would try to get him to visit the doctor, but he would take no notice. Even when his breathing shortened, when he grew thin and tired, and she would tell anyone who’d listen that there was something the matter: “The poor man is ill, I can tell heartbreak when I see it.…” But he was beyond help.

  Richard Salter was found dead in his bed on St. Patrick’s Day, two years to the day after his daughter met her terrible fate. At his funeral, Vera stood straight-backed and dry-eyed. She was dressed all in black, a long, belted dress with a high collar. She left the church as the organist played the final piece of music, a chorale prelude by Bach, walking out before the congregation. In the aftermath of her sister’s and then her father’s deaths, Bridie wilted and drooped, burdened by a kind of survivor’s guilt. The Salter boys brazened it out, hardened their hearts. Bridie took on her father’s p
ain, his sense of responsibility. The Green Man began to haunt her as it had her sister.

  As O’Grady lay in his narrow bed, the same unanswered questions that had plagued him years ago still plagued him now.

  Chapter 15

  The house was still silent. O’Grady got up and dressed. He left the house and walked out of the lane, up the hill, towards the ghost estate.

  The site was deserted. A thin breeze wafted here and there through the empty windows. O’Grady looked back across the valley, to the lush green fields of the Salter farm. The trees bent and creaked in the wind. He thought about the Green Man, emerging from their branches, striding up the hill to wreak revenge.

  O’Grady heard footsteps behind him. He turned to see a figure crossing the rough stone path.

  Jason Salter.

  O’Grady approached him.

  Jason seemed jumpy, nervy and hostile. “Come to gloat, have you, O’Grady? I saw you at the windmill last night.”

  “No, lad.” O’Grady spoke gently. “I’ve come to tell you to get out of here.”

  Jason’s face tightened. “Not you as well, with this Green Man rubbish.”

  “Your father—”

  “The police are on the case. There’s nothing you can add, O’Grady.”

  “Jason—what happened last night—”

  Jason was shouting now. “That’s enough, O’Grady. You haven’t had to see your dad like that, like…I saw him in the morgue, afterwards. I’ve never seen a dead body before.…”

  He crumpled suddenly, sat heavily on the ground. O’Grady went to his side. “Jason,” he said. “Bridie’s right. There’s a danger to the Salters. You need to get away from this site.”

  Jason turned to him. “I’m not having you planting those thoughts in my mind. That’s what my dad said. You coming back here, allowing poor Bridie to go on about ghosts, allowing her to think you care.” He stumbled to his feet, a spot of red on each cheek, his bluster returned. “They’re paying me well here,” he said. “Sean and the others.”

  O’Grady had stood up too and faced him. “If you think those people employing you are on your side, you’re wrong. They’re using you, Jason. You’re a Salter. They need you for their plan to take the farmland. You’re in danger, boy.”

  Jason threw him a harsh smile. “Just like my dad said. You’re spending too long with Auntie Bridie and her ghosts.”

  O’Grady grabbed Jason’s arm. “Look, boy. Look.” With his other arm he waved towards the estate. “This is going to be a golf course? How can they do that without water? But if you look at the lie of the land…” He pointed the other way, towards the river, the old red bricks of the watermill, the green fields beyond, dotted with grazing sheep. “If they can get the Salter land they can pump all the water they like from the mill race.”

  Jason wriggled from O’Grady’s grip and faced him. “So, you’re saying Sean O’Connor is going to get the Green Man to finish me off so he can get hold of the farm?”

  “I’m trying to warn you,” O’Grady said. “Your father suffered a terrible fate last night. Why do you think that happened?”

  Jason had his hands on his hips. “The police are on the case, O’Grady.”

  “The police? The police couldn’t catch the true killers of Maura Salter.”

  Jason gave a half-smile. “We’ve heard all this before, O’Grady. You’re a failed Garda. Doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t trust them.”

  “And who said that to you? Kiley MacAteer?”

  Jason didn’t answer, but his face hardened.

  “I promised Bridie I’d try to warn you. I’ve done what I can.” O’Grady turned away and walked back to the farm, leaving Jason standing there, a solitary figure on the bare land.

  Chapter 16

  “I’ve talked to Jason,” O’Grady said as he walked back into the farmhouse. Bridie was sitting at the table. She was dressed now, in jeans and a loose jumper with pastel stripes.

  “Did he listen?”

  O’Grady shook his head.

  “I expect he went on about poor Auntie Bridie and her ghosts. I expect you both did.”

  He met her eyes. “The lad has just seen his dad killed. He was in no fit state to listen.”

  She picked up her mug of tea, stared into it. “It’ll be fire next,” she said.

  “Bridie—you know what I think. It suits these men, the old myth. They’re using it as a cover.”

  She breathed out, a weary sigh. She looked up him. “Finn—I’m not asking you to believe in ghosts. I’m asking you to believe in me.”

  He was about to answer, but there was a rush of small feet. “Nana Vee says she’ll take me to the cogs today.” Bobby came running into the room. “And she says I’m not to be scared of the Green Man. She says he doesn’t mean anyone any harm. We’re going to the cogs today. Can I go, Mammy? Say I can go.” He climbed onto her lap and put his little hands on either side of her face.

  Bridie smiled. “It’s the old waterwheel. It’s your favorite thing, Bobby boy, isn’t it, watching the cogs. Of course you can go.” He climbed off her lap and ran outside.

  She turned to O’Grady. “Bobby can turn the handle and make the gears work. He loves it. Vera takes him for a treat.”

  “He’s a brave boy,” O’Grady said. “Like his mother.” He gazed down at her, and she looked up at him. He wanted to take her in his arms. But she stood and went to wash up.

  Later that morning, O’Grady wandered around the Salter estate. He found himself at the old watermill. It was a one-story building made of red bricks in an ornate crisscross pattern. There was a rhythmic, metallic sound coming from inside. He bent to go through the low door.

  In the dim light he could see two figures. Little Bobby was turning a handle, staring fascinated at the mechanism. The cogwheels turned, now disconnected from the main wheel, but still clicking round, all interleaved. Vera stood at his side, watching the wheels too.

  She turned, greeted O’Grady with a smile. He stood with them in their rapt silence. The cogs turned, clicked. Outside, the huge waterwheel hung over the weir, jerking to and fro in the water’s rush.

  O’Grady tired of it before Bobby did. He wandered away, along the canal path, treading through the autumn leaves. He knew where he was headed.

  There was a break in the trees, a lane turning away from the river’s edge. He walked along the lane. A fence, a gate. And there it was, the half-built house. He could see the brick walls, the joists of the roof open to the sky.

  He pushed at the gate. The concrete floor was covered with leaves and pigeon feathers.

  My dream home. He looked around. Every brick that we laid, me and Ryan Fallon, was supposed to be a step towards my new life.

  Not this. Not this empty ruin.

  The dream died. Or rather, it was killed. By Brian Hawthorne.

  He stared at the floor. Trying not to remember.

  Gregson Elliott. Shot dead. And all because I asked him for the truth.

  And now the thoughts crowded in, the memories.

  After Maura’s death, Gregson stayed around, trying to help Richard, trying to keep their work going. But Richard shrank into melancholy as his life lost meaning. After Richard’s death, Gregson too lost interest in the old books. He retreated into silence, taking refuge in the building work with Sean. When asked, he’d say something about hammering being therapeutic: “It helps, you know, rhythmic, physical work…”

  O’Grady would often get the sense that he had more to say. Some evenings, as they sat side by side in Tynan’s bar, Gregson would turn to him over his pint of stout, as if about to speak, then turn away and shake his head.

  One day, O’Grady came upon Gregson packing his bags, in the converted barn that he’d made his home.

  “What are you doing, Elliott?” he asked.

  “Back to the States,” Gregson mumbled, throwing shirts into a zip-up case. “Family things…”

  “A bit sudden, isn’t it?”

  Gregson wouldn�
��t meet his eyes. “My aunt,” he said. “Getting on a bit…losing her mind…”

  O’Grady didn’t bother to ask any further. Why? he’d thought. Why should you go all the way back to Connecticut because of an aunt when there are all those cousins, siblings and godchildren to look after her?

  The reason he didn’t ask was the look of fear on Gregson’s face. O’Grady had seen that expression before. The look of a man fleeing for his life.

  “Tell me what you know,” O’Grady said, even though Gregson was standing there, shaking his head.

  “Hawthorne. And his thugs. Hawthorne knows what you know. He knows you could start up the whole Salter case again—”

  Gregson put his hand across O’Grady’s mouth.

  “We’ll go somewhere safe,” O’Grady offered after pulling away Gregson’s hand.

  “There’s nowhere safe,” Gregson replied.

  “My house. It’s a building site. No one goes there—it’s out in the woods.”

  Gregson hesitated, and O’Grady saw his honest good nature winning out, his belief that justice should be done.

  “Tonight,” Gregson agreed. But his voice was tight with fear.

  So that evening, O’Grady set out along the lane. It was warm for March; the sun had just set. He was thinking about his new home, how he’d started the joists for the roof; soon there’d be a time when the bare brick walls would be painted, the concrete base would have polished oak floors, there would be a roof, fireplaces, warmth…

  Gregson had got there before him. He was lying, shot dead, on the makeshift floor. His body was still warm. The blood from the single wound to the side of his head made a widening puddle on the smooth white ground.

  O’Grady had looked down at the body of his friend. Gregson’s eyes were wide open, the same good-natured, boyish look, even in death.

  And all because I asked him to meet me.