Читать книгу The Man On The Cliff - Janice Macdonald - Страница 6

IF THERE WAS ANY correlation between bad luck with men and a poor sense of direction, Kate Neeson thought it might explain a whole lot about her life.

She was lost. Again. She turned off the ignition and peered gloomily through the window of the rented Peugeot at the unfamiliar Irish countryside. Isolated cottages, stunted windswept trees and stone walls. Endless stone walls. Around the twists and turns of the road, she’d caught glimpses of pale ocean merging into pale sky. Before the road started climbing again, she’d heard the low roar of waves breaking. On the coast, obviously, but in Ireland that wasn’t much help.

With a sigh, she reached for the map and spread it out over the passenger seat. Cragg’s Head, the village where she’d arranged to meet a local reporter, was barely more than a dot on Connemara’s ragged coast. She’d set up the meeting before she left the States, but had forgotten to ask him for directions. Jet-lagged and cold, she rubbed her eyes. On the map, the area looked like a piece of china, picked up and hurled to the ground in a tantrum.

Moruadh had fallen from Connemara’s steep cliffs nearly a year ago. Kate tucked her hands under her arms, chilled by the damp air seeping into the car. Moruadh, the young Irish folksinger whose songs of love, doomed, lost and unrequited, rang uncomfortably true to life. Or at least to her own life. Moruadh was why Kate was in Ireland, but she didn’t want to think about Moruadh right now. Specifically, she didn’t want to think about Moruadh’s death. Tomorrow would be time enough for that. Tomorrow—after a decent night’s sleep—she wouldn’t be plagued by a spooked feeling that had her glancing over her shoulder and checking door locks.

Tomorrow, she would wear down the widower’s resistance. If Niall Maguire had something to hide, she would ferret it out. Reluctant interview subjects didn’t discourage her.

Unable to stop herself, Kate again glanced over her shoulder, but a drifting fog only heightened the sense of isolation. Did anyone actually live in the west of Ireland? With her palm, she wiped away condensation from the windshield and tried to decide whether to plough on, in the unlikely hope she was headed in the right direction, or turn back to the last village.

Through the swirling air, she saw two figures out on a narrow footpath. She rolled down the passenger window to ask for directions, then changed her mind. Irish advice on such matters, she’d discovered, was picturesque, convoluted and usually wrong.

A car’s yellow hazard lights drew close, fog curling around the lamps like ghostly ballerinas. Out on the footpath, the two figures merged briefly. A moment passed and then the smaller of the two broke away and began to run. The tall one followed in swift pursuit, and both moved wraithlike in and out of the fog. When it cleared again, she saw only a tall, dark silhouette, motionless before it, too, disappeared, leaving the footpath as empty as if she’d imagined the whole thing.

Teeth chattering, she started the car. The tall one had done away with the small one, she decided. He was out there now looking for his next victim. A deranged woman hater. She could feel his eyes boring into her head. Probably deciding whether to drag her out of the car or just roll the car with her in it over the cliffs.

Panicked enough to convince herself that the scenario might not be that far-fetched, she let out the clutch. The car shuddered to a halt. Cursing manual transmissions, she started the engine up again and let it idle for a moment. Her hands on the wheel were shaking. Get a grip. There’s no one out there. This is Ireland not Santa Monica.

And then she looked up to see a man at the window.

She screamed.

His face, like an apparition in the swirling fog, was narrow with dark eyebrows and light gray eyes. For a moment he stood motionless at the open passenger window, evidently immobilized by her scream. Then, hands up at his chest, palms out, he slowly backed away from the window.

“God, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Kate stared at him. Even as the adrenaline rush of fear slowly faded, the scream still rang in her ears. She took some deep breaths. He was probably about her age, mid-thirties, tall and slender. He wore a rough woolen jersey, unraveling slightly at the neck, and an open sheepskin jacket, dark with moisture. A couple of cameras were slung around his neck, a leather gadget bag over one shoulder. A smile flickered tentatively across his face.

“Are you all right?

“I’m fine.” Given her panicky state a few minutes earlier, the presence of this complete stranger was oddly reassuring. “It’s kind of deserted out there, I don’t see a soul for a couple of hours. Then I see two people in the fog. One of them disappears and then the other, and suddenly you’re at my window.” She managed a shaky laugh. “Another minute and I’d have had my can of Mace out.”

“Would you now?” The faint smile appeared again. “But what if I’d been wanting to help you? Which I was.”

“I’m naturally suspicious,” she said, distracted momentarily by his eyes. Pale as the fog and fringed with dark lashes, they seemed focused on something beyond her shoulder. In a split second, though, she realized they were actually watching her. It was disconcerting. Like looking through a one-way mirror and finding someone looking back at you.

Moments passed. She stared through the open passenger window at him. He gazed into the car at her.

“Did you see anyone out there on the edge of the cliffs a few minutes ago?” she asked, thinking again of the disappearing figures.

“I didn’t. But I was supposed to meet a girl up here at six…” His glance took in the mist-shrouded landscape, then he looked at Kate again. “I was beginning to think I’d been stood up, but maybe it was her you saw. A few minutes ago, you say?”

She glanced at the dashboard clock, then up at him and felt vaguely envious of the girl who’d stood him up. “About that, I guess.”

“Did she have long fair hair?” he asked.

“I don’t even know if it was a girl. I just saw two people. One was smaller, I assumed it was female. She—if it was a she—wasn’t alone, though.”

“Right.” He studied her face for a moment. “Well, I’ll take a look around then. Maybe she’s just late.”

Kate eyed the cameras slung around his neck. The breast pocket of his jacket bulged with what she guessed was film and, in a lower pocket, she could see the corner of a green-and-white carton. “You’re shooting a new Waldo book? Find Waldo in the fog?”

He gave her a blank look.

“Waldo? Little blue-and-red-striped figure? You have to find him in a page of… Never mind. I was just curious about what kind of pictures you could take under these conditions.” The thought flashed through her brain that she wanted to prolong this encounter.

“It isn’t ideal,” he said, “but there are certain settings and film speeds that compensate.” He leaned into the window a little. “Listen, I’m sorry I frightened you just now.”

“You didn’t frighten me.” She met his eyes. “You startled me.”

“Ah.”

“There’s a difference.”

“Right, of course. I didn’t mean to suggest…” He shifted his bag to the other shoulder. “Can I do anything? Your car’s running all right, is it? You’re not out of petrol?”

“No.” Kate took another look at the clock. It was five minutes to six. “Am I headed the right way for Cragg’s Head?”

“You’re almost there,” he said with a smile. “But I’ll draw you a little map in case. It can be a bit tricky.”

She watched as he reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a notepad. Something metallic fluttered to the ground.

She craned her head to see better and caught a glimpse of a thin gold chain. As he reached to pick it up, she saw a gold letter she couldn’t make out. Briefly their eyes met, then he shoved the locket in his pocket and finished drawing the map.

“All right, here’s what you do,” he said. “It’s five minutes at the very most. Follow the road to Ballyconneely. You can’t miss it.”

A REASSURANCE THAT probably fell into the realm of Irish mythology, she decided thirty minutes later as green fields and more stone walls gave way to a village and a jumble of signposts, not one of which pointed to Cragg’s Head. She braked to let a couple with a stroller cross the street, her eye momentarily caught by a shop window’s picturesque clutter of paraffin stoves, candles and Wellington boots.

At the next village, she slowed the car, rolled down the windows and called out to an elderly woman in a raincoat and elastic stockings.

“Hi.” She smiled. “I’m trying to get to Cragg’s Head, and the last guy I asked told me to follow the road for Ballyconneely. He said I couldn’t miss it, but I guess I did.”

“Cragg’s Head is it?” The woman peered through the driver’s window. “Sure, well it’s easy enough, but there’s been a bit of signpost twisting going on, so things aren’t always what they seem, if you know what I mean.” She shifted a bulging string bag to the other hand. “Give me a minute to think.”

Kate waited.

“Right then.” The woman’s eyes briefly registered the cake crumbs and candy wrappers on the passenger seat, then she looked back at Kate. “Here’s what you do. D’you see that church over there?”

Kate craned her neck to look in the direction the woman was pointing. At the bottom of a hilly street that wound and bumped down to the water, she saw a small stone building with a Celtic cross. “Sure.”

“Pay no attention to it. You’ll be going in the opposite direction.”

“Ah.” Kate bit her lip.

“Go right and you’ll pass a… Oh, wait now, you can’t go that way anymore.” The woman thought for a moment. “Righto then, here’s an easy way, you can’t miss it…”

The directions would be wrong. Kate knew that, even as she steered the Peugeot up the hill the woman had indicated. “You can’t miss” was like “Trust me.” You always did and you never should.

LONG AFTER HE’D packed his camera gear back into the Land Rover, Niall Maguire found himself thinking about the woman in the car. What, he wondered, was an American woman, apparently traveling alone, doing in western Ireland in February? Despite Annie Ryan’s efforts at the tourist office, Cragg’s Head wasn’t exactly a sought-after destination.

Back in the mid-1800s, the town had been a commercial center, but more recently it was trying to reinvent itself as a tourist destination. A few bed-and-breakfasts had sprouted up, and from May to August there were quite a few tourists milling about. By autumn, though, accents in the village were strictly local.

To his mind, the summer tourists missed a lot. Sure, the weather was warmer in July and the flowers were out, but it was an easy, uncomplicated prettiness. Niall far preferred winter’s dark melodrama. The white foam of the Atlantic during a winter storm. Stars distant and bright in the wind-scoured sky. The swift fall of darkness.

Thoughts drifting from one thing to another, he drove slowly along the length of Cragg’s Head Walk. Earlier in the day, he’d done a photo shoot near Roundstone. A collection for one of those big, glossy books Americans put on their coffee tables. Ireland’s relics. Ruined keeps and towers, roofless cottages and abbeys. Everything moss smothered and ivy strangled.

In the gusting wind, he’d climbed a small drumlin to take pictures of the disused graveyard where, as children, he, Moruadh and Hughie Fitzpatrick had played hide-and-seek among the gravestones. One hot summer day, Moruadh had lain very still on one of the marble slabs, telling them to pretend she was dead.

Today, he’d used nearly a roll of film on an old woman, her body bent into the wind, her clothes the colors of the earth and bogs. But his thoughts had returned to that summer day and a girl in a red cotton dress. Finally, his concentration shot, he’d packed up and moved to another spot.

As he turned into the Market Square, an image of the American flashed across his brain. With her red hair and green eyes, she could be Irish, but her accent and demeanor gave her away. In Dublin, he could spot Americans a mile off. A certain self-confidence about them. I’ve a right to be here, they seemed to say. Still, he’d noted the way fear had pinched her nose, giving lie to her bravado. Her bitten nails said something, too.

Slowly, he drove along the harbor, past the courthouse and jail. Moments later, he pulled up outside the Pot o’ Gold, the bed-and-breakfast run by Annie Ryan—when she wasn’t working at the tourist office. Once it had been a convent run by the Mercy Nuns and then, much later, an orphanage. By the time he was born, the place was long disused and abandoned, but that had never stopped his old man from threatening to pack him off there with just the clothes on his back.

All done up now with lace curtains and amber lights in the windows, but Niall could still recall the cold, hollow fear that had gripped him as he’d stared up at the blank windows. Watching for the boy-eating rats that he’d been told lived inside.

Slowly, it had dawned on him that his wailing and begging and tearful promises to behave himself had quite entertained the old man and that a sure way to prolong the ordeal was to let on that he was scared. He’d learned to hide his fear by pretending to himself that it wasn’t really him standing there. That it was all happening to someone else, and he was just a bystander.

A twitch of the curtains broke his reverie, and he got out of the car and walked up the pathway. Given the speed with which Annie Ryan answered his knock, she’d evidently been at the window. Her hand went to her throat, and her eyes registered his mud-splattered boots. A lamp behind her cast an amber glow.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Maguire?”

“I was looking for Elizabeth Jenkins. I have it right, do I? This is where she’s living?”

“It is,” Annie said. “For now at least. She’s visiting from England. The daughter of a friend of mine.”

Niall heard the sound of the television from inside the house. Behind Annie, he could see the polished wooden floors in the hallway and off to one side the floral chintz of a chair cover. He had never eaten a meal at the Pot o’ Gold, but Annie’s cooking was legendary and as he stood there, he caught a whiff of a roast or stew that made him suddenly ravenous and more than a little lonely. “Elizabeth was to meet me tonight at Cragg’s Head Leap,” he said.

Annie’s eyes narrowed.

“She’s a student in the photography class I teach at the college,” he explained.

“Ah.” Her expression cleared momentarily. “Well, that’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

“We were going to take some pictures—” He stopped, unable to remember if he’d said that already. Uncomfortable suddenly, he turned to leave. “Anyway, I’ll not keep you. I thought I’d just drop by and see if you might know where she is.”

Annie cupped her chin in one hand and gave him a long look as though she had something to ask him but didn’t quite know how to put it.

“Do you do that often, then?” Her eyes didn’t leave his face. “Meet students after class?”

He felt an unaccustomed surge of anger. Her tone was polite, but the inference was unavoidable. He took a deep breath, shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

“No, I don’t, Mrs. Ryan. Hardly ever. Most students don’t show the promise and enthusiasm Elizabeth does. I don’t do it because it takes time out of my own schedule that I could use to do other things, but I try to encourage students when they obviously have the talent.”

“Elizabeth’s a very young and impressionable girl,” Annie said as though she was justifying her question. “It wouldn’t take much to turn her head.” Her face had colored slightly, though, and her glance shifted beyond his shoulder. “It’s awful foggy out, isn’t it? Could you have seen much?”

“Sure, it’s a bit patchy,” he said, wanting to end the conversation. “Drifts in and out, but it allows for some interesting effects. If you wouldn’t mind, I’ll give you my card. Perhaps you’d have Elizabeth ring me when she gets home.”

She took the card from him and dropped it into the pocket of her skirt. “Right then. If there’s nothing more you need then, Mr. Maguire, I’ve supper getting cold.”

He was already on the road back up to Sligo when he remembered something Sharon, his business partner, had said that morning about a meeting at the bank. For a moment he hesitated, then, with a sigh of resignation, he turned around and headed back for Cragg’s Head to make peace with Sharon. The conversation with Annie Ryan played on in his head as he drove. It had been no more hostile than other encounters he’d had since Moruadh’s death, but he was usually able to ignore them all. Tonight he couldn’t, and he wasn’t sure why.

THROUGH THE MISTED GLASS of the Gardai car, Kate could see a uniformed man slumped down in the driver’s seat, his head thrown back. Sound asleep from the look of it. It was the same car she’d seen half an hour earlier. Somehow she’d managed to drive in a circle. Maybe as a penalty for past transgressions she’d been sentenced to spend the rest of her life driving along the cliffs of western Ireland.

She rapped on the window.

The man stirred, opened his eyes and muttered something unintelligible. Then he fixed her with a bleary-eyed stare. Early twenties, she guessed, with a mop of dark hair and a ruddy complexion. His blue uniform shirt was open at the neck and pulled out of his trousers. She couldn’t make out the letters on the brass name badge.

“Hi.” She smiled and caught a strong whiff of alcohol. “I’m trying to get to Dooley’s Bar in Cragg’s Head and somehow—”

“Straight ahead,” he said. “Five minutes down the road.”

“I think that’s what I did, but—”

“It’s the only way,” he said. “Go in any other direction and you’ll fall into the water.”

“Okaay.” Kate slowly nodded. “Well, thanks.” As she started to leave, a thought struck her and she turned back. “Listen, one other thing. I may have seen something out on the cliffs.” She glanced at her watch. “About an hour ago, I guess. It could have been a fight…the fog made it kind of difficult to tell, but you might want to check it out.”

The man stared at her for a moment, then seemed suddenly aware of the state of his clothes. One hand moved to his midsection. His eyes became fractionally more alert.

“Right then,” he sat up. “I’ll see that it gets written up. Good evening now.”

Kate glanced over her shoulder as she walked back to her car. “Five minutes, you said?”

“That’s right,” the Garda said. “Five minutes at the most.”