Free Condemned to Death by Cora Harrison Page B

comfortable. She was getting ready your room in the guest house when I was over there a couple of hours ago – and you will want to have a word with Domhnall before you go to bed so I will say goodnight, now.’
    She ushered him to the front door, but did not go to bed. Her mind was very active and now, in the privacy of her own thoughts, she could indulge in some speculation. She waited until she heard the gate to the law-school enclosure slam closed and then went out into the summer’s night, crossing the road and walking across the limestone paved field, keeping close to the wall to avoid disturbing the cows with their young calves.
    The wind had died down and hardly a breath of air came through the wall, though it was one of those gossamer walls, constructed of stone leaning against stone, looking in half-darkness like a white pattern drawn on a darker background. The pink and purple orchids and the ragged robin that grew in the crevices were almost invisible now, but the tall moon daisies shone silver and gold through the twilight, and tiny luminous blossoms of bright yellow star grass flowered here and there at her feet. There was a strong perfume from the pale cream woodbine in the hedgerow and somewhere in the distance the churning sound of the nightjar’s evening song sounded like the noise of the waves on the beach.
    What did happen to that man? She sat down upon a boulder and shut her eyes for a moment, seeing the beach at Fanore.
    It would have been evening. Nuala had said that he had eaten a meal a couple of hours previously. Oisín had confirmed that the man, Niall Martin, ate in pie shops and inns – the presence of the half-digested apricot in the stomach corroborated that. So one evening, three or four days ago, Niall Martin, a prosperous gold merchant, a single man who lived alone, did not, on that evening, return to his rooms above his shop, but had perhaps walked down to Quay Street, found a boat there – perhaps by prior arrangement, or perhaps it was just an impulse – whatever it was, Oisín had made it clear that the gold merchant was not a person to manage a boat by himself. Therefore another man was there in the boat, had taken the passenger on board, had untied the rope from the quayside – cast off – and sailed – surely sailed – rowing would be too slow – sailed back across Galway Bay and perhaps moored at the little pier built by the fishermen of Fanore well over fifty years ago. Niall Martin had got out of the boat, her thoughts went on; he had got out of the boat, but the owner of the boat, the faceless one – what had he done? Stayed there, probably, she thought. If another journey had to be made across the bay, then, despite the long summer nights, it could not have been delayed too long. But why did Niall Martin come to Fanore? And who dealt that fatal blow? And what was the weapon? Something hard, smooth, and well-padded according to Nuala – not a club, she had thought – perhaps an axe, but it would have been padded, otherwise it would have broken the skin and bone. It was the impact of the blow that had killed the man.
    But why did he come? That was the main question now. Oisín had made it clear that Niall Martin had only one interest, one commercial involvement, and that was in gold. He bought gold and he sold gold. There was a possibility that he had heard a rumour that there was a gold seam in one of the strips of quartz that ran like white veins here and there through the black limestone of the coast, but somehow Mara intuitively felt that from what she had heard of Niall Martin, he would not have wanted to engage in a huge industry of breaking up the stone and mining the gold from it. She took a sudden decision and turned aside until she was opposite to one of the neat gaps which Cumhal had built into the wall where one of the giant leaning slabs had been replaced with a small, almost square stone, which still kept the herringbone framework of the wall intact, but