Free Deed of Murder by Cora Harrison

saw you leave with Eamon.’ The other three boys looked at each other uneasily and then surreptitiously at Fiona. Hugh wrote up FACHTNAN beside FIONA and then turned back to look at his fellow scholars.
    ‘And Owney, Cathal’s son,’ said Moylan hurriedly. ‘He’s supposed to be getting married this summer. Do you remember that girl that he was with last Halloween? The daughter of the woman who sells linen at the fairs, do you remember her? He might not have been able to afford it. Marriage is expensive . . .’ He trailed off, looking uneasily at Fiona who was staring at the desk.
    ‘Do we know anything much about Eamon’s past life, Brehon?’ asked Shane. ‘I was wondering why he was so anxious to go over to Arra in the middle of the night. He didn’t stop anywhere on the way, did he, Fiona?’
    ‘No,’ said Fiona, ‘but I think that he went in the middle of the night because he had been drinking and he thought it would be fun to just go – and he persuaded me into it. If I had said no, perhaps he would have waited for the morning. The puzzle is why he didn’t come back with me. He must have had some reason to go north instead of going back across O’Briensbridge. I think that if we knew that, we might find the solution to the problem.’
    ‘I’ve thought of a reason,’ said Shane suddenly. ‘Eamon was very keen on money. What was it that he said to you, Fiona, about getting a bagful of silver? Perhaps he went north because he decided to go to the flax garden – after all that was where he was found – to go and talk to Cathal . . .’
    ‘And give him the chance to steal the deed before it was delivered to Muiris.’ Moylan shouted the words in his excitement, but Mara said nothing. She loved to see her scholars’ minds working quickly.
    ‘ For a bag of silver, you can knock me over and take the deed from my bag, Cathal ,’ supplemented Aidan.
    ‘Or Owney,’ said Shane wisely. ‘He’s a great hurler. He’d be strong enough to kill someone. Perhaps he didn’t mean to; perhaps he just knocked him down.’
    ‘Nuala thinks that Eamon was killed, not by being thrown down the mountainside, but by being hit in the exact, dangerous spot at the base of the throat,’ said Mara.
    ‘ Bretha Déin Chécht , number four,’ exclaimed Shane. ‘The windows to the soul. The thyroid cartilage is one of them.’
    ‘So someone grabbed Eamon by the throat and squeezed, or punched him right on the thyroid spot, and then threw the body down the mountain,’ said Aidan.
    ‘Depend on it,’ said Moylan, ‘the secret lies in the flax garden. After all, that’s the only possible reason for Eamon to go north after O’Brien of Arra had signed the deed.’
    ‘Did he put the ribbon back, Fiona?’ asked Hugh and Mara nodded approval to him. That was a good question.
    Fiona shut her eyes, obviously concentrating hard. ‘Yes, he did,’ she said, opening them quite suddenly and fixing their blue light on Hugh, who blinked and blushed. ‘Yes, he did. I’m certain of that. I remember that when he rolled it up it wouldn’t quite slip through again and so he had to untie it and retie it.’
    Mara reached into her pouch and took out the pink tape, still tied in a loop, still with the neat bow on top of it. She examined it carefully. ‘I didn’t make that bow,’ she said. ‘I loop it differently, but that doesn’t get us a lot further. Remember that either Eamon or the O’Brien will have undone it before signing and then retied it. Still it’s a valuable point that you made, Hugh, because it might suggest that the murderer of Eamon checked the deed before taking it away. That would explain why the tied loop was found just in the place where Eamon was probably killed.’
    ‘Perhaps we could hunt through all the belongings of the suspects to see whether we could find the deed,’ suggested Aidan.
    Mara’s eyes went to the lengthening shadow of the apple tree outside the window. She could tell the time so