Horse and rider came level with the tree. He glanced up into its labyrinth of interlocking branches. It was a fine tree, he thought, impressive in its ancient strength.
He saw the rope first, a thin pale blue rope. It hung from a protruding branch of the tree. The end of the rope had been formed into a hangman's noose, and it contained the elongated and distorted neck of a hanged man.
The long, still body formed a silhouette in the gloom. Fitzduane raised his eyebrows and stared for perhaps ten interminable seconds. He thought he'd close his eyes and then open them again because a hanging body on his own doorstep just couldn't be true.
2
There was a context to death Fitzduane was used to. In any one of a dozen combat zones he would have reacted immediately, reflexes operating ahead of any conscious rationalization. On his own island, the one place he knew that was free of violence, his brain would not accept the evidence of his own eyes.
He urged Pooka forward.
He could smell the body. It wasn't damp earth or rotting leaves or the decaying flesh of some dead animal; it was the odor of fresh human excrement. He could see the source. The body was clad in an olive green anorak and blue jeans, and the jeans were stained around the loins.
Horse and rider walked slowly past the body, Fitzduane staring despite himself. After a dozen paces he found he was looking back over his shoulder. Ahead lay the familiar contours of the path to the headland and a lazy tranquility; behind him hung death and a premonition that life would never be the same if he turned.
He stopped. Slowly and reluctantly he dismounted and tied Pooka to a nearby tree. He looked ahead along the empty path again. It lay there, tempting him to go away, to forget what he was seeing.
He hesitated; then he turned back.
The head was slightly twisted and angled to one side by the initial shock of the drop combined with the action of the noose. The hair was long, light brown, and wavy — almost curly. The face was that of a young man. The skin was bluish despite a golden tan. The tongue was swollen and thrust out sharply between grimacing teeth. There was a small amount of still-fresh but clotting blood under the mouth and dripping from the chin. A long, thick rope of spittle, phlegm, and mucus hung from the end of the protruding tongue to halfway down his torso. Combined with the stench, the overall impact was revolting.
He approached the body, reached up, and took one of the limp hands in his. He expected it to be cold; though he knew better, he automatically associated death with cold. The hand was cool to the touch but still retained traces of warmth. He felt for the pulse; there was none.
He looked at the hand. There were greenish black marks from the tree trunk on the palms and the insides of the fingers, and mixed in were scratches extending to the fingertips. He thought about cutting the body down but doubted that he could. The knot on the nylon rope was impacted into the dead flesh, and he had no knife. Cutting down the body wouldn't help at this stage. It would make no difference to the corpse. There was a gust of wind, and the body swayed slightly. Fitzduane started at the unexpected movement.
He made himself react as if her were on assignment: first the story. He slid his backup camera, an Olympus XA he normally carried out of photographer's habit, from the breast pocket of his coat. His actions were automatic as he selected aperture, speed, and angle. He framed each shot, cutting it in his head before releasing the shutter and bracketing, with the old hand's innate conservatism and suspicion of built-in exposure meters.
He was conscious of the incongruity of his actions but at the same time aware of his reasons: he was buying time so that he could adjust. He brushed sweat from his forehead and began to search the corpse. It wasn't easy. The smell of feces was overpowering, and the height of the limp figure made the search awkward. He could reach only the lower pockets.
In an outside pocket of the green anorak he found an expensive morocco leather wallet. It contained Irish pounds, Swiss francs, and several credit cards. It also held a laminated student identity card complete with color photo. The dead youth was Rudolf von Graffenlaub, nineteen years of age, from Bern, Switzerland, and a pupil at DrakerCollege. His height was listed at one meter seventy-six. Looking at the stretched neck at the end of the rope, Fitzduane reflected sadly that he would be taller now.
He walked back to where he had left Pooka. Her uneasiness showed, and he stroked her, speaking softly. As he did so, he realized he now faced the unpleasant task of telling the college authorities that one of their pupils had hanged himself. He wondered why he had automatically assumed that it was a suicide. Murder by hanging seemed a complicated way to go about things — but was it possible? Was it likely? If accidental death was required, throwing the victim over a cliff seemed much more practical. It did occur to him that if it was murder, the killer could still be in the wood. It was a disturbing notion.
As they emerged from the dank atmosphere of the forest, Pooka whinnied with pleasure and made as if to break into a canter. Fitzduane let her have her head, the canter became a gallop, and they thundered along the cliff and then swung into the grounds of Draker.
Fitzduane's head cleared with the burst of exercise. He knew that the next sequence of events would not be pleasant. It had crossed his mind to keep on riding. Home wasn't too far away.
The trouble was, although he did not yet fully appreciate it, Rudolf von Graffenlaub's death had moved him deeply. His instincts were aroused. The tragedy had happened on his own ground at a time when he was reassessing his own direction in life. It was both a provocation and a challenge. His peaceful haven in the midst of a bloody world had been violated. He wanted to know why.
* * * * *
It had been years since Fitzduane had visited the college.
He entered a heavy side door that stood ajar. Inside, there was a flagstone hall, a door, and a wide wooden stairway. He climbed the stairs. There was a door off the landing at the top, and through it he could hear the sound of voices and laughter and the clinking of spoons against china. He turned the handle.
Inside the large paneled, book-lined room about two dozen people in the mix of casual and formal clothes beloved of academics were grouped around a blazing log fire, having their morning coffee. He felt as if he were back at school and should have knocked.
An elderly gray-haired lady turned around at his entrance and looked him up and down. "Your boots," she said with a thin smile.
Fitzduane looked at her blankly.
"Your boots," she repeated.
He looked down at his muddy boots. The floor was inlaid with brass in runic patterns. Shades of Anglo-Irish literary revival and a Celtic Ireland that never was.
"Would you mind removing your boots, sir?" said the gray-haired lady more sharply, the smile now distinctly chilly. "Everybody does. It's the floor," she added in a mollifying tone.
Fitzduane noticed a neat row of outdoor footwear by the umbrella stand at the entrance. Too taken aback to argue, he removed his muddy riding boots and stood there in his wool socks.
"Hi," said a fresh voice. He turned toward a lived-in but still attractive brunette in her mid-thirties. She was tall and slim and wore round granny glasses and had an aura of flower child of the sixties gone more or less straight. She had a delicious smile. He wondered if she had a little marijuana crop in her window box and how it — and she — endured Irish weather.