The Banshee

Fidelma smiled thinly. ‘Do you really believe that?’

‘I heard — ’

‘Are you trying to protect Blinne?’ Fidelma snapped.

Bláth flushed.

‘Tell me about Tadhg,’ Fidelma prompted, again sharply, so that the girl would not have time to collect her thoughts.

‘You know…?’ Bláth began and then snapped her mouth shut.

‘Did this unhappiness begin when Tadhg returned to the village?’

Bláth hung her head. ‘I believe that they were meeting regularly in the woods.’

‘I think that you believe a little more than that,’ Fidelma said dryly. ‘You think that Tadhg and Blinne plotted to kill Ernán.’

‘No!’ Bláth’s face was crimson. ‘There was no reason. If things became so unbearable, Blinne could have sought a divorce.’

‘True enough, but there was the farmstead. If Blinne divorced Ernán, she would lose it.’

Bláth sniffed. ‘You know the laws of inheritance as well as I do. Land cannot pass to a female heir if there are male heirs.’

‘But in Ernán’s case, there were no male heirs. The land, the farmstead, would go to the banchomarba, the female heir.’

Bláth suddenly gave a deep sigh of resignation. ‘I suspected something like this might happen,’ she confessed dolefully.

‘And you invented the story of the Banshee to throw people off the scent?’ queried Fidelma.

Bláth nodded. ‘I love my sister.’

‘Why not claim an attack by a wolf? That would be more feasible.’

‘Anyone would realise the wound in Ernán’s throat was not the bite of a wolf. Questions would be asked of Blinne and…’

‘Questions are now being asked.’

‘But only by you. Brother Abán was satisfied and people here would not question the old ways.’

‘The old ways.’ Fidelma echoed the words thoughtfully.

The girl looked nervously at Fidelma.

‘I suppose that you intend to have Blinne and Tadhg arrested?’

‘Tonight is the funeral of Ernán. We will see after that.’

‘You have some doubts still?’

Fidelma smiled sadly. ‘We will see,’ she said. ‘I would like a word alone with your sister.’

Bláth nodded towards the farmstead. ‘I forgot something at my uncle’s mill. You’ll find Blinne at the farmhouse.’

The girl left Fidelma and continued up the path to the mill while Fidelma went on to the farmhouse. As she approached, she heard Blinne’s voice raised in agitation.

‘It’s not true, I tell you. Why do you bother me so?’

Fidelma halted at the corner of a building. In the farmyard she saw Tadhg confronting the girl. Blinne looked distracted.

‘The dálaigh already suspects,’ Tadhg was saying.

‘There is nothing to suspect.’

‘It was obvious that Ernán was murdered, killed by a human hand. Obvious that Bláth was covering up with some story about a Banshee. It did not fool me, nor will it fool this woman. I know you hated Ernan. I know it is me that you really loved. But surely there was no need to kill him? We could have eloped and you could have divorced him.’

Blinne was shaking her head in bewilderment. ‘I don’t know what you are saying. How can you say this…?’

‘I know. Do not try to fool me. I know how you felt. The important thing is to flee from this place before the dálaigh can find the evidence. I can forgive you because I have loved you since you were a child. Come, let us take the horses and go now. We can let Bláth know where we have gone later. She can send us some money afterwards. I am sure the dálaigh suspects and will be here soon enough.’

With a thin smile, Fidelma stepped from behind the building. ‘Sooner than you think, Tadhg,’ she said.

The young man wheeled round and his hand went to the knife at his belt.

‘Don’t make it worse for yourself than it already is,’ snapped Fidelma.

Tadhg hesitated a fraction and let his hand drop, his shoulders slumping in resignation.

Blinne was gazing at them in bewilderment. ‘I don’t understand this.’

Fidelma glanced at her sadly and then at Tadhg. ‘Perhaps we can illuminate the situation?’

Blinne’s eyes suddenly widened. ‘Tadhg claims that he has always loved me. When he came back from Finnan’s Height he would waylay and annoy me like a sick dog, mooning after me. I told him that I didn’t love him. Is it…it cannot be…did he…did he kill…?’

Tadhg looked at her in anguish. ‘You cannot reject me so, Blinne. Don’t try to lay the blame for Ernán’s death on me. I know you pretended that you did not love me in public, but I had your messages. I know the truth. I told you to elope with me.’ His voice rose like a wailing child.

Blinne turned to Fidelma. ‘I have no idea what he is saying. Make him stop. I cannot stand it.’

Fidelma was looking at Tadhg. ‘You say you had messages from Blinne? Written messages?’

He shook his head. ‘Verbal, but from an unimpeachable source. They were genuine, right enough, and now she denies me and tries to blame me for what has happened…’

Fidelma held up her hand to silence him. ‘I think I know who gave you those messages,’ she said.

After the burial of Ernán, Fidelma sat on the opposite side of the fire to Brother Abán in the tiny stone house next to the chapel. They were sipping mulled wine. ‘A sad story,’ sighed Brother Abán. ‘When you have seen someone born and grow up, it is sad to see them take a human life for no better reason than greed and envy.’

‘Yet greed and envy are among the great motivations for murder, Brother.’

‘What made you suspect Bláth?’

‘Had she said that she heard the Banshee wail once, it might have been more credible because she had a witness in her uncle who heard the wail. All those with whom I spoke, who had claimed to have heard it, said they heard it once, like Glass did, on the morning of Ernán’s killing.

The so-called Banshee only wailed once. It was an afterthought of Bláth’s once she had killed her brother-in-law.’

‘You mean that she was the one wailing?’

‘I was sure of it when I heard hat she had a good voice and, moreover, knew the caoine, the keening, the lament for the dead. I have heard the caoine and know it would have been only a small step from producing that terrible sound to producing the wail associated with a Banshee.’

‘But then she claimed she had done so to lay a false trail away from her sister. Why did you not believe that?’

‘I had already been alerted that all was not well, for when I asked Blinne about her sleep, I found that she had not even awoken when Ernán rose in the morning. She slept oblivious to the world and woke in a befuddled state. She was nauseous and had a headache. Blinne admitted that both she and Bláth knew all about herbal remedies and could mix a potion to ensure sleep. Bláth had given her sister a strong sleeping draught so that she would not wake up. Only on the third night did an opportunity present itself by which she killed Ernán.

‘Her intention all along was to lay the blame at her sister’s door, but she had to be very careful about it. She had been planning this for some time. She knew that Tadhg was besotted by Blinne. She began to tell Tadhg an invented story about how Blinne and Ernán did not get on. She told Tadhg that Blinne was really in love with him but could not admit it in public. She hoped that Tadhg would tell someone and thus sow the seeds about