‘There’s something I have to show you. Something I have to know. I think you might be able to tell me,’ Donna said. Then she turned her attention back to the painting. Again she found that she was quivering slightly as she studied the picture of Richard Parsons.
On the index finger of his left hand he wore a gold signet ring.
It was identical to the one worn by the man in the photo she had back at the hotel.
Forty
Julie Craig rolled over on the large double bed.
She sat up, her breathing heavy in the stillness. She swung herself off the bed and padded, naked, across to the wardrobe, hesitating there for a second.
Apart from her own breathing, the ticking of the bedside clock was the only sound.
She opened the wardrobe and pulled the cord inside. The small bulb inside exploded into life, displaying his clothes.
His jackets. Shirts. A couple of suits.
Julie ran her hand across them, feeling the different materials, her fingers lingering over the silk of the shirts, stroking gently.
She pulled one from its hanger and rubbed it against her cheek, her eyes closed.
Enjoying the softness she allowed the material to brush against her breasts. The nipples stiffened and she squeezed her breasts through the silk, her breathing growing heavier as she kneaded the sensitive buds with her fingers, her excitement growing rapidly. As she stepped away from the wardrobe she felt the moisture between her legs. She drew one index finger through her dewy pubic hair, lifting the glistening digit, touching it very gently to her lips. She shuddered, then slipped the shirt around her bare shoulders before heading towards the landing.
She paused at the head of the stairs, as if expecting someone to ascend; the house remained silent save for the creaking of settling timbers.
Julie turned and headed back across the landing, down the short corridor towards the office.
Outside she hesitated again, feeling the silk shirt around her shoulders. She pulled it more tightly, rubbing her shoulders, allowing one hand to slide across her breasts and down her belly. Then she pushed open the door and stepped inside the office, flicking on the table lamp.
The dull light cast thick shadows in the small room where her brother-in-law had worked.
The atmosphere was slightly chilly but she scarcely seemed to notice it as she sat herself at Ward’s desk. She ran one finger across the keys of his typewriter and looked across the room to the photo of him which hung on the wall, smiling.
She smiled back at it, licking her lips, her breathing now deep, almost laboured.
Julie stood up and faced the photograph, slipping the shirt from her shoulders so that once more she was completely naked.
She moved closer to the picture, her eyes never leaving Ward’s face, her feet brushing against the soft silk as she walked over it.
She knelt before the picture as if in prayer, then slowly opened her legs, stroking the insides of her thighs with both hands. Julie had her eyes closed now and her head tilted back, so that her long hair dangled down and brushed against her arched back. Her mouth dropped open slightly, her breathing deep as she allowed her hands to slide up her body, cupping both breasts, rubbing both nipples with her thumbs. She opened her eyes, kept her gaze fixed on Ward’s face and allowed her hands to glide over her smooth skin back down towards her pubic mound.
Her fingers stirred the tightly curled hair there, one index finger probing more deeply, grazing the hardened nub of her clitoris, stroking gently before plunging further to stir the warm wetness of her vagina.
She began to make slow circular movements on her clitoris, gradually increasing the speed, sliding another finger into her slippery cleft. She felt a sensation of heat building up between her legs as she rubbed harder and faster and held her gaze on Ward’s picture as the pleasure grew more intense.
‘Oh, Chris,’ she whispered as the beginnings of an orgasm made her shudder. ‘Chris.’
Forty-One
‘I owe you an apology,’ Donna said, pushing her plate away and dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a napkin.
Mahoney looked puzzled but continued sipping at his soup.
‘I never even asked if you had other plans for tonight,’ she said.
‘I can live with it,’ Mahoney told her, smiling.
‘I’m not in the habit of picking up men I’ve just met,’ she told him.
Especially when my own husband has only been dead for just over a week.
‘I’m not complaining.’
Donna smiled thinly and watched him as he finished his soup.
He was dressed in a black jacket and black shirt, immaculately pressed, as were his trousers. His shoes were shined to perfection. The long hair she’d admired was still drawn back in a pony-tail. They’d drawn the odd inquisitive glance as they’d entered the dining-room of the Shelbourne, but Mahoney had been convinced that was because of the way Donna looked. She would have turned heads anywhere in a navy blue backless dress which rose just above her knee. Moving elegantly on a pair of high heels, she looked stunning. Her long blonde hair, freshly washed, seemed to glow in the dull light from the chandeliers.
Donna looked at him again, wondering why she felt so guilty to be sitting at the table with this man. Perhaps it was because there had been such a short gap between this meeting and the burial of her husband.
Do you think Chris ever felt guilty when he was with Suzanne Regan?
She tried to push the thought from her mind but found that it persisted.
‘I used to work here, you know,’ Mahoney said, pushing his bowl away and glancing around him. ‘I was a trainee chef for six months.’ He raised his eyebrows.
‘What happened?’
‘I managed to tip half a pint of
crème brûlée
over the manager one evening when he came in to see how I was getting on. They sort of decided for me that it wasn’t my perfect vocation. I was sacked.’ He raised his wine glass in salute. ‘Cheers.’
She echoed the toast and drank.
‘From there to the National Gallery,’ she said.
‘Via half a dozen other jobs. I’ve been a barman three times. There’s always plenty of vacancies for bar work here. We like our drink, the Irish. More drinkers call for more barmen. It’s a simple equation.’
She found him looking at her a little too intently and lowered her gaze.
‘What made you come here?’ Mahoney wanted to know. ‘You said your husband was working on a book but that doesn’t explain why
you
came to Dublin.’
‘I wanted to find out what he was working
on
,’ she said as the waiter removed the plates and tidied the table for the main course. ‘The entries in his diary were all I had to go on. I think he was researching something, but I’m not sure what. That’s why I had to find out who James Worsdale was.’
‘And now you do?’
‘I’m none the wiser, unless his work was something to do with the Hell Fire Club. It seems the most likely explanation now. Tell me what you know about them, Mr Mahoney.’
‘Call me Gordon, please. I’ve never felt very comfortable with formality.’
She nodded and smiled.
‘Gordon,’ she said.
He raised his hands.
‘There’s so much to tell, Mrs Ward,’ he began.
‘Donna,’ she told him. ‘I thought we’d dispensed with formality.’
Mahoney grinned.
‘The subject is vast,’ he began. ‘It depends what you want to know. It also depends on whether or not I can
tell
you what you want to know. I don’t profess to be an expert.’
‘You said you’d read a lot about them.’
‘I’ve seen a lot of horse races but that doesn’t make me a jockey, does it?’
She smiled again and reached for her handbag, sliding the diary free, laying it beside her as if for reference. The photo was in there, too, but she left it for the time being.
‘I know more about the Dublin Hell Fire Club, obviously,’ he continued. ‘They were just one of the off-shoots. There were a number of branches affiliated to the main club in England. They had individual leaders at each club but one overall head. The affiliates were known as cells. As far as I can tell there were cells in London, Edinburgh and Oxford as well as here in Dublin.’
Donna swallowed hard, one hand involuntarily touching the diary. She remembered the entries.
Edinburgh.
London.
Oxford.
Her husband had been to all those places shortly before his death.
‘Where were the meetings?’ she wanted to know.
‘In Ireland, usually at a place called The Eagle Tavern on Cork Hill. That’s where Worsdale’s painting was done. They also met at Daly’s Club, College Green. That’s where Parsons picked up his charming habit of setting fire to cats. He’d pour scaltheen over them first.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It was a mixture of rancid butter and raw Irish whiskey, I believe. It’s no wonder members of the Hell Fire Club were crazy if they drank that.’
The main course arrived and Mahoney sat back in his seat, seeing how intently Donna was looking at him, hanging on his every word. She glanced irritably at the waiter, barely resisting the urge, it seemed, to hurry him up so that her companion could continue. He finally left and Mahoney continued.
‘Their favourite meeting place, though, was Mountpelier Hunting lodge near Rathfarnham. The ruins are still there today. Kids drive up there at nights and try to spot ghosts.’ He smiled.
Donna didn’t.
‘How was it destroyed? You said there were only ruins there now.’
‘One of the Hell Fire Club members, Richard Whaley, accidentally set fire to it one night. Well, he supposedly had drink spilled on him by a coachman so, by way of revenge, he poured brandy over the man and ignited him. Whaley got out but quite a few of the others didn’t.’
‘How difficult is it to reach?’ Donna enquired.
‘It’s easy. You can drive up there. It’s only twelve miles or so. They reckon on a clear day you can see the ruins from O’Connell Street.’ He smiled again.
‘Have you ever been up there yourself?’ she wanted to know.
‘When I was a student. Half a dozen of us went up there one night.’ He shrugged. ‘The only spirits
I
saw were Jamesons and Glenfiddich.’ He chewed a mouthful of food.
‘So what did they do at these meetings?’ Donna persisted.
‘Orgies, mainly. They drank a lot, they gambled, supposedly they practised the Black Mass. Their object was to undermine society, the Church in particular. But most of all it was just an excuse for an orgy.’
‘What about the other clubs?’
‘They were the same, but all the other cells were presided over by the man who founded the order at a place in England called Medmenham Abbey. They were called “The Monks of Medmenham”. One man was responsible for starting the Hell Fire Club. A man called Francis Dashwood.’
Dashwood.
D.
Beside every entry. D.
‘Dashwood was the President of the club. He used to travel around all the other cells to make sure they were carrying out their objectives.’ Mahoney chuckled. ‘They had a nickname for him. They called him The King of Hell.’
Forty-Two
Gordon Mahoney held the brandy glass in his hand and swirled the amber fluid around gently before sipping at it.