A murder at the base of The Spire in the heart of Dublin, Ireland launches a centuries old race for power.

Amber, a frustrated agent of the Irish National Bureau of Investigation, and Sean, a fresh-faced but disheartened Garda officer, must team up to catch a madman who believes that the Four Treasures of an ancient civilization, the Tuatha De Danann, will grant him unimaginable control over the country. Together, the two must join the hunt for the artifacts in the hopes of preventing any more deaths.

But, set in Dublin and the university town of Maynooth, the two soon find that the ravings of a lunatic might have more power behind them than first imagined.

The Four Treasures is available on Amazon in ebook and paperback editions. Click on the cover above to visit the Amazon Store to buy your copy.

As a sample, I have decided to give you chapter one of this novel below. Should you enjoy it, please click on the link above to be taken to the Amazon store.

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Chapter One

Snow drifted down gently onto O’Connell Street in the heart of Dublin city, the cold, Irish winter taking full effect on the landscape.  The sun was starting to rise slowly and the dim light was unveiling a layer of white covering everything in sight. It was already starting to cause problems for those who were trying to beat the early morning rush of traffic, for those who thought they had been clever by rising early and heading into the urban jungle before daybreak. The snow had been falling for two whole days now, and it was nearly a foot high in places, even higher where the winds had pushed it up against the sides of buildings and landmarks. Usually, this would have meant that the statues which lined the street, statues of historic Irish figures like O’Connell, Larkin and Parnell, would have stood, watching silently, as people trundled their way along, groaning and moaning of the inconveniences of such natural phenomena. Usually this would have caused busy streets like this one to ground to a crawl, as cars crept along, watching for black ice and listening to their wheels spin beneath them, and as pedestrians watched the ground intently, trying to maintain their balance. But it was only two weeks until Christmas now, and come rain, wind or heavy snow, there was shopping to be done.

This morning, however, the snow was the least of the obstacles facing those who were trying to travel to work or to the shops. This morning, the snow was illuminated in red and blue lights, flickering intermittently from the roofs of the half a dozen police cars which were parked in a circle around the base of the Spire of Dublin. A gigantic monument which stood at over one hundred meters, piercing into the sky with a light at the top to act as a beacon to be seen for miles around, the Spire was now at the centre of an investigation. This meant that those who would usually have travelled up and down O’Connell Street were asked to divert down different routes, two blockades by the Garda Síochána, the Irish police force, both manned by two officers waving people away, signalling further delays. The poor young recruits who had drawn the short end of the straw and were assigned to the posts were subject to much verbal abuse on that morning, as the angry Irish workforce were determined to be vocal about their annoyances. However, they were under strict instructions not to allow any civilian into the area, no matter how much they screamed and shouted.

A car pulled up at the blockade and rolled down its window. One of the young Garda, his arms folded and his gloved hands under his armpits trying to stay warm, approached the vehicle, ready to recite his speech and apology on how the driver would have to find another way around. He was nearly dancing on the spot, trying to stay warm; reports had said that the temperature was going as low as minus five degrees Celsius. His numb fingers told him that the reports were being generous. It felt like he was standing in the Arctic Circle. Ireland was typically cold and damp, so it was not that he was unused to bad weather. As a new recruit, he often was tasked with standing outside and taking the chill and the rain. But today was the worst weather he had ever seen. The warmth from the car’s heaters gushed out of the open window and he was happy to stand in its path for a few moments, even if he was probably going to have his nose bitten off by the driver in a few moments.

A man and a woman sat in the front of the car, arching their heads and trying to get a good look down the street. Rubberneckers, the Garda thought to himself, rolling his eyes back into his head. He opened his mouth, ready to talk, when the man in the car reached into the pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a wallet. He opened it up and displayed it to the Garda. Inside, a badge stood beside an identification card, bearing a name and a photo. Robert Connolly was a bulky man, with a square jaw and chiselled features. He was clean shaven and his short, dark hair was brushed to perfection. If asked to imagine what a typical special agent looked like, the young officer would have described Connolly, detail for detail. Above the picture and the name stood four initials, ones which the Garda had heard of but more in passing. “I.N.B.I.” The Irish National Bureau of Investigation. He did not know much about them, other than the fact they only dealt with the most serious of cases. In which case, he thought to himself, whatever he was diverting people away from was further out of his league than he thought.

The Garda officer walked back to the luminous orange traffic cones which had been set up in a line across the road without saying a word, and moved two of them aside, leaving enough room for the car to drive on through. He watched them go before replacing the cones and started waving the cars away again.

Connolly drove gently down the street, the wheels spinning beneath him on the slippery roads. The car was designed well enough that it did not have any real difficulties with the lack of grip on the road though. It had been specially adapted for all sorts of scenarios. It was a monster of a car, with reinforced steel shaping the body, bullet proof windows and tires that would survive any encounters without taking the slightest bit of real damage. Good thing as well, Connolly thought to himself. It had been some time since he had seen so much snow. It was already causing havoc on the roads, and over the last few days, there had been numerous deaths from people who were either overambitious or overconfident with their abilities and their vehicles to navigate the snow. But that was a matter for the Gardai. The I.N.B.I. did not deal with careless accidents. Their role was far more important. He drove the car towards the semi-circle of red and blue flashing lights ahead of him and pulled in gently. A few officers were already on the scene and they threw dirty looks in his direction, much as how the young man who had let them through had. He sighed and stopped the engine.

“Happy looking bunch,” he said quietly, eyeing them up. His partner did not look up at first; she was busy reading an article in the newspaper and her eyes were moving quickly across the lines, absorbing every word. She was about ten years younger than he was, somewhere between her late twenties and early thirties. She had been a prodigy and was quickly rising through the ranks of law enforcement. She had shoulder length red hair, pulled back into a professional looking ponytail. Her skin was pale, and this fact was only made more obvious by the dark suit and coat she was wearing. She was dressed for warmth and practicality; a navy scarf wrapped tightly around her and a navy coat which was buttoned completely from her neck all the way down to her knees. She wore leather gloves, which caused her to struggle somewhat with turning the pages of the paper. But she was more about practicality than making life easier. The gloves kept her hands warm and that was what was important. She was completely enthralled, lost in whatever story she was reading. She always seemed to be deep in thought. “Amber? Earth to Amber McNally? Come in Amber.”

Amber finally snapped back to reality, raising her head and looking at him. A normal person, Connolly thought to himself, would have blushed or been slightly embarrassed over their zoning out. A normal person would have offered an apologetic smile, even had it been insincere. But Amber was not exactly normal, he thought to himself. She stared at him and he smiled at her, but he got no reaction back. Realising they had arrived at their destination, she glanced out the window at the scene in front of her, committing as much of what she could see to memory. No expression, not that she would have had shown any had they not been at a crime scene. She just studied the world around her. After a few moments and without saying a word, she opened the car door and climbed out of the warmth. Most people thought she was an ice queen and a bitch, who seemed to struggle with basic emotions and feelings, like compassion or sympathy.  He just thought they were buried deep down inside. Really deep down. People talked about her in the same way they talked about a natural disaster; they knew respect was necessary but there was a level of resentment and fear that would always exist, brought on by her unapologetic climb up the law enforcement ladder. He opened his door and climbed out after her.

“Amber McNally. I.N.B.I.” She pulled out her badge and walked towards the Gardai officers, holding it out for them to look at. She did not make eye contact with them and she barely acknowledged their existence. Instead, she walked through them and straight over to the body lying at the base of the Spire. Robert Connolly was close behind her and he did stop to talk to them. He always seemed to be the half of the duo who dealt with public relations and keeping the normal officers happy.

“Robert Connolly.” He introduced himself courteously, displaying his credentials as well. They all looked back and forth between the two of them, suspicious in their eyes.

“I.N.B.I? Huh!” One of the men, who Connolly could now assume was the person in charge, spoke with a gruff, inner city Dublin accent. A big guy, with the early signs of a gut; a man who saw less and less time of the exterior of his police station as the days passed, only out today due to the nature of the crime. “Must be worse than we thought if you guys have decided to stick your noses in here.”

“We got a report of a body found here this morning.” There was no question here. He was looking at the corpse lying in front of him now. The snow had been falling since he had been killed and the corpse dumped unceremoniously, and although it had been brushed off him by and large, there was still a frosty layer of ice covering him. He was an older man, probably in his late sixties, wearing brown trousers, a green shirt, a multi coloured bow tie and a brown leather jacket. He was nearly completely bald on top but had a sizeable goatee. His skin had turned a faint shade of blue in the cold morning weather. However even all of this could not distract from the big red hole left on his chest. Something had pierced through his shirt, between the openings of the jacket, and punctured straight into his heart. Blood oozed out of the stab wound and there were traces of red snow around him. Connolly continued talking with his eyes transfixed on the body. “Report indicated that it wasn’t your run of the mill murder.”

Amber had knelt beside the body for a few minutes, examining it without touching it. She was looking the body up and down, searching for visual clues. When she accepted that there were none to be found, she stood up and scanned the rest of the scene. She looked at what had drawn the duo to this particular murder on this particular day.

A large section had been carefully cut out from the base of The Spire, part of its outer shell peeled off and placed to one side, leaning against the monument. The spire itself was about twenty feet across, a cylinder which was wide at the base but narrowed as it rose into the sky. Inside, the construct was completely hollow and Amber was able to walk around. The morning light drifted in through the opening and illuminated the inner walls, spreading upwards for a few feet before the darkness created a dark recess above her head. The Spire stretched up for an incredible height but with only darkness to be seen inside, it may as well have only been a few feet high. Along the walls, she noticed that there were markings of various shapes and sizes sketched into the metal wall. Not just random scribbling and drawings, but standardised and repeating symbols of lines and dots. Strings of the patterns ran right the way round the interior circumference, but it was not anything she could figure out. The fact the symbols seemed to repeat themselves implied they were some sort of language, but none she had ever come across. She stood in the middle, examining them, craning her head around so she could see them all, when she felt the heel of her foot give away into nothingness. She pulled it back and looked down at the floor, realising there was a small hole in the concrete foundations of The Spire.

The hole was about six centimetres across and as she went slowly to her knees to look down into it, she found that much as how they stretched out above her, the shadows engulfed all light which tried to look down as well. She ran her hand over the ground around the hole. Snow had blown in and was covering it, but it was only a thin layer and she was able to brush it aside with relative ease. The same symbols which lined the curving wall also were to be found all around the hole in the ground as well, all organised in a perfect circle around it. It was definitely a language, she thought to herself, a message of some sorts. Perhaps a warning. A glint of brown steel caught her eye, something poking up through a build up of sand at the side of the hollow she was in. She stood up and walked over, pulling it from its icy confines. Brushing the ice aside, she realised that it was some sort of a cap for the hole in the center of the floor, a small metal plate with carved out edges which would allow it to slot into the hole perfectly. It too was adorned with the markings.

Connolly entered but stayed standing at the entrance. They had been partners for long enough that he knew when not to disturb her. He folded his arms and decided to wait patiently for her to finish up her examinations. He knew that when she was ready to talk, she would. He noticed she was turning the small metal cap in her hands, rolling it back and forth and all around, holding it close to her face so her eyes could try and make something out. Throwing his eyes around the hollow, he noticed the symbols and tried to take in as much detail as possible as well. When they got back to the office, it would be Connolly who would be writing up the report on what they found. It always was.

The head officer on the scene walked up behind him, grabbing his trousers by the belt and trying to hoist them up, smoothing the creases out in his shirt, trying to make himself look as neat and professional as possible. Connolly looked at him from head to toe. He was pretty good at weighing people up. He reckoned the officer was in his late forties to early fifties. He had short brown hair and a receding hairline. He was trying to suck in the extruding stomach as well, but was not fully succeeding. The man also had an air of confidence verging on arrogance surrounding him. An aura brought on by working behind a desk and bossing people around, ordering them to do the jobs he did not want to be involved in.

“We think,” the Garda officer started, his head held high as if he had wrapped this entire case up all by himself, “that it was a simple matter of vandalism gone wrong. The guy on the ground outside happened upon some kids who were trying to do damage to The Spire. He confronted them and someone panicked and shot him.”

“Wrong.” Amber did not look at him when she spoke, mainly because she had already come to her judgement of what type of person the man was, and thus could predict exactly what his reaction would be. First, he would give her an evil stare, angry that someone would be so blunt about his assessment. “The stab wound doesn’t exactly line up with a typical vandal’s choice of weapon, does it?” Secondly, he would attempt to fill in the gap in logic with another ridiculous guess. Evidence was not necessarily important to this type of man. He had already made up his mind. Instead, she just continued examining the cap.

“These are the streets of Dublin at night we are talking about here, ma’am.” He was no doubt scowling at her now. “Everyone carries knifes”.

“That is quite the exaggeration, now, isn’t it?” She finally tore her eyes away from the object in her hand and looked at the officer. His face was a light shade of red. Curious, she thought quietly to herself. She had forgotten about the possibility that one such as this man may get embarrassed by the fact his presumptions were so obviously wrong. She threw the cap to her partner, who caught it without batting an eyelid. He was smiling now. He seemed to enjoy when she tore apart presumptuous theories so easily. Or maybe it was when she took arrogant Gardai officers down a peg or two. “Engaging in hyperbole will not help us solve this crime, will it? Besides, it was not a knife.”

“It wasn’t?” The man asked.

“No. The wound is far too large for a simple knife,” she responded. “Too clean as well. Whatever did it went into and then out of the man in a smooth motion. For a knife to cause a wound that big, the killer would have had to wiggle it around drastically. Doesn’t fit with the typical mindset of a petty vandal.”

“Well then, what’s your theory? Why else would someone cut into the Spire like this?” He was annoyed, and was trying to mask his embarrassment with authoritarian anger.

“To take whatever was inside, obviously.” She turned her attentions back to the walls, looking at the symbols.

The officer laughed and folded his arms. “Inside the Spire?” He said, his voice booming. “Don’t be daft. It’s a tourist attraction. A monument. There’s nothing in here.”

“Well, obviously there isn’t now.” She had decided she had seen enough and she walked back through the entrance. Without thinking, the Garda jumped out of the way, nearly frightened despite the fact he was a fair bit taller than the woman. She strode past him out into the cold again. The man was blushing now, and frowning, as Connolly followed her out. He was openly smiling but avoiding eye contact. He thought that if he looked into the man’s face, his now heavy blushing might well make him burst out laughing.

Amber stood a few feet from the makeshift entrance, looking up and down the street, scanning for something. Connolly walked up beside her and held out the cap in front of both of them.

“So then, Ms. Marple. Ready to divulge your findings?”

“Well, I don’t think it was just a simple crime being discovered, leading to a panic attack and an accidental death.” She said, not looking at him or the cap but continuing to scan the street. “To begin with, the puncture wound is far too accurate to have been the result of a mistake or rather a sudden fright, as they seem to think. It went straight through the middle of the heart. It was aimed, carefully. Furthermore, looking at the angle of entry, I would estimate that the man was on his knees when he was stabbed. The wound goes down diagonally. The killer would have had to stand over him, aim downwards and thrust with purpose and intention. Whoever killed him had ample time to aim their blow and to consider their actions. They wanted him dead.”

“It was an execution.” Connolly turned back to face the body. All signs of his smile were now gone. He looked at the body with a frown, wrinkles covering his forehead.

“Yes,” she continued. “Whoever did it was after something. And whatever that something was, my belief is that the man who was murdered not only knew what it was but also where it was. He led them here, to the Spire, and when they got what they wanted, they killed him. Has he got any I.D. on him?”

Connolly turned towards the Gardai who were still close to the Spire, all gathered up and giving the two I.N.B.I. members dirty looks, and shouted his question. “Any I.D?”

“Yeah.” One of them replied. He took a wallet wrapped in a plastic bag out of one of his chest pockets and threw it to him. Connolly gave a thankful smile at him, but only more scowls were returned.

“They really don’t like us coming in and taking over, do they?” He asked, rhetorically. He opened the bag and placed one of his gloved hands inside, lifting it out gently and opening it up. Inside the wallet were a few credit and bank cards, about two hundred Euro in various notes, and, most importantly, an I.D. card. “His name was Conrad O’Shea.”

“Run a check on the name if you want. I can guarantee that it won’t yield any results of value,” Amber said. “If his identity was of any real importance, they would have taken the card. The only reason to leave it is that they know we won’t be able to find any clues of worth.”

Connolly was about to close the wallet again and put it away when he spotted a small piece of paper sticking out from underneath one of the other cards. He pulled it out gently. On it, a few words were written in beautiful calligraphy, forming a phrase. He read it aloud. “The hidden truth is plain. The plain truth is hidden.” His eyebrows arched, one up and one down, as he read the statement in his head again. The cryptic message made no sense to him. He held it out to Amber, but she either did not realise he was offering it to her or had decided to ignore him.

“The C.C.T.V cameras,” she said. She was looking around for them, trying to see which were pointing at the scene of the crime. Amazingly she could not find any in visible view that looked at The Spire itself. “Where are they?”

“It’s a black spot, I’m afraid,” Connolly replied. “Cameras point in every direction away from the monument but none actually point directly at it. Not many of them in the city but that’s the biggest one right there. City council is aware of the problem and are looking into fixing it, but I guess that isn’t much help to us now.”

“That’s inefficient,” she responded. “What about the others though? They obviously did not teleport in. They would have been spotted on one of these other cameras as they approached the scene, right?”

“See though, here’s the thing.” He let out a sigh. He knew she would not be thrilled with what he was about to say. “None of the cameras were working last night when the murder took place.” She turned and looked at him now, disbelief and amazement on her face. She did not have to ask the obvious question. “Glitch on the system, apparently. Every C.C.T.V. camera that the council have put up and that the Gardai have access to seemed to suffer last night. The street and a huge portion of the city went dark for a few hours.”

She turned her face away again. “That cannot be a coincidence. Whoever did this was not lucky enough to murder someone when all the street cameras were down. They took them down somehow.” She sighed now, before continuing. “The snow means all tracks are long gone as well, so we have no way of identifying any means of transport they might have used. No tracks. No witnesses. No clues of any worth.” Her eyes fixated on something across a road from them. A small smile spread into the corners of her mouth, and she started to walk towards a small shop across the road, with Connolly only a few steps behind her. His hands were in his pockets, and although he knew the roads were closed off, he instinctively checked both ways as he walked across it. Amber, on the other hand, just strode forward confidently.

She approached a shop window and spun round to face her partner. “You know, I do love Christmas.” She held her arms behind her back, quite proud of herself for spotting what was in the shop window. “Electronic shop. Trying hard to shill a few more items in the rush for presents. Trying hard to move a digital video camera, for example. So hard, in fact, that they set them up in the windows to show people the fun they can have recording their own mundane lives and watching themselves back live on television.”

Low and behold, Connolly thought to himself, right there in the shop window was a camera, a red light faintly glowing on its side and a wire connected between it and a small television screen. The shop owner had left it on overnight, trying to entice anyone who may have been passing by between closing and opening time. He looked at his own image being projected back at himself and smiled at Amber. The Spire was visible just behind him, looming over his shoulder.

At the end of the street, the young Garda officer who had granted Amber and Connolly access to the scene continued to wave cars away, diverting them off down other streets amidst a constant barrage of vile language and insults. He did not even stop to think as another car pulled up and stopped, one of the back windows rolling down. There was little special about the car. It looked expensive enough, chrome tires and blackened out windows, but they were seemingly becoming more commonplace nowadays. The owner was sitting in the back, being driven by a chauffeur. But this was common enough this morning. Just another rich banker or important businessman heading to work, the Garda thought silently. The man he talked to was nothing out of the ordinary either; his dark hair was slicked back and his suit looked adequately expensive, impressive enough to those he might work with. He was not a big man nor was he small. He was an average build and an average size. The only thing which stood out about this person was the fact they seemed to be in such a good mood.

“Good morning, young sir,” the man said with a big smile spreading across his face. It was warm and all encompassing, and it made the officer relax slightly. It was a welcome change to be greeted by someone who was not blaming him for the disruptions. “Is there a blockage of some sort?”

“Nah,” the young officer replied, waving his hand back towards the scene behind him. “Just some nasty business we’ve got to deal with unfortunately. Nothing to worry about. We’ll have it cleaned up in no time at all.”

“Oh, dear. I do hope it’s nothing too bad,” the man in the car replied.

“Well, truth is someone was killed.” The Garda was not really meant to be divulging this information, but there was something about the man he was talking to which instilled a sense of trust in him. He felt safe talking to him. “But don’t worry. We will have it all cleared up in no time at all.” The Garda gave the biggest smile he could muster, trying to reaffirm the man. The man simply nodded and turned to his driver.

“In that case, we had better be going. We shall not waste your precious time. I do hope you catch whoever would do such a horrible thing,” The man said.

“Well, we’ve got our best people on the case,” the Garda said, delighted to meet someone so forgiving for the chaos they were causing on the roads this morning. He stood back up and tapped the top of the car, before returning his attention to the queues of angry commuters who were lining up behind it. The window rolled up and the car drove off, and within a few minutes, the young Garda had forgotten about the conversation altogether, an insignificant moment in his nightmare of a morning.

In the car however, the man in the backseat could not take the smile off of his face. He loved nothing more than seeing the Gardai trying to wrap their heads around the murder. He knew that he himself loved a good puzzle, and this was one of the best. One he had been trying to wrap his mind around for years now. He knew they would have seen the symbols within the Spire by now, and no doubt they would try and discover what it was that he had taken. They would never solve the mystery however, he thought to himself with a sense of self-satisfaction. He had killed the only man who knew what he had in his possession now, and left the body there to taunt those who were in charge of the investigation. There was no evidence to lead back to him. They would never catch him.

“Mr. Child?” The driver in front of him arched his head back slightly.

“You can take me home now. I have seen enough for one day.” Edmund Child lay back in his seat and watched the red and blue lights of the Garda cars disappear behind them.

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The Four Treasures is available on Amazon in ebook and paperback editions. Click on the cover above to visit the Amazon Store to buy your copy.

As a sample, I have decided to give you chapter one of this novel below. Should you enjoy it, please click on the link above to be taken to the Amazon store.