I HADN’T INTENDED to fall asleep. But by Wednesday evening, after three days of back-to-back appointments with each and every client finding some way to segue from the matter at hand to the events of the day before, I was exhausted. And so, when I lay on the couch after eating, intending to close my eyes for five minutes, that was it.
I sat up, rubbed my eyes and tried to work out what had woken me. Then it happened again: a buzzing noise coming from the coffee table in front of me. It was my phone, on silent. I answered it.
“So are you going to let me in?” It was Molloy.
I yawned, struggling to grasp what he meant. “Sorry?”
“I’ve been at your door for ten minutes.”
“Oh shit. Sorry, I fell asleep on the couch. I’ll be there in a sec.”
He stood at my newly-repaired front door with its brand new lock, fitted by Hal that morning, looking pretty much as I felt. Tired eyes with heavy dark shadows underneath. Unshaven too, which was most unlike him.
“You look as if you’ve had the same kind of day as I have,” I said.
“Something like that. How are you doing?”
“Fine. A bit wrecked.”
“Sorry.” He made a face. “Have you time for a chat? I can come back later if you’re not up to it.”
“No. Come on in.”
He stepped over the threshold and followed me into the kitchen.
“Tea, wine?” I offered. When he hesitated, I started to smile. “Whiskey?”
He sighed. “I’m tempted to say yes to all three to be honest, but I’d better stick to the tea.”
I filled the kettle. “I hear Aidan Doherty got bail?”
Molloy stood beside me with his arms crossed. “Yes, he did. He’s been charged with perverting the course of justice. But he’s co-operated completely.”
“I can’t help feeling sorry for him.”
“I wouldn’t waste your sympathy. If he’d spoken up, he could have prevented two murders.”
“Two?”
Molloy nodded.
“Iggy McDaid?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.
“Yes. Iggy took a bracelet from Marguerite’s body, a bracelet Aidan had given her. He thought he was doing Aidan a favor. But he got himself killed for his trouble.”
I tossed some tea bags into the pot. “Why?”
“He tried to get Hugh to pass the bracelet on to his father, but made the mistake of trying to give it to him in the courthouse, in front of people.”
I had a flashback of Iggy with his dirty handkerchief. “God. I saw him with it. The same morning you warned me he was drunk.”
“That’s why he did it, I presume. Probably wouldn’t have if he’d been sober. Hugh recognized it as coming from Marguerite’s body and was so paranoid at that stage that he became convinced Iggy knew what he had done.”
“So he pushed him off the ferry?”
Molloy nodded. “Poor old Iggy made it easy for him. He never learned to swim.”
“God love him.”
“By the way,” Molloy added as I poured boiling water into the tea pot and went searching in the fridge for some milk, “we’ve arrested your clients, Gallagher and Dolan.”
I turned. “Really? What for?”
“Blackmail of Aidan Doherty. They needed him to sort out that re-zoning issue, apparently. You’re acting for them in buying some property in Malin Head, I believe?”
I didn’t react.
Molloy smiled. “It’s all right. We know you are. Anyway, while Hugh was running around town thinking everybody knew the truth about him, he didn’t figure where the real danger lay. The only people who knew anything about his parentage were Gallagher and Dolan, Gallagher being Seamus Tighe’s cousin. Gallagher knew Seamus suspected he was Hugh’s real father, although I don’t think he knew anything else.”
“Right.”
“Still, it was enough for them to be able to get Aidan Doherty to use his influence to obtain the planning permission they needed. Aidan was terrified of it all coming out. He had to call in favors owed to his father-in-law from decades before.”
I poured Molloy a mug of tea and handed it to him. “What about James Quinn?”
“Though he was almost certainly with Hugh on the night Marguerite died, I think we’re happy enough that he had no involvement in the actual killing. He’ll be charged, all right, but he may get away with a suspended sentence.”
“Good. And Hugh himself? Out of hospital, I hear.” I frowned. “I’ll never forget seeing that blood seeping from his head after I hit him.”
“Out of one hospital and into another. He’s been detained in the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum and is going to be there for a long time. He may not even go to prison. All the reports seem to point to psychopathy.”
“Has he been charged?”
“Three counts of murder, one of unlawful imprisonment and arson.”
“Arson?”
“He burned down the barn at the farm he crashed into, the night of the murder. That’s why the dangerous driving charge was withdrawn. He scared the old pair half to death. Killed one of their cattle.”
I remembered Maeve mentioning something similar. I wondered if it was the same barn.
“He was threatening Marguerite, too, from what we can gather,” Molloy continued. “Trying to get her to leave the area. All in that semi-charming way of his.”
“But, of course, she was never going to leave when she thought David Howard was her only way to her daughter,” I said. “God, that’s why she was so nervous at the office. Between Hugh O’Connor and David Howard it looks as if she was being scared half out of her wits.”
Molloy looked grave. “Yes, it seems I owe you an apology for that one. You were right. They still haven’t found David Howard’s body, by the way.”
I shook my head. “Poor Simon.”
Molloy gave me an odd look. “I’m sure you’ll be a comfort to him.”
Embarrassed, I said. “I think you have the wrong idea. There’s nothing between Simon and me.”
He looked confused. “But I thought …”
“It never really started, to be honest.”
He looked away. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” I shrugged. “Shall we take our tea in by the fire?”
Molloy took the armchair while I sat on the couch, the coffee table between us. I watched him as he stared into the fire, his profile in silhouette. All that had happened in the past few days had helped me come to a decision about Molloy. I realized that more than anything, I wanted him in my life, and so if friendship was all that was on offer then I would be fine with that. It was time to put that decision into practice.
“So how is it going with Laura?” I said brightly. If I’d managed to get through the events of the day before, then I should be able to tackle this, I thought.
Molloy placed his mug on the coffee table. He avoided my eye. “Actually, that’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”
At that point I realized that I couldn’t do it, after all. “It’s fine,” I said hastily. “You don’t need to tell me anything.”
He sat forward. “No. Listen to me, Ben. Please, I need you to hear this. Laura hasn’t had an easy time of it lately, and I wanted to be there to support her. But she …” He paused. “Well, she wanted something I wasn’t sure I could give her. Wrongly perhaps, I felt I owed it to her to try.”
“I see.” I held my breath.
His eyes met mine. “But I’m afraid it didn’t take her very long to realize that I was more concerned for someone else. That I had feelings for someone else.”
He reached across and touched my face, the tips of his fingers cool against my hot cheek. It was all I could do not to close my eyes and lean into his touch, but I held his gaze. His face was tense, his eyes anxious.
“Ben, I know I’ve hurt you, I have no reason to …”
I placed my hand on his. His eyes softened and remained fixed on mine as he leaned across the table to kiss me. I felt the pressure of his lips on mine, gently at first, teasing. I found it hard to breathe, the dizziness of a first kiss. I closed my eyes as he pulled me towards him.
Molloy grinned as he surveyed the couch some time later. There was a lightness about him I hadn’t seen before. I liked it.
I feigned indignation, but threw the cushion on which I had been sleeping to the floor for Guinness. As I curled up in Molloy’s arms, with my head on his chest, I wondered if he would stay the night, if I should ask him to. But before I did, there was one loose end I needed to be tied up.
“So do you think it was David Howard then who was peering in my window?”
Molloy tensed. He didn’t reply.
“Tom?” I pulled away from him so I could look at his face.
His expression had changed; the lightness had gone. I tried to ignore the sense of dread in the pit of my stomach.
“I’m afraid it may not have been.” He paused. “Ben, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“Something else?” I smiled, trying to retrieve the earlier mood.
He touched my hand. “It’s Luke Kirby. He’s been released from prison.”
I froze. “When?”
“He was released that morning, the day you saw the face at your window.”
My mind began to race. I couldn’t think straight. How long ago was that? Was it before or after his phone call to me?
“How long have you known?” I demanded.
“Only a few days. After your accident it occurred to me that I should check. It seemed such an odd thing to happen. And from what you had told me, I thought there was a possibility he might be due for release.”
I stood up, as if that would clear my head. “Why the hell didn’t they tell us?”
Molloy stood too. He took my hand in his. “You know they never do, Ben. It’s just odd that the media didn’t get hold of it.”
“And you’ve known for days and haven’t told me?” I could feel my temper rising. I needed someone to blame.
Molloy stayed calm. “He left the country, Ben. He was gone by the time I knew he was out, so I didn’t see any reason to worry you.” He waited. “But there is a possibility he was in the area before he left.”
An hour later, I was alone again. I told Molloy I had some work to finish for the next day and assured him I was fine. I could tell he didn’t believe me, but I didn’t give him much choice.
But as I gazed blankly at the television news, I knew I had made a mistake. Memories returned like spools of film, blocking out the scenes on screen. I turned the volume as high as I could bear as if that would drown out my thoughts, but it didn’t help. And as the images blurred in front of my eyes, my head began to spin. I gripped the arms of the chair to stop myself from passing out. Suddenly my stomach contracted and I ran to the bathroom, where I threw up violently and repeatedly for ten minutes.
When I emerged, the doorbell was ringing. I stood in the hallway paralysed, unable to answer it. It rang again, more urgently this time, and I watched as Guinness padded silently past me to the door where he sat on the doormat expectantly, tail wrapped neatly around him.
I took a deep breath and walked to the door. I opened it.
Molloy smiled. “You’re going to have to try much harder than that to get rid of me this time.”