THE FOLLOWING MORNING, I called Maeve first thing and she told me Guinness was looking a lot brighter. Relieved, I did a thorough search of the garden to see if I could find what he had eaten. It was bitterly cold, but dry, so I could see what I was doing without getting drenched, but I found nothing that a cat would have been tempted to eat. After half an hour poking about in the frosty grass, I gave up, came back inside and put the kettle on for tea.
I opened the fridge for milk but found only an empty carton – tea would have to wait till I got to the office, and I really needed to buy some groceries. I threw the carton in the bin. As I did so, I caught sight of the sandwich I’d chucked out the day before and fished it out. The cellophane was torn and a large chunk was missing. It had to have been Guinness. The sandwich was salmon – he’d have been unable to resist. I remembered I’d left it on the table when I’d gone to answer the door. He must have taken a chunk and disappeared with it before Molloy and I returned to the kitchen.
Was that why he’d been sick? Was there something wrong with it? I held it up to my nose and sniffed. It wasn’t gone off, just stale. I’d got it as a takeaway from the Oak on Thursday and hadn’t eaten it, leaving it in the fridge with the intention of going back to it at some stage.
I took an old knife from the drawer, cut off a piece and put it into a plastic bag, not sure what I intended doing with it but certain I should preserve it. Then I threw the rest in the bin, along with the knife, and washed my hands thoroughly. I wasn’t about to take any chances.
It seemed pretty far-fetched that there would be something wrong with the sandwich, but I couldn’t think of anything else. There was nothing in the garden.
I got to the office about half past nine. Leah was there before me, piling up files on the desk and glugging from a huge mug of coffee. After a brief shocked exchange about the fire in the Oak, it was back to work.
“Right,” she said, separating the files into two stacks and pointing to the first. “These are the files where we need to receive checks today if we’re to complete before Christmas. Insurance and life assurance are all sorted, I’m told, so hopefully there’ll be no hold-up.”
I counted them. “Okay – seven. We can manage that, just about. I’ll go through them now and make sure everything’s ready to go. I’ll be finished in court by lunchtime tomorrow, so we should be able to close a couple of sales in the afternoon. I’ll draft searches now and you can email them …”
I broke off as the door opened and Liam strode in. “Morning, all.”
“Morning, Liam – perfect timing.” Three of the files were sales that Liam had negotiated. I held them up. “Do you want to come up with me and we’ll go through these?”
He nodded and followed me upstairs. It didn’t take long. Ten minutes later, we’d done what was needed, and Liam sat back in his chair, ready to chew the fat.
“So how did you get on with George Harkin yesterday?” I asked.
“Ach, God love him – the man doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s very worried.”
“Did you ask him about Carole going to Dublin?”
His brow furrowed. “I did. Strange, that. He knew she was going – she wanted to get a few things for Christmas that she couldn’t get in Derry – but he thought she was taking the bus. Until I told him, he didn’t know any better. She came back up that night, late he said, around midnight, but she didn’t mention taking the flight.”
Liam must have got to George before Molloy, I thought. “Did he drop her to the bus station?”
Liam shook his head. “She drove herself into Derry and back again.” He crossed his arms. “Now why do you think she would lie about something like that?”
“No idea.”
“I guess we should tell Molloy.” Liam scratched his chin. “I presume he’s involved in looking for her? Especially after the fire.”
“I’ve already told him she was on the flight on Friday morning,” I said. “I’ll tell him what George said, but I’d say he’s spoken to him himself by now.”
Liam narrowed his eyes. “That’s right. You and the sergeant are tight these days, aren’t you?”
I blushed and changed the subject. “Did you know Eddie, Carole’s brother, is home from Australia?”
Liam grinned. “Aye, followed the girlfriend, I hear. Didn’t want her out of his sight for too long.”
“I wonder if he knows anything?”
“Doubtful. Wouldn’t be the sharpest tool in the box, that young fella. That girlfriend of his could buy and sell him.” Liam stood up to go.
“Anyway, I suppose it’s too early for a full-scale search. Hopefully, she’ll just turn up. Are you still on for the usual bun fight on Wednesday night?”
For the past few years, Liam and I and some of the other businesses in the town had forgone a work Christmas party in favor of a night out on the last day before the holidays. It was usually a good night, but it always started in the Oak.
“Do you think we should, in the circumstances?” I asked.
“Ach, I’m sure Tony will understand. It’s still Christmas. People aren’t going to go on the dry because the Oak has burned down. He might even be persuaded to join us. I’m sure he needs a bit of cheering up.”
I thought that was a bit unlikely but I said, “Fair enough. Where will we go?”
“Golf club?”
My face fell. “What about somewhere in Culdaff?”
“All right,” he said easily. “Sure, why not? We could catch some music.”
My first appointment, straight after Liam, was with Ian Grey who was in to pay his bill. He sat in the chair Liam had vacated while he signed a check and handed it across the desk.
I thanked him. “I wish all my clients were so prompt. When do you plan on moving in?”
“Oh, not for a few months yet. We’ve a fair bit of work to do on it. Late spring, we hope. We’ll keep renting where we are for the moment.”
“You’re in a lovely spot where you are.”
“I know,” he replied. “We’ll be sorry to leave. Abby will miss her job, I think.”
The Greys were renting an old thatched cottage on the road to Culdaff, the type of place that would usually have been impossible to get for a long-term letting, but they’d arrived in the autumn after selling their family home in Dublin and been lucky. Abby had been a psychologist, but now she worked in a riding stables by the beach. I wasn’t sure what Ian did. When I had asked him for his occupation for the deed of transfer of Greysbridge, he’d simply said, “Self-employed.” He hadn’t seemed prepared to be any more specific.
I wrote out a receipt. “You’re not going too far, though. Greysbridge is what? Thirty miles from here?”
He nodded. “About that. As a matter of fact, we came up here as a kind of experiment. To see if we could live in Donegal, see if we wanted to try and buy back the house.”
I handed him the receipt. “You obviously decided you could.”
“We’ve grown to love it here.” He smiled. “Despite being jackeens. Though with Donegal roots in my case, of course,” he added.
“You’ve lived in Dublin all your lives?”
“Apart from a short stint in London. This has been our first time living outside a city.”
I grinned. “Must be quite a culture shock.”
“It is. I’d never even seen Greysbridge until I saw mention of it in the paper. I was always aware of this large house in Donegal being the family seat until it was lost in the 1930s, but I only had the vaguest notion of where it was.”
“Well it’s great you’ve got it back. And now you’re going to restore it.”
He stood up with a wry smile. “Hopefully we haven’t bitten off more than we can chew.” He shook my hand. “Thank you for everything.”
“You’re welcome. I hope it goes really well for you.”
At the door, he turned back. “Awful about the fire in the pub, wasn’t it?”
I nodded.
“The barmaid there, Carole – she does some work for us, you know?”
I looked up. “Really?”
“Yes. Cleaning, ironing, that sort of thing. I asked her if she might like to come and work for us at the hotel once we open for the summer next year. She seems keen, although it might be a bit of a trek for her.”
I was surprised. “She must be busy. I thought she had a full-time job at the Oak.”
He shrugged. “She said she needed the money and it sounded as though she could manage both. I must give her a call. She’ll be very upset about what happened to the pub.”
I hesitated. “You haven’t heard she’s missing, then?”
He frowned. “Missing?”
“Yes. No one has seen her since the night of the fire. She never went home, apparently.”
His eyes widened in shock.
“Hadn’t you heard?” I said. “I thought the town grapevine would be all over it.”
“No.” His lips parted as if he was about to say something, then he seemed to change his mind. He looked at the ground thoughtfully. “I suppose we’ve been so preoccupied with buying the house.”
“I don’t suppose you know where she might be?” I asked. “I know her husband is very anxious.”
He shook his head. “Haven’t the foggiest.”
He was still shaking his head in disbelief when I followed him downstairs to see him out. I went back into reception to give Leah his check.
“Stan’s back,” she said as I handed it over. “I’ve just seen him.”
“I hope Tony managed to get hold of him before he saw what remains of his flat. Where did you see him?”
“I nipped out to get stamps while you were with Ian Grey, and he was on the street outside the post office having a right old go at Tony. Arms flying everywhere.”
I sighed. “Understandable, I suppose, although it doesn’t appear to be Tony’s fault. He’s suffered as much as Stan.”
“Anyway, he spotted me and said he’d be calling in later.”
“Who? Tony or Stan?”
“Stan.”
At one o’clock I drove down to the veterinary clinic to check on Guinness. Maeve wasn’t there, but her nurse directed me to an area out the back that had a number of cages with recuperating cats and dogs. I found Guinness in the one at the end, lying on a blue blanket and attached to a drip. He was stretched out on his front, fast asleep. I watched him for a minute or so, but he looked so peaceful that I left again, feeling relieved.
I drove on out to Malin for lunch, remembering to collect some groceries on the way. At the house, I made myself a cheese sandwich and coffee, and as I ate, I thought again about the sandwich in the bin. Maeve seemed to be convinced that it was antifreeze that Guinness had consumed. So if the salmon was the culprit, had it been laced? It seemed crazy. I tried to recall where the sandwich had been since I bought it – my bag, my office, the car, my house. Anyone could have interfered with it. I shivered, then wondered if I was being paranoid, my imagination running wild after my encounter with Luke in Dublin.
When my phone buzzed, I jumped, feeling foolish, especially when it was a text from Molloy saying he’d be over later. I pushed all disturbing thoughts from my mind and replied saying I’d cook. There was a Godello in the wine rack I’d been waiting to try.
As I walked from the car park to the office that afternoon, I saw Tony Craig talking to a young woman outside Phyllis’s shop. I’d never seen her before, but I was curious; it looked to be rather a tense exchange. Tony’s day seemed to be revolving around tense conversations on the street.
Stan was waiting for me back at the office, leaning on the reception desk and bending Leah’s ear. He looked unusually crumpled – there was a definite air of the-morning-after about him.
“I told you there was something funny going on in the Oak, didn’t I?” he declared before we’d even made it up the stairs.
“Yes, Stan, you did.”
When he sat down heavily on the chair nearest the window, I realized he’d left the door open again and stood up to close it, but his eyes widened in alarm.
“Do you mind if we leave it open? I have a bit of a cough. It’s probably all this upheaval.”
“Of course.” I sat back down. “So do you think the noise had something to do with the fire?”
“It’s a hell of a coincidence if not, don’t you think?” The jewel in his nose flashed under the lights, mirroring his tetchy mood.
“What has Tony said?”
Stan looked exasperated. “Ach, all he’s interested in is the insurance. Fat lot of good insurance is going to do me. I was only renting. All I’m left with are the clothes on my back.”
The clothes on his back consisted of a pair of violet pinstripe trousers and matching shirt, which made him look a little as if he was wearing pajamas. I wondered if he’d been wearing them since Saturday.
“I’m sorry. It can’t be easy for you. But you’ll get something for contents, won’t you?”
His eyes flashed. “How’s that going to get me my home back?”
“No,” I said soothingly. “You’re right. It won’t.”
He leaned back in the chair and sighed. “Ach, maybe it was time to move on anyway, buy myself a nice wee house somewhere. Maybe I’ve been long enough in Glendara.”
“You’d really think about leaving? What about your business?”
“I can set up anywhere. Maybe Tony Craig’s done me a favor.”
“You’d be missed.”
He shrugged.
“Do you have somewhere to stay?” I asked.
“One of the girls is putting me up.” He scowled again, as if the reality of his situation had just hit him anew. “But we can’t open the salon until we’re told it’s safe. Christmas bloody week. What a handling. Do you know how many appointments I’ve had to cancel?”
Once Stan had left, I drove to Buncrana to close two of the seven sales we had to deal with that week. The seller’s solicitor was the same in both cases and all went according to plan, so I was back in the office by six, glad to see that Leah had gone home; I was beginning to feel guilty about her long hours. Although she had, of course, left me copious notes on the remaining files, and papers for court the next day.
Flicking through the court file, I estimated I had a good chance of being finished by lunchtime; the list was short and nothing was listed for hearing, so I could close the remaining sales in the afternoon. I called each of the buyers’ solicitors – as expected, all were still in their offices – and arranged times for the following day. Two would be in court in the morning anyway, so we could meet after that. Once that was done, I sat back and took a deep breath. We were on the home strait. I made myself a coffee, did another hour’s work, left the files on my desk and went home.
The house was cold when I got in. I usually set the heating to come on about six, but it had turned off again by the time I got home, so I lit the fire before opening the Godello. I poured myself a glass as I began to cook: pasta with seafood – not particularly seasonal, but there’d be enough turkey and ham around to poison the whole town by the end of the week. Also, I didn’t want to lose my fish nerve after the incident with the sandwich. There was a knock at the back door at eight. I opened it to Molloy with a bottle of red, and I felt a comfortable unfurling, an easing of tension when I saw him.
“Where’s the cat?” he asked as he followed me into the kitchen. I poured him a glass from the open bottle and told him about Guinness’s rough night.
When I’d finished, he frowned. “So what was it then? If you couldn’t find anything in the garden?”
There was a time when I found Molloy’s concern for me irritating. It was when it seemed to come with nothing else, when he had been seeing his ex and I needed to give him a wide berth. It didn’t help that the ex, Laura Callan, was the pathologist who gave evidence at Luke Kirby’s trial. A rather unfortunate coincidence. Now, I liked his care for me but I was wary of relying on him too much. I had been burned before by trusting the wrong man.
“The only thing I could find was this,” I said as I took the plastic bag with the piece of sandwich from the cupboard I’d left it in earlier.
He examined it. “Are you sure this is what he ate?”
“Not completely. But there was a chunk missing from it, and Guinness is the most likely culprit. Especially since it’s salmon.”
“Where was it?”
“In my fridge.”
Molloy raised his eyebrows.
I laughed. “He may be smart, but he’s not that smart. It was on the table when you called on Sunday. I’d taken it out of the fridge to throw it out. I presume Guinness got it then.”
“Where did you get it?”
“The Oak.”
He frowned again as he took a sip from his glass, leaning back against the work-top as I began to chop some garlic. Now that he was finally here, listening to what I had to say, I didn’t want to give voice to the fear that had been lurking at the back of my mind. The two incidents were connected in my head only because of their proximity in time. Anything else was irrational.
“What is it you’re not telling me?” Molloy asked. I bit my lip.
He took the knife from my hand and placed it on the work-top, held my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “Go on, spill.”
I told him about my encounter with Luke Kirby.
A shadow crossed his face.
“He’s supposed to be in the UK, I know.”
“Are you okay?”
“I am now. I was pretty shaken at the time, but all this stuff with the Oak and Carole pushed it into the background. Until this …” I pointed to the sandwich.
“I can’t imagine how awful it must have been to see him again,” Molloy said. “But is Luke Kirby really likely to come up here and poison your sandwich?”
“I know,” I admitted. “It seems a bit far-fetched. But there was that call he made to the office, remember? He threatened to come and see me.”
“True.” Molloy took another sip of his wine. “But he hasn’t. And after my enquiry in September, I think it’s unlikely he’d be in this part of the country without someone letting me know. I’ll give his probation officer a call in the morning if you like, though. It should be easy enough to check.”
“That would be great. And the salmon …” I paused. “Is there any way you could get that tested?”
“I can’t see anything being done before Christmas, and I suspect it’s unlikely to go to the top of the queue if I admit the crime was cat poisoning.” He smiled. “But I’ll figure something out.”
“Thanks.” I turned back to the garlic, then felt Molloy’s arms around me and a pleasurable shiver as he buried his face in my neck. It was just the distraction I needed. Although dinner ended up being a lot later than planned.