I LEFT PHYLLIS’S place about ten. When she opened the door to the street, we were greeted by an eerie silence. The long-threatened snow had fallen. We’d been so distracted that none of us had noticed. It was still snowing, in fact, the street lights casting an orange glow, the night sky a wash of purple through the flakes. “So, we have a white Christmas after all,” Phyllis said with a sigh as she huddled on the step, blanket wrapped around her like a shawl, still wearing her red shoes. “Seems to have lost its appeal now, doesn’t it?”
I nodded, pulling my scarf over my head to keep it dry. “It’s been a strange day all right.”
I found a taxi, one of two lonely-looking cars in the square, and although the chat on the way home was entirely about the discovery on Sliabh Sneacht, my presence didn’t seem to figure, so I could avoid admitting I knew more than the driver. I suspected I had Molloy to thank for that. It hadn’t been easy to depart Phyllis’s fire – Tony and Susanne had shown no signs of wanting to leave. Their relationship struck me as tense; I assumed an evening together at home held little attraction for either of them. But I felt guilty for abandoning Guinness all day, not that he would care given that I’d left him plenty of food. I assumed he’d learned his lesson when it came to stealing other people’s.
I was in the door five minutes when there was a knock. Molloy looked done in, snowflakes on his jacket and in his hair. I made him a sandwich while he lit the fire, and before joining him, I opened a bottle of brandy that one of my clients had given me for Christmas. I didn’t need another drink, but Molloy looked as if he could do with some company.
“So?” I asked, curling up on the armchair with my legs folded beneath me. “Any answers?”
He took a sip from his glass and shook his head. “Hopefully we’ll have some after the postmortem.” He looked suddenly uncomfortable. “Actually, you’re not going to like this, but Laura is the pathologist.”
I looked away. Not only had Molloy’s ex given evidence at Kirby’s trial, but earlier this year, she had wanted Molloy back. He’d told me that his feelings for me had been too strong, but the mention of her still made me uneasy.
“I thought she was a forensic pathologist now?” I asked. “A forensic pathologist isn’t necessary in this case, is it?”
Molloy shook his head. “It’s because it’s Christmas and she was the only one available. She came up from Dublin this afternoon. They’ve moved the body to Letterkenny – she’s doing the postmortem there. And she’s staying there,” he added, slightly unnecessarily, I thought.
I gave him a weak smile. “I didn’t think she’d be staying with you. Is that why you’re here? To tell me that?”
I felt badly that Molloy should have to protect my feelings in this way. He had enough on his plate. Then I thought about how Carole Harkin’s family must be feeling this evening and I felt worse. Anything Laura Callan could do to find out what had happened would be worth tolerating her presence for.
Molloy shook his head. “I didn’t get to spend much of Christmas with you. And I needed a drink and didn’t want to drink alone.” He raised his glass with the ghost of a smile.
I knew how that felt. A purring Guinness wandered in from the kitchen and went straight to Molloy, who bent down to give him an affectionate rub. I smiled at them and stared into the fire for a minute or two.
“How was George?” I said eventually.
The cat leapt up on Molloy’s knee and found a comfortable spot.
“Shocked, devastated. As you’d expect. I don’t envy him the task of breaking the news to his kids.” He sighed. “How do you tell two children that their mother is gone? Someday he’ll have to decide which version of the truth to tell them.”
I thought about that expression, “version of the truth.” That was the point, wasn’t it? Everybody’s version of the truth was different. It was something as a lawyer I’d had to consider more than once.
“And the rest of her family?”
Molloy took another sip as he stroked the cat’s head. The sandwich I’d made him lay untouched on the coffee table despite his claim that he’d eaten nothing all day. “I’ve interviewed George, I’ve interviewed her siblings, Eddie and Emma, and I’ve interviewed her mother, and none of them seems to have the slightest idea who might have wanted to hurt her or where she’s been since Saturday night.”
He frowned suddenly. “We had to bring George up to formally identify the body before we took her to Letterkenny. I thought his response to where she was found was a little odd.”
“I can’t put my finger on it. He seemed shocked that she was dead but unsurprised by where she was found.”
“As if he knew she’d been up there? In the cottage maybe?”
“I don’t know. He said not, but it didn’t seem to shake him the way I thought it would. The location to me was one of the strangest things about all of this.”
“According to Phyllis, that cottage used to belong to Pete Stoop,” I said. “Pat the newsagent’s brother.”
Molloy nodded. “Yes. We’ve discovered that. It’s been empty for about fifteen years, since Pete died.”
I pictured the cottage with its mildewed walls. You’d have to be truly desperate to stay there. Had Carole been that desperate? “Do you think that’s where she’d been since Saturday night?”
Molloy shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Where is George now?” I asked.
Molloy sighed. “Oh, Ben, please stop the questions.” He looked weary, eyes with dark crescents underneath. He put his glass on the table beside him and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry. I just need some time to think. And you know I can’t tell you everything.”
I felt stung. “I know that, but I was there with you today, remember?” I wondered again if there was something else going on, something other than work.
“I remember. Although you really shouldn’t have been. At least not after we found Carole.”
I took a sip of my drink and stared into the fire. There was a brief uneasy silence.
Molloy spoke again after a minute or so, his voice softer. “George and the boys are staying with Carole’s sister Emma. I think the mother is with them too, and Eddie. Their father died a few years back.” He yawned.
“What’s your thinking about George?” I said, knowing I was pushing it.
Molloy looked up sharply. “Why? Do you know something?” I shook my head. “I’ve never met him, though I watched him playing music in Culdaff on Wednesday night. It was something Tony said tonight. Or rather something his daughter said he’d said. About George and Carole’s relationship not being particularly happy.”
“Anything specific?”
“No. He pulled back from it straightaway, didn’t seem to think it was appropriate.”
“Well that’s something we’ll be looking at anyway. But first we need to establish when she died. At the moment, all we have is sometime between early Sunday morning, when she was last seen at the pub, and this morning when we found her. Five days. George says he can’t tell if she took a bag, but he did confirm that when we found her she was wearing the clothes she was wearing when she disappeared.”
“Apart from her boots and socks.” I shuddered. “So if she was killed soon after she disappeared, her body could have been lying in that spot for days.”
“Assuming that’s where she was killed, of course. She may have been killed somewhere else.”
“Like the cottage.”
“Like the cottage,” he agreed. “Anyway, the postmortem should establish time and place of death and then we can start to look at alibis.”
“What about the text messages George said he received?”
“We’ve taken his phone, so that’s being looked at. No sign of Carole’s, of course. The tech bureau is checking out the cottage; maybe we’ll find it there, although I doubt it.”
He stood up to throw an extra log on the fire. Before he did so, he leaned over me, held my chin in his hand and looked into my eyes.
“And now, can we please talk about something else?”
Molloy was gone before I awoke. I didn’t even hear him leave. What actually woke me was my phone ringing on my bedside locker. I reached my arm out into the cold to answer it. It was Maeve, or rather Maeve’s sons, calling under duress to thank me for their Christmas presents. As soon as they’d done their duty, they made their escape and the phone was handed back to their mother.
“How the hell do you manage to find yourself in the middle of these things?” she exclaimed.
“You’ve heard, then?”
She lowered her voice to a loud whisper, the boys obviously still within earshot. “‘Solicitor finds body on Christmas morning.’ Unlikely that’s going to go below the town radar.”
I didn’t say I was rather under the impression that it had, until now. “I wasn’t on my own.”
“God, it’s so shocking. Poor Carole.”
“I know. It’s awful.”
“Hang on, you’re not counting Fred, are you?” Maeve’s tone changed. She’d just registered what I’d said about not being alone. “I did hear you had Phyllis’s dog with you.”
It always amazes me how many versions of the same story can circulate in a small town. Such an odd detail to keep. I took a deep breath, decided it was now or never. “And Molloy.”
“Why would you have Molloy with you on Christmas morning …” Maeve paused, followed by a sharp intake of breath. “Really?” she asked. “You and Molloy?”
I felt myself flush even though Maeve couldn’t see me. “Sort of.”
“Jesus. Someone asked me that a few weeks ago and I said it was nonsense. Shows how much I know.”
I resisted asking whom. There were more important matters afoot.
Maeve’s tone was sober again. “I’m going to go and see Carole’s family later. See if there’s anything I can do.”
“Really?”
“Aye. I’ve known them a long time. Her father kept a few sheep, I was his vet. A dapper little man, a nice man. I thought I’d drop in with some food. It’s all so awful – I feel I should do something.”
“Do you want some company?” I asked.
I knew Maeve must have questioned my motives – I’d never been Carole’s greatest fan and knew her sister only in passing, but she chose not to voice it. I told myself I knew Eddie reasonably well, professionally at any rate.
“Okay. I’m heading there about two o’clock if that suits. I’ll call by and pick you up if you like?”
“That would be great … Oh, and Maeve?”
“Yes?” she said slowly.
“Any chance you’d drop me into town afterwards to collect the Mini? I left it in the square last night.”
At two o’clock, Maeve’s jeep was outside my house. She didn’t bother coming in, just beeped from the road, and I didn’t blame her. It was still snowing and getting heavier all the time. It looked as if Leah had been right. We were going to have a longer run this time round.
“What’s that?” I asked as Maeve shifted some veterinary equipment from the passenger seat to make room for me: a box of small bottles with some loose syringes sticking upwards.
“Blood testing kit, with used needles. You don’t want one of those up your backside, I can tell you that for a start.”
She indicated left, took a sharp turn onto the Culdaff road, and then glanced over at me. “So do they know who did it? Some random nutcase?”
“It’s an odd place for a random nutcase to rock up, isn’t it? Halfway up Sliabh Sneacht? It’s hardly some dark alleyway in Caracas.”
“What was Carole doing there?”
“Good question.” I told Maeve about the cottage. Now that it was being checked over by the Garda technical bureau, the whole town would know of its connection to Carole’s death. I didn’t mention the boots.
She frowned. “Oh God. Old Pete Stoop’s cottage. I’m amazed that place is still standing.”
“Only barely. It’s a creepy old place.”
“It sure is.” She spoke with such feeling that she obviously knew it. Maeve had grown up in Inishowen, and as a vet she knew most of the back roads and smallholdings. “So was Carole staying there then?”
“I don’t know.”
After Molloy’s tetchiness the night before, I was afraid to reveal more than I should, so I gazed out at the bleached fields with their scrubby bushes and skeletal trees, the falling snow altering the landscape, making it look strange and unfamiliar.
When I spoke again, I changed direction. “Phyllis said Pete Stoop died alone. No family.”
Maeve shook her head. “No. He had a son, Dominic. Took off to Chicago or somewhere and never came back. That’s probably what Phyllis meant. I think that’s what finally broke the old devil. With wife and son both gone, he was left with just his sheep.”
“The wife left too?”
“She died before the son went. Some kind of heart trouble. Rough on the old boy. Although some say he brought it all on himself, drove his son away and his wife into an early grave. I never liked how he treated his animals either – emaciated sheep, an old dog that I’m sure got more kicking than affection. I was only newly qualified, but I was tempted to report him, had a row with him about it – told him to improve things or I would report him. The next thing I knew, he was dead.”
“And the son had left by that stage?”
“Long gone. Left shortly after the mother died,” she said as she took a sharp right onto the road that led to the beach, the sea visible now as a silvery grey line on the horizon. “It’s the third house along this road, I think. So how was Christmas dinner Chez Phyllis?”
“Bit less joyful than expected, as you might imagine.”
“Who was there?”
“Just Tony Craig and his daughter. Molloy was supposed to come but he was otherwise detained.”
She looked at me with interest. “The wild one?”
There was no possibility she was referring to Molloy. I nodded. “Although she didn’t seem very wild yesterday. Intense, driven, a bit obsessed maybe, but not wild.”
“I think that’s the problem,” Maeve said. “She has an addictive personality, takes everything that little bit too far. Her mother used to say that her levels were set all wrong. She’d meet a man and want to marry him the next week, that kind of thing.” She shot me a sidelong glance with a flicker of amusement. “A lot of men, I believe.”
“Well, the things she’s motivated by now all seem pretty worthy: clean earth, animal welfare, that kind of thing. Hard to argue with. Although I’m not sure I’d be disagreeing with her unless I had to.”
Maeve raised her eyebrows. “Oh? Well maybe she’s sorted herself out. That’ll be a relief to Tony; they’ve had a very fraught relationship. She had an awful time with drugs when she was younger.”
“So I hear.”
“Pity she doesn’t appreciate how lucky she is to have a father like Tony. I think he’d do anything for her – for any of his kids especially since they lost their mother.” She slowed down and indicated right. “Do you think the pub will be rebuilt, by the way?”
“I hope so,” I replied. “Glendara without the Oak doesn’t bear thinking about. I suppose it depends on the insurance. Although it’s possible that Tony won’t have the heart to start again now, with what’s happened to Carole.”