I WAS REELING when I left the Garda station. Was it actually possible that Kirby had told Susanne Craig the whole story, or at least his version of it? Could she really be happy to go out with a man who had killed his girlfriend? And should I tell Tony? I was sure he wouldn’t be okay with it even if his daughter was. But doing so would involve revealing my own history. The fall-out would be considerable, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for that. People were bound to see me differently, and that would change Glendara for me forever. I didn’t have any answers. But there was one thing I did know. I couldn’t face the possibility of seeing Luke Kirby’s face every day. If he didn’t leave, then I would have to.
I stood on the street feeling lousy, but I didn’t want to go home yet. I thought about tracking Maeve down, but I knew she would be working. I was about to go to the office – my last resort – with the intention of trying to get some work done when my phone rang. It was Stoop the newsagent, ringing to make an appointment to discuss administering his nephew’s estate.
“I’m just around the corner as it happens,” I said. “I was going to go into the office for a while, if you’d like to meet me there? I can check the appointment book and we can have a chat about what I’ll need you to bring in.”
“I can’t leave the shop,” Stoop said. “But you could come up? There’s no one here at the moment.” Still, he lowered his voice. “Although if someone comes in, you’ll have to leave. I don’t want the whole town knowing my business.”
I smiled to myself. “Of course. I intended calling in to buy the newspapers anyway.”
“Come away on, so.”
As Stoop had said, the shop was deserted. When I remarked upon it, he gave a long, deep sigh.
“People just aren’t coming out. They haven’t been since poor Carole was found, and now Stan hasn’t helped.” He made it sound as if Stan had beaten himself up just to cause trouble. “And all this mithering about Dominic; it’s as if they blame me for it. Soon there’ll be no businesses open in the town at all.”
It occurred to me that he had a point; Stoop’s was the third business in the town to be affected by recent events, after the Oak and the hairdresser’s. It was beginning to feel as if someone were attacking the town itself.
“Although if it weren’t for you, the fire in the Oak could have been a lot worse,” I said. “It might have spread if you hadn’t spotted it. People should be thanking you.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m just glad I saw it,” he said. “Just happened to look out the window when I was up in the night and saw the flames.”
“That must have been pretty frightening.”
“It was. I won’t deny it.” He shifted some newspapers around on the counter as if he needed something to do with his hands. “It made me think of all those fires my nephew caused and the people who got hurt. And how many more might have been.”
“I suppose he thought he was doing the right thing for a cause he believed in,” I said.
He shook his head. “As a wee boy he was all turned inwards. But something got into him when he was about sixteen and he changed. Got stormy, started giving cheek to the brother, fighting with him over the way he ran the farm. Pete didn’t like it one bit. He was a terrible old tyrant. So when Dominic’s mother died – wild sad that, she was only forty – the next thing we knew, Dominic was away to America and then to England. Not a word from him after that, even when his father died.”
“Would he have heard about it?”
“Oh aye. He was back in England at that time. We sent notices to the papers over there and all.”
I hesitated. “Maybe he was in prison?”
Stoop gave me a contemptuous look. “Aye, he was. But he was well able to contact me when he needed bailing out. If he needed money he’d call, no bother.”
“And did you give it to him?” I asked.
“I did. It was probably the wrong thing to do, but he was family. I couldn’t see him stuck. And he never did get his inheritance from his father, never looked for it, never did anything about it. I always felt guilty about that, I suppose. I just let it sit.”
Which reminded me of the business at hand, the reason I was here. “So you want me to administer his estate now?”
“Aye. I suppose you’ll have to administer the brother’s estate first, will you?”
“If the property is still in his name, yes.”
“Aye, it would be.” His eyes narrowed. “I suppose it’ll be very dear?”
“Let’s see what’s involved first before we commit to anything. I should be able to do you up an estimate. Have you any paperwork? Death certificates, title deeds, maps, that kind of thing?”
He nodded towards the ceiling. “Aye, I have a load of that kind of stuff in a trunk upstairs.”
“Why don’t you gather together anything you think might be useful and bring it to me on Monday morning? I don’t think I’ve any appointments yet since it’s the first day back after the Christmas holidays. Come in about ten, we’ll go through what you have and I’ll make you a list of anything else I need. Is that okay?”
“Aye that’s grand.”
I left Stoop’s with the Irish Times and the Irish Independent under my arm, glad to have something to occupy me for the afternoon and happy to discard my plan to go into the office. I was shivering despite my big coat, and I didn’t relish the prospect of huddling over a radiator in the freezing-cold office while I worked my way through the holiday post. The whole lot could wait till Monday morning. I needed some time to recover on a number of fronts.
As I made my way back to the car, I heard a voice from across the road and looked up fearfully. It was Tony. I waved back, but when he called again, I pretended I hadn’t heard him, putting my phone against my ear as if I was answering a call. It was cowardly of me, I knew, but I didn’t want to lie to him and I wasn’t yet ready to tell him the truth.
On the way home, I slowed to a stop behind a group of five horses and riders hacking along the shore road. It was an attractive sight. They looked as if they’d come from the beach; there was a sheen on the horses’ thick winter coats and their fetlocks were muddy with wet sand. As I slowly overtook them, one of the riders waved to me and I recognized Abby Grey. I pulled in and rolled down my window.
“What a nice way to spend a New Year’s Day,” I said.
“Isn’t it?” she smiled. “Great that it’s not snowing or raining or hailstoning for once. Have to take advantage of it.” Her smile grew broader. “Have you met my son?”
I shook my head and she called to a young man in jeans and boots on a large black mare walking on ahead. He turned his mount around and approached the car, coming to a halt beside his mother, the two horses content to stand side by side.
Abby beamed with pride. “This is Ronan. He came up on Christmas Eve.”
Ronan reached down to shake my hand through the window, not an easy maneuver for either of us. As he smiled and said hello, I realized he reminded me of someone. I thought it must be Ian at first – I could see he didn’t look particularly like his mother. He was tall and long-legged, while she was petite with a small face and delicate features. But I couldn’t see anything of Ian in him either. His eyes were distinctive, blue with a thin black outline around the iris, while Abby’s and Ian’s were both brown.
“Do you ride?” Abby asked me.
“Not for about twenty years. I learned as a child.”
Her eyes widened with interest. “You should come out with us some day. We’re planning on having stables up at Greysbridge.”
“That sounds lovely,” I said. “I might take you up on it. I could definitely do with getting a bit more fresh air.”
“We’ve a big group going out tomorrow, if you’re serious. Mostly beginners, but there’ll be a few novices, so you can go at whatever pace suits you. As long as you have boots, we can lend you a hat. Wellies will do.”
“Maybe,” I said. “I’ll see how I feel. I think I might be coming down with something.”
“Excuses, excuses,” she said with a smile. “Anyway, give me a call in the morning if you fancy it. Two o’clock. I know we have at least two horses free at this stage.”
She waved and I drove on.
As I headed towards Malin, I realized that it wasn’t an adult Ronan Grey had reminded me of; it was a child. And it was the eyes, in particular the thin black line that ringed the iris. I racked my brains to come up with who the child was. It was a face I had seen only briefly. A sad, confused face, being pulled up into an adult’s arms, comforted and taken away. A child who had given me a smile. I saw a plush sitting room in a crowded house, and my heart lurched. I pulled in by the side of the road to gather my thoughts, make sure I had it right. But I was sure. I knew who Abby and Ian’s son reminded me of. It was two little boys, not one. Two little boys with the same eyes as Ronan Grey. Carole and George Harkin’s sons.
By the time I got home, I was thoroughly rattled, my thought processes definitely not helped by the fact that all I really wanted to do was sleep. I couldn’t allow myself to be sick at this point, two days before I had to reopen the office.
I got through the afternoon by forcing myself to complete some domestic tasks that I had let slip over the past few days: long-overdue laundry, ironing and cleaning. I even managed to leave the house to buy some groceries. At seven o’clock, feeling utterly exhausted, I made tea and settled myself on the couch with a blanket. It didn’t escape my notice that Guinness took himself over to the armchair, giving me a wide berth, as if he could tell I was infectious. At eight, I went to bed.
Saturday was a blur of Lemsip, paracetamol and sleep. In the evening, I tried to put my mind to work.
Could Ronan Grey be George’s son? I wasn’t imagining the likeness between the three boys; it was quite striking. Liam had implied that George had been less than faithful to Carole. Was it possible that Abby could have had an affair with him, eighteen years ago? It seemed unlikely given the age difference. But maybe it would explain the rows I’d witnessed between Ian and George. Or had Ian and Abby adopted Ronan? Was that the secret Ian had alluded to outside the pub after Carole’s funeral? And what the hell was Kirby’s game? I had a horrible feeling that there was little I could do until he played his first card. But thinking about it made my head hurt. So I closed my eyes and listened to familiar sounds – cars whooshing by on the road outside, church bells ringing for Saturday-evening mass – and felt myself gradually drift off again.