MORNING BROUGHT WITH it a tangle of emotions. Molloy had phoned later that night and offered to stay, but I told him I didn’t want to see him. I regretted that now, but I wasn’t yet ready to talk. Where had he been those evenings when he had cancelled at the last minute? And why was he so reluctant to go public with our relationship? Suddenly these things bothered me. He was hiding something, and with Luke in the shadows reminding me of how badly I’d got things wrong in the past, that was the last thing I needed.
Leah rang when I was on my way in to Glendara to ask me to pick up some milk. She had forgotten to get some herself; the phone was ringing off the hook and she didn’t want to leave Susanne on her own. She sounded stressed. Molloy’s “Are you insane?” began running on a loop in my head.
I parked the car and ran up to the square, not wanting to leave Leah for too long. Town was busy. I noticed a man in a suit with a clipboard in front of the burned-out crater that was the Oak and wondered if he was a surveyor, if it meant that rebuilding would start soon. Phyllis was leaning against the door of her bookshop with a mug in her hand and Liam was opening up the estate agent’s office. Things seemed to be getting back to normal. But things weren’t normal. Nothing that had happened in the past few weeks had been normal, and nothing had been resolved.
And right now, Luke Kirby was walking towards me, down the main street of Glendara. Pins and needles ran up my shoulders and into my neck. I thought about ducking into a doorway or crossing the street but I knew I wouldn’t be able to face myself if I did that. So I steeled myself and kept walking. He flashed me a smile. My breath quickened. It was the first time he had acknowledged me since our meeting in Dublin. He stopped, hands buried in the pockets of his long waxed coat.
“I’ve just dropped Susanne off. Good of you to give her a job in the circumstances.”
I felt panicked. Was Molloy right? Had I allowed him back in? Dropping her at work, taking her out for lunch, Molloy had said. It was happening already.
I refused to look at him. “I didn’t do it for you.”
He sighed, as if tired of my petulance. “Look, Sarah, I know I’m the last person you wanted to see. But we’re going to have to learn to tolerate each other. I’m not going anywhere.”
We’re going to have to learn to tolerate each other? We’re? I felt a sudden searing pain in my head. How could I ever have thought I had feelings for this man? When I forced myself to look at him now, his duplicity, his conceit, his utter coldness seemed written all over his face.
He moved to withdraw one of his hands from his pocket, and I stiffened. A voice called to me from across the square. Phyllis was waving from the doorway of her shop, summoning me. A wave of relief washed over me and I turned to go, but as I did so, Kirby touched my arm. The effect was like an electric shock. I bristled and pulled back.
He gave a bark of laughter. “Relax, woman. I just wanted to give you this.”
I looked down. He had something in his hand. My wallet, the one that had been stolen in Derry.
“Where did you get that?” I demanded, but he was already walking away.
“Found it,” he called back. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
I made my way over to Phyllis, my legs like jelly. She glared at Kirby as he strode down the street, her eyes boring into his back.
“Thought you needed rescuing. What the hell is he doing back here?”
I managed to pull myself together, but when I spoke, my voice was shaking. “He and Susanne are back for a few weeks.” I swallowed. “I’ve given her a job in the office, clearing out the attic.”
Phyllis raised one eyebrow. It seemed I was alone in thinking that was one of my better ideas. I was beginning to wonder myself.
I checked my watch. “I’d better get back, Phyllis. Leah is on her own with Susanne.”
She nudged me. “You were being watched, by the way, while you were talking to that man. Not just by me.”
She nodded across the square. McFadden was standing in the doorway of the hardware shop. He glanced in my direction when Phyllis pointed, then looked away.
“I think Molloy might have asked him to keep an eye on me,” I said.
“Well that’s a good thing, isn’t it?” She smiled. “We’re all looking out for you.”
As I made my way back to the office, I hoped to God that I wasn’t bringing trouble on the whole of Glendara.
Back at the office, I found Leah showing Susanne how to use the photocopier. I’d asked for copies of any documents she found in the attic, but clearly it wasn’t going well. Leah raised her eyes to heaven above Susanne’s head when I said good morning, while Susanne glanced up, returned my greeting, and went back to pressing random buttons. I shot Leah a sympathetic look and went upstairs, wondering how someone could have reached the age of twenty-five without learning how to use a photocopier.
At my desk, I went through my wallet. Everything was there. How the hell had Luke managed to get hold of it? Had he been in Derry that day? Did he want me to know he had been there, watching me? I shivered. The sooner he was gone, the better. But how could I stop Susanne from going with him?
Ten minutes later, I went downstairs to get a coffee, and Liam McLaughlin strode in, newspaper folded under his arm. “Have you got a minute?”
“Sure. Come on up.”
Liam refused to sit, which I took to be a good sign; it meant he didn’t intend staying very long. He came straight to the point. “Stoop’s just been on to me. He wants me to have a look at his brother’s old cottage. Says he wants to sell it. Can he do that?”
I was a little taken aback. I had to think for a minute.
“He said to talk to you about it, that you were acting for him,” Liam added.
“Well he’s rather jumping the gun, but in theory, yes, it can be sold. Whether Stoop is the one to do that is another thing. It depends on the beneficiaries. But I haven’t checked all that out yet. He was only in with me on Monday.”
Liam grinned. “So hold your horses is what you’re telling me?”
“Something like that.”
“Fair enough.”
My eye was suddenly drawn to the newspaper he’d come in with, which he now had clasped to his chest. The headline read: Thousands of euros of damage caused in arson attack at poultry farm in Co. Monaghan.
“Can I have a look at that?” I asked, gesturing towards the paper.
He handed it to me and I found the article while he played with the coins in his pocket.
“No one was caught apparently,” he volunteered. “They broke in, let the chickens out and set the place on fire. Lunatics. Those animal liberation people probably.”
I remembered the animaloutrage website Susanne had liked on her Facebook page. Industrial farming was one of their issues. Phyllis had said that Luke and Susanne had gone to Dublin for a meeting, but was this where they had really been? Was Luke so serious about playing this part? I scanned through the piece but learned nothing more than Liam had told me.
When I looked up, he was over by the window. I joined him, handing back the paper. The weather had turned nasty again, the street outside a mire. We watched as people dashed in and out of shops battling the icy rain. I saw McFadden running for his car, jacket pulled over his head, glad to see he drew the line at staking out the office.
Liam turned to me suddenly, interrupting my thoughts. “Can I tell you something, in confidence?”
“The problem is, I’m not sure it’s mine to tell. But I’m afraid if I don’t …”
I leaned back against my desk, arms crossed. “I promise I’ll keep it confidential, whatever it is.”
Liam nodded. “It’s McFadden. Andy. He came to me a few weeks ago, wanting to sell his house.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, unsure where this was going.
Liam took a deep breath. “Andy has a gambling problem. A bad one. He’s in serious debt.”
In a rush, I recalled McFadden’s mood swings, his loss of weight, running into him on the street near that casino in Derry. “I didn’t do anything about it,” Liam continued. “Selling the house. I had my suspicions and I didn’t think he should have access to a lot of cash. There’s no mortgage on his house; he inherited it from his uncle. So …” He paused. “I went to the sergeant on the QT.”
“Right.” I found it hard to hide my surprise at this development.
“The thing is, the sergeant knew already. He’s been dragging Andy out of casinos in and around Derry for the past few weeks. Trying to help him. He’s even bailed him out, paid some of his debts. It was Andy who told me that, not the sergeant,” he added.
I felt a wave of shame as I remembered the tension I’d seen between Molloy and McFadden. Was this what Molloy had been doing those evenings he had cancelled on me?
“I told Andy what I’d done,” Liam continued. “I thought he’d threaten to report me, but he didn’t. He was grateful.” He shook his head sadly. “He’s broken so he is, that man. He needs help.”
I was lost for words. I picked up a pen from my desk and twisted it in my fingers as I tried to organize my thoughts.
“The thing is,” Liam said again, “the sergeant is trying to set something up for him without him having to stop work and everyone knowing about it, but it’s taking a while. And it occurred to me that Andy might come to you directly looking to sell.” He shook his head. “He doesn’t trust himself at the moment, so I suppose I shouldn’t either. And there’s no shortage of people who would be only too happy to take advantage of him. Pay him a fraction of what it’s worth. So I thought if he did, maybe you could …” He left the sentence hanging.
“Discourage him?”
Liam looked relieved. “Exactly. Just until he sorts himself out.”
“Of course.”
As soon as Liam left, I rang Molloy, feeling thoroughly ashamed of myself. I got his voicemail and left a message asking him to ring me back.
To stop myself from watching my phone, I began Stoop’s paperwork. I opened the satchel and took out the contents, working through them as methodically as I could, setting aside the documents I would need. There were death certificates for Dominic’s parents but not for Dominic himself – I made a note that one would be needed. There was a land certificate and a map of the cottage and land, which I unfolded to examine. The little copse of trees was there, so I traced the route that Molloy and I had taken on Christmas Day with my finger. When I looked again, I realized there was a second laneway to the cottage from the Derry road out of Glendara. The route must be overgrown now, since we hadn’t noticed it – not surprising if the cottage had been empty for fifteen years. Could that have been the route that Carole had taken that Saturday night with whoever she was with? Had that even been considered? I made a mental note to mention it to Molloy. If he ever returned my call.
I went downstairs an hour later to make a coffee and the front door opened as I reached the bottom step. It was Eddie Kearney. I hadn’t seen him since the funeral. I asked him how he was doing and he shrugged. “Oh, you know.”
“What can I do for you?”
He started to reply as he followed me into reception, but stopped dead when he saw Susanne. If that was her effect on clients, it was just as well she was only here for a week or two, I thought.
I felt the need to explain her presence. “Susanne is here to help us clear out the attic, God love her.”
“Aye, I see.”
“Do you want a chat?” I asked, nodding towards the stairs. He nodded gratefully and followed me up to my office, where he sat in that wide-kneed pose I was so familiar with from before he went to Australia. He came straight to the point. “My keys to the Oak are missing. I know they’re not much use now, but I thought it might mean something.”
“You need to tell the sergeant,” I said. “It might be important.”
“Aye,” he said, without conviction. “I will.”
“Do you want me to do it?” I asked.
He looked up gratefully. “Aye, would you?”
“When did you notice they were gone?”
He looked sheepish. “Just these last few days. With everything that’s happened I didn’t check before now. They should still have been in the jeans I was wearing that night. They’ve never gone in the wash so I know my mother didn’t take them.”
“You mean they’re still lying in a heap on your floor.”
He gave me a furtive grin. I pitied his mother if she was still expected to do his washing two weeks after losing her daughter. Australia hadn’t changed Eddie as much as I’d thought.
“Do you think someone took the keys or that you just lost them?”
He looked down. “I don’t know.” Seconds passed.
“Is there anything else, Eddie?” If people were going to talk to me anyway, I decided, I might as well ask a few questions too. “Anything that would be useful in finding out what happened to Carole?”
He gave a deep sigh. “I think George is carrying on with my sister. My sister Emma,” he added quickly.
I wondered if that was why he’d been so taken aback when he’d seen Susanne downstairs. I presumed he had known about George’s affair with her, since Róisín had known about it.
“I don’t like it. It’s too soon and she’s married.”
“That’s not easy,” I agreed.
He swallowed. “The thing is, I’m wondering if it was going on before Carole died. If maybe that had something to do with it.”
“You mean George had something to do with her death?” I was surprised. It seemed that George had been serially unfaithful to Carole, but I didn’t think he had killed her. Molloy had confirmed he’d received the texts he’d said he had, ostensibly from Carole.
Eddie shook his head vigorously. “No, I meant that’s why Carole needed money. If she was going to leave him.”
As soon as Eddie left, I rang Molloy and left a message about the keys, my second today. When I hung up, Leah came in. She closed the door behind her and lowered her voice.
“I have to run out to the post. I’d send Susanne but I want to go to the bank too and I don’t trust her to do that.” She gave me a wry look. “So would you mind …”
I finished her sentence. “… keeping an eye on her? Sure. I’ll go down in a minute. Is she still upstairs?”
She nodded. “I’ve diverted the phones up here, so you’ll have to answer them.”
Susanne must have known I might come downstairs while Leah was gone, so I was taken aback to see her leafing through the diary at reception, examining each entry. She must have snuck down – I hadn’t heard her pass my door, had assumed she was still in the attic. She had the grace to look embarrassed, but there was something about her reaction that made me think she was more afraid of something or someone else than she was of me. But maybe I was projecting again, seeing what I expected to see.
“Looking for something?” I asked.
“No, sorry. I was just checking the date.”
I closed over the book. “Are you okay, Susanne? Is everything okay?”
“Aye. Why wouldn’t it be?”
She was defensive, of course she was. I would be too. She made to go back upstairs. I decided to grab my opportunity. I didn’t know when I’d get the chance to speak to her on my own again.
“How are things with Luke?”
She turned and gave me an odd look.
“Did you know that I know him?” I corrected myself. “Knew him, a long time ago?”
She avoided my eye, but nodded. “He told me. After Dad’s party.”
I chose my words carefully. “He went out with my sister. She died.” I paused. “He served time for it.”
Something leached from her features. Self-assurance. She braved it out, stuck her chin out defiantly, pretending that she knew, but I could tell that the version I was giving her wasn’t the one she had been told. Or certainly not as stark. She didn’t reply. Her expression closed - like Faye’s used to when I tried to reach her. She moved towards the stairs again.
“Susanne?” I called after her. “Are you really okay with that?”
She turned to me, her expression fixed. “I knew he was in prison. He’s never hidden that from me. He even went to the guards here to let them know. He’s served his sentence.”
“Susanne,” I said, my tone insistent. “Luke is dangerous. He can be very charming, but there’s something wrong with him. A darkness that he manages to hide when you get to know him first.”
Her eyes shone. “He told me he dumped you for your sister and you’ve never forgiven him for it.”
With an effort, I kept my tone neutral. “Does your father know about Luke’s history?”
She rounded on me, her tone fierce. “Why should he? It’s none of his business. It’s none of anyone’s business.”
The front door opened with a creak. Leah was back. I let Susanne go. I had made my move too soon.