Daniel descended from Knockoura, skirting the backside of the village, and continued along trails and dirt roads until he arrived at the small clutch of houses that dotted the headland. Each was distant enough from its neighbor to allow for privacy but not so far you couldn’t dash over for a needed cup of sugar or a dram of whiskey. Fi’s house was at the end of the headland, splendid in its isolation for most of the year. The two nearest houses were vacation rentals that hosted a rotating collection of northern European families, the few tourists who thought Beara’s summers—gleaming with rain, pushed on by the incessant wind—were an improvement on their own.
A late-model Mercedes crunched down the driveway and pulled up in front of the Moyle place. The house had recently been smartened up with an expensive renovation and let out as a holiday home after the Moyles retired to Wicklow. Daniel whistled low at the car’s finely sculpted bones and iridium silver skin. It must have cost close to what Fi had paid for her house.
The driver rose from his seat, as sleek and polished as the Mercedes, and stepped to the car’s boot. Joining him was a slender woman with dark wheaten hair twisted at the nape of her neck. Her legs climbed high in her tight-fitting jeans and disappeared under the loose folds of her sweater. She lifted a smaller bag from the back and turned in his direction.
A sighing seemed to rise from the earth, a sound that made no sense on this unusually still afternoon. No wind swept up and over the bluff or came rushing down from the mountains behind. The aural stirring echoed like a woman’s voice, low and soft, in the space between the woman and himself. She paused, her head tilted as though listening. Daniel moved a step closer, but the air’s weight lightened, then vanished.
Abashed to have been caught staring, he walked on but kept the house in his periphery. A husband and wife, or lovers, here for a week’s getaway. The trunk slammed shut with a heavy thud of solid steel. The couple crossed the paving stones and entered the house.
Daniel drew nearer and saw Dublin plates on the car, confirming the two were a city couple in search of a quiet idyll. He was sure to see them hand in hand on Ballycaróg’s one high street or perhaps at the Beara Artists’ Cooperative in Castletownbere, where he put in a few hours each week—a local artist hoping to connect with well-heeled tourists and collectors.
A few minutes later he heard the low rumble of the Mercedes engine. The driver executed a tight three-point turn in the small parking area and ascended the drive. Alone in the car, he lifted a hand from the steering wheel in a casual wave as he passed.
Daniel glanced over his shoulder at the house as the road fell away behind him. A large patio extended over a short cliff, anchored to the rocky ground by long stanchions. There she stood, her hair now loose and swirling around her shoulders in long waves that shone almost white in the sudden, bright light. She pulled a tangle of hair back from her face, secured it behind her ear, and turned. Again they locked eyes, and she froze, her fingers still clutching locks of her hair. Then she hugged herself and turned away.
A chorus of barking forced his attention from the Moyle house. Bannon hurtled down the road, and Fiana’s Glen of Imaal terrier, Kennedy, scurried behind on squat legs; the dogs’ underbellies were caked with mud. Bannon leaped and twirled in midair, knowing better than to smear her soaked body on Daniel but unable to contain her joy. An irresistible scent distracted Kennedy, and he halted his trajectory halfway down the path.
Daniel removed his muddy hiking boots on his small patio, clapping the soles together to knock off the earth caught in the deep tread. He could just see the tile roof of the Moyle house from where his studio was perched.
Fiana’s sensible Ford wagon wasn’t parked beside the house—he’d ask her about the house’s occupants later. As a social worker in Castletownbere, she’d know all the comings and goings of the tightly knit neighborhood. He took a quick shower in the stall he’d rigged up in the studio and dressed in haste. The AA meeting in Bantry started at six o’clock, and it was pushing five.