Phil didn’t stay to supervise the clear-up. By the time the judges, the press, and the public had left, she’d developed a massive migraine so Cassie and Bríd had told her to go home.
The surreal sense of two separate events happening concurrently had continued right through to the end of the day. As Cassie led the press and the judges down the corridors and in and out of the studios, Phil had hustled Shay, Bullseye, and the sergeant ahead of them, while Fury dodged nimbly between the two groups. Each time Cassie turned a corner, his stork-like figure would signal to her discreetly, and her hasty U-turns in response had bewildered her charges. At one point she’d whipped them into a room off the kitchen, where Maurice, the retired baker, was sitting with Mr Maguire, gorging on mince pies, and her hasty improvisations about quality control had baffled Maurice as much as the judges.
In the meantime, the stallholders, the crowds, and the volunteers had variously continued their sales and shopping, explained the centre’s facilities, and piled into the old refectory, where the Lissbeg Choristers were belting out carols.
There was a tense moment in the middle of ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ when Bullseye became agitated and Darina Kelly was asked to open her bag. But it turned out he’d been alerted by a bottle of Bach Rescue Remedy, and Darina was restored to the alto section without need for further questioning.
That was one of several stories that Cassie heard afterwards, as they sat about, having got rid of Phil with the promise that they’d lock up. The perishable waste had been disposed of, and the garden stalls dismantled and stacked in the refectory. Cassie, Conor, and Aideen were recovering in the pensioners’ day-care facility, with Dan and Bríd.
Aideen, who’d had to cope with the press reaction to the nonalcoholic Winter Warmers, was lying flat on her back on a pile of yoga mats.
Cassie had arrived after the others, having waved off the volunteers, including Pat.
Conor was slumped in a chair, wondering what Miss Casey was going to say about the headline he’d seen a reporter tap into his tablet: ‘NATIONAL TREASURE PRESENTED TO LIBRARY BY SANTY’ probably wasn’t the story she’d hoped to come home to. Still, with any luck, the paper might run it before she got back.
Dan and Bríd were sitting side by side on a tabletop, looking shell-shocked. When Cassie joined them, Bríd slipped off the table and said she’d make tea. ‘Or it might have to be cocoa. We used up the pensioners’ entire supply of teabags on Fury’s tisanes.’
Cassie followed her into the kitchen, which looked like a bomb site. ‘How many boxes did you get through?’
‘I dunno. Dozens. There seemed to be a helluva lot of peppermint and chamomile, and then we chucked in the Irish Breakfast, which may have been a step too far.’
‘I thought that was the genius bit. The colour led Shay right up the garden path.’
She had seen him again as he’d marched out, looking furious. In the background, the sergeant was chatting amiably with Fury, and The Divil was taking it upon himself to see Bullseye off the premises. Shay was six feet ahead of them when Cassie had stepped into his path. ‘I guess you’ll have a report to write now before you get off to Limerick. Probably not one you’ll want to allude to next time you go up for promotion, though? Shame about that.’
Now, remembering the look in his eye, she hugged herself happily. Adding insult to injury probably wasn’t the most mature course to have taken. But it felt really good.
Bríd, who was stuffing empty cartons into a bin, looked up suddenly. ‘Listen, I want to say this. I owe you one. Thanks.’
‘No problem.’ Cassie leaned into the bin, putting her weight on the cartons, so they’d collapse and make room for more. ‘So, does this mean what I think it means?’
‘What?’
‘That you and Dan are a couple?’
Bríd stiffened, like The Divil seeing Bullseye. Then she laughed and shrugged. ‘I guess. Well, yes, I suppose so. God knows he needs somebody to keep him out of jail.’ She and Dan had talked, she said, and in January she was going to sit down with him and look at his business plan. ‘And when I say “look at” I probably mean “draft”. I don’t think he’s ever put anything down on paper. And he hasn’t a clue about getting advice or grants.’
‘Okay. That’s logical. But it’s not what I meant.’
Bríd threw her a baleful look and slammed the lid onto the rubbish bin. ‘You’re still not a relationship counsellor, Cassie, okay? So back off.’
Cassie grinned. ‘Sorry, I can’t seem to help it. I guess it’s the matchmaker gene.’
Crossing to where the kettle was boiling, Bríd took a tray down for the mugs. ‘I could do with some help with this cocoa, though, if you’re up for it.’
‘Okay.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’
They carried it through to the others and found Fury perched on the table next to Dan. The Divil, who was lying on Aideen’s stomach on the yoga mats, leapt up and joined them, lapping cocoa from a saucer with his forepaws on the table: the fact that there was no milk, and that all the sugar had gone the way of the teabags, didn’t seem to bother him.
Fury reached into the poacher’s pocket of his jacket and produced a squat brown bottle.
Dan’s eyes rounded. ‘God, Fury, I thought you’d got rid.’
‘So I did. The full case, bar the one.’ He removed the cork and tipped a slug of brandy into each mug, adding a splash to The Divil’s saucer.
Cassie took a sip and felt the warmth slip down her throat. The slightly shaky chill she’d felt since they’d carried the stalls in from the garden left her, and her sense of exhaustion began to ebb.
Dan swallowed his mugful in one gulp. ‘Where’s the rest of it?’
‘What kind of an eejit do you take me for? You may be a free man now, but they could whip you in for questioning after Christmas. I only got Mossy to back off because someone higher up had put a freeze on your joint bank account. He took my point when I said you hadn’t the cash to do a runner.’
Bríd glared at Fury. ‘Even if they do pull him in, they haven’t got anything on him.’
‘And as long as he’s got nothing to tell them, they won’t have anything on me.’ He winked at Dan. ‘Not that I’m saying you’d open your beak on purpose, mind. Or that Mossy Connor would ever try to finger me. It’s the crowd inside in Carrick that I’d be wary of. So, no offence, Dan, but I’ll keep the fate of the brandy to myself.’ He buried his nose in his mug again before emerging to ask who had won the raffle.
Cassie, who’d locked the takings into the office, on Phil’s instructions, said that old Mrs Reily had had the winning ticket. ‘And she’s decided to give it to the day-care facility, here at the centre.’
‘Fair enough. Did it make a few euros?’
Cassie looked remorsefully at Fury. ‘Nothing like it should have done. I’m really sorry. And you’d have got a good price if you’d sold it instead of donating it to us.’ Phil had stuck it in a corner of the garden, where you’d hardly see it, she said. And, of course, they’d sold almost no tickets in advance.
Downing the last of his cocoa, Fury reached into the pocket of his disreputable corduroy trousers and produced a large wad of euro notes. ‘Well, we’d better get up to Phil’s office and put that right.’
Dan found his voice before the others did. ‘Holy God, you went and sold the brandy!’
‘I told you before, boy, that you don’t need to know what I did.’
Then, relenting, he dug Dan in the ribs. ‘Anyway, by this time, the evidence should be a couple of hundred miles away, under a load of timber in the back of some fella’s van.’ Flicking the notes with his finger and thumb, Fury winked at Cassie. ‘I suppose it’s only rough justice that this lot should go to the homeless shelter in Carrick. So let’s get it up to the office before I change my mind.’
They climbed the stairs in a bunch, with The Divil pattering behind them, and Fury added three hundred euro to the box that Cassie had labelled ‘Raffle Takings’.
Seeing the sum, Cassie looked at him sharply. ‘You can’t have got that much for a case of black-market brandy, minus a bottle.’
‘Yeah? Well, your man mightn’t have known there was a bottle missing.’
‘Even so.’
Poking a finger into the small of her back, Fury pushed her towards the doorway. ‘Holy God, do you never stop sticking your nose in? If I made a bit extra on the timber deal, what’s that got to do with you?’
‘Well, I hope that raffle money cheers Phil up when she sees it, because it sounds like there isn’t the slightest chance of Lissbeg winning the trophy.’
She explained to Fury that a barman in Moran’s had texted to say he’d overheard the judges talking. The whole thing was a stitch-up. Apparently some high-up in government had a nephew who’d organised a Winter Fest in Dublin, and that had been earmarked as the winner from the start.
Fury snorted appreciatively. Then, as soon as Cassie had locked the office, he hustled her down the corridor, announcing that they’d all go up on the roof and say ‘Happy Christmas’ to the moon.
She hadn’t realised that the roof was accessible but, after a long trek down corridors, up staircases, and through eerie, empty rooms in the upper, undeveloped part of the old convent, they emerged from a pointed doorway into the night air. Darkness had fully fallen while they’d been doing the clear-up. High above, snow-filled clouds had billowed in from the ocean, driven by a wind from the northeast. Among them, the crescent moon was a sliver of silver and a blue-black sky was studded with bright stars.
There was a leaded space behind a parapet all around the rooftop and, walking carefully, Cassie crossed it and looked down on Lissbeg. Below her was a bird’s-eye view of the little shops on the far side of Broad Street, with their shining snow-covered roofs. And there, in the centre of the street, was the long stone horse trough, where Pat had once sat nursing a baby, looking up at the stars. Single strings of coloured Christmas lights swung between the convent building and the shops and businesses opposite, receding as Broad Street narrowed and curved away beyond the marketplace.
She could see frost shining on windowsills and doorsteps, like the glitter sprinkled on the Christmas card she’d kept as a bookmark for years. She could feel the chill of the parapet under her elbows, and see the square of golden light in the window above the butcher’s shop.
And, except for the Christmas lights and the lighted window, everything was composed of different shades of silver and blue. The starlight on the steep slate roofs with their dormer windows; and the pale, icy blue of the fallen snow; the curved shapes of the mountains in the distance; and the huge sky, like a dark, glimmering bowl. As she watched, snowflakes began to drift from the driven clouds. Leaning on the freezing parapet, Cassie laughed out loud. It was the Christmas card come to life and, just as she’d imagined when she’d first thought of coming here, she’d walked straight into it, mistletoe, glitter, and all.