50

A group of Sister Michael’s volunteers had taken to working in the library. Hanna was getting used to them. Today, toward closing time, Susan’s husband, Gunther, brought their small daughter, Holly, in from the garden to choose a book to take home. The digging was going great guns, he told Hanna, and Aideen and Bríd had come all the way around the block from HabberDashery with mugs of coffee for the workers. Sister Michael had told Gunther there were a few fold-up tables and chairs in the old convent kitchen and he’d taken them out and set them up in the garden so that people would have somewhere to sit down.

“It’s a real meitheal, Miss Casey. Isn’t that what you call it?”

Susan had obviously taught Gunther the Irish word for a group of neighbors coming together to help with a job of work. Hanna could remember Tom Casey talking about twenty or thirty men gathering on the peninsula’s farms in the old days and the whole group working its way around the neighborhood until every household’s harvest was saved. Now Holly informed her solemnly that she wanted to borrow a book on gardens. A big, huge one so she could help her daddy plant the herbs. As Gunther took Holly to find a book, and Susan and the others at the table began to pack away their notes, Hanna switched off the computers and tidied her desk. Brian Morton had been so horrified by the faux pas he’d made about Mary Casey’s bungalow that, to prove she wasn’t offended, she’d offered to show him the way to the beach where he’d find seals.

As she locked the door her brain was still fizzing with the thought of The Carrick Psalter. The other day, as they chatted over their lunchtime sandwiches, she’d realized that she’d love to describe it to Brian. But this was yet another thing she couldn’t talk about. When she and Fury had left the castle, Charles Aukin had shaken her hand.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention what I showed you up in the book room.”

“Of course.”

“Not that I’m suggesting you would.”

“Of course not. I mean, I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Feel free to mention your reaction to the rest of my books, though. Best insurance against burglary I could get.”

As Hanna blushed, he had winked and waved them off.

Afterward she had told Fury that the man must be raving mad.

“The Psalter’s worth a fortune. I could have been anyone. Why should he think he could trust me?”

“Name of God, woman, why wouldn’t he? Didn’t he know you were a friend of mine?”

The turnoff to the beach was about half a mile beyond the bungalow and the road was so narrow that it appeared to be a lane. Driving ahead of Brian, Hanna led him to the place where the metaled surface petered out and their tires churned in sand. Then she climbed out of her car and leaned in his window.

“It’s a bit farther on and then you have to get down the cliff.”

“Look, I’m sorry, I’m sure you didn’t want to come traipsing down here after work.”

“No, it’s fine. I like it here. I used to come and watch the seals when I was a child.”

They walked through marram grass and thistles till they came to the edge of the cliff. Hanna turned left and led Brian to a place where a series of folds in the rocks made a kind of ladder. It was a bit of a scramble but, provided you kept up your pace, it was safe enough. They reached the bottom without mishap and Brian swung his camera off his shoulder. There, basking in the evening light, was a family of gray seals.

From the shelter of a rock at the foot of the cliff Brian managed to shoot for several minutes before a bull seal became aware of him and led a plunging exodus into the ocean. Giving up on concealment, Brian moved farther down the beach, taking shot after shot of the sleek heads bobbing in the water and the last lumbering seals spilling off the rocks. Hanna ran down to join him.

“What did you get?”

“Good stuff, I think. I’ll need to look at them on my laptop to be sure.”

They watched the seals disappear into the distance.

“Bit unfair to disturb them.”

“Oh, they’ll come back. And at least you were only taking photographs. When I was a kid we used to scatter them by dancing on the rocks. It was probably daft because a bull seal can be dangerous if he turns on you. But, sure, we were kids, we had no sense of danger.”

Brian laughed. “I grew up in the Wicklow Mountains climbing round looking for eagles. God knows how half of us ever survive our childhoods.”

They walked over to the rocks vacated by the seals and sat down in the sun. He’d never found an eagle, he told her, probably because there wasn’t one to find.

“I think I was inspired by Jack in the Enid Blyton adventure stories. Always scaling castles and crags in shorts and rubber-soled shoes.”

“And polo-necked jerseys.”

“You had the properly illustrated, early editions, I see.”

Hanna shook her head. “I didn’t read them but Jazz did. Macmillan hardbacks. I loved the black-and-white line drawings, so I got her the whole set.”

Brian lay back on his elbows. Black-and-white photos had the same effect, he said. Half his life was spent draining color out of his photos and thinking they looked better that way. Even sunsets. And there was something powerful about early photography that modern stuff didn’t catch. Without thinking, Hanna asked him if he’d seen the de Lancy collection of old photos in Carrick Library.

“Is there one? I didn’t know.”

As soon as she mentioned the library in Carrick, Hanna wished that she hadn’t. It was a dangerous subject; and the more time she spent with Brian Morton, the harder it was to remember that she needed to be on her guard. Sister Michael was still insisting that the optimum moment for overt action had yet to arise. It wasn’t at all clear to Hanna what the optimum moment might be, or how they’d recognize it when it did arise. But stage one of their plan was going so well that she knew she mustn’t jeopardize it now. A few days ago when she’d pointed out that there was a time frame for the council’s submission process, Sister Michael had just nodded. She was well aware of that, she said. It was like keeping an eye on a harvest. You couldn’t leave it too long or else you’d lose it. But, all the same, you mustn’t go at it too soon. In the meantime, it remained vital that no one should know of their plan. Silence and secrecy were the watchwords, she said, her faded eyes gleaming with humor. And such was the force of her quiet assurance that Hanna had acquiesced.

Now Brian nudged her with his elbow. “Can I ask you something?”

“Probably not.”

“Well, I will anyway. You can’t do worse than murder me and consign me to the waves.”

Hanna laughed. “Go on, then.”

“Do you like your work?”

She had anticipated another question about the nuns’ garden, so this one threw her. Playing for time, she looked at Brian sideways. “I might well ask you the same.”

“Yes, but I asked you first.”

“Oh, well if we’re going to behave like kids . . .”

“Absolutely. Truth or dare.”

Hanna groaned inwardly. If she hadn’t mentioned the de Lancy photos, they might still have been talking about seals. Then, to her own surprise, she found herself longing to confide in him. She was inspecting this fact when she realized that telling the truth at this stage would actually be an effective way to support her ongoing lies. For a moment she hesitated, struggling with the faintly ridiculous moral dilemma. Then she gave up and told him anyway. No, she said, she didn’t like her job much. Which was ironic since she’d always longed to be a librarian. Just not a librarian stuck in a nosy, provincial town.

“I went away with plans for a big career in London and came home with nothing more than a broken marriage. And now I’m the local laughingstock working in the local library.”

“Why a laughingstock? People’s marriages break up all the time.”

“Yes, well, not everyone’s husband spends the entire marriage having an affair with another woman. She was a family friend, too, by the way, and seems to have spent most of the summers living in our home while his daughter and I were on holiday. Plenty of belly laughs there.”

Hanna dug her heel viciously into the sand.

“So, if I had my way I wouldn’t be working in a public library where everyone could gape at me. I’d probably just crawl under a duvet and never come out. And, for God’s sake, don’t tell me I’m being over the top. According to Sister Michael, the fact that men constantly make fools of me is their problem, not mine. But that’s not how it feels.”

Brian stared out to sea without looking at her. From her first reference to the lawyer husband to the description of her difficult mother, talking about her personal life had clearly been painful for Hanna; and the truculent admission he’d heard just now had left her looking vulnerable as a child. But she’d trusted him, and to fail to show equal trust seemed unfair. So, with his eyes on the horizon, he told her his own story.

The Wicklow childhood had been followed by boarding school in England because his dad had worked in the Gulf. Holidays had mainly been spent with aunts. “Very Kipling and Saki, except that I adored my aunts.” He had qualified as an architect and knocked around the world a bit gaining experience before returning to Wicklow to set up in partnership with a friend. Shane, who had been to school with him, was married with a couple of kids. Brian had got married as well, almost as soon as he came home.

Contracts weren’t that easy to find, he said, but he and Shane had worked like mad to put their names out there, and, eventually, jobs had come in. Then, after a couple of years of doing extensions and local restaurants, they were offered the job they’d been waiting for, which would move them to a whole different league. Ten times the pressure and still very little cash flow. But they were on their way.

Brian glanced at Hanna. It must have been the same for her when she went to England, he said. Everything to play for and the world at your feet. But then Sandra, his beautiful wife, had gone and left him.

“You mean she just walked out?”

“No. She died.”

He spoke again before Hanna could react. “I’m sorry, that was melodramatic. And incredibly egotistical. But that really was what it felt like. And I’d never have believed it could happen.”

It was cancer. Three months from her diagnosis to her death. “I told Shane that I wanted to keep working. I said it was the only thing that would keep me sane. Sandra was at home till the last couple of weeks and I worked from a desk in the house. And then that was how we continued after she went. I told Shane I couldn’t cope with sympathy and having to see people, and he said not to worry, to work from home.”

Brian’s voice was strained. “We were coming up to a big meeting with the client. We’d planned a pre-meet to discuss the elements I’d been working on and get everything sorted. But when it came to it, I just couldn’t leave the house.”

He drew his legs up and rested his chin on his knees. “I know it sounds pathetic. But I couldn’t cross the threshold. There was stuff that Shane needed for the meetings. He needed me to be there to give the presentation to the client. But I just locked my door and turned off my phone.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. I got into bed and I must have stayed there for a week. Shane was probably outside banging on the door like the Antichrist, but I didn’t hear a thing. When I got up I knew that we would have lost the contract.”

“Surely not? I mean, it was awful but it was understandable.”

“Yes, well, maybe you’re right. Anyway, I didn’t wait to find out.”

Instead he had put his house for sale online at a crazy price. Well, not completely daft, but low enough to be certain of its being snapped up.

“It only took a week to sell and by that time I’d driven to Carrick. And when the money came through I sent the lot to Shane.”

Lying back on his elbows again, Brian looked up at Hanna. “And that’s me. Essentially irresponsible, personally and professionally. But, like you, I needed a job, so here I am. Overqualified. Fairly bored. But probably in the right place.”

“But why Carrick?”

“Oh, I don’t know. As far away from Wicklow as I could get. And there’s plenty of crags to climb on the peninsula. Maybe I’ll find my eagle on Knockinver.”

After a couple of minutes Hanna said she was sorry about his wife.

“Yep. She was nice. I think you’d have liked her.”

They sat side by side saying nothing until Brian spoke again. “It all sounds faintly ridiculous when you say it out loud, doesn’t it? I don’t mean death or divorce, or even betrayal. I mean how one’s reacted.”

“Yes, well, I think you get the prize for being over the top.”

As soon as she’d spoken Hanna caught her breath, afraid that she’d sounded flippant.

She darted a look at Brian who just grinned. “Oh well, that’s enough soul-baring. Shall we go back to books?”

“I think we’d better.”

But instead they sat in companionable silence watching the ocean for seals.