Full Irish Murder

by Kathy Cranston

  There was no sense in beating around the bush, she knew. Brennan may have been a pain, but at least he fit the model for an officer of the law. He was sharp and suspicious of everyone. There’d be no asking after his mother and hoping he’d spill the beans on the case. She couldn’t even imagine what his mother might look like—she pictured a pointy-faced old biddy in a cashmere twinset living in a vast country pile in South County Dublin.

  “I just popped in. I was wondering if there had been any developments in the case.”

  His features twisted in distaste. “Were you indeed?”

  She nodded, though her heart sank as she realised that not only was he not going to tell her anything, but he was going to take immense pleasure in refusing to do so.

  “You should know by now that I’m not able to comment on a live case.”

  “But it’s solved. You’ve got your man.” She bristled—she hadn’t wanted to raise her voice or show her hand.

  His smile widened as if he was getting great enjoyment out of this. “Is that so?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I heard… I heard there was a break-in over at Mrs Stanley’s house last night.”

  “Dear me,” Sergeant Brennan said, glancing around. “You seem to know a lot about our case. Care to elaborate on your source?”

  “Not at all,” she said, breezily as she could. “It’s just that a few people around here have mentioned that there was a man arrested.”

  “Have they now?”

  She nodded. “That’s what I just said.”

  He looked from her to Garda Conway and back, eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You’re aware, Garda Conway, that you have a duty not to discuss Garda business with members of the public?”

  Fiona gasped in outrage. “No, you have the wrong end of the stick there. It wasn’t him who told me. It was… it was Mrs Roche. She said it to my granny after mass.”

  The sergeant made no response. He walked away, shaking his head, leaving Fiona looking apologetically at Conway.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get you into trouble.”

  The old guard shrugged after throwing an extremely disparaging look in the direction of the sergeant’s office. “Don’t mind him. I know I didn’t say anything and he can’t prove a thing.”

  “Even still…”

  “I’m telling you,” Conway said almost cheerily. “Don’t worry about it.” He leaned a little closer and smiled conspiratorially. “And if he’s going to accuse me of blabbing, then I might as well tell you this. We brought a fella in for questioning in relation to the matter, but he has a solid alibi for the time of the murder so he’s been released without charge.”

  12

  FAR FROM FEELING the matter was all wrapped up, Fiona was even more perplexed than ever when she finally got back to the pub. After half an hour, she realised there was no way she was going to relax until she was busy with customers. With a sigh, she hurried upstairs and changed into her running clothes.

  Running always helped her to calm down and clear her head—even if she didn’t particularly enjoy the activity. Her natural instinct was to stop running and walk after she began to feel breathless but she forced herself to keep on going, reminding herself of the time she’d actually managed to run that ten kilometre charity race in town a few years back.

  After ten minutes, she hit a nice stride, though she obviously hadn’t succeeded in fully clearing her head. She realised with a start that she’d taken a different route to normal. Now she was directly in the path of Mrs Stanley’s house. There were no other roads off this one until she passed the house—it was either keep going or turn around.

  “It’s fine,” she muttered to herself.

  Even though it wasn’t. Her pulse climbed even higher than it had when she’d sprinted to the lights to cross Main Street. There was nobody around and anyone who lived nearby was likely to be at work.

  Normally that wouldn’t bother her—after all, it was part and parcel of small town life. Today it did. She couldn’t stop thinking about how they’d had such a narrow escape from Alan Power. If he’d come any earlier, they might not have heard him. He would have walked straight in on them and they might not have made it out of there…

  Fiona’s train of thought vanished as she ran past the old Miller house, where they had hidden the night before. Nobody had lived in it since she’d been old enough to wander around the town and she didn’t ever remember meeting the mysterious Millers. Now, though, there was every indication that it wasn’t abandoned.

  There was a moving van parked in the driveway, just a few feet from where they had lurked the night before. She stopped and stared, horrified. Had the van been there the night before? She couldn’t think. She’d seen the outline of a large tree, but hadn’t paid attention to anything else. Besides, it was parked so close to the house that it was unlikely it would have stood out to them.

  “Oh my God,” she muttered, staring aghast. Had there been somebody there watching them as they watched Alan?

  “Hi there!”

  Fiona started and looked up, surprised to see a young man about her age standing in the porch. She was even more amazed when she realised she knew him.

  “Angus!” she said, hurrying through the open gate. “What are you doing here? I didn’t realise you worked for a moving company.”

  He looked up and she couldn’t help but see the way his face lit up on seeing her—or had she just imagined it?

  “I don’t.”

  She shook her head, glancing at the van uncertainly. Yes, there was no doubt about it—it was a moving van alright. It said so right across the side in neon orange lettering.

  “Ah,” he laughed, following her gaze. “I don’t work for a moving company. I just hired the van. Did Colm not tell you?”

  Angus was a friend of her brother’s from college. He had helped Fiona with a little problem she’d had a few months before by pretending to be her German boyfriend. Fiona had been surprised to find herself getting more into the charade than she had expected: Angus had a twinkle in his eye and a dimple in his left cheek that she’d found herself thinking about again and again in the months since.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s brothers for you. I thought you were moving to Edinburgh.”

  He laughed. “I did. After a few months I realised that transferring with the same company was a big mistake. So I handed in my notice and left. I had a great time here before that so I thought I’d look for a place to rent while I consider my next move. Maybe you can give me some tips on packing up my life and starting afresh.”

  It was her turn to laugh. “I can’t say I’m an expert. Actually, if anything I’ve been neglecting the pub because of all the action that’s been happening around here.”

  “Action?”

  She shook her head and waved it away as if it was nothing. She’d just been struck by the strangest urge to play down the severity of the murder case. She didn’t know why: maybe it was on the off chance that he might change his mind and jump back in the van and hightail it back to Scotland.

  “It’s nothing. So you’re moving to Ballycashel?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, that’s the plan anyway. Found this place. They were only too happy to rent it out to me and it’s not in too bad condition. Apparently, the owners come over every month or so to air out the inside, though the garden will need a lot of work.” He paused and stared into her eyes. “Colm never mentioned anything about me moving here?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “But does that surprise you? That lad’d forget his head if it wasn’t screwed onto his body.”

  “He would and all. Still, I’m surprised he didn’t mention it.”

  “Ah, that’s Colm,” Fiona said, thinking no more about it. “Anyway, I’d better keep moving if I’m to get back to the pub in time to open later. Welcome to the area! We’ll have to throw you a welcome party in the pub when…” She stopped. She’d been about to say ‘when things calm down around here�
��. She smiled. “When you’re all settled in.”

  His face lit up. “I’d like that, Fiona. That sounds great.”

  She turned and began to jog up the road, all thoughts of the murder case pretty much forgotten now.

  13

  IT WAS a slow evening at the pub. Fiona would have been disgusted by that if she hadn’t bumped into Angus that afternoon. Now that she had, she was glad of the quiet time. It had been a long time since she’d sat around daydreaming about a man—not that she’d ever admit to anyone that that was what she was doing.

  As time passed, people began to trickle in. Soon there were a handful of people dotted around the bar. She smiled as she changed playlists on the sound system, telling herself she needed something she could dance to behind the bar in order to stop herself from sitting there like a soppy teenager.

  It did the trick immediately. She closed her eyes and swayed around behind the bar. She knew every inch of it—not just from running it herself, but from playing behind there as a child. She had kept the original bar, unable to even contemplate getting rid of it.

  She was so engrossed in the music that she didn’t hear the bell ring to let her know somebody else had entered the bar. Or, rather, the music was too loud for her to hear it. The first indication she had that something had changed was the strange chill that ran through her.

  Its cause became clear a few seconds later.

  “What’s that racket?”

  Fiona’s heart sank. Mrs Davis stood in front of her, her green eyes burning with anger. “Music.” Mrs Davis had never been more than barely civil to her, but this was the first time they’d ever really spoken face-to-face. The woman owned the building behind the pub and the hardware shop, and she liked things just so. Her little clothes shop appeared to still be open, even though it had had the same window display for what felt like years.

  “Doesn’t sound like music to me.”

  Fiona shook her head. “I’m sorry Mrs Davis, but it’s no louder than we’ve played it on other nights. Even when Dad ran this place, they had trad bands in all the time that were far louder than this.”

  Mrs Davis pursed her lips. A young couple walked into the bar behind her and Fiona nodded at them, signalling that she’d be with them in a moment.

  “I don’t care what you used to do. I’m telling you it’s too loud.”

  Fiona shook her head. It was loud, but not excessively so. When she had taken over the pub and installed a new sound system, they had gone to the trouble of measuring the decibel level that could be heard outside and in the hardware shop. Fiona was well aware of how loud each volume level on the system would sound not just in the pub but outside as well.

  “I’ve just got a new hearing aid,” Mrs Davis added, just as Fiona was reaching for the remote to turn the volume down. “And now I can’t hear myself think.”

  Fiona quietened the music a bit and smiled. “Maybe it’ll take a while to get used to the new sharpness in your hearing.” She knew all about how it took a bit of getting used to: Granny McCabe had driven them all mad when she got her first hearing aids in. She’d been unable to do anything in public for weeks while she got used to the sharpness.

  Mrs Davis, however, did not take Fiona’s remark in the spirit in which it was intended. She narrowed her eyes as if she’d just been mortally offended. “I’ll thank you to turn the volume down now, young lady. Or I’ll be forced to call the Gardaí.”

  “It is down,” Fiona murmured, shaking her head in disbelief. But there was no point in her even saying it: she was speaking to Mrs Davis’s stiff departing back.

  “Isn’t she a dear?” Louise Graham remarked to the man who had accompanied her into the bar a few moments before.

  Fiona had seen them around town together several times and assumed they were going out. She couldn’t for the life of her think of his name so she took their drinks order and then busied herself rearranging the crisps behind the bar once she’d given them their drinks.

  It was definitely a shortcoming for a bar owner, she concluded, to have such a terrible memory for names. She had resorted to tricks like repeating a person’s name in her head as she was introduced to them, but nothing she tried ever seemed to work.

  She focussed on tidying, her attention drifting in and out of their conversation. From the sounds of it, Louise was talking about her weight-lifting. She had tried to convince Fiona to join the little gym she trained at, but Fi had politely declined, fearing injury.

  “It was awful,” Louise was saying. “Kev was supposed to be spotting me when I was going for a squat PB. I don’t know what he was at. I ended up losing my balance and he wasn’t there to help with the bar. Now it feels like I’ve really strained my trapezius. I mean, this might rule me out of the nationals. He talks as if he’s really interested in the club, but he’s not pulling his weight.”

  “That’s terrible,” her companion said, shaking his head. “But you were lucky it wasn’t more serious. I’ll have a word with him if you want.”

  Fiona couldn’t help but wince. From the way Louise was sitting, it looked like she was in a good deal of pain, and the man with her didn’t consider that a serious injury? She hated to imagine what he might view as serious. Regardless, she was glad she’d declined Louise’s offer and decided to stick to running and working with lighter weights.

  “No,” Louise said, waving her hand. “I suppose the timing isn’t so bad what with me starting primary teaching in a few weeks.”

  “Even still. It’s not on. What about the others who train there?”

  A short while later, the door opened again. Fiona smiled at the sight of Mrs Roche, a good friend of her granny’s.

  “Brandy for you, Mrs Roche?”

  The old woman nodded. “Thanks, love.” Her face grew serious. “Terrible business about your poor mother.”

  Fi winced. Granny Coyle had sworn she wouldn’t mention a word about it to anyone. So how did Agnes Roche know about it?

  Mrs Roche eyed her cagily. “No offence. It’s all around town. I thought you’d know that—a small place like Ballycashel.”

  Fiona sighed and reached for a glass, pausing before she turned to the bottles. “Will Mrs Finnegan be joining you today?”

  “She will, she will. Better make it two.”

  Things got busy then and Fiona forgot all about the spectre hanging over her family. She chatted and served drinks, completely in her element. It was only when customers began to filter away that her thoughts returned to the problem at hand.

  Round and round the details of the case went in her head. It was odd in the extreme, even more so since they had all but caught Power red-handed. But hadn’t he been released?

  It was still only early. By rights, she should have kept the pub open until ten or eleven if she had any hope of making a proper go of it, but it was a quiet night.

  After another thirty minutes of boredom, she gave up and grabbed her jacket. She wouldn’t rest until she figured out what was going on, she knew. For a fleeting minute, she considered going to the Garda station and trying to butter up the sergeant, but she soon saw that plan for the desperate, deluded idea that it was.

  She decided instead that she’d go back to her parents’ house and see how everyone was coping. Secretly she hoped that the whole thing would have resolved itself; that the guards would realise they’d been handed the real murderer on a plate.

  14

  THAT WASN’T THE CASE, as she found out when she got back. She tried to pretend she was fine as she ate, but not even ten minutes after sitting on the couch in the sitting room, she could hold it in no longer.

  “It’s driving me mad.”

  Marty glanced at her before returning his gaze to the telly. “What, this? I’d say it was boring more than anything.”

  Fiona looked at the television. It had been on ever since she’d arrived at her parents’ house, but she’d been so worked up she hadn’t even noticed what was on it. She shook her head.

  “I�
�m not talking about Ireland’s Next Best Singer, you eejit,” she hissed, careful not to arouse their parents’ suspicions. “I’m talking about the case. Mrs Stanley’s murder. Isn’t it driving you mad?”

  “Hush, you two,” Mrs McCabe called from the other sofa. “They’re about to announce who won this week’s immunity challenge.”

  Fiona rolled her eyes, impatient to get out of there. It hadn’t been a good idea to call over, she realised. She needed something to take her mind off things, not time to stew over her problems. She should have gone for another run, she thought.

  “Yeah, I suppose,” Marty said finally. “It might explain why I put the vegetable seeds where the slug pellets should go earlier on. It’s weird, like. Someone obviously had it in for Mrs Stanley, but who? I know granny said she was sour, but she’s an old lady. Couldn’t hurt a fly. And Alan Power. What exactly was he doing over there? They’re not related, and I’ve never heard of him being involved with the elderly community. Come to think of it, I’ve never heard of him being involved with much of anything—he keeps himself to himself. And now he’s breaking into an old woman’s house?”

  “A murdered old woman’s house,” Fiona said with a shiver. “I know, right. It’s—”

  Their father let out an exaggerated sigh. “Ah here, for the love of God. If you’re going to natter all the way through it, you might as well go out to the kitchen and let the rest of us watch it in peace.”

  “He has a point. Come on,” Fiona said, standing and hurrying past the TV as quickly as she could. “We’ll chat out here.”

  “About time,” Francis McCabe groaned.

  “OH HEY, GRANNY,” Fiona said, going out to the kitchen. “Why are you sitting out here and not in there with the rest of them?”

  Rose Coyle sighed. “I can’t stand that singing programme. That’s what they’re watching, isn’t it? I could hear the stupid screams of them as I came up the path.”