“What is it?” Rose asked, seeming genuinely perplexed.
“Aren’t you starving? We haven’t eaten. You said…”
“Ah. I suppose I did. I got carried away with solving the case. We’ll eat soon.”
“I can’t wait.”
“But we’re going to your mother’s. She’ll feed us.”
“It’ll take us, what, ten minutes to get there. I’ll just grab a chicken fillet roll.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Rose said, taking her arm with surprising force. “What would your poor mother think if I let you eat aul deli food?”
“She’d thank you for not letting me starve?” Fiona said weakly.
The hunger had hit her suddenly, but now it was on her mind it wasn’t going away. Her stomach ached from emptiness and her hands were starting to shake from the lack of fuel.
“I need to eat something.”
“Come on so,” Rose said. “We’d better hurry up.”
FIONA WAS fit to collapse by the time they arrived at her parents’ house. Not only that, but hunger had segued into hanger, and she felt fit to bite the head off anyone that looked crooked at her.
At that moment, Marty was the poor unfortunate who was sitting in her path.
“Where were you when we needed you, hah?”
He looked up from a hearty plate of stew and mashed potato, clearly confused. “Mwaphmph?”
“Martin McCabe,” his mother barked, emerging from the kitchen. “I’ll thank you not to speak with your mouth full.”
“Sorry Mam, she surprised me.” He turned to Fiona and frowned. “I don’t know why you’re on your high horse. I was at work. Running the shop. We can’t all gallivant around the place all day.”
Guilt shot through Fiona, making her forget her hunger for a moment. “We’re trying to figure out who…” she trailed off, remembering her mother was in the room.
“Don’t mind him, love,” Rose said, shooting her a warning look. “Most of your trade is at night. Sure it was only silly opening during the day. You’re not a cafe, you’re a bar. And you.” She turned to Marty. “Don’t let her rise you. You know she gets like a demon when she’s hungry.”
“I do not!”
“Point proven.”
“Margaret, would you please get some food into this girl’s throat before she goes off the deep end. Please.”
Harmony was restored just a few minutes later, after Fiona had wolfed down an overflowing bowl of stew. She looked up to find her grandmother watching her intently.
“Are we feeling human again?”
Fi couldn’t help but smile. It was a running joke in the family that she would be fine one minute and then utterly famished the next. She had theorised that it was down to her having a fast metabolism—her sister Kate had soon disabused her of that notion, rolling her eyes and announcing that fast metabolisms and bingo wings rarely came in the same package.
“Much better, thanks. I hadn’t eaten for hours.”
“Right,” Rose announced, all business again. “Margaret, we need to ask you something.”
“What, Mammy. You sound very… serious.”
“It’s serious enough alright. Fiona tells me you have Facebook.”
Margaret McCabe looked confused for a moment before something seemed to dawn on her. “Yes, yes you’re right. Ben got it for me a while ago.”
“When’s the last time you signed in, Mam?”
Margaret shook her head. “I couldn’t tell you. Sure I went on and had a look, and to be honest it didn’t interest me in the slightest.”
“Can you show us your profile?” Granny Coyle asked authoritatively.
“My what now?”
“Your profile. Show us your Facebook.” There was a real impatience in Granny Coyle’s tone now, and Fiona didn’t like it one bit. She got the feeling there were things about the case they hadn’t told her and suspected that her mother was more at risk than Rose had let on.
“It’s on the computer. In there in Francis’s study.”
That was how they referred to the front room, which most people used as a dining room. Because the kitchen area was unusually vast and had two dining areas already, Francis had long ago seized the front room and called it his study. He only used it to read his newspaper and get away from his kids, but no-one had thought to try and reclaim it.
They all stood and trooped one-by-one out of the kitchen, along the hall. They came to a stop outside the closed door to the study.
“Go on then,” Rose said. “Don’t stand on ceremony.”
Margaret threw the door open and they came face-to-face with a sleeping Francis McCabe—his newspaper had fallen on the floor beside his chair.
“He’s like a big baby,” Rose mused, before making a beeline for the computer in the corner.
It was a big ancient thing; the same one as they’d had since Fiona was barely a teenager. Ben and Kate had repeatedly urged their father to upgrade, but that had only made him more resolved to hold onto the old machine—he reasoned that he’d never get a chance to use it if he got a new one that they could commandeer to play games on.
“Right,” Rose said, sitting in the chair and waiting as it booted up. “Let’s see what’s on here.”
It took a few minutes, but the beast eventually booted up. It took a couple of goes but they finally deduced that Margaret’s password was, in fact, ‘Margaret’, something that her mother was utterly disgusted by.
“Right,” Rose said, matter-of-factly. “This won’t take long.”
Margaret had ten friends in total, the sum of her efforts on that day Ben had set her up before she completely lost interest. She had fifty friend requests.
“The messages, Granny. Check the messages.”
There it was. A message from Pete Smith. Fiona held her breath as her granny clicked on it.
“Oh my.”
“What, what is it?”
Fiona turned and held out her hand. Margaret had busied herself dusting the bookshelves, but now she approached them, clearly curious about what was getting her mother and daughter so agitated. “It’s nothing, Mam. It’s fine.”
“I can tell from your tone that it’s anything but fine. Let me see.”
Fiona tried to stand in the way but it was hopeless. Her mother pushed past her towards the computer. Before she could see what was there, Granny Coyle switched off the monitor.
“It’s blank,” Margaret huffed. “Turn it back on.”
“I think it might have overheated,” Rose said. “Anyway, it was nothing.”
It took several minutes of back and forth before Margaret was satisfied there was nothing to worry about. When she finally left the room, Francis shook out his newspaper and tutted.
“Overheated me eye.”
Granny Coyle shot him a filthy look. “I didn’t see you doing anything to stop her. Anyway, it was a white lie. There’s no reason for her to see this and get herself all worked up over it. Mrs Stanley is gone now. There’s not an earthly thing she can do to your wife.”
“Not an earthly thing she could have done before either. Sure she was only a slip of a woman. Margaret’s not as easily upset as she makes out.”
Fiona glanced at her grandmother. “It wasn’t a physical threat she made against Mam.”
“What, did she challenge her to a knit-off or something?”
“You ought to take this seriously, Francis.”
He coughed. “I don’t take anything seriously if it’s found on that aul Facebook.”
“Well you’d be mistaken.”
It must have been the acid in his mother-in-law’s tone that made him sit upright and pay attention. A moment later, he was over beside them, turning the monitor back on.
Fiona’s stomach plummeted with revulsion when she saw the message—or, rather, the series of messages.
“Poison pen is an understatement here,” she whispered, reading it again. “I’d never have imagined Mrs Stanley was capable of such bile.”
<
br /> “Me neither,” Rose said. “And I’ve known her for longer than most of you have been alive.”
“Good God almighty,” Francis said when he’d finished reading. “It’s a lucky thing Margaret didn’t come across this. Anyone else wouldn’t pay much heed to such accusations, but she’d be outraged.”
That was the thing; there wasn’t just one accusation, but many. The first message started off politely enough; a ‘hi, how are you’ generic sort of message. But from then on, it got ugly.
Pete Smith began to set out Margaret’s transgressions. From failing to put money in the church collection envelopes to drinking gin in the daytime, it was a wide-ranging list complete with grainy pictures in some instances. Not only that, but they could all see it was designed to hit Margaret where it hurt: she prided herself on being a good member of the church, one who supported her local parish in any way she could.
It went on and on, finally getting to the real point. Pete Smith wanted five hundred euro to keep quiet. If Margaret didn’t give it to him, she’d find her transgressions broadcast on a flyer distributed around the church just in time for eleven o’clock mass on Sunday. She was to put the money in a change bag from the bank and leave it in the empty bucket just inside the gate of Fleming’s field.
It was a smart move on Mrs Stanley’s part, Fiona thought but dared not say aloud. Fleming’s field was close to her house, but there were several other houses in between. There was no way she could be linked to the messages unless someone was to catch her retrieving the money.
But that was the puzzling thing. Those messages had been sent two weeks before the murder, and Mrs McCabe’s good name hadn’t been destroyed around the parish.
In later messages, it became clear that Mrs Stanley was willing to keep reminding her prey rather than follow through on her threat. There was a new message every few days, urging Margaret to do the right thing soon before it was too late.
The last message—the one sent on the day Mrs Stanley was murdered—was the picture of Margaret from the parish website. The only accompanying text was ‘it’ll be a shame if they need to find a new member of the council. You know what to do.”
“Good God,” Francis said again. “Such malice. I’d hate to think what might have happened if she’d survived and Margaret continued to ignore the messages through no fault of her own. Can you imagine? We have to go to the guards.”
“No, Dad,” Fiona urged, clasping his arm. She’d thought the same thing at first, but having had time to reflect on it, she knew it might backfire.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“Well what’s Robocop going to think? He’s already intent on getting Mam for the murder. All this proves is she had even more of a motive than we already thought.”
“But she’s the victim. She hasn’t even responded or seen the messages!”
“I don’t know how we can prove that, though. For all Sergeant Brennan knows, she saw the messages, figured out who was behind them and then bided her time until she could get the threat out of her life—permanently.”
“That’s crazy.”
Fiona shook her head. “The whole thing is crazy. How could someone try and blackmail Mam like that, preying on the things she holds dearest to her? It’s obscene.”
The door flew open and Fiona gazed in horror at her mother’s triumphant expression.
“I knew it!” Margaret McCabe cried. “I knew ye were hiding something from me. I’m no fool.”
“We know you’re not, Mam. We were just trying to protect you, is all.”
“I don’t need protecting,” she insisted. “I brought you into this world. If anything, I’m the one who should be protecting you.”
“And I’d be glad of that if the situation was reversed. I really don’t think you should look at…”
It was too late. Margaret had pushed past them and was reading the messages that were still on the screen. Fiona watched in dismay as her mother’s face grew redder and redder. When she finally swivelled back to face them, her face was puce.
“That little witch! I’ve only ever been nice to her and she repays me like this! Setting up a fake name and everything. The gall of that woman!”
Granny Coyle went to her side. “Calm down, Margaret. She’s gone now. There’s nothing she can do to you.”
“Do to me? It’s what I’d do to her! I tell you, if she hadn’t already been murdered I’d do it myself! She deserved everything that came her way, I can tell you that! The cheek of her! It’s lies, absolute lies! As if she’d know how much I put in the envelope for the offertory collection. I’ll have you know I wouldn’t even consider putting in anything less than ten euro a week. That’s at a minimum! And the drinking! That was one time. I’d never usually take a drop until the evening, but to look at that picture you’d think I was an awful wino altogether. Oh, what would people have thought if she’d gone ahead and made her mean little fliers? I can’t even imagine…”
“There now, love,” Granny Coyle whispered. “It’s alright. You mustn’t get worked up. She’s gone now and it looks as if her wicked little messages are gone with her.”
22
“ALL THOSE PEOPLE THEN,” Fiona said, her breath coming out as a whistle. “I wonder what she had on them.”
Granny Coyle shook her head. “It’s not like she even had anything, is it? Margaret said it herself—those accusations were lies and twisted versions of the truth, but she must have counted on the fact that people would believe her claims regardless of whether they were true or not.”
“Remember that flyer about two months back? Someone stuck it to lampposts around the town about Jimmy Brady going behind everyone’s back and applying to have a wind turbine installed on his land when he’d been one of the most vocal protestors against them. I suppose we know who’s behind that now.”
“There was a message from Jimmy alright,” Fiona said, nodding. “From months back. He said he couldn’t afford it. To go easy—he was a hardworking man trying to get by.”
“I can’t remember any other nasty flyers being put up around the place.”
“Everyone else must have paid up.”
Francis sighed. “Or resorted to murder to keep Mrs Stanley quiet.”
Fiona shivered at the thought. Then she remembered something. “We should go have a look in the barrel at Fleming’s field. Just on the off-chance that somebody paid up—we could maybe tie it back to them.”
“It’s a long shot.”
“It’s the best we’ve got,” Granny Coyle agreed.
IT WAS INDEED A LONG SHOT. Anticipation had built up in Fiona by the time she and Ben got to the gate, about a twenty walk from their house. Part of her was expecting to find a wad of money with a clue that led them directly to another of Mrs Stanley’s victims.
There was nothing. They even climbed over the fence and searched around the bucket, hoping that one of the suspects had dropped something personal near the drop-off point.
“What did you expect?” Ben asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “A wad of cash and a business card?”
He had held back from getting involved in their investigation and had only agreed to accompany Fiona because his father had threatened to confiscate the PlayStation.
“No,” Fiona said, jamming her hands in the pockets of her jeans.
The truth was she had sort of been expecting something like that; a clear indication of what they needed to do next.
“Right, well there’s no reason to be disappointed then. Can we go? I came with you like Dad said. There’s no point in us standing around here in the cold.”
“It’s not cold. It’s only September.”
He rolled his eyes. “This is Ireland. It’s always cold.”
“Princess.”
“Miss Marple. Why can’t you find another hobby—one that isn’t an inconvenience to the rest of us?”
She sighed. “You think this is fun for me? I was curious to begin with, but it’s more about getting Mam�
�s name cleared for once and for all.”
“Cute. You’re such a humanitarian.”
“I am not,” she muttered, starting to walk back towards the gate. “Why are you so insufferable? I’d understand it if you were a teenager, but you’re too old to be behaving like…”
“Well go on,” he huffed. “Why stop now. Keep assassinating my character, why don’t you.”
But she’d stopped listening. Something had caught her eye in the long grass beside the gate. She moved over, cursing herself for losing sight of exactly where it was.
“Fi?”
“Give me a minute,” she whispered. “I thought I saw something.”
It took a few minutes of rummaging around in the still-damp grass—she was starting to think she’d dreamt it—but then she found it. It was a silver pin that glinted in the weak sunlight.
“What’s that?”
She held it up, frowning. “It’s a pin from the golf club.”
“Let me see.”
She handed it to him. Her mind was already working frantically as she tried to piece the puzzle together. What did it mean? Had one of the members of the golf club been targeted by Mrs Stanley or was Mrs Stanley a member herself? She had no idea.
“You haven’t had any dealings with the golf club, have you?”
Ben shot her a filthy look. “Of course not. Bunch of snooty aul lads if you ask me.”
She was momentarily stumped, until she realised she knew exactly who she could ask.
“THIS IS AN OLD ONE,” Francis McCabe said, holding the little badge at arm’s length and frowning as he scrutinised it. “Yeah, they changed to plastic a few years ago. I couldn’t tell you what year this is from.”
Francis had never been a member of the golf club, but he had hosted many of their functions when the clubhouse was being renovated. Donnie, the club’s president, had been a regular at McCabe’s and he and Francis were still on very friendly terms.
“What do you mean, what year?”
“See up here in the corner? These yokes always have the year in roman numerals. This one’s been pawed so much it’s rubbed off. The metal ones are much nicer. There was such a hullaballoo when the club made the decision to do plastic ones and save a bit of cash.”
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