“Wait a minute,” Ben blurted. “Louise Graham as in the woman from the gym?”
They all turned to look at him.
“There’s only one Louise Graham that I know in town. So yes.”
“I was only asking. I know her. I’ve been to that gym a few times.”
“If you’d seen these pictures at all,” Power said suspiciously. “You wouldn’t be asking if it was your woman from the gym. These were the kind of snaps you’d seen in a men’s magazine.”
“We didn’t look at all the pictures in detail,” Fiona whispered. “Out of respect for the poor people in them.”
“Then you can’t have—”
“Go on.”
Powers coloured. “Nothing.”
“Oh don’t worry, love,” Rose chimed in. “We looked at yours accidentally. Now there’s an image I can’t get out of my mind.”
Fiona glared at her, hoping her grandmother hadn’t gone too far. The sight of Power’s face made her relieved. Granny Coyle had obviously hit close to the truth.
Fiona cleared her throat, thinking it best to keep the pressure on in case Power had time to grow suspicious again. “So that’s all the women?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Yeah. So?”
Fiona and her grandmother exchanged glances.
“Could be an older version of the files,” Granny Coyle muttered.
“That’s true,” Fiona said. “I wonder if it’s the same for the men.”
“Sure didn’t I tell you it was a woman?”
“Humour us,” Francis said, flashing him a smile that seemed full of warmth and friendliness.
“Fine. Alright,” Power said. He looked exhausted by now and Fiona knew they wouldn’t get much more out of him.
He started to list the men she’d seen messages from in Mrs Stanley’s secret email account. There was one surprise addition: it turned out that Mrs Stanley had been trying to blackmail Gerry Reynolds for taking part in a robbery.
Francis rolled his eyes. “I bet she didn’t get very far with that. If anything, he’s the kind of lunatic who’d get off on having the town know about his crimes.”
Power ignored him. He was speaking faster now, as if the faster he went, the sooner he’d be rid of them.
Fiona had stopped listening. She was thinking about what Power had said about the female suspects. That changed when she heard Bernard Boyle’s name.
“There was a load of pictures of him. No name but I recognised him straight away. He’s the secretary of the golf club. And oh my. Do you know, if I hadn’t seen that woman there with my own eyes, I’d have put money on him being behind the murder. And I’m not a betting man, let me tell you. No, those pictures.” His eyes narrowed. “But I’m sure you know all this. Do we really need to go to the trouble of—”
“Yes,” Fiona snapped. “We do. It’s important to know if there’s anyone we missed.”
“Really? You intend to blackmail Bernard Boyle? Really?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
Power leaned back, shaking his head. “Then I sincerely doubt that you saw the pictures I’ve seen. I don’t know why I’m even telling you this. I should let you carry on.”
“Maybe you should.”
“Foolhardy. Well, I don’t think you’d be so brave if you’d come across the picture of Boyle over in the golf course handing a nice little brown envelope to the Garda sergeant. Would you?”
This time, none of them could hide their surprise.
“A brown envelope?”
Power nodded, smug at catching them out on their ignorance. “Didn’t see that one, did you?”
“Maybe not,” Francis muttered, eyes locked on his mother-in-law’s. “But that doesn’t help you out here.”
All of a sudden, Fiona couldn’t take it anymore. She had learnt enough. They had narrowed down their list of suspects and it was now crystal clear why Sergeant Brennan had chosen to ignore the matter of the stolen computer.
There was no sense in drawing it out any longer. They had all the information they needed. It was just a pity that she had no idea at all how to put it to good use.
“Come on,” she said, standing up. “He’s not going to tell us anything useful. Look at him. He’s terrified. Come on. Let’s go.”
“So that’s it?” Power, looking resentfully at Granny Coyle.
She nodded. “More or less.”
“How do I know that for sure? I need confirmation.”
Granny Coyle looked at Fiona, who could tell what she was thinking. While they could have put him out of his misery right there and then, it made little sense to do so when they might need him to cooperate down the line. If it was anybody else, Fiona might have felt guilty for causing him worry, but this was Alan Power. He was already up there with Robocop on her list of most-despised people in Ballycashel.
And that was something else too. She had always suspected Robocop had gotten where he was from his father’s connections, but that was a whole different ballgame to out-and-out corruption. If Alan Power was telling the truth, then Brennan was taking backhanders.
She shook her head. It was all too much to take in.
“We’ll be in touch,” she told Power, before turning and heading to the door.
30
“WHAT AN OBNOXIOUS LITTLE TWIT,” Francis muttered as they let themselves out the gate and onto the footpath.
Fiona shrugged. He certainly got his comeuppance in there, that’s for sure. I almost felt sorry for the guy.”
“I didn’t,” Margaret sniffed. “He’s very full of himself. Thinks he’s God’s gift.”
Any further discussion ended when Colm and Enda rolled up in Marty’s station wagon.
“How’d it go? I have to say, ye were in there so long I was worried. I almost called the guards.”
The others looked at each other with very serious expressions. “It’s lucky you didn’t.”
Colm started to laugh. “I was exaggerating, obviously. Sure I knew you were blaggarding. Are you finished?”
Francis nodded curtly.
“Mam, Granny, do you need a lift?”
Margaret started to climb into the car but stopped when Granny Coyle shook her head.
“No thanks, lads. I think the walk will do us good. We’ve a lot to take in.”
“HE NEVER COPPED that we knew nothing,” Ben crowed, when they were a safe distance away from Power’s house and were sure of not being overheard.
“He came close. And we still don’t know what she had on him.”
“You’re both missing the point,” Fiona said, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter what she had on him. It was obviously something damaging enough that he couldn’t risk kicking us out of his house without telling us anything.”
“You’re right. I suppose we should be thankful.”
“Hmm.”
Nobody said much until they got home. As soon as they got in the door, Fiona started to feel restless again. It was as if there was something she wasn’t seeing in all of this. The irritating thing was, no matter how hard she thought about it, she couldn’t think of what it was.
“Come on, Fi,” Marty said, slapping her shoulder. “I’ll drop you home if you want. Mam says you did great in there.”
She sighed. “I suppose. Did she tell you what we learnt about Brennan?”
He nodded. “She did and all. I’m surprised. I never liked him, but I always thought he was straight-laced at the back of it all. It’s shocking—considering he’s supposed to be upholding the law and not breaking it. Do you believe Alan Power?”
She shrugged. “That’s the thing. We have no reason not to, I suppose. But he could be making it all up.”
Even as she said it, a little voice insisted that he wasn’t. Sadly, that little voice didn’t seem very keen on shedding any light as to why.
Finally, she made herself stop thinking about it. She was bone-tired, and the rest of her family were the same. What was the sense in drawing things out any l
onger when they could just reconvene and talk about it in the morning when they were rested?
She followed Colm and Marty to the door after saying goodnight to the others.
FIONA WOKE WITH A JOLT. She sat up with a gasp as a strange uneasy feeling shot through her. At first that alarmed her, but she soon realised it was the aftereffect of the dream she’d been having.
In it, a faceless woman had been chasing her through the streets of Ballycashel, trying to force a full breakfast on her. Fiona shook her head. She couldn’t for the life of her conjure up an image of the woman’s face. It was as if she was one of those people from the old cartoons: always slightly obscured or disjointed in some way.
She rubbed her eyes and reached over to the bedside table to retrieve her phone. She didn’t even bother wasting time writing down the details of the dream—it wasn’t as if its meaning was in any way cryptic after the day they’d had.
Fiona groaned. It was only half past three in the morning and by now she felt wide awake. Not only that, but she was thirsty. The water bottle on the bedside table was almost empty, not that she felt like more water. She’d been all but mainlining it in an attempt to increase her intake to the recommended eight glasses a day.
She had a sudden hankering for a cup of tea, even though she’d been trying hard to back.
“I don’t need it,” she muttered, immediately feeling like an addict for having to tell herself that. Out loud. In the middle of the night.
Her words had little effect. Before she knew it, she was throwing off the covers and padding out of the bedroom into her little combined kitchen-living room. She switched on the kettle, threw a teabag in a cup and pulled open the fridge.
“Oh for God’s sake,” she muttered.
There was so little milk left that the carton felt empty. She hadn’t noticed earlier—if she had she would have nipped down to the pub and borrowed a carton from the fridge there.
She looked around, rubbing her arms against the night-time chill. There was only one thing for it.
Sighing, she threw on a pair of runners and pulled a hoodie over her head. She debated bringing a hurley, but told herself it was time to stop that nonsense.
She would never admit it to anyone, but the place creeped her out in the middle of the night when it was all dark and devoid of people. She couldn’t explain it. It was like the ghosts of all those who used to drink there still sat on the stools, just beyond her realm of sight.
She supposed it was something to do with the building dating back two centuries. It had a history. And she couldn’t imagine that a pub, of all places, would have an uneventful history. Troubled souls and all that.
She rolled her eyes as she reached the ground floor. “You’ve too active an imagination, that’s your problem. It’s a pity you can’t put it to better use than getting scared about ghosts.”
She felt a bit more resolve after she’d given herself that pep talk, but it still didn’t stop her from pausing and making sure she’d switched on every single light in the place.
It was slightly less creepy when it was fully lit. Ah, it wasn’t creepy at all, she knew, it was just her mind playing tricks on her. If any of her family knew about her little fear, they’d no doubt have great fun sneaking into the place at night and banging a floor brush against the floorboards to try and scare her.
That’s why they’d never hear about it—not from her anyway.
She padded across the floor, focussing her mind on imagining the pub full of customers. She thought back to the previous week. It was funny—on their second and subsequent visits, people tended to gravitate to the same seats as they’d taken previously, even if the rest of the place was free. It was a funny trait she’d noticed.
The exception was Louise Graham, she thought. She was very hard to pin down. Sometimes she sat in the corner; other times she lingered at the bar chatting to anyone who’d listen to her stories about her weight-lifting.
Fiona froze, halfway between the door and the bar.
Weight-lifting.
Her heart started to race as she remembered the last conversation she’d overheard between Louise and her friend. The truth was she’d drowned most of it out. She’d never been very interested in people who tried to push their sport onto others, and that was something Louise tried to do everywhere she went. She’d even tried to get Margaret McCabe down to the gym to do a trial class. She’d given Fiona the hard sell once before Fi made it clear that she wouldn’t be joining under any circumstances.
That hadn’t stopped her talking incessantly about it in the pub.
Fi closed her eyes. What had they been saying? Then she remembered it.
Louise was giving out about one of her training partners. He’d done something wrong and as a result, Louise had twisted the wrong way as she dropped the bar awkwardly.
She’d then gone on to talk about the risk of injury saying it now looked like she’d have to stop exercising for a while until her muscle healed. She supposed it was good timing with her heading to teacher training college later in the month.
That was it! Fiona shook her head in disbelief at her own oversight. It was all so clear—why hadn’t she thought of it? Mrs Stanley must have somehow—God only knew how—found out about the naked pictures and figured she was onto something when she learnt that Louise wanted to train to be a teacher. If those pictures were as sordid as Alan Power had implied, they could ruin her career before it even started.
Fiona had forgotten all about the tea. She turned and started to run back to the door, cursing herself for leaving her phone upstairs. She wasn’t worried about the late hour—she knew that Granny Coyle would be mad at her if she didn’t call immediately to tell her the news.
“She’s not going to believe this,” she muttered, only pausing to pull the door closed after her.
“No, I don’t imagine so,” said a cold voice from behind her.
Fiona gasped, momentarily stunned from the shock. At first she thought it was her mind playing tricks again, but no. Unfortunately the man standing behind her was very real. And so was the knife in his hand.
31
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” she hissed when she had recovered her nerves enough to be able to speak.
As she said it, she backed away slowly, thinking if she was lucky and fast, she might be able to get up the stairs fast enough to slam the door behind her and lock it. There wasn’t enough time to close the door right behind her—to do so, she’d need to reach across and pull it in. He’d have no trouble catching her before she managed to get the door locked.
Her heart contracted with fear. She was assuming she’d be able to beat him up the stairs—but what if he caught up with her before she locked the door? She looked around for an alternative. Her phone was upstairs and the landline was all the way behind the bar.
He must have caught her glancing at it.
“Stop moving,” he barked. “And don’t even think about going for the phone. I disconnected it.”
“When?” she snapped, forgetting herself. “How long have you been in here?”
“Not long,” he sneered. “I wasn’t expecting you to come down here. You gave me quite a shock.”
She shivered at the implication of what might have happened if she hadn’t woken up; if there had been milk in the fridge and she’d just had her cup of tea and gone back to bed.
Then she steeled herself. She wasn’t going to show any fear in front of this eejit, even if he had a knife in his hand. It looked like a good one too—it was just typical. Why couldn’t he have the same cheap, half-blunt knives she had in her kitchen? That one looked not just expensive, but sharp. Still, despite the knife, Fiona appeared to have some sort of malfunctioning fight or flight response, where her body opted for the foolish third option: sarcasm.
“Sorry if I inconvenienced you, Alan. How rude of me.”
He pursed his lips. “I see you’ve given up the facade of being nice. It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care if you beg,
it’s not going to have any effect on me.”
“What are you going to do, kill me?” she said it with steel in her voice, but inside she was a puddle of fear. “It’s not like you have an alibi in Dublin this time. If anything happens to me, my family will figure it out straight away.”
She wasn’t confident of this, but it felt good to give the impression of holding a bargaining chip.
“I’m not going to kill you,” he muttered. “Now. I don’t like you standing there. I know you lot are sneaky. Give me your phone and get over there behind the bar where I can keep an eye on you.”
“I don’t have it. It’s upstairs—I was going to get it when you appeared like a ghoulish apparition.”
His face fell before rearranging into a sly grin she really didn’t like. “Really? You’re going to slag me off when I’m standing in front of you with a knife? Give me your phone.”
“I just told you. I don’t have it.”
“Where is it?”
She sighed. “On my bedside table I think. I’m not sure.”
“Right,” he said, shoving her forward roughly. “Show me your hands.”
She held them up.
“And pull up that jumper. It’s not hidden in the waistband of your shorts is it?”
She rolled her eyes. “You just surprised me. Why would I be wandering around in the middle of the night with my phone in my waistband?”
“You weren’t supposed to be wandering around at all!” he shrieked. “It wasn’t part of the plan.”
“Sorry. Maybe you should have told me the plan. We could have had a project meeting. Set the milestones for holding Fiona hostage while you rob her bar. I must warn you: I’ve feck all money in here. You’re welcome to it, but it’ll barely cover your train fare to Dublin.”
“I’m not here to rob you, you mouthy little monster. Go on. Over there. To the bar.”
He followed her behind the bar and glanced along the counter. “Right,” he said, after appraising the situation. “Put your hand there.”
He pointed to the brass rail that ran the length of the wooden counter. Fiona glanced around, seeing to her dismay that he hadn’t just pulled from the lead of the phone: he’d cut the wire with scissors. There goes my only lifeline to the outside world, she thought.
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