by Mary Malone
To test his theory further, he pushed it back and they listened as it banged against the jamb.
Jess nodded her head. “Definitely similar,” she confirmed.
“Mystery solved then,” Henry said, pulling it closed one last time and ensuring it clasped into place.
Turning to leave by the back gate once more, she swallowed nervously, her concerns returning with a vengeance. Living next door to a vacant house was one thing but an unlocked empty house was an even scarier prospect. She knew she wouldn’t relax, would jump at every sound and imagine all sorts in the still of night. Her mind went into overdrive in the early hours, playing its cruellest tricks.
“Henry, I’ll have to report it and get it sorted as soon as possible. Otherwise I’ll turn into a nervous wreck.”
“Report it to the Gardaí?” Henry quizzed.
“Polly left me the number of her solicitor in case of an emergency. I can give her a call and let her pass on the message to the family.”
He let out a heavy sigh, wishing he could do more to protect Jess and Greg. But relations between her and Pru were tense and mediating wasn’t Henry’s strong point – he preferred to sidestep the issue wherever possible. Pru would undoubtedly turn this latest event into an opportunity to manipulate his sister and take advantage of her vulnerability. She’d droned on and on as they’d driven to Pier Road, barking abuse at him when she realised he wasn’t listening.
“Henry! I’ll call the solicitor then?” Jess was still waiting for an answer.
“That makes sense, I suppose. You go back inside and I’ll give a quick check around the front,” he said, watching his sister anxiously as she returned to Number 4. She’d been through a tough time. He’d hoped the funeral would bring an end to her anxiety but seeing her on edge again this evening, he wasn’t very confident.
“Where’s Henry? And what on earth’s going on?” Pru demanded as soon as Jess stepped inside. “Why can’t you take my advice and –”
“Mummy!”
A sleepy Greg appeared in the kitchen, rubbing his eyes and raising his arms to his mother.
“Shh, sweetheart,” Jess soothed her son, lifting him up and inhaling his warm scent.
Unimpressed at being ignored, Pru persisted. “Is all in order next door or were we dragged here on a fool’s errand? You should move –”
“The back door was left unlocked,” Jess interrupted, tightening her hold on a confused Greg. He wasn’t accustomed to seeing his aunt twice in one year, never mind twice in one day!
“And?”
“And the wind caused it to bang,” Henry answered his wife’s question, entering the house and rubbing his hands together to instil some heat into his body. “It’s bitter out there. Is it okay if I make a coffee before we leave, Jess?”
“Help yourself,” she replied, balancing Greg on her hip and going to make her phone call. She winced as Pru’s cackling laughter and unkind words followed her into the hallway. God damn her, she’s sneering at me, Jess thought, taking a slip of paper from the hall table and punching the numbers into the handset, cursing when the connection went straight to voicemail.
“I’d like to leave a message about Number 5 Pier Road,” she began, choosing her words carefully so as not to trivialise her report. She needed to be sure it was taken seriously, needed to bring months of sleepless nights to an end.
Kieran lay on his side, naked, his tan emphasised by the multi-coloured globe light rotating slowly overhead. Mellow and satisfied, he wasn’t in any great rush anywhere, yet respected his companion enough not to take anything for granted.
“Care to go for that drink now, Amy?” he suggested, his finger trailing inside her thigh, his eyes taking in the contours of her face. She was arrestingly beautiful, even with smudged mascara and unkempt hair.
Amy slowly opened her eyes and sat up on the couch beside him, reaching to the floor to retrieve her discarded clothing. Leaving her white lace bra aside, she slipped her arms into her shirt, fastening the tiny pearl buttons with precision and tantalising Kieran deliberately as she strained the light material across her pert breasts, her nipples erect and protruding. Pulling her pencil skirt along her calves, she wiggled and writhed and raised her bum from the couch until it fitted perfectly over her slim hips, leaning forward to allow Kieran zip it closed for her.
The magnetic charge lingering between them intensified once more, her intentional teasing having the desired effect. He undid some of the buttons she’d just tied on her shirt, his fingers clumsy and demanding. Dropping his face to her breasts, he sucked on one nipple, then the other, his hand reaching under her skirt, his desire more profound now she’d deliberately left off her underwear. She was a tease. And he loved it. He was an experienced lover. And she was savouring his every touch.
As their climax approached its peak, his phone shrilled to life, its irritating tone breaking the spell between them and making it difficult to concentrate.
“Damn thing,” he muttered in annoyance, reaching out an arm to the nearby coffee table and pressing blindly at buttons to silence it, infuriated when it recommenced its incessant ringing a moment later, succeeding eventually in deflating the mood.
“Just answer the damn thing,” she whispered in his ear, biting on his lobe.
He grabbed the phone and barked “Hello!” His longing intensified as Amy’s tongue explored his body, his desire increasing with every second.
“Olivia who . . .?” He pulled himself into an upright position. “Oh, that Olivia!” He glanced at Amy, shrugging his shoulders in confusion.
Her eyes widened, her arms crossing her body. She chewed on her lower lip, a very different action from the seductive nibbling on his earlobe a moment before.
Reading her mind, he shook his head and grabbed her hand in reassurance. The call had nothing to do with Amy seducing a Fitzgerald & Partners’ client.
“I see,” he said into the phone, his expression grave. “Right. Thanks. I suppose I should get down there.”
As he disconnected the call, he noticed another missed call – this one from his father. He’d been ignoring his calls, his tryst with Amy giving him the distraction he needed to stop thinking for a few hours. I’d better let the folks know what went on, he thought, and gave Amy’s hand another reassuring squeeze before reaching for his clothes.
“How come Olivia’s making calls at this hour?” he asked. “Is she ever off duty?”
Amy shook her head. “Seldom. The other partners think she’s a workaholic. She takes files home, transfers her office line to her mobile, is always in work mode. I take it there’s something up?”
“You know the house I’ve inherited?”
Amy nodded.
“Olivia received a message from some neighbour about an unlocked door and some disturbance that needs to be checked out,” he explained.
Regardless of the decision he had yet to make, he was filled with a sense that Number 5 Pier Road was reaching out to him in its own peculiar way and decided it was time to answer that call. The thoughts of unwanted intruders rifling through Polly’s belongings was disconcerting.
“Olivia wasn’t too alarmist but I should probably check it out.”
“I suppose,” a disappointed Amy agreed, tying her shirt buttons once more as he got to his feet and began to dress.
Kieran was thinking of Aunt Polly. With her six feet under the ground, he was next in line for responsibility – at least until he waived all rights to the property. And regardless of his head continuing to argue in favour of a long-distance ticket away from the country he grew up in, his compassion and love for his aunt was nestling itself into every rational argument he could think of.
Giving Amy a hurried apology and one final lingering kiss, he left her apartment with even more haste than he’d entered it, fuelled by a different hunger and passion, one that might not be sated with the same enjoyable indulgence but needed to be addressed all the same.
Chapter 6
“Mum, can I
have another drink? My throat hurts.”
Jess opened her arms wide and pulled her son into a bear hug. She’d taken him up to his room and changed him into his pyjamas as soon as Henry and Pru left. Tucking him into bed, she’d read him two stories but he still hadn’t fallen asleep and this was his second trip downstairs on the pretence of being thirsty.
“Milk?” she offered.
He pulled from her embrace and tilted his head, his dark eyes appealing. “Coke?”
Though it was difficult to say no to that pleading expression of his (he had it perfected to a fine art and knew exactly how to wangle his own way from his guilt-ridden mother), Jess didn’t relish a sleepless night with Greg bouncing from room to room and full of artificial energy. And particularly not tonight when she craved hours of oblivion that would block out the crazy thoughts careering inside her head.
“Juice?” she offered as a compromise, arching an eyebrow.
“Mum, please? Just today? A small drop? Please?” His lower lip protruded.
Too weary to argue, Jess went to the larder press and took out a half-full Coke bottle. She tipped a tiny measure into Greg’s glass, diluting it with a generous amount of red lemonade, hoping it would reduce the caffeine effects. She watched the liquids blend, reminded of the nightcap her mother had insisted on having every evening at nine o’clock. There was hell to pay if either the shot or the mineral weren’t to her exact liking!
Greg tugged at her cardigan. “Mum! I’m thirsty!”
She placed his drink on the table and watched his chubby hands encircle the glass before he took a noisy gulp. “Small sips,” she advised gently, ruffling his hair and vowing to get him into a proper routine for the first time in his five years. It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried in the past. But her son’s bedtime, diet and school attendance – like a lot of other things in her life – had been outside her full control. Uninvited and unwelcome interference had challenged every decision, Jess crumbling under intense pressure, her opinion obliterated.
Chapter 7
Grateful he’d accepted his father’s offer of his Mercedes to travel to the city that afternoon, Kieran made the sixty-mile trip to Schull, happy to leave the traffic lights behind in favour of the quiet roads of West Cork. Passing through Ballydehob he careered beyond the turn-off to his parents’ home, delaying the inevitable barrage of questions they’d undoubtedly launch about the reading of the will. Instead he sent a hurried text to his father.
Polly left me number 5. Have to stay there a year. Tk ltr.
That’ll give him and Mum something to mull over for a while, he thought, unable to resist a smile as he tossed his phone onto the passenger seat. He loved his parents. Of course he did. It went without saying. But they had never – and probably would never – understand or accept that he wasn’t one for following what was, in their eyes at least, considered conventional.
Parking on the quiet road right outside the house, he stepped out of the car and jumped in shock as an overfed marmalade cat shot right past him, glancing against his leg and hissing in annoyance. His escape to freedom reminded Kieran of himself and his face broke into a wry smile. In a way, he’d been doing something similar for the last ten years, only his leaps involved continents and not doorsteps. Hearing the cat crooning in annoyance across the road, he realised another difference. The tabby had obviously marked his territory, with clear intention to return as soon as the coast was clear. Kieran, on the other hand, had never been one to look back, the attraction of the route ahead focusing his desire on new and exciting adventures, keeping him moving in one direction only – forward.
The road was quiet, little activity around, lights on in most of the houses around him, making him wonder who lived there now. He unlocked the front door of Number 5 Pier Road with the keys he’d received from Olivia. Flicking the switch in the hallway, the house remained in darkness. Nothing, not even a fizz from the bulb. Dead as a doornail – just like Aunt Polly, he thought, a lump sticking in his throat as he passed by the sitting room and walked straight to the kitchen, the room where he and his aunt had savoured numerous meals while she’d invariably made him laugh with one of her many tales. ‘An ease to her pain’ was how her expected death had been described. So many times he’d heard it whispered at the funeral, every reminder making him flinch inside, the description so unlike the vibrant aunt he’d adored.
Trying the switch in the kitchen, he smiled when the fluorescent light flickered to life and cast its light into the narrow hallway, outlining the framed family photos, holy pictures and Polly’s treasured holy-water font.
But even if there had been complete darkness, Kieran would have had little difficulty in finding his way around the familiar geography of the house he’d escaped to on every possible occasion, a sanctuary in comparison to the tension of home. Accustomed to creeping in at all hours of the morning, way past his curfew and unknown – or so he’d believed – to his sleeping aunt, the teenage Kieran had perfected late homecomings, never once mistaking his step or causing the squeaking fifth stair to screech. And now, with the intervening years falling away, it felt like only yesterday since his last visit, the scent of lavender the only thing missing to complete the memory. Her favourite perfume, Polly had often been guilty of overkill, lining drawers with scented paper and filling glass bowls with an abundance of potpourri! He couldn’t say he’d appreciated it while it was there but he missed it now it was gone.
Walking back down the hallway, he dipped his finger into the holy-water font. It was dry, a first that he could recall, obviously after evaporating in her absence.
“Stay safe on those surfboards,” Polly had instructed every time he’d left the house, dipping her finger in the font and sprinkling water after him as he’d rushed out the door to meet his friends.
The years he’d been absent from Aunt Polly’s life nagged at his conscience. Staying away hadn’t been deliberate, merely a natural fallout from his wandering. One year turned into two, one destination leading him to another, regular letters diminishing to birthday and Christmas cards, his carefree lifestyle seldom lending itself to wasting (as he’d considered it then) cash on a trip home. He didn’t see the point in beating himself up about it now. But he did regret ignoring his sister Beth’s words when she’d emailed him the news that the doctors didn’t expect Aunt Polly to survive pneumonia. He had missed out on the chance to say goodbye and had nobody to blame but himself.
He’d presumed Beth was overreacting – nothing unusual with his dramatic younger sister Beth. Baby of the family, she’d always been prone to exaggeration, sailing through life with her head firmly in the sand – or the clouds – depending on which way you looked at the situation.
Shaking off the memory, Kieran put the door key in his pocket and made his way through to the kitchen once more, struck by the room’s iciness. But the house lying vacant for the last while wasn’t the only reason for the chilled room. Polly had constantly complained.
“Even with the oven and the gas fire on, this kitchen would freeze your butt off! Years ago I should have swapped the rooms around and put the kitchen out front. Those houses on the far side don’t know how lucky they are with sunny kitchens!”
But despite her complaints, he couldn’t recall a time he’d ever felt cold there and, thinking about it now, he realised how much he had taken her warm welcome and cosy home for granted, never considering that a day would come when her smile wouldn’t greet him when he arrived.
Used to the privacy his parents lived in, Kieran had teased her incessantly, accusing her of nosiness as she whiled away the days watching folk coming and going to and from the pier. Her deck chair was a permanent feature outside the front door, faded from the sun but put outside each year as soon as the first rays of sunshine peeped through the clouds. Little went unnoticed by Polly’s sharp eye and attentive ear: the developments on the pier, the introduction of the sailing school, blossoming romances and collapsing relationships.
Moving into Number
5 Pier Road as a bride, she’d watched Schull grow, evolving from a sleepy fishing village to a thriving coastal town. Fishermen cast their nets before dawn, seldom returning before dark and often working through the night when the yield was high. She, like many other wives, watched through the window with bated breath, beseeching and making silent deals with the ocean to return their men. Schull was Polly’s town, her home, a home she generously shared with her young nephew, turning it into one of the happiest and most memorable periods in Kieran Dulhooly’s life.
Flicking on the outside light – surprised when it actually worked and brought the garden to life – he tried the handle of the door, unsurprised after the solicitor’s call to find it unlocked. His eyes adjusting to the light, he took in the unruly condition of the garden, gasping in disgust at the mess. Overgrown shrubbery, unkempt grass, litter on the path and that was as much as he could make out. He guessed daylight would tell a worse tale. He cursed under his breath. A sense of protectiveness sprang into being. He could imagine Polly’s reaction if she could see how dishevelled the place had become. She’d taken pride in her gardening efforts and each year experimented with new bulbs, adding them into the border that ran the length of the footpath leading from the back door. She seldom paid heed to what she was setting and was excited by the surprise when they burst into life, bringing colour to what she termed her “patch of paradise”.
Kieran’s instincts took over, his desire to get the place restored to his aunt’s standards overpowering. Regardless of any personal decisions he’d make, he’d ensure her attachment to her home wouldn’t be forgotten. Why hadn’t his father come to tidy it? He couldn’t understand why he left Number 5 become so neglected. Aunt Polly had only been in the nursing home a few weeks. The place had obviously been neglected even before that, particularly if her mobility had failed like Olivia had described. The impression he’d been given was that they were forever around checking on Polly. Hell, he’d been made to feel like a heel for staying away for so long but he was beginning to wonder now whether the others had been much more attentive even though they lived a few short miles away – apart from Charlotte in Canada, of course.