“It sure is. I’m not a big fan of it either.”
“What were you watching it for then? What else would they have on at this time?”
“Ah, yeah.” She filled the kettle with water from the tap and shook her head. “Normally I’d take refuge in the flat when they’re watching it, but I couldn’t settle today. This case. Is it not driving you mad?”
“Not so much now that my daughter’s been cleared of any wrongdoing.”
“Has she, though? I thought they released her on the understanding that she had to stick around.”
There was definite annoyance in Granny Coyle’s voice now. “They don’t know what they’re at, those guards. It’s obvious it wasn’t Margaret. She’s all bark and no bite: a good sergeant would know that from living around her for as long as he has. It’s not like Ballycashel is a big place.”
“No,” Fiona said, dropping three cups to the table and returning for the milk. They were sitting at the smaller table in the kitchen, not the dining table they used for meals. Fiona preferred this one—it was cosier and there was something so homely and reassuring about the oilskin tablecloth with the cupcake pattern on it. It was probably older than Fiona herself.
“If you ask me, he should pay more heed to the people around here; the ones whose taxes pay his wages.”
“You won’t get any argument from us on that front,” Marty nodded, retrieving the biscuit tin from the sideboard.
“I hear ye did a bit of investigating,” Granny Coyle said, helping herself to a biscuit.
Fiona glanced at her older brother and shook her head. It wasn’t a gesture of surprise—more of resignation. She was beyond marvelling at their grandmother’s ability to know everything that was going on in the town, often before anyone else.
“Granny, you should be the sergeant around here. You certainly have your ear to the ground.”
She looked affronted. “Sure didn’t I work in the civil service for years? And you’d have me go out there again? Have I not earned the right to relax and enjoy the finer things in life, like a good creamy Guinness and the occasional trip to the pictures?”
“And an annual gallivant off to Lourdes.”
If Granny had appeared affronted before, she looked positively disgusted now. “How could you say such a thing? I’ll have you know that we were there on pilgrimage.”
Fiona rearranged her features into something resembling a straight face, but Marty couldn’t be saved. “Sure you were,” he said with a smirk.
Granny Coyle slammed the lid on the biscuit tin and pushed it away from her. It was a telling move for a woman with a sweet tooth as well-developed as hers. “First my daughter gets arrested. Then my own grandchildren spread salacious stories about me.” She sighed and shook her head.
“Ah come off it Granny,” Fiona said, opening the biscuit box again. “Mam gives us the hard-done-by treatment enough without you starting the same thing.”
There was a painful pause, during which Fi wondered if she’d gone too far. Then her grandmother’s features lightened and she grinned. “It was a hell of a time over in Lourdes. You should have seen the look on your brother’s face when he cottoned on to the fact that we weren’t just a bunch of aul fuddy duddies wanting to take baths in holy water.”
“I can imagine. He was still pretty shell-shocked when he told us.”
Fiona went to retrieve the teapot from the cooker. She placed it onto one of the cork tablemats with such force that it silenced the others and seemed to punctuate the conversation. She looked from one to the other, realising the significance of it and deciding to go with it.
“This thing’s been driving me mad, Granny. Marty’s the same. Who could have killed Mrs Stanley, do you think? I’m sure you know—we saw who broke into her house last night. It was Alan Power, but he’s been released without charge. He has an alibi apparently.”
They both watched Granny Coyle, as if they hoped she’d be the one who held the key to making sense of it all. Disappointment shot through Fi when the older woman pursed her lips a few minutes later and shook her head.
“I don’t know why you’re looking to me for answers. I don’t know the man at all.”
Fiona sighed and reached for the teapot, pouring them all a generous cup. “Nothing at all? You know everyone in town.”
“Everyone in town of a certain age, my love. He’s a recent enough transplant and he’s got no time for an old biddy like me.”
“You’re not an old biddy.”
“Well I know that and you know that, but we have to be realistic about these things. Anyway, it’s not just me. He’s never really had much time for anyone and he’s not well liked around the place at all.”
“What does he do?”
Granny Coyle shrugged. “Some computer business or other? I’m not sure. All I know is he commutes to Dublin every day and he doesn’t have time for anyone around here. Maureen Delaney’s son lives up there. I think he works for the same company.”
Fiona shook her head. Why would an IT professional be breaking into old women’s houses in the dark and then denying it when the guards came knocking on his door? “I wonder what his alibi was.”
Their grandmother took a huge swig of tea. “I expect he was at work at the time the poison was administered. They would have worked it back by now and figured out a time window for when it happened. It’s remarkable how much they can narrow these things down nowadays.”
They both stared at her open-mouthed. Marty was the first to be able to verbalise his astonishment. “How the hell do you know that? Have you been chatting up Garda Conway?”
“Marty! How can you say such a thing! She’s our grandmother.”
Granny Coyle threw her head back and laughed. “Ah, you don’t have to be affronted on my behalf, dearie. You know, it’s not far from the truth. Maybe I’ll have to go making fluttery eyes at Garda Conway, as Martin says. No, it’s amazing how much you’d pick up from watching the True Crime channel. Honest to God, it’s gruesome stuff at times but it’s fascinating.”
Fiona allowed this to sink in. Finally, she looked from her brother to their grandmother and back, a plan forming. “What do you both say to trying to solve this thing ourselves,” she said at last. “We’ve got nothing to lose.”
“I’m in,” Granny Coyle said without hesitation. “On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“That you don’t leave me out of any of the fun. If you’re going on a stakeout, I want to be informed. Got it?”
“Ah, but Granny, it was stupid of us. We could have got in serious trouble…”
“Is that a ‘no’, Martin?” Her voice was pure ice.
“Not at all, Granny. I just don’t want to get you in trouble—or worse.”
On hearing that, she became even more scornful. “Haven’t I been getting into trouble—or worse—since long before either of ye were even thought of? Never mind ye, since before your parents came on the scene! And you try to shelter me from trouble?”
“Never mind,” Marty muttered, no doubt wondering why he’d bothered. “Okay, I promise.”
“I promise too,” Fiona said with a grin. “Okay, so what do we know? I’ll go get a pen and paper. Marty, you make more tea. We’re going to need it.”
15
AS SOON AS she opened her eyes the next morning, Fiona rolled over and picked up the crumpled notepad from the bedside table. She blinked as she looked at her caffeine-induced scribbles from the night before.
In the cold light of day, their ‘findings’, as they’d dubbed them, seemed a lot less significant than they had the night before.
Granny didn’t know much about Alan Power, but she had had quite a bit to say about Mrs Stanley. Fiona had diligently written it all down, excited about the possibility of discovering something new. Now, with an objective eye, she saw there wasn’t much to go on. Certainly, there was nothing on the list that explained why the old woman had been murdered.
She sat up and stared at her messy hand
writing.
Granny Coyle had known Mrs Stanley since they were both newly-married young women. And she had always been wary of the woman.
Fiona had seized on this and waited, pen hovering to capture the details that would help them solve the case.
As it turned out, Granny Coyle had nothing concrete on her. It was more of a gut feeling. In fairness, Fiona had learned that her grandmother’s gut instincts were usually to be trusted, but she still couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed by the lack of hard evidence.
The list was hardly ground-breaking—it took up just one A4 page of lined notepaper, but when you looked more closely at it, that was more due to Fiona’s messy handwriting than anything. The core of it boiled down to this.
1. MRS STANLEY IS SHIFTY. Wouldn’t look at you in the shop or at mass. Would only speak to you if she wanted something.
2. She had huge internet bills according to Niamh from the post office, where she paid her bills each month. (Granny thinks it’s online poker, but probably Skyping her sister in America?)
3. Always went to bingo on the first Saturday of every month.
4. Kept herself to herself.
5. Very particular. Mrs Finnegan did a bit of cleaning for her years ago when she had the money but the arrangement only lasted a week. Mrs Stanley complained that the place wasn’t clean enough.
ON AND ON IT WENT. Several snippets of information, all useless.
Except, something was niggling at the back of Fiona’s mind. Something on the list should have jumped out at her, she felt, but it wasn’t doing so.
“What is it I’m not seeing?”
She threw off the duvet and jumped out of bed, feeling around on the floor with her feet for her slippers. It was still reasonably warm outside, but the polished floorboards were cold underfoot. She shook her head, telling herself not to get distracted by unimportant things.
She got downstairs and turned on the coffee machine, before wandering into the bar kitchen to see what she could eat. There was nothing upstairs, save for the remnants of a round of camembert and some broken crackers, and she didn’t feel like that. What she really wanted, she thought suddenly, was a big proper breakfast. She looked around in the cupboards, certain she could piece it together but in a roundabout way. She had the black pudding for the salads; Turkish bread and the spicy mixed beans she used to garnish some of the dishes on the menu. And she had plenty of eggs as always. It wasn’t perfect, but it would at least resemble a full Irish breakfast. It seemed like a waste to go to all that effort just for one person, but she was too tired to go all the way to her parents’ house and besides, her mother was trying to cut down on saturated fats, so it was more likely to be porridge on the menu rather than bacon and eggs.
She froze. Wasn’t that what they’d found at Mrs Stanley’s house? They’d found traces of poison in the half-eaten fry on the table.
She returned the black pudding to the fridge and decided she’d settle for porridge. Her appetite was suddenly gone.
Fi sat at the bar nursing her coffee. After a few sips, it finally struck her. She had a dull memory of hearing her granny tell some story about Mrs Roche never missing the bingo.
Maybe she knows something about Mrs Stanley that we don’t.
She pulled out her phone to call Rose.
“Yeah, Agnes is mad for the bingo.”
“Can we chat to her? If she goes all the time and Mrs Stanley did too…?”
“Hold on a minute, love.” There was a strange muffled sound, as if she had covered the phone with her hand and was talking to someone in the background. “Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. I suppose I can say it to her.”
Fiona frowned. Her granny was known for her nocturnal habits, and she was seldom seen out and about before midday, except on Sundays when she went to eleven o’clock mass and it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. “Where are you?”
Granny Coyle laughed. “None of your concern.” That muffled sound again. Fiona thought she could hear a man’s voice and she just about made out the word ‘Conway’.
“Granny! Where are you? Is there a man there with you?”
“Ah, Fiona you’re awful provincial. I’m disappointed to see that.”
“I’m not at all,” Fi protested. “I just want to know why I heard a man’s voice when my grandmother lives alone and usually doesn’t get up this early.”
“Maybe I got myself a toyboy?”
Fiona cringed. She did not want to think about such things, not even if it gave her over-worked mind a break from thinking about the case. “Really? I’m sure I heard you speak to Garda Conway. He’s hardly a toyboy.”
“I have to go,” Rose Coyle announced. “I’ve got work to do.”
Fiona stared at her phone, uncomprehending. It was the first she’d heard of it, and hadn’t Granny Coyle just chastised Marty the day before for having the cheek to suggest she go and get a job?
“I don’t know,” she muttered, at a loss now. “I suppose I should open the pub.”
She’d been slack in recent days, especially since her mother’s arrest. The funny thing was, though, staying closed in the mornings had barely impacted her takings. At least, that was her suspicion. She realised with a sinking feeling that it had been at least two weeks if not more since she had actually taken the time to sit down and look at her books. Everything was automated through online bookkeeping software, but what good was that when you didn’t even look at the charts they provided?
She looked around, suddenly fiercely protective of her little bar and all the time she had put into making it her own.
With all thoughts of the case forgotten, she took her coffee and hurried upstairs to her laptop.
FI WAS SO deep into her spreadsheets and calculations that it took a while for her to notice the noise; a sound that appeared to be coming from right outside her window. Frowning, she closed her laptop and went to the window, pen still in hand from furiously scribbling notes.
The sound got louder as she moved. She realised with a start that there was somebody banging on the door of the pub.
Alarm shot through her. She’d had her phone with her the whole time—if it was somebody she knew, they would have just called her instead of banging loud enough to disturb the whole street.
“That’s not knocking,” she muttered. “It’s disturbing the peace. I should call Robocop, see how he feels about it.”
The thought crossed her mind that it was in some way related to the case; that it might be the real murderer coming to exact revenge, but she was so curious that she put all caution. Besides, she was all the way upstairs and hadn’t Marty replaced the locks after the last murder in Ballycashel.
She shivered. The last murder. What was going on? It was supposed to be a sleepy little town in the middle of Ireland, not somewhere that murders happened.
She could not reflect on that disturbing thought for very long because someone was still banging on the door and it sounded like they were getting even more impatient. She feared it would give her a headache if she let it continue—or worse, that it might draw Mrs Davis out to complain. She reached up and unlocked the sash window, pulling it up enough to let her lean out. Whoever it was was blocked by the little canopy above the pub door.
“Who is it? Did it cross your mind that we’re closed and there’s nobody in there to open it for you?” she yelled, before she could stop herself.
What if it was a customer or a supplier? Fiona cringed. She still hadn’t mastered the art of being pleasant, no matter how hard she tried. It just wasn’t instinctive. She waited at the window, hoping to God it wasn’t a pub critic from the Saturn or the Times, about to shatter her already-shaky dreams of self-employment.
A grey head appeared from under the awning. Fiona had to blink to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.
“Granny, what on earth are you doing? I thought it was a grown man down there with the force of that banging.”
Granny Coyle looked far from pleased. “Well sure what was
I supposed to do? You wouldn’t open the door and you weren’t at your mammy’s so I knew well you must be here.”
Fi rolled her eyes. “Oh come on. Does nobody think I have any kind of a life at all? There are loads of places I might have been.”
Rose didn’t respond to that, but her expression said it all.
“What is it? What has you banging on my door like a woman possessed?”
“Get down here and let me in and I’ll tell you. And put on that kettle. I’m dying for a cup of tea. The tea at the station tastes like dishwater, I’m telling you.”
“The station?” Fiona shook her head. “What station were you at? They don’t even have a cafe at the train station, isn’t that why I thought it was a great idea to start doing coffees in the morning?”
“A fat lot of good that did for you.”
Fi cringed. “What do you mean by that?” She’d had her suspicions, which she’d just confirmed by taking a close look at her takings versus the hours she’d been open in the past two weeks. Opening in the morning hadn’t made a blind bit of difference to her profit levels once she factored in her time, not even at half the minimum wage. She hadn’t told anyone about that yet; nor did she intend to.
“Sure isn’t it obvious. Anyway, this isn’t the time or the place for it. I’ll tell you once you come down here and let me in. What’s it going to look like—an old woman on your doorstep, starving for a little drop of tea?”
Fi hurried downstairs to open the door before anyone overheard and accused her of elder abuse.
16
“ABOUT TIME.”
“The door was locked, Granny. What do you expect me to do, leave it wide open when I’m upstairs? It’s not the eighteen hundreds, or whatever century you were born in.”
“Oh, you cheeky madam. And I after putting myself out to find out more about Mrs Stanley’s murder for you.” She breezed past Fi into the bar. “I’ve a good mind not to tell you what I found out.”
“Chance’d be a fine thing,” Fiona muttered under her breath.
Full Irish Murder Page 7
