Peter drove first to Horan’s shop, pulled in outside. There were half a dozen ragged bouquets of flowers out the front in a stand. He chose the best of them, went inside. The shop took its name from Simon Horan, who’d been grey and stooped even when Peter was a child, and he still half expected to see the old man behind the counter. Instead it was staffed by a bored-looking teenage girl, seated on a stool, and watching a small TV that was behind the counter. Her hair was so matt black it must have been dyed, and she had smudged black eyeliner under each eye. She looked up when he came in.
‘Close the door, would you? Don’t let the heat out.’
He pulled it closed behind him, looked around at the overstocked shelves, the buckets and spades and colourful kids’ fishing nets left over from summer. ‘Have you tins of biscuits?’ he asked.
‘Back there,’ she said, pointing to the back of the shop. ‘We’ve the Christmas stock in so you’ve a choice.’
‘Thanks.’
He made his way through the narrow aisle, picked the biggest box of chocolate biscuits he could see, and returned to the counter. He put the flowers and the biscuit tin in front of the girl, waited for the inevitable comments and questions – the first thing you generally sacrificed in Roundstone was any expectation of privacy – but she was pleasantly uninterested in his purchases, rang them up without saying a thing, and Peter felt one tiny knot of tension release. He swiped his card, typed in his pin. The shop bell dinged as the door opened behind him, letting in a blast of cold air.
‘I’ll take twenty Benson, Sharon,’ said a familiar voice from behind him.
Peter turned and saw his father. Des was off duty and out of uniform. He didn’t look well. He’d been a handsome man in his youth, but you’d have to search hard to find a trace of it now. His beer gut strained his shirt, and he’d taken to belting his pants under his belly fat. That was a new development. How long had it been since he’d last seen his father? Two years? Three? Des was clean-shaven, but his skin looked painful, had that red flaky look that sometimes comes with heavy drinking.
‘Des,’ Peter said. He picked up his biscuits and flowers and made to leave. Des nodded at his purchases.
‘A girlfriend in town? Already? Fast mover. Like father, like son.’ Des winked at the girl behind the counter.
Revulsion and hatred swept over Peter, but he made damn sure that nothing showed on his face but blank disinterest. ‘These are for Maggie,’ he said.
Des snorted. ‘It’ll take a bit more than a few biscuits to please her up. When was the last time you bothered your arse coming out to see her? You make her drive in to Galway, don’t you? An old woman like that. I’d call that selfish, wouldn’t you, Sharon?’
Sharon was looking back and forth between them with sudden interest. She had clear blue eyes and an appetite for gossip after all, it seemed. Fucking Des. It could hardly be a coincidence that he’d walked into the shop a minute after Peter’s arrival. Some crony had spotted Peter’s arrival and alerted him. Or maybe Des had been keeping an eye out himself. That was more likely. How else could he have gotten there so quickly?
Sharon put the packet of cigarettes on the counter and Des reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a roll of cash, peeled off a twenty.
‘Where are you staying?’ Des asked. He flicked one finger at the flowers. ‘If you’re thinking of old Mags, that’s not an option. She already has a guest.’ He looked Peter up and down, took his time about it. ‘I’ve a spare bedroom. You’re welcome to it.’
No fucking way.
‘If Maggie can’t have me, I’ll stay in the hotel,’ Peter said. ‘I’ll see you at the station tomorrow morning.’ He left, feeling his father’s eyes on his back all the way to the car.
Maggie Robinson was Peter’s grandmother. His mother’s mother. She lived in a stone dormer cottage at the top of a steep hill a short drive from Horan’s. The cottage had two bedrooms, a comfortable kitchen and living room and a breathtaking view over the village and the sea beyond. Maggie had lived there alone for as long as Peter could remember, except for the few months before his mother’s death when Peter and his mother had moved in. When Peter’s mother’s cancer had been deemed incurable, she had finally left Des and returned home to Maggie, bringing Peter with her. Des had had no objection. Peter remembered those last months as peaceful, mostly, with moments of happiness, even as the axe of her illness hung over their heads. When she’d died, Des had insisted on organising the funeral, and he’d adopted the role of chief mourner. Peter had been eight, and the hypocrisy had been more than he could stomach, but there was nothing at all he could do about it. Three weeks after his mother’s death, Des had shown up at Maggie’s house and informed Peter that he would be attending boarding school. Maggie had argued against it as best she could but of course she had no power to prevent his removal. And so Des had dragged Peter off, dumped him in the school, and that was that. Des paid the fees and considered the box of fatherhood and responsibility well and truly ticked.
Peter drove up the hill, then turned into the cottage, pulling in over the cattle grid. Everything looked the same. The cottage had a bit of land around it, but it would have been generous to call it a garden. Maggie’s skills and interest didn’t lie in that direction, so there wasn’t much in it but a bit of grass, usually in need of a cut, and a few hardy shrubs and bushes. Today everything looked more or less as he’d expected. The grass was a bit neater than usual, but still scrubby, the way it got out here with the heavy rain and the high, salt-laden winds. The whitewash on the cottage was clean and bright, and – here was something new – Maggie had window boxes now, planted with trailing ivies and some sort of purple-and-white flower that could obviously handle a Roundstone winter. Peter got out of the car, gathered up the biscuit tin and flowers. He went to the back door, knocked.
‘Mags, you home?’
No answer, so he tried the handle. It was unlocked. He pushed the door open and it stuck a little, the frame warped from years of bad weather.
‘Mags?’ he called again. He found her in the kitchen, sleeping in an armchair that had been pushed in close to the Aga, a blanket tucked across her lap. It was a most un-Maggie-like position. Maggie was a bustler. She liked to keep busy.
Peter put the biscuits and flowers on the counter, then gently touched her arm.
‘Mags,’ he said. ‘Maggie?’ He’d never called her granny, not even when he was a little boy. She was slow to wake, blinking at him in obvious confusion.
‘Mags. Sorry to just arrive like this. Maybe I shouldn’t have woken you?’
‘Peter?’ Her voice was weak, querulous, and Peter felt the first stirrings of alarm. She was very pale, and her skin looked paper thin.
‘Have you been sick? I’m sorry I haven’t been by for a visit.’ How long since he had seen her in person? Could it have been a year? But they’d spoken on the phone just last month. Or maybe it had been the month before?
‘I’ve been . . . under the weather.’
‘Has the doctor been to see you?’
Her brow furrowed, and when she spoke again it was with a reassuring trace of Maggie-like impatience. ‘He comes twice a week. It’s too much. I’m not on my deathbed yet, and if I were, there’s little enough he could do about it.’
Peter laughed, a little shakily.
‘Make tea, Peter, will you? I haven’t had a thing since Anna left this morning.’
Peter filled the kettle, went in search of the teapot and tea-leaves. Everything was where he expected to find it, and the cupboards and fridge were well stocked. There were a few children’s yoghurts in the fridge, which struck him as odd.
‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ she asked.
‘Well, that’s a warm welcome home,’ he said in the lightest tone he could manage. He’d planned on telling her everything as soon as he arrived, had looked forward to her support and her counsel, but suddenly he realised that he couldn’t. He couldn’t tell her that he’d killed a man, that he might
be prosecuted for it, and that his only possible way out was to work for a man they both despised. He couldn’t dump all of that on her. She was too old and too tired. He should be the one looking after her.
Maggie’s eyes went to the flowers and the biscuits. ‘Are you just here for a visit?’ she asked.
‘I’m here for a while,’ he said. ‘A month or two.’ The kettle boiled and he scooped a few spoonfuls of tea-leaves into the pot and filled it. He rummaged in the cupboard for a couple of coffee mugs, then found sugar and milk.
‘Open the biscuits,’ she said.
‘Right.’ He brought everything to the kitchen table, but she didn’t move. There was an awkward pause.
‘I’m so warm here, I think I’ll stay where I am,’ she said. ‘Can you bring over the little table?’ She gestured to a small coffee table that had been placed off to the side. Peter picked it up, carried it over. Was it new? He couldn’t remember having seen it before. He poured the tea, opened the biscuits and brought Maggie her cup, a small plate. He brought over a chair for himself so he could be a bit closer to her, offered her the tin. She chose a biscuit with seeming enthusiasm, but set it aside on the plate. He wolfed two down straight away.
‘You never change,’ she said.
‘Don’t know about that,’ he mumbled, through a mouth full of biscuit, and immediately felt about eight years old again.
Maggie took a sip from her tea, put the mug back down. She made no move to eat; the biscuit sat untouched on her plate. Her hands were thinner than he remembered, and her cheekbones were more prominent. Was she eating enough?
‘Have you seen your father?’ she asked.
‘I bumped into him at Horan’s,’ Peter said.
She sniffed, unimpressed.
‘He said you have a guest staying at the moment. Is that the Anna you mentioned?’
‘Anna’s not a guest,’ Maggie said. ‘She’s a home help. A live-in.’
‘Really?’
‘You needn’t look like that, Peter. I’m getting older, you know. And I’m not some batty old woman too stubborn to admit that she needs a bit of help. I’d much rather have a nice girl live in than go to some old folks’ home that smells of cabbage and nappies.’
Peter held his hands up in mock defensiveness. ‘Okay, okay. I didn’t say it was a bad idea.’
He was thrown. Maggie seemed like she’d aged ten years. She had been a million miles away from considering a home help when he’d last seen her. She’d been talking about taking a trip to West Cork with a friend, if he remembered correctly. And now she was tucked up in an armchair by the stove, too tired to move to the kitchen table for a cup of tea.
Peter took another biscuit, sipped his tea. ‘So, tell me about Anna,’ he said. ‘What’s she like? Where did you find her?’
‘Desmond brought her over, with Tilly,’ Maggie said.
Peter looked at her. ‘Des? Since when do you take advice from Des?’
‘It wasn’t advice. It was practicality. Anna needed a place to stay. She and Tilly both. And I needed a hand around the place. It was just going to be for a week or two, until I was back on my feet. But, well . . . we suit each other.’
‘Right,’ Peter said. ‘That makes sense.’
Except that it didn’t. Maggie and Des didn’t even speak to each other. Maggie had managed to maintain the barest civility towards Des until Peter had turned eighteen. Then she’d felt free of the threat of Peter’s complete removal from her orbit, so she’d waited for the anniversary of her daughter’s death, and then she’d confronted Des, publicly, at the seat of his power. Gilmartin’s pub. She’d torn strips off him, loudly – and creatively. She’d called him pathetic. An aging, delusional playboy who’d failed her daughter again and again and then profoundly failed her when she’d needed him most. He’d been too busy chasing tourist women, who were happy to take a night’s entertainment from his slight charm, to go home to his child and his dying wife. Right there, in front of all his cronies, standing her ground and refusing to budge, she’d declaimed his many failures as a father, as a husband and as a garda. In the end, Des had physically bundled her out of the place, and as far as Peter knew, they had never spoken again. Knowing his father, Des would have taken some sort of revenge, except that Maggie was well liked in the village and the whole thing had been too public. So he’d been obliged to let it go and they’d avoided each other as much as possible since.
‘I’m just surprised you’d take someone Des recommended,’ Peter said, carefully.
‘I do make my own decisions, you know,’ Maggie said. ‘Desmond brought her to this house, but he didn’t know her. She wasn’t a friend of his, if that’s what you’re thinking. She came to the pub, looking for a room for the night. They were booked out and so he brought her here. And I liked her.’
Peter was suddenly convinced that this Anna was exactly what Maggie thought she wasn’t – one of Des’s women. An hour ago, if someone had suggested that Des would have been able to fool Maggie in that way, Peter would have laughed in their face. But despite her upbeat, confident words there was a trace of anxiety in Maggie’s face when she spoke about Anna and this Tilly – who the fuck was Tilly? – and his heart twisted at the idea that Des would be so cruel as to set up one of his flings in Maggie’s house, and that Maggie should be so vulnerable as to allow it.
‘I can get you somebody,’ Peter said. ‘I’m going to be here for a month or two, Mags. I can move back in, if you’ll have me. Keep you company and give you a hand around the place, and when I head back to Galway, I can help you find someone you like. You don’t have to have someone live in, either, if you don’t want that, you know? That’s your call. We could have someone who just comes in every day . . .’
‘You’re here for a month or two? Why?’ Maggie asked. She definitely wasn’t herself. She’d missed that, the first time he’d said it, and she seemed a little breathless. She was resting back in her chair again, the tea and biscuit forgotten.
‘It’s just a work thing, Mags. Nothing to worry about.’
‘Working with Desmond?’ she asked.
He nodded, reluctantly. ‘It’s just temporary.’ One way or the other, he was going to make sure of that.
With a level of effort that distressed him, Maggie sat forward and took his hand.
‘I don’t want you moving here, Peter. The only young people you’ll see will be seasonal workers and tourists. There’s no life for you in the village. What were you thinking? Working with Des is a terrible idea. You and he . . .’ She shook her head. ‘Promise me that you’ll go back to Galway, straight away.’
Peter laughed unsteadily, tried to draw his hand from hers, but she held on.
‘Promise me,’ she said.
He was shocked to see tears in her eyes. He squeezed her hand.
‘Yes, Mags. I’ll go back. It might not be straight away, but soon.’
He got her a tissue and she wiped her eyes, and the intense emotion seemed to blow out of her as quickly as it had arrived, leaving her wilted.
‘Will you be working on the murder?’ she asked. Of course she knew about it. Everyone would.
‘Did you know them?’ Peter asked. ‘The victims, I mean?’
‘A little,’ Maggie said sadly. ‘I played cards with Miles sometimes.’ She was quiet for a long moment, then she smiled at him tiredly.
‘It’s nice of you to visit, Peter. Why don’t you make some tea?’
Not long after that, Maggie drifted off to sleep. Peter sat with her for another hour, half hoping she would wake again, half relieved when she didn’t. He didn’t know what to do about this Maggie, who so clearly needed help. How could he have missed this? Peter desperately wanted the mysterious Anna to put in an appearance – he needed to row with somebody, and she seemed a likely candidate – but she never showed. She was probably in the pub with her mate Tilly, knocking back pints and laughing at Des’s jokes. Eventually, Peter stood up, tidied away the tea quietly, and let himself out.
Peter drove to the little boutique hotel in the village, mentally calculating how far he could push his budget. That was a very real problem. He was still paying rent for the flat in Galway and a garda’s salary did not stretch to much beyond basic subsistence these days. His credit card limit could handle a few nights at the hotel, but after that he’d have to make other plans. Peter parked in the car park, shouldered his bag and made his way inside to the welcoming smell of a turf fire and fresh flowers. He made himself known to the girl at reception, asked for a room for two nights, and was all but laughed out of the place.
‘We’ve a wedding,’ she said. ‘Fully booked.’
‘But it’s Tuesday,’ Peter said.
She shrugged. ‘Saturday weddings are booked up for two years. Sundays too. People are branching out.’
‘In winter?’
She nodded in the direction of the front windows, which looked out over the little dock and the water beyond. ‘Pictures,’ she said, eloquently. ‘You can get pictures by the dock, by the fishing boats, in between the rain, and then a few behind the bar pulling pints. That’s what people like.’
‘You’ve no rooms at all?’
Her hands flew across the keyboard. ‘I’ve three rooms free tomorrow, but I need them back on Thursday. That any good to you?’
Peter retreated to his car, took out his phone. He thought about a B&B, groaned at the thought of the interest, the inquiries, the watching of his comings and goings. He wanted anonymity, what little he could get here in Roundstone where the main occupation of every inhabitant aged forty and older was minding each other’s business. Still, he called them. They were all booked for the wedding. The only other obvious option was Gilmartin’s pub on the main street. They used to have a few rooms upstairs. Shabby, but liveable. Peter couldn’t do it. The pub was his father’s fiefdom. His little domain, the regular drinkers a mix of those who genuinely seemed to enjoy Des Fisher’s company, and those who might not like him but wouldn’t cross him for fear of making themselves his target. The end result would be the same. Every move Peter made would be reported to Des within moments.
The Good Turn Page 10
