Anne Perry's Silent Nights_ Two Victorian Christmas Mysteries - Anne Perry [98]
Susannah smiled slowly and the tears filled her eyes. “Did you tell Father?”
“No. I will tell you, and you can do as you think best, whatever you think Hugo would have done, were he here,” Emily replied.
Then she recounted what she had learned in Galway, and added a little of her certainty about Brendan Flaherty also.
“I was afraid it could have been Brendan,” Susannah admitted. “Or Fergal. He thought Maggie was in love with Connor.”
“I think she was in love with Connor’s ideas, his imagination,” Emily said.
Susannah smiled. “I think we all were. And afraid of him. He could sing too, you know, even better than Seamus. Colleen Flaherty hated him for that. I think he knew what a bully Seamus was too.” She sighed. “Poor Padraic. Could it have been a fight, or an accident?”
“I don’t know. But even if it was, Padraic let the village be poisoned by it.”
“Yes … I know.” They sat in silence for several moments. “Father Tyndale has been to see me every day. He’ll come tomorrow, and I’ll tell him. Hugo would have.” Her fingers curled over Emily’s and tightened. “Thank you.”
The next day when Father Tyndale came in the morning, Emily left him with Susannah and she walked alone along the shore towards the place where Connor Riordan had died. The marker stone was higher up, beyond where the sea reached, but she wished to stand where he had been alive, and tell his spirit that the truth was known. It could hardly matter, except to the living. Even Hugo Ross would know without her telling him. It was simply a sense of completion.
The waves were strong, hissing up the sand, gouging it out, sucking it back in again, and burying it under with deceptive violence. She could see how easily a slip of the footing could be fatal. No one would walk close to the waves’ edge. Only emotion powerful enough to destroy all attention would lead anyone to be so careless. Had it been a fight?
She looked up across the dune and the tussock grass and saw Mrs. Flaherty striding towards her, head forward, arms swinging purposefully. Emily kept on walking. She did not want to speak to Colleen Flaherty now, especially if Brendan had told her he was going to leave the village, perhaps never live here again. It would be a relief for Fergal, in time even for Maggie.
She walked on towards the place where Connor Riordan had died. The sand was softer under her feet. The last wave hissed, white-tongued, up to within a yard of her.
Colleen Flaherty was gaining on her. Emily felt a sudden flicker of fear. She glanced landward and saw that the dune edge was too steep to climb here. The only way back was to retrace her steps. She was at the end of the open sand. She could see the grave marker. This was where Connor had died. The sea that was creeping upward, this wave wetting her feet, was the same undertow that had pulled him in, burying, drowning, giving him back only when the life had been battered out of him, as if rectifying what the storm had left undone. Now she was frozen, shivering, wet up to her knees, the heavy skirts dragging her down into the hungry sand.
Colleen Flaherty stopped in front of her, her face gleeful with a bitter triumph. “That’s right, Englishwoman. This is where he died, the young man from the sea who came here intruding into our lives. I don’t know who killed him, but it wasn’t my son. You should have left it alone and kept your prying to yourself.” She took another step forward.
Emily moved back, and the next wave caught her, almost taking her balance. She teetered wildly, waving her arms, and felt the sand suck her down.
“Dangerous seas here,” Mrs. Flaherty said. “Lots of people drown in them. You shouldn’t have told Brendan to go away. It isn’t any of your business. This is his land and his heritage. This is where he belongs.”
Emily tried to pull her feet unstuck and go towards her. “It’s time you let him go,” she said angrily. “You’re suffocating him. That