Chapter 3
Madeleine looked around at the bleak west of Ireland landscape.
The scrubby gorse and marram grass were bent double in the face of the wind that was coming in from the Atlantic and howling over the headland.
Long-horned sheep, their fleeces sodden, clung to the mountainside in the face of the driving rain.
The rain had soaked through her woollen coat and was now seeping through her work suit, chilling her.
Her hair was plastered to her face and as rivulets ran down her cheeks, she knew she must look frightful.
‘You can’t just leave me here!’ Madeleine cried as the Garda began to walk back to his car and climbed into the driver’s seat. She hurried after him and banged on the glass of the driver’s door. He wound down the window to her.
‘Everything okay?’ he asked.
‘You can’t leave me stranded here in the middle of nowhere!’ she spluttered. ‘If I get kidnapped or murdered, y-you’ll be responsible!’
Eventually Madeleine had managed to convince him to give her a lift in the back seat of the squad car to Ballymcconnell, where he ignominiously turfed her out onto the main street, back into the rain and biting wind.
‘There’s a taxi office down the street past the post office. I’m sure they’ll take you the rest of the way,’ the Garda had said.
Furious, she snatched her laptop bag and small suitcase and marched down the street.
Multicoloured Christmas lights zig-zagged across the street, a reminder that Christmas was just a few short weeks away.
How dare he do this to her, she thought.
She’d report him. She’d report him to his superiors.
She took out her phone to call the girls and let them know about her misfortunes, and ask if perhaps one of them could pick her up in Ballymcconnell, but when she looked at her phone, she saw it was dead.
She groaned. How was she going to stay on top of her emails now?
She needed to check in with her team to make sure they were all still on plan.
A trip to Inishbeg Cove always brought disaster.
She recalled all the times she had to listen to her daughters crying in the back seat of the car when she drove them home at the end of the summer holidays.
As if their life with her in Dublin was that awful.
They had always made her look like the big bad wolf in front of Elizabeth.
She continued down the street, trying to dodge the puddles, and eventually came upon the taxi office.
She went inside and found a woman sitting behind the counter.
A miserable piece of tinsel was hanging on the wall behind her in a pathetic attempt to inject some Christmas cheer into the room.
She noticed that the woman was engrossed in Emmerdale and didn’t even look up to greet Madeleine.
Madeleine walked up to the counter and rapped on it to get her attention.
‘I need to get a taxi to take me to Inishbeg Cove,’ Madeleine began.
‘It’ll be forty minutes. The driver is already on a run,’ she said, not taking her eyes off the TV screen.
‘Don’t you have more than one driver?’ Madeleine asked in exasperation. ‘It’s urgent.’
‘We only have Séamus. You can either wait for him or find your own way.’
‘I’ll wait,’ Madeleine said, chastened. She made her way over to a grubby bench that ran along the wall and collapsed onto it.
She went to place her handbag on the floor but, seeing how filthy it was, decided against it and instead clutched it to her.
She couldn’t even catch up on her emails because her phone was out of battery.
If there was one thing she hated, it was dead time.
She always made sure that every minute of her day was accounted for.
She answered emails as she ate her breakfast, she made calls in the car on her way to the office – every second of her day was productive.
She spotted a plug socket in the wall and was relieved that at least she’d get a chance to charge her phone while she waited.
She rooted around in her large tote bag for her charger, then remembered that she had left the cable for it in her car.
Defeated, she sat back against the dirty upholstery, feeling panic swarm through her.
What if her team were trying to contact her?
What if they had something important to ask her before the book launch?
Or what if Howard O’Brien’s agent needed to check something with her?
Her heart rate quickened and she felt her chest tighten at the idea of being cut off from work.
A tension headache was starting to pound in her head.
What was she going to do now? This trip was going from bad to worse.
She did a quick mental calculation. She had to wait forty minutes for the taxi, and she still had the journey to Inishbeg Cove ahead of her.
She wondered how Elizabeth was doing. The girls had sounded upset when they had called her earlier.
They had said that their grandmother might not hang on for much longer, but what else could she do?
It wasn’t her fault that Elizabeth lived in Bally-go-backwards.
Eventually the operator told her that her taxi had arrived. She stood up and went outside to find a rusted white Toyota Hiace van parked alongside the path. A man with a knitted woollen cap was sitting in the driver’s seat.
He wound down the window. ‘Here you are now,’ he stated.
She stuck her head over the top of the glass to talk to him. ‘Are you the taxi?’ she asked in disbelief. You’d never get away with a van as shoddy in Dublin.
‘I am surely.’ He smiled, and she saw that he was missing a few teeth. ‘Inishbeg Cove, is it that where you’re off to?’
‘Will … erm … will this get us there?’ She gestured at the van’s rusty paintwork. It must have been nearly forty years old. It didn’t look capable of making it down the main street without breaking down, much less climb up the mountains all the way to Inishbeg Cove.
He winked as he slammed his palm off the dashboard. ‘Japanese engineering. There’s plenty of life in her yet.’
‘Fine,’ she said resignedly. ‘Fine.’
She climbed into the back, pulled the door closed behind her, and they set off.
As the Hiace rattled over the hills, she was bounced around in her seat, almost hitting her head off the roof.
She thought she might be sick as Séamus flew along winding boreens so narrow that brambles in the hedgerow scraped against the van.
She said a silent prayer of relief when she finally saw the Atlantic glistening silver in the distance.
They climbed down towards sea level and the sand lining the road told her that they were nearly there.
Eventually she saw the familiar sign saying Welcome to Inishbeg Cove.
Séamus continued into the village, where the shipwreck stood proudly in the middle of the main street.
She directed him to Elizabeth’s cottage and eventually they pulled up outside.
She paid him, before taking her case and walking up the narrow path that led to the front door.
She knocked and waited, but there was no answer.
There were lights on inside the house and her daughters’ cars were both parked on the road outside, so she knew they were in there.
She decided to use the back door. She knew Elizabeth never locked it; crime rates weren’t exactly high in Inishbeg Cove.
Madeleine went around the path that led to the back of the house.
‘Lucy? Faith?’ she called as she pushed open the kitchen door and entered the house.
No reply came. The smell of turf from the Aga filled her nostrils.
Normally there would be the scent of freshly made bread or scones in the air, but not this time.
There was no one in the kitchen, so she continued into the hall.
‘Girls, I made it! You’ve no idea of the nightmare I’ve just been through,’ she went on.
There was no sound of life coming from the cottage, so she guessed the girls were sitting with Elizabeth.
She walked down the hallway towards the old lady’s bedroom and found the door ajar, so she pushed it and walked in.
‘I finally got—’ She stopped in her tracks when she saw her daughters sobbing. Her gaze moved up along the bed, and she gasped when she saw Elizabeth. She realised that the old lady had already passed on. Her daughters turned to look at her, grief plain on their features.
‘You’re too late!’ Lucy shook her head angrily.
A woman came forward to greet her. Madeleine guessed she was a little older than she was, probably in her early sixties, with close-cropped grey hair and kind hazel eyes.
‘You must be Madeleine,’ she said softly, placing a steadying arm on her shoulder. ‘I’m Noleen, one of the nurses who has been looking after Elizabeth. I’m so sorry to tell you that she has already left us.’
‘I can see that!’ Madeleine cried, then instantly regretted her outburst as she looked at her daughters’ distraught faces. ‘When did she—’
‘Around an hour ago,’ Noleen said. ‘I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear that she went very peacefully.’
‘I’m so sorry…’ Madeleine began. ‘I came as quickly as I could but – well … er…’ She broke off, knowing that now was not the time to tell them about her ordeal.
‘It sounds like you’ve had a long journey to get here. Why don’t I get you a cup of tea and something to eat?’ Noleen said, excusing herself.
‘Thank you,’ Madeleine said gratefully. It was only when her stomach growled at mention of food that she realised she hadn’t eaten anything since before lunch.
Noleen left the room, leaving Madeleine alone with her daughters.
‘I’m so sorry, girls.’ She moved to hug Lucy first, who was standing closest to her, then Faith, but they both remained stock still in her arms. They’ve had a shock, she told herself, trying not to feel upset.
‘I can’t believe you didn’t get here in time to say goodbye to her, Mum.’ Faith shook her head sadly.