Chapter 31
It was drizzling when she emerged from the inn. Liam was leaning against the hood of the Jeep. When he saw Maeve he walked rapidly toward her, with a wide smile and an unfurled umbrella.
“Hi,” she said, trying not to grin like a loon as he leaned in and kissed her lightly on the lips.
“This is a nice surprise,” she said as he helped her into the Jeep.
“What? The text, or the kiss?”
“Both, actually.”
He started the engine, but pointed up at the window of her room, where Therese was standing, waving goodbye.
“Your sister?”
“She’s messing with me, as sisters do. Mine happens to be an out-of-work actress, so she’s playing the big sister role, on steroids.”
Maeve turned to him. “You have a brother, right?”
“Two brothers, and I’m the youngest, so I got all the shite they could dish out. Which was a lot.”
“I always wished I’d had a big brother,” she said.
“Speaking of wishes, any thoughts about where you’d like to get a drink? I know a place, a little closer to the estate…”
“How about the Willow Tree?”
“Hoping to run into Esme Rossington? To interrogate her about the missing portrait?”
“It’s part of the reason I agreed to take this trip,” she said.
“But didn’t you tell me Esme wasn’t cooperative? If she is there tonight, what would you say to her?”
“Dunno,” she admitted. “But I feel like I need to do something. We’ve been reading Kathleen’s letters to her brother Tommy.
She went through so much, arriving in New York, her only friend a woman she shared a berth with on the ship to Ellis Island.
Living in a cramped tenement on the Lower East Side of the city, working in a shirt factory for pennies, then moving upstate to Geneva, where she met and married her first husband.
He had a good job, a railroad conductor, but he was much older and died within a year, of a burst appendix.
Not too much later, she got remarried to a man named Patrick John Murphy, and eventually had three children, the oldest of which, Julia Mary, was my grandmother.
They opened a tavern together and lived above it. ”
Maeve’s voice trailed off as they pulled into the parking lot at the Willow Tree.
“You’re in luck,” Liam said under his breath as they entered the pub.
She shot him a questioning look and he gave an almost imperceptible nod in the direction of a table against the far wall.
An older woman dressed in a moth-eaten brown sweater sat absent-mindedly feeding chips to a cocker spaniel in her lap while she watched a soccer match on the television over the bar.
Esme Rossington. Had to be. Slumped opposite her was a man, with a scraggly gray ponytail, face forward on the tabletop.
“You there,” the woman called out loudly.
Liam looked around to see who she was addressing, but there were only a handful of others in the pub, and none of them were paying any attention to her.
“Ma’am?” Liam said, as Maeve followed him over to the table.
“You’re one of those Grogan boys, are you not?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m Liam Grogan.”
“The whiskey maker,” she said, pleased with herself. “Your brother fixed my truck. Good lad.”
“I’ll let him know you were pleased,” Liam said, turning to go.
“And who’s this?” She pointed a bony finger at Maeve.
“This is my friend, Maeve Dunagin. Visiting here from Savannah, Georgia.”
Maeve gave her winningest smile, but Esme Rossington was unimpressed.
“Is that your sister who’s been pestering me, asking nosy questions? Trying to claim she’s family to my family?”
Maeve’s smile evaporated in the face of the old woman’s hostility. “Therese is my sister, yes. And yes, our grandmother was from this village. It’s our understanding she was raised in the manor house at Tarrymore.”
She kept her voice low, not wanting to attract attention from the others in the half-empty bar, but now, the man sitting opposite Esme slowly raised his head and stared at her, glassy-eyed. His eyes were a pale gray and he had the kind of pulpy, bulbous red nose that bespoke years of hard drinking.
“What’s this?”
“An American,” Esme said dismissively. “Pushing in where she’s not wanted.”
Maeve felt her face heat. “I beg your pardon,” she said stiffly, and walked away feeling blood roaring in her ears.
Liam said something she didn’t hear, gave the couple a curt nod, and joined her a moment later at the table she’d chosen, as far away from Esme Rossington as possible.
“Sorry about that,” he said.
“What a nasty old…”
“Cunt?” Liam completed her sentence, and laughed at her shocked expression. “Sorry. We use the word differently over here.”
“I was gonna say bitch, but that works too, considering the local vernacular.”
“Esme Rossington is used to getting her way. No longer uses the title, but still loves to lord it over others when she wants. No filter, she says whatever she likes. I’m sorry she turned on you like that.”
“Not your fault,” Maeve assured him. “What did you say to her after I walked away?”
“I told her I didn’t appreciate her being rude to someone who’s a guest in our village—and I pointed out that neither you nor your sister had pushed your way into the Willow Tree, since this is a public establishment.”
“Thanks for sticking up for me.”
“We don’t have to stay here if you’re upset,” he offered. “We could go back to my place…”
“I’m fine,” she assured him. “Sticks and stones and all that.”
“I’ll get our drinks. Whiskey all right?”
“Fine.”
“Rocks and water?” He did a cartoonish shudder.
“Just another crazy American,” she said.
While Liam was fetching their drinks Maeve watched Esme Rossington and her companion.
They appeared to be having a spirited disagreement.
At one point he stood, unsteadily, and lurched toward the back of the pub, where she assumed the bathrooms were.
Esme paid him no mind, continuing to watch the soccer match and stroking the cocker spaniel’s head.
Liam set two heavy glasses on the tabletop.
“Do you ever get tired of drinking whiskey?” she asked, as he touched his glass briefly against hers.
“Not really. There’s such an amazing variety of flavor profiles and endless distilling techniques.” He tapped his glass with his index finger, and she noticed he wore a heavy gold signet ring on his right hand.
“This whiskey we’re having is actually from a small startup in Galway. The distiller is a fellow I met when I was studying in London. He’s doing interesting things with aromatics.”
Maeve followed Liam’s lead and lifted the glass to her nose and sniffed. She tasted, then wrinkled her nose. “It’s a little strong for me.”
“Heavy on the coffee notes,” Liam said. “That appeals to some. Shall I get you something else, a little less, um, assertive?”
She swirled the liquor in the glass then took another sip. “Actually, maybe I do like it. You’re right about the coffee. Guess that wasn’t something I expected. Maybe this stuff is growing on me.”
“Glad to hear it,” Liam said.
She sipped her drink. “I’ve been meaning to ask since the day we met, how does one become a whiskey maker?”
“All kinds of ways,” Liam said. “But with me, it started with beer. I was at uni, studying chemical engineering, and some mates and I started messing about with home brewing. I got pretty good at it, but never considered it as anything more than a hobby.”
“So you’re an engineer?”
“I’ve a diploma in a cupboard somewhere that says so,” Liam said. “I took a job with a company in Cork, and was bored out of my skull with the work. But it paid too well to quit. And then one day Luke, my oldest brother, called to say our dad was sick. Pancreatic cancer.”
Maeve winced.
“Our mum was gone by then, and Dad lived alone. He needed a carer. So I chucked the job I hated and came home. Seven weeks later, he was gone. I mucked about, trying to sort out my life. I was working on the grounds crew at the estate when I saw a job notice at the cider mill someone had started in the estate’s old stables.
Took the job, got on well there, and when the head man said he was thinking about switching over to whiskey-making, I was intrigued.
He sent me to work at Bushmill’s, to learn the craft, and I found I took to it.
From there, I went to the States, got a job working at Buffalo Trace, a bourbon distillery in Kentucky. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”
“I have,” Maeve said. “And then you came back here and started making whiskey at Tarrymore?”
“Not quite. Did I mention my older brother is rolling in money? By then, he was intrigued with the possibilities. The original man at the cider mill was underfunded, and was happy to sell out. Luke Grogan doesn’t do anything half-measure.
He sent me off to the Chartered Institute for Brewers and Distillers in London.
And that’s how I came to be the head distiller at Tarrymore Distillery. ”
Liam raised his glass. “Are you sorry you asked?”
“Not at all. I had no idea whiskey-making could be so … what’s the word?”
He leaned in and kissed her. “Fascinating? Nuanced? Sexy?”
Maeve laughed. “All of the above.”
“Right,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “Now, what were we talking about before?”
“You were asking my theory about the paintings stolen by the IRA, but maybe that’s a discussion for another time and place, considering present company,” Maeve said, as Esme Rossington walked past.
The older woman stopped at the bathroom door, paused, then pounded on it. “Reggie! What are you about in there?”
Maeve giggled despite herself. “Who is that guy?”
“Reggie O’Malley. Tarrymore’s official village idiot slash town drunk, and Esme’s unofficial dogsbody.” Liam turned in his chair to get a better look.
“Reggie!” Esme pounded the door, then gave it a kick for good measure. “I’m knackered and I want to go home now.”
There was no response. Heads in the bar turned, but nobody moved.
Liam sighed and walked over to the bathroom door. He knocked again, and when there was no response, he tried the knob. It turned and he opened the door to reveal a body, slumped on the floor.
Maeve gasped.
Esme, unaffected, prodded the man’s leg with the toe of her boot. “Reggie, get up. You’re making a spectacle.”
Liam knelt down beside the man and gingerly touched his cheek.
“Is he dead?” Maeve called.
“More like dead drunk,” Liam said.
By now, the barman was standing beside him, scowling down at his unconscious patron.
“Pissed his pants too,” Rodney said. He turned to Liam. “Give me a hand, can you? He can sleep in his car and then he’ll be cleaning up this loo in the morning.”
Liam took Reggie’s legs and the barman picked up his arms and they unceremoniously hauled the drunk out the door of the pub.
Five minutes later, Liam rejoined Maeve.
“Is he okay?” she asked.
“Sure. Yeah. Rodney says he does this a couple times a month.”
Maeve’s eyes found Esme, who was sitting at her table, clutching the cocker spaniel and looking expectantly around the room.
“Does this Reggie person drive her around? Like a chauffeur or something?”
“Or something. It’s my understanding he lives on her property in exchange for doing the odd job, and being her always-willing drinking buddy.”
“How will she get home if he’s passed out drunk in his car?”
“Are you actually suggesting we give her a lift? After the bloody rude way she spoke to you?”
“Would you mind?”
“The Jeep’s a two-seater,” he reminded her.
“I’m wearing jeans. I can sit in the cargo area.”
“That’s very noble. But I still don’t understand,” Liam said.
“She knows something about that painting that we need to know. And we have a saying in the South. ‘You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar,’” Maeve said.
“And we have a saying in Ireland that goes ‘Feck off, ya feckin’ gobshite,’” Liam said as he stood up and held out a hand to her. “But I’ll defer to you this time. Come along then.”
Esme Rossington was obviously waiting for a Good Samaritan to materialize, and didn’t look at all fazed when Liam approached her.
“Um, Miss Esme? Could we offer you a ride home, seeing as Reggie is incapacitated?”
She gazed up at him. “Decent of you.” She looked past him at Maeve, then handed the dog over to her. “Take her outside for a wee first, would you?”
It was raining out. Fortunately, Sinead was quick to do her business a discreet few feet away from the pub entrance, and Maeve managed to escape getting drenched. In the meantime, Liam had found an abandoned umbrella inside and was now using it to shield their elderly passenger from the rain.
After Maeve crawled into the back of the Jeep, Liam helped Esme into the passenger seat, with Sinead perched on her lap.
“I knew your mum,” she said abruptly, when they were a short distance down the road. “Helped me find things on that computer at the library. Lovely woman.”
“Thank you,” Liam said. “She was that, and she is missed.”
Esme turned halfway around in her seat to address Maeve.
“Your mum—the one your sister mentioned. What was her name?”
“Mary Helen Dunagin. Her maiden name was Sullivan. And my grandmother’s name was Julia Mary Murphy. She was born in Geneva, New York, after her mother, Kathleen Connor, emigrated to the States in 1926.”
“Hmph. That’s a name I’m all too familiar with,” Esme said. She glanced over at Liam. “You know my cottage?”
“I do.”
“I’m quite put out with Reggie,” Esme said. “Now I shall have to go back and collect him in the morning so that he can see to my stopped-up kitchen drain.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Liam said.
“Turn right here.” Esme pointed to a narrow break in the roadside woodland.
The Jeep bumped along a rocky, badly paved road with such a thick overhead canopy of trees it nearly blocked out the moonlight. Branches scraped the side of the vehicle as it inched along in the inky gloom.
Ahead, a single yellow light bulb illuminated the front door of a rambling stone cottage.
The facade was covered in ivy and rotting wooden shutters hung crookedly at the front windows.
A porte cochere attached to the side of the house was leaning precariously, and under it stood a dust-covered vehicle Maeve couldn’t identify in the darkness.
“This will do,” Esme announced as Liam slowed the Jeep to a stop near the front door. He hopped out, ran around to her side, and held the cocker spaniel with one hand while helping her step out of the car with the other.
“It’s pretty dark out here, and the pavement looks uneven. Shall I walk you to the door?”
She pursed her lips as she considered the offer. “Yes, please.”
Liam offered her his arm. Esme paused, then leaned down and locked eyes with Maeve, who was still folded up, accordion-style, in the cargo area of the Jeep.
“Listen, miss. You’d be best advised not to go mucking about in matters that don’t concern you. Let the dead rest. Understand?”
She turned and grasped Liam’s arm. “Good night to you both.”