Irish Secrets (13 page)

"Yes, but a prostitute could still love her baby, couldn't she? I'm not sure about someone who was raped, but it's irrelevant, isn't it? There must be thousands of women called Theresa in Ireland, and Sister Gabriel said she was getting married, so she's not Theresa Madden now, and I don't know her married surname."

Ryan pulled his phone from his pocket, tapped the screen several times, and scrolled down.

"What are you doing?" Kara asked.

"Looking for her marriage. Come on, help me out, what year do you think she got married?"

After a few moments' thought, she said, "Her baby was adopted in 1960, and Sister Gabriel said they exchanged Christmas cards for a couple of years, which means 1960 and 1961, so try June, 1962."

She leaned over to watch as Ryan typed in the name, month, and year. He grinned when the page seemed to be taking forever to load. "Trust it to be running slow when we want the information fast. Oh." His voice fell as he looked at the screen again. "No Theresa Madden in the second quarter marriages."

"Perhaps they exchanged more Christmas cards than Sister Gabriel remembers."

"Good point." He tapped the screen and waited.

Kara gripped his arm when the page loaded. "That's her, isn't it? Theresa Madden and Francis Brogan, June, 1963. Where did they marry?"

"This only gives the civil registration district, Dublin South. We'd need to apply for a copy of the certificate to find out where, and it would show their addresses, too."

She sighed. "Ryan, that's over fifty years ago. What are the odds of them still living at one of those addresses?"

"Okay, forget that. If you want, I'll ask Declan. He knows far more about how to find people and information than I do."

"And if he does find her, I'll have to think long and hard about what to do."

They were both silent for a few minutes until Ryan squeezed her shoulder. "Ready to go back to Clifden now?"

She smiled. "An evening drive through Connemara is exactly what I need. A beautiful landscape will be the perfect antidote to all the confusion in my mind."

"Ever seen
The Quiet Man Bridge
?"

"I've heard of it but never been there. It's one of the locations they used in the movie, isn't it?"

"John Wayne sat on the bridge parapet and heard his mother's voice telling him about the O'Morn Cottage. It's not far from Oughterard, and only involves a short detour from the main road."

Thirty minutes later, he stopped the car near the stone bridge with its two uneven arches. They got out and walked to the middle of the bridge. On their left, a small river bubbled gently over its stony bed; on their right, it widened into a lough, with the humped shapes of the grey mountains in the distance.

Kara gazed across the rippling water. "This is lovely. So peaceful and unspoilt."

"Want to sit where John Wayne sat?"

"How do you know where he sat?

"Trust me. I've studied the photos from the film. It was about here."

She giggled as he lifted her onto the top stones of the bridge, and glanced backward at the water below her. "Remind me not to lean back!" she said as he crossed to the other side of the narrow road over the bridge and pulled out his phone. She smiled and waved as he took a photo of her.

"Can you take selfies with your phone?" she asked.

"I don't have a selfie stick."

"Try it without one."

He perched next to her, with his arm around her shoulders, and took a couple of shots that made them both laugh. One showed only half of Kara's face, and he was squinting on the next one.

"You look like a cross-eyed bear," she teased.

"Better than a cross-eyed skunk, I suppose."

The third shot, with his cheek pressed against hers, was perfect, with both of them smiling.

He turned to give her a gentle kiss. "
Mo
anam cara
," he said softly.

"What does that mean?"

"
Anam
is Gaelic for soul, and
cara
means friend, so
mo anam cara
comes from the Celtic belief of souls connecting and bonding.
My soul friend
."

Her breath hitched as she gazed into his blue eyes. "
Mo anam cara
. I like that."

"So do I." He kissed her again, this time a long and increasingly passionate kiss that made her world stand still, until he broke away with a small laugh. "We're both in danger of leaning back and falling into the river, and as much as I'd love to connect and bond with you right now, it looks like we have company."

Kara turned to see another car pulling up near the bridge. "John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, is it?" she asked as he helped her down from the wall.

He grinned. "I promise I won't throw you onto the bed like he did."

As they walked back to his car with their arms around each other, her stomach somersaulted at the thought of him throwing her onto a bed. A second later, a new thought gripped her.

How could she be falling in love with him when she hardly knew him?

Chapter 13

Ryan was sitting in the sparsely furnished taxi office on Saturday evening when his phone rang. Seeing the name on the screen, he stood up.

"I'll go outside to take this."

No way did he want Tom Wild or Eve, the young receptionist, to overhear this call. Hopefully, they'd assume it was his girlfriend.

He pressed the phone to his ear as he headed out of the office, and leant against the back of his car, which was parked several yards away from the door. "Hi, Dec. What's new?"

"I checked all the photos you sent me," Declan said.

"Any ID?"

"Not for the tall blond fellow, but you already sent me photos of him with his girlfriend in Galway, and we have nothing on him or the younger one, either. The third one, the shorter thin man, could be Michael Leary, known as Mick, but I need a full face photo to be sure."

"Not a name I'm familiar with. Who is he?"

"Used to live at Leary Farm near Clifden. Parents James and Bridget Leary. Several warnings for petty theft as a teenager, and a conviction three years ago, when he was twenty-one. He stole some timber from Mist Na Mara House, but his lawyer pleaded mitigating circumstances, and he got off with a year's probation."

Ryan pursed his lips. "Interesting. Has he been clean since then?"

"Nothing else on his record, apart from a note to say he moved to Belfast once his probation year was over."

"And now he's back here in Connemara, and shows up at a cottage which I'm beginning to suspect is being used to store stolen goods."

His mind worked rapidly. Enya was certain the goods were being taken over the border into Northern Ireland, and shipped or flown from Belfast to England or Scotland, so was this Mick Leary some kind of link between Connemara and Belfast? His family home at the Leary farm, near to Mist Na Mara, was significant, to say the least.

"Thanks, Dec. I'll make some discreet inquiries about Mick Leary."

"Did you find out anything more about the builder?"

"Not yet. There are twelve builders listed for Castlebar, and I can eliminate some because they're shown under full names, but others only have a surname, and I still haven't been able to find out Conor's surname."

"Isn't his name on his van?"

"No, it's a rental."

"That's unusual, isn't it? Most small businesses use their vehicles as an advertising medium."

"True, but if he's using it to transport stolen goods, he won't want to advertise his name, will he?"

"Good point. Well, best of luck, Ryan."

Ryan hesitated for a moment, and went on, "Can you do some more research for me, Dec? Private, not official."

His friend laughed. "Go on. Birth, marriage or death?"

"None of those. I'd like to find out where Francis and Theresa Brogan are living now. Older couple, probably in their seventies, assuming they're still alive."

"I'll see what I can come up with."

"Thanks."

Ryan ended the call, and fought against the temptation to jump to wild conclusions about Mick Leary. His detective training cautioned him against acting on his gut feeling, even though his instincts had served him right in the past. He needed hard evidence before he asked Enya to order a raid on the cottage, and timing was paramount.
If
the loot was being stored there, and
if
Mick Leary was involved and could be persuaded to name names, there was a chance of wrapping up this case.

And that was a double-edged sword. Yes, it would be a relief not to spend his days and evenings as a taxi driver, but he would then have to return to BCI headquarters in Dublin. If they decided to send him on another assignment elsewhere in the Republic, it would make things difficult as far as his personal life was concerned. Or, more precisely, as far as Kara was concerned.

When his phone rang again, he smiled at the sight of her name on the screen. Had some sixth sense told her he was thinking about her?

"Hi, Kara, have you had a good day?"

"If you call a full day's drama workshop with fifty kids a good day, then yes."

"Sounds like my worst nightmare."

"Don't you like kids?"

"Yes, but not fifty at a time."

She laughed. "They were okay, apart from a couple of hyperactive ones. How was your day?"

"Not over yet. Things are quiet at the moment, but the phone will start ringing soon when folks want to go back to their hotels or guesthouses. Clifden was crowded earlier with tourists, so we'll be busy later."

"Are you working tomorrow evening?"

"No, I finish at six."

"In that case, would you like to come to our beach barbecue? I forgot to mention it last night."

"Not surprising, since your mind was too full of everything Sister Gabriel told you. Oh, and I've asked Declan to find out where Theresa and Francis Brogan are living now."

"Do you think he will?"

"Possibly. He has access to loads of online sites."

"If he has to pay for them, please tell him I'm more than willing to reimburse him."

"Don't worry about that." He couldn't tell her Declan's free access to some websites was due to his
Garda
log-in. "What time is the barbecue?"

"About eight o'clock."

"Do I need to bring anything?"

"Just yourself. Maggie, our cook, has ordered all the food, so there'll be plenty to eat."

"Sounds grand. I'll look forward to it."

He gave a nod of satisfaction as he clicked off his phone. It would be good to spend a relaxing evening with her and her friends.

A couple of hours later, when he was returning from dropping off a fare on the Westport Road, a different thought jerked into his mind. Tomorrow evening might give him an opportunity to make some discreet enquiries about Mick Leary.

* * * * *

As Ryan rounded the bend in the drive on Sunday evening, his breath caught at the sight of Kara sitting on one of the wooden benches at the front of Mist Na Mara House. In white cropped trousers and a sleeveless orange and white top, with her hair blowing in the breeze, she looked stunning. She was gazing out across the bay, obviously lost in thought, and he wondered what she was thinking. Was she looking forward to this evening as much as he was?

She jumped up and waved, and he drove into a space between two other parked cars on the forecourt and switched off the engine.

"Hi," she said as he got out. "The others went down to the beach about ten minutes ago, and Guy and Luke lit the barbecues at seven o'clock, so the food should be ready soon. Hope you're hungry."

"Starving." He bent forward to kiss her cheek, and grasped her hand. "How do we get to the beach from here? Through the farmyard at the end of the lane?"

"No, there's a short-cut. It's not a real path, just a track through the fields that hikers sometimes use, with a couple of stiles to climb over."

She pointed out the track leading from the forecourt and they picked their way across an area of rock-strewn grassy hillocks until they came to a small wooden stile with a couple of steps each side. After helping her over the stile, he tilted his head toward the scaffolding that was visible above the overgrown shrubs on his left.

"How's the restoration going?"

"Not as quickly as Guy hoped. Conor's discovered some problems with the rafters, so most of them will have to be replaced."

"It's going to be a long job, is it?" He couldn't help but wonder whether Conor was deliberately prolonging the work until he found another location to store the goods.

"Oh, there have been masses of delays. Last year, three bat surveys had to be done before planning permission was granted, and then the first builder Guy contracted went out of business last December."

"I would have thought he'd find another Clifden builder, not one from Castlebar"

Kara grinned. "I think Liz may have had something to do with that. She started dating Conor in January, introduced him to Guy, and presumably Conor gave him a good quote for the job."

Jigsaw pieces slotted together in Ryan's mind, as well as a raft of questions. Paddy Walsh had been going by taxi to Roscommon almost every Monday morning since February. Was that when Conor first gained access to the cottage? Had he been looking around for a new storage site once the previous route was compromised last December? Was it pure chance that he started dating Liz at the beginning of the year, or had that been a ploy to get the contract? And where did Mick Leary come into all this?

Although he was tempted to ask more about Conor, he pushed the thought to the back of his mind. This wasn't the time or place to pursue his investigation, especially when Kara's smooth hand held his as he helped her over the second stile. Far better to concentrate on the present.

He leant forward to kiss her, and her immediate response both delighted and aroused him. She rested one hand against his cheek while the other clutched the collar of his polo shirt. When her lips parted and her tongue sought his, he pulled her against him, sliding his hands down her back to hold her against him as he deepened their kiss.

Was it minutes or hours later before they drew apart? He gazed down into her forget-me-not eyes, took a deep breath, and pursed his lips as he blew it out.

"Whoa!"

She gave him a mischievous grin. "No convenient haylofts near here, or soft mossy grass, like you see in the movies."

He chuckled. "And this spiky grass might prove painful, so I'm thinking we should continue to the beach. How many people are at this barbecue?"

Her forehead creased in concentration. "About fifteen, I think. Guy and Jenna, of course, and Niall, who's the resident artist here for the summer season, and the rest of our Living History group, and some of the live-in housekeeping staff."

"Am I the only non-staff member?"

"No, Charley's fiancé, Luke, is here. He's the vet in Clifden."

"Ah, that Luke. Yes, I've driven him to Skelleen a couple of times. Is Liz's boyfriend here, too?"

"Yes, and Niall's wife, Amy, and some of the staff have invited their partners."

"That's good. I must admit I wondered if all the conversation would be about art and drama."

She shook her head. "No shop talk tonight, but Jenna and Amy will probably be discussing babies since they're both pregnant. Amy's due in a couple of weeks, and Jenna in August."

He chuckled. "I don't think I could contribute anything to their discussion."

"You might enjoy talking to Richard, though. He's one of the Living History group, and he's done a lot of research into Irish history."

He nodded as they walked with arms around each other down the sloping track toward the beach, from where the sound of music, voices, and laughter drifted through the evening air. A conversation with Conor might prove even more interesting, but, if he was being honest, he didn't want to think about stolen goods tonight. Even an undercover cop needed a night off from time to time, and being here with Kara was his priority right now.

They crossed an area of shingle to reach the narrow strip of sandy beach, strewn with uneven rocks and straggly brown seaweed.

"Not the most attractive beach in the world, is it?" Ryan said, as they headed toward the group congregated near two barbecue grills from which the distinctive scent of smouldering charcoal combined with the aroma of chicken, sausages, and burgers.

Kara stopped. "Maybe not, but it's a beautiful view. I love the long light evenings you have here. At home, it goes dark about eight-thirty."

He nodded, and kept her pressed close to his side as they surveyed the panorama. On their left, the grey peaks of the Twelve Bens were hazy in the evening sunshine; ahead of them, on the far side of the narrow bay, were low green hills, and to their right, broken only by a few rocky islets, was the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.

"Hey, about time, you two! What kept you?"

Kara smiled. "That's Liz, in case you didn't recognise her."

"I did, and her boyfriend is talking to Guy Sinclair."

"Yes, but I don't know the other man with them."

Surprise jolted through Ryan as he recognised the man who had been at the cottage the previous Monday. Mick Leary, according to Declan. Why on earth would he be here for a social occasion? Because he was a neighbour? Or was there something more?

So much for thinking he could enjoy a night off. Undercover work meant he always had to be alert to possible clues or new developments. His glance slid sideways to the three men who were deep in conversation. An intense conversation, it seemed, as Guy was frowning, while Conor shook his head and raised his hand to interrupt whatever Mick was saying. A few seconds later, Conor and Guy were both laughing, and Mick took a slurp from his beer can before he laughed, too.

Of course, it might simply be a conversation about the latest problem with the roof, or even about Galway's victory in the hurling match against Cork the previous day. Maybe he was becoming paranoid, but an uncomfortable sensation squeezed his stomach. The cottage was now Guy's property, he'd given the contract to Conor, and Mick Leary, who'd stolen from him in the past, was here tonight. Were they all in cahoots?