In Dublin's Fair City (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #6)

The thought did cross my mind to remind them that I was an investigator and maybe there was something more I could do to help. Then I decided that I was still a suspect and might easily have been the victim. Miss Sheehan had deliberately put me in harm's way, and if I were sensible, I’d escape while the going was good.

“So can I collect my belongings from Miss Sheehan's cabin now? It's only a few bits and pieces I have there, but a lady can’t be expected to travel without her toiletries, can she?”

He nodded without smiling. “Very well. I’ll send a constable up with you. And we’ll need an address to forward Miss Sheehan's stuff. Remember, you’re to stick around the area for the inquest.”

“When will that be, do you think? I can’t stay in Ireland indefinitely.”

“Within the next week, I’m sure. I haven’t yet got in touch with the coroner. We’ll let you know the details. I’ll be making the main Cork Police Station my headquarters until this matter is sorted out, so you’ll know where to find me.”

“Thank you.” I picked up the bag I had recovered from Rose's cabin, and went ashore wearing Miss Sheehan's smart, striped two-piece costume. After what she had put me through, I felt it was the very least she could do for me. It's wonderful what clothing can do for a person. No sooner had I stepped down the gangway than I was besieged by cab drivers, all wanting to give me a ride to the train station.

“Where's the rest of your luggage, my lady?” one of them asked, attempting to wrestle my small valise from me.

My lady? That was definitely a step up. I smiled graciously and said that it was being sent on to my hotel. Then I allowed him to lead me to a nearby two-seater cart. He helped me to climb up, and we joined the crush of vehicles attempting to leave the port. Once I was seated comfortably, I had a chance to become aware of my surroundings for the first time, and memories came rushing back to me: the tang of seaweed and fish in the air, the fishing nets drying on the quayside, the seagulls wheeling overhead, and from an open window the sound of a fiddle being played. I was quite unprepared for the flood of emotion these produced in me. I hadn’t thought much of Ireland since I fled almost two years ago. Frankly, I had been glad to get away from it. I hadn’t believed I could ever be homesick, but now I felt tears welling up in my eyes that I was home again and this was my land.

“What did you say?” I asked the driver, aware that he had been talking.

“I was saying it was a grand day to be coming home, my lady. They don’t make skies like that in America, I’ll be bound.”

I looked up at the white puffy clouds scudding across that clear, glass blue sky and agreed with him.

“You’ll be taking the train for Dublin, I don’t doubt,” he went on.

“No, I’m staying in Cork for a while,” I said. “I have business to attend to there.”

“Then why don’t I take you all the way myself,” he said. “Dolly is as willing and frisky as a colt, and I’ll charge you no more than that smelly old train.”

For the first time in ages I laughed. “Do you think I’ve been away from Ireland so long that I’ve forgotten what blarney sounds like?” I asked, and he laughed too. But it was a delightful autumn day, and I was in no hurry. What could be the harm in riding those five miles in the fresh air?

“Very well,” I said, “only let's agree on a price now.”

As it turned out I had been away from Ireland long enough to have forgotten several things, one of them being that the weather never stays constant for more than an hour or so. Dolly proved to be neither frisky nor that willing either and toiled slowly up the long hill out of Queen-stown. I enjoyed the view down to the harbor with the great liner dwarfing the freighters and fishing boats around it until troubling thoughts crept to the edge of my conscious mind, reminding me that a girl lay dead on that ship, and that her killer was still at large. If I had decided not to go to that ball...IfI had sent Rose away and been in the cabin alone, I might have been lying there instead of Rose. There had been other times when I would have wanted to help find her murderer, but I confess that this time I just wanted to get as far away in the least time possible. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as the horse's head drooped and she went almost into a trance of slowness.

“You said she was as ‘frisky as a colt,’“ I reminded the driver. “I’d like to make Cork before the weather changes. I glanced up at the sky. A stiff breeze had sprung up from the west, sending those clouds scudding faster across the sky. Bigger and darker clouds raced in to take their place, and we were halfway there when the first raindrops spattered onto us.

“Do you have a hood to this contraption?” I asked.

The driver grinned as he shook his head. “A little bit of rain never hurt anybody,” he said. “Don’t you ladies always carry an umbrella?”