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

“What better way to learn our plans than to pretend to be working with us? When I’ve done a little checking of my own, I’ll decide how much you are to be trusted, and what I’m to do with you.”


“I’ve already offered to work with you, but I’ve also my own job to do,” I said. “I’m being paid by a man in America to locate his lost sister.I have to do my very best to find her. And since I know she came to Dublin with Terrence Moynihan, then I must begin with his old address and work from there. She may still be close by.”

“I doubt very much that you’ll find her,” Cullen said.

“Why do you say that?”

“I never heard any mention of Terrence Moynihan having a wife. She certainly was never seen in public with him.”

“She wouldn’t have been married to him. She was married to a man called Kelly, down near Waterford.”

“Waterford, Grania. Your part of the world, is it not?”

“Long ago, yes,” Grania said. “So she fled from her husband, did she?”

“A great brute of a man,” I said. “I can understand why she ran away.”

“Then it seems all too possible that Mr. Kelly found his errant wife and killed her, don’t you think?” Grania looked at Cullen.

“All too possible,” Cullen said. “I never saw Terrence with a woman. I never heard him mention her. So I’m afraid Grania's suggestion does seem the most likely.”

“Unless she decided that she’d made a mistake and didn’t want to stay with Terrence Moynihan,” I said. “She might have decided to leave him and go somewhere else. But I’ve no idea where that would be. She was raised in an orphanage. She had no home.”

“You’re looking for a needle in a haystack,” Cullen said. “She could be anywhere in Ireland, if she's still alive. She could have gone to try her luck in England. And if she was left behind in the days of the famine, then she’d be quite an old woman by now. Not everyone lives to beyond fifty.”

“But I must keep on trying,” I said. “Please let me do what I have to.” “Don’t you want to help your brother escape from Kilmainham?” Cullen asked.

“Of course I do.”

“Then you’ll stay on here, until we’ve made our plans,” Cullen said. “You won’t find it a bad life, I’ll tell you that. Grania spoils us hopelessly.”

“And in a couple of days you’ll have the chance to meet the Daughters of Erin,” Grania said. “We’ve a meeting at this house.” “Saints preserve us,” Cullen said with a sigh.

Food was brought, but I found it hard to swallow. At last Grania noted that my eyes were shutting of their own accord and had me led up the stairs to bed. A hot water bottle greeted me among crisply starched sheets. I lay hugging it to me, trying to get warm, trying to come to terms with this latest twist in my adventure. My father was dead, one brother under sentence of death, and the other working with a revolutionary group, while the youngest was hidden away. I had thought, when I escaped to New York, that I had freed myself from my family, whom I saw as annoying and demanding. Now I realized that family ties cannot so easily be cut. My brothers might have been ungrateful, tracked in mud, and demanded food at all hours; but I still cared about them.

I had made a brave promise to Cullen Quinlan that I would help them in any way they needed me. Now, as I lay awake, I had time to consider that promise. Of course I wanted to help free Joseph from prison, but I hadn’t really thought what that might entail. Fighting? Killing people? Did I really want to help bring down the government and perhaps set anarchy in its place? Was the English rule really so bad for us? And what was I really prepared to do anyway—learn how to shoot a gun? To kill innocent people, if so ordered?

I hugged that hot water bottle to me, feeling its firm and comforting warmth through its flannel cover. It seemed I had little choice but to go along with them until I knew more. I was either for them or against them. And if I was against them, Cullen had already told me I’d be disposed of. I was now committed to being part of their plot, whatever happened.





Twenty-five


Iwas woken by the French maid bearing a tray of tea and biscuits, and found myself in a delightful room with lace curtains letting in leafy sunlight. Before I had had a chance to drink the tea the maid returned bearing a jug of hot water. A fire was already burning in my fireplace. There were clean clothes laid out for me. I didn’t think that staying here for a while would prove too much of a hardship. Of course a voice in my head nagged that I was actually being held here against my will. For the second time in a matter of weeks, I was in a beautiful prison.