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

We stood there, wrapped in each other's arms, my head on his shoulder. Then he bent to brush my cheek with the lightest of kisses and released me, still feeling breathless.

“So—is there anything you’d like to do today?” he asked.

“The condemned's last meal?” I asked.

“Any letters you’d like posted?”

This brought me rapidly to harsh reality. Did I want to write a farewell letter to Daniel? To Sid and Gus?

“I’ll write them,” I said, “but I’ll give them to Mrs. Boone. I only want them posted if I”—I stopped. I couldn’t say the words.

I went through to my room and sat staring at the writing paper on the table.

“My dearest Daniel,” I wrote. “If you read this, I am no longer alive or I’m a captive. I had to do what I could to save my brother. It was probably foolish of me, but you know I’ve never been the most sensible of women. I love—” I picked up the sheet of paper, crumpled it and threw it into the waste bin. How could I put down feelings on paper when I wasn’t even sure of them myself?





Thirty-one


October Twenty-second dawned bright and crystal clear. The sky was like spun blue glass and every bare tree branch, every building and lamppost etched in fine detail against that blue

arc. Just when mist and cloud and rain would have been useful to hide what was about to happen, we would be spotlighted like players on a stage. It was as if the elements were mocking us.

Mary Ann, or Mrs. Boone as I still thought of her, brought up a breakfast tray as the sun streamed in through my casement window. “You’ll be needing your strength, I’ve no doubt,” she said, and placed it on the marble-topped table. It contained a dish of porridge, a smoked haddock with a fried egg on top and several slices of toast. I tried to eat, but somehow I didn’t feel hungry.

“You should get all your belongings packed up right away,” she said when she came to collect the tray and tut-tutted over the amount I had left. “Someone will be coming for them.”

“My belongings?” It had a horrible finality to it. Did they now take for granted that I wouldn’t be needing any of my worldly goods again?

“It wouldn’t do for them to find any trace of you here, just in case the place is searched,” she said.

“Where will they be taken?” I asked.

“To the ship,” she said. “More than that I can’t tell you.”

When she returned to collect the tray I remembered something that had been bothering me. “Mrs. Boone, I mean Mary Ann—you willwrite to your brother, won’t you? He sent me to find you and I’d hate him to think that I’d failed or hadn’t bothered to do the job.”

“I don’t know that I have any wish to contact my brother,” she said. “But I’ll do what you wish, just to let him know I’m alive and well and you did your job just fine.”

She picked up the tray. “And it may prove useful at some stage to have a powerful ally in America.”

I packed up everything and again thought about writing letters home. But I couldn’t bring myself to do so. Around noon Mrs. Boone offered lunch but neither Cullen nor I were in any mood to eat. The waiting seemed endless. At last Cullen tapped on my door.

“Time to go. Are you ready?”

I nodded. He led me down the stairs. There was no sign of Mrs. Boone, and I realized she probably didn’t want to say good-bye. I walked beside Cullen into the back streets of the Liberties, and at last we were admitted to a ramshackle house over a stable. Inside the room was dark, with tattered curtains drawn across the window, and it didn’t smell too wholesome either, with the odor of unwashed bodies competing with the horse manure rising from the stable below. As far as I could make out in the gloom, there were several boys present, a couple of whom I had seen before at Grania's, and one of whom was my brother. The tension in the atmosphere was palpable, although the boys attempted bravado, with insults and jokes as their instructions were given. I was handed the bottle of smelling salts, which now contained chloroform and shown how many drops to use and how to administer it. Then I was handed a basket of baked goods.

“Isn’t this a little obvious?” I asked. “They are bound to search a basket like this.”

“Of course they are,” Cullen said. “They’ll immediately think of files baked into the soda bread; knives in the plum cake. And of course they’ll find nothing and feel rather stupid. Then we hope they’ll let down their guard a trifle.”

“I feel like Little Red Riding Hood, going to see her grandma,” I said, and Cullen laughed.

“So you are,” he agreed.