The fact that Steve Hughes had found a photograph of the girl up at the Lodge didn’t make sense. But if the photograph proved one thing, it proved that William Cronly was connected to her, and it was a connection that Ollie wasn’t happy about. The fire may have happened a long time back, but if William Cronly did know the girl, then things were more than ‘fishy’, as Hughes had put it. Things were a whole lot worse than that.
Ollie had only visited Cronly on two occasions in the past. The last time was two days after the death of Alison Cronly, when he had been forced out of duty to pay his respects. It was a small parish, and folks felt it was necessary to give the impression of a close community, especially in death. The first occasion, fifteen years earlier, wasn’t long after the fire.
Up until that point, he’d only heard about Alison Cronly from Fitzsimons, the owner of Beachfield, and from what he’d heard about the woman, and the airs and graces about her, she was someone who insisted on being treated in high regard, even if you didn’t take kindly to her reputation. It was for that very reason that Ollie had avoided her, not wanting to kowtow like everybody else. After the fire, there was a right fuss about the place. Everyone was talking, everyone had a different story about what they thought had happened and who was to blame. There seemed to be no credit given to the fact that he had risked his life to save the mother. If anything, it was the very opposite. If his suspicions at the time were correct, from the looks he was getting, the question everyone was asking was why had he saved the madwoman and not the child. The whole bloody thing had pissed him off to high heaven. He had no idea when he had dragged the woman out that he wouldn’t get a chance to go back in. After all, she had been the nearest one to him. How was he to know she’d set fire to the blasted thing?
Ollie had no intention, before or after the fire, of having any call to meet Alison Cronly in person. When he did meet her, at first he didn’t have a notion who the hell she was. Feelings were running high after the child’s death, what with the garda presence and all the bloody questions they had. Fitzsimons had been on edge, too, worried about how it would all affect his insurance. There had certainly been a whole different approach to fire precautions after that episode.
It was late in the evening, nearly a month after the fire, when he’d stumbled on Alison Cronly. He’d spotted a woman down at the seafront from where he’d been standing on the grassy area overlooking the strand. At first, he hadn’t been able to make out what it was that he was looking at. He’d thought that maybe something had been washed in from the sea, but the closer he’d got to it, the clearer it had become that the curled-up heap on the shore was a woman. He had no idea how long she’d been there, but it was a couple of hours at least since most folk had left the beach for the evening. He’d known straight up that she wasn’t a resident from Beachfield.
When he’d got close and called her, Alison Cronly had looked more startled to see him than the other way around. Another half hour and the woman wouldn’t have been seen. Apart from the darkness, the tide had been on its way in. When he got to her, the water was no more than a foot away from her. Ollie knew he could be a bit gruff, especially when it came to conversations with women, so he’d been somewhat lost for words when he’d stood looking down at Alison Cronly, kneeling on the sand. To make matters worse, she’d looked like some religious freak, bowing her head as if she’d wanted to offer herself as a sacrifice to the ocean. Despite her position and obvious shock at seeing him, when he had asked her who she was, she hadn’t been backward about coming forward with her name. She’d said ‘Alison Cronly’ like it was supposed to mean something.