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‘You’re making fun of me now. Anya was the stunner more like,’ he said to deflect any embarrassment from himself, but still, she was glad to see, the compliment had perked him up.
‘Well, she certainly managed to turn Eddie’s head,’ Liv managed to quip.
‘I’m sorry. You don’t want to hear this, probably, but, I never really liked him very much,’ Pete said. ‘You always knew that?’
‘You were just chalk and cheese.’
‘I made the best of things because you two were together.’ He leant forward on the sofa; the movie was firmly forgotten about for now. ‘The truth is, Liv, he was never good enough for you. I have a feeling if Rachel was here, she’d have made you see sense a lot sooner.’
‘Stop it. You sound like my dad, trying to make me feel better.’
‘I’m not just saying it because you’re Rachel’s sister or because we’re friends, but you were too kind, too caring and far too bloody soft for the likes of Eddie Quirke.’
‘Oh, Pete, that’s so nice…’ Because although it was a long time ago, Liv could remember what it was like to be invisible as a teenager. She looked at him now; he was very close and then, before she realised what was happening, they had leant towards each other, their lips just brushing together. It felt as if everything came crashing in simultaneously. Her senses were suddenly on high alert, her stomach turning somersaults and then they kissed and she was, for that protracted exquisite moment, lost.
Pete pulled back. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.’
‘It was…’ She wanted to say perfect, but she couldn’t quite put the word together.
‘You were so… saying all those things and I’ve just messed everything up,’ he said standing so quickly he knocked over her bottle of beer. ‘Shit.’ Then he was grabbing a towel, drying up the mess. ‘I should get going. I’ll call you, if it’s not too… awkward?’ He bit his lip and then he was gathering up his coat and Liv was left looking about her and wondering if it had really happened at all.
12
It was Barbara.
‘Hi, Barbara, is everything okay?’ Liv asked wearily, knowing only too well that if everything was hunky-dory, the last person Barbara would be contacting was Liv.
‘Of course everything is not okay. I’m here on my own and there’s someone down at the end of my garden.’
‘Do you want me to call the guards?’ Liv squinted at the clock on her nightstand. It was three o’clock in the morning.
‘I’ve done that already, but everyone knows they are worse than useless. Last time it took them almost an hour to get here.’
‘Last time?’
‘Never mind that now, just come over here and see for yourself. There must be ten of them in it, smoking cigarettes and probably drinking too. I’ll wager not one of them is over fifteen.’
‘Right,’ Liv said pushing herself out of her lovely cosy bed. She moved automatically, slipping into her clothes and shoes, grabbing a flashlight – although there was always one in the jeep – shrugging into the warmest coat she could put her hand on in the porch before venturing out into the pitch-black of the night.
The jeep cut through the silent village like a roaring storm trooper pushing through pristine snowy silence. She dialled the local Garda station only to hear the call being redirected to the larger town three villages over. Barbara was probably right. It would take the squad car an age to get here. Liv hung up before they answered – what was the point in wasting everyone’s time, especially if it was only kids? This was Ballycove after all; it wouldn’t be much more than a couple of fourteen-year-olds. Liv was used to dealing with far scarier night owls in A&E on any given Saturday night.
When she pulled up outside Barbara’s door, it hardly looked likeCSI Ballycove. If anything, the road and all of the gardens looked as peaceful as the graveyard just a short distance away. She decided to investigate before going inside to check on Barbara and she set off around the perimeter of the house, letting herself in through a side gate that probably should have been properly locked to begin with. She stuffed her phone inside her jacket. The torch, apart from making her feel like Nancy Drew, picked out the uneven path easily. The garden, which had probably once been quite productive (Eddie told her his dad had spent many hours here, growing vegetables and pottering about), was faded now. It was a long stretch of overgrown grass and weeds on either side of the path, uneven where drills had once been dug out, but flattened out roughly with each passing season of neglect.
At the end, a shed, made of scrap pieces of wood and corrugated sheeting, hunkered back against the wall. The door, swinging open in the breeze made Liv jump but she managed to stifle down a small surprised squeal. There was no-one there. It seemed the culprit was just an old door that someone had forgotten to close. She checked inside, flashing her torch around the little shed in case there was a stray cat or dog huddled safely from the falling snow. The last thing she wanted to do was lock some poor sheltering animal up for perhaps days or weeks on end. She had a feeling that no-one came near here from one end of the week to the next, not Barbara and certainly not Eddie.
There was nothing more than dirty and rusting gardening tools and a single string of rotting onions hanging from the roof. She pulled the door out securely behind her, feeling an odd sadness for the notion that this place might have been very different if Eddie’s father had not died at such a young age. She hardly remembered him, really, but it was only a few years before she and Eddie had gotten together. Her father had said once that Tim Quirke had chosen the easier path. Was suicide really easier than living with Barbara? She shivered now and wondered if it was the winter cold or some spirit that had brushed too close to her as she turned to walk back up the path towards the house.
It took Barbara a few minutes to answer the door and for all her worry on the phone earlier, Liv couldn’t shake the feeling that the woman had managed to go back to sleep again.
‘The shed you say? Left open – yes, that would probably account for the noise,’ she said standing solidly in the doorway. It was obvious that now the problem was sorted, Barbara was not in the mood for chit-chat.
‘So, it’s happened before?’ Liv was fighting the urge to lose her temper. After all, if it was just a simple question of checking that the shed door was locked at night, surely it wasn’t too much for Barbara to do a simple job like that herself?
‘Oh, yes, it happens all the time; someone pops in for something and then forgets to lock it up. Honestly, you’d think the Vikings were making a return assault with the noise in the middle of the night. It’s enough to bring on one of my terrible migraines; I could be out for days with it…’ Barbara said closing out the door slightly. Liv knew only too well what that was like, so perhaps, she could forgive Barbara this once. She turned back towards the jeep, had hardly reached the gate when she heard the soft click of the Quirke front door closing behind her. Then there was the rattle of the chain lock being pulled over to ensure that no intruder could make their way back into the house for the rest of the night.
It was only when Liv sat into the jeep that she began to wonder again where Eddie was. There was no sign of his van parked outside the house. Surely, he wasn’t in the pub until this hour. It was almost four o’clock in the morning. He couldn’t still be in Dublin with Anya, could he? Out of the blue, a sly film of sweat eased through every pore in her body, a tightening of her stomach muscles and the feeling that it was hard to catch her breath. Where on earth was he? She couldn’t turn around and ask his mother if she knew where her son was; it would only give Barbara the satisfaction of being able to place a gnawing question mark forever between them.
And then, she realised what it was that had been lurking beneath her thoughts since they’d had that disagreement on the beach. She had only half given it words earlier with her parents, but now she was almost certain. He had decided to take matters into his own hands and invite Anya to stay in the flat anyway. Surely, he wouldn’t do something like that, not without both of them agreeing to it, not when she’d been so clear about the fact that it just wasn’t a runner. And then, her breath caught up and she felt for a moment as if she might never catch it again. This was ridiculous. The only thing that had caused it was the realisation that of course she’d let Anya stay, because otherwise, Eddie might just take her lovely ring and leave her all alone again.
