“May I help you?” she asked politely.

  “I’m looking for a dress,” Kellie began.

  “For what occasion?”

  “A dinner party,” she improvised.

  The woman’s smile became ingratiating. “We have some lovely things that came in yesterday.” She cocked her head. “With your coloring may I suggest something in cream or a pale yellow? Follow me. I have the perfect dress. In fact I have several perfect dresses.”

  “One will do.”

  An hour later, Kellie walked out of the shop carrying a buttery yellow sheath that fit like nothing she’d ever owned and bone-colored, strappy, high-heeled sandals. She looked at her watch and her heart beat accelerated. It was nearly time to head toward the Black Swan.

  The pub was filled with the usual lunch rush. A harried waitress motioned Kellie to a table in the corner facing the door. She handed her a menu. “It will be a bit before I can get to you. I hope you’re not in a hurry.”

  Kellie shook her head. “I’m expecting someone. Would you bring me an ale? Take your time.”

  The waitress was back in no time with her drink and then she disappeared into the kitchen. Kellie glanced at the menu and put it aside. All of her attention was concentrated on the entrance to the pub.

  A man, between fifty and sixty, with gingery hair and a pleasant smile entered the pub. He looked around, saw Kellie, and made his way to her table.

  “Kellie Delaney?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “My name is Kevin Davies.”

  She motioned toward the chair beside her. “Please, sit down.”

  He ignored the menu. “My wife told me you wanted to see me.”

  “Did she tell you why, Mr. Davies?”

  He leaned forward. “I’m sorry for your loss. I want to assure you that I had no knowledge of the tragedy, nor would I ever allow or condone such an action.”

  Kellie sipped her drink. “Please don’t be offended, Mr. Davies, but anyone would say that. Tell me why I should believe you.”

  He sat back and folded his hands on the table, a pleasant-looking man with blunt features and bright blue eyes. “I’m going to tell you a story, a dreadful story, that will incriminate me far more than the murder of your brother and his child. What you do with the information with be up to you.”

  “Does this have to do with Tom Whelan?”

  “It does.”

  “Will I need another drink?”

  “Are you a drinking woman, Miss Delaney?”

  “No.”

  “Alcohol doesn’t really solve anything.” His smile was kind. “I’ve done a number of things I’m not proud of, but this one, if made public, will destroy my way of life.”

  “Why tell me?”

  “Because you’re angry and angry women are dangerous. I would rather be denounced for what I did than for what I didn’t do. Besides, you’ve upset my wife. When this is over, I’d like a favor of you.”

  She was intrigued. “A favor?”

  “I’d like you to tell my wife that we’ve spoken.”

  He was too controlled, too suave. She didn’t trust him. “Please, go on.”

  “I came of age in Portadown in the sixties. There was nothing for the lads and I in a Loyalist town but to join up.”

  Kellie nodded. “I’m from Andersonstown. My brothers were the same.”

  He frowned. “Surely not the brother who was killed?”

  “No. Connor was different.”

  Davies smiled briefly. “There were a few of those, shining lights who left as soon as it was possible.”

  “Please, continue.”

  “I was clever and managed to avoid prison. By the time I left for Belfast, I was a hard lad, up for almost anything. McGarrety and I set up the Belfast Brigade together.”

  “Was Tom Whelan part of that life?”

  “Aye, he was indeed. But Tom was from Banburren. Lines are drawn but not so sharply in the small towns near the sea. He wasn’t angry enough and he was married.”

  Kellie felt the pinch in her heart.

  “He was caught before he earned himself a harsh sentence. That was enough for him.”

  “What did he have to do with you?”

  Davies pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his hands. “We were on a mission together,” he said, his voice level. “On a chance, we thought we’d found three Prods we were looking for in a local pub in Sligo. We blindfolded and cuffed them. The checkpoint at the border was manned. We didn’t expect it, but when we saw the lights we knew we couldn’t cross with our prisoners. I told Tom to get out of the car, to make his way over the hills. I drove them, cuffed and blindfolded, mind you, to within fifty yards of the checkpoint. I crawled out and waited for the guards to approach the car. Then I detonated the bomb that killed them all.”

  Minutes ticked by as Kellie stared at the man beside her. His face was smooth, his manners gentle. She tried to imagine him in the situation he’d recreated and couldn’t. “Did Tom know what you’d planned to do?”

  Davies shook his head. “No one knew. I didn’t know myself until I did it. Our automobiles were equipped with bombs just in case.”

  Kellie wet her lips. “I don’t know what to say. What you did was terrible, unfortunately, but not unusual. Belfast was a war zone for a long time.”

  “What was unusual was that two of the Protestants from the pub were women. We didn’t normally set out to kill women.”

  Her face whitened. “Dear God.”

  His eyes never left her face. “There’s more.”

  She waited.

  “The women weren’t the right ones. They weren’t involved at all. I murdered two innocent women because they were in the wrong company.”

  “Please.” Kellie shook her head. “You’ve said enough. I can’t hear any more of this.”

  He leaned forward. “There is more, Miss Delaney, but my role is finished. I imagine, when you think this through, that you will have questions.” He reached into his pocket and handed her a card. “Call me when you’re ready for the answers and, please, do me the courtesy of telling me what you decide to do with the information I’ve given you before I read it on the front pages of the London Times.”

  Kellie didn’t watch him walk away. She waited a full fifteen minutes before paying the bill and making her way back to Gillian’s flat. It was three o’clock and she was restless. She needed something to take her mind off her meeting with Davies.

  In Banburren, Heather would be walking home from school. Tom would be looking at the clock, anticipating her arrival home, fixing her tea, or perhaps that task had fallen to Claire. Kellie bit her lip. She wanted to hear Heather’s voice. Tom hadn’t said she wasn’t to call. She picked up the phone. Quickly, before she changed her mind, she pressed the keypad numbers and waited for the familiar double ring that signaled Ireland.

  A woman answered. Claire. Kellie resisted the impulse to hang up. “Hello,” she said. “This is Kellie.”

  Silence.

  She began again. “I’m calling for Heather.”

  Claire came right to the point. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “Why?”

  Claire’s voice lowered. Kellie could barely hear her.

  “It should be obvious. She’s my daughter.”

  “How is she?”

  “Very well, thank you. We’re all fine.”

  Kellie’s heart hurt. “I’m glad.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there anything else you wanted?”

  “No. Nothing at all.”

  “You can’t have them.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I won’t give you my husband and child.”

  “Of course not. Goodbye, Claire.”

  The click of the phone was firm and final.

  Kellie hung up the phone, stared at it for a long time and then picked it up again. Then she punched in the number she’d committed to memory. A man answered after the first ring. “John Griffiths, please. This is Kellie Delaney.”

  Claire replaced the phone, poured herself a cup of tea and sat down at the table. Normally she loved winter afternoons. It was her private time, a world of gray mist and muted sounds and solitude. Wrapped in a plaid blanket, she carried the cup outside and sat down on the steps. Heather and Tom wouldn’t be home for a while yet. She would have time to mull over her miniconversation with Kellie.

  The woman was hurting. It was evident in her voice, in the phone call itself. What it must have taken for her to make such a call? Kellie Delaney had her share of pride. She wasn’t one to go where she wasn’t wanted. Claire had seen it immediately and had the grace to feel some responsibility over her role in complicating Kellie’s life. Not that she’d had a choice.

  Tom’s voice broke through her thoughts. “It’s cold out here.”

  Claire turned around. He stood in the doorway, hard-eyed and handsome in faded jeans and a pullover, his arms crossed against his chest to ward off the chill.

  “I’m used to it,” she said. “Where’s Heather?”

  “Playing with Kathleen Mallory for the afternoon.”

  Claire’s heart sank. They would be alone.

  “I heard the phone,” he said.

  She thought of lying and decided against it. “It was Kellie.”

  “What did she want?”

  He said it casually, as if it didn’t matter to him. But Claire wasn’t fooled. “She asked about Heather.”

  “How is she?”

  “I don’t know. We didn’t discuss that. I told her we were all doing well.”

  Tom laughed. It was a hollow sound.

  Claire, who knew him as well as she knew herself, winced. After all these years, his pain shouldn’t bother her. “Why did you let her go, Tom? Obviously you care for her.”

  He didn’t deny it. “I don’t deserve her. I’m a married man, not formally educated, with the added complication of a wife who has nowhere else to go.”

  She didn’t contradict him. Instead she tried to make him understand. “I needed to come home, Tom. I needed a place where I felt safe. You have no idea what I’ve been through.”

  “Don’t I?”

  She stared straight ahead. “It’s not the same in a women’s prison. We aren’t housed with political prisoners. We don’t study our language or Irish history or military strategy. We’re with felons, murderers, psychotic personalities. It’s a fight to survive.”

  He sat down beside her. She felt the edge of his knee against her thigh. When he spoke his words were unexpected and cruel. “I’m not responsible for your decisions and I refuse to feel guilty because you destroyed what we had.”

  She stared at him. “What are you saying?”

  “I didn’t want this for you,” he said. Bitterness lined his face. “I wanted you to come home, have our child and settle into some semblance of normal family life. You didn’t want that and you paid for it. Perhaps there was a time when it could have worked between us, but not any longer. I feel nothing for you but contempt. Christ, what you could have done if you’d channeled your energies differently, what we both could have done.” He shook his head. “You have nothing to show for your adult life.”

  “Do you?”

  He looked somewhere beyond her. “No.”

  She bit her lip. Nothing mattered except the words she refused to leave without saying. “I never stopped loving you, Tom.”

  “How convenient,” he shot back. “When did you decide that, before or after you destroyed our lives?”

  She sighed. “All right. I understand. I’ll go as soon as the dole comes in.”

  He stood, straight, merciless, a man who knew his own mind. “I’ll check around and see if I can move your appointment up on the calendar.”

  “I could insist that you sell the house.”

  He looked at her evenly. “Is that what want, to sell my home?”

  She corrected him. “Our home.”

  “You lived here for seven months. I’ve been here nine years.”

  She sighed. “I’m not much for tea this afternoon.”

  “I’ll manage on my own,” he said.

  Claire was about to remind him that Heather had begun to dislike milk, but decided against it. They had managed before her and they would manage when she was no longer here. She would miss the child terribly. It wasn’t fair. She’d known the minute her baby was born that she’d wanted nothing more than to go home, raise her daughter and leave the life she’d known behind. It wasn’t easily done. Claire had wanted the chance to try again, but it wasn’t meant to be.

  Twenty-Three

  She should have stayed away from the bakery. It was Susan’s favorite but in previous years her mother-in- law had been an early riser. At this hour Claire was certain she could make her purchases and vacate the shop safely. She’d miscalculated. Both Susan and Maggie bore down on her, smiles wide, purpose stamped on their Whelan features.

  “Hello, Claire.” Susan smiled at her. “It’s been a week since we’ve seen you. Where have you been?”

  Claire cleared her throat. “Has it been that long? I didn’t realize it.”

  “We were coming to invite you to Sharon’s first communion,” Maggie said. “I’ve mentioned it before but you may have forgotten.”

  Sharon’s first communion. Who in the name of heaven was Sharon? “Of course I haven’t forgotten,” she lied.

  “You will remind Tom?”

  “Aye. I’ll tell him.”

  “We’ll be having a luncheon after it’s over,” Maggie continued. “I have you down for a pudding. Is that all right?”

  “Perfectly.”

  Dear God. A pudding. Did these people know her at all? How would she manage it? Perhaps she could buy something that looked homemade at the bakery. Her smile was brittle. “A pudding it will be.”

  Susan had said nothing beyond her first greeting. She was looking at her strangely.

  Claire moved toward the door. “Lexi is outside. I’ve got to get her home. I won’t forget to remind Tom about the celebration.”

  Outside, Claire whistled to the dog, set her package in the basket of her bicycle and pushed away from the curb. The bike wobbled precariously, refusing to right itself. Frustrated, Claire climbed off and looked at the front tire. It was flat.

  Behind her, Susan spoke. “That won’t get you anywhere.”

  “No,” Claire replied. She stared straight ahead.

  “Is something wrong?”

  Claire saw no point in pretending. “Aye.”

  Susan sighed. “I’ve known you your whole life, Claire. Let me help you.”

  Claire shook her head.

  “Why not?”

  “There’s nothing to say. Everything’s grand.”

  “You’re a liar, Claire Donovan. You’ve always been a liar.”

  Claire turned and met her mother-in-law’s contemptuous glance. She ignored the challenge.

  “Where’s Maggie?”

  “Gone home.”

  Curiosity got the best of her. “Why did you visit me all those years?”

  “I diapered your bottom more times than I can count. You married my son. I loved your mother.”

  Claire’s eyes filled. She clutched the handlebars, unable to speak.

  Susan stared at her. “What’s got into you, Claire? Is it tears I’m seeing? What have I said that’s upset you so?”

  Claire shook her head.

  “Come now,” Susan said in her determined way. “I’m taking you home. I deserve a few answers and someone is going to give them to me.”

  “Tom will be home.”

  “I’m taking you to my home. I want you alone for a bit.”

  Claire allowed herself to be meekly propelled along the streets and down the road. Susan maintained a soothing flow of conversation that required no response. Claire was grateful. Hearing without listening, she forced herself to keep up, matching her mother- in-law’s pace, placing one foot in front of the other. After an interminable walk, much longer than Claire remembered, they were there.

  With a grateful sigh, Claire sank into the comfortable couch that hadn’t changed since she was a child. It was comforting to lean back, close her eyes and absorb the well-being that she’d always associated with Tom’s mother.

  Susan left her alone to disappear into the kitchen. After a bit she returned with a tray piled with biscuits, cake and the makings for tea, Susan’s remedy for all ailments. Claire smiled. Some things never changed.

  “There now.” Susan sat across from her, fortified with a cup of sweet, milky tea. “Don’t argue with me, Claire. I want to know everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “Aye. Don’t tell me it’s none of my business. After what I’ve done for you I deserve the truth.”

  The truth. Which truth did she want? Would Susan be happy with her truth or with Tom’s? Perhaps it was Kellie’s truth she preferred. “I don’t know what that is.”

  “Of course you do. Tell me how you rousted Kellie Delaney.”

  Claire’s hands shook. She lifted the cup to her lips. Some of the liquid sloshed over into the saucer. She set it down on the low table in front of her. “Why do you assume that I’ve done it?”

  “Because you’re here and she’s gone.”

  Claire looked down at her hands. “I think that was more Tom’s doing than mine. He wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about her staying and she’s a woman with more than her share of pride. A woman like Kellie, attractive, educated, doesn’t need to put up with a man’s indecision. She’ll find someone else.”

  Susan pursed her lips. “Maybe not. Sometimes it doesn’t work that way.”

  Claire looked away. “Are we here to talk about Kellie Delaney?”

  “I want to know your intentions. Will you stay here in Banburren?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “My son doesn’t want you here.”

  “That’s his problem.”

  Susan looked resigned. “Claire. What will you do with your life? You were never happy here.”

  Claire ignored the question. “You’re very angry with me, aren’t you, Susan?”

  “Very.”

  “Do you miss Kellie?”

  “Aye. She was good for Tom and for Heather.”