The Well of Ice

  Also By Andrea Carter

  Death at Whitewater Church

  Treacherous Strand

  Copyright © 2017 by Andrea Carter

  First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Constable

  Published in the United States in 2020 by Oceanview Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, businesses, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-1-60809-366-3

  Oceanview Publishing • Sarasota, Florida

  www.oceanviewpub.com

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  For my parents, Jack and Gloria, who filled our house with books

  Chapter 1

  HE HANDS ME a glass of red as the fire crackles gently in the grate and the strains of “Good King Wenceslas” drift in from the carol singers on the green. The tree looks beautiful, with twinkling white lights and a star glimmering on top.

  “It’s snowing,” he says. And he smiles as he leans in to …

  Noise from the street outside jolted me back: voices calling angrily; a rasping cough from a severe case of smoker’s phlegm. I turned to the window, mortified, as if my thoughts had been read. Which wasn’t likely since I was alone in my office, buried in conveyancing files, exactly where I had been for twelve hours a day the past week, with Leah typing like a demon downstairs. I stretched out my arms and rubbed my shoulders to relieve the tension in my neck. It was nearly lunchtime and I’d been in the office since seven. The calendar said it was Wednesday, December 16, a week before O’Keeffe & Co. Solicitors closed for Christmas, and we had ten sales to finalize before then. The same thing happened every year. People just had to be in their new houses for Christmas – the world ended on St. Stephen’s Day.

  Not that I was complaining; it was great for business, but a killer on the neck.

  In general, things were good. Much of that had to do with my new relationship – if you could call it that – with Molloy. So far, we had studiously avoided putting any kind of a label on what had been happening between us these past few months. And we had made a decision to keep things quiet, neither of us ready for the public scrutiny that would inevitably accompany the news that the local sergeant was sleeping with the local solicitor. Or as other people might see it, the prosecution sleeping with the defense.

  I had to admit I liked the secrecy of it. I liked his appearance at the back door of my cottage late at night, the way his hand brushed mine when I handed him a legal aid form in court. But if that daydream was anything to go by, I was every inch the sad cliché when it came to Christmas. I’d have to shake that off for a start. The reality was that we hadn’t even discussed Christmas, and spending it together might be a step too far if we were trying to keep things quiet. Although there were times when I suspected the only people we were deceiving were ourselves. Glendara is a small town and not much escapes the residents – unless of course they choose not to notice something, which happens quite a lot.

  The truth was that Molloy was the first good thing to happen to me in a while. Our relationship had made the transition from friendship to whatever-it-was-now the day I’d heard about Luke Kirby’s release; Kirby – the man who’d killed my sister. It was Molloy who had told me, and without him I’m not sure how I’d have handled it.

  Apart from having to absorb the news myself, I’d had to tell my parents. I didn’t want them to find out the way I had, considerably after the fact, or from somebody other than me. Worse, I certainly didn’t want them reading about it in the paper. Although with the benefit of hindsight, I could see there had never been much risk of that. There had been no publicity whatsoever, which was why I hadn’t heard about it before Molloy told me. No journalists waiting at the gates of the prison, no appalled public outcry that this monster should now be on the loose again, free to walk among ordinary decent citizens, to prey on other vulnerable women. Nothing. My sister’s killer had been released quietly, free to return to the UK, which according to Molloy was what he had done and where he intended to remain. Faye’s death was old news, yesterday’s chip paper, replaced by even more salacious stories of sexual predation, depravity, and violence. A murder trial in Dublin had been dominating all available front-page space for weeks.

  I understood that Kirby had to be released eventually, of course I did; I’m a lawyer. He had served more than nine years of his ten-year sentence, longer than average for manslaughter, which is exactly what I would have told a client if I’d been asked. But when it’s personal, it’s different, a realization that had hit me during the trial. And his release had brought back sickening memories, which had only ever been just below the surface.

  I sipped at the coffee on my desk. It was cold and bitter and utterly disgusting, but my throat was dry so I drank it. My throat went dry whenever I thought about Luke Kirby, although I was trying not to let that happen too often anymore. It was a precarious peace of mind that I had reached, but a peace nonetheless. I heard a cry of frustration from downstairs, not the first I’d heard this morning. Leah, like myself, was buried under a mountain of paperwork, probably more so since she was the one who had to type everything up. She didn’t have to deal with the phone this morning, at least, but that was merely temporary. We had closed the office to the public for a few hours to clear some of the backlog.

  I flipped open my Dictaphone to extract the tape, grabbed the stack of files I’d been working on, and headed downstairs, approaching the reception desk with trepidation. Leah looked up at the sound of my footsteps, glaring at me over a mountain of files and stopping me in my tracks. The tape I’d completed remained between my teeth, the files I was carrying close to toppling.

  “Please don’t give me anything else until I finish this lot,” she pleaded. “There’s no room, apart from anything else.”

  She was right. I had no idea how she was going to manage to extricate herself when she needed to, without mixing everything up. I staggered through the door of the waiting room, dumped the files I was carrying on one of the chairs and spat out the tape.

  “Okay,” I said slowly, glancing with concern at the list I’d placed on top of the files.

  She caught my look and sighed. “At least go through that lot and let me know what you absolutely need done today. I’ll do my best.”

  “Agreed,” I said before she could change her mind. I looked at the clock above the reception desk. It was five to one. “Come on, let’s leave this lot for half an hour and get some lunch.”

  My right foot slid from under me when I stepped out onto the footpath, and I’d have landed firmly on my backside if it weren’t for Leah’s quick reflexes. She grabbed hold of my elbow and set me back on my feet with a laugh.

  “Cripes. Thanks for that,” I said, reaching for the wall of the office and pulling my hand back the second I touched its icy surface.

  I looked down. The pavement was glistening with tiny patches of white. “We’d better get some salt on there before this afternoon, or we’re going to have a load of claims on our hands on top of everything else. It wasn’t like that this morning, was it?”

  “No, it’s definitely getting colder,” Leah agreed. “Highland Radio is predicting snow for the weekend.”

  “Really? A white Christmas, do you reckon?” I breathed in. The air tasted of
mint. I had a flashback to my earlier daydream, which I shook off.

  She grinned. “Hopefully.”

  I picked my way up the hill with carefully tentative steps. It certainly looked as if snow was a possibility. There was an icy stillness to the air, and the pale sky seemed far too low, as if a false base had been slipped beneath the real thing, lending a claustrophobic, oppressive feel to the day. I had a brief, inexplicable sense of foreboding, but it dissipated as soon as we turned the corner onto the square and were hit with a blast of “Jingle Bell Rock” from the speakers that had been set up beside the tree.

  The huge tree erected in the town square every year by local businesses glowed cheerfully, its multicolored lights brightening the grey day, its branches covered in a dusting of fake snow, which if Leah were correct might not be needed in a day or two. A few years previously the Glendora Christmas tree had collapsed, brought down by high winds, taking with it two telephone poles and cutting off the electricity to the square for days. The baubles within arm’s reach had disappeared quickly, but when an eighty-three-year-old client handed me a cup of tea with a giant angel perched proudly on her mantelpiece, I was baffled. How she’d managed to nab the highest decoration from the tilted tree remained a mystery, but since then sturdy wires had been attached every year to ground the tree in place like a tent. Although there seemed little danger of such high winds this year – it was just very cold.

  Town was busy, with cars double-parked all around the square and two tractors facing each other off outside the hardware shop. A gang of kids from the community school lounged on the wall beside the tree, eating chips from steaming greaseproof bags and drinking cans of Coke. They pushed one another and larked about, chasing around the tree like five-year-olds and stealing each other’s food. I couldn’t quite understand the attraction of eating outside on a day like today, but I guessed it was good to get out of the school for an hour. I assumed they were in the middle of Christmas exams. The smell of vinegar made my nose tingle and my mouth water as I walked past them.

  I was still distracted by the food when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

  “Well, solicitor. How are you doing?”

  I turned quickly to a broad grin I hadn’t seen in a while. The bearer of the grin, Eddie Kearney, was an old client of mine. He’d taken off to Australia to make his fortune but he could only have been gone nine months at the most. Not long to make your fortune.

  “Eddie. When did you get back?”

  He shook my hand vigorously. “Sunday night,” he replied. “I’m just home for a few weeks for the Christmas. See the mother and the sisters and the weans.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Thought I might have to come home earlier, but I wasn’t needed after all that. You heard that mad one pleaded guilty?”

  “I did.” Kearney had been a witness in a case that I’d been involved in, rather a reluctant witness if I remembered correctly. But I didn’t want to get into that now.

  “Are you heading for the Oak?” he asked. I nodded.

  “I’ll walk with you so. Calling in to see the sister. Haven’t seen her since I got back.”

  Eddie’s sister, Carole, was the barmaid in the Oak. He’d worked there himself before he took off to Sydney.

  We walked up the street together, Eddie taking up a position between Leah and myself; I sensed it was all he could do not to link arms. He’d lost none of his swagger since he’d been in Australia, but I imagined there was a maturity about him that had been absent before. His hairstyle had certainly improved. Before he’d left Inishowen, Eddie had favored the straight-up, caught-in-a-strong-gale look and jeans that were so low-slung there were times when I feared for his modesty. Now he was sporting a short back and sides and wearing a tie, and the sun seemed to have cleared up his acne. I wondered if he’d given up the weed, the reason why he had been such a regular client of mine before he left.

  A blast of warm air and the original “Jingle Bells” greeted us when we opened the door of the pub. Eddie stood aside to allow Leah and myself to go ahead of him, something I couldn’t have imagined the old Eddie doing. Not because he wouldn’t have wanted to be polite but because it simply wouldn’t have occurred to him. The old Eddie had no sense; this new one seemed to have acquired some.

  The Oak was packed and warm as toast, a roaring turf fire doing the honors. Red and green fairy lights had been strung around the walls and sprigs of holly tucked behind the old black-and-white photographs of the town. Eight bizarrely proportioned hand-knitted reindeer pulled a sleigh suspended above the bar, the one at the front bearing a bright red nose and a rather malevolent-looking grin.

  Eddie’s sister, Carole, was standing at the coffee machine behind the counter, her blonde hair tied up in a loose ponytail. She had her back to us when Eddie leaned over the bar and called to her, an excited grin on his face. Though she must have heard him, she didn’t respond but finished what she was doing, emptying the coffee grounds and replacing the beans. He called again, impatient for a response, and this time she turned, her expression blank as if she didn’t know who he was.

  Leah and I exchanged a glance. Hadn’t their mother told her he was home? She clearly hadn’t expected to see him. But surprised or not, it wasn’t the reaction you’d expect from a sister greeting her brother home from the other side of the world. Eddie’s grin faded, disappointment on his face. His reaction seemed to bring his sister to her senses and she managed to pull herself together. She smiled broadly as if that had been her intention all along. And then something crossed her face. Fear. Eddie didn’t seem to notice. He looked relieved when Carole gave him an awkward hug, and perched on a bar stool with a pint while Leah and I ordered sandwiches and coffee and left them to chat. We found a table by the window to wait for our food.

  Leah frowned. “Am I imagining things, or was that a bit odd?”

  “Maybe they’re not that close?”

  She nodded. “Oh aye, there’d be a right age gap between them all right – a good ten years probably. There’s a sister in the middle. Still, he has been away for a while.”

  My phone vibrated on the table and I picked it up. It was a text from Molloy. One word: Tonight?

  I must have smiled without realizing it, because Leah looked at me curiously. “Good news?”

  I flushed. “What?”

  “The text. You look happy.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing. I’ll answer it later.” I put the phone in my bag and looked around me. The pub was full. We’d nabbed the only free table. “What’s going on? Why is it so busy in here?”

  “It’s the last cattle mart of the year. Pre-Christmas lunch, I suppose,” Leah said.

  “There’s none next week?”

  She shook her head. I looked around me at the ruddy faces, the checked shirts and the heavy boots, smiling weather-beaten faces with a holiday cheer even though all would be working over Christmas. Carole waved at us from the bar to signal that our food was ready.

  When we took our seats again, I said, “I hope the snow doesn’t affect the flights from Derry on Friday.”

  Leah looked up from her chicken sandwich, eyebrows raised.

  “I’ve decided I’m going to fly to Dublin to close that sale,” I said. “I’m not too keen on driving with the roads like this. I might not get back.”

  I was acting for a couple called the Greys, who were buying an old manor house further up the coast. It would be a three-way completion, which meant that the meeting to close the sale would involve the seller’s solicitor, the bank’s solicitor, and myself. It was the biggest purchase I’d done since I’d come to Donegal, and I was anxious about it. If a document was missing or didn’t meet with the approval of the bank’s solicitors, then the money wouldn’t be forthcoming and the sale wouldn’t complete, which meant no keys for my clients before Christmas. And since the seller’s solicitor and my clients’ bank’s solicitor were both in Dublin, I was the one who was expected to travel. I hoped to be able to get down and back in the one day, which
wouldn’t be possible if I drove – the drive to Dublin took me four hours at the best of times.

  “Is all the paperwork done, by the way?” I asked.

  Leah nodded and swallowed her mouthful of sandwich. “The marriage certificate came in this morning, so I’ve done up all the declarations. It’s ready to go.”

  “That’s great. The Greys are coming in tomorrow morning to sign.” I took a sip of my coffee. “Have you seen the pictures of the house, by the way? The estate agent’s brochure is still on the file. It’s a gorgeous spot. Beautiful grounds, just on the water.”

  Leah shook her head, concentrating on her food. No interest in discussing work any further at lunchtime.

  “They’re planning on opening it as a hotel. Maybe something to think about for your wedding?” I smiled.

  She stopped chewing and looked up. Now she was interested.

  That evening I left the office feeling as if I’d been wrung out like a J-cloth. It was nine o’clock and I’d been in the office for fourteen hours. Although I’d stayed a little longer than necessary because I wanted to ring my parents about Christmas. I wasn’t sure what their plans were, but I knew that if they wanted me to spend it with them, I would.

  I hadn’t been able to get hold of them the last few times I’d rung, but I took this to be a good sign. For years after my sister’s death they put their lives on hold, too grief-stricken to do anything other than get through the day, bitter that Kirby had been convicted of manslaughter rather than murder. But recently they had become involved with a support group for parents who had lost children – adult and otherwise – and it seemed to be doing them good. They’d received grief counseling with this group, which meant they had coped far better than I had expected with the news of Kirby’s release.

  This time when I called, my mother answered on the second ring.

  “Ah, Sarah,” she said. “I was just saying to your father that I must ring you tonight.”