A Terrible Beauty

'Family pressure. I'm the head of the Meagher family now, and what would they think if I sold Meagher's Farm to some developer?'

'That's it? Family pressure?'

'Well, pride, too. I'm not the kind of guy who likes to admit defeat.'

Katie smiled. 'That's one thing that you and I have in common, then. Blind stubbornness in the face of overwhelming adversity.'

John looked at her for a long time, his chin resting on his hand. She looked directly back at him, and for some reason neither of them felt any particular need to talk. Katie hadn't felt so immediately comfortable with anyone for a long time, and it was obvious that he felt comfortable with her, too.

'So what do you do when you're not being a detective superintendent?'

'I don't get much time to do anything. But I like to cook, and take my dog for a walk on the beach.'

'You're married.'

She twisted her wedding band. 'Yes, well.'

'No children?'

She shook her head. She was still smiling but her smile was a little tighter. John must have realized that he had touched a sensitive spot because he raised his hand in a gesture that meant, okay, I won't ask you any more.

After a while, Mrs. Meagher came back in, still coughing, and looking for her cigarettes.

'I'd better get back,' said Katie, checking her watch.

'Sure?and I've got three hectares of red potatoes to plow up.'

They walked outside together and it was raining again. 'Thanks for the tea,' said Katie. 'You won't forget, will you, if you find anything unusual?'

John nodded. He opened her car door for her, and stood watching her while she fastened her seat belt. As she drove down toward the gates of Meagher's Farm, she glanced in her rearview mirror and he was still standing there with his hands in his pockets, and she thought that she had never seen any man look so alone.

18

That afternoon, around half past three, she had a telephone call from a man with a thick northside accent.

'Are you the one who's after investigating where Charlie Flynn's gone missing?'

'That's right. Why? Do you know where he is?'

'I might.'

'Well, either you do or you don't. Which is it?'

'Why don't you meet me and we can talk it over. St. Finbarr's Cathedral, in half an hour. Make sure you come by yourself.'

'I know you, don't I?'

'I should hope so, by now. I'll see you at four.'

She drove to St. Finbarr's. It was only four o'clock but the afternoon was already gloomy. She parked on a double yellow line outside the cathedral gates and walked in through the graveyard. Beneath the dripping trees, under crosses and obelisks and weeping cherubim, some of Cork's most prominent families lay silently at rest.

A young priest came galloping through the graveyard and called out, 'Forgot my umbrella!' as if he needed to explain why he was in such a hurry.

Katie walked in through the main entrance, her heels echoing on the tiled floor, past the sculptures of the wise and foolish virgins gathered on either side of Christ the Bridegroom.

The interior of the cathedral was echoing and dim, with high columns of Bath stone and walls lined with red Cork marble. Hardly any light penetrated the stained-glass windows, and Katie had to pause for a moment to allow her eyes to become accustomed to the gloom.

Slowly, she approached the altar. She genuflected and crossed herself, and then she sat in one of the pews on the right-hand side, and bowed her head. In front of her, a middle-aged woman was praying in an endless, desperate whisper.

After a few minutes, she heard rubbery-soled shoes approaching from behind her. Somebody came and sat in the pew right behind her, and she could smell cigarette breath and Gucci aftershave.

'Good to see you again, Katie,' said the same northside accent she had heard on the phone. 'Haven't seen you in a while.'

'Dave MacSweeny,' she said, without turning around. 'I thought I recognized you on the phone. What do you want?'

'I told you?I know where Charlie Flynn is hiding himself. I knowwhy, too.'

'You've got some nerve coming to me, after what you did to Paul.'

'Paul took advantage of me. Just like Charlie Flynn.'

'Paul was fooling around with Geraldine, that's all. And don't tell me that Geraldine wasn't just as much to blame as he was.'

'That's not the point. She's my woman, at least she was, and he didn't have the right to be messing with her