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that, pleased. Interpreting was a risky business with fallow periods, you never knew. She lived
on the edge, with a fluctuating bank account. It was like skiing close to a precipice, yet at the last perilous instant twisting away. Exhilarating, though. She loved it. And she had just banked her check for the European Union meeting in Prague. She had a chance to relax now, before the assignment in Budapest. Maybe she’d buy a nubby corduroy material and cover the shabby old couch in the kitchen.
    Yet. Yet this last day or two, she’d become restless, gazing out of the kitchen window to where she’d seen the glint of dying sunlight shining on … what? binoculars? and the phone had rung for Dakin.
    Hungry, these last couple of days, she couldn’t seem to settle down and cook anything. She wandered about the cottage eating chocolate bars with almonds. None of the groceries she’d bought in Ballynagh tempted her. This morning, she’d stood with folded arms looking at the cans of tuna fish in the kitchen cabinet. Rice. Dried milk. A shaker of grated cheese. Out of these, Jasper could’ve made a mouthwatering masterpiece. She could not.
    But at least Dakin Cameron had appeared on Thursday afternoon at four o’clock, as he’d promised. He’d expertly framed the window and now it was snug, no drafts. Torrey hadn’t mentioned Wednesday’s threatening phone call. Something about the set of Dakin’s shoulders warned her not to. Despite the chilly afternoon, he shed his jacket after working for a half hour. Underneath he was wearing one of his mustard-colored jerseys. This one had a bushy-tailed squirrel printed on the chest. The jersey he’d worn the day before had had a turtle imprint. Maybe he was an animal lover? Or liked that mustard color? She didn’t ask.
    But one thing she did ask was why he did odd jobs around Ballynagh. “Why do you?” she’d asked him, admittedly indelicately when, after he’d been working an hour, she’d brought him out a mug of hot cider. Dakin had flushed. “I like to.
And, well … My father would’ve laughed and been glad of it. We’re alike, my father and I. ‘Inherited riches is just luck,’ he once told me, ‘Let’s see your real baggage.’”
    In O‘Malley’s, a sudden blast of music from the television set above the bar. Jack, the younger O’Malley boy, quickly turned it down, apologetically lifting his shoulders. Standing at the bar almost beneath the television screen, Torrey saw the man she’d noticed come into O’Malley’s some minutes ago. What now registered with her was that he wore city clothes: a dark suit with a gray shirt and striped blue-and-gray tie. There were always a few strangers in Ballynagh at any season—tourists in country tweeds; weekenders come for the fishing in the streams that rushed down from the mountains; hikers, booted and jacketed, who stayed a weekend or overnight at Nolan’s Bed and Breakfast. But the only place that city folks, those in suits and ties, were likely to be seen in Ballynagh was on television.
    The stranger had an untouched pint before him on the bar. He was perhaps in his forties. He was dark haired and good looking, with a narrow, pale face. His brows were drawn together and he had an impatient, angry look. Just now, he was pulling at his striped tie, pulling it this way and that, as though it were choking him. Suddenly he slammed a fist down on the bar, threw down some coins, and was gone.
    â€œHere you are, Ms. Tunet.” Emily put Torrey’s change on the table.
    â€œThanks, Emily.” Sorting out a tip, and then fitting the pound notes into her wallet, Torrey was thinking: a stranger, neither hunter, fisherman, nor vacationing tourist. By the oak near the cottage, the cigarette butt.
    She got up so abruptly that the chair legs scraped noisely on the floor.

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    â€œ I t was a few minutes