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she
could observe her prey in a social environment and see how he interacted with
other people involved in a similar line of work. Tonight she intended to just
watch – tomorrow, Saturday, there was to be a real knees-up dinner and party at
the hotel for the conventioneers, followed by breakfast meetings Sunday morning
and then it was home time for everyone.
                She
dug her phone from her bag and lying back on the soft, comfortable bed, pressed
a familiar number. Granny Somers answered after a few rings, demanding to know
what her darling girl was doing out of the city and down south, where everybody
knew there were only savages. Cíara grinned at the feisty old woman’s sharp
tongue, explained that she was on a case and expected to be back in Dublin late
Monday if all went well, Tuesday otherwise.
    She repeated the name of the bed and breakfast
she was staying in – which brought a hoot of laughter from the other end of the
phone – and waited as Granny wrote down the phone numbers, admonished her to be
sure to eat her roughage and not talk to strange men unless they were really
rich and attractive.
    Grace Muldoon and Granny Somers would probably be
the best of buddies, Cíara thought and then shuddered at the prospect of having
the two of them running her life, and she made a mental note to never let the
pair meet.
                Next,
she phoned the Walters agency and left a message for her client that she was in
Waterford and the investigation was underway. Lying back on the bed was a
mistake. The comfort level was too high, the siren call of a quick nap too
strong to resist. Two hours later she awoke with a start, the room in
semi-darkness and her limbs chilled as the temperature dropped. Two sounds had
brought her back to consciousness – the irritable clanking of elderly radiator
pipes warming up as hot water traveled through them, and another, less
comforting sound that froze the blood in her veins.
     Grace Muldoon was an opera fan. At least, when
she was singing herself. Her rendition from La Bohême jolted Cíara into full
and ungrateful wakefulness. Checking her watch, she had just enough time to
tart herself up and head back to the Tara Bay Hotel to join a bunch of wealthy
jewelers in a night out on the tiles.
                She
slipped quietly down the darkened stairs, not wishing to interrupt her landlady
in full flow of an aria, when a sudden silence made her pause on the bottom
step. The silence didn’t last – a voice bawled: “And where do you think you’re
going, all dolled up like that? What would yer mother say if she could see her
girl child going out half-naked?”
                And
suddenly Cíara felt like a fourteen year old sneaking out for a first, illicit
date. She slowly turned to face a glowering Grace Muldoon.
                “Well,
girl?”
                “It’s
all the fashion rage at the moment, Mrs. Muldoon – and it’s really quite
decent,” Cíara said, twirling around to show off the more modest of the two
evening dresses she’d brought with her. This one was a little black number –
with the emphasis on little – with tiny cut-out triangles at strategic places
and a tight skirt with a side slit that stopped decently just below her
high-cut briefs.
                “That’s
all the rage? It’s positively indecent, it is. And where would you be going?”
the older woman demanded, eyes still flashing.
                Cíara
considered making a story up on the spur of the moment. Something nice and
safe, involving a fiancé and a clutch of protective friends and maybe future
wedding bells. But looking at her landlady, now dressed in shocking pink silk
with a green baseball cap turned around on her orange hair, she gave up. Most
women would find her real mission incredible and would settle for the fairy
tale security. Not Grace Muldoon.
                “Listen,
Grace,” she