Set in Stone Read online

  To

  Celia de Fréine, Ivy Bannister,

  Lia Mills, Mary Rose Callaghan and Helen Hansen:

  my friends in this writing life.

  Heartfelt thanks for precision, patience

  and Prosecco . . .

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  ON THE EDGE of shadow, something moves.

  A figure advances. It pauses, briefly, and stoops to pick up the bits of debris that litter its path. Last night’s heavy rain and high winds have scattered the grass with gnarled snatches of branches; roots; upended plastic flowerpots. One gloved hand brushes these obstacles aside, pushing them beneath the straggly bushes, where they lodge, trapped. At least the wind is starting to drop.

  The figure remains bent, keeping low to the ground. Its progress is soundless. One heavy, laced boot presses into the mud, then the other. Although it is still dark, the cover afforded by the trees and hedges is poor, winter-thin. The figure crouches, pulling back the dark hood that keeps falling forward, like a monk’s cowl. A man’s face is revealed, cheeks ruddied by the cold, eyes smarting. The eyes are watchful, bright even in the darkness. He lifts the small silver camcorder to his eyes, one hand adjusting the strap around his neck to a more comfortable position. A wood pigeon startles, rustling in the branches. The man shoos it away.

  Just then, light floods one of the gardens below. The watcher adjusts his gaze at once, moving the camera several degrees to the right. A woman steps out onto the deck. She pulls the belt of her dressing-gown tighter and folds her arms, hugging her elbows for warmth. She looks around, absorbed in what she sees: gravel, the bleakness of stone, the bareness of winter. Nevertheless, she looks pleased with herself.

  The watcher shifts a little. The effort of crouching has put a strain on his knees and thighs. Pins and needles will not be far behind.

  But the woman doesn’t stay long. She appears to look up in his direction once, when the outside light goes off. He lowers the camcorder quickly, just in case. He doesn’t want to risk a careless glint giving him away. But he feels sure he has not been spotted – it is much too dark. The woman takes a last look around the garden and goes back inside, locking the doors behind her.

  ‘Same routine as before,’ the watcher murmurs to himself. He checks the time, the small numerals on his wrist showing greenly in the darkness. ‘Well, give or take five minutes.’ He trains the camera on the house to the left. Just checking. But there is no movement; still nothing. Not everyone is an early riser, he supposes.

  From his standpoint above the gardens, the house on the right looks even more inviting than before. The curtains have been left open and the freezing air makes the interior look alive: somehow warmer, denser. There is now a view to be enjoyed. An ordinary scene of tables, chairs, the familiar clutter of a kitchen, the pleasure of watching a woman’s movements, knowing that she is unaware of his presence, that she suspects nothing. It is a particular pleasure, this one. One he has almost forgotten. He lingers for a while, feeling a stab of envy. The sharpness of it takes him aback. He has not expected to feel that; envy above all things.

  Time to go. No point in spoiling the ship.

  The man stands up to his full height now and backs away from the top of the stone wall. He needs to be careful here: he has already snagged a sleeve on the barbed wire and those shards of glass are dangerous. The night they’d met in the pub, Wide Boy had mentioned every detail about the house and garden, other than this. Maybe he doesn’t know. He will, though, and soon enough. But it’s worth the risk: this vantage-point gives the watcher a perfect view of the two houses beneath. A view that will be all the better come spring, too, with a leafy covering of new growth. Nature can sometimes be generous. And, as he understands it, this will be a waiting game. Slow work is still paid work, and he is in no hurry to get a result. Not any more.

  A few gardens away, a dog barks. Somewhere in the distance, a car starts, engine gunning into life. A local boy racer, probably. More sound than fury.

  Satisfied now, the man moves away, down the muddy walkway that has emerged, straight and narrow, from underneath his daily footsteps. Once he reaches level ground, he bends down and undoes the laces of his boots. He wraps both boots in plastic and pushes them well down into the belly of the rucksack that he carries, slung loosely over one shoulder. He changes into city shoes and unwinds himself from the strap of the camcorder, placing it carefully on top of the boots.

  His shoes are looking a bit worn, he notices. Could do with a lick of polish, too. Amy used to do that for him, back in the day. He straightens up again. Not a whole lot to report to Wide Boy when he sees him this evening, but still. He’s earned his money, done what he was asked to do. That’s the important thing. One final delivery and then the day’s work is done and dusted.

  The thin branches quiver behind his departing back as the watcher makes his way down the slope, hat pulled low across his forehead. He hunches forward and shoves his hands into his anorak pockets. He wonders, just for a moment, if these sheltered people have any idea of what’s coming next. Of how fragile, how precarious all their comforts are. It’s nothing to do with him, of course. He’s just doing the job he’s being paid to do . . .

  When he reaches the street, things are still quiet. The early morning commute is not in full swing, not yet. To the east, the sky is just becoming light: a greasy, yellowish pall that lingers over the still-sleepy city.

  1

  MONDAY MORNING; three minutes to six. Lynda woke.

  Her eyes were drawn at once to two pinpoints of light blinking redly on the clock’s digital display. She reached over, groped for the switch and pushed it to the ‘off ’ position, before the alarm had a chance to ring. She lay still for a moment, waiting for her eyes to become used to the dark. Something had startled her out of sleep, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.

  She half-turned now and checked on Robert. Had he woken her? Sometimes he called out in his sleep. Sometimes one arm would flail towards her in the dark. Lynda was disturbed by this restlessness, although Robert never seemed to remember it. He was still unconscious now, as far as she could tell, his mouth slightly open, slack, his breathing barely audible.

  Lynda slid the duvet away from her and eased herself towards the edge of the bed, careful not to wake her husband. She searched along the floor with her toes but, as usual, she couldn’t find her slippers. When she found them at last – surely not where she’d left them during the night – she wriggled her way into the fleecy lining. Then she lifted her dressing-gown from its hook and closed the bedroom door quietly behind her.

  She liked this time of morning. The house was quiet, more or less. Over the years, she had grown used to its elderly groanings and sighings, the murmurs of wood and water. Robert’s childhood home: a place so familiar to him that he no longer heard its night-time mutterings, but Lynda did. They often kept her company when she couldn’t sleep. And that’s how she thought of them: as companions, friendly voices during the hours of darkness.

  She crossed the landing now to Ciarán’s room and slowly turned the handle of his door. It wasn’t locked. She nodded to herself. Good. That meant he’d got home at some stage last night. Safely. No matter what, that was something to be grateful for. She paused on her way past Katie’s door. It was wide open. The room had an emptiness that somehow filled it, as though it was holding its breath. Lynda still hadn’t got used to her daughter’
s absence. At twenty-one, Katie was a passionate student of Irish and History at University College Galway. She often declared that wild horses wouldn’t drag her back to live in Dublin.

  Downstairs, Lynda followed her usual routine. She drew back the curtains, cleared the newspapers from the coffee table, picked up the stray mugs and glasses that littered the counters. She even took a moment to empty Ciarán’s careless ashtray, before Robert saw it. It was easier to do it herself, Lynda had decided a long time ago. Much easier than nagging her son.

  Katie used to help her with these chores, once upon a time. She was an even earlier riser than her mother, another addict of the slow, uncluttered hours. Lynda wished she could make it home more often. Even the occasional weekend would do: Galway wasn’t a million miles away. But We Mustn’t Grumble, Robert kept telling her, tongue in cheek. He liked to claim that he and Lynda had, by the standards of the day, raised two trouble-free young adults. Not many parents could say that.

  Not even me, Lynda has thought on many occasions. Not so sure I’d say it with such conviction. But she had never voiced this. She believed that she and Robert saw these things differently, that sometimes even the best-chosen words were not enough to close the gaps between them.

  Now Lynda opened the doors to the garden and stepped outside on to the wooden decking. The sensor light snapped on instantly. The grey-green boards were slippery underfoot; they felt treacherous. The thought came to her suddenly. It surprised her, the force of it. It was freezing out there, the January air biting and bitter. She pulled her thick dressing-gown more tightly around her, her hands gripping her elbows. But she could still feel the cold. The wind stung her cheeks, continued to bite at her feet and ankles.

  No matter what the weather was like, Lynda always took this time to gaze at her garden, her creation. Just below the deck, there was a wide, undulating sea of grey, raked gravel. A few crumpled, brown-papery leaves fluttered across the calm surface; there was a stray crisp packet, too. Its shiny foil eye winked at her. And the lid of a Styrofoam cup, rolling cartwheels around the garden. A striped straw was still attached, poking its way through the opaque surface.

  Despite the high walls and hedges and railings, all of this rubbish still managed to make its way into Lynda’s garden with a tenacity that baffled her. For a moment, she imagined the wilful determination of inanimate objects, the gleeful sense of malice behind these invasions of her space. She laughed at herself. She’d clear them all up later, once the day was aired.

  A stone tortoise, oblivious to these foreign bodies, seemed to swim towards her across the garden, its lumbering head pushing through the gravel waves. Lynda loved the sense of stilled energy all around it, admired its blunted purpose. This, according to the oriental legend, was her rock of good fortune, her isle of immortality. Surrounding the tortoise, the evergreens threw their shadows. Soon, in spring, their growth would become luxuriant. She liked the predictability of her Japanese garden, the way that no matter how much the seasons changed, her island still stayed very much the same.

  The sensor light clicked off, having grown used to her presence. Shivering now, she turned to go back inside. As she did so, she thought she saw something move, high above the garden. Just last year Robert, with Ken from next door, had had to string barbed wire across the top of the old stone wall. A rash of burglaries along the street had made everyone feel on edge. Ken had embedded rough pieces of glass into a new layer of cement, too, just for good measure.

  She glanced to her right now, into Ken and Iris’s back garden. She couldn’t help it. It was an old habit, and old habits were the ones that took longest to die. As Lynda waited for any sign of life, a wood pigeon cooed and took flight, flapping its way across the garden. She tensed, looking up again, but the trees along the high wall were blank, dark. She felt a surge of relief. Just a bird – nothing to worry about. She made her way carefully across the deck and stepped back inside, locking the double doors behind her.

  She had an hour or so to herself, before the house began to stir. She made tea and toast and sat at the long wooden table, rustling her way through the pages of yesterday’s Irish Times. She settled into the crossword. The central heating clicked and hummed steadily, filling the kitchen with warmth. Down time, she thought. Warm-up time, before the real day began.

  This was the time she missed Katie the most. She missed the clatter of their early morning conversations. And the phone, too, of course. These days, the phone hardly rang at all, it seemed to Lynda, although she knew that that was nonsense. It still rang for her. And for Robert. It was just an impression, that telephonic silence. But still. The absence of Katie was a resonant one. It made itself felt above all in these early mornings, even though more than a year had passed.

  But Robert was right. She shouldn’t complain. She was lucky, really. Luckier than so many other people. Particularly these days.

  ‘Ciarán, it’s gone half-past. If you don’t get up now, you’re going to be late again.’

  Lynda heard Robert’s voice booming across the landing. Automatically, she stood up and filled the coffee-maker. Strong and black: Robert said his heart wouldn’t start without it. His heavy footsteps made their way downstairs, abruptly silenced by the carpet as he crossed the hall. Lynda looked up and smiled as her husband opened the kitchen door.

  ‘Morning, love . . .’ He kissed her on the cheek. ‘Your man above is out for the count. Did you happen to hear what time he got home at last night?’

  Lynda shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, firmly, not wanting this conversation again. ‘I heard nothing until six o’clock. No idea what time he came in.’

  Robert frowned. ‘Has he lectures this morning, do you know?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Lynda pushed the plunger down into the coffee, wiping the granite countertop as she did so. Some of the grounds always managed to escape.

  ‘Anyway, I’ve called him twice already.’ Robert lifted his keys and mobile phone from the kitchen table and put them into the pockets of his suede jacket. ‘I’m not going to call him again. He’s big and ugly enough to look after himself at this stage.’

  Lynda said nothing. She’d call Ciarán herself, later. Perhaps bring him up tea and toast, once Robert had left. Breakfast in bed helped to ease Ciarán into the day. It made the certainty of his bad temper recede a little. And that made her morning easier, too. The joys of working from home. But at least she had no need to brave the tangle of city traffic; no need to hurry up and wait. ‘Toast?’ she asked Robert.

  He nodded. ‘Yeah, thanks.’ He accepted the cup of coffee Lynda offered him, but he didn’t sit down. Instead, he took his briefcase from its perch at the end of the kitchen table and opened it. He handed Lynda an envelope. ‘Can you lodge that for me this morning? It’s a draft – I don’t want to leave it hanging around.’

  Lynda suppressed a rush of irritation. She hadn’t planned on leaving her studio this morning, had things to do, drawings to finish. Her time was accounted for, all of it. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Business account or personal?’

  Robert hesitated. It was a fractional delay, but enough for her to notice. ‘Personal,’ he decided. ‘As soon as you can. I’ve a site meeting in Blessington at ten and I’m tied up for the rest of the day.’ He glanced in her direction, gestured towards the envelope with his coffee cup. ‘I know you’re busy – I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t urgent. Sure you can get to it?’

  She nodded, feeling suddenly guilty. Sometimes, she thought, she underestimated the pressures he was under. Sometimes, she forgot to understand. And at least he had acknowledged her day. ‘No problem,’ she said. ‘I’ll get to the bank just as soon as it opens.’

  ‘Great, thanks. Appreciate it.’

  There was the sound of the letter box flapping open, the thud of post hitting the floor. ‘Postman’s early today,’ Robert commented.

  ‘Always is on Mondays,’ said Lynda. She was surprised that he had forgotten that. It was one of the more enduring, predictable rhyth
ms of their home. She began to empty the dishwasher. At the same time, she switched on the radio for the eight o’clock news. The headlines astonished her, all over again. The last few months had been like life lived in another country. Crisis after crisis – job losses, plunging house prices. It was as though the miracle of the nineties had never happened. How come the Celtic Tiger had turned tail so quickly?

  She turned around to see if Robert was listening to George Lee’s latest economic forecast. The ‘busiest man in Ireland’, as Robert called him. More banks were toppling, lurching drunkenly towards collapse, bringing directors and shareholders with them. But Robert was no longer in the kitchen. Lynda reached up instead to open the cupboard door.

  And then, suddenly, he was beside her again, looming out of nowhere. They collided clumsily and Lynda dropped one of the three mugs she was clutching, still slippery from the dishwasher. She watched as it fell from her hands and shattered on the tiled floor. The white shards dispersed everywhere, sputniks flying. She watched their starry explosion with dismay.

  ‘Jesus, Robert,’ she cried. ‘Don’t creep up on me like that!’ The anger in her voice caught her unawares. She glanced uncertainly at him but he didn’t respond. They both looked at the litter of china on the kitchen tiles.

  Then Robert turned away from her. ‘I’ll get the brush.’

  Lynda stooped and picked up the larger pieces. Homer Simpson’s yellow face grinned up at her, lopsidedly. One of Ciarán’s favourites. ‘Sorry, hon,’ she said as Robert returned from the cupboard in the hall, carrying the brush and pan. ‘You startled me.’ His face was white, tense. Still he didn’t reply. ‘Robert? Are you okay?’

  He handed her the dustpan full of broken china.

  Lynda took it and thought: why doesn’t he just put it in the bin himself? It’s right behind him. She could feel her defensiveness growing. ‘I said I was sorry – and you did give me a fright.’

  He looked at her, not understanding. ‘What? Oh, no, don’t worry about it. No need to apologize. It’s not that.’