excerpt
‘So much for that fortune teller,’ Dervla said dismissively. ‘Though if you don’t mind me saying so, Flynn Casey should have been shot or hanged a long time ago.’
‘No, I don’t mind you saying so. Many others have said the same thing. And I’ve even thought it myself. We used to warn my sister, Nora, that Flynn was going to end his days with a bullet in his head.’
‘Instead of Flynn,’ Dervla began, ‘it was your sister that was murdered.’
‘Sadly so, I’m afraid.’ Caitlin didn’t want to be reminded of the unfortunate Nora’s terrible death, when John Hackett of the Black and Tans threw a grenade into her house in his frustration at not finding Flynn inside. Caitlin blamed Flynn Casey for that, and would never forgive him. She took a bite from her scone. ‘These are very good, Dervla. Delicious.’
‘Thank you, Caitlin.’
‘Tell me more about Connie. She seems to be quite a character.’
‘That’s putting it mildly,’ Dervla replied. ‘“Wild” is the word. Always was. We went to St Teresa’s High School for Girls in Lisnaglass. She was always getting into trouble with the nuns. She kept making sexual puns and taking double meanings out of the most innocent material we’d be reading in class. Some girls giggled, some blushed. The nuns were shocked. They didn’t know what to do with her until she was expelled.’
‘Expelled?’ Caitlin repeated in surprise. ‘What for?’
‘I’m not telling any tales out of school, Caitlin. Connie would tell you herself. She was an uncontrollable flirt. Loved teasing the boys. But that was her undoing, so to speak.’
‘She got herself pregnant?’
‘At the age of sixteen. Some advised her to go to old Julia Gibney …’
‘The fortune teller? Lived in that lonely old cottage at the top end of the road up the Carnroe valley.’
‘That’s her.’
‘But why go to a fortune teller if …?’ Caitlin left the question unfinished. ‘Oh no.’
‘Oh yes. Old Julia got many a young girl out of the trouble they should never have got themselves into in the first place. And many an older one in the same trouble when their men were away fighting the war.’
‘So Connie has had an abortion?’
‘Not at all. Typical of Connie, she wouldn’t hear of it. She went full term and gave the baby up for adoption. She flaunted her pregnancy. She even came into St Teresa’s one day—to see me, she said—when she was eight…
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