Apple Seeds and Murderous Deeds: An Irish Mystery Read online

  APPLE SEEDS AND MURDEROUS DEEDS

  A FIONA MCCABE MYSTERY

  KATHY CRANSTON

  Copyright © 2017 by Kathy Cranston

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real life characters, organisations or events is entirely coincidental.

  This book is written in Irish English.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  1

  “ANYONE WOULD THINK the Celtic Tiger was beating down your door,” Gerry Reynolds said with a snort. “A cocktail bar in Ballycashel. Lord bless us and save us.”

  Fiona McCabe glanced up from the magazine she’d been reading under the bar. She forced a smile. Gerry had been coming to McCabe’s at least once a week since she reopened the family pub three months before. Their conversations ran like clockwork. She closed her magazine and tried not to smile as she predicted his next words.

  I don’t suppose you have a pint of Guinness for a hardworking man.

  “I don’t suppose you have a pint of Guinness for a hardworking man,” he said, rolling up his newspaper and dropping it on the bar. The racing pages faced up, messily scrawled with blue ink.

  The irony was that Gerry hadn’t done an honest day’s work in his life—not that Fiona had any intention of pointing that out.

  “We don’t have Guinness on tap, I’m afraid,’ Fiona said, as apologetic as she had been the last five times he’d asked.

  His eyes widened. “What? No Guinness? But sure this is Francis McCabe’s place. You can’t have done away with the Guinness.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve got a craft stout that you might like?”

  He stared at her, unblinking. She offered him something different every time and always got the same response. He shook his head. “I’ll have a Guinness.”

  She sighed. “Well, I have a few cans here. Won’t be the same as a pint but I can pour you one if you like.”

  An aul can…

  “An aul can?” he said, looking at her incredulously. “Sure I could get one of them from the shop.”

  “You could,” she said, not unkindly. “I said it before—I’m trying something new. Sure there’re already five pubs in town and the only reason Dad closed this place was because the crowds were thinning.”

  “So you turn the place into a hipster spot?” he said, as if that was the most heinous crime he’d ever heard of.

  Fiona cringed. “No. Not at all.” She sighed. What was the point of explaining her theory to a man whose area of expertise was five-finger discounts and knowing how many robberies you could get away with before they’d hit you with a custodial sentence?

  The truth was, she’d decided to do something a little different. When the economy was booming, developers had been crawling all over themselves to build new estates in every small town in Ireland, including Ballycashel. Those estates had now been empty for years, but signs of life were starting to emerge as young first-time buyers were priced out of Dublin’s soaring market. She had taken a gamble; changed things up and hoped to attract a different market to the other traditional pubs around town.

  “I don’t see why you have to cater to the posh crowd. What’s wrong with a pint of Guinness and a roaring fire?”

  “Nothing at all,” Fiona said wearily. “I used to love that when I was home for the weekend and the weather was miserable. But there isn’t enough business for two pubs in Ballycashel anymore, never mind six.”

  “Your father must be turning in his grave.”

  She snorted. “I’ll tell him you said that.”

  “Do, aye.”

  “I don’t think he gets it,” said a voice from the other end of the bar. “Gerard, you only say that about people who are dead.”

  Fiona smiled warily. “Are you alright for a drink there, Dec?” She wished he hadn’t said anything. Most people in the town knew better than to get into an argument with Gerry Reynolds.

  Sure enough, Gerry tilted his head to one side and looked at Dec as if he’d been gravely insulted. Next thing Fiona knew, he was picking up his paper and moving along the bar with the menace of an apex predator.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” Fiona warned in the sternest voice she could muster. Indeed, that was one of the benefits of running a cocktail bar slash coffee shop: she didn’t have to throw people out of the bar very often. The local hardcases—Gerry excluded—tended to stay away from places where the drinks came in oddly shaped glasses and candy colours.

  “Neither do I,” Gerry hissed through the gap in his front teeth. He came to a stop beside Dec. “Here, what did you just say to me?”

  Dec looked up in that slow way of his. Fiona remembered it well: he had been close to her brother Colm way back when they were all in primary school. And then there was her own—brief—history with him.

  “I was just trying to help you out. You misused the phrase.”

  “Is that so?” Gerry asked, voice dangerously quiet. He attempted to stand straighter and failed on account of the skin-full he’d probably had earlier in Phelan’s. It didn’t make him any less intimidating.

  Gerry was one of the local hard nuts—always in trouble of one kind or another. Fiona had never had any trouble with him herself, but she had heard plenty of stories about him. He was not the kind of guy you rubbed up the wrong way if you could help it.

  “It is,” Dec said, not taking his eyes off the other man.

  Fiona sent him a silent plea, but he kept his focus on Reynolds.

  Gerry laughed, but his eyes remained as cold and blank as ever. “We have a tough guy, ha? What happened? You did your time and now you’ve gone from a choir boy to a big tough gangster?”

  Dec rolled his eyes. “I didn’t say that, you did. Will you let me drink my drink in peace?”

  “What on earth is that muck you’re drinking?” Gerry said, reaching over his shoulder and picking up the bottle.

  Behind the bar, Fiona jabbed a little button under the counter twice in rapid succession. She looked around the bar, desperately hoping there was someone who could get Gerry under control. There was no one—apart from Gerry and Dec at the bar, there were just a couple of students who must have been on college holidays; Tony Morris and a friend of his, whom Fiona had never met. Mrs Finnegan sat in the corner nursing a brandy as she chatted to Mrs Roche, but they wouldn’t be much good in a bar brawl unless it involved knitting needles or mass booklets.

  “Look lads, calm down. It’s Thursday evening. The week is nearly done. Let’s enjoy a quiet drink, yeah? Gerry, I’ll get you a Guinness—you can pretend it’s draught.”

  Nobody in town would choose a can of Guinness when they could walk a hundred yard
s down the road and get a perfect creamy pint in Phelan’s, but that wasn’t the point. Fiona kept them there as a fall-back option for when people really wanted a pint.

  Now she wished she’d just kept the kegs in. She’d do anything to keep Gerry placated. She was more worried about Dec than herself. he’d been through enough in the past year without Gerry causing more trouble for him.

  But Gerry wasn’t sold on the idea. “If I wanted a can, I’d have gone to the shop,” he slurred, looking so pleased that Fiona doubted he remembered saying the same thing just moments before. “Gimme a Jameson.”

  She paused, staring at the door. She was okay with the idea of giving him a stout if it meant he’d calm down, but she had no intention of feeding him spirits. If the Gardaí arrived, it might cause her to lose her licence: Sergeant Brennan wouldn’t miss an opportunity like that.

  Before Gerry could react, Marty McCabe came storming through the door, hurley in hand. Fiona felt giddy with relief. She nodded her thanks to her brother and jerked her head as subtly as she could in Gerry’s direction—not that Marty needed the hint.

  “Gerard,” Marty said, moving across the room at a speed that seemed impossible for someone of his size.

  Fiona’s eldest brother was built like a tank from his years in the army. He still ran five miles a day and had set up a weights room in the semi-detached house he shared with their brother Colm.

  Gerry took one glance at Marty and another at the hurley. He had seen Marty on the field and was all too aware the damage he could cause with that thing.

  “I’ll be going, so,” he muttered, not looking at any them.

  “Thanks, Marty,” Fiona said with a sigh of relief as the door swung closed and the bar’s patrons returned their attention to their drinks. “He’s normally grand, but I was worried he was going to start kicking off.”

  “Sorry,” Dec said, holding up his hand. “It was me that set him off.”

  “What possessed you, Dec? I mean, you know how he gets; everyone from around here knows that.”

  Dec shrugged sullenly. “I just got mad listening to him droning on, Fi. The state of him—the way he struts around the town as if he’s a tough guy. Well, I’ll tell ye for nothing: he wouldn’t hold a candle to some of the nutcases I’ve seen in…” his face fell as he trailed off.

  Fiona glanced at her brother quickly before turning her attention back to Dec. “Sorry, Dec. I didn’t mean to nag you.”

  “Ah you weren’t,” he said, waving his hand. “And I don’t want you tiptoeing around me because I’ve been to jail.”

  She shook her head. “You’re right. Ah, I wasn’t. We just… Everyone around here was rooting for you, Dec. It wasn’t right you getting sent away like that.”

  Martin nodded and clapped a huge hand on Dec’s shoulder. “She’s right. Mam and some of her friends went and protested outside Garda headquarters, for all the good it did.”

  Dec looked stunned. “Ye let them do that? Sure that’d only give Brennan ammo to use against them. He’s out of control.”

  Fiona sighed. “We tried to stop them, but there was no talking to them. You have people looking out for you here—remember that.”

  Dec looked at each of them in turn and smiled. “Thanks, lads. It means a lot. Sure I’m out now. Ready to get on with my life.”

  Fiona stole a look at her brother when Dec was busy with his drink. His expression was serious, which was definitely not normal for Marty McCabe. She suspected she knew why: if Declan Hanlon thought he was getting a fresh start now, he had another thing coming. Sergeant Brennan didn’t let go of a grudge in a hurry and Dec had obviously rubbed him up the wrong way. It was the only explanation for Dec’s incarceration for not paying his TV licence when there were real criminals roaming the streets—and the pubs.

  2

  “DEC HANLON WAS IN EARLIER,” Fiona said as soon as there was a lull in the conversation.

  Conversational lulls didn’t often happen in the McCabe household: six of the seven children still lived around town, and Margaret McCabe insisted on cooking dinner for them all as often as possible.

  “Oh right,” her father said, pursing his lips and taking the dish of carrots from one of his sons.

  Mr McCabe had never warmed to Dec, mainly because of the innocent flirtation that had taken place between Dec and Fiona when he was in third year and she was in second. Never mind that the relationship had lasted a grand total of three weeks, nor that it was over a decade in the past; Francis McCabe couldn’t stand the sight of the man who had had the utter cheek to try and woo his favourite daughter.

  “Oh come on, Francis,” his wife said. Everyone called him Francis, even his wife and close friends. He was just one of those characters for whom a nickname would have seemed strange. “He’s a good boy. Sure wouldn’t you welcome him with open arms if he called over and asked to take our Fi out?”

  Fiona groaned. “Mam, I’m nearly thirty. Don’t you think he’d be asking me rather than coming here and asking you and Dad?”

  Francis McCabe grunted. “He wouldn’t have the bottle. I’d send him packing, so I would.”

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Mrs McCabe said with a heavy sigh. “Sure no one’s good enough for her according to you. She’ll die a spinster!”

  “Mam!” Fiona yelled and her sister Kate yelled in unison. Kate was going through a single patch and had taken to defending Fiona during the all-too-regular interrogation sessions about her relationship status.

  “Yeah, leave her alone, Mam,” Marty said quietly. “She can’t find a fella around the town who’ll take her. It’s not her fault.”

  “You’re all a bunch of absolute—”

  “Language!”

  “I said nothing!”

  “You were about to!”

  Fiona pushed her plate away and put her head down on her outstretched hands. She was too tired for their usual nonsense. She’d taken to opening the bar at seven in the morning to try and attract the few commuters who had actually moved to Ballycashel, but foot traffic was still relatively quiet. Still, business was improving—one day soon she hoped to be able to afford to hire someone to help. It helped that she lived right upstairs from the bar too: it was easy to open early and then shut down for a few hours until the afternoon.

  “Look, I appreciate that we have our strange dysfunctional situation here, but for once can we just sit around the table and talk about our days? Like normal people? I’m sick of ye all ganging up and slagging me. I could have cooked dinner for myself in the flat instead of coming around here.”

  Mrs McCabe cried out as if she’d been struck. She clasped a hand over her chest. “Fiona Mary McCabe! Well I never! How could you be so ungrateful? After I slaving over the cooker all day to make you a healthy dinner? You wouldn’t eat your vegetables otherwise.”

  “I don’t think spuds count as veggies, Mam,” Kate said mournfully.

  “Sure haven’t ye peas?”

  “Pure sugar,” Kate shot back.

  Sensing a war was brewing and being in no mood to return to her dark, empty flat, Fiona held her hands up. “Enough!” she shouted. “We’re starting again. Rewind. Marty, how was your day?”

  “Oh it was lovely, thank you Fiona. Mrs O’Hagan was in earlier and I helped her pick out some new tiles for the fireplace in the front room. Her Nina is due back from Australia for a holiday so she’s keen to spruce the place up. Then we had Father Jimmy in.” Marty paused and threw his eyes skyward. “Couldn’t get rid of the fella. He stood there blustering at me for a good half an hour, berating the people who get the offertory collection envelopes and then have the cheek not to use them. You’d swear he was penniless the way he goes on. Never mind that he has more money than anyone else in the town.”

  “That’s no way to talk about a priest,” their mother interrupted.

  “Don’t get me started,” Marty said. “Jail’d be the best place for him—not the parish house.”

  Mrs McCabe sucked in a breath. “Y
ou saw Dec—I forgot with all of your fighting,” she said, not mentioning that she was one of the chief instigators. “Well, did he tell you much?”

  Marty answered before Fi could. “No. Sure it wasn’t like we could ask him. He seems cut up about the whole thing—it was written all over his face.”

  “Oh,” said his mother. “You were there too? What, did ye all head off for lunch without me?”

  “No, Mam,” Fiona sighed. She paused. Her parents hated the thought of her working in the bar alone, no matter that her scant clientele was a whole lot safer than that of your average pub. She had never told them about Gerry’s regular but brief visits, because he had never caused trouble before and she hadn’t wanted to worry them. It had been her father’s idea to run a cable between the bar and the hardware shop next door so Fiona had a direct alarm bell to her oldest brother if she ever needed it. She normally only used it to get him over for a chat and a cup of tea when the afternoons were quiet. Neither of them had bothered to point out to their parents that the hardware shop was normally closed by seven in the evening, and Marty was long gone on weekend nights when trouble was most likely to start.

  But Mrs McCabe would not be put off. “Well?” she said. “You didn’t think to invite me and I cooped up here all on my own not even half a mile away?”

  “He was in the bar, Mam.” She glanced down at the table. “Gerry Reynolds came in mouthing off and I used the bell to get Marty over.”

  “Oh my Lord!”

  “No, Mam, there’s no need to worry. Listen!”

  Mrs McCabe had gone pale and was clutching her husband’s arm with such force that her knuckles had turned white.

  “Mam!” Marty said sharply. “It was fine. He’s all talk—you know that. As soon as he saw me come in with the hurley…”

  “Oh, Martin!” she cried. “You brought a hurley! Sure what if he took it off you and used it against you?”

  No one around the table could keep a straight face.

  “Why are ye all laughing at me? Amn’t I only concerned for my firstborn?”