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Sure, I didn't hear you come
down." The sergeant's sister materialized at my elbow.
    I said, "You have a lovely house, Mrs. O'Brien. Especially the
shower."
    She laughed. "A grant from the farmhouse association.
Didn't we have four new baths installed this winter, and Toss
Tierney in and out with his great muddy boots? He started at New
Years and said 'twould be done in six weeks, but he finished the last
one on Holy Thursday itself." Her eyes flashed at the thought of Mr.
Tierney. She heaved a dramatic sigh. I wondered if role-playing ran
in the family. "But all the rooms is en suite now."
    "And very nice. I slept...er, well." I was going to say like the
dead and caught myself. I didn't mention the hours I had spent
reading Anthony Trollope in the middle of the night either. My bout
of wakefulness was not her fault.
    "Grand." She indicated an aproned sprite at her side. "This is
my daughter, Eithne. She'll take your breakfast order when you're
ready."
    I wasn't, quite, except for the caffeine lust, but I made my
selections from a bewildering list of choices. Eithne, who looked
sixteen, rejoiced in hair the color of a bonfire. When she had jotted
my order on her pad, she and her mother bustled out the service
door and back to the kitchen. I must have been the last guest
down.
    "I hope Mrs. O'Brien didn't have to turn people out to
accommodate us." I eyed Dad's soda bread.
    "No, but we took the last two rooms." Dad mopped egg yolk.
"Free range hens."
    "Is that an explanation?"
    "Now, Lark, you promised not to fuss. This is a grand place."
Grand seemed to be the adjective of choice. "I spent more than an
hour in the lounge last evening talking to young Cieran and a
charming couple from Birmingham. They're hiking the Wicklow
Way. Cieran says there's a Quaker museum at Ballitore. He's reading
history at Trinity, you know."
    "Is he?" I felt a flicker of amusement, but I was pleased that
my father had found himself a history student. He attracts them. The
sprite reappeared with bread and a cafetière. I inhaled coffee
scent. "Where's Ballitore?"
    Dad sawed bacon. "Not far at all on the backroads."
    Backroads. I suppressed a groan.
    "It's in Kildare. Cieran got out the AA atlas and showed me
the best route."
    "Then let's go there after breakfast."
    "Do you feel up to it?"
    Not really. I shied from the thought of driving at all, but I
was in Ireland as Dad's chauffeur. "Of course."
    "Splendid." Dad poured a last cup of tea. "I suppose we
ought to check with the Gardai first."
    I shoved the plunger of the cafetière down and
poured myself a cup of coffee. While I laced it with free range cream
and sucked down half a cup, I considered the prospect of another
police interview. Inspector Mahon was bound to take us over the
ground Sgt. Kennedy had already covered.
    I almost said, "What a bore," but bit the remark back
unspoken. My father would not have approved. A man was dead. It
was our duty to cooperate with the police.
    I was a little surprised that Dad didn't seem depressed over
the incident—I was trying to think of it as an incident. Evidence of
violent animosity horrifies him. He broods over tiny news items. In a
sense, his entire academic career had involved brooding over the
Civil War. And here was a corpse on his doorstep.
    It was true that Dad hadn't seen the body, as I had, and also
true, though I had doubts, that the victim might have died of natural
causes. Still, Dad's jolliness in the face of sudden death seemed as far
out of character as his display of temper the day before.
    I buttered a chunk of soda bread and heaped it with
marmalade. I drank my orange juice. I meditated. Was my father's
cheerful demeanor evidence of a personality change? I had heard
that stroke victims sometimes underwent such a change. I hoped not.
I liked the old Dad.
    When Eithne brought my egg and bacon, my father asked for
more hot tea water. Then he rose. "I'm going to get that road atlas
and show you the short cut to Carlow. From there it's a