Cooper walked me out. I did my most charming arse-licking thank-yous, I promised him a bottle of his favorite wine for Christmas, he waved bye-bye to me at the door and went back to doing whatever disturbing things Cooper does when he’s left alone in the morgue. Then I went around the corner and punched the wall. I turned my knuckles into hamburger, but the pain was brilliant enough that just for a few seconds, while I was doubled over clutching my hand, it seared my mind white and empty.

Chapter 9

9

I picked up my car, which smelled attractively of sweaty drunk sleeping in his clothes, and headed for Dalkey. When I rang Olivia’s doorbell I heard muffled voices, a chair scraping back hard, footsteps thumping up the stairs—Holly in a bad mood weighs about two hundred pounds—and then a nuclear-level slam.

Olivia came to the door with her face closed over. “I sincerely hope you’ve got a good explanation. She’s upset, she’s angry and she’s disappointed, and I think she has every right to be all three. I’m not particularly delighted with the ruins of my weekend either, just in case that matters to you.”

There are days when even I have better sense than to waltz in and raid Olivia’s refrigerator. I stayed where I was, letting leftover rain drip off the eaves into my hair. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I really am, Liv. None of this was my choice, believe me. It was an emergency.”

A tiny, cynical flick of the eyebrows. “Oh, really? Do tell: who died?”

“Someone I used to know, a long time ago. Before I left home.”

She hadn’t expected that, but it only took her a split second to recover. “In other words, someone you hadn’t bothered to contact for twenty-odd years, and yet all of a sudden he was more important than your daughter. Should I even bother to reschedule with Dermot, or is there a chance that something, somewhere, might happen to someone you once met?”

“It’s not like that. This girl and I were close. She was murdered the night I left home. Her body was found this weekend.”

That got Olivia’s full attention. “This girl,” she said, after a long intent look. “When you say ‘close,’ you mean a girlfriend, don’t you? A first love.”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

Liv took that in; her face didn’t change, but I saw her withdraw, somewhere behind her eyes, to turn this over. She said, “I’m sorry to hear that. I think you should explain this to Holly—the gist of it, at least. She’s in her room.”