He doesn’t look at her. Instead, he keeps his eyes focused on the road ahead. The anger radiates from him, filling the small car with menace. She hears a click. He’s locked the car doors. She won’t be getting out.

Only then, too late, does she realise her mistake.

CHAPTER 1

‘He won’t let me see my mother.’

‘What?’

‘Sean. He won’t let …’

June McGuinness let the rest of the sentence trail off.

‘Sorry, what was I saying, dear?’

Louise Reynolds frowned, knowing what she’d heard but unable to repeat it. She continued to brush the older woman’s hair, gentle strokes with an old-fashioned soft-bristle brush.

‘Never mind that,’ she said, lifting June’s chin so she could see herself in the mirror. ‘Now, look how beautiful you are. We’ll go down and show the boys, shall we?’

June’s eyes lit up as she beheld her neat bob. She reached out for the make-up bag on the dressing table.

‘Not without some lippie, dear.’

They found Tom and Sean in the conservatory at the back of the house, conversing in hushed tones.

‘Well, what do you think?’

June did a little twirl for her audience, patting her grey do and smiling.

Her husband of almost half a century smiled back, the strain barely evident.

‘You look really elegant, love,’ he exclaimed, his thick Kerry accent full of forced jollity for his wife’s benefit. ‘Now, a drink. What’s it to be, lads and lassies? Tea or coffee?’

‘For heaven’s sake, Sean. It’s a beautiful summer’s afternoon. Why don’t we crack open the white wine? I’ll get the glasses.’

June glided off in the direction of the kitchen, a petite ticking time bomb, followed by her six-foot strapping husband, quivering with nerves in her wake.

Louise joined Tom on the rattan two-seater, resting her head on his shoulder. The heat-regulating glass panes were working extra hard to keep the room bearable in the hot midday sun.

Tom took his wife’s hand.

‘Tough going?’ he asked, concerned.

Louise pursed her lips.

‘Horrible,’ she replied. ‘It seems to come in waves. One minute she’s completely lucid, the next she’s telling me Sean won’t let her see her mother. Didn’t her mother die thirty years ago? I don’t know how he’s coping.’

Tom sighed.

Sean McGuinness, up until very recently, had been the Chief Superintendent of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Tom Reynolds headed up the murder investigation unit, a Dublin-based specialist team under the NBCI’s remit, and Sean had been the detective inspector’s boss. They were also longtime friends.

Which had made it all the harder when the previous year June had been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s.