She looked up at him. “I couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t been able to sleep since they’d been here. I tried to be professional about it, but it was painful cooking and cleaning for Bob and his wife, sleeping down the hall from them. And Derek kept trying to get me on his own. It was awful.”

“That’s why you wanted them to leave?” I said.

She nodded. “Oh God, how I wished they had, now. If they’d all left when they were supposed to, none of this would have happened. When I saw Bob and Derek drive away that night, I started to worry. It was dark and wet, where on earth could they be going? So, I followed them. When we got to the crossroads after Clonmany I knew where they were going. Derek had been to Mamore when he was working here and he’d talked about the magic road. I wondered if he wanted to show it to Bob, use it to play a trick on him somehow.”

“Go on.”

“When I got there, they were on the hill. I could see torchlight. So I waited around one of the bends until the car was gone, then I drove up. I had my own torch in the car. When I got out I could hear shouting. Bob was still there. When I climbed the hill, I found him tied up and terrified. He told me there was a snake in a sack beside him.”

Her eyes glistened. “I untied his hands but, while I was doing it, he just kept getting angrier and angrier. He told me he was leaving for good.” She shook her head. “I’d waited for him all my life and now he was leaving, again. The last time he’d adopted two children, this time I’d never see him again. I told him how hurt I was, and he just laughed.” Her voice cracked and she paused, as if appalled by what she was about to say next. “He said that I could have Derek.”

She looked up to stop the tears spilling. “I’d loved Bob Jameson for nearly thirty-five years. I’d been there when he needed me, every single time. In all that time I’d never slept with another man, never even kissed one, even in the times when we weren’t in touch. And now he thought …”

I reached over and touched her arm. She swallowed and brushed tears onto the chrome. “He implied that it was all arranged between the two of them, that he was just fine with it. That Derek was a better fit for me anyway, as if he could just pass me on like a gift.”

“Go on, Mary,” Molloy prompted quietly. “What happened?”