“Shh,” she said quietly. She inclined her head towards a door leading to what I assumed was a guest sitting room. It was shut, but I could hear the hum of voices beyond.

“Sorry,” I said again, hurriedly. Then lower, “Can I have a quick word?”

She nodded silently, and I followed her down a long hall to the right of the stairs, past a huge, ticking grandfather clock.

The door swung open into an industrial-style kitchen, full of gleaming chrome, spotlessly clean with a scent of lemon. There was a toaster with ten slots, a commercial dishwasher of the kind I remembered from student summer jobs, and various other commercially sized appliances designed to cater for big numbers of breakfasts. I wondered if Mary had a smaller kitchen somewhere for herself, that she could use when it was off season and she was on her own, somewhere she could just sit, have a cup of tea and read the Irish Independent she liked so much.

There was a workstation with two stools, and we took them; they were the only seats in the room. A red tea towel neatly folded was moved to one side and Mary looked at me expectantly. I had the sense that she really wanted to be alone.

But I needed to confess. “I thought I should tell you that I told Sergeant Molloy about the row the other night. I wouldn’t normally share something a client told me, but with the town cut off like this and the difficulty of investigating a death like this with no back-up, well, I thought he should have as much information as possible. I’m sorry …”

I trailed off when I realized, she wasn’t listening to me. Her gaze was fixed somewhere on the far wall.

“Mary, did you hear what I said?” I prompted. “He’ll probably ask you about it.”

“That’s fine,” she said dully, with a nod. She looked down and slid the tea towel back across in front of her.

I was relieved. She could have been threatening to report me to the Law Society before I’d even managed to get the words out, although that probably wasn’t Mary’s style.

“Are you okay?” I asked, putting my hand on her arm.

She shook her head and I was shocked to see that her eyes were full.

“He was my first love,” she said quietly.

“Who was?”

“Bob. I thought he’d be my only. I thought we’d get married and have a big family.”

I was lost for words. Was Bob Jameson the man Leah had been talking about? The man who’d broken Mary’s heart. The man she’d never got over?

She looked down again, playing with the tea towel, folding one of the corners. “But then you’re stupid when you’re young, aren’t you?”

“You’re not stupid,” I said, “just a little naive sometimes. We all are.”