The woman tried to wipe away tears with the back of her hand. They kept coming despite her best efforts. “It’s my grandson’s birthday, and he’s such a good boy. He’s having a bit of trouble at school, and I just wanted to get him something nice. But I was going to pay for the cars, I just forgot. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The security guard huffed. “If I had a euro for every time I heard that . . .”

“How many would you have?” Niall said chattily. “Would you have one, do you think? I think it might be one.”

“Just take him outside, Niall, would you? He’s upsetting Maire.”

The guard’s mouth opened in outrage, but Niall took speedy action. He grabbed the other man by the arm and spun him out of the room, shutting the door behind them. That was one good thing about Niall. He was a big man who wasn’t afraid of a bit of physicality.

“So lookit, Maire. Do you have a tissue there in your handbag? Will we check?” Carrie kept her tone chatty, friendly. She was half-afraid the woman was about to have a heart attack or a stroke. After a bit of scrabbling around, a tissue was found, and tears were duly mopped up.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I just wanted to get him a little present.”

Carrie leaned closer and took the woman’s hand again. “It’s all right. In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t a big deal.”

“I’ll be arrested. I’ll have to go to court. My daughter . . . Oh, she’ll be so ashamed of me.”

“None of that is going to happen, right? You’ve told me you’ve never been in trouble before, and I believe you. I know that this was just an accident that will never happen again. So I’m going to walk with you out of this place and help you to the bus, and you’re going to go home and make yourself a nice cup of tea. And you’re going to forget that any of this ever happened.”

It took a few more minutes of handholding and reassurance before Maire could believe that she wasn’t about to be carted off to jail. She stood up and, arm in arm with Carrie, walked out of the shop, watched all the way by a very unhappy security guard. Carrie and Niall escorted her to the bus stop and helped her onboard. She seemed a bit dazed but hopefully wouldn’t be worse for the experience.

“That little shit is bound to make a complaint,” Niall said cheerfully.

“Let him. Dickhead.”

“He was that, all right. I bet there was a bunch of real ruffians in the shop, and he went for granny because he was afraid to deal with them. Did you see the state of him? I bet if we’d had an excuse to poke through his gym bag, we would’ve found enough steroids to get some worthwhile charges out of the visit.”