Maeve Binchy - Quentins

She got out of her car, went to lean on the gate. She had to study this place and see if it told her anything at all about what might have happened.

A woman came out to speak to her. She was about twenty-five, with jeans, untidy hair, and a two-year-old by the hand. "Can I help you at all?"

"No, I'm just looking at these lovely homes. I used to know people who lived here, the Richardsons."

"Oh yes, indeed."

"Did you know them?" Ella asked.

"Only knew of them. I'm sort of house-sitting this place. My uncle rented it after they left. He was a great friend of theirs."

"He must have been very cut up when Don died."

"Yes, I think he was," the girl said, rescuing the child who had run away.

"He's sweet, isn't he?" Ella said when the child had been retrieved.

"He's Max. He's a handful. It makes it difficult to go out and work, so that's why it was "wonderful to get this place right out of the blue. My name's Sasha, by the way." Tm Ella."

"Would you like to come in and have a coffee?"

Ella thought for a moment. The name Ella hadn't rung any alarm bells, reminding the young woman of love nests. So why not then? She followed Sasha into Don and Margery's house.

It was fully furnished. There were paintings on the walls by artists she knew Don liked. There were Don's kinds of books. Nothing could have changed. This house was as they had left it the day they disappeared.

"I'd have thought it would be ... you know, more bare."

"So did I when my uncle approached me. You see, Max doesn't

have any father on the scene, if you know what I mean, and I'm a bit of a family problem one way and another!" She smiled engagingly. She was an attractive person. She showed Ella how she had covered a lot of the good pieces with sheets so that Max wouldn't get his sticky fingers all over them. There was a view of the sea from one side of the house and of the countryside stretching down to the Wicklow Mountains from the other. It was a dream house. No wonder Sasha felt she had fallen on her feet to get to stay there.

"And does your uncle stay here too?"

"He comes and goes, but he travels a lot. Mike's not someone you'd pin down."

"Mike?"

"That's my uncle's name. Mike Martin. You must know him?"

"I've seen him on television, certainly," Ella said, looking around her nervously. "And are you expecting him today, do you think?"

"Oh, he never says, just turns up."

Ella put down her coffee and said she had to go.

Sasha was disappointed. "To be honest, I was hoping you'd stay. They're all so old round here, and desperately rich. You're more normal."

But Ella moved very quickly. Mike Martin was the man who was looking for her and the laptop.

"You didn't say how you knew the family," Sasha said as she came to see her off.

Ella thought for a moment. Sasha would tell Mike anyway. No point in hiding anything now. "Actually, I'm a bit of a problem in my family too, Sasha. The reason I knew them was that I was in love with Don Richardson. I was mad about him, and my heart is broken because he's dead. I just wanted to see where he lived when he was alive."

"Oh my God," Sasha said.

"So perhaps if you didn't tell your Uncle Mike, it might be better. For all of us."

Sasha nodded vigorously, and Max held out a face covered in ice-cream for a goodbye kiss.

Nothing would be said about her visit.

For the moment. Ella had bought a sandwich and a carton of milk. She drove up to Wicklow Gap, where you could sit and see nothing but hills and sheep and rocky paths down to a river in a valley. She always loved it here, and somehow things seemed clearer.

She took the rug out of the car and sat for a long time with her eyes on the quiet scene around her. Sometimes cars passed by and once or twice they parked nearby to look at the view from this vantage point. But nobody bothered her, and she wasn't really aware of them. And eventually the place worked its magic as it always did, and she got back into her car and drove home.

Her parents were anxious to discuss money, but Ella told them there was no need. "Just listen," Barbara Brady pleaded. "Your father won't take it and therefore I have agreed."

"But not with your heart, Mother."

"My heart's not important in all this. He's right. There are people worse off than we are, and it wouldn't be fair."

"I don't have to do anything about it until tomorrow night. You can have more time," Ella said.

"And what are you going to do tomorrow night?" her mother asked fearfully.

Tm not quite sure, Mother. That's the truth. I think I know, but I'm not totally certain just yet." Deirdre said she'd have everything ready by noon, and that Ella should collect Derry from the hotel and bring him along early so that he didn't have to come in to a room full of strangers.

He was horrified when he saw that Ella was driving. "Somehow I never thought of myself as trusting my life, what's left of it, to you."

I take deep offence at that. You drove me around New York and I put up with that," she said, avoiding a bus neatly.

"Are there any traffic cops here at all?" he asked through his fingers, hiding his eyes.

"Don't be silly, Derry. It's easy today. You should see a crowded weekday at rush hour. Thing to remember is that no one indicates left and right."

"Including you?" he asked.

"I don't want to confuse them," she grinned. "I'm going to change the habit of a lifetime and have a stiff drink," he said when they got to Deirdre's.

"Thanks be to God," Deirdre said. "Ella said you sipped at one white wine for three hours and I was wondering what we'd do

with you, especially when you meet everyone. Maud and Simon came an hour early to set up their puppet show."

"It's all very different," said Derry King as he sat down and allowed the panic he had felt over Ella's driving to subside.

"Ella says you and your wife were very good to her when she was in New York," Barbara Brady said.

"My former wife Kimberly talks very highly of Ella, and so do I. You have a very bright daughter, Barbara."

"We love to hear that, any parent does. Do you have children, Mr. King?" Ella's father was more formal.

"Oh, call me Derry, please. No, no children. I wish we had. We are an unusual couple in that our separation did not make us enemies. We would have shared children quite amicably. I really do wish Kim well, and she me. I was resisting coming to Ireland for a lot of personal reasons from the past. Kim is delighted that I faced up to it at last."

"And are yon delighted?" Ella's father was sharp, observant.

Tm not sure yet, Tim. It's early days."

"You and she might get back together one day," Barbara suggested.

"Oh, no, that's not going to happen. Kimberly has a new husband. They are very happy together." He spoke simply, as if stating a fact.

Just then Brenda Brennan came in. He recognised her at once from the photographs in the Quentins file he had studied so carefully in New York. They didn't need to be introduced, but talked together easily. She was as he knew already very groomed and in control. But warm as well. She seemed genuinely interested in the things they had talked about, and anxious that his stay in Ireland would be a good one.

"We'll want to keep you here in Dublin all the time, but you'll want to travel, maybe go to the west. It's not a big journey by American standards."

"A perilous one on these roads, I'd say."

"Not at all. Grand, big, wide motorways nowadays. You should have seen it back when," she said proudly. "Where are your people from, by the way?"

"I have no people."

"I'm sorry, I misunderstood. I thought Ella said you had an Irish background, as so many Americans coming here do, you see."

"I do have an Irish background on one side of my family, but no people."