more. She didn’t want to know.
‘See you tomorrow, Peg.’
Peggy put the receiver down, keeping her back to Maura who had started polishing the tables.
‘Weren’t you going to mention the news?’ Maura asked Peggy, incredulous. ‘The body?’
Peggy laughed. ‘I never even thought of it,’ she said, surprised at herself. ‘Ah sure he’ll hear about it soon enough. He’ll be up in the morning.’
‘Huh.’ Maura scoured one of the little wooden tables, searching for a shine that had been long since lost. ‘You’d think they found bodies every day of the week around here.’
Almost three hours after leaving Dublin, Frank saw the first sign for Crumm. Not a signpost for the village, but a large, wooden, homemade-looking sign for ‘The Angler’s Rest, Crumm’. Frank pulled in just ahead of it. Resting his arm on the passenger seat, he looked over his shoulder, let a Morris Minor pass, and reversed back to take a better look. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble over the sign. ‘The Angler’s Rest, Crumm’ it said in stencilled black paint across the top. Beneath, the words ‘Casey’s Bar’ were scripted. A sprightly looking fish leapt up from the bottom left-hand corner, and the words ‘Food Served All Day’ were diagonally across the right. Frank knew nothing about angling. He had no idea what type of fish was pictured, but he knew he was hungry, and that the chances of two places serving food all day in Crumm were slim. The final pieces of information on the overcrowded sign were an arrow and the words ‘turn left after two miles’.
Frank indicated and pulled back out onto the road. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Ten to three. He should probably go straight to the station. Garda O’Dowd would be waiting for him. His stomach growled and he regretted not stopping along the way to eat something. With his arm resting on the open window, he concentrated on not missing the turn for Crumm. Although it was the last weekend in September, it might have been mid-August. The sun was lower in the sky, but felt just as strong. The breeze on his bare arm was warm, full of the smell of cut grass and hay. The air smelt different away from the sea. Heavier, sweeter. Frank filled his lungs with it. There were certainly worse places to be on a Friday afternoon, he thought, although the image of Rose thumping him with indignation at the sentiment immediately popped into his head.
He might easily have missed the small sign for the village, were it not for a second billboard beneath it reminding road users of the food served ‘All Day’ at The Angler’s Rest. Frank slowed to make the left turn, and was met by a flood of brown, as a herd of cattle made its way across the road in front of him. The animals spilled from a gate to his left, pushing against each other like drunken ladies in stilettos. They ignored Frank; although he noticed one or two of them skip away at the sight of a nervous-looking dog just ahead of his car. A scarecrow of a man followed the last animal out of the field, stick held aloft in one hand, the other pulling the gate closed behind him. He nodded in Frank’s direction. The cattle jostled their way along the road a little before turning right into another field. The farmer followed the last one in, and his dog paced the open gateway like a sentry, as Frank drove slowly past.
The main road from Dublin had been no racetrack, and the Crumm road was worse. Frank winced as his tyres bounced over craters and ruts. Wherever it was given the opportunity, grass did its utmost to reclaim the land stolen by the tarmac. After about a mile, the sound of high-pitched voices broke through the background noises of the countryside. Frank slowed again, and in a clearing to his right, a grey, single-storey building appeared; an alien structure in the blanket of green. Outside, small groups of uniformed teenagers congregated; bags at their feet, jumpers tied around their waists. More walked in pairs and threes through the gate towards the road, chattering, laughing. The sweet freedom of a sunny Friday afternoon in September. Many heads turned or looked up as Frank approached, watching him as he cruised past. One face caught his eye, a tall girl with bushy blonde hair. Her eyes met his, and he gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. Frank knew how it was. There probably weren’t many Ford Capris in Crumm, fewer being driven by a twenty-something-year-old bloke with no one in the passenger seat. He could almost hear the hush descend on the yard as he picked up speed and drove away. They’d probably assume he was an angler up from Dublin. Or maybe they had heard about the body and were expecting the Garda. Frank checked his rear-view mirror, but the road was empty. There were certainly worse places to be on a Friday.
Then he sat a little straighter in his seat. This was not some weekend break on the lake. Some poor git was dead, and whether or not the body was ancient, as they suspected, Frank needed to remember why he was there. The third sign for The Angler’s Rest was so enormous that he first glimpsed it almost half a mile before he arrived at it. He kept the engine idling at the fork in the road where the sign urged him to turn left down towards the lakeshore and the food, before pulling out and heading right towards the village of Crumm. He had better go straight to the station and put the poor guard out of his misery. The Angler’s Rest would have to wait.
About the time that Detective Ryan was pulling into the Garda Station in Crumm, Peggy was leaning over the bar at The Angler’s Rest, flicking through a magazine; her head propped up on one hand; her long dark locks pooling on the counter over her shoulder. Her other hand, she alternately lifted to her mouth and swept with venom across the colourful pages of tall, thin, tanned girls in short dresses and bell bottoms. Peggy knew that her weekly magazine purchase was a form of subliminal self-torture, but she was afraid to lose her primary contact with the world outside of Crumm. So each Friday lunchtime, she made the pilgrimage to McGowan’s General Supplies. She was fairly sure that the magazines had been delivered on Thursdays for weeks now, but that Mrs. McGowan had neglected to inform her in order that she herself might keep up-to-date with the latest styles and make-up trends at Peggy’s expense.
Peggy snorted aloud at the sight of a model in a pair of denim dungarees and a cowboy hat. Maybe she should wear a cowboy hat behind the bar. That would give her customers a laugh. They would all think she was losing her mind, when in actuality she would be the only fashionable person in Crumm. She stood up straighter, challenging the model looking back at her. Well at least she herself had good hair. Although it would be better if it were blonde. But the Caseys were all dark. Two girls with hair like thoroughbreds traversed the next double-page spread, clad in turquoise jumpsuits. She swivelled to see her reflection in the mirror running along the back of the bar, bringing the flat of her hand against her face, and flicking back the front of her hair like the girls in the picture. But as soon as she glanced down again at the pages, her hair fell into its usual place. She needed layers. If she had layers, she would be able to flick it out properly. A round brush and a squirt of hairspray would do it. She held back the end of her hair to try and recreate the effect, but dropped it again in resignation. She’d die before asking Mrs. Byrne to cut layers into her hair. As if Mrs. Byrne would even know what that meant. And she shuddered at the idea of bringing the picture with her to the salon. They’d have a great laugh. That Peggy with her big ideas. Food in the bar. Layers in her hair. Whatever next?
Peggy sighed at her reflection; mottled and tarnished in the old mirror. Sure what was the point, anyway? She might have good hair, but her pale skin and rosy cheeks were nowhere to be found on the pages of her magazine. And she’d have to lose two stone to be anywhere near as skinny as those girls. Like Carla. Carla could wear miniskirts and little dresses. Carla had legs like stilts. But she doesn’t have my hair, Peggy thought meanly.
She glanced at the clock on the wall. A quarter past three. She would be here soon. Peggy
