on each one. She sensed immediately that the bar was fuller, and noticed a new table of three men, younger than the usual fishermen, the three of them watching Carla as she placed their pints before them. She put the plates of apple tart down to appreciative grunts and gentle chants of ‘beautiful, beautiful,’ from the bearded man. Back behind the bar, when she looked up, there was a man sitting right at the end of the counter on a high stool.
‘Oh, sorry,’ she smiled. ‘I didn’t see you there. What can I get you?’
The man looked amused. ‘Have I stumbled onto some Amazonian public house?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Peggy looked directly at him.
He glanced over at Carla. ‘It’s not often you come across bars being run only by women,’ he said.
‘Who’s to say I haven’t got a big lump of a man out the back?’ Peggy cocked her head towards the back door.
The man laughed, but then seemed to collect himself. He sat up straighter on the stool. ‘I’m sure you have no need of one,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a pint, so.’
Peggy put a glass to the tap. He was a funny one. It wasn’t too often they got strangers on their own in Crumm. Even the anglers tended to come in little groups after a day on the lake. You might get the odd German passing through, but Peggy knew this fellah was no more German than she was herself. His accent was soft. A monied lilt. First generation Dublin, she guessed. Carla handed her some used glasses over the bar, winking at her. Peggy scowled back. She noticed the stranger stealing a glance at them both.
‘So,’ she said, topping up the pint, ‘are you here for the fishing?’
‘Not exactly.’ He put some coins down on the counter. He drew the pint over to him, and lifted it to his lips. ‘Sláinte,’ he said, and sucked back a third of it before it had a proper chance to settle.
Peggy could see tables that needed clearing, but she stayed where she was behind the counter, rinsing glasses that had already been rinsed.
‘So is this your place?’ he said at last.
‘It is,’ Peggy replied. ‘Well, mine and my siblings. It’s a family business.’
He nodded. Peggy watched him stroke the pint glass. She wondered if he might be one of the contractors in to help a local farmer make the last of the hay. His fingers were long and tanned. His fingernails were clean. She dragged his coins across the bar with the flat of her palm, catching his eye as she did so. Facing the till, she could see his reflection as he took another drink from his glass.
‘So if you’re not a fisher, and you’re not a farmer, what is it that you do?’ She spoke to his reflection as she slowly tidied the till drawer.
‘What makes you think I’m not a farmer?’ His mouth curled in a smile.
Peggy turned and leaned heavily against the drawer, closing it. She nodded at his glass. ‘They’re not the fingers of a manual labourer,’ she said.
Frank regarded his hand, turning it front to back.
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘So I’m too clean to be a farmer?’
She smiled despite herself. ‘Something like that,’ she said.
They were still looking at each other, when Carla came around the bar, dirty pint glasses dangling from each hand. She ignored Peggy and smiled openly at the man sitting at the bar as she left the glasses on the counter. He glanced from one sister to the other.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Hello.’ Carla smiled back. Peggy rolled her eyes and turned back to the till. Carla stuck her hand across the bar at him. ‘Carla Casey.’
‘Eh, Frank Ryan,’ he said. ‘Detective Sergeant Frank Ryan.’
Carla’s kohl-streaked eyes were suddenly wide and she slapped her hands down on the bar. ‘Oh, are you up from Dublin for the body?’ She seemed to have forgotten about Peggy, who was standing behind her, watching Frank in the mirror. ‘So tell us, is it just one of the ones from the old graveyard?’ She leant on the bar opposite Frank and rested her chin in her hand. ‘Or was it new? Do you know who it is?’
‘Eh, well, I’m not really at liberty to discuss it right now.’ Frank sat back a little on his stool. ‘The pathologist will be here tomorrow. He’ll have to examine the body.’
‘So there definitely is a body?’ Carla asked him. ‘It wasn’t just some old, empty box left there? You actually found a body?’
‘Eh, yes.’ Frank looked from Carla to Peggy’s reflection and back. ‘There was a body. There is a body. It does appear to be old though.’ He coughed. ‘As in, of course we can’t be sure until the pathologist examines it, but it would appear to be, eh, old.’
‘Oh.’ Carla straightened up again. ‘Ah well.’ She lifted a cloth from the sink and wrung it out. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s a pleasure to meet you, Detective Ryan. Peggy here will look after you. I’m sure you must be famished having travelled all the way from Dublin. Peggy,’ she stared, wide-eyed at her sister. ‘Detective Ryan needs a pint.’ She tipped her brow to the glass of dregs still gripped in Frank’s hand, and turned to wipe down the counter with the cloth.
Peggy drew a calming breath and looked at Frank. ‘So, Detective,’ she said.
‘Frank.’
‘Frank. Another pint, Frank?’
‘Well, actually, if you are serving food … ’ Frank glanced around at the empty plates Carla was now clearing from a table behind him.
‘Oh Lord, of course,’ Peggy clasped her hand to her mouth. ‘Mrs. O’Shea told me to expect you. That you would need feeding.’
‘I think she had a prior appointment for this evening.’
‘Bridge night,’ Peggy nodded. ‘Even a Detective Sergeant from Dublin doesn’t come before bridge night, I’m afraid.’
Frank smiled. ‘Well, her husband offered to make me a sandwich,’ he said. ‘I think that was all he was getting himself.’
‘Poor Enda,’ Peggy smiled at Frank. ‘Well we can certainly feed you, Frank. If you like stew?’
‘Stew would be lovely, thank you. And I will.’ He tilted the glass in his hand.
‘You will?’
‘Have another.’
Just at that moment, the main door opened, and Peggy looked up to see Garda O’Dowd entering the bar. Even after he removed his cap, he had to stoop so as not to hit his head on the lintel. He glanced around the place, nodding at familiar faces, before approaching the counter. Carla pushed past him, her arms laden with dirty plates and cutlery.
‘Carla. Peggy,’ he said, tipping his head at the two women behind the bar, fidgeting with the cap in his hands all the while. ‘Detective Sergeant,’ he said looking at Frank.
