Page 65 of The Dead Come to Stay
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Tula Byrne had lived in Abington for ages, owned the Red Lion well before MacAdams and Annie got married. Not a native, she’d had won her way into the center of things with good feeling, excellent business sense and damn fine cooking. Dark complected, despite being Irish, with curly black locks streaked in gray, she presided over the pub—and over Ben—like a good witch, benevolent, vaguely mysterious, not to be trifled with. Usually, he found that amusing. Today, it reminded him that he knew next to nothingabouther.
“I thought you didn’t go in for marriage,” Green said—an expression of shock, not even a question.
“Well, not after the last one,” Tula agreed. “Catastrophe, that.” MacAdams got more to the point.
“You said you didn’t know Ronan Foley, Tula. You lied,” he said, intending to follow up with how this obstructed an ongoing investigation among other things—but she didn’t give him the chance.
“I did no such thing. Ididnaknow any Foley. Because that ain’t the man’s name.” She pulled something out of her pocket: a wedding photograph, bent in the center to put the subjects on either side. “Only kept it in case I could identify the bastard someday.”
MacAdams took it in hand and Green leaned. Unfolded, it presented a stunningly beautiful Tula Byrne—tresses down to her waist—and a man with Foley’s jawline and deep-set eyes.
“That there is Rhyan Flannery. I see he kept theRandF, butRonan Foley? Wholly made-up name, probably got a fixer to do an ID for him.” Tula shook her head. “Damn sot. I married him in 1980, three days after my nineteenth birthday. Regretted it ever after.”
MacAdams was trying to take notes and simultaneously thumb-dial Gridley to change their search criteria. He’d certainly had his doubts about Foley’s credentials when they failed to find a birth certificate, but had put it down to attempts at assimilation.
“Why didn’t you tell us before, Tula?” he demanded.
Tula blinked long lashes and looked at him over imaginary glasses.
“Because I weren’t ready, James MacAdams. I hadn’t laid eyes on him since 1982—been as dead to me as Charlemagne.”
“But you are—were—stillmarriedto the man?” MacAdams clarified.
“Hard to divorce a bloke you cannae find, James,” Tula said. “Listen, now. I had a hint of it all when you showed me that photo; couldn’t be sure, though. Time ain’t been especially kind to him.”
“You were sure enough to drop a glass,” MacAdams muttered, mostly to himself. He should have known that the woman who carried eleven pints without spilling a drop wouldn’t smash a glass for no reason.
“ThenI see the obit. No family, you say.” Tula’s voice stayed light, even jovial. But MacAdams watched the cord in her neck contract like a pulley system. “Andthen—thieving. Well, of course. Had to be him.”
“Hold up, hold up,” Green said, waving her hands. “What are you talking about?”
“The artifacts in York. Of course, it was all petty theft, fencing goods and minor cannabis dealing back then. We’d not been married a full year yet before I discovered the loose floorboard where he’d been hiding his loot. Gave him hell about it.”
“But you didn’t go to police, I take it. Didn’t you think that might be trouble?” MacAdams asked. Tula laughed at him, but it wasn’t the usual musical sound. Harsh notes.
“Let’s see—me da was in the IRA, me brother locked up for making pipe bombs. What kind of trouble ought I to have been looking out for, James MacAdams?” Tula twined one fingerinto her locks. “I should have known, though. It wasn’t gonna stop with stealing watches and old trinkets. He started house-breaking with a couple of his boys. They got in with a gang, and soon it was every weekend. Right up till he knocked over a petrol station and was caught on film.”
“Ah,” said Green.
Tula gave her a wink. “Greedy fool,” she agreed. “That’s when I last caught him taking our emergency money from the tin.” Tula slid off the stool and took up the paper from the bar. “Police were looking for him. And more dangerous sorts, too. Not to worry,he’d be back for me.”
Tula cast the paper down.
“But he never planned to come back. Didn’t even warn me I might be in danger myself, but I figured that out pretty quick. Crime bosses aren’t exactly a forgiving sort.” She gave MacAdams and Green a wry smile. “Lotta bad things about having a thug for a da, but some good. I got out, clean.”
“You’re saying he left you there to get killed?” Green asked. She looked at MacAdams. “How’s this the charming guy who wins over lady colleagues?”
MacAdams didn’t have an answer and didn’t need one. Tula had hers ready.
“He was just like that. Had a way oflisteningto you, made you feel he hung on every word. With women, anyway. Was a right bastard with other men.” She leaned on the bar and cast her eyes over the pub room, as though seeing something else. “If he hadn’t got in trouble, I imagine we’d have run off together somewhere, the three of us. Maybe even made a go of things. At least till the next time he got himself in trouble and needed to bug out.”
MacAdams had been writing it all down, which is probably why he caught the slip.
“Three of you,” he said. For a moment, Tula said nothing at all, her face as hard and bright as jasper.
“Theremighthave been three of us. But I was on my own, all of a sudden, and no father coming back. So.” Her face relaxed again. “Plenty of water under that bridge; I choose not to regret it. Anyhow, I’ve all I wanted and more in life. And Rhyan—or Ronan or whate’er he called himself—is right where he was headed all along.”
