A Secret and Unlawful Killing by Cora Harrison Page A

guilt. There was nothing amiss with the delicate complexion of the pretty face before her, and the wide blue eyes were as innocent as those of a baby.
    ‘Have you been worried about your father, Maeve?’ she asked quietly as she dismounted.
    The blue eyes — surely there was a shade of purple in them; they were darker than the blue léine that she wore — widened even more. ‘No, Brehon,’ she replied softly and deferentially, ‘has he sent you with a message for me?’
    Either this girl was innocent or she was a consummate actress. It was impossible to tell which. In fact, there was something slightly over-naive about the last phrase. Did Maeve really think that her father had sent the Brehon, a person of almost as high a rank as the king himself, as a messenger?
    ‘You weren’t worried when he didn’t come home last night?’
    ‘I thought he probably stayed overnight at Carron,’ said Maeve. She didn’t look puzzled or enquiring and the perfection of her face was unmarred by any shadow of worry. Mara watched her carefully. Surely by now she should have started to worry, whatever the relationship was between herself and her father.
    ‘I’m afraid that I have very bad news for you, Maeve,’ Mara said gently. ‘Your father was found dead this morning.’
    ‘What happened?’ breathed Maeve and then she turned away, her face closely hidden by her hands, her shoulders heaving.
    ‘No one knows,’ said Mara. ‘His body was found at
Noughaval. It appears that he was murdered sometime last night.’ She put an arm around the girl, but Maeve’s face remained resolutely hidden, and she did not respond. Small sobbing noises came from her, but Mara wondered cynically if they were genuine. After a few minutes, the girl pulled herself away and walked over towards the door of the cow cabin, where she seemed to be struggling to regain control of herself. Finally she pulled a handkerchief from her pouch and scrubbed vigorously at her eyes, took a deep breath and came back to Mara.
    ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said unexpectedly. Mara was startled; she had expected more questions about the cause of death, enquiries about the murderer or just laments for her dead father, but it sounded as though Maeve were more worried about the practicalities of death than anything else.
    ‘About what?’ Mara asked, taking the girl’s hand. She was touched to feel calluses all over the small palm and the slim fingers. Diarmuid was right. This girl, despite her child-like appearance, had been made to work hard. It would be little wonder if there were no love lost between Maeve and her father.
    For a moment the blue eyes, their clear white surrounds unmarred by grief, nor reddened by tears, looked at her assessingly and then the black eyelashes dropped over them.
    ‘I don’t know what to do … about his body … about the wake … I don’t know what to do …’ she stuttered. ‘There’s no one … no near kin.’
    That distress appeared genuine anyway. Poor child, thought Mara pityingly. She was glad that she had sent Diarmuid to Carron Castle. He had handled that matter well.
There would have been little point in putting this child through all the difficulties of caring for the dead body and then the long-drawn-out ceremonies of the wake. Garrett owed it to his steward to look after his funeral arrangements. It could be done easily by his household; he had enough servants available to handle this.
    ‘I think you can leave that to the taoiseach. He’ll manage everything. The wake would be best held at the tower house in Carron and then your father can be buried at Carron Church beside your mother,’ Mara told the girl firmly.
    Maeve nodded and held her handkerchief to her eyes again. Mara gave a quick glance at the sun to check its progress. There was one other task that she needed to do before riding back to Poulnabrone. It had taken her longer than she had imagined, riding down that very narrow lane. She would