The Whole Truth (A. Shaw 1)

“We have to leave each other.”

“But not for long. We’ll be together again soon.”

He wrapped his arms around her again, though not as tightly.

There is no guarantee. None.

CHAPTER 16

TWO DAYS LATER Shaw kissed a tearful Anna good-bye.

“We need to set a wedding date,” he told her.

She looked at him strangely. “Yes, of course.”

Shaw drove off in a rental car, but didn’t head to the airport. He was going to Malahide Castle.

Malahide, in Gaeilge, means “on the brow of the sea.” It is situated on the Howth peninsula at the north end of Dublin Bay. Built on a small rise, it has a commanding view of the water, because in those days enemies would often come by boat to pillage and slaughter. Now Shaw passed broad fields on the grounds of the castle where local teams played rugby and cricket, without an ax-wielding pillager in sight.

He paid his euros and was admitted to the oldest inhabited castle in Ireland. It looked like one would expect of a medieval keep: built of sturdy stone block, with wings of imposing circular turrets and ivy grafted onto its hard skin. It had belonged to the Talbot family from 1185 right up to the 1970s.

He waited until the current tour was over and then walked up to the small, thin woman who’d just finished telling a gaggle of tourists all about Malahide Castle, the Talbot family, the Battle of Boyne, the disappearing virgin, and the building’s four ghosts, including the puckish “Puck.”

“Hello, Leona.”

She turned, hesitantly at first, and then swung around to stare straight up at him. Leona Bartaroma was in her sixties, her long hair still dark, her face mostly unlined, her lips full and painted a muted red that coexisted nicely with her natural coloring.

She said nothing, but took his arm and quickly guided him into a small room and shut the door behind them.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she spat out.

“I take it you’re not happy to see me.”

“If Frank finds out…”

“Frank always knows exactly where I am, thanks to you.” He pressed his finger against his right side. “That’s why I’m here.”

She sat down behind a small wooden desk with cherubs carved into its sides. “I do not understand you, Shaw. I never have.”

“I want you to take it out.”

“I’m retired. I give tours. I don’t perform surgery.”

He stepped closer to the desk. “You have one more operation inside you.”

“Impossible.” She started sifting papers on her desk.

“Nothing’s impossible if you want it badly enough.”

“You are a fool.”

“I’m retiring soon too, Leona. And I want it out.”

“Find someone else, then.” She waved a hand carelessly around the room as though another person with surgical skills was lurking somewhere there.

“You, Leona. I know how you put it in me. If it’s taken out incorrectly…”

Her dark face turned noticeably paler. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”