The Celtic Riddle by Lyn Hamilton Page A

to take the cottage away from
Alex.
    Added to that were a couple of developments that meant I had a
little time on my hands, and we know what they say about idle hands.
First was Jennifer's decision, with her father's reluctant
acquiescence, to take sailing lessons every morning, from Padraig
Gil-hooly, no less. Apparently, her damp and frightening introduction
to the sport had merely whetted her appetite for it. As far as her
father's opinion on the subject was concerned, he wasn't exactly keen
on his daughter being anywhere near someone involved, even
peripherally, with a murder suspect, but Padraig, it seemed, had an
ironclad alibi, vouched for by his lawyer in Cork, no less.
    The other was a realization that I wouldn't be seeing much of Rob
for the next little while, a turn of events that had been immediately
obvious the previous evening when I'd entered a bar on the main street
of town with Alex, to find Rob chatting up an attractive woman, slim
and rather fit-looking, with a halo of reddish hair around her face,
and attractive green eyes.
    "Lara," Rob exclaimed as I'd walked up to the bar. I wasn't sure
what the tone meant. I suspected it wasn't Lara as in
Lara-I'm-so-delighted-to-see-you. He'd picked this bar a couple of
blocks from the Inn, in hopes I wouldn't find him, I'd warrant. "Lara,
I'd like you to meet Maeve Minogue. Maeve, this is my associate Lara
McClintoch." Associate? I see. "How do you do," I said, shaking her
hand. She had a very firm handshake.
    "It's grand to meet a friend of Robert's," she said. "We're all
enjoying having him here."
    Who is we, I wondered. The name Minogue was familiar, but it took a
minute or two for me to twig to it. This woman was the "chap" Minogue
Rob had talked to at the police station. It gave a whole new meaning to
the term "improving international relations," to use Rob's own words,
and the fact that he'd used the term chap to describe her spoke volumes
of his intention to keep her a secret from me.
    "Well, Robert," I said, sweetly. "Perhaps you'll excuse me while I
go and sit with another of your associates. Lovely to meet you, Maeve."
    I went and sat with Alex, trying not to huff. This was a development
I found intensely irritating, although I don't know why it incensed me
so much. Rob is, after all, free to do as he pleases. I have no claim
to his affections. Occasionally, I wonder if he might make a suitable
partner for me, but really our lives don't seem to work out in that
direction.
    When I first met him, he was living with Ms. Perfect, and I was in a
long-distance relationship with a Mexican archaeologist. Then I was
free, which is to say I got dumped, but Rob was still with Barbara.
Then Clive, my ex-husband, persuaded his second wife, Celeste, to buy
him the store across the street from Green-halgh & McClintoch,
setting me off into a fury and putting me off relationships with the
opposite sex for some time. After a while Clive ditched Celeste and
took up with my best friend Moira, about the time Rob and Barbara
parted company. Rob expressed mild interest in me at that time, at
least I think he did, but Iwas so traumatized by Clive and Moira, that
I ignored him, or at least chose not to notice.

As I think about this, I am beginning to wonder if I might have a
career as a scriptwriter for afternoon television, drawing from my own
life experience for the plots, should the antiques business, perilous
at the best of times, not work out. I do know that as someone who has
seen the dark side of forty, I should probably just reconcile myself to
the single life, and take up needlepoint, or something, to fill the
long evenings, but I don't. Like many of my generation, I feel younger
than my years-or at least I delude myself that I do. I no longer feel
as if I could live forever, but I don't feel old, either. I am,
however, at the stage in life where men my age appear to prefer
younger-much younger-women. That made Ireland, that through some
demographic anomaly having to do