The New Policeman by Kate Thompson Read Free Book Online

no one knows what happened to him. But unfortunately, people being what they are, a nasty rumor began to go around.”
    “That your grandfather killed him?”
    Helen nodded.
    “And did he?” said J.J.
    “Of course he didn’t.”
    “How do you know?”
    “I just know, J.J. He didn’t have it in him. He hated authority, but he wasn’t a murderer.”
    “What happened to the flute?”
    “Gone, too. It was never seen again.”
    “That’s weird,” said J.J. “How could someone just disappear?”
    “I don’t know any more than you do,” said Helen.“It happens sometimes, though. People do disappear. They searched high and low for him, but they never found any trace.”
    J.J. turned back to the photograph with renewed interest. His great-grandfather was a big man, but J.J. could see nothing in his face that suggested he was capable of such a violent crime.
    “The parish was divided,” Helen went on. “A lot of people turned against the Liddys, but a lot more stayed loyal to us. Even so, for a long time after that midsummer’s night there wasn’t a note played in this house. It was more than a month later that Gilbert Clancy turned up in the yard. He had been far away when Father Doherty went missing and had only just heard about it. He listened while my grandfather told him the whole story. When he was finished, Gilbert said, ‘Well. That priest has succeeded in his aim, hasn’t he?’
    “My grandfather asked him what he meant. When I was a child he told me the story many times, and what Gilbert said to him. ‘Your man has brought silence into one of the greatest houses for music that there ever was. He has taken more than your flute from you, J.J.’
    “My grandfather sat and thought about that for along, long time. Then he got up and went out to the back room that he used to use for his workshop. By the time he came back, Gilbert Clancy was already warming up his flute and my grandmother’s fiddle had been taken down from the wall and dusted off.
    “And from that day to this, J.J., there has always been music in this house.”

     
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THE PRIEST AND HIS BOOTS
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15
    There was only one hairy patch in the whole glorious evening of tunes. They’d been playing for about half an hour when an old man came into the pub and sat on a high stool at the bar. He was vaguely familiar to Larry, but age did strange things to people’s faces and besides, since Larry could barely remember his own name at times, he was unlikely to remember anyone else’s.
    The piper launched into a set of hornpipes and Larry forgot everything except the music, but when he next looked up the old man was still there, and was staring straight at him. After the next set of tunes, he got down from the stool and tacked across the pub to where the musicians were sitting. He declined the low stool that was offered to him by one of the nearestlisteners. Nothing would do him but to push his way through and squeeze into the corner of the padded bench beside Larry O’Dwyer.
    “How’re you doing?” he said.
    “Great,” said Larry. “And yourself?”
    “Very good as well,” said the old man. He pulled a well-worn tin whistle out of his pocket and waited politely until someone started a tune, then joined in. More tunes followed, and the old man said nothing else to Larry, or to anyone else either, until the piper’s early departure caused a mild distraction among the company. Then, while everyone else’s attention was elsewhere, he leaned in close to Larry and said, “What name are you going by this weather?”
    After a few panic-stricken moments Larry remembered. “O’Dwyer,” he said, in an unnecessarily conspiratorial whisper. “Larry O’Dwyer.”
    The old man extended a large paw and grasped Larry’s hand. “Patrick O’Hare,” he said. “Even after all these years. Still Patrick O’Hare.”
    “Of course you are,” said Larry, still failing to remember the man. “And why wouldn’t you be?”
    But Patrick