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.“Well, then, that’s set,” Mick O’Connor said.“Shall we go now? My car is just downstairs and, well, because of my meetings in London this week, today’s the best time.”He stood up, not really making it an option unless Sam chose to miss out on the opportunity altogether.She noticed that the younger lawyer had vanished behind the closed door of his own office.The car was a silver Mercedes, spotlessly clean, and Sam almost got into the driver’s seat before realizing she was on the wrong side of it.Beau took the back seat directly behind Sam.O’Connor drove carefully through the narrow lanes until they’d left the congestion of central Galway and began to see individual house lots and places with small gardens out front.The route was completely unfamiliar to Sam and she guessed they were going north, although there was nothing to really tell her so.She suspected that Beau, with his internal navigation sense that she’d often teased him about, would know exactly how to repeat the trip.Gradually, the size of the homes and the land they occupied grew larger, and when the lawyer turned onto a lane and slowed, Sam saw that her uncle’s neighborhood was a nice one.O’Connor brought the car to a stop in front of a Tudor-styled house surrounded by mature trees and a neatly manicured lawn.Unless Terrance O’Shaughnessy had been an avid gardener until his dying day, he’d hired help with this place.Dark half-timbers delineated sections of the second floor, with four evenly spaced windows across the front and it appeared at least an equal number along the sides of the structure.The ground floor façade was bisected by a small portico in front of a leaded glass door, where identical topiary plants stood sentinel on either side.Wide mullioned windows balanced the appearance.“Uncle Terry’s home is certainly in much better condition than his business was,” Sam commented as they got out of the car in the circular driveway in front.A side drive led to a large old carriage house.“Oh, yes.There was a full time gardener and a housekeeper.The house itself was something Terry acquired after making some very successful investments on the continent.Years ago.He and Maggie chose this home and made it their own.”“When did the bookshop come into the picture?”“Ah, well, that was Terry’s passion—books.He bought the shop from an old woman who couldn’t run it anymore and then created the legend that he had won it in a poker game.He had a fondness for Western novels, you see.He loved being in the store, watching the new titles come in, recommending books, matching his customers’ tastes to the books he thought they would like.Ambrose is much the same, you know.”Sam nodded but didn’t say anything.So far, the only soft side she’d seen to the grumpy manager was when he talked about Terry.But she had to admit that she’d not spent enough time around Ambrose to know him yet.O’Connor pulled a small key fob from his pocket and used the single key on it to open the front door.They stepped into a wide, dim foyer with glossy hardwood floors.Beyond, she could see a formal living room with windows that showed gardens behind the house.A staircase rose to the left, carpeted with a floral-patterned runner and bordered by a heavy railing and balusters.Other doors along the foyer were closed.“Beautiful,” Sam commented.“May we have the full tour?”“Oh, no.The charity, you see.If your shop records exist, they’ll be found in the study anyway.No need to bother with the rest of it.” He opened the first door on the right and ushered Sam toward it.She bit back a retort which, she had to admit to herself, was half based on envy anyway.Terrance O’Shaughnessy’s study revealed itself to be a real man’s room.Dark wood paneling, leather chairs, heavy red drapes, and a massive desk.The latter held a telephone and blotter with a matched set of pens in a stand.Otherwise, the top was bare.Bookshelves lined two walls, but they were hardly jammed with rare editions.Most of the titles seemed to be about real estate investment, economics and politics.Between the books were a variety of little collectible objects, all tucked behind glass doors with locks on them.A small fireplace in one corner looked as if he had used it regularly.Sam felt another twinge of jealousy.Why had she, as the favorite niece, been left a crummy old store in severe decline, while the real value of the estate had gone to some charity that no one would name? She stopped herself.She certainly didn’t begrudge the charity anything that would help them, and she couldn’t very well lay claim to her uncle’s possessions when she hadn’t even known he existed until a few weeks ago.“Now just here,” O’Connor was saying, “in these drawers would be the business records.”He pulled open one of the four file-sized drawers, running his thumb through the tabs.“No, this one appears to be household bills.”The next drawer revealed what he was looking for, so he left that one standing open and indicated that Sam could sit in Terry’s leather swivel chair and take a look.On the mantel, a clock ticked—the only sound in the room.Sam sat down and pulled out the first folder from the drawer.O’Connor bustled about, getting Beau to sit in one of the leather chairs, then he took the other one—the one closest to the door.Sam suppressed a sigh and directed her attention to the contents of the folder.The top page contained a list of the bookshop’s furniture and fixtures, something Sam could have almost produced herself after a day in the shop.It was dated a year ago.Behind that sheet she found others, each dated December of the preceding year, each nearly identical but for the addition or subtraction of an item or two.The next folder in the drawer had an inventory of the books, but as it was dated nearly two years earlier there was no way it could be very accurate now.Another folder held a sizeable stack of paid bills—two years’ worth.Since he had owned the shop close to forty years, there must be boxes of such receipts in storage somewhere—perhaps in the attic of the house—unless older ones were destroyed after the passage of some time.At last she came to a folder of financial records, standard profit and loss reports prepared—judging by the signature line at the bottom—by Tom Mitchell, the accountant she’d spoken to.She scanned to the bottom line.The little business had netted less than ten thousand euros per year, after expenses, for its entire existence.Sam glanced up at the men, who were quietly conversing about fishing.Apparently, O’Connor was right—Terry had owned the store because of a love of books, certainly not for the income.One thing was certain, she couldn’t justify even so much as one trip to Ireland per year to keep the shop going.The weight of the obligation settled over her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]