Page 2 of The Secret Bookshop in Ireland

‘You should have tried to find a place to live nearer to work,’ Maureen Doyle said. ‘Then you wouldn’t have such a long commute every day. I don’t understand why you had to go to Dublin at all. What was wrong with Drogheda?’

‘Everything, Ma,’ Ciara said with a sigh. ‘There was nothing to do there and not many jobs either.’

‘So being a junior civil servant is more enjoyable than being a librarian?’

‘The pay is better,’ Ciara pointed out. ‘Even at this grade.’

‘I thought you’d be promoted by now,’ Maureen Doyle said. ‘And maybe married too, with a child on the way. When is that going to happen?’

‘Not any time soon,’ Ciara replied, grimacing at her mother’s usual blunt remark. ‘The man of my dreams hasn’t arrived yet.’

‘You’re just too picky,’ Maureen Doyle said. ‘If you came back home, you could at least go to the dances here and meet someone suitable.’

‘You mean like Patrick next door who works at the grocery shop on the main street?’

‘He’s amanager,’ Maureen Doyle corrected.

‘I know, Ma. But he’s not my type,’ Ciara remarked. ‘And I’m happy here in my little flat with my dog. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know when I’ve met Mr Right and bring him home to meet you. I’m going out with some of the girls from work on Friday. You never know, I might meet someone special.’

‘Do your best to look nice,’ Maureen Doyle said. ‘And try to smile more.’

‘I will,’ Ciara promised, laughing to herself. Her mother was so predictable. ‘In any case, I just had my hair cut. It looks nice.’ She stood up and glanced at her reflection in the mirror over the fireplace, trying to get used to her new look. Her poker-straightblack hair had been cut into a sharp bob, which suited her heart-shaped face and bright blue eyes. ‘It makes me look younger, the hairdresser said.’

‘You’re thirty-three,’ her mother remarked. ‘You don’t need to look younger.’

‘Of course I do,’ Ciara argued. ‘To anyone in their twenties, I’m ancient.’

‘You dress like a teenager,’ Maureen Doyle said disapprovingly. ‘If you could only try to look a little more stylish, you’d?—’

‘Look, Ma, I have to go to work,’ Ciara interrupted. ‘It’s nearly half eight and I don’t want to miss the bus. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve found out about this inheritance thing, whatever it is. I’m sure it’s some kind of joke anyway.’

Maureen Doyle said goodbye and Ciara hung up. Ciara was very fond of her mother but the constant remarks about dressing more elegantly and finding the right man to settle down and have a family with were getting tedious. She knew her mother was getting on in years, having had Ciara at the age of forty-four, so it wasn’t so strange that she yearned for grandchildren. ‘You were a nice surprise,’ she had been told by her late father, who had been nearly fifty when Ciara was born. ‘A shock,’ Ciara had overheard her mother say to a friend, which made her feel that she hadn’t been particularly wanted. But her parents had been good to her in their old-fashioned way, even though their methods of bringing up children seemed from a very distant era. She had been educated at a Catholic all-girls school, one of the few that remained in their area. Ciara had studied diligently and achieved high grades, which earned her a lot of praise from her parents.

Then, just after graduation from college, her father had died of cancer after a long illness at the age of seventy-four and Ciara found herself trying to console her grief-stricken mother justwhen she was ready to leave home. But her mother had been anxious for Ciara to be independent, telling her she had to learn to fend for herself and live her own life. So Ciara had left, applied for a job in a government department and began to look for a place to live.

It had been an exciting time and the beginning of her adult life, which to Ciara had felt both scary and exciting. But she was free to do what she liked. Her job wasn’t very demanding, which left her plenty of free time for her hobbies. She loved reading and had been toying with the idea of training to become a librarian, but then the job at the government department in Dublin came up and she was accepted for the position of executive officer at the Department of Finance, which sounded more prestigious than it really was. But Ciara was young and free with her own little apartment and a growing circle of friends with whom she often went dancing at the many city centre clubs. There had been a number of boyfriends but none really serious, to her mother’s disappointment.

But as time went on and Ciara turned thirty, she was still stuck in the same position as when she started. She had begun to feel that her life had come to a dead end and she couldn’t find a way out. It was as if her real life, the one she should have been living, was happening somewhere else, in another dimension. Something had to be done so she could break out of the monotony of her daily routine. Maybe she should go abroad? Or work somewhere in the private sector? The civil service, although safe and steady with a guaranteed pension, was beginning to feel like a prison.

Ciara realised she had been reminiscing and needed to get ready for the day ahead. Then she remembered the letter and read it again and pulled her phone from her handbag. She would be late for work, but she simply had to find out what all thismeant. She tapped in the number on the letter and waited for an answer.

The phone rang several times and then someone picked up. ‘O’Donoghue and Kiley, how can I help you?’ a female voice said.

‘Oh, hi,’ Ciara said. ‘My name is Ciara Doyle and I’m calling about this letter I got this morning. Could you tell me who sent it?’

‘Oh, hello, Ciara,’ the woman chirped. ‘How wonderful that we found you at last. Ronan was hoping to hear from you. Hold on and I’ll connect you.’

There was a series of clicks and then a male voice came on the line. ‘Ronan Burke here,’ a deep voice said. ‘Are you Ciara Doyle?’

‘Yes, I am,’ Ciara said, her heart beating. ‘I got this letter this morning and, well, I just want to find out… I mean if it’s genuine.’

‘It certainly is,’ Ronan Burke replied. ‘I’m so glad we found you at last. It took us a little while but then we tracked you down at the Department of Finance and by sheer luck got your address.’

‘But…’ Ciara started. ‘What… I mean, why were you looking for me? It said something about an inheritance but…’ Then she decided to get to the core of the problem. ‘If this is some kind of April Fool’s joke, I’d appreciate if you told me right now who was behind it. Was it Rachel in accounts from my office? I know she hates me, but this is going a bit far, I have to say.’

‘It’s not a joke,’ Ronan Burke said, sounding amused. ‘Absolutely not. I don’t know anyone called Rachel anyway.’

‘Oh,’ Ciara said, taken aback. She suddenly felt dizzy at the thought of being the heir to someone she had never heard of. ‘Are you sure you have the right person, though?’