“John Tully’s gone missing.”
Maura Donovan looked up from behind the bar at the man who had burst into Sullivan’s, sending the door slamming into the wall. She didn’t recognize him, but then, she was still sorting out who was who around Leap, even after seven months in the village. The few customers in the pub, local men and regulars, didn’t seem to know what the latest arrival was talking about.
“What’re yeh sayin’?” one of them asked.
“John Tully,” the newcomer said, still out of breath. “Went out this mornin’ with his boy to take a walk on the shore, he told his wife. He hasn’t come back. No one’s seen him since. His brother went out to look fer him, found the boy wanderin’ on the beach. His wife’s beside herself with worry.”
“That’s bad,” another man said. “After that other thing and all.”
Maura was falling more and more behind in this conversation. If she’d got it right, not only had this Tully man disappeared, leaving a young child alone on the beach, but it had happened before? To Tully or to someone else? Nearby or somewhere else? She hadn’t heard anything about that, but for all she knew the first disappearance had happened a century earlier. She had learned that memories were long in this part of Ireland. “Is he from around here?” she ventured.
The first man turned to her. “Over toward Dromadoon. Sorry, we’ve not met. I’m Richard McCarthy, and you’d be Maura Donovan? Used to be I’d stop by now and then when Old Mick ran the place, but not lately.”
“I am,” Maura said, “and welcome back to Sullivan’s. So what’s happened?”
“John Tully, a good man, told his wife, Nuala, he wanted some air before the evenin’ milkin’. She told him to bring along the youngest child, Eoin, because she was takin’ the older ones to something or other. He did so. Nuala came back a few hours later, and there was no sign of man. It was gettin’ cold and she was worried about the little one, so she sent the brother Conor out to collect him. Conor comes back with the child, but not John. It isn’t like John to go missin’ like that. So she waited fer a bit, then went over to where John liked to walk. He had what he called a ‘thinking rock’ by the water, and she knew where to look. No sign of him there. She had the other kids with her, and Conor as well, so they all searched and they found nothing. Then she called the gardaí, and they’re searching now.”