Page 118 of The Love Letter

There then ensued a heated debate between the pro- and anti-EU supporters.

Joanna yawned surreptitiously. ‘It’s great to meet you all and thanks for your help. I’m going to go to bed now.’

‘A young London thing like you? I thought t’was dawn before you all crawled to your beds,’ said one of the men.

‘It’s all your clean fresh air. My lungs can’t get over the shock. Night, everyone.’ She headed off in the direction of the stairs but was halted by a tap on the shoulder.

‘I’m free tomorrow morning until twelve,’ said Fergal. ‘I could take you to the public records office in Clonakilty. It’s larger than the one here and they’ll probably have a record of who owns the coastguard’s house. We could pop into the church as well, see if that throws anything up. I’ll come by at nine tomorrow.’

Joanna smiled at him. ‘Yes, thank you. That would be great. Night.’

At nine the next morning, Fergal was waiting for her in the deserted bar. Twenty minutes later, they were in a large, newly built council office. Fergal seemed to know the woman behind the counter and he indicated to Joanna that she should follow him and the woman into a storeroom.

‘Right, that’s all the Rosscarbery plans over there.’ The woman pointed to a shelf loaded with files. She walked to the door. ‘If you need anything else, Fergal, just you call me, okay?’

‘Sure, Ginny. Thanks.’

As Joanna followed Fergal over to the shelf, she got the feeling that this young man was the stuff of every local girl’s dreams.

‘Right. You take that pile, I’ll take this. The house is bound to be here somewhere.’

For an hour they went through pages of yellowing, dusty files, until at last Fergal gave a whoop of triumph. ‘Got the bugger! Come here and look.’

Inside the file was the plan of the coastguard’s house in Rosscarbery.

‘Drawn for a Mr H. O. Bentinck, Drumnogue House, Rosscarbery, 1869,’ Fergal read out. ‘That was a local Englishman living here at the time. He left during the Troubles. A lot of the English did.’

‘But surely that doesn’t mean he still owns it? I mean, it’s over one hundred and twenty years ago.’

‘Well, his great-great-granddaughter, Emily Bentinck, still lives at Ardfield, along between here and Ross. She’s turned the estate into a business venture and trains racehorses there. Go and ask her if she knows any more, so you should.’ Fergal was looking at his watch. ‘I’ll have to go in half an hour. Let’s get these plans photocopied and run to the church, okay?’

Once Fergal had greeted the priest and done some fast talking, the old records of baptism were unlocked from their cupboard and opened for them.

Joanna scanned her finger quickly down the register. ‘Look here!’ Her eyes lit up with excitement. ‘Michael James O’Connell. Baptised the tenth of April 1900. It has to be him!’

‘There you go now, Joanna,’ said Fergal, with a broad smile. He looked at his watch. ‘I’ll have to go back to Ross now. I can’t be late for my class. I’ll write you down some directions to the Bentinck estate on the way.’

‘So, where do you go from here, now you’ve found your man?’ he asked as Joanna drove out of Clonakilty towards Rosscarbery.

‘I don’t know. But at least I feel I haven’t been on a completely wild goose chase.’

Having dropped Fergal at his school, Joanna followed his directions to Ardfield, and after a frustrating twenty minutes of narrow country roads, turned into the gate of Drumnogue House. As she bumped along the potholed drive, a large white house appeared in front of her. She parked next to a muddy Land Rover and got out of the car. The house had a stunning view of the Atlantic, stretching out into the distance beyond it.

Joanna began to hunt for signs of life, but there were none behind the tall Georgian windows. Ionic columns framed the front door, and as she approached, she could see it was slightly ajar. Knocking and receiving no reply, she pushed it gently. ‘Hello?’ she called, her voice echoing in the cavernous hallway. Not feeling she should go any further, Joanna retreated and walked around to the back where she saw a stable block. A woman in an ancient anorak and a pair of jodhpurs was grooming a horse.

‘Hello, sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for Emily Bentinck.’

‘You found her,’ the woman said in a clipped English accent. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Yes. My name’s Joanna Haslam. I’m over here doing some research on my family. I was wondering whether you could tell me if your family still owns the coastguard’s house down in Rosscarbery?’

‘Interested in buying it, are you?’

‘No, sadly I couldn’t afford it,’ Joanna said with a smile. ‘I’m more interested in the history of it.’

‘I see.’ Emily continued to brush down the horse with firm strokes. ‘Don’t really know that much about it, apart from the fact my great-great-grandfather commissioned its construction in the late nineteen hundreds on behalf of the British government. They wanted an outpost in the bay to try and stem the smuggling that was going on down there. I don’t believe our family ever actually owned it.’

‘I see. Do you know how I might be able to find out who did?’