Part of that was due to the rain, now falling nearly sideways, pushed by the strong wind—straight into her front windows. Maura kept the fire going in Sullivan’s, but peat was slow to burn and didn’t provide much warmth, so it was fighting a losing battle against the dark and damp. Or, Maura acknowledged, it could be that the word had spread that the search for John Tully was all but over and that had depressed people, so they had stayed home. Without proof that he was dead, it was hard to mourn for the missing man, but most people had lost hope, it seemed. Would things pick up in the evening? Gillian had found a tattered crossword puzzle and was settled in a corner working on it. Mick was due to come in around lunchtime; Maura had called Jimmy and told him that he and Rose shouldn’t bother to show up until later in the day, since there were no customers. It would look silly for all of her pub staff to be standing around polishing the same glasses over and over, waiting for a single request for a pint.
