Free Deep Waters by Kate Charles

‘Oh, Callie,’ he said. ‘I believe that Jane would like a word. She’s in the kitchen, I think.’
    ‘Oh. All right. Thanks, Brian.’ Callie changed course and went to the back of the house, her heart thudding apprehensively.
    The ironing board was set up in the middle of the kitchen. Jane stood over it, iron in hand, attacking a crumpled surplice with a determined scowl. The scowl deepened as Callie came through the door.
    ‘Brian said you wanted me?’
    Jane didn’t waste time on preliminary niceties. ‘It’s that dog,’ she stated.
    ‘Bella?’
    ‘What other dog would I be talking about?’ Jane snapped. ‘It hasn’t stopped carrying on since you left!’
    ‘Carrying on?’ Callie echoed faintly.
    ‘Whining. Howling, even!’
    She’d left Bella closed in her room, reasoning that Bella was used to being alone in the flat during the day and that this shouldn’t really be any different. Apparently, though, Bella wasn’t any more comfortable about being in the vicarage than Callie was. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Callie apologised. ‘I thought she’d be okay.’
    Jane wasn’t mollified. ‘It just won’t do,’ she said. ‘I told Brian. We can’t have a dog carrying on like that all day. Day in, day out. And suppose it’s…made a mess in the guest room?’
    Callie hadn’t even thought of that . Bella had good bladder control; surely she wouldn’t have disgraced herself to that extent…
    ‘It won’t do,’ Jane repeated. ‘That dog will have to go. It will just have to go in kennels, if no one else will take it.’ You can stay—on sufferance, her eyes told Callie. She set the iron down on the ironing board and crossed her arms across her chest. ‘Brian checked with the insurance company. They’ll pay. For kennels. I told him that I want that dog out of my house. By tomorrow. At the latest.’

    A human being. Neville Stewart!
    Frances couldn’t believe she was actually feeling sorry for him. That, she reflected as she made her way back to her office, was what happened when someone opened their heart to you, and you allowed yourself to be equally open to their pain.
    No wonder he looked terrible. Called back from his honeymoon , plunged into the tragedy of a baby’s death. And then to be expected to attend the actual post-mortem—to watch the pathologist put his scalpel into that tiny body…
    On top of it all, he wasn’t in the least sure how things stood with his new wife—with Triona. She’d been pretty angry when the honeymoon had been cut short, he’d confided. He knew—who better?—what a fiery temper she had, and he didn’t blame her for exercising it on this occasion. But he didn’t know what to do about it, or even where to find her, when he was eventually free to go to her. She wasn’t answering her mobile. Not to him, anyway.
    Even if he hadn’t begged Frances to contact Triona on his behalf, she would have felt compelled to ring her friend. Neville Stewart aside, she cared about what happened to Triona, whom she’d first known years ago, during the long struggle for women’s ordination to the priesthood. Triona had been a young Irishfirebrand, training for a career in law, standing shoulder- to-shoulder with the women who knew they were called to be priests but who were blocked at every turn by the fossilised element of the Church’s hierarchy. Eventually the women had succeeded, of course, yet not before they’d done some fairly extreme things; like the Suffragettes before them, they’d occasionally risked personal safety and come pretty close to the edges of the law. Triona had promised Frances that she would be there for her if ever she needed a lawyer, neither of them dreaming under what circumstances that call would finally come.
    In her office, Frances took a moment to compose herself before picking up the phone. Neville had written down Triona’s mobile number for her; she smoothed the slip of paper out on her desk and breathed deeply, praying that she