Free When Shadows Fall by Paul Reid

narrow spit of land in Dalkey where they owned a three-storey Georgian house on a partially wooded acre with an orchard and a terraced garden sloping downwards to the beach. In summer the view stretched right over the harbour, a vista of sunlit waves and bobbing pleasure boats, though in winter, when storms came howling across the Irish Sea, it could be a vastly different experience.
    The Bowens were of Anglo-Irish stock, having been in Ireland ever since their ancestor Phineas Bowen travelled with his family from Cornwall to Dublin in 1753 to set up an import-export concern, back when Ireland had been a decent place to do business in—peaceful, prosperous, and Protestant. Phineas Bowen’s original residence still stood in Wicklow, still in Bowen ownership, but it became a ruin after it was burned by Fenians in the rebellion of 1867, and subsequent generations of Bowens had turned their backs on it. Before that, in the good times, it was called Bowen Hall.
    Phineas’s enterprises had thrived with the wars against the French and Indians in America. His sons and grandsons diversified into manufacturing, shipbuilding, and whaling in the North Sea. Their progeny in turn became amongst the most powerful of Ireland’s merchant classes. Adam’s father, Hunter Bowen, had been a solicitor before his death, and likewise his three sons were despatched to Trinity College to study law, though the onset of Boche belligerence led to Adam—gladly—abandoning his exams.
    Quentin drove the Ford Model T carefully up the gravel driveway, laurel hedging on one side and the cliffs on the other. A freshening breeze drove white-capped rollers onto the beach below, and as Adam watched a seal appeared momentarily on the rocks, craning its neck, before sliding back beneath the foamy surface.
    “So how does it feel?” Quentin asked him, manoeuvring the car into a narrow space beside the rockery. “Nervous, eh? Not to worry, you’re back with family now.”
    “I know,” Adam chuckled. “That’s what has me nervous.”
    “Nonsense. You’re where you belong. We ought to celebrate.”
    “Well, keep it civil. I know how violent you get after a glass of sherry.”
    Quentin ignored the sarcasm and retrieved his door key. Two grandiose Grecian pillars led through a porch filled with potted crocus, pansies, and viola. The foyer had recently been re-floored with oak and smelled of wood polish, and their shoes made a disproportionate noise in the silence.
    “Your brothers won’t have arrived yet,” Quentin told him. “But your mother’s probably in the drawing room. Shall we go through?”
    “No time like the present.” Adam brushed off his jacket and straightened his tie.
    The drawing room faced north over the bay and was something of a shrine to old Victorian tastes. A plethora of tapestries, oil paintings, and ornamental furniture lined the walls and cluttered the floor, and beyond by the hearth, where a well-stacked fire blazed, Adam’s mother sat on an embroidered armchair with her hands on her lap.
    At fifty-one years of age, Marjorie Bowen was as slim as a dancer but aged in face, though her high cheekbones and strawberry blond hair still hinted at the beauty that she must once have possessed. The eyes retained their haughtiness, however, that air of supercilious disdain that she always seemed to project towards anyone who crossed her path, including family. When she saw her husband and son enter the room, she tilted an eyebrow ever so slightly and murmured, “You’re late, Quentin. I had expected you an hour ago.”
    Quentin coughed sheepishly. “ Ahem , slight delay encountered, m’dear. But look who I found.”
    Adam stepped into the light and smiled. “Hello, Mother. Good to see you.”
    Rising from the chair, she seemed to float in her lace and muslin. “Adam.” She presented her hand to be kissed, for Marjorie Bowen did not embrace. “Dear me, but you look dreadful. Truly you do. As thin as a rake.”
    To be greeted in