18

A part of me would have sat there with my ma forever, giving the teapot a reheat every hour or so and making the occasional batch of sandwiches. Ma wasn’t bad company, as long as she kept her mouth shut, and for the first time her kitchen felt like shelter, at least compared to what was waiting for me outside. As soon as I stepped through that door, the only thing left for me to do was go after solid proof. That wasn’t the hard part—I figured it should take about twenty-four hours, max. That was where the full-on nightmare kicked in. Once I had proof, I would have to figure out what to do with it.

Around two o’clock, noises started up in the bedroom: bedsprings creaking, a wordless throat-clearing shout, that endless retching full-body cough. I figured that was my cue to leave, which triggered a volley of complicated Christmas-dinner questions from Ma (“If yourself and Holly both came, I’m only saying if, would she eat white meat or dark meat, or would she have any at all, because she’s said to me her mammy doesn’t give her turkey unless it does be that free-range one…”). I kept my head down and kept moving. As I dived out the door, she called after me, “Lovely seeing you, come back soon!” Behind her Da shouted, through phlegm, “Josie!”

I even knew exactly how he could have found out where Rosie was going to be that night. The only way to that info had been through Imelda, and I could only think of one reason why my da would be anywhere near her. Here I had always taken it for granted that when he vanished for a day or three, it was booze he was hunting. Even after everything else he had done, it had never once occurred to me that he would cheat on my ma—if I had thought about it, I would have figured he had an alcohol-related inability to do any such thing. My family is just chock-full of surprises.

Imelda could have told her ma outright what Rosie had told her—girly bonding, looking for attention, who knew—or she could have dropped a hint when my da was around, just a little one to make her feel smarter than the man who was fucking her mother. Like I said, my da is no eejit. He would have put two and two together.

This time, when I rang Imelda’s buzzer, no one answered. I stepped back and watched her window: something moved, behind the net curtain. I leaned on the buzzer for a good three minutes before she snatched up the handset. “What.”

“Howya, Imelda. It’s Francis. Surprise.”

“Fuck off.”

“Ah, now, ’Melda, be nice. We need to talk.”

“I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

“Tough. I’ve got nowhere else to be, so I’ll be waiting across the road, in my car, for as long as this takes. It’s the silver 1999 Merc. When you get bored of this game, come down to me, we’ll have a quick chat and then I’ll leave you alone for life. If I get bored first, I’m going to start asking your neighbors questions about you. Have you got that?”

“Fuck off.”

She hung up. Imelda had plenty of stubborn in the tank; I figured it would take at least two hours, maybe three, before she cracked and came down to me. I headed back to my car, turned on Otis Redding and opened the window to share with the neighbors. It was a toss-up whether they would peg me as a cop, a drug dealer or a moneylender’s goon. None of the above would go down well.

At that hour Hallows Lane was quiet. An old fella on a walker and an old one polishing her brasswork had a long disapproving conversation about me, and a couple of yummy mummies gave me sideways looks on their way back from shopping. A guy with a shiny tracksuit and a large number of problems spent a solid forty minutes outside Imelda’s house, swaying back and forth and using all his remaining brain cells to shout “Deco!” up at the top window at ten-second intervals, but Deco had better things to do and eventually the guy staggered off. Around three o’clock, someone who was clearly Shania hauled herself up the steps of Number 10 and let herself in. Isabelle got home not long after. She was the living spit of Imelda in the eighties, right down to the defiant angle of her chin and the long-legged screw-you walk; I couldn’t work out whether she made me sad or gave me hope. Every time the dirty lace curtains twitched, I waved.

A little after four, when it was getting dark and Genevieve had come home from school and I had moved on to James Brown, a knuckle tapped on my passenger window. It was Scorcher.

I’m not supposed to be near this case, I had told Imelda; I’ve put my job on the line just by coming here. I wasn’t sure whether to despise her for squealing or admire her resourcefulness. I turned off the music and rolled down the window. “Detective. What can I do for you?”

“Open the door, Frank.”

I raised my eyebrows, doing surprised at the grim tone, but I leaned over and unlocked the door. Scorcher got in and slammed it hard. “Now drive,” he said.

“Are you on the run? You can hide in the boot if you want.”

“I’m not in the mood for funnies. I’m getting you out of here before you intimidate those poor girls any more than you already have.”

“I’m just a man in his car, Scorch. Sitting here having a nostalgic look at the old home turf. What’s so intimidating about that?”

“Drive.”

“I’ll drive if you’ll take a few deep breaths for me. I’m not insured for third-party heart attacks. Deal?”

“Don’t make me arrest you.”

I burst out laughing. “Oh, Scorchie, you’re a treasure. I always forget why I’m so fond of you. We can arrest each other, how’s that?” I pulled out into the traffic and went with the flow. “Now tell me. Who’ve I been intimidating?”

“Imelda Tierney and her daughters. As you well know. Ms. Tierney says you tried to force your way into the flat yesterday, and she had to threaten you with a knife to get you to leave.”

“Imelda? Is that who you’re calling a girl? She’s forty-odd, Scorcher. Show some respect. The polite term these days is woman.”

“And her daughters are girls. The youngest one’s only eleven. They say you’ve been sitting back there all afternoon, making obscene gestures at them.”

“I haven’t had the pleasure of their acquaintance. Are they nice girls? Or do they take after their mammy?”

“What did I tell you, last time we saw each other? What was the one thing I told you to do?”

“Stay out of your way. I got that part, loud and clear. What I missed was the part where you turned into my boss. Last time I looked, my boss was a lot heavier than you, and not nearly as good-looking.”

“I don’t need to be your bloody boss to tell you to stay the hell out of my case. My investigation, Frank; my orders. You ignored them.”

“So report me. Do you need my ID number for that?”

“Yeah, Frank, hilarious. I know the rules are one big bloody joke to you. I know you think you’re immune. Hell, maybe you’re right; I don’t know how things work over in Undercover.” Outrage didn’t suit Scorcher; it swelled up his jaw to twice its normal size and gave him a forehead vein that looked dangerous. “But maybe you should keep in mind that I’ve been doing my best to do you a favor here, for Christ’s sake. I’ve been going miles out of my way for you. And at this stage, I honestly can’t remember why I’m bothering. If you keep on fucking me about, every single bloody chance you get, I might just change my mind.”

I stopped myself from slamming on the brakes and smacking his head off the windscreen. “Favor? You mean putting it about that Kevin was an accident?”

“Not just putting it about. It’ll go on the death cert.”

“Oh, well, then: wow. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude, Scorch. Really, I am.”

“This isn’t just about you, Frank. You may not give a damn whether your brother goes down as accident or suicide, but I bet your family does.”

“Oh, no, no, no. No. Don’t even try to pull that one. When it comes to my family, pal, you don’t have the tiniest clue what you’re dealing with. For one thing, this may come as a shock, but you don’t rule their universe: they’ll all believe exactly what they want to believe, regardless of what you and Cooper put on the death cert—my mother, for example, would like me to inform you that it was, I shit you not, a traffic accident. For another, if most of my family were on fire, I wouldn’t piss on them to put them out. I certainly don’t give the world’s smallest fuck what they think happened to Kevin.”

“Can a suicide go into consecrated ground, these days? What does the priest say in a suicide’s homily? What does the rest of the neighborhood say about him? What does it do to the people who get left behind? Don’t fool yourself, Frank: you’re not bloody immune to that.”

My temper was starting to get a little ragged around the edges. I pulled into a narrow cul-de-sac between two blocks of flats—in reverse, so that I could make a quick getaway if I ended up shoving Scorcher out of the car—and switched off the ignition. Above us, some architect had got cute with blue-painted balconies, but the Mediterranean effect was undermined by the fact that they looked out on a brick wall and a clump of skips.

“So,” I said. “Kevin gets filed away under ‘accident,’ all nice and pretty. Let me ask you this. What are you filing Rosie under?”

“Murder. Obviously.”

“Obviously. Murder by who? Person or persons unknown?”

Scorcher left a silence. I said, “Or by Kevin.”

“Well. It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“How complicated can it be?”

“If our suspect’s dead too, we’ve got a certain amount of discretion. It’s a fine line. On the one hand, it’s not like there’s going to be an arrest, so the brass aren’t wild about the idea of pumping resources into the case. On the other hand…”

“On the other hand, there’s the almighty solve rate.”

“Mock all you want. These things matter. You think I’d have been able to give your girlfriend this much manpower if my solve rate had been in the toilet? It’s a cycle: the more I get out of this case, the more I can put into the next one. Sorry, Frank, but I’m not going to jeopardize the next victim’s shot at justice and my reputation, just to spare your feelings.”

“Translate for me, Scorch. What exactly are you planning on doing about Rosie?”

“I’m planning on doing this right. We’ll keep collecting and collating evidence and witness statements for the next couple of days. After that, assuming nothing unexpected turns up…” He shrugged. “I’ve worked a couple of these cases before. Normally, we try to handle the situation as compassionately as possible. The file goes to the DPP, but on the quiet; nothing’s made publicly available, specially if we’re not talking about a career criminal. We’d rather not wreck a man’s name when he’s not around to defend himself. If the DPP agrees that we’d have a good case, we have a chat with the victim’s family—make it clear that nothing’s definitive here, but we can at least give them a certain amount of closure—and that’s the end of that. They get to move on, the killer’s family get to keep their peace of mind, we get to mark the case solved. That’d be the normal procedure.”

I said, “Why do I get the feeling you’re trying to threaten me?”

“Oh, come on, Frank. That’s a very dramatic way of putting it.”

“How would you put it?”

“I’d say I’m trying to warn you. And you’re not making it easy.”

“Warn me what, exactly?”

Scorcher sighed. “If I need to go for an in-depth inquest to determine Kevin’s cause of death,” he said, “I’ll do it. And I’d be willing to bet the media will be all over it like a rash. Regardless of how you feel about the suicide issue, we both know one or two journos who like nothing better than a dodgy cop. And I think you can see how, in the wrong hands, this story could make you look dodgy as all hell.”

I said, “That sounds a lot like a threat to me.”

“I think I’ve made it pretty obvious that I’d rather not go down that road. But if this is the only way to make you stop playing Boy Detective… I’m just trying to get your attention, Frank. I haven’t had much luck any other way.”

I said, “Think back, Scorcher. What was the one thing I told you, last time we saw each other?”

“That your brother wasn’t a killer.”

“That’s right. And how much attention did you pay to that?”

Scorcher flipped down the sun visor and checked a shaving cut in the mirror, tilting his head back to run a thumb along his jaw. “In some ways,” he said, “I suppose I owe you a thank-you. I’ve got to admit, I’m not sure I’d have found Imelda Tierney if you hadn’t found her for me. And she’s turning out very useful.”

The cunning little bitch. “I bet she is. She’s the obliging type. If you know what I mean.”

“Oh, no. She’s not just trying to make me happy. Her evidence’ll hold up, if it comes to that.”

He let it hang there. The tiny smirk he couldn’t hide gave me the general idea, but I went along anyway. “Go on, then. Hit me. What’s she come up with?”

Scorch pursed up his lips, pretending to think about it. “She may end up being a witness, Frank. All depending. I can’t tell you her evidence if you’re going to try and harass her into changing it. I think we both know just how badly that could end, don’t we?”

I took my time. For a long, cold moment I stared him out of it; then I let my head fall back against the headrest and ran my hands over my face. “You know something, Scorch? This has been the longest week of my life.”

“I know that, old son. I’m hearing you. But, for everyone’s sake, you’re going to have to find somewhere more productive to direct that energy.”

“You’re right. I shouldn’t have gone looking for Imelda to begin with; that was well out of order. I just figured… she and Rosie were close, you know? I thought, if anyone knew anything…”

“You should have given me her name. I’d have talked to her for you. Same end result, none of this hassle.”

“Yes. You’re right again. It’s just… It’s hard to let go when there’s nothing definite one way or the other, you know? I like knowing what’s going on.”

Scorch said dryly, “Last time we talked, you sounded pretty sure you knew exactly what was going on.”

“I thought I did. I was positive.”

“But now…?”

I said, “I’m tired, Scorch. Over the past week I’ve dealt with dead exes, dead brothers and a hefty dose of my parents, and I’m a very wrecked little puppy. Maybe that’s what’s doing it. I’m not positive about anything any more. Nothing at all.”

I could tell by the puffy look on Scorcher’s face that he was about to enlighten me, which was bound to put him in a better mood. “Sooner or later, Frank,” he told me, “we all end up getting a good kick in the certainties. That’s what life is. The trick is to turn that kick into a stepping-stone towards the next level of certainty. Do you get me?”

This time I swallowed my helping of tossed metaphor salad like a good boy. “Yeah, I do. And I bloody hate admitting this, to you of all people, but I need a hand up to that next level. I really do, mate. Put me out of my misery: what’s Imelda saying?”

“You’re not going to give her grief about it?”

“As far as I’m concerned, my life will be complete if I never see Imelda Tierney again.”

“I’m going to need your word on this, Frank. No dodging.”

“I give you my word I will not go near Imelda. Not about Kevin, not about Rosie, not about anything ever.”

“No matter what.”

“No matter what.”

“Believe me, I don’t want to complicate your life. And I won’t have to, as long as you don’t complicate mine. Don’t force my hand here.”

“I won’t.”

Scorcher smoothed his hair into place and snapped the sun visor shut. “In a way,” he said, “you were right to go after Imelda. Your technique may suck, my friend, but your instincts are spot-on.”

“She knew something.”

“She knew plenty. I’ve got a bit of a surprise for you, old son. I know you thought you and Rose Daly were keeping your relationship a big secret, but in my experience, when a woman says she won’t tell a soul, what she means is she’ll only tell her two very best friends. Imelda Tierney knew all along. The relationship, the plans to elope, everything.”

“God,” I said. I shook my head, did a shamefaced half laugh, let Scorcher inflate with satisfaction. “Right. She… wow. Now that I didn’t see coming.”

“You were only a kid. You didn’t know the rules of the game.”

“Still. Hard to believe I was ever that naïve.”

“Here’s something else you may have missed: Imelda says Kevin had a massive thing for Rose, way back when. You’ve got to admit, that fits with what you’ve told me: she was the neighborhood babe, all the boys fancied her.”

“Well, sure. Yeah. But Kevin? He was only fifteen.”

“That’s old enough for the hormones to be going bananas. And old enough to wangle his way into clubs where he shouldn’t have been going. One night Imelda was in Bruxelles, and Kevin came up to her and offered to buy her a drink. They got talking, and he asked her—begged her—to put in a good word for him with Rose. That cracked Imelda up, but Kevin looked genuinely hurt, so once she stopped laughing, she told him it wasn’t personal: Rose was taken. That was as far as she was planning to go, but Kevin kept pestering her about who the guy was, and he kept buying her more drink…”

Scorch was managing to keep his face grave, but he was having a great old time. Right under the surface, he was still that deodorant—drenched teenager pumping his fist and hissing Score! “In the end, she spilled the whole thing. She didn’t see any harm in it: she thought he was a lovely sweet kid, plus she figured he’d back off once he knew they were talking about his own brother, right? Wrong. He lost the plot: shouting, kicking walls, throwing glasses… The bouncers had to boot him out of the place.”

Which would have been several miles out of character—when Kev lost his temper, the worst he ever did was flounce off in a huff—but apart from that, it all hung together just gorgeously. I was getting more impressed with Imelda by the minute. She was well up on the barter system: she had known before she ever called Scorcher that if she wanted him to get the nasty man off her street, she would have to give him something he wanted in exchange. Probably she had rung around a few old friends, to find out exactly what that might be. The Murder boys had obviously made it clear, while they were doing their door-to-door, that they were interested in any link between Kevin and Rosie; the Place would have had no trouble filling in the blanks. I supposed I should consider myself lucky that Imelda had been sharp enough to do her research, rather than just flying off the handle and dumping me in the firing line.

“Jesus,” I said. I leaned my arms on the steering wheel and slumped forward, staring out through the windscreen at the traffic inching past the mouth of the laneway. “Sweet Jesus. And I never had a clue. When was this?”

Scorcher said, “A couple of weeks before Rose died. Imelda feels pretty guilty about the whole thing, now that she knows where it led. That’s what made her come forward. She’s going to give me an official statement as soon as we’re finished here.”

I just bet she was. “Well,” I said. “I guess that’s evidence, all right.”

“I’m sorry, Frank.”

“I know. Thanks.”

“I know this isn’t what you were hoping to hear—”

“That’s for sure.”

“—but, like you said, any kind of certainty helps. Even if that’s not your perception right now. At least it means you’ve got some closure. When you’re ready, you’ll be able to start integrating all of this into your worldview.”

“Scorcher,” I said. “Let me ask you something. Do you go to a shrink?”

He managed to look embarrassed and self-righteous and belligerent all at once. “Yeah. Why? Do you want a recommendation?”

“No, thanks. I was just wondering.”

“The guy’s pretty good. He’s helped me discover a lot of interesting things. How to bring my outer reality into sync with my inner reality, that kind of stuff.”

“Sounds very motivational.”

“It is. I think he could do a lot for you.”

“I’m an old-fashioned kind of guy. I still think my inner reality should get in sync with the outer one. I’ll keep the offer in mind, though.”

“Yeah. Do that.” Scorcher gave my dashboard a manly pat, like it was a horse that had learned its lesson. “It’s been good talking with you, Frank. I should probably get back to the grindstone, but give me a ring anytime if you need a chat, yeah?”

“Will do. I reckon what I really need is some time by myself, though, to take all this in. It’s a lot to absorb.”

Scorch did a profound nod-and-eyebrows number that he had presumably picked up from his shrink. I said, “Do you want a lift back to the squad?”

“No, thanks. The walk’ll do me good; got to keep an eye on the old waistline.” He tapped his stomach. “Take care of yourself, Frank. We’ll talk.”

The laneway was narrow enough that he had to open the car door about six inches and wriggle his way out, which brought down the tone of his exit, but he got it back once he got into his Murder Squad stride. I watched him swing off through the tired scurrying crowds, a man with a briefcase and a purpose, and remembered the day a few years back when we had run into each other and discovered we had both joined the divorce club. The drinking session had lasted fourteen hours and had finished up in a UFOTHEMED joint in Bray where Scorch and I tried to convince two brain-dead lovelies that we were Russian millionaires over here to buy Dublin Castle, except we kept losing it and snickering helplessly into our pints like a pair of kids. It occurred to me that I had kind of liked Scorcher Kennedy for the last twenty years, and that I was actually going to miss him.


People routinely underestimate me and it’s one of my favorite things, but all the same I was a little surprised at Imelda; she didn’t seem like the type to overlook the less fluffy side of human nature. In her place I would at least have had a large ugly friend with some form of weapon spend a few days with me, but on Thursday morning the Tierney household appeared to be back to business as usual. Genevieve schlepped off to school sucking on a Kit Kat, Imelda headed for New Street and came back carrying two plastic bags, Isabelle stalked off somewhere that called for pulled-back hair and a sharp white shirt; there was no sign of any bodyguard, armed or otherwise. This time no one saw me watching.

Around noon, a couple of teenage girls with a couple of babies rang the buzzer, Shania came downstairs and they all wandered off to window-shop or shoplift or whatever. Once I was sure she wasn’t going to come back for her smokes, I cracked the front-door lock and went up to Imelda’s flat.

She had some talk show turned up loud, people howling at each other and the audience baying for blood. The door was crusted with locks, but when I put my eye to the crack, only one of them was actually on. It took me about ten seconds to pick. The telly covered the sound of the door creaking open.

Imelda was sitting on her sofa wrapping Christmas presents, which would have been more adorable if it hadn’t been for the TV show and the fact that most of them were fake Burberry. I had the door closed and I was coming up behind her when something—my shadow, a floorboard—made her whip around. She caught her breath to scream, but before she could get started I had a hand over her mouth and the other forearm leaning across her wrists, pinning them down on her lap. I got comfortable on the arm of the sofa and said, close to her ear, “Imelda, Imelda, Imelda. And here you swore to me you weren’t a squealer. I’m disappointed in you.”

She aimed an elbow at my stomach; when I tightened my hold, she tried to bite my hand. I pressed it down harder, pulling her head back, till her neck arched and I could feel her teeth crushing against her lip. I said, “When I take my hand away, I want you to think about two things. The first one is that I’m a whole lot closer than anyone else. The second one is what Deco upstairs would think if he knew there was an informer living here, because it would be very, very easy for him to find out. Do you think he’d take it out on you, personally, or would he decide Isabelle’s juicier? Or maybe Genevieve? You tell me, Imelda. I don’t know what kind of taste he’s got.”

Her eyes were lit up with pure fury, like a trapped animal’s. If she could have bitten my throat out, she would have done it. I said, “So what’s the plan? Are you going to scream?”

After a moment, her muscles slowly loosened and she shook her head. I let go, tossed a bunch of Burberry off an armchair onto the floor and settled in. “There,” I said. “Isn’t this cozy?”

Imelda rubbed tenderly at her jaw. “Prick,” she said.

“This wasn’t my choice, babe, now was it? I gave you two separate chances to talk to me like a civilized person, but no: you wanted it this way.”

“My fella’ll be home any minute now. He does the security. You don’t want to be messing with him.”

“That’s funny, because he wasn’t home last night and there’s nothing in this room that says he’s ever existed.” I kicked the Burberry out of the way so I could stretch out my legs. “Why would you lie about something like that, Imelda? Don’t tell me you’re afraid of me.”

She was sulking in the corner of the sofa, arms and legs crossed tight, but that got a rise out of her. “You wish, Francis Mackey. I’ve bet the shite out of a lot tougher than you.”

“Oh, I’m sure you have. And if you can’t beat the shite out of them, you run and tell someone who might. You squelt on me to Scorcher Kennedy—no, shut your bloody great gob and don’t be trying to lie your way out—and I’m not one bit happy about it. But it’s easily fixed. All you have to do is tell me who you ran to about me and Rosie, and hey presto, all will be forgiven.”

Imelda shrugged. In the background, the TV baboons were still belting each other with studio chairs; I leaned over, keeping a sharp eye on Imelda just in case, and yanked the plug out of the wall. Then I said, “I didn’t hear you.”

Another shrug. I said, “I think I’ve been more than patient. But this right here, what you’re looking at? This is the last of my patience, sweetheart. Take a good long look. It’s a whole lot prettier than what comes next.”

“So?”

“So I thought you’d been warned about me.”

I caught the flash of fear across her face. I said, “I know what they’re saying around here. Which one do you think I killed, Imelda? Rosie or Kevin? Or is it both?”

“I never said—”

“See, I’m betting on Kevin. Am I right? I thought he killed Rosie, so I booted him out that window. Is that what you’ve figured out?”

Imelda had better sense than to answer. My voice was rising fast, but I didn’t care if Deco and his drug buddies heard every word. I had been waiting all week for a chance to lose my temper like this. “Tell me this: how thick do you have to be, how incredibly stupid, to play games with someone who would do that to his own brother? I’m in no mood to be fucked with, Imelda, and you spent yesterday afternoon fucking with me. Do you think that was a good idea?”

“I just wanted—”

“And now here you are, doing it again. Are you deliberately trying to push me that extra inch? Do you want me to snap, is that it?”

“No—”

I was up out of the armchair, gripping the sofa back on either side of her head, shoving my face so close to hers I could smell cheese-and-onion crisps on her breath. “Let me explain something, Imelda. I’ll use small words, so it’ll get through your thick skull. Inside the next ten minutes, I swear to Christ, you’re going to answer my question. I know you’d rather stick to the story you told Kennedy, but you don’t have that option. Your only choice is whether you want to answer with a few slaps or without.”

She tried to duck her head away from me, but I got one hand cupped around her jaw and forced her face up to mine. “And before you decide, think about this: how hard would it be for me to get carried away and wring your neck like a chicken’s? Everyone around here already thinks I’m Hannibal Lecter. What the hell have I got to lose?” Maybe she was ready to talk by then, but I didn’t give her the chance. “Your friend Detective Kennedy may not be my biggest fan, but he’s a cop, just like me. If you turn up beaten to pulp, or God forbid dead as a doornail, don’t you think he’s going to look after his own? Or do you seriously think he’ll care more about some bone-stupid skanger tramp whose life wasn’t worth a fiver to anyone in this world? He’ll throw you away in a heartbeat, Imelda. Like the piece of shite you are.”

I knew the look on her face, the slack jaw, the blind black eyes stretched too wide to blink. I had seen it on my ma a hundred times, in the second when she knew she was about to get hit. I didn’t care. The thought of the back of my hand cracking across Imelda’s mouth almost choked me with how badly I wanted it. “You didn’t mind opening your ugly yap for anyone else who asked. Now, by Jesus, you’re going to open it for me. Who’d you tell about me and Rosie? Who, Imelda? Who was it? Was it your slut ma? Who the fuck did you—”

I could already hear her spitting it at me like great slimy gobs of poison, Your alco da, your filthy dirty whoremaster da, and I was all ready and braced for it to hit me when her mouth opened wide and red and she almost howled into my face, “I told your brother!”

“Bullshit, you lying bitch. That’s the crap you fed Scorcher Kennedy and he lapped it up, but do I look as stupid as him? Do I?”

“Not Kevin, you thick bastard, what would I be doing with Kevin? Shay. I told Shay.”

The room went soundless, a huge perfect silence like snowfall, as if there had never been a noise in all the world. After what might have been a long time I noticed that I was sitting in the armchair again and that I was numb all over, like my blood had stopped moving. After a while longer I noticed that someone upstairs had a washing machine on. Imelda had shrunk into the sofa cushions. The terror on her face told me what mine must look like.

I said, “What did you tell him?”

“Francis… I’m sorry, right. I didn’t think—”

“What did you tell him, Imelda.”

“Just… you and Rosie. That yous were heading off.”

“When did you say it to him?”

“The Saturday night, in the pub. The night before yous were leaving. I thought, sure, what harm at that stage, it was too late for anyone to stop yous—”

Three girls leaning on the railings and tossing their hair, glossy and restless as wild fillies, fidgeting on the edge of their anything-can-happen evening. Apparently just about anything had. I said, “If you give me one more shitty excuse, I’m going to put my foot through that robbed telly.”

Imelda shut up. I said, “Did you tell him when we were going?”

A quick jerk of a nod.

“And where you’d left the suitcase?”

“Yeah. Not what room, like; just… in Number Sixteen.”

The dirty-white winter light through the lace curtains was vicious on her. Slumped in the corner of the sofa, in this overheated room that stank of grease and cigarettes and waste, she looked like an underfilled bag of bones wrapped in gray skin. I couldn’t think of one thing this woman could have wanted that would have been worth what she had thrown away. I said, “Why, Imelda? Why the hell?”

She shrugged. It dawned on me in a slow wave, with the faint red stain mottling her cheeks. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “You were into Shay?”

Another shrug, this one sharper and pricklier. Those bright-colored girls shrieking and play-fighting, Mandy said to ask if your brother fancies going to the pictures… I said, “I thought Mandy was the one who had a thing for him.”

“Her too. We all did—not Rosie, but loads of us. He had his pick.”

“And so you sold Rosie out to get his attention. Is that what you had in mind when you told me you loved her?”

“That’s not bleeding fair. I never meant to—”

I fired the ashtray at the telly. It was heavy and I put my whole body behind it; it smashed through the screen with an impressive crashing noise and an explosion of ash and butts and splinters of glass. Imelda let out something between a gasp and a yelp and cringed away from me, one forearm thrown up to protect her face. Specks of ash filled up the air, whirled and settled on the carpet, the coffee table, her tracksuit bottoms.

“Now,” I said. “What did I warn you?”

She shook her head, wild-eyed. She had a hand pressed over her mouth: someone had trained her not to scream.

I flicked away glittering speckles of glass and found Imelda’s smokes on the coffee table, under a ball of green ribbon. “You’re going to tell me what you said to him, word for word, as close as you can remember. Don’t leave anything out. If you can’t remember something for definite, say so; don’t make shit up. Is that clear?”

Imelda nodded, hard, into her palm. I lit a smoke and leaned back in the armchair. “Good,” I said. “So talk.”

I could have told the story myself. The pub was some place off Wexford Street, Imelda didn’t remember the name: “We were going dancing, me and Mandy and Julie, but Rosie had to be home early—her da was on the warpath—so she didn’t want to pay in to the disco. So we said we’d go for a few pints first…” Imelda had been up at the bar, getting her round in, when she spotted Shay. She had got chatting to him—I could see her, tossing her hair, jutting one hip, slagging him off. Shay had flirted back automatically, but he liked them prettier and softer and a lot less mouthy, and when his pints arrived he had gathered them up and turned to head back to his mates in their corner.

She had just been trying to keep his attention. What’s wrong, Shay? Is Francis right, yeah, are you more into the fellas?

Look who’s talking, he’d said. When was the last time that little prick had a girlfriend? And he had started to move off.

Imelda had said, That’s all you know.

That had stopped him. Yeah?

The lads are waiting on their pints. Go on, off you go.

I’ll be back in a sec. You just hang on there.

I might. Or I might not.

Of course she had waited for him. Rosie laughed at her when she dropped the drinks down to them in a rush, and Mandy faked an outraged sniff (Robbing my fella), but Imelda gave them the finger and hurried back up to the bar in time to be lounging there, all casual and sipping her glass of lager and one button undone, when Shay got back. Her heart was going ninety. He had never looked twice at her before.

He bent his head close and gave her the intense blue gaze that never let him down, slouched on a bar stool and slid one of his knees in between hers, bought her the next drink and ran a finger over her knuckles when he passed it to her. She spun the story out as long as she could, to keep him with her, but in the end the whole plan was spread out on the bar between them: the suitcase, the meeting place, the boat, the London bedsit, the music-business jobs, the tiny wedding; every secret thing Rosie and I had spent months building up, fragment by fragment, and keeping safe and precious next to our skin. Imelda felt like shite about doing it; she couldn’t even stand to look over at Rosie, cracking up laughing with Mandy and Julie over something or other. Twenty-two years later and the color still flamed up in her cheeks when she talked about it. She had done it anyway.

It was such a pathetic little story, a snip of nothing, the kind teenage girls fight over and forget every day. It had led us to this week and this room.

“Tell me,” I said. “Did he at least throw you a quick fuck, after all that?”

Imelda wasn’t looking at me, but the red patches deepened. “Oh, good. I’d hate to think you went to the hassle of selling me and Rosie down the river, all for nothing. This way, yeah, two people ended up dead and a big bunch of lives ended up getting blown to smithereens, but hey, at least you got the ride you were after.”

She said, in a thin stretched voice, “You mean…? Me saying it to Shay. Did that get Rosie killed?”

“You’re a fucking genius.”

“Francis. Did…?” Imelda shuddered all over, like a spooked horse. “Did Shay…?”

“Did I say that?”

She shook her head.

“Well spotted. Pay attention, Imelda: if you go spreading that shite around, if you say it to even one person, you will regret it for the rest of your life. You’ve done your best to wreck one of my brothers’ name; I’m not having you wreck the other.”

“I’ll say nothing to anyone. I swear, Francis.”

“That includes your daughters. Just in case squealing runs in the family.” She flinched. “You never talked to Shay, and I was never here. Have you got me?”

“Yeah. Francis… I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry. I never once thought…”

I said, “Look what you did.” It was the only thing that would come out of my mouth. “Sweet Jesus, Imelda. Just look what you did.” And I left her there, staring at ash and broken glass and nothing.

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