The Hunter

Fifteen

The two uniforms could be brothers: young, beefy, healthy, with identical neat haircuts and identical raw sunburns. Both of them look like this moment is unprecedented in their careers, and they’re being extra official to show each other they can handle it. They take names and details from Cal and Trey, ask Trey what time she found the body—which gets them a blank shrug and “Early”—and whether she touched it. They take Rushborough’s name, too—Cal has his doubts on this, but he keeps them to himself—and where he was staying. Cal figures, with mixed feelings, that by the time they get there Johnny will be long gone.

The uniforms start stringing crime-scene tape between trees. One of them shoos away a couple of sheep that have drifted closer to investigate. “Is it OK if we head back to my place, Officer?” Cal asks the other one. “Trey here helps me out with some carpentry, and we’ve got a job to finish.”

“That’s grand,” the uniform says, with a formal nod. “The detectives’ll need to take statements. They’ll be able to reach ye both at that number, will they?”

“That’s right,” Cal says. “We’ll be at my place most of the day.” He glances at Trey, who nods. The crows, single-minded and in no hurry, have started to work their way down the branches again.

On the way down the mountain, Trey asks, “What’ll they do?”

“Who?”

“The detectives. How’ll they find out who kilt him?”

“Well,” Cal says. He shifts the car down a gear and taps the brake. He learned to drive in the hills of North Carolina, but the grade of this mountain still sometimes sets his teeth on edge. No one was taking cars into account when this road was made. “They’ll have a crime-scene team to collect forensic evidence. Like take whatever random hairs and fibers they find on the body, so they can try and match them to a suspect or his house or his car. Take Rushborough’s hair and fibers, in case some got on the suspect; samples of his blood, ’cause there’s gonna be plenty of that wherever he was killed. Scrape under his fingernails and take samples of the bloodstains, in case he fought his attacker and got some DNA on him. Look for any tracks to tell them how he got there, and from what direction. And they’ll have technical guys go through his phone, see who he was talking to, if he had any hassle with anyone.”

“What about the detectives? What do they do?”

“Talk to people, mostly. Ask around here to find out who saw him last, where he was headed, if he pissed anyone off. Get in touch with his family, his friends, his associates, look for any problems—love life, money, business, whatever. Any enemies.”

Trey says, “He seemed like he’d have enemies. Not just here.”

“Yeah,” Cal says. “To me, too.” He edges his way past a side road, craning his neck to make sure no one’s blithely speeding down it. He wishes he was sure Trey’s interest in police procedure was purely academic. “He give you that fat lip a few days back?”

“Yeah,” Trey says, like her mind is doing other things. She disappears into a silence that lasts her all the way back to Cal’s.

While he’s frying up a fresh batch of bacon and eggs, and Trey is setting the table, Cal texts Lena: Someone killed Rushborough. Up on the mountain.

He can see that she’s read it, but it takes a minute before she texts back. I’ll be over after work. Trey, done with the table and sitting on the floor abstractedly stroking the dogs, doesn’t react to the phone’s beep. Cal sends Lena a thumbs-up and goes back to his frying pan.

They eat in more silence. By the time they move into the workshop, Cal has made the decision that he’s not going to tell the detectives anything about gold, at least not yet. He wants to keep himself clear of this tangle, leaving himself free to step into any role Trey needs him to play, once he figures out what that might be.

This should be doable. The Guards are bound to find out at least the surface layer or two of the gold story, but when it comes to details, they’re going to run into trouble. Cal has experience of the impressive thoroughness with which Ardnakelty, when it’s motivated, can generate confusion. The detectives will be lucky if they ever get a solid sense of what the fuck was going on, let alone who was involved. And Cal, as an outsider, has every right to be oblivious to local business. In the ordinary run of things, he would have heard some vague bullshit story about gold, mixed in with Mossie’s fairy hill and what-have-you, and paid it no particular heed. He misses the ordinary run of things.

It’s almost lunchtime, and they’re drilling dowel holes, when Banjo’s ears prick up, Rip lets out a furious cascade of howls, and both dogs head for the door. “Cops,” Trey says, her head going straight up like she’s been waiting for this. She gets up off the floor and takes a breath and a quick shake, like a boxer going into the ring.

Cal is hit by the sudden, urgent sense that he’s missed something. He wants to stop her, call her back, but it’s too late. All he can do is dust himself down and follow her.

Sure enough, when they reach the front door, there’s an obtrusively discreet unmarked car aligning itself tidily next to the Pajero. Two men are sitting up front.

“They’re just gonna want to hear how you found him,” Cal says, blocking the dogs’ exit with a foot. “For now. Talk clearly, take your time if you need to think back. If you don’t remember something or you’re not sure, just say so. That’s all. Nothing to worry about.”

“I’m not worried,” Trey says. “It’s grand.”

Cal doesn’t know whether, or how, to tell her that that’s not necessarily true. “This guy’s gonna be from Homicide,” he says, “or whatever they call it here. He’s not gonna be like that uniform from town who gives you shit when you play hooky too often.”

“Good,” Trey says, with feeling. “Your man’s a fuckin’ dildo.”

“Language,” Cal says, but he’s saying it automatically. His eyes are on the man getting out of the passenger door. The guy is around Cal’s age, squat and short-legged enough that he must have to get his suit pants taken up, with a bouncy, cheerful walk. He’s brought along one of the beefcake twins, presumably to take notes and leave his full attention free.

“I’ll be mannerly,” Trey assures him. “Just watch.” Cal doesn’t feel reassured.

The detective is called Nealon. He’s got scrubby graying hair and a lumpy, humorous face, and he looks like a guy who would run a prosperous mom-and-pop business, maybe a hardware store. Cal has no doubt that he knows how to use that look: the guy is no dummy. He makes nice with Rip and Banjo till they settle down, and then accepts a cup of tea so he can take a seat at the kitchen table and make small talk with Cal and Trey while they prepare it, giving himself a chance to place them. Cal sees his glance skim Trey’s outgrown jeans and non-haircut, and slaps down the urge to tell Nealon straight out that this is no neglected delinquent, this is a good kid on a good path, with respectable people at her back to make sure no one fucks with her.

Trey is doing a fine job of establishing her respectability all by herself. She’s being what Cal considers suspiciously polite: asking Nealon and the uniform whether they take milk, laying out cookies on a plate, giving full-sentence answers to the bullshit questions about school and weather. Cal would give a lot to know what she’s playing at.

He himself, he knows, is harder to place, and the bruises won’t help. Nealon asks where he’s from and how he likes Ireland, and he gives the practiced, pleasant answers that he gives everyone. He’s leaving his occupation unmentioned for a while, so he can see how this guy operates in its absence.

“Now,” Nealon says, once they’ve all got acquainted with their tea and cookies. “You’ve had some day already, yeah? And it’s not even lunchtime. I’ll try and make this quick enough.” He smiles at Trey, sitting across from him. The uniform has faded off to the sofa and taken out a notebook and pen. “D’you know who that fella was, that you found?”

“Mr. Rushborough,” Trey says readily. She’s even sitting up straight. “Cillian Rushborough. My dad knew him from London.”

“So he’s over here visiting your daddy?”

“Not really. They’re not mates, not properly. Your man’s family was from round here. I think he mostly came ’cause of that.”

“Ah, yeah, one of those,” Nealon says tolerantly. Cal can’t place his accent. It’s faster than he’s used to, and flatter, with a snap that gives ordinary sentences an edge of challenge; it has a city ring. “What’s he like? Nice fella?”

Trey shrugs. “I only met him a coupla times. Didn’t take much notice. He was OK. Bit posh.”

“Will we see can we work out what time you found him?”

“Haven’t got a phone,” Trey explains. “Or a watch.”

“No worries,” Nealon says cheerfully. “We’ll do a bitta the aul’ maths instead. Let’s see do I have this right: you found the body, you walked straight down here to Mr. Hooper, and the pair of yous drove back up to the scene. Is that it?”

“Yeah.”

“Mr. Hooper rang us at nineteen minutes past six. How long before that did yous reach the scene?”

“Coupla minutes, only.”

“We’ll say quarter past, will we? Keep our lives simple. How long would you take driving up there?”

“Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. The road’s not great.”

“D’you see what I’m doing, now?” Nealon asks, smiling at Trey like a favorite uncle.

“Yeah. Counting backwards.”

Trey is playing it well: attentive, serious, cooperative but not over-helpful. It’s taken Cal a minute to realize that that’s what she’s doing, and why she seems suddenly unfamiliar. He’s never seen the kid play anything any way before. He didn’t know she had the capacity. He wonders if this is something she learned by watching Johnny, or if it was in there all along, waiting for the need to arise.

“That’s it,” Nealon says. “So we’re at around six o’clock when you left this place. How long were you here?”

“Like a minute. I told Cal and we went.”

“Still around six, so. How long would it take you to walk down here?”

“Half an hour, about. Maybe a bit more. I was walking quick. So I musta started just before half-five.”

Cal’s need to know what Trey is doing has intensified. In normal circumstances, the kid would no more volunteer an unnecessary word to a cop than she would gnaw off her own fingers.

“Now you’re sucking diesel,” Nealon says approvingly. “How long were you up by the body, before you headed here?”

Trey shrugs, reaching for her mug. For the first time, there’s a hitch in her rhythm. “Dunno. A bit.”

“A long bit?”

“Fifteen minutes, maybe. Coulda been twenty. Haven’t got a watch.”

“No problem,” Nealon says easily. Cal knows he caught the reluctance, and that he’ll come back to this once Trey thinks he’s forgotten about it. Cal has played out this scene so many times before that it feels like he’s seeing it double: once from his accustomed seat in Nealon’s chair, calibrating and recalibrating his balance of amiability and insistence as his assessment develops in more detail; once from his actual perspective, an entirely different place where the balance is a defensive one and the stakes are suddenly sky-high and visceral. He doesn’t like either position one little bit.

“So,” Nealon says, “what time’s that we’re at now? When you first found him?”

Trey thinks. She’s back on track, now that they’ve moved away from that gap by the body. “Like just after five, musta been.”

“There you go,” Nealon says, pleased. “We got there in the end. Didn’t I tell you?”

“Yeah. We got there.”

“Just after five,” Nealon says, tilting his head at a friendly angle, like a bushy dog’s. “That’s awful early to be up and about. Had you got plans?”

“Nah. I just…” Trey moves one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I heard noises, during the night. Wanted to see what was the story, had anything happened.”

That has to prick up Nealon’s ears, but he doesn’t show it. The guy knows what he’s doing. “Yeah? What kind of noises?”

“People talking. And a car.”

“Just before you got up? Or earlier in the night?”

“Earlier. I wasn’t sleeping right; too hot. Woke up and heard something outside.”

“Would you know what time?”

Trey shakes her head. “Late enough that my mam and my dad were asleep.”

“Did you call them?”

“Nah. I knew it wasn’t on our land, too far away, so I wasn’t worried, like. I went out to the gate, but, to see what was the story. There was lights down the road, like headlights. And men talking.”

Nealon is still at ease in his chair, drinking his tea, but Cal can feel the attention humming from him. “Down the road where?”

“Towards where your man was, at the fork. Coulda been there, coulda been a bit closer.”

“Did you not go check, no?”

“Went a little way down the road, but I stopped. I thought maybe they wouldn’t want anyone seeing them.”

This is plausible enough. Stuff goes on, up the mountain: moonshining, dumping, diesel-running from across the border, probably more hard-core stuff. Any mountain kid would know to stay clear. But Trey mentioned none of this to Cal.

“Looks like you might’ve been right,” Nealon says. “Did you see them?”

“Sorta. Men moving around, just. The car lights were in my eyes, and they were outside the light. Couldn’t tell what they were doing.”

“How many of them?”

“A few. Not a crowd, like; maybe four or five.”

“Did you recognize any of them?”

Trey thinks back. “Nah. Don’t think so.”

“Fair enough,” Nealon says easily, but Cal hears the unspoken for now: if Nealon comes up with a suspect, he’ll be back. “Did you hear any of what they were saying?”

Trey shrugs. “Small bits, only. Like one fella said, ‘Over that way,’ and another one said, ‘Jesus, take it easy.’ And someone said, ‘Come on ta fuck’—sorry for cursing.”

“I’ve heard worse,” Nealon says, with a grin. “Anything else?”

“The odd word, just. Nothing that made sense. They were moving around, like, so that made it harder to hear.”

“Did you recognize any of the voices?” Nealon asks. “Take your time, now, and think back.”

Trey thinks, or else gives a good impression of it, frowning into her mug. “Nah,” she says in the end. “Sorry. It was all men, but. Like, not my age. Grown men.”

“What about the accents? Could you tell were they Irish, were they local, anything at all?”

“Irish,” Trey says, without a pause. “From round here.” Cal’s head goes up at the note in her voice, clean and final as an arrow slicing straight to the heart of the target, and he knows.

Nealon says, “Round here like what? This county, this townland, the West?”

“Ardnakelty. Even just over the other side of the mountain, or across the river, they talk different. These were from round here.”

“You’re certain, now, yeah?”

“Definite.”

The whole story is bullshit. Cal understands at last that Trey has never been her father’s minion in this; she’s playing a lone game, and has been all along. When the opportunity came her way, she aimed Ardnakelty down a phantom path after imaginary gold. Now that things have shifted, she’s aiming Nealon, meticulously as a sniper, at the men who killed her brother.

She gave Cal her word never to do anything about Brendan, but all this is just distant enough from Brendan that she can convince herself it doesn’t count. She saw clearly that she would never get a chance like this again, so she took it. Cal’s heart is a heavy relentless force in his chest, making it hard to breathe. When he worried that Trey’s childhood had left cracks in her, he had it wrong. Those aren’t cracks; those are fault lines.

Nealon’s expression hasn’t changed. “How long would you say you were out there?”

Trey considers this. “Coupla minutes, maybe. Then the car engine started up, and I went back in the house. Didn’t want them seeing me if they came our way.”

“Did they?”

“Don’t think so. By the time they drove off I was in my room, it’s at the back; I wouldn’ta seen their lights go past. But the car sounded like it was going the other way. I wouldn’t swear, but. Sound echoes funny, up there.”

“True enough,” Nealon agrees. “What’d you do after that?”

“Went back to bed. It was nothing to do with us, whatever they were at. And everything had gone quiet anyway.”

“But when you woke up early, you went to have a look.”

“Yeah. Couldn’t get back to sleep; too hot, and my sister, that I share the room with, she was snoring. And I wanted to see what they’d been at.”

Cal knows now why Trey brought her find to him instead of to Johnny. There was nothing sentimental about it; she didn’t trust him more in a pinch, or turn to him from the shock. She wanted the chance to tell this story. Johnny would have tossed Rushborough down that ravine and made damn sure Trey had seen nothing, heard nothing, and never got near a detective. Cal is better behaved.

“And that’s when you found him,” Nealon says.

“My dog found him first.” Trey points at Banjo, sprawled with Rip in the shadiest corner by the fireplace, his side rising as he pants in the heat. “The big fella there. He was up ahead, and he howled. Then I got there and saw.”

“It’s a shock,” Nealon says, just sympathetically enough and not too sympathetically. The guy is good. “Did you get up close to him?”

“Yeah. Up next to him. Went to see who it was, what was the story.”

“Did you touch him? Move him? Check was he dead?”

Trey shakes her head. “Didn’t need to. You could tell by him.”

“You were there about twenty minutes, you said,” Nealon reminds her, without any particular emphasis. His little blue eyes are mild and interested. “What were you doing all that time?”

“Just kneeling down there. I felt sick. Hadta stay put for a bit.”

Trey’s answering readily this time, now she’s had a chance to plan, but Cal knows better. He’s seen Trey taken apart by an animal’s suffering, but never by a dead creature. Whatever she was doing by Rushborough’s body, she wasn’t waiting for her stomach to settle. The thought of her screwing around with evidence makes him flinch.

“Sure, that’s only natural,” Nealon says soothingly. “It takes all of us like that, the first few times. I know one Garda that’s been on the job twenty years, great big lump of a fella, the size of Mr. Hooper here, and he’d still get the head-staggers when he sees a dead body. Did you get sick, in the end?”

“Nah. I was grand in a bit.”

“Did you not want to get away from your man?”

“Yeah. Thought if I stood up I might puke, but, or get dizzy. So I stayed put. Kept my eyes shut.”

“Did you touch the man at all?”

He asked that already, but if Trey notices, she doesn’t show it. “Nah. Fuc— Sorry. No way.”

“I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t fancy touching him myself.” Nealon gives Trey another smile. She manages a half-smile back. “So you took a little break to get your head together, and once you were all right, you came straight here.”

“Yeah.”

Nealon takes another cookie and mulls that over. “That fella Rushborough,” he says, “he was only, what is it, a few minutes from your own gate. Why didn’t you go tell your mammy and daddy?”

“He usedta be a detective,” Trey says, nodding at Cal. “I reckoned he’d know what to do, better’n they would.”

It only takes Nealon a fraction of a second to come back from that and change the surprise to a big grin. “Jaysus,” he says. “They say it takes one to know one, but I hadn’t a notion. A colleague, hah?”

“Chicago PD,” Cal says. His heart is still slamming, but he keeps his voice easy. “Back in the day. I’m retired.”

Nealon laughs. “My God, what are the odds? You come halfway across the world to get away from the job, and you trip over a murder case.” He glances over his shoulder at the uniform, who has stopped scribbling and is looking up at them open-mouthed, unsure what to make of this development. “We got lucky today, hah? A detective for a witness; Jaysus, you couldn’t ask for better.”

“I’m no detective here,” Cal says. He can’t tell whether there was a fine needle under the words—he’s still waiting to find out how long you have to live in Ireland before you can reliably identify when people are giving you shit—but he’s seen enough turf wars to make this much clear straightaway. “And I never worked Homicide anyway. About all’s I know is to secure the scene and wait for the experts to get there, so that’s what I did.”

“And I appreciate it, man,” Nealon says heartily. “Go on, give us the rundown: what’d you do?” He leans back in his chair to leave Cal the floor, and gets to work on his cookie.

“When I got to the scene I recognized the man as Cillian Rushborough, I’ve met him a couple of times. I gloved up”—Cal pulls the gloves out of his pocket and lays them on the table—“and I confirmed that he was dead. His cheek was cold. His jaw and his elbow were in rigor, but his fingers still moved, so did his knee. I didn’t touch him anywhere else. I backed off and called you guys.”

He figures he got a decent balance between subordinate and civilian. He also figures Nealon is noting and analyzing that.

“Great,” Nealon says, giving him a colleague’s nod. “Fair play. And then you stayed on the scene till the uniforms got there?”

“Yeah. Stayed a few yards back, at my car.”

“Did you see anyone else while yous were up there?”

“Trey’s dad came past. Johnny Reddy.”

Nealon raises his eyebrows. “Ah, man, that’s some way to find out your friend’s dead. Was he all right?”

“He looked pretty shocked,” Cal says. Trey nods.

“He didn’t hang on with yous?”

“He headed off up the mountain.”

“We’ll be needing to talk to him,” Nealon says. “Did he say where he was off to?”

“He didn’t mention it,” Cal says.

“Ah, sure, in a place this size, we’ll run into him one way or t’other,” Nealon says comfortably. He drains the last of his tea and pushes his chair back from the table, glancing at the uniform to signal that they’re done. “Right; we might have a few more questions down the line, and you’ll need to come into the station in town and sign statements for me, but I’d say that’ll keep us going for now. Thanks for the tea, and for your time.” He hitches his suit trousers to a comfortable arc under his belly. “Would you walk out to the car with me, Mr. Hooper, just in case I think of anything else I meant to ask you?”

Cal doesn’t want a one-on-one with Nealon right now, before he’s had a chance to rearrange his thoughts. “Pleasure,” he says, getting up. Trey starts clearing the cups, prompt and deft as a waitress.

Outside, the heat has thickened. “Go on up to the car,” Nealon tells the uniform. “I’m gasping for a smoke.” The uniform strides off. His back looks self-conscious.

Nealon pulls out a packet of Marlboros and tilts it at Cal, who shakes his head. “Good man,” Nealon says. “I oughta quit, the missus is always on at me, but you know yourself.” He lights up and takes a deep, grateful drag. “D’you know that young one well?”

“Pretty well,” Cal says. “I’ve been here two years last spring; I do some carpentering, and she’s been helping me out most of that time, when school allows. Kid’s got a knack for it, figures she might go into it full-time when she finishes school.”

“Would you say she’s reliable?”

“I’ve always found her to be,” Cal says, considering this. “She’s a good kid. Steady-like, works hard, good head on her shoulders.”

He would love to say that Trey lies like a rug, but he doesn’t have that option. Regardless of what else Nealon does or doesn’t find, he now has one person who’s straight out admitted to being on the mountainside when and where Rushborough was dumped. If her story is made up, then from Nealon’s perspective—since he’s fortunate enough never to have heard of Brendan Reddy—she’s either shielding someone else, or shielding herself. Cal can’t tell whether Trey hasn’t thought through the implications of what she’s doing, or whether she understands them just fine and doesn’t give a shit.

“Would she be the type, let’s say, to imagine things?” Nealon asks. “Or make up a story for the drama, maybe? Or even do a bitta embroidering round the edges?”

Cal doesn’t have to put on the laugh. “Hell no. Kid’s got no time for that stuff. The most exciting story I’ve ever heard outa her is one time her math teacher threw a book at someone. That’s all the detail I got, too: ‘Mr. Whatsisname threw a book at this kid ’cause the kid was driving him mental, only he missed.’ Drama’s not her thing.”

“Well, that’s great,” Nealon says, smiling up at him. “That’s the witness you want, isn’t it? I’m blessed with her. Mostly in places like this, the back of beyond, they wouldn’t talk to the Guards if their lives depended on it.”

“The kid’s used to me,” Cal says. “That might have something to do with it.”

Nealon nods, apparently satisfied with this. “And tell us: will she stick to the story, wouldja say? Or will she get cold feet if it comes to going on the stand?”

“She’ll stick to it,” Cal says.

“Even if we land on one of her neighbors?”

“Yeah,” Cal says. “Even if.”

Nealon’s eyebrows jump. “Fair play to her.” He tilts his head to blow smoke up at the sky, away from Cal. “What about the accents? Is she right that you could tell this townland from the next one over?”

“So I’m told,” Cal says. “I can’t hear the difference, but my neighbor says the people across the river sound like a herd of donkeys, so he’s hearing something.”

“You’d still get that in places like this, I suppose,” Nealon says. “With the older people, anyway. Where I’m from, fuck me, half the kids talk like they’re straight off a plane from LA. At least that young one sounds Irish.” He nods backwards at the house and Trey. “Her da, what’s his name, Johnny? What’s the story on him?”

“I’ve only met him a few times,” Cal says. “He’s been in London since before I got here, just came back a couple of weeks ago. You’d get more outa the locals who knew him before.”

“Ah, yeah, I’ll be asking them. I’d value a professional opinion, but. He’s the only known associate the dead man had around here; I have to take an interest. What kind of fella is he?”

Nealon has decided that, for now anyway, Cal gets to be the local beat cop who helps out the investigation with his down-home on-the-ground knowledge. Cal is happy to play along with that. “Friendly enough guy,” he says, shrugging. “Sorta what you’d call a waster, though. Lotta talk, lotta smiles, no job.”

“I know the type well,” Nealon says, with feeling. “I’ll make sure I’ve a comfortable chair when I talk to him; that kind’d go on about himself till the cows come home. What about your man Rushborough? Was he the same?”

“I only met him a couple of times, too. He didn’t give me that good-for-nothing vibe; I heard he was some kinda rich businessman, but I don’t know if that’s true. Mostly he just seemed pretty jazzed about being here. He had a ton of stories from his gramma, he wanted to go see the places she talked about, he got all excited ’cause one guy turned out to be a third cousin.”

“I know that type, too,” Nealon says, grinning. “Mostly they’re Yanks like yourself; we wouldn’t get many Brits going all romantic about the Emerald Isle, but sure, there’s always exceptions. Were your people from round here as well, were they?”

“Nope,” Cal says. “No connection. Just liked the looks of Ireland and found a place I could afford.”

“How’re the locals treating you? They wouldn’t have a reputation for being what you’d call welcoming.”

“Huh,” Cal says. “They’ve been pretty neighborly to me. Not saying we’re bosom buddies or anything, but we’ve always got along fine.”

“That’s great to hear. We wouldn’t want them wrecking our good name altogether; as if murdering a tourist wasn’t bad enough.” Nealon has smoked his cigarette right down to the butt. He looks at the remains wistfully, and puts it out on the bottom of his shoe. “If this was your case,” he says. “Is there anyone in particular you’d have your eye on?”

Cal takes his time on that one. The uniform is sitting up very straight in the driver’s seat with his hands ready on the wheel, resolutely ignoring the rooks, who, delighted to have a fresh target, are jeering down at him and dropping acorns on the car.

“I’d be taking a look at Johnny Reddy,” he says. He doesn’t have much choice: Johnny is the right answer, and if this is a test, Cal needs to pass it.

“Yeah? Were there problems between himself and Rushborough?”

“Not that I saw. But, like you said, he’s the only known associate Rushborough had around here. I don’t know what kinda history they might’ve had over in London. I mean…” Cal shrugs. “I guess Rushborough could’ve pissed off someone else that bad in less’n a week here. Hooked up with someone’s girl, maybe, though he didn’t seem like the type. Like I told you, I was never Homicide; I’ve got no experience here. But I’d start with Johnny.”

“Ah, yeah, him o’ course,” Nealon says, waving his cigarette butt in dismissal, like he knows Cal can do better than that. “But apart from him. Anyone that’s a bit odd, we’ll say, anyone you wouldn’t want to meet on a dark road? The local mentaler, to make no bones about it. I know the young one said she heard four or five men, but even a mentaler might have friends, family, people that’d help him out when the shite hit the fan.”

“We don’t really have one to speak of,” Cal says. “Plenty of guys are a little bit odd around the edges, just from living alone too long, but I don’t think any of ’em are odd enough to whack a random tourist just ’cause they don’t like his looks.”

“An English tourist, but,” Nealon says, like the thought just struck him. “There’s always people that’d have strong feelings about the Brits, specially up here near the border. Anyone like that around the townland?”

Cal thinks that over. “Nope,” he says. “Everyone sings the occasional pub song that might not be too friendly about the English, I guess. I sing ’em myself, now that I’ve picked up some of the words.”

“Don’t we all, sure,” Nealon says, chuckling. “No, I’m talking about someone that’d be a lot more hard-core than that. Someone that’s giving out yards whenever the North comes on the news in the pub, or ranting on about what oughta be done to the royals, that kind of thing.”

Cal shakes his head. “Nah.”

“Ah, well. It was worth asking.” Nealon watches the rooks, who have worked their way up to jumping up and down on the roof of his car. Cal finds himself kind of flattered: the rooks may give him shit, but they won’t permit anyone else to take liberties. The uniform bangs on the roof, and they scatter. “Anything else I oughta know? Did your man Rushborough spend a lot of time with anyone in particular? Any problems over family history, maybe? An old feud, or a piece of land that went where it shouldn’t have?”

“Nope,” Cal says. “Not that I know of.” He has never outright obstructed an investigation before. There were times when no one put much effort into establishing who did what to some high-carat asshole who clearly deserved it, but that was by unspoken agreement; this is the first time he’s deliberately blocked another detective’s way. That sense of double vision has faded. He wonders how long it’ll take Nealon to spot that.

“Everything in the garden was rosy,” Nealon says. “If anything comes to you, let me know. Anything at all, even if it seems like it’d have no bearing—sure, you know yourself. Here’s my card. What happened there?” he inquires pleasantly and out of nowhere, pointing to his forehead.

“Slipped in the shower,” Cal says, tucking the card away in his pocket. He reckons there’s a solid chance that Johnny will explain his own face by painting Cal as a rabid psycho who probably murders innocent tourists for kicks, but he also reckons Nealon has been a cop too long to take some waster’s word about another cop, even when the waster’s story happens to have a grain of truth mixed in.

Nealon, field-stripping his cigarette onto the dirt, nods like he believes this, which maybe he does. “That’s when you need the good neighbors, man,” he says. “When there’s trouble; when things get that bit dicey. You could’ve knocked yourself out cold and laid there for days, wasting away, unless you had neighbors that’d look out for you. They’re a great thing to have.”

“One of the bonuses of being a carpenter,” Cal says. “Sooner or later, someone’s gonna come looking for their chair or what-have-you.”

“I’d better let you get back to your carpentry, so,” Nealon says, tucking his cigarette filter back in the packet, “before they come looking.” He holds out his hand. Cal has no choice but to shake, and sees Nealon’s glance flick to his battered knuckles. “We’ll keep you updated. Thanks again.”

He nods to Cal and stumps off towards the car. One of the rooks lands on the hood, looks the uniform in the eye, and takes a shit.

Trey has washed out the cups and gone back to the workshop, where she’s sitting cross-legged on the floor amid the carefully laid out pieces of chair, mixing stain colors and testing them on a leftover piece of the oak sleeper. “That went grand,” she says, glancing up at Cal.

“Yeah,” Cal says. “Told you.”

“Did he ask you anything else?”

“Just whether you were reliable. I said yeah.”

Trey goes back to her stain mixes. “Thanks,” she says gruffly.

Sometimes when Trey has Cal stymied, he asks Alyssa, who works with at-risk youths, for advice. She’s pointed him in the right direction plenty of times. This time he can’t even imagine where he would start.

“Where’s the guy from?” he asks. “I couldn’t place the accent.”

“Dublin. They think they’re great.”

“Are they?”

“Dunno. Never knew anyone from Dublin. He didn’t seem that great.”

“Don’t make that mistake,” Cal says. “He knows what he’s doing.”

Trey shrugs, carefully brushing wood stain onto the sleeper.

Cal says, “Kid.” He has no idea what should come next. What he wants to do is slam the door so hard she jumps out of her skin, rip the paintbrush out of her hand, and roar in her face till he gets it into her damn head what she’s done to the safe place he busted his ass to build for her.

Trey lifts her head and looks at him. Cal reads her unblinking stare and the set of her chin, and knows he’ll get nowhere. He doesn’t want to hear her lie to him, not about this.

“I done a load of these,” she says. “Look.”

She’s gone all out: nine or ten perfect stripes of subtly different shades. Cal takes a breath. “Yeah,” he says. “Good work. This one and this one here, they look like pretty close matches. We’ll take another look once they dry. You want some lunch?”

“I oughta go home,” Trey says. She presses the lid back onto the wood-stain tin. “My mam’ll be worrying. She’ll know about Rushborough by now.”

“You can phone her.”

“Nah.”

She’s turned unreachable again. Her ease with Cal up on the mountainside was just a brief respite she allowed herself, before she bent her back to the task she’s chosen. That, or else it was her making sure she could stay with him until she’d told her story to Nealon unhindered. He can’t be sure, any more, what she’s capable of. When he thought she had none of the artifice other teenagers develop, he was wrong again. She’s just been saving it, and tailoring it, for when it matters.

“OK,” he says. He wants to lock the doors, board up the windows, barricade the two of them in here until he can make the kid grow a working brain or at least until all this is done and gone. “We’ll clean up here, and I’ll drive you.”

“I’m grand walking.”

“No,” Cal says. He welcomes finding a spot where he can finally put his foot down. “I’m taking you. And you be careful out there. Anything happens to worry you, or you just feel like coming back here, you call me. I’ll be right there.”

He expects Trey to roll her eyes, but she just nods, wiping her brush on a rag. “Yeah,” she says. “OK.”

“OK,” Cal says. “There’s more turps on the shelf, if you need it.”

“I wrote out how I mixed those,” Trey says, tilting her chin at the sleeper. “Next to them.”

“Good. Make our lives easier when we come back to ’em.”

Trey nods, but doesn’t reply. There was a note of ending in her voice, like she doesn’t expect to be here for that. Cal wants to say something, but he can’t find the right thing to say.

Sitting there on the floor in an unselfconscious tangle of legs and sneaker laces, with her hair all rucked up on one side, she looks like a little kid again, the way he first remembers her. He doesn’t know how to stop her heading down the path she’s created, so he has no choice but to follow her, in case she should need him, somewhere up ahead. She’s calling the shots now, whether she ever intended that or not. He wishes he could find a way to tell her that, and to ask her to do it with care.