The Hunter

Eighteen

Johnny won’t go beyond the boundaries of the yard. During the day he sleeps, fitfully, surfacing every couple of hours to demand a cup of coffee or a sandwich, most of which he leaves uneaten, and to pace around the edges of the yard, smoking, peering into the trees and twitching at the strident buzzes of grasshoppers. Sometimes he watches telly with the little ones on the sofa, and does Peppa Pig noises to make Alanna laugh. Once he kicks a football around the yard with Liam for a while, till the rustles among the trees make him edgy and he heads inside again.

At night he’s awake: Trey hears the faint insistent yammer of the telly, the creak of the floorboards as he moves around, the front door opening as he looks out and then closing again. She can’t tell who he’s afraid of. It could be Cal, or the men of the townland. In her opinion, he’d be right to be afraid of either, or both.

He’s still afraid of Nealon, even though the interviews went smooth as silk. Sheila dredged up some reserve of energy and became suddenly more ordinary than Trey has ever seen her, politely offering tea and glasses of water, laughing at the detective’s jokes about the weather and the roads. Maeve and Liam, both of whom have known the Guards for the enemy since the first time Noreen threatened them for robbing sweets, explained to Nealon without a blink that Johnny never left the house on Sunday; Alanna peeped out shyly from under Trey’s arm, and dived back into hiding whenever Nealon looked at her. Every one of them was perfect, like they were born and bred to it. When the sound of the detective’s car faded down the mountainside, Johnny was cock-a-hoop, hugging everyone he could catch, praising them for their brains and their bravery, and assuring them that they’re out of the woods with not a thing to worry about in the world. He still jumps every time he hears an engine.

Trey doesn’t stay within the yard. She’s as restless as her dad, not from fear, but from waiting. She has no way of knowing whether the detective believed her story, whether he’s following it up, whether he’s getting anywhere, or whether he ignored it completely. She has no idea how long it should take for the story to work, if it’s going to. Cal could tell her, but she doesn’t have Cal.

She goes out; not down to the village and not to Cal’s, but to meet up with her mates, in the evening. They climb walls in a ruined cottage and sit there, sharing a packet of robbed cigarettes and a few bottles of cider that Aidan’s brother bought for him. Below them, the sun sits heavily on the horizon, turning the west a sullen red.

Her mates, none of whom are from Ardnakelty, haven’t heard anything useful. They don’t really give a shite about the detective; mainly they want to talk about Rushborough’s ghost, which apparently is already haunting the mountain. Callum Bailey claims a see-through gray man came at him through the trees, snapping its jaws and ripping down branches. He’s only saying it to scare Chelsea Moylan so he can walk her home and maybe shift her, but of course after that Lauren O’Farrell saw the ghost too. Lauren will believe anything and has to be part of everything, so Trey tells her there were men in a car hanging around the mountain the night Rushborough got killed. Straightaway, easy as that, Lauren was looking out her window that night and saw car headlights going up the mountain and stopping halfway. She’ll tell everyone who’ll listen, and sooner or later someone will tell the detective.

Hanging out with the lads has changed. Trey feels older than them, and separate. They’re having a laugh like always, while she’s watching and measuring everything she says; she feels the heft and ripple of every word, where they hold everything lightly. Before the cider is finished, she heads home. She never gets drunk, but she’s tipsy enough that the dark mountainside feels loosely bounded and hard to gauge, as if the spaces outside her line of vision could be closing in on her or expanding faster than she can picture. When she gets in, her dad smells her breath and laughs, and then gives her a slap across the head.

Maeve goes out too. Maeve has mates down the village, or about half the time she does; the rest of the time they’ve had some massive complicated fight and aren’t speaking. “Where you going?” Trey asks, when she catches Maeve doing something stupid with her hair and checking different angles in the bathroom mirror.

“None of your business,” Maeve says. She tries to kick the door closed, but Trey catches it.

“You keep your mouth fuckin’ shut,” Trey says. “About everything.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” Maeve says.

Trey doesn’t have the energy to get into it with Maeve. Sometimes these days she feels like her mam, scraped so empty she could fold in half. “Just keep your mouth shut,” she says.

“You’re just jealous,” Maeve says. “Because you made a balls of helping Daddy, and now he’s sending me to find stuff out instead of you.” She smirks at Trey in the mirror, rearranges a strand of hair, and checks her profile again.

“What stuff?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“Go on outa that bathroom,” Johnny says, appearing behind Trey in T-shirt and boxers, rubbing his face.

“I’m going out now, Daddy,” Maeve says, giving him a big smile.

“Good girl,” Johnny says mechanically. “Aren’t you Daddy’s great helper?” He aims a vague pat at her head as she nudges for a hug, and guides her past him into the hall.

“What’s she finding out for you?” Trey asks.

“Ah, sweetheart,” Johnny says, scratching his ribs and pulling out a half-arsed laugh. He hasn’t shaved, and his fancy haircut lies lank on his forehead. He looks like shite. “You’re still my number-one right-hand woman. But our Maeveen needs something to do as well, doesn’t she? The poor wee girl’s been feeling left out.”

“What’s she finding out?” Trey asks again.

“Ah,” Johnny says, waving a hand. “I like to keep an ear out for what way the wind’s blowing, is all. What the place is saying, what the detective’s asking, who knows about what. Just keeping myself well-informed, like a sensible man—information is power, sure, that’s what—” Trey has already tuned out his babble by the time the bathroom door shuts behind him.

Maeve comes back that evening looking smug. “Daddy,” she says, shoving herself under his arm on the sofa, where he’s staring at the telly. “Daddy, guess what.”

“Now,” Johnny says, snapping out of his daze and smiling down at her. “There’s Daddy’s little secret agent. Tell us everything. How’d you get on?”

Trey is in the armchair. She’s been putting up with her dad’s smoke and his channel-flipping because she wanted to be there when Maeve got back. She leans over for the remote and switches the telly off.

“It’s all totally grand,” Maeve says triumphantly. “Everyone says their dads are going mental ’cause there’s detectives calling round talking like they killed your man. And Bernard O’Boyle punched Baggy McGrath in the head ’cause the detective said Baggy said Bernard was up here that night, and Sarah-Kate isn’t allowed to hang out with Emma any more ’cause the detective asked Sarah-Kate’s dad does he hate the Brits and Sarah-Kate’s mam thinks Emma’s mam said it to them. See? That detective doesn’t think it’s you.”

Trey stays still. She can feel victory rocketing like whiskey through every vein of her; she’s afraid to move in case her dad and Maeve see it. Nealon is doing the work she set him to, plodding obediently along the path she laid out for him. Down at the bottom of the mountain, among the pretty little fields and the neat smug bungalows, Ardnakelty is ripping itself to pieces.

“Well, God almighty, wouldja look at that,” Johnny says, rubbing Maeve’s shoulder automatically. He’s gazing at nothing and blinking fast, thinking. “That’s great news, isn’t it?”

“Serves them right,” Maeve says. “For being a shower of bastards to you. Doesn’t it?”

“That’s right,” Johnny says. “You done a great job, sweetheart. Daddy’s proud of you.”

“So you don’t need to worry,” Maeve says, wriggling closer to Johnny. She gives Trey a smirk and the finger, close to her chest so he won’t see. “Everything’s grand.”

After that Johnny doesn’t leave the house any more. When Maeve presses up against him and asks stupid questions, or Liam tries to get him to come play football, he pats them and moves away without seeing them. He smells of whiskey and stale sweat.

Trey goes back to waiting. She does what she’s told, which is mostly housework and making her dad’s sandwiches, and when there’s nothing to do she goes out some more. She walks the mountains for hours, taking breaks to sit under a tree when Banjo ups his panting to melodramatic groans. Cal told her to be careful out and about, but she’s not. She reckons most likely her dad killed Rushborough, and he’s not going to kill her. Even if she’s wrong, no one else is going to do anything either, not with Nealon buzzing all through the air.

The drought has stripped back undergrowth and heather on the mountainside, revealing strange dents and formations here and there among the fields and bogs. Trey, scanning every dip, feels for the first time a chance she might spot the marks of where Brendan’s buried. The bared mountainside seems like a signal aimed straight at her. When something laid Rushborough in her path, she accepted; this is its response. She starts leaving Banjo at home, so she can walk herself to exhaustion without having to take him into consideration. She finds sheep’s bones, broken turf-cutting tools, the ghosts of ditches and foundation walls, but nothing of Brendan. Something more is required of her.

She feels like she’s somewhere other than her own life; like she’s been coming loose from it ever since the morning her dad strolled back into town, and now the last thread has snapped and she’s drifting outside of it altogether. Her hands, cutting potatoes or folding clothes, look like they belong to someone else.

She doesn’t think about missing Cal; she just walks on it all day long, like walking on a broken ankle, and lies down with it at night. The feeling is familiar. After a day or two it comes to her that this is how she felt after Brendan went.

Back then she couldn’t live with it. It ate her mind whole; there was no room left for anything else. She’s older now, and this is something she chose for herself. She has no right to complain.

Cal waits for Trey. He has a fridge full of pizza toppings, and a tin of the best wood stain mixed and ready to go, like she’ll somehow sense them and come to their call. He imagines by now she must have heard about him and Lena, although he can’t begin to guess what she’ll make of it. He wants to tell her the truth, but in order to do that, he’d have to see her.

What he gets instead is Nealon, tramping up the drive with his suit jacket over his arm and his sleeves rolled up, blowing and puffing. Cal, with Rip to warn him, is waiting on the step.

“Afternoon,” he says. He can’t help resenting Nealon, for the painful surge of hope when Rip jumped up and went for the door. “You on foot in this heat?”

“Jaysus, no,” Nealon says, wiping his forehead. “I’d be melted. I left the aul’ motor out on the road, where your birds won’t shite on it again. You’ve got more patience than I do; I’d’ve shot the little bolloxes by now.”

“They were here first,” Cal says. “I just try to stay on their good side. Can I get you a glass of water? Iced tea? Beer?”

“D’you know something,” Nealon says, rocking on his heels, with a mischievous grin breaking across his face, “I’d only murder a can of beer. The lads can get along without me for a bit. They’ll never know the difference.”

Cal puts Nealon in Lena’s porch rocker and goes inside for a couple of glasses and two cans of Bud. He knows damn well Nealon isn’t taking time off from this kind of investigation just to chug a cold one and shoot the shit on his porch, and Nealon has to know he knows. The guy wants something.

“Cheers,” Nealon says, clinking his glass against Cal’s. He raises it to the view, swallows curvetting back and forth between golden cut fields and a blazing blue sky. “God, this is great, all the same. I know you’re used to it, but I feel like I’m on me holidays.”

“It’s a pretty place,” Cal says.

Nealon wipes foam off his lip and relaxes back into the rocking chair. He’s grown a touch of salt-and-pepper stubble since Cal saw him last, just enough to look rumpled and nonthreatening. “Jaysus, this yoke’s comfortable. I’ll be going asleep if I don’t watch out.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Cal says. “Made it myself.”

Nealon raises his eyebrows. “That’s right, you said something about the carpentry. Fair play to you.” He gives the arm of the chair an indulgent pat that dismisses it as cute but unimportant. “Listen, I’m not being as lazy as I make out. I’m here on business. I reckoned you wouldn’t say no to an update on the case. And I’ll be honest with you, I wouldn’t mind a second opinion from someone who’s got the inside scoop. Local consultant, like.”

“Happy to help,” Cal says. He rubs Rip’s head, nudging him to settle down, but Rip is still bouncy from the thrill of a visitor; he takes off, down the yard and through the gate into the back field, to hassle the swallows. “Not sure how much use I’ll be, though.”

Nealon flaps a hand like Cal’s being self-deprecating, and takes another swig of his beer. “Your man’s name wasn’t Rushborough,” he says. “Didja guess that already?”

“I had my doubts,” Cal says.

Nealon grins at him. “I know you did. You caught the smell off him, yeah?”

“I wasn’t sure,” Cal says. “Who was he?”

“Fella called Terence Blake. Not a nice fella. He was from London, like he said; the Met have had their eye on him for a while now. He had a bit of a line in money laundering, bit of a line in drugs, bit of a line in brassers—he liked to keep his portfolio diversified, Terry did. He was no Mr. Big, but he’d built up a solid little organization for himself.”

“Huh,” Cal says. He’s getting warier by the minute. Nealon shouldn’t be telling him this. “Was Johnny Reddy one of his boys?”

Nealon shrugs. “He’s not on the Met’s radar, but that doesn’t say; if he was only hanging round the edges, they could’ve missed him. Johnny says he hadn’t a clue about any of it. As far as he knew, a lovely fella called Cillian Rushborough got talking to him in the pub, Johnny mentioned he was heading home to Ardnakelty soon, and Rushborough was only dying to see the place. Johnny’s shocked, so he is, to find out that wasn’t the truth. Shocked.”

Cal doesn’t ask whether Nealon believes any or all of it. He understands the parameters of this conversation. He has license to ask about facts, although he may not get answers, or true ones. Inquiring about Nealon’s thoughts would be overstepping.

“Blake have any connections here?” he asks.

“Great minds,” Nealon says approvingly. “I asked myself the same thing. Not a one, as far as we’ve found. All that about his granny being from round here, that was bollox: he was English straight through. Never set foot in the country before, that we know of.”

Nealon’s rhythms, in their familiarity, are distracting Cal so that he has to snap himself back to listen to the words. If he had thought about it, he would have expected an Irish detective to sound different from the ones he used to know. The accent is different, the slang and the sentence shapes, but under all that, the blunt, driving rhythms are the same.

“That could’ve been what brought him here,” Nealon says, tilting his head to consider his beer glass. “These small-time setups, they’ve always got some kinda beef going on. They use amateurs, stupid young fellas, and those lads fuck up or start in throwing shapes at each other: next thing you know, you’ve got a feud on your hands. Blake could’ve needed to get outa town for a while. He ran into Johnny, just like Johnny says, and reckoned Ardnakelty was as good as anywhere. From what I’ve been told, it’d be his style. He was unpredictable, did things on a whim. Not a bad way to live, if you’re in his line of business. If there’s no logic to what you do, no one can be one step ahead of you.”

Cal says, “So someone could’ve followed him over here.” If Nealon is working along those lines, it means he’s not hanging his hat on Trey’s story. Cal would love to hear that he’s found a reason to dismiss it as irrelevant, but he can’t afford to let Nealon know he has any feelings on the subject. As far as Nealon is concerned, Trey’s story needs to stay a straightforward thing.

“They could, yeah,” Nealon agrees. “I’m not ruling it out. All I’m saying is, if they followed him over here from London and then found their way all round that mountain in the dead of night, fair play to them.”

“There’s that,” Cal says. “Anything on his phone?” He’s had this conversation so many times that it comes to him with the effortlessness of muscle memory. Whether he likes it or not, it feels good to be doing something that comes easily and well. This is why Nealon is telling him too much: to shape him back into a cop, or remind him that he was one all along. Nealon, just like the guys in the pub, is aiming to put Cal to use.

Nealon shrugs. “Not a lot. It’s a burner, only a few weeks old—I’d say Blake started fresh every coupla months. And he didn’t use texts, or WhatsApp; he was too cute to put anything in writing. Plenty of calls back and forth with the London lads, and plenty with Johnny Reddy, including a couple of long ones the day before he died—according to Johnny, they were having a chitchat about what sights to go see.” The wry twitch of his mouth says he’s not convinced. “And two missed calls from Johnny the morning you found him. When he was already dead.”

“Johnny’s no dummy,” Cal says. “If he killed someone, he’d have the sense to leave missed calls on their phone.”

Nealon cocks an eyebrow at him. “Your money’s still on Johnny?”

“I don’t have money in this game,” Cal says. “All I’m saying is, for me, those calls wouldn’t rule Johnny out.”

“Ah, God, no. He’s in the mix, all right. So are a lot of people, but.”

Cal has no intention of asking. His best guess, if he had to make one, is that Trey was accidentally sort of right: one or more of the guys killed Blake and dumped him on the mountain road for Johnny to find, assuming that Johnny would dispose of him in the nearest convenient bog or ravine and then take off running. Only, before he could do that, Trey came along.

They sit watching Rip streak zigzags across the back field, leaping and snapping for the swallows. Nealon sways the rocking chair in easy, unhurried arcs.

“He ever catch one?” he asks.

“He’s caught a few rats,” Cal says. “He’d give a lot to catch a rook, with all the shit they give him, but I don’t think much of his chances.”

“You never know, man,” Nealon says, wagging a finger. “Don’t write him off. He’s got the persistence, anyhow. I’m a big believer in the aul’ persistence.”

The swallows, unworried by Rip’s persistence, loop blithely above his head like he’s been put there for their enjoyment. Cal would bet Nealon wants a smoke with his beer, but he hasn’t asked permission; he’s being the perfect guest, not presuming on Cal’s hospitality. Cal doesn’t offer. He isn’t aiming to be the perfect host.

“We got the postmortem results back,” Nealon says. “Your man Blake died somewhere between midnight and two in the morning, give or take. He took a fierce belt from a hammer, or something like it, to the back of his head. That would’ve probably done the job on its own, over an hour or two, only it didn’t get the chance. Someone stabbed him three times in the chest. Got the heart, boom, finished him off inside a minute.”

“That woulda taken some strength,” Cal says.

Nealon shrugs. “A bit, yeah. A little kid couldn’t’ve done it. But Blake was out cold, remember. Our fella had plenty of time to pick his spot, lean on the knife to get it through the muscle. You wouldn’t need to be a great big bodybuilder.” He takes another swig of beer and grins. “Imagine that: a bad bastard like Blake, getting taken out by some scrawny little bollox from the arse-end of nowhere. You’d be scarlet for him.”

“I bet he never saw that coming,” Cal agrees. He thinks of Blake in the pub, the arrogant sweep of his eyes around the alcove, faintly amused by the halfwit peasants who believed they had the reins. It strikes him that he’s hardly thought about Blake once since he walked away from the body. Alive, the guy spread through the whole townland like poison through water. Now it feels like he barely even existed; all that’s left of him is hassle.

“So that does fuck-all to narrow things down,” Nealon says. “One thing that’s going to help, but: the man was a bleedin’ mess. Covered in trace evidence: dirt, fibers, bits of plants, bits of insect, cobwebs, rust flakes, coal dust. Some of it was stuck to the blood, so it got there after he was kilt. And not all of it came from the place where you found him.”

“I figured he was moved,” Cal says. And, when Nealon raises an inquiring eyebrow: “It didn’t look like there was enough blood.”

“Once a cop,” Nealon says, giving him a nod. “You were bang on.”

“Well,” Cal says, “that fits with what the kid saw.”

Nealon doesn’t bite on that. “And,” he says, “you know what all that trace means, yeah? When we find the place where he was killed, or the car he was moved in, we should have no trouble showing a match.” His eyes skim leisurely across Cal’s back yard, pausing for a second with mild interest on the shed. “The problem’s pinning them down. Sure, you know yourself, I can’t just get a warrant to search every building and every car in the townland. I need a nice little bitta probable cause.”

“Damn,” Cal says. “Long time since I heard those two words. I don’t miss ’em one bit.”

Nealon laughs. He stretches out his legs and lets out something between a sigh and a groan. “Jaysus, this is great. I needed a break. This place is doing my head in.”

“They take some getting used to,” Cal says.

“I’m not talking about the people, man. I’m well used to bog monsters. I’m talking about the actual place. If this fella had got himself killed in a city, or even a half-decent town, I could’ve tracked his every move, and yours, and everyone else’s, off your phones. Sure, you’ve done it yourself. Easy as watching a game of Pac-Man, these days.” Nealon mimes with his fingers in the air. “Beep-beep-beep, here comes Blake, beep-beep-beep, here comes one of them ghost yokes to eat him all up; beep-beep-beep, here comes me with my handcuffs to take the ghost yoke away. In this place, but…” He casts his eyes up to heaven. “Christ al-bleedin’-mighty. There’s fuck-all reception. There’s fuck-all wi-fi. The GPS works grand until you get too close to the mountain, or in among trees, and then it loses the plot altogether. I know Blake was somewhere near his cottage till around midnight, and after that, fuck me. He’s halfway up this side of the mountain, a minute later he’s on the other side, then he’s back, then he’s halfway to Boyle…That goes on all fuckin’ night long.”

He shakes his head and consoles himself with a swig of his beer. “Once I get a decent line on a suspect,” he says, “I can try tracking him, but it’ll be no better. And that’s if the fella even brought his phone along. Nowadays, with all the CSI, they know more about forensics than I do.”

“One time I pulled in this guy that broke into a house,” Cal says. “Kid had watched way too many cop shows. Started giving me a hard time about whether I had his DNA, fibers, I don’t know what-all. I showed him his dumb ass on CCTV running away. He said that’s from the back, you can’t prove it was me. I said yeah, but see that bystander watching you run? You’re reflected in his cornea. We enhanced the image and matched it to the biometric data from your mug shot. Dumb shit folded like origami.”

That gets a great big laugh out of Nealon. “Jaysus, that’s beautiful. It’d be great if this one turned out to be that thick, but…” He’s stopped laughing. Instead he sighs. “If he was, I’d have a line on him by now. But we’ve talked to every man in this townland, and not one of ’em jumps out at me.”

Cal says, knowing he’s taking the bait, “You’re sticking to this townland?”

Nealon’s eyes flick to him for a second, intrigued and assessing. “Theresa Reddy’s story checks out,” he says. “As far as I can check it, anyway. Her da says he heard voices and heard her going out that night, but he thought she just snuck out meeting some pals, so he left her to it. The ma says she heard nothing, but she remembers Johnny sitting up in bed like he was listening to something, and then lying back down again. And my lads found another kid, round by Kilhone, who says she saw headlights going up the mountain and stopping halfway.”

“Well,” Cal says. “That should help narrow things down.”

“You could still be right about Johnny,” Nealon reassures him. “He could have pals that’d be willing to come help him move a body, if the shit hit the fan. And himself and the missus could be lying their arses off. Theresa didn’t check if her daddy was in his bed before she went out.”

“You get any tire tracks?” Cal asks. “Footprints?”

“Ah, yeah. Both, all round where the body was found. Only little bits of them here and there, but; not enough to get a match. Those bleedin’ sheep got rid of the rest. And with the weather the way it’s been, we can’t tell which tracks were fresh and which were there for days. Weeks, even.” He reaches down for his glass. “Dublin may not be this good-looking, but at least there I don’t have to worry about sheep trampling my evidence.”

He laughs, and Cal laughs along.

“So Theresa’s story holds,” Nealon says, “so far. And it’s great to have things narrowed down to Ardnakelty. But not one man in the place admits to being up that mountain.”

“I’d be more surprised if they did,” Cal says. “Guilty or innocent.”

Nealon snorts. “True enough. And sure, it’s early days. I’m only after doing the preliminary stuff. I haven’t gone at anyone hard; it’s all been the tippy-toes and the nice light touch.” He smiles at Cal. “Time to start rattling the cages.”

He’ll do it well, and thoroughly. Cal can’t tell whether he likes the guy or not—he can’t see him straight, through all the layers of things going on between them—but he would have liked working with him.

“It’d be great if Theresa could have another think,” Nealon says, “see if she can put a name to any of the voices. Maybe you could ask her. I got the sense she’d listen to you.”

“I’ll ask her next time I see her,” Cal says. The last thing he wants is for Trey to get specific. “Not sure when that’ll be, though. We don’t have a regular schedule.”

“What about yourself?” Nealon asks, cocking an eye at him over the glass. “Would you have any new ideas? Anything you’ve heard around the place, maybe?”

“Man,” Cal says, giving him a look of disbelief. “Come on, now. You think anyone’s gonna tell me something like that?”

Nealon laughs. “Ah, I know what you mean. Places like this, they wouldn’t give you the steam off their piss, in case you’d find a way to use it against them. But you could’ve picked something up. I’d say they might underrate you, round here, and that’d be a mistake.”

“Mostly,” Cal says, “people just want to pick my brains for what I might have heard from you. They don’t have much to offer in exchange.”

“You could ask,” Nealon says.

They look at each other. Over the field, the swallows’ twitters and chirrs swirl in the warm air.

“I could ask,” Cal says. “I doubt anyone would answer.”

“You won’t know till you try.”

“This place already thinks I’m buddy-buddy with you. If I start sticking my nose in, asking questions, I’m gonna get nothing but a fuckton of disinformation.”

“I don’t mind that, sure. You know how it works, man. A few answers would be great, but just asking the right questions could do a lot to get things moving.”

“I live here,” Cal says. “That’s what I do now. Once you’ve packed up and gone, I still gotta live here.”

He never considered doing differently, but saying the words hits home in a way he wasn’t expecting. It’s not that he wants his cop life back; that’s gone and done with, and he doesn’t regret it. But somehow he seems to have spent the last while cutting himself off from everyone round him. If this goes on, he’ll wind up a hermit, holed up in this house with no one to talk to but Rip and the rooks.

“No problem,” Nealon says easily. He’s too experienced to keep pushing when he’ll get nowhere. “Had to give it a shot.” He settles back in the rocking chair, shifting it to turn his other cheek to the sun. “Jaysus, the heat. If I don’t watch myself, I’ll go home looking like a lobster. The missus won’t know me.”

“It’s some sun,” Cal agrees. He doesn’t believe in Nealon’s missus. “I was thinking about shaving off my beard, till everyone pointed out I’d be two-toned.”

“You would, all right.” Nealon examines Cal’s face, letting his eyes move leisurely over the bruises, which have faded to faint yellow-green shadows. “Why’d you fight Johnny Reddy?” he inquires.

Cal recognizes the shift as the conversation switches track. He’s felt it plenty of times before, but then he was always the one pulling the lever. Nealon’s making a point: Cal can be a cop, or he can be a suspect. Just like the guy said, he’s rattling cages.

“I didn’t fight anyone,” he says. “I’m a guest in this country. I mind my manners.”

“Johnny says different. So does his face.”

Cal has pulled this one too often to fall for it. “Well,” he says, lifting an eyebrow, “then you best ask him the reason.”

Nealon grins, unabashed. “Nah. Johnny says he fell down the mountain drunk.”

“Then he probably did.”

“I saw your knuckles, the other day. They’ve healed now.”

Cal glances down at his knuckles, bemused. “They might’ve been scraped up,” he agrees. “My hands mostly are. Goes with the job.”

“It would, yeah,” Nealon acknowledges. “How’s Johnny treat Theresa?”

“He treats her OK,” Cal says. He expected this, and he’s a long way from feeling any need to worry. He’s on guard, but he was that anyway. “He’s not gonna win any Father of the Year awards, but I’ve seen a lot worse.”

Nealon nods like he’s giving this some deep thought. “What about Blake?” he asks. “How’d he treat her?”

Cal shrugs. “Far as I know, he never said two words to her.”

“As far as you know.”

“If she had any hassle with him, she’d’ve told me.”

“Maybe, maybe not. You’d never know with teenagers. Blake seem like the type that might take an interest in teenage girls?”

“He didn’t run around wearing a badge that said pervert,” Cal says. “That’s as much as I can tell you. I hardly saw the guy.”

“You saw enough of him to spot he was dodgy,” Nealon points out.

“Yep. That wasn’t hard.”

“No? Anyone else spot it?”

“No one mentioned anything,” Cal says. “But I doubt I was the only one. When I moved here, I didn’t bring up what I used to do, but people made me for a cop inside a week. I’d bet good money that some of ’em, at least, made Blake.”

Nealon considers that. “They might’ve,” he agrees. “No one’s said a bad word about the man, but like we said, they’re slippery, down here—or careful, if you want to put it that way. Even if they made him, though, why would they want to kill him? They’d just stay outa the dodgy fucker’s way.”

Nealon could be testing, but Cal doesn’t think he is. Just like Mart predicted, no one has said a word about any gold. “Most likely,” he says. “That’s what I did.”

Nealon smiles at Cal. “GPS works grand down here on the flat,” he assures him, “away from the trees. If I have to check out your phone, you’ll have nothing to worry about, as long as you stayed home that night.”

“I was here,” Cal says. “All evening and all night, till Trey came round in the morning. But if I’d been out killing anyone, I’da left my phone at home.”

“You would, o’ course,” Nealon agrees. He arranges his legs more comfortably and takes a pleasurable swig of his beer. “I’ll tell you one interesting thing I’ve got from the phone tracking,” he says. “I managed to get a warrant for Johnny’s records, seeing as he was the closest known associate. My man Johnny says he was at home all day and all night, before Blake was found. The whole family says the same. Johnny’s phone says different, but. During the day, it did what phones do on the mountain, all right: bounced around from this side to that side to the bleedin’ Arctic Circle. But in the evening, he was racking up the Fitbit steps big-time. He headed down off the mountain, he passed by here—didja see him?”

“Nope,” Cal says. “We’re not on dropping-in terms.”

“I got that, yeah.” Nealon’s eyes flick to Cal’s bruises one more time. “Johnny spent a good while over at Mrs. Lena Dunne’s place. That’s your fiancée, isn’t that right?”

“Yep,” Cal says. “Unless she smartens up.”

Nealon laughs. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. I’ve met her other options. Did she see Johnny that evening?”

“She didn’t mention it,” Cal says. “Ask her.”

“I will,” Nealon assures him. “Give me a chance, man; I’ll get to her.”

“From what you say,” Cal points out, “Blake didn’t die in the evening.”

“Ah, no. And Johnny never went near his place, anyway. But once someone lies to me, I’m interested. And…” He points his glass at Cal. “You mentioned Johnny passing by, while you were hanging on with the body for the uniforms to show up. Guess where he went after he left yous.”

Cal shakes his head.

“He says he went for a walk, to clear his head from the terrible shock. Musha, God love him.” Nealon raises his eyes to heaven. “Where he went was down to Blake’s Airbnb. He spent about fifteen minutes there, and then his phone started doing the mountainy dance again, so it looks like he legged it home. He’s got no key to Blake’s that we know of, but there’s a spare under a rock by the door, right where anyone would look for it. So that’s another lie.” He gives Cal a meaningful look.

“Doesn’t mean he’s your guy,” Cal says, not biting. He’s not dumb enough to push Johnny on Nealon, even if he wanted to. “Blake coulda had something Johnny didn’t want you getting your hands on. Another phone, maybe.”

Nealon cocks his head at Cal, curious. “I thought Johnny had your vote.”

“I don’t have a vote,” Cal says.

“Well,” Nealon says, rocking peacefully, “even if he’s not my fella, I reckon he knows something. Maybe he saw someone while he was out wandering, or maybe Blake mentioned he was meeting someone, or had words with someone. Johnny’s being smooth with me—saw nothing, heard nothing—but he’s keeping something back, all right. I’ll get him talking. He should be easy enough to shake up; he has to know he’s in my sights.”

Cal nods agreeably. Nealon has moved on. If Cal’s not interested in being a mole, and not fazed by being a suspect, he can still come in useful. Nealon is handing him the scraps of bait that he wants scattered around the townland, to get those cages rattling. He wants it out there that he’ll be able to match Rushborough to a crime scene or a dump vehicle, that he’s tracking phones, that Johnny knows something, and that he’s going to spill it.

“Johnny likes talking,” he says. “Good luck.”

“I’ll take that. Well,” Nealon says, slapping his leg, “I’m not getting paid to sit here enjoying myself. Time to go ruffle some feathers.” He drains his glass and stands up. “I’ll need you and the young one to come into the station and sign your statements. At your own convenience, o’ course.”

“Sure,” Cal says. “I’ll find out when she’s free over the next coupla days, get her in there.”

“Make sure she knows,” Nealon says. “Once it’s in writing, it’s a different ball game. No going back.”

“She’s no dummy,” Cal says.

“I got that, yeah.” Nealon tugs his shirt straight over his belly. “If she was lying,” he says. “To shield her da, say. Or whoever else. What would you do about it?”

“Jeez, man,” Cal says, grinning at him like it’s a big joke. “Do I need to get a lawyer down here?”

“That depends,” Nealon says, just like Cal has said it a thousand times, grinning right back. “Is there a reason you’d need one?”

“I’m American, man,” Cal says, holding the grin. “It’s our national motto. When in doubt, lawyer up.”

“Thanks for the beer,” Nealon says. He swings his jacket over his arm and stands looking at Cal. “I’d bet a few bob that you were a good detective,” he says. “I’d’ve liked to have had the pleasure of working with you.”

“Likewise,” Cal says.

“We might still get the chance, one way or another. You never know your luck.” Nealon squints out into the field at Rip, who’s zigzagged himself dizzy and is staggering in circles, still jumping for the swallows. “Look at that,” he says. “Persistence. He’ll get one yet.”

“Tell me, Sunny Jim,” Mart says the next day, when he shows up at Cal’s door with a lettuce to repay Cal for the carrots—Mart has never shown any inclination to repay Cal for anything before. “What did the sheriff want with you?”

“He wanted to stir shit,” Cal says. He’s had it with dancing around things. The level of subtlety around here is pretty near bringing him out in hives, and if he’s a foreigner, he has every right to act foreign. “And he wanted me to help him. I’m not planning to oblige.”

“He’ll do grand without you,” Mart informs him. “He’s stirring plenty of shite all by himself, not a bother on him. D’you know what he’s after doing? He spent three hours this morning badgering poor Bobby Feeney. That’s dirty, so ’tis. Dirty warfare. ’Tis one thing going after the likes of me, that can enjoy a bitta give-and-take; ’tis another leaving a great soft eejit like Bobby practically in tears, thinking he’s about to be arrested for murder and no one to look after the mammy.”

“The guy’s doing his job,” Cal says. “He’s gonna go after the weakest link.”

“Weakest link, me arse. There’s nothing wrong with Bobby, once you let him go about his business and don’t be wrecking his head. We’d take the almighty piss outa him ourselves, but that doesn’t mean the likes of this fella has the right to swan in from the Big Smoke and upset him. Senan’s bulling, so he is.”

“Senan better get used to it,” Cal says. “Nealon’s gonna keep right on hassling whoever he wants.”

“ ’Tisn’t only Senan,” Mart says. His eyes are level on Cal’s. “There’s a loada people around here that aren’t happy campers at all, at all.”

“Then they all better get used to it,” Cal says. He understands what he’s being told. Mart said no one would hold this business against Trey, but that was before there was a dead body and a detective to be reckoned with. Cal knows, better than Mart does, how inexorably and tectonically a murder investigation shifts everything in its path. “You can thank whoever went and killed Rushborough.”

“Foolish fuckin’ thing to do,” Mart says with deep disapprobation. “I can see why someone would want to bang that shitemonger over the head, mind you; I’m not faulting anyone for that. I wanted to myself. But ’twas fucking foolish to do it.”

His indignation has cooled; he stands mulling it over. “This wee caper’s after letting me down something fierce,” he informs Cal. “I was expecting a nice bitta crack to while away the summer, and now look at the state of us.”

“You said it was gonna be interesting times,” Cal reminds him.

“I didn’t bargain for this fuckin’ level of interesting. ’Tis like ordering a nice curry and getting one of them ghost pepper yokes that’d blow the head clean off you.” Mart ruminates, squinting over at the rooks, who are huddled in their oak tree bitching raucously about the heat. “And apparently the man still isn’t stirring enough shite for his own liking,” he says, “if he’s trying to get you on board. What does that mean, now, Sunny Jim? Would it mean his investigation’s going nowhere? Or would it mean he’s on a trail, and he’s looking for something to back him up?”

“I got no fucking idea what it means,” Cal says. “Mostly I’ve only got half an idea what any of you guys mean, and I’m too worn out from getting that far to have any brainpower left over for this guy.”

Mart giggles like he thinks Cal’s kidding. “Tell me this much, anyhow,” he says. “The sheriff doesn’t seem like the kind that gives up easy. If he gets nowhere, I wouldn’t bank on him scuttling back to Dublin with his tail between his legs. Am I right or am I right?”

“He’s not going anywhere,” Cal says. “Not till he gets what he’s after.”

“Well,” Mart says, smiling at Cal, “we’ll have to give the poor man a hand, so. We can’t have him cluttering up the place forever, upsetting the weak links left and right.”

“I’m not giving anybody a hand with anything,” Cal says. “I’m out.”

“We’d all like to be that, Sunny Jim,” Mart says. “Enjoy the lettuce. I do mix up a bitta mustard and vinegar and shake it all about, but that’s not to everyone’s taste.”

Johnny runs out of smokes and sends Trey down to Noreen’s for more. This time she doesn’t argue. Maeve exaggerates, and she’d say anything she thinks their dad wants to hear. Trey wants to test the feel of the village for herself.

From outside the shop she can already hear Long John Sharkey’s voice, raised and belligerent: “…in my own fuckin’ house…” When she pushes the door open, he’s at the counter with Noreen and Mrs. Cunniffe, hunched close. At the ding of the bell, all three of them turn.

Trey nods at their blank faces. “Hiya,” she says.

Long John straightens up off the counter and moves forward, blocking her way. “There’s nothing here for you,” he says.

Long John isn’t long—he got the name because he has a stiff knee where a cow kicked him—but he’s built like a bull, with the same bad, pop-eyed stare. People are intimidated by him, and he knows it. Trey used to be. Now she takes the look on him as a good sign.

“Need milk,” she says.

“Then get it somewhere else.”

Trey doesn’t move.

“I’ll decide who comes in my shop,” Noreen snaps.

Long John doesn’t take his eyes off Trey. “Your fuckin’ father needs a few fuckin’ skelps,” he says.

“She didn’t pick her father,” Noreen tells him tartly. “Go on home, before that butter melts on you.”

Long John snorts, but after a moment he shoulders past Trey and bangs out the door, setting the bell jangling.

“What’s wrong with him?” Trey asks, gesturing after him with her chin.

Mrs. Cunniffe sucks in her lips over her buckteeth and cuts her eyes sideways at Noreen. Noreen, swapping out the till roll with fast sharp jerks, looks like she’s not going to answer. Trey waits.

Noreen can never resist a chance to share information. “Them detectives are after giving him awful hassle,” she informs Trey curtly. “Not just him, either. They’ve everyone in the place up to ninety. They got Long John flustered enough that he let slip that one time Lennie O’Connor bet up some lad from Kilcarrow for trying to chat up his missus, and now the detectives do be on at Lennie about what did Rushborough say to Sinéad, and Lennie says he won’t let Long John lease his back field any more, so he’ll have nowhere to put the calves.” She slams the till shut. Mrs. Cunniffe jumps and hoots. “And if your daddy hadn’ta brought that feckin’ gobdaw round here, none of this woulda happened. That’s what’s wrong with him.”

Trey feels the savage surge of triumph right through her. She turns away to the shelves, pulling out bread and biscuits at random, so they won’t see it in her. The power of it feels like she could topple Noreen’s counter with a single kick and set the walls on fire with a press of her hands.

Now all she needs to do is line up her sights. Lena said she could take a guess at who it was that got Brendan, and Trey trusts Lena’s guesses. All she needs is a way to make her tell.

“And forty Marlboro,” she says, dumping her stuff on the counter.

“You’re not eighteen,” Noreen says, starting to ring things up without looking at her.

“Not for me.”

Noreen’s mouth tightens. She jabs the till keys harder.

“Ah, go on and give the child what she wants, Noreen,” Mrs. Cunniffe says, flapping a hand at Noreen. “You’ve to take good care of her, now ye’ll be practically in-laws.” She bursts into a high, one-note hee-hee-hee that carries her out the door.

Trey looks at Noreen for an explanation, but Noreen has her mouth pinched up even tighter and is fussing under the counter among the cigarettes.

“What’d she mean?”

“With Cal and Lena,” Noreen says crisply. She slaps the Marlboros on the counter and rings them up with a neat ding. “That’ll be forty-eight sixty.”

Trey says, “Cal and Lena what?”

Noreen glances up sharply, almost suspiciously. “Getting married.”

Trey stares.

“Did you not know?”

Trey pulls a fifty out of her pocket and hands it over.

“I’da thought Lena woulda asked your permission,” Noreen says, part bitchy, part probing.

“None a my business,” Trey says. She fumbles her change and has to pick it up off the floor. Noreen’s speculative eyes follow her all the way out the door.

The three old guys sitting on the wall of the Virgin Mary grotto watch her pass without changing expression. “Tell your daddy I was asking for him,” one of them says.