The Searcher

FIFTEEN

The loss of one of their number hasn’t scared the rabbits off. In the morning an easy dozen of them are bounding around Cal’s back field like they own it, breakfasting off his dew-wet clover. He watches them from his bedroom window, feeling the cold creep in at him through the glass. Whatever people do, right up to killing, nature absorbs it, closes over the fissure and goes on about its own doings. He can’t tell whether this is a comforting thing or a melancholy one. The rooks’ oak tree is every shade of gold, leaves twisting down to add to a pool lying like a reflection beneath it.

It’s a Wednesday, but Cal feels safe in assuming Donie McGrath won’t be spending his day in gainful employment. He also assumes Donie isn’t an early riser, so he takes his time over his morning. He fixes himself a big breakfast, bacon, sausages, eggs and black pudding—he hasn’t worked out whether he likes black pudding, exactly, but he feels he should occasionally eat it out of respect for local custom. This could take a while, so he might as well be prepared for a long wait and no lunch.

A little after eleven he heads down to the village. Donie’s house is on the fringe of the main street, maybe a hundred yards from the shop and the pub. It’s a narrow, ungainly two-story house, its windows crowded, at the end of a mismatched row facing right onto the sidewalk. The gray pebbledash is flaking off in patches and there’s a sturdy crop of weeds growing out of the chimney.

Opposite Donie’s place is a pink house with boarded-up windows and a low stone wall outside. Cal settles his ass on the wall, turns up the collar of his fleece against the lush wet wind, and waits.

For a while nothing happens. The sagging lace curtains in Donie’s front window don’t move. There are little china ornaments on the windowsill.

A skinny old guy Cal has seen in the pub a few times shuffles past, giving him a nod and a sharp look. Cal nods back, and the guy heads on to the shop. Two minutes after he leaves, Noreen pops out with a watering can and tiptoes to aim it at her hanging basket of petunias. When she cranes her head over her shoulder to peer at Cal, he gives her a wave and a great big grin.

By evening, all of Ardnakelty will know he was looking for Donie. Cal has had enough of being discreet. He figures it’s time to kick a few bushes and see what scuttles out.

He waits some more. Various old people go past, and a couple of mothers with babies and little kids, and a fat ginger cat that gives Cal an insolent stare before sitting down on the sidewalk and washing its nether parts to show him what it thinks of him. Something moves behind Donie’s mama’s lace curtains, and the folds waver, but they don’t move aside and the door doesn’t open.

A beat-up yellow Fiat 600 bumps down the street and pulls up in front of Noreen’s, and a woman who has to be Belinda gets out. She has a lot of dyed-red hair going in a lot of directions, and a purple cape which she swirls around herself before she goes into the shop. When she comes back out, she slows down as she drives past Cal, flutters her fingers and gives him a huge glowing smile. He nods briefly and pulls out his phone like it’s ringing, before she can decide to stop and introduce herself. It looks like Noreen has changed her mind about setting him up with Lena.

The movement behind the lace curtains becomes more frequent and more agitated. Not long after two o’clock, Donie cracks. He throws open his front door and heads across the street towards Cal.

Donie is wearing the same shiny white tracksuit that he wore to Seán Óg’s. He’s aiming for a threatening swagger, but this is hampered by the fact that he’s limping a little bit. He also has a swollen black-and-blue lump, with a gash down the middle, over one eyebrow.

Cal has no doubt that Donie McGrath could have earned himself a few whacks in plenty of ways, but he didn’t. Mart, the big expert on Ardnakelty and everyone in it, got this one wrong. Cal wishes he could see Mart’s face when he finds out, on the slim chance that he hasn’t already.

“What the fuck do you want, man?” Donie demands, stopping in the middle of the road, a safe distance from Cal.

“What you got?” Cal asks.

Donie evaluates him. “Fuck off,” he says.

“Now, Donie,” Cal says. “That’s impolite. I’m not bothering anybody. I’m just sitting here enjoying the view.”

“You’re bothering my mam. She’s afraid to go to the shops. You fuckin’ sitting there staring out of you, like a pervert.”

“I promise you, Donie,” Cal says, “I got no interest in your mama. I’m sure she’s a lovely lady, but you’re the one I’ve been waiting for. You sit down here and have a little talk with me, and then I’ll be on my way.”

Donie looks at Cal. He has a fat flat face and small pale eyes that don’t show expressions well. “Got nothing to say to you.”

“Well, I can sit here till kingdom come,” Cal says amiably. “I got nowhere else to be. How ’bout you? Day off work?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah? What do you do for a living?”

“Bit of this, bit of that.”

“That doesn’t sound like enough to keep a man occupied,” Cal says. “You ever consider going into farming? Plenty of that to go round hereabouts.”

Donie snorts.

“What, you don’t like sheep?”

Donie shrugs.

“Seems to me you got some kinda grudge against them,” Cal says. “One of ’em turn you down?”

Donie eyes him, but Cal is a lot bigger than he is. He spits on the street.

“How’d you get that?” Cal nods at Donie’s eyebrow.

“Fight.”

“But I oughta see the other guy, right?”

“Yeah. Right.”

“I gotta tell you, Donie,” Cal says, “he looked OK to me. In fact, he looked happy as a clam. That’s pretty sad, considering he’s half your weight and twice your age.”

Donie stares at Cal. Then he grins. His teeth are too small. “I could take you.”

“Well, I bet you fight dirty,” Cal says. “But then, so do I. Lucky for both of us, I’m in a talking mood, not a fighting mood.”

He can see Donie’s mind operating on two tracks at once. A small, slow surface part of it is taking in the conversation, more or less. The majority of it, running underneath and a lot more expertly, is assessing what he can get out of this situation and what, if anything, might be a threat. Although it’s muted now that he’s sober, he still has that bad, unpredictable hum that first made Cal pick him out: the look like there are none of the usual processes between his ideas and his actions, and the ideas aren’t ones that would occur to most people’s minds. Cal is willing to bet that, while the general concept of the sheep may not have been Donie’s idea, the specifics were.

“Give us a cigarette,” Donie says.

“I don’t smoke,” Cal says. He pats the wall next to him. “Take a load off.”

“Am I under arrest?” Donie demands.

Cal says, “Are you what now?”

“ ’Cause if I am, I’m saying nothing without a solicitor. And if I’m not, I’m going inside, and you can’t stop me. Either way, fuck off from outside my house.”

Cal says, “You think I’m a cop?”

Donie snickers, enjoying the look on his face. “Ah, man. Everyone knows you’re Drugs. Sent over from America to give our lot a hand.”

By now Cal should be used to the unfettered panache of the townland’s rumor mill, but it still has the power to catch him by surprise. This is not a story that he wants taking hold.

“Son,” he says, grinning. “You’re overrating yourself. No police force in the whole of America gives a shit about you and your pissant drug ops.”

Donie gives him a disbelieving stare. “Then what’re you doing here?”

“Here like Ardnakelty, or here like outside your house?”

“Both.”

“I’m in Ardnakelty because the scenery’s so pretty, son,” Cal says. “And I’m outside your house because I live in this neighborhood, and I’m curious about a coupla things that’ve been going on around here.”

He smiles at Donie and lets him decide. With the beard and the hair and all, he looks a lot more like a biker or a survivalist loon than like a cop. Donie eyes Cal and considers which of the possibilities he likes least.

“If I was you,” Cal advises him, “I’d just sit down, answer a few easy questions without making a big fuss about it, and then go on about my day.”

“I know nothing about drugs,” Donie says.

This is exactly the kind of fucky conversation, with exactly the kind of pointless shitweasel, that Cal has been congratulating himself on never having to put up with again. “You already admitted you do, you fucking moron,” he says. “That’s OK, though, because I don’t give a shit about your pissant drug ops either. I’m just a good Southern boy who was raised to be neighborly, and there’s been some things happening to my neighbors that I’d like to understand better.”

Donie should go indoors right about now, but he doesn’t. This could just be because he’s dumb or bored, or because he’s still looking for some way he can benefit. Or it could be because he feels the need to find out what exactly Cal knows.

“I need a smoke,” he says. “Give us a tenner.”

“Left my wallet at home,” Cal says. Even if he was inclined to give Donie money, that would only land him with weeks’ worth of made-up bullshit, punctuated by demands for more cash. “Have a seat.”

Donie evaluates him for another minute, mouth open in a small feral grin. Then he sits himself down on the wall, out of Cal’s reach. He smells like some meal, cabbage and deep-fried stuff, cooked a few days back.

Cal says, “You’ve been killing my neighbors’ sheep.”

“Prove it.” Donie pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his tracksuit pocket and lights one, not bothering to blow the smoke away from Cal.

“You got some unusual tendencies, son,” Cal says, “but seeing as I’m not a shrink, I don’t give a shit about that, either. My only question is, when you go slicing the private parts out of sheep, is that for your own personal enjoyment, or you got a bigger agenda going on?”

“Don’t worry about it, man. There won’t be any more sheep killed.”

“Well, that’s nice to know,” Cal says. “But my question still stands.”

Donie shrugs and smokes. Noreen is watering her petunias again. He hunches his back to her, like she might not recognize him.

“I got sort of the same question,” Cal says, “when it comes to Brendan Reddy.”

Donie’s head comes around sharply and he stares at Cal. Cal looks pleasantly back. Even Donie’s stringy little bangs, which look like Donie saves time and motion by keeping them permanently matted in place with months’ worth of grease, are getting on his last nerve.

“What question?” Donie demands.

“Well,” Cal says, “I don’t much care what happened to him. But I’d sure like to know whether it was just some little personal affair, or whether it was part of what you might call a grander scheme of things.”

“‘Grander scheme,’” Donie says, and snorts.

“I think that’s the phrase I’m looking for,” Cal says, considering. “If you got a more fitting one, I’m all ears.”

“Why do you care what happened to Brendan?”

“Any intelligent man likes to know what he’s dealing with,” Cal says. “I’m sure you feel the same way. You get edgy when you don’t know what you’re dealing with, don’t you, Donie?”

Donie says, “You in business?”

“My business is beside the point, son,” Cal says. “The point is that I like staying out of other people’s business. I like it a lot. But in order to do that, I need to know where other people’s business lies.”

“Do a bitta fishing for yourself,” Donie says, and blows smoke at Cal. “Get a few chickens. That’ll keep you out of other people’s business.”

“Everyone in this townland appears to think I need a hobby,” Cal says.

“You do. So did Bren Reddy.”

“Well, I do love me some fishing,” Cal says. “But what I want you to take in here, son, is that I’d very much appreciate some clarity on the situation.”

“Yeah? How much?”

“Depends on what kind of clarity I get.”

Donie shakes his head, grinning.

“OK, Donie,” Cal says. “Lemme do some of the work for you. Brendan Reddy fucked up.” He has no intention of letting on that he knows about the meth lab. He doesn’t want that house burned down; he might have a use for it at some point. “Your buddies from Dublin got rid of him, one way or another. My neighbors found out. And you’ve been given the job of warning them to keep their mouths shut.”

Donie stares at Cal. He sniggers.

“How’m I doing?”

“You want a lot of shit for free, man.”

“I’m asking nicely,” Cal says. “So far. That oughta count for something, even these days.”

Donie stands up and picks his tracksuit pants out of his ass. “Get fucked,” he says. He throws his cigarette into the road, swagger-limps back to his house and slams the door behind him.

Cal waits a few seconds, waves good-bye to the lace curtains and heads for home. There’s no point in sticking around. The only things that will move Donie are gain and pain. Anything fancier will have no more effect on him than it would on a wolverine.

He didn’t expect to get much out of Donie, anyway. His main goals were to find out whether Donie is connected to whatever happened to Brendan, which he is, and to kick those bushes. Which, for better or for worse, he certainly has done.

All the same, the conversation has left him stirred up and restless. Putting away guys like Donie used to be one of Cal’s favorite parts of the job. These guys aren’t hankering for a rifle and a horse and a herd of cattle; you could give them all those things, and within a week they would get themselves shot for cheating at cards, or stealing horses, or raping someone’s wife. The only useful thing you can do with them is lock them up where they can’t harm anyone except each other. With that option off the table, Cal gets the same feeling he got in the pub when Donie was squaring up to Mart, that sense of not being quite able to get his feet on the ground. He ought to do something about Donie, but the context prevents him from understanding what that might be.

In the end Cal takes Donie’s advice and goes fishing. His restlessness makes the house feel cramped and nagging, full of shit he needs to do and can’t settle to. On a more practical level, he doesn’t want to be home if Trey gets impatient and comes looking for news.

Cal is no longer particularly interested in finding out where Brendan went. While the cop part of him jerks a knee at the thought of abandoning a case that still has plenty of candy in it, the overriding priority here is the fact that, at least for the foreseeable future, Trey needs to stop looking.

The river is sluggish today, moving in muscular, viscous-looking twists. Leaves fall onto its surface, drift for a second, and are pulled under without a swirl or a trace. Cal thinks about telling the kid that Brendan fetched up in there, some accidental way. He could come up with a convincing story, maybe involving Brendan scouting locations for a business running fishing trips for tourists on heritage pilgrimages, or nature retreats for suits in search of their inner wild men, either of which is the kind of thing that the dumbass kid should have fucking gone for to begin with.

He might pull it off. Trey trusts him, as much as he trusts anyone. And although the kid would fight the suggestion that Brendan is dead, he’d welcome the thought that Brendan didn’t deliberately go off and leave him without a word. He would also welcome the opportunity to think of Brendan as a fine upstanding entrepreneur in the making. He might even welcome it enough not to wonder why Brendan would have taken his savings with him to check out suitable locations for actuaries to build tree forts, or why the actuaries would need lab masks.

Cal can’t tell whether he ought to do it. This seems like the kind of thing he should know instantly, on instinct, but he has no idea whether it would be right or wrong. This unsettles him right down to the bottom of his guts. It implies that somewhere along the way he got out of practice doing the right thing, to the point where he doesn’t even know it when he sees it.

That feeling is one of the things that drove Cal out of his job. He associates it, even though he knows the reality is nowhere near that simple, with a scrawny black kid called Jeremiah Payton, who, a few months before Cal retired, robbed a convenience store with a knife and jumped bail. Cal and O’Leary tracked him down at his girlfriend’s house, at which point Jeremiah leaped out of a window and took off.

Cal was older than O’Leary, and heavier. He was three paces behind him rounding the corner. He heard O’Leary yell, “Let me see your hands!” and then he saw Jeremiah turning towards them with one hand rising and one dropping, and then O’Leary’s gun went off and Jeremiah landed facedown on the sidewalk.

Cal was already on the radio calling for the ambulance as they ran towards him, but when they got there, Jeremiah shouted into the sidewalk in a voice that was pure terror, “Don’t shoot me.”

Cal got his hands behind his back and cuffed them there. Someone had started screaming. “You hit?” Cal asked Jeremiah.

He shook his head. Cal turned him over and checked him anyway: no blood.

“I miss him?” O’Leary said. He was cabbage-green and pouring sweat like he was melting. He still had his Glock in his hands.

“Yeah,” Cal said. To Jeremiah he said, “You got anything on you?”

Jeremiah just stared up at him. It took Cal a minute to understand that he couldn’t talk because he thought he was going to die.

O’Leary said, “He was going for his pocket. You saw him go for his pocket.”

“I saw his hand drop,” Cal said.

“For his fucking pocket. Pants pocket. I swear to God—” O’Leary bent over, panting, and burrowed in Jeremiah’s pocket. He came out with a switchblade.

“I thought it was a gun,” O’Leary said. “Well, shitfuck,” and he sat down on the curb like his legs had given way.

Cal wanted to sit down next to him, but the woman was screaming louder and people had started to gather. “It’s gonna be OK,” he said, pointlessly, and he left O’Leary there and headed off to cancel the ambulance and secure the scene.

Cal was feeling a little tender right then, what with Donna having just walked out on him. He had spent most of the past year fumbling in the dark trying to disentangle complications, and complications behind complications; he didn’t seem to know how to stop. He was sure, absolutely, that O’Leary had believed Jeremiah was going for a gun in his pocket, which for a lot of guys would have been enough. But for Cal, that fact seemed to be overlaid and underlaid by so many layers that he couldn’t tell whether or not it was important. What was important was that he and O’Leary were supposed to be out there keeping people safe. They had always considered themselves to be good cops, cops who tried to do right by everyone they came across. They had worked hard to be that, even when plenty of people hated their guts on sight, even when some of the other guys were getting meaner by the day and some had been rattlesnake-mean from the start. They had done their damn sensitivity training. And yet, somehow, they had ended up almost killing an eighteen-year-old kid. Cal knew it was unspeakably wrong that Jeremiah had come within a few inches of dying on that sidewalk, and that he had looked at the two of them and expected to die; but no matter how much time he spent fumbling at it, he couldn’t put his finger on a point where he could have made things go right. He could have stayed outside Jeremiah’s window to stop him taking off, but that doesn’t seem like it would have fixed very much of anything.

He told Internal Affairs that Jeremiah was going for his pocket. Cal had a good record and fewer complaints against his name than most cops; IA believed him. It might be true—Cal thinks it is, he thinks that probably is what he saw. That doesn’t alter the fact that he didn’t say that to IA because he thought it was the right thing to do. He did it because he knew everyone around him believed it was, and he himself had no idea. He was so deafened by the locust buzz of all the anger and the wrongness and the complications surrounding him, he couldn’t hear the steady pulse of his code any more, so that he found himself having to turn to other people’s—a thing that in itself was a fundamental and unpardonable breach of his own.

When he put in his papers, and the sarge asked him why, he didn’t mention Jeremiah. The sarge would have thought he had gone out of his ever-loving mind, losing his nerve over an incident where no one got hurt worse than a couple of scraped knees. Cal wouldn’t have known how to explain that it wasn’t that he couldn’t handle the job any more. It was that one or the other of them, him or the job, couldn’t be trusted.

The river, out of its endless supply of contrariness, has decided to be charming today. The perch are little, but inside half an hour Cal has enough of them to make up a good dinner. He keeps fishing anyway, even when the cold sets up an ache in his joints, making him feel old. He only packs up his gear when the light coming through the branches starts to tarnish and contract, turning the water green-black and sullen. He doesn’t feel like walking home in the dark today.

As he comes up his lane he sees Mart leaning back against his gate, looking out across the road and the wild-grown hedge and the fields scattered with hay bales, to the gold in the sky. A thin curl of smoke trickles from his mouth and meanders off up the road. Beside him, Kojak nips through his fur after a flea.

As Cal gets closer, Mart turns his head and drops his cigarette under his boot. “Here comes the big bold hunter,” he says, grinning. “Any joy?”

“Got a mess of perch,” Cal says, holding up his kill bag. “You want some?”

Mart waves the perch away. “I don’t eat fish. They depress me. I had fish every Friday of my life, till the mammy died. I’ve et enough fish for one lifetime.”

“I oughta be that way about grits,” Cal says. “But I’m not. I’d eat grits any day and twice on Sundays, if I could get them.”

“What the feck is grits, anyhow?” Mart demands. “All the cowboys in the fillums do eat it, but they never have the courtesy to tell you what it is. Is it semolina, or what is it at all?”

“They’re made of cornmeal,” Cal says. “You boil ’em up and serve ’em with whatever you like best. I favor shrimp and grits, myself. If I could get my hands on some, I’d invite you over to try them.”

“Noreen’d order that in for you. If you bat the big aul’ baby blues at her.”

“Maybe,” Cal says. He remembers Belinda waving to him out her car window. He doesn’t think Noreen is in the mood to special-order anything for him right now.

“Are you getting homesick on me, bucko?” Mart inquires, eyeing him sharply. “I’ve twenty quid on you, down at Seán Óg’s, to stick it out here at least a year. Don’t let me down.”

“I got no plans to go anywhere,” Cal says. “Who’d you bet against?”

“Don’t be minding that. They’re a crowd of aul’ fools, down there; wouldn’t know a good bet if it walked up and bit them.”

“Maybe I oughta stick a few bucks on myself,” Cal says. “What are my odds like?”

“Never you mind. If you win it for me, I’ll give you a bit offa the top.”

“You’re looking good,” Cal says. It’s true. Mart doesn’t have the raw materials to look fresh-faced, exactly, but both his perkiness and his movements have lost the effortful quality of the last few days. He appears to have no intention of explaining his presence at Cal’s gate. “You get your beauty sleep last night?”

“Oh, begod, I did. Slept round the clock. Whatever that yoke was, it won’t be bothering anyone’s sheep again.” Mart pokes Cal’s kill bag with his crook. “You did well there. What’ll you do with the ones you don’t eat?”

“I was thinking about that myself,” Cal says. “That little freezer compartment won’t hold ’em. If I knew where to find Malachy, I might give him a few, in exchange for the other night.”

Mart considers this and nods. “Might not be a bad idea. Malachy lives up the mountains, but. You won’t find his place. Give ’em to me; I’ll see he gets them.”

Mart and Kojak walk up to the house with Cal to get a bag for the fish, but they don’t come in. Mart leans a shoulder in the door frame, a ragged and bumpy outline against the sunset. Kojak slumps at his feet.

“The mansion’s looking well,” Mart says, inspecting Cal’s living room.

“It’s slow work,” Cal says. “I got a lot left to do before winter hits.”

“I see you’ve got yourself an apprentice,” Mart says, bending to pick brush out of Kojak’s fur. “That oughta speed things up a bit.”

“How’s that?”

“Trey Reddy’s been helping you out.”

Cal has been waiting for this for weeks, but the timing is interesting. “Yep,” he says, finding a big Ziploc bag in his cupboard. “Kid came round looking for work, I figured I could use a hand.”

“Didn’t I warn you about them Reddys?” Mart demands reproachfully. “Buncha gurriers. They’d rob the nose off your face, and sell it back to you the next day.”

“You did,” Cal says. “Kid didn’t give a last name; took me a while to make the connection. And I’m not missing anything that I know of.”

“Better keep an eye on them tools. They’d sell for a few bob.”

Cal goes to the mini-fridge for his ice tray. “He seems like a pretty good kid to me. These gonna be enough to keep the fish cold till you can get them to Malachy?”

Mart says, “He?”

“Trey.”

“Trey Reddy’s a girl, bucko. Did you not spot that?”

Cal straightens up fast, ice tray in his hand, and stares.

Mart starts to laugh.

“Are you shitting me?”

Mart shakes his head. He can’t talk. He’s laughing so hard that he doubles over, banging his crook on the ground.

“Trey’s a fucking boy’s name.”

Cal’s outrage sends Mart into a fresh gale of giggles. “Short for Theresa,” he manages to explain, through them. “The face on you.”

“How the hell was I supposed to know that?”

“Holy God,” Mart says, straightening up and wiping his eyes with a knuckle, still giggling. Apparently this is the funniest thing that’s happened to him in weeks. “That explains it. Here was me wondering what the bloody hell you were at, letting a young girl hang around you, and all the time you hadn’t a notion she was a girl at all. Doesn’t that beat Banagher?”

“The kid looks like a boy. The clothes. The fucking haircut.”

“I’d say she might be a lesbian,” Mart says, considering this possibility. “She picked the right time to be one, anyway, if she is. She can get married and all, these days.”

“Yeah,” Cal says. “Good for her.”

“I voted for that,” Mart informs him. “The priest in town was bulling at mass, swearing he’d excommunicate anyone that voted yes, but I didn’t pay him any heed. I wanted to see what would happen.”

“Right,” Cal says, easing his voice. “What did happen?” Now that the initial shock is past, he doesn’t feel like letting Mart know just how pissed off he is with Trey. In fact, he’s not sure why he’s so pissed off, given that Trey never claimed to be a boy, but he is.

“Not a lot,” Mart admits, with some regret. “Not around here, anyway. Maybe up in Dublin the gays are all marrying the bejaysus out of each other, but I haven’t heard of any in these parts.”

“Well look at that,” Cal says. He’s only half-hearing Mart. “You went and pissed off the priest for nothing.”

“Fuck him. He’s only an aul’ blow; too used to getting his own way. I never liked him, big Jabba the Hutt head on him. It’s healthier for men to live with men, anyway. They don’t be wrecking each other’s heads. They might as well get married while they’re at it, have a day out.”

“Can’t hurt,” Cal says. He bangs the ice tray on the counter and throws cubes into the Ziploc.

Mart watches him. “If Trey Reddy’s not robbing you,” he says, “then what does she want out of you? Them Reddys, they’re always looking for something.”

“Learn a little carpentry,” Cal says. “He didn’t ask for pay—she. I was thinking about throwing her a few bucks, but I’m not sure if she’d take it right. What do you think?”

“A Reddy’ll always take money,” Mart says. “Mind yourself, but. You don’t want her thinking you’re a soft touch. Are you going to let her keep coming round, now you know she’s a young one?”

There is no way on God’s green earth that Cal would have let a little girl hang around his yard, never mind come inside his house. “Haven’t had time to think about that,” he says.

“Why would you want her about the place? Don’t be telling me you need the help with that bloody desk.”

“She’s handy enough. And I’ve been enjoying the company.”

“Sure, what kind of company is that child, at all? You’d get more chat out of that aul’ chair. Do you ever get two words out of her?”

“Kid’s not much of a talker, all right,” Cal says. “She lets me know she’s hungry, now and again.”

“Send her packing,” Mart says. There’s a finality to his voice that makes Cal look at him. “Give her the few bob, tell her you won’t be needing her no more.”

Cal opens his kill bag and scoops up a couple of perch. “I might do that,” he says. “How many would Malachy eat? He got a family?”

Mart hits the door with his crook, making a raw whack that echoes startlingly loudly in the half-bare room. “Listen to me, man. I’m looking out for you. If this place finds out Theresa Reddy’s hanging round here, people’ll talk. I’ll tell them you’re a sound man, and I’ll tell them you thought she was a young fella, but there’s only so far they’ll listen to me. I don’t want to see you bet up, or burned out of it.”

Cal says, “You told me I didn’t need to worry my head about crime round here.”

“You don’t. Not unless you go asking for it.”

“You afraid you’re gonna lose your twenty bucks?” Cal asks, but Mart doesn’t smile.

“What about the child? D’you want the townland talking about her the way they’ll be talking if they find out?”

This had not occurred to Cal. “She’s a kid learning to be handy,” he says, keeping his voice even. “Is all. If a few dumb fucks would rather she was out on the streets making trouble—”

“She’ll be on the streets all right, if you don’t get sense. They’ll have her hunted out of here by Christmas. Where d’you think she’ll go?”

“For fixing a desk and frying a rabbit? What the hell—”

“You’ll give me blood pressure, so you will,” Mart says. “Honest to God. Or palpitations. Would ye Yanks not learn to listen once in a while, so everyone around ye can have some fuckin’ peace of mind?”

“Here you go,” Cal says, handing over the Ziploc. “My compliments to Malachy.”

Mart takes the bag, but he doesn’t move to leave. “The other reason I voted for the marriage yoke,” he says. “My brother was gay. Not Seamus, that lived here with me; the other fella. Eamonn. It was against the law, back when we were young. He went off to America because of it, in the end. I asked him would he not join the priesthood instead. Sure, they could do what they liked, and no one would say boo to them; I’d say half of them were riding the arse off each other. But Eamonn was having none of it. He hated all them bastards. So off he went. That was thirty year ago. Never heard another word out of him.”

“You try Facebook?” Cal asks. He’s not sure where this is going.

“I did. There’s a few Eamonn Lavins on there. One’s got no photo or nothing, so I sent him a message, just in case. He never got back to me, either way.” Kojak is sniffing at the bag. Mart palms his nose away. “I thought maybe once we got the gay marriage, he’d come home, if he’s alive. But he never did.”

“He might yet,” Cal says. “You never know.”

“He won’t,” Mart says. “I had it wrong. ’Twasn’t the laws that were the problem.” He looks out over the fields, at the pink sky. “It’s a hard aul’ place, this. The finest place in the world, and wild horses wouldn’t drag me out of it. But it’s not gentle. And if Theresa Reddy doesn’t know that by now, she’ll learn soon enough.”